We must be wondering why God created hell, despite the fact that He wanted us all to be in heaven. To start, we must understand that God is a righteous God, and anything that go against that should be punished. For that, God created hell, so He can deal righteously with Satan. This place is custom made for satan and his disciples, because his whole being is in opposition to God’s goodness and beauty. “… Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Matt. 25:41 Hell exist for God to deal righteously with the unbeliever. “He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shout out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power…” 2 Thessalonians 1: 8-9 All of us are sinners, and we should be punished for what we have done and what we have failed to do, that is to trust God to be our saviour, (but there’s a disclaimer) unless someone else’s righteousness will cover our transgressions so we sinners will be able to enter heaven.
So, what will hell be like? Hollywood movies made an illustration of hell as a party place with bikini clad women prancing here and there. So much for people in denial. The bible says that hell is a place where there is an unspeakable sorrow (Matt 8:12, Rev 14:10-11), there you will hear people say, “I heard about Jesus dying for me, how could I missed that?”, yet it’s too late; Unsatisfied cravings (Luke 16:24) Think of something important, say the air we breath or water to drink, anything that comforts us, hell is the absence of all that. No joy, no hope, not even a moment of peace; Unquenchable flames of fire (Matt 13:41-42, 49-50). This one’s a classic, at least the movies didn’t go wrong with this one. Eternal separation from loved ones (Luke 13:28; 16:19-31). Imagine being away from your spouse, your kids, parents, siblings forever ( forever here doesn’t mean our earthly lifetime of 60, it means unending). No one’s gonna be there, not even your pesky neighbor. Worst is that you will be away from God, the source of all happiness, love and beauty. Again, contrary to popular Hollywood illustration, there’ll be no partying in hell, there’s no one to talk to, it’s just going to be YOU & YOU. Hell is forever (Rev. 20:10) The most horrible thing about hell is that it’s absolute damnation. As in, add everything that has been said about this place, and then think that you can’t die while enduring all of it, do the math and that’s hell. Yes, God created it (again, not for us), but He prepared another home for us, a place so wonderful beyond words, and that is heaven. God doesn’t want anyone to go to hell.
God created us to have a relationship with Him. In the process He gave us free will so we have a choice whether or not to love Him back. The problem is we don’t want to. We reject Him, it doesn’t take one to be an atheist to do so. Still, He never stop loving us, the Word became flesh just so He can save us. He died on the Cross so we can be His. We just have to believe, that’s all.
We want to believe in heaven, but not in hell. Hell is real and it’s for real people, like you and me. We have a choice, think about it.