It hurts me when I read or hear of someone who has died and I know they did not have Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. It gnaws on me that they are now spending eternity in hell without a way out. It makes me want to believe in purgatory or Universalism, although I cannot accept either because scripture says differently.
RC Sproul writes this about hell:
We have often heard statements such as “War is hell” or “I went through hell.” These expressions are, of course, not taken literally. Rather, they reflect our tendency to use the word hell as a descriptive term for the most ghastly human experience possible. Yet no human experience in this world is actually comparable to hell. If we try to imagine the worst of all possible suffering in the here and now we have not yet stretched our imaginations to reach the dreadful reality of hell.
Hell is trivialized when it is used as a common curse word. To use the word lightly may be a halfhearted human attempt to take the concept lightly or to treat it in an amusing way. We tend to joke about things most frightening to us in a futile effort to declaw and defang them, reducing their threatening power.
There is no biblical concept more grim or terror-invoking than the idea of hell. It is so unpopular with us that few would give credence to it at all except that it comes to us from the teaching of Christ Himself.
There have been many speculations as to what hell is. Some say it is fire and brimstone, burning eternally, some say it is separation from God, while others, such as RC Sproul say that God will eternally be there in wrath and judgment. All are horrible.
I agree with RC Sproul in that if the fire and gnashing of teeth is a symbol, that is worse than the symbol.
If we truly think about people that we know,love, and admire, going to hell without Christ, maybe that would spur us to begin to live the Great Commission Resurgence, and to begin to prayerfully give the Gospel to anyone and everyone.
I have gone through the heartache of knowing those who have died without Christ. Some in my family. Friends. It is agony knowing that I will not have the opportunity to give them Christ.
I also know that God in His Sovereignty will make opportunities available, if not through me, then through someone else, for those I have not been able to reach.
Reading through the deaths of celebrities these past few weeks has caused me to pause, as I am burdened that those who have died did not have Christ as their Lord and Savior. I don’t want to see another lost soul die without Christ.
Think and read about hell this week, and no matter your view of what hell is like, think about the lost who are dying daily. There are no more opportunities for them. How many more do we want to see go to hell?
Think about this as some are turning the CRR into a Calvinist vs. anti-Calvinist issue. Focusing on whether we drink alcohol in moderation or abstain. While this is being focused on, there are those who are dying without Christ and going to hell. That is the bottom line. What is being discussed is folly. So, think about hell this week. Then, maybe our perspectives will begin to change.
Believe me, Satan would much rather you focus on the non-essentials. He would like that very much. So far, we seem to be pleasing him. And by all means, don’t let gifted women, or anyone you disagree with theologically among Southern Baptists join in your evangelistic efforts, because that is just less people he has to worry about giving the good news.
I watched the convention, followed twitter, read facebook, and I am still holding out on my observations . To be honest, I have to think about this, possibly watch some of the Convention again to form a view. 

27 Jun
The Sadness, The Emptiness…
Posted by Debbie Kaufman in Commentary. Tagged: Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson. Leave a Comment
I was a fan of Michael Jackson. Not the Michael Jackson of the late 1990’s or 2000, but the Michael Jackson who began with the Jackson Five. The Michael Jackson of the 80’s who had such work as Thriller and Black and White.
Just as Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire were geniuses in the world of music and dance, so was Michael Jackson. He had talent that no one else possessed. He was wonderful to watch as he moved with such precision and grace to the beat of the music that he also wrote. Take a look at his genius at work in Thriller(1982) which is downright creepy, Black and White(1991) a song and video which is moving and beautiful in its message and presentation. Michael Jackson was absolutely amazing. Unfortunately as you see in the two videos, he began to physically change, then emotionally change. I believe his abusive childhood was too much for him to bare along with adoring fans that worshiped him. He broke. Just as Elvis Presley did and others we could name who went on a self destructive path. Solomon couldn’t have been anymore right when he wrote vanity of vanities… Unfortunately Michael Jackson is known for his child molestation charges and his weird appearance more than his genius as a dancer/singer/songwriter.
There are so many lessons in just these two stars lives, many have already been written about and I can’t improve on them. It just makes me sing louder…”I’d rather have Jesus than anything”…
Even in church life, when we want to be the star of the show, of the blog world or anywhere else, it may turn out to be a curse rather than a blessing. Being in the background, less “influencing” the real blessing.