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Hell
Hell
I
saw a sign outside a church in Atlanta.
On the sign was the name of the church
the name of the minister and
under that
the title of the sermon.
The title of the sermon was "Do You Know What Hell Is?" Under that title
in capital letters
it
read
"Come hear our organist Sunday morning." Now
I'm sure that is not what anyone
meant to say. ── Michael P. Green《Illustrations
for Biblical Preaching》
Hell
Archimedes
one of the greatest of the
ancient Greek mathematicians and scientists
was working on a math problem when
his native city of Syracuse was conquered by the Roman general Marcellus in 212
B.C. The scientist ignored the final assault and continued working on his math
while the enemy entered the gates of the city. As the Roman soldiers came down
the street where Archimedes was
he continued to work the problem in the sand
and offered no resistance
even as one of them ran him through with a sword and
killed him.
Many unbelievers are somewhat like
Archimedes
oblivious to what is really happening around them until it is too
late to do anything about it. ── Michael P. Green《Illustrations for Biblical
Preaching》
Hell
W. C. Fields
following the 1933
earthquake that stuck
The same attitude is often displayed
by non-Christians
who seem to think that hell will be more tolerable because
there will be a crowd down there. ── Michael P. Green《Illustrations
for Biblical Preaching》
Hell
”The watchman who keeps silent when he
sees a fire is guilty of gross neglect. The doctor who tells us we are getting
well when we are dying is a false friend
and the minister who keeps back hell
from his people in his sermons is neither a faithful nor a charitable man.”— J.
C. Ryle
Hell
The Russian novelist Dostoevski once
declared: “I ponder
‘What is hell…’ I maintain it is the suffering of being
unable to love.” ── Michael P. Green《Illustrations for Biblical
Preaching》
Hell
Margaret Evening (pseud.) relates the
following in her book 《Who Walk Alone》:
Many years ago I had a dream. It was
one of the few coherent dreams that I have ever had
but it was so vivid that
even now I can remember the details of it clearly.
In the dream
I visited Hell
where
the sub-Warden showed me round. To my surprise
I was led along a labyrinth of
dark
dank passages from which there were numerous doors leading into cells. It
was not like Hell as I had pictured it at all
In fact
it was all rather
religious and “churchy”! Each cell was identical. The central piece of
furniture was an altar
and before each altar knelt (or
in some cases
were
prostrated) greeny-grey spectral figures in attitudes of prayer and adoration.
“But whom are they worshipping?” I asked my guide. “Themselves
” came the reply
immediately. “This is ‘pure’ self-worship. They are feeding on themselves and
their own spiritual vitality in kind of auto-spiritual-cannibalism. That is why
they are so sickly looking and emaciated.”
I was appalled and saddened by the row
upon row of cells with their non-communicating inmates
spending eternity in
solitary confinement
themselves the first
last and only object of worship.
The dream continued…but the point
germane to our discussion here has been made. According to the teaching of the
New Testament
“Heaven is community”. My dream reminded me that “Hell is
isolation.” ── Michael P. Green《Illustrations for Biblical
Preaching》
Hell
Hell is truth seen too late.— Thomas
Hobbes
Hell
An impressive modern statement of the
principle of divine retribution is provided by C. S. Lewis in 《The
Problem of Pain》: “The lost enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have
demanded
and are therefore self-enslaved.”
In 《The Great Divorce》: C.
S. Lewis says hell is made up of people who live at an infinite distance from
each other. Surely this is a graphic picture of the result of the loss of God
in our life. ── Michael P. Green《Illustrations for Biblical
Preaching》
Reality of Hell
Walter Hooper
who was C. S. Lewis’s
personal secretary
laughed when he read the following grave inscription:
Here
lies an atheist
All
dressed up with no place to go.
Lewis
however
did not completely share in his laughter. He responded soberly
“I’m
sure he wishes now that were true.” Hell is sobering reality for those who
don’t believe. ── Michael P. Green《Illustrations for Biblical
Preaching》
JUDGMENT
HELL
The idea of hell and
judgment are nowhere to be found [in Betty Eadie's bestseller
Embraced By
The Light
on the N.Y. Times bestseller list for more than 40 weeks
including 5 weeks as #1]. In November 1973 Eadie allegedly died after
undergoing a hysterectomy
and returned five hours later with the secrets of
heaven revealed by Jesus]. Eadie says that Jesus "never wanted to do or
say anything that would offend me" while she visited heaven. Indeed
Jesus
seems to be relegated to the role of a happy tour guide in heaven
not the
Savior of the world who died on the cross.
Richard Abanes
in Christianity
Today
March 7
1994
p. 53.
We are told in the parable
of the sheep and goats (Matt. 25:31-46) that those whom the judge rejects go
away into Kolasis (punishment) aionios (a final state). The phrase is balanced
by the reference to zoe aionios (eternal life) which is also a fixed and final
state. Even if this word aionios is believed to mean only "belonging to
the coming aion"
and not to imply endlessness in the sense of perpetual
continuity
the thought of endlessness is certainly bound up in the phrase
"eternal life
" and can hardly therefore be excluded from the
corresponding and balancing phrase "eternal punishment." The idea
that in this text aionios as applied to kolasis must imply everlastingness seems
to be unbreakable.
The New testament always
conceives of this eternal punishment as consisting of an agonizing knowledge of
one's own ill desert
of God's displeasure
of the good that one has lost
and
of the irrevocable fixed state in which one now finds oneself. The doctrine of
eternal punishment was taught in the synagogue even before our Lord took it up
and enforced it in the Gospels. All the language that strikes terror into our
hearts -- weeping and gnashing of teeth
outer darkness
the worm
the fire
gehenna
the great gulf fixed -- is all directly taken from our Lord's
teaching. It is from Jesus Christ that we learn the doctrine of eternal
punishment.
Study the following Bible
passages and any other relevant ones on this topic
and reach your own
conclusions
prayerfully: Luke 16:26; John 3:18-19
36; 5:29; 12:32; Acts
3:21
23; Rom. 1:16
5:18-21; 1 Cor. 15:25-28; 2 Cor. 5:10
19; 6:2; Gal. 1:4;
Eph. 5:25; Phil. 2:9-11; 1 Tim. 2:4; Titus 2:11; Heb. 2:9; 9:27; 1 Pet. 3:19; 2
Pet 3:9; 1 John 1:5; 2:2; 4:8.
James Packer
Your
Father Loves You
Harold Shaw Publishers
1986.
Why do men shy away from
the thought of God as a judge? Why do they feel unworthy of him? The truth is
that part of God's moral perfection is his perfection in judgment. Would a God
who did not care about the difference between right and wrong be a good and
admirable being? Would a God who put no distinction between the beasts of
history
the Hitlers and Stalins (if we dare use names)
and his own saints be
morally praiseworthy and perfect? Moral indifference would be an imperfection
in God
not a perfection. And not to judge the world would be to show moral
indifference. The final proof that God is a perfect moral being
not
indifferent to questions of right and wrong
is the fact that he has committed
himself to judge the world.
It is clear that the
reality of divine judgment must have a direct effect on our view of life. If we
know that retributive judgment faces us at the end of the road
we shall not
live as otherwise we would. But it must be emphasized that the doctrine of
divine judgment
and particularly of the final judgment
is not to be thought
of primarily as a bogeyman
with which to frighten men into an outward form of
conventional righteousness. It has its frightening implications for godless
men
it is true; but its main thrust is as a revelation of the moral character
of God
and an imparting of moral significance to human life.
James Packer
Your
Father Loves You
Harold Shaw Publishers
1986.
On one occasion Col.
Robert G. Ingersoll
the agnostic lecturer of the last century
was announced
to give an address on hell. He declared he would prove conclusively that hell
was a wild dream of some scheming theologians who invented it to terrify
credulous people. As he was launching into his subject
a half-drunken man
arose in the audience and exclaimed
"Make it strong
Bob. There's a lot
of us poor fellows depending on you. If you are wrong
we are all lost. So be
sure you prove it clear and plain."
No amount of reasoning can
nullify God's sure Word. He has spoken as plainly of a hell for the finally
impenitent as of a heaven for those who are saved.
H. A. Ironside
Illustrations
of Bible Truth
Moody Press
1945
p. 40.
A flood of false doctrine
has lately broken in upon us. Men are beginning to tell us "that God is
too merciful to punish souls for ever...that all mankind
however wicked and
ungodly...will sooner or later be saved." We are to embrace what is called
"kinder theology
" and treat hell as a pagan fable...This question
lies at the very foundation of the whole Gospel. The moral attributes of God
His justice
His holiness
His purity
are all involved in it. The Scripture
has spoken plainly and fully on the subject of hell... If words mean anything
there is such a place as hell. If texts are to be interpreted fairly
there are
those who will be cast into it...
The same Bible which
teaches that God in mercy and compassion sent Christ to die for sinners
does
also teach that God hates sin
and must from His very nature punish all who
cleave to sin or refuse the salvation He has provided. God knows that I never
speak of hell without pain and sorrow. I would gladly offer the salvation of
the Gospel to the very chief of sinners. I would willingly say to the vilest
and most profligate of mankind on his deathbed
"Repent
and believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be save." But God\ forbid that I
should ever keep back from mortal man that scripture reveals a hell as well as
heaven...that men may be lost as well as saved.
Anglican Bishop J.D. Ryle
about 100 years ago
quoted in The Berean Call
April
1993.
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."
Lieghton Ford
Good
News is for Sharing
1977
David C. Cook Publishing Co.
p. 34.
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.
H. Alford
The New
Testament for English Readers
Moody
p. 395.
One day
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 presiding officer
and 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. "you don't have to go."
Crossroads
Issue No. 7
p. 16.
A new believer was on a
plane with an intellectual (a man educated beyond his intelligence). He sneered
at her reading the Bible. Asked if she believed it? "Yes."
"Jonah and the whale story?" "Yes." "How did it
happen?" "Don't know
but I'll find out when I get to heaven."
"What if Jonah isn't there?" "Then I guess you'll have to ask
him for me."
Source Unknown.
Before British actor
Robert Morley died two weeks ago
he asked that his credit cards be buried with
him. Since his funeral
the London Times' letters pages have been filled
with the thoughts of readers pondering their perpetual needs. Wrote M.L. Evans
of Chester: "In the unfortunate event of the miscarriage of justice and
several thousand years ensuing before my sentence is quashed
I will take a
fire extinguisher."
Ms. Tanner of Woodbridge
specified a good map. "I have immense trouble finding my way in this
life
" she said
"so am extremely worried about the next."
A pair of earplugs would
accompany Sir David Wilcocks of Cambridge "in case the heavenly choirs
singing everlastingly
are not in tune."
Maurice Godbold of
Hindhead would take a crowbar
"in case the affair proved premature."
Even in the hereafter
there will always be an England.
U.S. News & World
Report
June 22
1992 p. 26.
R.W. Dale
in his day
Britain's leading Congregationalist minister
did not believe in eternal
punishment. Yet
before he died
Dale sighed and said
"No one fears God
nowadays."
W. Wiersbe
The
Wycliffe Handbook of Preaching & Preachers
p. 188.
"Those who choose
evil shall have their choice. Men who hate divine mercy shall not have it
forced upon them
but (unless sovereign grace interpose) shall be left to
themselves to aggravate their guilt and ensure their doom.
"They have loved darkness
rather than light
and in darkness they shall abide. Eyes which see no beauty
in the Lord Jesus
but flash wrath upon Him
may well grow yet more dim
till
death which is spiritual leads to death which is eternal.
"What can be too
severe a penalty for those who reject the incarnate God
and refuse to obey the
commands of His mercy? They deserve to be flooded with wrath
and they shall
be; for upon all who rebel against the Savior
'wrath has come upon them to the
uttermost' (I Thessalonians 2:16).
"God's indignation is
no trifle. The anger of a holy
just
omnipotent
and infinite Being
is above
all things to be dreaded; even a drop of it consumes
but to have it poured
upon us is inconceivably dreadful."
Charles Spurgeon.
Many accidental deaths result
from taking risks. That's the conclusion of an organization in Canada that is
seeking to decrease accidents between cars and trains. Roger Cyr
national
director of Operation Lifesaver
puts most of the blame for fatalities on
drivers who are risk-takers. "Studies have shown that when people hear a
train whistle their minds tell them to accelerate their speed
" says Cyr.
About 43 percent of the accidents occur at crossings equipped with flashing
lights and bells or gates. Cyr also said that many drivers "even have the
audacity to drive around or under gates." They take the risk
thinking
they can beat the train and somehow miss the collision--but with tragic
consequences!
Daily Bread
April 6
1991.
"Fire is evidently
the only word in human language which can suggest the anguish of perdition. It
is the only word in the parable of the wheat and the tares which our Lord did
not interpret (Matt. 13:36-43)...The only reasonable explanation is that fire
is not a symbol. It perfectly describes the reality of the eternal burnings.
As we paid nothing for
God's eternal love and nothing for the Son of His love
and nothing for His
Spirit and our grace and faith
and nothing for our eternal rest...What an
astonishing thought it will be to think of the unmeasurable difference between
our deservings and our receivings. O
how free was all this love
and how free
is this enjoyed glory...So then let "Deserved" be written on the
floor of hell but on the door of heaven and life
"The Free Gift"
Richard Baxter.
Non-Christians often ask
the Christian
"But how can the God of love allow any of his creatures to
suffer unending misery?" the question is
how can he not? The fact that
God is love makes hell necessary. "Hell
" as E.L. Mascall once said
"is not compatible with God's love; it is a direct consequence of
it."
That was his way of
stressing the fact that the very God who loves us is the one who respects our
decisions. He loves us
but he does not force his love on us. To force love is
to commit assault. He allows us to decide. He loves us
he encourages our
response
he woos us
he pursues us
he urges us
but he does not force us
because he respects us.
Christian Theology in
Plain Language
p. 219.
If you in any way abate
the doctrine of hell
it will abate your zeal.
R.A. Torrey.
I am the way into the city
of woe.
I am the way to a forsaken
people.
I am the way to eternal
sorrow.
Sacred justice moved my
architect.
I was raised here by
divine omnipotence
Primordial love and
ultimate intelligence.
Only those elements time
cannot wear
Were made before me
and
beyond time I stand.
Abandon all hope ye who
enter here.
The gate of hell
from The
Inferno by Dante Alighieri.
The vague and tenuous hope
that God is too kind to punish the ungodly has become a deadly opiate for the
consciences of millions.
A.W. Tozer.
What hell is
we know not;
only this we know
that there is such a sure and certain place.
Martin Luther.
67% of American adults
believe in a hell. But less than 25% believe they will go there
while 25%
believe their friends will be there.
USA Today poll
December
1986.
You need not tell me there
is no hell
for I already feel my soul slipping into its fires! Wretches
cease
your idle talk about there being hope for me! I know I am lost
forever."
Sir Francis Newport
head
of an English infidel club
on his deathbed.
In the 18th century
Archibald Boyle was the leading member of an association of wild and wicked men
known as "The Hell Club" in Glasgow
Scotland. After one night of
carousing at the Club's notorious annual meeting
Boyle dreamed he was riding
home on his black horse. In the darkness
someone seized the reins
shouting
"You must go with me!" As Boyle desperately tried to force the reins
from the hands of the unknown guide
the horse reared. Boyle fell down
down
down with increasing speed. "Where are you taking me?" The cold voice
replied
"To hell!" The echoes of the groans and yells of frantic
revelry assaulted their ears. At the entrance to hell
Boyle saw the inmates
chasing the same pleasures they had pursued in life. There was a lady he'd
known playing her favorite vulgar game. Boyle relaxed
thinking hell must be a
pleasurable place after all. When he asked her to rest a moment and show him
through the pleasures of hell
she shrieked. "There is no rest in
hell!" She unclasped the vest of her robe and displayed a coil of living
snakes writhing about her midsection. Others revealed different forms of pain
in their hearts. "Take me from this place!" Boyle demanded. "By
the living God whose name I have so often outraged
I beg you
let me go!"
His guide replied
"Go then--but in a year and a day we meet to part no
more." At this
Boyle awoke
feeling that these last words were as letters
of fire burned into his heart.
Despite a resolution never
to attend the Hell Club again
he soon was drawn back. He found no comfort
there. He grew haggard and gray under the weight of his conscience and fear of
the future. He dreaded attending the Club's annual meeting
but his companions
forced him to attend. Every nerve of his body writhed in agony at the first
sentence of the president's opening address: "Gentlemen
this is leap
year; therefore it is a year and a day since our last annual meeting."
After the meeting
he mounted his house to ride home. Next morning
his horse
was found grazing quietly by the roadside. A few yards away lay the corpse of
Archibald Boyle. The strange guide had claimed him at the appointed time.
Paul Lee Tan.
The safest road to hell is
the gradual one--the gentle slope
soft underfoot
without sudden turnings
without milestones
without signposts.
C.S. Lewis.
Cable television's Ted
Turner
who has condemned abortion foes as "bozos" who "look
like idiots
" recently lashed out at Christianity. "Christianity is a
religion of losers
" Turner told the Dallas Morning News. Referring
to Christ's death on the cross
Turner said
"I don't want anybody to die
for me. I've had a few drinks and a few girlfriends
and if that's gonna put me
in hell
then so be it." Turner also told a group of broadcasters
"Your delegates to the United Nations are not as important as the people
[broadcasters] in this room. We are the ones who determine what the people's
attitudes are. It's in our hands."
Quoted in Confident
Living
February
1990
p. 36.
Hell is the greatest
compliment God has ever paid to the dignity of human freedom.
G.K. Chesterton.
Several years ago a book
was published entitled Looking Out for Number One. On the dedication
page the author wrote
"Dedicated to the hope that somewhere in our
universe there exists a civilization where the inhabitants possess sole
dominion over their own lives." There is such a place. It's called Hell.
Revelation 20:1-2 Bottomless
pit--no physical
solid surroundings
total isolation. Utter darkness--a person
is isolated
restricted
totally and forever to himself/herself. I see the
doctrine of hell as being probably the major stumbling block to the return of a
de-Christianized world to Christ. The doctrine of eternal damnation
more than
any other teaching of the church
produces atheism. If you examine closely all
the big name atheists--like Feuerback and Nietzsche--it is this teaching more
than any other that offended them and turned them away. Out of these famous
atheists came all the movements that have caused so much hell here and now. If
God is to practice what He preaches
then it makes it hard to believe in
eternal damnation.
In the New Testament
Peter asks how many times he should forgive his brother and Jesus tells him
"I don't say 7 times
but 70 times 7" which is a way of saying
"infinitely." If God commands that of us
then how does He get away
with not being infinite in His forgiveness?
Robert Short
author of The
Gospel According to Peanuts
in His
October
1983.
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."
John Hannah.