Posted on 02/09/2014 8:05:52 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
According to recent polls, some 81 percent of adult Americans believe in heaven, and fully 80 percent expect to go there when they die. By comparison, about 61 percent believe in hell, but less than 1 percent think it’s likely they will go there. In other words, a slight majority of Americans still believe hell exists, but genuine fear of hell is almost nonexistent.
Even the most conservative evangelicals don’t seem to take hell very seriously anymore. For decades, many evangelicals have downplayed inconvenient biblical truths, neglecting any theme that seems to require somber reflection. Doctrines such as human depravity, divine wrath, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the reality of eternal judgment have disappeared from the evangelical message.
The trend has not escaped everyone’s attention. Thirty years ago, for example, Martin Marty, religious historian, professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, and critic of all things evangelical, delivered the Ingersoll Lecture on Immortality at Harvard Divinity School. The title of his message was “Hell Disappeared. No One Noticed.” Marty’s research had failed to turn up a single scholarly article dealing with the subject of hell in any significant theological journal over the previous century. Citing the dearth of attention being given to so large a topic, Marty suggested that if evangelicals really took seriously what Scripture says about eternal punishment, someone with a voice should notice.
Almost no one did. Eighteen years later, The Los Angeles Times featured a front-page article titled “Hold the Fire and Brimstone,” pointing out that many style-conscious evangelical church leaders were purposely omitting the theme of divine retribution:
In churches across America, hell is being frozen out as clergy find themselves increasingly hesitant to sermonize on … a story line that no longer resonates with churchgoers. [According to] Harvey Cox Jr., an eminent author, religious historian and professor at the Harvard Divinity School, “You can go to a whole lot of churches week after week, and you’d be startled even to hear a mention of hell.”
Hell’s fall from fashion indicates how key portions of Christian theology have been influenced by a secular society that stresses individualism over authority and the human psyche over moral absolutes. The rise of psychology, the philosophy of existentialism, and the consumer culture have all dumped buckets of water on hell.
The article profiled an evangelical pastor who said he believes in hell, but (according to the Times) “you’d never know it listening to him preach… . He never mentions the topic; his flock shows little interest in it.” Asked why the doctrine of hell has gone missing, this pastor replied, “It isn’t sexy enough anymore.”
The article also quoted a well-known seminary professor who more or less agreed. Hell, he said, is “just too negative… . Churches are under enormous pressure to be consumer-oriented. Churches today feel the need to be appealing rather than demanding.”
The article closed with a quote from Martin Marty, almost two decades after his famous lecture on the subject. He agreed that market-driven concerns are the main reason hell is being expunged from the evangelical message:
Once pop evangelism went into market analysis, hell was just dropped. When churches go door to door and conduct a market analysis … they hear, “I want better parking spaces. I want guitars at services. I want to have my car greased while I’m in church.”
Years of indifference finally paved the way for open hostility. In the first decade of the new millennium, certain prominent figures in the “emergent church” declared war on the biblical doctrine of hell. The groundswell seemed to crest a couple of years ago with the publication of Rob Bell’s bestselling book Love Wins. Bell argued that it’s absurd to think a loving God would ever damn anyone to eternal punishment. He portrayed God’s love as a force that clashes with and ultimately eliminates the demands of justice. In the storyline Bell envisions, God requires no payment or punishment for sin. The divine response to evil is always remedial, never punitive. Furthermore, the wages of sin are mild, temporary, and reserved only for grossly malevolent villains—mass murderers, child rapists, tyrants who engineer genocide, and (one supposes) Christians who tell unbelievers they should fear God. When it’s all over, everyone will be together in paradise.
In such a system, God’s righteousness is compromised, repentance is optional, atonement is unnecessary, and the truth of God’s Word is nullified. In other words, nothing of biblical Christianity is left. Once anyone sets out to tone down or tame the hard truths of Scripture, that’s where the process inevitably leads.
Only a few leading voices in the evangelical movement have lobbied boldly for a more orthodox approach to the doctrine of hell. They seem to be outnumbered by those who think the disappearance of hell is a positive development.
Some have proposed alternative ways to speak of sin and judgment in gentler, toned-down, and more refined and socially acceptable terminology than Scripture uses. Sin is deemed wrong not because it is an offense against the righteousness of God, but because of the hurt it causes others. Hell is described not as a place of eternal punishment but simply as a realm apart from God. In the reimagined eschatology of stylish evangelicals, no one is ever “sent” to hell; sinners actually choose to spend eternity apart from God—and the “hell” they suffer is merely an abundance of what they loved and desired the most. Hell is necessary only because God is reluctant to overrule anyone’s free will. Therefore, with a more or less benign acquiescence, He ultimately defers to the sinner’s choice. God’s righteous indignation has no meaningful place in such a scenario.
It is a serious mistake to imagine that we improve Scripture or enhance its effectiveness by blunting its sharp edges. Scripture is a sword, not a cotton swab, and it needs to be fully unsheathed before it can be put to its intended use. “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). The gospel is supposed to be an affront to fleshly pride, offensive to human sensibilities, foolishness in the eyes of worldly wisdom, and contrary to all carnal judgments.
No Christian teaching exemplifies those characteristics more powerfully than the doctrine of hell. It is an appalling truth. We rightly recoil at the thought of it. The doctrine of hell thus stands as a warning and a reminder of what a loathsome reality sin is. No reasonable or godly person delights in the reality of eternal damnation. God Himself says, “As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezek. 33:11).
Yet the severity of God’s wrath and the woes of hell are prominent in Scripture. The New Testament speaks more vividly and more frequently about hell than the Old Testament does. In fact, Jesus Himself had more to say about the subject than any other prophet or biblical writer. Far from smoothing over the difficulties that seem to embarrass so many evangelicals today, Jesus said:
Do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! (Luke 12:4–5)
If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire. (Matt. 18:8–9)
We do no one any favors by downplaying the truth of God’s wrath or neglecting to mention the severity of His judgment. We certainly don’t eliminate the threat of hell by refusing to speak or think of it. If we truly believe what the Bible teaches about the eternal fate of unbelievers, it is in no sense “loving” to remain silent and refuse to sound the appropriate alarm.
What, after all, is the good news we proclaim in the gospel? It is not an announcement that no one really needs to fear God or fret about the possibility of hell. As a matter of fact, there would be no glad tidings at all if God merely intended to capitulate to the stubborn will of man and forgo the demands of His perfect righteousness.
The good news is even better than most believers understand: God made a way for His righteousness and His love to be fully reconciled. In His incarnation, Christ fulfilled all righteousness (satisfying, not nullifying, the demands of His law). In His death on the cross, He paid the price of His people’s sin in full (assuring the triumph of perfect justice). And in His resurrection from the dead, He put a powerful exclamation mark on His own perfect, finished work of atonement (thus sealing the promise of justification forever for those who trust Him as Lord and Savior).
That is the message we must declare to a worldly culture utterly lacking any real fear of God. We cannot do it faithfully or effectively if from the very outset we have omitted the harsh truth Scripture declares about “the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty” (Rev. 19:15).
Sargon, I guess the Lord thought the ultimate punishment was being thrown into the lake of fire, since that’s what’s going to happen.
Oh, I know! I agree with you.
Jesus descended into Sheol, to the bosom of Abraham (non-smoking section) and took the righteous souls who were there with Him to heaven (Eph. 4:8). Some people misunderstand statements like “Jesus descended into Hell” as His spending time suffering in hell.
>> “Until His death and resurrection then there began a new covenant. The covenant of grace. No longer the dispensation of law but the dispensation of grace.” <<
Dispy nonsense!
There never was any “Dispensation of Law.” There never was any salvation by any law. Salvation was at Sinai, a foreward looking salvation through faith just as it is today.
Abraham’s total belief that Yehova would provide the perfect sccrifice was credited to him as righteousness by the grace of Yehova.
His renewed covenant is the original covenant he delivered at Mt. Sinai, renewed in his blood with the perfection of his perfect acceptable sacrifice. Yeshua’s death cannot nulify itself! That is purely the words of Satan.
The Torah, or Teaching, was never provided to save, but to preserve. It is quality of life, both spiritually and biologically.
Satan will gladly divert you from Yeshua’s Torah, for that will diminish your life in every way, and weaken your faith.
Do you believe that Yeshua lied in Matthew 5? Will he not preserve his Torah until all is accomplished, unto the end of the universe? Do those that love him not keep his commandments?
There is much to be accomplished; how shall that be without Torah? The very timetable of the Revelation is his feasts. Each event of the Revelation is punctuated by one of his appointed days.
Will you nullify Yeshua’s Revelation and replace it with the Beast’s plan of registration? Take one thing from Torah and that is what you do.
Abraham did not live during the Dispensation of Law but during the Dispensation of Promise. That said, I agree there was never any salvation in the Law (Ro. 3:20) but the Law showed us what is sin (Ro. 7:7). “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born[a] of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4-5).
LOL What did you think the change was from before the law of Moses and after? I suppose you think that wasn’t a different way God managed His affairs with man either? How about before Adam sinned and after? Was that a different way He managed the affairs with man? Paul called this the dispensation of grace. How much clearer can it get?
>>The Torah, or Teaching, was never provided to save, but to preserve.<<
We are not to be under the law of the Torah I don’t care what that fake Rabbi Rood teaches. He’s straight from Satan as is the cult of “The Way” and the Hebrew roots apostasy. Putting people back under the law does not save nor preserve. It nullifies the death of Christ for those who follow that line of thinking.
>>Satan will gladly divert you from Yeshua’s Torah, for that will diminish your life in every way, and weaken your faith.<<
No it’s frauds like Rood who would attempt like the Sadducees to put people back under the law.
>>Do you believe that Yeshua lied in Matthew 5?<<
The dispensation of grace had not begun yet when Jesus was speaking in Matthew 5. At that point they were still under the law. He paid the full price at His death on the cross.
>>There is much to be accomplished; how shall that be without Torah?<<
By the grace of God working through us.
>>Will you nullify Yeshua’s Revelation and replace it with the Beast’s plan of registration?<<
No I honor His revelation of the dispensation of grace to Paul who clearly articulated it in his writings. It’s fakes and frauds like the fake Rabbi Mickael Rood and the people of the cult of “The Way” and Hebrew roots heretics that attempt to put people back under the law nullifying the death of Christ in their lives.
No suffering in hell involved. He went to fetch the souls awaiting him.
LOL What did you think the change was from before the law of Moses and after? I suppose you think that wasn’t a different way God managed His affairs with man either? How about before Adam sinned and after? Was that a different way He managed the affairs with man? Paul called this the dispensation of grace. How much clearer can it get?
>>The Torah, or Teaching, was never provided to save, but to preserve.<<
We are not to be under the law of the Torah I don’t care what that fake Rabbi Rood teaches. He’s straight from Satan as is the cult of “The Way” and the Hebrew roots apostasy. Putting people back under the law does not save nor preserve. It nullifies the death of Christ for those who follow that line of thinking.
>>Satan will gladly divert you from Yeshua’s Torah, for that will diminish your life in every way, and weaken your faith.<<
No it’s frauds like Rood who would attempt like the Sadducees to put people back under the law.
>>Do you believe that Yeshua lied in Matthew 5?<<
The dispensation of grace had not begun yet when Jesus was speaking in Matthew 5. At that point they were still under the law. He paid the full price at His death on the cross.
>>There is much to be accomplished; how shall that be without Torah?<<
By the grace of God working through us.
>>Will you nullify Yeshua’s Revelation and replace it with the Beast’s plan of registration?<<
No I honor His revelation of the dispensation of grace to Paul who clearly articulated it in his writings. It’s fakes and frauds like Rood and the people of the cult of “The Way” and Hebrew roots heretics that attempt to put people back under the law nullifying the death of Christ in their lives.
It's because people don't see themselves and their sin as God does so they think they're good enough.
OTOH, I have no fear of hell because I'm not going there. Jesus saved me from that.
David Jeremiah did an excellent sermon and series on this subject. Google him. Well worth the effort.
Nobody's life is virtuous. Jesus addressed that in the Beatitudes. Everyone struggles with sin. And repeatedly at that. We all have areas where we just seem to fall into sin easily, and it's different for each of us.
When you accepted Jesus, your sins were forgiven and the righteousness of Jesus Himself was imputed to (credited to) your account. God knows our frame and remembers that we are dust. (Psalm 103)
Colossians 2:13-14 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
2 Corinthians 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Security of the believer
John 5:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
John 10:25-30 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one.”
Ephesians 1:13-14 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
Ephesians 4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Colossians 1:13-14 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Colossians 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
2 Corinthians 1:21-22 And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.
2 Corinthians 5:4-8 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
Please see post 152
If y’all have accepted Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and are bothered that much by your sin, then I’d say you have nothing to worry about.
If you weren’t saved, you wouldn’t care about your sin.
Chapter and verse?
Or is that your opinion?
"The closer you get to The Light, the dirtier you look."
(That's a close paraphrase.)
A very sobering post.
And I don’t doubt, very close to reality.
S:Ourselves? Our disbelief?
HELL!
FOR REAL.
That’s true.
I’d have figured that by this time in my life after walking with Christ for so many decades, that I’d be in pretty good shape by now.
But then God peels back another layer and ooops.......
Didn’t see that before.
And it feels like back to square one.
The ability to be aware of our sin -- and grieve over it, and repent of it -- is itself a gift from God. It's like having live nerve endings that let us feel pain, and turn away from the source of the pain that's hurting us. People with no live nerves (think of those suffering from Hansen's Disease i.e. leprosy) suffer much injury because they aren't aware anything is wrong.
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