About Hell Who can count Jacob’s descendants, as numerous as dust? Who can count even a fourth of Israel’s people? Let me die like the righteous; let my life end like theirs.” Numbers 23:10 (NLT) When Balaam said he wanted to die the death of the righteous, he instructs us that all men do not die the same way. All do not die the death of the righteous. To die in your sins—the death of the unrighteous—is to seal your doom to an eternity shut out of heaven and locked into the fiery judgment of hell. Only the righteous in Jesus Christ will inherit eternal life in heaven when they die. “Now listen! Today I am giving you a choice between life and death, between prosperity and disaster. Deuteronomy 30:15 (NLT) There are only two categories of life in our verse. A good way and an evil way. You are either right or wrong, good or evil. You are going to either heaven or hell. There is no middle ground. Jesus emphasized this truth in the Sermon on the Mount when He spoke about the two ways. “You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it. Matthew 7:13-14 (NLT) Yet the LORD sent prophets to bring them back to him. The prophets warned them, but still the people would not listen. 2 Chronicles 24:19 (NLT) “They would not give ear.” Rebellion persisted. The people closed their ears to the message from God which the prophets delivered to them. This rejection really dishonored God, and it would add to their judgment, too. How foolish of man to reject God’s mercy and cling to his sins. If a man goes to hell, that man has no one to blame but himself; for God did much to try to save him. As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. Psalm 42:1 (NLT) “Water.” The thirst for water was a very valuable thirst. It was a thirst that would bring life instead of death. So it is with the spiritual thirst for God. It is the difference between life and death spiritually. No thirst is more valuable than a thirst for God. If you do not thirst for God in this life, you will be without God in the next life which means you will suffer eternal condemnation in hell forever. There you will thirst forever (Luke 16:24) but to no avail. “The rich man shouted, ‘Father Abraham, have some pity! Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. I am in anguish in these flames.’ Luke 16:24 (NLT)
Posted on: Fri, 09 Aug 2013 15:27:01 +0000
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