Hell's Disappearing Act
J. C. Ryle —The watchman who keeps silent when he sees a fire is guilty of gross neglect. The doctor who tells us we are getting well when we are dying is a false friend, and the minister who keeps back hell from his people in his sermons is neither a faithful nor a charitable man. Hell has disappeared! Hell has been sanitized from the modern theological mind. Hell has become an off limits message for most pulpits. The sheep have either stated so publically to the other sheep or the sheep have privately inferred to the shepherd that this is not what they want to hear. The reasoning of the sheep goes in this manner, “We are so stressed out! We feel the pressure of moving from pasture to pasture. We are having babies and they are demanding our time. We are worried that the drought is going to wither and destroy all the grass. We have a shepherd who is always trying to lead us where we don’t want to go. The last things we want to hear about are ravenous wolves, bad waterholes, p...