Thread: Christians Must Talk About Hell to Evangelize the Lost

http://www.christianpost.com/news/ra...e-lost-165632/


Even though the subject of Hell is not a pleasant topic to think about, street evangelist Ray Comfort says Christians must use it as part of their evangelism efforts so their pleas to skeptics have urgency.

"The accusation of the skeptic is that we use the threat of Hell to control the weak-minded. That may be true of some religions that hold their power because they control the masses, but the second the skeptic finds himself in Hell he will know that we only warned of it because we loved him," Comfort wrote in a Facebook message on Thursday.

He asked: "Do we ever weep as we pray for the lost? Dry eyes and hard hearts go hand in hand. How can we profess to have the love of God in our hearts if we don't plead with the unsaved to repent and turn to the Savior? And how can we do that with any passion if we don't care?"

Comfort reflected that while it is pleasant to think about Heaven, the subject of Hell isn't at all desirable.

"But we must force ourselves to think of it. Without such unpleasant thoughts we will never plead with any urgency," he emphasized.

The New Zealand-born evangelist has spoken out about his thoughts on the afterlife on several occasions, and back in January shared with his followers that if eternity consisted of sitting on clouds playing harps, he would not be a Christian.

"God will replace this cursed and fallen creation with a new Heavens and a new Earth, and God's will, will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. We not only escape Hell, but, by God's grace, we get Heaven on Earth. What an unspeakably incredible future we have," he wrote at the time.

Comfort has focused a large portion of his ministry on reaching out to skeptics and other non-believers. Over 1,000 Christians registered to join him earlier in June in outreach to atheists attending the "Reason Rally" in Washington D.C., before those plans were canceled by police over safety reasons.

He has insisted, however, that he maintains a good relationship with non-believers.

"To authorities, Christians and atheists are enemies. So they want to keep us apart for the sake of peace, especially with more serious threats facing America. That's understandable. But at the same time I'm a little frustrated because I have a very good relationship with atheists," he wrote before the rally.

He later revealed that he had conversations with atheist author Lawrence Krauss and Las Vegas entertainer Penn Jillette following the Washington, D.C. event, and described both men as "likable" and "polite," despite their conflicting worldviews.

"Listening to them and sharing with them was the highlight of the weekend for me," Comfort wrote.

Avoiding hell wasn't even in my top ten reasons for becoming a Christian. (It might have been number 11 though ).

Originally Posted by Bookman

Avoiding hell wasn't even in my top ten reasons for becoming a Christian. (It might have been number 11 though ).

I know what you're saying

God uses many ways to save people but we cannot neglect that hell is part of the gospel message. To neglect hell is anti-scripture.
The balance is that believers need to be sensitive how and when to include hell as they minister the gospel.
For some people its only a tiny fraction but for others it can be the main portion of the gospel.

Some believers overdose on preaching hell and that is wrong

The other danger is when the church neglects to mention hell as Jesus is called the SAVIOUR for a reason

Hell is part of the picture but the Bible emphasizes something different than just eternal torment. It starts somewhere else :

Mat 1:21 And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name*Jesus, for He will*save*His people from their*sins.

James 5:20 let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will*save*a soul from death and cover a multitude of*sins.

Jesus saves us from our sins and our souls from death. Those two go hand in hand because sin is what produces death, when it has matured.

John 5:24*"Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life"

He also saves us from the judgment over these things and brings us from sin to holiness, from death to life and from judgment to right standing with God, even to sonship. From hell to heaven, since those two terms basically sum up the three components. Hell is more about sin, death and judgment than about medieval visions of torment. Heaven is more about holiness, life and right standing with God than about experiencing an eternal "high" (to contrast it to the medieval vision of hell).

Some people need to have the finality of an eternity in torment declared to them specifically but to most people understanding these things, the things of heaven and of hell, in a much deeper sense, is more profitable. The absence of the things of heaven is really what hell is fundamentally about, it is a place where what people already experience : sin, death, separation from God - come into final fruitition. Getting out of heading there and over into heading for heaven is what the gospel message is basically about.

Originally Posted by Ezekiel 33

Ray's method is called "The Way of the Master" and it is a very powerful tool to have in your evangelism tool box.

Unless one recognizes that they have actually sinned against a holy God, then any form of repentance doesn't make sense to them. Remember that the gospel message we see shown in the word of God is "Repent and be baptized for the remission of your sins".

The Bible says, and many like to quote, "It's the goodness of God that leads to repentance..." Yes it is, but that goodness in a vacuum doesn't mean much to an unconvicted/careless sinner. It's the fact that God has been so good in providing redemption, sending His Son to die, etc, in light of how we have treated Him and sinned against him that produces that conviction, and that in turn makes hell 'reasonable' to the sinner. As Ray says, it's like trying to give someone a cure for cancer that doesn't even know he has cancer. It doesn't mean anything to them.

Now when I got saved, it was due to the goodness of God just like Bookie. But I didn't need the law. I was raised Baptist and I already knew I was going to hell. We would smoke dope and talk about Revelation and I would plainly state I was going to hell but really didn't know how to do anything about it, although technically I knew I was supposed to 'accept Jesus'. So when the goodness of God was presented to me, and my eyes were actually opened to the 'cure', and the current supernaturalness of God, etc, I readily accepted it. Many people that get saved like me and Bookie were where we needed to be for the goodness of God due to past experience/knowledge. But generally speaking, just to say to and unconvicted/careless sinner that Jesus loves them and died for you really doesn't mean a thing. Again, it's like presenting a cure for something they don't know they need a cure for.

And just to talk about hell without the proper application of the law generally doesn't work either. They need to know that they deserve that punishment.

John 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

If man could live literally forever on the Earth and attain to all of his dreams, whatever they are, he would still not have a thing compared to the eternal life, which is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. This is the only true treasure and the only thing worth living forever for. Smith Wigglesworth said that he would rather spend five minutes in the presence of the Holy Spirit than own the world with a fence around it. The Holy Spirit is the seal of our sonship so this makes perfect sense.

i seldom mention hell in my witnessing..... in fact never.... i pray for their healing or their mental issues 1st. it is when i start discipling that i cover the doctrine of heaven and hell. i wrote a book called "Basics" that covers the basic truths including heaven and hell....

Eternity is in man's heart so he knows that he will exist forever. Some worship science and think to themselves that there is no God and that they will disappear upon dying. It is tempting to believe this because it implies that one has escaped the judgment of God for one's sins. Some are self righteous and imagine that they will escape judgment because of own righteousness, they see themselves as pure as Cardinal TT talked about. Deep down the sinner knows that the sin and the death that is in his heart will rule him in eternity (whether he thinks he will be elsewhere or keep being reincarnated back here) but he doesn't understand the betrayal sin has for him, and he is also callous in relation to it. But what he understands the least is what he has fallen from, the knowledge of and relationship with the living God that would make him alive for eternity. And this may be what he needs to understand the most of all. What he is to be saved to, not just what he is to be saved from, and how that salvation came about. The Savior is not only the truth and the way, he is also the Life.

John 1:4 In Him was*life, and the*life*was the light of men.

John 4:14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting*life.

John 6:32*Then Jesus said to them,*“Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
33*For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34*Then they said to Him, “Lord, give us this bread always.”
35*And Jesus said to them,*“I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst

Eternal life is more than being saved from hell only to sit on a cloud playing a harp for eternity. Faced with that version of it, it is tempting for many to take their chances and try to quench their hunger and thirst themselves and within this life and then hope for the best in the next, if there even is a next one.

The Holy Spirit reveals Jesus and he is the eternal Life. This can make all the difference in the world, even to the point where being left out of the life that he is for even one more second is a poor option, not just that one more second without implies a small probability of dying within that second and then going to hell.