October 2009

by Ramesh Richard

Hell. I hate the subject. I don’t wish hell on anybody; I don’t want it for myself; and it’s a difficult topic to explain. Hell is serious. I dare not speak about hell like a newscaster who stays objective in reporting an approaching inferno and then quickly goes on to other headlines in politics and business.

Two major fires across the world this year provide parallels to hell in both form and substance.

As I write this devotional, Southern California is burning up. Mandatory evacuation orders cover 10,000 homes. People are presently fleeing, leaving everything they so preciously accumulated over the years. Some at extreme risk are not willing to accept the danger, and others are critically injured because “they did not listen to and follow the evacuation orders.”

Earlier this year on Black Saturday (February 7), nearly 200 people died in the state of Victoria, Australia. Horrendous accounts of people having to choose between staying in cars and getting out to flee as bushfires consumed both cars and people were the only topic of conversation. Our Melbourne host showed me an intrusive emergency text message he received the previous day. It was a warning to 5 million people to prevent another Black Saturday. And yet some at risk thought the authorities were “crying wolf!”

Fire in the natural world is probably the closest we can get to capturing the realities of hell—its horror, torment, and destruction. Yet, people react to the two similarly. Prepared by God originally for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41), hell is also where those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus (2 Thess. 1:8–10) will find their desires to rebel against God eternally fulfilled.

I am seriously and sadly, tearfully and fearfully considering hell as the topic of my 2010 message to humanity. It’s going to cost a lot (I am not talking financially alone here) to deliver the message clearly, urgently, and sensitively to a world at risk. People think it is hard to go to hell and easy to go to heaven. It’s actually the other way around. They have to do nothing to end up in hell.

I am passionate about getting this word out to people who don’t like to listen, who think eternal fires can’t touch them. I’d like my 2010 message to humanity to serve as an emergency global search-and-rescue effort while there is still time for millions of at-risk individuals to follow Jesus’s evacuation orders. Whoever believes in Him shall have eternal life (John 3:16)! Yes, there is inconvenience in announcing a message of danger and in implementing evacuation efforts. The alternative, however, is hopeless.

Hell is bad. It makes me mad and sad, so I must do something about it! Actually, I must do something about them, for them! I believe I can help them say, “Hell, NO!”