Welcome to my two part mini-series on Hell. Part number one will deal with the question:
How can a God of love punish people in hell? There are many who would say that Hell cannot exist, that God loves us all too much for hell to exist and that the church shouldn't tell people about hell. Unfortunately the church has turned away from preaching 'hell and damnation' preferring to preach an 'easier' message that is more what people want to hear. We shall see over the course of the next two articles how pathetic this is. But first let us turn our attention to the existence of both Hell and a loving God. Can both exist together without contradiction? “What the theologians would technically call [finger-quotes] hell [finger-quotes]” I heard a minister say this at a church once. I didn't walk out; looking back on it I wish I had. For it is this kind of insidious thinking that damages the church. Over the course of this article I will prove that not only is Hell an entirely logical part of the Christian faith it is also necessary. Without Hell Christianity is nothing.
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It is easy in this day of small things to feel a little low, to feel as if God isn’t quite as there as you think he could be, to feel that the Christian life is just one slow slog towards nothing, to feel like it’s just not worth putting any effort in at all.
Stop right there. Read this. He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. 2 I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust." 3 Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare and from the deadly pestilence. 4 He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. 5 You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, 6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. 7 A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. 8 You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked. 9 If you make the Most High your dwelling— even the LORD, who is my refuge- 10 then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. 11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; 12 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. 13 You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent. 14 "Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. 15 He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. 16 With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation." That was Psalm 91, my favourite Psalm and a real encouragement when times are hard. I was going to pick up on a few verses and explain them in greater details but frankly I fail to see anything I can add. So read it again. And perhaps another time. Take the words to heart and mediate on them. Praise the Lord for his love, strength and salvation. God is good. Fact. If you’re observant you will also have noticed a new section called “Story Time!” in the navigation bar at the top. Feel free to check out the short story there. Oh, and because I know you probably didn’t read the Psalm again here it is one more time: Psalm 91 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. 2 I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust." 3 Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare and from the deadly pestilence. 4 He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. 5 You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, 6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. 7 A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. 8 You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked. 9 If you make the Most High your dwelling— even the LORD, who is my refuge- 10 then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. 11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; 12 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. 13 You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent. 14 "Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. 15 He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. 16 With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation." Imagine doing a talk on Barak Obama and not mentioning the fact that’s he’s the president. Imagine talking about Winston Churchill without also talking about World War II. Even worse, imagine talking about Simon Cowell and not mentioning his television shows. Pretty stupid huh? In all three cases sure you’d get a picture of the character of the person but it wouldn’t be the full picture and in actual fact it would almost be insulting.
Yet when was the last time you heard a Christian talk about God’s anger or, as it’s better know, God’s wrath? When was the last time you heard a sermon on it? When was the last time you mentioned it? Somewhere over the last fifty years God’s wrath just dropped out of Christian teaching. How monumentally stupid! As A W. Pink pointed out the Bible has more references to God’s wrath in it than it has to God’s mercy and love. Open your Bible and you’ll barely be able to go two chapters before coming across an example or teaching on God’s wrath. The Bible is about God’s continued wrath against mankind. Read Isaiah, read Revelation, read about the Flood, read the history of the Israelites, read the Bible! “The Lord is a jealous and avenging God the Lord takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. The Lord takes vengeance on his foes and maintains his wrath against his enemies.” Nahum 1 v 2 (read the rest of the Chapter as well!) Or as Jesus talked about Jerusalem’s destruction: “How dreadful will it be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people.” Luke 21 v 22 – 24 Or Romans 1 v 18 “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.” (Notice the present tense of ‘is being’. God’s wrath is still being revealed today!) Throughout the entire Bible God’s wrath crops up again and again and again and again and again. And we see it also in the wretched world we live in. Why then are Christians silent on the issue? When the Bible is so vocal about it why don’t we speak up? Could it be that we are ashamed of God? Could it be that we somehow think that wrath is unworthy of God? To investigate God’s wrath let me first ask you a simple question: is God’s love still being preached? The answer is a clear YES God’s love is certainly not a neglected topic. But love is a dangerous emotion, responsible for as much as good, people can kill for love, they become jealous and bitter, they harm others and themselves through love. Does this affect God’s display of love? Of course not! God exhibits a perfect love, one free from all the sin of man’s love. And in the same way God’s wrath has none of the human sinfulness! God’s wrath is a perfect, holy and righteous wrath because it couldn’t be anything else. God’s wrath isn’t the red faced anger as pictured above but a praiseworthy quality that we need to mediate on and learn about. Hang on; doesn’t wrath imply a cruelty on God’s part? No, for we must bear in mind two considerations: first is that God’s wrath is judicial. God is holy and burns with wrath against all that is unholy. His wrath is set against all sin; his wrath is our punishment for our sins. His wrath is completely and utterly what the human race deserves for its rebellion. There can be no excuse on our part. Anyone who has come under conviction of sin knows this to be true. Secondly, God’s wrath is our choice! As Jesus says in John 3 v 18 “Whoever believers in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only son.” And a bit further on John the Baptist says about Jesus: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.” John 3 v 36 These verses make it crystal clear. We bring God’s wrath on ourselves! Our rejection of God leads to his wrath against us. All judgement from God is merely showing us the full consequences of our folly. This is terrible! Yes, God’s wrath is terrible. And we are called to realise this. It is too easy to make light of sin and pass it off as nothing. The more we dwell upon God’s wrath the more hideous our sin is revealed to be. After all, if sin really wasn’t that big a deal would God say this? “Terror and pit and snare await you, O people of the earth Whoever flees at the sound of terror will fall into a pit Whoever climbs out of the pit will be caught in a snare. The floodgates of heaven are opened The foundations of the earth shake The earth is broken up The earth is split asunder The earth is thoroughly shaken” Isaiah 24 v 17 – 19 God’s wrath is no laughing matter and it reveals his full abhorrence of our sin against him. Is that it? Isn’t there anything more? Yes! Wonderfully, gloriously, mercifully there is more. So much more! “For the Lord longs to be gracious to you; He rises to show you compassion For the Lord is a God of justice Blessed are all those that wait on him!” Isaiah 30 v 18 God is wrath and yet God is also love and compassion. He longs to be gracious to us! And part of his compassion and love was what was said in John 3 v 16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” We have hope! We have a way to be saved from God’s wrath. For why did Jesus have to die on the cross? To provide us with salvation from the wrath of God against sin. And what salvation did he bring! “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly… For God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinner Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!” Romans 5 v 6, 8 – 9 While we were still sinners Christ died for us! And in his death he justified all who believe in him and through this we are saved from the wrath of God. What wonderful redemption! In conclusion The greater sense of God’s wrath we have the more majestic the truth of salvation is. The more terrible we realise God’s wrath to be the more abounding is God’s mercy and the more astounding is his grace. To deny or have too narrowed a view of God’s just wrath is insulting to Jesus’ need to die on the cross. To be able to praise God for his boundless love we need first appreciate and praise his boundless wrath. I am currently ill but please, don’t write your tearful emails of sympathy yet because its just a cold that I have. A nasty cold, admittedly, one which smothers my brain in cotton wool whilst slamming a hammer into my skull, one that tickles my throat and makes me breath heavily for long periods of time. But hardly life threatening.
Naturally my first instinct was, er, do exactly what I’ve just done and moan about it. Not only that but my debit card has been frozen so I can’t access my money until I get a new card in 5 days time. And because I’m feeling pretty rotten/infectious I missed CU and Small Group. In other words, I’ve spent much of today wallowing in a certain amount of self pity and if I’m being honest grumbling to myself about my predicament. And then I realised that what I was doing was wrong. Moaning, whining, grumbling, it never helps, rarely achieves anything and worse still it’s just so unchristian. Because if I had bothered to apply just a tiny fraction of my Biblical knowledge I would have realised that I was sinning against God. I was being a whiney git and in being one I was dishonouring God! Why? Well, God controls all things, he has complete sovereignty over the entire universe and that includes my life. My whole life has been planned by God, every single day, every single circumstance. Therefore, it was planned by God, before the universe was even created, that on 5th February 2010 I would have a bad cold and have my debit card frozen. So my complaining about this suddenly looked rather futile. But it’s more than that. I also know that God plans all things to the good of his people. As a Christian I have a promise that all things will work out to bring glory to God. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8 v 28 My cold today will work out for my good! My frozen debit card will teach me a lesson God wants me to learn. This leads on to the mind boggling conclusion that I should thank God for my cold and thank God for my frozen debit card! Because both events are doing me good on a spiritual level! But then I realised I was sinning in another way and that was by not remembering how good God has been to be in the past. Take my cold for example. The last time I had a cold was about 12 months ago barring a sniffle during Fresher’s week. I can’t remember the last time I was physically sick. I haven’t been to the doctors in 5 years and before that the last time I went was when I was inoculated aged 4. I’ve never had a serious illness or been in a serious accident. I go months and months in full health. My only allergy is an extremely mild form of hay fever and I had the temerity to grumble to God when I got a measly cold! I complained about the fact that I rarely get ill! My ungratefulness! Because it’s not as if it’s anything I’m doing. Sure I eat three fruit and veg a day (anything more is just showing off), sure I try and keep myself at an admittedly low level of fitness but I never sat down and ordered my body to be healthy. It’s not like I somehow deserved my good health. It is a gift from God that I take for granted far too often. Already this cold has done me the good of showing my just how good God is to me and how wretchedly ungrateful I am in return. And then I remembered the book of Job where Job, after losing his sons and daughters, his fortune and his good health, says: “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job 1 v 21 Job said this fantastic statement of trust in the Lord when faced with the loss of his entire livelihood and family. I couldn’t even say it when faced with a pathetic cold and the loss of a debit card for 5 days. If you think your life is difficult, read Job, it certainly puts things in perspective. What next? Well, I had to pray and ask God to give me the faith and trust to say at all times “May the name of the Lord be blessed” I need to be constantly reminded that all good things are gifts from the Lord and that with them I should bless God and without them I should bless God. In all things then I need to bless God. For in all things God is good. Sometimes it will be easy, sometimes it will be hard. For all times only one thing ever needs be said. “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” |
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