[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Welcome in to Think Deeper podcast. We have the rare privilege of filming together on site in the what is usually the godly Young Men studio. But we're commandeering for the Think Deeper studio today.
And with this one, we are on number one. We're on episode 198. So 200 is now two weeks away. Pretty excited about that. We'll be back in this room for that here in a couple weeks. That'll be the week of Thanksgiving. We'll drop episode 200. So be looking forward to that. We're gonna have some other news to tell you about here soon. I have. My next book is on the way. We're gonna save those announcements for that day. Today we're going a little bit, I don't know, a little more somber, a little bit darker topic. And we talked about grace in the churches of Christ a couple weeks ago. We're gonna talk about that when my book comes out because that's a really big deal and the importance of grace. But there's also a place to talk about hell. Jesus talked about hell a lot.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: It's.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: It's something the Bible addresses and we have to talk about it. But on the other hand, a lot of people might overdo it. And so we're going to talk about balance. We're going to talk about those kinds of things. Opening thoughts, guys.
[00:01:10] Speaker C: Yeah, this is one of those episodes that credit to Jack for the idea. We were talking about it and Jack said, have we done an episode on this? And all of us were kind of surprised as we're Almost at the 200 episode mark, almost the 4 full years mark, that we had not done an episode just dedicated exclusively to the discussion of hell. And we're going to spend a little time kind of talking about, you know, biblically speaking, the different words that are used and kind of understanding is there. But guys, I think the more interesting part of the discussion, as usual, is going to be, yeah, like from the pulpits. What about overdoing it? What about underdoing it? How much should. An interesting question I'm looking forward to getting to is like, how much should fear of hell motivate somebody to get baptized? Is that a. I hate to say legitimate, but, like, is that a good reason to get baptized? Is an interesting question. And just, I don't know. Another question would be like, how much should we think about hell in our everyday life? How much should we consider, you know, the punishment that Jesus saved us from? It's not something we like to talk about very much. And, you know, thus Why I think it might go under discussed in a lot of venues.
And so it's just an uncomfortable thought for a lot of people. Obviously there's the movements that have taken place to try to downplay it and pretend it doesn't exist, which we'll get to. But yeah, all in all, it's a very interesting topic. I'm looking forward to the episode.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I think when you consider early, maybe 1950s, 1960s preaching for the guys that, you know, you'll hear the people like, oh man, I remember Brother Marshall Keeble or whatever it may be, and what's the term that often goes with that preaching? Hellfire and brimstone, man, I grew up on strong hellfire and brimstone and that we've gotten away from that in the church. And once again, as you guys are asking, as we want to get into, is that a good thing or is that a bad thing to go from? Especially the churches of Christ being known for that. But I'd say across the board there was probably more of that discussion, more of the hellfire brimstone discussion. So I think it's a fascinating question, I suppose, as to is that a better thing that we are no longer doing that from the pulpit every single Sunday? Are we better off as a society, are we better off as a church, or are there some serious downsides to that having taken place? And I think you're going to find that that's. Once again, it's an interesting concept or interesting question because there's kind of both sides to this that we want to get into.
[00:03:20] Speaker C: Just anecdotally speaking for me, if I didn't, if my dad didn't speak on it, I don't, I can't recall another, another lesson on it. And so I know the, the decade that I was growing up in the church that I remember the 2010s, the, that was not the hellfire brimstone era. But I'm curious, especially for you older gentlemen, if you guys remember, you know, one or two handful Annie again, I got to listen to my dad. So I heard it from him, but not, not really from anybody else.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: Well, Jack, did you. Was Barton Stone preaching?
[00:03:50] Speaker B: Very funny, very funny. But that really. I didn't hear a lot on it either.
When I did hear it, and honestly, I did this the first time I preached on it many, many years ago. Of course, you apologize for it up front, like, oh, this is a tough topic. And you know, this is one we don't want to talk about. And that's how I heard it and that's how I was like, well, hold on now.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: This is what God says. And we need to be able to say, yeah, this is a difficult topic, but we're going to talk about it because God talks about it. And so before we get into kind of what the Bible says about it, there is that question of balance. And I don't believe that. Balance means if The Bible says one verse about it, then preach on it once every 10 years and it says a bunch of things on it. It doesn't really work that way because the Bible doesn't say anything about transgenderism. But we need to, I mean, you can kind of extrapolate but like as far as homosexuality, not a big thing in the Bible, but it needs to be addressed in our day and age. And so like there's a few ingredients that go into determining balance.
But having said that, hell is in there enough, especially in Jesus's preaching, that if it just doesn't get touched for 10 years or you know, if it gets touched with that, well, okay, we gotta kind of mention this over here. That's not balance. And so, yeah, getting it in its proper place and talking about it as the Bible does is we're not being faithful if we don't do that.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: Yeah, that's an interesting thought on what the time dictates and when, you know, when is the best time to handle this. And you look at, in a generation where we're growing over the gentle parenting, we're growing up with a complete lack of respect for anybody or anything in criminal justice.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: I mean, you're seeing stuff like, oh well, just let them go. They just need to be reformed. They need to, you know, give them, give them a 13th chance and things like that.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: I mean, what they just, the guy that just selected in New York, like he's, he's going to basically let people walk scot free in a lot of these situations. So right now may be a really good time for us to be talking on hell. But we want to get into the biblical concept of hell because there are different words, different Greek words that go along with this, different concepts. I think they're reaching for similar, but maybe some distinct things as we go. And so fellas, I know you guys have both looked at this, you got your laptops in front of you, let's get into Hades, Sheol, which I think is going to be used a lot more. The Bible also uses Gehenna and one time Tartarus, if I'm pronouncing that correctly.
And that's going to be in second Peter. So we may not spend a ton of time on that one, but get us into whoever wants to take this one, the biblical concepts of hell and the difference in how they're used.
[00:06:12] Speaker C: Yeah. So I'll go first, Jack, and then you can back clean up with your.
Anything that you want to add or remove from what I say. But so when you see Hades in the Bible, I think there's generally a misconception that Hades is essentially synonymous with hell. I think part of that is maybe due to some translation issues. I'm not sure if King James was one of those. That was a problem. But hell and Hades are not the same. Hades generally refers to the realm of the dead, essentially, like kind of the. It would encompass for those who would believe in paradise and torment. It would encompass both of those, not just the torment side. And so you see Hades, of course, in Luke chapter 16.
Actually, I'll start in Acts 2, verse 27, just to give a few references. This is, of course, Peter's sermon, first Gospel sermon that everybody knows for Acts 2:38.
But before he gets there, he's quoting. He obviously quotes from Joel, chapter two, but then he also quotes from Psalm 16, for you will not leave my soul in Hades. So there's. There's that word Hades there that you see referring to. So again, for somebody who would say that that means hell, that is referring to Jesus Christ. And so you'd have to kind of argue that Jesus went to hell, which I don't know about y'.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: All.
[00:07:24] Speaker C: I don't believe that.
But then also, of course, another very familiar one is Luke chapter 16, with the parable of the rich man and Lazarus talking about them going to Haiti. So that word is used there as well. Jack, I'll let you get to kind of the use of the word Sheol. Is that the kind of the Old Testament version of that?
[00:07:42] Speaker B: Yeah, very similar. And David in Psalms talks about him going down to Sheol and things like that. And so, yeah, just a similar thing of, you know, you pass into some kind of darkness, separation from this life after death.
But as he talked about, there's no talking and she'll. We're not getting communication back from them, and you just don't know what's on the other side of it. So, yeah, that's Sheol. And again with Hades, that is. It kind of sounds like hell. It's. And obviously you got the Greek influence, things like that. That I think sometimes people think that's hell, but it's really.
[00:08:14] Speaker C: And I Might be wrong on this, but I think it's the Matthew 16 passage where Jesus says the gates of Haiti shall not prevail against it. I think it was King James that had that as the gates of hell should not prevail against. Or maybe I. I'm think I might be wrong on that, but I think that's due. That led. Has led to some of the misconception.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: So for the listeners then, what would you say is the biggest difference between Hades and Hell? Because they may look at it and go, okay, it's kind of sound one of the same. Like maybe there's a difference.
[00:08:38] Speaker C: Well, Hades is not exclusively hell. It's just.
[00:08:40] Speaker A: It is just the place of the dead, right?
[00:08:42] Speaker C: Just the realm of the. It could. It encompasses both paradise and torment. So when the rich man and Lazarus died, they both went to Hades, but they didn't both go to torment. Does that make sense?
[00:08:51] Speaker A: So. And Sheol is the same because it always talks about seemingly almost in a negative sense, especially in the Psalms, going down to Sheol.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: Right.
[00:08:57] Speaker A: So is that with the. With both in mind or is that with particularly the waiting place of.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: Of that. It's the same. It's just that you're. You're going to be somewhere else and you know, removed from this life, removed from the body, all of those things.
And then you can get into like is torment hell or is torment pre Hell? Right. And that kind of whole discussion and I would call it kind of pre Hell. And you know, you've got in Revelation those being thrown into the lake of fire that kind of gives the same idea of Hell, of maybe those that have been waiting in torment and now they. At the final judgment. That's where they end up.
We've had like kind of what happens at the end episodes before. I wish I looked up the. The title of it to tell you where to go with it, but I'll have to link that here in the.
The description.
[00:09:40] Speaker C: But I was correct by the way, was King James that has that as hell in Matthew 16:18, whereas the word is Hades. Gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. So then you have Gehenna, which is not used near as much as Hades is, but it is used almost kind of that one. That word is referring to Hell, like eternal torment, eternal flame and things like that. And so Joe mentioned Tartarus as well. That word is only used in Second Peter, chapter two, verse four.
Feel bad I'm just referencing these and not reading them, but real fast.
[00:10:14] Speaker A: Gehenna was a play on the words of the place outside the trash heap. Correct. Outside Jerusalem.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Well, not just the trash heap, Hinnom. But that's where they did child sacrifice in the book of Joshua and second Kings, second Chronicles. It comes around a few times. That's where they.
2nd Chronicles 28, 3 burned incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, burned his children in the fire according to the abomination, like it was a bad place, you know, and all kinds of connotations.
[00:10:38] Speaker C: It's the word that Jesus uses most often, like in the Sermon on the mount, Matthew 5. Your right hand cause you to sin, cut it off, profitable for you, then one of your members perished and for your whole body to be cast into hell there. That word is gehenna. In fact, interestingly enough, this word is used, according to my search engine, 11 times in the Greek or 12 times total in the New Testament. 11 times in the Gospels. The only time it's not used in the Gospels is in James, chapter three, verse six. The tongue is a fire world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, sets on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire by hell. So bit of a tedious exercise there to start. Just to kind of give you the. Give you kind of the different words that are used in the Bible.
[00:11:18] Speaker A: Joe, Tartarus is an interesting one. You mentioned that. I didn't mean to.
[00:11:21] Speaker C: No, you're good. Yeah.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: That is only mentioned in 2nd Peter 2. 4. I'll read that here. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness reserved for judgment. And then it goes on. But he talks about the angels being cast into hell. That's the only reference that that's used in the New Testament. We were looking this up ahead of time.
That it's very interesting. That is kind of a realm. Let's talk about. Did you say an Enoch first? In First Enoch talked about there, you know, one of the fallen angels being ruler over that. That realm. And so it seems like that's a spiritual realm reserved for.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: Yeah, the.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: The. Basically the spiritual version of. Which sounds weird because I guess all of these are spiritual versions, but like the angel version of hell type of thing also it seems to be somewhat of maybe a.
Do you think that's a waiting place? Do you think we all. Do you think that. And I know this is. We'll continue on to Jesus words and a little bit more. But do you think that the waiting period or that Hell. Once we all go into hell, those that are in the. I should say not we.
[00:12:21] Speaker C: Hopefully we're not going to hell.
[00:12:22] Speaker A: Not we all as humans. Those that are going to hell that are reserved for judgment, do you think they're going to be in the same place as the fallen angels then? Seems revelation is speaking to that, correct?
[00:12:32] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it seems like they kind of. With the Peter thing, they got sent there first and those that are waiting on that are gonna end up there in the end. It is.
It was kind of a Greek concept, a subterranean place lower than Hades, where divine punishment was meted out. So Hades is all dead. People go there and wait in one place or another, and then below that, where the real punishment happens. And so that was specifically just said the angels, when they sinned, cast them into Tartarus, committed them to pits of darkness, but still reserved for judgment. And so it's one of those. Like, they might be waiting as well.
Little hard to parse out all of that.
[00:13:10] Speaker C: So I'm going to move us into. So one of the things that was going around for a while, guys, and I don't know. So Love Wins by Rob Bell came out, what, in like 2009 or something? Like, it's been. It's been out for a long time.
Very much in the evangelical community popularized the idea that hell essentially didn't exist. Like that it was not somewhere that any Christian or that anybody need to worry about going, that God was a loving God, essentially wouldn't send people to hell.
Paraphrasing. Because to be honest, I didn't read the book.
It was pretty heretical when it came out. I know a lot of people talked about how bad it was. 2011, there you go. But there is this idea that Jesus did not believe in hell. I think that was a belief that was kind of going around back then that Jesus.
Jesus didn't believe in hell. Jesus didn't really talk about hell and that hell. Because Jesus, of course, has always been the part of Christianity that the world can kind of latch onto the easiest. Right?
All love, you know, he's. He'll be your friend relationship rather than religion. And so Jesus is kind of that, you know, I'm friends with Jesus, right? Me and Jesus have an agreement or. And stuff like that. Like the world, people who really don't have a lot of Bible knowledge that kind of would loosely claim Christianity have always been able to latch onto Jesus as a figure pretty easily. So it makes sense then, if you're trying to distance yourself from hell, that you'll Come out with the idea that, well, Jesus, did he really believe in hell? Is that more of an Old Testament thing or. I mean, did Jesus kind of come along and abolish that? And so I don't know, whichever one you guys kind of wants to start with the very basic biblical principle that Jesus very much did believe in hell and in fact talked about it a great deal.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Mark nine. I was just going to get into mark nine, starting verse 43. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off.
It is better for you to enter life crippled than having your two hands to go into hell, into the unquenchable Gehenna, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched continues. If your foot cause you to stumble, cut it off. It's better for you to enter life lame than having your two feet to be cast in hell. So it repeats it again. And same thing with the eye.
Very much seems like Jesus is specifically speaking to a place of torment, a place of judgment, where the. As he says, the, you know, it does not die. It's an unquenchable fire that is not quenched.
Unquenchable, not quenched. Yeah, go figure. But an unquenchable fire. Yeah, it's just there alone. It's like, yeah, Jesus clearly believes in this. Then you can look at various passages Matthew, Jack, I don't know if you have those pulled up. Various passages in Matthew where there very much seems to be a hell and fire are connected quite a bit. Francis Chan gets into this in his book Erasing Hell, which was kind of a response to R.A. bell, like, yes, that is heretical. Absolutely. There is a hell. And as you get into Jesus's understanding of hell, it's pretty much always tied with fire, with. With judgment, but also with fire.
[00:16:03] Speaker C: And that it's eternal as well.
[00:16:06] Speaker A: Yeah, it's eternal. It's not. What's the. What's the term?
[00:16:09] Speaker C: Annihilation.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: Yeah, annihilation.
[00:16:12] Speaker B: Where.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: Yeah, once they're dead, they're thrown, basically.
[00:16:15] Speaker B: Yeah. You get punished for a little while and then that's it. And eternity goes on without you.
[00:16:20] Speaker A: Right. So Jesus is speaking that here, like, no, it doesn't ever stop, seemingly. But you had those pulled up as well, I think.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: Yeah. So Matthew 10:28, of course, is a big one.
[00:16:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: Very key to this. He says, do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. And of course he says destroy there. And so that's where they say, oh, well, see, that's. You're not going to be around forever and ever. But then you have. The fire is not quenched, the worm does not die.
[00:16:47] Speaker C: Matthew 25. Everlasting punishment.
[00:16:49] Speaker A: Right?
[00:16:49] Speaker B: Everlasting punishment. And it's the same word for everlasting life. And you don't want that to last for a little while and then it's over with. And so there's also somebody made this point. I wish I could give them credit. I read this a couple years ago, that it's a very Western thought to think, oh, man, just getting it over with and getting done would be the. That would be the nice, loving, kind thing to do. I said, yeah, but other people groups think that existence is such a blessing that to eliminate existence entirely, that's the worst punishment. Like, if you're just erased forever and ever, as if you never were here.
That, like, even. And I could. You can get into existing without hope and things like that. But it's like, this is.
I don't know. I. The. I understand the impulse to that I. I think we would all really want to believe that if, like, oh, it's not that hard a punishment. Like, hey, he's God. He gets to be God and we're not. And that's a really important part of this whole discussion is saying, oh, come on, God, ease up a little bit. Like, we don't understand sin's ugliness the way God does.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: Right? Yeah, that's exactly what went through my mind. Is the whole discussion here around hell really centers around, do we understand the egregiousness of sin? Do we understand that sin is so worthy of punishment? Because people are gonna, what's the big deal? What's the big deal? Like, we. It's a human thing to downplay the consequences and everything else rather than recognizing, boy, this is really bad. And, yes, it is going to be unquenchable. And the other piece of this is like, well, first off, he's God. He can do whatever he wants. And this is the purpose of us being Christians. Is there is a level of fear. Absolutely. That is going to get you toward baptism, get you into. Into the faith. There's a lot of other things as well, but fear has to come in.
[00:18:25] Speaker C: Well, I think every single week we should be thinking about hell at least for a few seconds or to some extent during the Lord's Supper. When you consider what it is that, you know, we use the word all the time, Jesus, sacrifice.
[00:18:35] Speaker A: Right?
[00:18:35] Speaker C: It's like, okay, what did his sacrifice entail what, what, what did he save us from? He saved us from this exact thing that we're reading about.
[00:18:42] Speaker A: Right?
[00:18:43] Speaker C: And the everlasting punishment and the fire that shall never be quenched and the lake of fire and all these things. Like that's what he saved us from. And obviously, you know, that entails the wrath of God being unleashed against sin. But, and, and so, yeah, I definitely think. Not to jump ahead to kind of how much shall we think, slash, talk about this? But I definitely think it should be on our minds to some extent from a grateful, from a gratitude perspective of like Jesus, you know, father, thank you so much for saving us from this. When we partake of the body and the blood of Christ, we would be. We would have nothing to look to except for hell, if that. If those things. If he had not given up his body, if he had not shed his blood. And so I appreciate your thoughts there, but I think it's so powerful when you consider Jesus was talking about all these things, Matthew 9, Luke 12, and I know Matthew 10, all these things. You're talking about hell knowing full well that he was going to go to the cross to save all of it, to save all of his followers from that. Like, I find that very powerful that he. That it was, it was very much fresh on his mind even before he went to the cross.
[00:19:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
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Yeah, so the.
I meant to have it in my notes and there's a lot, a lot of tabs open here. But that idea of destruction, even in the same context, is not translated that way again. It's not translated that way again, hardly at all. In 1039, he was found. His life will lose it. That's the same word that's used as destroy in hell. He was lost his life for my sake will find it elsewhere. It says in Matthew 12:14, the Pharisees mount conspired against him. How they. How they might destroy him, but elsewhere, it's just lose. He will not lose his reward. I mean, not destroy his reward. Things like that, perish, things like that are what that word is translated as. And so, yeah, it would be really comforting in my mind, be like, yep, it's just going to be short term and then they'll be erased and we don't have to worry about it anymore. Because that question comes up, how are you going to enjoy heaven knowing people, even people you loved, are going to be burning, you know, in hellfires for all of eternity? That's a fair question. That doesn't mean Christianity is not legitimate. It means, as I said a minute ago, God's justice. When we understand it clearly. And to Will's point about the cross and everything we've been saved from and the cost to him and all of those things, the more we understand that, the more you understand hell, the more you understand God's holiness and things like that. Like, and I guess that gets us into another part of this discussion is how God necessitates hell. Like, hell, you know, the people, atheists will say, well, God had to create hell. Like, well, yeah, he did, because separation from him is what sin brings. And what do you do with those? You know, that sin requires punishment. The wages of sin is death. Romans 6:23. And that kind of gets back to the Ra Bell thing of basically, like, God loves us enough to let us choose, and so he'll let us choose, you know, whatever our hell is, but he wants us to choose the right thing, and he's gonna love us enough to basically give us time to choose. And, you know, you can almost make like a purgatory kind of thing there where it's like.
And this is what happens in CS Lewis is the great Divorce. And I don't think Lewis believed this, but basically they all go to hell, all these miserable people, and they get a bus ride to heaven to check it out, just take a look around. And most of them decide, I'm getting back on the bus, I can't take this, I don't want this. And God let them choose to go be miserable for all of eternity. But some of them stick around and realize, this is what I really want. And so there's that view of basically, well, yeah, God just lets you choose what you want.
I don't think so.
[00:22:52] Speaker A: It's interesting that we would look at the physical so much. We always talk about the burning and fire to me, the true hell of hell, the true worst part of hell is being separated from God. As you're talking about. It's the darkness, it's the separation and the lack of hope in our carnal minds. You know, our minds think about man, when I burn my hand on a stove, that really hurts. Imagine having to deal with that. Yes, there's that pain. I think it's the hopelessness though. And this goes to.
Yeah, I mean that's the separation. The chasm I think that's spoken of in the rich man and Lazarus is.
Yeah, there's a chasm between them. And so punishment is naturally going to be a part of it. I want to go back to your question though of like, why, hello, I'm curious, get your thoughts on that as well.
Why did God necessitate. Why not just have people be away from him and not. Okay, well, there's a punishment element which we understand it.
But yeah, the I think this trips up a lot of atheists is why would it be a continual punishment for all of eternity? We can talk about the egregiousness of sin, but okay, well, it's kind of like a guy who is, if you murder someone, okay, you're going to be in the jail for all of eternity. We may look at that and say, well, that's not the case. That's why I think we as humans have to be able to wrap our minds around God and his justice and God and understanding our ways are not his ways. We consistently put human terms, human understandings on God as a way to try to like quell God and go, well, that's not fair.
Who created the concept of fairness to begin with? How do we have any concept of what is?
[00:24:20] Speaker C: And who are we to get to say what is fair?
[00:24:22] Speaker A: Right, exactly. But to me, that's one thing that again, the atheists and those that maybe disagree with Christianity go to the most is how could a loving God punish people for all eternity? Even if it was a short term punishment with annihilationism, okay, maybe that's one thing, but for all eternity. And yeah, I think it's almost blasphemous for us to say, to question God and question fairness.
[00:24:43] Speaker C: I would just look at it from the other side and say, how fair is it that us as sinful humans get to go spend eternity with God forever? Like, I think that side is what's not thought about a lot in this whole discussion is like, that's not really fair either. When you think about all the things we've done as Humans, all the things the human race just in general has done. You think about how unworthy we are and we sing songs about that, about being unworthy right in the throne room of God and things like that. And yet he gets. And yet, if we so choose, we get to live with him forever in eternity and be surrounded by the saints and be surrounded in his presence and literally forever.
A concept that's difficult for us to grasp. That doesn't seem to add up all the way either. And so I wanted to kind of just counterbalance that because we can get so focused on man.
How fair is it that first of all, I agree with you, Joe, about the fairness. Like, okay, maybe if one day we are the all powerful being, the creator universe, maybe then we can decide what's fair. But before then I don't think we can. But I think it's important to focus on the blessing that God has given us of the gift of heaven as opposed to just the hell thing. But what I would say to why is hell necessary?
I think whenever rebellion against God is taking place, no punishment is too great, I guess, is the way that, like this is not. Like this is just. You think about Satan and his angels just rebelling against God. You think about the billions of people that have existed that have truly rebelled against God. You know, I think there's an interesting discussion that we can have about is it more, is it a deterrent? Like, is it meant to be a deterrent? Kind of like, you know, some of the punishments that we have. But yeah, I choose to kind of focus on just the kind of undeserving nature we have of heaven or the undeserving nature of heaven. That is something that we get to look forward to in addition to kind of the, hey, if you choose to rebel against God, all bets are off is essentially the way that I would put that.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: That's really good. It's a matter of gratitude too if like what a gift it is to just exist at all.
[00:26:40] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:26:40] Speaker B: You know, like just to be anything at all. That, that you exist, that you didn't have to, you weren't entitled to, that you couldn't make yourself exist, that this was. God gave you this opportunity, you know, gave them the Garden of Eden, gave us the opportunity in Christ, gave us all of this and to go, well, yeah, I don't like what you, you're going to do with it. Like who were you saying?
[00:27:00] Speaker A: Right.
[00:27:01] Speaker B: And so the other thing, we did talk about hell a little bit in the episode on levels of reward, levels of punishment. And it says in Luke 12:47, that servant who knew his master's will and did not prepare himself or do according to his will shall be beaten with many stripes. But he who did not know yet committed things deserving of stripes shall be beaten with few. And so it establishes that. It talks about those that cause little ones to stumble, cast a millstone. In the same way that the imprecatory psalms that David prays against evil and God bringing down the wicked and all that.
That's not the little old lady who didn't.
[00:27:33] Speaker C: It's not ignorant.
[00:27:34] Speaker B: Yeah, it's not ignorant people. Like, there's a punishment, but there's a lesser punishment. But, like, you have to start with realizing every sin and every person has sinned is rebellion against the perfect and holy God. You know? And this is one of the great YouTube clips in all of religion is the RC Sproul one.
At some conference, and somebody submitted a question of, like, was God being too hard on Adam and Eve? I think it was for, like, kicking them out of the garden for one sin. And, you know, they. They're like, all right, who wants to answer it? And they all just kind of looked at Sproul, and he takes him, and he's like, all right, you know, like, was God being too harsh? And he goes, what's wrong with you people? And everyone starts kind of laughing. He's like, I'm serious. Like, you know, and he just makes the point we're making here of, like, a holy God creates you, and you want to look at him and be like, hey, I don't like your rules. Like, no, no, no, no. That very much is a what's wrong with you people? Mentality.
[00:28:28] Speaker C: Spoiled kid mentality.
[00:28:30] Speaker B: Yeah. And so that. And that goes back to my point about, like, the apologetic sermons about hell, you know, Like, I know you guys, we don't want to talk about this, and it's not a fun subject. Well, it's not a fun subject, but whoever said it was going to be. Whoever said we have to talk about fun subjects every week, Right? It's a real subject, one that, as we've established, Jesus talked about a lot of.
And we who are submitted to a holy God bowing our heads before him, like, however you see fit.
[00:28:55] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:28:56] Speaker B: You're right. And I'm wrong. I'm not here to question you.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: Yeah. And what a blessing that, as you said, what a blessing. We have an opportunity to be with him based off of Jesus going through the physical torment, the physical pain that we're so scared of like he took that on our behalf and did that so that we might be there. I had a question for you guys though, because we get into the epistles, we're talking about Jesus, right. We've mentioned even Acts, but we've mentioned Luke 16. We mentioned Mark, mentioned Matthew a couple times.
Second Thessalonians 1 speaks to this. He talks about verse 6. For after all, it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well, when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. So it's speaking about the concept of punishment, the concept of hell.
There's not a ton of words.
[00:29:45] Speaker C: Verse nine. I don't know if you got to verse nine.
[00:29:46] Speaker A: Oh yeah, in verse nine. Sorry.
[00:29:47] Speaker C: Everyone has seen destruction.
[00:29:48] Speaker A: These who pay the penalty of eternal destruction. There you go. Away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. But hitting that again of being away from God is the worst because.
[00:29:56] Speaker C: But there's not much in the epistles.
[00:29:57] Speaker A: Yeah, but there's not a ton in the epistles. And I'm curious to get your thoughts on. Why do you think that is that the early church didn't spend a ton of time? Because as we're talking about hellfire and brimstone and bringing this up in the assemblies, we are going to be molding our churches around the Epistles so much. Not that obviously we're not looking at the Gospels, but we're molding it around what the epistles had. They didn't mention hell a ton. What do you guys make of that?
[00:30:19] Speaker C: I've got kind of a maybe half baked idea, so I'll throw it out there. And then again, Jack.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:30:25] Speaker C: Correct it as needed. So you think about what are the major. What is the major difference between when Jesus was talking in Matthew versus when Paul was writing and say listen, what's the major difference?
Well, one you had.
The church had started and what was also going on back then? Persecution. Right.
For the Jews. Yes. They were under Roman authority, but you know, the Jewish leaders were kind of living high on the hall. They weren't really suffering any kind of persecution.
[00:30:49] Speaker B: Right.
[00:30:49] Speaker C: And so I wonder if there's an element of almost like for the, the people that Paul's writing to, they were dealing with a lot of physical.
Yeah, just. Yeah, physical persecution and just Uncomfortable circumstances in life. Not all of them, of course, but a lot of them. And so that's why a lot of the focus of the epistles, maybe again just my half baked idea here is that what steers away from that is like they need, you know, they, their focus was already on God. They were new converts. There was already kind of a zeal, a passion for, for being a Christian. And so there really wasn't necessarily that need to point to the deterrent, right? To point to the, you know, make sure you stay away from this, the run away from, as opposed to the runaway to versus the Jewish leaders, the people Jesus was talking to, living fairly comfortably, maybe didn't have a whole lot of, what's the word? Like didn't really need to change all that much. And so maybe that was why there was a bigger need to point to this is what's coming for you if you don't repent.
And also again, the church hadn't started yet and so there was a bigger push needed. I guess that's kind of what came to my mind right away on the, on the spot. Jack, what thoughts you have.
[00:31:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean along those same lines, the Pharisees, Jesus was talking to very corrupted religious people with those. Because he didn't preach that to all the crowds. I mean there were times that, you know, Capernaum and cities, like he went and was very hard on them, said like, gonna be better for Sodom and Gomorrah than for you because of how you're acting. And so there was those threats, but that he didn't do that to everybody. A lot of people he preached a message of repentance and opportunity and things like that to come into the kingdom. And so with the epistles, these are, well, it's the difference between reprove, rebuke and exhort. Right? Like Paul's not really rebuking you. Go to the letters of the seven churches, there are some rebukes in there. In Revelation, chapter two.
Let's see, I had pulled up in thyatira in verse 21, I gave her time to repent. She's not one to repent of her immorality. Behold, I will throw her on a bed of sickness. And those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation unless they repent of her deeds. Because they tolerated the woman Jezebel, not great, you know, in the message of Pergamum a few verses above, verse 16, therefore repent or else I am coming to you quickly and I will make war against them with the sword of my Mouth talking about the Nicolaitans and those that hold to their teaching. Like, there's a pretty serious threat in there. And so I think Paul, there's times where he's pretty hard in Second Corinthians, in Galatians, you foolish Galatians who bewitched you, like you're going to be cut off, you stand condemned if you keep going this way. So there is that promise. And he's not so much talking about hell, but that threat is kind of underlying it of you're going to fall from grace, he says at one point. And so that's kind of the implication.
But yeah, and I think for Christians it's similar. Like, we should know about this. We should know it's there.
And I don't want to jump ahead too far, but talking about how much of a motivator should it be?
It should always be in the back of your mind, for sure.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: That's part of it, no doubt. I was looking through with these sermons. I was looking at Paul in Acts 17. We already know Peter in Acts 2.
Paul in, what is it, verse 31, talks about because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed. That's Acts 17, Acts 17, 31. Yeah. So not necessarily talking about hell, but I was thinking about through the sermons themselves.
That seems to be where hell is brought up. So to answer my own question, I would just piggyback off of you guys and say, like, I don't know that. So the letters to the churches, obviously that's what's necessary. I would say the same thing with these gospel sermons of the first one preached with Peter and at Pentecost is, yeah, he's bringing in a very scary thing of, you crucified the Lord, you crucified Jesus. And so, yeah, hell is brought, like scared to death. Right. And so there's that motivation from a negative side. He's also getting there on Mars hill in Acts 17, giving a motivation of like, yeah, God is going to come judge the world in righteousness. So judgment seems to be something that is reserved for the non Christians in a lot of ways, for before calling people and then for the Christians that are not acting like it, which would go to the seven churches there is on that side. And I think that's why you're not going to have it. A ton in the epistles is it wasn't the epistles, by and large, were trying to get doctrine correct and sorted out, trying to get the way of the church sorted out it wasn't dealing with blatant non Christians other than in a few instances, in which case you are seeing judgment brought in quite a bit. You're seeing in 1 Corinthians 5. I don't think it mentions hell in that one. But this idea of who are we to judge the world. But yeah, we're going to be facing judgment. We judge one another, of course, because that's what there is. So judgment is a concept that does show up in the epistles quite a bit. I think it's just that hell is reserved for the non Christians and for the people, the Christians that are very much acting like it's.
Which doesn't take up the majority of the epistles.
[00:35:27] Speaker B: You could sum it up like the closer you are to hell, the more it gets talked about, like the fairest.
[00:35:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's a great point.
[00:35:32] Speaker B: They heard about it a lot. Right.
[00:35:33] Speaker C: So yeah, you could have saved a lot of time, Jack, if you just said that.
[00:35:36] Speaker B: Start.
[00:35:36] Speaker C: I'm just kidding. That's a great thought. So I've been, we've been hitting around it. I've really wanted to get to this question. So we're going to talk about the consequences of the over emphasis on hell and then the concept of the under emphasis on hell. And so I want to start with the over emphasis on hell, which would be man, every other week pounding the pulpit, you know, hellfire and brimstone, you're going to burn. The Jonathan Edwards Wright sinners in the hands of an angry God sermon.
[00:36:01] Speaker B: Pulled that up because he does.
[00:36:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:04] Speaker C: And so there's a place where I think there is. Yeah, let's talk about the overemphasis. The question that I want to get to because some of the, one of the things that I put down for a kind of a consequence of the over emphasis is what I call a fear driven faith. You're faithful to God because you are just trying to stay out of hell. You are. You, you know, again, it's driven by fear. My question and that we've hit on is how much of a motivating factor should that be for someone to get baptized? As I think back about my baptism 13, 14 years ago now, I would be lying if I said, yeah, hell wasn't really a concern for me. That was a big concern. It was a big part of my mind. Like I don't want to die and go to hell.
So I can't remember if we've discussed this question before, but like you have that, you know, dichotomy of becoming a Christian out of fear of hell versus becoming a Christian out of love for God. Where do you guys fall on that? Like how much of a motivating factor should that be? And then I would say even beyond the baptism question, as you stay on the narrow way, right? As you, as you remain a Christian, how much motivating factor should that be of like fear. Fear. I don't want to end up in hell as opposed to man. I want to pursue God and be like Christ.
Tough question I think to kind of tangibly come down on, but like what are yalls thoughts on that fear driven faith idea?
[00:37:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I almost did die and that was the day I got baptized. And it was for a long time. And I think I was the oldest of the four in our family getting baptized for a long time. I was just like, how do I know I'm ready? How do I know I'm ready? How do I. And then you almost die and it's.
[00:37:32] Speaker C: Like, I think I'm ready.
[00:37:34] Speaker B: Like an hour we were camping and it was almost a four wheeler accident. And you know, I come to the campground with dad later. I've been thinking about getting baptized. Like I was wondering.
[00:37:43] Speaker C: On a completely.
[00:37:44] Speaker B: Unrelated note and you know, looking back on that, I was like, well does that delegitimize it? Well no it doesn't because I knew all the stuff up front. But it also made it very real of like, hey, there is a judgment, I am not going to live forever and things like that. And so I don't regret being motivated by fear to some level. And Jesus preached fear. And John the Baptist comes, he's like, hey, Jesus is coming and you want to be on the right side when he gets here because it's going to be bad if you don't. Why would he preach that if it's wrong? And you see how people responded, you know, all of Jerusalem, Judea was going out to be baptized because of that man message.
[00:38:14] Speaker C: So my. Sorry to cut in front of you, Joe. I love that answer. My answer is yes, it is perfectly legitimate or acceptable, whatever word to be motivated by fear to become a Christian. I think my answer would be it probably shouldn't stay fear.
You know, it probably should not. You should not remain in that constant fearful state. But yeah, I mean, to your point, Jack, if fear was not meant to be a kind of a motivating factor, why did Jesus talk about it so much or even as little as it is in the epistles? Why did. Why does Paul start off second Thessalonians talking about Everlasting destruction. Like, there has to be an element of like, hey, you're kind of deterrent in a way. And so that's where I would just again end with like, probably shouldn't still be fear of hell in ten years after becoming Christian.
[00:38:54] Speaker B: Wait, wait, predict the Joe phrase.
You do it. It's about running to something.
[00:39:00] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:39:01] Speaker A: I was like, attachment, super nobody. Yeah, I got a bunch of this.
[00:39:06] Speaker B: Pull out the index.
[00:39:08] Speaker A: This is play by play. Yeah, pretty much. Telegram.
No, what I was going to say, we call them babes in Christ.
Well, what do you do as a kid? You know, do I expect my 4 year old to obey me because we've just got such deep relationship. That's what you get into in modern parenting is they don't want the fear first. And so it's like, I'm not afraid of spanking. I think spanking can be very appropriate.
[00:39:28] Speaker B: Why?
[00:39:29] Speaker A: Yes, I want my kid to fear me. That's going to be the very first thing is my 2 year old. Because I have these people that are like, well, I don't like spanking. So what you do for my 2 year old? Do I put them in timeout? Like, that's horrible advice for a two year old.
[00:39:39] Speaker C: Oh my goodness.
[00:39:39] Speaker A: I don't, I don't agree with timeout.
[00:39:41] Speaker B: A two year old sitting there feeling like, man, you know, I, I gotta get my life together.
[00:39:45] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:39:46] Speaker C: I gotta deepen my relationship with my dad.
[00:39:48] Speaker A: What should I learn about like any of those things? Taking things away, Anything like that? Like, no, the two year old just needs immediate consequences. Yes, it's going to hurt. Pain's gonna be one of the first things that they understand. If you pop them on the hand or, you know, on the bottom real fast, that's okay. But if you're still spanking your 17 year old, we have a problem.
[00:40:04] Speaker C: Right.
[00:40:04] Speaker A: Like to your point, yes. You're intended to grow out of it. So I don't have a problem with people initially being scared to death. I think you need to know as you're talking about, it can't just be a, well, what do I need to do? And then you get, it's like, oh, is Jesus Lord type of thing? Like, no, you need to understand it. I'm okay that fear is the initial motivator, but it's the same as any parent.
Fear should motivate my kids. But really, around where my son is 7, 8, 9 years old, it needs to start shifting to, he's doing the right thing for the relationship, he's doing the Right thing because it's the right thing to do and because he loves mom and dad and he knows that we're gonna love him no matter what, but he wants to be able to please us. Maybe 7, 8, 9's a little too young, but still you're starting to kind of turn that corner there that by the time he's firmly in his teenage years, I better not be spanking a 13 year old kid. Like that would be horrible on my part if I've gotten to the point where I have to be spanking 13, 14, 15, 16.
[00:40:51] Speaker C: At that point you would say they probably be running two and not away from.
[00:40:54] Speaker A: Right. Bingo. That's exactly it, man. That is. I'm gonna have to steal it.
[00:40:57] Speaker C: Yeah, I thought of that.
[00:40:58] Speaker A: I'm steal that. That's pretty good. Yeah. So no, I think that's the key in. On the back end of your fear driven faith is this mess that we talked about it a ton as another.
[00:41:06] Speaker C: As another consequence.
[00:41:07] Speaker A: There's another consequence, but it piggybacks off of it, which is a misunderstanding of grace. Right. Like it's going to be difficult to have the relationship with a parent, it's going to be difficult to have the relationship with God as the parent without a proper understanding of grace. Because if you're driven by I got to do the right thing, got to do the right thing, otherwise they're going to pull away love. Then yes, it stays in a fear driven response. It doesn't even matter if the parent is spanking you at 16, you're still only obeying because it's a major fear response. Man, I don't want my 16 year old, I want him to fear me. But I don't want the 16 year old to only do the right thing because dad's really going to come down on him hard because Once he turns 18, he's out the door. Doesn't have to think about it like that can't be the answer. Well, what is the answer? He's got to understand grace. He's got to understand his relationship with God, understand the seriousness of sin as we talked about and what that looks like. Which is why I think preaching on it is good. But the overemphasis can so often lead to.
We don't understand grace at all. And we almost use grace is like I'll go 90% and Grace will cover me the other 10. We talked about it plenty on the podcast, so I don't need to beat a dead horse. But that concept like grace will cover me where I fall short. Like no, you fall short the entire way. And that's the purpose of grace. The purpose of preaching on hell is to help people see this is what you're being saved from. There should be a message of grace on the back end of the beauty of what it looks like to be saved from that. But, yes, the seriousness. If you're not.
[00:42:22] Speaker C: Somebody should write a book on that.
[00:42:23] Speaker A: Yeah, it's good.
[00:42:24] Speaker B: I was gonna, you know, Shameless plug here, read a line from one of the chapter. There's a tremendous difference between obeying to stave off the flames of hell and obeying from a place of confidence in God's grace. Like that. If you're just.
Man, I can't do that because I'll go to hell. Well, and people use that, the carrot and stick thing, the stick just all the time. Go to church. Are you gonna go to hell? Don't watch that. You're gonna go to hell. Don't do this. You're gonna go to hell. And when we talk about. That's one of the biggest reasons I wrote a book on assurance is we talk about home education, we talk about modesty, we talk about male, female husband and wife roles and things like that. And, hey, we've got to do a better job of this and the good, better, best of thing and all that. And it's like, man, if you're not even sure. Like, if, if. Well, do I have to. Will I go to hell if I don't? Like, even just. You're talking about disciplining kids, disciplining my daughter. The other day I was telling her, honor your father and mother. Why do you honor your father and mother? I do not want her answer to me because if I don't, I'll go to hell. Right. And so I was talking her through. Why did God make that commandment? Because he wants us to do it. Yeah, well, why does he want us to do it? Because he loves us. Because he knows that it will be our best life. Or we'll be happiest, we'll be most content, most fulfilled. If we do these things, there's not a single command God gave us. Like, let's make them do this one. Make them stand on their head for a little while, like it's all out of love. And so, you know, the hell motivation certainly is there. But it's kind of, I always say, like the. The fear thing is the same fear that keeps you from touching the stove, same fear that keeps you from playing in the street. The farther I am away from the middle of the street, the less I have to worry about it. Like it's still going to keep me out of the middle of the street. So it's still in my head.
But I don't wake up in the morning going, I hope I don't get hit by a truck, you know, like, it'd be ridiculous and that. But a lot of Christians go to church every Sunday morning going, I better get there or else I'm going to hell.
[00:44:04] Speaker A: They think they woke up on the sidewalk type of thing. You know, you're right next to it.
[00:44:06] Speaker C: I also think there's an element is the last thing I put on here as far as a consequence of the over emphasis is I think you can at some point grow a little tone deaf to it, like, especially if you're hearing it. And again, this is I guess somewhat conjecture because I said at the start of the episode, like this was not me. I didn't hear this every single week. But you know, if you're hearing it non stop or every other week and it's just hell, hell this, hell that, like, okay, I'll eventually tune it out, right? Just, you know, as bad as it is in some cases, like with people when they tune out the invitation right at the end of a sermon because, oh yeah, plant salvation. I know that. What's for lunch? Let's get the kids stuff packed, right? You tune out, everybody tunes out. I think that's, that's an element of this too of, you know, you just grow rather tone deaf to it because you hear it all the time. And so that's where, you know, we'll get to the under emphasis on it here in just a second. But yeah, kind of the, I don't know what the healthy amount is, you know, is it, is it 25 of the year? Is it 10%? Like obviously I think that probably largely depends on congregations and depends on different people's different walks. But yeah, I think it can be overdone for sure.
[00:45:10] Speaker B: Hey guys, Jack Wilke here. I wanted to tell you about our seminars at Focus Pressure. Each of us involved in the work have a series of lessons that we have prepared to encourage churches to help you understand the word better, how to navigate this culture. We cover a wide range of topics from things like evolution and apologetics to cultural issues to the family to the godly young men. Kind of content that Joe and will do to church reset, which is of course my passion to schedule one of us. Whether Dr. Brad Harb will harbinger Joe Wilke or me, Jack Wilkey reach out to
[email protected] if you'd like to talk to me or if you'd like to talk to one of the others, I'll pass your information along to them. We'd love to come and encourage your church and put on one of our Focus Press seminars.
[00:45:56] Speaker A: Yeah, well, that gets us to the consequences of the under emphasis. Because the over emphasis. And this is why we hit kind of people don't like us hitting on the boomers too much. That's why we kind of hit.
[00:46:07] Speaker C: There's a lot of reasons to hit.
[00:46:08] Speaker A: On the boomers, significant amounts. But that's okay. I'll leave my thoughts myself other than to say, no, you won't.
You can listen to the other 190something episodes give my thoughts on, on that entire situation. But for this one, the only thing I'll say is they did have the over emphasis that that generation, as we talked about the help iron brimstone of the 50s and 60s that has led to so much of the struggles we're having today of you needing to write a book where there's not that assurance of, of kind of growing tone deaf to this, where, yeah, we can skip on. You know, my kids can skip on Sunday morning because there's no respect and ultimate fear of like, yeah, I'm not saying if you skip on a Sunday morning you go into hell once, but the idea of. Or if you skip once you're going to hell, the idea of like, it doesn't really matter all that much. I do think you're exactly right of the tone deafness that comes to it. If we just kind of start shutting that out and we stop thinking about, no, this is a legitimate consequence. On the other hand, I think our generation, the millennial generation, has been struggling quite a bit with the R.A. bell understanding of this under emphasis on hell. Either hell's not a real place or the annihilation is like what's just a one and done type thing. As soon as you go down there, you'll. You'll be destroyed. Or kind of downplaying it is. It's not really fire. It's not nothing like that. I mean, that's just a physical understanding to try to say, like, it's just a really dark place away from God. Like, yeah, the away from God is horrible.
There's always fire discussed with it. So yes, I'm pretty sure the unquenchable fire and the eternal flame and things like that are not conjecture. And I don't think that that's just wordplay. It seems very Much that's legitimate. So there's this under emphasis on hell in our generation.
And to me, that's the man, both sides. It's the pendulum swing that we've seen. Like they ran from over emphasis on hell, where that's all you're hearing about. And it's all fear to all grace and man, does hell even exist? What a scary thing to have that with somebody. And again, it coincides with our culture of, yes, going soft on crime, going soft on parenting, not wanting to fear or have a healthy respect of anything in our culture. It seems to go right along with that. And I think Gen Z, not that I want to make this about the generations, I think Gen Z's turning the corner, coming back to this, saying, no, we do need to have respect of some things. We'll see how that ends up playing out. But fellas, what are your thoughts on the consequences of under emphasis on hell?
[00:48:20] Speaker B: I mentioned earlier, I pulled up the Jonathan Edwards, sinners in the Hands of the Angry God. And I've seen people say, like, that is so harmful, that is so wrong, so much about the wrath of God and things like that.
He says in part of it, the use of this awful subject may be for awakening unconverted persons in this congregation. When he says awful, he's not apologizing like we are, but just like this.
Yeah, it's shocking, you know, like, it's painful.
Awaking unconverted persons in this congregation. This that you have heard is the case of every one of you that are out of Christ. So he's telling people that are listening, like, hey, there's some people in this room. And I know that gets overdone too. We just talked about that side of it. But it is very loving to tell people who have known God and are snubbing him and are kind of just not really giving him his due to say, hey, you're in big trouble and you need to take it seriously that you're in big trouble. And when we don't tell them that we don't love them, we're not helping them. And there's just this idea that, like, well, it's just God's just kind of standing there beckoning you and just, you know. Well, I, I don't want to get ahead of that too much, but. So to round out this under emphasis on hell, some people need to be afraid, I guess is the way I'm trying to say with the. The Edwards thing. His point is exactly right.
[00:49:31] Speaker C: An under emphasis on hell or not talking about it, not really Bringing it up, it leads to so much more of a casual Christianity. So much more of like, yeah, the people that can kind of come and go. And you're here two weeks out of the month, no problem. Oh, you skip some Sundays for sports.
All good. Your daughter wears whatever to the beach. Okay, that's fine. You watch whatever on tv. And sure, like there's a, there's a casualness to it versus when hell is again not beaten to death every single week. But talked about things like that, you know, said like the sermon that Jack just read there adds a level of gravity to it, a level of seriousness. Like this is a really big deal I think in so many of our suburban 200 member congregations and specifically in the Bible Belt. A lot of well off people, a lot of kind of worldliness that's just. Yeah, they show up, they attend, they sing. Sure. And they go home and live the rest of their lives. There's a casualness to it. It's like it's an accessory onto their life. And I think that's one of the consequences of this under emphasis on hell is that faith is just not taking it seriously. Walk with God is not taking as seriously. They don't believe it applies to their Tuesday night or their Friday morning at the beach or whatever it is. It's like, no, that's my Sunday thing. And you know, I'm just going to kind of get my ears tickled during the sermon. I'm going to sing a little bit it and I'm going to leave because we've under emphasized just how serious it is to walk with God, which is a great thing, but also how serious it is if you choose not to walk with God.
[00:50:52] Speaker A: So my dad owns his own business, of course, for 40 years and it was talked about quite a bit in our house. You don't want to go broke. There is a very real fear of really don't want to lose everything that I have. There's times early on in the business where he's getting the house measured and things like that from hud, like they're about to come take it. It got really, really bad for a time. And there's that fear that motivates you. And I think about the trust fund kids that are like, there's never any ability to understand going broke eight vacations a year. They do whatever they want. You know, they, they go party and spend all the money in the world and then they go crash the cars and get new ones and they, they, you know, go to jail sometimes get bailed out like there's just a misunderstanding of like, they don't ever have a real understanding going broke.
Therefore they don't ever have to deal with that concept and they go off the rails. Like very few of them. I shouldn't say very few. Maybe there's a bunch of them. I don't know. But you definitely know the horror story. It's a trope for a reason. It's a trope for a reason of the kids that just don't appreciate it. I feel the exact same way on this under emphasis on hell. Like, you have to have an understanding. I could go broke now. Yeah, you also are reaching for trying to do well and make more money and grow in the world or get raises or whatever it is. And that's great as well, hell. But on the back end is you do have to know there is that as a consequence, if these things don't get fixed or whatever it may be. So for those that under emphasis emphasize hell, they don't have that I never go broke because mom and dad will just pick it up for me type of thing. And we look at that and, and the Calvinists and people like that look at that as well. Yeah, you can't ever lose it. And therefore that's, that's the assurance. It's like, no, it's the fact that I could lose it. And knowing me as a, you know, depraved human, I would lose it. But on the other hand, God's calling me to something more. And so yes, it is the running to instead of running away from. But they are to me, they're taking out any of the stick and it's all carrot. And then you get fat on carrots and you never, you know what I mean? There has to be a stick element to that as well, of going, man, let me run the race, lest I grow weird. Like, I want to run and complete the race. I don't want to quit the race. So I don't know.
[00:52:52] Speaker C: Some of the most righteous people in the Bible had some severe moments of guilt and shame. And I think an under emphasis on hell again just leads to these congregations full of people that don't ever really have those moments of guilt, never really have those moments of shame. And I think that is very critical. It's essential in the Christian walk.
[00:53:08] Speaker A: I think this is a less or it's a more nuanced, I should say more nuanced thing. The overemphasis on how we've seen that quite a bit. The fear driven faith. We deal with that a lot this is a nuanced one that we are seeing nowadays way more, but it is a tougher one to pick up on of, like, well, what's the problem? You know, oh, I'll still still love God type of thing. And so they still appear spiritual, but underneath, it's rotting. There's not a substance.
[00:53:29] Speaker B: It's another overcorrection. And it's one of those that, like, we know how bad the other thing is. And so when we over correct, like, boy, thank goodness we got it right now. Like, well, hang on. And. Okay, I'm gonna pull out one of my index cards. The CS Lewis, you know, Firestone of like, everyone's running around like, we don't overdo hell. We don't want to overdo hell. Like, we are so casual in how we approach God. We're so casual in how we worship. We're so casual in how we address sin and how we dress. And, like, all of those things were so casual.
Part of that is a realization of, like, you know, like, you kind of need to be grabbed by the scruff of your shirt every now and then. Like, God killed everybody on earth except for eight people at one point. Okay? Like, this is who you're dealing with, and he loves you and he wants to bring you in as his child, and he doesn't want that to be, you know, a stick that he's hitting you with all the time. But on the other hand, you do have to grasp that you do have to factor that into your picture of God. Yes, perfect love casts out fear.
But while we're in this flesh, we're not perfect. We don't have that. You know, there's always going to have to be a little bit of the motivating fear that keeps us away from those other things and keeps us with reverence to God. You see this whole, like, oh, daddy, God, you know, God, you know, our heavenly dad. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Bring that all the way back and realize this is also the eternally holy judge of the universe. And you get that, right?
And, yeah, you don't have to dwell on that 100% of the time. He's a father. He's a judge. But don't.
Don't take one of God's hats away, right?
As judge, as king, as creator, as father, as all of those. Every time someone takes one of those hats away, something goes wrong.
Oh, yeah. As I'm rolling into it, the question, people will talk about it this way. This is the way they can address hell and keep it real, but not still.
[00:55:15] Speaker C: Downplay it.
[00:55:16] Speaker B: Yeah, downplay it and keep the daddy God thing.
God doesn't send anybody to hell. He just lets him choose it. That's just not true.
God didn't drown anybody in the flood. He just let the water come up over the day.
Hello. God didn't swallow up the ground in the wilderness.
[00:55:32] Speaker C: God didn't destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. He just let the salt levels get really high.
Or the brimstone, I guess.
[00:55:39] Speaker A: Yeah, because there's lots wife.
[00:55:40] Speaker C: It was salt. That's right.
[00:55:41] Speaker B: The brimstone they could have, you know. Yeah, no, I mean, it's just one of those, like, this is absurd and well, that's all Old Testament. Well, let me tell you about the destruction of Jerusalem. You know, let's talk about Revelation a little bit too. I mean, like this same God, same, same all holy being that we're talking about here. And so, yes, he does. And I was going to read from. Well, I'm going to pull it up. I got again, notes are scattered a little bit too far here, but somebody jump in here.
[00:56:03] Speaker A: I was gonna say that the flaming sword of Revelation, like there are multiple still. Jesus is coming back. And it's not going to be pretty for a lot of people.
And that should scare us. But that also, that should. It gives us hope that Jesus is coming back. That's also a really, really scary thing for people. And so this idea that he's not going to send people to hell, like, have you read Scripture? Well, he just lets them choose it. Like, choose what the hell that he created and the hell that he has ordained for people that go against him. Like, you have. This is a cute way or an attempt to have a cute way of getting around God being just basically. And they look at it as God being mean. It's like, no, it's God being just the judge who throws the guy into. Into prison for life because he did something bad is not really mean. Well, he, you know, the judge didn't send him to prison. He. This guy chose it himself. He just sent himself. Like, no, the judge absolutely sentenced him to it. You're sentenced to this. You know, you're going to prison. So, yes, God's sentencing us as the, as the great judge.
[00:56:59] Speaker C: But I think about the parable of the wedding feast, Matthew 22, starting verse 11, when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there did not have on a wedding garment. So he said to him, friend, how did you come in here with a, a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, bind him hand and foot. Take him away and cast him into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
That guy didn't choose going out of darkness. He was. He was sent there. He was cast there. And so I. Yeah, y' all already said it. But just to echo, like, it's very lazy and kind of trying to ride the fence position to say that God does not sin. He most definitely does send people to hell.
[00:57:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:57:31] Speaker B: The word I wanted to look at was wrath. And we mentioned earlier, John the Baptist, you know, saying, you brood of vipers who warn you to flee from the wrath to come. Matthew 3:7, Luke 37, later on, you know, Romans, it's about the gospel. It's about God, you know, saving us and all that he did in Jesus and grace and all of those things. And he just keeps talking about wrath over and over. 1, 1, 8, 2 5, 2 8, 3 5, 4, 15 9, like, over.
[00:57:54] Speaker A: And over and over.
[00:57:54] Speaker B: He starts after saying, the gospel is the power of Christ to save the Jew and the Gentile.
Romans 1:18, right after that. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness.
He comes up in 2, 5, that you're treasuring up for yourself. Wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.
3, verse 5. If our own righteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what should we say? Is God unjust who inflicts wrath?
Of course not. And so even in a book about how all God has done to save us, he keeps talking about wrath. And I love the definitions that the BDAG Lexicon gives a state of relatively strong displeasure with focus on the emotional aspect, anger, strong indignation directed at wrongdoing, with focus on retribution.
Yeah, that retribution. And why? Why is God that way? Because he's holy. Because he created us. Because Jesus died for us. That those sins that we are committing cost him everything.
And so he has a right as the righteous judge to say, I should have killed you, like, on the spot, Adam and Eve. Like, I could have just ended it all right there. He had every right to do that. I gave you the grace to keep going, and you're taking my grace and just treating it like nothing, as Paul talks about that in Romans chapter two. Just taking his kindness as license to do what you want. And no. And if you do that, why on earth would he not as again, let him have all of his hats. He is the forgiving one. He wears that hat, but he's also the judge. And don't take that hat away from him.
[00:59:30] Speaker A: Yeah, the, the wrath is the key point there. That wrath is something that is done that's. Well, he's really, really, really angry, but he just kind of lets you choose it yourself. Not.
[00:59:39] Speaker B: Well, it's this grandfatherly like man. Wish they would have made a better choice, but I guess that's what you want. You know, they didn't want me and it makes me sad they didn't want me. But I'm so nice. I'll just let them choose whatever they want.
[00:59:51] Speaker C: When you, when anytime you're tempted to think in that way, I would encourage you go read Isaiah 53 about it pleasing God to crush Jesus. Why did it please God to crush Jesus? Because of sin and the wrath that he had because of that. It was not a very passive like. Well, I guess if that's what they want. No, it is his own son we're talking about. He crushed him at the cross because of, because of sin. Because of the wrath. Because of his wrath being enacted on sin. And so it's very important that we don't soft pedal this.
[01:00:19] Speaker A: It's very.
[01:00:20] Speaker C: It's important we don't overdo it and again pound the pulpit every single week and give the, the hellfire spiel at the end of every sermon. But it's also very important that we don't soft pedal this. And unfortunately, as is the case with, with most things in the church, we can go too heavy one side or the other, which leads to, I don't know, just misunderstanding, I guess.
[01:00:37] Speaker B: That's something to keep an eye out for. A lot of modern Christian resources, very much soft pedal. Very much try to do that. Well, God lets you choose and he doesn't punish, you know, and that's.
Yeah, like, again, keep all the hats. I keep the loving, forgiving, fatherly God hat on him and the judge, righteous holy hat, like.
And so every time somebody's going to hear the thing that they are conditioned to worry about. Oh, you're being too hard. No, you have to have balance and preach hell. Oh, you're letting people off the hook. No, you have to have balance and preach forgiveness. And you can do all of these things because the Bible does.
[01:01:13] Speaker A: Good thoughts, guys. Good thoughts. We are just about at our hour mark here, I think. Anything fast?
[01:01:20] Speaker B: Well, New York City just elected a communist Muslim, so we're gonna do an episode on Islam here. Lord will in the next few weeks or maybe in the new year.
[01:01:28] Speaker A: But we're also gonna do one on Hinduism because I thought the.
I honestly thought about just rolling with it. We can, we can end this one since we've gone long. But the JD Vance hug I thought was interesting. There was a lot on that. The, the hug with what's her name.
But then his comments that he made on, yeah, he wants his wife to, to come to.
To be converted and people lost their minds because she is Hindu and people lost her minds. Like, have you ever heard of Christianity and evangelism? I don't know. They acted like that was not the case. I thought that was very interesting.
[01:02:01] Speaker B: Evangelism's wrong.
[01:02:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
So I think we can get into that evangelism, but also get into Hinduism. We're going to get into Islam, what that looks like.
But fellas, any other thoughts before we look to wrap up?
[01:02:12] Speaker C: I would just say let us know. Give us your comments. As always, especially if you're a deep thinker. If you subscribe to Focus plus, Focus plus, our Patreon service, where we can respond to your questions, respond to your comments. If you're not familiar with that, just.
[01:02:24] Speaker A: Go check it out.
[01:02:26] Speaker C: FocusPress.org/plus is where you can find that. We give a whole extra episode every week where we respond to comments and thoughts from people. And so, yeah, get your comments in if you're already subscribed. If you're not, feel free to drop us a comment on YouTube or Facebook. No guarantee that we'll respond to it on that particular video, but we always like to hear what you guys have to say. And this is a very relevant topic to most people in the Church of Christ. So I know we'll have a lot of, a lot of thoughts on that. But let us know, guys. Anything else?
[01:02:50] Speaker A: We got a fun episode 200 coming up. We're almost there, so stay tuned for that as well.
[01:02:54] Speaker B: Two more to go. All right, well, let's go ahead and close and we'll talk to you guys on the next one.
Hey, guys, Jack Wilke here. If you enjoy our work with podcasts like Think Deeper and Godly Young Men and our books, articles, seminars, and want to support the work that we do, the best way to do so is to go to focuspress.org donate that's focuspress. Org donate. Thanks again for listening.
