Q and A: Hell - Three Christian Views Lecture by Steve Gregg

[Music] you [Music] well one thing we can say the lake of fire is placed where bodies are thrown because the Bible says that the dead are raised in bodies and they stand before the judgment seat and those who are not found the Lamb's Book of Life are thrown into the lake of fire so presumably it's in their bodies that they're thrown in now the statement about Satan disputing with Michael over the body of Moses and no one knows for sure what that's about Judah is referring to an apocalyptic book written in the in the centuries before Christ came what we call apocryphal literature he's it's a book called the Assumption of Moses some of the early church fathers knew that book but it doesn't exist I think today at last I heard we don't have it so we don't have the back story for that it is mysterious we have no idea exactly what what the dispute was over or when it took place so I that's one of those many things we have to be uncertain about because we don't have that information sure well you know it's interesting because I mentioned that the origins view is very prominent in the couple centuries after his time until Augustine basically you know maybe the other view more prominent and some people believed that the doctrine of purgatory was invented by the Catholic Church to replace origins view because the idea of ECT eternal conscious torment is so repugnant especially in certain cases I mean we can think of some very evil people that we think well maybe they deserve it but you know the little old lady next door who just never accepted Jesus but she's a pretty good person the idea of her being tormented forever and ever it's pretty hard so once you get rid of origins view as Augustine did you have to have something to make sense of really how has God to be fair in this matter with the lost and so the Catholic Church came up with the doctrine of purgatory it's based partly on a obscure statement in second Maccabees about some guy who said we should pray for the dead who died in this battle or something like that no reference to purgatory but if you're going to pray for the dead what are you praying for them for and and so they believed that purgatory they invented this doctrine it's not in the Bible that the purgatory is the place where people go if they're not bad enough to go to eternal conscious torment they don't go to hell at all but they're not really good enough to be saved either so they get to be in purgatory until they're purged purgatory comes what we're purging so it's a purging experience and it it almost like sounds like a replacement for origins idea of what hell is once once they lost origins view they had to replace with something that at least made it seem more fair then that everybody gets the eternal conscious torment because frankly it's hard to really argue that anyone truly deserves eternal conscious torment but if some do it seems very much like most people probably don't and so the Catholics believe that most people who die don't go to heaven or hell immediately they go to purgatory and those who go to purgatory will never end up in hell because they weren't bad enough and they're not going to get any worse in purgatory it just depends on how long it takes them to get better and they'll get out of purgatory and go to heaven that's why people pray for theirs their loved ones in purgatory it's supposed to help out or pay money you pay indulgences this is the amount of purgatory it's not a doctrine of the Bible so we really don't have to defend it but you can see that it has some affinity in principle with what origin believed about Hell right right yeah that is one of the that's one of the stronger arguments against origins view for those aren't familiar Jesus tells a story about two men who died one ends up in Abraham's bosom the others in the flames of Hades and and there's discussion about you know crossing over to bring some water to relieve the suffering of the man in Hades and Abraham says no there's a great gulf between these two places no one can cross over either direction well this would seemingly rule out origins idea that once you're in hell you could repent and come back over because it's on cross well chasm and that is one of the stronger arguments I would say this in response to it it may not be a full you know it this may not fully vindicate origins view but in answer to that the story is talking about Hades now Hades is not the lake of fire because death and Hades will be thrown into the lake of fire Hades is the intermediate state of the Dead and and of course as you said it's probably a pair of them some people think it's a true story that it's very arguably a parable and not only is it a parable it's a unique parable because it it's one that Jesus may not have made up himself like the other parables in the Talmud there are quite a few stories very much like that story which the rabbi's told and some people think that Jesus is simply borrowing a motif from a common rabbinic storytelling thing and making his own kind of point from it one thing that seems clear he didn't tell that story in order to inform us about what happens to the dead the point of the story is he sets up a situation where some people are dead and one wants to go back and warn his living brothers so again if the final judgement hasn't happened he's this is just his intermediate mistake as his brother is still alive on earth but he is told you know they won't be convinced if someone comes back from the dead because they're already rejecting Moses and the prophets and one could say that the meaning of the parable is as the Pharisees whom Jesus said they're not obeying Moses neither will they believe him he's saying if they're already rejecting what God has given them before they won't be convinced when a man rises from the dead that's the final words of the story and he could be alluding the fact that he is gonna rise from the dead and the Jews who are already rejecting Moses will not be convinced even by him when he rises from the that's the possible meaning in other words the point of the story is not even to discuss or affirm what happens after people die but to set up a situation where he at this point these people are already rejecting what God has said before raising a man from the dead isn't going to turn them around necessarily and and so a lot of questions exist about the story but let's just take it on the on the idea that it's actually a true story even at that it's a story about Hades it's not a story about the lake of fire so one could argue well if it's true of Hades it's also true of the lake of fire and that would possibly be a reasonable suggestion but it's not affirmed directly in that story before we move to the next question because this is such a big heavy hitter for those that are convinced or have been convinced or taught about eternal conscious torment and we throw our initials around acronym is pretty pretty loosely eternal conscious torment to make sure we are understanding these terms it is the thought that someone will be awake consciously forever in a torturous place we need grab ahold of that thought and hold on to it because that's what it says and this this parable requires some homework there's the last verse rich man and Lazarus and for one I'm gonna plug your book for a moment you have a chapter on that yeah he has a chapter on that now I had heard for several years as I I was like what about Lazarus what about this this is like a big hitter for me and I needed to get past that or accept it and and I had heard that well you know what for one it may not actually be an actual account but Jesus may be borrowing from a parable which would not be inappropriate for him to do you know and and he mentions a couple of names and so for him to borrow from that parable you'd have to say well how in the world or why would he do that there's a really good explanation and some history around that and Jesus was very much into flipping the script on what people thought and if this was a common parable that the the Jews would be familiar with Jesus liked from the beginning from his ministry he said you've heard this but I'm going to tell you that this and he'd like to flip things and one of the things that I think he was really wanting to accomplish and you can correct me I got a thick skin but I think one of the great objectives was the mentality of the people of that day who thought that people were right with God based on how well they were doing in this life and you got to into the spectrum and Jesus was big about painting far extreme from one of the other mustard seed to a mountain he'd like to do that and say rich man to a super super poor man and the rich man didn't get a good inheritance with God the poor man did matter of fact said he was in Abraham's bosom and I remember thinking what in the world is Abraham's bosom but a little research like John was in Jesus bosom at the right of him it's a it's a place of prominence and so what Jesus was really one accomplished you got alas where is this low man he's in a prominent place now weathers literally next to Abraham or not his point was that we need to change the way and so when we hear any parable of Jesus we've got to be careful about picking out all the little details in the background and trying to make them literal and I think we really do some good homework about Lazarus in the rich man I believe you'll find that it really doesn't convince anyone of it shouldn't convince this of a turtle conscious torment and to the point that you made it's really not even about the lake of fire right and I if I could add one more thing of significance the parable that Jesus tells there clearly depicts Hades as a place with two compartments one is flames where the rich man goes the other is Abraham's bosom or paradise where the where Lazarus is this idea of Hades being two compartments predates Jesus but it's not in the Old Testament the Old Testament doesn't say anything of the sword that idea of Hades being two compartments comes from Greek mythology and from Egyptian mythology which the Jews borrowed because they were in exile in Alexandria Egypt and in in Grecian lands and the rabbis picked up through a book called The Book of Enoch which was written about two hundred years before Christ that Book of Enoch taught the Greek idea that Hades is a place of two compartments and the ones where the good people go is called Abraham's bosom or paradise in Enoch it says it calls it that the rabbi's actually used that language and so forth but they got it from Enoch which was not the real Enoch that is an apocryphal book written by nan inspired author claiming to be anak and apparently getting his ideas from the Greeks and from the Egyptians who had this idea of two compartments because you don't have the prophets the Old Testament having this now some people say well but didn't Jesus affirm it as true by telling it wouldn't be deceiving people it depends on whether everybody understood that it was a really just fiction it'd be to my mind very similar to if a preacher says he's preaching about you know the need to be saved and so forth he says now imagine you die and you end up at the pearly gates of st. Peter says you know why should you be allowed into heaven is your name on this scroll here now none of us really believe st. Peter's gonna meet us at the pearly gates but that is such a common image that a preacher saying that would not be affirming that you're really gonna meet Peter at the pearly gates it's just it's common folklore in Christendom to think of the afterlife that way and when the preacher says that he's not affirming it and his audience doesn't think he's affirmative they recognize it for what it is and I think that it's possible this to compartment of Hades could have been that same kind of thing in the Jewish mind oh this comes from Enoch this is not from the prophets this isn't from the Bible this is from this apocryphal book but we're familiar with it and and it makes a good setting for the story that Jesus wants to tell so we don't you know it's it's hard to say I mean I don't rule out that he could be describing the literal situation of people who died that's not impossible but there's significant reasons to question whether that's what he's doing you know yeah as you're moving up front another thing to hold on to in thought is that the description of what he's enduring and his suffering the the rich man does not nearly meet the expectations of the way that eternal conscious torment paints the lake of fire David Ecclesiastes 9 [Music] all right first of all Ecclesiastes Solomon is telling us what he believed when he was away from God when he was contemplating life under the Sun that is without God in the picture we know that Solomon back slid the Bible tells us that in 2nd King or first Kings chapter 11 he departed from the Lord in Ecclesiastes he seems to describe his time away from the Lord he tried to find fulfillment in things under the Sun he tried wine women and song and philosophy and horticulture and music everything he tried all these things he keeps saying they were empty men they were totally empty it's like striving after the wind it's vanity at the end he says so let's hear the the the conclusion that fear God and keep his Commandments this is the whole Tajima it sounds like sounds like he wrote this after he came back to the Lord and he's giving his testimony like some people get up and say before I was a Christian I was a Hindu I believed in reincarnation I believed in you know karma and stuff like that he's in chapter 9 of Ecclesiastes says I considered all this in my heart when did he back when he was away from God he was considering these things and one thing he considered is that man is no different than beasts as happens to one happens to both the living know that they will die but the dead don't know anything now see he wasn't speaking as teaching doctrine he's giving his testimony about how he was reasoning trying to make sense of things when he was away from God but he's come back to God now and he knows better and that's what Ecclesiastes is it's like an inspired testimony of his failure to find a satisfaction and meaning apart from God now in Peter when it says for this purpose the gospel is preached unto those who are dead that they might be judged according to men in the flesh but live according to God in the spirit many understand him to be saying this people who are now dead who were judged by men but vindicated by God meaning Christian martyrs when they were alive they were preached to so that they could though they were judged by men in the flesh and kill for their faith they would be fitted and and and saved through God because they had become Christians the gospel was preached to these people so that and to all of us them who are dead as well as all of us who will be dead in our lifetimes we hear the gospel it's not necessarily saying that they were preached to while they were dead although the wording could could be understood that way but I don't think it needs to be and I don't think it's necessarily intended to be that way some people think that Jesus went to Hades and preached to the souls in Hades and that's also from 1st Peter chapter 3 verse 20 and 21 where it says by wit by the Spirit he went and preached to the souls in prison who before were disobedient in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared so he says that Jesus through his preached to those who were disobedient while Noah was preached was building the ark and he calls them the spirits in prison I personally think what he means by that is these people are now spirits in prison they were alive when they were preached to they were preached to by the Spirit of Christ through Noah while they were disobedient while he's been in the ark he preached to them that was the Spirit of Christ preaching through him and a reason I think that is because Peter earlier in first Peter chapter 1 verses 10 through 12 talked about the Old Testament prophets were speaking through the Spirit of Christ he says they spoke through the Spirit of Christ also so Peters thinking of the Old Testament preachers and prophets that was the Spirit of Christ preaching through them and and and thus through the Spirit he says Jesus preached to the souls who are now in prison they're dead but they weren't at the time and and but they were disobedient in the days of noe he's not talking about all Old Testaments people who died or all people who are wicked he's talking about specifically the people who were disobedient while the ark was being prepared there for the preaching probably refers to the preaching of Peter of knowing himself and we wouldn't even know we picture Noah preaching to the crowds the only reaches from Peter not that passage but in 2nd Peter chapter 2 he tells us that Noah was a preacher of righteousness Genesis doesn't ever refer to Noah preaching to anyone Peter tells us no was a preacher of righteousness in the second chapter SEC Peter so if that's in Peters mental furniture so when he says the Spirit of Christ preached to those people in Noah's day he's probably talking about the Spirit of Christ was preaching through Noah's mouth to them just like the Spirit of Christ spoke through the prophets mouths in the Old Testament right there it is there are many people who seeing the confusion of the date of all the things I was talking about have concluded there's kind of a combination you know they've rejected eternal conscious torment because that anyone would be tormented forever and ever and ever we just have to somehow square that with what Jesus said about God's love for even for sinners and Jesus demonstrate love for sinners maybe it can be done and of course Christians have done it for centuries but the question once you begin to think about it and light up these other things you can think well if should we've been thinking that way or not but there are some who think that conditional immortality is true but that doesn't rule out the fact that people may get a second chance after death but if they don't take it they'll be annihilated so there's there are some who would combine the ideas that God still wants them to be saved and and and there are people who die who don't really understand who God is at all even if they've met Christians the Christians might have been a very bad representation but when they see Jesus as he is say oh if I'd known that I would have given you my whole life you know I didn't know you were like that you know there are no doubt people who when they see Jesus they'd say I wish I'd known I would have been I would have had a different attitude about all this and God may some people feel may give such people a chance after they've see us Lewis believed this you know and his last battle in The Chronicles of Narnia he had this idea that people who worshipped ash which was the demon god but but they they were thinking of him as the as as LAN are they they're confused you know and that Aslan revealed himself to them in the last and said you know if they were willing to worship Him then and then they could I thought was CS Lewis's opinion he was not a Universalist actually CS Lewis believed in eternal hell but he did believe in what we might call the second chance theory or the broader hope Fiat wider hope theory something that people have never heard of Christ or never really heard him well represented when they see him for the first time as he is correctly if they love him then maybe God will accept that then but if people still persist to be hateful toward him maybe they'll be annihilated see that's how some people see it that would be kind of a combination of the second and third view but you know we don't have we don't have any certainty I hate to say that because we are so addicted to certainty in theological servitor we want to know but we sometimes have to say you know what if we don't ever know maybe God didn't want us to be obsessed about this particular point maybe he want us to remember when Peter said about John Lord what will happen to him jesus said don't worry about what will happen to him you go and preach the gospel you go and follow me you know you know there's what's gonna happen to them that's not you you focus on what your duty is I'll worry about what's gonna happen to anyone else you know and I think that maybe what God would like us to do more is to say you know I'm not really sure what's gonna happen to the unbelievers but I know God's a loving God I know certain things about the character out so I I have a very strong opinion that it can't be certain things that have been in visions because that would be contrary but which of the other options not so sure about you know and I don't need to know questions you just want an exposition of that particular person yep yeah well first of all hell fire there in the Greek is Gehenna now I'm I'm not persuaded that Guyana as a reference to help but it's tradition would I say that way Gehenna literally in the Greek means Valley of Hinnom the word Valley of Hinnom comes from the Old Testament the Valley of Hinnom was is I've been there I've been to Gehenna I was in Jerusalem not too many years ago and I walked through Gahanna it's the Valley of Hinnom right outside the southwest of the Old City of Jerusalem it's quite nice there now but at one time it was apparently a garbage dump where perpetual fires were used to to burn the trash from the city and even to burn the bodies of criminals and things like that who didn't deserve a decent burial this is at least the the lore surrounding it what we do know from the Bible about the Valley of Hinnom is that Manasseh the King actually burned his own sons to Molech in the valid Hinnom and his grandson Josiah defiled that Valley and so that no one would use it anymore for that and Jeremiah who was born around the same time as Josiah when he was predicting the coming of the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem he twice said I think the first time is in chapter 19 of Jeremiah forget later on maybe that's the second one but he says Jeremiah twice says the Valley of Hinnom was gonna be called the valley of slaughter because of the multitude of dead bodies that'll be thrown into it now he's talking about when the Babylonians come in slaughter the Jews that there won't be enough places to bury them so their bodies will be thrown into a mass grave in the in the Valley of Hinnom now Jesus lived at a time when that was going to happen again his generation was facing exactly the same circumstances - generations facing and he warned them if you don't come to me it's gonna be ganna for you the Valley of Hinnom for you and to my mind I think he's saying the same thing Jeremiah was saying they were in parallel situations and they're the two who talked about people being thrown into the valley of hinnom now why is the valley Phenom translated hell in every Bible because again in Enoch the Book of Enoch which was two hundred years before Christ Enoch said that Hades is in two compartments and the firey compartment he called Gehenna so he took the Valley of Hinnom and he made it the name for the thyri part of Hades and so the rabbi's had begun to use the word Gehenna to refer to hell rather than the actual Valley of Hinnom so this becomes ambiguous because when the English translators translated they realized that traditionally the Jews spoke of the of Hell as Gehenna so they translated in the English Bible as hell but the question we have to ask in deciding is when Jesus used the term did he use it literally as Jeremiah did or did he use it figuratively like like the rabbi's did and I guess the question would then be is Jesus more influenced by the rabbi's or by the prophets in his language if he's more influenced by the rabbis then he is talking about hell if he's more influenced by the prophets he's probably talking about the Valley of Hinnom and he's probably talking about the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 which is what Jeremiah was talking about the its counterpart in 586 BC but when Jesus said whoever hates his brother without it is angry his brother nodded cause is in danger of the judgment whoever says to his brother you fool or raka or whatever he's in danger of the council and of Gehenna there's a there's the typical Jewish parallelism there for emphasis the Jews love to say the same thing multiple times and build on it each time just to make a point stronger we don't talk that way so much but that was a very Hebrew way to talk basically he's saying if you hate your brother if you're angry at your brother if you're verbally abusive to you you disrespect him you call them fool you call him raka well you're in danger of the council but you're more than that in danger of Gehenna and I don't think he's trying to say there's three levels of guilt here I think he's just kind of thrice putting the same point out there you need to love your brother if you hate your brother you despise your brother you abused your brother verbally you're in danger not only from the courts of men but from God's judgment the age of accountability is the idea that children reach a certain age where they become accountable and therefore culpable for their sins whereas before that age they're not accountable because they don't know enough to be accountable and there are many people say well the age of accountability is not found in the Bible I actually think it is in Isaiah chapter 7 it's talked about this child that it's going to be born it says before the child shall know to choose the good and refuse the evil these two kings the king of Syria and the king of Israel will be removed from there threatening position against Judah and so Isaiah speaks as if everybody knows that children reach an age where they know to refuse the evil and choose the good he says before this child reaches that age such-and-such is going to happen so he's putting a timeframe on the fulfillment of prophecy but the very phraseology suggests there's an age where a child is responsible to know and make choices Paul said in Romans chapter seven I was alive once without the law but when the commandment came sin revived I died I started not not talked about physical death he's talking about spiritually died his relation with God when he became aware of the law he became aware of his sin he became condemned he died as it were spiritually but before that he was alive so I was alive without the law but when the law came then it slew me and I don't I mean this could mean a number of things but I think the thing it most sounds like it means is that before I was old enough to know right from wrong and the law of God and things like that there's no problem between me and God I was alive it's the law that condemned me it's the law when I came to understand that that really put me in a bad way and remember when they were bringing infants to Jesus and the disciples didn't want to come Jesus said permit the little children to come to me because of such as these is the kingdom of God it's basic exams are citizens of the kingdom and people have to become like them to be citizens the kingdom so I mean I think there is an indication that little children though they are of course sinners children sin from the you know from the moment they're born but they're not responsible immediately and they must reach some kind of an age where at that point God says okay you're old enough no better now now you won't know what that age is I don't know the Jews think it's age thirteen that's what the bar mitzvah mean so the child the Jewish boy becomes responsible for his own obedience to the law at age thirteen in Deuteronomy chapter one Paul talks about a mutant and Moses talks about the Jews who are age 20 and younger as not knowing good and evil he uses that expression but 20 is pretty pretty old I think to put the age of accountability Adam and Eve became aware of good and evil when they ate the fruit and the first thing they did was cover their nakedness and little children aren't ashamed with their nakedness until they reach a certain age then they are automatically they tend to cover up and I often wonder if that's an indicator that they've reached the age that Adam and Eve reached when they ate the fruit and became knowledgeable of good and evil ah these are only thoughts I don't have answers as we're moving to the next person with questions you know when we are discussing this I want us to be mindful of a real barrier that is in front of a lot of us and that is are we even allowed to consider anything other than eternal conscious torment it has been the dominant view for so many years now we we've seen tonight that has not been the only view even throughout history going way way back and that's an important stuff to know but we will acknowledge it's been a dominant view and so it's just a reality that some people when they hear that you are considering or somebody's considering anything other or believe something other than eternal conscious torment will call you a heretic and in it's not appropriate that they do one of the points that's very very important and and why the title of Steve's book is three Christian views is that I hope that we do begin to accept that you can be a Christian and have a view other than eternal conscious torment you can be a Christian like Steve who doesn't have a lock down view but he doesn't have a lock down on eternal conscious torment and that that's okay that's permissible and it requires grace and mercy but if you determine that I want to for yourself consider something outside of that just brace yourself prepare yourself that some people are gonna really take issue with it and they may even be ugly to you about it I would say this you might do like I did for a while I was quiet and I was quite not because I was afraid of them but because I needed to get a little better understanding myself and I saw a lecture and I saw some debates and I was still quiet for a long time I'm not telling you to be quiet I'm just saying that you may be good to just start thinking about this and I encourage you to do so and I want to say it is permissible to consider something that other than eternal conscious torment and I want to talk a little bit more and have Steve talk a little bit more about the the the risk in it but we'll move on to the next question we'll come back to that well we're wrestling here with the word eternity or or whatever is eternity something outside of time the the idea that time is one realm in attorneys in other realm is a very common view among other Angelico's CS Lewis wrote a very good chapter making it sound very sensible that God could be outside of time he himself said the Bible doesn't teach it it's a philosophical point and he's right the Bible doesn't teach that God's outside of time or inside of time but it's an easy way to answer how God could know future things without being the cause of them and things like that and that's what CS Lewis was arguing for but I think we are would not be wise to invoke that image for too many theological propositions simply because the Bible doesn't tell us God is outside of time or that eternity is a realm outside of time the word eternal there's only one Old Testament word that's used for eternal olam is the Hebrew word and in the New Testament there's two words there's in Greek ion which really means an age and the adjective based on that noun I&E us which means pertaining to an age or lasting for an age it's not entirely scholars are not entirely clear what the relationship is of the adjective I Anya's to its root a noun ion it's clearly has some do with an age it either means lasting foreign age or it means pertaining to an age and the reason that second suggestions made like FF Bruce for example said that it when Jesus talked about ion iasts life or eternal life that I honest means life pertaining to the age of the Messiah not he's not necessarily speaking of the length of it but it's more like a term that means eschatological life as opposed to the present life not talking about how long it lasts although it does last forever because we're immortal in our resurrected bodies but but the point is the words olam by the way the hebrew word Olam is translated in the Septuagint which is the Greek Old Testament as ion or ion is every time so that it's the concept but it's often translated in the Bible everlasting or eternal including everlasting life or eternal punishment or everlasting fire these are all using the words ion or Ayane as' and scholars are not sure exactly what it means but they know this that many things are said to be Ayane 'us which are not forever or olam in the ultimate which are not forever for example in the law a slave has to be given his Liberty after seven years of serving but if he doesn't want to be free he says I love my master I love my family I want to stay then he said okay pierce his ear and he'll serve you forever the word is alum well the servants not going to serve into eternity it is mastered it just means for the duration you know or for the foreseeable future actually the root word of olam the the old testament word is hidden and if you look in the lexicon you'll find that for the most part they say it literally means hidden from our view because it's so far away or over the horizon from where we start you can't see it from here it's it's way off but no one knows how far off maybe it's endless or maybe not it simply goes beyond the range of our vision to see it and so when something is said to be I honest or I on which is in the New Testament transit everlasting or eternal or olam the same word in the Hebrew in the Old Testament it may be talking about things that are forever like God the eternal God well he certainly lasts forever it may refer to endless life eternal life is since we're immortal it lasts forever but other things like the everlasting hills are the everlasting gates of Jerusalem or the everlasting this or that which is not something that that's really eternal it's it's a proper use of the word the word doesn't commit to an endless 'no sit commits to a long-range thing that you can't see the end of it from here so you know there's the those words are not used in the Bible to speak of a realm outside of time they usually mean something like long enduring age enduring you know just long lasting for a very long time and you can't see the end from here it could be endless something that you can't see the end it may never end like God never ends and our eternal life never halves but other things are the same word as you just simply mean they you just can't see where the end is it depends on the context and there's a in my book I have a chapter half of chapter on those words and how they're used in examples of how they're used so I don't I don't need to invoke the idea that eternity is a realm outside of time and God doodles there and and that's what he's talking about I mean you may be right but there's an awful lot of philosophy and and speculation that we'd have to embrace that isn't stated in the scripture to to use that as a firm explanation of anything about Hell I think I've thought about it yes it's it's crossed my mind yeah I have something in my notes too while we're on that eternal in ayane us the when I when I first started looking at this and I'm trying to share the journey for people that are on the journey when I first first started looking at that if you look in the Greek Ionian Sea says it right there age-long a matter of fact practically eternal but I'd say absolutely eternal and and and for those that were really stuck still in eternal conscious torment not literally but they are still stuck in the thought and the thought of it is that that well that's rather convenient but we know it most always means but it doesn't always mean and if we just leave that pushpin there that eternal doesn't always mean eternal I'm pleased for you to have that pushpin there because for the very same reason when I was going through this journey and I began to read John 3:16 in a different way than I ever had before it became so much more beautiful to me in John 3:16 for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish and I look up the word perish in in the Greek and it says destroyed utterly destroyed and Leonard says the word utterly I'm like that sit nailed in the coffin it's over but come to find out perish that Greek word doesn't always mean completely destroyed wineskins I believe was the case example that you used in your discussion and so for their same argument we have that eternal doesn't always mean eternal and they wanna the eternal conscious torment to say punished perish doesn't always mean to perish okay ditto and so eternal doesn't always mean eternal and is important but sometimes it does and just like punishment or perish doesn't always mean utterly destroyed sometimes it does that's a very concerning issue for for many people and they consider different views of the subject and let me I want to say two things about that they're very a very good concern to raise one is many people think that the other two views that are not the traditional eternal conscious Tory do not involve punishment but actually in most cases most people who hold those views do believe there's punishment now Chris State doesn't Chris state believes that the sinners are raised from the dead and just annihilated right away but there are people like the Seventh day Adventists who've held for a long time this conditionally mortality view and I'm not one of them in fact I've debates with them about other subjects but but you know it's been associated with them for a long time but not only them but they would hold the view and I think that if I were to fully embrace conditional immortality without any other aspects of this possibility be involved I would hold this view too because many do that the sinner will be punished remember jesus said that servant who knew his master's will and did not prepare himself and did not do his master will be beaten with many stripes but that servant who did not know his master's will and did things worthy of stripes will be beaten with few stripes the judgment is going to be not the same for everyone but there be stripes there will be punishment and Jesus said about Capernaum and some of the Jewish citizen he preached and he says it'll be more tolerable on the day of judgment for sodom and gomorrah than it will be for you now presumably sodom and gomorrah are damned and these things are damned but it will be more tolerable for one than for the other because Sodom where it didn't have as much light Jesus hadn't come and done miracles among them and so forth so if they had they would have repented and remain to this day but the point here is that in the even among the lost he says it's gonna be more tolerable for some than for others some will review receive many stripes some few stripes now my understanding would be if I just kind of threw out all other possibilities and just went totally with the conditional immortality which may be up someday do my understanding would be the lost will be annihilated but not immediately they will be punished proportionately to what they deserve and who knows what that is God knows you know it doesn't it's not a pretty thing you'd want to cut off your hand or pluck out your eye rather than go through it whatever it is you know Jesus said so I would say there's plenty of motivation to avoid it I mean if a friend of mine was contemplating robbing a bank I said you know you're gonna go to jail from 20 years or more for that that might be enough to motivate him not to do it just for 20 years you know it's not eternal I might as well go ahead and rob the bank no I short but how long would you like your hand to be over the fire before you could pull it away how many minutes would you want it to last you know if you really understand that torment is serious you'd want to avoid it even if it was just even if there's only moments but it was years I mean who knows and likewise the third view about you know restoration the idea is that these people will suffer I mean if all the sufferings of this life were not enough to bring them to repentance then they're pretty resistant and just getting on the other side isn't gonna change them make them soft-hearted they're gonna have to suffer more I mean because their repentance would not be accepted by God if it's surface if it's only pretend they actually have to change their heart and so the idea is there would be suffering I think all the views of help generally allow that there's suffering and torment and punishment and something that anyone who's smart would want to avoid and can by repenting in this life you know but so it's not as if you know the the traditional view has punishment the rest are kind of you get off scot-free it's not that way it's more like it's just like the others have punishment but it's just not forever and ever and ever never never necessarily you know now the other thing I want to say about evangelism and I know this is a hard transition for us to make sometimes because I know cuz I evangelize from my childhood right when I was in junior high I Evangel I said I did in high school too and I still do sometimes but I remember my youth I was really motivated by the idea of hell I couldn't stand the thought of anyone I saw ending up in eternal torment and so I wanted to make sure I could save as many as possible and frankly I didn't save them all and so I had to live with the grief of knowing oh man you know these people are gonna be maybe burning forever and ever and ever is a torturous thing to even think about I there's a hell for me you know that's another thing about eternal torment it's a hell for anyone who cares for the people you know as well as for the people themselves but as I got older even even when I didn't change my view of Hell I still had the traditional if you have held pretty firmly ensconced without challenging my mind for the first 35 years of my ministry I still went through some changes I wanted to reach people not so much because of what I thought about Hell but because what I thought and about what his rights were you know I if someone came to her I was about 19 years old and they said if Jesus came to you and said and you were convinced he was right that he said there's no heaven or hell there's nothing after this life but will you still serve me would you do it and I think every Christian should ask themselves that if if I was convinced there was neither heaven nor hell and nothing after this life would I still serve Jesus and I thought about it from our thought well of course I'm not serving Jesus to avoid hell I'm serving Jesus because he's Jesus you know he deserves it he's God he made me why should i how can i do wrong to him who's done me no wrong you know how can I not serve God if that's one of the options opening whether there's any reward in the next life or not now I believe there is of course I believe in both heaven and hell but I came to the place that challenge made me think you know I'm not winning people for Christ or even living for Christ myself because of heaven or hell it's because of God it's because of Jesus because of who he is he deserves it and you know this is an interesting thing somewhere along the line when I was my mind My Mind's he's been on the journey for a few years I've been on that journey for 15 years I first began to rethink things 15 years ago and I still haven't thought him all so you know Schwindt with yourself thinking through it can I take a long time but during that time I was also doing other studies because hell is not my hobbyhorse I mean I wrote a book on it but I teach the whole Bible and hell is only a minor part of what I teach on and teaching through the book of Acts I observed the preaching of the book of Acts that is when Peter preached and when Paul preached I thought you know they got different results than we do in our churches when we preach they got they had a revival going on and we don't always see it and when I I decided to examine and analyze what they preach when they were talking of snares and I found to my surprise Peter and Paul in their preaching Acts never mentioned heaven or hell they mention it in their writings to Christian churches in the epistles but when they were preaching to unbelievers they never mentioned heaven or hell or the afterlife at all what did they mention they mentioned you crucified Jesus God raised her from the dead and now he's made of the Lord and King end of sermon what are we talking about they're talking about Jesus as prerogatives they're talking about Jesus as king God made him king that has ramifications on your duty but I'm not even gonna talk to you about what will happen to you if you don't follow him you you'll find that out I guess if you decide not to do it but you've got a king now that's the gospel of the kingdom is preaching there's another king when Jesus and and and that appeals to people's consciences rather than their self-interest now I realize that people are strongly motivated by self-interest but it seems to me that Jesus came to save people from their sin which is their self-obsession their self-interest I think that our sinfulness is that from the time we're infants we learn to make everything conspire to our advantage we manipulate our parents we knew their siblings we've miscibility people when we get older we do everything for us and and then we find out oh there's there's a heaven in hell well I better get that one in my kit too I want to have heaven instead of hell because that's good for me and it when we when we appeal to people on the basis of heaven in hell we may be telling them true things but we're appealing to a motivation that the Apostles never appealed to when they preached through the loss they didn't want to affirm your self-interest they wanted you to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow Jesus real conversion isn't do yourself a favor and get heaven into your bag of benefits too it's stop rebelling against your rightful king you know sure there's gonna be penalties if you don't repent but but really what you need to be appeal just you need to know that you have a king and you've been in rebellion against him and he's saying stop it you need to repent he commands all men everywhere to repent Paul said and he didn't even say what would happen to people if they don't but I think everyone could figure out it probably won't be good it probably won't be pretty you know but the point that was surprised me when I studied the evangelistic efforts of the Apostles in the book of Acts and there's like three examples of Peter sermons and three of Paul's to crowds of unbelievers they never even alluded to heaven and hell and here I was raised using that is like the centerpiece of my message to the unbelievers you know I I thought well but I don't get the same kind of conference because the conference I get are still itself interested there they don't deny themselves and take up the cross they affirm themselves hey I want everything in this world and heaven too you know it's all about me but if you say okay yeah there's benefits for following Christ there's no question about that and penalties for not but what you need to focus on is not you but God and if there was no penalty if there's no benefit if there's no rewards for what you choose you still ought to serve God that's what you were made for you owe it to him God has made Jesus the king and that's your that's all of our obligation is to repent and of our rebellion and and follow Jesus faithfully so that message is not what we usually hear because frankly it doesn't get as many people responding sometimes it did in the book of Acts sometimes maybe not so many but you can get more people with a different kind of message but different kinds of converts some of them never really been converted they're still there just for themselves it's just they've added God to their benefits for themselves that they're seeking so the the focus of evangelism I realize hell especially eternal torment can be a tremendous motivation to want to say get people saved and so for that I like to repeat the story which you might have heard because it's often repeated certainly as a very well often told story the Moravian missionaries in the 18th century who got convicted to go out to all the world they realize they've they heard of some natives not native series slaves that were slaves of a European landowner who owned an island in the East in the West Indies and he hated Christians and his sleigh would never get to hear the gospel because they're isolated on this guy's island and he would never let missionaries come there and so these two Moravian young men about 19 years old they sold themselves to this guy as slaves for life to go and be trapped on his Island so they could evangelize these other slaves and they would never be free again and as they were sailing away from their home and their family on this Shore they shouted out may the land that was slain receive the reward of his sufferings that was their motivation they made these slaves avoid what they deserve in hell but let Jesus get what he deserves what he deserves is their loyalty their love he deserves be glorified in their lives he's the one who's slain may he receive the reward of his sufferings and that is that's the motivation that not all missionaries necessarily have but I think that's the New Testament motivation information said it's Christ centered not man centered and I I'm not saying that belief in heaven and hell are man centered things but they can certainly be used to to appeal to someone whose whole Center is self-interest and without changing that as they're you know they remain centered on self-interest even as their motivation for coming forward or doing whatever so I'm not against mentioning heaven and hell I just found it interesting that that's not what they did and there are other motivations probably more biblical motivations for evangelism but if we don't love God very much we may not be very motivated but then that's what has to change we do need to love God enough that we want him to get all that he deserves from his creation and from us so those are my thoughts about that and it's a very very common and very intelligent and good concern to raise but I think that it can be I don't think that the alternate views of Hell would interfere with proper motivations for either evangelism or for Christian living bill thank you for asking that question because I think that is one of the first questions that people ask it's one the first ones I asked in when I began to share my my thoughts about not believing in eternal conscious torment almost immediately people asked that question will people get saved then I mean if people are not going to be tortured eternally forever in hell why would they want to get saved them I will just live your life for yourself and not get saved and you know that was my first thought but boy how's my heart has has changed as I've become convinced that that's not supposed to be our motivation when it comes to God anyway and I don't believe that God ever intended us to choose him over hell because who wouldn't I mean eternal conscious torment I mean who wouldn't choose him I think he's more beautiful than that I think you can paint the most beautiful thing could extremely opposite of the most vicious descriptions of hell you can paint the most beautiful thing that you can possibly think of and compare it to God he still wins and and so I don't believe he wanted it to be reduced to choose me or gonna torture you forever and I think that we need to begin to give people more credit I think that there will be I think Steve was saying this I don't know if it were just mouths I'll put it in my mouth that I believe our churches are full of people that don't love God but they're there because they don't want to go to hell they don't want to suffer in hell for eternity and so they're there maybe for the wrong reasons and they don't I don't believe that people who don't love God are going to be in heaven I that's just my belief there or where I'm leaning anywhere and so we kind of changed the way we present the gospel I believe I believe the gospel is best presented without the threat of eternal conscious torment matter of fact I believe it's detrimental it can be very detrimental and and there are a lot of people who have rejected the god of Christianity because they can't reconcile this loving guy with eternal conscious torment they just can't reconcile it and if that is the God of the Bible well that's their problem they got to get over it but maybe they shouldn't get over it if eternal conscious torment isn't a proper reflection of God maybe they're right that they're resisting this god of torture maybe he doesn't want to be represented in that way we have a responsibility to our God to read and understand and represent him in an appropriate way and if we are undecided on these things then we make sure we don't misrepresent him we at least hold back on what we represent and represent what we do know about him that he's loving he's gracious he's merciful and that he's long-suffering and that he that he loves as He loves us so much and and we want people to respond to his love not his ability to to just torture us forever in my thoughts anyway I think it's very important and we love Him because He first loved us the prodigal son came home sure he was in a bad way so it was gonna be good for him but he didn't come home because father because he because his father was gonna chase him down and punish him he came back to his father he said you know my father treats his servants better than I'm being treated out here my servants are my father's servants have a merciful master I think I want to be one of his serve one of his servants too you know he didn't think if I don't come back dad he's gonna chase me daddy's gonna send an army and and torture me you know Jesus is describing repentance in that parable as being motivated by someone recognizing the goodness of God and their own sinfulness in contrast to it saying you know it's better it's God is better than where I'm at you know and sure I mean it doesn't eliminate all self-interests you can't live without self-interest but you can have it not be your main motivation in life it can be you know tributary to something more central in life which is I want to glorify God in what do you eat or drink to alter the glory of God it's about glorifying God so anyway those are my thoughts about motivation you know you're making good sense that what I would just say is that I think evangelism should be done out of love and you you've Angelus lost because you love them it's like I think of my children I have some children who aren't following the Lord I'm I'm not pleased with them but when I talk to them I'm not gonna lean on you know threatening them and things like that I'm hoping they'll see that I love them we love God because He first loved us I hope the goodness of God is to lead you to repentance Paul said in Romans 2 and you know my I reach out to my children because I love them yes I know there are consequences for their doing I figure they're discovering some of those for themselves and as a result of their choices and they probably suspect there are more after this life but I think God wants to win us through his love and if somebody asked me if I'm if I'm evangelizing somebody and there's a what do you think about hell well I'm not gonna be me Leroy I'll just tell the total truth I think we should always tell the truth the truth is you know the Bible is not as clear as I once thought it was on this subject of hell but it's very clear that there are consequences very undesirable consequences for dying on bad terms with God however you need to be concerned right now not about hell because you're not dead yet you need to consider how God wants you to live because you're alive it's about your life belonging to God he you're bought with a price you live your life to glorify your king that's what the message is of the kingdom of God and yes there are consequences for not doing so and I'm not gonna hide that from you I wouldn't want to hide it from you but I can't go into detail because I don't know all the details I think the bottles not as clear as I once thought and therefore it's not the phone guess that I that I once would have had but you know I try to redirect them but I wouldn't deny if there's consequences is that a hint that clock up there listen for one if you have questions remember Wednesday is going to be open QA and so if you have some more questions for one we'll wrap up here officially but it doesn't mean that we can't talk I don't know what Steve's got to do but I'll be here and that's far removed from b-team but still I'm gonna be here and the only reason I'm even sitting in this chair here is because I do feel a sense of responsibility you know we brought Steve here and we have we have brought up a very you know potentially controversial topic shouldn't be as controversial as it is but it is and so I have a responsibility for the people that that are in our community because they're some people that are not from our church here and our community for what I'm even sharing with you and so when it comes to like Bill's question that's where the passion side of it I've got a lot to say about it and I have a responsibility to to share my my concerns about that and so thank you for sharing that I do want to tell you get the book you can't buy it from Steve because he's not selling it but you can get it on Amazon where yeah anywhere you look it up online and you can order order the book it's good and I've got it highlighted and so far I've not had to break up my red pen I told him for any correction it's been really really good but I want you to have some more resources as well I have here a book you can order this online as well and this is a very interesting movie it's a it's called hell and mr. fudge fudge is a guy named Edward fudge he used to live on the north side of Houston here he just passed away this past year I believe and he wrote a book originally in the 70s was it and and it was the fire that consumes and although you go way back as Steve talked about in early church history two people that believed in a consuming fire it was just not very popular and fudge really stood out there with just a few other people saying hey you know what there's another dog in the hunt it's not just only eternal conscious torment and he wrote a really good book called the fire that consumes and they made a movie about it and so if you want to borrow mine I got this I'll let you use it it's not gonna go deep into theology but it's a good stirring of the of the heart and thoughts I really enjoyed it but then you'll want to kind of get into some of you know his book and I really recommend this if you want to make a little note just type into Google Edward fudge and look to where he's there in a bowtie at Lamar University or Lamar Lanier library yeah either way you'll see him in the bowtie there it's about an hour long lecture really good lecture he's going to say a lot of the things that Steve said today but in some some good stuff you can pause it we couldn't positive in his lecture today but you can pause him in his book so I encourage you to get the book also Steve has taught expositionally through the whole Bible and you can get it all for free you can listen to his audios the mp3s you can download them and just steal them right off his website and and he won't get upset at you and so you have something I'm gonna okay cards with the website this is his wife Dana here and so she can give you some cards but another one that's probably going to be the most convenient for a lot of us is you can go on to the App Store whether you're on Android or on iPhone and you can get to narrow it is it's on both platforms correct yeah and get didn't just search the narrow path and you'll you'll find the app there and you have the whole Bible of his stations they're good expositional teaching now I highly recommend it it's it's a it's it's really good so let's go ahead and close for tonight and again if any of those thoughts that you have come bring them Wednesday there's a lecture tomorrow at 6 o'clock followed by a Q&A or 7 o'clock tomorrow followed by Q&A and this will be over the tribulation and the seven-year tribulation and what is it and where is it and how is it and is it so that'll be tomorrow night and tune in in the morning at 8 o'clock - KJ I see 90.5 of him on your radio dial and we're gonna be interviewing Steve on on the radio station not so much about some of this stuff here but Steve was blessed to be in a really great place in American history and in the Lord moving in our country a lot of people refer to it as the Jesus Movement he was there in California when I was happening and we're gonna be talking a little bit about that among other things and the importance of studying and knowing the Word of God so looking forward to that and I will try to get you some aha questions for that and I'll just make one one point - I mentioned that you know the doctrine of hell that's not my hobby horse it isn't at the website there's about 1500 of my lectures two of them are wrought hell there's a two-part a two-part lecture is called the three views of Hell which is similar to what I gave here tonight the other 1500 lectures are about everything else from the Bible so I mean it's it's really not the theme of my ministry at all to talk about Hell but it does come up obviously he wrote a book so but but like he said there's verse by verse teachings through every book of the Bible there with the exception of chronicles because that doubles up on Samuel and kings but and there's hundreds of topics and so there everything's free you can download them you get listen on the app or whatever it's at the narrow paths calm I do want just in case there's a couple of thoughts that were bouncing around in my mind Steve McMahon about Hill not being mentioned in the Old Testament and you probably think I got my Bible it says it right here he didn't go into detail him because we didn't give him a whole lot of time he does go into it into his book and and and that that the word hell that's translated in like the King James and some of the others are not there one word for how many different places and yeah scholars know that shale doesn't mean hell it means the grave or the place of the dead we don't have an English word that really covers it all but it doesn't mean it's not a reference to hell it's a reference to the state of being dead even the righteous go to jail in the Old Testament and then the equivalent to that in the New Testament is the Greek Hades that means the wide range things but it doesn't refer to the lake of fire because a lot of us said you've all going to one bucket and that's one of the things that we need to realize it doesn't go all into one one bucket so there's that he talked a little bit about the tree of life and the tree of good and evil that was pretty quickly you need to know what the difference between those two and when they predict or take of and when they did not and why they didn't do some more research about that and that's about it get the book all right let's pray and be dismissed and we will see y'all tomorrow at 6 as many of you as can and I hope you'll invite some people father we thank you for this time in your word and we're grateful for an opportunity to be able to have an open discussion about you really that's what it boils down to is what what is your word say about you and we believe that you that you do want us to know what your plan and intentions are for your creation and how it reflects upon you our God and we don't believe that you are mysterious in in the in the cyst that you don't want us to know your heart and you do want us to know you and it's okay for us to to have these thoughts and to consider and even ask you who are you and what are your plans what is your heart and your your heart towards your creation nor we believe that as we pursue that you are so pleased with us pursuing you I believe it blesses your heart and we're not just trying to fill our heads with knowledge so that we can impress people we're trying to fill our hearts with you understanding of you so that we can know you better be closer to you a better serve you and please you our God and our King we love you in Jesus name Amen [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Chocolate Bayou Worship Center

Views: 2,819

Rating: 4.7446809 out of 5

Keywords: steve gregg

Id: ijAhJLTdhvY

Length: 74min 51sec (4491 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 09 2019