The Sobering Truth About Hell.

This is a logical outline of this morning's message:

Introduction:  As much as we rejoice in the Bible's promise of Heaven, we must also reckon with its' warnings about Hell. Christ believed there is a Hell, and urgently warned people against it.

A Short Set of Facts About Hell:

God originally created Hell for Satan and his demons (Matthew 25:41). So when people choose to follow Satan's path of pride and rebellion against God, that is why they inherit Satan's punishment.

Hell exists because God is love. Contrary to conventional wisdom, God's love is not an argument against Hell. Psalm 33:5 says that God loves justice and righteousness. Psalm 5:4-6 says that God abhors evil and evildoers. Love cannot rejoice in iniqutiy, but only rejoices in the truth (1 Corinthians 13:6). God's love is not leniency or laxity.

Hell exists because God is light (1 John 1:5). People claim that God could not create a Hell, but they say this because they do not reckon with His fierce, unbending righteousness. God does not grade on a curve, for anyone. 

Hell is a place of just punishment for sins. It isn't a meaningless, reasonless place of sadism and pain. Revelation 22:14-15 lists specific sins for which people are forever shut out of God's holy city. Hell is a place of penal retribution.  It is pure, perfect justice, unsoftened by any mercy.

But God says no one need go to Hell:  

God finds no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:32). His delight is in repentance, restoration, and blessing. God judges sin and sinners because in His righteousness He must, but He delights in mercy. The fault for condemnation rests entirely on the sinning person.

Christ wept over the looming judgment on rebellious Jerusalem (Luke 19:41). Everything Christ said or did was a perfect revelation of God the Father. This incident reveals Christ's heart for lost people, even when their punishment is deserved.

God speaks to the whole world, every day. Nature speaks for God to everyone in every place (Psalm 19). The apostle Paul said that God speaks through the histories of nations, and life's circumstances, to motivate men to seek Him, grope for Him, and perchance find Him (Acts 17). 

God sent Christ the Son into the world, save the world (John 3:17).  This is why no one can accuse God of not caring, or not doing anything to stop human beings from going to Hell.  However, this fact cannot be known from nature, but only known and believed through Scripture.

God keeps on raising up Christian lay-witnesses, preachers, teachers, full-time Christian workers, and missionaries, to bring the message of Christ to the world.  Many of them sacrifice their lives in the process. If a man reaches out to God, God will always reach back to him (ex. Cornelius, Acts 10:1-6). No one is beyond God's power to successfully get the good news of Jesus Christ to them.

Do not be deceived: If there is no Hell, then there is no Christianity, because the reason Christ came was to save us from it.