To read Part One, Click here

No Second Chance
Hell is not a place like jail, where you go to serve a sentence for a while, and then, after you have served your time, you can leave.

No, hell is a place where you are eternally sentenced, and eternally you will be there—never to stop the anguish, the burning, or the screaming. There is no second chance, because judgment will have been set.

Notice that the rich man in Luke 16 said, "Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame" (v. 24).

I want you to notice that he said "flame." Hell is fire; it's real fire. Have you ever been burned before? If you have, was it fun? If you've ever been burned, you know that after a few seconds of being burned, you don't want any more of it!

Well, what if you were burning for a week? For a month? For a year? Or what about burning constantly, yet as you were burning, you were never consumed? You just continued to burn. You'd have the pain, but you'd never have the destruction. That's what hell is—constant burning in a fire that never consumes.

And if you have never been born again, if you've never accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are playing with fire—hell's fire.

The Power Of Memory In Hell
In verse 16:25, we see Abraham's response to the rich man's request to have Lazarus "...dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool...[the rich man's] tongue..." (v. 24).

Abraham said, "...remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented."

So memory is something else you will have in hell. You will have the power of recognition, and you will have memory. If you go to hell, you will remember every chance you had to receive Jesus. You will remember every chance you had to repent and get right with God.

In Matthew 8:29, demons came screaming at Jesus, saying, "...What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?" The demons know their time of torment is coming, and they know that it is going to be eternal.

But their time has not come yet. Before their time of torment comes, they will torment people who are in hell by reminding them of all the chances they had to be born again. Nearly everyone has heard the saying, "Misery loves company."

Have you ever met folks who, when things were going bad for them, they tried to make things bad for you too? Well, that's the way it is in hell.

Demons torment people in hell and laugh at them, especially people who heard the Gospel many times or who were in a church where they constantly heard the Word of God.

You will have memory in hell. Hell is a place of eternal torment—don't go there!

"Don't Come Here!"
Let's look again at Abraham's response to the rich man:
...Remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
(Luke 16:25-26)
We can learn from this passage that if you go to hell, you can't get out, and no one can come there and rescue you. In other words, no one can get out of hell. Look at what the rich man said next:
Then he [the rich man] said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.
(Luke 16:27-28)
First, the rich man wanted Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his tongue, for he was being tormented in the flame of hell (v. 24). Then the rich man asked Abraham to send Lazarus to his father's house to tell his five brothers about hell and to warn them, "Don't come here" (v. 28).

Hell is a real place of torment, friend. You don't want to go there. Abraham answered the rich man, "...They [the man's brothers] have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them" (v. 29).

Moses and the prophets were men called by God to warn people about hell and to tell them about eternal life. Well, I as a minister of the Gospel am also called of God to warn people not to go to hell.

And I'm called of God to tell you that Jesus paid the price for you, and that if you will receive him, you don't have to go to hell. You can go to Heaven when you die and be eternally with God.

But the choice is yours! In Luke 16:28, Abraham was telling the rich man that if people won't listen to a preacher, then they won't listen to someone raised from the dead. He was saying that, even then, they wouldn't believe the message.

Likewise, if you won't believe what Keith Butler is telling you—if you won't receive this message—then you wouldn't believe it if someone were raised from the dead.

But if you haven't already done so, you'd better accept this message now instead of recalling it again and again while you're in hell—while you're in agony, wishing to God you had listened, and saying, "Lord, have mercy on me." Jesus will say to you, "It's too late. The judgment is set, and it is eternal."

One Heartbeat Away
Heaven is real, friend, but so is hell. And you will spend all of eternity living in one place or the other. You see, the body I live in right now on the earth is not the real me. It is only a container, and I'm inside of it.

When people look at you, they can't see the real you. Your body is only a container, and it's a very fragile one.

Did you know that you are only one—just one—heartbeat from eternity? You're only one tick of your heart away from Heaven or hell.

Many people don't get an opportunity to make a last-minute decision between Heaven and hell. Some do, but many don't. They don't get that opportunity, and you don't know whether or not you will get it either.

Because you are reading this, you will now be held accountable. Your choice will be made today if you haven't already made it. You will either choose life, or you will choose death.

In the end, there will be people who knew God and were born again who will wind up in hell because they decided to go back and live like the world.

There will be people who came to church, came to the altar, but then decided, "Well, I have time to live the way I want to right now and then live for God later. Besides, I have 'fire insurance.'"

But, this isn't a matter of your getting saved, and then that's all there is to it. It's not getting saved and then having the attitude, "Now I can go out and do whatever I want."

Yes, there is the forgiveness of God. First John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

But, that's only when we truly repent—truly turn away from sin and go the other way.

So, I strongly advise you—if you have not made Jesus the Lord of your life, confess your sins before Him and accept Him into your life. It's the only way to avoid an eternity of misery. Now that's good news!

Source: Hell by Bishop Keith A. Butler
Excerpt permission granted by Word Of Faith Publishing