Should We Be Motivated By The Threat of Hell?

I grew up in the South, during a time when “hellfire and damnation” preaching was acceptable, and even popular. I distinctly recall the cadence and raised voices of preachers who would bring a message about the consequences for those who fall on the wrong side of the final judgment. And I remember the “altar calls” that were made, pleading with people to come forward, repent and be baptized – “now, before it’s too late”.

Men and women would come up the aisles, sobbing and repentant. In their brokenness, they would give their life to Christ, and pledge to change their ways. Without a doubt, much of their motivation to make such a promise was to avoid the consequences of hell and eternal damnation.

People don’t preach like this anymore. We preach about grace and the positive side of salvation. Motivation is typically given as the promise of a better and perfect life in heaven. This is not a bad thing by itself, but it is certainly a different incentive than one which strives to avoid the threat of hell.

We live in a society where telling someone that they run the risk of going to hell is frowned upon. Rather than risk being labeled as judgmental, we are trained to avoid such absolutes. After all, the argument goes, God’s grace is bigger than we can imagine. And it’s not our place to make such a judgment.

That may be true, but the Bible also makes it clear that certain behavior or actions will plainly have the consequence of hell. Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9, “He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power.” And in 2 Peter 3:7, Peter talks of wicked men’s fate, by saying “By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.” These men were not afraid to raise the issue of hellfire and damnation.

I love to read the sermons of Jonathan Edwards, a Puritan preacher who lived in America prior to the Revolutionary War. In 1741, in Enfield, CT, Edwards spoke these words in a sermon – “Let everyone that is out of Christ now awake and fly from the wrath to come. The wrath of Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a great part of this congregation. Let everyone fly out of Sodom: ‘Haste and escape for your lives, look not behind you, escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed.’”

We can be motivated to live the Christian life in two ways. We can have the motivation where we long for heaven and strive to think on positive things like grace, peace, and truth. But we can also be motivated by the fear of condemnation to an everlasting hell. For me, pondering an eternity without hope, without peace, and without God is extremely moving.

Is it wrong to be motivated by the threat of hell? I don’t think so. A healthy viewpoint is to see both heaven and hell’s consequences. The sentence of hell will also motivate us to share our faith with others, perhaps even more than the promise of heaven. For example, if you pass a stranger on the street, you will likely warn them of an open manhole just in front of them – but you might not be as inclined to share with a stranger that there are free theater tickets being given away up the street. We tend to speak more boldly when danger is present.

Personally, I would welcome a few more “hellfire and damnation” sermons. I recall the passion that they aroused in me, even as a young child. Nothing was going to keep me from the glory and beauty of heaven…and away from the eternal separation from God that is hell itself.

What’s Eternity Got To Do With It?

Our church recently sponsored a Christian gentleman to travel to Colorado and speak with us. For years, he has been a tireless worker in the faith and has traveled around the world speaking about his experiences. Ben Alexander is the author of the book Out from Darkness, which details his experience in the world of Satanism and the occult. Thankfully, he was able to see the error of that path, and has been spreading the good news for over forty years.

During one of his lessons, he said something that struck me as important. His words were, “This life has almost nothing to do with this life. It has everything to with eternity.”

That phrase made me stop and reflect for a moment. It’s an unusual statement in that it’s counter-intuitive to almost everything I read in the newspaper and see in the media. And yet, there is more than a nugget of truth in what he said. If my daily strivings have nothing to do with this life, then why do I worry so much about finances, safety, and overall security? Those are the things that get so much attention every day – from paying the car insurance, to fretting about the stock market, to praying for my wife and children to have a safe trip on the highway when visiting friends in Denver. Before you start to protest, please understand that I’m not suggesting we should avoid insurance coverage or that we stop praying for our families.

So much of our lives are devoted to thinking about the future – but is often limited to the future in this life only. Matthew 6:25 comes to mind – “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?” I’ve often read these words and thought that Jesus is much more pragmatic about the future than I can ever be. This was especially true when my own children were born, and my whole perspective about what was important was forever changed. The safety and security of my wife, son and two daughters seems paramount to me. I can’t imagine life without them.

So here’s the hard part. Do I really trust that God holds the future in His hands? Deep down I know that He does, but I have to truly let go and believe that He reigns over my life and the life of those I love. For me, giving up control is a very hard thing to do (I come by this trait honestly). But it is this very freedom that God offers to me, if I will have enough faith.

Once again, like so many things, it comes down to having an eternal perspective. If I can just see this life as an infinitesimal blip in the entire quantity of time that God offers to me, then I will be closer to understanding His plan. A lifetime on earth often seems so long, but compared to an eternity, it is nothing. And if I realize that eternity holds the promise of being with my loved ones forever, then the wealth that I might enjoy on this earth or even the length of my own life becomes less meaningful. But that is hard to live out in practicality. The concept of eternity is often overlooked, and is difficult to grasp even when reflected upon.

Jesus speaks on this topic in Luke 21:34-36 – “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap. For it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.” It’s clear that Jesus wants us to focus on the life that is to come, and to be prepared for the day He comes back.

Because this life has everything to do with eternity.

Grace In Three Flavors

Throughout the Old Testament, we are reminded that the Israelites are God’s chosen people. Even when they turn away for a time, God was always there to receive them again after they had repented. Though they were the chosen nation, they didn’t win every battle or overcome every obstacle, but only the ones which God deemed that they should win. God’s wisdom and providence was dispensed, and sometimes withdrawn when they had a need to draw closer to Him.

Like the Israelites, we Christians are God’s chosen people, bafflingly chosen by Him before we were born, but with full free will to accept or reject Him. But what does it mean to be “chosen by God”? We can’t earn a place in heaven through good works, so we desire that He chooses us. It is God’s grace that we seek – and even that can’t be earned. This is often a difficult and confusing concept for my tiny mind to grasp.

My life has consisted of three different approaches to God’s grace. I believe these different phases mirror three types of Christian approaches to the topic. First was the period where I did not comprehend the concept of grace, but assumed that the Christian life demanded perfection and sinlessness. Where I fell short, I had to pray for forgiveness and hope that God took me seriously. We still have a book in our house from my teenage years called Some Do’s and Don’ts for the Christian. I lived as if there was a list of rights and wrongs that was clear – all I had to do was live by the “right” list, and avoid the “wrong” list. In short, grace was available from God, but I did not understand that it was free for the taking. Some payment had to be demanded – that’s the way the world works. Fortunately, God’s system didn’t originate in this world.

The second phase was a revelation to me – God’s grace was available and didn’t require me to make an atonement for each individual sin I committed. In a way, this was a new type of freedom, because I had lived previously under a system where I had better know right from wrong, and I had to be aware of which side I was living on during every minute of the day. I found that God’s grace was truly bigger than my sin and this was a joyous realization. All that remained was to determine how I could earn God’s grace and be covered by its blessing. And so I sought out new ways to earn that grace, by once again applying myself to good works in the hope that God would choose to award the gift to me when my time came to leave this world.

But there is very little difference between these two approaches to grace, other than one focuses on individual atonements for every sin, and one is more inclusive in its application. Both approaches require me to do something in exchange to earn God’s grace. Like a weekly allowance that’s dependent on completing a list of chores, I was living by a catalog of “do’s” and “don’ts” that either added up to damnation or salvation.

But there is a third approach to grace, where I give up my salvation to God alone. Nothing I do can make that salvation more or less sure, provided I still call Him my God and humbly accept His offering. Grace is God’s gift to me – end of story. Why is that so hard for me to grasp sometimes? I confess that my actions and my thinking still lapse back into the first and second approaches at times. This grand plan of God’s is so foreign to my worldly way of thinking that it often requires me to disengage from the daily grind and simply ponder Jesus’ sacrifice as the incredible gift that it is. If I were designing a path to forgiveness and salvation, I would not have thought of a plan like this. My design would have included lists, training, and an elaborate scoring system (almost certainly involving an Excel spreadsheet). Thankfully, God reigns over all – not me.

Romans 5 details the sin of Adam as bringing condemnation on all men, but the sacrifice of Jesus brings salvation to all men as well. Verse 17 says “For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.” There is a beautiful parallel contained in this chapter, of one man and the effect he can have on many men. Here is the mystery that sometimes escapes me.

God, grant me the ability to see Your grace for what it is – a free gift. And with that gift, help me to serve You in all things for eternity.

Offering Meditation - What’s In Your Garbage Bag?

What am I truly invested in? What measure do I use to determine what is really important to me? It could be the time I invest in things, or the effort that I expend toward achieving a task. Or it could be the fervor with which I discuss a subject with a friend. I get up early in the morning on Saturday to do things that I deem to be especially important.

I still find myself checking bank accounts, stock prices, and financial investments sometimes in order get an estimation of my worth in this world. Sometimes, that actually gives me a measure of comfort, though it is usually short-lived.

Recently, I asked my family to do something a little different. I hung a clear plastic garbage bag outside the door in the garage and asked them to put every receipt for every purchase we made in the bag, until I was ready to use the bag for something special. To tell the truth, I knew that I would have an offering meditation to do at church in the future, and I had an idea that saving these receipts would provide some interesting subject matter. For about three months, we saved our receipts faithfully until I pulled the bag off the wall one day.

There was a time when filling that bag with receipts would have made me a little proud. It was a measure of what I could afford, which was a proxy for some degree of financial status. But now, it made me a little sad to see that my efforts to earn a paycheck and provide for my family in a financial way could be represented by a garbage bag full of bits of paper.

When we opened the bag, I had the family just take some time to go through the receipts and recall some of the things that we thought were important at the time. Curiously, almost all of the items listed in the bag are consumable – those things are now gone. I also noticed that our family eats quite a lot of cheese.

Getting older has woken me to the fact that there is much more to the life than the present moment. I think having children was the start of that journey. Tucking them in at night and watching them sleep when they were little, and wondering what they would become and how I could contribute to that outcome has a sobering effect. It makes it easier to invest in things other than bank accounts or retirement funds. Things like education, choosing friends, or getting involved in people’s lives take on new meaning when an eternal perspective is involved.

Matthew 6:19-21 says “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Heaven is what lasts, and it’s where I want to spend eternity with my wife, my children, and everyone else whom the Lord deems to enter there. Bringing that eternal point-of-view in focus against the window-dressing of this world has a life-changing effect.

After all, when you get to the end of your days, do you really want to be the one to say, “Hey, I had the biggest garbage bag?”