The News #12

Michael Jackson died last week. I was profoundly moved. If you know me very well, you probably can’t believe I wrote that last sentence. I certainly wouldn’t have expected the death of “The King of Pop” to have much of an impact on me one way or another. So the reaction was most unexpected. This is why I was so moved.

My first thought was, “How terrible it would be a child molester and die in an unsaved condition. It would be unspeakably horrible for anyone to go to hell, but how much worse must be in store for a child molester.” And right in that moment it was almost as if I could hear him scream. That first scream, the scream that you scream when you realize you are dead and hands take hold of you and begin to drag you down into the earth. That first scream that you scream when you realize that it is all true, that you are descending into hell, and that there is no possible way of escape.

Dear friends, I do not know if Michael Jackson is in hell right now; he might have gotten saved in some private moment. I don’t know if he molested those children. A jury sat for months listening to evidence and returned a not guilty verdict on all counts. In any event, he has now faced the judgment of a Judge who sees all, knows all, and who cannot be deceived. Not matter what he was guilty off, the blood of Jesus had the power to cleanse, the power to save.

I’ve been writing about the power of God and the possibility of a transformation of our society through an outpouring of God’s Spirit. When this has happened in the past, God made hell very real to unsaved people and used it to bring them to salvation. And if there is going to be another great awakening I expect that God will make a revelation of the lake of fire to be a very important part of it.

But I am not writing today about the impact of hell on the unsaved. I am writing about the impact of a revelation of hell on the born again, on those of us who are safe from this horror through the wonderful grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. Before God ever makes the danger of damnation real to the world, I expect that He will begin to make it very, very real in the hearts and minds of His people.