PUTTING HELL IN ITS PLACE

PUTTING HELL IN ITS PLACE 2 Thessalonians 1:8-10 With grateful acknowledgement of these sources of inspiration and direction: The Word and the Spirit of God; H. Bietenhard, article on "Hell" in Dictionary of New Testament Theology; Hugh Hewitt, The Embarrassed Believer; J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds; Leighton Ford, Good News is For Sharing Dec 1, 2002 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introductory New Testament Words Translated Hell Note will open in a new window Did you hear the story about the plane crash that involved Benny Hinn, Billy Graham and Robert Schuller? They all died, but Heaven's Gates were under construction so they sent them to Hell for a few days. Two days later, Satan called and asked God to get them out, "They are causing all kinds of problems. Benny Hinn cast out all the demons, Billy Graham got over half the people saved, and Robert Schuller has raised enough money to get the place air conditioned!" There are a lot of people who are trying to air condition hell these days. The whole idea of there being a hell is not as popular with people today. The U.S. News & World Report not long ago published the findings of their poll, revealing that while 64% of Americans believe there is a hell, a full 25% say there just isn't a hell. In his book, The Embarrassed Believer, Hugh Hewitt says, "Having read widely in the offerings of a century ago, and living among and talking with the believers of today, I am certain that hell, as a persuasive idea, is on its back. Few things depend upon opinion for their existence. Whether or not people believe Beijing exists, for example, will not in any way affect Beijing's existence. It will still be there even if every American concludes tomorrow that Beijing does not exist and never has. In the second half of this century, though, hell went from being a place to being an idea, and a not very persuasive idea at that. 'I'm not into hell,' is one common statement. 'I have trouble with a God who would allow hell,' goes another. When hell became an idea instead of a place, it lost much of its hold on folks. Ideas can and have propelled people to act or to refrain from acting. But not ideas that were once believed to be true. Ideas that were once believed to be true but have fallen into the category of myth or fable lose their power to motivate." Professor Jerry Walls of Asbury Theological Seminary, says, "If there is no God, no heaven, no hell, there simply is no persuasive reason to be moral." But whether or not hell is a deterrent to bad behavior, much like the death penalty, for example, as a deterrent to murder, is actually irrelevant. If God's Word teaches there is a hell, then there is a hell, regardless of how much any of us likes the idea. Those who think it isn't right that a loving God would allow the existence of Hell as a place of judgment don't in any way diminish the reality of Hell. God needs neither our agreement nor our opinion on the matter. Imagine yourself turning on the TV and tuning into a courtroom trial. In your living room, you can see only what the camera shows you. You don't hear all the testimony. You don't get to question the witnesses. You don't get to see the evidence. You don't hear the instructions to the jury and you're not privy to the conversations between the lawyers and the judge. When the jury comes in with its verdict and the sentence is passed by the judge, how adequately can you assess whether justice has been done? We would not be able to know what justice required and whether justice was upheld if we lacked all the information. How can a human being sit in judgement on Gods system of justice? We don't have all the information necessary to judge whether God has been just. Interestingly, though, Gallup poll on the matter reveals that more people believed in Hell in the past decade than in the previous decade, up from 53 to 60%. And among 18-29-year olds, 71% believe in Hell. What does the Bible teach about Hell? Let's take a few minutes this morning to distinguish between the revealed truth of the New Testament and the fanciful interpretations we find in Dante's Inferno or books like I Went to Hell and Came Back" or the opinions of modern thinkers. The New Testament Teaching on Hell The words of Jesus and the apostles teach emphatically that there is a Hell, and that it is a place of eternal punishment, reserved for the devil and his cohorts, as well as for those who refuse to accept God's free salvation in Jesus Christ. Jesus taught that it is a place of great torment, including an agonizing knowledge of God's displeasure, the utter loss of fellowship with God, the loss of goodness forever and the terrifying realization that this hopeless state is never-ending. Before we look at the nature of the suffering in Hell more closely, I felt it might be good for a brief introduction to the four words used in the New Testament that are translated with our English word, "hell." The words are ABYSSOS, from "byssos" (bottom) with the a-privitive, meaning "no bottom" or "no end". We get our words "abyss" and "abysmal" from this word. ABYSSOS is, biblically, the prison for demons (Luke 8:31), and the place where Satan himself will ultimately be bound (Revelation 20:1-3). It is the "realm of the dead" (Romans 10:7), and weird creatures emerge from it (Revelation 9:3). The second word is HADES, which means, "the under or lower world", also the realm or abode of the dead. It is pictured in Matthew 11:23 as being down within the earth. Hebrews 2:14 teaches that Jesus has overcome its power, and Jesus taught that because of what He came to do, Hades will be unable to harm His church or his saints (Matthew 16:18). GEHENNA is the third term, and this name comes from the garbage dump South of the city of Jerusalem, in the Valley of Gehinnom. There is where everything unwanted was ultimately pitched, and a smoky fire burned day and night. It was a place of notoriously putrefying odor and filth. Jesus used this vivid image to describe the smoldering, undying torment of hell. Gehenna was prepared by God for the purpose of judgment long before (Matthew 25:41). Mark 9 (verses 43-47) and Revelation 20 (verses 10,14) teach that Gehenna is the place of judgment and punishment until the final judgment. Again, it is also seen as the ultimate destination of Satan (Matthew 25:41). The final Greek word we translate as Hell in the New Testament is KATOTEROS. The base word is KATO, which means "the realm under". The TEROS part of the word puts it in the comparative form, and might be literally rendered "the deeper realm underneath." This word is used only once, at Ephesians 4:9, and refers either to earth, as the place beneath the heavens, or as the lower parts of the earth, like HADES. The most prevalent issue linking all these terms is that fact that Hell is a place suffering and punishment. The extent of this suffering is illustrated by the descriptions of it given in the New Testament. It is pictured as a second death, destruction, punishment, being burned up, consumed and devoured. The wicked who are relegated to Hell are pictured as suffering the wrath of God and as weeping and gnashing their teeth. Matthew 13:49-50 - "This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." In Mark 9 teaches that in Hell "the fire never goes out" [webmasters note: Mark 9:43] and that in Hell "their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched." [webmasters note: Mark 9:48] The reason those who end up in Hell must endure this horrible and everlasting punishment is, according to the Bible, they are "wicked", out of fellowship with God due to sin. Like Satan and his evil angels, those who rebel against God, end up in Hell as the punishment for their sin. One author comments, "The most dreadful torment of the lost, in fact that which constitutes their state of torment, will be this coming to themselves, when too late for repentance." It is true that we really don't know very much about Hell. What we usually think we know is actually commentary from fictional literature, and not from the Bible. But how can we possibly understand things in the realm of the spiritual and eternal? We have the same frustration when it comes to knowing much detail about Heaven (about which I plan to teach next Sunday). If a man from a two-dimensional world should pay a visit to our three-dimensional world, how could he possibly return to a two-dimensional world and describe what he had seen here? Helmut Thielicke said it this way - "This is hell-to be forced to see the glory of God and have no access to it." Leighton Ford, in his book, Good News is For Sharing, writes this about Hell and our understanding of it from the scriptures: Many things we don't know about hell. But Jesus and the New Testament writers used every image in their power to tell us that hell is real, it's terrible, it's something to be feared, and something to avoid. In his description of the last judgment, Jesus taught that some would go to eternal punishment, some to eternal life (Matt. 25:46). In other words, hell will be as real and as lasting as heaven. The horror of hell is not physical pain. After all, the Bible tells us hell was 'prepared for the devil and his angels' (Matt. 25:41), and they're not physical beings. Rather the fire and outer darkness and the thirst depict spiritual separation from God, moral remorse, the consciousness that one deserves what he's getting. Hell is disintegration -- the eternal loss of being a real person. In hell the mathematician who lived for his science can't add two and two. The concert pianist who worshiped himself through his art can't play a simple scale. The man who lived for sex goes on in eternal lust, with no body to exploit. The woman who made a god out of fashion has a thousand dresses but no mirror! Hell is eternal desire -- eternally unfulfilled. But there's another side. G.K. Chesterton once remarked, 'Hell is God's great compliment to the reality of human freedom and the dignity of human personality.' Hell, a compliment? Yes, because God is saying to us, "You are significant. I take you seriously. Choose to reject me -- choose hell if you will. I will let you go." One author said, "Hell is God's final surrender to man's stubborn refusal to repent." Hell is an unending, physical, and very real separation from God. It is being sent away from God's love, mercy and salvation, without any hope of returning to Him. The New Testament Teaching on Who is Going to Hell. Who goes to Hell? The general answer to that question is easy and is found often in the scriptures - the wicked, the sinful, the rebellious. "Wait a minute!" you might say-"That's exactly how the Bible describes all of us." And you would be absolutely right. "There is none righteous, no not one." (Romans 3:10) "You were like sheep going astray." (2 Peter 2:25) "All have sinned and fallen short of God's glory." (Romans 2:23) There is a passage of scripture I would like for us to consider carefully as we round the last turn here. Turn to 2 Thessalonians 1, and we will pick up at verse 8. The context here is Paul assuring the believers at Thessalonica that God will vindicate their service to Him and bring full justice to those who are persecuting them. Then, verse  8-10: "He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you." Here is one of the most important truths in history. Although everyone sins and comes short of God's glory, although every sinner is worthy only of God's just judgement, although, because of our sin and rebellion, all we deserve after this life is Hell, God has given us a chance to escape this terrible fate. Notice how Paul puts it here. There are two camps of people. The first group is described in verse 8 - they "do not know God" and "do not obey the gospel." Ephesians 2 expands on this description: Non-Christian people are "dead in [their] transgressions and sins" (verse 1), "by nature objects of wrath" (verse 3), "foreigners to the covenants of promise", "without hope and without God in the world" (verse 12) Those who have never accepted Christ's free gift of salvation are pictured as separated from God, and unable to know Him. This group is further clarified as those who "do not obey the gospel." [webmasters note: 2 Thessalonians 1:8] That is, they continue to refuse to accept by faith what Jesus Christ has done for them at the cross and the empty tomb. Once again, in a nutshell - everyone is condemned and only worthy of hell, because everyone has sinned and offended God's holiness. Jesus came and, by his atoning death, paid the debt of our sins. Now, for those who will say yes to Him-a necessary step-there is salvation available. It is not that Christians have been better than others, it's that they came to Christ, as sinners, and received the pardon. And the Bible says that this group do NOT go to Hell, but they go to Heaven. Because of what Jesus has done, there is now only one sin that can still send anyone to hell. That sin is this - refusing to trust in Christ for salvation. Every Christian has laid hold on that promise of salvation, and has been saved from eternal Hell. There is a true story that when Vice President Calvin Coolidge was presiding over the Senate, one Senator angrily told another to go "straight to hell". The offended Senator complained to Coolidge as the presiding officer, and old Cal looked up from the book he had been leafing through while listening to the debate. "I've been looking through the rule book," he said. "And you don't have to go." Praise the Lord-that is true for every person who has been saved by Jesus! Hell is no longer your mandatory fate! Even though you are a sinner, and deserve to go there forever after you die, Jesus Christ has paid your ransom and has an offer for you that you dare not refuse. You see, He made escaping Hell available, but you choose to receive or reject that offer. No one who is ever in hell will be able to say to God, "You put me here," and no one who is in heaven will ever be able to say, "I put myself here." Conclusion What a wonderful truth we have to share with a lost, hell-bound world of people! They can avoid that gruesome destiny by turning in faith to Jesus Christ! I am stirred with a renewed thrill about what Christ has invited us Christians to do. He has asked us-He even commanded us-to go to lost sinners and tell them they don't have to go to Hell! Dr. John Broadus was a great scholar and Christian professor. He was converted to Christ one day as a young man, and the very next day he saw a schoolmate named Sandy, a red-haired boy who was a below-average student but a good friend. John said, "Sandy, I wish you would be a Christian." Sandy said, "I don't know. Perhaps I will," and within a few days gave his life to Christ. Dr. Broadus went on to become a great Bible scholar and preacher, as well as a president of a theological university. Every year he would return to his hometown and this awkward, red-haired old farmer named Sandy would look him up. He would stick out his bony hand, and say, "Howdy, John, I never forget you, John. You told me to come to Christ. Thank you, John." The report was that when Dr. Broadus lay dying, with his family all around him, he said, "I rather think that the sound sweetest to my ears in Heaven, next to the welcome the Lord, will be the welcome of Sandy Jones, as he will thrust out his great hand and say, "Howdy, John! Thank you, John. Thank you, John!"   [Back to Top]