I chose the picture above for a reason. So often, when people think about Jesus, they picture happy Jesus. Soft Jesus. Lovey-dovey, gentle Jesus. And He certainly is loving and happy and gentle, do not hear me wrong. I'm simply stating that He wasn't like that at all times.
A common claim against Christians who are "hardcore" or "fire and brimstone" is that they are not loving. If you preach a gospel that includes a literal Hell for the person outside of Christ, you will be considered unloving by many. After all, it isn't loving to tell people they are headed to Hell, right?
Jesus did. In fact, Jesus spoke of Hell more than any other person in the New Testament. Not that He wanted people to go to Hell; Matthew 18:14 clearly states that God does not want any to enter Hell's gates. Instead, Jesus preached a literal Hell because He actually believed in it.
Jesus actually believed that if someone were to sin and never repent, that person would be in Hell upon death. He believed in a literal, fire and brimstone Hell. This belief, this knowledge of the very real punishment of sins, is something that propelled Him to preach repentance of sins and salvation in Himself. This compelled Him to look upon crowds with compassion, knowing their status before God and thus their eternal fate if nothing changes.
And we don't ever mention Hell.
We have become so afraid of talking about the punishment of sins that we won't hardly mention the fires of Hell. We don't want to seem mean or old-fashioned or weird, so we just leave that part off. We don't ever discuss the extent of punishment for sins, that Hell is a place of eternal darkness and flames (not sure how that works, but it sounds horrifying), a place of gnashing of teeth. Sometimes, people will make Hell into a place of temporary punishment, like time-out for a toddler.
We've lost our belief in Hell. If we actually believed in this Hell, a literal place of eternal suffering and punishment, then we would do something with that belief. We would not sit by, afraid to saying something to the person outside of Christ. We would preach the gospel to all we could, fueled by the desire to see people escape the punishment.
Our indifference towards Hell and those headed there is at best unloving and lazy, and more likely hateful and damning. We quite literally hold the gospel of Christ in our hands, the way out of eternal punishment, and we never preach it. Our silence will be paid for by our friends for eternity, as they cry out our names, wondering why we didn't care enough to share the gospel with them.
Jesus believed in Hell, and did something about it. Do we?
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