Hell- what happened to you?

Most Christians believe every word the Bible has to say about Heaven but most have a hard time with Hell.
Many atheist and skeptics think of hell, as Robert Ingersoll did when he called hell "the scarecrow of Christianity".

This is why many preachers today refuse to preach on the subject.
Jesus talked about Hell and Judgment a lot. As a matter of fact, 13% of his words were on hell. That is a whole lot of one's words on one subject.
I don't talk about the Tar Heels that much!!


Read the words of a Jonathan Edwards (I read this sermon @ CVCC as a college freshman- I was lost at the time!)
Read carefully and beware!! This is just part of his sermon (sermon in quotes)

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
by Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)
"The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.

O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment.

And let every one that is yet out of Christ, and hanging over the pit of hell, whether they be old men and women, or middle aged, or young people, or little children, now hearken to the loud calls of God's word and providence. This acceptable year of the Lord, a day of such great favour to some, will doubtless be a day of as remarkable vengeance to others. Men's hearts harden, and their guilt increases apace at such a day as this, if they neglect their souls; and never was there so great danger of such persons being given up to hardness of heart and blindness of mind. God seems now to be hastily gathering in his elect in all parts of the land; and probably the greater part of adult persons that ever shall be saved, will be brought in now in a little time, and that it will be as it was on the great out-pouring of the Spirit upon the Jews in the apostles' days; the election will obtain, and the rest will be blinded. If this should be the case with you, you will eternally curse this day, and will curse the day that ever you was born, to see such a season of the pouring out of God's Spirit, and will wish that you had died and gone to hell before you had seen it. Now undoubtedly it is, as it was in the days of John the Baptist, the axe is in an extraordinary manner laid at the root of the trees, that every tree which brings not forth good fruit, may be hewn down and cast into the fire.

Therefore, let every one that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come. The wrath of Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a great part of this congregation. Let every one fly out of Sodom: "Haste and escape for your lives, look not behind you, escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed."

This sermon was not given by some screaming, yelling, foaming at the mouth uneducated preacher. Jonathan graduated from Yale and read this sermon word for word. So much for human persuasion.
Historians say you could hear people moan and groan as they heard this sermon being read. The truth of the Word of God stung them!

As a college freshman I was scared, confused and convicted. My English teacher at the time called this interesting literature! Many in our class were slightly amused. This is how people receive this message today. The fear of hell will never save anyone only the conviction of the Holy Spirit that draws people to Christ.
God used this sermon to start a Great Awakening among God's people at the time. May He do the same today.


Sunday night I will start a 3-part series on Hell