by Bohdan Rewko (Bo of T.O.)

Created on: April 28, 2008

Some say God is love, so they maintain there cannot be a hell for this reason. Some say hell is here on earth and that people are the ones who create it. Yet others say hell is simply separation from God and that this in itself will be torment enough for those who end up there. Whatever the rationalization, people over the centuries have continued to do this because the sting of death is very real and deep inside everyone intuitively knows a day of reckoning awaits.

The Bible describes hell as a Lake of fire and brimstone. In Revelation 20 it says that the devil who deceived the nations will be thrown into this lake and will be tormented day and night forever and ever. It also says that anyone whose name is not found written in the book of life will be thrown into the lake of fire.

There are three words within the Bible commonly associated with hell. These are Sheol, Hades, and Gehenna. Sheol's definition is rooted in a deep hollow, suggestive in cosmology of a "black hole". Gehenna describes a seething smelly garbage dump. Meanwhile, Hades, from the classical perception of death, is mentioned in Revelation as a place that will eventually be cast into the lake of fire along with death.

All references in the Bible point to a hell that is real and eternal. It is a place most people want to banish to the farthest corner of their mind and euphemize with humor or rationalize as nonexistent. But we all know that it is real and needs to be. If it were not, mankind would lose their fear of God and that would be tragic, not for His sake but for ours.

Think about it. We all know that evil is very real and ultimately needs to be dealt with. We also know that God is just and that justice will ultimately prevail. But how can there be justice if there is no punishment for evil? There is no way of getting around it. God is love and provides a means of escape from death and judgment through His Son Christ, but justice will prevail and hell will follow.

The Bible says that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. The fact that much of the world has lost its fear of God is indeed tragic because people are setting themselves up for the worst imaginable fate: Judgment and Hell. We need to fear God and we need to fear hell. We cannot avoid either one forever.

Let's be real. People do not fear death because of the unknown. They fear it because they know they are rejecting God's one lifeline that enables them to pass from death into life. Despite the rationalizing, posturing and protestations no one will outwit God on Judgment Day.

Thank God for Jesus who paid the price and died on a cross in our place so that we do not have to. He did this to restore our original relationship with Him, which is what we can have when we believe and put our trust in Him. This is what Christianity is all about. For those who have taken up the call to follow Jesus, they have discovered that there is a wonderful joy that comes in being released from sin and its accompanying fear of hell. The peace it brings is also beyond comprehension.

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