Flippant

 The more ignorance seeps into the bones of this present generation, the more flippant they become about topics of import like eternity and the hereafter. You only live once. We all have to die of something. There’s no avoiding death and taxes. It is what it is. These are the mantras of a self-obsessed and disturbingly ignorant generation that only sees what’s in front of its face, has no concept of delayed gratification, and has no consideration for what comes after.

Most comfort themselves with the thought that when you die, you simply cease to exist, and that’s that. There are no eternal consequences, there are no eternal rewards, you’re here for the briefest of moments, you muddle your way through a few decades, you get put back into the mud, and if you’re lucky, there will be a handful of people to miss you and shed a tear or two. Eventually, they, too, will pass on, and then no one will remember your name or that you existed.

It doesn’t matter what you do in this life because any consequences cease to be relevant once you’re at death’s door. That lie has infected the minds of billions of souls, not realizing that their supposition couldn’t be further from the truth.

Sodom and Gomorrah’s punishment did not end with their destruction. Horrible, to be sure, but a quick death is a quick death, even if it’s via fire and brimstone raining out of the heavens. I can think of a hundred worse ways to die just off the top of my head, some of which drag on for months or years until you wish you were dead.

When you factor in that the fire and brimstone were just the beginning of God’s vengeance upon them, things become clearer, and you realize you don’t want to get caught on the wrong side of God’s wrath. That whole thing about cutting off a hand or putting out an eye if they make you sin makes a whole lot more sense when considering the eternal consequences of giving oneself over to sin.

Jude 6-7, “And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day; as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”

It’s not so much the fire and brimstone that should make you pause when considering rebellion; it’s suffering the vengeance of eternal fire that should make you reconsider. It’s not this life or the ending thereof; it’s what comes after because that’s forever, and forever is a long time.

In our neverending quest to be armchair theologians, we are quick to insist that it’s appointed unto men once to die but fail to finish out that particular passage with the after this judgment part. Sodom and Gomorrah’s judgment did not end with fire and brimstone; it began with it.

Eternal means forever and without end, which is the nature of the fire they suffer. There is no purgatory or waiting room to see whether enough people light enough candles for your soul to see its way to the light, no mulligans after you die, just judgment.

It’s not about what you think is fair; it’s about what God has determined as just. I know that stings, but it’s the truth of it. Sodom and Gomorrah were set forth as examples, meaning that if you do what they did, you’ll get what they got. That’s what an example is. When God offers up something as an example, it illustrates a general rule, something that will be repeated as often as the underlying factors leading up to the example being made occurs.

Don’t play chicken with God; you will lose every time. If He says, He will do something as a direct reaction to the action you’ve chosen to undertake, believe Him at His word. Don’t continue to do the thing He said He will punish you for doing if you continue doing it. You’re not going to get Him to change His mind, reconsider, reassess, or give you a pass. We may all think we’re special, but He’s still God, and He changes not.

God has always kept His promises from the beginning of creation itself, and He’s not about to stop just because the modern-day church no longer believes in the consequence of action.

Genesis 2:16-17, “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Those were the rules. Those were the parameters set forth by God, and even though Adam tried to pass the buck and blame the woman whom God had given to be with him, insisting she was the one that gave him of the tree and he ate, it did not excuse his disregard and disobedience of God’s word.

“Joyce Meyer said I could” isn’t going to cut the mustard on the day of judgment. When men know the will of God, the Word of God, the direction, instruction, and purpose of God, yet choose to go their own way, doing as their hearts desire, it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness.

2 Peter 2:21, “For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.”

I understand that’s one of those problematic Bible passages no one wants to talk about anymore, but given what we see happening in the contemporary church, maybe we should start.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.