Should Hell Motivate Our Missionaries?
00:00:00.000 | The Bethlehem College and Seminary Pastors Conference begins today on Monday here in
00:00:08.880 | Minneapolis.
00:00:10.180 | Your prayers are appreciated for the conference.
00:00:12.800 | Pastor John delivers the first plenary session tonight at 7 p.m. Central, addressing the
00:00:17.100 | topic of Christian hedonism and what it is.
00:00:20.240 | Really looking forward to that.
00:00:21.800 | And of course, earlier in January, Pastor John traveled to Louisville to speak at the
00:00:26.120 | annual cross-conference, a gathering of 7,500 young men and women who are seeking clarity
00:00:32.180 | on their call to international missions and to life evangelism.
00:00:37.360 | One of the sessions was a panel discussion hosted by David Platt with Pastor John, International
00:00:43.120 | Evangelist Max Stiles, and Pastors Thabiti Anwa-Bouylai and Kevin D. Young.
00:00:49.500 | In that discussion was a very important clip I wanted to share here on the podcast about
00:00:53.800 | one very unpopular truth that drives gospel sacrifice, namely the doctrine, the reality,
00:01:02.280 | of the eternal judgment of sinners under the just and holy wrath of God.
00:01:07.500 | As uncomfortable as this doctrine is, we cannot ignore it.
00:01:12.000 | Our friend Max Stiles picks up the conversation.
00:01:16.120 | We can't air-condition hell.
00:01:19.600 | Hell is real.
00:01:20.920 | It is eternal suffering, and people are really going there.
00:01:27.520 | And we want to make sure that the world hears the saving knowledge of Christ so that they
00:01:34.180 | can be saved from hell.
00:01:38.680 | It's easy to be overwhelmed when you stand in places in India or China and look over
00:01:47.080 | these vast numbers of people and realize that without the Word, without the Word of God,
00:01:56.800 | these people are lost and without hope in the world and are facing eternal suffering.
00:02:03.320 | It's hard to take that sometimes, but it's the reality that we face, and it's easily
00:02:10.920 | missed.
00:02:13.200 | People don't want to talk about it often in mission conferences, but it should be one
00:02:17.960 | of the driving things that we want to advance.
00:02:21.320 | It seems so obvious, but I mean, having led a mission organization for four years and
00:02:28.620 | been exposed to the broader missions world, it's actually uncommon to hear that truth
00:02:34.480 | emphasized even in a missions conference, which we believe misses the Word of God.
00:02:42.280 | Can I give you one sentence, and you're going to need this.
00:02:47.000 | If you have any bone in your body that's sympathetic to that emphasis right there that our biggest
00:02:53.120 | problem is hell, not hunger, here's the sentence.
00:02:59.480 | Christians care about all suffering.
00:03:03.720 | So you list your favorite social issue there, which I hope you care about with all your
00:03:09.560 | might.
00:03:10.720 | Christians care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering.
00:03:16.560 | Nail that sentence down and see if you believe it.
00:03:20.520 | Christians care and will show that they care about all human suffering, especially eternal
00:03:29.880 | suffering.
00:03:30.880 | So if your life is marked by compassion for all suffering except eternal suffering, you're
00:03:39.200 | a defective lover.
00:03:42.360 | That's what this conference believes.
00:03:44.440 | And so things are going to be missing here, right?
00:03:47.480 | We can't do everything.
00:03:50.200 | So the especially really counts.
00:03:53.800 | And there's so much more that needs to be said than what we can say.
00:03:57.760 | But if you went to the churches of these men and every pastor in here, you'd find all
00:04:03.560 | kinds of suffering being addressed rightly.
00:04:07.560 | But somebody's got to wave the flag today when it's so politically incorrect to do so
00:04:12.680 | that we care about eternal suffering especially.
00:04:19.200 | >> You know, thank you, John.
00:04:24.760 | The doctrine of hell is ballast in our boat that keeps us from capsizing, keeps us from
00:04:32.280 | wavering and being tossed to and fro.
00:04:35.680 | Some of you here are inclusivists, and you don't even know that term, and you didn't
00:04:41.200 | even study it, and it's just the air that you breathe and that's what you think.
00:04:45.920 | Not the good sort of we include people, but theologically inclusivists, meaning you believe
00:04:53.280 | that people who never hear of Christ, never have the opportunity to respond to Christ,
00:04:59.480 | will go to heaven because of the good that they have done or perhaps the light that they
00:05:04.760 | have followed or perhaps they have known Christ without knowing that they know Christ.
00:05:11.640 | Some sort of anonymous Christianity.
00:05:14.720 | That is rampant among people of all ages in our churches, and even the great C.S. Lewis
00:05:22.320 | teaches that in mere Christianity, and you see it at the end of the Chronicles of Narnia.
00:05:27.240 | He was a worshiper of Tash, but really he was a worshiper of Aslan without realizing
00:05:33.200 | it.
00:05:34.320 | Not only is that mistaken with all of the verses from the Great Commission to Romans
00:05:39.400 | 10, it's mistaken with our doctrine of the Trinity.
00:05:42.680 | The Holy Spirit does not work indiscriminately to save people apart from throwing a spotlight
00:05:50.480 | on the glory of Jesus Christ.
00:05:54.120 | So that's our ballast, that's our mission, that's our emphasis, and as John said, it
00:05:59.400 | is massively unpopular, not just with a world out there, but with student groups all over
00:06:10.040 | this country, all over the world, and this conference exists not to say we got things
00:06:16.840 | right, people got things wrong, but because the truths of God's Word in all of their particularity
00:06:24.120 | and angularity will serve you.
00:06:27.280 | We were talking just at dinner, and John said this beforehand, theology in the short run
00:06:32.720 | will slow you down on mission, but in the long run it will sustain you for a life of
00:06:39.720 | mission.
00:06:40.720 | If you want to worship deeply, you've got to think deeply, and you need your theology
00:06:45.000 | to go as deep down as you want your worship to go up high, and that means being absolutely
00:06:52.600 | crystal clear on these things, that our burden is to have the theology going deep down with
00:06:58.080 | roots for a very particular fruit that we're praying for in this conference, namely that
00:07:05.360 | 7,500 of you would be mobilized for mission, some going, many more probably sending, but
00:07:17.120 | mobilized for a lifetime of mission, and that will not come without robust theological commitments
00:07:23.640 | like the kind that we're trying to celebrate from God's Word during this week.
00:07:27.880 | - Amen, and then several minutes later as the panel discussion drew to a conclusion,
00:07:33.640 | the conversation moved toward why the Cross Conference is set up the way it is, relatively
00:07:38.960 | simple in its programming and rather sobered in its temper, a very distinct mood from most
00:07:45.160 | young adult conferences.
00:07:46.640 | The question was asked to Pastor John, speaking to the 7,500 gathered attendees.
00:07:53.000 | Here's what he said.
00:07:54.640 | - When I think of 800 or 7,000 responding the way we want, I'm really nervous about
00:08:01.400 | that.
00:08:02.400 | I mean, not anxious, but sobered because you're gonna die.
00:08:09.520 | It says in Revelation 12, 11 that the martyrs under the altar in heaven crying out, "How
00:08:16.800 | long?
00:08:17.800 | How long, O Lord?"
00:08:18.800 | The word they get from the king is, "Be quiet and rest because the number of your brothers
00:08:27.080 | who are yet to be martyred is not complete."
00:08:30.360 | We're not playing games here.
00:08:35.160 | I had a dad at an airport sending his son off who looked me in the eye and said, "If
00:08:41.720 | he doesn't come back, I will kill you."
00:08:44.440 | Wow.
00:08:45.440 | "I will kill you."
00:08:49.040 | That's what I expect to happen.
00:08:51.360 | Parents are gonna hate what we get you to do if they've got dreams for you to make a
00:08:56.160 | lot of money.
00:08:58.080 | So there's a sobriety and a seriousness about the reality of the wrath of God and hell,
00:09:04.720 | the reality of lost people, the reality of John Piper's sin at age 73 that's the most
00:09:11.760 | burdensome thing I know.
00:09:13.680 | There's a reality about this that just causes us not to play games here.
00:09:18.000 | We are, we are seriously joyful, Mac.
00:09:22.560 | Isaiah 67, 4 back there, that says, "Let the nations be glad."
00:09:28.640 | That's our message.
00:09:29.640 | Because you're gonna perish if you don't rejoice in God.
00:09:33.560 | If you rejoice in everything but God.
00:09:35.720 | So there's a kind of paradox here.
00:09:37.600 | We are serious about joy.
00:09:40.560 | We really want the nations to be happy forever, not happy for 80 years and perish forever.
00:09:50.800 | So that is what creates the mood in me and I think what you will feel a little bit maybe
00:09:58.320 | different about the simplicity and sobriety of this conference.
00:10:05.640 | That landed with a weightiness befitting the tenor of the entire conference and with that
00:10:10.480 | word the discussion came to an end at which point David Platt held up a copy of Let the
00:10:15.920 | Nations Be Glad, John Piper's book on mission, and Platt went on to commend it saying this,
00:10:21.760 | "I would say without question this book has shaped my understanding of God's passion for
00:10:26.120 | his glory in all nations from cover to cover through scripture more than any other book
00:10:31.320 | I've ever read," he said.
00:10:33.520 | Then he continued, "And God has seen fit to bless this book in ways that have changed
00:10:38.520 | the trajectories of many lives."
00:10:42.520 | And then he announced that everyone in attendance was getting a free copy of the book and oh
00:10:47.320 | my what could the Lord do through those thousands of copies in the lives of those young men
00:10:53.440 | and women trying to discern God's call on their lives.
00:10:57.920 | Imagine it.
00:10:58.920 | And if you're a financial partner of Desiring Gods you were by proxy there in the room funding
00:11:03.380 | that strategic timely book giveaway.
00:11:06.360 | Thank you for supporting us, supporting our giveaways, supporting our website, supporting
00:11:11.000 | this podcast.
00:11:12.000 | It's all, it exists because of your support.
00:11:14.080 | We thank you.
00:11:15.080 | I'm your host Tony Reinke and we are going to be back here on Wednesday.
00:11:19.360 | We'll see you then.
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