Hebrews 9:27,28 “Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.”
Not many people enjoy talking about judgment, hell, or punishment. Jesus didn’t shy away from such topics, but he didn’t pit grace against judgment, and he spoke with grace and compassion.
Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline in 1835. He went on to become one of the richest men in the world, and gave away vast sums of money to help the poor. His father initially attended the local Presbyterian church, but one Sunday was so horrified to hear the minister talk about infant damnation with such relish that he stormed out mid-service, declaring: “If that be your religion and that your God, I shall seek a better religion and a nobler God.” That is how both William and Andrew Carnegie ended up living philanthropic lives as sceptics, never having found the ‘nobler God’ that William had referred to.
Interestingly, it isn’t sinners whom Jesus primarily addresses in his discourses on hell, but believers who were complacent about their places in heaven. If we’re full of ourselves and our sense of ‘chosenness’, like the Pharisees were, then we’re not in a good place at all. But to those who knew they were ‘sinners’, Jesus spoke of grace. He wasn’t in the habit of ‘dangling people over the pit’. Hence Pawson suggests the need “to see sinners in this danger, but not necessarily to tell them.” Similarly, it is better for the evangelist “to have hell more frequently in his heart than on his lips. This will fuel his fervency and increase the urgency of his appeal.”
Lord, please fuel my sense of fervency and urgency to bring light and life to a dark and dying world. Amen!
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