Sin, Salvation, Sacraments, and Suffering: Pastor Bob Answers

So revelation of God, of his nature, of his plans, his purposes, and even eternal consequences is all progressive. We get more and more in the Bible. Always consistent, but further explained, okay? So yes, the word hell is used, I think, 167 times, and Jesus has a lot to say about hell. In fact, if you say, well, there's no hell, you're really dealing not just with the Bible generally, but the exact words of Jesus Christ, who made it very clear and preached much about hell, that it's a real place, it's a place of eternal torment. [00:43:16] (32 seconds)  #JesusSpokeAboutHell

So once you say, well, I'm not sure the Bible is inspired, or I'm not sure the Bible is authoritative, at that point you open the door to say, basically I can believe whatever seems to me or to other people to have more wisdom. But for the believer, and certainly the authority of Jesus Christ, because He is God's Son, He is the revelation of God, He comes and He always speaks truth, we take His Word very seriously. Even if we go, I don't get it, or I don't quite understand it, that's fine, but we should be, that should be our starting point. [00:44:58] (28 seconds)  #StartWithScripture

And He clearly teaches the doctrine of eternal punishment or eternal consequence. People sometimes go, well, maybe it's just for a while until you kind of, you know, kind of like a purgatory until you pay a few thousand years and then you get the rest, and the Bible nowhere teaches that. That is not taught in Scripture. Not only is purgatory not taught, temporary suffering to finally get you into heaven, that is a medieval Catholic doctrine that is foreign to the Bible in terms of the Scriptures that we understand to be inspired. [00:45:26] (31 seconds)  #NoPurgatoryInScripture

``So don't just be afraid of losing your physical life, you need to deal with the fact that you're not ready for eternal life. You know, I think, Josh, on this, I wanna just make a comment because I think we live our lives, even as Christians so many times, so aware of our physicality and our health, and there's nothing wrong with that. We, of course, wanna live. And life is precious. Paul said, for me to live is Christ. It is precious. And to die is, for a lot of us, even though we believe in Jesus and we believe it's unknown, so it's kind of like going on a ride at Disneyland, a little scary, I think I'm gonna live. [00:46:26] (31 seconds)  #ReadyForEternity

And in this life, you need to deal with the fact that you're gonna stand before a holy God. It's been appointed unto man once to die, and then the judgment. The power of sin is the law, the sting of death is sin, that we are gonna stand and give an account for our sin and or say, my name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life because of what Jesus did for me. It's not that I'm worthy of heaven because of how I've lived. I'm not, but Jesus Christ took my punishment. [00:47:27] (25 seconds)  #NameInLambsBook

The Bible says, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? So this life is the most important issue is what are you gonna do with Jesus? And what are you gonna do with what He's done for you? And He can resolve that fear of death that is eternal death. You're still gonna die and it might not be too fun. You might not look forward to it, may even be afraid of the process. We're not talking about that. We're talking about the bigger issue, and that is that there is a judgment that is eternal upon unsaved man that no one needs to be a part of. [00:47:52] (28 seconds)  #ChooseJesusToday

But the Lord gives us these pictures of being a place of outer darkness. And the Bible says, not only is there a tormenting, but there's a separation. And Paul says in Thessalonians, they will suffer forever apart from the presence of God. We know in His presence is fullness of joy. So to be outside of His presence eternally. Remember, Jesus on the cross says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me as it becomes dark? And the picture is He's experiencing, if you will, hell for all mankind so that no one has to ever experience that. [00:50:27] (31 seconds)  #SavedFromSeparation

If the heights of fulfillment is in our relationship with the Lord, then at the depths below anything anyone has ever experienced in this life, the person who kills himself who doesn't want to live has no idea how bad that is. That's something beyond our capacity to understand or imagine. That's how awful it is. So that's why we preach. We say, man, you got to come to Christ. You don't have to go to hell. It's a real place and you will stand before God. So Paul says, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men. [00:52:09] (31 seconds)  #ChooseLifeChooseChrist

So this capacity of the creatures that God has created, whether man or angels, to have free will, to decide they will surrender their existence to the worship and the glory of God, or to have the capacity to say, I won't, is something that God has created them to have. Not because he wants them to sin, but they have to have the freedom to do that to validate their decision not to. And so every person, including Adam and Eve, a perfect environment, one opportunity in their case that we know is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. [00:54:36] (38 seconds)  #FreeWillAndResponsibility

But Satan had within him, and every other angel did as well, because others went with him in that rebellion. If what we understand to be a third of the angels actually became demons, this is one of the passages that talks about the tail of the dragon taking these stars of the Lord with him, then they all had the capacity to choose, and a good number of them did choose to rebel. So it has to do not with God's leaving something there that he shouldn't have, or there's some evil there. It wasn't evil, it was a capacity for evil, a freedom that is actually, God creates us as moral agents who can make choices. [00:55:14] (43 seconds)  #MoralAgencyMatters