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English Lecture 12

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A Baseball Owner's Theology of Hell
(If God Is Good, Can Hell Be Forever?)

  1. Illus: A few January's ago I was attending some meetings out in Los Angeles in the famous Biltmore Hotel, and wouldn't you know it--as luck would have it--the major league baseball owners were conducting their annual winter meeting in the same hotel!
    1. And so the place was crawling with sports reporters and their TV cameras.
      1. All of them staking out strategic positions for interviews with the very rich and famous team owners.
      2. Everybody loves a celebrity, and I'm no exception--so I tried my best to hang around the reporters and see if I could meet someone famous.
      3. Now, I apologize to all of you who could give two hoots for American baseball.
      4. But having grown up in Japan where, as here, baseball is like motherhood and apple pie or sushi--I've been a baseball fan all my life.
      5. And wouldn't you know it--I got to meet him--as big as life--walking through the Biltmore lobby one morning-- whom should I run into but the famous (or infamous, depending on your baseball loyalties) owner of the New York Yankees, George Steinbrenner!
      6. Wow! I've been a Yankee fan since birth--thanks to my dad.
      7. "Hey, George!" He didn't even look up--which of course made for a very short conversation--but at least I got to meet him--from across the lobby!
    2. But this evening I'd like to quote another of the famous team owners who was there in the hotel that week.
      1. Maybe he's even more famous than George Steinbrenner.
      2. I'm referring to Ted Turner, owner of the CNN global satellite news network, and also owner of the Atlanta Braves baseball team, who were soundly beaten in the World Series by the Yankees two seasons ago! (OK, OK, so it was a fluke win--since the Yanks didn't make it to the next World Series!)
      3. Irascible Ted Turner, who always has a quip for some reporter.
      4. Well, he's even got an opinion of HELL!
      5. I have him right here in his own words: "I don't want anybody to die for me. I've had a few drinks and a few girlfriends, and if that's going to put me in hell, then so be it." The magazine that quoted him went on to comment: "The famous Ted Turner on why Christ should not have bothered sacrificing His life. Christianity, he added, is 'a religion for losers.'" (TV Entertainment)
      6. I don't need any loser dying for me. I've had a few beers and a few girlfriends. And if I go to hell....so what?
      7. So speaks...a baseball owner...on the meaning of hell.
    3. "Go to hell!"
      1. How glibly the words are tossed about in our earthy American vocabulary.
      2. Hell, yes......hell, no.....SO WHICH IS IT, YES OR NO?
    4. Illus: History's well-known agnostic infidel, Robert Ingersoll, was but a child when his minister father told him about hell.
      1. Told him that there were babies in hell not more than a few inches long, who were destined to burn there throughout eternity.
      2. And little Robert grew up to say, "If that is what God does, I HATE HIM."
      3. His logical mind simply could not handle or grasp such grotesque injustice, and so that gifted intellect veered into doubt and unbelief and rejected God.
      4. And spent the rest of his life decrying Christianity and the God of Christianity.
      5. I HATE GOD.
    5. Was Robert Ingersoll's father's description of hell unique?
      1. Illus: Hardly! One nineteenth century children's storybook illustrates an everlasting fiery hell for its innocent readers, first with graphic stories of children burning in its fires and then with this torturous description of eternal suffering: "Little child, if you go to hell there will be a devil at your side to strike you. He will go on striking you every minute forever and ever, without ever stopping. How then will your body be after the devil has been striking it every moment for a hundred million years without stopping?"
      2. Illus: And then there was the famous eighteenth century sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," preached by the highly respected Jonathan Edwards, still considered the greatest of American theologians.
        1. To awaken his erring parishioners to their guilty plight, Edwards described the eternal punishment that awaited them.
        2. Where they would be held like "loathsome insects" by the hand of God over the fiery "pit of hell."
        3. And when they cry out for mercy, how will God respond? Edwards answered, He will "be so far from pitying you when you cry to him, that it is said he will only 'laugh and mock' at those who rejected his mercy and reaped their just reward."
    6. The doctrine of eternal hell--organized religion has been touting it in one form or another for centuries.
    7. But is it HELL YES or HELL NO?
      1. Who's right--the baseball owner, the infidel, or the preacher?
      2. If we are but "loathsome insects" in the hands of an angry God, what shall we do with the compelling portrait of God we've been discovering in this Book, this God who is not Somebody to be afraid of, but Someone to be a friend of?
    8. To pursue the answer to this extremely vital question tonight, I'd like to invite you to consider three interlocking components.
      1. No rational, logical response to the teaching of hell can be made without a reasoned understanding of these three.
      2. The first of which is SIN.

  2. SIN
    1. Let me ask you a question: Why is death the end-result of sin?
      1. Is it because God gets even?
      2. Is it that God finally gets so mad with either sin or the sinner that He kills it or him or her?
      3. Is the death that results from sin the punishment of God?
    2. As is our practice in the NeXt Millennium Seminar, we're not going to rely on this man's or that woman's opinion for the answers to the vital questions about our lives and future destiny, we're going to turn to the Bible. And we will find an answer to this very question in the book of Romans, chapter 6 (p 1089).
      1. Romans 6:23--we've read those words before--but it is imperative we return to them if we would know the truth about hell.
      2. "The WAGES of sin is death." (GK, thanatos--from whence comes our word, thanatology, the study of death.)
      3. Please note: death is not a punishment; death is a wage.
      4. And what is a wage? A wage is something you earn.
        1. Illus: If you spend forty hours working your fingers or your legs or your arms off for your employer--how would you feel if he came walking up to you at the end of the week and handed you a paycheck with the cheery quip: "Out of the goodness of my heart and because I'm such a great guy, I'm going to give you a special gift in this check!"
        2. You rip open the envelope in eager anticipation of perhaps finding a special bonus of some kind, that "gift" your employer said he was giving you, only to discover that the check inside is payment for your 40 hours of backbreaking work!
        3. "Hey wait a minute, buddy--this here ain't no gift--this is what I had coming to me--this is what I've already earned--these are my wages--they're no gift at all!"
      5. PLEASE NOTE: Death is not a punishment which God inflicts on you- -death is the wage you earn because of your sin; it's the natural consequence of the way you've lived and the choices you've made in this life.
      6. You and I as sinners have it coming to us! Every last penny of it!
      7. We did the hard way--as Smith and Barney put it--we EARNED it!
    3. What kind of death have we earned? The antithesis of the second half of this verse "...but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
      1. I.e., that means the death wages of sin is ETERNAL DEATH.
      2. Illus: In fact, take a look at Revelation 2:11 (p 1175)--"He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the SECOND DEATH."
      3. Why is this death called the SECOND DEATH?
      4. Because all human beings die the first death, that eventual collapse of the human system--suddenly (as in a tragedy) or slowly (as in disease and old age).
      5. But as we noted last evening, God promises a resurrection for His friends who trust Him.
      6. So death for them is but a sleep--awaiting the glorious awakening at the return of Jesus.
      7. But not everybody chooses God's offer of friendship and life.
      8. For them death will ultimately be eternal.
      9. And so the Scriptures speak of this eternal death as the SECOND death.
    4. Which is why I John 5:11,12 (p 1171) is such a significant Bible statement.
      1. We've shared it now twice, and it is important we return to it again.
      2. Read vv. 11,12. (Gk--life is Zoa, from whence comes our English word zoology... the study of life.)
      3. Please note, friends, that life...eternal life...is wrapped up in a relationship with God through His Son Jesus.
      4. No Son...no Life.
      5. Illus: Which means that Jesus Christ is indeed our LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM.
        1. Pull that plug...disconnect yourself from the Source of eternal life ...and eternal death will be the inevitable result.
        2. Illus: We have all, either on TV or in person, been witnesses to a life-support system at work. (Have you ever seen a life support system? For some of us the very memory is painful, I realize.)
        3. Illus: I have stepped into many an Intensive Care Unit at a hospital to stand beside an individual whose heart goes on beating because the respirator he is connected to goes on breathing for him.
        4. He is on life support.
        5. Turn the switch off, the person will die--no ifs, ands or buts about it!
        6. He who has the Son has life--because he is plugged into the divine life support system; but she who has not the Son of God has not life. Why? The Bible says she "has not life" because she has made the conscious choice to disconnect herself from the divine life support system.
        7. No Son...No life that's the Bible's formula.
    5. That's why it is vital that we understand what human sin ultimately is and does!
      1. Sin ultimately is the severance of a connection with the Source of Life.
      2. Sin is that which breaks or severs my relationship/friendship with God.
      3. Sin ultimately pulls the plug on God's only way to keep you alive...His Son Jesus Christ.
      4. "She who has the Son as life; he who does not have the Son does not have life."
      5. Note it carefully, ladies and gentlemen, the one who does the plug pulling is NOT the Son but the sinner.
      6. Illus: Let's say that I'm the one who's hooked up to a life support system, and let's say that I reach over and pull the plug so that I am no longer connected to that life-giving system--Now, whose fault will it be that I die--the life support system's or mine? MINE, because I'm the one WHO CHOSE TO PULL THE PLUG.
      7. "He who [CHOOSES TO HAVE] the Son has life; she who does not [CHOOSE TO] have the Son does not have life."
      8. God offers the entire human race a life-giving friendship with Him through Jesus Christ.
      9. To choose our sins instead of our Savior is to choose life apart from the Life-giver, which being interpreted means to choose death, eternal death in the end.
      10. Hell is that eternal-death ending.
    6. Which, however, doesn't fully answer yet our wondering tonight--Will God light sinners on fire and burn them forever, because they have rejected His friendship?

  3. PARENTHOOD
    1. Let's hasten on now to the second critical interlocking component in a understanding of hell.
    2. We find it in Matthew 7 (p 940).
      1. I'd like to suggest to you that the most significant paradigm and portrait that Christ came to paint of God is the picture of God boldly painted here in the Sermon on the Mount: God as a parent, God as Father.
      2. Gaze on this portrait for yourself.
      3. Read Matthew 7:9, 10.
      4. Many non-parents who read these two verses say, I know that a child would do if his dad gave him a stone--he'd throw it away, because he wants bread instead!
      5. But parents know that that isn't true! If you give a toddler a stone, what the child does is STICK IT IN HER MOUTH children are that trusting of their parents!
      6. Illus: I'll never forget the day--and Karen, my nurse wife wasn't at home--when Kristin came running down to my office--"It's gone, it's gone!" "What's gone?" "My money?" "What money?" "My quarter!" "What happened to it?" "I swallowed it!" "Let me see!!!" I called our family physician, Dr. Hamel, and then at his instructions raced Krissi to the ER where sure enough the X-rays proved it true-- she was 25 cents more valuable than before! (Listen, Karen may not have been in on the front end of the emergency--but turn about is fair play- -because she got to "keep watch" for the exiting quarter! There are some privileges in being a nurse and mother!)
      7. EVERY PARENT KNOWS THAT WHAT YOU GIVE YOUR LITTLE CHILD, YOUR CHILD WILL EAT because children trustingly rely on the parents to provide for them.
      8. Which, by the way, is why a parent needs to be so careful about what he feeds his children--not only physical food in the mouth, but mental food for the mind and spiritual food for the heart, as well--which of course is should be another lecture sometime.
      9. Read vv. 9-11.
      10. Did you catch Jesus' punch line?
      11. If you who are evil still know how to protect your children and only give them what is good for their consumption, HOW MUCH MORE will your FATHER IN HEAVEN give you what is good?
      12. How much better do you think your divine PARENT is?
    3. God as Parent....God as Father....there were glimpses of Him in the OT...but Jesus' greatest paradigm and portrait of God was His heart-warming description of Him as our heavenly Father.
      1. Illus: That's why He taught us to pray this way--read Matthew 6:9ff.
      2. He could have taught us to pray, Our JUDGE who art in heaven, or our KING who is in heaven...or our LORD in heaven....or our BOSS...
      3. But no, in the model prayer, He teaches us to pray, OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN.
    4. And what is our Father like?
      1. Over and over, Jesus said it: "If you have seen Me, you have seen My Father also."
      2. "For the Father and I are one. If you knew Me you would know Him."
      3. "Our Father in heaven."
    5. Now, let me ask you: Do fathers and mothers punish their children?
      1. But of course!
      2. I discipline my children in order to protect them in life. [After I've explained it to my little kids that they're not to play in the street in front of our house because they might get hit by a car and hurt or killed, if I keep finding them in the street playing I have one recourse to get my life- protecting point across--turn one part of their anatomy red hot so that my point lights up brightly in another part of their anatomy--because the distance is remarkably short from here (seat) to here (head)!!!]
      3. And #2, I discipline my children in order to prepare them for life. [That's why parents can be such burdensome sticklers when it comes to doing a thorough job--be it doing the dishes or cleaning the room, etc., etc. Because they've got their eye on their children's future. Prepare them for life now, while they're within reach!]
      4. Protecting them, preparing them--either way it is to be out of loving concern that a parent administers discipline--SO THAT HER CHILDREN WILL GROW UP TO LIVE A FULL AND FULFILLING LIFE.
      5. PLEASE NOTE: Parental discipline is not supposed to halt or terminate life--it is for the sake of extending and expanding life.
      6. Illus: Let's say I put some chocolate chip cookies (our family favorite) off limits to Kirk and Kristin.
        1. I don't want them to eat the cookies in between meals--so save them for supper--those are my instructions.
        2. But later on I discover that in a moment of great weakness they each disobeyed my efforts to protect their digestive processes as well as encourage their self-control--they each ate two cookies a piece.
        3. How shall I discipline them? Shall I spank them for 1 hour each or 2 hours (1 hr/cookie) or 5 hours?
        4. Come on, you retort, be reasonable...THE DISCIPLINE OUGHT TO BE COMMENSURATE WITH THE CRIME....a swat on the wrist perhaps or No cookies now at supper...or maybe an exercise on the gluteus maximus...should be sufficient.
        5. And of course, you're right.
        6. Because if I spanked my children for 5 hours straight, I'd be turned in for child abuse, wouldn't I? What kind of parent would I be?
      7. I try not to discipline my children as if I were madder than hell at them.
    6. Now pardon my saying "madder than hell"....I don't use that expression...but frankly, that is exactly what people think hell is all about!
      1. An angry Divine Parent punishing His children FOREVER because they rebelled against Him.
      2. What was the title of that famous sermon? "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."
      3. Now, look--we all know that there ARE rebellious children in life.
      4. And it may be that one day your child will run away from home and rebel against you and never come home again.
      5. I have witnessed the tears of parents who've gone through that heartache.
      6. It may be your child or my child one day, God forbid.
      7. But in the end children are free to go their way, aren't they, in the end?
      8. Remember the truth about love? LOVE, IN ORDER TO BE LOVE, MUST NOT ONLY give you the right to say YES to it, but it must also give you the right to say NO.
      9. So how will a loving parent respond to that rebellious child in the end...grown up and defiant and refusing to come home.
      10. Illus: Is there any parent here who would choose to douse that rebellious child with flammable liquid, ignite it, and then administer intravenous injections every 24 hours to keep that burning child alive forever....or how about for only a lifetime....or how about for only a year...or how about for only a month...a week...a day...an hour...a minute.....a second? Is there a parent who would do this for even a second?
    7. "OUR FATHER WHO IS IN HEAVEN, HALLOWED BE YOUR NAME."
    8. If we who are evil wouldn't do it, then how about a good and loving God?

  4. CALVARY
    1. Hell...there are three critical interlocking components that must be inter- connected if we would arrive at the truth about hell: SIN (the fatal choice some people make to be disconnected from God, their eternal life support system ); PARENTHOOD (the moving portrait of God who perfectly portrays the highest ideals of loving parenting); and finally, CALVARY.
    2. Because what we encounter at the cross of Jesus is the ULTIMATE DEMONSTRATION of SIN'S ULTIMATE CONSEQUENCE.
    3. Illus: Let's go back to the ancient prophet Isaiah and reread the two verses we shared a few evenings ago--Isaiah 53:5,6 (p 710).
      1. "And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."
      2. That awful lonely wail from the center cross on Good Friday, which seemed hardly good at all to the crestfallen followers of Jesus of Nazareth, captures the depth of that terrible sacrifice the Son of God and Son of Man was making: "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?"
      3. "And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."
      4. He was being abandoned, cut off, forsaken as a consequence of bearing the sins of the human race upon His breaking heart.
      5. But would you please take careful note of this:
        1. The word for "forsaken" that the Gospel of Mark records in Christ's death cry is the very same word that the Book of Hebrews uses for a very opposite kind of meaning.
        2. [show on screen] "My God, why have you forsaken Me?" (Mark 15:34) quoting Jesus and "For He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.'" quoting God (Hebrews 13:5)
        3. FORSAKE.
        4. What God promises NOT to do to us in Hebrews 13, He does to Jesus in Mark 15!
      6. What's happening on that center cross?
    4. Ah.....it is hell....that's what's happening!
      1. The sins of this planet in rebellion are being played out to their ultimate consequence in the death of Jesus.
      2. This is what the plan of salvation has come to!
      3. The hellish, horrible separation that sin causes between man and God is now happening between Christ and God.
      4. Voluntarily, I remind you, Jesus made the choice to go through with this dark horror of sin's separation.
      5. "The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."
      6. "My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
      7. BEFORE OUR EYES JESUS DIES THE SECOND DEATH, THE ETERNAL SEPARATION.
      8. Disconnecting from the divine life support system.
      9. He who had shared an unbroken relationship with the Father for eternity...now dies with that awful separation apparent to His heart: "My God, My God...."
      10. WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?
        1. He does not cry out, WHAT HAVE YOU KILLED ME?
        2. He does not cry out, WHY ARE YOU BURNING ME?
        3. Note it carefully, ladies and gentlemen: Death...the 2nd death ...to the suffering Christ is portrayed in all its horror--it is the full and final separation from the Father.
      11. Not by choice of the Father...oh no....it the choice of the child...the son, the daughter...and there on Calvary....Jesus lives and dies the horrible reality of sin's 2nd death
      12. She who has a relationship with God has life, and he who has not a relationship with God has not life.
      13. And Jesus was voluntarily dying the death of those who will ultimately make the unthinkable choice of disconnecting from God who is their only life support.
      14. He died this death so that all those who would put their trust in Him might never have to die it!
    5. My friend, HELL IS UGLY.
      1. Not because it is fire...for it is NOT ultimately about fire.
      2. What hell and the 2nd death are all about is the tragic but inevitable consequence of disconnecting from our divine Life Support System.
      3. Knowing that He was dying as a consequence of the world's rebellion and sin, knowing that such a death would be eternal, JESUS WEPT IN THE DARKNESS...HIS BROKEN HEART CRYING OUT FOR THE ONE HE WAS WILLING TO BE SEPARATED FROM FOR ETERNITY.
      4. Jesus Himself experienced the anguish of feeling eternally forsaken and cut off from God, just as the sinner will experience it at the moment of second death.
      5. If we don't understand this, we can't possibly understand the sacrifice that Jesus made when He died for us.
      6. And all of it, because of God's undying love for sinners like you and me!
      7. So that we could one day be with the Father forever, Jesus was willing to never be with Him again.
      8. And that is truth about the Love "that marched into hell for a heavenly cause" as the songwriter once put it.

  5. SIN...FATHER...CALVARY...there they are...three critical interlocking components ...when they are all played out...they tell the truth about HELL.
    1. I repeat, hell is not ultimately about fire.
    2. Oh yes, there will be fire in the end!
    3. Take a look at II Peter 3:9-12 (p 1167)
      1. Please note that this earth will be enveloped in flames--the atmosphere around it, the planet within it--all of it will "melt with fire," as Peter puts it.
      2. But then notice what happens to the earth--v. 13!
      3. I.e. this place of hell fire becomes a brand new garden!
      4. Is that concept unique to Peter?
    4. No!--take a look at Revelation!
      1. Rev. 20 (p 1189) is the chapter in the Bible that describes the millennium. We're going to study the millennium in a future lecture.
      2. But for now let's read two verses in this chapter that describe the same earth-enveloping fire that Peter describes that will cleanse the earth of sin and impurity they contain the true Bible prophecy of hell vv. 14,15.
      3. THERE IT IS-- The same account that Peter described.
      4. No question here we are dealing with THE FIRES OF HELL!
      5. But just like Peter, notice what John describes next--21:1!
    5. THIS IS A CRITICAL POINT TO NOTE--please understand what the Bible is teaching: THIS PLANET EARTH IS TO BE THE SITE OF GOD'S CLEANSING FIRES THAT WE AND THE SCRIPTURES HAVE CALLED "HELL."
      1. HELL is not some distant place in the universe where the wicked go to burn forever--HELL IS THAT MOMENT IN TIME WHEN THE FIRES OF CLEANSING WILL DISSOLVE THIS ENTIRE PLANET-- AND ALL THOSE WHO HAVE CHOSEN TO DISCONNECT THEMSELVES FROM GOD'S LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM--i.e. all who have willfully rejected the salvation Christ has offered us as Savior of the world.
      2. That is what HELL is--the final separation from God as the Source of all life--the awful annihilation of all who freely choose to live apart from God--which is of course an anomaly--since no one can live apart from God.
      3. But God honors the freedom of His children to say NO to Him, all the while knowing that by their saying NO they are shutting off their own LIFE SUPPORT system.
      4. The fires of hell are what burn up and cleanse away every trace of sin and sinner in the end.
      5. CONSISTENTLY and LOGICALLY that has to be the truth about hell--FOR, WHEN THE FIRES HAVE COMPLETED THEIR WORK, GOD CREATES A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH RIGHT HERE WHERE hell fires have been burning!
      6. Hell simply cannot be forever, simply by virtue of the fact that the fires burn on this very planet, and when they have completed their destruction, they are extinguished, and God creates a brand new earth, a brand new Garden of Eden!
    6. Ah, but you exclaim, what do you do with the verses that describe these fires as burning forever?
      1. A very fair and important question.
      2. Matthew 25:41 is a good example [show on screen] (p 962)-- "everlasting fire."
      3. But take a very careful look at how the Bible uses that word "forever" or "eternal."
        1. Jude 7 (p 1173)--Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed with "eternal fire"--but does that mean that we can go there today and find the fires burning? Hardly, since S&G are now under the Dead Sea!
        2. Obviously, what the Bible means by eternal fires is that the results of the fire are to be ETERNAL, not the process of the burning itself!
        3. But didn't Jesus say something about a fire that could not be quenched? Yes, Mark 9:43 (p 979)
        4. But notice how Christ is using those words--see Jeremiah 17:27 (p 748).
        5. Obviously, the fires of Jerusalem were eventually extinguished after Nebuchadnezzar sacked the city I was there myself this summer no fires burning in the gates--therefore, "not be quenched" means that nothing could put it out until the fire had completed its task.
        6. Illus: Jonah prays in the belly of the whale and says he was there "forever" (2:6)--which actually was 4 days!
        7. Illus: And the child Samuel was to abide in the temple "forever"--which meant for him as long as he was a child there.
        8. It is imperative that you realize that the word "forever" does not always mean forever and ever--but means the duration until something is completed or has run its course.
    7. And that is what is meant by the fires of hell being forever--they will burn until they have run their course and completed their purpose with results that will last for eternity.
      1. There is NO SECOND CHANCE after hell--and hell is not a purgatory-like CLEANSING in preparation for another life.
      2. Hell means TOTAL AND FINAL ANNIHILATION INTO NON- EXISTENCE--severed from the life support system forever!
      3. But mark it clearly, ladies and gentlemen--HELL CANNOT MEAN THAT THE PROCESS IS FOREVER--nobody will burn forever and ever--the consequence of their being burned up will be forever and ever but not the process!.
      4. Illus: That is why Malachi 4:1-3 is so clear! (p 931)
      5. Illus: In fact read Ezekiel 28:18,19 (p 831 )if you'd like to know the eternal fate of Lucifer who plunged the universe and God and all of us into this awful, awful chapter!
      6. ASHES and SHALL BE NO MORE FOREVER--how much more explicit could God be in rejecting the teaching of an everlasting hell?
    8. Illus: It is no wonder that leading Bible scholars of many different denominations are returning to this profound truth!
      1. John R. W. Stott, one of the most respected Christian scholars today, considers the concept of eternal consciousness in an eternal fire to be "intolerable" and does "not understand how people can live with it without either cauterizing their feelings or cracking under the strain."
      2. John Wenham, Stott's fellow British theologian, agrees: "I believe that endless torment is a hideous and unscriptural doctrine which has been a terrible burden on the mind of the church for many centuries and a terrible blot on her presentation of the gospel."
      3. Anglican archbishop William Temple once remarked: "One thing we can say with confidence: Everlasting torment is to be ruled out....It is the fire that is called aeonian [everlasting], not the life cast into it."
      4. The influential Roman Catholic theologian Hans Kung asked: "What would we think of a human being who satisfied his thirst for revenge so implacably and insatiably?" "The idea not only of a lifelong, but even eternal punishment of body and soul, seems to many people absolutely monstrous."
      5. And finally, the American theologian Clark Pinnock has written: "Everlasting torture is intolerable from a moral point of view because it pictures God acting like a bloodthirsty monster who maintains an everlasting Auschwitz for his enemies whom he does not even allow to die....I suppose one might be afraid of [a God like that], but could we love and respect him?...Antony Flew [an influential atheistic philosopher] was right to object that if Christians really believe that God created people with the full intention of torturing some of them in hell forever, they might s well give up the effort to defend Christianity."
    9. You see, my friends, hell is not about the scorching of the fire....it is about separating from the Father. [show on screen]
      1. Not by the Father's choice, but by the choice of the rebel runaway child.
      2. LEAVE ME ALONE is a prayer every parent eventually answers.
      3. But when parents are written off....they are not ticked off....they are broken-hearted.
      4. Illus: Which is why you can hear God sobbing in Scripture. [show screen]
        1. Listen to Him weeping over His rebel children in Hosea 11:8-- "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel?...My heart churns within Me; My sympathy is stirred."
        2. Hear Him sobbing over His enemies in Isaiah 15 and 16: "My heart cries out over Moab....So I weep, O Heshbon, I drench you with My tears!...My heart laments for Moab like a harp, My inmost being laments."
        3. Listen to Jesus weeping over Jerusalem in Matthew 23: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who killed the prophets and stoned those I sent to you. How often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing."
      5. Like a mother weeping over her rebellious child, God and Jesus weep and sob.
      6. My friend, if you think hell is about an angry God or a just and vengeful God who wants to get the last lick, then perhaps you need to gaze again at His portrait in this Book.
    10. For you see, hell's darkest moment will surely be that moment when God finally accepts the decision of those who have rejected Him and have spurned His offer to love them and sustain them throughout eternity.
      1. Unrepentant to the end.
      2. Heartbroken, God slowly ascends to His throne.
      3. And with His face in His hands, He weeps uncontrollably.
      4. And all who chose to accept God's friendship and His offer to come be with Him for eternity...even they shall weep....
      5. For at last in all its sublime and ineffable glory...they have seen the truth about God....
      6. And it is the truth--GOD IS LOVE.


    Further Study:

    Discover Guide - What And Where Is Hell?     (Lecture Study Guide from Discover Bible School)




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