Hell Is For Real
If you want to be a Navy Seal, you have to go through some of the toughest training imaginable. They call it BUD/S. And the defining event of BUD/S is called “hell week.” It is 5.5 days of extremes of cold and heat, wet and dry, brutal physical training. In those days they do not sleep for more than four hours any night, they run over 200 miles, and are in physical motion of some kind for 20 hours a day, while the officers fire guns and cannons and fire blasts so that they are often enveloped in smoke. Sand chafes their skin, salt water makes cuts burn, mud covers everything, and they must try to think strategically and solve problems while sleep deprived, often near hypothermia, and even hallucinating. Only 25% of Seal candidates make it through. They call it hell week because their life is made like a living hell for that week of training. They are in constant pain, suffering, and discomfort, in what seems to be a hell on earth, for one week, that seems like it will never end.*
But what if it didn’t end? What if hell week went on forever? The word hell seems to roll off some people’s tongue with such ease. But when we say that something is a hell on earth, do we really know what we’re talking about? Is there a place called hell? What is it like? And who goes there? Does anyone? Of all the teachings of Scripture perhaps the most difficult teaching to believe is its teaching on hell. And so many would like to say, well, in the OT God was a God of vengeance and judgment but in the NT He’s a God of love. And a God of love would never send anyone to hell. The problem you run into with that kind of thinking is that no one taught more about hell, or mentioned hell explicitly more in the Bible than Jesus Christ Himself. As one pastor said, it’s almost as if the doctrine of hell was reserved for Christ, something too holy for anyone else to handle. Nowhere else in all the Bible is the doctrine of hell so explicit, so prominent, so vivid as it is from the lips of God the Son Himself.
But don’t take my word for it. Look at the Scriptures. Did Jesus believe in hell? Luke 12:4-5, “I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!” Jesus is talking about God in that text. God has power to cast into hell, and that is who you should fear above anyone else, and for that reason. A sinner should fear God and His torments more than any murderer, arsonist, or terrorist. If you are a sinner far from God the dread of God’s justice should haunt your every waking moment. God’s justice waits for you. The moment that your foot shall slip may come at any time. The Puritans would speak of God’s hand on the string of his bow, at full draw, quivering as he held that arrow, waiting that appointed time. And it’s not just the imagination of man. Psalm 21:12 says God “will make ready His arrows on His string toward their faces.” Psalm 7:12: ”If one does not repent, God will sharpen His sword; He has bent and strung His bow.” Repent. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way. There is glory for those who repent; there is hellfire for those who refuse Christ.
*info on BUD/S from https://navyseals.com/nsw/hell-week-0/
