Is Hell Real?

Pastor Rob Bell has written a book, Love Wins, to debate the traditional theological view that hell exists as a place of eternal torment. According to him, the traditional teaching about hell is “misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus' message of love, peace, forgiveness and joy that our world desperately needs to hear."

But isn’t the message of Jesus’ love and forgiveness desperately needed because hell is real and Jesus demonstrated indescribable, self-sacrificing love to save us from hell? Isn’t that same message priceless because all who welcome it and believe on Jesus are bound for heaven instead of hell?

I probably won’t read Rob Bell’s book. As you can tell, my mind is already made up. I believe hell is a real place of punishment. Some readers may find Rob Bell’s book persuasive, but the book that persuaded me to believe in hell is much older and far more reliable that Bell’s. As a matter of fact, it is infallible and fully authoritative. It is the Bible.

The Bible doesn’t quote Rob Bell, but it quotes Jesus. Jesus described hell as a place of eternal fire (Matthew 18:8, 9). He also said He would consign unbelievers to “eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (25:41).

Of course the devil and his angels won’t share royalties from the sale of Love Wins, but don’t you think they will be working hard to promote it?

Revelation 20:10-15 describes the Great White Throne Judgment of all unbelievers. Verse 15 predicts: “If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

For me, the belief that hell exists as a place of eternal, conscious suffering springs from my belief that the Bible is God’s verbally inspired Word. I also believe in plenary inspiration, that all parts of the Bible are equally inspired. I can’t air-condition hell or deny its existence without cutting certain passages from the same book that tells us “God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

I’m glad God’s love won me, and Jesus saved me from eternal hell.

Barking Christians

Our three little dogs, Molly, Rosie, and Sadie go wild when a dog appears on TV. They charge across the room, stop just short of the TV screen, and bark for all their worth. When I switch channels, they must think the dog left the family room and retreated to the back yard, because they rush to the back yard in search of the TV dog.

Barking at a canine TV image is like barking at the wrong crowd, something far too many Christians do. They show up at a church business meeting and make themselves obnoxious by barking about a new expenditure or policy. They criticize the board’s leadership or complain about something the pastor either did or should have done. The slightest proposed change to the church constitution drives them wild. They crank up their barking to unbearable decibels.

These are the same people who phone or email others to bark about the visitors who had the audacity to sit in their seats last Sunday. Wiggling kids or giggling teens are also targeted for barking.

Like our dogs’ attacks on harmless TV images, barking Christians almost always attack the wrong crowd. The devil is the foe they need to confront. Instead of wasting energy and time by venting grievances against fellow believers, they should join forces to oppose the devil and his evil actions.

The apostle Paul decried the senseless barking that was evident in the churches of Galatia. He warned, “If you keep biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other” (Galatians 5:15). He urged the Galatian believers to “love your neighbor as yourself” (v. 14).

Surely the best anti-bark remedy for disruptive Christians is a little bit of love.

—Adapted from Meditations for Dog Lovers by Jim Dyet, © 2005, published by AMG Publishers/Living Ink Books

Are We Living in the Last Days?

I hear the following statements often: “We must be living in the last days; the signs are everywhere.” “Jesus must be coming very soon; look at all the signs.” But they need some clarification.

I realize we live in tumultuous times, but the designations “last days’” and “last times” do not apply exclusively to our generation. The New Testament identifies the entire Church Age as “the last times” (1 Peter 1:20; Jude 18-19), “the last days” (Hebrews 1:1-2), and even “the last hour” (1 John 2:18). Christians of every generation have lived in the last days. Of course, we may be living in the final period of the last days. We simply must not dogmatically claim that we are.

But what about the signs? In His Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24 and Luke 21) Jesus identified certain signs as precursors to His coming. Some of those signs are earthquakes, international conflict, famines, religious deception, persecution, and tidal waves. We observe such occurrences today, but they are not exclusive to our generation. Many past generations have seen similar tragedies. Other signs identified by Jesus include unprecedented distress, solar and lunar darkness, and the shaking of stars and planets from their orbits. My point is, when all these phenomena occur collectively, Jesus will come again.

However, the coming He referred to in the Olivet Discourse is His coming as the Son of Man in glory with His angels to establish His kingdom on earth. I distinguish this return of Jesus to the earth from His return in the air to remove the Church from the earth (the Rapture; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).

The Bible doesn’t offer any signs as precursors to the Rapture. It could happen any moment— now or in the future.

So let’s read Matthew 24 and Luke 21 again, and weigh carefully those statements about living in the last days with all the signs. And let’s live every day as though this might be the day Jesus arrives in the air to take us Home.

Are We Living in the Last Days?

I hear the following statements often: “We must be living in the last days; the signs are everywhere.” “Jesus must be coming very soon; look at all the signs.” But they need some clarification.

I realize we live in tumultuous times, but the designations “last days’” and “last times” do not apply exclusively to our generation. The New Testament identifies the entire Church Age as “the last times” (1 Peter 1:20; Jude 18-19), “the last days” (Hebrews 1:1-2), and even “the last hour” (1 John 2:18). Christians of every generation have lived in the last days. Of course, we may be living in the final period of the last days. We simply must not dogmatically claim that we are.

But what about the signs? In His Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24 and Luke 21) Jesus identified certain signs as precursors to His coming. Some of those signs are earthquakes, international conflict, famines, religious deception, persecution, and tidal waves. We observe such occurrences today, but they are not exclusive to our generation. Many past generations have seen similar tragedies. Other signs identified by Jesus include unprecedented distress, solar and lunar darkness, and the shaking of stars and planets from their orbits. My point is, when all these phenomena occur collectively, Jesus will come again.

However, the coming He referred to in the Olivet Discourse is His coming as the Son of Man in glory with His angels to establish His kingdom on earth. I distinguish this return of Jesus to the earth from His return in the air to remove the Church from the earth (the Rapture; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).

The Bible doesn’t offer any signs as precursors to the Rapture. It could happen any moment— now or in the future.

So let’s read Matthew 24 and Luke 21 again, and weigh carefully those statements about living in the last days with all the signs. And let’s live every day as though this might be the day Jesus arrives in the air to take us Home.

A Memorable St. Patrick's Day

St, Patrick’s Day, 1973, Gloria, our three children, and I moved into a house in Green Mountain, Lakewood, Colorado. The master bedroom, a bathroom, and large family room with a fireplace were in the basement. Memorial Day morning, that same year, I stepped out of bed into cold, clear water. The basement was flooding. Soon, water was pouring through the floor and even through the fireplace.

We struggled until August to stop the flooding, but nothing worked. The concrete basement floor was only ½-inch thick, and it was porous. The contractor we hired to lay drainage tile abandoned the project. The gas lines were sagging, and the city was ready to condemn the property. Apparently, an underground stream had found its way into our house, the lowest house on the street. We lost the house, and learned that insurance does not cover damage caused by water that comes from below ground.

We learned a few other things too.

We learned that some Christians add insult to injury. Some of my coworkers at the Christian publishing house where I worked as an editor joked about my “swimming pool.”

We learned that some Christians demonstrate compassion by helping. One coworker sloshed through the water with me and helped me move furniture from the basement. Another, a member of a small church I was serving as interim pastor, offered a loan to get us back on our feet. (I chose not to accept it, but I appreciated his thoughtfulness.) Also, the church, Ralston Hills Baptist Church of Arvada, Colorado, let us move into the back of the church and live rent-free as long as we needed to.

We learned that material things may be swept away—literally—in an instant, but the Lord’s faithfulness withstands trials. In time, we recovered financially and were able to assume a loan on a small house in Denver.

We learned that who we have is far more important than what we have. The flood removed only material possessions, not our children.

Some of these lessons were hard to grasp, but they are enduring.

St, Patrick’s Day, 1973, was a gloomy day, but this St. Patrick’s Day is a good day to celebrate God’s faithfulness.

The chorus to G.A. Young’s “God Leads Us Along” affirms:

“Some thro’ the waters, some thro’ the flood, Some thro’ the fire, but all thro’ the blood; Some thro’ great sorrow, but God gives a song, in the night season and all the day long.”