HELL? Yes!

Hell has never been a popular topic. Some how we have difficulty reconciling a gracious God and eternal flames. Yet often the seriousness of a problem can be seen in the solution required to deal with the problem. If Hell was not a reality, the Cross would seem like over kill. Even if we believe in Hell, the majority of us don’t picture many people going their. No problem seeing Hitler in Hell. Sadam deserves it in my book, but where there is life there is hope even for him. The truants of history, those who slaughter the innocent, those that commit heinous crimes, yep Hell is the place for them. But Jesus taught that the road to Hell was a WIDE road and the NARROW road went to heaven, (Matt. 7:13-14). You see it is not the quantity of sin nor the quality of sin that causes us to deserve Hell, it is SIN, even one little one, (Rom. 3:10). Along with our disbelief of judgment for the masses has also come a tolerance of other religions that do not believe in Christ as the central and only hope for eternity. (John 14:6). "With increased religious diversity has come an increased emphasis on toleration. In a U.S. News & World Report/PBS poll, 71 percent, including 70 percent of Christians, said Christians should be tolerant of people of other faiths and leave them alone. Only 22 percent (24 percent of them Christians) thought it was a Christian's duty to convert people of other faiths." - (James P. Eckman, The Truth About Worldviews). Well that answers the question of why there is so little being done in the area of Evangelism. I know my tribe spent way to much time in years past trying to "scare" people into the baptistery. My concern is that the backlash to that over emphasis will be a denial of the reality that each person will face at their death. If Hell is not a reality for the lost, then there is no urgency to our message. "The thing that really kills our outreach is our lack of real conviction that when someone steps into eternity, he either goes to Heaven or Hell." -( Quoted by Anne Graham Lotz in the March/April edition of Outreach magazine.) If we continue down this road of walking on egg shells about the lostness of our world our appeal for Christians to be evangelistic might sound something like this, "Let’s pretend that you are someone who might be willing, in theory, at some point, possibly, to consider maybe doing something that, while not "evangelism"-type evangelism, still could be in some way construed as a sort of sharing of hope. Kind of. (Taken from "A Shy Person’s Guide to the Practice of Evangelism" by Steven C. Bonsey. ) Soon the great commission will simply become the great suggestion. OK that is the problem, how about a little hope? Lets try this. As you go through your daily walk with the Father look into the eyes of each person you encounter and see them as He does. If you see evidence that He might be working in a persons life, join Him. Let Him use you! See a need, fill it. Hear a question, do your best to answer it honestly and not like a Bible Scholar. Someone hurting, offer to pray for then right then and there. Listen and listen and listen. Nobody listens today, be a listener. Touch if it is appropriate. Just a light touch to a shoulder a hand can mean so much. This evangelism thing is not nearly as difficult as we have often made it out to be. Most of the time it is just being or making a friend and then watching for God to open a heart for Him to enter.