The tendency to take lightly the consequences of our action is apparent when we are involved in wrong-doing. The person who drinks and drives does so thinking that he is perfectly safe on the road – "What can happen in the few short miles I have to drive?" The person who gambles doesn’t count the minutes or the hours that are lost along with the money, and it never occurs to him that responsibilities and relationships will lie dying in the wake of his foolishness. I was reading an article on tobacco use in the doctors office this morning. All except the most foolish among us are aware that cigarettes are the cause of so much misery and financial burden for those who use them. No sensible person denies that they are the leading cause of lung cancer and emphysema in the world. I have known that since I was a child. It was a matter of tested scientific knowledge as early as the 1950’s.

A waitress friend of mine is about to have half of one of her lungs removed. She says it was because she was raised around pigeons (?), but she knows that a pack and a half a day are the real source of her misery.

And now "spit-tobacco" is the popular substitute. Yet doctors tell us that there are over 8,000 deaths a year due to mouth and throat cancers as a direct result of the use of smokeless tobaccos. I have known of one or two people who have had to have their jaws and tongues removed on account of all this. Do you suppose that as they placed that pinch between their gum and cheek that they ever thought it would come to such a radical action to save their lives? Did they stop to think of the feeding tubes, artificial voice boxes, and burning of radiation treatments as they dribbled their garbage into that paper cup on the dashboard of their car? It they did, they laughed it off. But they are not laughing it off now. Doctors tell us that 60% of the major league baseball players who use "spit-tobacco" already have cancerous and pre-cancerous lesions in their mouths, tongues and throats. You think they thought about it? They were warned. How did they react to the warning? Were they just resigned to the death that may come as a result. Those who have seen the effects try to quit. Tobacco has power.

Sin also has power. It is a power that enslaves and brings to everlasting destruction.

"Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin" (Rom. 6:6). "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey the lusts thereof: neither present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under law, but under grace" (vs. 12-14). "Know ye not, that to whom ye present yourselves as servants unto obedience, his servants ye are whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" (vs. 16). "For when ye were servants of sin, ye were free in regard of righteousness. What fruit then had ye at that time in the things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death" (vs. 20-21). As we can see, Romans 6 talks about the enslavement to sin so many fall into, and the terrible consequences of death.

That sin wields power in the lives of those who allow it is undeniable. Paul speaks of difficulty that he had in Romans 7. "For that which I do I know not: for not what I would, that do I practise; but what I hate, that I do" (vs. 15). "For the good which I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I practise" (vs. 19). "For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members" (vs. 22-23). The writer of Hebrews puts the same point differently: "Take heed, brethren, lest haply there shall be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God: but exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called To-day; lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin" (Heb. 3:12-13). He speaks here of the one who has been in sin long enough for the will to become anesthetized to the pleadings of the conscience. He is a slave to his evil, in bondage to sin.

The death that Romans 6 speaks of is much more than the expiration of the body. It involves eternity in Hell, separated from any and all hope, and the status of being God’s adversary. If we really understood the terrible nature of Hell, would sin take such a dominant role in our lives? No, we would not allow it. As the smoker and the gambler are able to push away the consequence of the things they are doing, the one who enters into sin pushes away any serious consideration of what Hell means.

My conversion came upon hearing a sermon entitled "Hell, and who will be there." The text of the sermon gave a description of Hell as the bible gives it, and included an account of what Jesus used as an illustration of eternal punishment.

First, we need to note that Hades and Sheol are not Hell. They are word that describe the place of all departed spirits, good and bad. The good and bad are not intermingled in Hades, and though there is anguish in that place, it is not Hell.

The word Hell, that is used to describe the eternal abode of the wicked, is translated from the word Gehenna. Gehenna is believed to be an Aramaic derivative used in the Greek text. It refers to the Valley of the son of Hinnom, otherwise known as Topheth. It was in this place that Ahaz and Mannaseh offered the sacrifice of human children to the Ammonite god Molech (2 Kings 16:3; 21:6). The Bible says that these men offered their own children.

According to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, the children were first killed, then burned, but they go on to give this description by Diodorus Siculus, a Greek historian: "The image of Moloch was a human figure with a bull's head and outstretched arms, ready to receive the children destined for sacrifice. The image of metal was heated red hot by a fire kindled within, and the children laid on its arms rolled off into the fiery pit below. In order to drown the cries of the victims, flutes were played, and drums were beaten; and mothers stood by without tears or sobs, to give the impression of the voluntary character of the offering." (Not a quote of DS, but a summary of his description.)

In Josiah’s time a reform was instituted, the Valley of Himmon was defiled so that the idol worshipers would no longer use it. It was defiled as Josiah crushed all the altars and idols and dumped the refuse into the valley. Then the bones of the priests that led in that worship were tossed in after (2 Kings 23:10). In the restoration period, the Jews remembered the awful crimes committed there, and that it was used to dispose of the altars and idols and used Gehenna as the city dump. They did not put their refuse in plastic bags. They just tossed it over the hill.

In addition, the bodies of indigents and criminals were tossed in. The putrefaction must have been more than the nose could bear, so the Jews kept it on fire, perpetually. The worms took care of the garbage and carcasses and the fire took care of the smell – eventually. The dump, with its rottenness and fire, is what Jesus used to illustrate Hell (Mark 9:47-48).

In Revelation, hell is described as a lake that burns with fire and brimstone (Rev. 20:10, 15; 21:8). What a horrible place it must be. I do not want to go there, and you don’t either. We cannot afford to take lightly the judgments of God, or the condemnation of sin.

HELL is a consequence that we cannot ignore out of existence.