Sermon manuscript:
Several years ago I ordered a print of a painting to hang in
my office. When I was considering that, I had some qualms. It wasn’t the usual kind
of painting that hangs in pastors’ offices.
The painting depicts the final judgment. In the middle of
the painting there is a grave yard. It shows the resurrection from the dead, so
the people are stepping out of their graves. Then they are being separated to
the right and to the left. The angels are guiding the people on the right.
Demons are prodding and grabbing and dragging people on the left. The people on
the right get clothed with white robes to enter into the light that radiates
from Jesus. The people on the left tumble down into the chaos and the flames of
hell.
This painting hangs immediately in front of my desk. When I
look up from my computer this rather large print is what I see. I got this
painting for me, for my benefit, but I was a little concerned about what people
might think when they visit my office.
What can be offensive to people is that this picture is
saying, “This is how it is, and this is how it will be.” All people, and every
individual, either goes to the right or to the left. Each individual either goes
to heaven or to hell. The natural question is “what about me?” “Which way will
I go?” And “what about those I love?”
This painting brings to the fore something that most people
don’t think about—at least not seriously. When someone is dying or when someone
has died the automatic answer for their ultimate destination is heaven. It’s
always heaven. If in doubt, they’re in heaven. If I chopped off the left side
of that painting, that would maybe be more in accord with the way people think.
Of course, the way that we think is one thing, the truth is
another. I, in fact, noticed yet another detail about this painting that I’ve
looked at for years while I was working on this sermon: there are more people
who are being driven into hell than there are people who are being escorted into
heaven. This is in accord with Jesus’s words. There will be more who take the
broad and easy way into hell rather than the hard and narrow way that leads
into heaven.
I don’t enjoy thinking about people possibly going to hell
any more than anybody else does. Frankly, it frightens me and horrifies me—especially
when I think of specific people. I see the reason why people say that hell
doesn’t exist or that it’s practically impossible to end up there. If that’s
the case, we don’t have to worry about anything. We can all live our lives however
we want—to hell with God’s commandments. You do what you want, what you think
is good enough. Then, at the end of it all, we can have a nice celebration of
life service.
And, to be sure, nobody’s the wiser. You can’t tell the
difference. When an unbeliever dies the corpse looks just the same as a
believer’s corpse. We don’t see demon’s pulling on it, dragging it into hell
against the person’s will. The slight smile that the undertaker puts on it is
the same as everybody else’s. If their corpse is smiling just like everybody
else’s, then why not live how you want? Why not follow your thoughts? They’re
probably wiser than that dusty old Bible’s thoughts anyway—lots of smart people
say that the Bible is hopelessly outdated.
These arguments, evidently, are extremely persuasive. Very
few worry about going to hell themselves even though they live in rebellion
against God. They habitually, purposely live against God’s commandments. Even very
few Christians can stand the thought of loved ones going to hell. Even very few
pastors can bear the scorn and the hatred if they refuse to give an honorable
funeral, full of sweet nothings, for someone who did not live as a Christian. So,
of course, our congregations do not have the strength to discipline or eventually
remove those who are living unrepentantly, and, therefore, are living in such a
way where they are preparing themselves for hell.
It is very common for Christians to complain about the
decline of the church. All the congregations are getting smaller. Shame on the
younger generations. Tsk. tsk. tsk. They should come back to church after
they’ve sowed their wild oats just like we used to do. We sowed our wild oats,
but then we settled down with the kids. But maybe the younger generations are
just more honest and clear-headed. Why should they participate in an
organization that acts like it doesn’t believe in heaven and hell? What purpose
does Jesus serve if we can just ignore the possibility of hell, wish it out of
existence, and thereby no longer fear it? What kind of Savior would that be?
Jesus saves us from something that we never needed to fear in the first place?
Grandpa Jones, that old blasphemer, had just as nice of a
smile and just as honorable of a funeral as anybody who is faithful, who
suffered, who fought, and barely held on. Actions speak louder than words.
Giving funerals for everyone and anyone powerfully teaches that the church
doesn’t care about what is true and not true. The church only cares about being
polite. The truth is that the church is supposed to teach us to fight against
our sinful flesh. If we stumble and fall, may we be forgiven and lifted up, but
then we fight some more.
The assumption of forgiveness, the assumption of going to
heaven—this has to be one of the manifestations of the anti-christ. The
assumption that you’re forgiven no matter what, you’re going to heaven no
matter what—anybody with half a brain draws the conclusion that repentance,
faithfulness, sacrificing, suffering, bearing the cross—all these things are stupid,
because they are totally worthless. Live as selfishly as you want, of, if
you’re a little wiser, as selfishly as you can get away with—that’s how you
play the game. It might seem that the assumption of everybody going to heaven
is tolerant and loving, but underneath it is the promotion of evil, the
encouragement not to fear God.
We have a difficult challenge before us as a Christian
people and as a congregation. We must be willing to be different. We must renounce
this assuming that everybody is going to heaven regardless of their lives,
regardless of whether they have made use of the means of grace. We must begin
being serious with one another when we have fallen into sin. Unrepentant sin is
what brings people to hell. We must help one another. Is this fun? No. Is it
helpful? Absolutely!
Imagine someone who has gotten an infection in their leg.
It’s swollen, nasty and full of pus so that it gives off an awful smell. To
clean it out will hurt like the dickens for the patient. It will be very
unpleasant for the doctor too. But what’s the alternative? Just let it go? Hope
for the best?
That’s what we’ve been doing for a long time as
congregations. We haven’t cared enough to get our hands dirty in the muck and
the pus. We don’t help people who need help. The goal, it seems, is to get them
just to come on Sunday mornings and give their offering. That will keep the
lights on for another year.
Is it any wonder, then, that God has punished our land,
emptying our churches? What purpose can these churches serve if they will not
lift a finger to help in the very thing that God cares about most? What does
God care about most? There’s no mystery about that. All four of the Gospels are
emphatic about it. After Jesus rose from the dead he gave his Christians what
they were to be about. Repentance and forgiveness in Jesus’s Name is to be
preached to all people, because Jesus is the Savior of sinners from the hell
that they deserve. Repent and be baptized. Whoever believes and is baptized shall
be saved, whoever does not believe will be condemned. Whosoever’s sins we
forgive, they are forgiven them. Whosoever’s sins we retain, they are retained.
By essentially, practically, denying the possibility of
anybody going to hell, we’ve lost the reason for our existence. Why repent or
be forgiven? There’s no need to clean out wounds, bandage people up, and return
them to health, because supposedly they will survive regardless.
Think again of that patient I made up. Let’s say that we all
pretend it’s impossible for such a patient to die. Why, then, would the doctor
go to the trouble of cleaning it out when it’s all messy, nasty and smelly? The
patient would be happy too, because cleaning it out hurts like the dickens. Of
course the patient still has the infection, nasty as ever, but everybody just
lives and let’s live.
So also our people and we ourselves have horrible spiritual
infections. Here’s a list from Paul’s letter to the Romans, and see if it
doesn’t fit perfectly: We are full of all unrighteousness, having sex with
all sorts of things that are not our spouse, having no qualms, never satisfied
with what we have but always wanting more, mean, full of envy, murder, unable
to get along with others, dishonest, ornery, gossiping, condemning, haters of
God, proud, haughty, boastful, inventing ways to be evil, disobedient to
parents, devoid of understanding, untrustworthy, unaffectionate, unmerciful.
All of these infections make the patient miserable, but they go unaddressed.
The infections get worse and worse. Maybe we hope that they’ll heal themselves,
but there is only one physician who can heal these infections, and that’s
Jesus.
The way that Jesus works as the physician is by means of
Christians who are believing enough to speak his word. May we be such
Christians in this congregation! Christians help others as they themselves have
been helped. Christians comfort others in their afflictions the way that they
themselves have been comforted.
We have been given God’s commandments to diagnose our
spiritual maladies. We have been given the forgiveness of sins as the remedy.
We have been given the new birth in baptism. We have been given the body and
blood of Jesus to eat and to drink the forgiveness of our sins, the
strengthening of our faith, and for the fervency of our love. These work the
cure. These forgive sins now and going forward. At the end, at the resurrection
from the dead, there is the promise of complete and total healing.
That complete spiritual healing will be tremendous and
beyond anything that we can imagine. We all were born into this world diseased.
We all have our latent pockets of spiritual infection. That is why Jesus says
that no flesh can see the kingdom of God. We must be born again by the water
and the Spirit to see the kingdom of God. Even whatever spiritual healing God
works on us Christians in this life is going to be incomplete. God helps us,
but we will continue to have our flesh, and so we will stumble, fall, and may
God lift us back up again so that we may fight yet another day. But with heaven
and with the resurrection from the dead it is finished. Our sinful flesh dies.
The resurrected flesh will not have sin in it. Since we have never experienced
anything like it in this life, we will experience it for the first time in the
life to come.
Popular notions of the life to come do not really have any healing that goes with
it. Sure, aches and pains get taken away, but heaven is supposedly for doing
hobbies, a better version of this life.
As it turns out, then, in a way, with the painting that I
began with, it’s not just hell that gets chopped off. The true heaven gets
chopped off too. No spiritual healing is even on the radar. Heaven is just a
lame continuation of this life without any spiritual transformation. But things
cannot keep going on like they have been. Good things must get better and bad
things must get worse.
We now live in the time of grace when good and bad are all
mixed together. The goal we should have for ourselves is to sort out the good
from the bad. The good is not sin or deceitful desires. The good comes from
God. The bad is the infections. We need to be students, disciples, to learn
what is good and what is bad. We need to learn to love the good and hate the
bad. It is by loving God and what is good that we fight the fight of faith. It
is by faith in Jesus that we may look forward to the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come.
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