Frankly, I Prefer They Go To Hell.

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Before we get to today’s article, I just want to mention that am writing from the perspective of a man that has experienced many of the challenges of which I write…. and those spiritual battles continue daily. The articles are implications of what it means to obey the commandment to raise your children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. They require some reflection and are particularly for Christians who, as Peter would say, are diligently seeking to confirm their calling and are making every effort to supplement their faith. Said more succinctly, serious Christians. If you know other believers who desire to walk more faithfully with the Lord, please forward an article to them and tell them to sign up for future articles. Thanks so much!

Have you caught yourself secretly thinking that it would be good for some people groups to get their just due one day and be off this planet somewhere… like hell? Are you so sick of their thoughts and actions that you’d be OK if they never repented and came to know Christ? Or do you think it is impossible that they would ever become Christians? Or finally, has it never entered into your mind that you should do something that may facilitate God working to bring them out of darkness?

Well, you are not alone. Let’s take a quick peek at the book of Jonah. Jonah was commanded by God to go and preach the gospel to the Assyrians in Nineveh. The Assyrians were hated and feared by the Israelites and were quite wicked. In Jonah 1:1-2, we read, “Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.”

But Jonah did not want to go so, he foolishly tried to run from the Lord. Jonah knew that if he proclaimed the word of the Lord to them, it was possible that they would repent from their evil ways and turn toward God. Ultimately, he did go to Nineveh, and he did preach the message that the Lord had told him to preach. Much to the chagrin of Jonah, the people believed God and turned away from their evil ways.

But Jonah did not change his attitude toward the situation. In chapter 4, he tells the Lord that he knows that God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, thereby praising the great attributes of our God. But in his bitterness, he asked the Lord to take his life from him for it was better for him to die than live! He was in essence, buried in bitterness toward the Assyrians and unhappy with God’s gracious act of mercy towards them.

Jonah’s attitude represents the antithesis of a gospel mindset, and I am afraid that much of today’s Christian community is in Jonah’s boat (no pun intended). I confess that I have had to repent from this kind of bitterness or hate creeping into my own heart. But the truth of God’s word has helped me-

I used to be just like them

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved (Ephesians 2:1-5).

And I have no right to pronounce or assume final judgment on them

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).

So, while we may grow in bitterness toward those presently outside the Kingdom, we have disobeyed the Lord on many fronts-

We have been angry and hated them instead of loving them.
We have prayed for our side to win arguments rather than pray for their souls to love God.
We have yelled and screamed at them rather than share the good news of the gospel.
We have retaliated and gotten revenge for every ugly word they said instead of letting no corrupting talk come out of our mouths, speaking words that would be good for building up, fitting the occasion, so those words may give grace to those who hear (my interpretation of Ephesians 4:29)

And what have your children overheard when you talk about those “terrible sinners?” I can tell you from my 22 years as a school administrator that the children come to the school and mimic their parents’ words and views every day in the classroom, and far too often they are bigoted, prejudiced, and ugly. Do we not realize that we are training our children to become us? Do our passionate views on certain people groups blind us from the fact that we are being hypocritical in our walk? How does this kind of behavior fit into the command to raise our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord? (Ephesians 6:4)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is not our place to write off a person or any group of persons, or call down fire from heaven. It is our calling to obey their clear commandment of Christ in Matthew 28:19-20.

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

And we are not to make decisions about people that only God can-

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 13:47-50)

Yes, it will eventually be sorted out but in the meantime, let’s be faithful and do what God has called us to do the way He told us to do it.