This is a great Sunday to preach on hell, don’t you think?  With a temperature heat index hovering at 105, we’ll get the full sensory experience.  It’s the kind of day that recalls the story of the engineer who died and went to hell.  He was so brilliant he designed an air-conditioning system that cooled the whole place off.  God heard about it and sent for him.  “Anyone that smart ought to be in heaven,” he said.  But, the devil told God, “You can’t have him.”  “What do you mean I can’t have him?” God asked.  “Cough him up or I’ll sue you.”  Satan asked, “Where are you going to get any lawyers?”  We hardly want to spend the month of August in Dallas.  Can you imagine an eternity in a place even hotter?  Hell is a hot place, right?  Actually, Jesus gave us different images of hell that raise as many questions as they answer. 

Jesus referred to what we commonly believe to be hell as a place of outer darkness (Matthew 25) and yet in another instance referred to it as a place of “eternal fire (Matthew 26:41).”  Since one of the properties of fire is light, how can hell be both a place of unquenchable fire and a place of total darkness unless Jesus resorted to graphic metaphor because no human words adequately describe the nightmare of eternal separation from God?  In both the Old and New Testaments, none of the descriptions of hell say exactly the same thing yet none of them leave favorable impressions of hell as the kind of place you’d want to spend even one month, much less an eternity.  And, none of them are more fascinating than what Jesus promised Peter.

After questioning the disciples about who other people believed him to be, Jesus asked them, “who do you say that I am?”  Peter then confesses, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (NIV).”  Based on that confession Jesus made Peter this promise,  “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”  Referring to what most evangelicals believe to be hell, Jesus used the word, “Hades,” similar to the Old Testament word, “Sheol,” which means the abode of the dead.  Then, in one of only two instances recorded in the gospels, Jesus referred to the church, which would not even come into existence until after his resurrection.  But here, Jesus promises that, against his church, his body as expressed in the community of those who follow him as Lord, the gates of Hades, or hell, would not prevail. 

Jesus’ imagery of hell is of a place where the dead are eternally locked away, as if behind the gates of a fortress.  Honestly, until this very week, I’d always heard this image in terms of hell assaulting the church and losing.  To Jesus, it’s the other way around.  Through his death and resurrection, Jesus has conquered sin and death forever.  Hell, the abode of the dead, is under assault by the church, the body of Christ.  And, this is the promise of Jesus.  When the church assaults hell’s fortress its gates will not be able to withstand the onslaught; they will not prevail in keeping the dead locked away from the loving and redeeming, life-giving reach of Jesus. 

We’re left with two questions, at least.  First, what does this mean for eternity?  Does this hold out hope for those who have died never having heard the gospel?  What about the billions of people who are born and die cut off from the gospel because of politics or geography?  Isn’t it true that we know the gospel, in part, because of when and where we were born?  What about those less fortunate?  Is their only hope of heaven the possibility that enough of us will give up our wealth and comfort and become missionaries in time to go overseas, learn their language and hold Bible clubs in their backyards?  Has God left their eternity hanging in that balance?

When Jesus was dying on the cross he turned to one of the thieves crucified with him who begged for mercy and promised him they’d be together “in paradise” that very day (Luke 23).  He doesn’t say one word to the other thief, the one who mocks him.  I’ve always wondered about that guy.  Honestly, if I were hanging on a cross, buck naked in the scorching sun, nails driven in my hands and ankles and having had the stuffing beaten out of me the night before, I probably wouldn’t be in much of a mood to trust anyone, either.  Does Jesus have mercy for people who have been so beaten up they can’t trust?  What about the little girl whose father drags her to church every Sunday but rapes her every Monday?  What about the young man repeatedly abused in the confessional?  What about the young husband whose pastor took his wife in an act of adulterous thievery?  In truth, the Jesus some people preach has nothing to do with the Jesus Peter confessed as the Christ, the Son of the Living God.  Some people, though they’ve been close to the church, have never heard of Jesus.  What will Jesus do about them?

This is what I know.  Jesus is Lord.  He is Lord of life and death, heaven and hell.  He is Lord of our beginning and our end, our birth and our death.  God does the saving and he does the saving he does through Jesus who was crucified for our sins and raised by his Father to new life.  Jesus promised that anyone who followed him would also be given the life his Father had given him.  There is no hope, given in scripture, for anyone who, having genuinely heard the gospel, refuses to repent of their unbelief and follow Christ as Lord.  The question remains, what of those who die before they have opportunity to accept or reject a Christ of whom they’ve never heard? 

When I had been in my very first pastorate less than one year, I was asked to preach the funeral service for a nineteen year-old boy who had been killed in an oilfield accident.  Though his mother was a member of my church, Charles was not a Christian.  It was my very first funeral.  I would have preferred to cut my funeral teeth on some great old saint who had lived a long, Christ-honoring life.  But, here I was, just three years older than the deceased, trying to find words of comfort for this family who, according to our faith, had no hope of anything for Charles but an eternity in hell.  I found my twenty-five year-old funeral notes and discovered that I chose Romans 8:37-39, as the text.  “Neither death nor life . . . angels nor demons . . . the present nor the future, nor any powers . . . (nothing) “in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  I now know that God made that promise to Charles Scott as much as he did to anyone.  I’m curious if, even then, I was leaning more on what I hoped than what I knew. 

Don’t we all do that? 

We live with a crazy-making kind of cognitive dissonance.  Cognitive dissonance is the experience of trying to hold to two contradictory beliefs at the same time.  For example, we say, especially at church, that we believe anyone who dies before they accept Jesus is bound for hell.  We say that.  But, it appears that we live by another belief.  If you say that you believe that people who haven’t heard of Jesus are bound for an eternal hell with no hope of heaven, when was the last time you told even one other person that?  Is it possible that we say we believe one thing but that we are hoping something else?

Later in his life, Peter wrote about Jesus going to hell to preach to those who “disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah (3:20)” and of “the gospel” being “preached even to those who are now dead (4:6).”  What can that possibly mean?  Well, maybe it means what it says.  That even the dead are not beyond the Lordship of Jesus or the reach of his love and redemption.  That Jesus still loves those who have died having never having known him as much as he loves those of us who have been blessed to hear the gospel and believe it.  The gates of hell will not prevail because Jesus plans to kick them in and subdue the evil one, the kidnapper of his children.

What does this mean for eternity?  What can we know for certain?  At least this.  Jesus is Lord of salvation and we should believe his gospel, follow him as Lord and call on others to do the same.  But, we should also leave the unanswered questions about eternity to the Lord of eternity.  This is the most honest thing I can say.  About those who have died without knowing Jesus, I have more hope than I have knowledge.  I’m leaning on hope because I’m counting on Jesus to keep his promise.  The gates of hell will not prevail.  There is a second question.  What does this mean for today?

Lisa Beamer was interviewed the other evening on NBC’s Dateline.  Lisa’s husband, Todd, is the man of 9/11 “Let’s Roll” fame.  Before he and the other passengers died while subduing the terrorists on Flight 93, he called a GTE operator and asked her to get word to his wife of what had happened.  Then, he asked her to say the Lord’s Prayer with him.  Stone Phillips asked Lisa if, when Todd got to that part about, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” she thought Todd was really asking God to forgive those terrorists?  Lisa said, “I think he was trying to get his life right with God before he did what he had to do.”  What we do know is that Todd prayed for forgiveness, for himself and the terrorists, then proceeded to sacrifice his own life so that others might live. 

Kind of like Jesus, on the cross, when he prayed for everyone’s forgiveness, then paid the price of his own life to make it happen.  When Todd Beamer prayed that prayer and then gave his life, the church, the very body of Christ, assaulted the gates of hell, that very day, and the gates of hell did not prevail. 

In truth, we have more questions about eternity than not.  We should leave them to Jesus, who is Lord of eternity, and commit ourselves to bringing heaven to this world now.  In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus taught us that living like heaven means forgiving, even loving, our earthly enemies and not judging each other and being faithful in marriage and not paying back evil with evil.  He taught us to pray to our heavenly Father, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10, KJV).”  He told Peter, “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 

The distance between eternal heaven and the earthly heaven toward which Jesus told us to strive is no greater than the next breath we take, or don’t, our next act of holy mercy or not, our next gift of compassion, or not.  Jesus compels us to ask what it reveals about our true beliefs and our true character if we are so concerned about heaven after we die that we ignore the very real hell others are living in now.  In fact, Jesus once said that to be self-assured of our eternal salvation while ignoring those who are hungry, thirsty, lonely, naked, sick and in prison now is to be self-delusional about our relationship with him in eternity (Matthew 25:31-46).  The church that is conquering hell is not made up of those who are simply trusting Jesus to come make them healthy and wealthy but by those who are following him as Lord in self-sacrificial ways that enable those who are in locked in darkness now to see Hope’s light at the end of their hellish tunnel. 

Every time we become salt and light in this world we make this hell a little more like heaven, the abode of the dead is invaded by the living body of Christ and death is conquered.  Every time we forgive our enemy, feed the hungry - do the Sermon on the Mount - the church assaults the abode of the dead and death is swallowed up in victory. 

This is the promise of Jesus.  The church is not a fortress that holds up under hell’s assault.  The church is a holy virus against which hell has no vaccine.  The church is on the offensive against the abode of the dead.  Its gates won’t stand the assault of Christ's body, the church.  Jesus will kick in the doors of hell and “rescue the perishing, care for the dying.  Jesus is merciful.  Jesus will save.”