When you think about Biblical teachings that are most important, which ones come to mind? My guess is that you immediately think of doctrines such as the substitutionary atonement of Christ, the resurrection, the inerrancy of the Scriptures, and the triune nature of God. All of these are critically important. But what about the doctrine of hell? Did it come to mind?
There is perhaps no doctrine of Scripture more offensive to modern man than the doctrine of hell. The belief that a person could be tormented eternally because of their position and actions is looked down upon in society as the product of an unenlightened religious past. People who espouse such things must be on the wrong side of history. Postmodern thinking, on the other hand, has given rise to the notion that what is true for one person is not necessarily true for another. So while the Bible claims that the doctrine of hell is true, the world (like Pilate) raises its voice to cry, “What is truth?” Postmodern man has relegated hell to a cold future in the collective thought of the world.
What is far more alarming, however, is the place hell is being given in many confessing evangelical churches today. Although the doctrine of hell may not be directly denied, it often seems to be pushed to the side, softened, or completely ignored in favor of more appealing doctrines. After all, who wants to hear about eternal torment when we could be hearing about the love of God? Preaching about hell is not exactly at the top of the list for how to grow a big church. It’s not something that tends to draw a large crowd these days. We know it’s in the Bible, but do we really need to preach about it? How important could it really be?
The answer to that last question is one word: very. Think for a minute about four things that happen when hell is ignored from the pulpit.
- The Bible will not be fully taught
When Paul stood before the elders of the Ephesian church, he said that he had taught them “the whole counsel of God” (Ephesians 20:27). He wrote to Timothy that “all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). Do we believe this? Are we practicing it? It is significant to note that hell and the judgment of God are referred to over 180 times in the New Testament alone (hell, judgment, torment, fire, destruction, wrath, punishment, etc.). If we leave out the doctrine of hell from our preaching, we are ignoring a large portion of Scripture that the Holy Spirit intended for our benefit. That can’t be good for our health. If we say we are committed to the Scriptures, we need to preach all of it.
- The holiness and justice of God will be minimized
The Bible has a whole lot to say about sin. Probably because we humans are rebels by nature. But God is not like us. He is wonderfully and completely separate from sin. In a word, He is holy. “Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy.” (Revelation 15:4) The word “holy” is used over 600 times in the Bible. Clearly, God is concerned with holiness. His holiness also means that He cannot abide sin. “You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong” (Habakkuk 1:13). God cannot turn a blind eye to sin because of His holiness. And so, because He is holy (and just), He must punish sin. He must bring justice upon every person who has rebelled against Him. “The LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies.” (Nahum 1:2) This justice is finally realized in a place of eternal, conscious torment that the Bible calls hell. “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?” (Matthew 23:33) To ignore this doctrine of hell is to say that God winks at sin. It is to say that it doesn’t really matter how we live because God will accept us all in the end anyways. It is to say that the Hitlers and serial killers and child molesters and persecutors of God’s people won’t really receive the justice they deserve. It is to say that God is not holy and God is not just. In short, it is to say that most of what the Bible says about God isn’t really true after all. And without this vital element, the love of God is also greatly diminished. Apart from the holiness and justice of God, the love of God is reduced to a mushy, sentimental love, rather than the holy, breathtaking, people-redeeming, God-glorifying love that it truly is.
- Christians will not be fully motivated to persevere
We live in an age when people in the pew generally want to hear nice things. Hearing about scary doctrines like hell and judgment just aren’t fashionable, especially not as a motivation for living the Christian life. After all, we Christians have fire insurance, right? Many church-goers may be surprised to find out that hell is actually used as a motivation for Christians to live as they ought to live. Though the Bible presents believers with a multitude of motivations to follow Christ faithfully (gratitude, joy, blessing, future rest, etc.), the reality of hell is certainly among them. Jesus Himself taught this when He said to His disciples, “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.” (Matthew 5:29) He also said to His followers, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28) The author of Hebrews, writing to a group of Christians, says, “For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.” (Hebrews 10:26-27) Does this mean that a true Christian needs to be afraid that they might go to hell? In the words of the apostle Paul, certainly not! A true believer has no reason to think that they could ever be thrown into hell when Christ has already suffered in their place. However, a professing Christian who lives like the world or is turning His back on Christ has every reason to think that they may have a one-way ticket to hell. (Matthew 7:19, 21; Hebrews 10:38) That realization is one of the motivations God uses to keep true believers persevering to the end. To disregard that in the regular preaching ministry is to deprive God’s people of what is good and necessary for their souls.
- The Gospel will not be preached
Surely if we can agree on anything as evangelicals, it is the Gospel. We recognize and affirm that it is the preaching of the Gospel that God uses to bring salvation to needy sinners. But if we do not include God’s judgment as a part of our presentation of the gospel, something is terribly missing. Consider these three things. Firstly, we need to preach about hell so people will know why the Gospel is necessary. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) and have turned aside and gone our own way (Isaiah 53:6). And as a result, God stands ready to bring judgment upon all such people who scorn Him (2 Thessalonians 1:8). His holiness and justice demand it. He will by no means clear the guilty (Exodus 34:7). This is indeed bad news. But it is bad news that leads somewhere. Only against this dark backdrop will the Gospel truly be understood as the good news it really is.
Secondly, what Jesus was doing on the cross will not be understood apart from the judgment of God. What was going on as Jesus hung on a Roman cross between heaven and earth? The Bible uses a powerful and important word to describe it: propitiation. “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:10) Good Bible translations don’t replace that word with an easier one because it is so important. Propitiation is a sacrifice that turns away God’s wrath from us to itself. In other words, although we justly deserve God’s wrath because of our sin, something takes our place and suffers our punishment for us so that we can be forgiven and made right with God. You can surely see where I’m going with this. Jesus is the sacrifice. He is the one who took our place and suffered the wrath of God on our behalf. (Galatians 3:13) He wasn’t just setting us an example of sacrificial love on the cross. He was offering Himself as a divinely appointed substitute for our salvation. (1 Peter 3:18) In short, He suffered the full weight of hell for His people. To never mention hell or the wrath of God is to never mention the very heart of what Jesus was accomplishing for our salvation.
Thirdly, the lost will not be warned about the danger they face if hell is not preached. Surely part of the Gospel message is warning people about what will happen if they do not come to Christ. God uses means to bring people to Christ, and one of the means He uses is to warn lost people of the danger they are in. God himself says in Ezekiel 33:11, “As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?” Jesus calls men to “Remember Lot’s wife” and the judgment that God poured out upon her (Luke 17:32). It’s only when people see their great need to be saved from such punishment that they run to Christ for salvation. As Iain Murray says, “No one was converted without knowing that he needed to be.” Are there unconverted visitors coming to your church? Are there children growing up in the church who are still not saved? They need to hear about hell because they need to see how much they need Christ.
If you are reading this article and you are a pastor, let me encourage you to give attention to this vital subject in your preaching ministry. Maybe you haven’t denied the doctrine like Rob Bell has. But perhaps you are pushing it to the side because you want to see lots of people come to your church. Maybe you are tempted to tone it down because you don’t want people to leave. But you ignore it to your own peril and the peril of the people under your ministry. J.C. Ryle wrote, in his classic work, Holiness:
“I believe the time is come when it is a positive duty to speak plainly about the reality and eternity of hell…The watchman who keeps silence, when he sees a fire, is guilty of gross neglect…and the minister who keeps back hell from his people in his sermons is neither a faithful nor a charitable man…He is the kindest friend who tells me the whole extent of my danger.”
Listen also to A.W. Pink:
“Brethren, do we in our oral ministry preach on this solemn subject as much as we ought? The Old Testament prophets frequently told their hearers that their wicked lives…were treasuring up to themselves wrath…And conditions in the world are no better now than they were then!…Faithfulness demands that we speak as plainly about hell as about heaven.”
Do we preach hell because it is pleasant or because we like threatening people? No. We preach about hell because we must. We preach it because the Bible is true, because God is holy, because the Gospel is good news, and because we love sinners. Hell is real and to ignore it would be the most unloving thing we could do.
Am I saying that every sermon needs to be about hell? Absolutely not. Not every chapter or verse in the Bible is about hell. There are many other aspects of God’s revelation that need to be considered. What I am saying is that if this doctrine is not coming up in the preaching on a regular basis, people will be deprived of teaching that can lead them to Christ, prepare them for the last day, and bring glory to God. That sounds to me like something to be concerned about.
Is the Fear of God a Lost Doctrine in the Church? Part 1
As a young boy who attended church in the sixties, I remember often hearing someone described as a God fearing person. At that time, for someone to be characterized in this manner was certainly not unusual. However, after attending Bible preaching churches for the last thirty five years, I could count on my hand the number of times I have heard this phrase used to describe someone who is a Christian. Furthermore, after hearing literally thousands of messages preached by many different Godly men, I cannot remember ever hearing one sermon preached specifically on the fear of God.
Perhaps the greatest evidence that the fear of God is a lost doctrine in our churches is that today America can no longer be called a God fearing nation. What a statement when the Ten Commandments were removed from display in all public buildings! What a prophetic commentary is the continual debate to strip “One Nation Under God” from the national pledge and to erase “In God We Trust” from national currency. This nation is radically concerned about offending anyone except the Almighty Creator of the Universe. Even more alarming–our families have not finished reaping the devastating consequences.
Carl Zimmerman, a Harvard University sociologist, studied the rise and fall of major empires in world history, and traced what happened to family units in each empire. His book Family and Civilizationconcludes that families go through three phases. In each case study of the third phase, right before the empire collapses, families accept the following as the norm:
- Increased, easy causeless divorce.
- Increased acceptance of adultery.
- Alternate forms of marriage would arise.
- A rise in juvenile delinquency.
- The feminist movement would abound.
- Women would lose their desire to birth children in light of a career.
- Perversions of all kinds would arise, especially that of homosexuality.
In consideration of the post modern culture of our nation today, each item on that list has earned a check mark. This is the norm for the families of this nation. Even within the church, reverence for God has been supplanted by concentration on politically correct demands for what we as individuals feel we deserve. Politically and practically, America has lost its fear of God because the churches within America have lost their fear of God! I believe the only hope for the survival of our beloved nation is a passionate reinstatement of the fear of God upon the people of God in the churches of America.
It was only after reading (about twenty years ago) The Practice of Godliness, a thought provoking book by author Jerry Bridges, that I was confronted with the doctrine of the fear of God. Since that time I have felt compelled to devote much time and study to the significance of this doctrine in the Word of God. I began to see that the fear of God is woven through scripture like a beautifully prominent thread in a stunningly fine garment. In fact I discovered that there are over 150 direct references and hundreds of indirect references to the fear of God in the Bible!
The urgency of this doctrine is highlighted when, at the end of his life, Solomon (whom God declared to be the wisest man who ever lived), culminated all of his vast understanding into one profound statement:
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. Ecclesiastes 12:13
How could such a significant doctrine disappear from the teaching and preaching in our churches? Some would answer, “This is an Old Testament concept and therefore not relevant to New Testament Christianity.” Others might say, “We should not be teaching and preaching that we should be afraid of God.” Is the fear of God only an Old Testament doctrine and does it mean that we are to be afraid of God? These are crucial questions that I will address over the next few months in a series of articles on the fear of God.
In the remainder of this first article on the fear of God, I present a brief survey of some key passages throughout the Word of God that illustrate the compelling incentives promised to the person(s) who fear God.
1) Godly Character and Conduct is Rooted in the Fear of God
I believe that everyone would admit that there is a character crisis in America today. Why? In Romans 3:18, Paul explains the depraved nature of man by stating, “There is no fear of God before their eyes”. Theologian John Calvin stated:
All wickedness flows from a disregard of God….Since the fear of God is the bridle by which our wickedness is held check, its removal frees us to indulge in every kind of licentious conduct.
Carl Zimmerman’s list confirms the validity of Calvin’s analysis.
In the Old Testament Solomon pronounces the solution to the character crisis:
By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: And by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil. Proverbs 16:6
Do we want our children to exhibit strong character and righteous conduct? The answer according to Proverbs 16:6 is the fear of the Lord. Do we desire to conduct ourselves with integrity when we are under pressure to compromise? The essential foundation of such behavior is the fear of the Lord.
2) Godly Communion is Rooted in the Fear of God
Do you long to experience intense awareness of God’s presence? Psalm 25:4 reveals that intimacy with God is reserved for the person who fears Him.
The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him;and he will show them his covenant. Psalm 25:14
To whom do we tell secrets? We tell secrets to someone we are intimate with or that we trust. God reserves intimate communion for those who fear Him. Also, he further states that He will show them His covenant or He will show them His ways. Wow! What a tremendous promise to the person who fears God.
King David experienced deep intimacy with God. His Psalms repeatedly disclose that this exceptional intimacy was experienced within the attitude and atmosphere of personal worship. Genuine worship invites the presence of God.
But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: And in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple. Psalm 5:7
The psalmist declares that our worship is rooted in having a fear of God. We will worship what we fear! When a person exalts and gives highest priority to his career, he worships his career. If a person fears not having money, he will begin to worship money. If a person fears not having friends, she will begin to worship her friends. Likewise, a person who fears God will worship God!
3) Godly Wisdom is Rooted in the Fear of God
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Psalm 111:10
Behold, the fear of the Lord is wisdom; Job 28:28
Godly wisdom can only be obtained through having the fear of the Lord. Without the fear of the Lord, men will act foolishly as if there is no God.
4) Godly Cheer is Rooted in the Fear of God
Many books are written from a humanistic perspective in an attempt to answer the question of how a man can obtain happiness in this life. How does God answer this question?
Blessed are those who fear the LORD, who find great delights in His commands. Psalm 112:1
The word “blessed” means happy. God states that happiness or Godly cheer comes to the person who fears Him and delights in His commands.
5) Godly Protection is Rooted in the Fear of God
The angel of the LORDencamps around those that fear him, and he delivers them. Psalm 34:7
God states that He will hedge around those who fear Him and send forth His angels to protect and deliver them.
6) Godly Provision is Rooted in the Fear of God
O fear the LORD, ye his saints: For there is no want to them that fear him. Psalm 34:9
The person who fears God is a person who is content in God and has no want outside of the provision that God supplies to him.
7) A Forever Family is Rooted in the Fear of God
O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children forever! Deuteronomy 5:29
Before Moses and the children of Israel enter into the promise land, God passionately cries out to Moses; “Oh that they had such a heart!” What kind of heart does God long for the people to have? He fervently desires that they possess a heart that fears Him and therefore constrains them to obey Him. If so, He vows a good, prosperous, fulfilling life–that it will be well with them and their children forever! Throughout Deuteronomy chapter six, God reiterates to the Israelites the urgency of fearing Him in order to receive His blessings and survive in the pagan land in which they are about to enter.
Perhaps at this point you are thinking, “But all that you have shared so far is from the Old Testament, is there anything in the New Testament about the fear of God?” The Old Testament descriptively prophesies the fear of God in the New Testament era.
8 The Fear of God is Written in the Hearts of the Redeemed.
and I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me forever, for the good of them, and of their children after them: 40 and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me. Jeremiah 32:39-40
God promises that under the new covenant the fear of God will be written on the hearts of the redeemed.
9) Jesus Delighted in the Fear of the Lord.
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. 2And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. 3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. Isaiah 11:1-3
This passage is a reference to the Lord Jesus incarnate. As the son of God in human flesh, He delighted in the fear of the Lord! If we are to be like Jesus, we also should delight in the fear of the Lord.
10) Church Growth is Rooted in the Fear of God.
Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace and was strengthened. Living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it increased in number. Acts 9:31
There are numerous books written on church growth today. It is a huge topic in pastor conferences. However, in this passage the Bible singles out the key to church growth. It is not some program, gimmick or imagination of man, but rather the church multiplies as they walk in the fear of God and the comfort of the Holy Spirit. The fear of God actually attracts and converts new believers, whereas a lack of the fear of God stunts growth and produces lifeless, stagnant churches.
11) We Perfect Holiness in the Fear of God.
Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. 2 Corinthians 7:1
God has specifically chosen Christians to be holy and before Him in love (Ephesians 1:4). How do we achieve holiness as a child of God? This passage says that we advance in holiness as we grow in the fear of God!
12) Our Daily Walk is Rooted in the Fear of God.
Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Philippians 2:12
The fear of God within the church today has been watered down to casual acknowledgement and warm fuzzy thoughts of God. A true fear of God is so majestic, so overwhelming, so consuming that in our normal daily routine, we should be trembling at the very thought of Him.
I have just scratched the surface of hundreds of scriptural exhortations concerning the fear of God. What conclusions can we draw from this brief Bible survey on the fear of God?
1) To be devoid of an understanding of the fear of God is to be ignorant of a major Biblical doctrine.
2) To lack the fear of God is to miss out on many spiritual blessings that God has reserved for those who fear Him.
3) The future of our families and our nation depends upon whether we as believers choose to live in the fear of the Lord.
4) It is vitally important to understand exactly what the fear of God entails.
In next month’s newsletter, I will continue the series on the fear of God and begin to address this important fourth statement, what is the fear of God?