Have you ever wondered if hell is real? So many people today don’t believe it is. Even those who profess to be Christians, live as though Christians can go along with the world and still go to heaven.
In Luke 16, we have a vivid description of a place called torment. This isn’t the final place of punishment but just a temporary place in the Hadean Realm where the lost wait for the coming of the Lord.
The Rich Man, who had died, was begging for mercy. He was begging for just one drop of water to relieve his torment from the flames. Can you imagine being so thirsty you would beg for just one drop of water to quench your thirst?
He also begged for Lazarus to go to his father’s house to try to convince his five brothers not to end up in this horrible place. His reasoning was that one returning from the dead would be convincing enough for them to change their ways.
For those who don’t believe in hell, you may be saying, “God just would not do such a terrible thing to anyone who is not a bad person.” This rich man was only guilty of not giving food to the beggar, Lazarus. “Besides,” you might say, “This is just a parable.”
This story is not called a parable, so we don’t know that it is. Also, Jesus would never use a lie to teach a truth. Jesus did paint a real picture about both heaven and hell in Matthew 25:31-46. Failure to feed a starving man is right there for us to read.
God has done some incredible things with fire. Studying some of these incidents may open our eyes to the how powerful our God really is.
In Exodus 3, an angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of a bush (verse 2). The bush was on fire, but it was not consumed.
From that bush that did not burn up, God spoke to Moses, calling on him to deliver the children of Israel from bondage in Egypt. That bush certainly got his attention.
From the book of Second Kings, we read about the end of Elijah’s life on earth. Elijah was a prophet of God, one who had the task of foretelling the destruction of Queen Jezebel.
Elijah journeyed to the Jordan River with Elisha. There God sent a chariot of fire with horses of fire, and Elijah was taken up into heaven in a whirlwind. This was certainly not an everyday occurrence.
I’m not sure how anyone could question the power of God after having heard about these two events; but even if the people of Israel believed them, they still did not respect their Heavenly Father the way they should.
Because of their sin, the Babylonians came in and took the Jews captive. While in captivity, King Nebuchadnezzar had a golden image made for the people to worship. He insisted that, at the sound of music, they all bow down and worship this image.
Three Hebrew men stood firm in their belief to worship only God, their creator. The threat of being thrown into a fiery furnace did not persuade them to bow down to this image.
Because they defied the king’s orders, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into a furnace of fire. The fire was so hot it took the lives of the men that put God’s servants into the furnace.
God had plans for these young men; verse 25 says the form of a fourth man was seen in the fire with them. Someone was there in the fiery furnace with the three Hebrews. Once again, we see the power of God.
When the three were removed from the furnace, the king discovered that the fire had not affected them at all. There was no damage to any part of their bodies, and they didn’t smell of smoke.
For Moses, the fire was a means of capturing his attention and then delivering a message. It was instructional.
For Elijah, fire was a means of moving this great prophet into eternity. It was transitional.
For the three Hebrew children, fire was punishment turned into their salvation. It was a declaration of their loyalty to their God.
What is fire for us? “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;…If by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly…then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment…” (Second Peter 2:4, 6, 9 ESV).
Read the entire passage, and you’ll get the picture of just what the wicked have in store for them. There will be no burning bush out of which the God of heaven speaks to us. There will be no chariot of fire and whirlwind to take us to heaven. There will be no fiery furnace from which to escape.
“Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:14-15).
Is your name in the Book of Life?
Sandra Oliver