Sunday, March 29, 2015

Hell

Last week I started a short series to prepare you to celebrate Easter. Here is the question that this series works to answer. What did Jesus save us from? Next week, on Easter Sunday, I'll balance that by answering a different question. What did Jesus save us to? When you put the answers to both of those questions together you have lots of reasons to celebrate what Jesus has done. And that's my goal for you: to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus and to do that with great joy.


Last Sunday, answering that 'from' question, I spoke to you about sin and its effects. Today, I want to talk to you about hell. Jesus saves from hell. When Jesus returns, every person who ever lived will be raised with a new body, one that will last forever. There will be some who, in their new bodies, will enjoy a new heavens and a new earth in all its beauty. But there will be others who, in their new bodies, will suffer hell in all its ugliness. What I want to do this morning is explain something of that ugliness.

The Scriptures use several images to convey to you what hell is about. You need to understand that they are only images. And the reason that we only have images is that the reality of hell is beyond what words can convey. But we need to take the images seriously. They are God's way of describing something of what hell will be like.

The first image that we'll look at is darkness. John uses the contrast between light and dark a good bit. So, in his first letter he wrote,

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

But, as John wrote in his gospel, people hate the light and love the darkness.

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.  For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

So, as Jesus tells us, they will be granted what they want. They will live in a place of darkness, in a place where there is no light. None. Listen to what He said.

I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. 

So, if God, who is light, is all about love, kindness, peace and all the rest, then hell, the darkness, is none of these things. Can you imagine what it would be like to exist in a place where there is no love, no kindness, no peace? None. Whatever else goes on there, it will be an incredibly lonely place. A person might be surrounded by people there, but there will be nothing good in being with them. Since there will be no love, everyone will be thinking only about himself. Radical selfishness. And since there is no peace, each day will be filled with conflict of some sort or another. And it won't have to be a bar brawl. There are lots of folk who know how to smile at someone while thinking about how to do him in. And there will be no kindness. Not even those little acts of kindness that help make life bearable at times. None of any of that. Only darkness. Imagine living in that kind of situation day after day after day. Such desperate loneliness. It will be an eternity of feeling alone.

Jesus uses another image to describe hell.

And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’

Jesus is quoting from Isaiah where God says,

And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.

What's the point of worms and fire? This is the fate of dead bodies. The worms will consume them. Think maggots eating rotting flesh. And the fire is about destruction and shame. It was considered shameful if your body was cremated by the flames. 

Last week I told you that sin corrupts. It degenerates from something bad into something worse. That's what Jesus' imagery of worms and fire is about. Hell is about corruption. But it's not the corruption of the body. That’s the image. It's the corruption of the person. The person degenerates from something bad into something worse. And remember hell is forever. So, as evil and destructive sin might be in this life, it continues to develop as evil and destructive in the next for those in hell. It gets uglier and uglier. So, as John wrote,

And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night ...

No rest - forever - as who you are and what you are gets uglier and uglier.  That's hell.

One more image. Jesus said,

In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

People usually focus on physical pain when they think of hell. Jesus here teaches that the pain of hell will include emotional pain. You can deal with almost anything if there is even a slight possibility of hope. As long as you can tell yourself, 'It will get better! Somehow, it will get better', you can deal with anything. But what if there is no hope and you know it? There is no hope in hell. There is only the weeping of despair and the grinding of teeth as an expression of the pain of that despair. In this life people opt for suicide to end the pain. But there will be no suicide in hell. The anguish will go on forever. The weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Now, there are some very important things to bear in mind when you think about hell. First, hell isn't about God being nasty. It's not that He’s annoyed with some people and letting them have it. Hell is about justice. Starting in the Garden of Eden, God has warned over and over that rebelling against Him has consequences. In too many different ways to count, He has said, 'You really don't want to do that'. Sin isn't breaking some rules. Sin is rebelling against God. There is a price to pay for refusing to submit to the God who made you. Hell is about justice.

But even in this you need to know that God does not relish the thought of sentencing people to hell. So, God tells His prophet Ezekiel,

Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?

Did you catch the pleading tone? God yearns for people to turn from their evil ways. He does not want them to suffer death. He does not want to send them to hell.

Then, there's also this.

And when Jesus drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

Jesus condemns Jerusalem for its sin of rejecting Him. The Roman armies will come. They will bring utter destruction. But that's only the first part of the curse that Jesus pronounces against the rebellion. After that, hell awaits. But you must see that He does this with tears. He weeps over these rebels. There is no joy in heaven when sinners are condemned to hell. None.

Here's something else that you need to bear in mind when you think about hell. The person who talks the most about hell is Jesus. More than any prophet. More than any apostle. But it's important that you understand that He didn't use it as so many have. It's not a way to scare pagans to convert. Hell is not an evangelistic tool. You need to remember that Jesus functioned as a prophet sent to the people of God, Israel. Almost all of His teaching was to the good church folk of His day. It was they that He warned about hell, not Gentile pagans. To say it differently, Jesus warned the Christians of His day that they would live forever in hell if they were not faithful to their God. And He continues to do the same thing today through the preaching of His Word. Hell is a doctrine designed for the Church to hear and to take seriously.

So, this question is for you, the people of God. How do you avoid suffering the justice of hell? Let me remind you that it isn't good enough to say that you made a profession of faith in Jesus so many years ago. Anyone can do that. Judas could do that. The faith that saves is a living faith. It is a faith that believes Jesus every day. This living faith believes Him when He says, 'Don't be anxious about that problem. Trust Me to deal with it.' And so, instead of fear there is trust. This living faith believes Him when He says, 'Don't respond with old, sinful habits. Choose to live in the new way of holiness.' And so, living faith works to live a holy life. And this living faith believes Him when He says, 'Yes, you sinned. But I will forgive you if you repent.' And so, there is honest repentance for sin. The life of one of Jesus' disciples is a life of faith and repentance, faith in Jesus and repentance of sins, day by day. And if any disciple refuses that kind of life, then the warnings of Jesus apply, warnings about hell. What counts with Jesus is not a profession of faith in the past but a living faith in the present.

For those who do live by faith and repentance, the promise of Jesus is that the next life will not be the increasing ugliness of hell. It will be the incredible beauty of a new heavens and a new earth, something that images can only attempt to describe because there are no words that can convey how good it will be. And that's what we will celebrate on Easter