WARNING
PREACHY…
The other day during a service a man blurted out “DOES HELL REALLY EXIST?” My response was immediate and without
reservation, “Yes”.
I thought more about his question and it dawned on me that in over 15
years of full-time ministry and preaching over some 2000 times, I have never
once spoke specifically on the topic of hell.
Why not? Simply, I didn’t want
to. I view the topic of hell largely as
a tool to scare people into making a confession of faith in Jesus; at least
that’s how I’ve typically seen it used.
But the man’s question made me address the issue and I know that just because
I may indeed have seen the topic of hell abused, the abuse that I have
experienced did not give me allowance to shirk the subject all together because,
after all, hell is a very real biblical topic that is addressed by even Jesus himself. And so this week I did address the topic of
hell.
---
1 Thessalonians 5:9
For God did not
appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus
Christ.
God has not appointed us to suffer wrath.
What wrath? Separation from
Him? His punishment? His damnation?
Yes, yes, and yes.
I really hate that hell, in its many facets, exists. When I was a new Christian I hated that I was
forced to make a choice for Christ in the first place. I felt like God dealt me a hand with a loaded
deck. I felt that it would have been
better to have never been born than to ever have had the opportunity of not
trusting in Jesus and going to hell. But
resent is as I did I was glad that I understood it. I was glad that I will not endure His wrath
and damnation on Judgment Day and experience being separated from Him for all
eternity. I understood that people may
make a decision to not accept Jesus and thus God will give them their heart’s
desire for all eternity, but I still did/do not like the end result for those
who chose to ignore Him. Even though I
don’t like it, the reality is that hell exists for those who refuse to play the
spiritual hand they have been dealt.
Is hell a real place, a physical place, a place with a location? Again, yes, yes, and yes -- but I don’t know
exactly where and how it is.
Revelation 20:10
And the devil,
who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast
and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for
ever and ever.
Revelation
21:6-8
6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the
Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give
water without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7 Those
who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will
be my children. 8 But
the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral,
those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned
to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”
There are other passages that talk about hell but this is the one that
always sticks in my mind. The idea that
there is a lake of burning sulphur prepared for the devil and his demons and
those who will not hope in the Victory of Jesus’ Cross scares me more than just
a little.
While I do accept that hell exists, I will acknowledge that much of how
people view it in our minds is from made-up fictional art from such writers as the
13th century’s Dante’s[1]
Inferno[2]. The devil is never described in the bible as
wearing a red spandex suit with a tail, horns, and pitch fork. But again, just because someone has made up
an image of the devil and hell does not mean that they do not have an existence.
In the end I believe hell exists because as much as I hate the idea and
the concept is a seemingly extreme punishment, I also get it. If I were to sacrifice my son in order to give
someone a free pass from such a punishment then I would angrily throw the book
at you. Seriously, if I subjected
myself (and my son) to the torment of a Roman cross in order to make a way for
you to live eternally in spiritual bliss, and you refused to believe in and
worship him, I would be livid that I wasted his life on you for nothing. Even as I write this I will admit that I
have never looked at it from this point of view before and I am beginning to
understand a little bit better why it exists.
As they say, “walk a mile in another’s shoes.”
In the end I am not happy how the concept of hell has been used as a
scare tactic but the reality is that it’s a good one and needs to be seriously
considered when thinking about our eternal souls.
Jude 1:5
Though you
already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord at one time delivered
his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe.
This verse is about when God delivered the children of Israel from their slavery
in Egypt. He delivered them all but some
would not believe so God destroyed them.
In the same way, Jesus redeemed mankind from our slavery to sin and
death when he died upon the Cross, and again, there will be some people who
will just not believe it.
My prayer is for you, that if you have not yet bent a knee to Jesus the
son of God, that you will place your trust in and believe in Him.
Many blessings to you on your faith journey…
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