It Scares People.
Have you heard that? Probably more than once, right?
However, if preaching the fullness of the Gospel -including heaven and hell- scares people, imagine what it would be for those same people, to enter hell and know that there will be no way out!
That is the real scare!
I had a dream. And it actually moved me into preaching more about hell. Yes, it did! Ever since that dream, i have this recurrent vision in my mind that makes me cry.
I see faces. I see desperation. I see people entering hell. I imagine loved ones -my kids, relatives, friends- who could be in that moment if they did not believe in Jesus. For the Bible is clear “He who does not believe is already condemned”.
Imagine that man or woman, coming into the realization that that will be their place for all eternity. In those first moments, and forever after, it won’t matter what anyone said about the impossibility of hell, and how God would never allow anyone to go into such place, and whatever else was said.
I imagine that person, not a group, not a crowd, that lone person, desperately looking around to find a familiar face, someone who loved them, someone who preached to them, and might have pushed them to believe. I imagine that lone person -a friend, a relative, a son, a daughter, a mother, a father …- trying to find that familiar face that desperately tried to get them to avoid the certainty of hell.
But then again, those who so desperately tried to get them to believe, will not be there, for they will be in the presence of God.
I don’t know if hell will be literal fire, or if it would be burning with freezing cold, or total darkness. I don’t know. But what makes me cry is thinking of the loneliness of every person entering that awful place.
I can in my mind, see the desperation. No friendly face. No one to offer respite. No one to offer any more hope.
You can tell me I am wrong. You can tell me I should not use scary tactics to bring people to believe in Jesus.
But I tell you, as I said a moment ago: I’d rather scare people while still on this side of eternity, and not when the real scare will kick in, with no hope for all eternity.
Hebrews 10 speaks about the reassuring expectations of faith, and it also speaks in verse 27 about the “horrendous expectations of judgement and fire”. If one part is true, so it is the other part. The Bible is not half and half.
Yes, God is love, and in His love He provided for our salvation. He sent Jesus, who paid the most gruesome price for it. On the cross He not only suffered physically or emotionally: Jesus literally carried our sins, the sins of mankind. If God in HIs love considered it necessary to provide salvation, then it must be true that there is a condemnation for those who do not believe.
Hell is real. I believe in Jesus. I believe the Bible. All of it. And I pray that nobody would be blinded by the wisdom of this world that tries to deny what God had said.
Eternity awaits. Heaven is real. And so is hell.
JC