Evidence of Eternity | Week 4 | Message

What I love about Christianity is our ability to ask tough questions of the faith. And it's okay. It's actually important to wrestle with the things of scripture and wrestle with these tough issues that we all face. The reality is, you're gonna have those questions at some point in your journey, if you're not necessarily right now.

Or you're gonna come across people who are wrestling through these sorts of things. And so to be encouraged and equipped and allowed the freedom to be able to process, maybe even disagree,

I think is actually really, really important. And just, I think God meets us right where we're at as we take steps like this in in deepening our faith, asking some of these tough questions because there's actually a lot of really good answers in it. Now, with that said, I'll tell you, totally honest,

there are a lot of issues that are not just tough, but they're actually unpleasant to talk about. And maybe for a variety of reasons, you know, we we avoid talking about the unpleasant ones because we don't want to be bummed out or weighed down. Maybe they're too complex for us to even begin processing.

Maybe we avoid it because we we don't want to hurt somebody or offend somebody. You know, there's any number of reasons why it's unpleasant and we would avoid them. But they're still really, really key and really, really important. Important. And this topic that we're talking about this weekend, what I want to talk about

is hell. Actually, don't want to talk about it, but pastor Bill made me. So, but it's important. All kidding aside, this is one of those things that is important for us to discuss. It is it's a big issue. It's a big issue inside the church. It's a big issue outside the church.

You guys, I just want you to hear my heart. My heart really is that I believe there's actually some good for us to discover as we wrestle through this topic. My heart isn't to manipulate, my heart isn't to bring fear, my heart isn't to hurt anybody, But when the word of God talks about some things, like I I I want to

address it, like we should wrestle with it. We should process it, not just kind of pretend that it's it's not there. I think God will meet us right where we're at with regard to this particular thing.

You know, with hell, a lot of people kind of minimize it. We minimize it in a bunch of different ways. We just make it a joke word or we make joke associations with it, or we've make caricatures, kind of cartoon images of hell, where it's just this, you know, place where people

run around being poked with pitchforks by devils or whatever. We minimize it in so many different ways. Some people ignore it altogether. It's just too intense to be processing for them. Other people manufacture any number of other alternate scenarios,

kind of trying to explain it away or figure out kind of alternate scenarios about what it might mean. There's different world views and different religions that believe in things like limbo or purgatory. These kind of temporary holding places after you die that you might go and spend a little bit of time in this space

experiencing any number of things. But if you have enough people praying for you or enough people giving enough money, then you can be paid up or prayed up out of those temporary holding places. Other people called annihilationists, it's a big word just meaning they believe that there's no eternal separation from God, that

if you die, then you're just destroyed. You're annihilated. You cease to exist. And then on the other hand, there's people called universalists and they believe that regardless of what you believe about Jesus or anything else, regardless of the way that you live in some way shape or form, everybody's going to heaven.

And so, this becomes like really complicated as you begin to sift through like your own beliefs, what the word has to say, what other people say about it. It's it's a big issue. When it comes down to it, I think there's really two major things that are difficult to reconcile. Here's the two things. One is,

we've got a loving God. And the second is, hell exists. How do you reconcile those two things?

It could be super hard to reconcile and even for me these last couple of weeks, doubling back and studying this again and reading through some of these things again, it's a wrestling match all over again to reconcile loving God and the existence of hell.

John chapter three verse 16, most famous verse in the scriptures, for God so loved the world. He loved the world that he gave his one and only son and whoever believes in him shall not perish but rather have eternal life. In Matthew chapter 25,

these are the words of Jesus here, the end of Matthew chapter 25, he he begins to address this final judgment. There's a moment where people would kind of be separated into two groups, kind of as sheep and goats and chapter 25 verse 34 of Matthew, Jesus says, then the king will say to those on his right, come,

you who are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world, heaven. That's good news. Fantastic. You keep reading though. You get down to verse 41. Then the king will turn to those on the left and say, away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil

and his demons. And so how how do you reconcile a loving God and hell existing? It really does beg the question that we're gonna try to process today. Why would a loving God send people to hell? That's a question you may have processed or wrestled through yourself. It's a big question that will be posed to you at some point

in your journey by people that you interact with or you care for. Why would a loving God send people to hell? Now, if it's okay, you guys, what I'd like to do with our time today is just unpack that question. We're going to talk about a loving God,

and then we'll spend a little bit of time talking about what sending people actually entails. And then we'll wrap up spending a little bit of time talking about is hell what we think it is. So a loving God, what's sending people really entail and then is hell what we think it is? And I'm just hoping and praying that

Bill can clean up when when he gets back. Okay? Loving God. Loving God. Let's just start there. Do we have a loving God? Because this is the thing that's really under attack. This is the the issue with the question that's under attack. In other words, like,

if God is so loving, then He would never certainly create a place, much less send people to somewhere as awful as that. Right? I mean, regardless of where you theologically have landed or if you're still processing, I mean, it just it's hard to reconcile that. So do we have a loving God? I I can say,

spoiler alert definitively, yes. We have a loving God. One of my favorite scriptures in Romans chapter five verse eight says, but God demonstrates his love toward us in this. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. You guys, you only have to look to the cross to see the scope of God's love for humanity.

The cross is the greatest picture of love the world has ever seen, the history has ever seen. Jesus at the cross, God's demonstrating it in the sending of his son. It's demonstrated and Jesus voluntarily going to the cross to take the punishment for sin on himself, so that you and I don't have to take it.

That that's love in action and he did that while we were still sinful. I I didn't have a God thought going through my brain and Jesus was already pursuing me with his love, already laid down his life for me. We have a God of love and you see it at the cross. But what you also see at the cross

is is really the depth and the ickiness of like where sin will take us, right? You talk about hell on earth, that's the cross. The cross is such a vivid image of like where our humanity will take us and the worst of what we're capable of. You see that too at the cross. I mean, that somebody even

created a form of execution, period, and then created crucifixion as that form. You talk about what we're capable of, and then what Jesus experienced as he goes to the cross, it's hell on earth. As he he experiences all the mockery and all the insults and the beating leading up to the crucifixion, the flogging, lashing him,

ripping his body to shreds, the piercing through the wrists down through nerves that you've got in your wrists that send feeling out to your fingertips, pierce through both wrists, pierce down through his feet into the wood of the cross.

There's a hole in the ground typically, then the person on the cross, it would be uprighted as the cross would fall into the hole, the person's shoulders would be separated from their sockets.

You talk about disgusting, you talk about hell on earth, there's a crowd that's gathered and they're still mocking him while he's up there.

People don't die of blood loss from crucifixion, they die from suffocation because you can't breathe. Shoulders are separated from their sockets, so you're not pulling up to fill your lungs with air. So you have to push up off that spike in your feet to fill your lungs with air,

and then collapse back down again. Every breath that Jesus is taking, the rough wood of that cross rubbing up and down against his back that's been ripped to shreds by the flogging earlier. This is hell on earth.

It's why they oftentimes the Roman soldiers would break the legs of the people up there on the cross to speed up the death because now you can't pull up, you can't push up with broken legs and you'd suffocate and die. It's it's it's vivid, it's disgusting, it's it's horrible. And yet, it's it's why Jesus came,

because of the depth of the horror of sin and what we're capable of. Like he doesn't want that to continue. He doesn't want it to continue in your own heart or your own family or or your own city or in our country or across the world.

What's fascinating to me when Jesus is up there on the cross, he he doesn't start complaining about the pain or the exhaustion or the physical torment. When he starts to say some things, there's stunning things that come out of his mouth. Like he looks out over the crowd and he says, father, forgive these people

because they don't know what they're doing. Hey, if that were me up there, I wouldn't say that. If you were doing that to me, I'd call down angels from heaven and torch y'all. It would be game over, but not Jesus. Out of love and compassion, long suffering, patience, tremendous amounts of grace and mercy,

he looks out over the people that have put him in this place and he's sinless, there's no reason for him to be up there and he says, forgive these people. And then he also says something that I think gets even deeper and it gets even deeper that that's it's it's worse. It's the worst part of sin.

I would argue it's the worst part of hell. Jesus says at the weight of the crushing blow of what he's experiencing, he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And what he's expressing in that moment is that in his humanity, he feels the weight of sin is separating him from God. And to me, that's like the depths,

the worst of sin is that it separates us from God. It's the worst of hell is that it's separation from God. And so yeah, the cross, it's this graphic picture of love, a loving God. But it's also a graphic picture of justice because Jesus went to that cross to deal with sin. And I'm so thankful that he did and that he's continued

to have a heart to remove sin. Like he's given us the ability through Jesus to say no to sin here and now in our own individual lives And then someday, he's gonna bring an end to all sin on earth. I'm so thankful for that. Someday, there will be no more war.

There will be no more abuse. There will be no more rape. There will be no more gossip. There will be no more hurtful words. There will be no more pride. There will will be no more broken relationships. There will be no more death and dying and and pain. And I'm so glad we also have a God of justice who out of love

sees that for what it is and says, I hate this. I hate what it does to you. I hate what it does to your relationship with me. I hate what it does to your relationship with other people. That's why I came. That's why I want to put an end to this someday. In the meantime, I'm I'm extending tremendous amounts of grace.

In the meantime, I'm extending tremendous tremendous amounts of patience. J. I. Packer, a theologian in his book, Knowing God said, the character of God is the guarantee that all wrongs will be righted someday. When the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment comes, retribution

will be exact and no problems of cosmic unfairness will remain to haunt us. God is the judge, so justice will be done. You know, friends, love is more than just affection or romance or gentleness or grace or mercy. Love also fights. Love protects. Love overcomes evil with good. Yeah, sometimes love is a lamb,

but sometimes love is a lion. It's strong and it's fierce. And so in that reality, a God of judgment can also be a God of love. They're not mutually exclusive. When we see loving God, right there with it comes justice and it's often out of love that he steps in justly to protect or fight for or correct things.

It's out of love that he's bringing justice. It's it's kind of like this, imagine for just a second, this is a big courtroom and I'm the judge. And on this particular day, let's just imagine, pretend that it's not a good day for you, you are out and about, you got upset and you murdered somebody.

And you've been arrested, you've confessed to it, caught in the act, come in to my courtroom and now you you stand before me. Now, if I'm a good judge, I'm a fair judge, I'd have to look at that crime that you've committed and then bring justice to it. I couldn't look at it and go,

oh, whatever, I I know who you killed and they're super annoying anyway, so go ahead, just leave. It's okay. No. If I'm a good judge, like, you you have to punish that. But on this particular day, what if I looked at you and I said, hey, you're guilty of this crime and it has to be punished and unfortunately,

the punishment for that crime is death. But I love you and I care for you an awful lot. So here's what we're gonna do. Hold on just a second. And then I turn to an officer in the courtroom and I I say, would you go get my son? Go get Brad. And they get Brad and they bring him in.

And Brad and I have a little bit of a conversation, you can't hear what's going on and my son says, yeah, dad, I'll totally volunteer for that a 100%. I turn back to you and I say, okay, you're guilty of this crime of murder and it has to be punished and the punishment is death.

Out of love and care for you, here's what we're gonna do though. My son has volunteered to take your punishment and they walk him outside and they execute him for the crime that you committed. Justice has been served. Now, you get to go free. Because that's exactly what Jesus has done for every single one of us.

Don't tell me we don't have a God of love. If somebody did that for me, like in real life, I would never forget that And I would never question the judge's love for me. That's what God has done for us. If you ever doubt God's love for you, just look to Jesus at the cross.

If you ever doubt that God is loving, remember the cross, you'll see his love there, but you'll also be reminded that sometimes out of that loves comes justice. So a loving God. A loving God. Well, what's the deal with this sending people part? What what's what's up with that?

Is God really send people to hell, like, I mean, aggressively, actively, maybe actually send them against their will? How does this actually actually work? Well, it's it's complicated. In Romans chapter one,

there there's it's worth the study, you guys. If you get a chance to read through Romans one or do a deep dive of bible study on Romans chapter one, it's really where that gets rich. There's an awful lot there. In Romans chapter one, there's a pattern that starts to emerge

that just kind of reveals where mankind, where humanity's at. And the pattern is basically, you and I are just prone to always want to rebel and go to our own direction.

I want to be in control, I don't want God to be in control, I want to do my own thing, don't tell me what to do God. I want to be my own Lord and Savior, I don't want you as my Lord and Savior. That's my tendency, anybody relate to that at all? Cool, three of you.

But that's that's all of us. Now, God tends to be patient and out of love for us, he also allows us the freedom to choose to go that direction, if we want to. Out of love, he's never gonna force you into a relationship with him. That's also a loving thing to do. In in Romans chapter one verse 24, it says this,

recognizing this kind of pattern and tendency, so God abandoned them or other translations say, gave them over to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other's bodies. Now, down to verse 28,

similar thought, a little more unpacked. Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them or gave them over to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. And then he goes on with a list here.

All these categories of stuff that you and I are are prone to fall into, people throughout history have been. And really, this pattern of our behavior with God's response is pretty fair actually. And it's this, we actively distance ourselves from God and then eventually,

God just gives us over to what our hearts have desired all along. I mean, that's kind of what happens. It's actually part of his grace and patience just to say, okay, if you don't want me, then okay. You don't want my way, then okay. I'm not gonna force you into that.

Now, it's a little bit sobering to be able to process something like that. C. S. Lewis described it this way. He said, it's not a question of God sending us to hell. In each of us, there is something growing which will be hell unless it is nipped in the bud.

I don't know if you can resonate with that, but when I sin, like, there's a feel to it. When I see what it does to my own heart, when I see what it does to my walk with the Lord, when I see what it what it does to other people, or when other people's sin is done to me, and the weight and the ripple effects and the

mental and physical and emotional and spiritual, just knots that you get put in and the weight of it. I mean, all that comes with I mean, it's awful. See, this is what God is desiring to like rid the world of. He really wants to put a game over to all of that, all of that hurt.

We see all of this sin issue everywhere that we're hardwired with.

I saw it in a coffee shop a little while ago. I went into a coffee shop, I'm like seven, eight people in line in front of me. And there's a mom, a young mom up near the front. She's getting near the front ready to order and she's holding her toddler and what caught my attention was this toddler, he's maybe a year and a half, two years old, had the biggest head that I've ever seen in my entire life. No

joke. I mean, his body was little, head was huge. It was a watermelon on a toothpick. It was that big. There were planets orbiting around this kid's head. And he's giggling and laughing because he's trying to headbutt his mom, leaning back, trying

to headbutt mom. Apparently, this was a common practice because she was expert in dodging it. We were all entertained watching this play out in line in front of us.

Well, she's she's like getting a little bit annoyed at it, she turns to look at the menu for a second, he leans back with the huge melon and boom, connects his huge head with her jaw. And there was a crack sound to it. Everybody in line went, oh.

I I thought it was kind of funny. The mom didn't think it was funny. The mom's face, she's holding her toddler and her whole expression changed. She she she says, oh, fire began to form behind her eye sockets and she she said, you just headbutt mommy. Stop headbutting mommy, you hurt mommy, don't headbutt mommy.

And the little boy went, okay, I won't headbutt mommy. No, I'm sorry, no headbutt mommy, she said, good, stop it. No more headbutting, mommy. She turned to place her order, he leaned back and got her one more time. I looked at that and I went, that's so me. I still do that but I do it to God. I do it to other people.

We're all hardwired to head butt mommy until there comes a moment where you realize like the full weight. It's one thing situation like that, but if you're like me, you've got yourself deep into stuff that's like really hurtful to you, really hurtful to other people, really hurtful to your relationship with God.

And this is at the core of what God is trying to rid us of and rid the earth of. God's gonna say, you don't want me, you don't want my way, well, you got a choice in that and it's in that sense, in that sense, does God send people to hell? No. We send ourselves. He just gives us over to what we've wanted all along.

He just says, okay, you don't want it? You wanna keep actively distancing yourself? Then I'm not gonna force you. I'm not gonna force you. And and you can now experience like the full weight of what that is, unfortunately, and I hate that, and I'll be here if you ever turn. But what you want, I'll honor that.

Now, here's the thing, sometimes when you start to process this and this is one of those things, when when pastor Chris Hilken comes in a couple of weeks, you're going to absolutely love that. I know he's been here before. Phenomenal communicator, way smarter than I'll ever be. But take advantage of that Q and A night

because I'm going to mess everything up this weekend. And so you can get ask him and get a better answer. You comment and then fire off some questions as you continue to process this. They're important and worth processing. But when you start processing this, especially with regard to sending people part,

inevitably you start to think about, well, what what about about babies? What about kids? What about people with disabilities mentally or other like the if they're six months old, a year old, they got a sin nature. Do they go to hell? Well, people disagree on this. But I I I see a principle at work also in Romans chapter one

and there's a principle there if you read kind of 18 through 21 in Romans chapter one. There's a principle that seems to be at play and this is basically what it is. God has given us some knowledge that leads to understanding about who God is, chiefly through creation, it says.

And when we have this knowledge that leads to understanding about God and then reject him, that's when he gives us that's when we're without excuse.

My understanding of that same principle, though, it seems consistent with the character and nature of God though, if I don't have access to knowledge that leads to understanding about God,

then I I am not in that spot of being without excuse. If I don't have access to the knowledge that leads to understanding about God like a one year old, then to me, it makes sense consistent with the nature of God that I'm covered somehow under the grace of God and

and we're going to see babies or those disabled or whatnot who still have a sin nature but not separated from him forever. That's my take. You can get some clarification from pastor Bill or or Chris on that later. So loving God, sending people might be a little more complicated than we think. What about hell?

What about hell? Does it exist and is it what I think it is? Well, biblically speaking, it's it's hard to get away from the fact that it's a real place and you don't want to be there and you don't want anybody that you care about being there. That that's the sobering reality of it. If you look through the scriptures,

if you just read the word of God, Old Testament, you look at the grave, you look at the what the afterlife. You you look in the New Testament and you you read passages that Jesus has spoken. You read passages, there's a lot in second Peter, Jude, Revelation,

and there's a lot of descriptions there. Jesus actually taught more about hell than any other biblical author, and he actually spoke about hell about twice as much as he spoke about heaven. And so biblically, you really can't get away from the fact that there is some sort of

place, realm, whatever that exists and it's very clear. What is clear is that none of us want to be there. Now, Matthew chapter 13, Jesus describes it a little bit here. These are words of Jesus. He's sharing some parables and in this particular one, he explains what the parable he's just shared is about. And in verse 40,

he says, just as the weeds are sorted out and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the world. The son of man will send his angels and they will remove from his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.

And the angels will throw them into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in their father's kingdom. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand. You can almost hear Jesus like pleading with the audience that he's speaking to here.

They're saying, please like you've got to listen to me. I need you to understand this, the weight of this. This is this has got eternal consequences, so please try and and listen up. Wrap your your head and your heart around this, please.

And and what he describes here are some familiar images that most of us tend to associate with hell and that you would find in other places in the scripture. You would find these familiar images of burning, burning fire, lake of fire, Familiar images of weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Familiar images of like outer darkness or a worm that gnaws at us that just never stops gnawing at us. I mean, all very, very vivid, very, very awful sort of descriptions. Clearly, we we don't wanna go there. Now, when Jesus

talked about hell, when the word that he used for hell was Gehenna in the Greek and it was actually a place, the Valley Of Hinnom outside Jerusalem. Just south of the city, there was a deep ravine that in the Old Testament days, some really awful, awful rituals took place there.

People would go outside the city to this ravine and offer sacrifices to idols and fake gods there, including they would light the bottom of the ravine on fire and then throw their own living children, offer child sacrifices to fake gods in this ravine. You talk about a sinful practice that needs to go,

that's it. By the time it's Jesus' day when he's in his earthly ministry, this ravine has become the town, the city dump for Jerusalem. Fire's always burning at the bottom, trash, carcasses, whatever, all burning there constantly.

You can imagine the winds would shift and the smell would get blown into the city. There's a familiar place for people. When he starts to describe it, he makes that association. So clearly, like it's it's not a good spot. I will tell you though that most biblical scholars tend to agree that those images are

somewhat metaphorical. These images of burning fire and outer darkness and weeping of gnashing of teeth and whatnot are more metaphorical. And that kind of makes sense when you think about it, right, because if the it's literal outer darkness and literal fire, how do those two go together?

How do you have outer darkness and fire literally together? But just because they they might be metaphorical, doesn't mean it's not real, doesn't mean it's not serious. Because like the the reality is like they're using these pictures to paint a picture of something pretty awful.

This is serious sort of issue, a serious sort of situation and this is kind of where you get to the real hell about hell. You drill down, I don't know that the worst part about it is like the physical environment. God is love.

God is the source of love. God is the source of joy. God is the source of hope. He's the source of anything good. Any good that you've ever experienced, a good meal, a good view in creation, a good laugh, a good conversation, worship times, you name it. The goodness of God, it's so

such a blessing, such a gift, the love of God, the mercy of all of that extended to people. He is that. And if hell is outside the city of God, outside the presence of God, then it means that the worst of all of this is you are separated from the source of all that is good. You're separated from love, you're separated from

hope, you're separated from joy. That's a darkness, a fire, a worm of its own kind, right? You don't really need to create a place for that, that is a place in and of itself where you're tormented by sin that you choose more than it is being tortured by God because of your sin. You get the difference?

See, spending eternity disconnected from the source of all love, all goodness, and all joy, that would be hell enough. I'm not saying that there's not other aspects, I'm just saying the worst of it, the worst of it is being disconnected from this amazing God and all his love. Can you imagine what that would be like?

The full weight of whatever it is that you experience in part here and now because of sin without any grace, without any goodness, without any love mixed in, man, it's awful. You and I were made for relationship with God. And so to be separated from that, I mean, this just rips us apart to the core.

When the bible talks about relationship with God, one of the most common analogies that's used is marriage language. You may not have recognized it as such, but like when if you stepped into relationship with God, it was almost like accepting a marriage proposal.

I've got a dear friend named Josh who wrote a book on this called Skeletons in God's Closet and he describes it a little bit like this, like there's ways that God could have responded to us in in this sort of marriage proposal relationship. Here's options. God could say, marry me and bring all your old lovers.

Hey, I'm telling you, if that's your marriage, I'll be praying for you. It's not gonna be a great marriage, is it? I mean, that's that's not a good marriage. This is probably what the world wants though.

They want a little bit of God, and then they want to continue all the stuff that they're doing sinfully and just to have those coexist. Marry me and bring all your old lovers, that does not work and that's not God's heart because it just allows sin to continue and all the stuff that does hurt

to continue to run rampant for so many people. God's not going to say marry me or bring and bring all your old lovers. Something else he could say is marry me or I'll kill you. This is kind of the annihilationist side. Marry me or I'm just gonna wipe you out, I'm gonna destroy you. You don't wanna be married to me, then

I'll snap my fingers and I will destroy you, wipe you out, you will cease to exist. Related to that, would be okay, well, maybe I won't kill you, marry me or I'll lock you in the basement. I'm just gonna put you down in this torture chamber for a while, and when you've experienced enough punishment

and you realize then that you've got no other alternative, then you'll turn to me and wanna be married, right? Does that sound like God? God doesn't use coercion or manipulation or fear, and hell was never meant to be used as something, as a scare tactic to follow God.

It misses entirely the fact that Romans two says, it's the kindness of the Lord that turns people to repentance.

God is loving and kind, and out of his heart, he's not going to say, marry me and bring all your old lovers. He's not going to say, marry me or I'll kill you. He's not going to say, marry me or I'll lock you in the basement. That's not the alternate future.

But he might say this, marry me or if you don't want to, go your own way. It's actually the most merciful loving thing that he could do. I I wanna be in an intimate close relationship with you and I've made everything possible for that to take place through Jesus. If you don't wanna be in that relationship, then

you can go your own way and ultimately, hell is the fullest expression of that.

Now, that's not his heart. Second Peter chapter three verse nine, last verse and we'll wrap this up. Second Peter three nine says, the Lord isn't really slow about his promise, the promise to return for us as people, as some people think. No, he's being patient for your sake.

He doesn't want anyone to perish or be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. He takes no pleasure in people being separated from him forever, but he's being patient. He's expressing his love, he's giving you freedom, he's giving you time, but but at some point, he'll recognize like where your heart's at.

And if you don't want him and you don't want his way, he's not gonna force you.

As you process this, just a question, would would God be more loving if he just allowed everybody to continue to sin and do whatever they want for the rest of eternity? I mean, that's basically what we've got right now. Would he be more living if he just allowed that? Would he be more loving if we removed choice

from the situation and forced you to follow him? That's not love when it's forced. See, to me, the real question isn't why hell? When I think about how amazing God is and he's holy and righteous and just, I go, why heaven? Why did you even give me an option or opportunity to go? Like, I don't deserve that.

And he's made that possible for every single human being. See, the darkest reality would be that God recognizes we're doomed because of sin, and then he goes off and creates an alternate way and space and place for us to be free from it, but doesn't offer you and me a way in.

That would be the darkest, the worst, the most unloving thing possible. But he sent his one and only son. There is a way in and his name is Jesus Christ, and through the person of the work of Jesus, it's the expression of his love. It's the full scope that says, I don't wanna be apart from you.

I would love to be in a sort of marriage relationship with you here and now and for all eternity. You can earn it and you don't deserve it, but it's a free gift offered to every single one of you. That's the core of what God has in mind for me and you. And so gracious heavenly father, we just thank you. Thank you for

Jesus. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for your love. Thank you for your grace. Lord, I know you you recognize in me this tendency just wanna go my own way, and it is sobering, like, I I don't want to just keep doing that. I don't want you to give me over to what my heart's wanted all along.

I pray that you'd allow us to continue to wrestle through this topic and process it. There's a lot more to it than we covered today. But God, meet us where we're at. Bring us some comfort and encouragement. Maybe even equip us to have conversations with people that we love and care for too. In Jesus' precious name we pray.

Amen. Amen.