I was saved when I was a teenager, grew up in a christian home, went to church, went to a christian high school, then on to a christian college, got married and now in the present day I try to walk with the Lord and lead by example for my children. Until recently I have never had anyone within the circle of individuals that I knew question my beliefs. This changed a few months ago when two of my friends told me how they believed. One denied the existence of God, and the other denied the existence of hell. In a book I have been reading titled “And the Angles were Silent,” a statement was made that helps me better articulate the thoughts I have about one of my friends statements.
“We are free either to love God or not. He invites us to love him. He urges us to love him. He came that we might love him. But, in the end, the choice is yours and mine. To take that choice from each of us, for him to force us to love him, would be less than love.
God explains the benefits, outlines the promises, and articulates very clearly the consequences. And then, in the end he leaves the choice to us.
Hell was not prepared for people. Hell “was prepared for the devil and his angels.” For a person to go to hell, then is for a person to go against God’s intended destiny. “God had not destined us to the terrors of judgement, but to the full attainment of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Hell is man’s choice not God’s choice.
Consider, then, this explanation of hell: Hell is the chosen place of the person who loves self more that God, who loves sin more than his Saviour, who loves this world more than God’s world. Judgement is that moment when God looks at the rebellious and says, Your choice will be honored.”
To reject the dualistic outcome of history and say there is no hell leaves gaping holes in any banner of a just God. To say that there is no hell is to say that God condones the rebellious, unrepentant heart. To say there is no hell is to portray God with eyes blind to the hunger and evil in the world. To say that there is no hell is to say that God doesn’t care that people are beaten and massacred, that he doesn’t care that women are raped or families wrecked. To say that there is no hell is to say God has no justice, no sense of right and wrong, and eventually to say God has no love. For true love hates what is evil.
Hell is the ultimate expression of a just creator.”
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