John 3:16 ”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.”
My late
mentor Bill Stiles had a mantra that “you don’t know what you are “saved to”,
until you know what you have been “saved from”. Likewise, the late Pastor D.
James Kennedy had a mantra that “you have to know that you are “lost”, before
you can be “found”. Think about it. If someone comes up and tells you that they
are going to save your life from some life-threatening danger when you do not
believe that your life is in danger at all, what would you think and say? Save
me … from what!? I’m not lost! What Pastor Kennedy and Mr. Stiles were talking
about was hell and heaven. Where is life taking us? Not sure where we are
going? Have you come to a place in your spiritual life where you know for
certain that if you were to die today you would go to heaven? The direction of
our life is determined by the choices that we make.
Matthew 7:13-14 “Enter
through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction,
and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and
only a few find it.”
Pastor JJ
comes to the conclusion of his Sunday Sermon series based upon the Max Lucado
book, “John 3:16 – the Numbers of Hope”, on ground that many churches fear and
refuse to tread ... the subject and existence of hell. But he explained that as
we look at Holy Scripture, we see that there truly are only two destinations in
which we will all arrive one day. We get to choose and each of us is headed in
one of the two directions. Some will perish and some will live. The Lord Jesus
tells us simply that these are the two destinations that we have as choices, in
John 3:16. Do you know which way you are
headed today? To perish in Hell is a subject that none of us like to talk
about. It’s not a “feel good” type of topic to discuss, is it? But Jesus wasn't afraid to touch this hot topic. There are some that don’t want anything to do
with God and His sovereign authority, and dedicate their whole lives trying to avoid
God and His Word, Will and Ways for their lives. But, by God’s love and mercy,
He continues to show up in their lives, trying and get their attention, and the
people continue to avoid God, ignore Him and look the other way. They refuse to
see or hear the way that God was leading them, so they turn their backs and
walk the other way, refusing to know and have a relationship with their Creator
God.
Matthew 10:28 “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.
Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Society has
a tendency and bent to make casual the serious issue of Hell, turning this
reality into an adjective in their live (i.e. “That was a hell of a game!”).
But, when we casualize anything, we minimize it, regarding it less important
than it really is. We make it, in our minds, not that big-of-a-deal in our
lives anymore. The “fire and brimstone” Hell of the Bible is thought to be just
for those who like to be afraid of stuff. Our culture casualizes Hell, to
minimize Hell, so that we can trivialize Hell and ultimately sanitize Hell.
People try to keep their eternal destiny from having any affect at all, keep
Hell from being real and tangible in their life. Can anyone believe in eternal
punishment? Would a loving God send anyone to Hell? A holy and just God must
punish sin. But the God-rejecting world sanitizes their “just” rewards and their
wages of sin against their Maker by looking over the fact that Hell exists and
why. Or, at worse, they may believe that
Hell is where the “party people” go, trying to make it less powerful and
effective than it truly is. But the fact is that there is nothing “good” in
Hell. To talk lightly about Hell is to not grasp the gravity of this place and
subject, because we are talking about nothing less than being eternally
separated from the God of the Universe and there is nothing more serious than
that.
I shall
pick up Pastor's Sermon from here on the next post.
In Christ, Brian
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