Hot! Don't Touch.
However, as with most children, my daughter had to be warned not to touch. The allure of the fire was tempting. It was pretty to watch and the warmth felt good on cold days. But I knew better than my sweet little girl. I wanted to protect her from pain and harm, and so I lovingly and consistently repeated the warning: “Hot! Don’t touch.”
We are surrounded by warnings every day. “No Diving.” “Dead End.” “Hazardous Materials.” “Poison.” We appreciate these words of caution because they keep us safe. They make us aware of potentially harmful or deadly situations so we can avoid them. And yet, for some reason, many churches in our culture today have ceased to warn people of the greatest threat, the ultimate danger, the worst harm that could ever possibly befall us: Hell.
A universalist mindset fueled by cultural idealism and political correctness, coupled with an over-emphasis on God’s love and a neglect of His holiness has caused the topic of Hell to fall to the wayside. Many have chosen to eliminate this particular doctrine altogether. It’s offensive. Unfashionable. And, to be blunt, it cuts in on the fun we want to have and the good times we feel we’re entitled to.
Nobody wants to think about Hell, therefore fewer and fewer modern churches see fit to talk about it. Yet gentle Jesus, the humble Lamb of God, spoke more about Hell than any other person in the Bible. Why? Because God, like the good Father that He is, desires to warn us of the danger to our souls.
My daughter’s curiosity got the better of her one day. She briefly touched the front of our stove and discovered the truth of my warnings for herself. But tears can be dried and blistered fingers can heal. With Hell there is no turning back. We cannot, after death, on the brink of the lake of eternal fire, pull our hand back at the last second and avoid the wrath of God. We must heed God’s loving warning now, or perish forever. We must talk — lovingly and consistently — about Hell.
Mind the Gap
"We need to see the gap before we will ever see our need for the bridge."
Now it’s not false to say that God loves His children and that there are many incredible benefits to a relationship with Jesus. But what we can get from God is not the draw card of salvation. For the good news to make sense, we have to talk about the bad news first. We have to present the truth of Jesus as the only hope for condemned sinners under the wrath of Almighty God.
When we avoid the bad news of Hell, God’s wrath, and eternal punishment for our sins, we in effect make the good news optional. Our gospel becomes unbalanced and our churches become more about programs and people-pleasing than faithfulness to Scripture and disciple-making. We reserve the idea of Hell for the worst of the worst (if we keep it at all), forgetting that “no one is good except God alone” (Matthew 10:18).
Losing sight of God’s holiness and the monumental offense of our sin strips His justice of its meaning. Why do we need justice if everybody is basically good? But the Bible tells us, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one” (Romans 3:10–12).
Not even one. Let that sink in. Not even the best, most generous, loving, kind, charitable person you’ve ever known is headed to Heaven of their own merit. Humanity’s chief dilemma is that God is holy and we are not. We need to see the immense gap between ourselves and the One whose name is Holy before we will ever see our need for the bridge.
Heart Problems
Sure, we recognize that some people do bad things. We may even confess that evil exists in the world. But to admit that evil exists within our own hearts and within the people we know and love? That’s going too far.
We judge the tyrants, murderers, rapists and child molesters by their actions, but ourselves by our good intentions. Yet the same greed and desire for control that births a tyrant lives in us. The same anger and hatred that fuels murder seeps out in our foul language and cruel gossip. The lust and perversion that drives sexual offenders overflows in our use of pornography and the way we objectify men and women as nothing more than an attractive face and pleasurable body.
Jesus said our problem is not with our actions, but with our hearts: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person” (Matthew 15:19–20). Our sinful actions are merely the symptoms of a greater disease: hearts that have utterly rejected God and His rule.
All sin derives its evil from the fact that we have exchanged an infinitely beautiful, infinitely satisfying God for things of infinitely lesser value. We have essentially said to God, “I don’t want you. You don’t satisfy me. I don’t find you desirable. I get no pleasure from You. I want things my way. I want what I want and I’m going to make sure I get it.”
This is the essence of sin. And this is why if we fail to deal with our sin problem, if we fail to have a new heart and a new spirit put within us by God’s grace (Ezekiel 36:26), then we will find ourselves faced with the awful reality of Hell — “good” person or not.
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
What sinners want is their sin, not Hell. It’s the same as wanting an activity without the consequences. Promiscuity without pregnancy. Drinking without hangovers. Smoking without lung cancer. The consequence of desiring sin is Hell, but that doesn’t make Hell desirable.
The person who wakes up in Hell will be horrified beyond words. The cry of Hell is not “Let’s party!” It’s “I want out!” When a person jokes about wanting to go to Hell, they’re operating under the false impression that Hell is within the limits of what human beings can withstand. They think, All my friends will be there, and I’ll get to do whatever I want forever! But the reality is that nobody goes to Hell willingly.
"The person who wakes up in Hell will be horrified beyond words."
When those who rejected God in this life finally see what awaits them, they will know true terror for the first time. Nobody in their right mind would ever choose Hell, but unfortunately what’s out of sight is often out of mind. This is why it is the responsibility of those who have escaped Hell’s fire to bring it to the minds of those still in danger of its horrors.
Eternal. Conscious. Torment.
- “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. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12).
- “The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:41–42).
- “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46).
- “The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 24:50–51).
- “And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire … 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’” (Mark 9:43).
- “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many” (Matthew 7:13).
"Hell never ends. Never."
At death, all stolen virtue is reclaimed by God and the fullness of sin will be unleashed upon those who have enthroned it in their hearts. The unrepentant will be dehumanized by depravity and given up to the darkness they have so loved (John 3:19).
People in Hell are conscious. There are no breaks. There is no rest, no sleep: “and they have no rest, day or night” (Revelation 14:11). In Hell there are no vacations. No naps. No quiet spots in which to retreat. People in Hell are constantly aware and they are completely and utterly without escape.
Hell is torment. The word torment means “severe physical or mental suffering.” Here are just some of the ways people in Hell suffer: Because it is a bottomless pit, people in Hell are in a state of constant free fall. There is no solid ground on which to stand, no substance, no recognizable features. Because Hell is an unquenchable fire, people in Hell burn like live coals — not for an instant or even for a day, but for thousands upon thousands of lifetimes.
Because Hell is outer darkness, there is no light by which to see. Because Hell is destruction, those who are there experience death without dying. They weep. They grind their teeth. They suffer constant agony with no hope of reprieve. This is the Hell Jesus described, and this is the Hell we must warn people about. Not a watered down version. Not annihilation. Eternal. Conscious. Torment.
The Whole Gospel
"We need to preach the whole gospel, not just the pleasant parts."
The reality of Hell should jar us from our contented, comfortable, spiritual slumber and move us to share the gospel boldly, without hesitation. But when we preach, it needs to be the whole gospel, not just the pleasant parts. We diminish the good news by overlooking the bad news, and we cannot minimize God’s wrath without rendering His mercy meaningless.
Hell is the default destination of every person who has ever lived, no exceptions. Hell will not be tolerable; it will be terrible beyond comprehension. But Jesus Christ, the Son of God, plunged to the bottom of the bottomless pit. He quenched the unquenchable fire with the spilling of His blood, and banished the darkness once and for all with His precious light (John 1:4–5)!
Christ took the punishment for the whole world upon Himself on the cross — a punishment we never would have been able to fulfill, even after a million years of Hell’s torment. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24). Where we have failed, Christ is victorious! After drinking the cup of God’s wrath, the Son of Man uttered the blessed words, “It is finished” (John 19:30).
This is the gospel: that those who would otherwise have been without hope, apart from God, and destined for an eternity in Hell now have a way back in Jesus Christ. The world has no answer to God's wrath. Christ alone is able to reconcile sinners to God. Because of Him, there is hope for all who surrender and repent of sin. Jesus has once and for all bridged the gap between unholy sinners and a Holy God! But we must heed God’s warning now.
Death is less like approaching a destination far off in the distance and more like treading along a slippery canyon rim — at any moment we could plunge over the edge. The sin that allures and promises warmth in this life will deliver only pain and everlasting harm. Our Heavenly Father is mercifully reaching out to pull us back from the flames. He is “patient toward [us], not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Therefore, let us come to Christ in faith and repentance…and live