Why Does the Existence of Hell Matter?

Ask the Pastor with J.D. Greear

J.D. Greear

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.9 • 624 Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week on Ask the Pastor, Pastor J.D. continues his series called, "Why Does It Matter?" with the question, "Why Does the Existence of Hell Matter?"

A glimpse inside this episode:

* The doctrine of hell is crucial for understanding God's justice.
* Many people struggle with the concept of hell, leading to doubt.
* Biblical imagery of hell should be taken seriously, not metaphorically.
* The severity of hell reflects the infinite nature of God.
* Hell serves as a means to understand injustice in the world.
* God's judgment is an expression of His holiness and righteousness.
* Understanding hell magnifies the love of God in salvation.
* The conversation about hell is essential for a robust faith.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everybody, welcome to Ask the Pastor.
0:09.1	My name is Matt Love.
0:10.0	I'm here with Pastor J.D. Greer, and we are continuing our series called Why Does
0:15.5	It Matter?
0:16.3	Diving into a bunch of questions that, again, are these ideas that Christians understand or we talk
0:22.0	about a lot, but maybe it's not always, we don't ever, we don't always think about why is it so
0:25.8	important that we believe this or that this is true. And today we have a question about hell.
0:31.0	Why does it matter if hell exists? And I think this is an important question because there are,
0:35.3	I mean, in my time walking with God, there have been a lot of people that have kind of had ideas of hell maybe isn't that important.
0:42.3	Right.
0:42.5	It's okay.
0:43.3	God wouldn't believe, wouldn't have hell.
0:45.3	That doesn't make sense.
0:46.6	And it's also a big reason why a lot of people, when you get down to it, lose their faith.
0:50.8	I mean, I'm thinking of Rob Bell and it was kind of like that was his big thing. Maybe one of the bigger like triggers of deconstruction and all that kind of stuff.
0:58.4	So, J.D., like, why does it matter for Christians to believe in the doctrine of hell?
1:05.1	Yeah. And this really is the deep end of the pool and I'll just be totally transparent.
1:09.0	It's been one of the most difficult things for me in my own journey of faith. If I, I don't know if I'd ever say I was close to
1:15.5	actually walking away, but there were some seasons of real doubt. Yeah. And this was often,
1:21.0	you know, at the heart of them. It feels like if this, if there is, this is a, a reality to be grappled with.
1:29.5	If you can kind of just take this in stride,
1:32.6	it's almost like, I don't know that you're thinking that deeply about it.
	...

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