WHO IS GOING TO HELL?
-Pastor Bankie
Who is going to hell?
In
recent months in Nigeria, there have been these videos going around in
which some women supposedly went to hell after dying, on a kind of
guided tour of the place, and I guess also of heaven. After some time
they were revived and they reported their encounters. Their report has
had a lot of people scared and many are changing their ways.
Now,
I believe there is a hell and also a lake of fire of eternal damnation
(I am not at this time making a distinction between the two); God
prepared this place(s) for the devil and his angels (Matt 25:41). From
the context of the passage in Matthew’s gospel, we know that God not
only sends the devil and demons there but also anyone who rejects His
will in his or her lives. For this reason it is necessary to fear lest
one finds himself or herself thrust into such a place. It has to be a
fearful place. Whether the fire is literal or figurative is secondary to
the fact that it is an established place of torment, and it is to be
feared.
Some have argued that a good God will never
send people to hell; that argument is very faulty since we know that a
good judge on the earth has to send criminals to prison. The question is
whether people deserve it or not, not at all about the goodness of God.
For what the devil and both his spiritual and human follows have done,
they will be sent to hell, and it is right. The goodness of God does not
mean He should shy away from applying punishment when necessary; He
must still do that which is right and just. His goodness only means He
shows a righteous form of compassion.
Compassion is what makes God
warn people about these things and to provide the remedy so that all
who desire it may be delivered from the judgment to come.
“And
the Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again
by His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and on His
dwelling place; but they continually mocked the messengers of God,
despised His words and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the
Lord arose against His people, until there was no remedy.” 2 Chron
36:15-17 NASB*
God will send you to hell if you qualify; He won’t feel good about it but, trust me, He will do it.
Having
established the above I wish to comment on the videos making the rounds
and the response of people to them. I have not seen any of the videos
(I don’t even know how many they are), I am therefore only commenting on
what I hear people say about them, and what changes I have heard people
make as a result of watching the video.
I wish these
videos had been generating the true fear of God in people, but
unfortunately they have not. All I have seen is confusion created in the
lives of many.
I heard it said that one of the hell visitors also
went to heaven and in heaven found very few women; when she wondered
why, she was told that it was because of the make-up (cosmetics) most
women apply to their faces, the wearing of jewellery, together with the
use of artificial additions to their hair (attachments, weave-on’s) and
such things. For this reason many women, upon watching these videos,
have discarded the use of all these things so they can ‘make’ heaven. My
wife told me of a woman she knows, who when she saw recently was hard
to recognize for her. The young woman had transformed and now went
without any adornment of any sort. Her clothes had increased markedly in
length. All her adornments, jewellery and all, had been set on fire,
all so as to make heaven. I also heard of a woman who burnt her entire
set of hair dressing equipment (she was hitherto a hair-dresser) so as
to avoid hell fire.
A number of people have come to me
to ask questions as a result of seeing both the videos themselves and
the effect in the lives of people as narrated above. As a matter of
fact, I initially didn’t feel this thing was worthy of my comments, but
since people keep asking I decided to give a simple answer from the
Bible.
...To Be Continued
