WONDERFUL THING IN THIS PASSAGE – Whenever I hear someone speak of hell casually, it grieves me. Especially when the one speaking is my brother or sister in the Lord. It shows that they’ve never taken hell seriously.
The horrors of that place and of that state of being are beyond comprehension. And the fact that many of our fellow humans will suffer the full force of those horrors for eternity ought to bring us to tears. The word ought to be so bitter on our tongues that we’d never let it pass through our mouths flippantly.
No one on earth has ever “looked like hell” or “felt like hell.” And no one has ever been “as mad as hell.” Only the devil and his demons are capable of that degree of pure, malevolent rage.
The reality and utter awfulness of hell is one of the major themes of the Bible. In the end times, an angel will proclaim the doom of each person who rejects God’s offer of salvation:
“He will also drink the wine of God’s wrath, which is poured full strength into the cup of his anger. He will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the sight of the holy angels and in the sight of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment will go up forever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or anyone who receives the mark of its name” (Rev 14:10-11).
The Bible further describes that place of torment as “the lake of fire that burns with sulfur” where all those who have not received the grace of God will be “thrown” (Rev 19:20; 20:15). According to Jesus, that lake is a “blazing furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt 13:42). Those in it will “burn with fire that never goes out” (Matt 3:12), with “eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt 25:41).
WONDERFUL THING IN OUR LIVES – I’ve written myself this reminder at the top of the whiteboard facing my desk so that I’ll see it daily:
Every person I see today will spend eternity somewhere.
I can make a difference as to where.
There are only two destinations in eternity. Every member of our rebellious race starts out going toward the awful one. But God, in His great mercy, has provided a fork in the road so that “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?” (Rom 10:13-14 NLT)
You and I, dear friends, can be that someone who tells them.
In fact, for some person you or I see today, we may have been placed by God at the fork in the road to draw their attention to it and to urge them to take it. I take hell very seriously, and I’d like to do what I can to help as many as I can to avoid it.
