Sunday, March 8, 2009

Question #6: How and why is there hell?

6. How and why is there hell?

Hell was originally created for angels (like Satan) who rebelled against God. God says He will one day send these to eternal punishment there. But sadly, it will also be a place of punishment for people who reject God’s offer of salvation, choosing to live for themselves instead of their Maker. There are a number of folks who believe in heaven, but don’t believe in hell, but this is just wishful thinking on their part. How do we know there’s a heaven? Because the Bible tells us about it. But the Bible also tells us about hell, so it is just as real.

The clincher for me is this: Jesus believed in hell (Matt. 10:28; Mark 9:45; Luke 16:19-31), and so did his followers (Paul, James, John, etc.)(2 Thess. 1:8-9; James 3:6; 2 Pet. 2:4,9; Jude 1:7). If you’re going to claim that Jesus didn’t know what He was talking about when He mentions hell, well…you might as well throw out heaven and everything else in the Bible, right? But we dare not throw anything out. As terrible as it is to think about eternal punishment, it’s a reality. And that’s why we are so grateful to be saved (after all, that’s what we’re being “saved” from).

Tomorrow's question: What about out-of-body experiences?

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