If you believe in a place called heaven then it only stands to reason that you believe in a place called hell because Jesus spoke often of both; not figuratively, but literally.  

No one in the Bible spoke more of judgment than Jesus (much to the chagrin of liberal theologians).  On the other hand, no one spoke more about love than Jesus.  How do we reconcile that seeming contradiction?  We do so by understanding that one of love’s greatest desires is to protect those it loves from harm.  Knowing the terror of a place called hell and understanding the inevitability of judgment, Jesus warned us repeatedly.  Now that is true love!

Jesus issued repeated warnings because hell is a place of separation from God, righteousness, joy, peace, beauty, and everything good.  Hell is a place of association with the devil and demonic spirits in the location God prepared for them.  Hell is a place of isolation.  Those who go to hell will not spend eternity partying with their sinner friends.  Rather, they will spend eternity in solitary confinement.  Imagine it!  Forever alone with your regrets and torments.  

On top of all that, hell is a place of duration.  It’s the eternal duration of suffering beyond compare.  Everything about hell is the exact opposite of heaven.  If no one has ever seen or heard or imagined the wonderful things God has arranged for those who love Him, the opposite is true as well.  No one has ever begun to comprehend how bad hell is going to be.

The sad thing is that there are going to be a lot of “nice” people in hell.  I’m talking about people you meet on the street and think, “What a nice guy,” or “What a sweet lady.”  How can that be? The Bible tells us how.  People go to hell not because of the awfulness of their sin, but because of the absence of their faith in Jesus Christ (John 3:36).  Sure, sin will most definitely be punished in hell.  But unbelief is what sends a person there.

To reject all that God has done on behalf of humanity through the death of His Son and refuse His gift of salvation is the greatest offense anyone can ever commit.  So don’t commit it!  Put your faith in Christ and Him alone.  That is the only way to be saved from this place called hell.

Pastor Todd Weston

“O Timothy!  Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babbling and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge” (1 Timothy 6:20).

God made a deposit in Timothy’s life.  He has made the same deposit in the life of every believer.  Something very important has been committed to your trust and mine.  It is a commodity of infinite wealth, and God’s Word tells us to guard it!

So what is this deposit God has made in our lives?  It’s the treasure of truth as revealed in His Word.

God’s truth is absolute truth.  Anything that contradicts the truth of God’s Word is not true.  That which denies the truth of the Bible is, “profane and idle babbling and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge.”  Anything that runs contrary to Scripture is not true no matter how sophisticated it may sound or how widely it may be accepted.

For example, when people talk about the science of Evolution they misuse the word, for evolution is not a science because it is contrary to biblical truth.  The more accurate term would be the theory of Evolution.  While the Bible never claims to be a science book, everything it says on the subject is absolutely true.  And the Bible debunks the theory of Evolution in the opening statement, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).

Evolution is just one example.  There are countless others.  The danger is that the moment we veer from the truth of God’s Word we venture off into the weeds of error and deception, and those weeds can get pretty tall!  As a result of error and deception people stray concerning the faith (1 Timothy 6:20) and pierce themselves through with many sorrows (1 Timothy 6:10).

In this day and age when human knowledge is glorified and divine revelation is denied, we must hold even stronger to the truth declared in God’s Word.  Trust it.  The Bible will be a lamp to your feet and a light to your path.  Guard the deposit God has made in your life by resolving with the psalmist, “Remove from me the way of lying…I have chosen the way of truth” (Psalm 119:29-30).

Pastor Todd Weston

In putting together the new series for April, Epic - Days That Changed The World, I was faced with the challenging decision of which days to select.  Just a casual perusal through Scripture provides several historic days to choose from.

One of the strangest days in the history of the world was the day God confounded the languages.  The event is recorded in Genesis 11.  This event occurred some years after the great flood.  The world was in the process of repopulating itself, and all humanity spoke the same language.  What language?  Who knows!  For all we know, it could have been Swahili.

What we do know is that the residents of earth banded together to build a tower.  The attitude behind the tower was humanistic to the core.  Furthermore, it was in direct rebellion to the commandment given by God to Adam in Genesis 1:28 and again to Noah in Genesis 9:1.  This commandment explicitly instructed humanity to multiply and fill the earth.  The act of building the tower was in direct defiance to God’s authority.  So God brought the project to an abrupt halt by mixing up the languages.  

This really has a comical side to it.  I can see two guys working together laying brick on the tower.  They’ve been working together for months.  The one turns to the other and says as he has done countless times (probably in Swahili), “Hey, hand me another brick.”  The other guy looks at him like he’s from another planet and says -

• “No entiendo” (Spanish)
• “Je ne comprends pas” (French)
• “Versetehe it nicht” (German)
• “Rikai dekimasen” (Japanese)
• “Ne ponimayu” (Russian)

Whatever the other language might have been, the guy says, “I don’t understand.”  And he didn’t understand because God instantly and supernaturally changed the languages of the people. 

Unable to understand each other, the people walked off the job and gathered with those who spoke the same language.  They then ended up doing what God told them to do in the first place - multiply and fill the earth.  And that was the end of the Tower of Babel.

Rather than evolving over a long period of time, the major languages of earth were created by God in a single day.  It was a day that changed the world.

So if God can do something so amazing in one twenty-four hour day, just think what He can do in your life and mine today!  Think you have big problems and unsolvable issues?  Think again.  What you have is a really big God!  You have a God who can change the entire world in a single day.  So look to Him.  This might be the day your world changes!

Pastor Todd Weston