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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Handling Hell Well

Aron Crews

Handling Hell Well Introduction

Happy Sabbath, best day of the week, amen.

John and I back at Southern a long time ago.

We are tackling a topic this evening called Hell.

And you're probably like, whoa, how can you talk about hell for so long?

I could actually, if I really wanted to, turn this into like a five-part series.

And you may be asking, whoa, what got you into hell?

What got me so interested in studying hell was a number of years ago, there was a friend of mine who was not a Seventh-day Adventist who believed in the mainstream popular view of hell, that hell is a place of eternal torment.

And as I was sort of witnessing to them and sharing, and I was, you know, of course, there was a lot of other things they didn't believe that I believe, that we believe as Seventh-day Adventists.

And I was thinking of what would be like the best, I guess, entering wedge, the easiest transitional doctrine to get them sort of like a foot in the door to be like, hey, maybe Seventh-day Adventists aren't like all kooky.

That, hey, maybe your beliefs are actually Bible-based, true and awesome, right?

And make God look amazing because it's what the Bible teaches about him.

And so I was just thinking, hey, I think hell has the greatest potential to be that doctrine.

And so I put a ton of time, like a ridiculous amount of time, studying the topic of hell, so that I could use it as sort of like this entering wedge, as like a Bible study.

But as I was studying it, man, I learned so many amazing things about the character of God, the love of God, just the power of hell.

And so hopefully over these 3 presentations, if you stay with us through tomorrow, you will learn something new.

You will actually unlearn, I think most of us, some things that you thought were true but aren't actually true, and maybe readjust some of your views about this, and then also be equipped to understand this doctrine in a more biblical way, and be equipped to share it in a way that is incredibly powerful to both believers, Christians who aren't Seventh-day Adventist and especially to unbelievers, right?

There are 3 main views of hell that are out there, right?

Universalism is the view that everyone ultimately is saved.

So there are different variations of this view of hell universalism, but ultimately, if someone goes to hell, They're not there permanently.

It's somewhat likened to like a purgatory type view, but ultimately everyone is saved.

Everyone is saved is what universalism ultimately teaches.

Then there's the middle 1, eternal torment, which is the most popular mainstream view of hell taught by the majority, vast majority of Christians in the world.

And this view also carries on into many of other world religions that are out there.

Then the 1 on the, and this is of course that when someone, you know, is not saved, whatever that may look like in whatever religion, they are lost and they go to this place of torment, whether it be literal fires or metaphorical fires, but it's some kind of torment eternally.

Not a thousand years, not a million, not a billion, not a trillion, an infinite number of years.

Then there's the bottom view here called annihilation, and annihilation is what Seventh-day Adventists prescribe to.

This is our understanding derived from scripture of what hell is.

Ultimately, while there is a time and a place for punishment and judgment and suffering for the wicked, ultimately, hell is a place of annihilation.

The wages of sin is death and they will cease to exist forever, right?

So we are going to primarily be looking at and contrasting the view of eternal torment with that of annihilation.

We're not gonna really spend much time addressing universalism tonight and tomorrow, but definitely looking at this most popular view of eternal torment, looking at the scriptural data and a number of other things along the way.

So we're gonna begin with asking this simple question.

What has been the fruit of the teaching on eternal torment, right?

What is the, what has been the consequences within the world and within Christendom at large of this belief that is so prevalent, so prominent in the world, eternal torment.

What is the fruit of the teaching of this doctrine?

Well, I have a number of quotes that I'll be sharing with you.

I could share with you probably like 50 times the amount of quotes.

But these should highlight to us some of the effects that this teaching has had on the world.

I'll start with a quote from the book, "'The Great Controversy' where it's recorded that it is beyond the power of the human mind.

You actually can't let it sink in because it's beyond the capacity of your mind.

It is beyond the power of the human mind to estimate the evil which has been wrought by the heresy of eternal torment.

The religion of the Bible, full of love and goodness and abounding in compassion, is darkened by superstition and clothed with terror.

When we consider in what false colors Satan has painted the character of God, can we wonder that our merciful creator is feared, dreaded, and even hated?

The appalling views of God which have spread over the world from the teachings of the pulpit have made thousands, yes, millions of skeptics and infidels." This is not only Ellen White who believed this and taught that this view of God, this doctrine of eternal torment has grossly affected people's view of God, but also we have someone not of our faith, Lauren Anderson, who was a prior president of the Pacific Lutheran University, he wrote or said, produces the most widespread unbelief.

Compared with this, all objections to Christianity fade to insignificance.

Nicholas Berdiev, a Russian political and Christian religious philosopher wrote, "'I can conceive of no more powerful "'and in his mind irrefutable argument in favor of atheism "'than the eternal torments of hell.

"'If hell is eternal, then I am an atheist.'" Right, To him, to his mind, it's so silly that a supposed God of love would torture and torment those who don't accept him.

The whole throwing out the baby with the bathwater, right?

The whole thing just must be a fairy tale because this is just such a laughable, not laughable, sad and terrible doctrine.

Robert Ingersoll, A 19th century agnostic wrote, he was very tongue in cheek, nothing could add to the horror of hell except the presence of its creator, God.

Well, I have life, as long as I draw breath, I shall deny with all my strength and hate with every drop of my blood, this infinite lie.

And to that, I can actually kind of say, amen, right?

The only thing that would add to the torments of hell would be the presence of the 1 who invented it.

A survey was done, a study was done in 2017 on the continent, in the country of Australia, a study on faith and belief, and they had some interesting findings.

From the study, it was taken that the biggest blocker to Australians engaging with Christianity is the church's stance in teaching on homosexuality.

Number 2, this is followed by, how could a loving God allow people to go to hell?

28% of Australians, highly secular country, say, hey, I don't even want to engage with Christianity because of this belief that God would torture people in hell forever.

It's a major, major, major stumbling block to many, many people.

All of us are probably acquainted with Charles Darwin in his development of the evolutionary theory.

Did you know that before Darwin began his journey towards the evolutionary theory and writing his book and everything like that, he was a committed Orthodox Christian.

He actually wanted to be a priest when he grew up.

We read in his autobiography, he writes, during these 2 years, I was led to think much about religion.

Whilst on board the Beagle, I was quite Orthodox.

And I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality.

I was very unwilling to give up my Christian belief.

But alas, thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete.

The rate was so slow that I felt no distress and have never since doubted, even for a single second, that my conclusion was correct.

I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true.

For if so, the plain language of the text, " of course I would argue with him on this, "'seems to show that the men who do not believe, ' and This would include my father, brother, and almost all of my friends will be everlasting punished.

You could say that the last nail in the coffin of Darwin's Christianity was the belief of eternal torment.

To him, he said, okay, I don't even want it to be true.

And I don't see how anyone else could wish it to be true as well.

So not only for the skeptic, the atheist, the non-believer who's considering Christianity, who sees this doctrine as an insurmountable hurdle, to many Christians, followers of Christ, of course outside of our Advent faith, who believe that this view is true and what the Bible teaches are really carrying it around like a ball and chain, right?

It's like this view that they say, well, I guess This is what the Bible teaches, right?

What Jesus Said

Just to share a little bit more about myself, so you know who you're going to be listening to for the next about an hour or so.

My name is Aaron Cruz and currently pastoring up Northern California, which enjoying the cooler weather up there compared to here, but up there at Granite Bay Hilltop, I'm the youth and young adult pastor.

And I pastor in Michigan for about 7 years before coming out to California.

This is a picture of me at Advent Hope preaching on October 1, 2016, almost exactly 7 years ago.

And at the time, I was single, but I did not know it at that exact moment, but my future wife was actually sitting in the audience.

Yeah, and today she's also sitting in the audience.

She was sitting somewhere in the back middle not knowing that this stunningly handsome young pastor was her future husband.

7 years ago that's when she first saw me and 7 months ago is when we got married.

And today is October 7, the seventh day of the week, so hopefully you guys are ready for 7 hours of me preaching.

At the time, that was the largest audience I ever preached to.

I was this young, almost less than a year out of college, new pastor preaching to a large group of people, and it's been a while since then.

This is my third time speaking at Advent Hope, and I've been doing a three-part series.

So I started last night with the topic, Handling Hell Well, and today we're gonna be talking about what Jesus said, what Jesus said.

So the majority, the vast majority of you were not present.

So we're going to start with a review to catch everyone up to speed as we continue on with the series.

And later this afternoon, I think about 4.30, I'll be giving my third part, Handling Hell Well, The Revelation.

So let's open up with just 1 more quick word of prayer before we dive into the review and get into the presentation.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak here to this group of people.

Lord, I ask for your Holy Spirit to be present amongst us and in us.

And as we open your word, Lord, we ask that you open our minds, open our hearts to hear and to understand the things that you want to teach us this morning.

I began to study this a number of years ago when I started to think about what would be the best study to give someone who may not fully understand everything that I do as a Seventh-day Adventist?

What's the best topic that would help to bridge someone who's a more broader Christian into our faith, what I would believe?

And I thought that the topic of hell would be really good because as we look last night, the ramifications that the topic of hell has on the character of God are very, very huge and significant.

So I began this really deep study into the topic of hell.

And I've studied probably the topic of hell far more than anyone needs to, but it's been a really actually blessing to me.

And hopefully I can share some new things with you.

So the 3 main views of hell that are in the world today are universalism, eternal torment, and annihilation.

Universalism basically teaches that ultimately, while some people may go to hell, they eventually will be saved.

That at the end of the day, no 1 is going to go to hell permanently and forever, that ultimately everyone will experience universal salvation.

The most popular view of hell is that of eternal torment.

This is the most common view of hell, both within the Christian world and the wider world religions around.

And this belief teaches that those who do not accept the grace of Jesus Christ and are lost will go to hell to be tortured, tormented for an eternal period of time.

Then the third view that I believe that Seventh-day Adventists hold to is the view called annihilation.

That is that hell, while there is a judgment, right, for the wicked, the ultimate judgment and punishment for their sins will be death.

The wages and the consequences of sin will be death.

So we looked last night about what has been the fruit, what has been the results of this teaching of eternal torment.

I'll just share with you just a couple of them.

Lauren Anderson, former president of Pacific Lutheran University, once said, so revolting to my moral nature is the creed of eternal punishment that it more than any other cause produces the most widespread unbelief.

Compared with this, all objections to Christianity, he says, fade to insignificance.

Then you have an author, Ellen White, who wrote in the book The Great Controversy, she said, It is beyond the power of the human mind to estimate the evil which has been wrought by the heresy of eternal torment.

When we consider in what false colors Satan has painted the character of God, can we wonder that our merciful creator is feared, dreaded, and even hated.

The appalling views of God which have spread over the world from the teachings of the pulpit have made thousands, yes, millions, if she were writing today, perhaps she would say billions of skeptics and infidels.

So whether you believe this is a biblical teaching or not, we have to swallow the pill that this teaching in the world has caused many people to reject Christ, that it has been an obstacle insurmountable to many who are considering Christianity.

But not just those who are outside of the Christian faith.

Has this been a difficult doctrine to swallow?

But even those who are followers of Christ, who are current Christians, who believe this doctrine, To them, the more they think about it, it really is like a ball and chain.

It's this doctrine that they just like, well, I know that God is love and all these other things, but he also does this.

He also tortures and torments those who don't accept him.

And the more they think about it, the bigger that weight gets, until they reach a point where their religion just cracks and breaks, or they just so bury this belief because it's not really congruent with the other facets of Christianity.

For example, Charles Darwin was a solid, Bible-believing, Orthodox Christian.

He writes in his autobiography that whilst on board the Beagle, he was quite Orthodox.

And he remembers being heartily laughed at by several of the officers for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality.

He was very, I was very willing, he writes, to give up my belief.

But then disbelief began to creep over him.

And then he says, after he fully gave up his faith, he says, I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true.

For if so, the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my father, brother, and almost all of my friends, will be everlastingly punished, and this is a damnable doctrine.

And to him, he couldn't continue to believe Christianity anymore if this was a part of it.

We then took a look and we surveyed Genesis chapter 3 and we saw that really the original attack all the way at the beginning of the Bible was an attack that Satan levied against the character of God.

He presented God as being overly and unnecessarily restricted, as a God who was lying and threatening, right?

Lying, making up that they would die if they ate of the fruit, and ultimately that God was selfish and withholding good things from them.

And once this false picture of God was believed by Eve, she ate of the fruit.

And I put this, a false picture of God believed inevitably results in rebellion.

And in my view, in my estimation, the belief of eternal torment is probably the grossest misrepresentation of the character of God ever to be brought into the universe.

And so I think it's a topic worth spending our time considering because it's a topic we need to handle well when dealing with both believers and unbelievers, to make sure we know correctly what the truth is about this matter.

Another quotation from that book, The Great Controversy, the author writes, it is Satan's constant effort to misrepresent the character of God.

Satan causes humans to cherish false conceptions of God so that they regard him with fear and hate rather than with love.

I once heard, you know, I've heard actually a few sermons from Christian presenters presenting this view of hell, and it would just boil my blood, right?

So I ask you the question, if someone was grossly misrepresenting a close loved 1, a spouse, a close friend, a parent, a sibling, would you stand by and say nothing?

If your spouse was being maligned and you were hearing someone say, well, they do this and they do that, and you knew it wasn't true, what would love demand you do?

You would be like, no, that's not what they do.

And so I believe that this doctrine, if indeed eternal torment is false, which I believe it to be, and we're hopefully going to show that today, it should make you angry.

It should sadden you that people believe this about God, and it should motivate you to go and preach the true gospel about who God really is.

And so these 3 main views, universalism, eternal torment, and annihilation, we find that the top 2, universalism and eternal torment, actually find the same foundation to their belief.

And that is the belief of natural immortality.

This is contrasted with the belief by annihilationists, and that is that we receive immortality as a gift.

The Revelation

All right, well, I don't know how many of you have ever sat through 3 hours of preaching about hell within such a short period of time, but kudos to you guys for coming back.

Jesus did say, "'The 1 who endures to the end shall be saved.

So thanks for enduring through these presentations with me.

This is the third part of my three-part series called Handling Hell Well.

We began with an introduction, then this morning we dove into the specifics of what Jesus said.

And this evening, we're gonna tackle the book of Revelation and piecing together the final pieces of this topic that I've studied out.

So we're gonna start with a review of this morning, hopefully just a brief review, but before we get into it, let me just offer up 1 more prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this time, this Sabbath time together to study your word and help us to have a deeper understanding of this topic so that we can know for ourselves, but also so that we can be equipped better to share with other people about this topic.

The revelation is what we're gonna get into, but what Jesus said is what we're going to start with regarding a review from this morning.

We focused this morning on the 2 passages that are found in the gospels.

And there we began by defining what we mean when we say the word hell, biblically.

And that is that hell, aka Gehenna, the term Jesus used, is the place and experience of the key here bodily resurrected unrighteous in the final judgment at the end of the age.

That word that Jesus used Gehenna right is located in all of these passages And Gehenna literally means Valley of Hinnom.

So here's an actual photograph of this Valley of Hinnom.

And oftentimes people teach that the Valley of Hinnom in Jesus's day was a garbage dump.

However, we discovered that this idea was not developed until over a thousand years after the first century.

So very, very, very unlikely that it actually was a garbage dump.

Rather, I think it's better to go to scripture to see what Jesus had in mind rather than a tradition a thousand years later.

And when we looked at that, we landed back in Jeremiah, chapter 7, and Jeremiah, chapter 19, where there was a prophecy that God gave through Jeremiah that said that the valley of Hinnom would no longer be called the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter, that there will be corpses spread out everywhere and that their bodies will be left unburied, an ignominious and shameful death, and no 1 will frighten away the wild beasts and birds that come and to eat away at their bodies.

So this is the picture that Jesus, that the culture would have had, that the contemporaries of Jesus would have had in mind about the Valley of Hinnom, this great prophecy of slaughter and ignominiously left unburied.

So this is the picture that Jesus wants us to have in mind.

He also combined this imagery with, where their worm does not die and their fire is not quenched.

And we saw that this was Jesus quoting from Isaiah 66 verse 24, which is paralleled to Jeremiah.

You have God slaying his enemies, their dead bodies, the corpses laying there, where first the birds and the bees, we've all seen this, right?

We're driving down the road and we see roadkill, right?

And then oftentimes you'll see birds, vultures there.

If you're lucky you may see like a cougar or something, I don't know, eating on the side of the road and then eventually what's left behind, if you look close, if you dare get close enough, you'll smell it stinks.

And there are worms, there are maggots that are beginning to grow on that.

And the worms are feeding on the corpse until there is nothing left.

And when the skeleton structure is left behind, that's the fire that completely eradicates it.

So here the imagery that Jesus is communicating about hell is complete and total annihilation.

Going now to Matthew 25, we saw that eternal punishment, the punishment is defined as the eternal fire.

Then we looked at Jude and we saw that Jude communicated that eternal fire was the punishment that God inflicted upon Sodom and Gomorrah.

Then we turn to Peter and saw that Sodom and Gomorrah were condemned to extinction, turned to ashes, and this was an example of what was gonna happen to the ungodly.

So the eternal fire condemns that which it burns to extinction.

Eternal punishment is contrasted with eternal life because that punishment ultimately is death, a eternal forever death.

Just as Paul says, the wage of sin is death and the gift of God is eternal life.

Likewise, Jesus says in John 3, 16, 2 options, perishing or having eternal life.

And then Jesus says in Matthew chapter 10, fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.

So whatever your view of the soul is or the body, it's all destroyed in Gehenna.

Then we ended the presentation this morning showing that Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane cried out to his disciples saying, my soul is exceedingly sorrowful even to death, aka my soul is dying.

Jesus began to experience the wages of sin, the separation from the Father, the punishment, the psychological, the physical, all of those things already beginning in the garden.

And we saw that Jesus took our place and went to hell, if you will, so that we don't have to.

So those were our, that's our review of what we covered this morning, looking at Matthew 25 and Mark 9, hopefully to your satisfaction, showing that these passages, rather than teaching eternal torment, teach actually the exact opposite, the complete and total cessation of life where nothing remains at all.

Now, moving on to our new content, Handling Hell Well, The Revelation.

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