Northside Church - Sydney
Roadblocks Week 3: HELL – Why does God seem so angry?
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Well, great to have you in church tonight, particularly if you're a bit new with us. Wanted to just reiterate, engage on Saturday. If you want to just connect with us and hang out, we're going to be down there for a bit of brunch and it'd be great to have you down at DY hopefully this weather holds out a bit. So kudos to Jesse for getting it all together and happening. Hope to see you there. Look, I'll never forget the words of my Palestinian flatmate at the time. She said, "I believe in hell." And you know, our conversations sort of tend to roll on from the weather straight into topics like hell. It somehow did on that particular night as we were sitting there in the lounge room and she began to explain to me. But she'd been taught as a girl. She'd pretty much been taught that she had to do all the right things and that if she didn't do the right things, then some form of snake was going to come up out of the ground and swallow her whole and drag it down into the fires of hell. Now, this is not a comment on the theology of whatever she was believing at the time. But it's not far off what a lot of people can imagine that it's like. What it said to me was that most religions of the world, whether it's Islam or Judaism or Christianity, most of the major religions believe in some concept of hell, a place of spiritual evil and suffering. And sadly, sadly, the church over the years has used this concept to help to sort of scare people into the faith, right? I mean, coming here tonight, we're talking about this topic and maybe you've been the sort of person that's been put off by the faith because of people that have preached this hell stuff at you and scared you into it and this poor flatmate of mine, she was scared. Or this religion where somehow this snake was going to come up and eat her. Look, as a result of this type of misconceptions around hell, in our culture today, hell is probably one of the most offensive doctrines of Christianity, right? One of the things that turns people right off is why we've been preaching this series called roadblocks because it can be one of the great roadblocks to faith in Jesus Christ. How you view hell, how you see hell. And the objection is normally this, you know, someone says, "You Christians often talk about a loving God, if he's so loving, then what about hell? How can you believe in a God that seems to be loving and yet angry at the same time?" Now for us Christians here tonight, we stand at it, across roads, we can either sort of deny it and it can be our sort of little, it can be the elephant in the room. We just won't talk about it, we'll talk about all the love stuff, or we can understand it. Why is it so important to understand the Christian perspective of hell? Like you saw in the example of my flatmate, how you see hell, how you see the perspective on hell, one perspective can produce a religion of total and not of fear. Another perspective can create a religion of incredible love and gratitude and most of all, would it surprise you when I say that Jesus himself spoke of hell and the judgment of God more than any of the other biblical writers put together. And so if he spoke about it, then maybe we should talk about it. And that's what we're going to do tonight, it's a safe place, it's all going to be good. But we're going to see what God's Word says about this interesting topic and roadblock. If you go to Bibles, you can turn with me to Luke chapter 16 verses 19 through to 31. The rich man and Lazarus, there was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate later beggar named Lazarus, covered with saws and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his saws. When the time came, when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side, the rich man also died and was buried. In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called to him, "Father Abraham have pity on me and said, 'Lazarus, to dip the tip of his finger in water and call my tongue because I'm in agony in this fire.' But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received good things while Lazarus received bad things. But now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this between us and you, a great chasm has been fixed so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.' He answered, 'Then I beg you, Father, send Lazarus to my Father's house for I have five brothers. Let him warn them so that they will not also come to this place of torment.' And Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets, let them listen to them.' No, Father Abraham, he said, 'But if someone from the dead goes to them, then they'll repent.' He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' That wasn't a made-up bit of the Bible, it wasn't a commentary. That was a story told by Jesus himself in a whole stack of his different teachings throughout the book of Luke. Jesus is saying through this parable, or story, which we've just read, that inevitably there will be a day in which we are called to account for our actions in this life. In other words, first and foremost, the broad picture that the Bible paints about God is that of a judge. Now, I'm already hearing people saying, 'See, I told you that this God was an angry judge. I told you. But what I want to put to you tonight is that you need a God who is a good judge. You need a God who gets angry at the things that are wrong with this world. Here's why. Firstly, Miraslav Volf, the theologian, says, 'A God who does not get angry at injustice in this world is not a God who is worthy of worship.' I mean, could you handle a God who sees the exploitation of young children for sex in other countries? Could you handle a God who sees the economic exploitation of entire nations by corrupt leaders who sees that and does nothing? Doesn't even get emotional about it? Could you seriously worship a God who looks upon that and say whatever? That's all cool. A God who doesn't get angry at the injustices of the world is not worthy of worship. But not only that, seeing God as a good judge allows us to deal with the injustices that we might face in our own lives. See, the real question is, if we ourselves get angry at the injustice of the world around us, then can our passion for justice in the world be honored in a way that doesn't lead us to violence? If we see people murdering other people, you know, what's to stop us just going and murdering those people that are doing wrong? I call it the Dan Carter principle. It is rugby season, and so you're going to have to bear with me because it's just started again. And Dan is an old schoolmate of mine, and now he plays for the New South Wales Warrattars, and he had a horrendous thing happen to him this season already. We're only two weeks into the season. He was eye gouged. And Dan was eye gouged, and it looked terrible on the replay. It would have hurt. It would talk about torment, nothing would have hurt. And what I couldn't get is how Dan, when all of this happened, didn't sort of go across to the guy, Burns, I think his name was, but it doesn't matter. I'm not following it anymore. I've let it go. Why did he not go and punch this guy in the face? I mean, I for an eye, so to speak, I for an eye gouge, it would have been fair, right? And yet, the ref did this funny thing. They hear it all out, and they do it in the leg as well. Does his hands like this? I don't even know what that really meant until I looked it up, meant that the guy was on report. You see, Dan was able to withhold his retaliation back against Burns, because he knew that there was a video referee watching the entire match. Now, guys, if we're to break the cycles of retaliation in our lives, and we need a universal video referee, right, we need a judge who we know is a video referee who's watching every single little move that is being made, every single little cheap shot that is happening to you or the innocent people in and around this world, we need a God who is a good judge. Now, you're saying, "Oh, well, if God's an angry judge, then he can't be loving. How can he be a loving judge? Well, that can't be possible." Well, look, I put it to you tonight that all loving people are sometimes filled with wrath, not just regardless of their love, but because of their love. I mean, any of you that is a parent and see something happen that's wrong or bad to your child, then you can be filled with wrath at the same time as well as your love there. Look, put it another way. Imagine that you had a brother or a sister, maybe some of you tragically are in this situation, and you've got a brother or sister who is a drug addict. You see the terrible destruction that they're causing to their own lives, and every injection of that drug, every crushing of their soul emotionally and physically tears you up inside, and your response to it is not one of, "Ha, ha, ha, ha, what doesn't matter." It's one of anger, it's one of wrath. And when you see that personal destruction, it doesn't diminish your love, it just makes the love more intense, and here's why, because wrath is defined as settled opposition and hatred of that which is destroying what we love. And so in that sense, God's wrath flows from his opposition to the destruction of that which he loves. You go and read the story of the Bible that says, "God's creation, who you are, it was meant to be good and beautiful and wonderful and harmonious in relationship, who was supposed to be in loving, healthy relationship with God and with each other, and when sin entered the world, it broke that up." And so in other words, the wrath of God is not some personal vendetta against those who happen to slip up or have a bad week. Instead, this is a God that looks at his beloved children that are soft-destructing and he is angry. How can a loving God be an angry judge if a parent that is torn up at a child who is self-destructing, if a human parent can be torn up and angry at what that child is doing to themselves and how much more would the God of the universe be angry at the destruction of his own good creation? You need a good and just judge of the world because what sort of God is he if he doesn't get angry? Not one worthy of worship. What sort of God is he? You need a third umpire to handle the everyday injustices of the world and maybe even your own life. You need a video referee in your life and not only that, his judgment is not an emotional anger for the sake of it, but a settled opposition to that which is destroying what he loves, his good creation. So there's a judge. We also learned tonight when we talk about this topic of hell that there's a prison that's a tough word to use, but it really is that in some respects, that's what we see in Lazarus's story here. He's trapped, he's begging to get out, and at the least he asked that he might be able to warn his family members here, and then we read in verse 22 to 24, it says, "The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side, and the rich man was also died and buried. In hell where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side." He said, "Father Abraham, have pity on me and sin Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and call my tongue because I am in agony in this fire." Now, we read a passage like that and some of you are thinking, "Sam, you're not doing yourself a favor tonight with this whole thing, right?" And some of you read that, and it's fuel for the ammunition to say, "See, it's exactly what I thought it was all about, fiery torment, and therefore my question is how can a loving God send people to this hell?" And the view that we have in our society at the moment often is like that, isn't it, for some God, the descending people down to this fiery pit and he's standing on the side of it and he's wringing hands, he's looking down there and he's smiling to himself and he's saying, "Suckers." But what we do see out of this passage is we see two things here. First of all, we see the reality of hell, that there is a prison. Hell is a real place. I don't shy away from that tonight. I can't shy away from that when we see the way that Jesus talks about that in the Word of God. He spoke more than anyone else, as I said tonight, but we must understand the doctrine of hell as Christians because maybe we misunderstood and secretly hoped that we don't talk about that and we don't have to worry about that and God's a loving God and it's all not going to matter. But if Jesus talked about it so much, then there must be a reality to it. But also we see the imagery of hell, all types of images, the lake of fire, the weeping and gnashing of teeth, the rubbish tip that is Gehenna, there are all these images of hell that we have in the Bible, but virtually all the commentators say that all of these images are metaphorical. They're not literal. There's not a place that's literally this lake of burning fire down there. It's not literal. But the tragic thing is that that's not much comfort to us because what Jesus is alluding to is to say that is a terrible thing, but what I'm alluding to is far worse. And so hell is a real place that Jesus was constantly warning people about a place that's not a nice place to be, guys. And yet you ask, "Well, if it's so bad, how can God send people there then?" Look at verse 25. Look at the language used in here. Verse 25 of this passage says, "But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received good things while Lazarus received bad things." Look at the language, "Son, there's pity. There's tragedy in that. When he looks down at him, what term does Abraham use? He doesn't say you filthy sinner, you sucker, you punk. You know, he doesn't say that. He says, "Son, there's pity in, there's sadness, and tragedy it can only mean one thing for us here tonight that we can get out of this. Don't miss this." The God doesn't look at people in that place. If we even knew what it really was with anything other than sadness. Sadness and pity and tragedy and heart that is breaking for them and commentators, you know, why is that? It's because commentators make a really interesting observation here. Look at the title of this passage. It's the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man and Lazarus, verse 19 to 20. There's a rich man who is dressed in purple and at his gate laid a beggar named Lazarus, the rich man, and Lazarus, one has a name and that's the poor guy and the other has a label. You pick that up? Now, interesting, why is this not the parable of Bernie and Lazarus? Why is this not the parable of John and Lazarus, whatever his name is, why is there a label on this guy? And I believe that Jesus is hinting part of the reason why this guy was in that place of torment in the first place. Jesus is highlighting his sin and you're thinking, "Well, what's his sin? I can't, I can't read anything out of this passage that tells me what his sin is about." But the hint is in the title, you see the traditional view of sin and the Bible is that of bad deeds, you know, you do bad things and then you're going to miss out on heaven. But the Bible in the broad picture never really talks of sin that way. It talks about sin as idolatry, the worship of anything other than God. And so what had happened here, the sub-meaning of what Jesus is telling us here in this story and why this guy is in hell is not because he's had a bad week, not because he slipped up, but because he built an identity for himself that became so paramount in his life that eventually it's what he became forever. He no longer had a name, what he worshiped became his identity, he was forever known as the rich man. Now, Tim Keller and his book The Reason For God, which I'm encouraging everyone to read in which a lot of this series is based on, quote C.S. Lewis on this and he says it so well. C.S. Lewis says this. He says, "Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others, but you're still distinct from it. You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it, but there may come a day when you can no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even enjoy it, but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine. It's not a question of God sending us to hell. In each of us, there is something growing which will be hell unless it's nipped in the bud." See, what are you saying here? You're saying if Christians believe as we do that the soul goes on forever, that then hell is not a place that God shuns you off to or shuts you off to forever, like a trap door at the gates of heaven at the last minute that you descend down into. Now, there's not so much somewhere that God sends us, but a place we can find ourselves to, a prison that we can find ourselves to, if we choose to live apart from God. What does that look like in human life? The life apart from God is one of self-centeredness and pride, and that always leads to bitterness and envy and jealousy and all those horrid emotions. I'll tell you what, just get 10 people in a room like that who that's all they really are, and I'll tell you what, that would be pretty hellish, and get a thousand people in a room like that forever, and now we're talking hell. In fact, hell is not some place where God places us and looks in for his enjoyment. In fact, the Bible says it's the absence of God himself, and so that's why 2 Thessalonians, chapter 1 verse 9 describes hell like this. It says they will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power. You see, in the teachings of Jesus, the ultimate condemnation to hear from the mouth of God is not so much go to hell, but it's depart from me, get away from me. Hell is the absence of God and what I love, I love it when, when Dallas, Dallas Willard sort of puts this way, that, for the person that thinks that they're God, then maybe living in the absence of the one true God is probably the most gracious place to be for all eternity. If you think you're God, maybe living in the absence of God is the most gracious place for you to be for all eternity. How do I explain it? Have you guys ever had that situation when you're a little kid? I'm sure we've all probably been through it once or twice in our life. I know I had at least, but you're down at the shopping mall, and you're a little kid and something was catching your eye and your parents said, "No, stay beside me, stay with me, stay with me, Sam." And then something else caught your eye and you wanted to run off and you know that your parent had told you not to go off, but you still did it anyway. And you see little kids when they do this because they sort of run off as if they're so defiant and so rebellious and they know exactly what they're doing, but they tend to look over their shoulder just to see if the parent is watching, right? And if their parents still got their eye on them, and I did that once when I was down at Waringa Mall and I was off being rebellious in Grace Brothers as it was called at the time, and that's before it was my store, and I ran off and I was just seeing if the parents were watching and then came that sickening moment, whereas a little child, you walked around and you couldn't see your parents anymore. Have you ever had that feeling? Yeah, I see a lot of heads nodding. I want you to take that feeling, and I want you to multiply that by a billion times in its magnitude and stretch that out for all eternity. And now we begin to understand what the Bible talks about the concept of hell. Not fiery lakes, not the imagery, but the absence of God. You see, hell is when the Father finally decides to say to you, "Fine. Have it your way." Well as when the ultimate parent, God, finally decides to hide from you forever. That's hell. That's the point when we become locked into a prison of our own self-centeredness and bitterness and envy and jealousy. And so when people say, "How can a loving God send people to hell," hell is our freely chosen identities going on forever starting now. And so to maintain this image of God standing at the side of a burning pit, wringing his hands and rejoicing the people that are down there, come on, please. This is his son, there is sadness, there is tragedy, there is pity. God doesn't want that for any of his children who wished to go their own way. So there's a judge, there's a prison, but the good news tonight, and it does end in good news, is that there's a lawyer, because I'm thinking if there's a judge in a prison, where does it leave us tonight? And I thought if I'm talking those sorts of concepts and I'm talking a courtroom, I thought I need a lawyer. Now, Houston, we've got a problem here because in John 3.17 it says, "Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he or she is not believed in the name of God's one and only son." You see, the gospel of Jesus Christ doesn't condemn people. The Bible says we already stand condemned. All of us stand before the judgment seat of God accused. Now, here's some of you out there saying, "I can't believe that you still believe that stuff." But the Bible says, and look, I appeal that your own heart knows it tonight. Why do we struggle with the feelings of being imperfect? Why are we so pained by injustice? I put it to you that our conscious knows that there is ultimately a courtroom one day beyond this life, and that there is a justice to which we all have to deal, a standard to which we know that we've violated in some way. We know deep down, and if you knew that it had been served in that moment, that's what being Christian is, in that moment that you've been served, that you stand guilty in some respect and that we are imperfect, what would you do? That's what I said, I would call a lawyer. I'd call the lawyer a quicksmart, and the good news tonight is that the Bible says Jesus is your lawyer. What does it say that? John 16, Jesus' final moments with his disciples, he says, "Look, don't be worried, don't be afraid. I am sending you an Aleron Para kletos." Another Jesus at the same time, another counselor, another way that you can translate that word in the Greek means another advocate. It says the same thing in 1 John chapter 2, it says, "But if anyone does sin, we have one Para klet who speaks to the Father in our defense, Jesus Christ, the righteous one." You know what the word is that's used there? Advocate. You don't want to advocate it is, Jesus Christ is your advocate, and in a court, an advocate is your defense lawyer, and you've got to ask yourself the question, what relationship does your defense lawyer have to you when you're in a court? I mean, if you've got a really good lawyer, then John Doe, and if they're really successful and they're really fluent and they've got a flashy suit, you're wearing a flashy suit pretty much. If they're coming up with good arguments, you're coming up with good arguments. If they fail, you fail because they're your advocate. They speak on your behalf, and the Bible tells us before the judgment of God in the great courtroom that is the judgment of God, that Jesus Christ stands and he represents you, and he stands up there with a watertight case. And for years, I've always thought that, you know, up there with Jesus as our advocate at the right hand of the Father, it was some sort of courtroom theatrics when I eventually get there before God. With Jesus running around like a slick suit, New York lawyer arguing the case and histrionics and waving hands and all sorts of great arguments like Tom Cruise out of a few good men. But I thought that he got people off simply by arousing the sympathy of the judge, but I think it goes a bit like this. Judge, this is Sam, you've created him, and he knows, he knew, Judge, that he owes you everything and he should have built his life around you and he should have loved you and he should have loved his neighbour, but he's had a bad week. He's had a bad week, Judge. In fact, he's had a bad life and his background was tough and it was very difficult circumstances. And so, come on, Judge, will you let him across? Just let one more in, will you do it? And he's trying to arouse the sympathy of the judge. And I always thought that that's how he worked. But then I realized a good defence lawyer just doesn't arouse sympathy, but they argue the law, right? Good lawyers argue the law, they're not after sympathy. And so, he makes the case, Jesus is not trying to get sympathy for people that are in front of the judgment seat of God, he's arguing the case and the case goes like this tonight. Here are my brothers and sisters. Have they lied? Yes. Have they been selfish? Yes. Have they been bitter? Yes. Have they failed to love you? Yes. But I've paid and your law father is a just law father and your law says, Judge, that the only way to pay these debts is through death and through blood. And here is my body. And here is my blood. Here it is, Judge. I have made payment in full. And Judge, your own justice says you cannot take two payments for the same debt and therefore I ask for a quiddle for my client. No, in fact, I demand it. Father, I don't ask for mercy for my clients tonight. I ask for justice. Here's the thing, in every other religion, the justice of God is on the other side of the scale. You're on the other side. You're always trying to furiously live up to everything. You're always trying to be your own advocate. But this is a mystery in the wonder through the ages, that when Jesus Christ becomes your advocate, when Jesus Christ becomes your lawyer, the justice of God is on your side and there is nothing to fear. Friends, can you see why it is so wonderful? I have not only a God who is loving and merciful, but a God who is a just judge. Do you know what it means to be a Christian? It's to have Jesus Christ as your advocate, as your lawyer. It's not enough just to emulate his teachings and try and be like him because being a Christian is not an intention or a lifestyle. It's a standing. It's a position. You're justified. You're declared innocent. And so unless you have him as your lawyer, you have no defense. How do you get him as your lawyer? How do you make Jesus your advocate you're asking tonight? Look at what he did for you. When people gathered around the foot of that cross, as it was told in all four of the different gospels on a hill that you can look up on Google Maps this evening. When they gathered around, they heard the words from him, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" That's happening at the cross there. His dad stopped looking for him. Jesus Christ was in the middle of a cosmic shopping mall and when he discovered that he was lost, he turned around and looked for the parent that had always been at his side since the beginning of the entire creation. And Jesus experienced on the most cosmic scale that sickening feeling that you and I have felt when we looked around for our parent, the one who of safety and realized the dead was hiding. Not only that Jesus lived out, 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 9, that you could translate his name in there. It says, "He Jesus will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power." He experienced that feeling. He was shut out. He experienced those terrifying words apart from me. He experienced hell. And guys, what we have to understand tonight is that the cross Jesus Christ experienced hell for us so that we never have to. That is the difference with Christianity. As Martin Lloyd-Jones puts it this way, "Imagine someone knocks at your door, so it comes up new and says, 'I paid you debts, it's all done.' If you only owed so much as a postage stamp, then that's nice. But if you paid your tax bill for you that was worth $150,000, you would be out of your mind." And Lloyd-Jones says, "Unless we fully understand how much it costs, we will never know when it comes to Jesus Christ whether to shake his hand or follow these feet and kiss them." And so guys, what I want to say tonight is that until you understand the hell that Jesus experienced for you, you'll never know whether to shake his hand or follow these feet. It's Jesus Christ, your advocate this evening, you can't, you won't make him your advocate until you reflect on and are moved by the hell that he experienced on your behalf. And so guys, when people have the objection toward Christianity that says, "How can a loving God send people to hell? How can you worship a God who is an angry judge?" Well, my answer to that there is, look, if we just left it at that when we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot, but guys, let me ask you the kind of question right, who sent the legal aid in the first place? It was God himself. He didn't send a representative, he sent his own son to be the sacrifice for us. Every major religion believes that we must come to the grips with the consequences of the lives that we live now. Of our actions today, whether you want to call it karma or Gehenna or hell or the funny snake thing, whatever that was, as scary and real as it is, the question you guys are going to ask yourself tonight, whether you're a believer or not, is this? What result does the explanation of hell from these religions produce in you? Is it fear or is it overwhelming love and gratitude for the hell that Jesus Christ experienced for us? The difference between that is the difference between two totally different religions and the latter is the one that we are on about in this place. The latter is the one that is a religion of Jesus Christ. The latter is a religion of Christianity and it is utterly unique. It's the religion of the advocate, Jesus Christ. It's important for us guys to understand hell, but guys as Christians we never need fear it because our advocate has experienced hell for us so we don't have to. It may live every day for the rest of our lives with the justice of God on our side. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I'm proud that you've just been moving tonight in our hearts as we come to grips with these spiritualities and the things that are so far beyond what often we think about in our everyday lives. Father, we rejoice and thank you for a love that has not just been declared but demonstrated in your son, Jesus Christ. Father, I pray for those tonight that don't have him as an advocate, that I don't have him as one who is pleading their defense in front of you almighty God and almighty judge. Father, we thank you that you are a God who is righteous and good and fair and ultimately that wonderful video referee that sees every cheap shot in this world, every cheap shot in our lives this week from whether it be co-workers through to family members and the pains and the things that we endure with that. Father, may we take the truth of your word tonight, translate that into our everyday lives and live lives that are ever stronger, ever more of wonder, ever full of gratitude for the incredible price that you paid in your son, Jesus Christ on the cross. Thank you that we don't live in fear this evening. I pray these things in the mighty name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]