THE NARROW WAY
John 5:28-29
reads "Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those
who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment." (ESV) These
words of Jesus tell us three things: First, death is not the end. Second, there
are two destinations for mankind, and third; our destination is determined by our relationship with Jesus Christ.
In our text
today from Mark 9: 42-50 we see some of the attributes of the second destination that we must do everything to avoid. In this
reading we see there is an unquenchable fire and it is a place where the worm does not die.
We do not know what hell will be like but it will be whatever it turns out to be according to Lagard Smith. Hell will also be an appropriate punishment inflicted by a righteous and holy God.
The Bible
does not give us a complete picture of what hell will be like, by any means. A
lot of what is mentioned is in figurative language. What we can be certain about
hell is that it is a condemnation to an eternity without God, and that in itself is worth avoiding at all cost. 2nd Thessalonians 1:7-9 is a passage that confirms this; when Jesus comes with His mighty angels,
“in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord
Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory
of His might.”
As we cannot
truly imagine how wonderful heaven is going to be, we cannot comprehend how bad hell is.
In our text Jesus tells us if our hand, foot, or eyes endanger us to a destiny of hell we should cut them off. It would be better to go through life maimed or blind than risking and eternity in
hell. The thought is that anything or anyone that would tempt you or cause you
to stray from the narrow way; should be eliminated from our lives. Do not take
chances with your eternal destiny.
Many will. One of the most alarming statements of our Lord is found in Matthew 7:13-14; “Enter
by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction,
and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard
that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” Just because something
is popular doesn’t make it right. There will be a lot more with a destiny
of hell than will enter the hard, narrow, way of heaven. Where are you going?
I personally
do not think that we take the destination of hell very serious. We think that
a loving, caring, God will be too merciful to send us to a place like hell for eternity.
Others will ignore the subject of eternal destiny and the purpose of this lesson is to bring our attention to the reality
of our eternal destination. T.S. Elliott made the statement “I had far
rather walk, as I do, in daily terror of eternity, than feel that this was only a children’s game in which all the contestants
would get equally worthless prizes in the end.”
