REVIEW
FLIP CHART: SOM’S KEY VERSE, GOAL, MOTTO
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness ….” (Mt. 6:33a).
The law sends us to Christ for justification; Christ sends us back to the law for sanctification.
FLIP CHART: Show new “Perfect Righteousness” chart explaining steps to coming to Christ (As a worm, mourning, meek, spiritual hunger/thirst with the result of legal righteousness). Explain: moral righteousness, immediate moral change at conversion, gradual change through life’s challenges and speeding up moral change via CCRC (Concentration, Choice, Reflection and Confession/Thanksgiving). Key verse, “By one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Heb. 10:14).
FLIP CHART: John Stott’s outline of SOM.
TEACHING GOAL: Answer basic questions about the Biblical teaching on hell.
REVIEW: In his Sermon Jesus set forth the Beautiful Attitudes for a believer, talked about our influence as salt and light, our need to surpass the righteousness of the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law. Then he focused on the need for heart purity, a spirit of non-retaliation and a love for our enemies. In chapter 6 he taught about piety, the need to give, pray and fast for an Audience of One. He gave us the great prayer that focused on God’s glory and included an emphasis on forgiveness. He taught us about keeping our treasure in heaven, trusting God to care for us as he does the birds of the air and grass of the field. The final admonition is against judgmentalism, and then he provided the Golden Rule as a guide for a Christian’s ethical behavior.
Now, in 7:13-27 he concludes his sermon by giving four specific illustrations about: travel, fruitfulness, relationship and building. Good sermons usually end with a good illustration:
ILL: I used one sermon in Indonesia, preaching it about 25 times, and with great success. The concluding illustration in this sermon on John 1:29 – “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” : I once read a story of a plane carrying a husband and wife and two other men from Detroit to Chicago. The plane crashed in Lake Michigan and only had a raft large enough for one person, a Mrs. Rini. The three men put her on the raft and clung to the raft while swimming in the cold waters. One by one they bid farewell and slipped into the depths of the icy water. Some hours later Mrs. Rini was saved. While recuperating in the hospital she told of the sacrifice of the three men. She was astounded by their generosity, care, concern and love for her. The next day a newspaper carried the headline, “Three Died for One.” But John 1:29 has even better news, “One Died for All.”
To finish up his sermon, Jesus gives four powerful illustrations, all with a goal to pressing his listeners for a decision. All of the illustrations have within them a dire warning, a warning that should encourage a positive response to his sermon.
“. . . wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it (7:13) . . . Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. (7:20) . . . Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ (7:23) . . . The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” (Mt. 7:27).
INTRODUCTION:
Review each of the word pictures in 7:13-27 focusing on the emphasis each holds on disaster.
All of these words: destruction, fire, separation, crash speak of very negative results from human choices. They are word pictures of hell.
The following two weeks will be a review and summation of two lessons on hell given while teaching the Sermon on the Mount in August, 2006 and based on Mt. 5:22, 29-30).
OUTLINE FOR TODAY:
1. The Moral Justification for Hell
2. A Brief Physical Description of Hell
3. The Eternity of Hell
4. The Suffering of Hell
5. God’s Solution to Eternal Suffering in Hell
OVERVIEW OF BIBLICAL TEACHING ON HELL
TABLE ACTIVITY: Choose a “Devil’s Advocate” for each table. Count out the class members so that we have five at each table. The “Devil’s Advocate” will hold the position that the doctrine of hell is immoral and the most offensive doctrine in the Bible. He believes it shows that the Bible is false and Christianity a farce. According to him there is no ‘moral justification’ for hell and Christians need to reject the concept. The rest of the people at the table will try to graciously help him see the rational need for hell without quoting Bible verses. (‘Devil’s Advocate” is someone who takes the worst side of a position for the sake of argument.)
I. THE MORAL JUSTIFICATION FOR HELL
We must begin by saying that God is the most perfect, most loving, most gentle, most caring person in the universe and also the most just, most righteous and most holy. We can have full confidence that whatever He plans and does is right.
It is important to note also that God hates hell and he hates people going there. Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?’ (Ezek. 33:11).
God’s decision to create hell is “not based on modern American sentimentalism. This is one of the reasons why until modern times people have never had a difficult time with the idea of hell. People today tend to care only for the softer virtues like love and tenderness, while they’ve forgotten the hard virtues of holiness, righteousness and justice” (The Case for Faith, 174)
Bertrand Russell, the British philosopher and atheist, wrote: “There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ’s moral character, and that is that he believed in hell. I do not feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment” (The Case for Faith by Lee Strobel).
None of us should like hell or enjoy the thought of hell. But we need to set aside our feelings and evaluate whether or not hell is morally just, a morally right state of affairs, not whether we like it or not.
QUESTION: If someone told you that hell was morally unjustified,
how would you answer? What would you say?
A. Hell Is Necessary because of the Sinfulness of Sin and the Holiness of God.
The infinite dignity of the party offended by sin requires infinite punishment.
ILL: If I cut off and kill a neighbor’s pansy, I have done something that is wrong but there would be no punishment. What if I killed a neighbor’s cat? But then, what if I killed a neighbor’s child? The punishment needs to equal the crime.
Sin is a kind of infinite evil, as it wrongs an infinite God; and the guilt and defilement of it is never taken away, but endures forever, unless the Lord Himself in mercy remove it (Thomas Boston).
Is it just for God to send the devil to hell? Or should he let him into heaven. And what about Hitler? And Saddam Hussein? If he did that God would not be a good God.
So, what is the greatest sin? It would be the sin that offends the dignity of our infinite God the most? We find that sin by looking at what Jesus called the first and greatest commandment. Thus not loving God with all our hearts, and souls and minds is the greatest offense we can cause to God.
B. Hell is a direct consequence of God’s love
QUESTION: How can anyone make such a statement? Why would they make such a statement?
The fact that God is love makes hell necessary. “Hell,” as E.L. Mascall once said, “is not incompatible 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, but he does not force us because he respects us.”
“. . . . G.K. Chesterton once remarked that hell is a monument to human freedom – – and, we might add, human dignity. Hell is God’s tribute to the freedom he gave each of us to choose whom we would serve; it is a recognition that our decisions have a significance that extends far down the reaches of foreverness.” (The Universe Next Door, James W. Sire, pg. 40)
“Hell is God’s great compliment to the reality of human freedom and the dignity of human choice” (G.K. Chesterson).
C. Hell is God’s way of protecting sinful people from His presence
Finally, how could a sinful man every stand in the presence of a holy God? Hell is God’s way of protecting sinful people from His presence.
Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” (Rev. 6:15-17)
THE LOVE OF GOD http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/l/o/loveofgo.htm
The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from His sin.
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.
When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race –
The saints’ and angels’ song.
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
II. A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF HELL
Hell is ten times in the KJV translated from “Hades” the Greek term used for the general abode of the spirits of the dead, whether good or evil. When the cold hearted rich man died, his spirit was found in Hades, a place of torment and anguish. When Christ died it says that his soul was in Hades (Acts 2:27-31) elsewhere called “Paradise” (Luke 23:43).
The second term for hell is “tartarus,” only used one time in the NT. See II Peter 2:4, “God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to hell, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment …” Thus “tartarus” is the abode of the evil angels.
Most scholars thus believe that Hades is divided into two parts, one called “tartarus” where the evil dead wait the final judgment and the other “paradise” where the righteous dead await the final judgment.
“Gehenna” is the third term for hell and is a transliteration of the Hebrew word “Hinnom” from the expression, “The valley of Hinnom.” It denoted a ravine on the southern side of Jerusalem. It was where apostate Jews placed their children in the fiery arms of the pagan God Moloch while drums beat to muffle the children’s screams. It was thus an area of suffering and weeping and regarded as a place of heinous abomination. It became the city garbage dump for all refuse and where there was a continual burning.
“Gehenna” is the term used for Hell in Mt. 5:22 –“But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.”
Hell is described as a place of burning, fire and flames. It is a place also of darkness, a place of gnashing of teeth, a place where the worm does not die.
“… in danger of the fire of hell” (Mt.5:22). . . . “everlasting fire” (Mt. 18:8 and Mt. 25:41). . . . . “But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mt. 8:12). . . . . “Where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark. 9:48).
QUESTION: Are the flames “figurative” or “real?”
God represents the unseen world of heaven and hell using “earthly dress,” e.g. words we understand. Thus he refers to heaven as a city with gates of pearl and streets of gold. But pearls and gold will not be worthy of heaven. There is no way God would stoop to or need to make heaven of such earthly things.
Heaven is pictured as paradise, rest, feast, treasure but none of those phrases can adequately describe the beauty and joy of heaven.
So when our Lord speaks about flames and darkness in hell, he is doing his best to explain how utterly terrible hell is.
If they were real, how could you have a place of “outer darkness” with flames burning?
Secondly, we have word pictures of Christ returning to the earth with a large sword coming out of his mouth. “Out of His mouth came a sharp double-edged sword” (Rev. 1:16). The symbol of the sword stands for judgment. We don’t think that was a real, physical sword.
SO WHAT???
1. We must pay close attention to Mt. 7:13-27 for it is the application section of the Sermon.
2. Hell is necessary due to God’s holiness and man’s sinfulness.
3. Hell is morally justified. In fact hell is God’s monument to human freedom and dignity. We must thank God for the freedom and dignity He has accorded us.