Loving Enough to Tell the Truth about Hell

Sermon Transcript

Well, by far the most famous piece from this celebrated French sculptor, Auguste Rodin, as the Europeans like to pronounce it, is the work that came to be known as The Thinker. You know the one—the contemplative man sitting on a rock, in desperate need of some clothing, looking down with his chin dug into the back of his hand, right? You’ve seen him. The sculpture is in a museum in Paris, but if you go home, you might find, if you have a lot of books, that there might be a smaller version serving as a bookend in your library. I mean, it’s a very common piece that’s been copied in our culture, and you’ll find it everywhere. Frequently, it’s used as an image in college catalogs and on websites to represent the field of philosophy.

But actually, Rodin carved and created this statue just over 100 years ago, not to have us think of philosophy, but to have us ponder the tenets of theology. You see, he initially entitled this work The Poet, not The Thinker, and the one that he had in mind was the 14th-century Italian poet named Dante. Dante, you might remember, was the one who wrote this epic poem, the first installment of which is called Inferno, which is the Italian word for hell. Now, Rodin created this image to be looking down, and to be pensively and reflectively pondering those who were entering what Dante—and he—called the gates of hell, the portal, the entrance to hell.

Now, that scene is disturbing at best. If you ever get a chance to look at a good representation of a good-sized cast of what we call The Thinker, you’ll see his face is not trying to untangle, you know, some philosophical question about, you know, “I think, therefore I am.” This is a man who’s gazing down at a tragic scene of men and women shuffling into their eternal abode—lost men and women. The scene is made even more poignant if you’ve ever read Dante. When Dante described the gates of hell, he described it in his poem with an archway over the top of it that read this:

“Through me you pass into the city of woe.
Through me you pass into the pain that is eternal.
Through me you go among people lost forever.
Justice moved my exalted creator;
the divine power made me.
Before me all things were created, eternal,
and eternal I will stand.
Abandon every hope, you who enter here.”

Now take in for a moment what Rodin intended for you to come away with as you see the poet looking down at the scene and imagining the fate of lost men and women departing into outer darkness, away from the presence of God and into their eternal retribution.

Three thousand years ago, Solomon wrote that there’s a time to laugh, but there’s also a time to weep. He said there’s a time for dancing, but there’s also a time for mourning. Well, it seems like modern Christians, they don’t have any time for weeping and mourning anymore—no place for that. We avoid it at all costs. But we cannot be honest students of the Bible without recognizing that, as we read through the text, we’re struck with a lot of difficult and hard doctrines that any thoughtful Christian should be impacted by in a really poignant way—with pain and weeping and, as Calvin said, with great dread.

By contrast, today’s best-selling Christian books often contain the sentiment that was actually inscribed in the opening lines of last year’s best-selling book. This Christian author says, “I’ve written this book for all those everywhere who have heard some version of the Jesus story that has caused their pulse rate to rise, or their stomach to churn, and their hearts to utter those resolute words, ‘I would never want to be a part of that.’ You’re not alone,” this author writes, “for there are millions of us.” This book that was voraciously consumed by modern Christianity then went on to excise all those pieces of the Christian message that would cause anyone’s pulse rate to rise and stomach to churn. And you’re left with a God and with a Bible that does nothing for us but cause us to laugh and to dance.

There you have today’s favorite preachers, big churches, best-selling books. Christ’s favorite preacher, on the other hand—a man named John the Baptist, who we’ve been getting to know in our series in Luke 3—apparently had a stronger stomach (maybe after eating all those locusts), but he wasn’t afraid to tackle the issues that make our pulse rate rise and our stomachs churn. He wasn’t willing, because of a, you know, rumbly belly, to dismiss an entire swath of theological truth that began in the garden in Genesis 3 and continues on past John the Baptist’s ministry all the way into the book of Revelation. He was willing to deliver the entire message, which includes some pretty painful themes, which we’ve been studying—and actually been working around the most painful one. We’ve talked about sin, and we’ve talked about repentance. But today I’d like to pick up, in the last installment of our series on John the Baptist here in Luke 3, the theme that we’ve kind of tiptoed around until today, and that is: the end. The consequence. The stakes for those who are impenitent, for those that reject the message of repentance and faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Obviously, there are metaphorical terms that are used here. But if you don’t get the idea that the Holy Spirit is working hard to fill our hearts with something that’s not happy and fun, then you’ve missed the point of this text and of all of John’s preaching. Let’s review a little bit. Our text for this morning is Luke 3:17–20, but at least let’s highlight a few of the things that we’ve kind of skipped past so far.

Verse 7, for instance: when the crowds approach John the Baptist to be baptized, he called them a brood of vipers—a clan of snakes. And he said, “Who warned you to flee from”—here’s the phrase—“the wrath to come?” You do understand what the word “wrath” means. The anger. Anger of who? The anger of God. It’s coming. You’re coming here now to flee from that. He tells them then to repent and bear fruits (verse 8) in keeping with repentance. “Oh, don’t hide behind your associations with Israel and Abraham,” he says. “God’s able to raise from these rocks, these stones, children for Abraham.” But even now—now highlight this—“the axe is laid at the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down”—here’s our theme now—“and thrown into the fire.”

You want a frequently used theme to talk about the end of those who are unrepentant? Here it is: fire. Oh, there are lots of other themes: the worm that doesn’t die, outer darkness, gnashing of teeth—I get all of that. But there’s hardly a motif that speaks to us in a more dreadful way than the consuming nature and the pain of fire. He says if you don’t bear fruit, if there’s no evidence of new life, the end of your road is fire.

Of course, they ask him what this repentance looks like. He goes on to tell them that for the next few verses. Now, verse 16: when they said, “Are you the Messiah?” he responds by saying, “I’m baptizing with water. I’m calling you to repentance, yes, but the immersion that you need—that’s something I can’t give you. It’s the one who’s mightier than I; I’m not even worthy to unstrap his sandals. He will baptize you”—bottom of verse 16—“with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

Now there are two crowds here. Oh, there’s one crowd, but there are two components to the crowd: there are those that are penitent, who are repentant, who are saying, “What must we do?” And then there are those that stand back with their arms crossed that he called the brood of vipers, and they’re not interested. Oh, they want to hear what’s going on with this desert prophet, but they’re not willing to submit to repentance and baptism. That’s why I think, with the immediate context—though “fire” can sometimes be seen in Scripture as a positive motif—here, it’s not. You’ve got some that are going to be immersed with the Spirit (we studied that last week). You have others that are going to be immersed with fire.

Keep reading. Here’s our text for the morning, verse 17: “His winnowing fork is in his hand”—not a tool you probably have in the corner of your garage, city dwellers—but you do understand what that is. The next line says he’s using that fork to clear the threshing floor—another part of the real estate you didn’t care about when you bought your house. Threshing floor, of course, had to be on your property, in an agrarian society, that caught a good breeze. The winnowing fork was the thing that was going to separate the two things he’s about to talk about, analogous to people: the wheat and the chaff. You would tread out the grain one way or another; you’d beat it; you’d do all kinds of things to crush it; but then you had to throw it in the air and let the wind separate the two components—one, the shell that became chaff, and one that was the wheat that you wanted, that was the good stuff.

He analogizes Christ—John the Baptist does—as having his separating fork in his hand. “And he’s come to clear”—I love this—“his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn; [but] the chaff”—this fire motif, here it comes again—“he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

I understand this is a hard doctrine, and I warned you last week to take a weekend off, but God isn’t into superfluous repetition. Christ doesn’t stutter. He’s not just forgetting that he already told us. He repeatedly picks up the baton from John the Baptist and carries the theme of fiery retribution and outer darkness and weeping and gnashing and wailing. He picks that theme up and repeats it over and over and over again. And if perhaps God is so insistent on giving us this focus on judgment, perhaps we’re remiss as a generation to try to excise it—and even, if you say you believe it, not to ponder it frequently.

This is the beginning of what we’re going to see throughout the book of Luke—a recurring theme. And I’d like to begin, number one on your outline, by having you jot down a very simple phrase that I hope will become the pattern of your life. It’s what Rodin’s statue was intended to invoke in your heart, and that is that we would routinely ponder God’s judgment. Do you understand what’s at stake? I mean, if this is all just bedtime stories and fairy tales, well then move on to something else. There are better ways to teach your kids morality. But if you understand the real issue—that we have a sin problem that is going to lead us to the just tribunals of a holy God, and the only response is God pouring out his retribution, his just and measured retribution on sinful people—and that we celebrate the death of the Lord Jesus Christ because there’s one place in the universe where his justice has already been. And the deal is this: you cling to that with a repentant, contrite heart, and you don’t have to suffer the condemnation that you rightly deserve. If we don’t get that, we’ve missed the whole point.

Let’s look at some red letters just to stay in Luke—have a little bit of a preview of what Jesus continually says about this topic. Turn to chapter 12, real quickly—Luke chapter 12. I’m tired of being castigated by our society—even our Christian culture—for talking about things that Jesus wouldn’t leave alone. “Stop with your little caricatures of, ‘Oh, just a hellfire and brimstone preacher.’” Well, I guess you could qualify John the Baptist as such, and if you’re going to throw him in that category, you might as well put Jesus there too—because he wouldn’t stop talking about it.

Look at verse 4: “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do.” Now, I’m afraid when I think someone’s standing before me who has the intent or the motive or the ability to kill me—I don’t like that. That’s a scary situation. But Jesus says, “Listen, it’s really nothing by comparison, because once they kill you—Mike—that’s all they can do. When you’re done, and you’re at the morgue, and you’re on the gurney, what else can they do to you? There’s no more pain they can inflict in your life.”

Verse 5: “But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed the body”—that’s enough to disturb people’s little flowery image of Christ right there. Christ is talking about a God who can, today, put you in a mangled car accident in South Orange County and end your life. He has the power to do that. He’s the God of all providence and sovereignty. But that’s not all he can do. “After he’s killed the body, he has the authority to cast you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.”

I can look through all the David C. Cook and all the kids’ VBS material I want, and I’m never going to find a theme based on that verse for our third-grade curriculum. But in a generation that’s coming on the heels of another generation that’s already spent almost a lifetime neglecting this doctrine, we’re the generation that—as other writers have pointed out—will deny it. I’m thinking it’s not a bad idea to remind our third graders what’s at stake. “Oh, we don’t want to scare Susie and Billy into becoming Christians.” Did you just read verse 5? Did you read it? “I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed the body, has authority to cast you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” Night, honey. Sleep tight.

Jesus doesn’t seem to have the same constraints as you do to “scare people into heaven.” Jesus wasn’t real concerned about that, apparently. “Yes, I tell you, fear him.” “I don’t like that kind of preaching.” Great. Let’s just go on the record—you don’t like Jesus’s preaching. Because this is the incarnate Son of God.

William Shedd—if you’ve heard that name, Dr. Shedd wrote one of the classic systematic theologies—he said this: “The strongest support of the doctrine of eternal punishment is the teaching of Jesus Christ himself. Though the doctrine is plainly taught by Paul and many others in Scripture, yet without the explicit and reiterated statements of the God incarnate, it is doubtful whether so awful a truth would have ever had such a conspicuous place as it has always had in the creeds of Christianity.” I’m thinking, Shedd, you’d be rolling over in your grave if you could see the current creeds of Christianity, which are all emblazoned on Christian church websites. Look it up—we’re not talking about this anymore. Well, it isn’t because Jesus didn’t repeatedly—as Shedd put it—plainly reiterate, over and over and over again.

You really want to blow your mind on the Christ of the red letters of the New Testament? Drop down to verse 49—verse 49. We’ve talked about this many times: there are two installments to the advent of Christ. Advent one and advent two. Advent one: he came to bear our sin. Advent two: those that are unrepentant receive his judgment. Look in verse 49: “I came to cast fire on the earth”—now there’s that image, that motif, that analogy of his judgment. This is the picture of his judgment. Now look what he says—“Oh, I really don’t want to do it, because I love those people.” Somebody says that, but the next person, underline the next phrase. This is not how we picture the modern Jesus: “and would that it were already kindled!” Do you hear the disdain and frustration in his voice as he walks through the streets and hears gossip, and he sees people with lustful eyes, and hears about adultery, and hears about greed and bribes and kickbacks, and he listens to all the things relating to murder and divorce and homosexuality and a feminism being exalted in society, and all the theaters and what’s going on? He says, “Oh, that it were already kindled”—ready to start the judgment on this planet. That’s the Jesus of the Bible.

Verse 50: “I have a baptism to be baptized with.” There is a baptism for me—it’s different than the baptism for you. The baptism for you, if you’re a Christian, is to be immersed by the Spirit in the safe place—the only place where the justice of God has already been spent. His first coming was for him to be baptized with a baptism of the justice of God. And he says, “Oh, how great is my distress until it is accomplished!” I’m going to go to the cross and suffer the justice of God for you.

That’s hard. By the way, all the really trendy, cool, best-selling Christian books that deny the reality of hell—look up the section in the index of these books where they talk about the crucifixion of Christ. If they talk about it, they will blather their way through with a lot of tripe about it, not knowing exactly what to say about what happened that Friday afternoon—because it makes no sense. If God is not a God of justice who must punish sin with the severity of his anger, what’s the cross all about? What’s the whole point? What is this Isaiah 53 prediction, hundreds of years before he came, that he would be crushed so that we could be forgiven; that he would bear our stripes and be beaten so that we would be released? What’s all that about? How is it that he takes on our sin—as John the Baptist says earlier, “the Lamb of God that takes away…”—what’s that about? See, the moderns that want to deny the justice of God and the reality of an eternal hell, they don’t know what to do with the cross. They’ll come up with something, but it isn’t what the Bible teaches. And it certainly isn’t what the church has taught, as they’ve understood plainly that God is a God of justice. “Well, I want my god to be a god of love.” Well, he is. That’s why he’s provided a way out so you don’t have to receive the condemnation of… of heaven. “Well, I’m reading this book, and it’s saying that this whole fire thing, you know, it’s like my fireplace. I put a log in there, it burns for a while, then it’s gone. So I’m hoping this is just an annihilation thing.” That’s what I’ve heard. Those are, you know, not as good-selling as the other ones—“I believe there is no hell, but I… I can’t, this can’t be conscious, post-mortem torment. I mean, come on. God’s not that mean.”

Chapter 16 of Luke. Jesus—if that’s not what he wants us to understand about the afterlife—is doing a terrible job trying to teach us here in Luke 16. You know the story: the rich man and Lazarus. The poor man is Lazarus, and he’s carried away by the angels (verse 22) to Abraham’s side. The rich man, on the other hand—he died, he was buried, and he’s in—here’s one of the Greek words for hell—Hades, being in torment (verse 23). He lifted up his eyes; he saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. He called out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me. Please send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water to cool my tongue, for I am in anguish”—there’s that motif again—“in this flame.” But Abraham said, “Child, remember that you in your lifetime received good things”—which, the implication in the context of this, is selfishly, and he was a hoarder, and he was greedy, and he was covetous, unconverted, didn’t trust in God, didn’t bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Lazarus, on the other hand, he just sat there and ate scraps from the table that you weren’t even willing to share with him. “Now he’s comforted here, and you’re in anguish there. And besides all this,”—you talk about coming back and forth and sending Lazarus over—“forget it. Between us and you is a great chasm that has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you, as if anybody would want to, they’re not able; and none may cross from there to us. And I know everyone would like to. Sorry. No hope. Abandon every hope, you who enter here.”

He said, “Well then, if that’s the case—if Lazarus can’t come here—why don’t you put him back on earth? I beg you then, father (verse 27), send him to my father’s house. For I have five brothers; send him back so that he can warn them, lest they also come to this place of torment.” And Abraham said, “They have Moses and the Prophets”—aka that’s the Bible of the early part of the first century; they’re looking back at the Old Testament—“let them hear them.” He said, “No, Father Abraham, not enough. They know the Bible. I know they’ve heard that story, but here’s the deal: if someone goes to them from the dead, they’ll repent. I just know how my brothers are. They just need a miracle, then they’ll believe,”—heard that one? Abraham says, “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.” You see some double entendre there? Yeah. And they still don’t—with all the credible information, they still don’t.

Now, hell is a horrible reality according to the teaching of Jesus. It’s something that we should fear according to Jesus. It’s something that is coming, and God, in his goodness, is willing—even, it seems, anxious—to bring it, according to Luke chapter 12, because of the sin that so irks and ingrates against the holiness of God.

Now, I don’t have time to prove the rationale of all this. I have in the past; I’ve tried my best, and on the back I always provide you with some sermons. I try to rank them in order of being germane to the topic I’m preaching on today. But you need to spend some time, perhaps, if you’re one of those new Christians or, you know, neophytes in church, and you’re saying, “Well, I just think it’s overkill—some little sins, and then you get to go to hell forever?” If that’s the way you view this, you need to do some research on this. And if you think, “I don’t get this—God is supposed to be loving, and a loving God wouldn’t do this.” Well, a loving God, as A. W. Pink says, is sure allowing a lot of things here and now that don’t seem to sync very well with your image of what love is. But more importantly, you need to understand the righteousness and justice of God. It’s one of the reasons, in the discussion questions, I lead you to Psalm 97—to consider what that means, and if those are the foundational attributes of God, then where does that lead us? That he is good and he is just; he is righteous and he’s a God of justice. I don’t have time to explore all that.

But let me at least inject a well-worn illustration that I came up with and I’ve given you many times, unless you’re brand new, and that is simply this: I’m going to run next year to be a judge in Orange County. But here’s what I’m going to run as—the loving judge. That’s what I’m going to run as: the loving judge. And I have my campaign slogan—here it comes: “Vote for me, all go free.” Vote for me, all go free. I’ll go down the hallways of Orange County Jail—just unlock, unlock, unlock. All these trials you’re watching on TV—salacious murder, the girl kills her boy—I don’t even need that. Put me on the case. Let’s get me on the stand. “The Honorable Mike Fabarez.” “All rise.” “Hey, sit down—loving pastor. Hey, you’re free. Love you, man.” Loving guy. Forgiving. Because you wouldn’t be a very good judge if you weren’t just, see? But you want God somehow to be good—but not just. I understand how that works: we want God to be just only with people that happen to be worse than us; then it’s okay. We just don’t want him to be just when it comes to my life. God, if he is not just, is not good. And if God is not good, he is not God. I don’t know how many times I’ve said that.

But how important is this doctrine? Well, today it just—it churns my tummy, so I want to write a book that says it doesn’t happen. And I get all these wonderful young Christians going, “Yeah, I’m so glad—no one’s going down.” And yet I open my Bible, and from beginning to end, I hear the warning of the coming, impending judgment of God. You don’t follow somebody with a rumbly tummy who can’t handle it, then okay—but be sure not to take your Bible with you when you read those books.

You and I need to routinely, routinely ponder the judgment of God. Let it motivate you, please. We got a job to do. John the Baptist had a job to do. I think if you understand and routinely ponder the judgment of God, you’re going to be a different kind of Christian in this world. Paul said this—clearly he wasn’t the one who had no time for mourning and weeping. This is Romans chapter 9, verse 2: “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.” You know the context of that: “I wish that I myself were accursed and separated from Christ so that my kinsmen, my brothers—the Jewish people—could be saved.” He wants to trade in his salvation for theirs. I mean, I know this is literary and rhetorical, but what’s his point? “It’s killing me that my friends are going to hell.” Have you even struggled over that lately? Finger—the finger. Next time you see the image, remember what Rodin wanted you to think about: that if your friends don’t repent and put their trust in Christ—I’m not claiming he was a religious Christian or anybody you’d want to go listen to lead a Bible study—but he certainly captured what Dante was going for, and that is this: you’d better understand what’s at stake, and it should affect you to the place where you’re motivated, like the Apostle Paul, to do something about it.

There’s almost a comical statement that comes next in Luke chapter 3. I get the fact that he’s continuing on the theme—he’s holding our head over it: “Man, there’s going to be judgment for those that are unrepentant.” I got it, and we’ve learned from it this morning—let’s routinely ponder that, let’s regularly go back to think about that. But then this weird statement in verse 18—are you with me here? Luke chapter 3, verse 18: “So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people.” Like the soundtrack just changed in verse 18. What are you talking about? You’ve been talking about axes at the root of the trees. You’ve been talking about cutting fruitless trees into the fire. Now you’re talking about chaff being burned up, and you’re telling me this is “good news”? Really? “And with a lot of other things too,” he kept talking about the good news. What—what good news is that?

We need to recognize, about the good news of Jesus Christ—which is different than the “good news” of most people today, it seems, people who would have no time for the bad news—that the good news of Christ is predicated on the bad news. And I’m sorry if this is preaching to the choir, because you’ve heard me say it 25 times, but there is no good news without the bad news. If I don’t understand why I’m building the ark in my backyard, if I don’t recognize why I’m telling my neighbors to get a seat on the ark, if I don’t really ponder the fact that drowning is a terrible way to die, then it’s all just an exercise in academics. It’s all just, “Hey, you want to get a picture by the ark I’m building? Really cool, isn’t it?” It makes no sense.

You and I need to—number two on your outline—we need to see the good in telling the truth. You see, a major component of the gospel is the bad news that sin requires God’s justice to punish us. If you don’t have that, you don’t have the truth of the gospel.

You know, as a parent, you’ve been there. Parents, your kids sometimes come to you with quivering lip and a tear in the corner of their eye—especially dads, you come home at the end of the day, and maybe mom’s forcing them to, or whatever—they come to you and they say, “Dad, I gotta tell you something.” Whenever I see my kid with that setup, I put my hand out and I back up. “I don’t want to hear it. Sounds like bad news to me. Please don’t tell me—what’s for dinner?” Is that how you act, parents? I got it. It usually takes 15 minutes to drag it out of them, right? “What is it?” “You’re gonna be mad.” “I don’t know.” “You’re not gonna like it.” “What is it?” “It’s just… I don’t even want to tell you. Mom says I gotta tell you.” “What is it?” Why do I want that? Because here’s the thing—here’s my fun: “Just spit it out. We can deal with it. I mean, at least let’s find out what it is. We gotta figure it out—put it on the table—and we’ll figure out what to do with it.” See, there’s something good about telling the truth—the whole truth—getting it out there.

You want to tell your neighbors “Jesus loves them”? Yeah, well, that’s half the story. There’s more to it. Let us begin where the Bible begins: he’s a just God who created you, to whom you are accountable. “Hmm, turn them off, man. I don’t know. I don’t think they’ll like that. And you know what? I’m really doing this for God, because I’m trying to kind of protect God’s reputation here. I don’t want them to think badly of God. If I start telling them about sin and judgment and hell, they’re like, ‘God…’ I’m just protecting you.” Hey—God doesn’t need you to protect him. He’s fine on his own. You just do what you’re called to do. What are you called to do? To preach the good news. What’s the good news? There’s an ark that has been established and built. I know it’s a terrible way to start a conversation: “There is a flood coming.” But see, the good news is there’s a flood coming that you rightly deserve to drown in—but there’s a way out. And without the bad news, there is no contrasting conjunction. All there is in our sentence is, “Hey, try God. Jesus might help you.” “With what?” “I don’t… just—he’ll save you.” “From what?” “I… just loneliness? Bad parenting? I don’t know. He’ll save you.” You think I’m kidding. Have you heard me quote the stat? The missionaries—candidate missionaries in school—were asked the question, “What are people saved from?” Half of them couldn’t give the right answer. What are we evangelizing people to? What is the good news?

Two passages real quick—Old Testament. They’re almost next-door neighbors: Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Let’s start in Jeremiah 23. You need to see the good in telling the truth. Here is John talking a lot about axes at the root of the trees and being thrown into the fire, and here the inspired writer says, “Oh, he went on talking about the good news. He said a lot about it: the good news.” Why is this so good? Because it’s good when you transmit the whole message. You do not have the right to redact it.

Two things I want to see here—one from Jeremiah and one from Ezekiel. Let’s start with Jeremiah—Jeremiah chapter 23. You have a responsibility to the recipient. That’s the first place I go: if you want to love somebody, give them the truth. Don’t give them half of the truth—give them the truth. You have a responsibility. You ever—you’re watching the news and they’ll throw up some document from the Pentagon or from the State Department, and it’ll be redacted—censored, right? There’s all those black boxes. Isn’t that really what you want to read—the part that’s under the what? I want to see that—all of that. We Christians are so good at redacting the message with these altruistic motives that we’re just trying to help God’s reputation out so no one dislikes God. The reality is God is mad at sin. That’s what it means—the wrath of God. And he’s coming back to judge. Don’t redact the message. You have no right to censor it. Why? Because if you love people, you’re going to give them the message that God is interested in.

Now, I understand this. We’re all tempted to want to be liked. I want people to like me. I want people to like my Christianity. I want people to like my God. I want people to really think that the Christ that I sang to Sunday morning at church is a really good person. So I’m tempted to redact it. If you become a redactor—a censor—of Christ’s message, verse 16 tells you what the Lord thinks. The Lord wants to tell the people that you work with and that you live next door to, “Don’t listen to him. Don’t listen to her.” Why? Because she’s giving—he’s giving—you information that is not the information I gave. He’s redacting it. Verse 16 says, “Thus says the LORD of hosts: Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you; they are filling you with vain hopes.” What do they say? “They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD.” Now, I’ve got some things in my mind that I think—if I want to think about eternity and when you die, what happens—I’ve got all kinds of ideas about how that should work. And if God ever wanted to consult me, I’ve got ideas as to how you could do this. But I’m not called to do that. And that’s what these Christian books are all about, you understand—“Oh, I think God should do it this way. This is how I view it. This is the kind of God I think exists.” Or I can go to the word that God has spoken. They can either speak visions from their own minds, or from the mouth of the Lord.

And the problem is, with a lot of people, they speak visions from their own minds. What do they say? Well, this is a very appealing message: they say to those who despise the word of the Lord, “It shall be well with you”; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, “No disaster shall come upon you.” We hear this a lot in the prophets: “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace. God is not happy with you, and you’re telling them that God loves you—everything’s fine. Everything’s not fine. God’s anger is about to come—break forth—against this world.

Verse 18: “For who among them has stood in the council of the LORD to see and to hear his word, or who has paid attention to his word and listened?” Behold, the storm of the Lord—wrath—has gone forth, a whirling tempest; it will burst upon the head of the wicked. When was the last time you warned somebody in your workplace about that? “The anger of the LORD will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intents of his heart. In the latter days you will understand it clearly.” I love that line—it’s worth highlighting. “In the latter days you will understand.” I love the way these books talk about the judgment of God, and they’re always scratching, you know, a big bald spot on the top of their head, trying to—“I don’t, I don’t get it. This doesn’t make sense.” I love this line: “Hey, in the latter days you’ll understand it clearly.” You’ll get it. I know you think it’s unjust of God to send people to hell—you won’t. In the latter days you’ll clearly understand it. Everyone from heaven’s perspective gets the concept of hell. They understand it, and they all say, “God is holy. God is just.” As the angels say in the book of Revelation, pouring out the wrath of God on the last generation: “They deserve it.” That’s a statement of justice. They get it.

As for these people that redact the message: “I didn’t send them” (verse 21). “I didn’t send the prophets, yet they ran; I didn’t speak to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my council”—that’s what I’m pleading with you to do: open the Bible; read what Christ taught—“then they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their deeds.” How can you say you’re loving to the recipient if you don’t give them the whole message? “I don’t want to upset him.” Man, if I told you, you know, at 12:15 (I meant to tell you this earlier, but I didn’t want to disturb you), there’s going to be a bomb that blows up here in the auditorium. And I kind of thought, “I shouldn’t tell you, because I just know how people are with news about bombs being in their building—I think it’d be good.” So, you know, you might see me slip out at about 12:14, because I want to make sure I don’t get blown up. But at least you’ll be happy all the way to the end, and you’ll probably still like me, because I won’t give you any disturbing news. You following this?

You want to be nice to your friend at work and just say to your neighbor, your family, “God loves you. God—Jesus.” You can say that all the way till the day that they die, and at one point they’ll stand as someone who heard the redacted message of Christ through you, and they’ll stand there before the tribunal of God. I can only imagine, if they could—or perhaps they will—looking at you, saying, “What’s up with what you told me all those years? You never warned me.”

You love the recipient—you want to talk about Jesus to someone at work this week? Tell them the truth. There’s no joy in this—I warned you last week. There’s no happiness in this. There’s no glee, there’s no pride, there’s no haughtiness. This is just sad news: we’re all a bunch of sinners that deserve the wrath of God, and I’ve got to start the conversation with the fact that the wrath of God is coming.

Ezekiel 33—you’re not only responsible to the recipient; you’re accountable to the one who sent you. And I don’t think we take this seriously enough, and there’s no better illustration in the Old Testament than this on this one issue of you being accountable as a steward of a message. Look at the way this is put, beginning in verse 1: “The word of the LORD came to me” (Ezekiel 33:1). God says to Ezekiel, “Son of man, speak to your people and say to them”—here’s the illustration now; you ready?—“If I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them and make him their watchman; and if he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people”—are you tracking with this so far? Let’s say that God says to the northern tribes, “Assyria is going to come against you,” or in the south, that’ll be Babylon—“Babylon is going to come and attack you.” Or at some point in Old Testament history, the Philistines are going to come against you. So you take a guy and you say, “You’re going to sit up there, and when you see the army approaching, you warn us.” There’s the picture. If he does—he sees the army approaching, he blows the trumpet, he says, “Hey everybody, here they come—the Philistines are coming!”—then, “If anyone who hears the sound of the trumpet does not take warning” (they don’t pick up their swords and get ready to fight and defend themselves or flee or hide or whatever), “and the sword comes and takes him away—his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet and did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But if he had taken warning, he would have saved his life.”

“But if the watchman sees the sword coming and”—says, “Oh, I don’t want to wake anybody up with the sound of this blaring trumpet. I don’t want to upset anybody. I don’t want to talk about swords and judgment. I don’t want to say any of that”—“does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned; and the sword comes and takes any one of them— that person is taken away in his iniquity” (and the analogy this is all about—this is a deserving onslaught of God’s judgment; he’s still going to be dead because he deserved to be), “but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.” Wow.

“So you, son of man”—now let’s make this very clear—“I know, Ezekiel, you’re tired of the hellfire and brimstone sermons that I’m making you preach, but I’ve made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth”—here’s a good line to underline—“you shall give them warning from me.” You an evangelical Christian? Really? You’re going to give people the news? Give them the warning. “If I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked one, you shall surely die,’ and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way—that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way—that person shall die in his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul.”

And I look at the last two analogies here in verses 8 and 9. In both cases, the person dies. In one case you warn them, and in one case you don’t. Here the responsibility and the onus shifts from the person you’re sharing with—because here it doesn’t seem to make much difference, and that may be your rationale: “I don’t want to talk to this person about the coming wrath of God because I don’t think they’re even going to respond to it.” It doesn’t matter if you think they’re going to respond to it. The only difference here is God holds the messenger accountable for not sharing the message.

Remember when Paul was leaving Ephesus after three years of ministry in Acts chapter 20? When he’s leaving, he makes an interesting statement—something that’s misquoted all the time. I hear this misapplied all the time. He says, “I preached to you the whole counsel of God.” Remember that line? And here—and you know what we think? We think of J. Vernon McGee—made his way all the way through the Bible, man. Paul must have preached a sermon from every chapter of the Old Testament. He’s going, “Look, I preached to you the whole counsel of God.” That is not what we’re talking about in that context. The context there in Acts 20—what precedes that is this: “I went around in Ephesus, even from house to house, not withholding anything from you that was profitable, teaching you”—what?—“repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Now, it’s one thing to teach our friends, “Hey, you need to trust in Christ. You need to trust in Christ.” Here’s the negative side, and it starts this way: repent. Repentance assumes a few things: it assumes that we’re sinners; it assumes that needs to stop; it assumes that if you don’t stop, you’re going to be punished. That’s the warning side of it. He says, “I preached to you both sides of this good-news message—the bad side, the good. I’ve told you the whole truth.” And it was a good thing I gave you the whole truth, because here’s what he says next (I’ll quote it for you, verse 26): “Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.” Think about that. If you don’t think he has Ezekiel 33 in mind, then you underestimate Paul’s knowledge of the Old Testament. Clearly this is in his head. God is not going to require their blood of me, because I told them. I told them—even if I thought they weren’t going to respond—I told them. I warned them. I told them to repent.

You’ve got to see the good in telling the truth. “Yeah, Mike, but you don’t realize how mad all my friends are going to be if I start talking about sin and judgment. You don’t understand how they will criticize me—they won’t like me.” You don’t get it. You really think I don’t get that? I don’t understand that? I don’t like that? I’ve lost a few friends over that—a few winks—I get it. I get it. You know who else really gets it—who’s been attacked for telling the truth far more than me? John the Baptist.

Let’s go back to him real quick—Luke chapter 3, verse 19. The man who is all about preaching the good news, which included the threat that you may “burn with unquenchable fire,” speaks now anachronistically. We’re now going to get a piece of information about John that is out of chronological order. We’re about to, in verse 21, start talking about his baptism, but now he’s going to talk about him getting locked up in prison. And here’s how the story goes—verse 19: “But Herod the tetrarch”—remember, we tried to explain briefly and untangle the Herods. There’s a million of them in the New Testament, and we kind of built a little chart at the beginning of this chapter, in chapter 3. But one of the Herods that rules here in this area is Herod Antipas. That’s the one that’s just called Herod in this context—Herod Antipas—“had been reproved by him”—that’s the word to rebuke someone; it’s the same Greek word that’s used when Jesus says, “When someone sins, go and show him his fault”—point it out, the error of his way. He—Herod Antipas—“had been reproved by John [the Baptist] for Herodias, his brother’s wife.” Now, we’d have to look at the parallel passages in the Synoptic Gospels, but this is Herod Philip—his brother Philip. Antipas’s brother is married to a gal named Herodias (they must be related—Herod, Herodias). They are—it gets a little icky here—Philip marries his niece. Philip marries his niece, and Josephus tells us on a trip to Rome from Judea, Herod Antipas spends a little time with his bro Philip and gets enamored with Philip’s wife, who happens to be also Antipas’s niece (gross), and decides he’s going to steal his wife away—and successfully does. And it becomes scandal headline news: “Antipas Steals Brother’s Wife—Also Niece.” I mean, this sounds like it’s out of the headlines today. This would happen, you know, on the news shows.

Now, if you didn’t follow all that, just remember: this is bad. Okay? What happened was bad. And so, when John the Baptist gets an opportunity to get a little face time with Herod Antipas, guess what—he doesn’t say, “Oh, can I get a picture with you?” He goes, “Dude, you have been in the headlines for stealing your brother’s wife. That’s wrong. That’s sinful.” He points out his fault—he rebukes him. “Reproved” is the translation here—shows him his fault. But he didn’t stop there (bottom of verse 19): “and for all the evil things that Herod had done, [he] added this to them all, that he locked up John in prison.” John now gets thrown in prison because he’s telling Herod, “You shouldn’t have your brother’s wife.”

You want to talk about someone who knows the pain and the repercussions and the reactions of telling people the truth? So it’s John the Baptist. You know where that ends, right? We don’t have it in this text, but you know what happens to him with Herodias and Herod Antipas. As a matter of fact, speaking of Rodin—as part of his big ensemble of sculptures, part of The Gates of Hell—he has, as one of the components of it (if you know French art), actually John the Baptist’s head on a platter, to remind us of the impenitent heart that’s willing to go to all lengths to say, “I’m not a sinner. I’m not a sinner. Stop preaching to me.”

Here’s what Jesus said about it. You remember the whole list of Beatitudes—“Blessed is this,” and “Blessed is that.” The last one is: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.” John the Baptist knew what it was like to get thrown into prison because he spoke up to a non-Christian about his sin. That’s what motivates the word “gladly” on your third point. We need to gladly endure the reaction. Are you going to have a reaction—a negative reaction—if you move from the cultural Christianity of “Jesus loves you. It’s great—try God. It’ll be good. Your marriage will improve and your skin will look better and it’ll be good for you. Just try Jesus,”—if you move from that message to, “You know what? The whole message of Christ makes no sense until it is predicated on the foundational truth that you are a sinner; God is your Maker; you’re accountable to him; and the wrath of God is coming”—when you move to that, and you start preaching that way, you’re going to have a reaction from a lot of people that is negative. We don’t do it gleefully. We don’t do it joyfully. It’s not a happy truth. But we share the whole truth faithfully, as a good steward of the message. And what I’m saying to you is: when you get the negative reaction, Jesus taught us to gladly endure it.

And speaking of John in prison, I think of Silas and Paul in prison—after their beating, in prison—what are they found doing at midnight? Couldn’t sleep because of the pain, I’m sure, in their bodies; singing hymns to God. They took that—what the next line says in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God.” There’s a great truth right there. Then it says this: “Rejoice and be glad when they revile you and say all kinds of evil things about you on account of me. Rejoice and be glad, for so they treated the prophets.” You want to invert that—Jesus did it for us in Luke chapter 6: “Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so they did to the false prophets.” You’ve got a choice to make. You have a choice to make: tell the truth, and gladly endure the negative reaction that you’ll receive, and stand in the long line of people that were gutsy enough to tell the truth.

Now, the question for me is, “Why do you have to be such a preachy little pest—to stand there with a political leader and start talking about his sin, when you just could have got the photo and gone on to a more receptive crowd and preached a little gospel message to someone else? Why such a preachy pest?” Here’s the one word: love. I’ve already mentioned it—love. “Now come on, you really thought Herod Antipas was a good prospect in your evangelism? You really thought you could lead him to Christ?” Even if he didn’t think he could lead him to Christ, to sit there as a part of the voice from heaven to say, “What you’re doing is wrong,” is a loving act. And let me show you real quickly why. One last passage—Romans chapter 2.

Romans chapter 2—now follow this. We’ve got Herod stealing his brother’s wife—taking Herodias as his own. John shows up, and the first thing he does is confront him about his sin. Why would that be an act of love? It seems like you’re just pestering this guy. I get that—it seems that way. But here’s the deal: I don’t know if we think about hell the way we ought to. It is not just a place of passive judgment where God steps away and takes his goodies with him—although that’s true: “away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power.” It is also a place of active retribution, and that means you are judged according to what you have done.

As a matter of fact, let’s start at the bottom of this text. Look at verse 8: “But for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.” So for non-Christian behavior, there is wrath and fury on the day of judgment from God, and God will then assign them a place in the lake of fire—that’s what the Bible teaches. When you continue in your sin, what you’re doing—according to verse 5—is: your hard and impenitent heart continues to store up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. “He will render to each one according to his works.” To those who, by patience in well-doing, seek for glory and honor and immortality (which are only the converted hearts among us), well—he’ll give eternal life. “But for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—there will be wrath and fury.”

Have you ever noticed that even non-Christians can curtail their passions and sometimes choose to do the right thing? What good is that? Oh, it’s really a good thing—even if they end up in a place of retribution at the end of their lives—because the less they sinned here and now, according to the Bible (and read Revelation 20), “the books will be opened, and they will be judged according to the things that they’ve done.” Even if Herod never becomes a converted follower of Christ, if he repents of his sin—if he makes it right even with that one thing—and doesn’t continue down a path of sin in his sexual ethics, he will be spared punishment, at least in that regard. This is a loving thing. I know you think, “Well, you know what, just us Christians—we just need to continue to talk about sin and all of that here in our church. We can talk about it here—kind of an insider thing. You know, my neighbor—going through that divorce; sleeping with that… I don’t want to get involved in that. I don’t want to be— I’m not Mrs. Kravitz—I don’t want to, you know, be nosing around my neighborhood.” Well, listen: if you are willing to stand up and boldly endure the reaction—and there may be a reaction—you will perhaps spare someone. “Well, they don’t want to hear it.” Listen—they’re already hearing it. They’re already hearing it. Drop down in this passage, if you would, to verse 15: people “show that the work of the law is written on their hearts.” You don’t think God—the day that Herod brought Herodias into his bedroom and he disrobed her and they engaged in sexual relations—you don’t think that in his heart he felt the pang of conscience? You don’t think Herodias felt the pang of conscience there? You bet they did. Man, that was something that they were fighting in their own hearts. “Their conscience also bears witness,” to the truth that that was wrong. But, in the middle of verse 15, “their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them”—when it’s right, they excuse themselves; when it’s wrong, they accuse. And all that’s going to come to bear “on the day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.”

“You should have known better. You did know better.” Matter of fact, back to verse 1: everyone knows better. “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.” “Well, you can’t use that line with Herod, because he’s not judging anybody.” Oh, but he would. Let’s say Pilate runs into town on his nice, sparkly, gold chariot—says, “Ooh, Herodias—hot,” and he decides to steal Herodias from Herod Antipas. You think Herod Antipas—“Oh, that’s how we roll around here in Judea. We just steal each other’s wives. It’s cool, man. Enjoy.” You think that’s how he’s going to commentate on that? No way. No way. He’s so easily seeing the right and wrong when the wrong is done against him. That’s in his conscience. He knows that. And the Bible says, because you have the ability to pass judgment on others—and all of us do, don’t we? All of us do. I mean, when that gal gossips against you and you hear about it—“Yeah, I never liked that gal. She’s a gossip. I hate that type of sin—we ought to preach on it.” Get past my… if we don’t gossip. We could roll the tape back, though. I know you call it “sharing prayer requests,” but we could go back and see you do the same. And you—just go on the freeway. How quick are we to point out the bad driving skills of everyone else—like I’m not going out of my lane. But when we swerve into someone’s—“Oh, we’re just playing with the radio—sorry, oops.” You know—we’ve got all kinds of reasons that we’re good drivers and everybody else is bad. Why? Because we can see clearly when someone else is doing it. And the Bible says all you do is turn that little ability to judge back on yourself.

“We know” (verse 2) “that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.” And hey—if you love someone, you’re going to point that out. “Hey, Herod, what would you think if Pilate stole Herodias from you? Would you think that was good? No, you wouldn’t, would you? You know better. Your conscience attests to this, doesn’t it? You need to repent—because God’s judgment rightly falls on people who do that kind of thing. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—do you think you’re going to escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience—not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?”

See, Herod could say, “Well, you know what—it’s working out with me and Herodias, John. Just—come on. God hasn’t zapped me. If your God is so mad at sin, then why doesn’t he zap me already? I even got a nice little note before I went off to the palace today from Herodias—cute little love note. Things are fine. God’s going to bless this. Stop with your ‘God judging me’ thing.” John’s response to that is: “I know he hasn’t judged you. You know why he hasn’t judged you yet? Because he wants to lead you to repentance.” Your neighbor’s going to say, “Well, I can do this—God—It’s fine. Fine.” There’s a time, obviously, to kick the dust off your sandals and move on, but we ought to be real clear with those we see who are sinning—even the non-Christian. Point it out. Evangelism is about making clear that we’re sinners. Gladly endure the reaction.

Funny how we’re so willing to endure the reaction in other areas of our lives. My little daughter, you know, she’s a little different—you know, she’s got leg braces—she’s paralyzed in her knee. If one of my daughters came home from school and said, “Daddy, all the girls at school hate me. Hate me. Hate me, ‘cause I’m different,” you think I’m going to go, “Well, yeah, you know—that just, you know…” Don’t you expect that any dad is going to put his arm around his daughter and say, “Who are they? Care, right? I mean, I’m going to stand in solidarity with you. I don’t care if they really do hate you. Well, they’ll have to hate me too, because I stand with you.” Any dad—any mom would do that to their kids. You don’t even need to be an Orange County parent to do that—you’re going to do that.

Funny how we’re willing to stand in solidarity and take the hatred and the maligning or the insults of someone for someone in our family. But here’s Christ saying, “I know my message is harsh. I realize the truth of judgment is a tough pill to swallow. I’d like you to stand with me.” Christ would have you stand with him. Gladly endure the reaction—we’ll get it.

Hey, let me talk to you non-Christian for a sec. You don’t know where you stand with God. There’s no better sermon than one about the judgment of God. That’s how all the preaching, it seems, in the New Testament—in the book of Acts—it brings it back to that. Let me just talk to you: where are you going to spend eternity? Seriously. “Oh, I just think it’s all a myth.” Well, really? Really? Your conscience really testifies that all this is a myth? Really? “I’m more of an agnostic”—it’s amazing how many hardened agnostics turn very theistic on their deathbed. Amazing how that happens when you face your own mortality and you stand there at the threshold of meeting your Creator.

How about today—before you take another step in this world and risk meeting your Maker without the benefit of being aligned with Christ? Today would be a good day for you to get this right. You know there’s a lot at stake. “I just don’t believe it.” Really? You don’t believe it? If you don’t believe it, by the way, I think—well, let’s stop piecemealing the Bible. Either we embrace the truth of God’s impending judgment or we move on to some other religion, because, you know, almost every other one just sweeps this right under the carpet. Right? Hindus, Buddhists—I mean, you name it. I mean, the Christian cults—they’ve all done this. “Ah, JWs—oh, there’s no hell.” Right? So they are annihilationists. Time for you to come to repentance. What does that mean? You know what it means—you do. Turning from sin, seeing the evident fruit of repentance in your life, clinging to Christ as the only solution—having that real faith in Christ be the expression of your life every day. You’re not trusting in your works; you’re trusting in what Christ did for you.

And evangelical Christian—how’s your message? Has it been censored, trimmed up, redacted, glossed up? Have you excised all the things that turn your stomach? Hey—in a day when everyone’s careful not to hurt anybody else’s feelings, I was amazed. A couple summers back, with my obligatory family trip to D.C., to move into the Jefferson Memorial—after having gone to several, I was done. Dads are usually done after the first one. But I walked into that one, reading the marble walls there, and the northeast panel on the Jefferson Memorial—there was an excerpt from one of Jefferson’s letters (not a paragon of Christian theology, by the way), but there was something there on the wall that I thought, you know, we’re not even courageous, it seems, in our evangelism to talk about God’s justice. But here I am in a, you know, a taxpayer—our national park—reading about something that causes an Orange County pastor to pause and go, “Wow, that’s it.” Can we at least have the boldness of the phrasing from the northeast panel of the Jefferson Memorial? Which, by the way, if you look up the original letter that Jefferson wrote, he’s talking in the context about the wrath of God, and then he says, in the next line that’s inscribed on the wall: “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just and that his justice cannot sleep forever.” If you’re not bold enough to talk about hell and the torments of unquenchable fire, can you at least have the boldness of the Jefferson Memorial? Have a little conversation this week about, “You know what? I just tremble at the thought of God being a just God and that his justice isn’t going to lie dormant forever. Concerned for you about the justice of God.”

You see, because we as Christians are either part of the problem or part of the solution. If we’re overly concerned about hurt feelings or jail cells or achy bellies, you’re going to redact the message, and we’ll just reduce ourselves to nothing other than a bunch of impotent, ineffectual do-gooders in society. You can go from almost one church website to the next—and that’s what it is. Or you be part of the solution. “I don’t want to become the caricature of the sandwich-board, bell-ringing, ‘Turn or burn’ guy.” Why do you care so much about what people think of you? Seriously—that really matters that much if they call you a name? Or you’re afraid of becoming the caricature of the “Turn or burn—fire and…” Hey, can you get over that? Christ was willing to die for you. John the Baptist was willing to be beheaded to stand firm on the truths of sin, justice, and the coming wrath of God. It’s important for us to speak up just a little bit more about the truth—the whole truth—of the message of the gospel. Yeah, it’ll cost us. I’d like to be more concerned about him than people.

I warned you—I wasn’t going to enjoy this message. It’s not one to be enjoyed. Please don’t tell me you enjoyed the message today. It wasn’t mine, and if you did, something’s wrong with you. But if it made you think—if, perhaps, as we started, it makes you look down and ponder, in your imagination, those who will enter the turnstile of the eternal abode where there is no hope—and a God who rightly dispenses that kind of justice on the impenitent—then we’ve done our job here today.

I lost sleep over this message. It’s been a hard one for me to preach. Speaking of J. Vernon McGee—he used to say, “No one should preach on hell unless they’re willing to weep and mourn over its reality.” And I can say that I have. And I can say that you, in receiving this message, I hope, would be ones that wouldn’t gleefully just pass it off as, “Oh, yeah, I know that. I believe that. I’ve always believed that.” Please don’t go there. There’s a time to laugh, and there’s a time to weep; a time to dance, and there’s a time to mourn. Calvin said, after commenting on all the ways hell was described, he says, “The Holy Spirit clearly intended to confound our hearts with dread over the coming judgment of God.” Your heart and my heart need to be confounded with dread so that we can perhaps become more faithful messengers of the gospel.

Let’s pray.

God, gone again over time here, talking about your Son’s favorite preacher. I don’t want to make too much of that statement, but Christ did say, “Of those born of women, none greater than John the Baptist.” The man was willing to gladly endure the negative reaction from those in his day, bold to stand before the powers of his day, to tell it like it is. And we praise you for the example of John.

More importantly, we praise you for your Son, Jesus Christ, willingly incurring the wrath for us—and that there is an ark, there is a way out, there’s a place where the wrath and justice of God has already been. And we understand we can’t beat this into the heads of our neighbors and co-workers, but if we haven’t been faithful to express the fullness of the gospel, let us do that—as simply, maybe, as just the words that are already inscribed on the walls of public places in D.C.: “God is just.” It scares us that he’s not going to let his justice sleep forever.

So, God, prepare our hearts to be more faithful with this message. Give us a sense of sobriety about what’s at stake. Let us contemplate this as we ought.

In Jesus’ name, amen.