The Great Regret

Some time ago here in Melbourne, a priest held a funeral service for a petty criminal who was also known by the priest and many friends to be an atheist.  In his eulogy the priest spoke about the man and his meeting with God.  Someone later said, “But Father, he didn’t believe in God.”  The priest replied, “Well he does now.”  Those words came to mind when reading of the death in December of a well-known British strident atheist intellectual, author and journalist, who, apparently maintained his atheism right up to the moment of his death, “No evidence or argument has yet been presented which would change my mind. But I like surprises.”

Well, he got his surprise, but I can guarantee he didn’t doesn’t like it.  Petty criminal or famous author, “bad” person or “good” person, it makes little difference; atheists they are now not; they’re now believers in God – in a perfect state of consciousness living The Great Regret!  Not that it is only atheists living this life death; the place of the damned known as ‘hades’ ‘hell’ ‘pit’  is full of all kinds of people now in a perfect state of consciousness who once held to all kinds of belief systems. Today they too are living The Great Regret and sad it is that multitudes follow them every minute of every day.  I would to God that it was otherwise, but the Lord Jesus tells us it is not Matthew 7:13.  Jesus teaches us here that people send themselves to such a place.

How do I know such people are living The Great Regret?  Many years ago, I asked in prayer, “Lord, what is hell like?”  I don’t recommend anyone pray that prayer!  The answer was some months in coming, but when it did come it was one of shock, horror! I did not see hell, I felt a touch of hell. God showed me in a few moments that hell was a place or a dimension of separation; in my case, separation from my wife and children – and it was too late to put things right with each of them, both as a husband and a father.  The Lord used this to show me that my relational presence and practice with each member of my family had been substandard to say the least.  That experience put me on the floor and I cried out for mercy.  Praise the Lord for mercy!

That’s how I know the Christless in eternity are living The Great Regret.  ‘Oh what a fool I’ve been.’  Too late. You’re still a fool.  Always will be. ‘If only I didn’t say/do that awful thing to my wife/husband.’  Too late.  You did. Can’t be fixed! ‘If only I had treated my children better.’  Too late.  You didn’t. ‘If only I spent the greater part of my time with the family rather than with work and work mates.’  Too late. Nothing can be done. ‘If only I had directed my mind towards that which is good, true and noble, rather than getting caught up in what I knew to be lies and deceptions.’  Too late.  You had no mind of your own, you followed everybody else’s. ‘If only I hadn’t allowed money /food/sex/sport/travel to become my gods.’  Too late.  Only one God.

‘If only I could have….’ ‘If only I did….” ‘If only I didn’t….’  Too late. Too late. Too late. ‘He’s dead.’ ‘She’s dead.’  No, he’s living, she’s living, just not in their bodies that’s all.  Their bodies are dead but they live on more alive than they’ve ever been – some in Eternal Life, most in Eternal Death awaiting the second death Revelation 2:11; 20:6, 14. “But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death Revelation 21:8.  Someone says, ‘He’s at peace now. No more suffering.”  Is he? Who said?  Someone says, ‘Her suffering has come to an end.’  Has it? Perhaps it’s just beginning.

The picture the Bible paints of Hell is so horrendous that most of Christianity has not looked at it for decades.  There are next to no fire and brimstone preachers today anywhere in the western world. They’ve caved in to the very ones that hell was originally created for, Satan the devil and his angels Matthew 25:41. Imagine a person sitting in a doctor’s surgery being informed by the doctor that the report has come back confirming the melanoma and that it needs to be cut out asap.  Then, imagine the response, “How dare you! Who do you think you are?  Where is your love?”  Again, imagine a man being awakened from his beautiful sleep to be told his house is on fire, but he just laughs and says, “You moron, get outta here!”

People don’t dare do those things, do they?  That’s why they pay a fortune annually for their medical, home and contents insurance, “one never knows when one might need it,” they say.  Amazing really. Per individual, cancer or a fire are only a possibility, not a definite.  Death is a definite, but people live as though it’s only a possibility!  Only a devil could come up with such foolishness; no wonder Jesus calls him a liar and a deceiver.  On the other hand, the devil can only blind the things of God to those who want to be blinded 2 Corinthians 4:4, that’s why all are without excuse Romans 1:20. And, in hell, everybody now knows that.  That’s not going to stop them arguing their case with God on Judgment Day though.  Too late. 

Apparently the major argument the atheist intellectual author had against the existence of God was based on his view (perhaps even his experiences) of man-centered religions.  He argued that, “religion was the source of all tyranny and that many of the world’s evils have been done in the name of religion.” He was partially correct, they have.  But he didn’t come to this reality of his own volition.  Atheists and God-haters having been spewing that since time immemorial.  How is it that he refused to see that “evils done in the name of religion” is not a sound, sensible argument for ignoring all the good that has been done by people in the name of Jesus Christ.  He was not ignorant of the living Christ, he simply chose to ignore and reject Him.

So let us be very clear here; people in hell living The Great Regret are eternally cursed because they refused to be blessed while they lived on the earth.  They are cursed, not because there was no salvation for them but because they did not receive Christ, who offered Himself to them. They are damned because they refused to be saved.  Someone reading this post is now painting a picture of the writer as one who has no love, is full of hate-speech, self-righteousness and arrogance.  Fact: You are not painting that picture, Satan is!  Now there’s anger and hate-speech rising up in you.  Satan is the creator of it; always has been.  He’s using you, just as he used those now living The Great Regret. 

Human beings love to think of themselves as free thinkers, under the influence of nobody but themselves.  Truth is, we’re under the influence somebody all of the time – either God or His Arch-enemy, Satan.  Either we are influenced by truth or we’re influenced by lies.  There are no half-measures; it’s black or it’s white, it’s good or it’s bad, it’s right or it’s wrong, it’s healthy or it’s unhealthy, it’s up or it’s down, it’s in or it’s out, it’s life or it’s death, it’s heaven or it’s hell.  The whole world hates this kind of thinking because it calls for decisions and commitments … a ‘settle it once and for all’ mentality.  That’s what Jesus teaches; if you’re not with Him, you’re against Him; if you’re not gathering with Him, you’re scattering abroad Matthew 12:30. 

As one wise old-time saint put it, ‘If we be on the side of the devil, we must expect to go to the devil’s hell; if we be on the side of Christ, we may expect to go to his heaven.’  Another old-timer said, ‘A soul under Satan’s power, and led captive by him, is blind in the things of God, and dumb at the throne of grace; sees nothing, and says nothing to the purpose.’  Where are men such as these today?  They’re in the prayer rooms, but they’re not in the pulpits.  Praying saints are fearless.  Not so, too many pulpit preachers; they’re fearful; not fearful of God, only of what others think of them. Reputation is more important to them than repentance.  Religion is more attractive to them than reality. The love of Jesus is easy to preach, not so the blood of Jesus! 

They don’t really preach the love of Jesus though because they omit to bring the entire message of Christ.  In the gospels, we see that the most frightening accounts of hell and the sufferings of the damned come from the mouth of the Lord Himself! Should a preacher deliberately turn his back on those accounts of the Lord because he’s afraid of offending or frightening people, then effectively, he turns his back on everything Jesus said.  One who rejects hell rejects the Savior.  Why would we need a Savior if that’s the case?  To save us from what?  That’s the question the atheist asks, which makes the preacher who omits hell from his preaching no different than the atheist!

In the Bible we learn of hell as not only the place of the damned, but ‘the place of eternal torment’. It is described as: everlasting fire, eternal punishment, outer darkness, everlasting destruction and a lake of fire. Hell was prepared for: the devil and his angels, fallen angels, the wicked, the disobedient, the beast and the false prophet, worshippers of the beast and rejecters of the gospel of Christ. The punishment of hell is described as: bodily, in the soul, with degrees and unchangeable. Inhabitants of hell: possess memory, cry for release and cannot escape from God.  What a picture!  God painted it, and He came to earth to talk about it and show us that none of us have to go there.  Then He died for us.  Reject that truth and you do go there.  

The person who says he doesn’t believe in God because no evidence or argument has yet been presented which would change my mind is not clever, he’s a fool.  The one and only God Almighty revealed in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ does not bow to our demands, we bow to His.  How blind and arrogant is the one who says to God, “Show me then I’ll believe.”? God will hide Himself from that person, deliberately so.  God never responds to pride or arrogance, only to humility and teachableness.  We either come to Him as little children or we don’t come at all Matthew 18:3. That’s the way He has ordained it.  We come with a repentant heart, not a rebellious heart.

The Christian doctrine of ‘hades’ ‘hell’ ‘pit’ is a hated doctrine, hated not only by atheists but also by believers in God, many of them professing to be Christians.  More than once it has been said on this blog that one can believe in God yet still end up separated from Him at death.  Hell is full of such people and they’re entering in droves every minute.  Eternity begins for them at that moment … a life death of living The Great Regret.  Not so, the one who believes (obeys) God.  The moment he/she enters eternity they begin living The Great Rejoicing.  Your choice! “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting (eternal) life.” John 3:16.