I often hear people say, “why would a loving God, send people to hell?” The answer to that is that God does not send people to hell, they voluntarily choose to go there. Whether one accepts God’s Word or not, or believes in God or not, does not make God non-existent. Nor does it takes away God’s sovereignty. God is God no matter what someone believes or don’t believe about Him. I don’t understand how people have such a hard time with God’s rules, and stick their noses up to His commands but want to go to heaven and live with Him forever. God has given us so many opportunities to make peace with Him. In John 14:1-6, Christ explains to His disciples about why He had to leave this earth and return to heaven. “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. “And you know the way where I am going.” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

Then in the Gospel of John, He tells Nicodemus how one actually comes to the Father through Him in John 3:3-5, “Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” This being born again of the Spirit happens when one agrees with God about the condition of their soul and receives His gift of grace through Christ. The spiritual pureness that man once held, was destroyed in the beginning, when Eve was deceived to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Because of Adam and Eve’s disobedience, man became separated from God and was cursed through childbirth with the sin nature. God could have destroyed Adam and Eve at that instance, but He did not because His desire was for His creation to return to Him in eternity. God sorrowed at what this capacity to sin did to His beautiful creation. This sin nature was not to be contained by any source that existed on the earth. Until God provided eternal atonement, sin would continue to separate God from mankind. God can not dwell with sin, and in His wrath toward sin, He flooded the earth.

The flood did not resolve man’s sin nature or the spread of sin upon the earth. So God forged a bloodline, that would bring about the eternal atonement necessary to save man from the penalty of sin incurred at the fall. The only atonement that would suffice was that of a sinless person. God is sinless and He had to send Himself to atone for the sin nature of mankind, 1487 years later, Christ was born. God in His power has the ability to do miraculous things that our human wisdom can not understand or comprehend. This is what Christ was explaining to Nicodemus. Christ was conceived by Holy Spirit, and offers us the opportunity to also be born of that same Spirit. When a person confesses that they are separated from God because of their nature to sin, and decides to join their spirit to God, through Christ, God removes their sin debt and endows that person with His Holy Spirit and that person is now forgiven and born again.

In John chapter 3, is the very well known verse, John 3:16, this is the verse you will hear many Christians share with those who are seeking the same answers Nicodemus was seeking; to know about the way to heaven. But wait, there’s more. The full explanation of why Christ came into the world is explained in the verses that follows in John 3:17-18, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.  He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”  So here we have it. God provides a way to be reunited with Him and to return to heaven. When Christ died on the cross, He cured every sin, for all mankind, past, present and future. God was satisfied with His peace offering for sin. Now He would not longer look at mankind in the same manner. Those who would receive His gift through Christ would become His children and will dwell with Him in heaven forever and those who do not would be eternally separated from Him and would dwell in hell forever.

In Joshua 24:15, the Scriptures tell us that the choice is now ours to make. “If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Choose for yourselves where you want to spend eternity, either with God as you confess and repent of your sin and serve the Lord Christ, and be filled with His Spirit or in hell where those who choose to serve their own gods will reside. So God does not send anyone to hell, He gives each of us the free will to choose for ourselves where we want to spend eternity. Those who end up in hell, went there on their own accord. The horrifying thing is once you are there, you will remain there. You choose!