Why Don't Pastors Talk about Hell Anymore?

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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 where the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched and where there would be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth there's a point where people talked about that as a motivation to turn to Jesus so Tim, the question for today is why don't pastors talk about hell anymore?

00:44

yeah, they're wimps, man they're wimpy, that's the only explanation is well, if they were more manly they'd talk about hell more

00:54

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

01:01

I think so I don't think it's a matter of consistently, they just never talk about it so it's not even a matter of like hey they just mention it once every six months, it's just like 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?

01:23

I mean, my pastor, you and our other pastor I mean, alright, but beyond that this wasn't meant to be a pat ourself on the back moment no, the point though is it's one of those things that has gone out of fashion to talk about hell it's definitely not, yeah,

01:42

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

01:48

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 it's almost,

01:55

I mean, it really one of the things that happened is, I mean, I think for me growing up it was very common for pastors to 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 had the hellfire and brimstone preachers and we really don't have any of those anymore

02:16

I mean, that's just not a thing anymore but what happened was you had a lot of the a lot of the progressive type of Christians who essentially were debating that topic of hell and then the orthodox position was basically to say yes, we believe in a literal hell that's what we believe in 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 does that make sense?

02:47

they didn't believe in annihilationism they didn't believe in soul sleep they didn't believe in universalism or whatever else they didn't believe that hell was simply some kind of 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 where the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched and where there would be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth there was a point where people talked about that as a motivation to turn to Jesus who warned you to flee from the wrath to come to where you had preachers who sounded more like John the

03:34

Baptist who were talking about that kind of thing and then at a certain point then you had all the debates on whether or not it was real 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 and now we're kind of at a point where pretty much no one ever talks about it at all period yeah

03:56

I think you even have people I mean you always had people who would teach some sort of heresy about it not existing but then

04:07

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

04:13

Christian who doesn't believe that there is an actual hell right and I think largely there's it's very popular right now but then

04:25

I think what's happened to keep pastors from talking about it is a bunch of other things and so with the secret system 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 yeah and you know the vast majority of your popular big name evangelical types they really have embraced like a gospel of niceness essentially that the way that we're going to win people over is we're going to be winsome and nuanced and you know good faith and all that 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 and the reason why they'd never talk about hell is because they've accepted like some perspective of Jesus that Jesus was just unfailingly nice and really the idea of preaching like about hell is it's about as you know abrasive of a way of evangelism 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 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 does that make sense?

05:41

so if you believe that the way you win people over is by fundamentally being nice to them and then you don't have any place for talking about hell then the problem is that the

05:54

Bible talks about hell over and over and over again and I mean 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 so we like to pretend like that we're not going to die and we like to live in this we're like ostriches burying our head in the sand pretending we're not going to die but then not only that the most 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 and you're going to spend the rest of your life weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth and there will be no relief 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 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 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 hell and the fact that it's even real for example but what you end up losing when you neglect when you neglect teaching on hell is really you sort of lose the need for the gospel in the first place right so 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 people have been told that their whole life and that's kind of your point right?

08:04

basically you get to a point where it's like well why do I need forgiveness I'm fine

08:10

I'm fine I mean like my teacher tells me I'm wonderful my parents tell me 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 and so then you add

08:22

God to the list it's like what's the big deal right? why do I care? right yeah you lose the

08:27

I mean I've heard a lot of people say before you can't have good news without bad news and I think in this sort of scenario that is true

08:38

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 so when you lose that then you lose the need for the gospel in general now obviously we need the gospel we needed

09:01

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 die for eternity basically but then not only that when you neglect these things

09:20

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 and so Paul you know he warns the

09:34

Ephesians over and over and over again he warns the elders there to stay on guard against false teachers and wolves right and I think part of you know obviously what that's meant to what that's meant to do is protect the flock from being devoured by false teachers right and and being basically led astray by these various false teachings and so when you neglect teaching on these things really you're opening yourself and your flock up to you know false teachings like like hell isn't real for example or all people are going to be saved right which is universalism and so basically all that to just say when you 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

10:50

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

10:59

I mean foolish ideas that are created by men.

11:04

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 an object of his wrath 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 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 you know 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

11:55

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

12:20

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

12:29

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 you know the liberals won right 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 and that they got us embarrassed to talk about it yeah and you know it's sad overall but so is the answer just what's the answer talk about hell more right

13:01

Jesus talked about a lot so I think we should if we're going to be faithful we need to make that our go to only pastors so like we've just been speaking in terms of messages you want to be like Jesus then talk more about hell figure out how to do it 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 or whatever you could have a personal relationship with him make your go to that no that's a part of it what if it seems like that drives a lot of people away well yeah

13:42

I'm sure that it will but it didn't concern

13:47

Jesus Jesus looked at the crowd and he knew what was in them he knew what was in their heart and he drove a lot of people away too so that's fine 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 what you do is you make the lines clearer alright fair enough this has been another episode of Bible Bashed we hope you have been encouraged and blessed through our discussion we thank you for all your support and ask you to continue to like and subscribe to Bible Bashed and share our podcast with your friends and on social media please reach out to us with your questions pushback and potential topics for us to discuss in future episodes at biblebashedpodcast at gmail .com