Are you going to go to hell?

So are you going to go to hell? This article aims to set out the reasons why my answer to that question might be very different to your answer. Please note that this is all about what the Bible says, if the Bible is true.

Let me warn you in advance – you might find this post to be extremely offensive. As with any of my posts, you obviously do not have to read it. However, please know that I am writing this because I feel I absolutely have to. Because of the message I will share here, (and because the Bible says so), I feel I have a responsibility to share this message with everyone I know – and I believe there is a great urgency about it. However, the point of this post is not to scare anyone, but rather to offer an honest examination of what the Bible truly says on the subject of hell, which I know is different from what many people believe it says.

You are of course entitled to your own opinion regarding the truth of the Bible. However, please believe me that I am not exaggerating here at all. This is sincerely what the Bible says.

In short, from a Biblical Christian perspective, the answer to the question “Are you going to go to hell?” is a resounding yes. For everybody. For absolutely everybody.

Hypothetical reader: “What, even ME Tosin?”
Tosin: “Yes. Even you. For absolutely everybody.”
Reader: “Please tell me you are joking! You cannot seriously mean me?!”
Tosin: “I am sincerely not joking. I do seriously mean you.”
Reader: “But Tosin, I’m like your best friend!”
Tosin: “I know, I’ve been such a coward, I should have told you this a long time before now. But the answer is still yes.”
Reader: “But Tosin, you of all people must know that I am such a lovely person! I am decent, I am friendly, I am gracious, I give money (or time) to charity….I go to church”
Tosin: “I know, that is why you are my friend, that is why I like you, that is why I really feel I have to tell you this before it is too late (before either of us dies)…”

So yes, I believe that this is true for everyone – including all my best, loveliest and sweetest friends -and I have many such friends – (or at least I did have before I wrote this article). Because my friends are so lovely – in many cases much lovelier than I am – it is so hard to communicate this message, and like a coward I’ve been running away time after time.
Even people who go to church every day – even several times a day – are bound for hell, unless they have trusted in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and have surrendered their lives to Him.

The Christian Bible teaches that absolutely all of us, each and every one of us without exception – is bound for hell after death. No matter how genuinely kind, friendly, humble, honest, decent or straightforward – or religious we are. Hell is the destination for absolutely everybody. There is one exception – and one exception only. That is if you choose to surrender your life to God through Jesus Christ, and ask God to reign in your life through Christ. (It is very possible to be religious – even “Christian religious” – without doing this). The central teaching of the Christian Bible is that, at the cross, Jesus took on the punishment for all our sins, so that we would not have to pay the penalty for our sins.

If we reject this sacrifice made by Jesus then there is absolutely no other alternative, but we have to bear our own punishment – which is hell. Forever and ever. The Bible describes this as eternal torment, a lake of fire.

Reader: “Well I know that I’m a decent person. I don’t really have many sins.”
Well maybe you don’t have many sins relative to other people. However it is not about the number of sins that you may or may not have committed – it is about what the Bible calls our “sinful nature”. We are all born with this, which is why we are all condemned. Whether we do many kind and lovely things, or we are the most wicked of people – our sinful nature remains. The only thing that can adequately deal with this is the sacrifice of Christ. In fact, this would remain true even for someone who has gone through their entire life without ever doing a single thing wrong. And yet we all know that this can never be true of anyone – except that one Man, Jesus Christ, the only perfect human being who has ever lived.

Reader: “I can’t believe that God would send someone like me to hell!”
If the Bible is true, if God is who the Bible teaches that He is, then He can and He will do just this.* In fact, if the Bible is true, many people just like you have already earned this punishment.**

Reader: “So Tosin, are you going to go to hell?”
Tosin: “No, because I have already trusted in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to rescue me from hell, and direct me towards Heaven. I have invited Jesus to be the Lord of my life, and I submit my life to His teachings as found in the Bible. I renew this commitment every day.”

So yes, if this is indeed true, then it is undoubtedly scary. However, don’t be scared, but at least take the time to consider the message of Christ. Please don’t take a decision based on fear. Such a decision would not last anyway. Rather, take a decision based on truth. Read the Bible for yourself. Could this be true? If there is a God, is this what He would look like? Are these the commandments that He would set out for us?

Ask Him: “God, if You are real, if I am currently bound for hell, then please show me!” – then listen honestly for an answer. If you decide against Christ, then at least you’ll know that you have honestly examined the issue for yourself. However please do be honest with yourself. Otherwise you would only be cheating yourself.
(In a way it works both ways of course. If the Bible is not after all true, but for instance the Qu’ran is the actual word of God, then I am as doomed as anybody. However this thought does not inspire the slightest fear in me precisely because I know I have honestly examined the Bible, and I am being honest with myself, and to me there is less than zero comparison between the Bible and any other rival doctrine – with all respect to anyone else. To me, the Bible is clearly written by God, whereas other doctrines were written by people who were trying to be profound – in my unbiased opinion.)

If, however, like me you realise that this is indeed true, then throw yourself into it 100%. Pursue God, pursue His Word, pursue His truth.
However, you too will then also have to go around telling everyone around you that they are going to go to hell, which is not fun at all.

* I don’t know how this is the case (actually, I do know) – people with a vague knowledge of the Christian message always seem to assume that the opposite of all this is true – that good people will go to heaven, and bad people will go to hell. I have heard this even from people who don’t even pretend to believe in God: – when someone dies, they speak of them as having “gone to a better place”. Which better place? If they have not died “in Christ” (according to the Biblical definition of what it means to be “in Christ”) then they have gone to hell. Hell is an eternally worse place than earth could ever be. (Obviously, I don’t make this point to someone in the throes of grief.)
I say I know why people assume the opposite of what the Bible teaches, because the Bible does clearly lay out standards of conduct for Christians. So people compare themselves to these standards of conduct and think that they are OK. However, it is not the standards of conduct that will rescue us from hell and get us to heaven -only the death and resurrection of Christ will do this. Christian behaviour is set out for us for after we have already trusted in Jesus to rescue us from hell.

**Because “life after death” and “heaven and hell” are not subject to the laws of science as we understand them, then time is an interesting concept – are people who have died already in hell, or are they still awaiting the final judgement? This is the way I look at it. Relative to us; they are are still waiting, still dead; relative to themselves, they are already in hell. It makes sense to me that immediately we die we find ourselves at the judgement day without any time gap seeming to occur – but we all seem to get there at the same time, regardless of when we actually die on earth. So people who died 1000 years ago (relative to us) and people who will die 1000 years from now (if the earth still exists then) will all find themselves, along with us, and everyone else who has ever lived, at the judgement day “at the same time”.

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