Reality of Hell

False Salvation

                Sacrament – a divine promise, authorization from Jesus Christ and a physical sign, said the sixteenth century priest, monk and teacher, Martin Luther. However, is baptism nothing more but a declaration of where you stand as a believer, a confirmation to the world that you follow Jesus Christ and not the world?

                Placing the fundamental law of God in place which is separation from him because of his divine perfection and our rebellion, we see that our salvation isn’t granted to us until we are judged. Do Christians stop sinning once they are baptized?

Reality of Hell            

                John Edwards thought that God was like a friend. The first time you ditched this friend, you felt bad and feared their reaction but as soon as they showed grace you repeatedly took their love for granted and continued to ditch them. Similarly, once Christians figured out that God loved them, they took his love, put it in their back pocket and continued living to please themselves and the world. 

               Jonathan Edwards's sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" was originally preached to scare his audience in to repentance. The sermon starts by stating God’s strength, power and dominion over mankind and the only reason why he doesn’t send the “wicked” into hell is merely because his will doesn’t care to do so. “Men’s hands cannot be strong when God rises up… He is not only able to cast wicked men into hell, but he can most easily do it.”   

                Edward’s then states that man is a petty thing, a pile of dirt, compared to God’s righteousness and that because of God’s divine law of justice men is deserving of death (hell). “They deserve to be cast into hell; so that divine justice never stands in the way, it makes no objection against God’s using his power at any moment to destroy them… justice calls aloud for an infinite punishment of their sins.” Which I believe is correct. The punishment for sin is death. Edward’s called it a “sentence of condemnation to hell.” Which is absolutely true, you are born to sin so there is no way of avoiding eternal damnation outside of Christ. “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” What we see from scripture mirrors Edward’s statement that we are born to death, “whoever does not believe is condemned already.” Every time a child is born, they are not born innocent but are rather born prisoners… chained to misery… slaves to sin. John 8:34-35, “…everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be freed.” Romans 6:20-23, “For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

                Edward’s follows his fear igniting statements by writing that Hell holds the wrath of the universe’s most dominant being, God. “They are now the objects of that very same anger and wrath of God, that is expressed in the torments of hell. And the reason why they do not go down to hell at each moment, is not because God, in whose power they are, is not then very angry with them; as he is with many miserable creatures now in hell, who there feel and bear the fierceness of his wrath.” Edwards also makes a brilliant statement of the longevity of Hell and that the reason why God doesn’t just strike down wicked beings is because Hell is eternal. “So that is not because God is unmindful of their wickedness, and does not resent it, that he does not let loose his hand and cut them off. God is not altogether such an one as themselves, though they may imagine him to be so. The wrath of God burns against them, their damnation does not slumber; the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now rage and glow.” Hell is real; it exists and has been in service since God invented it.

                The next paragraph in the sermon is extraordinary… remarkable. The way he uses the devil in his speech only makes you wonder where the devil is right now, what he is doing and if he stares at you at night. “The devil stands ready to fall upon them, and seize the as his own, at what moment God shall permit him. They belong to him; he has their souls in his possession, and under his dominion… the devils watch them; they are ever by them at their right hand; they stand waiting for them, like greedy hungry lions that see their prey, and expect to have it, but are for the present kept back. If God should withdraw his hand, by which they are restrained, they would in one moment fly upon their poor souls. The old serpent is gaping for them; hell opens its mouth wide to receive them; and if God should permit it, they would be hastily swallowed up and lost.” He notes that the devil is under God’s authority… therefore not at war against one another which kills the notion of God wanting us to love him and the devil wanting us to fall so he can devour us.

                 The last section of the sermon is about mankind trying to escape hell either by their “good works” or by being over confident fools in believing that they can cheat God’s divine laws. “Almost every natural man that hears of hell, flatters himself that he shall escape it; he depends upon himself for his own security; he flatters himself in what he has done, in what he is now doing, or what he intends to do. Every one lays out matters in his own mind how he shall avoid damnation, and flatters himself that he contrives well for himself, and that his schemes will not fail. They hear indeed that there are but few saved, and that the greater part of men that have died heretofore are gone to hell; but each one imagines that he lays out matters better for his own escape that others have done. He does not intend to come to that place of torment; he says within himself, that he intends to take effectual care, and to order matters so for himself as not to fail. But the foolish children of men miserably delude themselves in their own schemes, and in confidence in their own strength and wisdom.”