The Bible talks much about eternity.  There are only two places in eternity—-heaven or hell. Having read the Scriptures that describe hell, it is not fun, nor will it be exciting.  It is not a continuous party with booze, drugs, and sex.  It is eternal torment.  What could be worse than spending eternity in a dark, hot, stinking, and excruciatingly lonely place forever and ever and ever? 

2 Peter 3:9 says this: “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.  He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”  It should be overwhelming to any thinking human being that perfect God who could spend eternity anyway He chooses—wants, desires, and longs to spend it with us.  He knows all the junk and garbage that we have inside of us, all the wrong things we have thought or done, and He still loves us and wants to be with us forever.  He wants to lavish His eternal blessings on us.  Even if we know we deserve hell, God doesn’t want us there.  He wants us with Him, in the place He has prepared for us—heaven.  What an absolutely, incredibly, totally awesome God we serve!

Revelations 21:5-8 says this, “And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look I am making all things new!”  And then he said to me, “Write this down for what I tell you are trustworthy and true”, and he also said, “It is finished!  I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End.  To all who are thirsty I will give the springs of the water of life without charge!  All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children.  But cowards who turn away from me, and unbelievers, and the corrupt, and murderers, and the immoral, and those who practice witchcraft, and idol worshipers, and all liars—their doom is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur.  This is the second death.”

Many of us have been cowards, denying our faith at times in our lives.  We struggle with unbelief.  We have corrupt thoughts.  Immorality is so common in this culture many have forgot it is sin.  The practicing of witchcraft and worshiping anything but God is sin.  Lying is a sin; little ones or big ones.  Many of us have sinned in each of these areas.  So who gets to heaven?

It isn’t what we have done that keeps us from heaven!  It is what we do with Jesus Christ that keeps us from heaven.  God knew we couldn’t be perfect.  Adam and Eve blew it right in the beginning in the Garden of Eden, and if any of us had been there we would have blown it too.

We can only come into right standing with a perfect God because Jesus Christ came to earth and died on the cross for us! Romans 3:22-24 says it this way. “We are made right in God’s sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins.  And we all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done.  For all have sinned, all fall short of God’s glorious standard.  Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty.  He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins.”

In John 3:8-10 we are told more, “...but when people keep on sinning, it shows they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning.  But the Son of God came to destroy these works of the devil. ...Anyone who does not obey God’s commands and does not love other Christians does not belong to God.”  Those who don’t turn their lives over to Jesus and continue deliberately sinning go to hell.

According to the words of the Bible, anyone who rejects Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is doomed to eternal wrath.  Against God’s will He allows anyone to reject Him and choose to go to hell.  It grieves God’s heart that people make this eternal choice of punishment and separation from Him.  It has been said that the gates of hell are locked from the inside.  We can choose to go in and lock the door not allowing God in.  God honors our choice.  The people in hell are the ones who have chosen to go there. God grieves over his lost children.