“Scripture teaches with clarity and abundance that hell is forever…Jesus used the same word to describe both the eternality of heaven and hell. The fact that hell is unending is a terror that surpasses all terrors. No end. No exit. No escape. Three months of conscious torment will pass. But forever will still remain.”
(Eric Davis – The Cripplegate) My father was rightly concerned about my brewing ingratitude. The grumbling; the murmuring; the pride. Through his seasoned years, he could see what I couldn’t.
Christmas break came. I had complained to him about my need of money. So, he hooked me up with a job. “Great!”, I thought. “I’ll have some cash for doing my thing.” Then my dad came to me. “I got you a job at one of the local lumber mills I do business with.” It didn’t hit me. I was too intoxicated in my entitlement attitude; that I deserved padded pockets. I pulled up. It was a gloomy day. Grey skies. A massive, dreary looking box of a building. Beat-up trucks lined the parking lot.
The deafening buzzer sounded and everyone scurried to work. I thought that I was going to die. Guys twice my size were flinging thirty-foot long, Douglas fir, two-by-sixes at me. I was supposed to catch the ends and stack them neatly. That didn’t happen.
I dreaded going back there. And I’m sure they dreaded having me. My dainty little three-week Christmas break ended. I no longer had to work at the lumber mill. I’m pretty sure that I had also been fired. I couldn’t keep up with work. My pride was too strong and my muscles too weak. But I was overjoyed at the thought: I never have to go there again. I am not going to the lumber mill!
For those in Christ, there is something far, far worse than a lumber from which we will be spared. But first…
It’s one of the clearest teachings in God’s word. No one has trouble understanding the details about hell taught by our Lord, just coming to terms with it all. Among other things, he often taught these things about hell.