Dear Gordon,
Thank you for such a comforting reflection.  I, too, had struggled with the article about not preaching hell to depressed teenagers and you have clarified and crystalized my thoughts on the matter: 
Firstly, one cannot understand the enormity of God’s grace without a deep understanding of the evil of sin and the horrors of its consequences. 
Secondly, the concern for teenagers with low self-esteem etc. and so not preaching hell to them did not match with my own experience either.  It was only being confronted by the realities of eternal punishment that ‘snapped’ me out of my teenage self-centred and self-pitying mindset to the glorious eternal realities of our great God and his centrality in the universe - not mine - and thus removed low self-esteem from my pre-occupation and replaced it with Godly contentment.

Thanks for your comments, Mike and Jonathan.

Jonathan, you are right, there’s no doubt at all that these words we are talking about are addressed to the disciples—after all, Luke specifically says in verse 1, “he began to say to his disciples first”, and the verse 4 is simply continuing what he has begun to say to them.

However, there’s also no doubt that he has the listening crowds in mind. Luke mentions “many thousands of the people” (in the same verse, verse 1), and then immediately Jesus finishes what he is saying, Luke highlights someone in the listening crowd responding with these words:

Luke 12:13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

Lest we are in any doubt that the message of judgement is for all, Jesus then immediately launches into the story of the rich fool. You recall that the punch line there is:

Luke 12:20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

I don’t really see how we can conclude anything other than that Jesus preached a message of judgement publicly, and when the crowds attempted to distract him to their own concerns, he pressed his message even harder.

I think as gospel preachers we face the same challenge today.

As to whether or not this is an encouraging message or not; it is the most wonderful news when we go on to preach the message of salvation to the lost. ‘Sola Panel’ we may be, but ‘Sola Hell’ we are certainly not! ; -)

Just on the depressed teens issue. I read the blog discussion that you mention, Gordo. I was surprised that nobody mentioned that the major problem with teens is that they are stuffed full of guilt feelings over stuff that is either secondary (pleasing parents, relationships with friends) or just stupid (weight-issues, popularity).
ISTM that the trick is to preach a gospel that resists the gospel of the devil (=“you are worthless”) and replaces it with the gospel of Christ (=“you are incredibly valuable - AND a sinner in utter need of redemption”).