How Can There Be Such a Place as Hell?

How can there be such a place as hell?

Just how could there be such a place?

It seems unbelievably cruel and unjust,

For a loving God, a disgrace!

Is it a ploy to fill people with fear?

To get them to Church and live right?

Can it be true such a place exists,

Of pain and eternal night?

We do not like to even think of hell,

We reel in horror at the thought,

And yet God’s Word teaches of such a place

Where unredeemed sinners are brought;

When God created man, He made him in His image

As the lord of all creation, from the dust,

Breathed into his nostrils the very breath of life,

Made him a living soul, in purest trust.

He gave him the best, the Garden of Eden,

With trees pleasant to the sight and good for food,

Dominion over fish, fowl and every living thing,

God saw that all He’d done was very good;

And yet there was a discipline, a “thou shalt not” He gave,

“Of the tree of good and evil do not eat.”

Not a robot, nor an animal, man was formed a living soul,

Responsible, with choice, he was complete.

God had made man in His image, as Lord of His creation,

To worship, love and glorify His Maker,

What He had given to man in that Garden far surpassed

What He had given to any other creature;

Man should have been a reflection of God

In power, authority and rule,

But he ate of the Tree he had been forbidden,

And lost all he’d been given, what a fool!

“Thou shalt love thy God with heart, soul and might”

Was what God intended for man,

To worship God for all He had done,

But the devil scuppered God’s plan;

God even gave to Adam a beautiful mate

For companionship, friendship and trust,

God came to talk in the cool of the day,

But they hid in shame and disgust.

They ate of the one Tree they’d been forbidden,

Can you imagine the heartbreak of God?

He created a world for them to enjoy

And formed them from nothing but dust,

In His own image made them, He wanted to talk,

Be a friend with so much to discuss,

To walk alongside with them in Eden’s Garden,

He placed the whole world in their trust.

How His heart must have broken when He found them naked,

A fig leaf portraying their deceit,

They’d eaten of the one and only Tree forbidden

When they had the whole world at their feet;

God must have wept at how He’d been betrayed,

That all He had done had been scorned,

His greatest gift, this most beautiful world,

By a mere speck of dust had been spurned.

Their rebellion destroyed all that God had provided,

With all they had, they wanted more:

“You’ll be as gods knowing good and evil,”

It was here that sin walked through the door:

The devil beguiled them, and greed took its toll,

They fell as surely as he:

“I will exalt my throne above the stars of God,

Above the heights of the clouds, I shall be!”

God created Lucifer, a prince above the angels,

Son of the morning, the “Morning Star,”

With power and authority, beauty, indescribable,

With an incandescent radiance beaming far,

But all he had was given of God

To glorify His Name,

He had a thought, “I will exalt myself,”

And straightway was cast out in shame.

God cannot allow angels or men

To take credit for what He has created,

It’s a lie, it’s false, it’s pride, it is sin,

And sin is what God has always hated:

“Thou art cast from thy grave, an abominable branch!”

Is what God to Lucifer said:

“Thou’ll be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit,

In hell thou canst make there thy bed!”

To be sent to hell is a sentence worse

Than a death sentence in this life,

There’s a great gulf fixed ‘twixt heaven and hell

And none can cross that divide;

To see heaven from afar, have to stay where you are,

Regretting God’s mercy you refused,

With no hope of a change through an endless age:

The penalty of the sin that you choose.

Death would be sweet compared to hell’s pain,

Complete annihilation’s not an option,

We are born with a spirit that will live for ever,

Redeemed, or lost in corruption;

The unbeliever stubbornly states

Upon death, he will sink in oblivion

To a silent world of non-existence –

What a shock! And to God’s Word so alien.

Hell is allowed by a righteous God

Who’s given all that’s beautiful to man,

God is a God of truth and justice

Who gave man choice in His plan;

If man chooses lies over truth, he must pay

The ultimate price for his sin,

For God is a God of perfect justice,

And cannot intervene therein.

Hell is allowed in righteousness,

God can’t interfere with man’s choice,

Man was made in His image with freedom to choose,

God gave him his own mind and voice;

Not one can rightly blame God for his sin,

God enlightens all born in the earth,

Each man has a conscience, the light of the Lord,

And obeys or rejects what he’s heard.

And yet God has provided a way of escape

For those who’ve offended Him so,

He sent His Own Son to die on a Cross

And be cast to a dark hell below

To pay for the sins of the whole wide world

In righteousness Christ paid the price,

If man will repent of his sin, he’ll be saved

From hell’s suffering and shame through Christ.

So do not blame God for this place called hell,

In truth man’s produced it himself,

If he chooses sin and lies, he will pay

And lose untold pleasure and wealth,

For God will restore to man all he has lost,

His first estate and so much more,

If he will repent of his sin, he cannot conceive

What Almighty God has in store. 

Peter Burt

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