The Choice is Yours

2 Thessalonians 1:8-10 - 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 shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.

I saw a post the other day on Facebook about hell, and I tried to scroll past it very quickly, but the Holy Spirit caused me to pause to take a hard look. It’s an uncomfortable subject. No one really wants to dwell on it. No one wants to think about it. We all want to believe that everyone will be with God in the end, and no one will be in hell, but that is not the truth. The truth is some people will be there. Because of the choices they make here on earth, their afterlife will be determined. I know so many people think that a good God would not send anyone to hell. That is correct. God does not send anyone to hell. You send yourself there when you reject His gift of salvation.

Hell is the absence of God. It is the place where His love does not abide. It is not some party place where the cool people will spend forever having a good time. We may look at the world we live in and think, “It can’t possibly be worse than this.” Unfortunately, it can be much, much worse because right now we have the presence of God. There is still good in and around us because of His presence. Hell has nothing good in it because God is not there. His goodness is not available. The bible says there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, due to the torment. It’s extremely difficult to imagine and even more difficult to dwell on for too long. That is why, I think, we don’t hear too many preachers talking about it anymore. We are so focused on showing God’s love that we have forgotten to speak the truth that may just grab someone’s attention. When I was a child, growing up in the Baptist church, we heard about hell. We heard about it a lot. I remember one evangelist trying to explain eternity. He said, “Imagine a mosquito crawling around a metal ball for such a time that it starts to wear down. The amount of time it would take for that mosquito to wear that ball down completely is but a moment of time compared to eternity.” Eternity is not a concept that our finite minds can grasp easily because we assign a timeframe on everything. However, eternity does not have a timeframe, it has no end game, and it does not provide a second chance.

The choice you make here on earth is eternal, meaning it will not end. You may think, “I am not making a choice”. However, choosing not to surrender to God and asking Jesus to be your Lord and Savior is a choice. God has provided a way out of an eternity in Hell. That way is through the forgiveness found in Jesus Christ. It’s incredibly simple. It’s not about having to live a certain way or attend a certain church. It’s about whether you have a relationship with the One that died for you. It’s about coming to a place of knowing you need God’s free gift of salvation to save you from an eternity that He does not want for you. Choose life, choose the eternity that He so desperately wants for you. He so desperately wanted you to have that eternal life that He sent Christ to die in order for you to have it.

Many preachers are telling us that we are living in the last days. They tell us that we may not know the day Christ will come back, but we do know the season and we are in that season. We can no longer afford to be silent about the truth or be afraid to dwell and discuss the harsh reality. If you have not made the choice to follow Christ, your eternity will be in the place that is absent of God’s loving presence.

I know, I know this was hard to read. It was even more difficult for me to write and honestly it has put a knot in my stomach, but I can’t sit in silence when I know the truth. The truth will be rejected by some, ridiculed by others, and some may even be angered by it. However, truth does not change based on our opinion. This is the truth that can give you eternal life!

If you are sitting there thinking, “Christy, I made that choice a long time ago, why should I dwell on this difficult subject?” What about your family, what about your neighbor, your co-worker? Do you know if they have made the right choice? We must dwell on it as believers because it is what pushes us to share what we know. We should want everyone we know to join us in the eternal life that we will be blessed with through our faith in Christ.

If you have made it this far in the post and you are not confident that you have truly made the right choice, please reach out to someone you know is a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. Contact me! I will be more than happy to help you make that choice. Heaven and Hell are real. They are not made-up fairy tales or nightmares. Everyone will spend their eternity in one place or another. I’m asking, pleading with you, to let this truth take hold and grab your attention before the choice is no longer available for you to make.