Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”
—Revelation 6:14–17
I am bewildered how people can know that God exists yet refuse to repent and surrender to His will or accept that His Son is the only Savior. This tendency will reach its zenith in the heart of the tribulation period. Five different times, Revelation tells us that people will know they are under the judgment of God yet still refuse to repent. This is significant in light of the question people often pose of how a God of love could send anyone to hell or send judgment on the earth.
The fact is, God has done all He can to save humanity without violating the free will He has given us. At creation, it was important that He give man free will, for only by the ability to choose can true love be known. You cannot make someone love you, and God desire’s was not to have robotic, mindless followers who had no choice but to follow Him. That’s not love, and it is love that God desires from His creation (Deut. 7:9).
How is this important to your day? We all hear accusations levied against God—how could He do this, and how could He do that? Perhaps a good response would be, “People do not go to heaven just because God loves them, but people go to heaven because they choose to love God.” God so loved the world that He gave His Son, but that doesn’t mean that all the world automatically goes to heaven. God expressed love to this lost and fallen world in the gift of His Son, and those who choose to love God will spend eternity with Him.
Do not let anyone confuse or diminish the love of God by their self-centered arguments. God’s love could not be expressed any more clearly than by the sending of His Son, just as man’s rebellion cannot be expressed any more clearly than by the rejection of His Son. God is love, and He is not willing that any should perish but wants all to come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:9). So for man to encounter the wrath of God and enter into eternal punishment has nothing to do with whether God is loving, but it has everything to do with whether man chooses to love God.
People use the Bible’s teaching about hell as a reason to reject God because they do not want to accept God’s plan of how not to go there. It is not even remotely possible for God to be unjust or unfair. Do not let anyone convince you otherwise!
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