Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Unquenchable Light: Confronting the Secular Conscience with the Eternal Realities of the Gospel

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The Unquenchable Light: Confronting the Secular Conscience with the Eternal Realities of the Gospel · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome back to the deep dive we are labeling this session under
• 0:03
  the banner of Reform Thinking Today.
• 0:06
  Want to set the stage a bit differently for this one?
• 0:08
  Because we aren't looking at a fleeting tech trend or a random
• 0:13
  piece of history. We're looking at something that
• 0:16
  sits right at the center of the human experience, even if modern
• 0:19
  culture tries its absolute best to ignore it.
• 0:22
  We are talking about the afterlife.
• 0:24
  Right. It is the topic that everyone
• 0:26
  thinks about at 3:00 AM but rarely talks about at 3:00 PM.
• 0:30
  It is always there in the background, but we suppress it.
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  That is a brilliant way to phrase it.
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  Specifically, we are looking at the heavy skepticism surrounding
• 0:38
  the afterlife. And if you were listening to
• 0:40
  this, you know this person. It might be a neighbor, a guy at
• 0:43
  work, or a family member. You see at Thanksgiving.
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  You try to bring up faith or the future or anything transcendent
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  and you just hit a solid brick wall.
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  They don't just doubt the existence of heaven and hell,
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  they treat the whole concept like a dusty antique.
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  To them, it is this pre scientific leftover that we
• 0:59
  really should have evolved past by now.
• 1:01
  Yeah, it is a massive shift in the air we breathe today.
• 1:05
  We are living in a specific cultural moment where the
• 1:08
  concepts of eternal judgement or eternal life are not just
• 1:11
  debated, they're often ruled out before the conversation even
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  begins. And we have a stack of really
• 1:17
  robust theological sources today that argue this isn't just an
• 1:20
  intellectual issue, it is a worldview issue.
• 1:24
  We are going to be drawing heavily from some detailed
• 1:26
  material on evangelizing those who deny heaven and hell, and we
• 1:30
  are going to ground this entire discussion and Reformed theology
• 1:33
  in the Westminster Confession. I appreciate that we are doing
• 1:36
  this under the reform thinking banner because it means we
• 1:39
  aren't going to try to soften the edges.
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  We are not looking for a seeker sensitive approach here.
• 1:43
  We are not looking for pragmatism or marketing
• 1:45
  strategies. We want to know what is true and
• 1:48
  how we communicate that truth to a world that thinks nature is
• 1:51
  all there is. And honestly, the problem feels
• 1:53
  huge. It feels like the modern skeptic
• 1:55
  has armor on. It is not just that they have
• 1:57
  carefully disproved the afterlife in the lab.
• 1:59
  It is more like the atmosphere of naturalism and therapeutic
• 2:02
  religion just makes the idea of judgement feel completely wrong
• 2:05
  to them. That is the key insight we need
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  to start with. Most people assume they have
• 2:10
  examined the evidence for the afterlife and found it wanting,
• 2:13
  but our sources argue that is not the case at all.
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  The modern skeptic hasn't disproved Hell.
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  They have absorbed a worldview that makes the idea of judgement
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  feel harmful by default. It is a mood, not a calculation.
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  If you grow up hearing that the universe is just matter in
• 2:29
  motion, a closed system with nothing outside of it, then talk
• 2:33
  of angels, demons, judgement, or eternity sounds like a literal
• 2:36
  fairy tale. And you mentioned therapeutic
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  religion, which I think is a massive factor here.
• 2:40
  We live in an age where religion is only welcomed if it makes you
• 2:44
  feel good. If it functions as a personal
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  comfort blanket or helps you express yourself, that is
• 2:48
  totally fine. But the moment you introduce
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  divine authority, the idea that there is a God who demands an
• 2:53
  account of our lives, it immediately gets labeled as
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  manipulative or abusive. Spot on.
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  It is the difference between God as a lifestyle accessory and God
• 3:03
  as the Sovereign Lord. That is where we often get stuck
• 3:06
  in evangelism. We try to argue about the
• 3:08
  furniture of heaven or the temperature of hell, but we are
• 3:11
  missing the fact that the person we are talking to doesn't
• 3:14
  believe there is a house at all, let alone an owner of the house.
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  So our mission for this deep dive is to figure out how to
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  speak to that person. How do we speak to the neighbor
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  who says I don't believe in judgement without just getting
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  into a shouting match or retreating into our own
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  theological bubble? The road map for this discussion
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  is structured around that exact question.
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  We're going to start by diagnosing the unbelief, because
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  not all skeptics are the same. Then we have to expose the
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  worldview beneath that unbelief. We need to look at why we have
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  to start upstream with the doctrine of God before we ever
• 3:45
  talk about hell. After that, we will look at the
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  role of the moral law, the need for rigorous biblical precision,
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  and finally how the historical resurrection and the cross are
• 3:54
  the actual pivot points. It is a full agenda for sure.
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  It is. So let us get straight into the
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  diagnosis. I found this part of the source
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  material fascinating because I think I have been guilty of
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  treating every single non believer the exact same way.
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  But the material says that the statement I don't believe in
• 4:13
  heaven and hell is really just a cover statement.
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  It is a summary. It rests on deeper assumptions
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  that we have to uncover. It is a surface level symptom.
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  If you are a doctor and someone walks into your clinic with a
• 4:25
  headache, you don't just treat the headache blindly.
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  You need to know if it is dehydration, stress, or a tumor.
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  If you treat the tumor like it is just dehydration, you will
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  kill the patient. In evangelism, if you treat
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  every skeptic the same, you are going to give the right answer
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  to the wrong question. The source material identifies 4
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  distinct types of denial. Walk it through the first one.
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  The first one is the intellectual denial.
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  This is the one we probably encounter most often out in the
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  wild, or at least it is the one people claim to have.
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  This is rooted in naturalism. This is the person who views the
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  universe as a completely closed system of matter and energy.
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  Their primary objection is usually something like.
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  I only believe what can be proven by science.
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  The science guy, when you bring up the actor life they look at
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  you and say show me the peer reviewed data.
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  I feel like I am always on the back foot with this person.
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  Like I am expected to prove the supernatural exists using their
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  material tools. And that is a very common trap.
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  The sources point out that this person thinks they are being
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  completely neutral. They think they are the
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  objective rational observer. But they aren't.
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  They have adopted A philosophy, naturalism, that excludes the
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  supernatural by definition. They have decided in advance
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  that the box of the universe is locked from the outside, so no
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  amount of evidence inside the box will ever prove something
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  exists outside the box. So when they say I don't believe
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  in hell because of science, they're actually making a
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  massive philosophical claim, not a scientific one.
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  Correct. Science studies patterns within
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  nature. It has no instrument to look
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  outside of nature and say nothing is there.
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  That is like using a metal detector on a beach to find wood
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  when it doesn't beep. You can't logically say wood
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  does not exist, you're just using the wrong tool for the
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  job. But for this person, they have
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  decided in advance that the supernatural is impossible.
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  So when you bring up a concept like hell, they dismiss it as
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  unscientific. That analogy helps clarify the
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  dynamics so much it takes the pressure off us to produce a
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  scientific paper on the afterlife.
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  So what is the second type of denial?
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  The second type is the moral denial, and the sources suggest
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  this is becoming the dominant form of skepticism in the West
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  right now. This is the person who says the
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  afterlife shouldn't be true. They find the idea of hell
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  unjust or incompatible with their definition of love.
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  They will say things like I cannot worship a God who would
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  send good people to hell or infinite punishment for finite
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  crimes is just morally wrong. I hear this one constantly and
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  honestly it is tough to handle because it often comes from a
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  place that feels compassionate. They aren't trying to be
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  malicious, they are trying to be kind.
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  They look at their nice neighbor who isn't a Christian and think,
• 7:01
  how could a loving God burn that guy?
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  It feels compassionate, yes, but the sources point out a
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  fascinating tension here. This same skeptic usually
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  demands rigorous justice for human atrocities.
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  They want the dictators, the child traffickers, the corrupt
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  politicians to pay for what they have done.
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  They scream for justice when they see systemic abuse in the
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  news. Right.
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  They want the book thrown at the bad guys.
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  They want absolute accountability when it comes to
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  earthly crimes. But they absolutely refuse a
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  final divine judge who might judge them.
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  The moral denial is often used as a shield.
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  It allows them to judge God's morality rather than letting God
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  judge theirs. It puts the skeptic directly in
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  the judgement seat. They have a standard of fairness
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  in their own head, and they are measuring the Creator of the
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  universe against it. That is a critical flip.
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  They become the judge of God. I see how that changes the whole
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  dynamic of the conversation. What about the third type?
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  The third is the experiential denial.
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  This one is incredibly heavy. This is rooted in trauma, grief,
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  or religious hypocrisy. Imagine a woman who lost her
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  child, and maybe that child wasn't baptized or wasn't a
• 8:08
  believer in the traditional sense.
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  The idea of a rigid, eternal judgement is just too painful
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  for her to bear. Her denial of hell isn't an
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  intellectual argument at all, it is an emotional survival
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  mechanism. If hell exists, her pain is
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  infinite, so she decides it simply cannot exist.
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  Or think of the person who grew up in a legalistic, highly
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  abusive church environment. Yes, maybe they had a father
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  figure or a pastor who used the concept of hell as a club to
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  beat them with. Do what I say or you will burn.
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  Now as an adult, rejecting hell is how they reject that abuse.
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  It is their way of staying safe and taking back control of their
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  life. I have to assume the approach
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  here has to be radically different from the others.
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  Completely different. If you try to debate the moral
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  denial arguments with someone suffering from experiential
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  denial, you're just going to hurt them more.
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  You do not offer rigid apologetics to a bleeding wound.
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  You offer presents, you offer gentleness, The source
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  explicitly warns us here. Do not answer too quickly.
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  You have to listen and understand the wound first.
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  That is really good counsel. It is hard to do though,
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  especially if you feel this pressure to defend the truth of
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  Scripture immediately. But sometimes defending the
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  truth means staying silent for a minute and showing the
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  compassion of Christ. OK, we have one more type.
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  What is the 4th 1? The volitional denial.
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  This is unbelief firmly rooted in the will.
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  It is a flat refusal of accountability.
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  Basically, the logic goes, if there is no hell and no final
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  judgement, then there is no one I have to answer to.
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  I can do what I want with my money.
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  I can sleep with whoever I want. I can be the absolute king of my
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  own little Kingdom. This brings to mind that famous
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  Aldous Huxley quote where he essentially admitted he didn't
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  want the world to have inherent meaning because he wanted his
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  political and sexual freedom. He just wanted to be left alone
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  to do what he wanted. That is the volitional denial in
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  a nutshell. It connects directly to the
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  theology of Romans chapter 1 where the Apostle Paul talks
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  about men suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.
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  Notice the verb he uses there. Suppressing it is an active,
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  ongoing action. It is like holding a beach ball
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  underwater. It takes constant effort.
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  They know deep down that God is there, but they push the truth
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  down because they love their autonomy more than they love the
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  truth. But nobody actually admits to
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  this one in casual conversation, right?
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  Yeah. I've never met a guy at a coffee
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  shop who says I reject Jesus Christ because I want to cheat
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  on my taxes and sleep around. They usually dress it up as an
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  intellectual denial, don't they? Always.
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  The volitional skeptic will almost always hide behind the
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  intellectual or moral objection. They will talk about carbon
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  dating or the problem of evil or historical inaccuracies in the
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  Bible, but the real barrier is that they simply do not want a
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  Lord telling them how to live. So if everyone is hiding their
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  real motivation, how do we figure out which one we are
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  dealing with? We cannot just guess, and we
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  certainly shouldn't go around accusing people of suppressing
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  the truth. No, we shouldn't accuse people.
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  We have to use a diagnostic approach.
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  We have to ask thoughtful questions that bypass their
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  rehearsed defenses. The source material suggests a
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  couple of really sharp questions here.
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  The first one is primarily for the intellectual skeptic.
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  You ask them what would count as sufficient evidence for you.
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  I love that question because if they say nothing would convince
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  me, then you know right away it isn't about evidence at all.
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  It is a firm worldview commitment.
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  Precisely. It exposes the closed mind.
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  But the second question is the real scalpel.
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  You look at them and ask, if Christianity were completely
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  true, what would it cost you to follow it?
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  Wow, that really cuts through the noise.
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  It forces them to count the cost.
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  Suddenly they aren't debating the fossil record or the
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  philosophy of justice. They are thinking I would have
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  to change how I spend my weekends, I would have to break
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  up with my girlfriend, I would have to admit to my family that
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  I was wrong all these years. It reveals very quickly if the
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  barrier is facts or the barrier is lordship.
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  So we have diagnosed the patient.
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  We know if it is an issue of the head, the heart, the wound or
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  the will. Now the sources say we have to
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  deal with the foundation itself. We have to talk about the water
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  they're swimming in. This brings us to Segment 2,
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  exposing the worldview. We touched on naturalism a
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  minute ago, but let us really drill down into it.
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  Why is this nature is all there is idea so uniquely toxic to
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  evangelism? Because it makes the gospel
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  sound literally insane. If you genuinely believe the
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  universe is just a giant machine, just matter in motion,
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  atoms banging against other atoms in the dark, then a bodily
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  resurrection isn't just unlikely, it is an
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  impossibility. It is a glitch in the machine,
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  but the sources highlight a massive gap in this world view
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  that we can gently press on. Naturalism cannot account for
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  the things the skeptic relies on every single day to function as
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  a human being. Things like what?
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  Like objective moral obligations.
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  Like the immaterial laws of logic.
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  Like human dignity. Let us impact that a bit.
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  Objective moral obligations? Yeah, that sounds like a heavy
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  philosophy class. How do we explain that in normal
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  conversation? You keep it very simple.
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  If we are just accidents of biology, if we are just advanced
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  moist robots, then the statement murder is wrong isn't an
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  objective truth. It is just a biological
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  preference that helped our species survive.
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  It is like saying I don't like broccoli, you don't like murder,
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  I don't like broccoli. It is just chemistry firing in
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  our brains. There is no moral weight to it.
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  But nobody actually lives like that.
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  You can't live like that. No one does.
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  If you stole the naturalistic skeptic's wallet, they wouldn't
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  look at you and say I have a biological preference that you
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  shouldn't do that. They would say that is wrong,
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  you ought not to do that. They immediately appeal to a
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  standard outside of themselves. They are borrowing capital from
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  a Christian worldview to argue against Christianity.
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  That leads us directly to the other side of this coin.
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  We have naturalism, but we also have moral relativism or
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  expressive individualism, the belief that the self is the
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  highest possible authority, the whole I speak my truth culture.
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  But here is the glaring contradiction we have to point
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  out. People claim morals are
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  completely subjective, yet they express massive moral outrage at
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  injustice. They get furious at racism.
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  They get furious at abuse. They get angry at corporate
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  greed and systemic oppression. And rightfully so.
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  Those things are evil. Yes, they are, but their stated
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  worldview does not support that fury.
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  If morality is truly subjective, if it is just my truth versus
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  your truth, then the racist isn't objectively wrong, he just
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  has a different, equally valid truth.
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  You can't condemn him. So the very fact that they get
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  angry proves they don't actually believe in relativism.
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  Correct. Their anger is acting as a
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  theologian. Their anger is screaming there
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  is a moral law, and if there is a moral law, there must be a
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  moral law giver. You cannot have a moral law just
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  floating in a vacuum out in space.
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  It requires a personal source. So the debate really stops being
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  about do you believe in the afterlife and starts being about
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  who has the authority to define reality.
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  That is the core authority conflict.
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  And this brings us right back to our Reformed theological roots.
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  We know from Romans 1 and the Westminster Standards that human
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  beings are worshippers by nature.
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  We do not have a choice in the matter.
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  We will worship something if we reject the true and living God.
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  We don't worship nothing. We worship the self.
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  We worship the intellect. We worship pleasure or status.
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  So in the skeptic says to you, I don't believe in judgement.
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  What they're really saying underneath it all is I am the
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  judge. Yes, they have placed themselves
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  squarely on the throne of the universe.
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  They are judging God based on their own flawed moral
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  intuition. They say I wouldn't send people
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  to hell, so God shouldn't either.
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  They have made a God in their own image, A nice, tame,
• 15:43
  therapeutic God who affirms their life choices but never,
• 15:46
  ever challenges them. And a God like that cannot save
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  anyone. This feels like the perfect
• 15:52
  pivot point in the conversation. We have diagnosed the unbelief.
• 15:56
  We have exposed the crumbling foundation of their naturalistic
• 15:59
  worldview. Now, the sources say, we need to
• 16:01
  move upstream. We shouldn't start by arguing
• 16:03
  about the temperature of the fire in hell.
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  We need to start with theology proper, the doctrine of God
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  Himself. If you start a conversation with
• 16:11
  do you want to go to hell? You're starting at the very end
• 16:13
  of the movie. The person has no context for
• 16:15
  what you were saying. You have to start with the
• 16:17
  opening credits. God as creator.
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  Genesis 1.1. In the beginning, God created
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  the heavens and the earth. And the immediate implication of
• 16:25
  that verse is ownership. If God created us out of
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  nothing, He owns us entirely. We are not autonomous free
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  agents. The source uses a really
• 16:35
  brilliant analogy here. Think of a fish.
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  A fish is not free. When it leaves the water, it is
• 16:40
  dying. The fish was uniquely made for
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  the water. In the exact same way, human
• 16:45
  autonomy from God is not liberation, it is total ruin.
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  We were made for God. To attempt to live apart from
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  Him is to be de created. That changes the frame of the
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  conversation completely. It is not God being a petty
• 16:57
  tyrant demanding worship. It is God being the very source
• 17:00
  of life. And if we arrogantly cut
• 17:02
  ourselves off from the source of life, death is the only natural
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  result. And he is also God as sustainer.
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  Paul preaches this in Acts 17 when he tells the philosophers
• 17:10
  in Athens that in him we live and move and have our being.
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  The cosmic indictment against the skeptic, and really against
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  all of us outside of Christ, is that we live off God's immense
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  generosity while flatly refusing his Lordship.
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  We breathe his air, we eat his food, we use the logical brains
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  he gave us, and then we use all that borrowed energy to deny he
• 17:27
  exists. It is the absolute definition of
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  cosmic ingratitude. And that leads inevitably to God
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  as Judge. I think this is where the rubber
• 17:36
  meets the road for the God is love objection we talked about
• 17:39
  earlier. The sources argue very strongly
• 17:41
  that a deity who smiles at cruelty isn't loving at all.
• 17:44
  He would be completely indifferent.
• 17:45
  Imagine a human judge who looked at a confessed child abuser in
• 17:49
  court and said, well, I'm a very loving person so I'm just going
• 17:52
  to let you go free. We wouldn't call that judge
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  loving. We would call him wicked and
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  corrupt. Biblical holiness means God must
• 17:59
  oppose evil. His very nature demands it.
• 18:02
  The skeptic desperately wants judgement for the evil out
• 18:05
  there, the dictators, the traffickers.
• 18:07
  But they physically recoil at the idea of a judge examining
• 18:10
  the sin in here in their own private thoughts and hearts.
• 18:13
  So we have established God as creator, sustainer, and judge.
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  Now we have to make it personal for the person we are talking
• 18:19
  to. This is where the law comes in,
• 18:21
  and in Reformed theology we talk a lot about the distinct uses of
• 18:23
  the law. The source emphasizes the first
• 18:26
  use of the law right here in the evangelistic process.
• 18:29
  Yes, the first use is the pedagogical use.
• 18:31
  John Callan talked about this extensively.
• 18:33
  It is a hammer to shatter the hard self-righteous heart and it
• 18:37
  is a strict schoolmaster to lead us by the hand of Christ.
• 18:40
  You cannot preach the gospel effectively to someone who does
• 18:43
  not believe they are in any actual danger.
• 18:45
  The modern conscience is fast asleep.
• 18:48
  It has been lulled into a coma by therapeutic deism.
• 18:52
  We have to use the moral law to wake it up.
• 18:54
  And that means moving away from vague concepts like I made a few
• 18:59
  mistakes or I have some bad habits to the reality of
• 19:01
  concrete rebellion against a holy God.
• 19:04
  The source suggests using the 10 commandments as a mirror to show
• 19:08
  them their reflection. It is the most effective
• 19:10
  diagnostic tool we have, and we have to do what Jesus did in the
• 19:13
  Sermon on the Mount. We have to internalize the law
• 19:15
  for them. It's not just I haven't
• 19:16
  physically murdered anyone. Jesus says if you are angry with
• 19:19
  your brother, you have committed heart murder.
• 19:21
  If you look at someone with lust, you have already committed
• 19:23
  heart adultery. The standard is absolute
• 19:25
  perfection. The source mentions the 10th
• 19:27
  commandment specifically. You shall not covet.
• 19:30
  That one is an absolute killer because it is entirely internal.
• 19:34
  No one can arrest you for coveting.
• 19:36
  But God sees it. It exposes the hidden life of
• 19:39
  the mind. Envy, greed, bitterness,
• 19:42
  dissatisfaction with God's Providence in your life.
• 19:45
  It shows that sin isn't just what we do with our hands.
• 19:47
  It is the fundamental posture of our rebellious hearts.
• 19:51
  It completely destroys the good person myth.
• 19:53
  You know the defense I'm talking about.
• 19:55
  I'm basically a decent person. I pay my taxes, I mow my lawn, I
• 19:59
  help old ladies across the street.
• 20:01
  Right. I'm not perfect sure, but I'm
• 20:03
  definitely not a criminal. But the standard isn't the
• 20:05
  criminal down the street. The standard is the blinding
• 20:08
  holiness of God, James 2.0 says. For whoever keeps the whole law
• 20:12
  but fails and one point has become guilty of all of it.
• 20:16
  We aren't graded on a curve. The law shows us that we are
• 20:19
  catastrophic moral failures, and that sounds incredibly harsh to
• 20:22
  modern ears. But the purpose isn't to leave
• 20:25
  us in despair. The purpose is to destroy our
• 20:27
  self righteousness so that grace can actually be received is
• 20:30
  grace. Because if you don't think you
• 20:32
  are sick, you will never take the medicine.
• 20:35
  So the law is a clear diagnosis. Now, before we get to the cure,
• 20:39
  the sources take a bit of a detour into something that I
• 20:41
  think is really critical for Reform thinking.
• 20:44
  Biblical precision. Regarding the actual text, we
• 20:47
  need to define our terms carefully because the culture
• 20:49
  has caricatured hell into a cartoon with red tights and
• 20:52
  pitchforks. And sadly, many modern pulpits
• 20:55
  have helped create that confusion by being vague or
• 20:58
  embarrassed about the topic. We need rigorous exegesis here.
• 21:02
  The source breaks down the three main Greek and Hebrew terms that
• 21:05
  often just get lazily lumped together as hell in English.
• 21:08
  First, there is sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek.
• 21:11
  This is generally just the realm of the dead, the grave itself.
• 21:14
  Then there is the big one, Gehenna.
• 21:16
  Yes, Gehenna. This is the specific term Jesus
• 21:20
  used most often when warning people.
• 21:22
  It refers to the valley of Hinnom, located just South of
• 21:25
  Jerusalem. Historically, during the times
• 21:28
  of the kings, it was an awful place of idol worship where
• 21:31
  children were actually sacrificed to the false God
• 21:33
  Molech. Later on, it became a
• 21:35
  perpetually burning garbage heap for the city.
• 21:38
  So it is a very visceral imagery of defilement, fire and
• 21:41
  abhorrence. When Jesus uses Gehenna, he is
• 21:45
  deliberately invoking a place of cosmic waste and final
• 21:48
  judgement. That context makes his warning
• 21:50
  so much more vivid. And the third term is parterus,
• 21:53
  which is used mainly for holding judgement, specifically
• 21:55
  regarding fallen angels in Peter's letters.
• 21:57
  But let's leave the grammar for a second.
• 21:59
  There are massive arguments today in the Browder church
• 22:01
  about things like annihilationism, the idea that
• 22:03
  the wicked just cease to exist after they die, or universalism,
• 22:07
  the idea that everyone gets saved eventually.
• 22:08
  In hell, it's just empty. How does the biblical text
• 22:11
  refute those ideas? The grammatical arguments are
• 22:14
  devastating to those positions if you take the text seriously.
• 22:16
  Look at Mark Chapter 9. Jesus explicitly speaks of the
• 22:20
  worm that does not die and the fire that is not quenched.
• 22:23
  The Greek verbs used there indicate A continuous aspect.
• 22:27
  It is ongoing. It does not stop.
• 22:29
  And then you have Matthew 25.46. This is the absolute clincher in
• 22:33
  the debate. Jesus uses a very tight parallel
• 22:36
  structure. He says the wicked will go away
• 22:38
  to eternal punishment of the righteous to eternal life.
• 22:41
  It is the exact same Greek word in both halves of the sentence,
• 22:44
  right Eisman. Spot on.
• 22:45
  It is the same word. If you try to argue that the
• 22:47
  punishment is only temporary, you have to grammatically argue
• 22:50
  that the life of the believer is also temporary.
• 22:53
  You simply cannot have it both ways without doing violence to
• 22:55
  the text. To deny the eternal nature of 1
• 22:58
  is to destroy the eternal nature of the other.
• 23:00
  The text is plainly claiming an eternal duration for both
• 23:03
  states. So annihilationism fails because
• 23:06
  the torment is described as continuous.
• 23:08
  Universalism fails because the separation is described as
• 23:12
  final. It is heavy.
• 23:13
  It's incredibly heavy stuff, but it is what the text says and if
• 23:17
  we are going to be faithful to Scripture, we have to deal with
• 23:20
  it honestly. But we don't just stop there.
• 23:22
  We don't just leave people with a terrifying grammar of
• 23:25
  judgement and walk away, the sources say.
• 23:27
  The real pivot point, the thing that moves this from an abstract
• 23:31
  philosophy debate to concrete reality, is the resurrection in
• 23:34
  the cross. This is crucial.
• 23:36
  We have to move the skeptic from debating ideas to confronting
• 23:39
  history. Back to Acts 17 again.
• 23:42
  Paul stands up and says God has fixed a day of judgement and he
• 23:45
  has given assurance of this to all men by raising Jesus from
• 23:48
  the dead. The resurrection is the tangible
• 23:50
  proof. If Jesus actually rose from the
• 23:52
  dead in space and time, then the entire materialist worldview is
• 23:56
  permanently broken open. It proves God speaks, it proves
• 23:59
  miracles happen, and it proves Jesus is exactly who he said He
• 24:02
  was, the appointed judge of the living and the dead.
• 24:04
  Right. You have to tell them you aren't
• 24:05
  just rejecting A philosophy, you are rejecting A documented
• 24:09
  historical event and a living person.
• 24:12
  The challenge to the skeptic becomes, do you believe this
• 24:15
  event happened? Because if the tomb is empty,
• 24:18
  everything changes and then you bring them to the cross.
• 24:21
  This is the ultimate answer to the moral objection we talked
• 24:24
  about earlier, the accusation that God isn't fair or loving to
• 24:28
  judge people. How does the cross solve that
• 24:31
  justice and love problem for the skeptic?
• 24:33
  Through the doctrinal penal substitution.
• 24:35
  This is the very heart of the Reformed understanding of the
• 24:38
  gospel. Christ bore the specific
• 24:40
  penalty, the Gehenna judgment for the elect.
• 24:43
  Romans 3 tells us that God is both just and the justifier.
• 24:47
  The cross shows that God does not sweep sin under the rug.
• 24:50
  That is His absolute justice, but he steps in and pays for it
• 24:53
  himself. That is His infinite mercy and
• 24:55
  love. That is such a powerful point to
• 24:57
  make in a conversation. If hell weren't a real threat,
• 25:00
  the Cross would just be dramatic bloody theater.
• 25:02
  It wouldn't accomplish anything necessary.
• 25:04
  Exactly. The sheer severity of the cure,
• 25:07
  the brutal death of the perfect Son of God, proves the severity
• 25:10
  of the disease. If sin were just a minor
• 25:12
  mistake, God could have just waved his hand from heaven and
• 25:15
  said, I forgive you. But he didn't do that.
• 25:18
  He gave his only Son to be crushed under his own wrath.
• 25:22
  That tells us that the judgment we are being saved from is real,
• 25:25
  eternal and terrifying. So we have the cross as the
• 25:29
  cosmic solution. Let us redefine the destination
• 25:32
  for the person we were talking to.
• 25:33
  We talked about the caricatures earlier.
• 25:35
  What is the actual biblical definition of heaven?
• 25:37
  Because it is definitely not sitting around taking harp
• 25:39
  lessons on a fluffy cloud for eternity.
• 25:41
  No, and thank God for that because that sounds awful.
• 25:45
  The historical biblical view is the beatific vision, seeing and
• 25:49
  knowing God face to face. It is a new heavens and a new
• 25:52
  earth. It is a physical, embodied life.
• 25:54
  We get our bodies back fully glorified and free from sin.
• 25:58
  It is Eden fully restored and escalated.
• 26:01
  The diagnostic question here is fascinating.
• 26:03
  If the idea of being with God forever sounds incredibly boring
• 26:07
  to someone, it reveals a heart that does not actually love God.
• 26:11
  Heaven is only heaven if you love the one who is the center
• 26:13
  of it. And Hell, if it is not a
• 26:15
  medieval torture chamber run by demons with pitchforks, what is
• 26:18
  it? Paul defines it in Thessalonians
• 26:20
  as exclusion from the favorable presence of the Lord.
• 26:24
  It is the ultimate tragic honoring of human autonomy.
• 26:27
  As CS Lewis famously put it, the doors of hell are locked from
• 26:31
  the inside. It is God finally giving the
• 26:33
  rebel exactly what they insisted upon their entire life, an
• 26:36
  existence entirely without God. That is the most terrifying part
• 26:40
  of all. Is their earthly choice
• 26:41
  solidified forever? So the dividing line of humanity
• 26:43
  isn't Good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell.
• 26:46
  No, not at all. That is the moralistic religion
• 26:49
  of the world. The true Gospel says the
• 26:51
  dividing line is simply forgiven people trusting in Christ versus
• 26:55
  rebels standing on their own moral record.
• 26:58
  So we have all this rich theology, we have the diagnosis,
• 27:01
  the worldview analysis, the law, the cross.
• 27:04
  But how do we actually have this conversation with our neighbor?
• 27:07
  What is the practical methodology?
• 27:10
  The source uses the phrase head, heart, hands.
• 27:13
  Right, it all comes down to our posture.
• 27:15
  We need a posture of genuine gentleness and respect, but
• 27:18
  absolutely without apology for the truth.
• 27:21
  We avoid the angry turn or burn shouting matches that just push
• 27:25
  people away, but we also avoid the liberal.
• 27:27
  It's all fine, everyone goes to have an approach.
• 27:29
  You have to adopt the posture of 1 beggar telling another beggar
• 27:32
  where to find bread. You say I am just telling you
• 27:34
  the truth that rescued me from my own rebellion.
• 27:36
  And when the inevitable objections come up, like science
• 27:38
  or fairness, we handle them respectfully, but we always
• 27:41
  pivot back to Christ. You always pivot back to the
• 27:44
  person of Jesus. If they bring up science, we say
• 27:47
  science studies the patterns of nature.
• 27:49
  It cannot banish the creator of nature.
• 27:51
  If they bring up fairness, we say sin against an infinite God
• 27:55
  deserves an infinite penalty. If they say it is just religious
• 27:59
  manipulation, we say Jesus warned of hell because he deeply
• 28:02
  loves us, just as a good parent warns a child not to run into
• 28:05
  traffic. And how does the head, heart,
• 28:07
  hand application work in practice?
• 28:09
  Head you challenge them to believe the historical reality
• 28:12
  of the resurrection. Tell them to stop treating it as
• 28:15
  a nice metaphor. Heart you pray they feel the
• 28:18
  crushing weight of the law and then the overwhelming gratitude
• 28:20
  for grace. You have to let the bad news
• 28:23
  make the good news sweet to them.
• 28:25
  Hands, repentance, Call them to turn from their idols, whether
• 28:29
  it is the idol of self, the idol of intellect, or the idol of
• 28:31
  pleasure, and turn to the living God.
• 28:34
  This has been a very heavy deep dive, but an absolutely
• 28:36
  necessary one for the times we live in.
• 28:39
  As we wrap up this session, I want to leave you the listener
• 28:42
  with this thought. The real issue isn't do you like
• 28:45
  the concept of hell. The issue is what will you do
• 28:48
  with Jesus Christ? That is the final, urgent
• 28:51
  question every person has to answer.
• 28:54
  The door of grace is wide open right now.
• 28:56
  The judge of the universe is currently offering himself as
• 28:59
  the Savior, but the resurrection is the ultimate disruption of
• 29:03
  our personal autonomy. It demands a response from you.
• 29:06
  You simply cannot stay neutral to a risen king.
• 29:09
  We encourage you to open a Bible and read the Gospels.
• 29:11
  Maybe start with Mark or John. Encounter the actual person of
• 29:15
  Jesus Christ, not just the philosophical arguments about
• 29:18
  him. Think about what we discussed
• 29:19
  today and ask yourself who really has the right to define
• 29:22
  your reality. Thanks for joining us on
• 29:24
  Reformed Thinking.