Robert Ingersoll, a famous lawyer and atheist in the latter part of the nineteenth century, once delivered a blistering lecture on hell. He called hell "the scarecrow of religion" and told his audience how unscientific it was, and how all intelligent people had decided there was no such place. A drunk in the audience came up to him afterward and said, "Bob, I liked your lecture; I liked what you said about hell. But, Bob, I want to know if you are sure about it, because I'm depending upon you."
A lot of people would sympathize with the drunk. They would like to believe there is no hell, but they want to be sure before they leap.
Today, we will spend some time looking at the final state of those who have appeared before the judgment throne of God. The Bible teaches us that the final state comes in two kinds: eternal misery or eternal happiness. This time we will look at the final destiny we know as hell or eternal punishment; in a couple of weeks we will look at the other destination – the new heaven and new earth.
I The Denial of Hell
A When it comes to hell, the modern day temptation is to forget about it and pretend that it doesn't exist. A 1985 Gallup poll reveals that while 71% of all Americans believe in heaven, only 53% believe in hell. A 1991 poll indicates the same trend: 78% believe in heaven whereas only 60% believe in hell.
What has happened to hell? Why is there this nearly 20% spread between those who believe in heaven and those who believe in hell?
Some can't reconcile a belief in hell with a belief in a loving God. What kind of God, they wonder, would allow a good person like Gandhi or the nice neighbor next door to go to hell?
Others find a belief in hell too negative, especially for evangelism. These people want to dangle the goodies of the Christian life in front of unbelievers and don't want to turn them off with talk of hell-fire and punishment.
Still others, like Robert Ingersoll I mentioned earlier, find talk of hell to be too unscientific, irrational, and old-fashioned for anyone to believe in such stuff anymore. They find the belief in hell to be intellectually unappealing.
Finally, some find a belief in hell to be no different than the flaming horrors we can create from a nuclear holocaust or chemical warfare or toxic waste. Once these people discovered we can create hell on earth, it seemed silly to talk about a literal hell.
For these and other reasons, many people don't think much about or even believe in hell anymore. And, that even appears to be true within the church. Very few preachers, for instance, have "fire and brimstone" sermons anymore.
B What has happened to hell? What has happened is that hell has come under attack from two different directions. One attack comes from universalists. As their name implies, the universalist believes that all people will ultimately be saved. Universalism goes back at least as far as the second century of the Christian Church. The church father Origen (A.D. 185-254) preached that God will finally include every person in the kingdom of heaven. Today, this same doctrine is preached by the Unitarians. If you debate a universalist, he or she appeals to the great love of God and points to those Bible passages that speak of all being saved (Jn 12:32; Acts 3:21; Rom 5:18; 11:32; 1 Cor 15:22; Eph 1:10; 1 Tim 2:4; 2 Pt 3:9).
C The second attack comes from annihilationists, who teach that unbelievers will simply be put out of existence rather than suffer eternal punishment in hell. The annihilation of unbelievers is the official teaching of Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses. If you debate an annihilationist, he or she will point out that immortality is a gift of God to believers. Non-Christians, on the other hand, do not receive this gift and therefore simply cease to exist after death.
II The Reality of Hell
A On the one hand, universalism and annihilationism are attractive. After all, none of us can ever take pleasure in the belief that those who reject God and His grace must face eternal punishment in hell. Who of us would want even our worst enemy to face the horror of God's awful judgment in hell? On the other hand, we cannot escape the dreadful fact that hell does exist and that those who do not know Jesus as Savior and Lord are going to be eternally punished.
It is plain from Scripture that Jesus believed in the reality of hell. In fact, no one in the Bible speaks more about this place of judgment than does our loving Savior. Twelve times Jesus gives explicit warnings about hell. Listen to just one of His warnings:
(Mt 18:8-9) If your hand or your foot causes you to sin cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. (9) And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell (cf Mt 5:22; 5:29; 5:30; 10:28; 23:15; 23:33; Mk 9:43; 9:45; 9:47; Lk 12:5; 16:23).
Besides speaking about hell, Jesus also refers several times to the eternal punishment of unbelievers:
(Mt 25:41,46) "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels ... Then they will go away to eternal punishment (cf Mt 7:13; 8:11-12; 11:23; 13:49-50; 24:51; Lk 16:19-31).
All this talk about hell and punishment does not mean Jesus' message was fundamentally negative or that He was trying to scare people into believing. No one who has read the Gospels can doubt Jesus' love, compassion, and concern for people. Yet, at the same time Jesus made it clear that unrepentant sin reaps a dreadful harvest.
B What Jesus says is emphasized by the Apostles. In our Scripture reading, for instance, Paul speaks of "God's judgment" (vs 3) and of "wrath and anger" (vs 8). The author of Hebrews can tell us "It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Heb 10:31). Peter and Jude can speak of the "blackest darkness" that has been reserved for the ungodly (2 Pet 2:17; Jude 13). And, Revelation speaks of the "fiery lake of burning sulphur" which it calls the "second death" (Rev 21:8).
C The church's creeds and confessions also teach the reality of hell. The Belgic Confession of Faith speaks of
the terrible vengeance that God will bring on the evil ones who ... shall be made immortal – but only to be tormented in the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
D Logically, we can say hell is necessary. If there is no place for hell, then there is no place for heaven either because the one is illogical apart from the other.
On an American troopship, the soldiers crowded around their chaplain asking, "Do you believe in hell?" "I do not." "Well, then will you please resign, for if there is no hell, we do not need you, and if there is a hell, we do not wish to be led astray."
Furthermore, there is no good reason for thinking that those who reject the love of God in this life will welcome being placed in a heaven where that love is supreme; yet, that is what will happen if there is no hell. As H. Maynard Smith says, anyone who goes to hell "will go because he will feel more at home there than in heaven."
III The Nature of Hell
A If hell does exist – and it does – what is it like? Any discussion on the nature of hell needs to include a look at three key Greek words: Gehenna (translated as "hell"), apollymi ({ap-ol'-loo-mee} translated as "destroy, ruin, perish"), and ai nios ({ahee-o'-nee-os} translated as "eternal").
The Greek word for hell is Gehenna. It is a valley south of Jerusalem where child sacrifice had taken place (2 K 23:10; Jer 7:31; 19:5-6); thus it is a place of sin and shame. It was also there that Jerusalem's garbage was taken to be burned; thus it is a place of smoke, fire, maggots, and filth. Gehenna thus came to refer to the fiery place of torment for the wicked after death.
The Greek word for the destruction or ruin of the unbelieving is apollymi {ap-ol'-loo-mee}. This word refers to the everlasting perdition, the loss of fellowship with God, the endless torment or pain, that is suffered by the ungodly.
The Greek word for everlasting is ai nios {ahee-o'-nee-os}. In the New Testament this word is often used to describe the endless future blessedness of God's people. But when it is applied to the lost it describes a punishment that never ends, a punishment that goes on and on forever. The punishment of hell, in other words, is not temporary, something from which people may some day be released. In hell "the worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched" (Mk 9:48). The suffering is everlasting.
B I spent some time this past week looking up the various phrases the Bible uses to describe hell and punishment. Let me list them for you:
-the fire of hell (Mt 5:22)
-the darkness (Mt 8:12)
-weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mt 8:12)
-the worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched (Mk 9:48)
-everlasting destruction (Phil 3:19; 2 Thess 1:9)
-shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power (2 Thess 1:9)
-condemned to hell (Mt 23:33; Jn 5:29)
-cut him to pieces (Lk 12:46)
-assign him a place with unbelievers (Lk 12:46)
-beaten with many blows (Lk 12:47)
-fire never goes out (Mk 9:43)
-the fiery lake of burning sulphur (Rev 21:8)
-the second death (Rev 21:8)
All of these are unpleasant descriptions, underscoring that the punishment for unforgiven sin is terrible. They also let us conclude that hell has both a spiritual and a physical dimension. Spiritually, hell means that we are cut off from God – totally, completely, with no chance for fellowship with Him. Physically, hell means our bodies will suffer – a terrible, never-ending, excruciating pain; a death that leaves us always dying but never dead.
This spiritual and physical suffering draws home to us the truth of what Hebrews says:
(Heb 10:31) It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
IV The Who in Hell
A It obviously is not man's place to decide who goes to hell, but the Bible does tells us who can be found there. First, as Jesus makes clear and the Belgic Confession affirms, the devil and his angels have a place reserved for themselves there. Joining them are the beast, the false prophet, the Antichrist, death, and Hades (Rev 20:10,13). All of them are thrown into the lake of fire and burning sulphur.
B Of greater concern to us is the men, the people, who will populate hell. The Bible tells us that anyone who believes in Christ, "will not perish, but have eternal life" (Jn 3:16), which implies that those who do not believe will perish in hell.
The Bible has more to say about those who end up in hell. Those who have done evil (Jn 5:29), evildoers (Lk 13:27), the unrighteous (2 Pet 2:9), the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars – their place will all be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur (Rev 21:8). Paul says that those whose mind is on earthly things (Phil 3:19), those who do not know God, those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus (2 Th 1:8), and those who think the cross is foolishness will all perish too (1 Cor 1:18).
Through all these descriptions runs the thought of alienation from God. Those who will be in hell will be there because in one way or another they have chosen it. They have rejected the love of God for them. They have made self, not God, the center of their being.
The Bible makes plain that unbelief is catastrophic – far more catastrophic than AIDS, far more catastrophic than drought or hunger, far more catastrophic than hurricanes or tornadoes. All evil deserves hell, but God sent His Son as the way – the only way – to salvation. Christ's death and resurrection means deliverance from condemnation for those who believe. But those who refuse to believe are left with the consequences of the evil they have done. The failure to believe means ending up in the hell-fire you deserve because of sin.
V The Challenge of Hell
A The Bible's teaching on hell leaves you and me with a double challenge. The first is directed inward, towards myself: Do I, by grace, believe in Jesus and share in His blessings? Or, have I rejected God's offer of love and grace and therefore face the punishment of hell? Have you, by grace, decided for Christ or have you decided for hell?
B The second challenge of hell is directed outward, towards the lost. If I truly believe in hell's reality, then I will be very concerned with telling others about Jesus. I read this past week that a Christian is one who never gets used to the sound of heathen footsteps on their way to a Christless eternity. The need to present the Gospel is so great.
Question: What is 750,000 miles long, reaches around the earth 30 times, and grows 20 miles longer each day?
Answer: The line of people who are without Christ and on their way to hell.
One of the saddest statistics of our day is that 95% of all church members have never led anyone to Christ.
Conclusion
Hell is real. Hell is awful. We cannot deny hell's existence.
However, hell is not the most important part of our faith. Karl Barth, the famous theologian, was once asked, "Do you believe in hell?" The Swiss scholar replied, "No, I don't believe in hell; I believe in Christ Jesus." Barth certainly has a point. I need to remember that it is Jesus, not hell, that is central to my faith.
Why this sermon, then? To remind us that Jesus is the center of our thoughts and beliefs. Jesus is the reason for our present joy and future happiness. Jesus, you see, is our Savior from hell.