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Fire Assurance

Have you ever heard of the term 'fire insurance' being used to describe some one's shallow faith? The idea being, of course, that the person professing faith just wants to stay out of hell while living any way they please here and now. I had one person tell me outright that they wanted to get into heaven with his shirt tails smoking and smelling of sulphur. I can't fault him for his honesty but his ideas on what it means to be a Christian aren't worth the powder it would take to blow them to... well.. you know.

It hasn't been fashionable to talk about hell for a while now. Folks want a kind and benevolent God who wouldn't dream of sending anyone there if it exists. There are a lot of people who profess faith in God and deny hell at the same time. Those who do believe in hell will describe it as being separated from God. I have heard the argument and it sounds plausible, unless you actually read your bible. Hell isn't being separated from God, it is living your eternity unable to escape God's wrath. It's not that He ignores you like a petulant adolescent might because you haven't given Him what he wants, it's that there is nothing to separate you from the judgement and torment that are yours. You don't get cordially invited to the theological place of eternal punishment, you get fast tracked there from the minute you're born. It isn't fire insurance you've got, it's fire assurance. You are 100% guaranteed to spend eternity in hell unless the Lord God sees fit to save you.

The very worst day in your life here cannot compare to the misery experienced in a nano second of hell. How much do you have to hate someone to sit back and let them go there without trying to warn them?

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