N/B: This is a true life story, and not a figment of the writer’s imaginations.
It was on the last week of the month of January 2019, when we were having a week of evangelism and missions within my locality. One of our brothers came back from house-to-house evangelism to narrate to us this strange story. They had gone into the house of one man named James Abiri (not real name) to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to him. When they finished talking with him, and asked him for his decision before they prayed for him, the man told them that he wanted to tell them a story. S’o, they listened.
“Sometime in November”, the man began, “my elder brother, Chukwuka Abiri (not real name) gave up the ghost. Because we did not have money to conduct a befitting burial ceremony for him, we deposited his corpse in the mortuary while we sought to gather some money for his burial. Early this New Year, we felt we had gathered enough money to begin to push for his burial, but the customary 2 months approved by the church for burials had elapsed, and hence the priest declined his participation for the burial ceremony. We felt it was inglorious for our brother to go into the grave without a decent burial ceremony and prayers made over him. Hence, we were running around trying to find solution to the matter.
“Earlier today (i.e. on the day we went to preach to him), I was in a dream and there were 3 phones on my table, one for me, one for my wife, and one for my sister. The phone belonging to my sister rang in that dream, and I picked it up. Behold, it was the voice of my late brother- Chukwuka!
“He even introduced himself to me and said, “Hello, this is Chukwuka calling.” While I was still wondering what it all meant, he said, “I am calling you right now from hell! This place is a very terrible place, but unfortunately, I cannot come out again. I called to warn you so that anything you can do in order to avoid coming here, please do.” And the phone cut. I woke up, looked at the time, and it was 2 a.m. in the morning. Since that 2 a.m. till 6 a.m. I could not sleep again. I was just awake thinking.
“So, please, I am willing to do whatever you want me to do, and I am willing to go wherever you want me to go. All I know is that I do not want to go to hell fire.”
So, they led the man to Christ, and his son who sat with him, and we invited them to our discipleship class. They came on Sunday, and from his own mouth, I heard him tell again his testimony and what transpired that week in his life.
Permit me to stop here and say this. There really is a place of everlasting torment called hell fire. If you like, you can raise arguments in your heart, like ‘if there is a real hell fire, by which oxygen is it burning?’ ‘Can a loving and kind God put men created in His image into a place of everlasting torment?’ and many more. I have answers to the first, but I do not want to labour on it now. It is beyond the scope of this article; as to the second question, the answer is an emphatic YES. God will punish sin wherever it is found. He has given men all the chance in this world to change their ways and choose Him, but every soul that rejects the Lordship of Christ Jesus and the Kingship of God, will end up in the place where such men who reject God’s Lordship go.
There are two places of eternal consequences- Heaven or Hell. In Heaven, God is King and His word is Law, there men bow down and serve Him forever. But Hell, is the greatest expression of the ‘free’ soul, of the soul who goes on without the input of God. If you reject God’s Kingship and the Lordship of Christ Jesus on the Earth, then it will be injustice for Him to bring you into Heaven where His Kingship and the Lordship of Jesus Christ reigns unquestioned. Hence the only available option is HELL.
Dear reader, permit my straightforwardness, but we do not mince words when discussing matters of eternal consequences. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish in the way. All who are alive, including you, have a choice to make- Heaven or Hell, and the choice starts by answering this question:
WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT JESUS OF NAZAREH? SUBMIT OR REBEL? THE CHOICE IS YOURS.
IN HOPE OF ETERNAL LIFE
J. M. OBODOZIE
The Christian In Society 