Herein lies the awful fruit of sin. Lead a godless life, and expect a godless eternity. Spend a life telling God to leave you alone, and he will. He'll grant you an existence "without God and without hope" (Eph. 2:12). Jesus will "punish those who reject God and who do not obey the Good News about our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from his glorious might" (2 Thess. 1:8-9 TEV).
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Christ keeps no secrets about hell. His description purposely chills the soul:
• A place of darkness (Matt. 8:12)• A fiery furnace (Matt. 13:42)• A place where "the worm does not die; the fire is never put out" (Mark 9:48 NCV)
Citizens of hell long to die, but cannot. Beg for water, but receive none. They pass into a dawnless night.
So what can we do? If all have been infected and the world is corrupted, to whom do we turn? Or, to re-ask the great question of Scripture: "What must I do to be saved?" (Acts 16:30). The answer offered then is the answer offered still: "Put your entire trust in the Master Jesus" (Acts 16:31 MSG).
Why Jesus? Why not Muhammad or Moses? Joseph Smith or Buddha? What uniquely qualifies Jesus to safeguard the sin-sick? In a sentence: Christ, the sinless, became sin so that we, the sinners, could die sinless. "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor. 5:21 NIV).
Life's greatest calamity, from God's perspective, is that people die in sin. In one sentence Christ twice warned, "I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins" (John 8:24 NIV). Forget earthquakes or economic depressions. The ultimate disaster is carrying your sins to your casket. Heaven cannot fathom a worse tragedy. And heaven could not offer a greater gift than this one: "Christ . . . never sinned, but he died for sinners that he might bring us safely home to God" (1 Pet. 3:18).