This morning we are going to discuss a subject that is going to make you squirm. If it does not then one of two things is true, either I have not done my job adequately or you are not listening because there is no way you can discuss the doctrine of hell and not be affected by it. Most people in our culture would squirm, not because of the descriptions or teachings about it but because of their revulsion to the whole idea of the existence of hell. If you were to go into most “churches” today I am sure you would find that the majority people think the doctrine of hell is the most unchristian thing to come out of the church, right alongside the teachings that lead to the Crusades or defended slavery in the American South.
How could a loving and forgiving God ever have anything to do with hell. No one deserves that. God is merciful, God is loving, he could never allow any of his beloved children to experience that kind of torment, right? That is the whole idea behind books like Love Wins by Rob Bell. If you remember the Nooma videos that were so popular, Rob Bell was the guy behind those and he rocked the church with that book, claiming that a God of love could not have anything to do with hell. The doctrine of Hell is the exact opposite of the God of this age according to so many. It is incompatible with the picture of Jesus who is accepting of everybody, the champion of the downtrodden and oppressed, who loves and accepts everybody for who they are no matter their life choices or sexual preferences or self-identity. No sin could be deserving of a punishment like hell.
Even within biblically founded churches, the hideous doctrine of hell is one that is almost never openly discussed, described, taught, or talked about. If it is, it is often in hushed tones or with weary glances from people making sure that they are not about to get a hellfire and brimstone sermon preached at them. As a doctrine it often gets pushed back into a dark corner of the church, and everybody hopes that no one ever brings it up, nobody wants to think about it. It is a reality we all know is there, a horrible monster lurking in the shadows which we hope that if we leave it in the dark corners it will not be able reach out and grab us. The bogeyman of the theology textbook.
Be honest with yourself, when was the last time you spent any time considering it? The reality of hell demands that we hold this monstrous thing out to study it, to understand it so that it can affect us. It is a doctrine that has daily, practical, and personal effect on every believer who dwells on its truths. You cannot contemplate the doctrine of hell and remain unaffected. It will either make you run from the cross or run to it, it will either make you turn your back on Scripture or dive all the deeper into it. It will either force you to reject the God of the Bible as the most monstrous deity imaginable, or cling to him, desperately pleading for his continued mercy. So that is what we are going to do this morning.
Our study of the doctrine of hell is instigated by our text, the parable of the Dragnet in Matthew 13:47-50. As we have been moving through the parables in chapter 13, Jesus has been describing different aspects of the kingdom of heaven. We saw in the parable of the soils parable of the tares among the wheat that the kingdom will be rejected by many and will exist in the world alongside unbelievers. We saw the power and the growth of the kingdom in the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven, and we saw the value of the kingdom last week with the parables of the hidden treasure and the costly pearl.
The parable of the Dragnet is similar, but the focus is changed slightly. We will go ahead and read the short parable and try to get a better mental picture of what Jesus is describing and then look at its spiritual lesson and the implications for the kingdom and those within and without it.
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea, gathering fish of every kind; and when it was filled, they drew it up on the beach; and they sat down and gathered the good fish into containers, but the bad they threw away. So it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Fishing in the time of Christ was a common activity, both as a commercial enterprise and for individual consumption. We know that several of the apostles were fishermen by trade and so they would have been very closely acquainted with this picture. In fishing, there were three primary ways in which people try to catch fish. The first, much like we are accustomed to, was a thin string attached to a hook. The second was a circular net that was cast by hand over a school of fish. The outer ends had weights and so would sink faster than the center catching all fish underneath where it landed and then was hauled in by hand.
The third and largest was the dragnet or trawling net. With this method a massive net, and some from the time reached several hundred meters long and 30 to 40 feet tall, a massive net with a weighted bottom and wooden float tops would be hauled out into the water by boat or sometimes several boats. The two primary ways of using this kind of net was either to make a circle out in the middle of the water and slowly haul in one end making the net ever smaller while remaining closed and then hauling all of the fish into the boat with the net or alternatively to make a semicircle off the shore and haul in the net onto land along with all of the fish in that vicinity.
In this parable, the Lord wants us to understand two basic things in picturing this dragnet. The first would be the immense size of the net and the second would be the fact that it brings in everything inside of its area. Anything that happened to be within the area of the net would be caught. From top to bottom, all kinds of fish, the seaweed, any crustaceans or bottom dwellers, everything was caught up in the dragnet and hauled in to be separated.
We see in verse 48 “When it was filled, they drew it up on the beach; and they sat down and gathered the good fish into containers, but the bad they threw away.” Once the catch was in, then came the more tedious job of sifting through everything in the net. Anything that was useful was put into containers to be transported or sold and everything else would be discarded.
Jesus gives the interpretation of this parable immediately. In verse 49 he says, “So it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous.” At the end of the age everyone will be gathered together like a giant catch and will be sifted and separated by the angels. The righteous will be taken to glory and the unrighteous are not just left on the beach but, as the Lord continues on in verse 50, “And will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
The focus of this parable is on the separation that will happen at the end of the age and especially upon the judgment coming against the unrighteous. We saw in the first two parables that good and evil will continue together for a time. God will tolerate the bad soils and the tares among the wheat for a little while, but there is a time coming when he will make a separation between those who are subjects of the King, who know and are known by the Lord Jesus Christ, and those who do not.
The separation is inevitable and ultimate. Time, like the net is continually coming to a close. It draws all people closer and closer to eternity, inescapably catching everything and everyone within it. Some might see the net closing in and rush away from it for a little while, thinking themselves safe but it always catches up in the end. And when the end comes there will be a separation. We saw the same principle in the parable of the tares among the wheat. The tares may be allowed to grow for a little while, but when the harvest comes they will be gathered up alongside the wheat and separated out in order to be burned. The difference in this parable is that the focus is on the separation and judgment. Its inevitability, it is inescapable and all-encompassing. All of humanity, all of creation is caught in its net.
Jesus is not giving a specific time or exhaustive layout for the end of the age. He is not telling us exactly how everything will play out, merely giving the picture of what will happen when the final and full judgment comes with the reign of Christ and the great white throne. The focus here is on the completeness of that judgment over all of the world. As with the tares, it is the angels who are the ones doing the separating and casting of the unrighteous into the furnace of fire.
In Matthew 25 we will see another picture of the separation and judgment. In verse 31 Jesus will say, “But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him; and he will separate them from one another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and he will put the sheep on his right, and the goats on his left… Then he will also say to those on his left, ‘depart from me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Again, we have this picture of separation and judgment. In John chapter 5 Jesus tells of the resurrection of all men; some to the resurrection of life and some to the resurrection of damnation. There will be a final separation, a final and eternal destiny for every soul who is ever lived. And in the furnace of fire where the unrighteous, the wicked will be thrown; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
In fact, as we look throughout the Gospels we see that our Lord warned about Hell many times. It seems strange to us to hear these kinds of warnings and descriptions coming from the mouth of Jesus. Jesus is all about love and forgiveness, right? We do not associate Jesus with hell or punishment, but we should. He actually talked more about Hell and punishment than he did about love or heaven. In fact, he mentioned something to do with hell or judgment more than both heaven and love combined. Jesus said more about hell than any other Biblical preacher, Old Testament or New.
It comes up quite a bit in his teaching. In the sermon on the Mount we read, “whoever says, you fool, shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.” And a few verses later, “It is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” In chapter 8 he said that the wicked sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. In chapter 11 he warns that unbelieving Capernaum would descend into Hades and it would be more tolerable for Sodom than for them on the day of judgment. It goes on and on. In Matthew 23 he will tell the Pharisees that they will not escape the sentence of hell. Those are just a handful. It would take us too long to go through all of the allusions to hell, judgment, or destruction that Jesus points to just in the local chapters of Matthew we have already looked at, let alone the rest of the Gospels.
Why? Why would Jesus talk so much about Hell and punishment and destruction? He warned his listeners about hell so many times because he was concerned that they would go there. In chapter 9 he saw the harvest moving toward judgment and prayed for the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest. Why? To preach the good news to the lost, to warn them of the judgment that was coming.
God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Peter tells us in 2 Peter 3:9 that the Lord is “patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” Jesus wept over Jerusalem and its continual rejection of the prophets and finally himself.
I believe God intentionally had Jesus teach on hell so much just so it could not be easily dismissed. Jesus was the most perfectly loving person to ever walk the earth and he taught more about hell than anyone. Why? Because the most loving thing we can do is to warn people. Our culture defines loving someone by always showing support for their actions or choices. We can and should love them despite their choices, but to affirm someone in sin is not loving by Gods definition, it is either the most hypocritical thing we could do or cowardly thing.
Just as so many today want to shy away from even considering it is existence, very few have ever taken the time to consider what hell will really be like. Many have a picture in their mind based on cartoonish depictions either from medieval art or popular culture. Though there may be some similarities behind those depictions, hell will be a far worse experience than anything we can imagine. Jesus and other Biblical authors allude to it in a number of different ways but never describe it as fully as say heaven or the eternal state will be. So I want to bring to the other couple of those descriptors and hopefully we can get a better picture as we consider the doctrine of hell and what it will truly be like.
We have all experienced pain to some degree. We understand how it can ruin the joy and happiness of life and keep us from accomplishing our goals and desires. We often compare some of the worst experiences imaginable to hell. War is hell, a particularly hard experience like military boot camp or some other grueling physical challenge is called hell. We describe the worst of circumstances as a living hell. And yet we have no concept of what hell will really be like.
The most common description is that of the physical torment that will be present in hell. That torment is most often compared to fire. In this parable Jesus calls it the “furnace of fire.” In Revelation 20 the eternal state of damnation is described as a “lake of fire.” In the story in Luke 16 that Jesus gives about the rich man and Lazarus, which is one of our best glimpses into Hades, the rich man calls out to Abraham for the slightest relief because, he says, “I am in agony in this flame.”
The worst physical pain imaginable to most people is that of being on fire. Being burned alive is terrifying because of its all-encompassing and excruciating nature is one of the worst imaginable deaths. Bad burns are excruciating in the way they melt the skin and nerves and cause continuous searing pain. It will be so bad that there will be weeping and wailing as we read in parable here and as Jesus mentioned back in the parable of the tares. When was the last time you are in such pain that it brought tears to your eyes? Earlier this year when my appendix was about to burst I felt a level of pain I have never known before, but even then I maintained my manliness and never shed a tear. Maybe you have broken a major bone, maybe you have experienced the birthing process. The physical pain of hell will be so intense that it will lead to weeping and wailing.
If not wailing, then the gnashing of teeth. I am sure you have seen period war movies or the like where a soldier is wounded and when the surgeon comes to operate on them, they have got a strip of leather or a bullet for the victim to bite down on. Pain so intense that you grind your teeth. Now imagine that level of pain covering every aspect of your body and soul with no end in sight. Excruciating pain for all of eternity.
Not only is there constant, eternal excruciating pain, but you are in absolute isolation. Some people say they want to go to hell so that at least they can be with their friends. There will be no such camaraderie, the misery of hell will have no company available. Not only will there not be other people, there will be nothing at all. Hell is a place of darkness as Jesus says in Matthew 8:12. The blackest of darkness. Not even the slightest glimmer of light could pierce it. We are creatures who desire light and even in the worst of circumstances will strain our eyes to find the slightest glow; but occupants of hell will see nothing but the unyielding void.
On earth we take for granted the physical properties. There will always be a ground to lie on when we are exhausted. And yet hell is a bottomless pit as were told in Revelation 20. As the occupant of hell his eyes strains for the slightest glimmer of light you will also begin to realize that there is nothing around him. As the panic of nothingness overcomes the mind, feet begin to thrash arms begin to wave frantically but there is nothing in the abyss.
Hanging suspended, drifting aimlessly in the formless and void darkness, in excruciating pain, as exhaustion quiets his wailing for the briefest moment, the crushing silence becomes noticeable for the first time. No trickle of water, no hint of birds or animals crawling about, not the faintest shifting of air. No light, no ground, no sound, nothing for his senses to latch onto but the devastating void.
After a time, as the isolation and physical pain become a part of his nature, though they do not lessen in the slightest the mind begins to race. As he hangs suspended in the darkness, choking back his sobs, his mind reaches out for the faintest of hope. Remembering his life on earth, even in the worst of pain there was always the slightest hope for relief. A moment’s rest as the torturer had to catch his own breath, falling asleep, even the thought of death was enough for his mind to focus on to push back the pain in some way. Whatever the situation there was always the thought of relief, medicine for the sick, a scrap of food for the hungry, the smallest trickle of water for the one dying of thirst. The site of another person to alleviate the overwhelming loneliness.
But there is no hope. You see at the return of Christ we are told that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Every knee, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, every tongue will confess. The sinner and hell will recognize the true God for who he is, see Jesus as Savior and Lord and become fully aware of his own sin and rejection of Jesus. No matter how he might cry out from hell, beg and plead for another chance there will be no relief. For the sinner in hell who heard the gospel and rejected it, the weight of that guilt will be all the more devastating.
As his mind continues to grope for the slightest bit of hope, length of eternity continues to remind him of his condition. We sing of God’s Amazing Grace, “When we’ve been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s Praise then when we’d first begun.” In an equal but opposite recognition, when the damned have experienced 10,000 years of agony they will not be a moment closer to the end of their torment than when they were first cast into hell.
The greatest agony of hell is that there will, for eternity, not be the slightest hint for hope of relief. The rich man pleaded for a single drop of water to be dabbed on the tip of his tongue. But for eternity, “the wicked will drink the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength and the cup of his anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone the presence of holy angels in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; they have no rest day and night. (Revelation 14:10-11)”
The eternality of hell is made abundantly clear in Scripture. There is no annihilationism, no end for the soul being tormented in the abyss. Jesus uses the same word for eternity in Matthew 25:46 when he says, “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Just as the life in the presence of God of the righteous will go on for eternity, so will the torment of hell.
The doctrine of Hell is a repulsive thing. It should be. We should hate the very thought of it, that any person would experience that. And yet we should dwell on it regularly. We should consider its implications often because the hardest truths to deal with are often the ones that bring about the greatest transformation in our lives.
Understanding and dwelling on the doctrine of hell forces us to see several things. We could spend quite a while on this but I am going to point out just the three I think are the most important. First, understanding and dwelling on the doctrine of hell should make us see the Holiness of God. How does that work? Is not God’s holiness in good thing? How does it have anything to do with the doctrine of hell? Well, when you see the extent of hell you get a small measure of the extent of God’s Holiness. How could sin warrant so extreme a punishment? Because it is an offense against such a holy God. In our legal system we recognize that a punishment should be fitting for the crime. If you get a speeding ticket, you will have to pay a small fine. If you break into someone’s house and steal their jewelry, you will go to jail for a couple of years; if you beat up the homeowner while you are doing it, your jail term will be longer. If you murder someone, in some cases justice demands that you be put to death.
Our God is a God of perfect justice. Not allowing for sin to go unpunished, and the punishment for sin will always fit perfectly. Why will the torment of hell be eternal? Because you sinned against an eternal God. Why will it be so severe? Because your sin, a single sin is such an affront to a God that is so perfectly holy it demands that level of torment.
That leads to a second recognition when we contemplate the doctrine of hell, it makes us see the seriousness of our sin. Each and every time you sin it warrants the agonies of hell. It is those same agonies that Christ paid for you on the cross. And yet we continue to sin even after having experienced his forgiveness. Why? Because we do not contemplate the truth of just what that sin is, just how destructive it is. Contemplating the doctrine of hell will help us to see our sin as God does. We can learn to hate sin as God does, to be offended by our sin as it offends God. As we cannot bear to look upon the horrors of hell, so God cannot bear to look upon the horrors of sin.
Though there are many more implications of contemplating the doctrine of hell, I will end on this last one. Understanding and contemplating the doctrine of hell should make us all the more zealous in evangelism. How can you love someone and not warn them of what is to come? The idea of allowing someone to endure such torture for eternity violates the sensibilities of even the sinners in this world, how could anyone who calls himself a Christian standby and allow it to happen to another human soul? All the more, how could you ever wish it on even the vilest of sinners? The most hypocritical thing a Christian could ever do is to wish hell on another person. One of the most unloving things a Christian can do is to remain silent when they know what awaits the lost.
The hideous doctrine of hell may grip our souls in terror, but it should also prompt us to holiness and compassion. Just as we should regularly contemplate the joys of heaven that await us, as we should recognize the incomparable value of our citizenship in the kingdom of heaven, so should we contemplate the terror of hell that we have been saved from and that awaits unbelievers.