This past Sunday I began a new preaching series titled “Hell and the Mission of the Church.” God used this message to challenge us all, including myself.

I would challenge you to listen to it, listen to it again, and listen to it as many times as need be to motivate you to join in the mission of the church. Click here to listen.

There are many ways that the church today becomes influenced by culture, and often times we are unaware that a particular way of thinking has crept into the way we act and live. But a popular viewpoint that we cannot afford to adopt is Universalism.

As I mentioned in the message, universalism is a theological doctrine that all human beings will eventually be saved. Scripture very clearly reveals to us that this is not true. There is a Hell; there are no second chances; and many will end up there.

The truth of Scripture and the reality of Hell should help to guard our hearts from drifting towards universalism. Universalism neuters the church of its mission. It robs us of the zeal we need in reaching out to the lost. David Platt writes, “…while some professing Christians have rejected universalism intellectually, practically they may end up leading universalistic lives. They claim Christ is necessary for salvation, yet they live their lives in silence, as if people around them in the world will indeed be okay in the end without Christ.” Are we living lives that look more like Universalists than followers of Jesus Christ?

I want to leave you with this quote from Charles Spurgeon:

“Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you are not saved yourself. Be sure of that…. The saving of souls, if a man has once gained love to perishing sinners and his blessed Master, wil be an all-absorbing passion to him. It will so carry him away, that he will almost forget himself in the saving of others…..”

“If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.”

- Pastor Brandin