130 Sermon Illustrations on Hell

When a Brooklyn traffic officer handed a young woman a ticket, she told him, according to the press report, "You can go to hell." When she appeared in court, the magistrate dismissed the officer's complaint about her language, saying, "It wasn't a command or a wish, but a real statement of fact, for going to hell is a possibility." How terrible it is, however, that multitudes today have forgotten this possibility. A humorous magazine, poking fun at "advanced theology," remarked, "Nowadays most of the churches and preachers are so advanced that it takes considerable ingenuity to get into hell." The Reality of Hell A dying girl said to her father, "Father, why didn't you tell me there was such a place?" "What place?" "A hell!" "Jenny," he said, "there is no such place. God is merciful. There will be no future suffering." She said, "I know better! I'm slipping into eternity this moment. I am lost! Why did you not tell me there was such a place?" We do not want to be accused one day of not having told others, for that will be a witness against us. Where Is Hell? A companion of a newly converted Christian said to him one day, "Can you tell me where hell is?" After a moment's hesitation the young Christian said, "Yes, it's at the end of a Christless life."

Then I saw in my dream that the shepherds had them to another place, in a bottom, where was a door in the side of a hill; and they opened the door, and hid them look in. They looked in, therefore, and saw that within it was very dark and smoky: they also thought that they heard a rumbling noise as of fire, and a cry of some tormented; and that they smelt the scent of brimstone. Then said Christian, "What means this?" The shepherd told them, "This is a by-way to hell, a way that hypocrites go in at, — namely, such as sell their birthright, with Esau; such as sell their Master, with Judas; such as blaspheme the gospel, with Alexander; and such as lie and dissemble, with Ananias and Sapphira his wife." Bunyan.

An astronomer notices the slower or quicker rate of motion in a planet at one part of its orbit; and he tells you that there must be a world beyond it, no yet seen. He tells you its size, its gravity, its orbit, its rate of motion; and when, at last Neptune is discovered, it proves to be precisely that which Uranus dictated by his perturbations. So that the doctrine of endless retribution is not, with us, a mere dogma: it belongs to a great scheme of revealed truth, which we call the "plan of redemption;" all of which stand or falls together. N. Adams

Tartarus, the hell of mythology, is represented as a deep gulf as much below the earth as the heavens are above it. The entrance to it is through a large cave, near Lake Avernus. Before the entrance of hell were groups of beings called Cares, Diseases, Age, Fear, Hunger, Toil, Poverty, and Death. There, also, were the Furies, the Hydras, and Chimeras. Next came the dark waters of the River Cocytus, where Charon, the ferryman, received and ferried over disembodied spirits. First on the shore was the space allotted to young children, then those who perished under false charges, next suicides, then warriors and heroes. Now the road divided, — one leading to Elysium, and the other to the regions of the condemned. On one side were the walls of a mighty city, with iron towers, and gates of adamant, guarded by one of the Furies. From the city resounded the clanking of chains, the sound of the scourge, and the groans of the suffering. Within were those who warred against the gods, or wronged their fellow-men. There were tables loaded with dainties, surrounded by the victims of hunger, from whom the Furies snatched the food as soon as they tried to eat. Over those who hated their parents or brothers, or defrauded their friends, or who had grown rich and covetous, keeping their money to themselves, were suspended huge rocks, threatening to fall upon and grind them to powder. There also were adulterers, defrauders, traitors, and unjust judges. Ixion was stretched on a ceaselessly-revolving wheel. Sisyphus pursued his endless task, — rolling a huge stone to the top of a hill, which ever returned upon him, and was as often hurled up again. Tantalus stood in the water up to his chin, but could not quench his thirst; for when he bowed his head to drink, the water fled away. Trees laden with rich fruits, pears, pomegranates, apples, and figs, extended their boughs to him; but, when he tried to grasp them, they were suddenly whirled beyond his reach. A wide tract of darkness separated this place from the Elysian Fields.

Our lost friends are lost forever: we recollect that there is no shadow of a hope for them. When the iron gate of hell is once closed upon them, it shall never be unbarred again to give them free exit; when once shut up within those walls of sweltering flame which girdle the fiery gulf, there is no possibility of flight: we recollect that they have "forever" stamped upon their chains. "forever" carved in deep lines of despair upon their hearts. It is the hell of hell that everything there lasts forever. Here time wears away our griefs, and blunts the keen edge of our sorrow; but there time never mitigates the woe. Hell grows more hellish as eternity marches on with its mighty paces; the abyss becomes more dense and fiery, the sufferers grow more ghastly and wretched, as years, if there be such sad variety in that fixed state, roll their everlasting rounds. Here the sympathy of loving kindred in the midst of sickness or suffering can alleviate our pain; but there the tortured ghosts are sport for fiends, and the mutual upbraidings and reproaches of fellow-sinners give fresh stings to torment too dread to be endured. Here, too, when Nature's last palliative shall fail, to die may be a happy release. A man can count the weary hours till death shall give him rest; but, oh! remember, there is no death in hell. Death, which is a monster on earth, would be an angel in hell. If death could go there, all the damned would fall down and worship him; every tongue would sing, and every heart would praise; each cavern then would echo with a shout of triumph, till all was still, and silence brood where terrors reigned. But no, the terrible reality is this, "Their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."

— Spurgeon

During the enlistment of soldiers for the army, a young man, though strongly urged to join the volunteers, hesitated, and finally declined. He was able-bodied and patriotic. He had always been regarded as brave. The suggestion that personal cowardice might be the reason called forth from him this frank confession: "No; it is not dying that troubles me; I could stand up and be shot for my country: it is the hereafter."

Our sense of touch is at present accompanied with a thousand modifications of feelings of pleasure; but there every thing that comes in contact with the organs of feeling may produce the most painful sensations. Here the variety of colors which adorn the face of Nature delights the eye and the imagination; there the most gloomy and haggard objects may at all times produce a dismal and alarming aspect over every part of the surrounding scene. Here the most enchanting music frequently cheers and enraptures the human heart; there nothing is heard but the dismal sound of "weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth." Here they hated the society of the righteous, and loved to mingle with evil doers in their follies and their crimes; there they will be forever banished from the company of the wise and the benevolent, and will feel the bitter effects of being perpetually chained to the society of those malignant associates who will be their everlasting tormentors. Here they delighted to give full scope to their depraved appetites and passions; there they will feel the bitter and horrible effects of the full operation of such lusts and passions. If to these be added the consideration, that, in such minds, the principles of malice, envy, hatred, revenge, and every other element of evil which pervaded their souls while in life, will rage without control, we may form such a conception of future misery as will warrant all the metaphorical descriptions of it which are given in divine revelation, without supposing any further interposition of the Deity in the direct infliction of punishment. T. Dick.

The tone of reproaching and upbraiding is widely different from the voice of solemn warning. It is not saying hard things that pierces the consciences of our people: it is the voice of divine love heard amid the thunder. The sharpest point of the two-edged sword is not death, but life: and, against self-righteous souls, this latter ought to be more used than the former; for such souls can hear us tell of the open gates of hell, and the unquenchable fire, far more unconcernedly than of the gates of heaven, wide open for their immediate return. When we preach that the glad tidings were intended to impart immediate assurance of life eternal to every sinner that believes them, we strike deeper upon the proud enmity of the world to God than when we show the eternal curse and the second death. M. Cheyne.

A rebel who hath stabbed an earthly prince but once, and deeply repents of his crime, is mercifully dealt with if he be imprisoned for life, were he to live a thousand years. An impenitent sinner hath risen against the Majesty of heaven a million of times, and "crucified the Prince of Life afresh," for, it may be, ten, twenty, forty years. What is more, he goes on still in his rebellion; and his talk of repenting to-morrow is only a contrivance to sin with more cheerfulness to-day. Now, if he die in this state, shall God be unjust in condemning him for life to the prison of hell, and punishing with infinite woe sins committed against an infinite Majesty,—sins from which he should have been deterred by considerations of infinite force; in short, sins in which he would have lived forever had not death interposed?

— J. Fletcher

Come with me and see poor Clara; hear her shriek, "Father, mother, why didn't you tell me?"—"Tell you what, daughter?" asked the agonized father. "Tell me there was a hell!"—"There is none, Clara; none for you. God is merciful: there is no hell!"—"There is, there is! I feel it; I know it; my feet are stepping into it. I am lost, lost, and you never told me!" So died a beautiful girl of eighteen summers.

A Christian physician who had been associated in office with several Universalists was asked how a man of such amiable character as himself could believe in future punishment, and advised to adopt their faith. The doctor asked them, "Do you believe in a future state?" They replied, "We do."—"You believe that death will introduce all men to a state of perfect happiness?"—"Of this we have no doubt."—"Are you now happy?"—"We are not: we are far from it."—"How do men act when they are unhappy, and know that happiness is within their reach?"—"They endeavor to attain that happiness."—"In this box," said the doctor, taking a tin box in his hand, "are pigs, which, if you swallow each of you one, will, without pain, carry you within one hour out of this world of trouble, and, if your doctrine be true, place you in a world of perfect felicity. Will you accept one of them?"—"No, sir." When they all refused, the doctor said, "You must excuse me, gentlemen, from embracing your doctrine until I have better evidence that you believe it yourselves."

An avowed infidel, who had been accustomed to scoff at the Holy Scriptures, to exercise his profane wit in ridiculing the justice of God, and the future punishment of the wicked, and had strenuously denied that there was a hell, with his last quivering breath exclaimed, "Now I know that there is a hell, for I feel it."

Indian Christian evangelist Sadhu Sundar Singh was once told in England that his mother, a saintly Sikh, was in hell because she had not been a Christian. Sadhu's eyes flashed with indignation.

"If I cannot find my mother in heaven, I will ask God to send me

down to hell so that I may be with her there."

Normal New Testament usage talks about a future transformed world rather than "heaven." We usually find hell more interesting than heaven.

Key aspects about heaven:

1. The presence of God.

2. All harmful things will end. End of suffering and death and insecurity.

3. Heaven is other people.

It is a place of community.

No place for individualism.

We will see loved ones.

4. It will be a place of activity.

Not boring harps.

5. There will be continuity with this world.

6. Worship will be the central activity.

Hymns in Revelation give a clue.

Excerpts from famous sermon by Jonathan Edwards - "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God", 1741:

"The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, he hates you, and is dreadfully provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire. He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire. O sinner, you hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it in two."

[see also #574]

Modern efforts to evade implications of hell.

Scripture affirms three things:

1. Reality of hell.

2. Certainty of hell.

3. Justice of hell.

Dilemma: good pagans, far-off nations that haven't heard gospel?

Mixed answers from Christians:

1. All un-believers go to hell.

2. "Good pagans" will go to heaven. (Socrates, Plato)

3. Universal salvation of infants.

4. "Baptism of desire" (RCC): those who are ignorant of gospel, but eagerly

seek God, will be saved. [C.S. Lewis was partial to this.]

5. Arminians - saving grace is available in principle to all, even those who

have not heard gospel message.

6. Calvinists (some) - God saves a certain number of unevangelized adults,

through general revelation alone.

7. Karl Barth - in Christ crucified, all condemned, and in Christ risen, all

humanity elected and justified. (Though Barth resisted universalism.)

[This is now standard view among Protestants.]

Pressure points:

1. Pastoral pressure - we rub shoulders with non-believers every day.

Secular media conditions us (and especially children) against belief.

2. Theological pressure - upsurge of Islam.

Christ found in other faiths?

But why change religions if they are Christians in disguise?

3. Strategic pressure - Protestant split on missions.

Evangelical view: first evangelize, then relieve needs. [Lausanne]

Liberal view: first meet needs (seek justice, peace, prosperity), then

engage in dialogue with non-Christians, third, nurture Christians

and extend church - if there is time, which there often isn't.

[WCC conference at Bangkok - "Salvation Today"]

Ultimate optimism:

Universalism is a comforting belief.

Hell is real, but has no tenants.

All will eventually bow to Christ.

Second chance in hell?

Hell is not ultimate state. It ends up empty.

Counterarguments:

No biblical passage unambiguously asserts universal final salvation.

1. It ignores the biblical stress on the decisiveness and finality of this

life's decisions.

2. It condemns Christ, making him incompetent or immoral (bluffing people

into heaven through fear).

3. It raises new problems. Why give second chance in hell? Why not redeem

everyone in this life? If God can't do it here, how can we know he

will do it there? Its doctrine of God is incoherent.

4. Can we give ourselves the luxury of believing in a second chance?

"I dare not say to myself that if I forfeit the opportunity this life

affords I shall ever have another; and therefore I dare not say so to

another man." James Denney.

Universalism does not work. Proclaiming salvation as primary in mission is

necessary.

Paul: "I am under obligation..."

Sight for all

Can God use general revelation?

Peter - "In every nation anyone who fears him is acceptable." Acts 10:35.

Paul - "God did not leave himself without a witness." Acts 14:17.

It might be true that general revelation can reach some (especially for some OT characters). These would learn of Christ's death in heaven. But we have

no warrant to expect that God will act in this way in any single case. God will deal with them. Our job is to spread the gospel.

Major article on evolution of doctrine of heaven and hell. Many mainstream Protestant preachers no longer preach it because it is passe. Hell died in nineteenth century. Lay people still have strong belief in it. Two images of heaven are most common in Western culture: theocentric and anthrocentric. Tendency today is to be man-centered.

Belief in heaven does not inhibit active life here and now, as Freud, Marx and Nietzsche argued. Studies show that “those who believe in life after death lead happier lives and trust people more. The people who believe in heaven are just as committed to this world as those who don’t. Belief in personal survival is not the coward’s way out” (Rev. Andrew Greeley).

While modern people focus on fellowship, reunion and rest in heaven, divine justice was a major theme in the past. (A historical review of concept is given, as well as a review by religions.)

Buddhists

Jews

Hindus

Mormons (family and work oriented)

Moslems

Laymen are seeking some assurance that being human has more than transitory significance.

Jacob Neusner, a Conservative Jew and Judaism scholar at Brown University (who believes in heaven): “The idea of life after death is clearly an embarrassment to modern thinking – most major philosophers have ridiculed it – but it is just as clearly the touchstone of all religion.”

Saint Augustine: “Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless, till rest in Thee.”

Woodward: “The hell of thinking about heaven is that we cannot imagine – or trust – a love that surpasses our own understanding.”

"If Dante were designing a hell for [Manuel Noriega], that's what he would do. No cocaine, no pornography, no little boys - just a bunch of nuns and priests."

Koster is a novelist and longtime U.S. resident of Panama, commenting on Noriega's asylum at the Vatican Embassy before his arrest.

When the noted preacher Phillips Brooks was recovering from an illness and was denying himself to all visitors, Robert G. Ingersoll, the agnostic, called. The Bishop received him at once.

"I appreciate this very much," said Ingersoll, "but why do you see me when you deny yourself to your friends?"

"It is this way," said the Bishop. "I feel confident of seeing my friends in the next world, but this may be my last chance of seeing you."

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Version in sermon:

Phillips Brooks was an Episcopal bishop in the 1800s who is most famous as the author of “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” Toward the end of his life he was recovering from an illness and asked that no friends visit him. But when Robert G. Ingersoll, the famous agnostic, came by, the bishop invited him in at once.

“I appreciate this very much,” said Ingersoll, “but why do you see me when you won’t let your other friends in?”

“It’s like this,” said the bishop. “I feel confident of seeing my friends in the next world, but this may be my last chance of seeing you.”

Seventh Day Adventist booklet concerning hell. People are not tormented forever but burned up (= annihilated?) in hell. We do not have immortal souls.

Version in sermon:

Booklets thrown on my lawn. "Are You Breaking the Law?" with a picture of a cop. I looked around nervously. Upon examination, they turned out to be religious tracts. Episcopalians are at it again.

Actually, I figured it to be work of Seventh Day Adventists. They do not believe in immortality of soul, but only in resurrection at end of time.

They quote second century church leader Justin Martyr as saying:

"If you have fallen in with some who are called Christians, who say

that there is no resurrection of the dead, and that their souls,

when they die, are taken to heaven; do not imagine that they are

Christians."

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will

certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of

keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.

Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all

entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.

But in the casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will

not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.... The

only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the

dangers ... of love is Hell."

-- C. S. Lewis

*

More Americans believe in heaven today than in 1981. A Gallup poll reveals the increase (up from 71 to 78 percent) along with an increase in those who believe in hell (up from 53 to 60 percent).

Of those who call themselves evangelicals, 88 percent claim they have an excellent or good chance of going to heaven. Only 61 percent of those with no religion say the same thing.

A few evangelicals (3 percent), by contrast, believe they have an excellent chance of going to hell. Nine percent of those with no religion believe they are headed for hell.

Those 18 to 29 years old believe in the afterlife more than older adults: 84 percent of the younger group believe in heaven; 71 percent believe in hell.

Christians in an increasingly pluralistic society must face the dilemma of other religions. Chapman feels salvation is through Christ only, but God does

reveal himself in other faiths. Universalism is discussed, and a side article deals with the status of those who have never heard the gospel, like the "heathen in darkest Africa."

It was a cold, gray day in January, and a persistent drizzle added to the misery of the little group gathered about the open grave. A child was being buried. A few feet away stood a man whose name was known throughout the nation. He was a brilliant lawyer, a famous writer and lecturer, one of the most eloquent and dynamic orators of his day. He had come to be known as "the Great Agnostic." The undertaker asked Robert Ingersoll to say a few words, and when told the family requested it he began to speak slowly:

My Friends: I know how vain it is to gild a grief with words, and yet I wish to take from every grave its fear. Here in this world, where life and death are equal kings, all should be brave enough to meet what all the dead have met. The future has been filled with fear, stained and polluted by the heartless past. From the wondrous tree of life the buds and blossoms fall with ripened fruit, and in the common bed of earth, patriarchs and babes sleep side by side.

Why should we fear that which will come to all that is? We cannot tell, we do not know, which is the greater blessing - life or death. We cannot say that death is not a good. We do not know whether the grave is the end of this life, or the door of another, or whether the night here is not somewhere else a dawn....

Every cradle asks us "Whence?" [from where?] and every coffin "Whither?" [to where?] The poor barbarian, weeping above his dead, can answer these questions just as well as the robed priest of the most authentic creed. The tearful ignorance of the one is as consoling as the learned and unmeaning words of the other. No man, standing where the horizon of a life has touched a grave, has any right to prophesy a future filled with pain and tears.

It may be that death gives all there is of worth to life. If those we press and strain within our arms could never die, perhaps that love would wither from the earth. Maybe this common fate treads from out the paths between our hearts the weeds of selfishness and hate. And I had rather live and love where death is king, than have eternal life where love is not. Another life is naught, unless we know and love again the ones who love us here.

They who stand with breaking hearts around this little grave need have no fear. The larger and the nobler faith in all that is, and is to be, tells us that death, even at its worst, is only perfect rest. We know that through the common wants of life - the needs and duties of each hour - their grief will lessen day by day, until at last this grave will be to them a place of rest and peace - almost of joy. There is for them this consolation: The dead do not suffer. If they live again, their lives will surely be as good as ours. We have no fear. We are all children of the same mother, and the same fate awaits us all.

We, too, have our religion, and it is this: Help for the living - Hope for the dead.

This message struck a responsive chord in every heart, and none who heard his words that day ever forgot them. He was later asked to repeat the words as nearly as he could, and they were published for the comfort of other bereaved parents. Robert Ingersoll's famous oration at the grave of a child is today regarded by many as a classic of inspiration [?]. It has long been a source of comfort to people of all faiths in the dark hour of bereavement; and it remains an enduring monument to the memory of the man they called "the Great Agnostic."

#3127

*

I've taught the Book of Revelation many times in my decades of ministry,

but never as realistically as the last time around.

We were in the famous "thousand year" verses in chapter 20.

About 9 o'clock that Tuesday might, I was reading to my adult students the

account of Satan's rampage when he and his cohorts are unchained at the end of

the thousand years.

"They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God's

people, the city he loves." John wrote, "But fire came down from heaven and

devoured them."

Just as I intoned the Scripture about heavenly fire, the smell of; burning

wood wafted down from the air conditioner grates above our heads.

"Does anybody else smell what I smell?" I asked. They did. A quick check

verified that none of the neighbor's house was ablaze. (Why, I wonder, do we

always look at the other fellow's house first?)

By now the smoke smell was stronger, so we put Revelation on hold and got

serious about seeking its source. A quick peek into the church attic, let us

know we were close. It was filled with acrid smoke.

Three minutes later our church building was invaded by a small army of

firemen in protective yellow coats with oxygen bottles strapped to their

backs. Thus the study of Revelation ended that night. Memorably.

I don't suppose I need to confess that not even with my most grandiose

efforts could I have arranged for the bird's nest in that light fixture to

ignite on cue to provide special effects for a Bible lesson on fire and

brimstone.

But I can't keep from wondering about us church folk, when the scent of a

charred two-by-four galvanizes us to urgent action while the promise of

eternal flames evokes hardly a yawn these days.

#4101

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