Uh-oh | Awakening in Hell

“Uh-oh”

Bill Brinkworth

“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Romans 10:13

Consciousness came and went in short spurts. For a brief second, bright surgical lights came in sight, and then sleep came over me. Again, for a brief glimpse, I saw doctors and nurses scurrying about me. Some were adjusting electrodes on my chest. Another nurse was quickly putting a needle into my arm, then sleep again. I don’t know how long it was, but again I was vaguely aware of my mother’s talking to me. She was crying. There was urgency in her sobbing voice. Again, doctors were shouting orders to those nearby. The beeping of a monitor increased. Some were running for more equipment, and then silence.

Darkness surrounded me, but I was quite conscious. No longer were there bright lights; no doctors’ voices; no mother’s sobs. It wasn’t like the previous in’s and out’s of consciousness. I was totally aware with all my senses. There was a sense of my moving, but not one of my body parts was at all involved. It was as if I were drifting somewhere. I could feel it getting warmer, and warmer, and it wasn’t long until the heat was unbearable. Where was I? What was happening to me? I knew my eyes were wide open, but all around me was darkness. Was this … was this … was this Hell? Oh no, that must be where I was. I’ve died! Fear like I never experienced before forced screams out of my mouth. Hell! Oh, no. What have I done?

Then, through all the fear, the intense heat, and now an increasing pain in what seemed every pore of my body, I remembered some things from my past. I remembered Mrs. Corner’s Sunday school lesson and the parts of the verses she read about Hell. I remembered my snide remarks mocking what she said.

Distant shrieks in the tormenting darkness told me I was not alone in my imprisonment.

Memories continued to flood my mind. I recalled the times my friend Gary and I mocked Hell and proudly boasted that we would be together in Hell and would have a party together. This was no party. Perhaps one of the screams in the distance was his, but we certainly were not together.

A horrible series of blood-curdling shouts told another was not able to bear the torments they were facing, but there was no way out. There was no escape; for anyone! Another cry hollered, “Not forever”. All hope was gone from that voice. His “oh-nooooo” seemed to be a whisper as he realized the hopelessness of our situation.

A brief memory of my brother’s coming back from church one day, reminded me how I reacted when he told me he had just gotten saved, and said he had God’s promise of going to Heaven when he died. I thought I was so smart when I retorted that, “No one can know for sure that they’re going to heaven. How can you believe that Bible? It’s just an ol’ book that some men wrote.”

I was so wrong. If I had only listened to him. If I only had taken him up on his invitations to go to church, I may have gotten what he had. I may not have been in the place I am now. How wrong I was. How foolish my opinions were, and if my memory of what I heard in church serves me well, it is going to get worse; a judgment before God; the Lake of Fire — forever. Uh-oh, what have I done?

This story, of course, is a fictitious account of what may be happening to billions of unsaved dead right this very second. It is based on many Scriptures and may be very close to reality. If you have never trusted Christ as your payment for your sin, it may very well describe what you may experience one day. Do not be foolish. While God has allowed you the opportunity, make the decision to be saved from Hell today, before it is eternally too late!

“Everyone who finds himself in Heaven will have to thank God for it; and everyone who finds himself in Hell will have to thank himself.”

— C. H. MacKinosh

This article was featured in The Bible View #402.

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