HOW HOT IS HELL?
Don Hawley
Adapted from the writer's radio program "Perspectives in the Word."
From time to time poll takers ask a cross section of people if they believe in heaven. Each time they get an encouraging response in the affirmative. However, when they ask the same individuals if they believe in hell, it's a different story. Far fewer believe in a place of punishment, even though the Bible speaks of both heaven and hell. I suppose ordinary human nature could account for this discrepancy. On the other hand, it could result from the popular concept of where the wicked end up.
As I read the descriptions of hell by certain theologians, I can understand the confusion. For instance, let's take a brief look at the most famous sermon ever preached on the American continent, Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." It's reported that the influence of the sermon on the congregation was so great that strong men and women cried and screamed for mercy, and even grabbed their seat for fear of sliding into hell at that very moment! Here's just a bit of what shook them up.
"The God that holds you over the pit of hell . . . abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire . . . you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours . . . God will be so far from pitying you when you cry to him, that it is said he will only 'laugh and mock" . . .
"If you cry to God for pity . . . he will only tread you under foot: and though he will know that you cannot bear the weight of Omnipotence treading upon you, yet he will not regard that, but he will crush you under his feet without mercy; he will crush out your blood and make it fly.
"It would be dreadful to suffer this fierceness and wrath of Almighty God one moment; but you must suffer it to all eternity. There will be no end to this exquisite horrible misery . . . you will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages, in wrestling and conflicting with this almighty merciless vengeance; and then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains."
I usually don't quote at such length, but I think it important to understand the picture of hell that has been painted for millions. Some years back a tract was published for children and young persons entitled "The Sight of Hell" by a Reverend J. Furniss, C.S.S.R. Listen to this little bedtime story for the kiddies:
"See! on the middle of that red-hot floor stands a girl; she looks about sixteen years old. Her feet are bare. She has neither shoes nor stockings. She says, 'I have been standing on this red hot floor for years . . . Day and night . . . Look at my burnt and bleeding feet. Let me go off this burning floor for one moment, only for one single short moment.
"The fourth dungeon is the boiling kettle . . . In the middle of it there is a boy . . . His eyes are burning like two coals. Two long flames come out of his ears. Sometimes he opens his mouth and blazing fire rolls out. But listen. There is a sound like a kettle boiling . . . The blood is boiling in the scalded veins of that boy. The brain is boiling and bubbling in his head. The marrow is boiling in his bones.
"In the fifth dungeon a little child is in a red-hot oven. Hear how it screams to come out. See how it turns and twists itself about in the fire. It beats its head against the roof of the oven. It stamps its little feet on the floor." From that Unknown Country, p. 227
Hopkins comments on how the redeemed will react to all this horror.
"The smoke of their torment shall ascend up in the sight of the blessed forever and ever . . . to give them a bright and most affecting view. This display of the divine character will be most entertaining to all who love God, and will give them the highest and most ineffable pleasure. Should the fire of this eternal punishment cease, it would in a great measure obscure the light of heaven, and put an end to a great part of the happiness and glory of the blessed." From that Unknown Country, p. 228
I want to tell you right up front that I consider all this railing sick.
If I really believed this to be an accurate description of what God has planned for those who are lost, I would give up on God entirely. I would never want to spend eternity with such a person. Also up front I want to tell you plainly this is not what the Word of God teaches.
WHAT KIND OF GOD?
Let's note how Isaiah thinks of God.
Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord. Isaiah 1:18.
I quote this text to remind us that we serve a reasonable God. Our final authority for doctrine must be the Bible, but our God is a God of reason. And what we quoted previously is not reasonable at all.
Suppose we pose a hypothetical case of a young man. As is true of all of us, he doesn't ask to be born into this world. He just finds himself here. He's a very decent sort. He doesn't drink or smoke, he is helpful to his neighbors, and he pays an honest income tax. But at 25 years of age he is killed in an automobile accident without ever having established a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
According to popular belief this young man is then lost and assigned to hell for eternity. God will see to it that he is subjected to the most exquisite torture, something even beyond our imagination. This will go on day and night without a moment of cessation. And for his mere 25 years of life, he will agonize not for a century, not for a millennium, not for billions of years, or trillions of years, but on and on without end. This torture will not be for the purpose of reforming him, but only to hear him scream.
Let me say again I have no interest in spending eternity with a God who could carry on such a program.
What do we do when we catch a mosquito? After all, some of them carry terrible and fatal diseases. Do we first rip off the insects wings, then slowly pull off each leg, and finally turn it over a flame just far enough away to bring the maximum pain without also bringing death? None of us would do that to a mosquito; we would merely stamp on it and instantly cause its demise. We couldn't be so cruel as to do the other--but still we accuse a God of love of being able to do even worse. Are we really better than God?
I submit that even Hitler wouldn't have been able to torture people without end. He would have gone mad even sooner than he did.
"But Pastor Hawley, don't you believe in hell?" Yes I do. I also believe it to be a place with literal flames. I also believe that those who reject the salvation offered by Christ will find themselves there. But let's carefully examine what the Bible has to say about hell.
IS HELL BURNING NOW?
First of all, let's deal with the timing of hell.
The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. 2 Peter 2:9.
Now that makes sense, doesn't it. Reserve the unjust until the day of judgment to be punished. We don't punish a man and then later have a trial to see if he is worthy of punishment. God is at least as fair as we are.
And when is the day of judgment?
He who rejects me and does not receive my sayings has a judge, the word that I have spoken will be his judge on the last day. John 12:48.
One more text to make it clear.
For I, the Son of Mankind, shall come with my angels in the glory of my Father and judge each person according to his deeds. Matthew 16:27.
So no one goes to hell upon death. The Bible says they are "reserved" or held till the end of time when Christ returns; then judgment shall take place.
Now let's fill in some more details.
The wages of sin is death. Romans 6:23.
The final end of rejecting Jesus Christ as Savior is death, but the Bible speaks of more than one death.
Let everyone who can hear, listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches: He who is victorious shall not be hurt by the Second Death. Revelation 2:11.
So there are two deaths. The first is the one that all of us suffer sooner or later, and that comes to all, good or bad. The Bible makes it clear that the righteous need not fear the second death; they will be raised to newness of life when Christ returns. But what about the wicked?
The time is coming when all the dead in their graves shall hear the voice of God's Son, and shall rise again--those who have done good to eternal life; and those who have continued in evil, to judgment. John 5:28,29.
So just as their are two deaths, so there are two resurrections. John spoke particularly of the martyrs who had given their lives for Christ. He says:
They had come to life again and now they reigned with Christ for a thousand years. This is the First Resurrection. Revelation 20:4,5.
So even though the Lord's saints may suffer the first death, they will be raised in the first resurrection at his Coming, and that to eternal life. But notice the next words:
The rest of the dead did not come back to life until the thousand years had ended. Revelation 20:5.
The "rest of the dead" must then refer to the wicked. They do not come up in the first resurrection with the saints, but have their own resurrection a thousand years later. I don't want to get into a discussion about the millennium just now; there are so many conflicting viewpoints. But it does seem that the millennium is a thousand year period bounded before and after by resurrections.
Now when the wicked come out of their graves, they don't reflect the changes experienced by the righteous at their resurrection. The unrepentent are unrepentent still. They come up with the same indifference or hatred for God that characterized their life. The devil whips them into a frenzy for one last attack against the Kingdom of God.
When the thousand years end, Satan will be let out of his prison. He will go out to deceive the nations of the world and gather them together, with Gog and Magog, for battle--a mighty host, numberless as sand along the shore. They will go up across the broad plain of the earth and surround God's people and the beloved city of Jerusalem on every side. But fire from God in heaven will flash down on the attacking armies and consume them. Revelation 20:7-9.
Did you get that? Fire from God falling on the wicked. That is precisely when hell begins. It isn't burning now. The fire falls when the unrepentent make their last rebellious thrust against the One who wanted to save them for eternity.
WHERE IS HELL LOCATED?
But that makes it sound as if hell is right here on earth, right? Let's see if that lines up with Scripture.
Even the godly shall be rewarded here on earth; how much more the sinner. Proverbs 11:31.
Here we're told that the redeemed will be rewarded in the earth, and this is true. That's why we read in Revelation that God will make a new heaven and a new earth. That was the original plan, and God will not be thwarted. The earth will eventually be returned to its Edenic beauty.
But the text in Proverbs says that the sinner also will receive his reward in the earth. And Peter agrees.
And God has commanded that the earth and the heavens be stored away for a great bonfire at the judgment day, when all ungodly men will perish. 2 Peter 3:7.
So hell will be this earth turned into one great bonfire. This will cleanse as only fire can, and then from those ashes will rise the earth made new.
We began our study by detailing some of the terrible accusations made against our loving God. Many say that he will torture with unimaginable pain lost people for ever and ever just to hear them scream. I can only believe that such a horrible picture of God has kept millions from ever even bothering to investigate the Christian religion. Robert Ingersoll, one of the best known athiests of all time, got that way as a child by listening to his minister father preach the doctrine of eternal torment. He walked out on the sermon saying, "If that's God, I hate him." Let's take time today to find out what the Bible really says about this aspect of hell.
We would do well to merely take God at his word.
The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23.
Here we have the contrasting rewards of the righteous and the wicked. Note that what the redeemed receive is a "gift," it is nothing they have earned. The lost, on the other hand, deserve their fate; they have earned their wages. The rewards are as different as night and day. For the righteous it is "life," but for the wicked it is "death." The popular belief today is that it is life for both! Life in heaven for the saved, and life in hell for the lost. But that isn't what the Bible says. It says clearly that the righteous receive life and the wicked receive death. Can we not take God at his word?
All right, I can already hear the questions. "You'd better look at Matthew 25:46, Pastor Hawley. Good, let's do look at that verse; it is speaking of the lost.
And they shall go away into eternal punishment; but the righteous into everlasting life. Matthew 25:46.
Let's note first of all that whatever the two groups receive is without end, "eternal" or "everlasting." In the case of the righteous it is everlasting life--that is life without end. For the wicked it is eternal punishment--punishment without end. But according to Scripture what is the punishment of the wicked? "The wages of sin is death." They will be consumed in the fires of hell never to live again. The text in Matthew 25 doesn't say the reward of the wicked is eternal punishing, but eternal punishment. And that punishment is death.
"But what about those "forever" texts?" What about them; let's look. First we'll consider the case of Jonah when he found himself in the belly of a great fish.
The waters closed in over me, the deep was round about me; weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me for ever. Jonah 2:5,6.
Jonah says he was in that awful situation "forever." Is Jonah still in that fish? No, the Bible says he got coughed up. So sometimes the Bible uses the word "forever" to describe something so terrible that it just seemed to go on and on without end.
Next we'll look at what happened to Gehazi the servant when he lied to Elisha.
Because you have done this [Elisha said], Naaman's leprosy shall be upon you and upon your children and your children's children forever. 2 Kings 5:27.
Does Gehazi still have the leprosy? No, he isn't even alive. Sometimes when the Bible uses the world "forever," it means as long as life shall last. So when we read in Revelation 14:11 about the punishment of the rebellious and it says, "The smoke of their torment rises forever and ever," it means until life is extinguished.
UNQUENCHABLE FIRE
Let us next look at a reference in Matthew 3:12 where again it is speaking about the destruction of the wicked.
His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Matthew 3:12.
To understand this we need to know what an "unquenchable fire" is.
If you do not obey me to keep the Sabbath day holy by not carrying any load as you come through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle an unquenchable fire in the gates of Jerusalem that will consume her fortresses. Jeremiah 17:27.
Well, they did refuse to honor the Lord's Sabbath, and when the Romans came they did burn down Jerusalem. But is Jerusalem still on fire today? No, an "unquenchable fire" is one that can't be put out--until of course there is nothing left that will burn. Then the fire dies out by itself. The fires of hell will be "unquenchable," otherwise the wicked would put the fires out.
In Jude 7 we read of a comparable expression.
In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. Jude 7.
Is Sodom still burning today? No, there isn't even any smoke left. "Eternal fire" then is a fire that will continue to burn until there is nothing left to burn. This is borne out in 2 Peter 2:6:
Later, he turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into heaps of ashes and blotted them off the face of the earth, making them an example for al the ungodly in the future to look back upon and fear. 2 Peter 2:6.
So God here warns those who trifle with him to be careful, if they stay in rebellion he will turn them into ashes just as he did the wicked inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. But the fire will go out eventually; you can't burn ashes. Try it.
I may seem to be belaboring my point, but I want for once and for all to put to shame the charges brought against my wonderful God, that he would like to torture the lost without end for their few little years here on earth. Such a teaching simply drives people away from the Savior and their hope for eternal life.
So I want to note what the Word has to say about the end of the wicked in Isaiah 47:14.
Surely they are like stubble; the fire will burn them up. They cannot even save themselves from the power of the flame. Here are no coals to warm anyone; here is no fire to sit by. Isaiah 47:14.
Here again we are told that the wicked will be reduced to nothingness. There won't be any little fire still flickering. It says there won't even be two or three coals to warm someone's hands.
SOFT ON SIN?
I suppose some might accuse me of being soft on sin, but that's not the case. Not for one moment do I want to give the impression that hell is no big deal. It is a horrible event, and I certainly don't want to be there. And I don't want you to be there either. How long will the wicked burn? I don't know; we aren't told. The Bible seems to indicate that the penalty will be linked to the crime. In other words, it would make sense that some would suffer more or longer than others. I would think that someone like Stalin, who caused the murder of more than 21 million of his own people, would have a rather large debt to pay. In any case I leave it in God's hands. He is just, and will do the right thing.
The truth is that I believe in a much hotter hell than most Christians. They think that hell will just burn people on and on, but I believe Isaiah when he says in the last text we read, "The fire will burn them up." We're talking about the eradication of sin. When the human body has a cancerous tumor do we just tolerate it, or, if possible, do we have it completely cut away. I'm glad that God in his wisdom has promised to completely excise the cancer of sin from his universe. It will be gone, done away with, no longer a threat.
The last chapter of the last book in the Old Testament sounds a similar warning and makes a similar promise.
Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire," says the Lord Almighty. Not a root or a branch will be left to them. Malachi 4:1.
God says that not a root or a branch will be left. If you have tried to care for the grounds around your home, you can understand the simile. The weeds would like to take over your property, and will if you allow it. The wicked are called "tares" or "weeds." If left in any way, they would again try to take over God's Kingdom. He cannot allow that.
If you merely break off the most obvious edges of a noxious weed, or just cut it off at ground level, you know what happens later. It just comes back again. You've got to cut the branches way back, or better yet pull the whole thing up by the roots. That's what Malichi says God will do with sin and sinners; when he gets though there won't even be a root left. That's why the prophet Nahum could say what he did in chapter 1 verse 7-9.
With an overflowing flood he [the Lord] will make a full end of his adversaries . . . He will not take vengeance twice on his foes. Nahum 1:7-9.
That's a wonderful promise. God says he won't have to take vengeance twice. The KJV says, "Affliction shall not rise up the second time." Once we win the battle here in Christ's name, our future is secure for eternity.
This hasn't been a particularly pleasant subject we've dealt with today, but I do have one very encouraging note. Here is a biblical prophecy concerning the devil's future.
Your heart was filled with pride because of all your beauty . . . Therefore I brought forth fire from your own actions and let it burn you to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all those watching you. All who know you are appalled at your fate; you are an example of horror; you are destroyed forever. Ezekiel 18:20
That's good news, isn't it? The devil and his host will also be reduced to ashes. The Word says that Satan will be "destroyed forever." And in Matthew 25:41 it says that the fire is prepared for "the devil and his demons". That fire is not meant for you and me; we will only be there if we insist on it. Christ has given his very life that we might live with him for eternity. That's my choice, and I'm sure it is yours as well.
Next week we have a very interesting topic to consider, "There Are Only Two Religions." Be sure to tune in at 3 o'clock next Saturday. Until then, this is Pastor Don Hawley and "Perspectives in the Word."