Last week we looked at what happens when you die and are judged individually by God. Today we’ll look at the destination that no one wants to talk about; or even think about.
This includes the people who had a sneak preview of it through a negative near-death experience.
We know less about these because people don’t like talking about them, even to their loved ones.
These people have reported feeling utterly abandoned, tormented, terrified, and alone. They also saw some super-scary stuff.
And that’s the definition of hell.
Hell is not a place. Nor is heaven, or purgatory.
They’re all states of being. Because of this, you can start experiencing them in this life.
If you’ve ever been intensely miserable and lonely with no end in sight, you’ve had a foretaste of what hell is like.
When you’ve lost the one you loved with all your heart, forever, that’s also hell, right there.
So how did you end up in hell for eternity? Why did you choose this as your destination?
Folks, no one ends up in hell without knowing exactly why and how they got there. That’s what individual judgement by God is about.
God is not a sadist. It’s not Kafka. There are no secrets.
And it’s to do with love. The primary relationship in your life is meant to be you and God. Everything else is meant to be organised around this.
When you read the Scriptures about judgement and punishment, it’s always God saying that he doesn’t know you, or that you don’t know him (Matt 7:21-23, Matt 22:11-13, Matt 25:11-12, 44-45).
Jesus’ strongest words were for people who didn’t recognise who he really was, even when he’d told them over and over.
These people preferred their own version of God to the real one that he was offering.
They liked their relationship with God the way it was. God was kept at a suitable distance, and everyone got on with their lives.
Many of these people “worked for the church” of the time. They had people’s respect and a solid income.
They were smart and educated. They could be relied upon to broker deals with the secular authorities so that the boat wasn’t rocked too often.
On the other hand, the people who recognised and embraced the God of love in Jesus his son were usually weak, suffering, poor, and unimpressive.
They were humble enough to admit when they’d done wrong (Luke 15:1-2; 18:9-14; 19:8-10, 23:42). They knew how badly they needed his hands-on love and mercy.
God has spent your entire life (so far) trying to form a relationship with you—a loving, trusting one.
It’s meant to combine the best bits of every kind of human relationship; father, mother, spouse, lover, brother, sister, best friend.
He wants to wrap you up in love, but also give you complete freedom. When you truly love someone, you cannot and will not force them to be with you.
Everyone who’s ever broken up with someone knows this. Yes, it’s awful, but you are showing the other person true love by respecting their freedom.
How can you spend eternity with someone you don’t know, and don’t especially like?
Obviously if you’ve never heard of Christianity but have tried to live according to what your community and your conscience said was right, then that’s a completely different matter.
But what if you’ve been told about Jesus, or have had opportunities to learn and find out more for yourself? And then—as a thinking adult—dismissed the whole thing?
If you have found God a bore, or cramping your style, or a flying spaghetti monster, or a figment of sick people’s imaginations, how can he have any kind of relationship with you?
There are people out there like this. Their judgement is likely to be a searing experience, because their pride and self-satisfaction will be utterly dismantled.
And there are also people who talk a big game about atheism, but who will repent before death and be swept up into God’s mercy. Hooray!
The bottom line about hell is that it exists. It’s eternal—yes, I mean that.
And it’s necessary because God gave us free will and lets us choose whether to love him or not.
We must allow the possibility of there being people in hell, simply because we all have free will. But we don’t know who these people are.
Try not to be one of them. There are known ways of avoiding hell. Start doing them today.