I taught and coached Dawn (and three of her four sisters) many years ago in a school just outside of Atlanta. She was one of my “kids”. She was energetic, humorous, spunky, tenacious, and fun. She was full of life and living her dream to see the world. While I hadn’t seen her in 20 years, I followed her on Facebook and loved seeing her pictures. This one cut me to the core. Someone so young and full of life is no longer here. In the blink of an eye, she was gone.
This event combined with a book I am currently reading titled “Erasing Hell” by Francis Chan has left me with a lot of thoughts.
I know that Dawn was a Christian. I know that not just because she went to the Christian school where I taught but I know that by her testimony and her life. She lived out her faith in her actions towards others.
What if she hadn't accepted Christ as her savior? What if she wasn't a Christian? Let's think for a minute about what happens when a non-Christian dies.
Have you ever been to a funeral for someone that you knew wasn’t a Christian. Did you notice that the pastor or person residing over the funeral always says nice things about that person? Sometimes you know that they aren’t even true. And, did you notice that they never say and this person was not a Christian and so they are now doomed to spend the rest of eternity burning in hell. Nope, can’t say I’ve ever heard that at a funeral. I know what you are thinking. That would be cruel to the family who is grieving. But, isn’t it the truth and don’t people really need to hear the truth. What if they really think that no matter how you live your life, at the end you get to go to heaven any way?
This sometimes boggles my mind. Sometimes I think that God is hard to understand. He is infinitely loving and yet sends people to hell. He has to balance His love and his justice. He can't exist in the same place with sin. Sin has to be taken care of. I know these are true but it still plays with my brain.
His ways are far beyond mine and his thoughts are much higher than my thoughts. (Isaiah 55:9) He is the sovereign creator and sustainer and He has the right to do whatever He pleases. (Psalm 115:3)
I guess the question is do I want to believe in a God who shows his power by punishing non-Christians and who shows his amazing mercy by blessing Christians forever? Do I really want to believe that? I think most people would answer this question, no.
I think if we were all honest, we’d all say that we would want everyone to be saved. We would want people to be able to stand before God on judgment day and say, “You know what? You were right, Jesus. You really are the savior. I was wrong. Can I have a second chance?” I want to believe that in the end, everyone gets to be saved. But no matter what I want, that isn’t what the Bible teaches.
Matthew 25:31 – 36; 41 – 43; 46
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Here’s another passage:
Matthew 13:41-43
“The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”These same words appear in several other parables. These are the words of Jesus and so that makes it hard to argue against. (Paul, James, and John all wrote about hell, too.)
Jesus chose strong and terrifying language when he spoke of hell. He chose to speak this way because He loves us. He spoke of hell as a horrifying place, characterized by suffering, fire, darkness, and lamentation. He did this to try to make us take hell seriously and to encourage us to avoid it at all costs.
We serve a God whose ways are incomprehensible; whose thoughts are not our thoughts. Ultimately, thoughts of God should lead to joy. Why joy .... because He provided a way of escape for us.
Would you have thought to rescue a sinful people from their sin by sacrificing your Son to pay their debt? Would you have thought to have your Son, who is completely pure, holy, and good, take on human flesh and live among such sinful, ungrateful people? Would you have thought to allow your created beings to torture your Son and then kill him? I wouldn’t have thought of that and I wouldn’t have permitted that … aren’t you glad I’m not God?
No one wants to get rid of the plan of redemption that God has provided for us. We need it! In the same way, we also can't erase God’s revealed plan of punishment just because we don’t like it.
And so, even though I don’t want to believe in hell, I do. Perhaps that is because I don’t have the ability to understand justice the way God does. However, I submit my life, and my knowledge, and my will to a God, whose ways are much higher than mine.
If and when the body of Christ really believes in hell, it will change our daily lives and our ministry….
Isaiah 55:9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
No comments:
Post a Comment