Burned to a Crisp!

My mother was once a chef for Hollywood biggies, and so I had a natural inclination to cook also. I favored baking sweets. At a young age I burned a lot of food to a crisp before eventually getting the hang of things.

Additionally, I was once an elite firefighter with the the U.S. Forest Service's Hotshots after a stint with one of the U.S. Army's parachute infantry battalions.

Hotshots

The #Hotshots were created in 1940 by the federal government. When I was accepted, there were only 120 of us in the entire State of California. We parachuted, hiked, bussed, ran or helicoptered into raging forest fires in the Cleveland and Angeles National Forests, among other places and other assignments, such as rescues and proper land management. We were the #frontliners of our day.

The job was extremely difficult and dangerous, but I enjoyed the challenge it provided. What I did not like whatsoever was the damage I saw from fires: structures and people burned to a crisp.

These images tend to stick with a person for a lifetime. The destruction of the body is extremely painful. Anyone that has been ever been burned when cooking or in any other manner knows the pain I am speaking about.

A crispy future?

But as usual, let me turn both my and your attention to another crispy event: the eternal burning in hell and the eventual lake of fire. This is a future occurrence of the unrepentant masses who willfully reject God and refuse His mercy and plan of salvation.

You won't hear much preaching about hell and eternal destruction in modern churches. Nope. It's not considered polite or encouraging. Rather, many preachers and teachers seek to soft sell Scripture to their respective flocks. But they do err; teachers and preachers must teach all of God's everlasting word.

Hell and the lake of fire

The Holy Bible mentions the variant words of hell some 162 times in the New Testament alone. Yikes! That should get anybody's attention. It should strike fear in people to the extent that they do not want to go there for an eternal separation from God.

Think of hell as a temporary place of suffering, a jail, where people await their final sentencing to an eternal prison (the lake of fire).

Paul writes: "They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might" (2 Thessalonians 1:9, NIV).

He is speaking to the church in Thessalonica about those people both then and in the future who will reject God's plan of salvation.

God is cruel?

Many people from the liberal persuasion state that God is cruel to send people to eternal punishment. That is simply not the case, my friends. God is just and cannot look on sin. This is why He sent His Son Jesus to suffer on the cross for the full payment of sins.

Recollect these words: "About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" (which means "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?") (Matthew 27:46, NIV).

Jesus is quoting from the Old Testament: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Psalm 22:1, NIV).

Jesus was destined to die before the foundation (creation) of the universe. He has always existed (John 1).

If God did not punish sin then He would not be just!

The parable of the net

Jesus often taught in parables. Its purpose was basically twofold: to get a person to think it through and glean the essential point, and to shield unbelievers from any extra punishment by way of their misunderstanding or grasp of the story. Mercy!

"Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 13:47-50, NIV).

Here the point of the parable is plain. The wicked will be destroyed for their unbelief.

For a glimpse into what this eternal destruction is like, read the parable in Luke 16:19-31.

Additional verses

When speaking about the angels who abandoned heaven in their rebellion, Jude writes: "In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire" (Jude 1:7, NIV).

As we know, both cities were destroyed: "Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens" (Genesis 19:24, NIV). Fire! Burned to a crisp!

And finally, John writes in Revelation:

"But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death: (Revelation 21:8, NIV).

An admonishment

There is no reason why anyone in their right mind and heart would ever want to live in an eternal punishment separated from God. But may will choose this course!

Jesus speaks to this fact in Matthew: "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it" (Matthew 7:13-14, NIV).

How about you? What course have you charted for your future? Are you saving up deeds that lead to your destruction? Are you rejecting God's mercy and plan of salvation? Is your ultimate destiny to be burned to a crisp for eternity? I'll leave that to you to decide for yourselves.