Last Friday, we had a discussion about hell. As you know, Hell is a topic that will raise a few eyebrows. We all know that hell is a place of suffering - fire, sulphur, brimstone and all that. In this day and age, it is almost a social taboo to talk about hell. Wealth and health would be a more seductive alternative than hell. Churches all over would rather embrace the "how to get rich with God" teachings than to talk about "rejecting God and go to hell" warning. I had mischievously labeled today's grace-is-a-licence-to-do-as-thou-pleases indoctrination and the Jesus-wants-you-to-be-very-rich mantra as "Casino Christianity".
The danger of Casino Christianity is that of dethronement. When preachers take upon themselves to redefine Christianity based on personal enrichment, indulgence and convenience rather than obedience, sacrifices and humility, God takes second place in the hearts of the congregants. An imbalance emphasis on wealth, material possessions and riches as promises of God will definitely attract crowds, lots of them, but not personal conviction. Put it another way, when the bait of the gospel is "getting rich with God", the catch would expectedly be overwhelming. But a gospel of this sort is shallow and superficial. The peril of associating the gospel with self-interest, personal convenience and well-being is that we turn God into a genie in a lamp rather than the savior of our souls. By the same token, we have turned our creator into a jackpot machine ready to dispense with chips at one's lucky pull of the one-arm-bandit.
You have heard the gospel hymn "Amazing Grace", "I once was lost but now am found." Casino Christianity sings to a different tune called "Amazing Disgrace", "I once was found but now am lost." There is therefore nothing on offer from Casino Christianity except temporary pleasure, false hope and blind faith.
So, beloved, do not practise selective believing. The gospel has two sides. The wealth and the sacrifices. The joy and the broken heartedness. The victory and the suffering. The answered prayer and the trust and obey. The blessed assurance and the carrying of the cross. The heaven and the hell. Both sides require equal emphasis lest we stunt our spiritual growth and degenerate into Christians defined by personal convenience and enrichment - that is, Christians looking for a quick fix, quick buck or quick medicate.
Let's go back to hell. In my view, Hell is a necessary evil. It is necessary because justice demands it. Our God is a God of love and justice. And justice is not just a concept of putting things right, it is also about punishment or paying the price. By the same reasoning that a convicted felon is sent to jail or rehab for his crime, men and women who reject God are correspondingly destined for hell as a place of eternal punishment.
Of course, the skeptics have raised hell about the disproportionality of the punishment of hell. While a man convicted of 1st degree murder goes to prison for life, it is extremely unfair that a person who merely rejects God or chooses to disbelieve Him ends up in a place of eternal suffering with no hope of a second redemption. The basis of this criticism is that God should not be so arbitrary about those who are going to hell and those who are not going to hell. He should consider the circumstances and decide on a case-by-case basis. Let me give you some examples.
Take a little girl of below the age of maturity. She is born with a critical, life-shortening illness. Fate dealt her the final blow at age eight when she succumbs to her illness and dies without the opportunity of listening to the gospel. What should God do in such a situation? Imagine arbitrarily sentencing this little poor girl to eternal condemnation without considering her rather exceptional circumstances. It is times like these that being God is more difficult than being the American President-elect confronting the current financial crisis.
How about stillborn babies? How about aborigines living in some remote parts of the world, untouched by the diffusion of the gospel, dying as unsaved souls? How about the mentally challenged who are unable to comprehend the message of Jesus? How about those who live in ultra-conservative Islamic states who are kept by their culture, government and family from ever being exposed to the gospel? Surely, considering these situations, God would have to make some exceptions to the divine concession of John 3:16. Is there another way to avoid the fiery flame of hell?
The conventional answer is no. There is no exception to the rule. Jesus meant it fully when He said He is the way, the light and the truth. And the only way to prevent going to hell is to accept Him as lord and savior. Supporters of this view, who constitute the majority of Christendom, mitigate its seemingly rigid and uncompromising stand by saying that just as much as God is firm on the position that hell is reserved for those who reject Him, He is equally, if not more, gracious in bestowing the passage of heaven by making it an almost effortless, costless and painless exercise of one's choice. Choosing God is as easy as going to the election booth. It is an informed choice based on personal autonomy or free will. It is as easy as reciting the alphabet. Therefore, saying yes to Jesus is the only ticket to heaven.
But saying yes to Jesus requires one to at least know Him and His promises, right? How does God expect the innocently ignorant to say yes to Jesus without knowing that He exists and that He had promised eternal life to all who believe Him?
So, let me be as unconventional on this as I can. My view, and only my view, is that God is not blind to the exceptional circumstances in every case at hand. Every soul that dies and comes before Him will be dealt with carefully, fairly and respectfully. This is the basic judicial temperament of an earthly judge and I would expect no less from God. The stillborn, the innocently ignorant and the mentally challenged will have their day before the judgment seat. I believe that the day of judgment will not be one that is black-and-white, cut-and-dry or open-and-shut.
By this, I mean that God will dispense with mercy and justice in the very same way He had dispensed with them by sending Jesus to this world to redeem us two thousand years ago. God is wise in His creation, in His redemption and, I believe, in His judgment. So, I believe that justice will be tempered with mercy. God once told Moses that he will show mercy to whomever he shows mercy. The Bible also asks, "Will not the Judge of the earth do right?" (Gen 8:25) This implies that God will do what is right to all in a way that is fair, creative and beyond reproach.
With this in mind, I believe that at the conclusion of judgment day, the words of Ronald Nash , author of Is Jesus the Only Savior?, would resonates in the hearts of all those who had received their judgment, "When God is finished dealing with all of us, none will be able to complain that they were treated unfairly."
Earlier I say that hell is a necessary evil. Having dealt with the necessity of hell, let me deal with hell as a place of evil and of conscious eternal suffering. The Bible describes hell as a lake of fire (Rev. 20:14). Other characteristics of hell are that it is a place of punishment, a place of destruction and a place of banishment. The lost are eternally separated from God and His presence by this place called hell. As far as the Bible goes, this is as much as we know about hell with regards to its physicality and nature. Except for Jesus and some prophetic visions, none of the bible characters have been to hell. Neither have they given a detailed account of hell in the Bible. So, our knowledge of hell as a physical place is limited. Well, it is limited unless you are Mary K Baxter, author of A Divine Revelation of Hell: Time is running out!
Mary Baxter claims she had been to hell sometime in March 1976. It was an experience that changed her life completely. In short, she wrote that Jesus visited her at her home and gave her a tour of hell. The purpose of the tour was to tell the world that hell is real. In hell, she saw enormous suffering that were so depressing that she cried non-stop. She even begged Jesus to stop the untold sufferings but Jesus was restraint to act.
She describes hell as a physical place with different sections. At the start of her book, Mary wrote that she saw large funnels in the sky, spinning in suspended animation. These funnels were the gateways of hell. As Mary entered one of them, she noticed that the walls of the funnel were full of creepy crawlies and slithering serpents. Amidst the scream, the stench and the howling, she accompanied Jesus to the left and right legs of hell. There, she saw many pits like trenches on the ground. In each pit, there stood a soul with burnt and decayed flesh hanging from its body. These souls cried out to Jesus as he approached them and asked for a second chance but Jesus relented not.
Then, Jesus took Mary to the belly of hell which, according to her, was shaped like a body. As she entered the belly of hell, she saw many coffins. Surrounding each coffin is a group of 12 demons with spears. Predictably, inside the coffin lies a soul and the demons were piercing the soul with their spears, tormenting it with no mercy. Mary wrote that these coffins were reserved for preachers who professed God with their lips but sin against Him in their heart.
Walking forward into the belly of hell, Mary saw many cell blocks and each of these cells holds a prisoner. These prisoners were former witches, soothsayers and mediums. Jesus also brought Mary to the heart of hell and to a place called the outer darkness. Needless to say, these places were characterized by torment, anguish and heartrending screams. Accordingly to Mary, there was also a fun center whereby souls, who were surrounded by cheering demons, were torn to pieces by other demons.
So, whether you believe the above account or not, as a Christian, hell as well as heaven are real places. Because we are spirit beings, and our spirits live on long after physical death, our ultimate destination or residing eternal home is either of these places. So, always keep watch and pray that your heart does not fall prey to the two sins that dog every Christians: pride and rebellion. For Jesus did say that not all who call upon Him will be saved. On this somber note, I shall end here.
Have a fun, enjoyable and watchful weekend.
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