The New Testament uses the word "hell" only twelve times. There are seven occurrences of that word in the Gospel of Matthew, three in Mark’s Gospel, one in Luke, and one occurrence in the epistle of James. That is all.

Notice that eleven of the twelve occurrences of the word "hell" are in the first three Gospels. You may be surprised to learn that all eleven of those Gospel occurrences are from the mouth of Jesus. So Jesus uses the word "hell" far more than anyone else in the New Testament.

In addition to these references to "hell," the Gospels also have many references to a fire of judgment. Jesus is the person in the Gospels who most often refers to a fiery judgment, but He is not alone in doing so. In Matthew 3:7-12 we read of a time when John the Baptist was preaching. Please turn to that passage and follow along as I read. The text says,

when [John] saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

"I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

These verses are paralleled in Luke 3:7-9 & 15-17. In both Gospel accounts, trees absent of good fruit and chaff serve as metaphors, metaphors which refer to persons who claim to be connected to God but who have never with true repentance turned to God. John the Baptist is certain that such persons will meet with a fiery end.

What I want especially to note is that John the Baptist is speaking to persons who believed they were special to God. They claimed to be a part of God’s community of faith. They valued the fact that they were descendants of Abraham. John’s words indicate that these Jews thought that a baptism in the Jordan River would suffice; deep down, life-transforming, heart-changing repentance was not required. John could not be clearer. Such an attitude would lead to a fiery judgment.

These references to fiery judgment from John the Baptist are the first such words in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. All of the remaining references in all of the Gospels to hell and fiery judgment are from the mouth of Jesus, and there is a notable similarity between the relevant words of Jesus and the words already noted from John the Baptist.

Both John and Jesus direct their messages of fiery judgment to the religious. Jesus’ eleven references to hell are all directed primarily or exclusively toward either his close disciples or the scribes and Pharisees. When sick persons come to Jesus, Jesus does not seek to win them to the kingdom with a message concerning the fiery judgment to come; He heals them and extends God’s grace to them. When a known sinner anoints Jesus’ feet with oil, Jesus does not respond to her with a fire and brimstone sermon; He extends forgiveness to her and says, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace" (Luke 7:50). When a Gentile military man wants Jesus to heal his slave, Jesus does not use the opportunity to impress the Gospel upon him with a sermon on judgment; Jesus highly commends the man and says of him, "Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith" (Luke 8:10). When Jesus is feasting with the prostitutes and tax collectors, He does not lash out at them with frightening messages of coming judgment; instead, Jesus’ treatment of these persons causes Jesus to be referred to as "a friend of tax collectors and sinners" (Matthew 11:19; Luke 7:34), and there is no reference anywhere in the Gospels indicating that Jesus ever spoke of hell or fiery judgment while with prostitutes and tax collectors.

Let this sink in. Jesus spoke much more about hell than anyone in the New Testament, and Jesus also referred a great many times to a judgment fire. But Jesus did not direct talk about hell and fire toward those persons who were outside the religious circles of Jesus’ day. No, instead Jesus directed His hell-fire messages at his close followers and the scribes and Pharisees, in other words, toward those who represented the kingdom of God before a watching world. Let’s look at some of the relevant passages so we can better see how Jesus uses hell and judgment in His preaching and teaching ministry.

The first references to hell in the New Testament are found in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Given our purpose, it is appropriate to begin our study of those references by noting to whom Jesus was speaking. Many of us likely memorized Matthew 5:1-12 as children and will remember that the first two verses of this sermon say, "When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: . . . ." After reflecting on the Sermon on the Mount for many years and noting that immediately after Jesus concluded the sermon we read, "Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes" (Matthew 7:28-29); it seems obvious to me that Jesus was teaching His disciples but was doing so in such a way that others could listen in and thereby know the lifestyle that a follower of Jesus would be called to live. In other words, Jesus was teaching His disciples as well as overhearing, potential disciples.

In a portion of that teaching Jesus explicitly refers to hell three times. In verse 22 Jesus says,

But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.

In verses 29-30 He says,

If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.

In both of these sections Jesus is using hell as a means of driving home important lessons for His disciples. In verse 22 Jesus radically drives home the point that our attitude toward a brother or sister and our way of referring to a brother or sister is so spiritually significant that it can be damnable. In verses 29-30 Jesus is equally radical in driving home the need to rid oneself of any cause of sin that exists within. And we should point out that other similar messages from this period of time also use this strong, jarring type of language without the intention of getting people to comply literally with what is said. In other words, we should not go and gouge out one eye as if it were more sinful than the other eye or cut off one hand as if it were more sinful than the other hand; but we should be deadly serious about battling any sinful obstacle with ourselves. To not do so is to risk the fires of hell on the day of judgment; Jesus is very clear about that. But one thing is very important to note: Jesus does not refer to hell to get people to come into the kingdom; He uses hell to wake people up to the seriousness of discipleship.

Two other references by Jesus to hell and eternal fire are found in Matthew 18:8-9 and in Mark 9:42-48. These later passages are so very similar to Matthew 5:29-30, a passage we have just looked at, that we will simply note that these references appear to be directed exclusively to the disciples for the purpose of causing them to be extremely serious in their battle against sinful obstacles found within themselves.

In Matthew 10:28 Jesus is speaking exclusively to His disciples, and in Luke 12:5 Jesus, Luke 12:1 says, is speaking "first to his disciples" when He refers to the need not to fear "those who kill the body." Jesus’ purpose for that exhortation is to instill within His disciples a courageous attitude when they are opposed due to their commitment to Jesus. Jesus then goes on to say, "fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." In other words, remember whom you need to defer to. It is not those mortals who will oppose you. It is the divine Lord who will one day determine your final destiny. God is the One and only One who can "destroy both body and soul in hell." Jesus knew that such an awareness profoundly perceived could insure that His disciples would stick to their commitment no matter how stout the pressure, no matter how stern the opposition.

There are only two more references to hell in the Gospels and they are both found in Matthew 23. This is the chapter in which Jesus pronounced biting woes against the scribes and Pharisees because of their hypocrisy. In verse 15 of that chapter we read, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves." Jesus was taking on a significant group within the religious establishment of His day; He was taking on the scribes and Pharisees. He declared that due to their hypocrisy, they were children of hell. In verse 33 Jesus’ verbiage is still directed to the scribes and the Pharisees and is as strong or stronger. He says, "You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell?" Jesus is here using hell to indict the religious, and it seems fairly certain that some of those indicted were present to hear Jesus’ words, because the Pharisees were the ones who had been questioning Jesus in the sections immediately preceding Matthew 23 (see Matthew 22:34-46).

If we looked at every reference of Jesus to fiery judgment, we would find the same. Jesus uses those references not to scare people into the kingdom. Instead, Jesus primarily uses those references to drive home important points to His disciples and to wake up persons who thought themselves deeply religious but refused to repent and be truly converted.

I believe that if Jesus were preaching today, He would do now what He did then. I believe that Jesus would extend grace and healing to those outside the churches. I believe that Jesus would fellowship with those the churches are not touching at all. And I fear that Jesus’ message of hell and fire would be directed toward the shallow spirituality, the worldly attitudes and goals found right inside the churches. I believe that Jesus would use messages of hell and fire to revive the churches. I do not believe that Jesus would use hell and fire to reach the lost but to reach those who confidently think themselves saved.

May we all, my beloved sisters and brothers, may we all feel the fire of Jesus. May we all feel it and be revived. May we all feel the fire and use the Holy Spirit of God so that sin will not reign within us. May we all feel the fire and use the power of God to purge ourselves of the materialism that plagues the churches as it plagues the nation. May we all feel the fire and know the love of Jesus, a love that is not willing that any should perish but, as 2 Pet 3:9 says, the Lord does not want "anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." May we all feel the fire of Jesus and repent and turn more passionately to our Lord.

William L. Self is a Baptist preacher in Alpharetta, GA whom I have never met, but I came across a sermon by him a few weeks ago. He begins that sermon this way.

John Steinbeck, the noted American writer, wrote a marvelous book called Travels with Charlie. Steinbeck said he had gotten out of touch with America and wanted to know it. So he took his old dog Charlie in a pick-up truck with a cab on the back of it, and set out across the United States from Maine to California. He told how he began his journey by going to a little white clapboard church in Maine.

The people were not particularly outstanding, just good down-to-earth people, and the pastor was not outstanding at all. As they came together, the pastor began to harangue the people. He talked about every sin he knew about in the congregation. Steinbeck said, "I listened to that haranguing and that pastor had more fire in his soul than you could imagine. He preached loud and long and the sermon was not well devised, but there was one note I heard in that church that I didn’t hear anywhere else.

"I heard a man who loved his people enough to warn them and to call them to accountability. I didn’t hear that for the rest of my journey." He said, "As I went across America I was told how to feel good. I was told not to worry. I was told how to look at obscure points of theology and understand them. But nobody made me feel loved like that preacher in that little while rural church in Maine" ("Trash Culture and Your Family," in Great Preaching 1998, ed. Mark Johnson [Jackson, TN: Preaching Resources Inc., 1998], 17).

Jesus used hell and fire to revive people whom He loved. I believe He would do the same today.

Let’s be revived. Let’s reject apathy. Let’s wake up to the eternal consequences of our lifestyles and our attitudes. And where we need to repent and change, let’s repent and change.

Just as much as Jesus wants to revive His churches, He wants to reach those who have never repented and turned to Him. So Jesus extends grace and love and mercy. He wants you to know the life that is full and free by the power of the Spirit. He wants to say to you as He said to the woman who anointed His feet, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace" (Luke 7:50). If you are outside the Body of Christ this morning, please come to the One who extends to you the saving grace of God. Please come now as together we stand and sing.