Perhaps, you may have seen the bumper sticker with the following message: “Heaven don’t want me, and hell is afraid I’ll take over.” What’s your response to such braggadocio? If it’s like mine, then you would be thinking, “Both statements are false.”
The first half of this tribute to Self is wrong because it contradicts 2 Peter 3:9: “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is long-suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all shall come to repentance.” Since God does not want anyone to be lost, then, by extension, the realm which He governs (Heaven) will echo the same philosophy. The problem is not that Heaven does not want this soul who undoubtedly imagines himself to be clever; the crux of the matter is that he does not want Heaven. God is willing to bring anyone patiently along into the kingdom. Only the one who refuses to respond positively to Him will be excluded. Some of the worst human beings, who have done some of the most heinous acts, may one day be in Heaven. Why? The answer is that they came to a point where they realized what it means to be lost and how great God’s grace is. Heaven will not turn away those who repent and humbly obey from the heart the Gospel (Ps. 51:17).
The idea that Hell fears anyone is hilarious. This individual has highly overrated himself. Some of hell’s inhabitants are so much lower than most people can imagine. How many millions of innocent people did Stalin kill—twenty million? Hitler can’t even compare with that statistic. How many people has Darwin convinced to follow him to the infernal regions? On their wildest killing spree, Bonnie and Clyde could not even cause a shudder in any of Hell’s inhabitants. Every penny-ante dictator who ever lived craves the power that this motorist displays on his vehicle. Try as he might, he could never match the carnage created by seven “Supreme” Court justices in 1973 (well over 60,000,000 infants).
But none of these can compare with the one who is responsible for the majority of people who populate hell—Satan himself. Soul after soul he has deceived. Some of these were at one time on the road to Heaven, but he managed to find and exploit their weaknesses. He did not fear to entice the purest of individuals into lascivious lechers; he did not fear to inflame the contented soul into a covetous and greedy wolf. Furthermore, he feared not to oppose God Himself and lead a rebellion against the honorable angels. Is the devil really going to fear some pipsqueak with an over-inflated ego? Hah! Satan has no fear! And he eats the proud for breakfast.