“But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” (1st Cor. 2:9)
“Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:” (Matt. 25:41)
You cannot outthink God, He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, and what He determines to be will be. There are pleasures forevermore prepared for those that love Him, not being prepared, and torments for those that despise Him, already prepared.
There is no past or future for the Almighty, He exists, as best as we can describe it, in an ever present now, all things that have happened and will happen are as the present to Him. For the Most High, at this moment, He is creating the heavens and the earth, He is speaking with Moses, He is just as much here right now with you as He is present in the far future that has too many zeros to place on this page.
“I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:” (Isaiah 45:5)
Nothing exists apart from God, all reality was created by Him, all that is or ever will be is sustained by Him, nothing is without the Living God.
As I have said to my beautiful wife many times, He is too big, we cannot contemplate Him, we know only what He has decided to reveal to us about Himself, if we cannot imagine those things that He has prepared for us who love Him, we cannot imagine how incredibly powerful our Lord is.
“(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.” (Romans 4:17)
But there is one thing that takes very little imagination, one thing that is easy to envision, and that is hell.
“And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.” (Luke 16:23)
Torments of the flesh, as much as we can understand that word for those whose bodies still rest in their graves. Torment of the mind, the unquestionable truth that there is no escape, no door out, no place to flee from that torment will ever be found by them.
“And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” (Matt. 13:50)
Complete and total despair eternally, until one day they are set before the Judge of all mankind, judged by how they wanted to be judged, by their works, and then cast alive into a place that our imagination cannot go to, the Lake of Fire.
I ponder that place often, as much as I am able, for it not only causes me to praise His name for saving me from its pain and His eternal wrath upon all there, but it assists me when I speak to those who do not yet serve Him as Lord.
If you can see them on fire and screaming, you will learn compassion for them when speaking to them.
But I also realize this truth, and some of you may not be able to see it yet, they deserve to be there.
“And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” (1st Peter 4:18)
I believe there is hope in hell, a false hope, but hope nonetheless, for the thought of those there return often to the excuses they will offer at the Great White Throne of Judgment, of how repentant they have been while in that torment, but none of that will avail them anything.
“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:” (Heb. 9:27)
This is one of the main reasons we are here, we glorify the Lord by seeking the lost, warning all who will listen of what we know as truth, of the eternal fire that awaits them if they do not repent. And I fear that many who witness to these lost souls do not even bring it up in the conversation these days.
When you can see them screaming in torment, when you realize the hopelessness that they will experience, that hopelessness and complete despair that you will never know, you will speak differently to them.
Your warnings will not be of what is approaching, but what eternity will awaits them.
