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A Word to Take Seriously

Christians who think the world can’t influence them are making a huge mistake. All we have to do is read the Old Testament to see that God’s people often followed others, and what they did shocks us.

Of all the people on earth, the Israelites knew that God was the only true God. Like the Gentiles, they could see Him in nature. But the Jews had more. They saw the great miracles of the Lord. God gave them the Scriptures. You would think that people with those advantages would  rarely fall away. But they often did.

In the time of Jeremiah many of the Jews served pagan idols. They were led to believe these gods could tell the future and make them prosperous. But the Jews also believed they had to worship these gods to have their blessings. This worship involved unbelievable atrocities. God said, “And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into My heart” (Jer. 7:31). It took a devastating war with the Chaldeans and seventy years of captivity in Babylon to turn these Jews away from these unconscionable acts.

When Jesus came to the earth, the Jews remembered with shame what their ancestors did in this valley on the west and southwest side of Jerusalem. That’s why they recognized the word gehenna much better than people today do. The word gehenna is a compound Greek word. It is made up of two words: ge which means earth or land and henna which refers to Hinnom, thus the land of Hinnom.

The word gehenna occurs twelve times in the New Testament. Jesus used it eleven of those times. Most versions translate it “hell.” Jesus said, “But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire”  or the fire of gehenna (Matt. 5:22). He warned, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” or gehenna (Matt. 10:28). Gehenna is a place where “their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:43-48). Jesus said it is “everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41).

The Lord was not talking about the fires that once burned in the infamous valley of the son of Hinnom. He meant punishment after this life. He warned about eternal punishment of the soul. He used what happened in this valley to signify the penalty of the lost at the judgment. Instead of striving to avoid the place of hell, many try to avoid the thought of it. Some preachers don’t believe in hell anymore. Others won’t preach on it because hell is considered negative and unloving. They will answer to the Christ who said the most about it in the Bible. In a world that is in rebellion to God Almighty, we need more sermons on this topic today.

Kerry

West End church of Christ • December 15, 2024

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