Don't get hell wrong

Francis Chan released a video today that powerfully promotes a book he's currently working on about hell. It is obviously a response to Rob Bell's controversial book about hell called Love Wins. I can't help but think of the words of Ecclesiastes 12.11-12:

The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd. My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.

However, Chan's video is a powerful one. I'd encouraged you to watch it. He shares Isaiah 55.8-9 in the video:

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

He urges us to quit thinking we think like God thinks. Every time we say, "But God wouldn't..." or "I can't believe in a God who would..." we demonstrate our proclivity to aspire to godhood. We essentially set our own logic above the Creator's, and we attempt to make Him subject to natural and physical "laws" which exist only because He instituted them. Our pride refuses to bow to His preeminence.

This issue of hell, Chan soberly reminds us, is not something we - or those who don't yet know Christ as Savior and Lord - can afford to get wrong. He urges us to pray for him as he is writing, studying and searching the scriptures for this book project. I will be. His book Crazy Love remains on my short list of impacting books of the past 10 years and has been a great encouragement. Let's pray that this next work will be a significant contribution and may be used by the Lord as a scripturally-centered "last word" for this generation on the issue.