130 Sermon Illustrations on Hell

A few days ago [September 2004] while vociferously condemning President Bush's handling of the Iraq War, John Kerry exchanged his political rhetoric for a bit of theology, as he has become accustomed to doing lately.

Kerry said Saddam Hussein was a tyrant who deserved a “special place in hell.” And the senator was absolutely right. Saddam Hussein does deserve a special place in hell.

But Kerry stopped short.

George W. Bush deserves a special place in hell, as does every Republican in Congress. In fact, every Republican in America deserves a special place in hell right alongside every pro-life activist, every member of the Christian Coalition and every churchgoing, pickup truck-driving good ol' boy who would never vote for a Yankee who may or may not have inflated his war record.

What Kerry did not say is that every Democrat in America, every tree-hugger and secularist, every abortionist and even John Kerry also deserves a special place in hell.

In fact, the Bible says we all deserve a special place in hell, though it uses much more effective language. Romans 1:18-32 lays out the specific reason why everyone deserves a special place in hell: We have all suppressed the knowledge of our Creator and acted as if we ourselves are God. Atrocities against humanity may get all the press, but rebellion against God is the criterion for eternal damnation.

Kerry's comments highlight two phenomena in American life which play a large role in the weak and compromising theology at work in America's churches.

First, Americans tend to marginalize the biblical teaching of eternal punishment as a place so horrific that no Christian could ever possibly wish it on another human being. This is because no one talks about hell anymore, except as a mild expletive or an analogy for an overheated room. The Bible, however, is quite clear. Hell is real and we all deserve it.

Second, too many American Christians still visualize God as the Great Accountant, toiling over his ledger about where to send someone at the final judgment. The biblical picture of God's judgment is much simpler. Hell is not reserved for the Saddam Husseins and Adolf Hitlers of this world. Eternal punishment is not the result of bad works in life. It is the result of the kind of person that stands before God.

There are only two classes of people in the final analysis. Many will try to convince God to allow them into his presence because of their good works. One hundred percent of those people will spend eternity in the fiery pit. The other class of people accepted God's offer of redemption through Jesus Christ, which comes only “by grace through faith, and that not of yourselves -– it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Ephesians 2:8).

Only one man did not deserve a special place in hell –- and He died for the rest of us. Only through accepting His offer of eternal life can any of us hope to escape hell.

And just as none of us are good enough to avoid hell on our own merit, none of us are too bad to accept God's offer of grace in Jesus Christ and spend eternity with God in heaven.

No matter what happens in the presidential election, it is my hope that the “worst” of us, Saddam Hussein included, makes the decision to follow Jesus Christ with whatever time he or she has left in this world and, by doing so, avoids hell.

If that in fact happens, I hope such a person lives next to John Kerry among God's redeemed. I have a feeling that after Kerry meets Jesus face to face his attitude about Saddam Hussein and even himself will have changed.

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #1937]

The doctrine of hell is disturbing. The very idea of suffering and separation beyond the grave elicits a wide range of responses, from anguish to anger.

The possibility of departed loved ones languishing in outer darkness only adds to the grief of those laying flowers on their graves.

Some atheists cite hell as a reason to deny the existence of a loving God.

For Anglican cleric John Stott, who wrote the influential book “Basic Christianity,” the idea of eternal suffering in hell was so repugnant that he rejected it in favor of annihilationism, the idea of being extinguished after death.

According to a 2014 survey by LifeWay Research, fewer Mainline Protestants believe in hell than do Americans in general (55 percent vs. 61 percent, respectively).

And for many evangelicals, hell remains an inconvenient truth.

Some may want to believe that hell is not forever. How could the sins of a single lifetime warrant everlasting punishment? Is that really fair? Maybe the wicked are annihilated at death. As for the really vile sinner -- a mass murderer, rapist, or child molester -- perhaps his punishment is to suffer for a while in hell before passing into non-existence.

But there are good reasons to believe hell is forever.

For starters, the testimony of Jesus. Of the 12 uses of the word “Gehenna” in the New Testament, 11 come from the lips of the Messiah. He tells us that hell was created for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). Since angels do not die, fallen angels must experience a never-ending torment in the lake of fire. Indeed, this is what John notes of Satan in Revelation 20:10.

As for humans, the beast and the false prophet of Revelation appear to be the first such creatures cast into hell (Revelation 19:20). Satan joins them later -- perhaps after 1,000 years -- and they are still very much alive.

Further, Jesus depicts the wicked as going into “eternal punishment” and the righteous into “eternal life” (Matthew 25:46). The same Greek word “aionion” is used to describe the never-ending existence of the wicked as for the follower of Jesus.

Even so, it grieves the heart of God that anyone spends eternity apart from Him. God does not delight in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23; 33:11). Jesus lamented over the inhabitants of Jerusalem who would soon cry out for His death (Matthew 23:37). Further, Christ’s offer of salvation stands for all people, and He graciously delays His return in judgment so more people hear the gospel and turn to Him (2 Peter 3:9).

Those who embrace the idea of body and soul ceasing to exist after a time in hell point to the words of Jesus in Matthew 10:28, where He warns us to “fear him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell.”

However, the word “destroy” does not mean annihilate. As Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon defines the word “apollumi,” it means “to be delivered up to eternal misery.” In every instance where this word is found in the New Testament, something other than annihilation is described, according to Robert Morey in “Death and the Afterlife.”

Jesus’ teachings on “outer darkness,” “eternal fire,” and “eternal punishment” support the concept of Gehenna as a place of conscious, everlasting separation from God. That’s not only because unbelievers have accumulated a lifetime of sins but because their sins have been committed against an eternally holy Creator.

The severity of a wrong is not determined solely by the act itself, but also by the one against whom the wrong is committed. Think about it: How could you possibly repay the sin debt owed to an eternally existing and perfectly holy God? It would take an eternity.

However, if someone who is both eternal and perfect could take your place and endure your punishment, your debt to God would be paid and His justice would be served. Isn’t that what Jesus accomplished through His sinless life, death, burial and resurrection?

That’s why the apostle Paul could write, “He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).

Hell is forever. But because of Jesus, no one has to go there.

These are supposedly actual epitaphs from gravestones...

On the grave of Ezekial Aikle in East Dalhousie Cemetery, Nova Scotia:

Here lies

Ezekial Aikle

Age 102

The Good

Die Young.

In a London, England, cemetery:

Ann Mann

Here lies Ann Mann,

Who lived an old maid

But died an old Mann.

Dec. 8, 1767

In a Ribbesford, England, cemetery:

Anna Wallace

The children of Israel wanted bread

And the Lord sent them manna,

Old clerk Wallace wanted a wife,

And the Devil sent him Anna.

Playing with names in a Ruidoso, New Mexico, cemetery:

Here lies

Johnny Yeast

Pardon me

For not rising.

Memory of an accident in a Uniontown, Pennsylvania, cemetery:

Here lies the body

of Jonathan Blake

Stepped on the gas

Instead of the brake.

In a Silver City, Nevada, cemetery:

Here lays Butch,

We planted him raw.

He was quick on the trigger,

But slow on the draw.

A widow wrote this epitaph in a Vermont cemetery:

Sacred to the memory of

my husband John Barnes

who died January 3, 1803

His comely young widow, aged 23,

has many qualifications of a good wife,

and yearns to be comforted.

(ed: guess they did not have personal ads then)

A lawyer's epitaph in England:

Sir John Strange

Here lies an honest lawyer,

And that is Strange.

Someone determined to be anonymous in Stowe, Vermont:

I was somebody.

Who, is no business

Of yours.

Lester Moore was a Wells, Fargo Co. station agent for Naco, Arizona, in the cowboy days of the 1880's. He's buried in the Boot Hill Cemetery in Tombstone, Arizona:

Here lies Lester Moore

Four slugs from a .44

No Les No More.

In a Georgia cemetery:

"I told you I was sick!"

John Penny's epitaph in the Wimborne, England, cemetery:

Reader if cash thou art

In want of any

Dig 4 feet deep

And thou wilt find a Penny.

On Margaret Daniel's grave at Hollywood Cemetery Richmond, Virginia:

She always said

her feet were killing her

but nobody believed her.

In a cemetery in Hartscombe, England:

On the 22nd of June

Jonathan Fiddle -

Went out of tune.

Anna Hopewell's grave in Enosburg Falls, Vermont has an epitaph that sounds like something from a Three Stooges movie:

Here lies the body of our Anna

Done to death by a banana

It wasn't the fruit that laid her low

But the skin of the thing that made her go.

More fun with names with Owen Moore in Battersea, London, England:

Gone away

Owen more

Than he could pay.

Someone in Winslow, Maine didn't like Mr. Wood:

In Memory of Beza Wood

Departed this life

Nov. 2, 1837

Aged 45 yrs.

Here lies one Wood

Enclosed in wood

One Wood

Within another.

The outer wood

Is very good:

We cannot praise

The other.

On a grave from the 1880's in Nantucket, Massachusetts:

Under the sod and under the trees

Lies the body of Jonathan Pease.

He is not here, there's only the pod:

Pease shelled out and went to God.

The grave of Ellen Shannon in Girard, Pennsylvania is almost a consumer tip:

Who was fatally burned

March 21, 1870

by the explosion of a lamp

filled with "R.E. Danforth's

Non-Explosive Burning Fluid"

Oops! Harry Edsel Smith of Albany, New York:

Born 1903--Died 1942

Looked up the elevator shaft to see

If the car was on the way down.

It was.

In a Thurmont, Maryland, cemetery:

Here lies an Atheist

All dressed up

And no place to go.

In a cemetery in England:

Remember man, as you walk by,

As you are now, so once was I,

As I am now, so shall you be,

Remember this and follow me.

To which someone replied by writing on the tombstone:

To follow you I'll not consent,

Until I know which way you went.

John Gay's epitaph, an 18th century English poet:

Life is jest, and all things show it,

I thought so once, but now I know it.

*

The young man in my office was impeccably dressed and articulate. He was an Ivy League MBA, successful in the financial world, and had lived in three countries before age 30. Raised in a family with only the loosest connections to a mainline church, he had little understanding of Christianity.

I was therefore gratified to learn of his intense spiritual interest, recently piqued as he attended our church. He said he was ready to embrace the gospel. But there was a final obstacle.

"You've said that if we do not believe in Christ," he said, "we are lost and condemned. I'm sorry, I just cannot buy that. I work with some fine people who are Muslim, Jewish, or agnostic. I cannot believe they are going to hell just because they don't believe in Jesus. In fact, I cannot reconcile the very idea of hell with a loving God -- even if he is holy too."

This young man expressed what may be the main objection contemporary secular people make to the Christian message. (A close second, in my experience, is the problem of suffering and evil.) Moderns reject the idea of final judgment and hell.

Thus, it's tempting to avoid such topics in our preaching. But neglecting the unpleasant doctrines of the historic faith will bring about counter-intuitive consequences. There is an ecological balance to scriptural truth that must not be disturbed.

If an area is rid of its predatory or undesirable animals, the balance of that environment may be so upset that the desirable plants and animals are lost -- through overbreeding with a limited food supply. The nasty predator that was eliminated actually kept in balance the number of other animals and plants necessary to that particular ecosystem. In the same way, if we play down "bad" or harsh doctrines within the historic Christian faith, we will find, to our shock, that we have gutted all our pleasant and comfortable beliefs, too.

The loss of the doctrine of hell and judgment and the holiness of God does irreparable damage to our deepest comforts -- our understanding of God's grace and love and of our human dignity and value to him. To preach the good news, we must preach the bad.

But in this age of tolerance, how?

How To Preach Hell To Traditionalists

Before preaching on the subject of hell, I must recognize that today, a congregation is made up of two groups: traditionalists and postmoderns. The two hear the message of hell completely differently.

People from traditional cultures and mindsets tend to have (a) a belief in God, and (b) a strong sense of moral absolutes and the obligation to be good. These people tend to be older, from strong Catholic or religious Jewish backgrounds, from conservative evangelical/Pentecostal Protestant backgrounds, from the southern U.S., and first-generation immigrants from non-European countries.

The way to show traditional persons their need for the gospel is by saying, "Your sin separates you from God! You can't be righteous enough for him." Imperfection is the duty-worshiper's horror. Traditionalists are motivated toward God by the idea of punishment in hell. They sense the seriousness of sin.

But traditionalists may respond to the gospel only out of fear of hell, unless I show them Jesus experienced not only pain in general on the cross but hell in particular. This must be held up until they are attracted to Christ for the beauty of the costly love of what he did. To the traditional person, hell must be preached as the only way to know how much Christ loved you. Here is one way I have preached this:

"Unless we come to grips with this terrible doctrine, we will never even begin to understand the depths of what Jesus did for us on the cross. His body was being destroyed in the worst possible way, but that was a flea bite compared to what was happening to his soul. When he cried out that his God had forsaken him, he was experiencing hell itself.

"If a mild acquaintance denounces you and rejects you -- that hurts. If a good friend does the same -- the hurt's far worse. However, if your spouse walks out on you, saying, 'I never want to see you again,' that is far more devastating still. The longer, deeper, and more intimate the relationship, the more torturous is any separation.

"But the Son's relationship with the Father was beginning-less and infinitely greater than the most intimate and passionate human relationship. When Jesus was cut off from God, he went into the deepest pit and most powerful furnace, beyond all imagining. And he did it voluntarily, for us."

How To Preach Hell To Postmoderns

In contrast to the traditionalist, the postmodern person is hostile to the very idea of hell. People with more secular and postmodern mindsets tend to have (a) only a vague belief in the divine, if at all, and (b) little sense of moral absolutes, but rather a sense they need to be true to their dreams. They tend to be younger, from nominal Catholic or non-religious Jewish backgrounds, from liberal mainline Protestant backgrounds, from the western and northeastern U.S., and Europeans.

When preaching hell to people of this mindset, I've found I must make four arguments.

1. Sin Is Slavery.

I do not define sin as just breaking the rules, but also as "making something besides God our ultimate value and worth." These good things, which become gods, will drive us relentlessly, enslaving us mentally and spiritually, even to hell forever if we let them.

I say, "You are actually being religious, though you don't know it -- you are trying to find salvation through worshiping things that end up controlling you in a destructive way." Slavery is the choice-worshiper's horror.

C. S. Lewis's depictions of hell are important for postmodern people. In THE GREAT DIVORCE, Lewis describes a busload of people from hell who come to the outskirts of heaven. There they are urged to leave behind the sins that have trapped them in hell. The descriptions Lewis makes of people in hell are so striking because we recognize the denial and self-delusion of substance addictions. When addicted to alcohol, we are miserable, but we blame others and pity ourselves; we do not take responsibility for our behavior nor see the roots of our problem.

Lewis writes, "Hell ... begins with a grumbling mood, and yourself still distinct from it: perhaps even criticizing it.... You can repent and come out of it again. But there may come a day when you can do that no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever like a machine."

Modern people struggle with the idea of God thinking up punishments to inflict on disobedient people. When sin is seen as slavery, and hell as the freely chosen, eternal skid row of the universe, hell becomes much more comprehensible.

Here is an example from a recent sermon of how I try to explain this:

"First, sin separates us from the presence of God (Isa. 59:2), which is the source of all joy (Ps. 16:11), love, wisdom, or good thing of any sort (James 1:17)....

"Second, to understand hell we must understand sin as slavery. Romans 1:21-25 tells us that we were built to live for God supremely, but instead we live for love, work, achievement, or morality to give us meaning and worth. Thus every person, religious or not, is worshiping something -- idols, pseudo-saviors -- to get their worth. But these things enslave us with guilt (if we fail to attain them) or anger (if someone blocks them from us) or fear (if they are threatened) or drivenness (since we must have them). Guilt, anger, and fear are like fire that destroys us. Sin is worshiping anything but Jesus -- and the wages of sin is slavery."

Perhaps the greatest paradox of all is that the people on Lewis's bus from hell are enslaved because they freely choose to be. They would rather have their freedom (as they define it) than salvation. Their relentless delusion is that if they glorified God, they would lose their human greatness (Gen. 3:4-5), but their choice has really ruined their human greatness. Hell is, as Lewis says, "the greatest monument to human freedom."

2. Hell is less exclusive than so-called tolerance.

Nothing is more characteristic of the modern mindset than the statement: "I think Christ is fine, but I believe a devout Muslim or Buddhist or even a good atheist will certainly find God." A slightly different version is: "I don't think God would send a person who lives a good life to hell just for holding the wrong belief." This approach is seen as more inclusive.

In preaching about hell, then, I need to counter this argument:

"The universal religion of humankind is: We develop a good record and give it to God, and then he owes us. The gospel is: God develops a good record and gives it to us, then we owe him (Rom. 1:17). In short, to say a good person, not just Christians, can find God is to say good works are enough to find God.

"You can believe that faith in Christ is not necessary or you can believe that we are saved by grace, but you cannot believe in both at once.

"So the apparently inclusive approach is really quite exclusive. It says, 'The good people can find God, and the bad people do not.'

"But what about us moral failures? We are excluded.

"The gospel says, 'The people who know they aren't good can find God, and the people who think they are good do not.'

"Then what about non-Christians, all of whom must, by definition, believe their moral efforts help them reach God? They are excluded.

"So both approaches are exclusive, but the gospel's is the more inclusive exclusivity. It says joyfully, 'It doesn't matter who you are or what you've done. It doesn't matter if you've been at the gates of hell. You can be welcomed and embraced fully and instantly through Christ.' "

3. Christianity's view of hell is more personal than the alternative view.

Fairly often, I meet people who say, "I have a personal relationship with a loving God, and yet I don't believe in Jesus Christ at all."

"Why?" I ask.

They reply, "My God is too loving to pour out infinite suffering on anyone for sin."

But then a question remains: "What did it cost this kind of God to love us and embrace us? What did he endure in order to receive us? Where did this God agonize, cry out? Where were his nails and thorns?"

The only answer is: "I don't think that was necessary."

How ironic. In our effort to make God more loving, we have made God less loving. His love, in the end, needed to take no action. It was sentimentality, not love at all. The worship of a God like this will be impersonal, cognitive, ethical. There will be no joyful self-abandonment, no humble boldness, no constant sense of wonder. We would not sing to such a being, "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all."

The postmodern "sensitive" approach to the subject of hell is actually quite impersonal. It says, "It doesn't matter if you believe in the person of Christ, as long as you follow his example."

But to say that is to say the essence of religion is intellectual and ethical, not personal. If any good person can find God, then the essential core of religion is understanding and following the rules.

When preaching about hell, I try to show how impersonal this view is:

"To say that any good person can find God is to create a religion without tears, without experience, without contact.

"The gospel certainly is not less than the understanding of truths and principles, but it is infinitely more. The essence of salvation is knowing a Person (John 17:3). As with knowing any person, there is repenting and weeping and rejoicing and encountering. The gospel calls us to a wildly passionate, intimate love relationship with Jesus Christ, and calls that 'the core of true salvation.'"

4. There is no love without wrath.

What rankles people is the idea of judgment and the wrath of God: "I can't believe in a God who sends people to suffer eternally. What kind of loving God is filled with wrath?"

So in preaching about hell, we must explain that a wrathless God cannot be a loving God. Here's how I tried to do that in one sermon:

"People ask, 'What kind of loving God is filled with wrath?' But any loving person is often filled with wrath. In HOPE HAS ITS REASONS, Becky Pippert writes, 'Think how we feel when we see someone we love ravaged by unwise actions or relationships. Do we respond with benign tolerance as we might toward strangers? Far from it.... Anger isn't the opposite of love. Hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference.'

"Pippert then quotes E. H. Gifford, 'Human love here offers a true analogy: the more a father loves his son, the more he hates in him the drunkard, the liar, the traitor.'

"She concludes: 'If I, a flawed narcissistic sinful woman, can feel this much pain and anger over someone's condition, how much more a morally perfect God who made them? God's wrath is not a cranky explosion, but his settled opposition to the cancer of sin which is eating out the insides of the human race he loves with his whole being.' "

A God Like This

Following a recent sermon on the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, the post-service question-and-answer session was packed with more than the usual number of attenders. The questions and comments focused on the subject of eternal judgment.

My heart sank when a young college student said, "I've gone to church all my life, but I don't think I can believe in a God like this." Her tone was more sad than defiant, but her willingness to stay and talk showed that her mind was open.

Usually all the questions are pitched to me, and I respond as best I can. But on this occasion people began answering one another.

An older businesswoman said, "Well, I'm not much of a churchgoer, and I'm in some shock now. I always disliked the very idea of hell, but I never thought about it as a measure of what God was willing to endure in order to love me."

Then a mature Christian made a connection with a sermon a month ago on Jesus at Lazarus' tomb in John 11. "The text tells us that Jesus wept," he said, "yet he was also extremely angry at evil. That's helped me. He is not just an angry God OR a weeping, loving God -- he's both. He doesn't only judge evil, but he also takes the hell and judgment himself for us on the cross."

The second woman nodded, "Yes. I always thought hell told me about how angry God was with us, but I didn't know it also told me about how much he was willing to suffer and weep for us. I never knew how much hell told me about Jesus' love. It's very moving."

It is only because of the doctrine of judgment and hell that Jesus' proclamation of grace and love are so brilliant and astounding.

________

Tim Keller is pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City.

Copyright(c) 1997 by the author or Christianity Today, Inc./Leadership Journal. Winter 1997, Vol. XVIII, No. 4, Page 42

"The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in time of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality."

-- Dante, "The Inferno"

I will never forget a story on Twilight Zone, almost 20 years ago. A young hoodlum was being chased by police as the story opened. Desperately seeking escape, he sees what looks like a laundry chute on the side of a building. He dives down it just as he is shot. As his body disappears down the chute, the camera moves back from the chute and the viewer sees a sign above it which reads: "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here." When the young evil-doer arrives at the chute's end, he lands in a room. The room looks like an ordinary living room with an older couple dressed in matching Hawaiian shirts. Their slide projector is set up ready to go. Bing Crosby is singing Hawaiian songs on the record player and there are easily 1000 boxes of slides ready to be seen. The young hood complains about their strange clothes and even stranger music. He tries to leave but finds no windows or doors. He is now in great anquish, while the couple are obviously enjoying themselves immensely. The first slide is projected on the screen. The couple spend ten minutes delightedly arguing about which airplane engine they are looking at on the plane which took them on their trip. As the couple's pleasure increases, so in like measure does the anguish of the young hoodlum. And so the story ends -- with this cast of characters seemingly to share this setting for eternity. The point was well made that what is Heaven for some would be Hell for others -- and vice versa. Whether eternal life is Heaven or Hell for us depends on who we are, not where we are.

________

John Martin, Union Congregational Church, Arvin, California 93203

There is a place of eternal darkness and soul-deep pain. We call it Hell. . . . There is another place of summer light and endless joy. We call it Heaven. . . . Heaven and Hell. Light and darkness. Healing and pain. We get to choose. And the choice starts now. Psychiatrists make the choice seem difficult, burying it deep in the repressed longing and pain of childhood. Preachers also make it seem difficult, as if there were hundreds of things to figure out before the choice could be made. Our friends too make the choice seem difficult; life, they reassure us, is terribly complicated and there's nothing to be done about it. . . . The time will surely come, we think, when all the facts will be in and the choice will be clear. All the facts have been in for a long, long time. And the choice is clear. And the choice is yours. (Dale Pauls--Stamford, CT)

Deadlines are necessary, and pressure is a good thing. In spite of all the appropriate warnings we hear about stress, the ideal state is not an environment totally without it. At first blush, you may disagree with me. But let me tell you a story.

In an old black-and-white episode of Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone,” a mobster dies and finds himself in a gorgeous penthouse in a high-rise casino. Things were perfect! Every time he placed a bet, he won. Every joke he told elicited belly laughs. Every beautiful woman he met gushed affection for him. He had everything he had ever dreamed of having. And it was effortless.

Eventually, however, he began to feel restless and bored. Always winning and always getting just what he wanted had somehow numbed his ability to find joy in anything. In his undemanding environment, he began to crave a challenge.

So the stress-free, always-victorious tough guy went to the gray-haired fellow who appeared to be the curator of the place. He asked if maybe God hadn’t made a mistake by sending him to heaven. The cordial host said that God hadn’t sent him to heaven. In that exchange, the mobster realized he had been consigned to hell.

Although we sometimes fault God for creating Planet Earth as a place that tests our mettle, challenge is wholesome. Just as lifting weights builds muscle, facing the routine trials and occasional catastrophes of life builds character. Against the common view that the Garden of Eden was a paradise environment because there was no adversity there, I beg to differ. Adam and Eve were assigned the task of working to tend the garden. Their sin made the task far more difficult -- and downright unpleasant under some conditions. But duty, work, and challenge are necessary elements of a life that would experience the joy of accomplishment and triumph.

We tend to grumble when we think we’re getting a raw deal or that life is being unfair. But it is not unfair for any one of us to have to pull her load, earn his keep, or otherwise justify the space he or she occupies.

“Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors” (James 1:2-3, The Message).

Your greatest fear today is actually your greatest opportunity. With God as your partner, you can face the challenge and grow from it. The ultimate vexation is neither struggle nor failure but a life so monotonous that it offers no victories over hardship.

A Man and His Dog

A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the

scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead. He

remembered dying, and that the dog had been dead for years. He wondered

where the road was leading them. After a while, they came to a high,

white stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble.

At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in

the sunlight. When he was standing before it, he saw a magnificent gate

in the arch that looked like mother of pearl, and the street that led to

the gate looked like pure gold. He and the dog walked toward the gate,

and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side. When he was

close enough, he called out, "Excuse me, where are we?"

"This is heaven, sir," the man answered.

"Wow! Would you happen to have some water?" the man asked.

"Of course, sir. Come right in, and I'll have some ice water brought

right up." The man gestured, and the gate began to open.

"Can my friend," gesturing toward his dog, "come in, too?" the traveler

asked.

"I'm sorry, sir, but we don't accept pets."

The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and

continued the way he had been going. After another long walk, and at the

top of another long hill, he came to a dirt road which led through a farm

gate that looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence. As

he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and

reading a book.

"Excuse me!" he called to the reader. "Do you have any water?"

"Yeah, sure, there's a pump over there" The man pointed to a place that

couldn't be seen from outside the gate. "Come on in."

"How about my friend here?" the traveler gestured to the dog.

"There should be a bowl by the pump."

They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old fashioned

hand pump with a bowl beside it. The traveler filled the bowl and took a

long drink himself, then he gave some to the dog. When they were full,

he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree

waiting for them.

"What do you call this place?" the traveler asked.

"This is heaven," was the answer.

"Well, that's confusing," the traveler said. "The man down the road said

that was heaven, too."

"Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope.

That's hell."

"Doesn't it make you mad for them to use your name like that?"

"No. I can see how you might think so, but we're just happy that they

screen out the folks who'll leave their best friends behind".

* Clarence E. Macartney,

in his stimulating book, gives the substance of a dialogue between a lost soul and its

resurrection body, in the judgment, as imagined by Samuel Davies, noted preacher of

the Colonial days... . .The soul curses the body, and blames the lusts

of the body for the soul's eternal undoing, and cries out against the

loathsome prospect of being reunited with the body. The body makes answer,

bitterly accusing the soul of having prostituted the body to sin, forbidding

the knees to bow before the throne of grace, and overruling every inclination of

the eyes and ears to read and hear the Word of Life. In consequence, the

body recognizes itself to be the just instrument of the soul's everlasting punishment, while crying out against the necessity of being bound

together by chains which even the pangs of hell and the flames of unquenchable

fire can not dissolve.

Winnie Ruth Judd was a

Bible School student called to be a missionary to India. She refused the call because she wanted to marry a medical

Doctor. The newly married couple soon were prosperous. It was not long,

however, until she began to get jealous. This got worse. After a time she was insanely jealous of those that she thought were trying to get her

husband. She even thought at times that he was being unfaithful to her. This

jealousy at last drove her to the point of murder. She murdered several of

those she feared. One she stuffed into a foot locker and mailed to California.

The body was discovered in a Post Office in California when someone

noticed blood

running out of the package onto the floor. The package was traced

back to her and she was put into a prison for the insane in Arizona. After serving

some time she escaped. She was apprehended wandering in the desert. Quite

some time passed and then she escaped again. This time they weren't able

to find her for a long time. One day, however, a sheriff saw a slow moving

figure out on the desert. He went to investigate and found her crawling on hands

and knees. She was saying something so he bent to hear. She was praying.

. . "God, I'll go to India, God I'm going, I'm going." She thought she

was going to fulfill her call... she was on her way to India. A former Bible

school student lost her mind because she rejected God's will.

On one occasion Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, the agnostic lecturer of the last century, was announced to give an address on hell. He declared he would prove conclusively that hell was a wild dream of some scheming theologians who invented it to terrify credulous people. As he was launching into his subject, a half-drunken man arose in the audience and exclaimed, “Make it strong, Bob. There's a lot of us poor fellows depending on you. If you are wrong, we are all lost. So be sure you prove it clear and plain.”

No amount of reasoning can nullify God's sure Word. He has spoken as plainly of a hell for the finally impenitent as of a heaven for those who are saved.

________

Illustrations of Bible Truth by H.A. Ironside, Moody Press, 1945, page 40

======================

Another version:

Some people who believe in the passages in the Bible about heaven, utterly reject the references to hell. Robert Ingersoll, a famous lawyer and atheist in the latter part of the nineteenth century, once delivered a blistering lecture on hell. He called hell “scarecrow of religion” and told his audience how unscientific it was, and how all intelligent people had decided there was no such place. A drunk in the audience came up to him afterward and said, “Bob, I liked your lecture; I liked what you said about hell. But, Bob, I want you to be sure about it, because I'm depending upon you.”

________

Study the following Bible passages and any other relevant ones on this topic, and reach your own conclusions, prayerfully:

Luke 16:26; John 3:18-19, John 3:36; John 5:29; John 12:32; Acts 3:21, Acts 3:23; Romans 1:16, Romans 5:18-21; 1 Corinthians 15:25-28; 2 Corinthians 5:10, 2 Corinthians 5:19; 2 Corinthians 6:2; Galatians 1:4; Ephesians 5:25; Philippians 2:9-11; 1 Timothy 2:4; Titus 2:11; Hebrews 2:9; Hebrews 9:27; 1 Peter 3:19; 2 Peter 3:9; 1 John 1:5; 1 John 2:2; 1 John 4:8.

Your Father Loves You by James Packer

67% of American adults believe in a hell. But less than 25% believe

they will go there, while 25% believe their friends will be there. USA

Today poll, 12/86

In the 18th century, Archibald Boyle was the leading member of an

association of wild and wicked men known as "The Hell Club" in

Glasgow, Scotland. After one night of carousing at the Club's notorious annual meeting, Boyle deeamed he was riding home on his

black horse. In the darkness, someone seized the reins, shouting, "You

must go with me!" As Boyle desperately tried to force the reins from

the hands of the unknown guide, the horse reared. Boyle fell down,

down, down with increasing speed. "Where are you taking me?" The cold

voice replied, "To hell!" The echoes of the groans and yells of

frantic revelry assaulted their ears. At the entrance to hell, Boyle

saw the inmates chasing the same pleasures they had pursued in life.

There was a lady he'd known playing her favorite vulgar game. Boyle

relaxed, thinking hell must be a pleasurable place after all. When he

asked her to rest a moment and show him through the pleasures of hell,

she shrieked. "There is no rest in hell!" She unclasped the vest of

her robe and displayed a coil of living snakes writhing about her

midsection. Others revealed different forms of pain in their hearts.

"Take me from this place!" Boyle demanded. "By the living God whose

name I have so often outraged, I beg you, let me go!" His guide

replied, "Go then--but in a year and a day we meet to part no more."

At this, Boyle awoke, feeling that these last words were as letters of

fire burned into his heart. Despite a resolution never to attend the

Hell Club again, he soon was drawn back. He found no comfort there. He

grew haggard and gray under the weight of his conscience and fear of

the future. He dreaded attending the Club's annual meeting, but his

companions forced him to attend. Every nerve of his body writhed in

agony at the first sentence of the president's opening address:

"Gentlemen, this is leap year; therefore it is a year and a day since

our last annual meeting." After the meeting, he mounted his house to

ride home. Next morning, his horse was found grazing quietly by the

roadside. A few yards away lay the corpse of Archibald Boyle. The

strange guide had claimed him at the appointed time. Paul Lee Tan

An evangelist was exhorting his hearers to flee from the wrath to

come. "I warn you," he thundered, "that there will be weeping and

wailing and gnashing of teeth!" At this moment an old woman in the

gallery stood up. "Sir," she shouted, "I have no teeth!" "Madam," he

replied, "Teeth will be provided." [this is, perhaps, the best one I have seen]

It is said that Abe Mulky, who became the Texas Evangelist, went to an old-fashioned revival and was under deep conviction. He went home and said to his wife, “Mandy, what shall I do? I am lost. I am miserable. But you know we have gained our possessions crookedly and if I get religion, and make restitution, which I will have to do, we will not have a shelter over our heads. The house, the ranch, every cow and sheep will be gone. That is what will take place, if I get religion. And if I don’t get religion I will surely go to hell. What must I do, Mandy?”

Mandy replied, “Abe, get religion.”

Thank the Lord for Mandy. Well, Abe went back and got real religion. He immediately began to fix up. Soon all was gone. Not one thing left. Abe and Mandy were sitting under a tree eating some cheese and crackers. Abe looked across and said, “What about this Mandy?” She immediately and joyously replied, “It beats hell, Abe, mighty bad.” Yes, heaven is cheap at any cost.

Beneath Westminster Abbey is an old crypt which for centuries was

used as the burial place of the early kings. It is related that one

day some years ago a visitor who had wandered into this vault was

locked in. He did not notice the doors swing together. The janitors

were busy, and no one heard the muffled voice which began to cry from

the crypt or the muffled blows which began to beat upon its oaken

door. The afternoon passed away. What that imprisoned man suffered as

it gradually grew upon him that he was buried alive, who can know?

At the usual hour the janitor made his evening round before closing

the building for the night. The entombed man heard him as his

footsteps came near, then retreated, came near again, then finally

receding grew fainter and fainter, and died away at length in the

distance. What imagination can conceive his agony! He redoubled his

cries. He dashed his body wildly against the solid door.

Now he thought he heard the distant entrance doors creak on their

hinges and the key pushed into the great iron lock. In a moment more

the vast tomb would be closed for the night. Fortunately, before

turning the key the janitor paused a moment and listened. He thought

he heard dull blows, faint and far away -- a sound as of stifled,

agonizing cries. He listened more intently. A horrible thought

suggested itself to his mind: "Someone is locked in the crypt!" He

hastened to the place, threw open the heavy oaken door, and held his

lantern up to see. The buried man had fallen senseless upon the stone

floor. He was rescued just in time to save his reason. How fearful to

be locked in hell eternally!

William Moses Tidwell, "Pointed Illustrations."

In the little town of L., where I was first pastor, there lived a

little old blind man, who was always one of my most attentive hearers.

He had a most peculiar way of going about the city and rarely if ever

made a mistake. He carried a little stick in his hands, and touched

the trees and fences and houses as he walked, and seemed always to

know exactly where he was. But one day when I knew he should be going

home, I saw him moving with great haste in exactly the opposite

direction, and said to him, "Which way?" Without stopping he replied,

"I am going home." I said to him, "Your home is exactly behind you and

every step you take is away from it." It was hard to convince him, but

as I had eyes and he had none, finally I persuaded him, and he said,

"Then turn me about," and I turned him squarely about and every step

he took led him home. -- J. W. C.

By J. Wilbur Chapan, "Present Day Parables."

Some years ago a man driving down the streets of one of the great cities lost control of his horses and was in danger of being dashed to death. Suddenly, there sprang out into the streets a man who, seizing the horses by the bit, stopped them in their mad career and saved the driver’s life.

By a singular coincidence, years afterwards the man whose life was saved was on trial before the one who had stopped the horses, who sat in the judge’s chair. The trial was ended; the lawyers had made the plea and the jury had returned with its verdict, when the judge said, “Have you anything to say why sentence should not be pronounced upon you?” Then, rising, trembling with great emotion, he said: “Judge, don’t you remember me?” And the judge said once again, “Have you anything to say why sentence should not be pronounced?” And then he said, “Why, Judge, I am the man you saved; have mercy, have mercy.” And with a look full of pity, his honor replied, “I do remember you and I am very sorry for you, but then I was your saviour, and today I am your judge;” and the sentence of death was passed.

Today our Saviour stands waiting to be merciful. With tears in his eyes he stands knocking again and again at the door of our hearts. But one day the picture will change, and he will be our judge to say, “Depart, for I never knew you.” God save us from that day.

________

J. Wilbur Chapman, “Present Day Parables.”

[another, probably derivative, version #1984]

James was a young man who never came to church and was often seen drunk and with the wrong crowd. One night, in his drunken condition, he sat on the railroad track and was hit by the train and seriously injured. The nearby hospital he was rushed to called a pastor to see him because doctors thought he would not live through the night. The pastor pleaded with James to put his trust in Jesus before it was too late. He finally promised, "Preacher, not tonight, but before I leave this hospital I will become a Christian." For the next couple of weeks the pastor visited with James in the hospital and presented to him the claims of Christ. Finally, James was sent home in a cast to recuperate. James became impatient with his recovery, so one day he took a knife and cut it off, walked out of the house, joined his friends at a downtown bar, and had to be carried home drunk. He started to hemorrhage and was rushed back to the hospital. James died. And do you know how he died? He died crying out, "Get me out of this place -- it's on fire. Get me out of this place -- it's on fire."

On a foggy morning a ship hit the supports holding up a 6-lane bridge. A big section of the highway fell into the ocean. A number of cars and trucks were not able to stop in time and fell the 60 or so feet into the ocean below. When I heard about this I thought of Jesus' words: "For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction."

The use of this awful subject may be for awakening

unconverted persons to a conviction of their danger. This that

you have heard is the case of every one out of Christ. That

world of misery, that cake of burning brimstone, is extended

abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing

flames of the wrath of God; there is hell's wide gaping mouth

open; and you have nothing to stand upon, nor anything to take

hold of, there is nothing between you and hell but the air; it

is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up.

“I believe I am going to hell.” The sentence shocks you. It has a dread echo to it. But if such is the effect upon you hearing it repeated by me, how much more solemn and impressive it must have been had you heard it as I heard it, when it fell, not from the lips of one who repeated it and reported it, but from the lips of the very person whose soul was upheaved. It takes an internal explosion and upheaval to know what people are really feeling, thinking, or believing. Explosions beneath the surface of a lake or river bring to the surface dead bodies and hidden objects.

Likewise, in the breast of man, great convulsions of grief pain, fear, and remorse, hurl hidden things to the surface, and the beholder stands aghast at what he has seen or heard.. Then, the question of sincerity sinks out of sight; and the truth, whether it be glorious or terrible, reveals itself. It was such an explosion that I saw and heard when the troubled soul before me hurled up from its depths that sentence of fear and woe: “I believe I am going to hell.”

Located near the 45th parallel, halfway between the Equator and the North Pole, is a little town in Oregon called Halfway. I dwelt there part of one summer when I was a lad. Halfway, Oregon, is also located just above Hell’s Canyon, through which runs the Snake River. Those who dwell there no doubt enjoy the beautiful Pine Valley where it is situated, but none of us who ever lived there will inhabit a place halfway between the Savior in Heaven’s Mountain and the Snake of Hell’s Bottomless Pit. We will all be either all the way into Heaven or all the way into Hell, and there will be no “Halfway House” for those wishing to be rehabilitated from the confines of eternal punishment.

A man asked, “Can you go to Heaven and chew?” The reply was, “Yes, but you’ll have to go to hell to spit!” This may have seemed like a clever answer. However, the solemn truth is that there will be no transition between the eternal abodes, no “Halfway House,” and no admission into the New Jerusalem of anything that defileth” or “worketh abomination.” Those who chew the filthy cud of sin without repentance in this life will be themselves spewed into the cuspidor of condemnation forever along with all of their uncleanness.

Even the morally upright and socially respectable who have refused to admit their need of the Savior and spurned His cleansing blood must descend entirely and eternally into hell. There will be no pleasant, little town just outside of the gates of the New Jerusalem called Halfway, Heaven for those who were too good to go to Hell but not quite qualified for Heaven. Conversely, the chiefest of sinners Jesus will save when they obey and believe, and He escort them all the way into the heights of holiness and Heaven. Ya just can’t get to hellven from here!

Wherever God erects a house of prayer, The devil always builds a

chapel there; And 'twill be found upon examination, The latter has the

largest congregation.

- Daniel Defoe

- G. Curtis Jones, {1000 Illustrations for Preaching and

Teaching, }(Nashville: Broadman Press, 1986) 157