God Of Love, God Of Justice: A Future Heaven, A Future Hell

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.”

? C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

God's works are many in the world and of particular beauty. Yet there is also the proclivity of man toward evil. God allows for free will, which opens the doors to almost any possibility. Which explains why the world is so messed up. Humanity decided to turn from God, and play God.

Life is best lived with God at the center of all things. We can tend to treat God as an auxiliary to our plans and desires. That is not the way it is suppose to be. God should be the very center. If life is the road and we're the car, God should be the engine. If your life is a city, God ought be the center square, the city hall, the centerpiece of all operations.

Too often we, myself included tend to relegate God to errand boy status. Or watcher status. Or perhaps advisor status. Or order taker status. God is much greater than that. He runs the whole show. Our job is to seek out His will, in a very real and practical sense. What is my calling Lord? What do you want me to do with my life? What goals would you have me pursue? These should be our daily questions to our Maker.

He leads us, subtly at times. And more forcefully at other times. A friend of mine told me of how he had been a duplicitous cheat, liar, and raving alcoholic for many years. He told me something peculiar. He said God gave him a vision of hell, which prompted large changes in his life. Normally I would be quite skeptical of such an account. Yet I was surprised and impressed by his simple sincerity. He told me he found himself in total darkness. He tried to blink his eyes, but all he saw was darkness. He told me it wasn't really like he was seeing it, it was like he couldn't see. He tried to look down at his body and saw only blackness. He felt distant. He tried to cry out but he couldn't speak a word. He tried to breathe but their was no air. It was so terrible he was awfully scared, tried to weep, tried to scream, but nothing would come out. Then he came to again. He looked around stunned. And later he came to the conclusion that this had been a vision from God of what hell would be like.

Now we've all heard of the bestselling books and accounts of hell, and people have described seeing demons torturing them and such things. Of course that isn't biblical, demons aren't in any positions of authority in hell, they are simple prisoners of this place, which is a place of the lack of the presence of God. We think of burning fires, red lit tunnels and dark rocks, and devils in red spandex suits, but those things aren't really biblical. What is biblical is that this "hell" is a place of disconnection from God; A place completely outside the sovereign presence of God.

This account got me thinking. And it brought back several memories of mine from before I was saved. I realized that I'd had a similar experience about ten years ago. I had been sitting in my room, and I'm not sure if I had been napping or what, but I had just that kind of experience. Everything was dark, and I couldn't talk, I couldn't scream, I couldn't cry though I desperately wanted to. I felt the agony of this emptiness, of being totally alone. I remember trying to life my hand up to eyes to tree to see. But there was nothing there. I had no hand, just a phantom attempt at movement. It went on for I don't know how long and then I came out of it. I didn't react with a change of heart and life like my friend did, but the experience matched near identically.

It's been on my mind ever since. Let me say immediately that I trust the word of God and the word of God only. Visions, dreams, and experiences like these should be viewed skeptically. But if these experiences do line up with scripture, then they can at least be discussed and taken into account.

It's something to consider. We often don't like talking about hell. Maybe we're afraid that we'll be considered "fear mongers" and so on and so forth. I do believe the love of God and the grace of Christ are primary motivators toward reception of the gospel. But I think equally so is a healthy reverent fear of God, and a knowledge of hell. Hell is after all, completely real if we take the OT and NT to be the inspired word of God. And I do. The Bible is 100% inerrant and true.