Hell’s Highway

Over the past several decades we know that religious affiliation is down, religious observance is down among the affiliated, and the concept of hell and divine judgment is largely dismissed.

We’re too refined for such nonsense. How could a loving God ever judge sinners?

The irony is that we’re clamoring for hell. Our culture lusts for such a thing, while simultaneously denying it.

How Hell Helps Guide the Church

Since the dawn of Christian history, God’s people have waded through injustices because God judges sin.

Of course we long for sinners to repent and find life in Christ. But we find solace knowing the God of justice has not turned blind eyes or deaf ears.

No, God sees and judges each man according to his deeds. God’s judgment of all that is evil and reward for suffering for righteousness, instills hope, joy, forgiveness, and love in Christians as they face injustice.

The apostles rejoiced when beaten for Christ. Christians endured with hope. We see forgiveness poured out from Christ on the cross.

The black church has modeled this understanding for us for ages, having manifest the Christian way, many times. Brandt Jean’s ability to offer forgiveness to the murderer of his brother captured the world not too long ago.

He was as Christ to her.

We see a world unhinged without fear of God. The only judgment they think tyrants will see is what can be delved out by their own hands. Under the sway and power of sin, they become the very thing they claim to hate.

“Revolutions produce other men, not new men.”-Barbara Tuchman

As the late historian Barbara Tuchman puts it, “Revolutions produce other men, not new men.” Nothing demonstrated convinces me that those seeking to remake the world in their image, wouldn’t be twice the tyrants they seek to dethrone.

And so for the Christian, we remind ourselves that as factions clash, tyrants rage, injustice drowns out the life and voice of many, God still sees.