“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment…then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.” (2 Peter 2:4, 9, NASB95)
Hell has fallen into disfavor these days—not among the heathen who seem content to go there, but among the believers who avoid the subject altogether. We seem to forget that Jesus spoke more of hell than of heaven. Do we think ourselves better than Him? We look with contempt upon “fire and brimstone” preaching, yet it was such a sermon by Jonathan Edwards that was an integral part of the Great Awakening. While no one in his right mind wants to abide in hell, neither can we dwell in comfortable complacency while those around us perish in its flames. If we avoid the subject, then we deprive heaven of its greatest weapon against sin, the world and Satan. It is only thoughtful consideration of hell that causes us to flee the wrath to come and rush headlong into the loving arms of Jesus.
Certainly none of us want to be the stereotypical, self-righteous person with a bony finger in people’s faces, saying, “Turn or burn!” But when we consider those around us who will soon perish and enter an eternity of unthinkable suffering, how can we say we have the love of God if we don’t warn them with tears to turn from this corrupt generation and save themselves from the unquenchable lake of everlasting fire?
If you saw your neighbor’s house burning down, and knew he was in there, how hard would you try to pull him out?
Simply the Bible Blog 
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