Sermon Notes: Redefining Hell
#THERE ARE ANSWERS: REDEFINING HELL
[Revelation 20:10-15](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+20%3A10-15&version=ESV)
**Introduction**
Crisis of Faith - Doubt - Unbelief - Deconstruction - Questioning and abandoning Fundamental Beliefs
• Scripture
• False Teachers
• Sin
• Hell
Hell - Judgment for unbelievers
Cross & Crown Fundamental: Jesus is coming back to rule and to judge.
• 2 Timothy 4:1
• Acts 10:42
• John 5:26-27
• Matthew 25:31-33
Things that trouble people most about Christianity:
“How can a loving God, send good people to hell?”
We do not doubt the existence of hell, we just doubt that it is for us:
• 75% of people in the United States believe in hell
• Only 4% believe that there is a chance they are going
Human Beings believe that there ought to be justice.
• The major world religions all believe in the existence of some kind of hell
**IS HELL COMPATIBLE WITH THE LOVE OF GOD?**
A Loving God:
God is loving and good, and pure, and righteous, and just, and holy!
1 John 4:7-10
• God is love
• God’s supreme demonstration of love is to send the Son
• God’s supreme demonstration of love is to make propitiation
• Propitiation is a wrath-quenching sacrifice for sins
Good people:
Are people really good?
• Isaiah 53:6
• Romans 3:10
• Romans 3:23
God sends:
God doesn’t send them - they have chosen
***“There are only two kinds of people in the end: Those who say to God, ’Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ’Thy will be done.’ All that are in hell choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no hell. no soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.”*** – C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce.
to hell
***"A place of eternal, conscious torment for the wicked.”*** – Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology
**Wrong Ideas about the Afterlife**
Universalism - universal reconciliation: all human beings will ultimately be saved and restored to right relationship with God.
Purgatory - temporary punishment - a self-atonement through suffering that prepares those who have died in a state of Grace for heaven.
Karma / Reincarnation - A cause and effect process leading to a better or worse future through the actions we take.
Annihilationism - human beings, who are not believers, pass out of existence either immediately following death or after a time of punishment.
***“Hitler as the ultimate perpetrator of the Nazi Holocaust ought not to be able to escape being brought to account for his crimes against humanity by just blowing out his brains… Indeed something would be profoundly wrong with a world where its Hitlers could, when the time of reckoning drew near, just step off into nescience.”*** – Mark Talbot
***“If God were not angry at injustice and deception and did not make a final end to violence—that God would not be worthy of worship.”*** – Miroslav Volf
**What does the Bible Teach**
***“Hell is a place of eternal, conscious torment for the wicked.”*** – Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology
JESUS:
• Matthew 5:22
• Matthew 5:29-30
• Matthew 18:8-9
• Matthew 13:50
• Matthew 25:46
• Mark 9:43
• Mark 9:48
• Matthew 8:12
• Luke 16:19-31
The Apostles:
• 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9
• 2 Thessalonians 1:9
• Jude 7
• Revelation 14:9-10
• Revelation 20:10,13-15
• Revelation 21:8
***“Hell is life apart from the love and goodness of God and under complete control of sin.”*** – J.I.Packer
Hell is a place without God, without joy, without contentment, without pleasure; devoid of peace, hope, love or beauty without any hope to ever escape.
**Conclusion**
The question we asked: Is Hell compatible with the love of God?
The truth we discovered: THE LOVE OF GOD DEMANDS HELL!
When we realize how horrible sin really is, and when we get a glimpse of the true holiness of God, then it is no surprise that God would judge sinners. But it should shock us that God would save anyone!
WHAT DID IT COST YOUR GOD TO LOVE YOU AND TO HAVE YOUR NAME WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF LIFE?