Observations From Hadleyville: IS HELL SHOWING IT'S AGE?

Thursday, October 17, 2013

IS HELL SHOWING IT'S AGE?

Mercedes Benz is currently running a quite clever commercial featuring ol' Scratch offering a young man a devilish deal. Sitting in a stylish coffee shop, the kid observes a billboard being posted across the street featuring the newest Mercedes. He lusts to own it. Suddenly Beelzebub appears; "Make a deal with me kid, and you can have the car and everything that goes with it." Visions of fame, fortune and manly coolness dance through the young man's head. "What do you say, kid?" the devil prompts. By then the billboard has been completed, revealing the amazingly reasonable sticker price of under 30,000 Smackeroos. "Thanks," the kid replies, "but I think I got this." Ha! The evil one is vanquished and dispatched to the nether world in an angry puff of oily, black smoke.

Ha, ha. Clever, right? I love this commercial. It is witty and plays on turning the old, established, cultural deal-with-the-devil mystique on its ear.

It does something else. Our wealthy, ever-at-ease culture no longer sees any need for God, salvation or heaven. This commercial reveals the flip side. Neither do we need the ole seducer and his tricks to give us an illicit leg up these days. We got this.

Au contraire, we do not. We are fallen creatures. Even the atheists agree that the world ought to be better. That it is not, is the consequence of sin. Not the devil's sin, or Hitler's sin, or Bin Laden's sin; yours, mine. We are not what we ought to be. That is why the world is not what it ought to be.

God offers a changed heart and eternal life to all who call upon the name of Jesus the Messiah in faith. Surrender your will to him and he promises to make you a new creature. Reject that, as so many loud voices demand today, and the alternative is eternity in Hell. Don't like that? Tough toenails. I don't like death or taxes, either. Disbelieving in Hell is about as effective as disbelieving in death and taxes.

God's Love and Wrath are two sides of the same coin; the fire that warms also burns. it depends on where you stand in relation to it. Hell serves a good and practical purpose. It is not just God's torture chamber for people he doesn't like. C.S. Lewis called Hell God's tourniquet on evil. Evil cannot be allowed free reign forever. It cannot be permitted to go on polluting God's creation. It must be judged. It will be contained. But neither will God force anyone to obey. Hell is the place for the people who insist "my will be done." Hell is God's answer, "Very well, thy will be done."

"God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance." 2 Peter 3:9
The choice is yours. What are you going to do about it?

Belief and repentance is the only answer.

4 comments:

Don the Baptist said...: Don't know what happened, but the comments have been raptured or something.; October 17, 2013 at 10:17 AM
Tim Riter said...: Don, I too love the wit of the commercial--my students analyzed it just after it appeared during the Superbowl. Maybe we can handle the Mercedes, but not the spiritual issues. Well said, my friend.; October 17, 2013 at 10:20 AM
Lori Stanley Roeleveld said...: Absolutely right on, brother. Absolutely.; October 17, 2013 at 4:40 PM
Precarious Yates said...: Nicely put! I'd like to propose, though, that God's wrath and mercy are on opposite sides of the same coin, to borrow that image, and that coin is love.

I have to go look up that commercial now, since I don't have a TV.; October 17, 2013 at 10:52 PM

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WORDS OF WISDOM FOR WRITERS

The secret of becoming a writer is that you have to write. You have to write a lot. You also have to finish what you write, even though no one wants it yet. If you don't learn to finish your work, no one will ever want to see it. The biggest mistake new writers make is carrying around copies of unfinished work to inflict on their friends.

I am sure it has been done with less, but you should be prepared to write and throw away a million words of finished material. By finished, I mean completed, done, ready to submit, and written as well as you know how at the time you wrote it.
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WHAT'S THIS HADLEYVILLE THING?

Those of you familiar with Mark Twain’s works might recognize my blog title. As Samuel Clemons grew older, he became increasingly disillusioned with humanity. Towards the end he began referring to the Damned Human Race; employing the secular and religious epithet at one stroke.

I find I’ve not reached that level of despair myself. I still believe in redemption and I still see signs of nobility even among we fallen, damned creatures. So, I could not bring myself to call this blog “On the Damned Human Race.” I do however, resonate with another of Clemmons stories; “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.” And viola, there you have it. “Observations From Hadleyville.”