Hell Awareness

When the great English preacher, Charles Spurgeon, taught homiletics to his student preachers, he coached them on preaching about heaven and hell. He said that they should look joyful when they preached of heaven, but their regular face would do when they spoke of hell.

Years ago, preachers reminded their audiences of the reality of hell as well as the blessings of heaven. The mild Jonathan Edwards terrified his listeners with his sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Modern preachers rarely warn their congregations of hell because it sounds too harsh for our loving God and makes them uncomfortable. Yet, today preaching about hell is no longer in vogue, though it is a biblical topic. This is not new.

Andrew Jackson invited Peter Cartwright, the Methodist circuit-riding preacher, to be a guest in his home for Sunday lunch. Another guest, a young lawyer from Nashville, attempted to draw Cartwright into an argument.

"Mr. Cartwright, do you believe there is any such place as hell, a place of torment?"

Cartwright replied, "Yes, I do." Laughing, the young lawyer responded, "Well, I thank God I have too much sense to believe in such a thing!"

Andrew Jackson could not hold his composure and sternly addressed the lawyer, "Well, sir, I thank God that there is such a place of torment as hell!"

The astonished young lawyer responded, "Why, General Jackson, what do you want with such a place as hell?"

Jackson confronted him, saying, "To put such damned rascals as you are in that oppose and vilify the Christian religion!"

And the young man, embarrassed, left the room.

There is a sobriety that hits us when we contemplate the realities of heaven and hell. Many don’t believe in the existence of hell. Some conservative scholars dismiss hell as a metaphor, yet Jesus spoke of the place of eternal punishment more than of heaven as a warning.

Hell is a reality and an eternal place. Originally God reserved this place of punishment for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). If people choose, knowingly or unwittingly, to help Satan, they will join him in his eternal end. In a way, those serving the evil one become his messengers or angels by their loyalty to him.

People have forgotten that God knows our words, actions, thoughts, and intentions. In the Judgment scene, we will account for the good and evil we have done. Some local, state, and federal government criminals live “above the law.” No one holds them accountable to God’s standards of right and wrong as we once did in our country.

Some criminals, like ancient Mesopotamian kings, hold the power of life and death. They have “suicided” many of their cartel associates to silence their potential testimonies. Some of these staged suicides border on the absurd. Recently police found a prominent former official hanged by an extension cord with an abdominal shotgun wound and no rifle at the scene. The law enforcement agency ruled it a suicide. The investigators revised their report to include a shotgun thirty feet from the dead man, an impossibility for suicide. The criminals seem to be getting away with murder, but rest assured, God knows and God will judge.

One of the reasons America flourished was that our forefathers and mothers were aware of their personal and national accountability to God. They knew and shared the scriptures knowing God was observing them. Today, when we see the security cameras are on, we will behave differently than when we do not. Police have arrested porch pirates who didn’t know the residents’ doorbells were recording their actions. God is not a myth or a figment of our imaginations. He is alive and aware of the activities of His creation, including us.

Hell is a frightening place that is difficult for us to comprehend, and it is difficult for us to grasp a place of unending pain and sorrow because we are familiar with the temporal, not the eternal. The torment site is more than an uncomfortable location, filled with regret and remorse.

The most significant element of hell's horror is God's absence. That, too, is a difficult concept for us. God is present with us today, even though we may reject Him or are unaware of Him. He gives us the necessities of life. Jesus said it like this in Matthew 5:45 (NKJV):

He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

Imagine a place without God devoid of His gifts. In addition to being a lake of fire, hell lacks blessings we take for granted. Consider the seriousness of this place.

Have you ever experienced the inability to breathe? The people of Palestine, Ohio, had to evacuate their town when the railway accident caused noxious gas to spread over the city, and they could not breathe in the fumes. Maybe you choked on food or had a severe lung infection, and you wanted a breath of air more than anything. Hell is a suffocating place. When God created Adam, He breathed the breath of life into him, and Adam became a living being (Genesis 2:7). We, too, inhale God's breath in the life-giving air we take in. But in hell, God is absent, and there is no cleansing air for our souls, only smothering.