HELL IS REAL

by | Jan 13, 2020 | Christianity Today | 20 comments

After Ricky Gervais delivered a truth bomb to the Hollywood elites at the Golden Globe Awards, the Left told him how offended they were. His response was classic. He said, “Just because you are offended doesn’t mean you are right.”

Many Christians do not believe in Hell simply because the idea offends them. However, once again, that doesn’t mean you are right. No matter how much the subject terrifies you—no matter how intensely you reject the thought of Hell, or struggle with the concept, it is not a valid argument to say, “I don’t believe in Hell because the idea stings.”

It is also not a winning argument to say that a God of love would never create a Hell. All you are doing by saying that is making God in your own image. Jesus is the most loving Person Who ever lived, and He spoke of Hell as being real, as recorded in the New Testament, in 15 places. The word “hell” appears 23 times in the KJV.

Neither is it valid to reject eternal punishment by saying it is a myth made up by parents to scare their children into becoming Christians. If a truth is abused by men, that does not make it untrue.

The worst traitor is the preacher who denies the fact of Hell simply to gain wider acceptance. Paul felt that the reality of Hell should intensify our message to the world. He wrote, “Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men…” (2 Corinthians 5:11).

We know that the Holy Spirit is aware of Hell, because Jesus said in John 16:8: “And when He (the Spirit of Truth) has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment…”

The Holy Spirit has prompted me to write to you about Hell because of Rob Bell, a former mega-church pastor who has gained traction because of Oprah Winfrey and CNN. He claims to be a Christian who doesn’t believe in Hell. And, of course, his church is in California.

In my opinion, Rob Bell is not teaching this out of a pure conscience, but to be accepted by the Oprah crowd and those who welcome a watered down Gospel. Furthermore, Rob Bell is not content to disbelieve in Hell, he also wants you and every other born again believer to stop believing in Hell.

He uses a crafty term to get us to reinterpret the Bible. He wrote in his bestselling book, deceptively titled “Love Wins,” that we should not take the Bible literally but “literately.” In other words, he is of a higher intelligence than you and me and can therefore educate us on the proper way to interpret the Bible.

This tendency by the Left and certain evangelical ministers to claim a higher I.Q. than you and me is becoming both common and tedious. You’ll remember Mark Galli, the radical editor of Christianity Today Magazine, spoke about Christians who support Trump. He said Trump supporters didn’t finish college and don’t have jobs. This gave him instant acceptance by CNN and all the other Leftist news outlets.

Look at the verses where Jesus talks clearly and undeniably about Hell:

  • Mat 5:22: “whoever says, ‘You fool!’ Shall be liable to the hell of fire”
  • Mat 8:11-12: He said that the Jews (sons of the kingdom) “will be thrown into outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth”
  • Mat 13:40: regarding the wheat and the tares: “the angels will gather out of His kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth”
  • Mat 18:8-9 speaks of being thrown into the eternal fire
  • Mark 9:44 and 48 calls Hell “unquenchable fire”
  • Mat 22:13: in the parable of the wedding feast, the man who lacks the proper garment is “cast into the outer darkness, there men will weep and gnash their teeth”
  • Mat 25:30: the man who buried the talent in the ground is also cast there
  • Mat 25:41: “Depart from Me you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels”
  • Luke 16:22-24: in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Jesus describes Hell: 22 “So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 And being in torments in Hell, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. 24 Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame’”

Now that Hell is out of the bag we have to face it. Every preacher must decide where they stand. You either believe Jesus or you believe Rob Bell. Let me explain. C. S. Lewis heard famous philosophers say that Jesus was a great moral teacher, but that He was not the Son of God. Lewis blew that argument to smithereens by explaining that Jesus said He is the Son of God, and if He isn’t the Son of God He was lying. And if He is a liar, He is not a great moral teacher.  Likewise if there is no hell then Jesus is a liar and not the savior of the world.

But if you were to ask me the most terrifying proof verse of Hell I would say it is John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” How can we calculate what it cost God the Father to save us? It was the highest price ever paid for anything. Sometimes the only way to understand the true horror of something is by seeing the extreme measures to which someone is willing to go in order to redeem people from it. 

The question when you stand before God will not be, “How can You do this to me?” It will be, “How could you reject so great a salvation again and again, knowing what it cost the Father to give His only Son to die on the cross to save you?”

Hell is real and, thank God, Heaven is too. The way to be saved from Hell is not mysterious. It begins with believing in your heart and confessing with your mouth, as plainly stated in Romans 10:9, “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

The old time preachers are right after all! There is a Heaven to gain and a Hell to shun.  If you have never said a salvation prayer, please, pray:

Lord Jesus, I see You on the cross dying for me. By dying on the cross, You proved Your love for me. By rising from the dead three days later, You proved You have the power to set me free. Thank you for saving me from spending all eternity in Hell. I surrender my will to You. I repent of all my sins. Forgive me and cleanse me. Come and live in my heart. From this day forward, I will make You Lord of my life, and I will follow You for the rest of my life, until the day You call me to Heaven.  Amen

20 Comments

  1. Carolina

    Yes Mario, your words are a stunning reprisal for those who dream that there is no “bad place”(as they named it) one can end up in. To BE SAVED means that a person is being saved …from something…and obviously that ‘something’ must be really really horrible.
    The Proof is for Christ Jesus to commit to a human cross in order to save people, a cross so horrific that even Mel Gibson, after the movie he made about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, when asked why he made the film so violent, bloody and tortuous, said that after studying the BC Roman cross and how it was used on people, that he really “toned down” the graphic effects of The Passion for the sake of the audience because it was actually so much worse in real life.
    I remember sitting in the theater watching The Passion, during the scenes where Jesus was being whipped and beaten mercilessly, before he went to the cross, and looking next to me and around me, people were crying, sobbing, grimacing, turning away their heads, covering their eyes, gasping at the bloody horror of it all. That was only a movie!
    Yet, that’s how bad SIN is in the sight of The perfect holy Lord God, bad enough to cause The Christ, The Savior, to willingly go to ‘it’ in our place. In order to give us an escape, a way out, from a bloody hell fire, that has its mouth wide open waiting anxiously for those who who are unintelligent enough to reject, The only begotten Son of God.
    To BE SAVED is the difference between a perfect existence in Heaven with God for all eternity or hell apart from God, with satan in charge and all his fallen angels for equally as long.?✝︎

  2. Kim Denner

    All that I can say is, thank you for speaking the truth of God’s word !!!

  3. Sheri

    Wow – thank you, Mario. I had never heard if Rob Bell. Now I know how to counter if someone brings him up!

  4. erkarts

    My Mama used to tell me that hell was full of good people that did good things for others. Oprah has done good things but she is lost. She’s been searching all these years to fill a void only God can fill. She needs much prayer.

  5. Barbara Voigt

    Breaks my heart to think of the millions and millions of people that will suffer in hell.
    Buddhists, Muslims, etc. Etc.
    The world is to vast to reach all of them.
    I’m a weeper and a Intercessor and get teary eyed easily at times.
    So happy the Lord saved me and filled me with His Holy Spirit.
    If you are not weeping for the lost somethings not right.
    I spread the Gospel through facebook everyday and the Upper room of prayer. Trying to get into nations.

  6. Mark Stripling

    An evangelist once told me that he began a week of revival by preaching a sermon on Hell in the Sunday morning service. The pastor rebuked him after the service saying, “Brother we don’t preach negative around here, we preach positive.” The evangelist replied, “You can’t get more positive than what I just preached. I am positive there is a Hell, I am positive that lost people are going to spend eternity there, and I am positive that Jesus is the only one who can save us from going to that awful place.”

  7. Shoshanna

    I have something that will build your Faith and encourage everyone. Probably the older believers have read this book in the 70’s. I ordered it from Amazon had it put on my Fire tablet because it’s out of print.
    “The Happiest People on Earth.” About the Demos Shakarian and his family/ministry. The reason it will encourage everyone is that they had tent meetings and saw wonderful miracles in CALIFORNIA. It Is so refreshing to see how the L-rd moved throughout Southern California.

    • Julie

      It can’t get much clearer then that. It’s your choice..its that free will that gets us in trouble. Thank you Jesus for sending the Holy Spirit.

  8. Grace Bristol

    Oprah has done so much damage to America. Uses her money for selfish causes and tries to get us all to go to the hell she will be going to for her untrue beliefs…Get the word out about useless Oprah now…All that money piled on her fat self….and taking others to hell with her.

  9. Brother Fred

    Every person that I have ever heard denying the existence of heaven or hell has based their position solely upon human reasoning and theory, not one of them could base it upon personal testimony. On the other side of the argument are people who have died and gone to either heaven or hell and then were returned to this life with a personal experience and testimony as to the existence of both of those places. Would we not be foolish if we ignored the testimonies of those who have been there in favor of those who hold only unproven theories with no personal experience? God allowed those people to have those experiences for a reason, we ignore them to our own peril.

  10. Julia Baumbach

    Mario, I have read your new book and loved it! I attended many of your services at Bread of Life Church in Houston. Dusty Kemp was an awesome pastor. I have a sincere question which I have gotten many different answers for. Do genuinely born again believers go to hell if they are in unforgiveness or any sin which they have not repented of? I know personally many believers that love the Lord but have a hard time with something they can’t or won’t get free from. It concerns me terribly. I would like to settle this once and for all because I have never had a pastor give me the same answer!

    • mariomurilloministries

      Such Christians do not go to hell. They are as Jesus said, in danger of hell fire. This supposes that the “unforgiveness” grows into something much more evil. I don’t believe in once saved always saved but I do believe in a mighty Grace that holds us in ways we can’t imagine. God will go to extremes to keep us from hell.

  11. Sinea Pies

    Mario, the reality of a true Hell was something that I had given mental assent to but, I am ashamed to say, I think the urgency of others NOT going there was just a side-thought.
    Last summer the Lord made that urgency crystal clear to me and put strongly on my heart someone else who could wind up in hell because I had not asked HER to FORGIVE ME. It was from decades ago but He weighed it on me so heavenly that I shook under the power of the Holy Ghost. It truly was as if her life depended on it. I found out what her current phone number was and left her a lengthy, tearful heartfelt apology for anything and everything I may have done to hurt her. She got in touch with me and forgave me 100% and asked me to forgive her, too. Can you imagine being the cause of someone else going to hell? Never! I pray and now look for my opportunities to share the gospel every day.

  12. Rita Vandertil

    Thank you for speaking the truth.

    There is so much deception these days, so it is refreshing that you are speaking out for the truth!!!

    Rita Vandertil

    Living Well Coach

    519-892-3378

    ritavandertil@bell.net

  13. Jew

    Just Wait and not believing in Hell and it will be too late! Here is a good way to look at this! If I continue to believe in Hell and I was wrong, I have nothing to lose, but if you stop believing in Hell and you are wrong you have Everything to lose, as Burning in Hell for eternity is for ever and ever, and ever and on and on! Please do not take that chance, as Jesus is Coming Very Soon and we all want to be ready!

  14. Bobbie

    Know people who Mock there is NO God, there is NO Hell or sing songs “I’m going to hell whose going with me” or wear T-Shirts “pray for death or I’m going to party in Hell”; could go on and on. If, you don’t think there is a Hell ask and beg God to see it as he is no respecter of Gender and believe me you will NOT ask to see that again . Ask to see Heaven also. Sat under a Godly Pastor (Proverbs 9:10) who prayed minimum of 12 hours a day and he would pray that “people have a revelation of Hell so they wouldn’t go and Heaven so they would”. Asked because was going there; can’t justify it over a very evil pastor and evil christian so BEGGED God for years to see it so wouldn’t go there due to unforgiveness issues which the Bible talks about forgiveness throughout; learning the lessons of suffering. Timeline about 2.5 years before saw it.
    Just like man who said “there is a special place in Hell for Pastors”; responded but you do not want them to go there and pray and walk out Matthew 18:15-17 as Bible talks about false teachers, false shepherds etc. By the way didn’t Jesus talk about Hell more than anything? People who adamant that there is no Hell no matter how much scripture you give them; tell them you will find out when you get there! Someone taught he saw people jumping into the Abyss because they couldn’t stand before a Holy God, whew! Keep those scripture verses before me of who goes to Hell because DO NOT want to go there at all as it’s forever and the WORD (Bible) says that! Collect Books on peoples experience of Heaven and Hell, truth ones.

  15. brenkhughes

    I thank God Almighty for pastors who aren’t afraid to mention hell! Until last week, I had never heard of Mario Murillo. Now I am telling everyone to please watch your messages on YouTube. I thought my 87 year old daddy was going to break into a victory dance when he heard you talking about hell, altars, and other things that pastors in most churches don’t mention!

    When I asked the Lord last week to give me what He wanted my next message to be, the next thought in my head was, “Get back to the basics,” so I spoke on “you will know them by their fruits”. Guess what it will be about when/if I’m asked again!

  16. Bobbie

    Mario:
    Been wondering since 1970’s how many people have gone or going to Hell over their Pastors and or Priest and or a person; since I was once on that path. Know someone going down that path that when they spew their bile and vomit of unforgiveness unreal what they call God over a Pastor, WOW; scary the things they call God! What was that offense? KJV Luke 17:1 “Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come”! Ask God in my life to bring anyone I needed to apologize, repent and keep my slate clean as NO ONE is worth going to hell over, NOT at ALL! Matthew 5:3-12 Beatitudes.

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