We react strongly to the word “hell.” At least I know I do. A few months ago I was waiting in line to pay for my family’s breakfast at a local pancake house. The tall, white-haired man ahead of me in line leaned forward toward the attractive young hostess behind the counter and said in a stage whisper, “If you wear that, you’re going straight to hell!” My jaw froze, my heart raced and I stared intently at the man’s face. What a horrible way to present God! Sure, “the soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:20) is true, but it applied just as much to the elderly man as the hostess. I listened intently and heard him deliver a lewd punch line to what he considered a clever joke and watched the young lady smile broadly as she handed him his change.
So is hell a crude joke or a serious place? God says, “All liars ... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8). That sounds pretty serious to me. Luke 16:19-31 tells a fascinating story about a man in hell. If you’ve never heard it, then read it today. (Don’t have a Bible? Hundreds of websites and thousands of libraries have them. Try bibletruthpublishers.com/library, which gives access to a digital Bible.) At the end of the story, the man says about his living relatives, “If one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.” He argues that if the proof were dramatic enough, everyone would repent. But the answer he receives drives home an uncomfortable truth. “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead” (Luke 16:31). No miracle, no evidence, no clever persuasiveness will convince anyone who rejects what God’s Word says about the reality of hell. God’s Word says there is a hell waiting for unrepentant sinners who refuse His love and mercy. Will you go there when you die, or to heaven?