Ask Pastor Mike Fabarez

Speaker 1

Do good people go to hell? That's the question we'll be answering today on Focal Point. Welcome to Ask Pastor Mike. I'm Dave Droue, your host here on Focal Point.

You know, every week we prepare to have some one-on-one time with Pastor Mike. It's an opportunity to pull up a chair and ask him some tough questions about life and faith, even heaven and hell. Today's topic is hell. Many opinions abound on this subject, but what does the Bible have to say about it? That's what matters most.

So right now, let's join executive director Jay Wharton inside the pastor's study for this edition of Ask Pastor Mike.

Speaker 2

Well, thank you, Dave.

Pastor Mike, over the last couple of weeks we've been in Romans and where we're talking about sin and coming God giving people over to their sin and ultimately their destination is hell.

This leads to a question that we received: Do good people go to hell?

Speaker 3

Well, it's a weird and interesting way to word the question because if we were going to speak in absolute terms, the answer is no, of course, because Jesus made it very clear and the Bible makes it very clear there are none righteous. No, not one. So no one who is good, really good, righteous, is going to hell. All of us are sinners and we all deserve the punishment of our sins. So in that sense, no.

But of course, people don't mean it that way. When they say it, they're speaking in relative terms. You know, I know a guy and he's a pretty good guy and he does a lot of good things and he's better than the bad people I see on the 11 o'clock news at night. So yeah, is he going to go to hell? Well, if he rejects Christ, if he does not put his trust in Jesus Christ, the only name given among men, by which we must be saved, well then yes, he will incur the penalty of his sins.

As you set this up, I do like to think of hell, at least one aspect of it, in terms of what you said there, quoting Romans 1, which we've been studying. That is that God turns people over to their sin. Now he does that in this life while giving them common grace and allowing them to enjoy a lot of the goodies and the greatness of what he provides people. But according to 2 Thessalonians, chapter one, that's a real big aspect of what hell is. People have rejected God, and God then rejects them, which you can see in part with that Romans 1 terminology; he turns them over.

What he does at the end of this life is not only shuts them out from the presence of the Lord, but he shuts them out from the majesty of his power, from the power in providing all the good things that they enjoy. In one sense, hell is a place of passive punishment in that if you reject the lifeboat, you know, then you are rejecting salvation and you will incur the independence from that salvation that you so desperately wanted. You want God out of your life. You don't want God to cramp your style. Well, God will step out of your life and he'll step out completely and he'll take all his goodies with him. That's the idea of 2 Thessalonians 1.

But it's worse than that. Unfortunately, in Revelation chapter 20, it's very clear that hell is also a place of active retribution. The Bible's clear about that, and that's the part that makes it even worse. Not only is it that people don't get the Savior that they rejected, but they are then going to, according to Revelation chapter 20, be judged according to what they've done. There's going to be a correspondence between their rebellion and their specific acts of sin and then what they incur for eternity.

That makes sense from God's economy because of the gravity of the sin, the extent of sin. I've used this illustration before, but if my kid slaps another kid on a playground in the elementary school, it's one kind of punishment. But if he slaps the teacher, I mean, that's a different kind of punishment he deserves. If he slaps the principal, it's a different, that's even greater. If he slaps the sheriff that shows up to arrest him and take him to juvenile hall, that's an even greater offense. If he slaps the judge that he stands before at juvenile hall, that's an even greater offense.

So some people say, well, why would God judge so severely? You know, lying and cheating and stealing and all these things that we do? Because according to the Bible, these are sins ultimately that rebel against God and his authority. That rebellion against the great, majestic, eternal, omniscient, awesome God that we serve means that the Bible says there's going to be a lot of retribution that is due the one who takes God's standards and rebels.

When God provides the lifeboat, the mechanism of salvation, and they turn their back on that because they don't want to get in a boat with Christ, they don't want to have God in their life to cramp their style. I mean, yeah, this is a terrible future for those people. You may say, well, he's a good guy. I mean, he's an upstanding citizen, he pays his taxes. Well, that may be, but yes, in that sense, we have a lot of people that people today would call good, people that unfortunately, in rejecting Christ, will incur the penalty of their sin.

Speaker 2

Pastor Mike,

There are a lot of people, especially it refers to it in Matthew 7, that think they know God and know Christ, but ultimately will get rejected by Christ.

At the end of the day, how do we know? Or if you are a Christian, how do you know if you are truly saved?

Speaker 3

Well, that passage is scary, but you know, these are people that are self-deceived because if you look at that passage in Matthew 7, he says, "Depart from me. I never knew you, you who practice lawlessness." So here are people that if they really looked long enough in the mirror, they would see that, man, they're doing things that are clearly in opposition to what God has asked them to do. They don't trust Christ, they haven't repented of their sins, they don't live a life of sanctification.

And so these are people that they really know better, but they become self-deceived. Like those people in James chapter one that hear the word, they just don't do it. So they start to think, "I'm okay because I know about God. I'm okay because I know things in the Bible. I'm okay because I do a certain minimal standard of what I think is acceptable to make my conscience feel okay before God." But in reality, they know they are living a life in opposition to the Christ they say they serve.

So you can know, I think anyone can know if they just stop long enough to do a little self-analysis of their life. And that's why I always recommend the book of First John. First John is a great book which says, first of all, listen, we all sin. I mean the reality of sin. If you say you're without sin, you're lying.

And yet it goes through a series of tests as we think through what it means to be a Christian. You know, the love in our heart for other people versus harboring bitterness and anger and hatred, doing good works versus just saying things about my theology, but it never impacts my life. The book of First John is a great book to work through thoughtfully and prayerfully, and I don't think you can work through that with honesty and not come away by the time you get to the end of chapter five saying, "I know where I stand with God."

Speaker 2

Well, thank you, Pastor Mike. This is a very important conversation, so I'm glad we got to get to that. We're going to wrap up this edition of Ask Pastor Mike by listening to a message you gave called Loving Enough to Tell the Truth About Hell.

Speaker 4

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, desperate need of some clothing, looking down with his chin dug into the back of his hand. Right. And you've seen him 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 called Inferno, which is the Italian word for hell.

Now, Rodin created this image to be looking down pensively and reflectively pondering those who were entering what Dante and he called the gates of hell, the portal, the entrance to hell. 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 this 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. Today I'd like to pick up on the consequence, the stakes for those who are impenitent, for those that reject the message of repentance and faith and the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I'd like to begin by having you jot down a very simple phrase that I hope would 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 tribunal 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 is one place in the universe where his justice has already been spent. The deal is, you cling to that with a repentant, contrite heart, and you don't have to suffer the condemnation that you rightly deserve. We don't get that. We've missed the whole point.

Turn to Luke 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 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 four: "I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that they have nothing more 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, it's—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 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 kids' VBS material I want, and I'm never going to find a theme based on that verse for our third-grade curriculum. "Oh well, we don't want to scare Susie and Billy into becoming Christians." Did you just read verse five? "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. Scare people into heaven? Jesus wasn't real concerned about that. Apparently, I don't like that kind of preaching. You really want to blow your mind on the Christ of the red letters of the New Testament? Drop down to verse 49: "I came to cast fire on the earth." Now there's that image, that motif, that analogy of his judgment. Now look what he says. "Oh, I really don't want to do it because I love those people." Is that what he says? Is that what the next phrase? Underline the next phrase: "And would that it were already kindled." Do you hear the disdain and frustration in his voice as he walks through the streets and he listens to all the things relating to murder and divorce and homosexuality and a feminism being exalted in society? 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 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 the sin of the world—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, that God is a God of justice.

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 of 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—in Hades, being in torment. Verse 23 says, he lifted up his eyes, he saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side, and 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 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 that 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. 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, that ain't 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 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, 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 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.

Speaker 3

Of what love is.

Speaker 4

But more importantly, you need to understand the righteousness and justice of God. He is good and he is just. He is righteous and he is a God of justice. 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.

Turn them off, man. I don't think they'll like that. I don't want them to think badly of God. Start telling about sin and judgment and hell. They're on 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's 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? 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 going to missionary candidating school were asked the question, what are people saved from? Half of them couldn't give the right answer.

Speaker 3

I was amazed.

Speaker 4

A couple summers back, with my obligatory family trip to D.C. to move into the Jefferson Memorial, I walked into that one reading the marble walls there in the Northeast panel of 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 or 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." Hey, 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. 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.

Speaker 1

A sobering topic on this Ask Pastor Mike segment of Focal Point is to hear the complete, unedited version of this message. Look for the title "Loving Enough to Tell the Truth About Hell" when you go to focalpointradio.org. It's from the series "The Harsh But Good News." You know, nobody wants to think about hell. Still, no amount of wishful thinking alters the truth of God's Word. For Christians, this painful topic is offset by the very real promise of heaven and the free gift of salvation offered to anyone who receives Christ.

It's a message made all the more important in light of today's teaching. God's free gift for all is a prominent theme in the Book of Romans, and when you give today, we'll send you Pastor Mike's Complete Roman series saved on a convenient flash drive. It's our way of saying thanks for your generosity when you call 888-320-5885 with your gift. That's 888-320. You can also request the Romans flash drive when you mail in your donation to Focal Point, Post Office Box 2850, Laguna Hills, CA 92654.

And even when you can't give financially, you're still an important part of our listening family. In fact, we want to welcome you with a free CD called "Learning to Encourage One Another." If you're in need of some encouragement, you'll find faith-restoring fortification right here. The CD message "Learning to Encourage One Another" is yours free just for calling 888-320-5885.

As a valued listener, we want to hear your stories, and we've provided a space and place for you to do that and encourage one another as well. Go to twitter.com/pastormike or facebook.com/pastormike to share a post or comment on today's message.

I'm Dave Drouy, wishing you a restful weekend ahead. Pastor Mike Febares continues his series "Encouraged" right here Monday on Focal Point. Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries. Sam.