A truth that is rarely mentioned is the doctrine of eternal retribution. This is the belief found in scripture that there is a place called hell and the lake of fire for those who leave this life without embracing the forgiveness for sin offered them by God through Jesus Christ.
Every human faces judgment after death. Hebrews 9:27 reveals: And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment. Those who die without being born again will face what the scriptures call the Great White Throne judgment. This is only for who leave this life without the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. No Christians will be at this judgment. At another time and place, believers will stand before Jesus at the Judgment Seat of Christ.
Let me give you the why and how of what happens to a person who does not know Jesus Christ at death. To understand hell, you must understand the purity and holiness of God. God cannot come near impurity or sin. His very presence would annihilate that person! Old Testament saints had no access to the presence of God in the Holy of Holies because they were still sinners. They had a promise of a future salvation, but did not yet have the actual cleansing from sin. Again, sins were forgiven, but the actual sacrifice had not yet be presented by Jesus until the cross.
Under the Old Covenant, only the high priest could go into the presence of God and then under great precaution lest he be struck dead by the holiness of God’s presence. A man named Uzza died when he touched the Ark of the Covenant while trying to keep it from falling to the ground on a cart. He was a sinner touching God’s purity.
So, why hell? There has to be a place of confinement for eternal spirit rebels. Those who leave this life without being born again are impure because of sin and cannot enter heaven. If God allowed them to wander around the universe unrestrained, they would demoralize or corrupt the universe!
Hell was created as a place of eternal confinement for Satan and fallen angels after they sinned and rebelled against God. The Lake of Fire is the final resting place for Satan! Since humanity yielded to sin, humanity faces the same fate as Satan since humans too are eternal spirit rebels that never cease to exist after death.
At death the unsaved go immediately to the eternal county jail called hell to await the trial for their sin called the Great White Throne Judgment. Once judged for their rejection of Jesus, they are cast into the federal penitentiary of eternity called the Lake of Fire. There the unsaved will suffer the agonies of the being burned by fire for eternity. Once there, no one ever gets out! It’s eternal. Spirit beings don’t burn up, they just keep existing! This is a terrible end for any living thing.
I’ll share more on this tomorrow. I’ll leave you with the passage from Revelation 20 which clearly shows the trial and sentencing for eternal spirit rebels, that is, those who leave this life without Jesus Christ as their savior from sin. Every person you meet today will either spend eternity with God in heaven and then later in the new heavens and new earth if they have been born again, or they will spend eternity in hell and then the lake of fire if they die without Jesus. We have the responsibility today to share the good news with them! No person has to go to hell unless they choose to reject Jesus’ payment for their sins. You have the responsibility today to share the gospel –the good news- with every person you meet!
Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:11-15).
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