Explaining Hell to Our Children
00:00:00.000 | Probably one of the most difficult things about parenting is knowing when and how to
00:00:07.880 | explain to our children the reality of God's eternal judgment.
00:00:12.560 | This is a hard truth and of course we can wield it unwisely, but it's also an essential
00:00:17.640 | truth and we are obligated to help our children to understand.
00:00:22.360 | But how do we go about it?
00:00:23.360 | It's a question from Michael.
00:00:24.680 | "Pastor John, how can I talk to my six-year-old son about a hell when any loved one who has
00:00:29.980 | died has been a Christian?
00:00:31.240 | I've told them that they have gone to heaven, but if somebody dies who is not a Christian,
00:00:34.480 | I do not want to lie to say that they have gone to heaven, but I do not know how to teach
00:00:38.920 | him about hell.
00:00:40.760 | He has extreme anxiety about death and I'm afraid talking about hell may make him even
00:00:45.440 | more anxious.
00:00:47.080 | He also gets very upset when he makes any kind of mistake or when I have to correct
00:00:50.640 | him.
00:00:51.640 | I do not want him to worry that if he disobeys that he will be sent to hell.
00:00:56.240 | How in the world can I teach him about God's eternal judgment?"
00:01:02.260 | Let me start by turning the tables and saying we should be a hundred times more concerned
00:01:10.600 | about a six-year-old who has no fear of death and hell than we are about a child who fears
00:01:18.060 | death and hell.
00:01:19.720 | One of the reasons we may not feel that is because when a child has no fear, we tend
00:01:26.960 | to go along as though all is well.
00:01:29.280 | He's such a happy little fellow and she's such a cheerful little girl, but when a child
00:01:35.640 | has anxieties, nightmares, fears, then all of our parental instincts and mind go into
00:01:44.560 | gear and action because we want to help them, not realizing perhaps that the child with
00:01:53.120 | no fear needs even more help for parental vigilance and concern than the child with
00:02:01.160 | much fear.
00:02:02.800 | So I want to encourage Michael that the problem he is dealing with is a good problem to have.
00:02:12.680 | And if he were not dealing with it, there would be more reason to be concerned than
00:02:19.520 | there is now.
00:02:20.880 | So how do we help a six-year-old child deal with the terrifying reality of hell and death?
00:02:32.440 | The main thing is to realize that God intends for our real and wise fear of hell to be a
00:02:43.000 | means of clarifying and establishing in our hearts at least five great realities, five
00:02:53.400 | great truths.
00:02:55.440 | God does not intend for his children to experience hell as an end, but to experience the warning
00:03:02.880 | of hell as a means of clarifying and establishing these five great realities.
00:03:11.540 | And this is true for a six-year-old and it's true for a 60-year-old.
00:03:16.440 | So look at this moment, Michael, in the child's life as a golden opportunity for teaching
00:03:25.820 | him many wonderful things.
00:03:29.520 | Hell is simply the backdrop against which those things will now become gloriously real.
00:03:36.500 | Here they are.
00:03:37.500 | First, the fear of hell is a golden opportunity for treating God as big and glorious and utterly
00:03:46.860 | real.
00:03:47.860 | It is hard for human beings who are sinful to feel the reality of God.
00:03:55.460 | But if God is the one who created hell and whose majesty makes hell just and understandable,
00:04:06.500 | then this is a golden moment.
00:04:09.020 | The reason hell is so terrible is because God is so great that despising him is so evil
00:04:17.640 | that it deserves this terrible punishment.
00:04:19.860 | In other words, the horror of hell is a signpost concerning the infinite worth and preciousness
00:04:29.040 | and beauty and goodness and justice of God.
00:04:33.460 | If he were small, if God were small, hell would be lukewarm.
00:04:41.120 | Because he's great, scorning God is a horrible thing.
00:04:48.540 | So this is a golden moment for how to teach a child about how real and how great God is.
00:04:57.660 | Second, the fear of hell is a golden opportunity to teach about the nature and the exceedingly
00:05:06.820 | great seriousness of sin.
00:05:10.420 | Hell is all about the outcome of a life of sin.
00:05:15.620 | And therefore a child needs to understand what sin is.
00:05:19.820 | And sin is all about falling short of God's glory, that is, failing to see God as glorious
00:05:26.700 | and honor him and thank him as glorious and to follow him and praise him and glorify him.
00:05:34.420 | We need to make sure that our children see the direct connection between hell and sin.
00:05:42.900 | The great and frightening tragedy of growing up feeling no fear of hell is that in a life
00:05:52.140 | like that, children will not be able to see sin as serious.
00:05:57.420 | It won't ever get to the point where sin is ugly and outrageous because they haven't
00:06:03.420 | schooled themselves on the penalty for sin, namely hell.
00:06:07.940 | They will not see it as a great and horrible offense against God.
00:06:12.340 | So fearing hell is a golden opportunity for bringing our children into the light concerning
00:06:18.780 | the horrible darkness of sin.
00:06:21.740 | Third, the fear of hell is a golden opportunity to bring the child to an awareness of the
00:06:28.860 | reality and justice of God's final judgment.
00:06:34.060 | This is a great and central biblical teaching that all human beings will stand before God,
00:06:40.460 | give an account of their lives someday.
00:06:42.580 | Hebrews 9, 27, "Just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes
00:06:50.420 | judgment."
00:06:52.460 | What a gift for a child to grow up deeply convinced that the whole world will face judgment
00:07:00.380 | someday.
00:07:01.380 | This will give seriousness to the child's life.
00:07:05.100 | Parents, I think, worry far too much that their children will be unhappy in the fear
00:07:12.820 | of judgment when they ought to worry that their children will be happy with no fear
00:07:19.060 | of judgment.
00:07:20.440 | So hell is a golden opportunity to bring children into the light and the reality of God's final
00:07:28.420 | judgment.
00:07:30.420 | And this is the key, this is the absolute key to everything.
00:07:36.220 | The fear of hell is a golden opportunity to magnify the cross of Christ and the greatness
00:07:44.400 | of Christ and His sacrifice, and the greatness of His love, and the greatness of His mercy,
00:07:51.260 | and the greatness of His patience, and the greatness of His compassion, and the greatness
00:07:56.600 | of His nearness and His friendship, and the greatness of His tenderness towards children,
00:08:02.780 | and the greatness of His power and authority over death and hell.
00:08:08.000 | What a golden moment for children to meet and know the living Christ and the glories
00:08:15.080 | of what He achieved on the cross.
00:08:18.060 | The remedy of our children's fear is not to hide hell, but to reveal Christ and the cross.
00:08:27.520 | We should be prepared to paint the achievements of the cross in such lavish colors that they
00:08:34.940 | outshine the fears of hell.
00:08:37.880 | One of the great purposes of the warnings of hell among God's people is to help us see
00:08:43.520 | the greatness of the achievement of the death of Christ to deliver us from the fear of hell.
00:08:51.920 | So every night, I've done this, every night when you walk into your child's room because
00:08:59.080 | of a nightmare about death or hell or judgment, the remedy is not to say that hell is unreal
00:09:10.320 | or to in any way minimize the terrors of it.
00:09:14.080 | The remedy is to sing to them, to sing with them about the triumphs of Jesus over this
00:09:22.960 | great enemy.
00:09:24.880 | Jesus lives and so shall I.
00:09:27.760 | A great song, Jesus lives I know full well.
00:09:31.440 | Not from Him my heart can sever.
00:09:35.240 | Life nor death nor powers of hell, joy nor grief henceforth forever.
00:09:41.920 | None of all His saints is lost.
00:09:46.320 | Jesus is my hope and trust.
00:09:50.680 | They're going to hear Daddy's confidence.
00:09:53.120 | They're going to hear it as Daddy sings about the triumph of the cross over hell.
00:10:00.720 | Can you rub their back and hum the song to them as they fall asleep in gospel peace?
00:10:08.680 | That's the goal.
00:10:09.680 | Picture it this way.
00:10:12.200 | If a great army were coming against your village and your child knew it and was terrified,
00:10:19.080 | how would you give him comfort?
00:10:21.440 | Would you lie to him and say, "Well, those cannons are just firecrackers."
00:10:25.960 | Baloney, you wouldn't do that.
00:10:29.100 | You would point him to some real basis of hope, of deliverance.
00:10:34.520 | And that's what Christ has achieved infallibly for all who trust Him.
00:10:40.080 | So the fear of hell is a golden opportunity for grasping the greatness of the work of
00:10:46.480 | Christ who died for us so that we might not endure wrath.
00:10:51.840 | Tell the children, 1 Thessalonians 5, 9.
00:10:54.960 | Just look them right in the eye and say, "God has not planned, destined us for wrath or
00:11:04.120 | hell, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us so that
00:11:10.680 | whether we wake or sleep, we will live with Him."
00:11:15.000 | And here's number five.
00:11:17.640 | The fear of hell is a golden opportunity to bring your child into the experience of a
00:11:24.040 | fearless life of faith.
00:11:27.280 | If you can teach your child fearlessness in the face of hell on the basis of Jesus' death
00:11:33.280 | and resurrection, you will have given him the ground of total fearlessness in life.
00:11:40.560 | Make him a warrior or her a warrior because there isn't anything greater that they could
00:11:46.800 | ever face.
00:11:48.200 | Nothing will threaten them more than sin and death and hell.
00:11:52.960 | And if they know how to conquer sin and death and hell through Christ, then they can face
00:11:57.840 | anything.
00:11:58.840 | They'll be fearless in life.
00:12:00.520 | And what good will they do then?
00:12:02.920 | What great achievements will they accomplish when they face down every enemy with fearlessness
00:12:10.040 | because they've learned from you when they were six that nothing can throw them into
00:12:15.600 | hell, even though hell is a horrific enemy.
00:12:19.600 | So don't run away from this opportunity.
00:12:22.720 | Don't miss this golden moment of using the fear of hell as a means of clarifying and
00:12:29.720 | establishing the truth, number one, of a great and glorious God.
00:12:34.560 | Number two, the truth of a horrible nature of sin.
00:12:39.280 | Number three, the reality and justice of future judgment.
00:12:42.480 | Number four, the greatness of the cross and Christ's rescue from hell.
00:12:48.000 | And five, the glory of a fearless life of faith.
00:12:54.560 | That is priceless, Council Pastor John.
00:12:56.540 | Thank you for addressing this.
00:12:58.360 | This is one of the most helpful episodes I think I've ever heard from you to me as a
00:13:02.200 | dad.
00:13:03.200 | So thank you.
00:13:04.200 | And thanks for listening to this podcast as well.
00:13:06.120 | We release this podcast three times a week.
00:13:08.920 | And if you want to keep up with us, you can subscribe to our audio feeds.
00:13:11.960 | And if you want to go back, you can search our episode archive from the past.
00:13:15.920 | And you can even reach us by email with a question of your own.
00:13:18.360 | You can do all of that through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:13:24.960 | Well speaking of questions not easy to answer, we're going to hear from a listener who has
00:13:28.560 | a beef with you, Pastor John, especially in how you describe saving faith.
00:13:33.140 | You have written things like this, "Receiving Christ as your supreme treasure is what faith
00:13:38.880 | is."
00:13:39.880 | You've written this, "An essential element of saving faith is treasuring Christ above
00:13:45.640 | all things."
00:13:47.240 | Or you said this, "Faith includes the embrace of Jesus as our all satisfying treasure."
00:13:54.760 | But is this treasuring language actually reading too much into what saving faith is as simply
00:14:00.400 | a trusting in Christ?
00:14:02.200 | That's the question on the table Friday.
00:14:03.920 | It's a good one.
00:14:04.920 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:14:05.920 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with longtime pastor and author and
00:14:10.720 | dad, John Piper.
00:14:11.720 | We'll see you then.
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