Hell In The Heart - Unmasking the Roots of Sin and Suffering

[00:00:00] What if the deepest shadows of hell were not beneath us, but around us, woven subtly into the fabric of our daily lives?

[00:00:07] Welcome back to The GoodLion Podcast.

[00:00:10] Today we continue our exploration with the hell within,

[00:00:14] unmasking the roots of sin and suffering.

[00:00:17] As we continue this series of talks on sin and hell,

[00:00:20] originally delivered by Pastor Aaron Salvato at The GoodLion School of Discipleship,

[00:00:25] we will explore the daunting idea that hell can manifest here and now through our actions and inactions.

[00:00:31] How do personal sins contribute not only to our individual downfalls,

[00:00:35] but also to societal injustices that echo the horrors of hell?

[00:00:40] Join us as we unpack these complex themes, challenging ourselves to recognize and uproot the sin within our own lives.

[00:00:47] And stay tuned, as in our next episode,

[00:00:49] We will address questions from our listeners, shedding further light on this dark yet vital topic.

[00:00:55] If you would like to submit a follow-up question, you can do so by emailing us at

[00:01:00] goodlionnetwork at gmail.com.

[00:01:03] Now let us enter back into this fascinating discussion on eternal darkness, mercy and grace.

[00:01:09] Once again, you're listening to The GoodLion Podcast. Here's Aaron with today's episode.

[00:01:20] There's two kingdoms, the kingdom of light, the kingdom of darkness.

[00:01:24] If you don't want to be a part of the kingdom of light, you don't have to, but there's only one alternative.

[00:01:30] We need to understand God has a plan for a perfect world

[00:01:34] and yet he loves us enough to give us all a choice. If we refuse, there's only

[00:01:41] one other option.

[00:01:43] God doesn't intend to let any sin into this new world and he does this to protect you and to protect me.

[00:01:52] Yes, he allowed sin into this current world and that's a whole another philosophical

[00:01:57] problem of evil conversation that we might have to do on another episode.

[00:02:01] I admit that the very notion that God let evil into this current world, that

[00:02:07] can be a challenging one even for me and I've had to wrestle with it through the years.

[00:02:11] But when it comes to the next world, we know that at the end of this chapter of our story,

[00:02:17] which for most humans is actually a very short chapter, 70 to 90 years of your life

[00:02:23] is nothing. It's a blip when you consider that we have eternity ahead of us and in that eternal

[00:02:31] existence he will not let sin into his new world. He is going to quarantine us, cut us off from

[00:02:40] any access to wickedness, sin, death and hell. This current world is in tension. Both the kingdoms

[00:02:50] of light and darkness are present in this world. The kingdom of heaven is already but not yet it's

[00:02:57] here. We see it. We see it when the church gathers, when we worship God together, when we steady

[00:03:03] scripture, when we love one another, when we serve one another, when we serve the lost,

[00:03:09] when we preach the gospel, when we help make positive changes in our communities. The kingdom of

[00:03:15] light is breaking into this world but the kingdom of darkness is also active. This current world

[00:03:22] groans. The scripture says it groans for restoration and renewal and redemption.

[00:03:29] This current world is burning. Is it God's fault? No, no. He is rescuing us and taking

[00:03:36] us to a place that is not burning and if you choose to go with him you will be saved. If you're

[00:03:43] out freezing in the cold and someone opens a door to a warm house, if you refuse to go in

[00:03:50] whose fault is it that you're still cold? It's your own. It's no one but your own.

[00:03:55] And I say that not with judgment because I know how many people out there they don't realize

[00:04:00] how cold they are. They don't realize the hell that they're living in. They're blind to it.

[00:04:06] That's why we need people to share the gospel. That's why we need people to be willing to bend

[00:04:13] over backwards to love the lost, to see lost people as loved people. People that Jesus was

[00:04:22] willing to die for. I love this quote from author and pastor Joshua Ryan Butler. He says

[00:04:39] Jesus's question for us is not are you good enough to get into my city? His question is rather

[00:04:45] will you let me heal you? God wants to forgive. As C.S. Lewis says, hell is not a dungeon

[00:04:52] locked from the outside. It's a closet locked from the inside if we refuse to be healed.

[00:05:07] Joshua Ryan Butler has a fantastic book called The Skeletons and God's Closet. If

[00:05:12] you're listening to this podcast, I would highly recommend you go read that book. It was very

[00:05:18] instrumental for me in my younger years. In his book, he gives this really powerful illustration.

[00:05:25] I'll read the passage from his book now. Butler says this,

[00:05:29] The power of hell is alive and well in our world. My own realization of this began with

[00:05:34] things more obvious. Things most of us would agree look like hell on earth today,

[00:05:39] like children getting enslaved and raped so that others can make money. Butler goes on,

[00:05:44] During my junior year in university, I had the opportunity to work on the borders of Burma

[00:05:49] and Thailand with an indigenous organization fighting the trafficking of their community's

[00:05:54] children into the sex trade. In some of their villages as many as 90% of girls older than 10

[00:06:01] had been trafficked into the cities. This was devastating.

[00:06:06] Slave traders preyed on poor families in desperate circumstances. Families were often deceived,

[00:06:11] told that their daughters would have good jobs in restaurants or in small businesses in the city.

[00:06:16] At first, the girls were excited to leave the small town life for the glamour of the big city.

[00:06:21] The parents were given a loan that their daughter would pay off easily at her new job.

[00:06:26] Once in the city, however, it was too late. By the time the girls had realized where

[00:06:30] they were, they were locked in small rooms, held against their will and forced to see as many as

[00:06:36] 15 to 30 clients a day. It was heart-crushing to meet some of these girls who had been rescued

[00:06:43] and imagine what they had been through. The horror of the trauma inflicted upon them still

[00:06:48] haunts me today, and they were but a few survivors affected by a much bigger problem. The

[00:06:53] United Nations estimates nearly 2 million children are enslaved in the sex trade today.

[00:07:00] The power of hell is indeed alive and well in our world.

[00:07:12] Trees and roots. Butler goes on to write,

[00:07:18] At that point in my life, I still had a hard time with the doctrine of hell.

[00:07:22] I was a new Christian, and there were still parts of the faith I was still trying to make sense of.

[00:07:26] But the seed of a realization was growing inside me. There are some things I want out

[00:07:32] of God's world forever. I would soon find out that there are some things God wants out

[00:07:37] of his world forever too. Reading through the Gospels one day, I came across Jesus talking

[00:07:42] about the power of hell in relation to lust. Here's what Jesus had to say.

[00:07:47] You have heard that it was said, Do not commit adultery. But I tell you that anyone who looks

[00:07:52] at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye

[00:07:57] causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part

[00:08:03] of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin,

[00:08:09] cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your

[00:08:14] whole body to go into hell. Suddenly I had a problem. Like me, Butler writes,

[00:08:21] Jesus wants to get rid of sex trafficking only he takes it a lot more seriously than I do.

[00:08:27] I want to get rid of sex trafficking, but Jesus wants to get rid of lust. I want to prune back the

[00:08:33] wicked tree he wants to dig out the root and that wicked root is in me. I may not be a sex

[00:08:41] trafficker or a greedy pimp, but I have lust. I can be one lusty animal. Jesus says if you

[00:08:50] even look lustfully at one of God's daughters, demeaningly commodifying her as an object for

[00:08:56] your own self-centered gratification, then the power of hell has its roots in you. And when God

[00:09:04] arrives to establish his kingdom, you are in danger of being cast outside the kingdom with it.

[00:09:12] I was no longer simply a part of the solution. I was a part of the problem.

[00:09:17] The enemy was no longer simply out there, but in here. We have met the enemy and he is us.

[00:09:25] There is a wicked tree that has grown to monstrous proportions in our world,

[00:09:30] damaging and destroying the lives of tens of millions of young girls beneath its dark

[00:09:36] and disastrous shade. And the root of that wicked tree lives in me.

[00:09:50] Okay, I'm back. Aaron here. Man, such a good passage again. Get the book if you haven't read it. It is

[00:09:56] so good, so helpful. I think everything he's saying, it so lines up with what Jesus teaches

[00:10:03] on the Sermon on the Mount. Again, Jesus, what does he say? You've heard it said,

[00:10:08] do not murder, but if you hate someone, you have killed them, you have murdered them in your

[00:10:14] heart. Go back to the idea of what we talked about in this series of The Seven Deadly Sins.

[00:10:19] Pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth. These evils are some of the deadly roots that grow

[00:10:28] into all sorts of evil in our world. Think about ways that you've seen modern manifestations

[00:10:34] of things like racism. What is behind that? If you look at the roots, you're going to see

[00:10:39] things like prejudice, fear, greed and pride. When we look at wars destroying villages and homes

[00:10:47] and people, what is the root of those wars? It's hatred. It's pride, lust for power. It's

[00:10:55] unforgiveness. Hell is the full force of sin and sin is the path that leads to hell. When we allow

[00:11:03] these hellish roots to take place in our life through our sins, through these root, sinful

[00:11:10] perspectives, we grow hell into our world. This is why it's so important that we take

[00:11:18] the sinful roots in our life to Jesus and say, Lord, pull this tree out by the roots.

[00:11:26] This is why the Christian life, whether you're a new Christian or whether you're a pastor who's

[00:11:31] been in ministry for most of your life, and I'm talking to myself right now,

[00:11:36] this is why the process of discipleship should be a continuous gardening journey where we are

[00:11:43] continually going to Jesus and saying, Jesus, search the garden of my heart. And if you find

[00:11:49] anything growing in here that is not good, don't just trim it. Yank out the roots.

[00:11:55] We have to be honest about what sin is and what it is capable of, the ramifications of our sin

[00:12:09] and what our sin can actually grow into. Remember what scripture says. Remember what Brian and I

[00:12:15] talked about on our previous episode? The scripture says, our desires flirt with us, entice us,

[00:12:21] and then they engage with us. And through that engaging, our desire conceives sin within us.

[00:12:29] And then when that sin has fully grown, what happens? That sin grows like a baby and becomes

[00:12:36] death. Through sin, we give birth to our own death. Think of it. We think of a little lust

[00:12:44] as just a little lust. But the reality is, it has so much potential to grow

[00:12:49] into an actual crippling pornography addiction or into a marriage and family shattering adultery.

[00:12:58] We don't like to think of it that way. We think when it comes to lust, I can handle it. It's just

[00:13:03] a little bit of lust to take the edge off. And yet that root absolutely has the potential to

[00:13:08] grow into something that can ruin our entire lives. We don't like to think of it, but

[00:13:14] our anger could very well grow into murder. And you might think, oh, that's kind of far

[00:13:18] fetched, but there is story after story of people who ended up killing someone. And when they

[00:13:23] steadied that person, they didn't find out that they were some depraved serial killer plotting

[00:13:27] out their next victim. Instead, they were an average person who kept giving in to the roots

[00:13:33] of bitterness and pride and anger and letting it control them and take them over to the point

[00:13:40] where they ended someone else's life. And I would say to any of you listening,

[00:13:44] even if your anger never leads to you actually murdering someone, your anger can lead to the

[00:13:50] murder of your family's peace. The destruction of your family through verbal abuse, through pride

[00:13:58] and neglect. It is horrifying to me to think of how many families lie shattered and broken,

[00:14:04] families that had so much potential to be beautiful and life giving and completely full

[00:14:10] of joy. But because of anger, these families are now broken. Our anger has the potential to kill.

[00:14:18] We tend to see our sin as harmless. We think of sin like a little puppy. We think of it as something

[00:14:25] that is annoying, but something that can be shaken off, something that merely misbehaves once in a

[00:14:30] while. We need to see it as it really is not as a puppy, but like a dog with rabies, a rabid

[00:14:37] wolf looking for its next meal. Think of how small the very first sin was in the garden.

[00:14:45] It was the eating of a fruit. We don't know what fruit it was. It could have been an apple,

[00:14:49] it could have been an orange, it could have been a plum, it could have been a watermelon.

[00:14:53] We have no idea. But it was the simple eating of that fruit that opened Pandora's box and

[00:15:00] ushered in destruction and chaos into the entire world. Who are we to think that our own small acts

[00:15:09] of disobedience aren't just as destructive? These sins have the potential to invite demonic

[00:15:17] presence into our families. They have the potential to ruin our lives, and it's only by

[00:15:24] the grace of God that they haven't yet. I am preaching to the choir because just like you

[00:15:32] listening, I am a sinner just like you. And I'll be the first to say we can become so comfortable

[00:15:39] with our own small compromises and sins. We think I'm not actually killing anyone.

[00:15:46] I'm not really stealing anything. I'm not actually cheating on someone. And because of

[00:15:51] this perspective, we put up with our small scale bits of gossip, lying, lust, anger,

[00:15:58] and small scale addictions. When it comes to the really big sins, we know that those will kill

[00:16:03] us and destroy us. We know that if we go and murder someone, that's going to be a life ending,

[00:16:10] life altering decision. We know that if you just wake up in the morning and think,

[00:16:14] should I cheat on my spouse? You know in your heart that that is going to be

[00:16:19] something that changes the trajectory of your life and family forever. No one just wakes up

[00:16:26] never having done drugs in their life and thinking, I'm going to do meth today. Nobody.

[00:16:32] The big sins we know will kill us and destroy us. But it's the little ones that we think

[00:16:39] won't actually do much. We forget that Satan is a liar, a thief, and a destroyer.

[00:16:46] It's literally what he's all about. And just as I'm sure Satan gets a thrill from killing somebody

[00:16:54] or destroying a life in a big dramatic way, rest assured the enemy is completely content and

[00:17:00] happy to slowly kill us in small, boring mundane ways over time. Private, small scale ways that

[00:17:08] don't make a ripple in our day to day. The enemy doesn't care how he kills us. He just

[00:17:15] wants us dead. Let me say that again. The enemy doesn't care how he kills us. He just

[00:17:22] wants us dead. Think about that. John 844 says he was a murderer from the beginning,

[00:17:29] not holding to the truth. There is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native tongue,

[00:17:35] for he is a liar and the father of lies. 1 Peter 5 8 says be alert and have sober mind.

[00:17:42] Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to.

[00:17:56] Thank you for joining us on another episode of The Good Lion Podcast.

[00:18:00] As we close today's discussion on the complex interplay of sin, suffering, and the concept

[00:18:05] of hell in our lives, let us reflect on a scripture that brings hope amidst these

[00:18:10] profound challenges. From the book of Romans chapter 5 verse 20,

[00:18:15] But where sin increased, grace increased all the more. In the shadows of our failings,

[00:18:20] grace shines brightest. This divine grace does not merely cover our sins. It transforms

[00:18:26] our very nature and renews our spirits. As we grapple with the realities of hell on earth

[00:18:31] manifested through our actions and the systemic evils around us, let us also embrace the

[00:18:36] abundant grace that God offers. This grace empowers us to overcome the darkness within

[00:18:42] and to catalyze change in the world around us. May this knowledge comfort and challenge you as

[00:18:47] you move through your week. Carry with you the conviction that no depth of sin is too deep for

[00:18:52] the reach of God's grace, and no night is too dark for the dawn of his redemption.

[00:18:58] This podcast is a production of Good Lion Ministries, a ministry devoted to helping

[00:19:03] Christians practice the way of Jesus and fall more deeply in love with a God who is not safe,

[00:19:08] but is very good. For more resources visit us at GoodLion.org. Our ministry is made possible through

[00:19:15] the generous support of our donors. To help support our work please visit GoodLion.org

[00:19:21] slash support. Until next time keep seeking, keep questioning, and may your journey be marked

[00:19:28] by the light of understanding and the warmth of God's unfailing love.