Quotable

A flood of false doctrine has lately broken in upon us. Men are beginning to tell us, “that God is too merciful to punish souls for ever . . . that all mankind, however wicked and ungodly . . . will sooner or later be saved.” . . . We are to embrace what is called a “kinder theology,” and treat hell as a Pagan fable. . . . This question lies at the very foundation of the whole gospel. The moral attributes of God, His justice, His holiness, His purity, are all involved in it. . . . The Scripture has spoken plainly and fully on the subject of hell. . . . If words mean anything, there is such a place as hell. If texts are to be interpreted fairly, there are those who will be cast into it. . . . The same Bible which teaches that God in mercy and compassion sent Christ to die for sinners, does also teach that God hates sin, and must from His very nature punish all who cleave to sin or refuse the salvation He has provided.

God knows that I never speak of hell without pain and sorrow. I would gladly offer the salvation of the Gospel to the very chief of sinners. I would willingly say to the vilest and most profligate of mankind on his deathbed, “Repent, and believe on Jesus, and thou shalt be saved.”  But God forbid that I should ever keep back from mortal man that scripture reveals a hell as well as heaven, and that the Gospel teaches that men may be lost as well as saved.

—Anglican Bishop J. C. Ryle, about 100 years ago

Our fathers believed in sin and the devil and hell . . . [and in] God and righteousness and heaven. . . . Humans, our fathers held, had to choose sides—they could not be neutral. For them it must be life or death, heaven or hell, and if they chose to come out on God’s side, they could expect open war with God’s enemies. The fight would be real and deadly and would last as long as life continued here below. . . .

How different today. . . . People think of the world not as a battleground, but as a playground. We are not here to fight; we are here to frolic. We are not in a foreign land; we are at home. . . . [This idea] has now been accepted in practice by the vast majority of fundamentalist Christians. They might hedge around the question . . . but their conduct gives them away.

—A. W. Tozer