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If you love someone, tell them
they're going to hell
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Love, true love. Hell, its true.
While many people sit around and wonder why a loving God would
send people to hell; I wonder why we - for an obvious lack of love
- will allow them.
In the 18th century there was a preacher named Jonathon Edwards
who made popular the "hell-fire and brimstone" message.
His most famous. sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry
God," still trouble those who read it. The reason this message
was so popular was because it scared the hell out of people. Some
scholars say nearly one million people came to Christ out of a fear
of hell.
Were they scared into salvation? You bet. Did they come to Christ
for the wrong reason? Maybe, but they came to Christ and now they
are with Christ. If you want to talk about motivation that s fine,
if you want to talk about results talk about hell.
Hell. Jesus the Christ said tbat hell was a literal place. He
described it as a place where the fire was not quenched and the
worm did not die. He said that He was the lamb that would take away
the sins of the whole world. If any man would receive Him and His
sacrifice then they would become His, and spend eternity with Him
in Heaven.
He said bluntly, that if a man did not receive Him, he would
be cast into the lake of fire. Jesus is love, and He proved it by
His actions, and compassion. He is also truth, and He proved this
by never being wrong. And if He is never wrong (and He never is)
then there is a hell, it is eternal, it has no AC, and it s a hell
of a place - I don t suggest you find out the hard way.
I have struggled with the concept of hell. Is it a real place,
or was Jesus just being metaphorical?
I have struggled with why God would send people there. Why not
just burn them up like the Jehovah s Witnesses, Muslims and Mormons
believe.
I have struggled with God s disinterest in the destination of
the lost. Why not make it easier to find Jesus? Why not make it
obvious that Jesus is the son of God and that God is real? Why not
take the responsibility to tell the world the Good News away from
the Church (they obviously don t think its that good) and do it
Himself? I wish He would. I wish... I wish there wasn t a hell.
But there is. And though I may still struggle with it, I cannot
use these struggles as an excuse not to tell people about hell.
If I do, then God have mercy on my soul, because when I realize
the lives that have been lost forever because of me, I sure won
t.
The biggest problem with the concept of hell in our society today
is that it is not taken seriously. This began when i became fashionable
in the Church to tall about God s grace, love and all of the things
He can do for us; while the teaching abou Jesus saving-our-worthless-hides-from-dying-for-us-on-the-cross
was largely forgotten.
While the motives for changing the gospel m a salvation history
to a self-improvement manual were noble they have had disastrous
effects. No one takes hell seriously, and when they do, in hell,
it will be too late.
Take for instance, the following metaphor. Try balancing on a
wooden beam while it is firmly planted on the ground. Do tricks.
Walk with your eyes closed. If you are coordinated (I don t suggest
any guys try this), try doing a somersault. Will you fall off? Maybe,
maybe not. It doesn t really matter because there are no consequences.
Now, take this same beam and stabilize it 100 feet up in the
air. Without a harness or safety device of any kind try doing the
same things. Will you do the same tricks? Will you even move? Or
will ou kneel down, wrap your arms around that beam and wait for
your salvation?
What if you fall off? Well, now falling off will have very serious
consequences.
My contention is that people are on this beam 100 feet above
the eternal flames of hell, but they believe they are safely on
the ground. They balance, they sway, they lean, they flip, they
curse, they drink, they go to chapel, they sleep around, they eat
in Marriott, they live life like there were no consequences. If
only they realized their true condition. I would suspect that there
would be many a bended knee, a lot of clinging arms, and more prayers
for salvation.
Having said this, I must warn those who use hell (i.e. "you
re going to hell, you perverts!!") to shock and offend people
that don't see the world as they do, While I am not bashing the
men shouting on the street corners (I secretly envy the zealousness
of these bannermen), the message of hell must be tempered with the
love of Christ. If the love of Christ doesn t envelope all that
we say and do, our words will offend those who hear it. Now, don
t be mistaken. Christ Himself said that He would be an offense to
man, and that people would be offended by His Gospel. But if someone
is to get offended, let it be because of the gospel of Christ, and
not because you're obnoxious.
It is hard for me to write this article. I have tried, over the
three years that I have written for The Oracle, to be genuine ("just
keepin it real"), I don t pretend to be better. Last week s
article on Faithless Phil could not have been more blatant. I mainly
write to myself. Sometimes I listen, sometimes I make fun of myself,
sometimes I write myself off as hopeless, but I never take what
I write as condemning, and I hope no one else does.
When I talk about telling-people they are going to hell... Can
we talk? I don t tell my friends they are going to hell. My friends,
if I tell them about hell, I ll have to start living like a follower
of Christ in every area. My brother-in-law, if I told him he was
going to hell, do you know what kind of trouble I d be in with my
sister? My relatives, they actually like me, do I want to lose that?
I can t answer these questions. I will say that if I loved them
- really loved them - then I would. I would risk their rejection.
I would change my life to match my message. I would endure the ridicule.
I would do it. Will I do it?
Probably not.
If you love someone, tell them they are going to hell.
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