Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison and did not help you?” He will reply, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. (Matthew 25: 44-46)
What an irony: many social-activist Christians have rejected the doctrine of eternal punishment because they think it detracts from social concern. But if Jesus’ words are taught straight from the Gospels, social concern will become central to every Christian, since our eternal destiny hangs in the balance.
I scorched some eyebrows when I preached that racial prejudice and anti-Semitism could send a person to hell. the congregation knew I meant it. And they took it, because I was preaching the Word of God from a prophetic position of declaring God’s judgement against sin.
