MOST OF US, when we go to church, expect to be encouraged in the faith. We want to hear about the love of Jesus and the grace of God. We know that the preacher may challenge us to be better and more faithful disciples, of course, but we squirm when we hear the language of God’s anger at sin. Preachers who dare to mention judgment and hell had better emphasize grace and heaven many times more.

We’re not used to sermons about hellfire and damnation. Perhaps the most famous of these is Jonathan Edwards’ sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” delivered in 1741. For some context, a great revival movement was already afoot in New England at the time, and Edwards was part of it. But the church where he preached the sermon had thus far been resistant.

Edwards chose Deuteronomy 32:35 as his text; it’s part of an oracle from God sung by Moses. It’s a condemnation of those who have been disobedient to God despite his faithfulness to them. Here’s how the full verse reads in the New International Version:

It is mine to avenge; I will repay.
    In due time their foot will slip;
their day of disaster is near
    and their doom rushes upon them.

Not exactly material for a contemporary praise chorus. But Edwards built on that text, using vivid imagery to portray the fiery fate that awaited all who would not repent of their sin:

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire…

We can’t know for sure, but Edwards wasn’t necessarily yelling and pounding a pulpit; his word pictures of hell were frightening enough in themselves. Over and over, he emphasized the disaster that awaited the people. The final line of the sermon is a loose quotation of Genesis 19:17, in which the angels warned Abraham’s nephew Lot to flee the destruction that was about to befall the wicked city of Sodom:

Let everyone fly out of Sodom: Haste and escape for your lives, look not behind you, escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed.

Imagine a preacher today ending a sermon that way and walking off the stage. What’s everyone supposed to do next? Call the band back up and sing an upbeat praise song?

But by some accounts, Edwards wasn’t able to finish the sermon. People were already weeping in sorrow or wailing in terror; some fainted. There was such a commotion that he had to stop preaching. And as you might guess, by the grace of God, many people came to Christ that day.

WE COME NOW to the final section of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus has already given his hearers lesson after lesson in true kingdom righteousness, the kind of righteousness that surpasses the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees and embodies the heart of the Hebrew Scriptures. That teaching culminated in what may be the simplest but most challenging lesson of all: the Golden Rule. As I suggested earlier, that maxim goes hand in hand with the command not only to love our neighbor as ourselves, but to love our enemies the same way.

From this point forward, there will be no more ethical teaching, just a series of warning to do what Jesus says…or else. He begins by reminding people that they have a choice to make, and that the choice is a matter of life and death:

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. (Matt 7:13-14, NIV)

Against that background, he warns that they need to be careful who they listen to:

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. (vss. 15-20)

A third warning is similar to the second. People may be deluded, thinking themselves to be admirably religious but having no real relationship to Jesus:

Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?” Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” (vss. 21-23)

He ends with a parable that reiterates the consequences of either obeying or disobeying his words. Disaster awaits those who refuse to listen:

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash. (vss. 24-27)

We’ll take a closer look at each of these warnings in turn, beginning with Jesus’ metaphor of the two gates and the two roads. We make choices all the time, and some of them seem simple. But each choice may set us on a path of consequences. Do we think at all about where each path might lead?