The Three Most Important Realities of Life

I have the outstanding privilege every Tuesday and Thursday morning to gather with my brothers in seminary, read the Word together, worship together, pray together, and sit under wonderful exposition of the Scriptures together.

This Thursday morning was no different. We had the privilege of listening to the preaching of Rick Holland, which is always a pleasure. He is fast becoming a favorite of mine to listen to. He is a man who worships over the Word of God as he presents it, thereby helping those in the pews to worship over the Word of God as its presented. (I'm still praying God brings him back to the M. Div. program to teach preaching.)

Anyway, his message, entitled, "Ministry and the Reality of Death," treating Hebrews 9:27-28, was an absolute treat. It was the kind of sweet sting (or, stinging sweetness) that we all need to experience as often as we can, especially as it regards the universality and inevitability of death, the certainty of judgment, and the accomplishment of salvation in Christ. I talk a little bit more about that in this post, on why we need to talk about ultimate things in general and about hell in specific.

I really commend Rick's message to you. You can stream it by clicking here, and you can download it by clicking here. Please do yourself the favor, the benefit, of listening to his message.

He outlined the three most important realities of life from Hebrews 9:27-28, and they are as follows:

1. Death is Unavoidable
2. Judgment is Certain
3. Salvation is Possible
   

These realities compel us to "preach the Gospel not some time, but every time."

And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once
and after this comes judgment,
so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many,
will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin,
to those who eagerly await Him.
- Hebrews 9:27-28 -

Why Talk About Hell?

Isn't it primitive? Don't only really super-religious fanatics and superstitious fundamentalists believe in hell anymore? I mean, a place of fiery punishment where you go after you die unless you believe a certain thing? Aren't we beyond this?

Isn't it arrogant? I mean, how do we really know what's going to happen after death? And even if we did know, who are we to say who will or won't be where?

Isn't it just unseemly? "The smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; they have no rest day and night" (Rev 14:11)? Can't we talk about more pleasant things? Isn't God a God of Love?

Such questions pour forth from the hearts of those people both in the world and, sadly, in churches throughout the world. Hell exists. Knowing and believing that is the first step toward being saved from being there.

Luke 16:23-24 - In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.'

A while back (around six months ago), one of my mother's uncles died. He wasn't a believer. That caused me to think about Luke 16:19-31. After meditating on that passage for a while, I was struck with four reasons that Christians need to preach to our congregations about hell.

Christians need to know and to be affected by the fact that:

(1) Hell is what you deserve.
(2) Hell is what you were saved from.
(3) Hell is what Jesus endured for you.
(4) Hell is where the world is going.

#1 sparks the terror inside of me of God's righteous judgment and wrath and holiness. The rich man was in agony. His tongue was burning. And he had no hope of relief. Ever.

#2 speaks grace and relief to me. It is good news. I deserve to be there. But because of the grace of God to me in Christ, the power of the fear of death has been defeated. There is no longer any sting. I am saved.

#3 focuses all my affections of thankfulness, gratitude, joy, and delight, onto Jesus, because it was He who provided me #2. Because of the righteousness of Jesus, the perfection of His sacrifice, and His willingness to endure the full exercise of God's wrath -- hell -- in my place, I am saved. There is not one ounce of wrath or condemnation for me. Jesus fully satisfied God's anger against my sin.

But as I was meditating, #4 is what really gripped me. #4 hits the chord of compelling compassion as I consider that others are in the situation of #1 without #2 and #3. The world is dying. They're dying, and they refuse to believe it. Christians need to hear about hell from the pulpit because we need to have the magnitude and terror of what we were saved from compel us to take the Gospel to a world which is in that very desperate situation.

Hell is what you deserve.

And hell is what you will get apart from saving faith in Jesus Christ, from the One who promises that if you believe in Him for all your righteousness and rely entirely on Him for your acceptance before God (and not at all on yourself and your own works), that He literally endures hell in your place. He promises that you can be saved.

Hell is what Jesus endured in the place of those who believe. The agony that the rich man experienced with no hope of ever getting any relief is what you can be saved from by trusting Christ for righteousness and receiving Him as your Treasure.

And that's why we talk about hell. It forces the world into the ugly, disgusting reality of our deepest need -- really, our only need -- and then presents the most glorious and beautiful and satisfying and delightful Person as the alternative. The second question of the Heidelberg Catechism is: "How many things are necessary for thee to know that thou in this comfort [of knowing you belong to Jesus] mayest live and die happily?" The answer is:

Three. The first, how great my sins and miseries are. The second, how I may be delivered from all my sins and miseries. The third, how I shall express my gratitude to God for such deliverance.

In order to live and die happily, we need to know: (1) Hell is what I deserve; (2) hell is what I was saved from; and (3) hell is what Jesus endured for me.

But while we live in the satisfaction and the rest of being beneficiaries of the perfect work of Christ, let our souls also be afflicted by #4, that the terror from which I have escaped is the very hell to which the world is going. Let that compel us in compassion to take the Good News to that world, even one person at a time.

Open your mouth.

How will they hear without a preacher?

Examine Yourselves

This short video clip is absolutely amazing. The intended audience is people who profess to be Christians.

Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith;
examine yourselves!
Or do you not recognize this about yourselves,
that Jesus Christ is in you--
unless indeed you fail the test?
- 2 Corinthians 13:5 -

Why Physical Punishment for Spiritual Offenses?

Last Monday, October 26th, John Piper wrote an amazingly helpful post on the Desiring God Blog on the relationship between our spiritual sin and its physical consequences. Now, it's extremely unlikely that many of you reading my blog aren't reading the Desiring God Blog, but on the off-chance that's true, I wanted to re-post it. Also, I just don't want to forget what Piper said, and I'm more likely to remember it if I post it on my own blog. ;o)

The name of the original post is "Why was Zedekiah Roasted in the Fire?" and can be read in its original context here. The full contents of the post are below. I pray it is a great benefit to you all, as it was to me.

The horrors of physical suffering correspond to the horrors of moral and spiritual outrage. Sometimes this means that people’s suffering is directly correlated with their immorality and belittling of God. This will be the case, for example, with the eternal suffering of hell. It will correspond in perfectly just measure with the outrage of an individual’s sin.

But often the correlation is indirect. Everyone suffers physically because of the outrage of Adam’s sin, and because of God’s subjecting all of creation to futility (Romans 8:20). But these sufferings do not all correspond to an individual’s particular sins. All physical suffering corresponds to moral and spiritual outrage, but not all suffering corresponds directly to individual sins.

What is stunning and essential to see is that physical horrors correspond to spiritual horrors. God knows that we do not feel horrible about the spiritual horror of our sin. We take it lightly. But we get very angry and very agitated and very indignant about the horrors of our physical suffering. So God correlates the two in order to make plain to us how horrible sin is. Belittling God feels like a light thing to us. Being burned feels huge.

So hell will be physical, not just spiritual, even though the greatest outrages of life are not physical. The greatest outrages of life are spiritual—the demeaning of God by unbelief and indifference and rebellion is the greatest outrage in the universe. It may produce the holocaust or it may produce self-exalting philanthropy. But the magnitude of the moral horror in both cases is mainly Godward. Belittling God’s infinite worth is the ultimate outrage.

Here is a picture of what I mean.

God says to the exiles in Babylon concerning the false prophets, Ahab and Zedekiah:

Because of them this curse shall be used by all the exiles from Judah in Babylon: “The Lord make you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire,” because they have done an outrageous thing in Israel, they have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives, and they have spoken in my name lying words that I did not command them. (Jeremiah 29:22-23).

I am shocked by the term “roasted.” Why such a description? It actually happened, that’s why. Nebuchadnezzar roasted them. And why did it happen? Why such an outrageous physical horror and why such an outrageous physical word used to describe it?

Because speaking false things about God and committing adultery does not feel outrageous to us. But roasting someone in the fire does. So God correlates the two so we would learn what is really outrageous in the world. Demeaning God and breaking covenants.

The physical suffering of this age is God’s warning: This is how horrible and outrageous sin is. Flee it while there is time. Turn to Christ for forgiveness.

The physical suffering of eternity is God’s judgment: This is how horrible and outrageous sin was. Now there is no fleeing. It is too late.