While I was waiting up I was tinkering around my office and listening to music on Spotify. PS- great service- highly recommend. I found myself listening to a number of selections from Carleton Pearson's Azusa concerts from back in the 1990s. The music was awesome. Traditional black gospel played with emotion that bled through my computer and into my ears. It was like church in my office.
I noted on Facebook that "Carleton Pearson may be a flake but he could sure put out some good music". That was the catalyst for a thought rolling around in my brain. Carleton Pearson embraces the theology of "universal acceptance". In short, he's a universalist. He thinks that there is no literal hell because hell is lived out on earth and in the afterlife we are all reunited with God.
As I mused on this I thought, if there was no literal hell, why bother with God. Or church. Or any type of relationship that would draw one into fellowship with the Almighty. I don't think our walk with God should be motivated by fear of hell but fear often compels us to action, whether it be our initial steps or to shake us from our moribund state. If I don't have a healthy fear of hell- of separation from God, why bother with any of this.
The scriptures speak clearly and unambiguously that there is indeed a hell that is reserved for those without Christ. For this reason, we are compelled to not only work out our own salvation with fear and trembling but to go into the harvest field to reach others. We go because it is the will of Christ that no man is lost.
This is why we bother.
