Feelings, God’s Love, and Hell Fire and
Brimstone
Barbara Henderson
It is true that the United States and
the entire world is divided almost straight down the middle regarding people’s
opinion on almost any subject. The
division could be measured in many different ways, but it still comes out as
divided almost equally. The division
that I am considering today is emotionalism versus rational thinking, and how
that division effects Christian efforts to point people to Jesus Christ.
Personally, I am a very emotional
person. I can tell you that uncontrolled emotions will drive you flat out crazy
unless you come up with a way to control surface emotions. Thankfully I was
brought up in a solid conservative Christian family. There were rules we had to live by no matter
how we felt about it. So, I knew in
advance what I was probably going to do in a situation, but my emotions still
drove me crazy. This is what I figured
out.
There are two kinds of emotions. The first one is surface emotions. That is the emotion that will get you into
trouble when you see a puppy or kitten.
They are cute and helpless. That
is a very dangerous combination! When
you see or experience injustice the emotion that jumps through your body and
out your mouth is anger. If either of
these emotions causes you to act before you have time to think about the
situation rationally you will find yourself in a very bad situation. The problem the world is facing today is that
approximately half the population lives by surface emotions. They never get beyond reacting to something
before they take time to think about it.
In fact, they are addicted to surface emotions. They love the high they get from surface
emotions. They love the high they get
when they ‘do something’ like contribute to a ‘save the dog’ fund. I am in favor of saving all animals from
inhumane treatment. I am also in favor
of feeding hungry children, sending aid to disaster victims, and any other
place of sadness and want that human interaction can help. But, I don’t contribute to television and
online requests for help. They are just
appealing to surface emotions, and they usually spend their funds on paying
themselves for making more ads to get more money. PETA is of course the prime example. Their idea of ethical treatment for animals
to is to kill them. Less than 10% of animals
surrendered to PETA are placed in a home.
After surface emotions there are
emotions that are brought about by rational thinking. These are the emotions that get things
done. Honestly, rational thinking allows
someone to come up with a reasonable answer or solution to something that is
happening or going on. This may lead to
emotional feelings, and it may not. For
instance, if you make a decision to give a certain amount of money to your
church’s missionary support, you give the money faithfully whether you get an
emotional high out of giving or not. You
just do it. Or, if you have made a
decision to ‘give to fill a need’ when something real comes up, then you will
automatically give the most you can when, for example, one of your church’s
missionary families has an unexpected need.
You already know the money is going where it is supposed to go and will
be spent however it is designated to be spent.
So, it is still rational giving, and you don’t have to spend time
figuring out what to do. You just have
to figure out the amount.
Being addicted to surface emotion is
like any other addiction. The addict
always needs more. That is why you see
things like the recent women’s march in Washington DC. Women were carrying signs with nothing but gutter
language as their message. Seriously,
there were signs that didn’t have anything except foul language to the highest
magnitude as their statement. It made no
sense at all except that the person carrying the sign wanted the high they get
from shocking people. Women were dressed
up in hideous costumes. Once again, they
were trying for an emotional high, and it is getting harder and harder to
get. Look at that pitiful aging woman
who calls herself Madona. She is running
out of things to do to attract attention, but she is still trying. She has a crowd of followers facing the same
dark future that she is facing. They
have gone as far as possible to get that emotional high on feel good emotions. Unfortunately, they have found a new way to
get to high, and that is anger. They are
just plain mad. They claim to be angry
for a particular cause, but they are just angry. Anything they do that will give them that
high is ok, and they don’t care how stupid it makes them look. If you tell them they look stupid that is
another reason to be angry. They really
don’t care.
How are Christians supposed to approach
emotion addicts? The standard approach
is, ‘Jesus loves you. Come to
Jesus. He will make your life better
now, and you get to go to heaven when you die.’
Unfortunately, that approach is not
working. That is the feel good approach,
and these emotion addicts are beyond feel good emotions. They need something more! They are also beyond anger. Honestly, the next step on the ladder for
emotional addicts is violence. That is true.
The steps in emotional addiction is first:
Feel good emotions. When that reaches its limits the next step
is:
Anger.
Then when anger no longer gives that emotional high the next step is:
Violence.
Violence is already being used by
emotional addicts in many instances.
There may be legitimate circumstances for anger, and on occasion
violence, but that isn’t usually the case.
Most things can be settled without violence.
The next question is what comes after
violence for emotional addicts, and how do we deal with anger addicts before
they turn to violence?
It looks like the only thing left is
fear! Fear is a very powerful
emotion. It can be effectively
used. For instance, over 200 people were
arrested at the women’s march in Washington DC right after the
inauguration. These people are facing
real jail time. Their violent and
destructive actions are having consequences.
Fear of consequences is a good way to get the attention of emotional
addicts.
Christians have something to say that
warrants fear in the heart of all lost people.
That is fear of hell. This is a
very legitimate and honest approach to evangelism. When I was a small child fear of hell really
got my attention. I had no problem
admitting I was a little sinner. I
honestly knew that I had not committed any really bad sins or sins that would
get me jail time. The problem for me was
that my sins were committed after I knew very well they were sins. I knew it was wrong and I chose to do it
anyway. Keep in mind that I was saved
and baptized at nine years old, so you can figure out about what I was doing
that was sinful at that time. With a
very obnoxious big brother I don’t know if I would have ever come to repentance
if it weren’t for my fear of hell.
And, yes! At that time in church history, preachers
commonly preached on the reality of hell, the eternal destination of hell, the
separation from everything and everyone good, and how it really was
forever! We also heard constantly that
there was only one way into heaven and that was through Jesus Christ. THAT is what is missing in today’s
world. The lost people of the world have
run through the common emotions, and nothing has reached their lost souls. Fear is the emotion that is left, and fear is
also the emotion that may be the very best.
Let’s take a look at a verse from the most wonderful ballad of all
times,
‘Amazing Grace’. The second verse
says,
‘twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved’.
To preach the reality of hell does use
fear to reach people, but it doesn’t leave them in fear. As soon as a person understands the reality
of hell in a future without Jesus Christ, they are ready to hear about
salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
To try to reach people through feel good
emotions doesn’t really work. Any
emotion can be copied by Satan and his angels.
The fear of hell is beyond surface emotions. It stays with a person until they come to a
decision to either accept the escape offered through Jesus Christ, or to ignore
the reality of hell and live in the emotional addict world.
Exactly how to approach giving someone a
healthy fear of hell will vary. I don’t
think approaching someone with, ‘Did you know you either have to believe in
Jesus or go to hell?’ is the best way to approach it. Sadly, even with all the television and radio
preachers there is still a global lack of understanding that hell is a real
place filled with real people who have no way of escape.
I would like people to know that the
reason for telling them about Jesus is that I don’t want them to miss heaven,
and that to miss heaven means they actually do go to hell.
What people need to know is that the
heaven of the Bible, the place where the followers of Jesus Christ are going,
is a very real and specific place. It
isn’t some generic place named ‘heaven’.
Any ‘heaven’ that you get into without Jesus Christ is the place the
Bible calls hell. It is a place of
misery where there is no love, joy, friendship, love, peace, or any good thing. People jokingly say, ‘I want to go to hell
because all my friends will be there.’
Your earthly friends may be there, but the blessing of friendship will
not be there. You won’t have any friends
in hell – not one single friend for eternity.
All the blessings of God will not be in hell. From a romantic viewpoint, there won’t be a
‘soul-mate’ in hell because there is no love of any sort in hell. There is no peace in hell because peace is a
gift from God. To imagine hell, just
imagine the things you love one at a time, and then imagine a place without
them. That is as close as we can come to
imagining the horror off hell.
The real goal is that even the thought
of hell will cause a fear that will not allow the non-believer any peace until
they make peace with God Almighty. Then
and only then can a person know the true peace and joy available in Jesus
Christ.
Fear of hell is very often what it takes
to get a person’s attention concerning their eternal destination. Don’t be afraid to use it because it isn’t
the popular approach to evangelism.
Here is a link to some traditional
Christian hymns on youtube. You cannot
do better than listening to these hymns to help you feel better and motivate
you to do what you need to be doing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-jMSs6FqaI
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Barbara Henderson
tosergeant@gmail.com
