Demons are real. Satan is real. Hell is real.
These are three things that most people want to ignore, even those who believe in God. Hell is terrible, so I think a lot of times many people just want to pretend that it doesn’t exist, or stay focused on God and Heaven and His Love. I think too many people, even people who are meant to be teaching the Word of God these days, are focused too much on God and His love.
God is Love. I am not denying that. It’s a part of Who He Is and yes, we should always think, dwell, and meditate on that and be thankful for it. But at the same time, there is a crucial part of God’s nature that we deliberately choose to ignore.
His Wrath.
It’s very simple. God is holy. He is holy and pure and good and because of that, God cannot look upon sin. His righteousness and holiness means that His Wrath falls upon all sin. He is also just. This means that He will rightfully judge sin.
“But I’m a good person.”
“It was a mistake.”
“Just because I did something minor—lied, stolen something small, cussed, gossiped, etc—doesn’t mean I deserve Hell!”
Some of you might be thinking along these same lines.
The fact is that God is holy and righteous. He is pure. Putting up with sin is not in His nature. Because we are made from sin, because we do sin, we are against God’s very nature, which makes us enemies of God.
If you had a judge and a man who raped or murdered someone but the man said, “but Judge, I’m a good person. I know I made a mistake, but I’ve done all these good things since then. I give to charities, I help people, I’m truly sorry for what I’ve done.”
That wouldn’t save him. The Judge would have to sentence him and judgement would fall upon him.
What we need to understand is that there is nothing you can do to save yourself. Nothing.
Only Jesus can save you.
He took the punishment for your sin and took God’s wrath upon Himself. In the court case mentioned above, it would be the same as if someone came in and paid his fine. The Judge can legally let us go, if we believe in Jesus, trust in Him, and repent and turn from our sin.
This is why it’s essential for us to turn from our sin and turn to Jesus. Simply turning from our sin alone won’t save us because it takes Jesus and how He took God’s wrath for sin upon Himself.
He bore it so that we didn’t have to.
Making excuses for sin is not in God’s nature. It would defy His nature to accept even the smallest of sins. Sin is sin, whether it’s rape, murder, adultery, lustful thoughts, drugs, alcohol, cussing, pornography, angry thoughts, gossip, doubt, lies, stealing, homosexuality… The list goes on and on. God is perfect and His Nature is perfect.
His Wrath is real.
Hell is real.
There isn’t a Heaven without Hell and vice-versa. Because God is just, then there has to be a punishment for all our sin. That punishment is Hell. Satan and his demons will do whatever they can to try to push you away from God, to drive and tempt you to sin and get you to trust in yourself rather than God.
But here’s the good news.
God is on your side and with Him fighting for us, nothing can stand against us because nothing can stand against God. God’s already won! Satan will be defeated and of that, we can be assured. Jesus died on the cross, rose from death and the grave, and now, we can be freed from Satan, sin, death, Hell, all of it, if we put our trust in God, believe in Him, ask Him into our hearts, and then turn from our sin and turn to Jesus instead.
It’s time to stop using God’s love as a reason to excuse sin. It’s the opposite. His Love actually goes hand-in-hand with His Wrath. Because He is Love, He is Holy and righteous and pure and good, He cannot stand sin. And it’s also because of His Love that He sent Jesus to take His Wrath away from us.
But we have to choose.
Where are you going?
Heaven or Hell?
Amen