The Horrible Truth — Hell: Part 2 "The Journey All Began with the Book of Matthew"

The Horrible Truth — Hell: Part 2"The Journey All Began with the Book of Matthew"If Hell is not the eternal destination of the damned, then what exactly are we supposed to make of the passages in the New Testament that speak of **outer darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth, and a servant being separated from his master?**This is where our journey really begins.And interestingly enough, it begins in the book of **Matthew**.Matthew contains some of the most sobering warnings in all of Scripture. Jesus repeatedly speaks about servants, stewards, and disciples who are given responsibilities and then warns them about what can happen if they become unfaithful. But there is something in these passages that is easy to overlook:**They are servants.**The issue isn't whether they belong to the Master. The issue is what kind of servant they will be.Consider the contrast Jesus gives us. There is the faithful and wise servant who is found doing what his master commanded. But there is also the **“wicked servant”** who says in his heart that his lord delays his coming and begins to behave accordingly.The remarkable thing is that the warning doesn't say that this servant was never a servant.Rather, Jesus describes the consequences of **unfaithfulness**.The wicked servant is appointed a portion with the hypocrites, and there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Elsewhere Matthew describes the unprofitable servant being cast into **“outer darkness.”**These are not passages we should explain away.They are warnings.But warnings about **what?**Is Jesus teaching that someone who possesses eternal life can lose that eternal life? Or is He warning His servants about something else—**discipline, exclusion, loss of reward, and the consequences of unfaithfulness in His coming kingdom?**And then we encounter an even more intriguing statement concerning **hell**: the servant who refuses to forgive is delivered to the tormentors **“till he should pay all that was due.”**That little word—**“till”**—raises a very important question.If the passage is describing an eternal destination from which there is absolutely no release, why does Jesus describe the punishment in terms of a debt being paid?Could it be that we've been reading these warnings through a theological framework that Matthew himself never intended?There is another possibility we need to consider: that Jesus is describing something far more sobering—and far more relevant to His disciples—than the question, “Are you going to Heaven or Hell when you die?”He is warning His own servants about the consequences of **how they live**.In this episode, we'll begin following Matthew's trail through these difficult passages. We'll examine the faithful servant, the wicked servant, outer darkness, the portion with the hypocrites and unbelievers, and the strange but significant language of punishment **“till” the debt is paid.**We are not going to soften the warnings.We're going to take them seriously.But we're also going to ask whether we've been putting the wrong label on them.Because if Matthew is teaching us something about **servanthood, faithfulness, judgment, and kingdom consequences**, then the traditional picture of Hell may be obscuring the very warning Jesus intended His disciples to hear.The journey began with Matthew.And once we start following where Matthew actually leads, we may discover that **Hell isn't nearly as simple as we've been told. Hell: Where in the World is it?