Hellfire, damnation, ranting, raving, staging and strutting -- these are the memories that flood my mind of the revivals in my childhood church, designed I suppose to chastise the children of God and somehow scare us straight. Two weeks out of every year our entire family sat in the third pew back each night while the visiting evangelist tried to reform our ways.

I remember one preacher in particular who stormed in from the Bible belt, foaming and fuming with the gospel truth. We had to be badly backslidden, living as we did in that evil wasteland called California, and he didn't mind letting us know. By the third night, his sermons had me almost throwing up. Images of bodies writhing in flames while worms ate at their flesh, overwhelmed my young imagination.

Having discovered later in life the joy of grace, I have a great distaste for the coercion of Christian behavior by the fear of hell. I always wondered why those traveling evangelists acted like we could do something about our depravity, like it was our responsibility to figure out a way to make ourselves better. What need had we of a Deliverer if we could somehow have saved ourselves? To this day I struggle with that weight, with a propensity toward works that wreaks havoc in my spiritual life.

Across the landscape of faith in America today, the pendulum has clearly swung the other direction. Hell isn't a very popular topic. For this, I tend to be grateful and relieved, yet I find myself wondering if there isn't some middle ground, some healthier place for the subject of hell than to banish it altogether.

Jesus spoke of hell often, and Scripture is replete with warnings of eternal judgment. Perhaps these words are better used not to beat back-slidden believers into shape, but to bolster the faithful by reminding us what our life might have been had our Deliverer not come. To me, the most sobering verse about hell is 2 Thessalonians 1:9. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power.

Whatever our images of hell might be -- whether fire or worms or demonic rage -- surely the most terrifying thought is that it will be a place devoid of God's presence, a condition even the most miserable creature on earth has not yet experienced. At this moment, the glory of God's power holds evil at bay, preventing for a season the full effect of the fall. It is true that all of creation groans, but it cannot compare to the hopeless groaning that will permeate an eternity of enslavement under Satan, when the full force of evil explodes with no hope of it ever abating.

This is our destiny as depraved people. We have all sinned, gone our way in rebellion or apathy from the God who made us for Himself. The wages of our defiance is spiritual death, a complete incapacity for God, a desperate inability to see or know or ever find Him, and endless pride that shuns His right to reign over our lives. Left to ourselves, we would face an eternal prison -- void in every way of the presence of God --from which we could never escape.

But ah – amazing grace, we aren't left to ourselves. The Deliverer has come, storming the gates of hell, breaking down the barrier of sin that forever held us in bondage. Now for us, every second of life is a reminder of this glorious grace, the reality that we have been bought with a price, never to be subject to the terror of unending evil.

The Deliverer has come -- what awe should fill our hearts. That He is coming again for us is a stunning enticement to live in joyful obedience every moment of every day. See Him even now... Riding through the sky in magnificent splendor, Jesus will come to take His children home to dwell in His dazzling presence for all of eternity, where we will marvel forever at the glory of His power (2 Thessalonians 1:9).

Every one of us was once a prisoner, doomed to an eternity of separation from God with absolutely no hope of escape. Today God's grace still fills this world, bringing rain to the just and the unjust. Stop for a moment and consider the presence of God being removed, the complete absence of any moral or spiritual good. What would it be like? How would it be to face that for eternity?

O Mighty Deliverer, I can never forget that in my neediness and affliction, You came and rescued me. While I was a slave to sin, you died to deliver my soul. I am free Lord, and such joy fills us me as I walk in the light of Your presence. Yet there is an ache within, for millions are still imprisoned and have never heard the good news that You appointed me to bring. How do I proclaim freedom when my own liberty is shadowed by sin and obscured by the lure of this world? Once again Lord, I feel my need and I must cry out. Deliver me O God from the destruction of selfish desires, that I might bind up the broken-hearted in Your name, and set prisoners free for Your glory. I am full of hope, Jesus, my Deliverer, for you have rescued me.