Why Don't Pastors Ever Talk About Hell Anymore?

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So Tim, the question for today is, why don't pastors talk about hell anymore? Yeah, they're wimps, man.

01:35

They're wimpy? That's the only explanation? Well, if they were more manly, they'd talk about hell more.

01:42

I mean, basically. Well, what do you mean? You have to be manly to be able to talk about hell consistently?

01:49

I think so. I don't think it's a matter of consistently, they just never talk about it.

01:56

Oh, so it's not even a matter of like, hey, they just mention it once every six months. I don't know.

02:02

You don't ever mention it. Yeah. Can you think of very many sermons that you've heard where a pastor has talked about hell at all?

02:12

I mean, you and our other pastor. All right, but beyond that. This wasn't meant to be a pat ourselves on the back moment.

02:21

The point, though, is it's one of those things that has gone out of fashion to talk about hell.

02:29

It's definitely not. Yeah, I mean, I don't know many people that are... I mean, you don't get very many sinners in the hands of an angry

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God kind of messages anymore. And in fact, I mean, I think in the minds of many people, it's almost immoral to talk about hell.

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It's almost, I mean, it really, you know, one of the things that happened is, I mean, I think for me growing up, it was very common for pastors to...

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I wouldn't say very common, but it was much more common for pastors to talk about hell. But then one of the things that happened is that, you know, you had the hellfire and brimstone preachers, and we really don't have any of those anymore.

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I mean, that's just not a thing anymore. But what happened was you had a lot of the... a lot of the progressive types, type of Christians who essentially were debating that topic of hell.

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And then the orthodox position was basically to say, yes, we believe in a literal hell. That's what we believe in.

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But then at that point, it feels like there was a transition that happened to where if anyone mentioned hell at all, it was just to show that they were orthodox.

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Does that make sense? They didn't believe in annihilationism. They didn't believe in, you know, soul sleep.

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They didn't believe in universalism or whatever else.

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So they didn't believe that hell was simply, you know, some kind of separation from...

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psychological separation from God or something like that. What happened is there was a transition point where people used to preach on hell as if it were an actual reality, a terrible place that, you know, where the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched, and where there'd be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

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There was a point where people talked about that as a motivation to turn to Jesus.

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You know, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? To where you had preachers who sounded more like John the

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Baptist who were talking about that kind of thing. And then, you know, at a certain point, then you had all the debates on whether or not it was real.

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And then the orthodox theologians from that point on, it seemed like whenever they mentioned it at all, they were just defending their orthodoxy with it.

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And now we're kind of at a point where pretty much no one ever talks about it at all. Period. Yeah.

04:44

Yeah, and I think you even have people... I mean, you always had people who would teach some sort of heresy about it not existing, right?

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But then I think now it seems, at least it seems like, it's more popular than ever to be a

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Christian who doesn't believe that there is an actual hell. Right.

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And I think, largely, there's... It's very popular right now, but then

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I think what's happened to keep pastors from talking about it is a bunch of other things.

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And so with the Sacred Sentiment Movement that's happened in the church, one of the things that's happened is that essentially the church service was tailored to make unbelievers feel comfortable.

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Yeah. And the vast majority of your popular big -name evangelical types, they really have embraced a gospel of niceness, essentially.

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That the way that we're going to win people over is we're going to be winsome and nuanced and good faith and all that.

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Like, that's what we're going to do. And so then what's happened, though, is that I can't think of any of those guys who would ever talk about hell.

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And the reason why they'd never talk about hell is because they've accepted some perspective of Jesus, that Jesus was just unfailingly nice.

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And really, the idea of preaching about hell is... It's about as abrasive of a way of evangelism.

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It's an abrasive way of encouraging someone to convert as you can possibly get. And so there hasn't been some decided decision from big -name evangelicals that we're not going to talk about that.

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But what's happened is that they've adopted certain assumptions that make it to where they can't talk about that, and they don't even know it.

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Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. So if you believe that the way you win people over is by fundamentally being nice to them, then you don't have any place for talking about hell.

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But then the problem is that the Bible talks about hell over and over and over again, and it really is an awful place. And you have to understand that there is great temptation that you face to not reflect on ultimate realities in general.

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So we like to pretend that we're not going to die. And we like to live in this... We're like ostriches, you know, burying our head in the sand pretending we're not going to die.

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But then not only that, if death is an uncomfortable topic to think about and talk about, what's vastly more uncomfortable to think about and talk about is that after death, if you are not in Jesus, you're going to spend eternity forever burning in a lake of fire where the worm dies not.

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And you're going to spend the rest of your life weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and there will be no relief.

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It will be forever. So that kind of thing is a sobering reality that really does get at the nature of the kind of faith that we actually have as Christians, is to say that we believe in that, that that's real, and that not only is that real, but God's just, and that that awaits people.

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And I think we just want to pretend, by and large, that it's not going to happen. Well, it's really sad, too, because when you have this sort of, you know, when you have this sort of, like, let's win them over with niceness, right?

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When you have that sort of approach, what you end up doing is, like you said, you end up sort of neglecting certain doctrines, like, you know, hell, and the fact that it's even real, for example.

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But what you end up losing when you neglect teaching on hell is really you sort of lose the need for the gospel in the first place, right?

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Yeah, I mean, if you tell people, if your gospel message is you're wonderful and you're good -looking and charming and God loves you and He's just infatuated with you and all that, at some point, you know, people have been told that their whole life.

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And that's kind of your point, right? Yeah, I mean, basically, you get to a point where it's like, well, why do

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I need forgiveness? I'm fine. Yeah, I'm fine. I mean, like, my teacher tells me I'm wonderful. My parents tell me

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I'm wonderful. Society tells me I'm wonderful. Everyone in society has been trained that they must praise me and tell me that I'm amazing.

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And so then you add God to the list. It's like, what's the big deal, right? Why do I care? Right, yeah.

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You lose the, like, I mean, I've heard a lot of people say before, you know, you can't have good news without bad news, right?

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And I think in this sort of scenario, that is true. I mean, the gospel basically is pointless if there is no condemnation for our sin, if there is no penalty that is death and eternal death for our sin.

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So when you lose that, then you lose, I mean, the need for the gospel in general.

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Now, obviously, we need the gospel. We needed Jesus to die for our sins. But that only makes sense if you believe that you're actually going to go to hell for your sins, if the wages of sin is actually death and a literal death that, you know, you die for eternity, basically.

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But then not only that, when you neglect these things, I think you do end up with a lot more people who believe these different types of heresies because they sound good and they tickle the ears, right?

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And so Paul, you know, he warns the Ephesians over and over and over again to, he warns the elders there to stay on guard against false teachers and wolves, right?

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And I think part of, you know, obviously, what that's meant to do is protect the flock from being devoured by false teachers, right?

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And being basically led astray by these various false teachings.

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And so when you neglect teaching on these things, really, you're opening yourself and your flock up to, you know, false teachings like, you know, hell isn't real, for example, or all people are going to be saved, right?

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Which is universalism. And so basically all that to just say when you neglect to teach about hell and recognize that, you know, this is an important thing to talk about, recognize that Jesus talked about hell way, way, way more than he ever talked about heaven and with good reason, then we should want to do the same thing because not only does it help people understand, you know, just how much they need

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Jesus to, you know, pay the consequences of their sin, but it also protects people from believing,

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I mean, foolish, foolish ideas that are created by men. Yeah, I mean, the more that you try to tone down this topic, the more that what you get is you get a bunch of people who are attaching themselves to the church, not because they fundamentally see themselves as a sinner, as the object of his wrath.

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You have a lot of people who are attaching themselves to the church because they're using the church as some kind of social club, they're using it to build network, you know, they're looking at it to be, to minister to them in their need or to build their self -esteem or whatever else.

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But I mean, the biblical message is that we are sinners, we're objects of God's wrath and if we are not found having his righteousness attributed to us as a free gift, there is a horrible fate that does await all of us and we need more people who are willing to say that, you know, and I'd love to hear,

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I'd love to hear more pastors go there and it is troubling to think that even solid pastors really, that's probably one of the last things that you could imagine them ever talking about, really.

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Even your faithful guys out there and I think that that tells you a little bit about how influenced we are by the spirit of the age and even subtle ways, the fact that you have very few pastors.

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I mean, I can't tell you, I can't remember the last time I've heard anyone talk about this subject ever. Any pastor, you know,

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I don't know, I can't even think of a sermon I've heard on it. Right. It's that uncommon and I think one of the things that's happened is that the liberals won, right?

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They just won in a different way than we realized. We'll all sign off on it, on our statement of faith, but they won in that they got us embarrassed to talk about it.

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Yeah, yeah. And, you know, it's sad overall, but so is the answer just, what's the answer?

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Talk about hell more, right? Jesus talked about it a lot, so I think we should, if we're going to be faithful, we need to make that our go -to, you know, is to sound like him.

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Only pastors? So like, I mean, we've just been speaking in terms of passages. Yeah, I think, yeah, you want to be like Jesus and talk more about hell, figure out how to do it, you know?

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When you share the gospel. Yeah, when you share the gospel, make that your go -to, is that you talk about hell, not making it your go -to that you talk about you could have a relationship with Jesus, you know, or whatever, like you could have a personal relationship with him, you know, like make your go -to that, no, like that's a part of it and it's a big part of it.

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What if it seems like that drives a lot of people away? Well, yeah, I'm sure that it will, but, you know, it didn't concern

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Jesus. Jesus looked at the crowd and he knew what was in them, right? He knew what was in their heart and he drove a lot of people away too, so that's fine.

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But I think what you do less of is you get less of false converts where people are attaching themselves to the faith who don't even know what they're attaching themselves to.

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Right. What you do is you make the lines clearer. Okay. All right. Fair enough.

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