Going to hell

Over the years, I've had friends and acquaintances express indifference
about heaven and hell and God and faith.

Often the reply is, "yeah, I know I am going to hell and I'm ok with that."

I experience a range of emotion when I hear that response.  I want to scream and shake them, I want to cry and beg them, I want to eloquently argue against them, I want to change them, wake them up to the flaw, the lie, the deceit they have convinced themselves of.

In a recent study of Jesus' last hours before his crucifixion, he pleaded with God to take the cup of wrath, the oncoming separation from God away from him. Then, Jesus would follow it up with, "but not my will, Lord." Let God's will be done.

So I got to thinking, that Jesus, fully human and completely God, with all the power of the universe, with the strength of all knowledge, and the endurance of eternity, if even he didn't want to go to the depths of hell, why would a mere human choose hell?

Hell in the bible is described as the absence of God.
And God is described as love.
So it stands to reason that hell is a place without God and without love.

And isn't love for, the love of, love itself, the value of living?  Really?  When I unpack all that is good and rewarding and inspiring and joy giving and pleasing in my life it's based, rooted, and grounded in love.

So, about hell.

The place without love.

The place without creation; because creation is an expression of God, an extension of his love.

The place without relationship; because human community was developed out of a relational God who desires community.  He's trinity, Father and Son and Holy Spirit.  He willed and established relationship.  A rescue mission for the state of humanity was constructed through Jesus Christ's perfect sacrifice on the cross.

The place without hope.  Humanity; with all it's emotion, doesn't end once eternity begins.  It's not as if pain and joy and hope and peace and dreams and desires and ambitions end because hell begins.  Hell is a place where human expression has no outlet except weeping and gnashing of teeth.  Imagine feeling the desire, the compelling need for love and the only expression is weeping, sobbing, bawling, distress.  Imagine the desire for food and pleasure, and the only expression is weeping, sobbing, bawling, distress.  Imagine a torture so great that the only mission for relief is death and death cannot come, because the truth is hell is a living, eternal death.

I cannot imagine willfully choosing to be ok with going to hell.  If Jesus, in all his might and power and glory, asked that this sentence through hell and death be lifted and yet he choose it so you and I won't have to go there, why on earth and for all of eternity, would you or I choose it?

The point is we don't have to go to hell.
And the awful truth is that some will choose to go there.
And once the eternal decision is made, it cannot be undone.
The rescue plan through Jesus Christ was offered and it was refused.

It's not as if once eternity begins, you and I will continue to live our life in rebellion toward God here on earth.  That time will pass.
Or that we will be worm food.  We have spirit that doesn't go into the ground.
Or that we will reincarnate as a goat. There is no proof, no logic, no evidence of this.

We will be held accountable, the judgement will happen, and fate will be sealed.

So the question is, "Are you going to hell?"