Category Archives: Last Things

Descriptions of hell

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Hell is described as

a place where the fire never goes out, Mk 9:43
a place where ‘their worm does not die’, Mk 9:48
a place of darkness, Mt 8:12; 22:13; 25:30; 2 Pet 2:17; Jude 14
a lake of fire, Rev 19:20; 20:10,14,15; 21:8
a place where we may be ‘beaten with blows’, Lk 12:47
a place of ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’, Mt 8:12; 13:42; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30
a place in which people are ‘shut out from the presence of the Lord’, 2 Thess 1:9

‘Even when we affirm that this language is metaphorical, and the suffering concerned is accordingly essentially mental and spiritual rather than physical, the presence of some profound degree of conscious anguish is inescapable.…

1 Pet 4 – The end is near – sermon notes

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1 Peter 4

The letter begins: Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia.

Peter deals with the very practical tension between the dignity of being God’s chosen people and the struggle of living as Christians in an alien and often hostile world.

4:19 provides a summary of what has gone before:- So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.…

The people of God: fulfilled in Christ

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One of the central themes of the Bible is God’s promise that he would make a great people for his praise, and the fulfilment of that promise.  Key Scriptures are Gen 12:1-3 (God’s promise to Abram), and 1 Pet 2:9f (the declaration that the followers of Jesus constitute ‘a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession…the people of God’.

Back in Gen 1-2, God’s purpose for his people was ‘be fruitful and multiply’ (Gen 1:28), to ‘rule’ and ‘subdue’ the earth (Gen 1:28) to ‘cultivate’ and ‘keep’ the garden (Gen 2:15), and to live in community with one another (Gen 2:18-25).  …

The temple: fulfilled in Christ

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All God’s promises (including those relating to the temple, the people of God, and the land) are fulfilled in Jesus, 2 Cor 1:20.  It is in him that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden, Col 2:1-3.  It is this which gives a reliable hermeneutic for understanding the entire Bible.  We are not at the mercy of idiosyncratic interpretations of individual verses.

How are we to understanding Christ as the fulfilment of the Bible’s teaching about the Temple?…

Daniel 9 – Lord of the future – sermon notes

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When I was just a little girl,
I asked my mother, ‘What will I be?’
‘Will I be pretty, will I be rich?’
Here’s what she said to me:

Compare:-

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.…

Purgatory

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Elgar’s ‘The Dream of Gerontius’ is a wonderful piece of music.  For me, however, its story-line requires a considerable suspension of belief.  Based on John Henry (Cardinal) Newman’s poem of the same name, it describes the journey of a Christian soul from his death-bed to Purgatory.

The Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory took shape in the Middle Ages.  The Council of Trent (1545-1563) pronounced as ‘anathema’ those who rejected it.  The doctrine states that the intermediate state for Christian believers consists not of unmixed rest, but rather of punishment for post-baptismal sins.  …

The doctrine of Christ’s return affects everything in the Christian life

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Peter Lewis (The Glory of Christ, 400) reminds us that the doctrine of Christ’s return affects everything in the Christian life. It:-

  1. encourages us in daily godliness, 1 Thess 1:10; 2:13; 3:13; 5:23; Tit 2:11-14.
  2. provides a focus for all church life and worship, 1 Cor 1:7; 11:26; Heb 10:25.
  3. gives us confidence in spiritual warfare, Rom 16:20; 1 Cor 6:3; 2 Thess 2:8-12; Rom 13:11-13; 1 Thess 5:2-8.
  4. Comforts us in times of persecution, Rom 8:18-25; 2 Thess 1:6-10.
…

Is hell self-chosen?

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I must admit that for quite a long while I have been sympathetic to the view that hell is self-chosen.  That is, rather than being sent there by God, people make their own choice, and live (or, rather, exist) with the consequences.

Perhaps the most celebrated exponent of this view is C.S. Lewis, who wrote:

‘[a] man can’t be taken to hell or sent to hell: you can only get there on your own steam’; ‘the doors of hell are locked from the inside’; ‘[t]here are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.”‘

…

The Day of the Lord

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It is called:-

  • “day of wrath” (Rom. 2:5).
  • “that day” (2 Tim. 1:12);
  • “the day” (1 Thess. 5:4);
  • “day of judgment” (1 John 4:17);
  • “day of Christ” (Phil. 2:16);
  • “day of the Lord” (1 Thess. 5:2);
  • “day of our Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 1:8; 5:5);
  • “day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6,10),

It will be a day of:-

  • Revelation, 1 Cor 1:7.
  • Arrival, 1 Thess 3:13.
  • Wonder, 2 Thess 1:10.
  • Resurrection, 1 Cor 15:52.
  • Salvation, Heb 9:28.
…

Biblical prophecy – a closed book?

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Unfortunately, the word ‘prophecy’ is thought, in the common mind, to be synonymous with ‘prediction’.

This has had two serious side-effects.

The first is the tendency for certain people to set themselves up as ‘students of Bible prophecy’, and to specialise in speculations about the ‘end times’ that have lost contact with the central message of the Bible.  Never trust a man (I say) who is more interested in Gog and Magog than in grace and holiness; who spends more time with the Revelation of John than with the Gospel of John.…