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Why are we so afraid of hell?
by
Matt Kean
We’re afraid to talk about it, preach about it, read about it,
write about it, and we sure as hell are afraid to believe it.
It seems that the non-existence of a horrible dwelling place
for the wicked has become quite trendy amongst today’s
post-modern, more enlightened, Salvation Army. The popular
churches, along with their popular preachers, with their
popular fresh look at the Bible, are all too eager to present
the niceties of the gospel, but are equally quick to cower
away from the harsh truth of the wages of sin.
When the Salvation Army was built by William Booth, it was
raised on fearless faith. The doctrines were formed by the
founders’ pain-staking searches of the scriptures. They were
used to shape the officers, the soldiers, and every sermon
intended to plead with the hearts of the unsaved. These eleven
statements of faith created a unity within this great
organization that all could settle and lean upon. They were
the written logic for our ruthless attack on Satan and his
minions, yet in many circles today they are hardly even held
as true Biblical principle and dismissed as just more personal
opinion.
How can this be? How is it that men and women who sign the
articles of war, wear the uniform, and even become ordained as
ministers within the Army’s ranks can absolutely deny and even
deem foolish the eleventh doctrine? Not only does this suggest
that the Salvation Army is founded on an erred interpretation
of scripture, but it also suggests that the fathers of
Evangelical Christianity were mistaken in their theologies.
St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John Bunyan, John Calvin, John
Wesley, Oswald Chambers, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Charles
Spurgeon, D. L. Moody, and countless others lived out their
faith and presented the saving love of Jesus Christ with
urgency to the lost because of the inevitable fate of the
lost. They were called, obligated, to warn the world of the
necessity of surrendering to the redeeming power of Christ in
order to avoid the damning power of sin. Have we become so
arrogant as to suggest these great men of God were wrong?
Throughout the New Testament Jesus specifically spoke of an
eternal punishment on several occasions (see all four
gospels). He warned us of the terrible consequences of sin and
the inevitable future of those who cling to it. His words were
never without unconditional love, limitless forgiveness, and
absolute truth, yet he insisted that iniquity and evil-doing
must be repented and renounced. His message of eternal life
was hope and freedom for all who heard it, but that same
message included the fact that he was the embodiment of the
Old Testament God who despised sin’s corrosive ability, and
had created a place for it (Jude 6).
For some reason, it seems that these two qualities of our Lord
- the loving Saviour and the vindicating God – cannot be
reconciled by some members of the present Salvation Army. It’s
easy to preach for five minutes about how there is a divine
plan for one’s life, how much God loves us, and how very
special we are in the sight of the Lord, but to really pull
the ears of men and confront them with the harsh truth of the
reality of Satan’s spirit-suffocating grip requires conviction
and much introspection. Could this be the reason that hell is
hardly spoken of, because honest, personal repentance is
compulsory in order to face it?
“There simply is no hell!” Some will certainly scream this
allowed, while others whisper it silently behind closed doors,
but whatever the case, such statements are commanding
attention within our classrooms, I dare say, even in our
pulpits. “God’s love is far greater a subject than the place
where the devil lives.” Of course it is! But the glorious
truth of His wonderful love cannot be separated from the
eternity of which it frees us. The awesome power of Almighty
God is not seen more perfectly than in the gruesome death of
His own flesh which offered us liberty instead of an endless
misery. How can we so brazenly present as truth such shaky
theories as annihilationism and universalism when the bedrock
of Christianity (i.e. the Bible) so clearly contradicts them?
We are offered a choice in Jesus Christ. We can choose eternal
life or eternal punishment. Our sin is a serious offence. It
put the perfect Saviour on a cross and watched him die, so why
should the consequence of it be any less serious?
The Greek word aonion is translated as eternal in the English
New Testament. It is used most often in regards to the place
of the righteous and the wicked after they die. For instance,
in Matthew 25 Jesus tells of people being like sheep and
goats. The sheep represent the righteous, the goats the
wicked. At the end of the chapter (verse 46), Jesus uses the
same word, aonion, to describe both fates. However, only the
eternity of the wicked is ever disputed. Nobody ever argues
that Heaven is eternal! Why not? How can we logically remove
the adjective from one word that Jesus applied to both? Why
are we afraid to embrace the truth and be the watchmen God
expects us to be? If Jesus made a point of so sternly warning
the unsaved of rejecting his redemptive power, shouldn’t we
also be so diligent in presenting the gospel under the same
terms?
The book of 2 Peter is so descriptive of the end of the
unrighteous that it makes the hair on my neck stand straight.
It speaks clearly of the dangers of preaching and teaching
anything different than the Word of God, yet for some reason
this entire epistle has been ignored, forgotten, or simply
dismissed by far too many. It seems absurd to me that soldiers
and officers who make up an Army of Salvation can believe in a
gospel that subtracts the dire consequences of being outside
the family of God. Millions of precious souls look to us for
answers and freedom, but instead of introducing them to the
untamed power of the Holy Spirit to set them free, we present
them with a series of pleasant philosophies and a half-true,
one-sided gospel. We claim to know the Author of faith and
forgiveness, yet we deny his words. We claim to be free, yet
we are bound to our theological comfort zones. We claim to be
representatives of the truth, yet we refuse to believe it.
As soldiers in this great holy Army we should hold onto, and
hold forth, every word of Christ and present the entire gospel
with courage and pride. We are called to warn the lost in love
and tenderness, but not without pleading and compulsion. We
are those who stand on the front-lines of this terrible war,
and ours are too often the only hands that will grab those
poor souls about to be swept away by the forces of darkness.
Doubting the existence of the enemy’s hell is like doubting
the existence of the enemy, and an enemy unseen is most
dangerous.
The refusal to believe in a hell might very well be Hell’s
greatest victory.
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