Liberal theology would have Bible believers to be ashamed about hellfire preaching. Any sort of “nice vs. mean” dichotomy over this subject comes from people who reject the existence of Hell as a real place in the realm of the spirit. Step 1: A person stops believing in the existence of Hell. Step 2: A person stops preaching about Hell and eternal punishment and thinks that it’s a joke or something trivial. Step 3: A person reframes their faith in terms of “relationships” and how to best cultivate them by talking about Biblical revelation in the “nicest” way possible–that is, by avoiding the absolute meanness, divine hatred, anger, wrath, horror, and terror of eternal punishment. Something a nice unbeliever in the supernatural has no problem doing away with.

Preaching the doctrine of Hell as eternal punishment in fire is supposed to be done by those who actually believe in it; not as something they force themselves to accept, but because they actually believe in it. Emotional regulation is not the driving force when the Spirit of God gets hold of a man to preach his guts out on this revealed doctrine: it will be characterized by urgency and agony, whether it’s regarding the holy hatred of God at his enemies, or Spirit-filled preaching on the wrath and judgment of God’s omnipotent power; being then directed to repentance and the substitutionary atonement of the cross for the sinner. It is wrong to succumb to the romantic sentimentality of liberals and their unbelief about Hell’s existence; all so that the Kindness and Niceness of American cosmopolitanism and workplace tolerance, are made to sit in judgment on the doctrine of Hell, and scoff at it’s evangelists with triviality. To do such is to trifle with the Word of God, unseriously, and having no fear of the Lord in our faith! Like Obstinate and Pliable who tried to dissuade Christian from embarking on Pilgrim’s Progress. To do such is to put out of our minds the reality of death, judgment, Heaven and Hell, the afterlife, eternity, and the immortality of the soul. These revelations are the foundation for the Atonement: which is the heart of the Gospel message.

Where’d all those people go in our history books? All those people in the cemetery down the block? The same could be said about the Biblical doctrine regarding the devil. Where’d all the schizophrenics go? Locked away out of sight in some mental hospital, tormented by the demons that the local pastors are unwilling to cast out, because they just came out of a children’s ministry room filled with little kids and bright colored toys. But what will he do to scare the fornicators, adulterers, and secret child molesters in his church? Or the embezzlers, the Judas looking after the money bag? Preaching to provoke a fight or flight response! Without this there can be no conversion and no sanctification in the church of Christ! Proverbs 16:6: “By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil.” The God of the Bible is not so loving, and so rated G, that he’s unwilling to COMBUST AND CUT APART THE BODIES of “the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars” (Rev. 21:8; cf. Matt. 24:51). God did not choose to reveal himself to Scripture writers in a time of scientific materialism and sissified romanticism, but in an age of occultism, and barbaric ancient warfare akin to a Braveheart battle scene, or an ’80s body horror movie. In his providence, God wisely chose to reveal himself in Scripture in those ancient and “barbaric” time periods, instead of this highly sanitized culture loaded up with pills! Look at the beast, the false prophet, and the devil violently thrown into the lake that burns with fire and sulfur! Along with all those people who’s names are not found written in the book of life! (Rev. 20:10, 15). What will you say to the people of the earth now, pastor! What will you say, and care about to preach, once you become fully conscious of the raging tunnel of fire, that rotates and twists out of the attribute of God’s wrath for all eternity, and then lands on the heads of “the wicked,” for “he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest!” (Psalm 11:6). The unbelieving pastor will die and sink into A WORLD OF BARBARIC VIOLENCE AND HORRORS that he has never known! He had kept those things out of his mind while he was alive. He always avoided the horror section at Blockbuster because he “wasn’t into that” as he used to say. But this has become his eternal existence from which there is no escape. What a great fool he was to not believe what the Word of God said about it! What an eternally miserable character in a “movie” with billions of extras, in a wasteland where God forgets the offscouring of mankind, which touches the mental and physical senses; one which is not called Dante’s Inferno, but is simply a place called Hell. Extreme pain in fire, flesh eating botfly larvae, sorrow, anger, fear, incessant phobias, loud shrieks and cries, caverns, darkness, and monsters are all he will know forever! –J.B.

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Dr. William G. T. Shedd, The Doctrine of Endless Punishment (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1886; The Banner of Truth Trust, 1986).

Drs. Christopher Morgan and Robert Peterson, Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment (Zondervan, 2004), ch. 8: “Universalism: Will Everyone Ultimately Be Saved?” (J. I. Packer).

Dr. John R. Rice, Hell: What the Bible Says About It (Sword of the Lord, 1945).

Dr. Robert Peterson, Hell on Trial: The Case for Eternal Punishment (P&R Publishing, 1995), ch. 8: “False Witnesses (1): Universalism.”

Rev. Harry Buis, The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment (P&R Publishing, 1957), ch. 7: “Denials and Their Answers.”

Dr. John Walvoord, “The Literal View,” in Four Views on Hell (Zondervan, 1996).

Dr. John Gerstner, Repent or Perish: With a Special Reference to the Conservative Attack on Hell (Soli Deo Gloria, 1997).

Drs. Joel Beeke and Paul Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology: Church and the Last Things, Volume 4 (Crossway, 2024), ch. 39: “Eternal Punishment in Hell, Part 2: Objections and Applications.”