Oh hell!

Hell is a topic rarely mentioned these days even in Christian circles apart perhaps from the expletive ‘What the hell!’.  This is a terrible oversight on behalf of those who know or should know that hell is the default destination of mankind after death. 

I suspect that all the hellfire and damnation preachers from past times have given hell such a terrible reputation, a reputation it completely deserves, that it seems one doesn’t speak about it in polite company, rather like the drip on the end of Uncle Harold’s nose that nobody mentions.

Jesus had no such qualms. He had a lot to say about hell. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, ‘Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad the path 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.’ Matthew 7: 13 -1 4.

That knocks on the head universalism; that everyone is going to heaven. It is my belief that the Church and Christian’s reticence to talk about heaven and hell has led to many of the theories of our eternal destination readily expressed but none of which mentions hell.

Most people hope they are going to heaven and believe either that their good works balancing out their bad works (not sin – please) will mean God is bound to let them into heaven. Alternatively the atheistic view is that when we die, that’s it – curtains. We exist no more. For there to be any form of afterlife means the person of God has to be included and he is the creation of Man, not the other way around. Time and space do not permit reincarnation and other theories.

Everyone knows what they believe or at least hope for when they die but few have any credible, authoritative basis for that belief. The Bible is clear about the afterlife – it is either heaven or hell -  but few want to talk about it, let alone believe what it says. Unfortunately that all too often includes Christians.

If anyone dares to admit they maybe they are hell-bound, usually with a self-deprecating shrug, it will be depicted, in their minds at least, as a place where all the old sinners congregate to party, swapping hair raising stories of their Godless exploits over a few drinks.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Unfortunately the Bible depicts hell as ‘a blazing furnace where there will be gnashing of teeth’ (Matthew 13: 42 and 50). In fact the term ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ is referred to six times in Matthew alone. Jesus’ words – not mine. No mention of parties. In fact it is when one sinner repents that there is rejoicing and that is in heaven (Luke 15: 7 and 10).

All references to hell in the Bible talk of weeping, torment, eternal punishment, fire or blazing furnace. In fact in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus that Jesus told (Luke16: 19 – 31), the rich man was fully conscious of his torment and punishment. What’s more is that, according to Jesus, this punishment is for eternity (Matthew 25: 46).

The Bible says of those who die without Jesus in 2 Thessalonians 1: 9 ‘They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power.’  God is the source of everything good therefore hell without God must be the absence of all things good – no love, no community, no fellowship, no friendship. Misery loves company but hell will be misery alone. Hell will be a place of ‘utter inactivity and insignificance – an eternal non-life of regret’. It will be place of punishment for sins with no relief. That reality should break our hearts.

Some of course, including well meaning Christians, cannot possibly believe that an all-loving God would send anyone to hell. That, with the greatest respect, shows no understanding of either God or ourselves and trying to take the moral high ground with God is total arrogance.

What is incredible is not that God sends anyone to hell – and he doesn’t, they send themselves  – but that God should let any man into heaven.

God is divine, majestic, omniscient, transcendent, pure, spotless and holy. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. Man, aside from God is sinful, rebellious, arrogant, wicked, malicious, envious – in fact everything that God is not.

Why on earth would God have anything to do with his sinful creation? Why would he remedy man’s sin by sending his Son Jesus to die for people like you and me? Because He loves us. There is no other reason that would make any sense. He wants us with him in heaven for eternity. In fact as Randy Alcorn says in his definite book Heaven, ‘Consider the wonder of it. God determined that he would rather go to hell on our behalf than live in heaven without us.’

So Jesus holds out this wonderful promise of eternal life and when we accept it, acknowledging that we are sinners in need of a Saviour and asking God to forgive us our sins, he not only takes away our sins but he transforms us into the likeness of His Son. We become glorious (2 Corinthians 3: 18 and Philippians 3: 21).

You see hell is where mankind is going unless they take hold of God’s amazing gift of eternal life in heaven with him. As Christians we need to find ways to again express the reality of heaven and hell to a generation with a high level of entitlement for whom the very idea of going to hell is a complete antithesis.

Perhaps we need a glimpse of the eternal torment and punishment of hell to make us more effective in reaching out to a lost and broken world.  Teresa of Avila was still traumatised years later after her glimpse of hell. In the past, people were frightened into the Kingdom. Now maybe we need to love people with a love so strong, so powerful, so transforming, so kind and so gracious that people clamour to know the God who loves us so they too can know him.

Hell is real and it needs to become real and dreadful to Christians and non believers alike. Let no one be able to say, like the rich man in the parable in Luke 16 that they didn’t know. A choice must be made and Christians being silent on the issue is tantamount to sending someone on a known road to destruction.

God’s gracious offer of eternal life in heaven is open to all – but it has to be spoken about, asked for, and taken.