Hell, yes. You will live for eternity.

A couple of years back Robert Jeffress of 1st Dallas wrote a book, Hell, Yes! it was regarding the nominal views of hell that have been purported in the press and even in a lot of theological studies these days.  But without Hell what is Heaven other than a place where the good people go who would help some old lady across the street or go buy the bum in the alley some food?  I mean hell is going to be a party and so I'll get over to heaven one of these days in eternity somewhere when the party dies down right?  But hey what do they always say, "its going to be a !$#% of a party!".  Well not the way the Bible lays it out, it is going to be anything but and I would like to say that if you are a Christian reading this that a deeper view of hell will actually inform and reform your personal evangelism.

At night my family and I like to go through a Family Catechism, going through the questions that are posed and then answered.  It is the revised work of a guy named Charles Spurgeon a 19th century preacher in England. 

Question 39 is posed like this:

"What will happen to the wicked at the day of judgment?"

Answer:

"At the day of judgment, the bodies of the wicked will be raised out of their graves, sentenced together with their souls and sent to bear unspeakable torments with the devl and his angels forever in hell."

You can read that over again slowly one more time, not to celebrate it or think of someone who is going and relish it but to feel the tortorous monstrosity that will be hell.  Now, if he stopped there that wouldn't be good but of course there is always "back up" to what is answered.  So listen to God's Word...

"And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." Daniel 12:2

"28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment." John 5:28-29

"9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might," 2 Thess. 1:9

"41 “Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." Matthew 25:41

Aptly we end with Jesus' own warning against those who would not prepare themselves for eternity.  As the book of Hebrews says, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" Hebrews 10:31.

So what of you, what will be your eternal home?  Please don't read John 5:29a and say, "Whew, I'm good, I mean I know what evil is and I'm not it."  But how are you defining "evil" there?  This is where hell gets more personal, because as you look down the corridors of history you see only One that did no evil, Jesus Christ.  What John is saying there in the preview of the end, when all known things will come to an end and everyone will give an account, is that there is only one way to be "good" or "good enough" to measure God's exacting standard, and it isn't by what you do.  What do I mean?  I mean that your own righteousness wouldn't measure up to God and it never could, only God could bring it to us and the way that he has done that is through his Son, Jesus Christ.

Please, if you care for your soul, read through those verses again and consider eternity without God, without hope.

Your boasting friend,

Tim 

Cape Town 2010

I love to see that the Body of Christ is moving in directions that would bring about the proclamation of the gospel to all the nations.  To that end this video was a great sense of the hope that will be at Cape Town 2010.  May God use it to lift up the cross of Christ and bring many to himself.

(HT:desiringgod)