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Hell is an actual place, the Bible tells us, where the dominions of evil demons and Satan will go, along with unrepentant sinners.  Speaking of the great separation which will take place during the final judgment, Jesus says of the wicked, "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his

angels..."

 

When we hear these severe words,  we must remember that they are spoken by the most tender, loving, reaching heart of all human history!  What makes hell, and all of our Lord's illusions to hell, so relevant, is that its reality is defined by a God who is so loving that He sent His Son to die in order to keep us from all going to hell.

 

God is tender and loving!  GOD IS LOVE!!  But God is also just, and His love and His justice meet in the cross of Jesus Christ.  Consider again the Gospel text read today.   Remind yourselves of our Lord's humiliation and crucifixion!

 

Do you only see God’s love at work in Christ’s humiliation?  Or do you also see the holy wrath of God demanding that the penalty of sin must be paid.  Dear friend in Christ, if you believe in the Christ of the Bible (and not the Christ fabricated within your imagination or by an evil generation), then your penalty for sin has been paid.  You will be in heaven.  If you do not believe in the Christ of the Scriptures, you will suffer the penalty of sin in a place called hell.

 

Even as hell is a place, it is also a state of mind.  Theologians speak of the demons who carry hell with them.  John Milton, in his epic poem about hell, sees hell within the mind as the most terrible of all, for it keeps getting worse.  Listen to these sad, sad words about the unending descent of hell as it is experienced by the mind of the damned:

 

 Myself a Hell;

 And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep,

 Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,

 To which the Hell I suffer seems a

 Heaven.

 

Hell exists as a place and a state of mind, but what will that hell be liked for the damned?  The Bible depicts hell graphically, especially in images of fire.  Most

theologians interpret the fire in two senses:

 

First, an actual fire or heat that makes contact with the pain cells of resurrected bodies.

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