Have you ever been in a situation that you wish would end but you simply see no way out? Perhaps it was a lingering sickness that made every day a horror show of pain and suffering. I know a priest who is going through this right now. Thanks to a random tick, probably the size of a pencil point, he contracted Lyme Disease.  I met him in NYC when I went up to help him. His description of what he was enduring was heart-rending, and even now that the treatment he has taken has removed the virus from his body, the after effects linger. He explains it in part like a loud buzzing and constant pressure in his head.

Perhaps it was a marriage that had gone south and rather than sharing in the love and attraction that you felt in your initial meeting, each day has become an intolerable reality of being in the presence of someone whom you wish was miles away, yet for some reason, you cannot get out of the marriage. Perhaps it is a sense of duty to the children whom you know will suffer if you divorce. So you grit your teeth, grind out each day, and try to put on a show of politeness to your spouse for the kids while in your heart you are screaming,  “Let me out of here!”  I know a man who went through that for years before his wife died. He was not a happy camper, and from time to time, he expressed that to his friends.

Or perhaps, like my father, you know that if you divorce your wife, she will, as my Aunt Dot told me one day, “run a vacuum cleaner hose down his pants pocket and wipe him out financially.”  So Dad stuck with Mom, but my brother and I could tell that they were not happy people. The bickering was almost daily. There were few genuine smiles of joy. It was a household of bare toleration at best. My brother and I have often wondered what happened to change Mom and Dad so drastically from the love letters we found in his desk after he died. Something went terribly wrong.

Perhaps you have been incarcerated for making a bad decision which broke the law, and surrounded by less than friendly career criminals who would gladly commit atrocities against your person, you were frantically counting the days until you would have the possibility of release. The joy of living replaced by walking carefully through the place of confinement, trying not to get on the wrong side of anyone, scared that some big ape of a convict would decide that beating you up might be fun just because. A life of fear, and some days, sheer terror.

In all these cases, and many more I could probably come up with, time seems to slow to a crawl. There appears to be no relief in sight, any and all joy of living is gone, and existence becomes a daily battle to keep your sanity. The slightest little enjoyments are seized upon. In the movie, THE GREEN MILE,  inmate Edward Delacroix is living his last days on the Mile for multiple deaths due to a fire he started while trying to cover up his rape and murder of a young girl. While on the Mile, Del befriends a mouse named Mr. Jingles, who becomes his best friend in his last days on death row. Small, weak, terrorized by a sadistic guard who takes pleasure in tormenting the inmates,  the mouse  gives Del some small relief from the misery of his condition.

There will be no Mr. Jingles in hell. Yes, those of us who believe or hope as I do in Universal Salvation, believe there is hell. The accusation that we do not believe in this is false. The Early Fathers of the Church who were Patristic Universalists described hell as “the scourging of God’s love.” As I understand it, hell a punishment designed to do two things: to give justice for the wrongs committed against God and our fellow man, and to bring the soul to repentance through a clear understanding of what the soul did while on earth. Millions and millions of people have no clear understanding of just how heinous their lives have been in causing grief and sorrow to others. In the presence of God, this falsehood will be stripped away.

I have no doubt in my mind that Hugh Hefner is still in the throes of suffering for all the sorrow and misery he caused – both to those who followed his wretched philosophy and to the women whom he led into degrading lives of debauchery, treating them as objects for the satiation of lust. This is just of God to do so, to bring the wretched soul of Mr. Hefner into the clear light of truth and understanding exactly what he did and what he was while on earth. The difference between those of us who believe in Patristic Universalism is this: we don’t believe there is any purpose in having this torment continue unabated forever. If you believe in eternal, conscious torment and feel that it has a purpose and goal, please make a comment below.

As I see it, there are several reasons to evangelize:

1 – To save people from torment in the next life. What person is so cold-hearted that he can observe without pity the suffering of another human being? Do not all but the most hard-hearted and indifferent want to run to the aid of another human being who is suffering? If we could see the suffering of souls in the next life, how they cry out for mercy, how the reality of their sins torments them, we would strive to warn everyone that our sins carry a price to pay. I am sure that Hugh Hefner wishes now that he had listened to the voices which urged him to turn from his wickedness. I also believe he is in despair, perhaps thinking that the torments he is suffering now will never end. Do I really want that for even the worst of people? Or do I love them as God loves them, looking on them with pity and trying to warn them of the punishment that lies ahead so that hopefully they may avoid it?

In Orthodox eschatology, there is no such place as “hell.” All souls go to be in the presence of Christ. All experience His unending love as God. But those who have loved sin, who have turned from God and embraced wickedness and selfishness, will find His love is a lash on their backs, while those who have repented in this life will find His love to be a warm embrace. The condition of our souls at death determines how we experience God in the next life. It is a mercy to warn people of this fact, because the torment that the wicked will experience will seem as if it will never end. Even if it does eventually come to an end, who in their right mind would wish suffering upon another? Unlike the musings of St. Thomas Aquinas, who said that the righteous in heaven would look upon the suffering of the wicked and rejoice in it bringing glory to God, the Bible states that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Neither should we.

2 – To give people joy in this life. Many of the people who loudly proclaim how they enjoy their sin go home at night and weep in loneliness and misery. I have both seen this in others, when the imbibing of a sufficient amount of alcohol released true feelings, and I have personally experienced it myself. As a young man, I couldn’t understand why I was depressed and having occasional thoughts of suicide, which terrified me. I was having fun, at least, according to the world’s idea of fun. I did drugs, which made my body feel pleasure, engaged in free-wheeling sexual adventures, and lived a life totally to myself. How could I be unhappy?

But I was – desperately so – and I have met a number of people who have expressed the same thing in regards to their former lives of sin. Sin is a lie. It’s the cheese in the mousetrap – that first bite is oh, so good! But there is a terrible price to pay when down the road the spring is triggered. There is a reason why those who practice sexual perversity have suicide rates three times the national average. Our actions have consequences, despite the constant drumbeat of those who tell us that we can do whatever we want with no sorrows or regrets. We were made for joy, for love, for peaceful lives. Sin ruins all this in this life, and leads to torment in the next until the full debt of God’s justice is paid.

3 – For the benefit of the community as a whole. Sin not only ruins your life, it ruins the lives of those with whom you come into contact. Look at any action which causes destruction in this world – constant wars (mostly caused by lies and political selfishness), poverty (caused by the rapacious greed of the rich), divorce (caused by selfishness in the marital relationship), sexual diseases and death (caused by immoral behavior), fist fights, thefts, rape, etc. These sins are caused by those who have no moral guidance such as the Christian faith provides, and they devastate individuals, communities, and nations. We are in a constant state of war because of the lies of politicians, and families suffer the loss of loved ones and injuries that will last a lifetime. Young women live in a rape culture because of magazines like Playboy, spawned by the “Sexual Revolution” of the 1960’s, which taught us the lie that sex is not reserved for marriage alone, but is a fine sport for a weekend. A whole security industry has arisen because there are immoral people who will steal all your money if they can just access your personal information online. Do I have to go on? Think of all the rotten things that take place in this country and the world. They would not exist in a truly Christian nation which lived by the teachings of Christ’s love. We as Christians need to tell people this and live it in front of them.

4 – Most importantly, Jesus deserves to be honored in this world with lives who love and worship Him, giving Him the glory He deserves for His great love to us. The command of our Lord in Matthew 28 is “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”

It is for our good, the good of others, and the good of the world, that Christ gives this command to all who believe in Him – go and evangelize. Tell the good news. You don’t have to be a slave to your passions. You don’t have to live in sorrow and fear. You don’t have to fear hell in the next life.

Good reasons to tell the world of God’s intense, unending, and amazing love!