Dr Greg Bahnsen - Sober News about Hell: The Good News About Hell (Galatians 6:7-8) (Part 6)

I have been preaching to you for some time now on the doctrine of hell. This Lord's day, we come to the end of that series. But I'm very concerned that the series in fact not end in terms of what you remember and what you meditate on, because the matters that we have been considering are deadly serious and of eternal consequence. This morning I'd like to preach to you about the good news regarding Hell. That may seem a strange title, but by the time we're in with the lesson, I trust you'll understand why there is good news regarding this very dreadful subject. Our scripture reading is found in Galatians, the sixth chapter this morning. And I'd like to Read simply verses 7 and 8 of Galatians, chapter 6. Hear God's Word. Do not be deceived. God will not be mocked. Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. For he who sows unto his own flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. But he who sows unto the spirit shall of the spirit reap eternal life. And thus far, the reading of God's word. I know that I always date myself when I quote rock music, but maybe some of you will remember Eric Burton and the Animals, one of my favorite groups from the 60s. Well, they sang a song once, it's my life and I'll do what I want it's my mind and I'll think what I want show me I'm wrong Hurt me sometime at one point in the song, which I think its licentious lifestyle is rather blatant. It's my life, I'll do what I want they say. Don't push me. Well, if you come this morning with any kind of minimal commitment to the notion that you own your life and that you can do whatever you want with it, I'm going to be pushing you today. And so this is the good time to get up and leave. If you don't want to hear this, but I have to be very honest with you. The doctrine of hell is a pushy doctrine. God has told us how he will respond to our lives in advance so that we might take the steps necessary to adjust and lead happy lives rather than lives of torment and misery. But you see, in this life, people, because God does not invoke his wrath and does not impose it upon us immediately, in this life, we tend to think we get away with a great deal. After all, there are many things that we do, many things we say that never catch up with us. Our neighbors don't know about them. Our bosses don't overhear them. People don't see us doing these things. And we tend to think, well, maybe the Almighty is blind to it as well. And so we lure ourselves in this life into thinking that God will be very much like us and the same things that we tolerate and overlook and he will tolerate and overlook. And so we get the idea that we can live our lives the way we want to. I mean, the Animals had it right, by the way. What an interesting name for a rock group, right? The Animals. That's about right. Because it is at such a level of existence that human beings sometimes in an animalistic way, live. They say, well, if it feels good, you do it, and I'll make my decisions, and no one's to get in the way. And if you dare get in my way, well, you better watch out. There's going to be pain for that. It's my life and I'll do what I want. And God says, it's my life that I've given to you, and you in the end, will do what I want. But the doctrine of hell, I've told you many times already in the series, is one that is not only unpopular among unbelievers in God, but it has become rather unpopular, and people have attempted to rationalize and mitigate and alter what the Bible teaches about it. Even among those who believe that the Bible is the word of God. I think of the modern tragedy of Clark Pinnock. Clark Pinnock. Years ago, when I was in college, back when the Animals were popular, Clark Pennock was known as a real defender of evangelical Christianity and the truth of the Bible. And I remember him coming to our college and giving a series of lectures on the modern relevance of Christianity and things of that nature. And I was very appreciative that ministry. Even if I didn't altogether agree with him in apologetical strategy, I still was grateful for what he had to say. Over the years, he has changed his theological position many times. And now in 1990, in the Criswell Theological Review, I read Dr. Pinnock saying, Let me say at the outset that I consider the concept of hell as endless torment in body and mind, an outrageous doctrine, a theological and moral enormity, a bad doctrine of the tradition which needs to be changed. How can Christians possibly project a deity of such cruelty and vindictiveness, whose ways include inflicting everlasting torture upon his creatures, however sinful they may have been? Well, you can be very sure that the people who say, it's my life and I'll do what I want are Glad to hear words like that, aren't they? Well, that's great. That means that even the theologians are reassuring us that we can live our lives the way we want, eat, drink and be merry. Tomorrow we die. And if we aren't given the privilege of living with God forever, which might be somewhat better nevertheless, we aren't going to have to answer for what we have done in this life. So whoop it up. The concept of hell is endless torment has been called an outrageous doctrine, a cruel and vindictive doctrine. But now we have to ask, no matter what angle you approach this from wherever you're starting this morning, we have to ask ourselves, don't we? Where finite, infallible and fallen human beings find and justify moral standards of evaluation, how is it, if you're going to have a moral standard and therefore something which is absolute, something which is unqualified, something which is universal, and you are not absolute, you are not universal, you don't know everything. You are finite and on top of that, prone to error. Your fallibleness is known not only to yourselves, but to everybody else and your. Well, we call it fun, fallen from a Christian standpoint, but your sinful nature is evident as well, and that even you don't do the things that you think are right, you disappoint yourself all the time. We have to admit that about human nature, we are all limited, we're all restricted. We all make mistakes, we all fall short of our own minimal standard of right and wrong. How can any individual that's like that declare for us what an absolute and universal standard of righteousness or justice or love could possibly be? The fact is we have no option when it comes to moral evaluation but to listen to the voice of God himself. Only God is in a position to tell us what ultimately is right and wrong, just and unjust, fair and unfair, righteous and unrighteous. Only God can tell us. And where do we find the voice of God? Now, people will give you different answers to that. But the Christian maintains that God, knowing how misled we are when we look at the world round about us and try to develop our philosophies and so forth, when people think that they're listening to nature and getting insights and so forth, and yet come to severely different opinions. God, knowing these things, has said, I will give you a verbal interpretation of my will and who I am. I'll give it to you in the Scriptures. And so we need an absolute standard of morality, and we believe that God is the only one who can give it. And we believe that God has given it in interpreted form, in verbal form, in the Scriptures. And since God has expressed his own righteous and infallible mind there, on the subject of everlasting conscious torment for the unrepentant, it turns out that the uneasiness of Clark Pinnock and the uneasiness of other modern theologians, the uneasiness of those who don't believe what the Christian worldview teaches, the uneasiness of anybody, is really irrelevant, isn't it? You may not be happy about the doctrine of hell. It may not be good news, but if you watch the human, temporal, earthly news every day on the tv, you probably have figured out by now you're not liking news. Doesn't make it not the case. There's bad news about hell. The bad news is that God is angry with sinners every day and there's nothing that they can do to relieve that anger. See, the only question is whether you will, on this question, as on every other theological matter, bow your mind to what God has said. Because God won't tolerate being made over according to our preconceptions and our desires. God says, you are not to make a graven image. God says, don't try to fashion me after your own ideas. I'll be God. You are subject to me. You won't be God making me subject to you. And so, in the end, it makes no difference that anybody is uneasy with this bad news. It is the truth. God will, because of his utter holiness, punish for all eternity, consciously with utter misery and shame those who have refused to bow to him and to accept his offers of mercy. Now it's going to be argued, however, that the doctrine of hell is not found in the Old Testament, and that the New Testament allusions really refer to the total destruction or annihilation of people who are out of the favor of God. Both of those claims prove to be unreliable. The doctrine of hell is found in the Old Testament. The Old Testament indicates a clear and a growing awareness of the truth about Hades, the place where those who die go and wait and stand in some kind of relationship to God before the final day of resurrection. And what the Old Testament indicates in this growing awareness of the doctrine of Hades, or Sheol, which is the Hebrew word, Sheol, is quite suitable for its position in God's plan of progressive revelation. By progressive revelation we mean God doesn't dump all the truth on his people at the very outset. That he gives a little bit, he educates in that. He gives more, he educates in that, and so forth. We see this Very clearly in the doctrine of the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity is not found in Genesis chapter one, though there are allusions to it in Genesis Chapter one. Indeed, if you look at the Old Testament, you don't find nearly as clear a presentation or widespread presentation of the doctrine of the Trinity as you do in the New Testament. And that's natural enough, because in history the doctrine of the Trinity is seen as God actually displays it in actual fact. As Christ comes into the world claiming to be the God, man one with the Father, and sends the Spirit upon on his church, so in the outworking of the events of history, the doctrine of the Trinity is manifest to us. So in history, God progressively reveals himself more and more. And that's true of the doctrine of Hell, the doctrine of Hades or Sheol as well. The Old Testament is clear about it, even if it doesn't give us as much information as the New Testament. In Proverbs 9:18 we read that Sheol is the place of disembodied spirits. The shades are there, as the Hebrew tells us in Isaiah 14, 9, 10 and 11. You'll notice in your Bibles, turn there with me if you would, that disembodied spirits are conscious in Hades or in Sheol. Isaiah 14 at the ninth verse. Sheol from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming. It stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations, all they shall answer and say unto thee, art thou also become weak as we art, thou become like unto us. Thy pop is brought down to Sheol and the noise of thy vials. The worm is spread under thee, and worms cover thee. This is not a pleasant picture, to be sure, the doctrine of hell is not a pleasant one. But it's obvious, isn't it, in this Old Testament text that in Sheol the dead are conscious and they are suffering. The image of worms, of course, is picked up again later in the Bible and especially in the New Testament. Jesus teaches that the worm there never dies. And Psalm 143:3 Sheol is called a dark place. In Ezekiel 26:20 it is lower than the earth, which obviously is a metaphor for being a different realm than our present earthly experience. Deuteronomy 32:22 speaks of the lowest Sheol. And if you look at Isaiah 38:10, you notice that Sheol was considered inescapable in Old testament theology. Isaiah 38:10 I said in the noontide of my days I shall go into the gates of Sheol. I am deprived of the residue of my years. The gates of Sheol, the gates of hell, indicates that those who go there are locked in. There is no escape from them. And I want to look at three texts in the Old Testament that rather clearly teach that it will be a place of suffering. First of all, let's look at Deuteronomy 32, 22, which I alluded to just a moment ago. Deuteronomy 32:22 For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and burneth unto the lowest Sheol, and devoureth the earth with its increase, and setteth on fire the foundations of the mountains. To put it very simply, taking away the poetic expression that's given here, God's burning anger is in Sheol, and it's a place of painful distress. Psalm 116:3 the cords of death compassed me, and the pain pains of Sheol gat hold upon me. I found trouble and sorrow. Sheol is a place of grief, a place of trouble and sorrow, a place where God's burning wrath is to be found. And then job 2656 indicates that it's a place of writhing or trembling in. In the sight of God. Job 26:5 6. They that are deceased tremble beneath the waters, and the inhabitants thereof. Sheol is naked before God, and Ab and destruction, in Hebrew, hath no covering. And so it is rather clear that in the Old Testament there was a doctrine of an afterlife, and that those who go to this dark place, this different realm, for disembodied spirits are conscious and are undergoing the wrath of God, are deeply troubled, are in pain and writhing before God. The Old Testament teaches that the righteous also go to this intermediate state after death, that the righteous are in Sheol as well. However, the righteous are said to be delivered from the power of Sheol and brought into God's presence instead. Three passages in the Psalms that I'll let you look up on your own later. Psalm 49, 15, Psalm 73, verse 24, where David speaks about being received in glory in sheol in Psalm 139,8, which indicates that sheol is a place where God's hand is to be found protecting his people. And so if we're going to look to the Old Testament, though it is at a level of progressive revelation that is not as full or as detailed as the New. There's no question that the Old Testament teaches what the New Testament teaches as well, and that is that after death people go to a place of conscious existence, either one of suffering grief under the wrath of God, or knowing his glory and protection and pleasure forever. Now, what about the New Testament? People say the New Testament very clearly teaches a doctrine of hell. But what the metaphors about hell indicate, such as burning the lake of fire, and so forth, what those metaphors indicate is supposed to be the total destruction of an individual so that he or she doesn't exist anymore, the annihilation of a person. And yet in Matthew 13:42, 50, we've already seen that hell is a place of conscious suffering, a place where there's wailing and the gnashing of teeth. We've learned from the New Testament in Mark 9, verses 43 and 48, that this place of conscious suffering is unending. The fire is unquenchable, and the worm, Jesus says, never dies. To put it very simply, when men are alienated from the presence, the blessed presence of God forever, which Paul speaks of in 2nd Thessalonians 1:9, their torment will never end. Torment is conscious, and it will Never end. Revelation 20:10. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where are also the beast and the false prophet, and they shall be tormented day and night, forever and ever. In our lessons leading up to this morning, we've seen that the punishment, and that's the word Jesus uses, the punishment of hell will be parallel in duration to the blessing of eternal life. Matthew 25:46. So this is something of a brief summary of what we have learned with this Old Testament information added to it. We know that people find the doctrine of hell unpleasant, and even theologians have tried to move away from an affirmation of it in favor of annihilation of some sort. We see, however, that neither the Old nor the New Testament are amenable to those preconceptions and desires of human beings. God has expressed his mind, and at this point, none of you who are in this room who have heard this series should have any doubt about the fact that the day is coming when God will open books, assess books, lives of people, separate the wicked from those who are repentant. And those who are wicked, those who are unrepentant, are going to go into everlasting, unending, ultimate pain and shame. And so how shall we respond to this doctrine? In response, I'm going to tell you the bad news. I'm going to tell you the good news and tell you the best news of all about hell. First of all, the bad news surveys indicate with a kind of remarkable consistency that about one in three people do not believe that there's any hell to deal with after death. Two in three, roughly two in three, are going to believe there is some kind of punishment after death. One third in our culture, however, don't even want to worry themselves about it. After all, it's their lives and they're going to do what they want. They don't have to answer for it. Of the 2/3 of people who believe in the doctrine of hell, surveys indicate about three quarters of them. Three in every four roughly believe that they themselves are going to go to heaven instead of to hell. I have a survey that was reported on in 1986 in the Register. The title says 72% say they'll go to heaven. Many say friends won't. Pretty true to human nature, right? Most people think they're going to heaven. They have doubts about their friends. Of course, we add up all those doubts and that means their friends probably have doubts about them. And so let me read this. 72% of Americans who believe in heaven rate their chances of going there as good to excellent. But many say their friends chances are considerably worse, according to a new poll. The poll of 604 adults conducted by USA Weekend magazine indicated that 80% believe that heaven exists and 67% believe in hell. Only 56% of college graduates believe in hell because they're so smart, you know. And compared with 71% of high school graduates who believe in hell. Belief in God is nearly universal. 96% subscribe to a belief in a supreme being, according to the survey. Now, what is reported in this particular survey is very similar to a poll that was done in Newsweek in 1988 and another one for U.S. news and World Report in 1991. Not that I think the opinion of people is all that important when it comes to settling these things, but what I want to set before you, because if there's any representation of the human race or of American culture to be found in these polls, it probably represents you in this audience too. And according to the polls, three out of every four people believe they're going to go to heaven and not to hell. The vast majority of people are going to heaven. It's just taken for granted, isn't it? Even when you believe that there is everlasting damnation, Very, very few people say, I realize that's where I'm headed. That's what I deserve. There's really no question about it. If God is to going, going to do an honest assessment. Most people think God's going to grade on a curve. He doesn't. But the funny thing to me is, though it's gallows laughter. It's tragic is that even if God were to grade on a curve, most people, I think, are pompous and arrogant to think, well, I'm at the high end of the curve. Well, of course, I must be at the high end of the curve, because I'm not a murderer, I'm not a rapist, I'm not a cannibal, I'm not this, I'm not that. Of course. And that only betrays what little people know about the character of God and what every sin deserves in his sight. Most people think they're going to heaven rather than to hell. The Bible tells us we had better consider that the road to hell is a very broad one. Turn with Me to Matthew 7:13, 14. Matthew 7:13 14. Jesus teaches us, enter in by the narrow gate. For wide is the gate, and broad is the road that leads to destruction. And many are they that enter in thereby. For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way that leads unto life. And few are they that are finding it. Jesus says, consider the broadness of the road to hell. There are a lot of people on it. They don't think they're on that road, but they are. And that's why you're going to find in the Bible repeatedly, for instance, in the writings of the Apostle Paul, there are indications. Don't be deceived. Let me show you just three of these. In texts that deal with God's judgment coming on our wickedness, our living, our lives the way we want to. 1 Corinthians 6, 9, 10. First Corinthians 6. At the ninth verse, Paul says, Or know you not, that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. And what I want you to see here is how Paul says, those who are wicked will not inherit God's kingdom. Don't fool yourselves. Why would he have to say that? Because Paul knows human nature. And I'm trying to display this before you, that you'll see this and say, have I been deceiving myself? Have I been deluding myself? Am I fool about how I stand before God and how he will assess me? Don't be deceived. You will not. Will not. Inherit the kingdom of heaven on the day of judgment. God will brook no arguments about that, no rationalizations. I taught high school for 10 years. I know something about human nature from that experience. And I know that when you finally have to bring the hammer down in discipline, either in terms of the grades that people get or the kind of discipline that's necessary for classroom behavior, whatever it is, that it's almost inevitable that people are going to say back to you but this and but that, or I didn't know, or things of that nature. We are excuse making machines, I tell you. We generate all kinds of rationalizations for our bad behavior. And Paul says, don't be fooled. God's not going to listen. It's going to be plain and simple in that day and no excuses will be brooked. Ephesians 5:5,6. For this ye know of a surety that no fornicator, no unclean person, no covetous man who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ. And God, let no man deceive you with empty words. For because of these things comes the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience. There it is again. Paul says, don't fool yourselves and don't let other men with empty words come along and tell you, oh, you don't have to worry about this. You do have to worry about this. God is dead serious about these matters. It's his holy character and honor that's at stake here. Look at Galatians 5, 1921 Galatians the fifth chapter and beginning at verse 19, Paul once again says, now the works of the flesh are manifest. That is the works of our natural, fallen human nature. And these are fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, factions, heresies, parties, however you want to translate it. Envyings, drunkenness, revelings, and such like of which I forewarn you, even as I did forewarning, warn you already that they who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And then jump to chapter six, verse seven. Be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows, he shall reap. And if you sow unto the flesh, you shall of the flesh reap corruption. The Bible is very sober about the doctrine of hell. It says, don't play games with your mind. Don't listen to empty words. Don't be led astray over and over and over again. Now what do I as a preacher have to do to faithfully respond to what I find the Bible saying. Then when it says this over and over and over again, I need to realize you might be deceived. You might very well think, I don't have to get serious about hell, you do. The road to hell is broad. It is easy. It is the take it for granted road. Flippant and humorous attitudes are atrociously inappropriate and are dangerous to you when it comes to this doctrine of hell. In April of 1991, the then Secretary of State James Baker had these words to say at a memorial service for the late Republican party chairman Lee Atwater. Baker, one wonders if his political opinions are as ill informed as his theological ones. Had this to say. It may be hard to imagine Atwater a self confessed bad boy with the angels, but I'm convinced that's just where he is. And the angels are simply going to have to adjust. Gales of laughter from theological idiots. The angels are going to have to adjust to a person who confessed to his own wickedness of life. This man is with the angels in the presence of God. Who are we fooling? Paul says, don't be deceived, be God is not mocked. What a man sows, he shall reap. I assure you Lee Atwater sowed corruption. He reaped it, is now reaping it and will forever reap it. There's nothing funny about it. There's nothing that we can take away from the horror and the terrible stench of that by saying, well, he's with the angels and they have to adjust. Well, there's going to be some attitude adjustments taking place, there's no doubt about it. But, but I assure you they will occur in the startled imaginations of those who in their horror, wake up to some very bad news. Wouldn't you today rather wake up right now and make the appropriate adjustments in your life? Believe this because it's in the Bible. Don't believe it because Dr. Bonson has taught it. But I think many of you do come to hear me preach and you read my material and so forth because you do have some measure of respect for me, whatever it may be. I know I don't deserve it and I'm grateful for the grace of God in giving it. But if you respect anything about my intellect, take this seriously. It is not going away. There are no adjustments possible after we come into the presence of God. For it's appointed unto all men once to die and then judgment. So Hebrews, the ninth chapter teaches us. Many years ago, another man who was well regarded for his intellect and his philosophical ability as a theologian preached a sermon that is perhaps the best known, maybe infamously known sermon that's ever been preached here in America. It was preached on 7-8-17, 1941, in Northampton, Massachusetts. And it's Jonathan Edwards sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. I'm tired of people making fun of Jonathan Edwards for that sermon. That sermon was an act of love for his congregation when he said, you must take this seriously. I'd like to read just a portion of it. I'd like to read all of it to you, but I don't think I can get you to endure that much. But maybe one section of this sermon, just to give you some sense that hell is bad news, but given to you in advance that you can adjust now before it's too late. Jumping into the middle of the message, Edwards said, but the foolish children of men miserably delude themselves in their own schemes and in confidence, in their own strength and wisdom, they trust to nothing but a shadow. The greater part of those who heretofore have lived under the same means of grace and are now dead are undoubtedly gone to hell. And it was not because they were not as wise as those who are now alive. It is not because they did not lay out matters as well for themselves to secure their own escape. If we could speak with them and inquire of them one by one, whether they expected, when alive and when they used to hear about hell ever to be the subjects of misery, we doubtless should hear one and another reply, no, I never intended to come here. I had laid out matters otherwise in my mind. I thought I should contrive well for myself. I thought my scheme good. I intended to take effectual care. But it came upon me unexpected. I did not live look for it at that time, and in that manner it came as a thief. Death outwitted me. God's wrath was too quick for me. Oh, my cursed foolishness. I was flattering myself and pleasing myself with vain dreams of what I would do hereafter. And when I was saying peace and safety, then sudden destruction came upon me. So that whatever some have imagined and pretended about promises made to natural men's earnest seeking and knocking, it is plain and manifest that whatever pains a natural man takes in religion, whatever prayers he makes, till he believes in Christ, God is under no manner of obligation to keep him a moment from eternal destruction. So that thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God over the pit of hell. They have deserved the fiery pit and are already sentenced to it. And God is dreadfully provoked. His anger is as great towards them as to those that are actually suffering the executions of the fierceness of his wrath in hell. And they have done nothing in the least to appease or to abate that anger. Neither is God in the least bound by any promise to hold them up. One moment the devil is waiting for them. Hell is gaping for them. The flames gather and flash about them and would fain lay hold on them and swallow them up. The fire pent up in their own hearts is struggling to break out, and they have no interest in any mediator. There are no means within reach that can be any security to them. In short, they have no refuge, nothing to take hold of. All that preserves them every moment is the mere arbitrary will and uncovenanted, unobligated forbearance of an incensed God. The use of this awful subject may be for awakening unconverted persons in this congregation. This that you have heard is the case of every one of you that are out of Christ. That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad. Under you there is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God. There is Hell's wide, gaping mouth open, and you have nothing to stand on, nor anything to take hold of. There's nothing between you and Hell but air. It is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up. You are probably not sensible to this. You find you are kept out of hell, but do not see the hand of God in it, but look at other things as the good state of your bodily constitution, your care of your own life, and the means you use for your own preservation. But indeed these things are nothing. If God should withdraw his hand, they would avail no more to keep you from falling than the thin air to hold up a person suspended in it. The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present. They increase more and more and rise higher and higher till an outlet is given. And the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is its course when once it is loose. It is true that judgment against your evil works has not been executed hereto. The floods of God's vengeance have been withheld. But your guilt in the meantime is constantly increasing, and you are every day treasuring up more wrath. The waters are constantly rising and waxing more and more mighty, and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God that holds the waters back, that are unwilling to be stopped and pressed hard to go forward. If God should only withdraw his hand from the floodgate, it would immediately fly open and the fiery flood of the fierceness and wrath of God would rush forth when inconceivable fury and would come upon you with omnipotent power. And if your strength were 10,000 times greater than it is, yea, 10,000 times greater than the strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil in hell, it would be nothing to withstand or endure it. O sinner, consider the fearful danger you are in. It is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit full of the fire of wrath that you are held over in the hand of that God whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it and ready every moment to singe it and burn it asunder. And you have no interest in any mediator and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you have ever done, nothing that you can do to induce God to spare you one moment. We don't preach like that anymore, do we? But we need to. There's some of you here who have known for a long time that you need to be right with God. And you've put it off. You've said, well, I have a generally good idea of what God wants of me, and someday I'm going to get around to it. There's some of you here who have claimed to be in a right relationship with God and let your lives. Lives are nothing but a lie in comparison to that profession. But you see, because God sustained you another day, and you got up this morning to this beautiful sunny day and God has not destroyed you, you think, well, I'm safe again. You're not safe. Nothing but the arbitrary goodwill of God prevents the wrath that you deserve from breaking forth eternal vengeance upon your life. I have not preached this doctrine of hell to you simply for our theological fancy, simply so that we might be better equipped to debate this matter with those who like to sin into the parlor as dilettantes of doctrine. I preach this because I don't want you to undergo the wrath of God. And I believe with all my heart you will, if you do not know the mediator, if you do not come to the one and only hope of salvation that God has offered in his own son, Jesus Christ. So I've said there's bad news about hell. Sinners are indeed in the hands of an angry God. But I Think there's good news about Hell as well. There is a sense in which this doctrine of hell presents. Presents things to us, even through the medium of a terrible doctrine, presents things to us for which we can rejoice and be very glad. So let's take a moment here and think about the good news regarding hell. What is the good news about hell? First and foremost, it is that God is holy and just and you can't play with Him. You know, if the doctrine of hell were not true, you know what God would ultimately be? He'd be like that kind of doddering grandfather that you knew that you can kind of worm around, kind of play games with. Because Grandpa was just a good old guy anyway. And he didn't mind if you kind of lied to him and did things behind his back. And he said, well, children will be children and so forth. That's not God. That may be your grandfather, but it's not the Holy One of Israel. It's not the Creator of heaven and earth. It's not the Eternal One. God is holy and just, and he's worthy of your respect. God will not be patronized with your grandfatherly images. And that's good news because he really is God. Then he's not just the figment and projection of our imagination. Secondly, the doctrine of hell is good news because it teaches us that God can be counted on to be faithful to his own character and to his own word. If hell were not true, then you could not count on God to be God. God said he is holy. He's too holy to look upon anything that falls short of his perfection and his honor, and that those who are wicked cannot dwell with Him. Now, if it should turn out that that was just kind of, as parents often do with their children, a vague, vain threat that God was just playing games, saying, I'm really not going to let you go. But then he finally lets us go. That would show that God does not have integrity, that God doesn't honor his own character, nor does he stick to his own word. But now consider if that is true, and that's what you have to accept. If the doctrine of hell is not the case, if God is that kind of God, then can you count on him to keep his promises of eternal life to you? If God is a God who just says things for the moment to achieve a certain effect, if God is not true to his own character, if God does not have integrity and faithfulness in what he says, then of course we can't trust his promise of salvation any more than we can fear his threat of Hell. The good news about hell is God keeps his word. And so those of you who are trusting his word of grace and mercy for your salvation can have confidence that he won't break that word. Thirdly, the good news about hell is that every wrong in history is going to be avenged in the end. But I know that Jesus took the wrath of God for my evil and wickedness and that my wickedness did not prevail. The love and mercy of Christ did. And for those who do not have their sins under the blood of Christ and forgiven because the wrath of God fell upon him, your place. God's wrath will fall upon them for every misdeed. I do not find comfort in the idea that the Genghis Khan's and Adolf Hitlers and IDI Amin's of this world can plunder and kill and torture and that God will one day say, well, it really didn't count. No, God plays for keeps. You see, we tend to think of our sins as little sins, our gossip, our lust, our failure to do a good deed when we were just too lazy and so forth, all of which are sinful. We tend to think of those sorts of things and can't imagine then that every misdeed must be punished. But I want you to think of what you hear about on the news. I want you to think about those really terrible things that people do to one another. Maybe that people have done to you, maybe that you have done to others. And there's very good news in knowing that God doesn't overlook every misdeed will be avenged and evil will not have the final word and it will not prevail in history. Fourthly, the good news about hell. And this is going to sound very strange, I suppose, but I mean it very seriously. God respects human nature. God respects human dignity. Now why would I say that? Well, the answer is found in our scripture reading this morning in Galatians, the sixth chapter, where Paul says, don't be deceived. God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows that shall he reap. God respects our dignity and God respects our choices. God does not discard the choices we've made as junk and just override them to achieve his ends. God says, you've made a choice. I'm going to honor that choice. No, that means he takes you seriously. He takes me seriously. Whatever you sow, God says that you will reap. Imagine. Imagine a different kind of God. Imagine a kind of deity that says, well, if you want to plant corn, go right ahead. But in the end, I'm going to make strawberries grow instead. Such a God, of course, would not respect your freedom, your dignity. Such a God would say, go ahead and make your choice. But in the end, I override your choice. So whatever choice you make, it's my choice that matters. No. God says, you have made a choice, and I honor it. You have chosen to live without me. You have chosen, as the animal said, to live your life the way you want to. Don't push me. And so I didn't. And what you sowed, you shall now reap because I honor you. You have said you will not bow before me. You do not wish to live with me. You want your own life. And so I say to you, your will be done. Don't bow before me. Don't live with me. Live your life separate from me and learn what that means. God honors human choices, and he honors them through all eternity. And God does not impose a reversal upon what we choose. Those who will not pray in this life, thy will be done, are going to have God say to them on the final day, then your will be done. You didn't wish to be with me, now depart from me. That's the good news. God is holy and just. He's not just a little daughtering grandfather. He's worthy of respect. It's good news that God can be counted on to be faithful to his character and to his word. It's good news that every wrong in history will eventually be avenged. Evil will not prevail. It's good to know that God honors human dignity and does not reverse human choices, and that he honors it for all eternity. So the doctrine of hell is bad news. It's troubling news that should lead you, as Jonathan Edwards said, to flee to the mediator. The doctrine of Hell is good news. It's bad news and good news. It's good news for the reasons we've just said. But I want to end this morning by impressing upon you the best news about Hell of all. The best news. The most comforting thing I can tell you about this awful and dreadful truth about Hell is that it is not inescapable. The road may be broad that leads to destruction, but there is another road. Revelation 1:18. Christ declared, don't be afraid. I am the first and the last. I am the living one. I was dead, but behold, I am alive forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and of Hades. Why do you imagine the Lord Jesus came into this world to entertain us by the Incarnation? To have God come and do miracles in our presence, walk across our swimming pool for us, raise the dead, just kind of thrill us for a few moments. No, the Lord Jesus came into this world not because there was any necessity for God to appear among men, and not because we somehow needed to be entertained religiously. The Lord Jesus came into this world for but one reason ultimately, and that is to lay down his life. Kind of hard to believe, isn't it? Because, you see, God didn't have any obligation to pay the price of hell for us. The Lord Jesus had no sin for which hell would be the appropriate response to his life. But he came into this world to lay down his perfect life life to pay the price that none of us can pay. And Jesus says, don't be afraid. I'm alive forever and I have the keys of death and of hell. I'm the one who opens the gate to let you out, and I can do that. The road is broad to destruction, but I'll put you in the way of life. And in Ephesians 2, Paul says, and you did he make alive the one who is alive forevermore, and you did he make alive when you were dead, through your trespasses and sins wherein you once walked, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience. Paul says, you were just like Eric Burton and the animals. You said, it's my life, I'll do what I want. It's my mind, I'll think what I want. Don't push me. He says, that's the way you were. You were just like everyone else among the sons of disobedience, among whom we also all once lived in the lust of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath. That's how you were born. That's how you live. You're a child of wrath. Do you hear me today? Do you believe this? There is no hope for you, you child of wrath. No hope in yourself. You're just like the rest. Paul says, but that's got to be one of the most glorious adversity conjunctions in all the Bible. But God being rich in mercy for his great love, wherewith he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace you've been saved. And he raised us up with him and made us to sit with him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come you may show the exceeding riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace, grace have you been saved through faith. And that is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works. Lest any man should boast, what can you do to escape hell? Nothing but trust God's promise. Nothing but receive the gift that Christ offers you. In light of the ease with which we can be relieved of this eternal weight, it makes all the more appropriate the justice of God in punishing those who refuse. Don't refuse today. Trust Christ. Don't trust yourselves. You'd be fools to think that you can satisfy God yourself. Trust Christ. Don't think you can go on living putting it off. You are sinners. I am too. We are in the hands of an angry God. But a God who shows his kindness and grace in saying, if you'll but trust me in my promise, my son will bear the hell that belongs to you. Let's pray. God, don't let us put you off anymore. Those of us who profess to believe in you. Don't let us live our lives the way we want to anymore. Make us sober about your holy character. Give us true respect for you and in your integrity. Give us a rational fear of that judgment that awaits us if we will not get right with you. I do pray for those who come here today, making no profession of faith, that they would flee to the mediator. Lord, change their hearts now. Grant them the gift of faith. Give them the relief of knowing the peace of God that passes understanding. Lord Jesus, we do pray that you would open the gates of hell and set us free. For we pray in your blessed name. Amen.