After playing AC/DC’s 1979 hit, “Highway to Hell,” the classic rock radio DJ quipped, “When life on this spinning ball called earth is over, will you ascend the beautiful ‘Stairway to Heaven’ or will you speed full throttle down the ‘Highway to Hell’? I know where I’m going! And I’m gonna need my sunglasses and shorts, because it’s going to be really hot! Ha!”
The rich man in Luke 16 wasn’t even in hell yet, when he “cried” from “torments in Hades…‘I am tormented in this flame’” (16:23-24). Does that sound like a joke? Jesus Himself described hell as “everlasting punishment” (Matt. 25:46), “everlasting fire” (Matt. 25:41), “outer darkness” (Matt. 25:30), where “the fire shall never be quenched” (Mark 9:43-48), “their worm does not die” (Mark 9:44-48), and there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 8:12). It is “prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41), “away from the presence of the Lord” (2 Thess. 1:9).
Hell is NOTHING to joke about! It is EVERYTHING to avoid! Thank God for showing us “the way which leads to life” (Matt. 7:13-14)!