My conviction is Hell is a place where God Is Not. Hell suggests a separation from the Divine. A punishment? No, more a choice: to dwell in the presence of God, or not to. An omnipresent God, by syllogistic argument, must be everywhere in existence at all times. If Hell is indeed a place that exists within existence, then God, therefore, must be there. However, in my view, theology makes the argument that if God be God, He can make up His own damned rules.
Word came during choir rehearsal that the young man had died
in a car crash. And these wails of agony went up, people falling
out in shock and disbelief, mourning this young man, crying out
to God. It got so bad the folk got out of the choir stand and
left, saying they were too disturbed to continue. Some figuring
it would be disrespectful to the young man or his family to
simply continue with the rehearsal as though nothing had
happened. Okay, first we have to separate man’s work from God’s
work. Stacking boxes at Wal-Mart is man’s work. Choir rehearsal
is God’s work. Please, folk, when you hear I’m dead, please
finish your rehearsal. Leaving rehearsal won’t bring me back to
life or bring my loved ones any comfort. The first and best
thing any of us can ever do is to honor God. Second, upon
hearing this story, the first thing I wondered was, of the
people wailing and carrying on, how many of them had shared
Jesus Christ with this young man? You see, if this young man
knew Jesus Christ, what on earth was all that hollering about?
If he did not know Jesus, then the hollering shouldn’t be for
him, shouldn’t be for his family, but should be for us: our
great remorse at having blown it, at having allowed this young
person that was obviously so loved to slip into a Christ-less
eternity.
Watching the Word Network these days, I don’t hear a whole lot
about sin. I hear a lot about money. Not much about sin. And
almost nothing said at all about hell. What they offer most
consistently is not Christ but some book or DVD telling you how
good you are. Well, pal, you’re not good. Somebody ought to love
God enough to tell you that. The Bible says so: you’re not good.
I’m not good. Bishop Phony Bling-Bling isn’t good. None of us
are good. Romans 3:10 says there is none righteous. Not Bishop,
not me, not you.
To believe in God, to truly believe in Him, is to both love and
fear Him. Because, if the Bible be true and God be God, then,
certainly, the consequences of sin are true as well. And this is
something almost nobody talks about anymore: If you do not know
Jesus Christ in the pardoning of your sin, you are on your way
to hell. I know nobody wants to preach that anymore. I know
nobody wants to even believe it anymore. It’s all Prosperity
Doctrine and Happy Feet Doctrine and You Can’t Lose With the
Stuff I Use Doctrine. But this is the truth. Not my truth, God’s
truth. Just as heaven and God are surely real, the terrible
consequences of rejecting God are real also.
To the believers: evangelism isn’t just for evangelists.
Evangelism is our duty. Just as surely as dragging a child out
of a burning building is our moral obligation, telling people
about Jesus Christ is a moral imperative because there are
consequences—to them and to us—if we do not. This thing called
hell. It’s what we deserve. It’s what we’ve earned. It’s not a
punishment, not some bad thing God is “doing” to us. We were
born in sin and shaped in iniquity [Behold, I was shapen in
iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. Psalm 51:5].
Just by being born, we entered a sinful world in a sinful state,
our feet set on a path that leads to eternal damnation.
Which brings us to our topic of the moment…
CONTINUED
