Sermon Tone Analysis

1855 Children’s Tract (Intro)

The eyes of a young man are burning like coals.

Long flames come out of his ears.

He hardly can breathe.

When he opens his mouth blazing fire rolls out of it.

The blood is boiling in his veins.

the brain is boiling and bubbling in his head.

The Marrow is boiling in his bones, and yet he is concious, and one can talk to him.

He will be suffering torment and pain not only for hundreds of millions of years but throughout eternity.

This description of hell is found in a tract for children published in 1855.

Does the Bible know of such a place called hell?

1855 to 2018 somehow even though we have studied so many concepts in the Bible in many ways recieved further light…our concept of a hell message has not evolved largely.

As Christians we have talked at length, God does not only represent love, but God is love!

This picture of hell, as it is often presented, for me and I think many others, doesn’t seem to fit together.

Someone might counter…well “the way Adventists interpret Hell” is not that.

You are so very correct.

Our Bible studies do not preach that message…but is it possible some of us live in such a way that we believe a hell such as described exists?

That is one of the questions I intend for us to examine this morning.

A long the way, I also intend to determine…Is there a hell?

If so what is it?

and what does it look like, and what is its purpose?

If you came to worship today, and were not particularly looking to hear about Hell, you rather hear about Hope or Heaven.

If we are authentic and remain true to the texts…I believe this message is one full of hope, and our eyes will be lifted and our hearts will yearn for Heaven!

PRAY

Is there a hell?

Matthew

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Matthew

Luke

If you are looking in your Bibles, if you have red letter Bibles: Red identifying words of Christ, you’ll find these statements are made by Jesus.

First off it appears Jesus is aware of there being a hell and it does not seem like something any of us would want to have a part in.

Matthew 7:13-14

There does appear to only be 2 options: Life eternal as given by Christ, or this other hell option.

Someone here might be tempted say, Pastor Ross, it kind of appears like you might be trying suggest hell isn’t as bad as we’ve pictured.

Well scripturally as we can see, theres no way to sugar coat hell into being something peaceful or good.

In fact I would even go as far as suggesting Hell may be worse than you have pictured.

Worse in the sense, that we tend to focus on physical suffering and don’t think of what we could have really missed out on! Hell is bad news!

You will not hear me deny that.

What I will tell you, is it would be incredibly flawed to say, because God is a God of love and mercy, that Hell cannot exist.

Hell still fits into the picture of a loving God…just not that picture described at the beginning.

I like how Ty Gibson puts it:

It’s no secret that Christianity is dying in Western countries.

There are a number of factors contributing to this trend, but maybe the biggest is the fact that mainstream Christianity is asking the world to believe two doctrines that together compose the most diabolical picture of God imaginable—predestination and eternal torment.

Think this through.

Predestination, as generally taught, says God decides each person’s eternal destiny—saved or lost.

Then, “lost” is defined as spending eternity in the flames of hell.

The logical conclusion?

God creates some people for the purpose of torturing them forever.

They have no choice, because God chose their fate.

“It’s all part of His sovereign plan, for His inscrutable glory,” we’re told.

“Who are you to question God?”

Many rational people simply cannot believe in a God like this.

Nor can I.

Yet I do believe in God.

To unbelievers, I’d say something like this: You know that God you don’t believe in?

Well, I don’t believe in him either.

In 1823, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to John Adams, expressing his unbelief:

In 1823, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to John Adams, expressing his unbelief:

“I can never join Calvin in addressing his god.

He was indeed an atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism.

If ever man worshipped a false god, he did.

The being described in his five points, is not the god you and I acknowledge and adore, the Creator and benevolent governor of the world; but a daemon or malignant spirit.

It would be more pardonable to believe in no god at all, than to blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin.

‘The value of deism, in its last and American ambit, was that it prevented confessional religion from driving human beings into atheism as its only alternative.’”

(Michael Buckley, At the Origins of Modern Atheism, quoting a letter in 1823 by Thomas Jefferson to John Adams).

Jefferson saw the god of Calvinism as demonic, but at the same time he believed the true God must be better than that.

What if we proclaimed to the world a picture of God that looks like this:

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved” ().

This calvinistic picture of of Christ describes a vindictive vengeful God.

I don’t know about you but, this description seems inconsistent with Jesus Christ the saviour.

The one who was willing to be sacrificed just to give us the opportunity to accept his saving grace!

What do you do when you don’t understand something about God?

You go to him for answers.

I have mentioned before the example we see in Daniel when he came to some troubling inconsistencies about God.

In , Daniel is worried about a coming suffering or potential destruction of his people so he pleads with God even intercedes with God.

He reminds God of his noble character.Daniel interceded with the Lord on behalf of his people by appealing to the character of God, to His mercy and grace, wanting to preserve His reputation in the world as such.

God revealed to Daniel, there would be traumatic events in the future but gives him the assurance God would never abandon his faithful people.

Every suffering God’s people had gone through and would go through God was and will be there!

But what about those who reject God…what does their future hold.

Let me be precise in the language use.

The hell that is described in scripture is a prophetic future event and experience.

What is described is a destruction and eternal fire.

Hell has not happened yet.

Lets answer the question:

What does Hell look like?

Some Bible translators have rendered various words with “hell” which in reality have other meanings.

Four words have been translated with the term “hell.”

Sheol

Sheol is mentioned 66 times in Old testament.

It is the realm of the dead who are in the grave.

The greek translation will usually will use the term Hades.

- -Jacob expects to go down to sheol/the grave, to his son Joseph.

- -God brings down to sheol/the grave and raises up

1

- -In sheol/the grave there is no activity, no planning, and no knowledge.

Sheol is the place of the dead.

There is no fire, neither is there torment mentioned.

The righteous and the unrighteous are there.

2. Hades

Hades is found ten times in the New Testament.