Answers to Those Who Say “Hell? No!

Guest (Male): Hey, podcast listeners. Thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's Word through the most effective media available, like this podcast. To support Pathway to Victory, go to PTV.org/donate, or follow the link in our show notes. Now, here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.
Dr. Robert Jeffress: Hi, this is Robert Jeffress, and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program. On today's edition of Pathway to Victory, God still sends people, even good people, to hell. And that's not a popular truth, not just among unbelievers, but even among believers. Today we're going to look at the most common arguments against hell, and then we're going to discover what the Bible says to those who say, "Hell? No."
Guest (Male): Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. Eternal judgment is an unpopular subject, even among Christians. Yet, Jesus spoke about hell more than he spoke about heaven, and we cannot afford to look away. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress addresses some of the most common objections raised against this sobering doctrine. But first, let's take a moment to hear some important ministry updates.
Dr. Robert Jeffress: Thanks, David. And welcome again to Pathway to Victory. Let me ask you something. Do you know someone who's convinced that hell is a make-believe place? A lot of people feel that way today, and I'll be blunt with you. We feed that notion at our own peril. In today's message, we'll look at the most common arguments people make against the reality of hell and what the Bible actually says in response. Now, this isn't a comfortable subject, but here's the thing. We do a disservice to God's kingdom when we try to make sinners feel good about their condition, rather than lovingly warn them about a life and an eternity without God. For 30 years now, Pathway to Victory has never cowered from subjects like this. In fact, we have a proven track record of dispelling cultural folklore and chasing away the darkness by shining the bright light of God's truth. As we reach this 30th milestone, I decided to craft a gift for you. It's a brand-new book I've written called *Seven Lessons From My Seventy Years*. This is unlike anything we've ever published for you, because it's like taking a peek into my personal journal. I'm pleased to send this book to your home when you give a generous 30th anniversary gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. We'll say more about this resource and other helpful resources just after my message. Right now, let's open our Bibles to Hebrews chapter 10. For the message I titled, "Answers to Those Who Say, 'Hell? No!'" Few years ago, I wrote a book entitled *Hell Yes, and Other Outrageous Truths You Can Still Believe*. And in that book, I talked about the reality of hell. Well, the reactions to the book have been mixed. Some people were very kind in what they had to say about the book. Others were not so kind. In fact, this week I went out to Amazon.com to just see what some people had said about my book. And one headline caught my attention from a reader in North Carolina. He called it, and the headline was, "The Worst Book Ever Written." This is what he said about your pastor. Listen to what he said.
Dr. Robert Jeffress: He said, "Reading this book for some three hours was a total waste of my time."
Dr. Robert Jeffress: "Jeffress is a hard-lined Christian fundamentalist who has a perverse view of God and salvation altogether. He thinks that it is just for someone to burn in hell for all eternity, just because he didn't accept some stupid religious doctrine about Christ paying the penalty for your sins. God would have never been so narrow-minded and cruel as Jeffress portrays him to be. I hope Jeffress will be the one who suffers eternal punishment for writing such a horrible book that blasphemes the true nature of God and Jesus Christ."
Dr. Robert Jeffress: How's that for tolerance? You know, although it is politically incorrect to say, it is nevertheless true. And that is that God still sends people, even good people, to hell. And that's not a popular truth, not just among unbelievers, but even among believers. Why is it that people get so enraged, inflamed about this doctrine of hell? Jesus had more to say about the doctrine of hell than he did about heaven. And yet, in spite of everything that Jesus said about hell, there are people today who reject the doctrine of hell. Today we're going to look at the most common arguments against hell, and then we're going to discover what the Bible says to those who say, "Hell? No!" First of all, the number one argument against hell is, God is too loving to send people to hell. Have you heard that before? God is too loving to send people to hell. You know, underneath that objection are two fatally flawed presuppositions. The first flawed presupposition is that God is as tolerant of sin as we are. The reason we excuse sin in the life of other people and in our own life is not because of our holiness, it's because of our unholiness. And we make a great mistake when we assume that God is just like we are. Don't make the mistake of thinking God is like we are. The second flaw in that "God is too loving to send people to hell" argument is the erroneous thought that people really aren't that bad. People aren't really that bad. Now, you know, it's interesting, you talk to people about hell. There've been a lot of surveys that have indicated many people believe that there is a hell, but it exists for people like Adolf Hitler, or Charles Manson, or Jeffrey Dahmer, or Saddam Hussein. We all say, "No, there ought to be a hell for people like that." But thankfully, we're not that bad. We don't deserve that kind of punishment. But what I want to say to you today is, there is no difference in human beings as far as God's concerned. The difference between human beings and their behavior is negligible when it comes to a holy God. Let me illustrate it this way. How many of you would say there's a great distance between the North Pole and the South Pole? But that distance is relative. When you consider the distance between the North Pole and the sun, 93 million miles away. When you consider the distance from the Earth to the sun, the distance between the North and South Pole really is negligible. It's the same way with human beings. We think that there's this great separation between Charles Manson and a Mother Teresa. We see this great gulf. God doesn't see that kind of a gulf. He says we've all sinned. We've all fallen short of the glory of God. The difference between Charles Manson and Mother Teresa is negligible when you compare the distance between us and God's holiness. It's negligible. There isn't that much difference between human beings. A second argument people give for not believing in hell is they say, "Well, you know, hell is just too severe a punishment for wrong beliefs." It's too severe a punishment for wrong beliefs. "Okay, Pastor, I will admit, God is holy, we're unholy. We've fallen short, but isn't God overreacting just a little bit if he sends people to a place of eternal torment? I mean, isn't that just a little bit over the top? Isn't hell too severe a punishment to people just because they don't believe the right things?" To put this argument in sharper focus, are we really willing to say that a good, moral Muslim father who loves his kids, who tries to live a righteous life? Are we really willing to say that that man is going to be condemned to an eternity of torture and suffering in the same way as a man who abuses, tortures, and butchers little children? Are we really willing to say that? You see, it just seems too much to us to say that people are going to go to hell just because they haven't believed the right things about Jesus. But you see, when we say that, we really don't understand what a person is doing when he rejects or simply neglects the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is not nearly as harmless as people would have you believe it is. In fact, I want to show you what a severe thing it is to reject or just neglect the gospel. Turn over to Hebrews chapter 10, verse 29 for just a moment. The writer of Hebrews is going to describe with three verbs what happens, what a person does who rejects or neglects the gospel. He says in verse 29, "How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under the foot the Son of God and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?" Now, I want you to look at the three words that describes what a person is doing when he rejects or neglects Jesus Christ. First of all, underline the word trampled in verse 29. "He has trampled underfoot the Son of God." That Greek word trampled, *katapateo*, is a word that originally referred to what people would do with salt once it had lost its saltiness. They would throw it out. They would discard it on the road. And people passing by would trample on that worthless salt. It was trampled. And when you reject Jesus Christ, what the writer is saying is, you are treating the death of Jesus Christ as worthless. It is as worthless as salt that is no longer of any use. You are trampling underfoot the Son of God. Can you imagine what that does to God's heart to say the death of his son was worthless? I think of a comment media mogul Ted Turner made years ago when he said, "If Jesus Christ came to die for my sins, he need not have bothered." If having a few drinks and a few girlfriends is going to send you to hell, so be it. That's to treat the death of Christ as worthless. Now, that's bad enough, but it gets worse. He says, "Not only does a person who rejects or neglects Christ treat it as worthless, but it says he is regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified." And when a person says no to the gospel of Jesus Christ, what he is saying is, the blood of God's own son has no more value than the blood of a mangy scavenger dog. It is unclean. It's unholy. It gets worse. A person who rejects and neglects the gospel, not only treats it as worthless, not only says it has no more value than the blood of a dog, notice what else happens. It says, "and he has insulted the Spirit of grace." Now, ladies and gentlemen, when a person rejects the gospel and says, "I don't believe it," the person who says, "You know, I just really don't have time for that," or "That may be good enough for some people, but I don't need the blood of Christ to save me," that person has treated the blood of Christ as worthless, has said it's like a scavenger dog's blood. And not only that, he is continually insulting the Holy Spirit of God who is moving in his heart to cause him to repent and accept the gospel. No, the fact is, every person who will occupy hell deserves to be in hell. They have rejected, they have neglected the death of Christ. Argument number three people make against hell is the idea that it's unfair to condemn those who have never heard the name of Jesus. It's just unfair for God to condemn those who have never heard the gospel. Haven't you heard that before? I bet people have asked you before, "Well, what about the heathen in Africa?" Have you ever heard about that before? "What about those who have never heard the gospel? It's unfair that God would send them to hell." So let's put that argument too in sharp focus. Let's imagine there is a 10-year-old girl living in Africa who has never heard the gospel. Are we willing to say that she is going to be confined to an eternity of suffering and torment because she's never believed in the Christ in whom she has never heard? Now, some people would answer, "Well, just look at Romans 9:14. There is no injustice in God. God's free to do whatever he wants to do." And leave it at that. But I want us to probe this argument just a little bit and what's wrong with this argument. What's wrong with this argument that it's unfair for God to send people to hell who've never heard the gospel is, first of all, that argument assumes the innocence of the heathen. That is, it assumes that that little 10-year-old girl is innocent, and it would just be blatantly unfair for God to ever send her to hell. But is that what the Bible teaches? Does the Bible teach a 10-year-old girl is innocent before God? Everyone has inherited the sin virus. Everybody is guilty. Now, let me be quick to say, I do believe babies do go to heaven. I believe children who cannot grasp the gospel or adults, mentally handicapped people who can't grasp the gospel, I believe they go to heaven. But it's not because they're not guilty. The mercy of Jesus Christ somehow saves those people. But the fact is, we are all born into this world guilty. Romans 3 says, "There is not one righteous among us, no not even one, for all of us have sinned and all of us have fallen short of the glory of God." And ladies and gentlemen, when you understand that truth that we're all guilty before God, the question is no longer, "Why doesn't God save everybody?" The real question is, "Why does God save anybody?" There's none righteous among us, no not even one. The second false assumption about "it's unfair for the heathen to be judged" is, it assumes that the heathen don't have an opportunity to be saved. It assumes that the heathen don't have a chance to be saved. Everyone who is ever born has a revelation of God they can see from nature. They can know there is a God. They can know they didn't create this world. And while that acceptance of that knowledge is not enough to save us, it is enough if rejected to condemn us. Whenever God sees a person who responds to that truth, that general revelation of God, God will send them the truth of the gospel. Just as he did with the Roman Centurion Cornelius, or with the Ethiopian official, or with the 12 disciples of John. Listen to me, God is not trying to save as few people as possible. That is where I differ from my hyper-Calvinist brethren. God is not trying to save as few people as possible, he wants to save as many people as possible. And I believe where God sees a heart that is open toward him, God will send that person more revelation. So, this idea that somehow God is acting unfairly, it does not take into account that the heathen do have a chance to be saved. And thirdly, this argument assumes that hell will be the same for everyone. This argument that it's unfair for God to send this 10-year-old girl to hell because she's never embraced the gospel, that assumes that there's going to be the same hell for everyone. That's not what the Bible teaches. No, the Bible teaches that there is going to be a more severe hell that awaits those who have full revelation than those who have little or no revelation. Where do you get that, Pastor? I'm so glad you asked. Turn over to Luke chapter 12 for just a moment. Now I want to show you one of the most misinterpreted verses in the Bible. It's a verse that talks about a greater judgment for those who have the greater revelation. Luke chapter 12, verses 47 to 48. Jesus is talking, and he says, "And that slave who knew his master's will and did not get ready or act in accord with his master's will, shall receive many lashes." Here is a servant who knows exactly what his master wants him to do. He chooses not to do it, he will receive many lashes. But look at verse 48. "But the one who did not know his master's will and committed deeds worthy of a flogging, he will receive but a few." The person who did not know what his master wanted to do and acted in an unrighteous way, he'll be punished, but with fewer lashes. And then Jesus makes this application, verse 48. "And from everyone who has been given much, much shall be required. And to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more." Now, we shouldn't allow anybody to take any comfort in the doctrine of the degrees of hell for two reasons. First of all, even the lesser hell will still be a place of horrible torment and suffering. There is no comfort in the lesser hell. But even more importantly, those of you here today who have just heard about the lesser hell are now disqualified from ever occupying it. Okay? Argument number four people have against the doctrine of hell, and perhaps you've thought about this one before. How can anyone enjoy heaven if people are burning in hell? I'd been speaking at a men's conference Saturday and I got in last night, and wanted to take Amy out to eat. And so we went to our favorite restaurant. We sat down and it was a great meal. But I've got to confess to you something. Not once during the meal did I ever think about all of the people starving in China. Not once. Other people's misery do not extinguish your joy. It just doesn't. Anytime I use that example, people just get up in arms and they say, "Oh, that is so flawed. That is so flawed because it's obvious here on Earth you are selfish, and that's why you don't ever think about people suffering. But when we get to heaven, we're going to be just like Jesus. And we're going to have the compassion of Jesus. And because we are so compassionate, we won't be able to enjoy heaven if people are suffering in hell." Well, it is true. The Lord Jesus Christ was compassionate toward the lost when he came to Earth. All of that was during his first coming. But the Bible says when Christ comes back again as judge, in 2 Thessalonians 1:8, he will come, quote, "dealing retribution to those who have not obeyed God and have not received the gospel." There will be no remorse when Christ comes again. He will deal out justice to those who deserve justice. Is Christ going to spend eternity weeping? Are the angels going to spend eternity weeping? No, there is going to be nothing but joy in heaven. And I don't understand this. But I believe when we see God in his perfection and see things as they really are, we are going to understand why it is God is just in his sentence of eternal condemnation for those who have rejected Christ. J.I. Packer says it this way. "In heaven, glorifying God and thanking him for everything will always absorb us. All of our love for and joy in others who are with us in heaven will spring from their doing the same. And love and pity for hell's occupants will not enter our hearts. Their hell will not veto our heaven." There are some Christians today who are almost embarrassed to talk about hell. But ladies and gentlemen, when we fail to warn people about the reality of hell, we are perhaps unconsciously trying to elevate ourselves above Jesus Christ. We're trying to say we're more educated. We're more compassionate than he is. But Jesus talked often about hell, not because he hates people, but because he loves people. He warned about hell in order to motivate people to accept the lifeline he has provided for salvation. See, the Bible says we're all like prisoners on death row. We have been sentenced. We are awaiting our final execution, but God has provided one way of escape. All of us know John 3:16 by heart. Few of us know John 3:17 and verse 18. Listen to what the Lord said. "For God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world through him might be saved. For he who believes in Jesus is not judged. But he who does not believe is judged already, because he has not believed in the only begotten Son of God." Folks, when we fail to talk about hell, we remove perhaps the greatest incentive people have for accepting the gospel of Jesus Christ. John Gerstner, the theologian, said it this way when he talked about using hell as a motivation with people. He said, "The fear of hell is the only thing most likely to get worldly people thinking about the kingdom of God. No rational human being can be convinced that he is in imminent danger of everlasting torment and do nothing about it. No rational person can be convinced of the reality of hell and do nothing about it." Let these words settle over you for just a moment. If hell is real, and friend, it is, then nothing matters more than where you and your family will spend eternity. You know, for 30 years now, Pathway to Victory has preached this very truth. And God has taken our willingness to tell the truth and used it to grow Pathway to Victory by leaps and bounds. As long as God gives me breath, I will keep preaching biblical truth. Obviously, I can't do this work alone. The growing ministry of Pathway to Victory requires resources to provide our radio, television, and digital outreach, and that's where you come in. Today I'm going to say thank you for your generous 30th anniversary gift by sending my highly personalized book. It's called *Seven Lessons From My Seventy Years*. Yes, I turned 70, and the best way to celebrate God's faithfulness is to share with you in this very personal, journal-like book what God has taught me. I want these *Seven Lessons From My Seventy Years* to be a blessing to you and your family.
Guest (Male): Here's David to describe your next steps. Today when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, you're invited to request Dr. Jeffress's brand-new book, *Seven Lessons From My Seventy Years*. Call 866-999-2965, visit PTV.org, or text PTV to 78800. And in celebration of 30 years of ministry, we've gathered Dr. Jeffress's most requested messages from the past three decades into a complete teaching series called *Truth You Can Trust*. And we'll send it to you on DVD video and MP3 format audio disc as a thank you for your especially generous gift of $75 or more. One more time, call 866-999-2965 or make your request online at PTV.org. You could write to us if you'd like, P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222. That's P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222. I'm David J. Mullins. Culture may change, but the Word of God never changes. Next time, with both conviction and compassion, Dr. Jeffress opens the scriptures to see what God truly says about his design for sexuality. That's coming up Wednesday on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. The Apostle Paul sailed these waters, walked these streets, and the church was never the same. I'm inviting you to follow in Paul's footsteps on the Pathway to Victory Journeys of Paul Cruise through the stunning Greek Isles into ancient Ephesus and many other destinations as well. This is purposeful travel at its finest. Set sail May 14, 2027. Call 888-280-6747, or visit PTV.org. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway Partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in his Word. To become a Pathway Partner, go to PTV.org/donate, or you can follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Oh, and one last thing before we go. Don't forget to reserve your spot on the 2027 Journeys of Paul Mediterranean Cruise. Now you've heard me and Dr. Jeffress talk about this Bible conference at sea, and cabins, well, they're going quickly. Just picture yourself aboard the beautiful Celebrity Infinity, sailing roundtrip from Athens. Now, each day you'll gather for biblical teaching, worship, and fellowship. And then you'll step ashore to stand where Paul stood in Ephesus and walk the streets of Thessaloniki where his letters still speak to the church today. Nine unforgettable nights with more biblical destinations along the way. Every meal prepared, every detail taken care of, plus the joy of traveling with like-minded believers. There's also an optional pre-cruise extension in Athens. To book your spot, go to PTV.org.