Weeks ago, I discovered how little I really believed in hell. I am not sure how else to explain it. I realized it while at a children’s play area, watching my three little ones run, jump, and waddle about.

Seated on the other side of the play place sat a young Latino man lost on his phone. He had several kids, several tattoos, and no wedding ring. How he dressed and how he carried himself reminded me of the men I grew up with, the young man I was at his age. Having read my Bible and having grown up in the area, I assumed he did not know the Lord. More likely than not, he had never heard the true gospel. More likely than not, he didn’t want to.

In that moment, I imagined myself walking over to share Christ with him, only to have him dismiss me as some corny, churchy, preachy-type (as I might have done at his age). And there we would sit — me wishing I never walked over; he wishing the same.

Instead of getting up, though, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. And that is when it hit me: I do not really believe in hell right now. How could I? My compassion blew away at a mere inconvenience. Jesus’s doctrine of eternal, conscious torment was no real thing to me. Nor was the eternal blessedness of heaven. Missionaries have crossed oceans, left families, brought their coffins with them to foreign lands; yet there I sat, retreating at the mere thought of rejection. What kind of faith was this?

The scary part, I realize, was that in that same moment, I could have started writing an article about hell, preached an impromptu sermon, debated an atheist on its necessity. Yet, reciting Bible verses wasn’t what was required — believing them was. Across from me sat an immortal soul, and yet there I just sat, unwilling to travel even a few short steps to enter an awkward conversation that could have led him to eternal life.

I wish I could report that I stood up and began preaching. I wish I could tell you that I walked over to that young man and prayerfully spoke words of life to his soul. But I didn’t. To my shame, I suppressed the stirring, indulged unbelief, and heartlessly packed up my kids and left that man just where he sat. Lord, have mercy upon us both.

Bright Red Letters

How would our lives look differently, yours and mine, if we believed that hell is for real? How many trivialities, how many unworthy anxieties, how many small concerns and tiny pursuits would be lit aflame? How many selfish insecurities, how many dull and shallow days, how many unworthy entertainments and lukewarm seasons and cowardly inactivity would simply shatter by believing what Jesus himself told us about the judgment to come?

Our Christlikeness can be rather selective at times, can’t it? Who believed in or spoke of hell more than Jesus? Who else knew with utter certainty what fierce artillery aimed every day at the wicked? All the apostle’s teaching is Christ’s teaching, but what did Jesus himself say about hell? What were his reddest letters? See if your soul can sip even a small sample from just the first Gospel:

“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. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” (Matthew 5:29–30; Matthew 18:8–9)

“The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. . . . So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 13:41–42, 49–50)

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’ . . . And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:41, 46)

Outer darkness. A fiery furnace. Destruction of both body and soul (Matthew 10:28). Eternal punishment. Inarticulate wailing. Teeth grinding. “Many” travel there (Matthew 7:13). Jesus’s sermons often fell like napalm, because he loved the souls of men.

“How would our lives look differently, yours and mine, if we believed that hell is for real?”

Jesus gives us shocking glimpses of judgment in scalding and scarlet letters. Scripture contains many more. We need them to rouse us to love, forgiveness, purity, patience, and to God himself. Will we nod at them, close the book, and leave it upon the dresser? Will these words not send us to the nations, to ambush sin, to walk across a playground? Did Christ leave us here to wave at unbelievers as they sprint past us off the cliff? Is this love for God and love for neighbor?

Friendless Depths

We can daringly tell Christ’s message about hell because that message is about much more than hell. It is about a God who took on flesh to drink down the wrath his people deserved.

Knowing the full horrors of hell, oh, manly and heroic he, came to us, became us, stepped in front of us, to save us. He did not experience hell proper — hell begins after the resurrection and the final judgment. But he did face that wrath which makes the lake of fire, we might say with due reverence, into a fiery puddle. The wicked in hell never approach the full weight, never near the full price, never exhaust the divine quiver of the arrows their sins deserve. But to ransom even one soul, the God-man paid the full debt, suffered the full torment, empties a cup of eternal woe. In other words, where the wicked shall suffer incompletely (though still horribly) forever, he plunged to the very bottom of that great lake of wrath to rescue us.

See him, O saint, diving, down, down, down, through to soul-blistering depths, further and further, deeper and deeper, agonizing, alone.

With hand outstretched for the bottom, “he poured out his soul to death” (Isaiah 53:12). Through friendless deeps and misery unmeasured, see this Son of Sorrows swim boldly along the bottom — omnipotent wrath crushing him. See him feel upon the seabed, ah, one lost pearl. A little further, the second. Further still, a third. As the pressure increases beyond bearing, he cries, “I thirst!” yet presses on, though heaven’s troops would stand at his beck and call. He will have his prize, his people. One by one, under heat and wrath-shattering contemplation, he reaches out, Christian, for you, holds you, claims you as his own. Angels are stunned into silence. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” he cries (Matthew 27:46). After six excruciating hours, he collects his last pearl and shouts victoriously, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

For all eternity, Jesus alone reached the bottom of God’s righteous hatred toward sin. He alone absorbed the full wrath of his Father crushing him as “he became sin for us, who knew no sin” (see 2 Corinthians 5:21). No sinner in all of eternity shall submerge the depths he did. None besides the Lion of the tribe of Judah could so conquer. Sinners eternally sip at a challis they cannot hope — or bear — to finish. He did.

Cruel Kindness

Christian reader, do you really believe this?

If we all did, would our cities not be filled with a knowledge of Christ? When we refused to avoid eye contact with those in our everyday lives, as I did that day, how might our local parks, laundromats, coffee shops, restaurants, and sporting events fill with the name above all names?

You and I need to learn a little more gospel impoliteness: to learn to speak when unasked, to go when uninvited, and to tell that name — that only name given under heaven — by which men must be saved. Let Spurgeon’s arrows sink to the heart.

We are so gentle and quiet, we do not use strong language about other people’s opinions; but let men go to hell out of charity to them. We are not at all fanatical, and for all we do to disturb him, the old manslayer has a very comfortable time of it. We would not wish to save any sinner who does not particularly wish to be saved. We shall be pleased to say a word to them in a mild way, but we do not speak with tears streaming down our cheeks, groaning and agonizing with God for them; neither would we thrust our opinions upon them, though we know they are being lost for want of knowledge of Christ crucified. (Words of Counsel for Christian Workers, 32–33)

Humanly speaking, I was willing to let that man go to hell out of a dark sort of charity to him (and a dark sort of charity to me). He probably didn’t want to hear of Christ (as many don’t). He might have rejected it (which many do). But such cowardly calculations are not mine or yours to make. And the historic and biblical doctrine of eternal, conscious, just torment of the wicked should have consumed that cold, fleshly indifference known in plainer tongues as cowardice or hatred.

What would happen in our cities if every Christian (and every church) really believed in the horrors of hell and, with it, the desperate need of every soul for Jesus Christ?

A scarcity of encouragement can become a crisis for any soul. Can you remember a time you really needed encouragement but didn’t receive it?

Encouragement often runs dry in our churches because we fail to prioritize and practice it, but some of us fail to encourage one another because we don’t really know what encouragement is. We assume encouragement is merely some word of comfort or affirmation — something to make us feel better about ourselves — when what our souls really need to hear is something that deepens our hope and confidence in God.

To encourage is to give courage — not simply to console or compliment someone (and certainly not to flatter, but to strengthen a heart for risk or adversity. Every Christian needs a steady stream of courage to endure suffering, to reject temptation, to sacrifice in love, to embrace discipline, to persevere in ministry, to trust and obey God.

And we will not survive long on the light and superficial inspiration that sells by the millions. We do not need hearts more filled with self; we need hearts regularly inflamed with God. We need soul-anchoring, heart-stirring, love-unleashing encouragement.

Church in Need of Encouragement

The church in Thessalonica seemed to suffer from a deficit of encouragement. Why else would the apostle Paul urge them, again and again, to encourage one another?

Encourage one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:18)

Encourage one another and build one another up. (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

We urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. (1 Thessalonians 5:14)

“We do not need hearts more filled with self; we need hearts regularly inflamed with God.”

Why such a serious and repeated charge? Because the apostle had seen firsthand the troubles the Thessalonian church faced. The believers in Thessalonica were not, like so many in more affluent and comfortable places today, merely low on self-esteem. These were embattled men and women who were hated and threatened for their faith in Jesus.

When Paul and Silas preached the gospel there, many believed and joined the church (Acts 17:4), but a jealous mob rose to oppose them (Acts 17:5). Even when Paul and Silas left the persecution in Thessalonica behind and went on to Berea, the mob was so outraged that they followed them there, “agitating and stirring up the crowds” (Acts 17:13). And while Paul and Silas could leave town, the Thessalonian believers stayed and made their homes in the fire. They “received the word in much affliction,” 1 Thessalonians 1:6 says, and they would now have to hold fast in much affliction. Therefore, they needed real, meaningful, compelling encouragement.

Encouragement of a Father

As Paul exhorted the Thessalonians to encourage one another, he also gave them (and us) a godly example of encouragement to follow.

You know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. (1 Thessalonians 2:11–12)

Notice how he sets this kind of encouragement next to a complementary kind of love a few verses earlier: “We were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children” (1 Thessalonians 2:7). We were gentle among you like a mother, and we encouraged and charged you like a father. That picture gives encouragement a masculine strength, weight, and urgency that we don’t always associate with encouragement. Paul was both gentle like a mother and tough like a father, both understanding and pleading, both compassionate and assertive.

And how did he encourage them in this case? Not by saying, “Everything’s going to be alright,” but rather by charging them, “Walk in a manner worthy of God.” Encouragement sought to compel them out of spiritual sluggishness and complacency into a glad and disciplined faithfulness. How much of the encouragement we give and receive today sounds like that?

Facets of Encouragement

As we look more closely at the specific commands to encourage one another in 1 Thessalonians, we see more of the depth and complexity of real encouragement. Encouragement is not a simple reality or practice; it comes in various shapes and colors and tones, in each case aiming to stimulate the courage needed to walk in a manner worthy of God. Notice three major threads of encouragement in this letter alone.

Comfort the Sorrowful

Some in the Thessalonian church were despairing over those who had died. Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, “We do not want you to be uninformed about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” These younger believers grieved as the world did, as if the grave were the end, as if the dead would never live again. They feared, it seems, that those who died before Christ returned would never see him. This made their grief even more unbearable.

How does Paul encourage them? “Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep” (1 Thessalonians 4:14). In fact, “The dead in Christ will rise first,” he tells them. “Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17). In Christ, those who have died will not remain dead. They will live, and be more alive than they ever were before, because they will finally live in the presence of the glorified Christ.

Then, in the next verse, “Therefore encourage one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:18). Some are carrying a weight of sorrow or grief they cannot bear; therefore, encourage them. Strengthen their battered souls to endure heartache with hope. Remind them that all who have believed in the Lord Jesus will soon always be with him.

Awaken the Idle

Others in the Thessalonian church made the return of Christ an excuse for idleness in the meantime. If Christ is coming any time, why, they thought, would we keep working so hard? In a second letter to the church, the apostle says, “We hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies” (2 Thessalonians 3:11). A spiritual sleepiness had fallen on some, producing negligence and laziness.

How does Paul encourage them?

Let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober . . . having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. (1 Thessalonians 5:6–10)

While encouragement comes to console and strengthen those who are grieving, it strives to light a fire under sleepy souls. Strap on your breastplate. Put on your helmet. Arm yourselves for battle. Take action. Those who sleep through this war are destined for wrath. Those who will inherit the kingdom of God, however, stay awake, alert, and diligent.

Then, in the next verse, “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing” (1 Thessalonians 5:11). Awaken and compel the idle. Receive the work God has given you to do, and do it with all your heart, as unto the Lord and not men (Colossians 3:23–24). Remind one another of all that’s at stake and of how serious the spiritual armies are that are lined up against us (Ephesians 6:12). “Take up the whole armor of God,” as Paul says in Ephesians 6:13, “that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.”

Fortify the Fainthearted

Other believers in Thessalonica were not sleepy in idleness, but had grown weary under the weight of life in a fallen world.

“We urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all” (1 Thessalonians 5:14). The word fainthearted appears only once in the New Testament, but it does appear several times in the Greek translation of the Old Testament. For instance, Proverbs 18:14, “A man’s spirit will endure sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?” Do you know someone who seems crushed in spirit? Has your heart felt weighed down by life?

How does God himself encourage the fainthearted? He does so twice through the prophet Isaiah, first in Isaiah 57:15. Notice the unusual kindness and compassion of God:

Thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.”

“Who can fathom a God so mighty and yet so tender, so above and yet so near, so holy and yet so compassionate?”

Though God is high and lifted up, dwelling in the high, holy, and eternal heavens, he draws near to the fainthearted, to revive and strengthen us. Who can fathom a God so mighty and yet so tender, so above and yet so near, so holy and yet so compassionate?

Notice, however, how God encourages the fainthearted in Isaiah 35:4 with urgency and earnestness: “Say to those who have an anxious heart” — same word for fainthearted — “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.” Anything you have suffered, God will repay. However bleak life may become, he will surely deliver the redeemed and repay any evil committed against you.

Do you know someone suffering from sorrow or grief, someone leaking hope in the storms of loss? Do you know others who have grown idle or complacent, making excuses to avoid what God has called them to do? Do you know some who are suffocating under the burdens they bear, living just barely above water? If so, how might you strengthen their souls in Christ? How might God use you to stir their confidence in him?

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast. We started the week looking at the key to following God’s will. And last time, in Monday’s episode, Pastor John closed with a very great point on Colossians 1:9. There we saw that Paul was asking God to pour out his Holy Spirit, so the Spirit would remove “the dimness of our ability to see God for who he really is,” so that “we would have spiritual wisdom that experiences preferences and makes choices that are in harmony” with God’s beauty. Seeing more of God is essential to following his will in our daily decision-making. That was Monday (in APJ 1807). Go back and listen to that episode if you skipped it or if you missed it, because today we put that principle into practice. We do so by looking at an example of one man who proceeded with a major life decision with confidence, knowing he was following God’s will. He knew it. He was confident in his decision because he was following the trajectory of God’s revealed will. This is a clip taken from an old John Piper sermon, preached way back in 1982. Here’s Pastor John.

Now, Jesus taught us to pray every day, “Your will be done, on earth as it is done in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). Therefore, everyone who confesses Jesus as Lord makes it his aim day by day, consistently and heartily, to do the will of God the way that the angels do it in heaven. And if we are not making it our aim to do the will of God day by day, then it is very likely that we do not belong to Jesus, because Jesus himself said, “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:50). In other words, the family resemblance in the family of God is not so much perfect performance of the will of God, but rather persistent purposing to do it day by day. The mark of the child of God is not that we always hit the bull’s-eye of God’s will, but that we always aim at the targets appointed by the Father day by day.

“The great aim of the church is to do the will of God, to honor the way it’s done in heaven.”

The great aim of the church is to do the will of God, to honor the way it’s done in heaven. And for many of us, that means a constant struggle for two things: on the one hand, to know what the will of God is for our personal lives, and on the other hand, to maintain a strong confidence that God will give us the strength that we need to do it and run interference for us so that all obstacles will be removed.

Knowing Biblical Trajectories

Now, in Genesis 24:1–9, I think we’ve got an incident from Abraham’s life that shows us, on the one hand, how he discovered God’s will, and on the other hand, how he kept his confidence strong that God would always be running interference when he held close to God’s will. And I think the reason stories like this are put in the Bible for us is that we might learn (1) how to know his will and (2) how to keep that confidence in God’s help strong.

So, in advance, let me tell you what I think the main point to be learned about these two things is from this text. I think the main point is this: we can know God’s will, and we can maintain confidence in his help to do it, if we’re familiar with the trajectories of his word. Now, in this day and age, I hope everybody knows what trajectories are. For the last 25 years, we’ve heard about them on the television. A trajectory of a rocket is the path that it will follow on the basis of its shape and speed and weight and direction. So you can know in advance what the trajectory or the path of that rocket’s going to be if you know enough about the rocket and how it’s moving. Now, I think that’s the way it is with knowing God’s word and finding out God’s will.

“You are to be able to find out God’s will tomorrow by becoming very familiar with the trajectories of God’s word.”

The Bible simply does not give you a radar screen or a blueprint of your life tomorrow. It leaves so many questions unanswered about what you should do. And the intention, I think, of God is that you are to be able to find out God’s will tomorrow by becoming very familiar with the trajectories of God’s word that you know from the past — and you could add to that the trajectories of his work that he has been doing in your life up to this time. If you become familiar enough with the weight and direction and the shape and speed of the word of God, then you’ll be able to trace out the trajectory of God’s will for you and maintain strength in his help.

Three Trajectories in Abraham’s Life

Now, let’s see how that worked for Abraham. I think maybe if we look at how Abraham did it, we might become better at it. Sometimes God spoke to Abraham directly, told him exactly what to do face to face. But if you read the story, you realize that those times were few and far between — decades between the times we read of God speaking to Abraham.

Most of the time, Abraham, like us, was left to trace out trajectories from what God had said in the past into the future so that he’d know what to do with his life, what steps to take. That’s what’s happening, I think, here in Genesis 24:1–9. There are three trajectories from God’s word that combine into one line of God’s will for Abraham here. The first trajectory is this: Isaac must have a wife. The second trajectory is this: the wife may not be a Canaanite woman. And the third trajectory is this: Isaac may not return to the land from which Abraham left to get a wife.

Those three trajectories merge for Abraham into a line of decision. And the decision, he is convinced, is God’s will. And the decision is this: “I will send my trusted servant to get a wife for my son from among my own kindred in my own land.” Abraham determines the will of God for the future by tracing out trajectories that he has learned from the past word of God. And then he’s confident, absolutely confident — so confident that he says in verse 7, “[God] will send his angel before you, and you shall take a wife for my son.” From which I infer that once we know the will of God, we can have tremendous confidence that God is going to work for us to clear away all obstacles to its success. Many of you have had that kind of experience.

Following the Rocket of God’s Will

Now, we want that to happen in our lives, don’t we? I don’t think there’s probably a person in this room who wouldn’t say right now in your own heart, “I want every day to know clearly God’s will for me. I want to know. I want to have questions answered about marriage, children, job changes, major purchases, schooling decisions, the use of my leisure time and what to do with it, special ministries and whether to get involved and how deeply involved, church affiliation (Bethlehem or another one), percentage of our income to give to the church and to give to World Vision and to give to World Relief and to give here, there, and everywhere. I want to know God’s will.”

I think all of you probably would say that. And you want confidence that he will work for you once you have hit upon the will, that if he tells you it’s his will for you to give 15 percent of your income to Bethlehem, he’s going to work for you and make that 85 percent stretch vastly further than the 100 percent would’ve ever reached. That’s the kind of faith we want once we hit upon God’s will. We want to be led — and led in triumph, as Paul said (2 Corinthians 2:14). Now, Scriptures like Genesis 24 are given to help us maintain that insight and that confidence, I think. And so, I want us to look at it even more closely.

The reason that I call these three things in Genesis 24 trajectories and not commands is because God never commanded Abraham explicitly that his son must have a wife, that his wife could not be a Canaanitess, and that he may not return to Mesopotamia. He never said that. The only way Abraham could determine that, so far as we see from Scripture, is by tracing out trajectories from things God did say to him in the past. And he had said things that pointed in that direction.

God had, as it were, launched the rocket of his will. And now and then, he allowed the clouds at Cape Canaveral to clear for Abraham, and Abraham could see the kind of rocket it was, the direction it was going, and how fast it was going, and then the clouds came back over. And Abraham was left to trace out the trajectory for his own behavior from what God had revealed of the rocket’s path and nature.