“Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” Luke 12:5

Few people today seem to believe in the devil or in hell. It would seem as though it would be easy to believe in the devil since there are so many devilish things happening today. All the time we hear in the news about gruesome acts far beyond what the human mind by itself could conceive. And behind it all is the evil one, pulling the strings.

I hear comments to the tone of “If God is a loving God, He wouldn’t make a hell or the devil.” Yes, God is definitely a loving and merciful God. He instilled in us free will, which is the complete freedom of choice and God indeed respects that choice. In fact, God’s love is so boundless for us that He will allow us to even choose a bad road, if that is truly what we want. In short, God has never sentenced anyone to hell, we sentence ourselves there. God hates it and He hurts when His children go astray, but He loves us enough to allow our decisions to stand, even if they are poor decisions. But there is the crux of the matter, which is in order to make a choice, there must be something to choose. If the only way was Heaven no matter what, then what consequences are there for leading an evil and deplorable life? What would the reason be for repentance? God loves us and wants us to love Him in return, but if there is no choice, there can never be true love. Love is a gift, but a gift that is forced is no gift at all.

The most powerful argument for the existence of Satan is the fact that Jesus Himself talks about him and even to him in the Bible. We read in Matthew chapter 4 that Christ was tempted by the devil. We read later in Luke that Jesus “saw Satan fall like lightning from Heaven.” In fact, the devil is spoke of frequently throughout the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. So what about hell then? Jesus speaks of hell as a place of eternal fire that was prepared for the devil and his angels. He also calls hell a place of outer darkness set apart from God where there is great wailing and gnashing of teeth. That should be enough for any Christian. Our Lord said it, therefore it is true.

It’s horrible to think of, but the devil and hell are spoken of as a real warning for us to stay on the straight path to the narrow gate. Two paths, one leads to love and one away from love. The choice is yours, but make no mistake, there is truly a choice. Don’t get fooled by the watered-down version of today’s gospel that preaches nothing but happiness and prosperity with no effort to repent of our deeds on our part. This is all a part of Satan’s master plan. When you start doubting the existence of the enemy, you won’t put up any kind of fight against him. And when you stop fighting against evil, Satan’s already won. Don’t let the devil win in the battle for your soul! If you think there’s no other way but to Heaven no matter what you do, then think again. The hell there is.

God’s blessings to you.

DH