Every Knee, Every Tongue

Being a retired law enforcement officer, I find crime interesting. I do watch several true crime shows on television. These shows usually revolve around murder. A suspect is apprehended, tried, and sentenced. Whenever the killer receives life in prison, someone will often say they believe that life in prison is better than the death penalty because the individual will suffer for the rest of their life.

A person making that statement does not grasp prison life or death.

In prison, you have access to food, a prison store, a library, a gym, a recreation yard, a job to occupy part of your day, contact with loved ones through phone calls and visits, free access to medical care, a barber shop, religious services, arts and crafts, and other activities depending on the prison and security level. True, they cannot come and go as they please, and the guys you live with are not of the best moral character, but there is a constant police presence and cameras everywhere. It would be interesting to compare the crime rate behind the fence with that of some of our major cities. With all that said, prison may be the last place anyone wants to go to, but it is a fate better than death.

Many people do not think of the afterlife or believe it is nonexistent. The thought of nonexistence is terrifying. To think that conciseness would cease to exist, not knowing anything, unable to think or feel, to learn or to grow. Being unable to experience – complete nothingness.

However, there is life after death, and assuming the murderer is unsaved (which is likely the case), the truth of hell is far more dreadful than just ceasing to exist.

People will joke about hell and how all their friends will be there, and it will be party time. If you can party when one hundred percent of your body is on fire, have at it.

Remember any time you burnt yourself? Remember how instantly you jerked your hand from the pot on the stove? In those circumstances, we are burned for a fraction of a second, causing so much pain we yank our hand away and run water over the wound; often, it throbs. Imagine that burning sensation for more than a split second. Imagine that pain for eternity. The Bible tells us the rich man experienced torment in the flames. The book of Revelations informs us that “the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever; and they have no rest day nor night…” (Luke 16:19-31; Revelation 14:11).

Hell is an eternal flame. It is also a place of “outer darkness.” People will be gnashing their teeth and gnawing on themselves, and each other  (Matthew 8:12, 13:42, 22:13). Worms are there; these worms will never die and constantly be chewing (Mark 9:48).

During the tribulation period, locusts that sting like scorpions attack from hell itself. They will torment the unsaved on Earth for five months. The stings of these locust/scorpion creatures will inflict the people of hell for eternity (Revelation 9:1-11).

Life in prison is a far lesser sentence than death. No situation on Earth, regardless of the amount of suffering, is better than hell. Hell on Earth does not exist. Even the pain caused by the locust/scorpion creatures released from hell during the tribulation is only a tiny taste of the agony that will inflict those in hell.

Some people believe in God and heaven, but deny the existence of hell, or at least, believe that Satan and his demons are the only ones that will reside there.

“How can a loving God send anyone to hell?” is the question asked.

The answer is simple – God does not send anyone to hell. People end up there because of one decision in their lifetime.

The general thought is that we are all on our way to heaven, but some people will cross a line. They will commit so many sins, or a specific particular sin, such as murder, that will send them to hell. That is not the case; however, we start on the pathway to the flames.

John 3:18, “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

Salvation is by faith. In the verse above, belief in the only begotten Son of God moves an individual from damnation to acquittal.

We are all guilty because we are all sinners. From murder to telling a lie, from rape to an unpure thought, we have all sinned. We are all guilty.

Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son, is God in the flesh. He is sinless. He is eternal. He is the only Saviour. He died on the cross as the sacrifice for our sins. That is why He is called the Lamb of God.

Being a good person, not crossing that line into some heinous sin, religious rituals, among others, are all things people believe can cause them to escape hell. Still, only faith in the blood sacrifice of God’s Lamb, Jesus Christ, can give eternal life.

God does not send anyone to hell. A person either believes in God’s escape clause or does not. Each individual has a choice; God did not create robots; He gave us free will, which is why we sin in the first place.

In the end, every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess. It is up to you. You can believe now and move from condemnation to eternal life or wait until the eternal punishment has started.

Philippians 2:10, “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth.”

By the way, those things “under the earth” are the people in hell.