Allen Webster

Topic(s): Eternity, Pain & Suffering, Sin

Links to this entire series:

• If I Don't Preach on Hell: Part 1
• If I Don't Preach on Hell: Part 2
• If I Don't Preach on Hell: Part 3
• If I Don't Preach on Hell: Part 4

What will I preach Sunday? is a question that America’s preachers had to decide last week, and every week. The topic “hell” rarely comes up next in the cue. Kenneth S. Kantzer said, “The last sermon on hell I heard I preached myself. And that was nearly thirty years ago.” Mary Kraus, “pastor” of Dumbarton United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C., said, “My congregation would be stunned to hear a sermon on hell.” ¹

American church historian Martin Marty wrote: “Hell disappeared. And no one noticed. For liberal Protestants, hell began to fade in the nineteenth century along with Calvinism’s stern and predestining God . . . Today hell is theology’s H-word, a subject too trite for serious scholarship.” One survey of evangelical seminary students revealed that:

• Nearly half—46 percent—felt preaching about hell to unbelievers is in “poor taste.”
• Worse yet, three out of every ten self-professed “born again” people surveyed believe “good” people will go to heaven when they die—even if they’ve never followed Christ.
• One in every ten evangelicals say they believe the concept of sin is outmoded. ²

At Harvard Divinity School, theologian Gordon Kaufman traced four centuries of decline in the concepts of heaven and hell. What is left, he said, “is intellectually empty baggage. It seems to me we’ve gone through irreversible changes. I don’t think there can be any future in heaven and hell.” ³

No “future for heaven and hell”?! My friend they are the future!

What do these quotes prove? Nothing! If every person on earth voted that there is no hell, it would not lower its temperature one degree. If there is a hell, then there is one, and what men believe does not change it. Missionaries in some hot climates have been unable to convince natives that ice exists. They just can’t believe that water can become so hard that a man could walk on it. Does this change the fact that ice exists? Suppose your preacher never mentioned hell again, would that make it less tolerable if you went there? We can embrace a called “kinder theology,” and treat hell as a pagan fable, but it will still be there at the end.

I, for one, have decided to continue to preach on hell. Here’s why:

If I don’t preach on hell, then I am not preaching the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27). A preacher’s obligation is to preach the Bible (Jonah 3:2)—nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. This necessarily includes mentioning its woes as well as its blesseds. God’s true ministers pronounce “hell” as distinctly as “heaven.” A minister once said to his congregation, “If you do not love the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be sent to that place which it is not polite to mention.” Another ended his sermon: “And now, my friends, if you do not believe these truths, there may be for you grave eschatological consequences.” An older preacher in attendance asked him after it was over: “Did you mean that they may go to hell?” He said, “Yes.” “Then why didn’t you say it?! If I saw your house on fire over there, would want me to say, ‘I believe the operation of combustion is proceeding yonder?’ No, you’d want me to call out, ‘Fire! Fire!’” ⁴

The same Bible that teaches that God in compassion sent Christ to die for sinners also teaches that God hates and punishes sin. Paul said he had kept back nothing that was profitable to his hearers (Acts 20:20). He shunned not to declare all the counsel of God (20:27). Could he have said that if he avoiding preaching on hell? No, he found it necessary to teach both the “goodness and severity of God” (Romans 11:22).

Ministers should not try to be nicer than God, or more modest than Jesus Christ. Hell is one of the main doctrines in God’s Word and in Jesus Christ’s Gospel. Hell is discussed in the Bible in greater detail than heaven. Jesus said more about eternal punishment than all other Bible characters put together. “Gehenna” is used in the New Testament twelve times; eleven of these came from the lips of Jesus. Thirteen percent (13%) of Jesus’ teaching was on hell and judgment. One-half (50%) of His parables were on judgment. For instance, Jesus once used a commercial fishing illustration to teach about the afterlife (Matthew 13:47-51):

• There will be judgment for everyone,
• People will be separated into two groups, and
• The saved are destined for heaven and the unsaved for hell.

Paul, the old preacher, said to Timothy, the young one: “Preach the word; be instant⁵ in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine” (2 Timothy 4:2). “In season, out of season” means to preach what puts a smile on the listener’s face and what paints a frown across his features. It means to preach what they want to hear, but also what they need to hear. It means to present what is likely to be received, but also what may be rejected. It means to give them what will get you a pat on the back, and also what may get you a kick in the shins.

The reason it is not preached is due to the devil’s influence, not God’s. Satan does not want the truth about that horrible, frightening place of eternal damnation known. He’d have a hard time filling hell up if people got a virtual tour before arriving.

At the same time, a preacher should never speak of hell without pain and sorrow. We gladly offer the salvation of the Gospel to the very chief of sinners. The vilest of mankind can “repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38). God forbid that I should ever keep back from mortal man that Scripture reveals a hell as well as heaven . . . that men may be lost as well as saved.⁶

Erwin Lutzer observed, “Hell, more than any doctrine of the Bible, seems to be out of step with our times.”⁷ I am not half so afraid of being called out of date by my contemporaries, as I am of being found out of harmony with God’s Word.

Why preachers don’t cover this topic is a mystery for hell and the eternal damnation of the wicked certainly stand out as two of the cardinal doctrines of the Bible. Some want to cut hell out of the Bible (cf. Jehoiakim king of Judah, Jeremiah 36:23), but it will still meet them in judgment. C. S. Lewis said, “There is no doctrine I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this (hell), if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture, and especially, of our Lord’s own words; it has always been held by Christendom, and has the support of reason.”

Part 2

Footnotes:

¹Robert J. Morgan, Nelson’s Complete Book of Stories . . .
²Ashamed of the Gospel, John F. MacArthur, Jr., 1993, Crossway Books, p. 65
³Morgan
⁴Spurgeon
⁵The phrase “be instant” (ephistemi, KJV, “come upon 6, come 4, stand 3, stand by 3, misc. 5; 21; “to be at hand; be ready”) is used especially of persons coming upon one suddenly (sometimes used of the advent of angels). It can be used of a rain shower coming up quickly.
⁶J.D. Ryle, about 100 years ago, quoted in The Berean Call, April, 1993
⁷Lutzer, One Minute After Death, p. 97