connecting

Why Would A Good God Send Someone to Hell?
Tough Questions Series
Phil Scheafer
11/08/09

 

Key Scripture: Romans 1:18, 21, 24-32

Introduction:
            In our culture, divine judgment is one of Christianity’s most offensive doctrines. The very mention of hell causes us to have a nervous laugh. We make jokes about hell, and the devil, about pitchforks and pointy tails and horns.
The thought of hell is so odious that we don’t want to think about it. So odious that we look for ways to get around it, or deny, or dismiss it. This is true for sincere Christians and for those who don’t even believe in God.
This morning, I’m not going to lay out a theology of hell. I’m not going to lay out all the verses speaking on this, or lay out all the various views on the final state.
When I was a teenager, I was racked with guilt and the torment of my inability to overcome my sin. I had a strong concept of hell. But that concept wasn’t strong enough to prevent me from walking away from my faith. I could scare you so that you don’t want to go to hell, but I don’t think that is what God is looking for. God’s heart is that we would seek Him because only in Him is found life and peace and joy. What I will do is to give us pointers so that we might understand the necessity of hell.

I. Hell is Necessary For The Sake of Justice.

  1. The ancients believed in a moral law that was as fixed as the physical laws by which we live.
  2. All human beings have:
    1. A sense of right and wrong
    2. A sense that wrong should not go unpunished.
  3. If we can understand the need for justice at this elementary and personal level, how does justice get played out on a larger scale?
    1. What about the injustice of nation against nation, of war and massacre, and mayhem, and ethnic cleansing, and evil that has been unleashed throughout history?
    2. We may live in a safe city, in a safe suburb, in a safe neighborhood, with safe neighbors, in a safe school district, but what of our brothers and sisters among us who have endured unspeakable injustice and sorrow, who have been displaced from their homes, their countries; who have had family members killed, raped, and maimed in front of their eyes?
    3. Would we just say, “Oh how horrible.”  Would we not ourselves be most unloving if we did not call out for justice?
  4. What if the metaphysical laws, the moral laws, have an eternal existence? If they have eternal existence, is it not possible that they would have eternal consequences?
  5. What if sin is eternal? And if it is eternal, would it not need a place that would contain it for eternity? That place is hell.
  6. Christianity says God has marked out a day for judgment when all the injustices of the world will be judged.
    1. “ The most dangerous thing you can do is to take up any one value and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs. You might think the love of humanity in general was safe, but it is not. If you leave out justice, you will find yourself breaking agreements and faking evidence in trials ‘for the sake of humanity’ and in the end become a cruel and treacherous person.” C.S. Lewis
    2. If you ask how can a loving God or a good God send someone to hell, then ask yourself this: If He is a loving God and a good God, would He not also be a God of Justice? If He was not just could He even be loving or good?

II. Hell Gives Meaning To Our Existence In an Ultimate Way.

  1. Christianity asserts that every human being is going to live forever, and this must be either true or false.
  2. What if the disposition of our souls have eternal consequences?
    1. If I were only going to live 70 years and then that’s the end of it, then there are many things I could disregard.
    2. “Perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy, or my unforgiveness, or my bitterness are gradually getting worse, so gradually that the increase in 70 years will not be very noticeable. But it might be an absolute hell in a million years. In fact, if Christianity is true, hell is the precise term for what it would be.”  C.S. Lewis
  3. Hell, simply put, is the outcome off freely choosing my identity apart from God on a trajectory into infinity,
  4. If I were to lose God’s presence totally that would be hell. To lose God’s presence totally is to lose the ability for giving or receiving love or joy, peace or kindness.
  5. Hell is ever-increasing in isolation, denial, self-absorption, the loss of all humility. It does not want to forgive, nor does it seek forgiveness. Pride goes unchecked, paranoia rages. Everyone else is wrong, living in unending self-pity. Everyone else is an idiot. I would be locked in a prison of my own self-centeredness. C.S. Lewis- The Great Divorce
  6. The Bible gives us these pointers to what hell is like: It is darkness and separation, weeping and grinding of teeth, punishment, death, and destruction.
  7. Hell then is the trajectory of a soul that has made the choice for independence from God- living a self-centered life, living a self-absorbed life, going on and on forever. I remember joking, “I’d rather be in hell with my friends partying than to be in heaven and live a boring existence.”
    1. Romans 1:18, 21, 24, 28-32
    2. John Piper- “No one would ever choose hell.”

III. Here Is The Greatest Problem: I Can Not Save Myself From Hell

  1. Satan continues His deception by telling us there is no hell, there is no final outcome, there is no judgment. But hell tells us just how desperate our predicament is.
  2. When you know your position is desperate, that is when Christianity begins to speak to you. Christianity does not make any sense until we face ultimate realities. Only then do we become aware of the prospect of sin.
  3. I cannot beat hell. I cannot beat the deception of the enemy of my soul, who is the devil.
  4. Christianity tells us that the awfulness and eternal consequences of hell has been dealt with. That is why Jesus came.
    1. He bore the wrath of God for our sin: God’s righteous judgment upon sin, by His death upon the cross.
    2. For God to be just He cannot just excuse sin.
    3. When you become honest about your condition you will realize you need something greater than your own goodness, something greater than your own strength.
    4. What I needed was a provision against hell, a provision against my excuses, and guilt, and shame, and the frustration against my sin. What I needed was an antidote to the deadliest of diseases called sin, whose outcome is called hell.
    5. This is why we need a savior, and we have one; Jesus Christ.
    6. Romans 5:6-11 “ For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.”

 
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Discussion Questions:

Do you agree that hell is necessary for the sake of justice? What does that mean to you?

Would God be a loving and a good God if He were not also a God of justice? Why or why not?

What is the choice we make that ultimately sends us to hell? What is at the root of that?

What is God’s final solution to the problem of hell?