•3:00 PM
(What was I thinking?)
By: J. Raymond Pecoraro, Wooddale Church of Christ
We are faced with many choices from the time we are born until the last breath we take.
We are inundated with choices from the time we go to bed at night until the time we awaken in the dawn hours.
Choices, choices, and more choices … some choices we make turn out well, while others drive us up the wall. It becomes a huge challenge because no sane person wants to purposely make bad choices in life.
Some of the bad choices affect only ourselves while others are affected by them!
A question was posed to an older gentleman by Larry King on his talk show concerning his belief in heaven and hell.
This man’s reply to King’s question was “I’d like a lot of activity. Heaven sounds too placid for me. There’s a lot to do in hell.”
There are many, many folks who hold this view.
They have this gross concept concerning Satan’s domain.
Obviously, no thought is put into their answers!
And some of the reasons they give for holding this erroneous view is legion.
“I don’t want to be alone and I know that hell will be filled with all of my friends.”
“If hell is a real place one goes to after death, I don’t think it would be bad. There will certainly be a lot of interesting people.”
While this man’s observation and reasoning may be sound concerning “a lot of interesting people,” his lack of sound knowledge on the subject of hell is terribly flawed to say the least!
Make no mistake about this, friends!
Those who believe they will be able to “hang out” with their friends in hell will be in for a rude awakening!
Each resident of hell won’t see each other nor will there be a party going on!
Hell is perhaps the loneliest place ever created by our God!
Satan worshipers on earth believe that he will be their friend in hell.
That won’t be the case because the devil will have his own troubles to deal with in the final analysis.
He is going to suffer the same, if not worst than his followers.
Satan doesn’t care about your well-being here on earth.
He is only interested in your soul to get back at God.
Remember, he is the father of all lies!
In John 8:44, Jesus said, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your fathers you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.”
Is this the role model you want to follow?
Is this the hero you want to idolize?
One day, you will say, “What was I thinking?
What will convince a person whose thought processes have been clouded?
How can we convince people who are deceived into believing that hell is filled with horrors and the way to avoid it at all cost?
If the Scriptures don’t convince them, I don’t know what or who will!
Daniel 12:2, we read that hell is described as a place “shame and everlasting torment.”
Luke 16:23 talks about “torments.”
Matthew 8:12 talks about a place of “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
And the book of Revelation describes hell as a place of “no rest.” (Rev. 14:11).
Nowhere in the Scriptures does the Bible paint hell as a good place to go!
If anyone is bent on getting to hell all they have to do is nothing!
A rejection of Jesus is a sure way for a one way ticket to that awful place called hell!
And when you approach the judgment seat of God, you will have a change of heart (albeit too late) and you will say to yourself, “What was I thinking?”
The same Christ that speaks concerning the glories of heaven also describes the horrors of hell!
It is our prayer that you rethink your choice here before it is too late, my friend!
In Daniel 12:2, we read, “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt.”
Which class would you choose to be counted?
There is a heaven to gain and a hell to shun!
