It's Not About Stolen Cookies

A third assumption which makes God’s wrath against sinners difficult to understand is the notion that hell is about kinds of and numbers of acts committed.

We promote this mistake when we tell a child that stealing a cookie makes him a sinner, and sinners go to Hell. The statement is a half truth. The lie is in the cookie. We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners. It is that difference which makes the connection with the reality of Hell.

The final state of judgment is referred to as a Lake of Fire, and perhaps the most frequently given effort to describe it is a solitary freefall through a sea of flames. However, two considerations should be addressed, not in an effort to make the Lake of Fire less than it is, but to assess our imagery and grasp its connection with sin.

First, we are dealing with a Hebrew writer describing what he sees. The vision is real, but Hebrew minds could see a lush pasture with a chaos of flowers and describe it as a land flowing with milk and honey.

The second consideration has to do with the name given to the Lake of Fire - Gehenna. This was a despicable place of abomination outside the city of Jerusalem in the days of its flagrant apostasy. It was a place of human sacrifices to pagan idols equated with Tophet in Isaiah 30:33 and is graphically sketched in Isaiah 66:24 as an expanse of burning and smoldering corpses. It is a garbage dump, not of burning piles of discarded newspapers, product packaging, and junk mail, but of human beings trashed by their own agenda - a sea of rebels which sacrificed itself and its children to the service of treason against their Creator. 

The Lake of Fire is not about kinds and numbers of evil acts committed. It is not about stealing cookies. It is about hearts set on stealing God's right to be worshiped and obeyed. Interestingly, it is especially associated with the use of our tongues. It is about a core contempt for God who interferes with man's effort to justify both good and evil in pursuit of his own god-hood. And it is that core contempt which makes the thought of crying for mercy unacceptable. 

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The Habits of Sin Do Not Vanish at the Other Side of the Granite Door

Hebrews 9:27-28

Before we look at the third assumption which makes us uncomfortable with the reality of Hell, we need to say a little more about the false hope of a second chance after death. Jesus addressed this matter in Luke 16:19-31. We will have a little more to say about this account in a future article. My interest here is what Jesus says about the attitude of a man awaiting the carrying out of the final sentence.

The circumstances are clear.

1. The man was in torment.
2. The mercy he cried for was motivated by pain not repentance.
3. He did not ask to be brought over to the other side. Rather, he wanted the former beggar, Lazarus, to be sent to ease his agony.

Having been a man of wealth and position and power, it would seem his heart for the privilege of being served had not changed. Unless one has a new nature in Christ, the habits of sin do not vanish on the other side of the granite door. 

Failing to get someone from the servant class to meet his needs, he wanted him to be sent to warn his brothers. But warn them of what? Abraham saw the man's dedication to the false assumption that existential experience is the foundation of right choices. 

• Abraham:  They have Moses and the Prophets, let them hear them.
• Man in torment:  No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.
• Abraham:  If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.

The purpose of the Law is to expose sin and underscore the need for repentance, mercy and change. Repentance based on miracle rather than truth is shallow at best. Such is our dedication to sin that even someone coming back from the dead would not move us. That takes a new birth generated by God’s Holy Spirit.

Have you experienced that new birth?

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It's Not About a Second Chance

The second assumption which tempts people to alter the Bible’s truth about Hell is that lost souls will be repentant after they die.

Of course this one builds on the first assumption, that, deep down, everyone WANTS to go to Heaven. The difficulty, we want to believe, is they lack information. Therefore, logically, when they discover what Heaven is really like, they will have a radical change of heart. That being the case, the just and loving God will surely give them a second chance. 

The problem is the notion that a person's "good side" will win out at the “Pearly Gates.” Naively, they accept the fantasy of crediting themselves with goodness and blaming God and others for their "bad side." Actually, what "good" they practice is a corrupted remnant of their origin as created beings made in the image of God; and their dedication to evil and darkness is limited both by the ongoing interference of the Holy Spirit and in order to accommodate their agenda as  god-players in a community of god-players.

Remove the Holy Spirit from the equation and people move farther and farther from the light of goodness because it tends to hinder them more than serve them. More pointedly, we, by nature, love darkness and there is nothing to indicate that will change when confronted with holy goodness in all its brilliance. Thus, the unregenerate man in death is confronted with two hells. Talk of a second chance is moot if there is no change of heart about the "right" to embrace evil.

Since nothing will be allowed in the kingdom which is given to evil, and since the unregenerate heart loves its evil too much to part with it, the heart cry of the unsaved in the end will be, "Let the rocks fall on us and hide us from the King." Yes, they will bend the knee, but it will be as conquered foes awaiting the carrying out of the sentence against them. Their fist will still be clenched. 

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You May Not Want Heaven As Much As You Think You Do

With all due respect to those who try to erase Hell from the discussion of the rebel’s danger in the presence of a holy God, this is not something which can be photo opted. To pretend to have enough enlightenment to adjust God’s warning is not just perilous. It is pernicious. To try to do so is to abandon, Christianity, not readjust it. Eternal damnation is on the lips of Jesus – forcefully.

Actually, as with God’s wrath, the warning of an eternal torment of judgment for treason against our Creator is not that difficult to understand; but we have to confront some false assumptions.

Assumption number one. Everyone wants to go to Heaven.

This assumption holds ground so long as we forget that the person who finds his greatest joy on earth in things which are abomination to God is not likely to be excited about eternity in a place where those options will be unavailable. When a person trusts Christ it is because God has changed those appetites enough to desire the goodness he does not have. This creates a hunger for mercy for the evil heart he has cultivated. Having trusted Christ he becomes God’s child through the new birth and undergoes an appetite change. That change is the motivation behind his determination as a soldier engaged in spiritual battle against his new enemy, his old master, the devil, whose traitorous purposes he once served and whose destiny he once shared. When the purpose of that person's earthly walk has run its course (be it long or short) he will enter the rarefied atmosphere of complete goodness; and it will be enjoyed without the heart he once had which could make something impure out of whatever he looked at. 

We would do well, in talking to the still unsaved, to address this assumption. Help them discover if sin is really something they want to live without. It could be revealing. 

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