Series: WHY? Answering the Big Questions of Faith

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This past Tuesday the Seattle Times ran an article titled "Most in state believe in God, poll finds"

• More than 90 percent of Americans - including one in five people who say they are atheists - believe in God or a universal power
• more than half pray at least once a day
• three-fourths of Americans believe in heaven as a place where people who have led good lives will be eternally rewarded.
• almost 60 percent believe in hell, where people who have led bad lives and die without repenting are eternally punished, the poll found.

 Among those living in Washington state:

• About 64 percent said they were absolutely certain in their belief in God or a universal spirit, compared with 71 percent nationally.
• About 54 percent pray at least once a day, compared to 58 percent nationally.
• A third attend religious services at least once a week, compared with 39 percent nationally.
• A quarter say their faith is the one true faith leading to eternal life, about the same as the 24 percent nationally.
• About 25 percent say there's only one true way to interpret the teachings of their religion, compared to 27 percent nationally.

Part of the reason the state and national percentages are close is that although many in Washington don't have formal religious ties, they are nonetheless spiritual.

The data indicate that those who are "spiritual but not religious believe in God and pray almost as much as affiliated people," said James Wellman, a University of Washington associate professor and author of "Evangelical vs. Liberal: The Clash of Christian Cultures in the Pacific Northwest."

When I read survey results like this, it reinforces our mission statement.

CGS exists to help spiritual wanderers become authentic followers of Jesus.

1.  What Is Hell?

The biblical picture of Hell = a separation from God's presence.

John 5:28-29 - "Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out-those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.

Matt 25:41 -    "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.

• His presence to heal
• His presence to comfort
• His presence to reveal
• His presence to guide
• His presence to help reconcile between people

Common picture = FIRE

Many of us don't like this.

H. Richard Niebuhr describes theological liberalism as "a God without wrath who brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross." 

2.  Insights from the Parable

Alexander Maclaren this is "the sternest of Christ's parables"

Odd that Lazarus has a name - the only named character in all of Jesus' parables.

If Lazarus has one...why not the rich man?

• Identity = RICH MAN

After they die, the Rich Man still expects Lazarus to be his servant

• Doesn't ask to get out of Hell
• Strongly hints that being in Hell isn't his fault (not enough information)

In that culture, the "Rich Man" was not a pagan

• Jewish descent
• Religious observation
• Base understanding of the Scriptures
• A spiritual wanderer within the four walls of the church

3. Hell is the Result of a Life Lived for Self ... Removing Self from the Possible List of Gods to Worship

The Rich Man spent his life building this identity "Rich Man"

• In that life, he knew his options
  • Choose God
  • Choose Self
• Consistantly he chose self

"Hell is simply one's freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory into infinity." - Tim Keller

Hell beings with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others. ... but you are still distinct from it.  You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it.  But there may come a day when you can no longer.  Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine.  It is not a question of God "sending us" to hell.  In each of us there is something growing which will BE Hell unless it is nipped in the bud. - C.S. Lewis

Romans 1:24 - Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.

The greatest judgment which God Himself can, in this present life, inflict upon a man is, to leave him in the hand of his own boasted free-will.-AUGUSTUS TOPLADY

There are only two kinds of people - those who say "Thy will be done" to God or those to whom God in the end says "They will be done."  All that are in Hell choose it.  Without that self-choice it wouldn't be Hell.  No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. - C.S. Lewis

 Hell is more than just this.  John Piper once said that Hell is not just a self-imposed consequence (like cigarette smoking leading to lung cancer).

Hell is also the penalty of God's wrath (like a judge sentencing a criminal to hard labor).

4. Hell is the Place for Judgment ... Taking Judgment Out of Our Hands

Miroslav Volf - a Croatian who has seen the violence of the Balkans

My thesis is that the practice of non-violence requires a belief in divine vengeance...My thesis will be unpopular with man in the West...But imagine speaking to people (as I have) whose cities and villages have been first plundered, then burned, and leveled to the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers have had their throats slit...Your point to them-we should not retaliate? Why not? I say-the only means of prohibiting violence by us is to insist that violence is only legitimate when it comes from God...Violence thrives today, secretly nourished by the belief that God refuses to take the sword...It takes the quiet of a suburb for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence is a result of a God who refuses to judge. In a scorched land-soaked in the blood of the innocent, the idea will invariably die, like other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind...if God were NOT angry at injustice and deception and did NOT make a final end of violence, that God would not be worthy of our worship. - Miroslav Volf Exclusion and Embrace.

-It is the lack of belief in a God of vengeance that "secretly nourishes violence"

-"If I don't believe that there is a God who will eventurally put all thigns right, I will take up the sword and will be sucked into the endless vortex of retaliation.  Only if I am sure that there's a God who will right all wrongs and settle all accounts perfectly do I have the power to refrain." - Tim Keller

5.  What About People With Less Revelation About God?

What about the innocent person who never hears about Jesus?

"innocent?"

Real question "What happens to the guilty person who has never heard about Jesus?"

Romans 1:18-21 - The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

• God has revealed himself
• This revelation gets through...they knew God
• Revelation comes through creation
• This revelation is enough to make men inexcusable

6.  Hell Must Motivate the Church!

We Are Saved by the Jesus That's Revealed in The Bible

Luke 16:29-31 - "Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.' " ‘No, father Abraham,' he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.' "He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' "

We Are Saved to Warn Others and Save Others

2 Timothy 1:8-14 - Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me. Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. (ESV)

Much preaching today seems to be tepid, soft, and often meant to please the ears of the audience. In contrast, a great example for us today is Spurgeon who used to preach to people in a way that caused them to see the Lord with great fervor. He believed that preaching should never be boring, shallow, or lukewarm. He once said,

"That is what you must do with your sermons, make them red-hot; never mind if men do say you are too enthusiastic, or even too fanatical, give them a red hot shot, there is nothing else half as good for the purpose you have in view. We do not go snow-balling on Sundays, we go fire-balling; we ought to hurl grenades into the enemies ranks."