Wesley on Hell

With the recent release of Rob Bell's latest book (see the 3/15 entry), the subject of Hell has found itself once again at the center of conversation and controversy. Over the course of the next few weeks, we will look to the voices of the past for biblical guidance and correction concerning the scriptural and historic understanding of Hell. I begin with the thoughts of John Wesley. Here is Wesley, commenting on the eternal state of divine punishment: "Consider...that all these torments of body and soul are without intermission. They have no respite from pain, but 'the smoke of their torment ascendeth up day and night.' Day and night...And of this duration there is no end! What a thought is this! Nothing but eternity is the term of their torment. And who can count the drops of rain, or the sands of the sea, or the days of eternity? Every suffering is softened, if there is any hope, though distant, of deliverance from it. But here, 'Hope never comes, that comes to all' the inhabitants of the upper world! What! Sufferings never to end!...Such is the account which the judge of all gives of the punishment which he has ordained for impenitent sinners. And what a counterbalance may the consideration of this be, to the violence of any temptation. In particular to the fear of man; the very use to which it is applied by our Lord himself: 'Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But fear him, who after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell,' Luke 7:4,5."

Letting The Bible Be The Bible

"If we let our unexamined beliefs undermine our confidence in the Bible, the cost may be greater than we think...Now, what happens if you eliminate anything from the Bible that offends your sensibility and crosses your will? If you pick and choose what you want to believe and reject the rest, how will you ever have a God that can contradict you? You won't! You'll have a Stepford God! A God, essentially, of your own making, not a God with whom you can have a relationship and genuine interaction. Only if your God can say things that outrage you and make you struggle will you know that you have gotten hold of a real God and not a figure of your imagination. So an authoritative Bible is not the enemy of a personal relationship with God. It is the precondition of it."

Tim Keller, The Reason For God

A Look At John Newton

"What was (John) Newton's motivation? It was a profound awareness of the grace and mercy of God toward him, a wretched sinner. Newton wrote,

Amazing grace-how sweet the sound-
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

Newton never forgot God's mercy to him. Once a friend of Newton's was complaining about someone who was resistant to the gospel and living a life of great sin. 'Sometimes I almost despair of that man,' the friend remarked. 'I never did despair of any man since God saved me,' said Newton. In his most advanced years, Newton's mind began to fail and he had to stop preaching. But when friends came to visit him he frequently remarked, 'I am an old man. My mind is almost gone. But I can remember two things: I am a great sinner, and Jesus is a great Savior.'"

James Boice, Mind Renewal

Rob Bell Controversy

Today is the national release of Rob Bell's latest book Love Wins. Bell is the pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church, a mega-congregation located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Many are acquainted with him through his NOOMA video series. Bell is a national voice of unorthodox theology, reaching and influencing thousands, many of whom confess dissatisfaction with traditional Christian teachings. While I have yet to read Love Wins, I am, by way of Bell's own quotes and public conversations, aware of its content. Simply stated, Bell argues against the ideas of the historical understanding of Hell, the punishment of sinners that reject the Gospel of Christ, and the urgency of preaching the Good News. In fairness to Rob Bell and others, I do plan on reading the book. As the fallout surrounding Love Wins grows, I do pray for good things to come from this controversy. Two specific things come to mind. May we be driven to the Bible as the source of answers to our questions; once we find the answer, may we trust the wisdom of God regardless of whether or not we like what we read. And, may our concern not be on who "wins" the public debate, but rather may this firestorm rekindle our passion to reach the lost with the uncompromising message of Jesus, a message that includes the truth about both Heaven and Hell.

The Value of Children

The following excerpt is from Wess Stafford's book Too Small To Ignore. Wess is the president and CEO of Compassion International.

"On that occasion I went on to tell the story I often tell of Dr. Tony Campolo, well-known author and sociologist at Eastern University outside Philadelphia. He grew up in that city, and one day while downtown he got the notion to drive by his old boyhood church. He knew the demographics of the neighborhood had changed several times since his childhood, and the congregation had gone from white to black to Asian to...now, nothing. He drove up to the familiar address to see plywood covering the windows of the sanctuary. Deterioration was on every side.

Dr. Campolo was sad-but also curious. He began to muse, What kills a church? What makes a once thriving church wither away and die? He decided to make his boyhood church a case study.

Finding the last group of elders, he introduced himself and then said, 'I'm interested in the life cycle of this church. Do you still have the records? May I study them?' They told him where to find the archives-in the basement of the building in a vault behind a door nailed shut. Dr. Campolo showed up a few days later with a crowbar and managed to pry open the room. Sweeping away the cobwebs, he stared at the stack of annual reports. Where do I begin? he wondered. I know, he said to himself, I'll start at the year I gave my life to Christ as a boy. He rustled through the stack until he found the report. Opening its yellow pages, he began to read.

That had not been a particularly good year for the church, the author admitted. Giving was down from the previous year. Mission activity was subdued. Attendance had declined. There were only three conversions over the course of the year, and they were 'just children'. Dr. Campolo stared at the page in disbelief and irritation. Wait a minute! he said out loud. I was one of those three! And I know the other two. One spent his life in mission service in Africa, while the other became president of a seminary here in the United States...What do you mean, just three children came to Christ that year?

The sociologist had found his answer to his research question. A church begins to die when it says, 'They were just children.' If that is the mind-set, decline and decay will surely follow."

Tuned To Christ

"Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshippers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become 'unity' conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship."

A.W. Tozer