“And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Matthew 25:46
November 4, 2022
Imagine a place where there is nothing but selfishness, total unhappiness, constant unresolved conflict and disorder, constant grudges and revenge, suffocating antagonism toward one another, where everybody is as bad as they can be, where no one is trustworthy, where everyone is arrogant and proud, and where meanness has no restraint. What has just been described is, at best, the suburbs of hell. And add, it’s everlasting. What is described is the absence of any of the fruit of Spirit. Noted theologian, J.I. Packer, tells us what is hard to take but so true: “The sentimental secularism of modern Western culture with its exalted optimism about human nature, its shrunken idea of God, and its skepticism as to whether personal morality really matters—in other words its decay of conscience—makes it hard for Christians to take the reality of hell seriously.” In our more serious moments thoughts of an eternal hell, where “the wicked will be banished into endless misery” (JIP), is unbearable. And, yet, Jesus spoke graphically about what hell will be like (Matt. 5:22; 25:30; Mk. 9:47,48). The Bible does not gloss over the sobering facts that hell is a definite place, a place of punishment which is eternal. Satan is not there now but he will be and all his demons with him. As we shutter at these terrible thoughts about an eternal hell, we must remember that it is what unbelieving human beings will have chosen. H
A time to pray: “O Sovereign Lord over heaven and hell, may your warnings about hell give me a lifetime of thankfulness that it is your grace in Christ that saves us from an eternity of hopelessness.”