Reading: Luke 13 & Matthew 7:13-23
As D. L. Moody – the great 19th century preacher – has been quoted as saying: “If you have got a sermon that is good for anything at all, pass it around!” I heard Glen Scrivener preach this recently and want to share it.
A church in Eastbourne recently did a survey of people’s objections to Christianity – some of these ran like this:
Christianity teaches us that eternal torment awaits those who question God's infinite love. This is so obviously paradoxical and hypocritical it's almost laughable. I would laugh but this pathetic nonsense is taught to innocent credulous children and poisons their mind. It's a form of child abuse, and it makes the world a worse place to live in.
What happens to people from all other religions if the only way to God is through Jesus? Eternal damnation? this does not seem to fit with the message of love and forgiveness that Jesus spoke of?
I have a strong feeling that there is one God and that all religions are ultimately worshipping different interpretations of that God. How can the only way to God be through JC and what happens to all those other Hindus/ Muslims/ Sikhs. Eternal damnation?
Over 4000 religions exist and most believers are not Christian. If all these people won't find a Christian God does God effectively condemn them all to hell in the vain hope they are converted by a Christian minority? Why are the Christians special? Or, if non-Christian believers can go to heaven then why the determination that we all be Christian?
Jesus spoke about hell quite a lot. But, fascinatingly, the people Jesus challenges most with hell are the religious, the respectable, the insiders, those confident of their own righteousness.
To those who are outsiders, who don’t claim to be religious, who know that they have failure in their lives – Jesus’ message is overwhelmingly one of love, mercy and welcome.
It is a bit of a generalisation: Jesus does speak about hell to others too, but it is primarily to the strong and the self-confident, Jesus often speaks of hell.
That’s interesting isn’t it? How did Jesus speak of hell? Jesus insisted that we ALL face up to the reality of it. But He didn’t use it to scare religion INTO people. Most often He used it ON the religious to scare SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS out of them. If you’re here this morning and you feel Christians have spoken of hell self-righteously and used it as a stick to beat you with, I’m sorry about that. I’m not trying to beat you with a stick this morning, Kew Baptist is not trying to beat you with a stick this morning. Actually we’re ALL in this together. Because we ALL know hell, actually. We all know hell on earth, don’t we?
Every religion has this kind of category – a category for things that are not as they should be: there is relationship breakdown, financial breakdown, emotional breakdown, physical breakdown, spiritual breakdown and these can be enslaving realities we get stuck in. We often speak of these things as hell, as torment, as a pit of despair. The religions of the world have a category for this, but even if you’re not religious, you’ve got a category for this, don’t you?
As Glen queued at ASDA one day, he noticed how the front page of a popular women’s magazine. Fascinating, glossy mag, beautiful people on the front, but the headlines read:
Hidden Torment … dressing my toddler as a hooker ruined our lives … fear keeps me slim … Danielle’s marriage crisis … Posh’s new heartache: “I can’t bear such distance between us” … I’ve not been happy for a while … Cheryl’s lonely despair: “I’m so tired of living like this.”
Torment, ruined lives, fear, marriage crisis, heartache, unhappiness, loneliness, despair - Dante himself could not have painted a clearer picture of the inferno! And yet, the images – the photographs – adorning the front cover of the magazine were of beautiful people, beautiful skin, beautiful bodies, beautiful clothes. Beauty on the outside, hidden torment on the inside.
What a picture of the world!
You might be religious, here this morning, so you’ll have a category for evil, for hell, for the pit, or you might not be religious at all this morning – you don’t really believe in cosmic good and evil and heaven and hell – but you’ve felt it, right? Sometimes it’s a hell of a life; sometimes it’s hell on earth; sometimes it’s living hell.
And the Bible says “Yeah. Hell is not simply a time and a place – down there, later on. There is hell here and now and it needs sorting out here and now because everyone lives forever – that’s the assurance that Jesus’ resurrection gives us, everyone lives forever – therefore we all need this hell thing nipped in the bud before it grows into full flower and we’re stuck in full-blown, ongoing, never-get-out hell.
The good news of Jesus is – you don’t have to be stuck in it – nobody anywhere needs to be stuck in it. He has come to get us out – to save the WORLD.
Here is the story according to the Bible:
In the beginning there was ONLY love, ONLY joy, ONLY goodness. In the beginning there was a Father loving His Son in the joy of the Holy Spirit. The technical word is Trinity, but what it means is: God IS love. A Father loving His Son (Jesus) in the joy of the Holy Spirit. This God IS LOVE, this God IS LIGHT and in this God there is no darkness at all. And from the overflow of love, this God creates and humanity is specially made FOR this God of love.
There’s no anger, no wrath, no torment, … no hell here.
But there came a time when humanity turned FROM the God of love. We were made FOR the light but instead we have turned FROM the light. Christians call this the FALL. There has been a fall from a great height.
If you’re worried about whether you’re going to fall into the pit, the Bible says – you’re too late. A decisive fall has already happened.
You see we’ve turned from a great LIGHT and - by the nature of the case - that brings darkness into our lives. It just does. We’ve spurned a great LOVE and - by the nature of the case - that brings hatred (which we may euphemise as “disorder”) into our lives (broken relationships, heartache). We’re cut off from the source of LIFE and - by the nature of the case - that brings death into our lives. Our turn from God cannot fail to bring darkness, disorder and death into our lives, that’s the nature of our pit.
Now, as this happens, God is not dispassionate about it. He doesn’t watch us do this in bemused detachment. He is angry at us for thwarting, distorting and destroying His love. The Bible speaks of the “wrath of God” against the world in its rebellion.
And at that point, our first objection comes up and says: God’s anger and God’s love are paradoxical, they don’t fit together. But that’s not true is it? Anger and love are not opposites are they?
Let’s do a thought experiment: think of the person you love the MOST in the world.
Now think of someone harming them. If that doesn’t get you angry on some level, I begin to question your love. Love and anger are not opposites. Anger is the response OF LOVE to things that thwart and distort and destroy that love. Love will lead to anger if that love is spurned. I’m sure that if we asked for testimonies from parents right now about children going off the rails, we’d hear it loud and clear: I got mad as hell BECAUSE I loved them so much.
God is angry at a human race turned from Him – but NOT because He’s not loving, but because He IS loving and He wants something so much better for us all. The anger is only there because there is a love that is even older and deeper and stronger.
But here we are, having turned from the light and love and life of God we are in a pit of darkness, disorder and death. And we’re under condemnation – living out this disordered existence NOW. John 3 and Romans 1 tell us that this hell of a life is upon us ALREADY. This is the trailer for the full length feature film – a film that you don’t want to see – but it’s happening NOW.
In that sense hell is just another name for our disconnection from God - when Jesus described hell he spoke in terms of disconnection: it’s outer darkness; it’s being shut out of a great feast; it’s a place of weeping and wailing and the angry gnashing of teeth. It’s the disconnection we all feel now … but if it's not sorted out it will continue unravelling forever because the Bible says we all go on forever. You might want to research that for yourself in the Bible – this idea that we all go on forever – but it raises the stakes, doesn’t it. Don’t you just want to nip this thing in the bud, before it flowers into an eternal thing?
And you sit there and think: that’s horrible; I hate the sound of that. And I want to reassure you: God does too. In a dozen different places in the Bible, God repeatedly insists that He doesn’t want anyone to go there. That’s WHY Jesus enters into our pit. John 3:16 says: "for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." – do you hear that ‘disconnection’ language: ‘shall not perish’.
The Son of God enters our hell, to give us His heaven for free. At Christmas, the One eternally CONNECTED into God’s Life and Love gets connected to OUR LIFE. On the cross, on Good Friday, He takes our HELL IN FULL. Then on Easter Sunday He bursts through the Pit of Despair and out the other side. And He says to the world – “Come to Me. You don’t need to be disconnected any more. GET CONNECTED TO ME.” Because THAT’S what eternal life is. Hell is disconnection, eternal life is RE-CONNECTION.
The night before Jesus dies, He says “This is eternal life: Knowing my Father through knowing Me.” (John 17:3). Eternal life IS when the SON OF GOD connects you.
We don’t often think like that. Often we think of Jesus and eternal life as very different things; we can often think of eternal life as some faraway paradise of spiritual novocaine, and of Jesus as just this first century inventor of a religion.
But if do we think like that, the Christian position is nuts. What does little Jesus have to do with eternal life and paradise and God. If Jesus is this narrow gateway to this other expansive thing called eternal life, it sounds crazy.
But Christians don’t think Jesus is narrow at all! We don’t think He simply invented a religion, we think He invented the universe – of COURSE He’s the way to have true life.
If you're sitting there thinking Christianity is NARROW - I'd encourage you to consider: it's only as narrow as Jesus is. And how narrow is Jesus? I'd urge you to pick up a John's Gospel (the fourth biography of Jesus in the New Testament) and just see whether Christians are narrow or MAYBE whether Jesus is cosmic. John begins by telling us Jesus created the universe, He is the true Light that gives Life to everyone, He is the true Light that enlightens everyone. Jesus is cosmic.
Now if that's not true then you can dismiss the whole of Christianity, not just as narrow but as a pack of lies.
But if it is true then of course Jesus is the Source of True Life for the whole world. But it all rests on the identity of Jesus. Maybe Christianity isn't narrow. Maybe Jesus is Cosmic. Pick up a John's Gospel and ask yourself that question.
But, now you might be thinking: what about all the other religions? Because other faiths do not have this view of Jesus, they don’t have this view of God and eternal life either. What do we make of these other religions?
Well one popular way of thinking of them is as paths up a mountain. On this view – the different religions are different approaches to God and eternal life, considered to be the “top” of the mountain, and each religion is a different path, with its own obstacles to get over, that ultimately gets to the top in its own different way. Is that how to think about “other faiths”?
It’s a really popular understanding, but there are lots of reasons it can’t be right - here’s just one: there is no mountain. There really isn’t! World religions just DON’T share a basically similar understanding of the world, of the afterlife, of God. No-one can even agree on what a religion IS. Let me show you by doing some very basic comparative religion studies.
The Top 5 beliefs in the world are Christianity (with 2.1 billion adherents), Islam (1.6 billion), Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist – sometimes called “Unaffiliated” - (1.1 billion), Hinduism (1 billion), and Buddhism (500 million). Together, this top 5 account for roughly 6.3 billion out of the world’s population of 7 billion. 90% of us fall into one of these categories. So let’s ask how these top 5 think of God...
1. Christianity: A Father loving his Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit;
2. Islam: Every Muslim will tell you, Islam is utterly anti-trinitarian - “Say not Three” is a key verse in the Koran (for those who know their Koran, Sura 4:169). Allah is alone. He does not have children, nor is he a child. Islam is utterly anti-Trinitarian;
3. Unaffiliated: Don't believe in God;
4. Hinduism: isn’t actually strictly one unified faith; it embraces monotheism, polytheism, panentheism, pantheism and even atheism. Most say that Brahman is an impersonal deity who transcends the thousands of avatars and lesser deities beneath;
5. Buddhism: Buddhism is nontheistic - probably most adherents are atheists.
These are MASSIVELY different understandings of God. They don’t even agree what religion is, let alone ‘god’.
These are not paths up the same mountain. It’s like each one is its own mountain and, as you start to climb up one peak, you naturally move further away from all of the others. That's just the nature of the case. These visions of the world are very different and they cannot all be right.
Let's ask another question, let’s think about the future hope held out in these faiths: what is the good future we can hope for?
1. Christianity: This world – these heavens and this earth - renewed and put right;
2. Islam: An unearthly paradise;
3. Unaffiliated: DEATH - my death, the death of the sun, the heat death of the universe;
4. Hinduism: Moksha: “Release” from the “samsara” - the endless cycle of birth and rebirth;
5. Buddhism: nirvana – a similar idea – “nirvana” means being blown out like a candle. At that point we achieve oneness with the cosmos, like a drop of water dissolving in the ocean.
How about: how do you get this future?
1. Christianity: The Son of God saves us purely because of His own kindness and mercy. So, according to the Bible, "climbing up a mountain" is the most heretical picture of salvation: the Bible’s picture of salvation is Jesus DESCENDING into our dark valley. That’s what it’s all about – HIM not us, and it’s utterly different to every other faith;
2. Islam: The good Muslim might be rewarded with Paradise. 5 Pillars: Confession of faith, Alms giving, Prayer, Fasting, Pilgrimage. There’s no category of “salvation” in Islam, they don’t think in those terms. Allah doesn’t save sinners, he rewards good Muslims. And that’s actually how every other man-made religion works;
3. Unaffiliated: It is irrelevant what you do - everyone perishes;
4. Hinduism: Karma - your deeds. If you put good out, good will come back to you. If you put out bad, bad will come back to you. It’s down to you;
5. Buddhism: Karma.
Can you count on the mercy of your Judge?
1. Christianity: Yes – the Judge is one who was judged FOR YOU. And He has already taken everything coming to you. You can COUNT on the grace of the Judge. No-one else can say this.
2. Islam: No – you cannot COUNT on the mercy of Allah. You can hope against hope. Allah will be fair, and occasionally there are stories in the Hadith of Allah showing mercy to the odd sinner or two, but you cannot bank on his mercy at all – that kind of confidence, to be able to rely on his mercy, is actually forbidden. No Muslim can ever be certain that they have eternal life. They cannot rely on God’s mercy.
3. Unaffiliated: No – death is the most merciless judge imaginable. There is no clemency AT ALL with death.
4. Hinduism: No - it’s down to your karma
5. Buddhism: No - it’s down to your karma
Friends, if you could elect a judge … wouldn’t you elect this judge? There is no one else I would rather meet on the other side of death than Jesus Christ. Here is the One who has gone to hell and back FOR US. Here is the One who has bled His own hearts blood FOR each of us. He’s the One I want to judge the world.
So often people want to ask about the specifics of judgement day: “What about people from other faiths who have never met this minority of Christians with our Christian message about Jesus, what will happen to them?” The Bible isn’t written for people without the Bible – the Bible is written for people WITH the Bible. In the Bible we are confronted with Jesus and urged to trust Him. That’s the position of everyone in this room. This morning we are confronted with Jesus and the question for US is, what will we – what will I – do with Jesus.
With those other people, I’m not in a position to decide those cases because I’m not the Judge. But I know the One who IS, and I trust HIM.
You see Jesus is the Judge who has climbed off the judgement seat, put Himself in the dock and, on the cross, taken the harshest sentence ever meted out, in order that no-one need ever go to hell. He’s the Judge. And that’s better news than any religion has ever dreamed of. I trust HIM to do what is right on that day.
But what about us who HAVE heard? You can sort out the hell problem this morning. You can call out to Jesus and say “Jesus, I’m in a pit here, thank you for joining me in my darkness, I want a connection with you now and always.” You can sort out hell this morning and cross over to eternal life right now.
Let me finish with the most famous story Jesus ever told – you might know it by the name of “The Prodigal Son”. You can find it in Luke 15.
It’s a story about a Father with two sons – a bad son and a good son. The father in the story represents how Jesus connects us to the love of God the Father – how the grace of God welcomes us in to the Father’s feast.
And there’s the two sons: the good boy and the bad boy. In the story, the bad boy says to his father: “I want your money; I don’t want you”; and he runs off into the far country, seeking the beautiful faces, skin, bodies, and clothes, trying to get involved in everything, ultimately, to find life in all these. He squanders it all and ends up flat on his face in ruin … and he thinks to himself: “maybe I can get some more out of the old man; maybe I can go back and get a job with this guy”. So he goes back – still stinking of pig – and there’s this incredible welcome home from the father: “"But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him … the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate. It’s a picture of heaven – feasting, joy, light, life. It’s a celebration of infinite grace and forgiveness. That is the essence of heaven, forgiven failures coming home to a Father’s love – it doesn’t matter where you’ve gone or what you’ve done, you’re welcome.
But the story keeps going: Jesus follows this scene with a picture of hell. The story continues with the other brother – the stay at home son, the good boy. But this brother stands on his rights, against the infinite grace and forgiveness of the Father: "'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!'" … and he is outside the feast, in the outer darkness, with the weeping and the wailing and the angry gnashing of teeth. It’s hell for this boy – it’s hell for him - it’s every way Jesus ever described hell. The good boy is in hell – a hell of torment, a hell of his own making because he stands against the infinite forgiveness and mercy of his Father. But ask yourself the question: Why is he in hell?
Is it because he’s so bad? No it’s because he’s so good. He's too good for this mercy meal – too good to receive mercy and forgiveness.
Is he outside the feast because the father is so cruel? No! He stays outside because the Father is so kind. He's too kind. At the end of the story, the Father is begging him: “Please come inside! Please come inside! Please come inside!” – he loves both boys and wants them both in the feast. But the older son stands against it and it’s torment for him. Even if the Father reached out and hugged his furious son, how would the son react? It would increase his torment.
Hell is torment, it is horrific but it is not opposed to the love of God at all. WE are opposed to the love of God, and that is what makes hell HELL.
And you say “But who would ever stand against the infinite love and welcome of God? Who wouldn’t join the feast??” Well this guy didn’t. And if you haven’t trusted Jesus, you haven’t either.
Today is the day to say yes to Jesus – and to come home. Talk to one of us about that at the end if you would like.
