Disbelief in Hell?

 

Hayter for January 21, 2024

“Calling for You and for Me"

 

          I was driving south on I-45 last week and was feeling upbeat. I don’t know what I was looking forward to, but I felt good about something.

          From out of the blue of the western sky, came a horrible thought. It was the sudden notion of having a wreck or a heart attack and suddenly dying.” I felt miserable at the thought of missing out on whatever it was that I was looking forward to.

Fortunately, my despair didn’t last long. Short-lived despair is easier to take than long-term. My sinking spell vanished almost as quickly as it arrived. What made it go away? -- The substance of things hoped for.

That is half of someone’s definition of the word “faith”. The author of Hebrews wrote “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.” In a court of law, something that is unheard or unseen is not accepted as evidence.

Obviously, faith alone is no evidence at all. In fact, the number of deaths caused by faith is more numerous than flies in the Australian Outback.

Nations in Europe and Asia have fought numerous wars over religious beliefs, several of which involved Christians against non-Christians. Wars have been going on in the Middle East since before the time of Jesus. The Jews fought practically every non-Jewish group they encountered, both before and after the time of Jesus. At the moment they’re still at war with Muslim terrorist groups.

The bottom line, in the history of mankind the religious among us have not gotten along well. The reason for this low threshold of tolerance has to do with a belief in the afterlife. I’m definitely a believer in that. So was my Mom.

Elsie Hayter was far from being a heathen. She went to church three times each week. Six times a week during vacation Bible school. She taught Sunday school classes, but she never taught Dennis and me. However, she did make it a point to lead us along the path of righteousness. Spankings increased my faith considerably.

A couple of weeks before her death, Mom told one of her kids that she was afraid she didn’t do enough good things in life for God to let her into heaven. It broke my heart.

The Hayter family heard more fire and brimstone sermons than is healthy. Over the years different preachers seemed elated in telling us that if we don’t straighten up, we were going straight to hell. There is no telling how many times I’ve heard sermons on how bad hell is.  Of course, we couldn’t say the word “hell” or else we’d go there.

 

While I have the faith of a Christian, I can’t prove my faith is fact. To argue such a thing would make me faithless. Remember, faith is the substance of things hoped for. I would’ve been booted out of so many different churches had I mentioned my lack of belief in some Biblical interpretations.

I don’t believe hell is a place where we’re given new bodies so we can burn forever. Our time on earth is a nanosecond when compared to the existence of mankind. The thought that God would burn anyone forever is ungodly. Right now, there are some thinking, “Boy, are you gonna find out how wrong you are!” 

Archeologists have discovered the bones of humanoids and etchings in stone that go back a million years. It’s facts like that, that make me sense that Adam and Eve may not have been the only humans on the planet. That causes me to doubt that Adam named all of the animals or that there was a worldwide flood that killed all but Noah and his immediate family. I don’t believe Moses wrote the book of Genesis. Who else could’ve? I don’t know.

I have read practically none of the millions of books that have been written. That’s an indication that I know practically nothing of substance. However, I’m in the same category as people all over the world who believe in one of the thousands of gods that others have worshiped over time. I can’t prove the existence of my God. The closest I can come is through faith, and as mentioned previously, faith is not fact.

All I have are incidents in my life that have encouraged my faith. One I’ve already written about, but would like to share again. It involves Elsie and Faris’ eldest daughter, Lynda. My sister died in 2005 after a 10-year bout with Alzheimer's.

Shortly before she passed away, I visited her in the Alzheimer's wing of a particular hospital. The patients were not assigned individual rooms, they either sat in a wheelchair in the hallway or walked into whatever room they chose. They might lay in bed and sleep, or sit and stare.  It took me some effort to find my sister. A nurse eventually pointed to the room where she last remembered seeing her.

Sure enough, Lynda was lying in bed on her side. Her eyes were open, but she didn’t appear to be looking at anything. Not even her guest. I sat on the floor next to the bed and began telling her about Kay and me and the rest of the family. Her expression never changed.

I eventually thought to sing her an old hymn. You may have heard of “Softly and Tenderly”. I started singing, “Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling—” At that very moment my dear sister said, “Calling for you and for me.”

I was unable to finish the song. I could only cry. I don’t know how or why my sister’s mind appeared to function at that particular moment, allowing her to finish a verse from one of my favorite hymns. I can’t prove it, but to this day I continue to believe that it was a message to me brought on by faith. It’s not evidence in something unseen. It’s the substance of things hoped for. Hope is much easier. 

End

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