An awful place

The Lord will rescue me (2 Timothy 4:18).

I’d like you to imagine a place where the weather is never agreeable. It’s always too hot or too cold. You never see the sun because every day is heavily overcast. When it is hot, the air is thick with humidity and there is not a puff of breeze to give a moment’s relief. When it’s cold, the wind tears at you mercilessly, making your skin raw. When it rains, it is always a heavy rain that soaks you to the skin and leaves you feeling chilled. When it snows, every storm is a blizzard, stranding you in deep snowdrifts with no visibility. To make matters worse, this is a primitive place—there are no buildings to take shelter in, no gas or electricity or running water to make life comfortable.

I’d like you to imagine a place with no health care. When you feel sick, there are no doctors to see, no medicines to take; there is nothing available to relieve your suffering. There are no eyeglasses or hearing aids or wheelchairs; whatever your disability, there are no supports or services to be had.

I’d like you to imagine a place where everybody is unfriendly and distant. Try to speak with them and you quickly find out that they are desperately unhappy and completely focused on their own misery; they have nothing to spare you except some harsh words or a punch to the gut.

I’d like you to imagine a place where there is no way to contact loved ones—there is no Internet access, there are no phones; not even mail service exists. Your loved ones might be somewhere in this miserable place with you, but you have no way of finding them.

I’d like you to imagine a place called hell.

Admittedly, I don’t know exactly what hell is like. The Bible speaks of it as a gloomy prison and as a lake of fire, a place where people suffer from burns and decay but never escape the pain by dying. Jesus speaks of hell as a place of constant crying, and people grinding their teeth in frustration over how hopeless their situation is. But I think that the place I’ve helped you imagine gives at least a taste of what hell is like.

Frankly, that taste was more than enough for me. I’d do anything to avoid being stranded in such a place. Thankfully, avoiding that fate is actually pretty simple. Believe in Jesus, ask Him to forgive your sins, and you will never have to experience hell for yourself.