How Will You Escape Being Condemned to Hell? (Matthew 23:33)
How will you escape being condemned to Hell? (Matthew 23:33)
At memorial service for Melody Plumb’s mother I referenced a TV Interview with former Beatle George Harrison, not long before he died of lung cancer.
George Harrison: I get confused when I look around at the world and I see that everybody is running around and yet nobody is wondering about what is the cause of death and what happens when you die. And that is really the only thing of any importance. The rest is all secondary.
Three views of the question of what happens when you die.
1. Nothing. Death is the end of our existence.
a. Pulitzer Prize philosopher Ernest Becker: Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order blindly and dumbly to rot and disappear forever. It is a terrifying dilemma to be in and to have to live with.
b. Eat drink and be merry…
2. God is all love so that all will (eventually) reach heaven
a. Rob Bell: no one can resist God’s pursuit forever, because God’s love will eventually melt even the hardest of hearts,”
3. God will allow all into heaven who have lived “a good enough” life
a. Mother Goose and Grim
Transition: Come to last in our Questions Jesus asked, come to most unsettling and critical topic – God’s judgment and topic of hell
1. Won’t go into great detail - AdultLife class
2. Cautious: Easy to see salvation only as relevant after death -- fire insurance from hell. Much more! Change agents. Balance the two. But we will deal with just a part.
Context for the question in Matthew Chapter 23
How will you escape being condemned to Hell? (Matthew 23:33)
A. Seven “Woes” of Jesus directed at the religious leaders.
1. Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites
- You shut people out from entering God’s Kingdom
2. Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites
- The converts you make are “twice as much a son of hell as you are.”
3.Woe to you blind guides
- You play word games to avoid keeping your word
4. Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites
- You major on the minors
5 and 6 Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites
- Your religiosity is outward and superficial. Inside you are void of any spiritual reality
7. Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites
- You claim to honor the prophets of old, but in fact if you lived during their time, you would have killed them.
B. You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?
Transition: Not a time to go into depth and address all the issues and questions.
A. Old Testament
1. Sheol It began as describing the dark and gloomy destination of the dead. Later, as the doctrine of resurrection and eternal life became more in focus, the righteous, who are abiding in a part of sheol called “Paradise” or “Abraham’s side” would one day be raised to everlasting life, and the unrighteous remain in judgment (Isaiah 26:19; Daniel 12:2; Luke 16:19-31)
How will you escape being condemned to Hell? (Matthew 23:33)
2. Gehenna: A valley on the south side of Jerusalem notorious for being the place of idol worship and child sacrifice. It became associated with God’s burning judgment on such practices and thus served as a broader metaphor in Jewish writings for the fiery judgment of the unrighteous. (Jeremiah 7:30-34, 19:1-6)
3. Throughout Old Testament time and the time leading up to ministry of Jesus there was no universal agreement on the nature and duration of judgment.
a. Pharisees (Yes on life after); Sadducees (No on life after)
B. New Testament
1. Hades: Comparable in many ways to sheol. Place of the dead who are not “in Christ” as they await final judgment. Most feel that any part of hades that might have been a paradise for the righteous as they await final salvation, has now been eclipsed so that those who die in the Lord go directly to be with him.
2. Gehenna (Hell). The final fiery destination of Satan, those people whose names are not in “the Lamb’s book of Life,” and even Hades itself (Revelation 20). It is this term that Jesus uses 11 time (out of a total of 12 in the New Testament), including here in Matthew 23.
C. Choices we make in this life do have eternal consequences.
1. Matthew 7 2 paths; Ephesians 2
2. What we do is not try harder to beat the curve but let go of such striving and by faith receive the free gift of forgiveness and salvation through Christ
God is not impressed by
A. Your status, your title, your resume.
1. Online article: “Do you know who I am?” List 7 celebrities who play the fame card
How will you escape being condemned to Hell? (Matthew 23:33)
a. Reese Witherspoon. Riding with husband when stopped on suspicion of DUI. Reese argued and arrested for disorderly conduct. “Do you know my name, sir? You’re about to find out who I am.” None of this ended up working in her favor and she issued a public apology the next day.
When British philosopher A.J. Ayer allegedly found Mike Tyson forcing himself on a young Naomi Campbell, who was just beginning her career, Ayer warned Tyson to stop, to which the boxer allegedly replied, "Do you know who the *%@#$ I am? I'm the heavyweight champion of the world." Ayer's response? "And I am the former Wykeham Professor of Logic. We are both preeminent in our field; I suggest that we talk about this like rational men."
2. Not impressed if we bring all we’ve done
a. Charity work I’ve done, neighbors I’ve helped
b. Church: I was chair of this board for so many years; I taught Sunday School… I was in church more than most people…..
c. Titus 3:4-7
3. Ephesians 2:10 reminds us Good works are not the means of salvation, but the fruit of salvation
B. Not impressed with our spiritual pedigree
1. Matthew 3:1, 5-10
2. Trace your family’s church-going to landing of Mayflower, God is not impressed.
3. Teen and parents are long time attenders, maybe even part of founding families of this church. Grateful for the legacy; opportunity to hear of God’s grace and to live in that grace. But in the end, to simply to be part of a family active in the church, God’s not impressed.
How will you escape being condemned to Hell? (Matthew 23:33)
C. The fact that you can play the part, but have no heart; Outward conformity without inward transformation
1. Outwardly religious leaders looked like perfect model for spirituality
a. Prayed and gave publicly so people would see them and be impressed.
b. Aloofness that created an us and them mentality
2. White washed coffins – all pretty and nice on the outside, but dead bones on the inside.
3. Thought about this when I read a short article by Rondall Reynoso entitled “Sin Avoidance or Doing Right”
a. Begins: Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God’s will.” -Eric Metaxas
b. Hate of sin is a good thing. But, by having the heart of our spiritual commitment be our hate of sin rather than our love of God we miss the mark…The heart of the gospel is defined by what we do, by who and what we love, not by what we avoid. The reality is that we become what we think about most of the time. With that in mind, we may want to focus on living the heart of God and doing right rather than the avoidance of sin. If we set our eyes and heart on God and living His will, sin avoidance will happen naturally.
What Does God call for?
A. Luke 18:9-14
1. In humility seek God’s Mercy
2. God’s mercy expressed and offered through Christ.
a. Ephesianas 2 Titus 3
b. 1 Peter 1:3
B. Mercy vs. Grace?
How will you escape being condemned to Hell? (Matthew 23:33)
1. Mercy: God not giving us what we in fact do deserve (i.e. judgment)
2. Grace: God giving us what we in fact don’t deserve (i.e. forgiveness and salvation)
Eugene Peterson/wife visiting a Benedictine monastery. On their way to lunch, they walked past the graveyard and noticed an open grave. Eugene asked which member of the community had died recently. - "No one," he was told. "That grave is for the next one." Each day, three times a day, as they walk from praying to eating, the members of that community are reminded of what we spend our waking hours trying to forget. One of them will be the next one.
When for us that happens – Scripture says we are appointed to die once then judgment Jesus asks How will you escape being condemned to Hell?
1. To whom do we go? Jesus
a. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus…(1 Timothy 2:5)
2. Where do we go? Cross
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18)