By Larry Rosenbaum
When Jonathan Edwards preached his famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an angry God” in 1741, he read the sermon in a dull, monotone voice. Despite this, hundreds of people, convulsing under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, committed their lives to Jesus Christ. If I were to read this sermon on a San Francisco street corner today, the reaction would be far different.
Edwards’ sermon is as true today as when it was written. The gospel message has not changed. However, the people we seek to reach for Jesus have changed a lot. Edwards preached this sermon to people who attended church and claimed to be Christians. They said they believed in the Bible and in Jesus Christ, but in fact were unsaved.
Today, especially in the San Francisco area, most people do not attend church, do not claim to be Christians, and do not believe that the Bible is God’s Word. We need to understand the people we are seeking to reach with the gospel, and learn how to communicate the gospel to them. The concepts of hell, judgment and God’s wrath that Edwards preached about still need to be preached. But many people today have a hard time with these concepts. We should at least try to explain them to people in terms they can understand.
In speaking of God’s judgment, I sometimes use the example of Rodney King. When the police officers that beat King were found not guilty, a lot of people got angry and there were riots in Los Angeles. As humans, we have a sense of justice. We believe that people who do bad things, such as those police officers, ought to be punished for their wrongdoing. When they are not punished, we often get angry. In the same way, God is angry when people like Hitler commit horrible crimes. Hitler committed suicide and was never punished by a human court. But God will punish him for his wrongdoing. However, the same God who will judge Hitler for his sins will also judge each of us for our sins. If we believe that human judges and juries have not only the right but also the responsibility to punish those who do wrong, how much more does our Creator have that right and responsibility?
Many people also have a problem with the concept of “eternal torment” in Hell. While most people will admit to being sinners, they think eternal torment is an excessive punishment. How do we respond to this objection? God has given us a free will. However, our decisions have consequences. Every good thing comes from God. If I reject an opportunity to live eternally in God’s presence, I will live eternally in His absence — in a place where nothing is good. If I am distracted while I am backing up my car and drive over my child and kill him, I will spend the rest of my life being tormented by the pain of my foolish act. Similarly, people in Hell will be forever tormented by their foolishness in rejecting Christ and missing out on the wonderful eternal destiny He had offered them. Also, we can point out the human tendency to minimize the seriousness of one’s own sins, while seeing other people’s sins as really terrible. Our sins are much more serious than we think them to be.