You may hear people joke about going to hell, and perhaps that’s how they kid themselves into believing that its existence is not real. They may even consider hell to be the domain of Satan, a place where he drags those who’ve traded their eternities for brief success in this world.

Some even turn hell into a vast amusement park, a place they will spend eternity reveling with other sinners, as thought it’s a pleasant counterpart to that boring place called “Heaven,” where the “goody-goodies” drift around on clouds all day, bored out of their minds while they admire one another’s wings and strum on their harps.

Well, that’s a poor concept of heaven, but hell is no where near that good. Hell was created by God, first of all for the devil and those rebellious angels whom God cast down from heaven, and who have been plaguing this world since Adam’s fall, thereby adding to the misery for which we ourselves are guilty.

And hell is not an amusement park. At itd center is the lake of fire, into which Satan and his minions will be cast—chained and helpless—at the end of this age, to burn with an everlasting fire. Picture an incandescent light bulb with its white hot tungsten filament, burning forever. That filament would represent every human being who rejected Jesus Christ as Lord—who repudiated the only remedy that God has provided for our salvation, cleansing, healing, forgiveness, and holiness.

Becoming holy—being like Jesus—without sin—is not such a bad thing by any measure. Social scientists (a contradiction in terms), have concluded that Christians are happier than non-Christians; they have more successful marriages, more real friends, and they frequently testify of how God—after they’ve prayed—has delivered them from one trial or another.

But where, you ask, dow we get a systematic understanding of God and Satan, of heaven and hell? From the Bible, of course!

Christians and Jews alike look to the Law and the Prophets—what some call the Old Testament—and Muslims too consider some books to be inspired. We Christians, of course, consider the New Testament to be God-breathed, as well.

And you may be one of those who has been taught to scorn its contents. But who was your source of this great wisdom? Why, the the very same servants of Satan that are dragging you into their life styles, which must, of necessity, preclude any absolutes, a world of relativism where you are welcome to produce your own religion, and live by convenient, ever changing rules that exclude almost nothing but the absolute God. And what’s truly terrifying is that many of these actually hold leadership roles in our churches.

Check them out! Are not their very lives a testament to the fact that they are truly losers, that they have no true conception of good or bad, of right and wrong, but that their every concern is focused on building a cocoon around themselves to protect and advance the great “I” and “ME” of their lives? They make a great show in words and deeds to confuse and inveigle you, while they pursue their own secret lusts and ambitions.

One Bible penman described these lost souls, and as he does, he also gives us an entirely different picture of the horrors of hell. His name is Jude, and he is one of Jesus’ step-brothers. Jude provides a glimpse into the lives of church “leaders” that the world is willing to emulate and admire.

Jude’s mother and father were Mary and Joseph. He, along with his brothers and sisters were conceived after the birth of Jesus Christ, and, apart from having a devout and somewhat remarkable older brother, they lived normal lives with their normal parents.

After all, it’s unlikely that Joseph and Mary broadcast the news that she had become pregnant before they were formally married. Jesus, of course, had been conceived when the Holy Spirit of God came upon a chaste young virgin whom the angels hailed as “blessed among women,” and she conceived, and brought forth her son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and lay him in a manger, because there was no room in the inn, so she was sort of like a surrogate mother.

But thirty years passed between Jesus’ notable birth and his incredible ministry, and apart from a few remarkable things that Jesus said and did, the life of Joseph the carpenter and his family was quite normal, with children coming along in due time. There were four younger brothers, James, Joseph (also referred to as Joses), Simon, and Judas (also referred to as Jude), plus at least two unnamed sisters. But Jesus was an exceptional child, for the Bible declares, he grew “in grace and mercy, and in favor with God and man.”

When Jesus’ birth occurred, Mary was little more than a child, almost undoubtedly exhausted from a ninety mile journey to the town of her husband’s birth, only just in time to deliver her first born in a stable, and she relied on the words of the angels and her husband’s faithfulness, even to the point of forsaking family and friends to flee to Egypt. Yet the Bible tells us , “…Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19), particularly the shepherds’ visit and their announcement of the angelic message. But it’s reasonable to assume that the events of Jesus’ birth three decades earlier would fade in importance to the widow Mary, for she had been busy raising seven or more children in a time when women were often worn out by age thirty.

This Jude, then, was one of Jesus half-brothers, a young man who initially found it impossible to credit his oldest brother with actually being the awaited Messiah—the Christ of God. But Jesus understood, for he declared, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house” (Mark 6:4).

Yet, as time passed, and Jude and his brother James witnessed Jesus speaking as no man had ever spoken, and as he healed multitudes, walked on water, fed 5,000 with a few loaves and fishes, turned water into wine, and even raised the dead, he was forced to consider that Jesus was indeed Savior of the world. And then, when he saw him crucified, dead, and buried, only to rise again on the third day, and Jude actually saw him alive, his arguments and doubts faded, just as ours should.

How did this younger brother, this Jude, later describe those who enter into our churches and lead us astray? How did he describe those who pretend or even imagine they believe, but come into the church only to promote their own worldly ambitions and satisfy their own temporal lusts? Read Jude’s words. Do they not have the savor and power of those of his oldest brother?

These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

Jude 12-13

Do you see Jude’s seemingly contradictory view of hell. One thing is clear: You won’t be whooping it up with your old pals in hell. You might be screaming endlessly in wrath against them for encouraging you to pursue the pleasures of sin for a season, but there will be no joy whatever in it, just the absence of God’s glorious presence, of his love and light, mercy and grace, and above all the absence of peace.

It will be eternal aloneness, the absence not merely of joy or happiness, but of truth and equity, of surcease, and even the futile hope that somehow the intense pain will burn away your life’s dross, and you’ll ultimately, somehow, sometime, be equipped to escape. But it will be too later. There is no purgatory, and hell is not rehabilitative. Hell is everlasting punishment. It won’t make you better, and all the prayers of all the saints and angels wouldn’t move you one inch toward heaven. NOW is the time to get it right. Now is the time to receive your “Get out of jail free” card.

There’s only Jesus! And the love of Jesus is all you need. Peter declared it on the day of Pentecost:

“Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

Acts 4:12

And if you didn’t confess Jesus before death, there will no longer be a remedy for you. You will wind up like these whom Jude describes–clouds without rain, trees without fruit, torn up at the roots, foaming at your own shame, wandering forever in outer darkness.

Someone cries, “Why do you try to frighten me with this nonsense?”

Let me ask you, “If it’s not striking close to home, why does it bother you?” I’m just a voice crying in the wilderness. Get straightened out with God before it’s too late!

Ask Jesus to forgive your sins. You too, Christian, for every sin you’ve committed since the day you asked him to be your Savior. Make Christ your Lord! Leave nothing to chance. These of whom Jude speaks will be among the “wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.”

A word to the wise is sufficient.

Stop wondering! Cease your wandering. Settle on Jesus while there is yet time.