The Reality of Hell

I began this book many months ago, hoping to have it completed by now, but I have just gotten either lazy or side tracked preparing two other manuscripts for publication.  Probably both.  Perhaps it is best that I have not finished as yet, for I can now express to a greater degree than before my key reason for writing this book.  It has become more focused in my mind.

Today is August 24, 2010.  Although I did not hear about this event until just yesterday (either the news has not covered it adequately or I have just not heard it when it was reported or seen it on the web), it occurred some 18 or 19 days ago.  I am referring to the 33 Chilean miners who have been trapped a half mile underground in an area of approximately 500 square feet. 

As of this writing, they have all survived and are seemingly in sufficient enough spirits that they can sing their national anthem.  Compassionate people around the world rejoiced with Chile and the families involved when a camera was lowered through an air vent into the room and faces were seen, some even smiling.

To the rest of the world, or at least to me, it is hard to envision the unfathomable horror of the situation of those 33 men.  They are stranded underground, in a small area estimated to be about 500 square feet, which is much too small for all of them to have any space to themselves.  They have inadequate food, water, air and ventilation and must endure temperature of approximately 90 degrees.  They have absolutely no way to escape.  They are surrounded by immeasurable weight of rock in all directions.  Very little or no light.  It is a suffocating, terrifying, helpless and perhaps hopeless, mind numbing experience.  Death, it would seem, is to be preferred over their current circumstances.  (On February 13, 2011, 60 Minutes reported that they all indeed deliberated on mass suicide and cannibalism).  And what they do not know as of this writing is that they may be imprisoned there for up to another four months before a rescue shaft can be drilled in order to haul them out, one at a time, upwards through a two foot diameter for a half a mile that may take up to three hours per person.

I pause to ask a question to all readers.  Would any of you want to experience that?  Would any of you choose to experience that dreadful, horrifying, frightening beyond all comprehension ordeal?  Would any of you choose to be literally buried alive for up to five months?  Even for a month?  A week?  A day?  An hour?  I didn’t think so.  Nor would I.  No one who I know would willing put themselves in the position of undergoing such agonizing, excruciating horror.

Yet, I dare say that some of you who are reading these words right now are placing yourself in a far worse position than the one being experienced by those 33 miners.  What can be worse than being buried alive under millions of tons of rocks a half a mile down into the earth, struggling to breathe properly and to remain calm when the reality of your situation cries out in utter, uncontrollable panic that desires freedom from what could be your coffin?

Is there something far worse than this dark, crowded, hot, smelly, claustrophobic environment that is attempting to drain the very life from them?  The answer is yes.  It is the eternal punishment of those who reject the gospel of Jesus Christ.  That place is called hell and it is pictured by this situation in Chile.  Those buried miners are on vacation compared to those who have already entered the fires of hell and those who will one day be there.  Because we do not hear screaming voices from hell or see the actual torment of hell, and because it is hidden from our view, because it is in the realm of what lies beyond this life, of death, people tend to cast aside any thoughts of hell.  So many people, in fact, most of the world’s population, dismiss it as either a myth or something that is not nearly as bad as what those “religious fanatics” make it out to be.  Many people I have personally spoken with think it is a joke or a place of laughing and playing cards and drinking beer around the fire.  If you are one of those, do you think those miners are laughing and joking about their situation?  Neither are those in hell.  And neither will those who think it is a joke or a myth now.  If we could but lift the veil that conceals that awful place from our view for only five minutes and see the agonies of those in hell, then we would never forget the sight. Our flesh would tremble, our hair would stand on end, and our souls would be paralyzed with horror. Your eternal destiny is the most serious consideration you can occupy your mind with.  It is real.  Man has no say in whether or not hell is real, but man can choose not to go there.

Because of the reality of our future judgment, of the “balancing of our books”, of an accounting of our life on earth, it is incumbent upon every person to consider the gravity of the stewardship of life.  It is not to be taken lightly or ignored or rejected as false.  It may be that those miners thought that being trapped only happens to others, not them.  But it happened to them without warning.  They were not prepared for the collapse within their work space. 

One day a frightening reality will instantaneously set in upon those who scorn the blessed gospel of Jesus Christ.  All who reject, refuse, scorn, neglect, or otherwise ignore the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on Calvary for their sins will face the eternal wrath of God.  Rightfully so.  They may think it cannot happen to them because they have chosen to consciously ignore it, to pretend it does not exist.  But when that reality occurs - not if it does, but when it does - their fate will be sealed.  There will be no escape from their prison.  It will be like the situation of the miners in many respects, but it will also be unlike the miners’ entrapment because there will be no contact with the “upper world.”  There will be no contact with others within the dark, confining, bottomless pit, the lake that burns with fire.  There will be total isolation forever, from all other beings, but most importantly, separation from God.  They will experience intense emotional suffering, far worse than that of the miners.  Their minds will be filled with unimaginable horror and agony, far worse than anyone can imagine.  They will be screaming for deliverance, for release from the eternal chains that bind them.  They will endure unbearable, tortuous pain from the fire and from their own memory of their sin and their rejection of truth.  They will know and be constantly aware that they are there because of their refusal to bow the knee to Jesus and to confess Him as Lord, even when they knew the truth of who Jesus is and His reason for living among us.  They will be reminded throughout eternity that they are there because they chose to live life their own way rather than by the decrees of God’s Holy Word, because they chose temporary pleasure over eternal joy.  They will agonize eternally with the knowledge that they are there because their sensual, hedonistic, materialistic, self-pleasing and self-promoting idols were more important to them than was the God of creation and the God of salvation.  They deliberately chose to be lord of their own lives rather than to submit to the Lordship of Jesus.  This knowledge will only serve to increasingly terrify them and torment them through the eons of an everlasting hell.  Their suffering never lets up; it only gets more intense.  Forever.

The miners may be rescued, and as of this writing, it is my prayer that they will be.  May God be merciful to them and to their families.  But, no amount of prayer will release one soul from hell once they have entered it.