“And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire…His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Mtt. 3:10,12
Near the end of his life, Henry David Thoreau was asked by his aunt Louisa, “Have you made your peace with God?” To this he cynically responded, “I did not know we had ever quarreled.” Though spoken almost 150 years ago; these words well summarize the condition of modern man. At least it seems to me.
Most people today are wholly comfortable with God. They are utterly at ease with the Maker of the universe and their souls. There is seemingly no dread of one day standing before an infinitely holy God to give account of one’s life. As the psalmist puts it, “there is no fear of God before their eyes”. And I believe that part of the reason for this is that the “hellfire and brimstone” sermon has officially taken its place with the dinosaurs. For all practical purposes it is extinct.
When was the last time you heard a full-out message on the wrath of God and hell? Not a passing, shy mention of it as part of the message. And certainly not the almost gleeful, fist-pounding ordeal which characterized past generations. But a tearful, compassionate, pleading for the unsaved to flee from the fiery, eternal wrath to come? To my shame I haven’t given one in a long time. Until recently. And it changed me.
As I was preparing for the message I became absolutely overwhelmed by a simple but critical truth which I had all but lost sight of. The most important thing about Christianity is not what it does for us in this life, but in the life to come. Yes, there are great and wonderful benefits in this life when one trusts Christ alone for the forgiveness of sin. But none of them even remotely compares with the astonishing and exhilarating reality of permanently exchanging that place “where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mk.9:46) for that new place where “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” (Rev.21:4) And in our instant gratification, immediate results, here and now society; it is easy to succumb to the spirit of the age and make our gospel presentations almost exclusively present-oriented. But, as former Bishop of Canterbury John Tillotson put it so well, “He who provides for this life, but takes no care for eternity, is wise for a moment, but a fool forever”. People need to know that God does have a quarrel with them; and that this quarrel can be settled only at the cross. And… that it must be settled before they die. From where I sit, the hellfire and brimstone message – properly communicated – is badly in need of resurrection.
