Hell is a real place

“In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out.” Luke 13:28 ESV

Upon describing the nausea, stomach upset, pain, intense heat, overwhelming fatigue, and the bouts of hiccups he had to endure to cross the finish line of the Tahoe Rim Trail Endurance Run 100 mile race on July 17, Dan Brounstein, 48, said, “It was the most miserable time I’ve ever had running,” The Tahoe Rim Trail Endurance Run bills itself as a race offering athletes “a glimpse of heaven … a taste of hell.” Making his first attempt at the 100-mile distance that takes runners from Carson City up to Lake Tahoe and back, Truckee’s Dan Brounstein certainly experienced both. I never ever thought that I’d run a 100-mile race,” said Brounstein. “But the more you’re around it, especially up here, 100 miles seems like a normal thing.” Brounstein finished the race in 32 hours, 57 minutes, 29 seconds and came in 48th place. “Your body can do more than you think and your mind can overcome pretty much anything,” he said.

And you know, while the ultra race describes itself as “a taste of hell,” it’s nowhere near what hell is really like. In fact, even “the most miserable time” a person could ever experience on this earth wouldn’t come even remotely close to describing the horror, pain, torment and sadness that is hell, where the suffering is so severe that “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And yet it’s a place few pastors and people talk about. But let me tell you this my friend… hell is a very real place. And it’s also a place of no return that everyone who has not repented and accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior will go. Which is why you and I must make it our mission to warn the lost to make the decision to follow Him before it’s too late.

So in the words of Charles Spurgeon, “Oh, my brothers and sisters in Christ, if sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies; and if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay, and not madly to destroy themselves. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.”

Heavenly Father, thank You for reminding us just how awful hell is and that it is a place of absolutely no return. Help us to truly understand this Lord so that our hearts would be compelled to ring the alarm bell and shout from the rooftops that Jesus is the only way to Salvation. It’s in your precious name we pray Jesus. Amen.

Happy Running!