After death, what is man’s future condition? Man has an instinctive desire for happiness, along with a fearful dread of misery.
Hell is a very serious topic. Many laugh at jokes told about hell. There are jokes and cartoons, about the devil in a red suit, with horns, a pointed tail, and holding a pitchfork.
There are some who do not believe in the reality of hell. But the same Bible that teaches about heaven also teaches us about hell. There is a hell just as surely as there is a heaven. What we know about hell comes mostly from the teaching of Christ. Jesus knew hell existed and taught its reality clearly, plainly, and emphatically. Did the Son of God lie about hell?
Hell is an unpopular doctrine. In fact, it is probably the least discussed of all Bible subjects. The Bible depicts it as a horrible place. Jesus says to the sinner that he “shall be in danger of hell fire”(Matt.5:22). John the baptizer called it “unquenchable fire”(Matt.3:10-12).
In Matt. 25:31- 46, Jesus relates to us a lesson concerning his second coming and judgment. He teaches us that at his coming all nations shall be gathered before him and that he shall separate them one from another as a shepherd would separate sheep from goats. The unrighteous and disobedient, here represented as goats. Christ will place them on his left hand. The righteous and obedient, here represented as sheep and Christ will set them on his right hand. Now note the different destinies of each. "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: ...And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." This is the awful fate of those who reject Christ and his gospel, those who fail to live the Christian life. Jesus speaks of these as being “cast into everlasting fire,” or “into hell fire”(Matt 18:8-9). Jesus speaks of the sinners as those who, “go into hell, into fire that never shall be quenched” (Mark 9:43).
The words everlasting and eternal are taken from the same Greek word aionion, and is declared to be without end. When we burn ourselves we look to the time it quits burning. Think about the fact that if we lose our soul, the burning will be without end.
The day Christ returns will be unexpected, "as a thief in the night in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be..." (II Pet. 3:8-13; I Thes. 5:1-3). “Whosoever not found written in the book of life, was cast into the lake of fire” (Rev.20:15). And "in flaming fire," Christ will take "vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord..."(II Thes. 1:7-9).
Paul wrote, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (II Cor. 5:10). Then Jesus said, “He that rejecteth me, and receive not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12:48). Just as sure as there is a heaven there is hell. To deny that fact is to reject Christ.
"If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God" (I Pet. 4:11).
Don H. Noblin
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