around forever and ever to infect all other animals, we would not think twice before we relegated that cat to a separate place where it could not infect other creatures. You and I and every human being are created “ living souls.” We are created to live forever and forever so that somewhere in some state we shall be existing eternally. Therefore, if there are those who are involved with an infection of sin, that if allowed to go on forever would infect all other human beings, certainly a gracious and good God could do no less than to relegate them to a place and a condition where they would not infect all others. God in His graciousness must make provi sion for those who by their own free will have chosen to live in rebellion against His authority. Let us look at the nature of Hell. Have you ever been there? Maybe you have and don’t know it. C. S. Lewis, in talking about the conclusion of all things, explains that when mat ter is all concluded and everything is finished, there will be two groups o f people left. Group number one will be a group that will have said, “Not my will, but Thine,” to God. This is Heaven. The other group will be a group to whom God has said, “Not My will, but thine.” This is Hell. I think we can see, if we will, the depths o f the thinking of Lewis on this question and begin to understand that there will not be a single soul in Hell that has not chosen to go there. Do you ever dream of Heaven? It is easier for me to think of Hell. Hell is born in every one of us. Where does Hell begin? The Scripture tells us that Hell, or Gehenna, was created for the Devil and his angels. It began in Lucifer who became Satan. For man it began back in the Garden of Eden. God said to man that he could eat of every tree that was in the Garden save of the tree of the fruit o f the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The woman did not sin, but she was deceived and she ate of the fruit. Paul tells us, “Man was in the transgression.” It was not some little simple thing; it was wrestling with the ideas and the thoughts that are involved with eternity. Adam finally took the fruit and said, “ O.K., I’ll go to Hell with you.” That’s where it began, when man put his will up against the will of God. Every one of us is bom with the fire of Hell in our very being. Where does Hell begin? Some time past I was asked to come to a home. There the wife said to me, “ Pastor, I don’t know what we are going to do with Grandpa; he’s become so crotchety and so cantankerous, we just don’t know what to do.” Later on I talked to the hus band, and he said to me these words of wisdom, Rev. Lewis C. Hohenstein is pastor of the First Brethren Church, Whittier, California.
“Grandpa isn’t any different; he’s just more so.” One day, some years ago, a young wife came to see me about an aunt who, because of financial cir cumstances, had to live with them. She was com plaining about the aunt, how terrible she was in the home, and how no one could live with her. She looked at me in panic and said, “ Pastor, will I be like that when I grow old?” I asked her if she remembered how her aunt was when she was her age, and she said, “ She was just like me.” I had to tell her that unless she ceased to be the center of her world, she would be like her aunt when she grew old. Hell is more than a place; it is a condition. In the first chapter of Romans, the Apostle Paul, writing to the church at Rome, three times spoke concerning the pagans in the world, “And God gave them up . . . and God gave them up . . . and God gave them up. . . . In Hebrews the third and fourth chapters, the writer to the Hebrews pleads with the people, “ Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.” For thirty-eight years the children of Israel walked through that desert and they never changed their minds. They became con firmed in their arrogant rebellion against God. When did hell begin? Maybe we didn’t understand what Hell was at the beginning, but it began be fore we were ever bom, because we were bom with this nature of selfishness. When the Apostle James wrote to the church that was dispersed, he talked about one of the prob lems which is universal, the use of the tongue: “ Even so the tongue is a little member and boasteth great things. Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity; so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell” (James 3:5, 6). The first death is the separation of the body and the soul. The second death will be the separation of the resurrection body and soul. Let’s follow then the thought of James. He is talk ing about the persons who used their tongues wrongly. That is the greatest sin of the world today, gossiping. I have called in homes in my ministry where people, now grown old, pleadingly say, “ Pastor, the people o f the church don’t call on me.” It is very apparent why people don’t call on them—because they are so self-concerned and so vitriolic in their speech, so caustic and critical of this generation. They talk about everybody and tear people apart. Then they wonder why people “give them up.” People give them up just as God will give men up. What is Hell? It is that one of these days one will not have a body to manipulate but will have within him
AUGUST, 1967
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