The Bible says God will send sinners to hell where they will be
punished forever. When you read that you want to ask, how can loving God send
people to hell? The truth is, that is what the Bible says. If you have believed
the word of God for something in the past, you better believe this too.
God is indeed gracious, compassionate, and full of tender
mercies. These are great attributes that can be ascribed to God only. He is so
merciful that the Bible describes Him as the one whose mercies endure forever.
It is because of this mercy that He sent Jesus into the world to die for our
sins because He does not want us to perish. It is that mercy that has been
sustaining our world up till this moment. Another reality we must accept is
that God is not only merciful and kind, He is also a consuming fire.
God is Angry with sinners
The issue of sin is what will make God send people to hell. In
the beginning, God created the earth and put two people there-Adam and Eve- to
populate the earth. Unfortunately, they rebelled against God. They ate a
particular fruit God told them not to eat, claiming that the devil deceived
them and made them eat the fruit.
What they did became a nature in the whole of humanity, because
according to God’s ordination, Adam and Eve were to reproduce their kinds in
all humans. That was the Genesis of all the sins man has been committing. The
Adamic nature we inherited set us up for a life of sin and total alienation
from God. David said in Psalms that “In sin did my mother conceived
me.” That is the situation of every person on the surface of the earth.
God did not immediately condemn a man to hell, rather He
provided a way of escape. He wants us to realize our mistakes and willingly
turn away from them. This is called repentance in the Bible. God wants everyone
to repent so that He can forgive them regardless of how grave their sins may
be. The anger of God is upon those who refuse to accept God’s way of salvation.
Those who refuse to repent of their sins because they believe they are
justified in their ways.
What Does Hell Signifies
Hell is a place of eternal punishment. Those who hold onto the
view that a loving God cannot possibly send people to hell are right to a
point. Originally, God did not create hell for man. It was meant for the devil
and his angels. It was supposed to be a place of eternal torment for the
angelic beings who rebelled against the authority of God and started a war in
heaven.
Unfortunately, some people have decided to follow the ways of
these rebellious angels. God has no choice but to allow them to follow these
fallen angels to their final destination. In order words it is not God that is
sending sinners to hell, they have chosen it themselves by the kind of lives
they chose to live.
How Does Bible describe
Hell?
The Bible describes hell as a place where the fire does not go
off, where the worms do not die. The most fearful aspect of hell is that
whoever gets in cannot get out anymore. The fire will burn them, but they will
not be consumed or burnt off. God showed the possibility of this in Exodus
3:1-3, where He spoke to Moses at the back of the mountain. Moses saw a bush
burning, but the bush was not consumed. It was this amazing sight that made
Moses draw nearer and have a closer look at the burning bush. In the end, he
got more than what he bargained for. God commissioned him to deliver the
children of Israel from the land of bondage, where they had been for over 400
years.
Will God Send People to
Hell?
God will send people to hell because they refuse to accept His
salvation. “Whoever has the Son have life, whoever does not have him is
damned already.” We don’t have any choice in this matter, we either agree
with God or receive the free offer that He has for us or get His full wrath.
Let us not forget things that happened in the past. They can
give us a clue of what the wrath of God is like. In Genesis 6 and 7, God was
angry with men because of their wickedness and because the imagination of their
hearts was evil continually. He decided to destroy the world with a flood. He
gave them the opportunity to repent by telling Noah well ahead to build an ark
for his safety and that of his family.
Noah tried to warn the people of the impending danger, but they
never listened. Eventually, all humans on earth’s surface perished in the
flood.
God repeated the same thing in Genesis 19 when He poured His
wrath upon Sodom and Gomorrah, the ‘sin cities.’ He saved Lot and his family
but brought down fire from heaven upon the inhabitants of the land.
Anyone who finds it difficult to believe that God can throw
sinners to hell should think twice. He should remember the two stories shared
above. God is the same, yesterday, and today, and forever. He has not changed a
bit. If He had done it before, He can do it again. We should not take His mercy
and patience for granted. It is that mercy that has kept the earth till this
moment, but one day the mercy will be removed, and the judgment will come.
We should stop arguing or debating whether God can
do it or not, rather we should comply with His guidelines and rules. What
happened to the first world that was destroyed by flood, and Sodom and Gomorrah
were child’s play when compared to what will happen to those that will go to
hell. The judgment from the Great White Throne cannot be reversed, and it has
grievous eternal consequences. The Bible says if you hear His voice today,
harden not your heart.
It is time to stop all that you are doing, ponder upon your
ways, and see where you are heading towards. No one who fails to meet God’s
condition and standard will escape this. God is no respecter of man. He is the
Almighty, the one who can do whatever pleases Him, and no one can question nor
resist Him.