Live with Purpose (Men's Breakfast)

Shane Willard

Live with Purpose (Men's Breakfast) Ghenna was the town rubbish dump (a present reality), and Hades is an afterlife (a future reality), in English its Hell. When we think of Hell, we tend to think about: them (in the future); but in the vast majority of Jesus' teachings, Hell was: us (in the present). Heaven & Hell are both true, and both occupied, in the here/now. They are also both true of another place in the future, which is also occupied, by real people. Jesus' emphasis was far, far, far more on one, instead of the other. When you take care of the poor and the afflicted, that is what it means to know God.

Your intentions are just the starting point. Pure motives, and consistent obedience, mixed with focussed intentions, will lead you to a life that cannot be shaken. What are you rationalising today, that you'll regret tomorrow? One yes requires a thousand NO's. You can never beat sin by fighting sin. Instead you beat sin by empowering something else. The power that you give something else overcomes the sin. Have you ever lost your ability to enjoy what God's given you, because you've compared it to somebody else? Can you clearly define what you want?
If you want to know the things Jesus said would 'ruin your life', all you've got to do is do a simple study on Hell.

Because there's only one English word Hell, we tend to get confused that, when Jesus talked about hell, He was talking about two realities: one was called Gehenna, which is essentially hell now; and one was called Hades, which is essentially hell then (post-death).

Both are true, and ones not necessarily more important than the other, but Jesus' emphasis was far, far, far more on one, instead of the other. But when we tend to think about Hell, we tend to think about them/then; but the vast majority of Jesus' teachings on hell were us/now.

Heaven is true that way too. Heaven is true here, and it's occupied; heaven is true there, and it's occupied. Hell is true here, and it's occupied; hell is true there, and it's occupied.

The word for hell here was Gehenna, and essentially Gehenna was the town rubbish dump. It was a place where hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years before Jesus, they used to burn children to the god Molech there, and so the land was essentially useless, so they used it as a town rubbish dump, because you couldn't use it for anything else.

The problem they found with that, when the wind shifted from that direction, the smell of that place went into the city, so they had to come up with a solution. Their solution was a sulphuric mixture of fire.

It's the same principle as a match; if you have a bowel motion, and it's particularly horrible, you can simply strike a match, let it light up for a second, and then you put the match out, let the smoke go through the room, and it will actually deodorise. If you didn't know that try it okay, I might have just saved your marriage.

So they kept this fire going all the time there. It was also a burial ground for poor people, so if you couldn't afford a tomb, they would throw your body on Gehenna. It was also where all the stray animals would scavenge for food and stuff. So in the First Century, if you went to Gehenna, you would smell sort of the fire and brimstone sort of mixture. You would also see poor people's families having funerals for them, and you would also hear the sounds of barking and biting and animals scavenging for food.

So Gehenna became known as the place where the fire doesn't die, and there's weeping and gnashing of teeth - and so that was hell HERE. Hell THERE was a place called Hades.

Jesus said the word hell 18 times; of the 18 times, 15 of the 18 was hell here; three of the 18 was hell there; so roughly 87.7 per cent of the time when Jesus talks about hell, He's not talking about a future reality. He's talking about a reality that's right here.

He said that six things will send your life to hell, six things, and these things are this: 1) Not controlling your lust issues. So He says: you don't get those things under control, it endangers your life (of the garbage dump). 2) Anger, holding anger in your heart. If you tend to not be able to let things go, and you hold bitterness in your heart because people have done you wrong - if you don't get that kind of thing under control, you run the risk of putting your life (on the garbage dump).

3) Calling people idiots. He says: if your pattern in life is calling someone a fool, you're endangering your life (of the garbage dump). Obviously that one's talking about hell here, otherwise we're serving a God who tortures people forever for calling someone an idiot, and we're all screwed okay, so you don't want to do that. Essentially He's saying: listen, you know, you don't want to make a pattern of doing that. So He says: your lust issues, your anger issues, and your tendency to think you're smarter than everybody else - those are the things you have to handle.

4) Fearing man instead of fearing God. He said: that'll hurt you. That will eventually endanger your life of the garbage dump. 5) Unforgiveness in your heart will eventually endanger your life of the garbage dump... 6) ...as well as greed.

So greed, unforgiveness, fear of man instead of fear of God, calling people fools, lust and anger; those six things are the things that destroy a man's life, to the point of putting you in the garbage dump.

When you think about it in those terms, what you think about is, you start looking at yourself; or if you're a narcissist, you start thinking about somebody else who needs to hear this.

So you go: well okay, I could see where this lust issue in my life has hurt me. I could see where my tendency to power over people has hurt me. So if I was going to talk to you about how to be an over-comer, what I would simply do is go through those six issues.