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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Handling Hell Well

Aron Crews

Handling Hell Well Introduction

What Jesus Said

The Revelation

Just to share a little bit more about myself, so you know who you're going to be listening to for the next about an hour or so.

My name is Aaron Cruz and currently pastoring up Northern California, which enjoying the cooler weather up there compared to here, but up there at Granite Bay Hilltop, I'm the youth and young adult pastor.

And I pastor in Michigan for about 7 years before coming out to California.

This is a picture of me at Advent Hope preaching on October 1, 2016, almost exactly 7 years ago.

And at the time, I was single, but I did not know it at that exact moment, but my future wife was actually sitting in the audience.

Yeah, and today she's also sitting in the audience.

She was sitting somewhere in the back middle not knowing that this stunningly handsome young pastor was her future husband.

7 years ago that's when she first saw me and 7 months ago is when we got married.

And today is October 7, the seventh day of the week, so hopefully you guys are ready for 7 hours of me preaching.

At the time, that was the largest audience I ever preached to.

I was this young, almost less than a year out of college, new pastor preaching to a large group of people, and it's been a while since then.

This is my third time speaking at Advent Hope, and I've been doing a three-part series.

So I started last night with the topic, Handling Hell Well, and today we're gonna be talking about what Jesus said, what Jesus said.

So the majority, the vast majority of you were not present.

So we're going to start with a review to catch everyone up to speed as we continue on with the series.

And later this afternoon, I think about 4.30, I'll be giving my third part, Handling Hell Well, The Revelation.

So let's open up with just 1 more quick word of prayer before we dive into the review and get into the presentation.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak here to this group of people.

Lord, I ask for your Holy Spirit to be present amongst us and in us.

And as we open your word, Lord, we ask that you open our minds, open our hearts to hear and to understand the things that you want to teach us this morning.

I began to study this a number of years ago when I started to think about what would be the best study to give someone who may not fully understand everything that I do as a Seventh-day Adventist?

What's the best topic that would help to bridge someone who's a more broader Christian into our faith, what I would believe?

And I thought that the topic of hell would be really good because as we look last night, the ramifications that the topic of hell has on the character of God are very, very huge and significant.

So I began this really deep study into the topic of hell.

And I've studied probably the topic of hell far more than anyone needs to, but it's been a really actually blessing to me.

And hopefully I can share some new things with you.

So the 3 main views of hell that are in the world today are universalism, eternal torment, and annihilation.

Universalism basically teaches that ultimately, while some people may go to hell, they eventually will be saved.

That at the end of the day, no 1 is going to go to hell permanently and forever, that ultimately everyone will experience universal salvation.

The most popular view of hell is that of eternal torment.

This is the most common view of hell, both within the Christian world and the wider world religions around.

And this belief teaches that those who do not accept the grace of Jesus Christ and are lost will go to hell to be tortured, tormented for an eternal period of time.

Then the third view that I believe that Seventh-day Adventists hold to is the view called annihilation.

That is that hell, while there is a judgment, right, for the wicked, the ultimate judgment and punishment for their sins will be death.

The wages and the consequences of sin will be death.

So we looked last night about what has been the fruit, what has been the results of this teaching of eternal torment.

I'll just share with you just a couple of them.

Lauren Anderson, former president of Pacific Lutheran University, once said, so revolting to my moral nature is the creed of eternal punishment that it more than any other cause produces the most widespread unbelief.

Compared with this, all objections to Christianity, he says, fade to insignificance.

Then you have an author, Ellen White, who wrote in the book The Great Controversy, she said, It is beyond the power of the human mind to estimate the evil which has been wrought by the heresy of eternal torment.

The religion of the Bible, full of love and goodness and abounding in compassion, is darkened by superstition and clothed with terror.

When we consider in what false colors Satan has painted the character of God, can we wonder that our merciful creator is feared, dreaded, and even hated.

The appalling views of God which have spread over the world from the teachings of the pulpit have made thousands, yes, millions, if she were writing today, perhaps she would say billions of skeptics and infidels.

So whether you believe this is a biblical teaching or not, we have to swallow the pill that this teaching in the world has caused many people to reject Christ, that it has been an obstacle insurmountable to many who are considering Christianity.

But not just those who are outside of the Christian faith.

Has this been a difficult doctrine to swallow?

But even those who are followers of Christ, who are current Christians, who believe this doctrine, To them, the more they think about it, it really is like a ball and chain.

It's this doctrine that they just like, well, I know that God is love and all these other things, but he also does this.

He also tortures and torments those who don't accept him.

And the more they think about it, the bigger that weight gets, until they reach a point where their religion just cracks and breaks, or they just so bury this belief because it's not really congruent with the other facets of Christianity.

For example, Charles Darwin was a solid, Bible-believing, Orthodox Christian.

He writes in his autobiography that whilst on board the Beagle, he was quite Orthodox.

And he remembers being heartily laughed at by several of the officers for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality.

He was very, I was very willing, he writes, to give up my belief.

But then disbelief began to creep over him.

And then he says, after he fully gave up his faith, he says, I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true.

For if so, the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my father, brother, and almost all of my friends, will be everlastingly punished, and this is a damnable doctrine.

You could say that the last nail in the coffin of Darwin's Christianity was the belief of eternal torment.

And to him, he couldn't continue to believe Christianity anymore if this was a part of it.

We then took a look and we surveyed Genesis chapter 3 and we saw that really the original attack all the way at the beginning of the Bible was an attack that Satan levied against the character of God.

He presented God as being overly and unnecessarily restricted, as a God who was lying and threatening, right?

Lying, making up that they would die if they ate of the fruit, and ultimately that God was selfish and withholding good things from them.

And once this false picture of God was believed by Eve, she ate of the fruit.

And I put this, a false picture of God believed inevitably results in rebellion.

And in my view, in my estimation, the belief of eternal torment is probably the grossest misrepresentation of the character of God ever to be brought into the universe.

And so I think it's a topic worth spending our time considering because it's a topic we need to handle well when dealing with both believers and unbelievers, to make sure we know correctly what the truth is about this matter.

Another quotation from that book, The Great Controversy, the author writes, it is Satan's constant effort to misrepresent the character of God.

Satan causes humans to cherish false conceptions of God so that they regard him with fear and hate rather than with love.

I once heard, you know, I've heard actually a few sermons from Christian presenters presenting this view of hell, and it would just boil my blood, right?

So I ask you the question, if someone was grossly misrepresenting a close loved 1, a spouse, a close friend, a parent, a sibling, would you stand by and say nothing?

If your spouse was being maligned and you were hearing someone say, well, they do this and they do that, and you knew it wasn't true, what would love demand you do?

You would be like, no, that's not what they do.

And so I believe that this doctrine, if indeed eternal torment is false, which I believe it to be, and we're hopefully going to show that today, it should make you angry.

It should sadden you that people believe this about God, and it should motivate you to go and preach the true gospel about who God really is.

And so these 3 main views, universalism, eternal torment, and annihilation, we find that the top 2, universalism and eternal torment, actually find the same foundation to their belief.

And that is the belief of natural immortality.

This is contrasted with the belief by annihilationists, and that is that we receive immortality as a gift.

Back to Menu

Series

Handling Hell Well

What Jesus Said

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Keys of Revelation

18. The Good News About Hell

1h

God is Love?

12-The Good News About Hell

1h

Restoration 2026: If God is Love...

09 If God is Love... Why Delay?

54m

Unlock Revelation

11. Revelation’s Lake of Fire

1h 21m

Babylon, America, and Bible Prophecy

16 Revelation’s Lake of Eternal Fire: The Good News on Hell

1h 19m

Revelation Made Simple

12. Revelations Lake of Fire

53m

Handling Hell Well

Handling Hell Well Introduction

53m

Restoration 2026: If God is Love...

08 If God is Love... Why Hell?

55m

Talking Points 4th Quarter 2022: On Death, Dying, and the Future Hope

10 The Fires of Hell

31m

What Jesus Said

16. The End of Evil

1h

Sound Doctrine