R.C. Sproul (0:00)

Think of the worst crisis you've ever had to go through, and compare that with the idea of appearing in a heavenly courtroom and standing before a perfectly holy judge.

Nathan W. Bingham (0:19)

Some seek to downplay hell as mere separation from God. Hell is something that we choose God. God doesn't send us there, and God isn't there. But that's not what the Bible teaches. And the separation that Scripture teaches is definite and eternal. Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and welcome to the Tuesday edition of Renewing youg Mind. As a young Christian, I was taught those false views of hell. And when we distort hell, it twists, distorts and eclipses elements of the good news and even attributes of God himself. So we need to rightly divide the word of God, even if in our finiteness, our fallenness, we don't like the subject. A separation is coming, but it's not us from God. It's a division between one another. Sheep and goats, wheat and tares. Here's Dr. Sproul.

R.C. Sproul (1:14)

As we continue now with our study of the biblical concept of hell, we return our attention once again to Matthew's Gospel, chapter 25, where we read that Jesus says, beginning at verse 31, these when the Son of man comes in his glory and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory, and all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another, as the shepherd divides his sheep from the goats, and he will set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. And then the king will say to those on his right hand, come, you, blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you took me in. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. But then the righteous will answer him, saying, lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you as a stranger and take you in, or naked and clothe you? Or when did we see you sick or in prison and come to you? And the king will answer and say to them, assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of my brethren, you did it to me. Then Jesus concludes this teaching in verse 41, and following by saying, then he will also say to those on the left hand, depart from me. You cursed into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food. I was thirsty, you gave me no drink. I was a stranger. You did not take me in naked, you did not clothe me sick and in prison, and you did not visit me. Jesus here again uses another image, and it is an image of separation, where he talks about the King who will separate kingdoms and separate people as one divides sheep from goats. The sheep refer to those who have been obedient, who have been followers of Christ, who will inherit the kingdom of heaven that was prepared for them from the foundation of the world. The goats, on the other hand, will be excluded from the presence of the company of God and His angels in heaven, and they will be sent away into everlasting fire. Now, what Jesus is describing here, or what he is discussing, is the concept of judgment. It's interesting to me that the New Testament word for judgment is the Greek word Croesus, from which we get the English word crisis. It just comes directly over into our language from the Greek. But the supreme crisis for humanity will be the crisis of the last judgment. That will be the time of separation. Now, behind and beneath the New Testament concept of hell stand some other ideas that we must understand if this idea of hell is going to make sense to us. First of all, there is the concept of the justice of God. We say that God is just and that he judges according to his own holiness and according to his perfect righteousness. And God is the government of the universe. He rules over all people. And the point that is found here is that God holds every human being personally accountable to Him. If Jesus Christ taught anything in his earthly ministry, he taught that there would be a final judgment for human beings, that every one of us will be called into account before the presence of God, and we will be judged by his perfect righteousness and by his perfect law. Now, if you look again at the imagery of the New Testament, as I've pointed out many times, that describes the scene of the Last Judgment with respect to those who are accused in the tribunal or the courtroom of God. That the imagery that the New Testament uses to describe the response of sinners in heaven to the charges leveled against them by this perfect and holy God is one of silence, that every mouth will be stopped because there is nothing a person can say to defend themselves against a judge who is perfectly just and who is omniscient. There's no reason to try to lie your way through the trial because you know you can't fool your Creator who has a Perfect record of everything that we have ever done or ever thought or ever said. As the Old Testament says about God, before a word is even formed on our lips, he knows it altogether. Jesus warns of this last judgment, that on that occasion every idle word will be brought into the judgment. Now think about that for a second. That means that God is going to hold us individually accountable, not for everything that we've ever done, but for everything that we've ever said. Even the casual remark, even the offhand statement, even the idle words will be brought into the judgment. And if our idle words are going to be brought into the judgment, how much more will will those words that we speak with great seriousness come before his judgment? So what we have to fear here is first of all a God who is just, a God who is holy. As the author of Hebrews says in his writings, how can we possibly escape if we neglect so great a salvation as God has made available to us? And of course, what he is saying is, there is no escape. And then the warning is added that our God is a consuming fire. But we don't like to think that we will ever be held accountable for our actions in this world. Just yesterday I had a man make this observation to me. He looked at me and he said, RC he said, I've known lots of doctors, and I met one of them who was a coroner. And he said to me that he had performed thousands of autopsies over his career and never once saw a single soul. And of course, my friend thought he was being clever and profound. And I said, whatever made you think that a coroner or any other earthly instrument would be able to detect or discern something that is immaterial to begin with. But the point that man was saying is I don't believe that there is a soul. I don't believe that there is personal survival of the grave. And so I can eat, drink, and be merry without any fear of consequences of any ultimate source. Added to that is the almost universal assumption in the American culture that if there is life after death, then everybody's going to go to the same place, to the eternal blessedness of heaven. Nothing turns a sinner into a saint faster than death. We can take the most reprobate person, and when we lay them to rest, we speak in glowing terms of confidence that now they're enjoying felicity at last, and now they are at peace in heaven, when in fact they may have just entered into the gates of hell. And to contemplate their present condition is more than we could humanly bear. And I have to say this as an aside, one of the reasons why there is such a profound emotional and visceral response to the doctrine of hell is, is that it's just difficult for anybody to contemplate another human being going to hell. I mean, I just, I can't think of the worst, most despicable person that I've ever known or read about. I can't enjoy the thought of that person being in hell. I notice what will often happen in movies where you have a villain portrayed who is utterly despicable. Perhaps you're watching a mystery show where a little child is sleeping in her bedroom at night and then the camera angle shifts to the presence of this kidnapper who's a murderer, sneaking into the house and coming up to the room and then, of all things, steals the child and then kills the child. And then he's going to make another attack upon another child. And you know at the same time that the police are bearing down on this man, about to discover him. And as you become involved in the empathy of the movie response, you are rooting like mad for the police to get there in time to stop this person from committing another horrendous crime against a child. And if that killer is about to kill the child and at the last second the policeman shoots and kills the man, there will be an audible response from the people in the theater. They'll cheer that the bad guy got his just desserts. But it's one thing for us to cheer the punishment of a sinner in this world. It's another thing to cheer the idea of any human being having eternal, relentless, repeated judgment at the hands of God. And so we turn away from such an idea out of a commitment to our basic humanity and our basic human concerns about the well being of others. But what do we do with the emphatic teaching of Christ and of the New Testament? That there will be a judgment and that there will be a separation, that some people will indeed enter heaven and others will be cast out into that place of outer darkness where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth. As I've said before, to me, the most terrifying sermon ever preached was the Sermon on, on the Mount. Because after Jesus pronounces all of the blessings that he does, blessed are the poor and blessed are those who mourn, and blessed are the peacemakers and so on. He ends the sermon by warning the people that many will come to me, he says, on the last day, saying, lord, Lord, didn't we do this in your name? And didn't we do that in your name. And Jesus said, I will say to them, depart from me, you evildoers. I never knew you. Now, let's just stop for a second and think about that. Jesus says that there will be those who will be rejected by him and by God on the occasion of the last judgment, and that that situation in which we enter at death will be the final opportunity. Now is the day of salvation. There's nothing in Scripture that gives us the slightest hint that there will be a second chance after death. So that's why, as long as we postpone our repentance and our fleeing to Christ, the more dangerous and perilous is our condition, lest tonight our souls be required of us. But we can't assume that everybody is just simply going to walk peaceably into heaven and escape this judgment. Not if we are to take the teaching of Jesus himself seriously. He does speak of separation. He speaks of a crisis, and it is the crisis of surviving the judgment of God. Let's look for a moment, if we will, again, to the last verses of chapter 25, beginning at verse 44. Then they also will answer him, saying, lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister to you? Then he will answer them, saying, assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me, and these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. Now, again, Jesus makes this idea clear that there will be a time of separation. And that time of separation will be the greatest crisis that anyone can ever, ever face. I mentioned in another series that we did an experience I had when I was speaking on Sunday morning to the national conference of the Christian Booksellers Association. There were about 6,000 people in the hall. And I ventured to speak on the subject of salvation, asking the question, what is salvation? And I did that in terms of what I thought was a great risk. I thought, I'm insulting these people's intelligence. I'm speaking here to the choir, as it were, to people who are involved in producing resources for Christian growth. And here I am talking about the most elementary concept there is in Christianity, the concept of salvation. And I ask this question to that congregation. If the Bible is always talking about salvation, from what are we being saved? As we see that in the Bible, the term to save is used to describe many different things. If you're restored to health from a threatening illness, your life has been saved. And You've experienced salvation with the little S. If an army escapes sure defeat in battle, they experience salvation in the lower case. But when we talk about the doctrine of salvation, we're talking about ultimate salvation. The fundamental meaning of salvation is to escape from some calamity. And so when we speak about ultimate salvation in the Scriptures, we're talking about an escape from the ultimate calamity. And what is that ultimate calamity? It is the wrath of God visited justly upon those who have remained hostile to Him. So I concluded in this sermon, I said that from which you are saved, ultimately is God. We like to think of God as the Savior, as the one who redeems us from judgment. And indeed he is our Savior, if it be that we have genuinely repented and cast our ourselves upon the mercy of Christ. And so God is the one who is the author of salvation. And yet to be saved in the final analysis, is not simply to be saved by him, but to be saved from Him. Because the ultimate crisis, the worst calamity a person could ever face, is the judgment of a holy God who will judge us in perfect righteousness. See, it's not that we're afraid of being brought before a corrupt judge, an unjust judge who might punish us beyond what we deserve, but rather the fear is being visited by a judge who is just and who will judge us perfectly according to what we deserve, according to what we have earned, according to our merit. And of course, what the Bible makes clear is that the only merit we bring to the throne of God in the last judgment is demerit. The only thing that we have earned at the hands of perfect justice is perfect punishment. But we're at ease in Zion, preachers aren't preaching hell. This message of Christ has been all but deleted from the New Testament teaching of our day. And we say, well, we don't have anything to worry about from God because God is so loving that he is going to save everybody. Well, if he is going to save everybody, it will not be without a serious rebuke against his only begotten Son for teaching falsely that there will be separation, that there will be curse as well as blessing, there will be punishment as well as the gracious rewards that are given, and that hell was created for the devil, for the angels and all who willingly participate with them. Think back, if you will, on those moments in your life that you would describe as crises. Think of the worst crisis you've ever had to go through, and compare that with the idea of appearing in a heavenly courtroom and standing before a perfectly holy judge. I remember when I used to be involved in the training of people for evangelism explosion and we used the diagnostic questions to engage people in discussion. That the first diagnostic question we used was have you come to the place in your spiritual life or in your thinking where you know for sure that when you die you will go to heaven? And I've asked that question literally to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. And most of the people answer that question by saying, no, I'm not sure about that. But only once did I have a particular response. I'll never forget I asked a man that question once. I said, have you come to the place where you know for sure that when you die you're going to go to heaven? He looked me in the eye and he was trembling. He wasn't being facetious and he wasn't trying to be a smart aleck here. He said no. He says, in fact, I know where I'm headed, I'm going to hell and it scares me to death. And he was on the road to hell and I told him the Gospel of Christ and he repented of his sins and he became a Christian. But it was interesting to me that God had already begun to work in him, to convict him of his sin and to give a certain healthy fear for what would lie ahead in his existence if he did not repent.