Is Hell Real?

Michael Kelley:

I was sort of a punk kid sometimes. I didn’t smoke weed, but I certainly did some things I’m not proud of. When I was in the fifth grade, I was playing in a pick-up football game in a field. We had the “don’t rush the passer” rules, so instead of actually chasing after the quarterback, all the defensive person could do was try and block the pass. It never worked, so most people would just drop back and wait. You know, play it cool.

But when I was the quarterback, this kid who everybody thought was incredibly annoying happened to be defending me. Instead of playing it cool, he started jumping up and down and shouting at the top of his lungs. So instead of throwing the pass down the field, I threw it as hard as I could right at his face. It hit him hard, and he went down even harder. Everybody laughed because they thought the kid was annoying.

But imagine if it wasn’t the annoying kid defending against me as the quarterback. Imagine instead it was a 5-year-old girl eating an ice cream cone. And then imagine I did the very same thing, smacking her in the face with a football with all my might. Even a group of 5th grade boys would have thought I was a jerk.

Isn’t it interesting that the “badness” of the act changes with the “goodness” of the one the act is committed against? Same act, but different person. This is why I believe in a literal hell. Hell is so bad not only because of the bad things we do - it’s so bad because God is so good.