Sermon Tone Analysis

Select all the text in this box and paste your sermon here...

“The Doctrine of Hell”

Hell is not an easy doctrine of the Church to accept, nor is it a pleasant topic to dwell upon, frankly – as I’m sure most of you agree.

It is apparent to me that most present day pulpit pastors concur.

When is the last time you heard a sermon about it?

C.S. Lewis said that “There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power.

But it has the full support of Scripture…and it has the support of reason.”

The Bible’s teachings on the fate of the rebellious make me grateful that God has shown mercy on me, a poor sinner.

What surprises some who object to the Doctrine of Hell is that Jesus had a lot to say in support of the belief.

Scholars have determined that He said more about hell than about heaven.

Many other verses could be cited, but this excerpt from Matthew 25:31-43 (NIV) offers a representative example of Christ speaking about eternal hell; “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory.

All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left … Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’”

The theological concept of hell, or eternal damnation is expressed differently within both Eastern and Western Christianity

The Eastern Orthodox church teaches that heaven and hell are being in God's presence, which is being with God and seeing God, and that there is no such place as where God is not, nor is hell taught in the East as separation from God. Orthodox thinkers widely hold that immediately following a human being's physical death, his or her surviving spiritual dimension experiences a foretaste of either heaven or hell.

Hell and heaven is defined as being in God's presence, experiencing punishment and paradise depending on the person's spiritual state in that presence.

For one who hates God, to be in the presence of God eternally would be the gravest suffering.

In addition, heaven and hell are not understood as spatial destinations, but rather refer to the experience of God's presence according to these two different modes.

The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church generally prefers to describe hell as a "place or state" of eternal punishment.

They define hell as an existence involving self-exclusion from communion with God.

Their theolgians believe that hell is where the the wicked are, in which they are deprived of the sight of God for all eternity, and are in dreadful torments.

What follows are the Protestant positions in overview form.

~~~~~

Introduction

A man once said to me, “You think that if people do not believe in Christ we are lost and condemned.

I’m sorry, I just cannot buy that.

I work with some fine and moral people who follow other Faiths or don’t believe in the God of the Bible.

I cannot believe they are going to hell at some point in time just because they don’t believe in what you believe.

In fact, I cannot reconcile the very idea of hell with a loving God.”

This man expressed what may be the main objection contemporary secular people have to the Christian message: they reject the idea of final judgment and hell.

They believe in heaven – at least many of them.

And only Hitler and the like go to hell – if there is such a place.

Some church people believe that God reconciles all to Himself in the end.

In fact, the church has various understandings as to how God deals with the wicked in death.

You may wonder how Christians can think differently about this issue; that is, after reading and studying the Bible they can go away with different or opposite conclusions.

In some ways, it’s because interpreting Scripture is so subjective.

It’s sometimes difficult to know what reality is versus what is the result of pre-conceived notions.

The Bible presents in an historical context, prophecy, miracles, poetry, wise sayings, parables, and, to some extent, allegories, and metaphors.

Some truths are framed in one or more of these literary forms.

Our job as Christians is to isolate great truths from them.

We’re told that one of the surest paths to correct biblical understanding is to follow the long-held principle that Scripture interprets Scripture.

If some passage isn’t clear in itself, often the most helpful procedure is to turn to other similar passages that may cast light on the one being studied.

It’s not fool-proof, but it goes a long way in minimizing error.

Many of the contradictory conclusions reached in Bible study can be traced back to an interpreter not considering the Bible as a whole or within the context of its various natures.

Another reason for drawing different conclusions about an issue can be caused by a particular English Bible translation.

A few of them use words or phrases that time and modern scholarship has proven incorrect or inadequate compared to the better ancient manuscripts written originally in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.

Other factors are our approach to biblical understanding, our personal view of the authority of Scripture, and our vulnerability to social secular values.

In explaining the various doctrines of hell, we start by addressing the question that was put before me: “How can a loving God send people to hell.”

My answer will involve looks at Satan, demons, and the event known as the judgment of the Great White Throne.

I believe all of us should know more than we do about this issue of wickedness and salvation - at least to the extent that we know how they impact on our lives.

You see, we as Christians are told that we’re at war with all that is contrary to the kingdom of God.

Ephesians 6:11-12 (NIV) says: “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand…For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

My first recollection of sadness and disaster was as a small boy of six or seven years of age.

I was walking home from school, when a young child about three years of age fell in front of a coal truck and was struck down.

I watched in horror as that panicked driver backed up the truck, causing one of the tires to roll over the little boy’s head and snuff out his life.

It took three men to pull the screaming mother away from the little body.

Several years later I watched a teenager running on top of stationary train cars trip and reach out for balance.

Unfortunately, he grabbed the overhead power line and 50,000 volts or more of electricity penetrated his body.

He fell, and flames began to arise from his clothing.

Helplessly, I watched him literally cook to blackness and death.

Forever in my mind, is the phone call my father made to me one evening when I was a young married man.

He told me that little, Janice, the five-year-old daughter of my youngest sister had, moments before, suffocated while playing with a sheet of plastic material.

Personal tragedy is all around us.

People confront failure and broken dreams.

The problems of local crime or run-away children, divorce, bankruptcies, bigotry and illicit drug usage seem to go on and on.

Stories of husbands beating wives and children; mothers killing unwanted babies and children; Incestuous, illicit and bestial sex acts seem all too commonplace.

The greed and arrogance of misleading business people and government leaders seem to be increasing.

Rudeness and selfishness are the rule in many quarters.

The list goes on and on.

It’s no wonder that moments of personal joy are such a treasured commodity.

We’re all aware of the senseless actions of war and the brutality of mass murderers and terrorists whose numbers seem to increase and intensify as the years go by.

For example, no spectator can erase the sight of a hijacked commercial jet crashing into the World Trade Center back in 2001 – and then watching both buildings tumble down minutes later with a roar and a loss of almost 3,000 people.

The Bible tells us it will stop one day when the new heavens and the new earth bring peace and joy.

The Bible tells us that all sin will disappear because the root cause, Satan and his cronies the demons will lose every bit of their remaining power at the time of the Great White Throne Judgment of Christ.

In the meantime, we have to deal with it.

The smart way is to follow the apostle Paul’s instructions and put on the armor of God – meaning that as a child of God, we cover ourselves with the commands of Christ by committing to a full surrender to His will as we walk our walk.

Modern Interpretations of Hell Within the Church

Theologians have developed different beliefs about how God deals with the rebellious – the unrepentant – the rejectors of God and His Son – and by so doing, the Holy Spirit too.

There are five prominent ways we church people look at how God deals with unrepentant sinners when He ends this world as we know it:

Belief One – There is no such place called hell, so don’t bother even thinking about such a place.

Belief Two – There is a hell for the wicked and it’s a scary and literal place.

Belief Three – There is a hell for the wicked, but maybe it isn’t a place of fire and brimstone; rather it is psychological torment - an anguished frame of mind.

Belief Four – If there is a place called hell, the wicked will only be there for a short time before they cease to exist.

They will be executed; annihilated.

Belief Five – There is a hell for the very wicked, but if you are not too bad and you wish to repent, you can have a second chance after you die.

Let’s look at each one of these prevailing beliefs or viewpoints more closely because they bring into question the very essence of God.

Viewpoint One: Universalism

Universalism believes everybody will have eternal life – meaning that ultimately humanity will be in infinite fellowship with God.

Proponents say the traditional doctrine of hell, which says there is a divine eternal punishment, is inconsistent with the character of God.

A God of love will not allow anyone to perish or be punished unendingly.

Instead, God will somehow bring all people to Himself.

The doctrine of eternal punishment, they teach, is disproportionate to any crimes that could be committed by a human.

People can only commit a finite amount of sin, yet the church doctrine of hell calls, for the most part, a non-ending punishment, and common sense seems to suggest that few (if any) people deserve such punishment.

Their theology maintains that it is unreasonable for God to give such flawed and ignorant creatures as ourselves the awesome responsibility of determining through free choice our eternal destinies – or that God would arbitrarily discard some people for eternity.

Belief in universal salvation is at least as old as Christianity.

History has shown that men and women don’t like the idea that deep down they are sinfully dirty in God’s sight.

That is a horrible thought to them, and it should be abhorrent to people of intelligence.

In the past few decades, several denominations that have not been open to the doctrine of universalism seem to be moving closer to it.

Sadly, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America or the ELCA is one example.

Some of its ministers openly teach the salvation of all -- although this is not an official teaching of the denomination.