The Message on Hell #2

We started a few weeks ago a series on “The Missing Messages in the Modern Church.” Luke preached a great message last week on “Dealing with Dark Emotions.” I preached part 1 on “The Message of Hell” three weeks ago. I want to share part 2 of that message today. I felt like a quick refresher may be required.

First, we mentioned that the reason we preach on hell in the church is because we want your faith founded on truth. We also want those who don’t believe to know truth.

Second, we want everyone to see that God is faithful. Hard issues don’t change Him.

Third, God’s word is timeless truth. It doesn’t expire or change for culture. It is transcendent, and transcultural. Just because culture doesn’t like a truth that doesn’t make it less true.

We established that:

The Bible Does Speak about Hell in the Old and New Testament. And Jesus more than any other speaks on the subject.

The Message is missing in churches because it offends people and the church has become consumer-centric.

And then, we addressed why the message of hell is important.

Today, we will tackle some confusion or opposition to the message of hell. Our primary text will be Matthew 25:31-46

Matthew 25:31–46 NKJV

31 “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. 33 And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35 for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; 36 I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? 38 When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? 39 Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’ 41 “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: 42 for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; 43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’ 44 “Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Let’s set all of this into context. In 25:14-30 Jesus tells a parable of an earthly King giving his subjects talents to invest and return a yield.

Some had large yields, some moderate, and some none. In fact, the one who had none hoped the King wouldn’t even come back. He didn’t care about the King or his kingdom. He hated the king, was lazy, selfish, and unprofitable.

Verses 31-46 is the interpretation of the parable. Jesus is the returning King and every person will answer before Him just as the servants answered before the earthly King, but the issue will not be money it will be the heart.

Has your heart been transformed by the love of God in the Gospel? There actions demonstrated the condition of their hearts. The sheep loved God and therefore loved others from the overflow. This story is not teaching a works based salvation. The goats loved themselves or this world and it was demonstrated by their ignorance or disregard of the needs of others.

Please notice that this is not a law being fulfilled but the natural outflow of the heart. Both have an apparent unawareness that they had succeeded or failed. “Lord when did we see you?”

Second, everyone had equal opportunity. The sheep had the same encounters as the goats, and were motivated by the love of God to care for the needs of others, but the goats were motivated by greed, worldliness, notoriety, or success and ignored the cares of others.

Third, the ones on the right are commanded to come and blessed by the Father. The ones on the left are cursed because they must depart the Father. Big difference in the sentence structure (34 & 41). The blessing is always the presence of God.

Fourth, the punishment of the goats is equal in degree to the life given to the sheep. Matthew 25:46

Matthew 25:46 NKJV

46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

One last observation as we examine the text. The purpose of the destinations differ.

Matthew 25:34 NKJV

34 Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

An inheritance prepared for humankind from the foundation of the world. The intended place for humanity. Now listen to Matthew 25:41

Matthew 25:41 NKJV

41 “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:

A place designed for rebellious angels. Those who had been in the very presence of God, knew God, and His revelation, yet rebelled. A place designed for those who desire to be cutoff from God’s presence and grace.

There will be no king in hell. No pecking order or president. Only those who willfully live outside of the love of God with all that comes with it. Jesus describes it as fire Mark 9:43

Mark 9:43 NKJV

43 If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands, to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched—

But, its worse than just that. It is a place of torment that the devil and demons dread. Do you remember the legion that were cast into the pigs? They pleaded that Jesus would not force them to be tormented before the time. That he would not cast His judgment at that time.

These truths about the afterlife bring our soul into conflict. Especially in our culture that has a altered view of justice, mercy, love, and freedom. We struggle to reconcile the truths of eternal life and eternal punishment set forth in Matthew 25:41-46. Let’s quickly consider some of our objections.

Objection 1: Surely Hell Can’t be Eternal.

Recently people have proposed that the effects of hell are temporary or even instantaneous punishment. Something like the death penalty after death. Those who have refused to share in God’s love and kingdom through faith in the work of Jesus Christ will just cease to exist. They will be annihilated.

Jesus very directly addresses this in verse 46. Matthew 25:46

Matthew 25:46 NKJV

46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

The problem with this view is that there is really no punishment at all. There would be very little use of the resurrection of the dead.

Every passage on hell seems to indicate that there is an eternal existence outside of God’s grace for those who choose it. Listen to Matthew 18:8-9

Matthew 18:8–9 NKJV

8 “If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire.

This text seems to indicated that it is better to go into eternal life injured or handicapped than into hell healthy.

Leon Morris in Pillar New Testament Commentary made this statement about the idea of annihilation:

The Gospel according to Matthew 7. The Sheep and the Goats, 25:31–46

So to eliminate eternal punishment is to extract the teeth of the Law and its presentation of a holy God. The blessing of the Gospel can be retained only if the Law is seen as the completely serious will of the holy God, to whom sin is grievous rebellion, requiring his punishment if it is not forgiven” (pp. 256–57).

Objection 2: How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell?

How can God be both loving and unleash His wrath against sin and unbelief? In other words if God is perfectly loving shouldn’t he just forgive everyone and not get angry?

I would ask is absolute tolerance love? That’s how you treat someone you don’t know or care about.

Becky Pippert states in her book “Hope has Its Reasons.” God’s wrath is not a cranky explosion, but His settled opposition to the cancer which is eating out the insides of the human race He loves with His whole being.

When your loved one is destroying their lives by bad decisions, choices, or addictions. Are you angry or just indifferent? You are angry. We have misinterpreted in anger as hate in our culture.

The closest illustration I can find is addiction. My father was an alcoholic. He loved his addiction more than anything else in this world. He had the unwavering love of his family. We pleaded with him to stop. We tried to get him help. We appealed to his emotions, to the facts of addiction. We warned him of the dangers. Eventually he said, “I’m gonna die anyway. I am not quitting! In the end my dad got what he wanted and all the consequences that came with it. The strained relationships, broken trust, loss respect, series of dui’s and jail time. And ultimately a premature death from alcoholism and liver failure.

What am I saying with the illustration? Our love did not stop my dad’s trajectory towards destruction.

God’s judgment consists in giving people what they love most, life with him or separation from him.

Everett Ferguson

Will not the God of the whole earth do what is right? Judge the sins of the world! Yes, He will in perfect righteousness! But, this God of justice takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Ezekiel 33:10

Ezekiel 33:10 NKJV

10 “Therefore you, O son of man, say to the house of Israel: ‘Thus you say, “If our transgressions and our sins lie upon us, and we pine away in them, how can we then live?” ’

Listen, we must realize that God’s love is demonstrated most clearly through judgment. Listen to Romans 5:8

Romans 5:8 NKJV

8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God bore our judgment in the person of Jesus as a demonstration of His love for us. His love and judgment is in perfect harmony.

How then could God express simultaneously his holiness in judgment and his love in pardon? Only by providing a divine substitute for the sinner so that the substitute would receive the judgment and the sinner the pardon.

John Robert Walmsley Stott (English Preacher)

Objection 3: I Believe in a God of Love.

In other words, I won’t believe in a God of judgment. Well all I can say is that you’re in a class of your own.

The very concept of a loving God originates in Christianity.

Most ancient religions believe the world was created out of chaos, war, and struggle.

Other faiths gasp at the idea of a personal God that is capable of having an intimate relationship with their subjects.

If you believe in a loving God, there is only one place that you could have derived that notion — the Bible.

The Bible however presents God as both loving and just. Just and justifier. Romans 3:23-26

Romans 3:23–26 NKJV

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

To neglect such great love is to condemn one’s soul to an eternity without God.