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Reformed.Faithweb.com
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Jesus Christ said: "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" |
The Beauty of Hell
Hell is described, by Jesus Christ, as a terrible place of eternal conscious torment in body and soul for ever. It is descibed by Christ as:
"hell fire" Matthew 5:22, Mark 9:47
"where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Mark 9:4
and by the Apostle Paul as:
"everlasting destruction" 2 Thessalonians 1:9.
Hell is therefore altogether a terrible place which no man, once there, can escape from, for ever.
The problem is that no-one today believes it exists, despite the fact that Jesus Christ talks about it more than anyone else in the Bible. It is no good doing what the modern translations of the Bible tend to do and deliberately changing the word "hell" to "the grave" or "Sheol" or something else which tries to hide the terribleness of the place, because whereas in some places it may be possible to do this without altering the meaning of the passage, there are plenty of other passages where one cannot get away from the torment which takes place there.
No-one today likes talking about hell. Yet it is clearly taught by Christ as a real place where people go. The reason that no-one talks about hell these days is that they cannot believe that anyone could possibly deserve to go there. They might even believe that people should be punished for a while, but in the end everyone will be saved. But this is not what Christ teaches. Indeed he teaches us that we should fear hell, and the thought of going there:
"And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." Matthew 5:22,23.
"And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Matthew 10:28.
"And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Mark 9:43-48.
"But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him." Luke 12:5.
God casts people into hell for ever. This is the clear teaching of Jesus. But isn't that a bit extreme, surely none of us deserve to be punished for ever, even Adolf Hitler should be relieved of that after a long time, shouldn't he? And I'm nowhere near as bad as he was. The problem with that attitude is that the person saying it thinks he knows better than God.
If we believe that:
"The LORD is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works." Psalm 145:17,
and we still turn around and say that he is unfair to send people to a place of torment for ever, then we are complaining against God, who is perfect. The real problem is not that God is not perfect, but that we have such a high view of ourselves.
If God says that we deserve hell for ever, then we should not argue. If we argue, we are exalting ourselves above measure. Our very nature is corrupt to the bottom of our souls. None of us can do good:
"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one." Psalm 14:1-3.
"And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Genesis 6:5.
But you may wish to argue that you are not as bad as Adolf Hitler. But this is the wrong way of arguing. You take one of the worst examples of men and compare yourself with him! It is pretty obvious that not many people are worse than he was! The thing is that we should compare ourselves with God's commandments.
"But," I hear you say, "I don't steal, I don't kill, and I don't commit adultery, I don't lie..." Well, I have to say two things about that. First of all, Jesus said that it is not just the outward act, it is the thought that is also sin. Read Matthew chapters 5 and 6 to see that. I only have to say the phrase "dirty thought" and you have already had one! You can deny to me and to anyone else that you have, and I don't want to know in any case, but you would be really stupid to deny to yourself that this is true.
Secondly, yes, you may keep the last six of the ten commandments outwardly, in fact most people do, simply because it is useful to society for us to do so. Most people want to live in a society where they don't get killed, their property stolen, people lying to them etc., so it is to most peoples advantage to keep these laws. However, what about the first four commandments? Most people in today's society think it crazy to bother about working on a "Sunday". What does it matter? its only another day. Indeed many people who call themselves "Christians" would argue that it doesn't matter which day you keep "special" to God, so long as it is only one of them per week. People think that anyone who campaigns for all shops to shut on a "Sunday" is crazy, yet they are the first ones up in alms when shops start opening on "Christmas Day," a day never commanded by God to be worshipped at all! And what about the second Commandment? Most "Christians" think that some people are absolutely crazy when they say that it a sin to sing hymns in church. All I have to say to them is, find me from scripture where anything other than the paslms are to be sung in the public worship of God, and I will sing hymns gladly. Hymn singing has only come into the church in a big way over the last 200 years or so. Nearly everyone sung psalms in the church before that. Yet because our cosy little church culture today likes its hymns and doesn't want to get rid of them, it is we that are thought of as crazy because we try our best to keep the second commandment. And what about the first Commandment? Most people today believe that everyone should be free to follow the religion of their choice, and that all religions lead to God anyway. The First Commandment is distinctly against this. There is only One, Living and True God with whom we will have to do, and he is the Christian God.
These are only three examples of the first four commandments not being kept by the majority of people, even those in the church who call themsleves "Christians".
We can be flippant with God, we can be "happy" and jump up and down full of joy and bubble and bounce, calling ourselves "Christians" and saying we're "saved" as much as we like, but I heard a Jewish Sodomite full of bubble and joy in his voice, say on the radio: "It's great to be alive, isn't it!" I also heard a muslim on the radio say, "Of course, the greatest thing about God is his forgiveness." So having a spring in one's step and believing in a God who forgives everybody everything so that the law doesn't matter any more, are not, as many people in the churches think, Christianity in any way.
Hell is a beautiful place. It is a place of perfect punishment. If it was too much punishment or too little punishment, then God would indeed be a cruel, unjust monster. As it is, it is the perfect punishment for the total depravity of the human heart.
We are all totally depraved and deserve eternal conscious torment in body and soul in hell fire forever. Modern psychology tells us exactly the opposite. We are told to have a sense of self-acceptance, self-esteem, self-worth and so on. Nothing could be further from the truth. Reality is exactly the opposite and we are deceiving ourselves if we follow the "positive thinking" psychologists of today. Truth and reality is what we will have to face up to eventually and we should not try to kid ourselves otherwise. If we think that the doctrine of total human depravity is not true, we exalt ourselves above measure and will find ourselves in just the place Christ warns us to flee from with all our might.
Believe the doctrine of total depravity, then repent and turn to Christ. He:
"shall save his people from their sins." Matthew 1:21,
and although we deserve hell, we will be saved from it.
Cry out for mercy,
"Seek ye the LORD, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the LORD'S anger." Zephaniah 2:3.