If you knew a non-Christian who had died in one of the great disasters of recent years — someone who was killed by warfare, by terrorism, by flood, or by fire — do not weep for him because of how he died, but weep for him because of what he is suffering now. This person might be your father or mother, your brother or sister, your son or daughter, your spouse, or a friend. At this very moment in hell, he is screaming in extreme agony, and being tortured by an unearthly pain. He curses God, but God laughs at him. He begs God to release him, but God only increases his suffering. He calls out your name, but you cannot hear him, you cannot help him. He recalls the times when the two of you made fun of the Christians and mocked their God. He thinks about the time when one of them stumped him in a debate, but he hardened his heart even more.

He remembers how he was encouraged in his unbelief when he read a certain novel that portrayed Christian history as just one great conspiracy. Now he realizes that all it contained were old theories that were refuted long ago. One of the newcomers in hell had told him that they even made it into a movie. The devil overheard and chuckled, “Could you people be any more gullible? You claimed to be so rational and so knowledgeable, so advanced—Ha! And you were fooled by a novel? Well, you will meet the author in a just a few years. You can get his autograph then!”

No matter how he died, or what kind of person you thought he was, if he died a non-Christian, then he is now in hell — burning, burning, burning! Combine all the mental distress that you have ever suffered and all the physical agony that you have ever endured, multiply its intensity by a million times, and extend its duration to endless eternity, and you will have a faint idea of what he is going through right now. But our imagination fails us, for anything that we can imagine is far weaker than what God is now doing to your friend or relative. So I will restrain myself, lest my description makes hell sound too pleasant. God does not do a half-baked job at anything — what he promises, he delivers, and when he punishes, he goes all the way.