Heaven or Hell?

With the onset of warmer weather recently, my husband has been able to do what he has hoped to do for a long time…fish with the grandchildren. He has talked about how much he wanted to teach them to fish since, well since they were too little to even hold a rod. As with any fisherman, you keep some and you toss some back. The fish good enough for eating are kept and those that are either too small or just not good meat to eat and thrown back. Any way this is done, it separates the good fish from the bad.

Jesus even used fishing to teach his followers in the Parable of the net. In Matthew 13:47-50, He speaks about the kingdom of heaven in comparison to the fisherman pulling in a net full of a variety of fish. The good ones were put aside for later use while the bad ones were thrown away. Where I want to focus with this devotion is the last portion of the passage, verses 49-50. “That’s the way it will be at the end of the present age. The angels will go out and separate the evil people from the righteous people, and will throw the evil ones into a burning furnace. People there will be weeping and grinding their teeth.” (CEB)

There are many in today’s world that do not believe in a literal place of torment, eternal separation from God that we know of as Hell. If you believe the Bible is the inspired and inerrant word of God; if you believe that it is His truth, then you must believe in Hell. This is not a place anyone should want to spend eternity.

I can’t even put into words how awful I imagine the eternal sound of one’s own weeping and gnashing of teeth would be. Let’s look at the definitions for these words from Webster’s Dictionary. Weeping means tearful; plain and simple tears into infinity. A synonym I noticed was bowed as a weeping willow tree branch, so my mind’s eye pictured someone bent and crying non-stop. Most crying also comes with moans and wails, so add that to the image. Webster defines grinding as it relates to teeth as pressing together with a rotating motion. Again, a motion that is set to never end.

If you are reading this and are not saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, I present you with Romans 10:9,10,13, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and in your heart you have faith that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Trusting with the heart leads to righteousness, and confessing with the mouth leads to salvation. All who call on the Lord’s name will be saved.” (CEB)

What do you have to lose? Eternity is forever and we will spend it in a glorious place with God and His Son, Jesus or in this terrible place of eternal torment. The decision is yours, which place will you choose?

We are all destined for one place or the other There is no place in-between to run for cover We must decide now where we intend to stay We cannot be fence-sitters come judgment day.

Ellen Bailey