Sinners in The Hands of an Angry God

"He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" - John 3:18

This is just some stuff I've been thinking about over the past few days.  I have no idea where I'm going with this post, so I don't know what it's conclusion will be.  As a Christian, I believe in Him, and so I am not condemned.  But how about those who don't believe in the Son of God?


I've been thinking about mission work and evangelism a lot lately.  I recently watched a video of David Platt talking about world missions.  In this video he spoke about the eternal torment of hell.  Reading about a bit led me to a transcript of a sermon delivered by Jonathan Edwards - Sinners in The Hands of an Angry God.  I've just read it and well, it's heavy hitting.  Hell is a word that's misused so much today.  We have 'a day from hell' at work, or 'the traffic was hellish' etc, but these situations are nothing at all like the hell described in the sermon!  It's worth a read.

So how can we stay out of hell?  Romans 3:23 tells us "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God".  So on our own merit, none of us are good enough to please God.  We deserve hell.  The only reason those who are in Christ won't go there is because of Christ.  That's great news for all believers.  The best news!

But those who don't?  I have many friends and family that don't know Jesus.  They know of Him, or are at least vaguely aware He had something to do with Christmas.  But they don't know him.  That there are people on this earth that I love and care about who are destined for hell is painful.  My own daughter so far does not know Jesus.  I deal with this with continued prayer to God to touch her life, as I do with all my unsaved friends and family.  I can have hope.

But how about people I've known and loved who are no longer with us?  I have two parents who, as far as I am aware, did not give their lives to Jesus.  They are most likely in hell now, suffering "where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched". (Mark 9:44).  I loved my parents, and the thought of them suffering in this way is..  indescribable.

I could deal with this by taking a universalist approach - 'there is no hell, we all go to heaven' etc.  Trouble is, the scriptures tell me different.  To believe this would be like believing my parents when they told me my pet cat had gone to live on a farm, where he chased butterflies and drank fresh milk all day and was really, really happy - I could see the freshly dug patch in the flower bed, and couldn't ignore it.  Same with the scriptures.  As much as I'd like to believe my loved ones were in heaven with the Father, I can't.  And no amount of prayer is going to change that.

So, don't really know what to do with that?