Not to Believe Either is to Believe Neither

Last week I began the Sunday morning message with this: “I felt a tremendous sadness when I heard the news this week that Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself in prison. I remember feeling that same sadness listening on the radio when Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, was executed by lethal injection. I also felt it when they hanged Saddam Hussein. It’s not because I don’t think these were evil men. They were. It’s not because I don’t think they did despicable, deplorable things. They did. It’s not because I think that justice should not be served. It should. 

Why then did I feel that sadness? Because I fervently believe in two things: First, I believe in hell. I believe in a hell so exceedingly awful that I could wish no man go there however evil he may be. (That’s not the same as saying I don’t think he should go there.) Second, I believe in redemption. I believe that there is no person so evil that God can not redeem him, change him, and make him a new creation. There is no sinner for whom Jesus did not die, and no sin His blood cannot wash away.” 

We have secular humanists, Darwinian materialists, and liberal hooey theologians to thank for getting rid of hell. If there is no hell, there is no need to bother with something being sin. And, if there is no sin, there is nothing from which to be redeemed. Of course, we cannot really blame society in general—the humanists, Darwinians, or liberals--for the disappearance of hell, sin, and redemption; these are rarely preached or taught in but few “mainstream” American churches. There is a false conception that, if one believes in sin and hell, that he is hardhearted and compassionlessly judgmental. Not necessarily. 

There is also a false conception that to be compassionate and loving towards the errant and sinful, desiring they be redeemed, is to be soft on sin, to jettison belief in judgment and hell. Again, not necessarily true. It is the believing of one without the other that leads to error. If a group emphasizes only sin and hell to the exclusion of redemption, it is wrong. It will be ugly, mean-spirited, uncaring, uncompassionate. If a group emphasizes only redemption and love to the exclusion of sin and hell, it will become vacillatingly ambiguous about sin, tolerant to the point of acceptance of God-condemned behavior. 

The prevailing sentiment of society is to decry any judgment of another’s behavior. “Don’t judge” is the incessant mantra and drumbeat. Say, a person embraces deviant behavior. Quick judgment will be heaped on any who would judge that behavior to call it sin. That behavior is to be, beyond merely tolerated, accepted. Sounds compassionate, loving, and caring? It’s not. In all probability, the person who has ventured into that deviant behavior is suffering real inner turmoil, injury, wound, distress. Or, the person who engages in such behavior, as a result of it, suffers real inner turmoil, injury, wound, and distress. His psyche is warped and wounded by the behavior. If his behavior is not sin, then there is no redemption from his condition that resulted in or from his behavior.  

The hidden truth about those contemporaneously engaging in deviant behavior is that the suicide rate is astronomical among their demographic. Not because they are anguished by those who condemn their behavior, but because of their personal struggle that led to the behavior. To say their behavior is perfectly “normal,” acceptable, and moral, is to silence any message of hope of redemption, help, and healing. Bad news can be good news. If a person, suffering tremendous tooth pain goes to the doctor and the doctor examines him and says, “I can’t find anything wrong with you,” that good news is bad news. He will continue to suffer from no hope of relief. 

If a person, suffering tremendous pain goes to the doctor and, upon examination, he says, “I found what is wrong. You have an abscess on a tooth’s root.” The bad news is good news. Not only does one know what is wrong, but he also has hopes it can be helped. The abscess can be treated and removed. The worse scenario for that person would be a doctor who knew what was causing the pain but refused to tell the patient. Hell and redemption. Not to believe either is to believe neither.