From the Home Place

September 26, 2025

Yesterday was another day of working on the exterior of this old house. Not only was it a day of working on the exterior, but more importantly it was another day of working on the roof of this old house! Before we go any further, you need to understand that yesterday was an unusual Wyoming day. There was not a cloud in the sky for as far as the eye could see from a rooftop. As such, the sun was blazing hot. To top that off, there wasn’t a breath of air. It is extremely unusual to say here in Wyoming, but a little breeze would have been greatly appreciated.

By 10 a.m. the steel on the roof was so hot that it burned bare skin. By noon the steel was so hot that it burned through my jeans when I would kneel down on it. To say the least it was an extremely hot and miserable day of work.

Because of the heat, we had to constantly consume water. Between the heat and the extreme heat, I was reminded of the biblical account of Lazarus and the rich man.(Read Luke 16:19-31) You will find that the rich man was so hot and miserable that he begged for God to allow Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger into a cup of water and to touch the rich man’s tongue with that drop of water. The rich man also commented about the “constant torment” he was experiencing.

You see friends, Lazarus was in what would later be called Heaven, and the rich man was in the precursor of Hell. Today’s note – Hell is a terrible place to end up! From today’s reading, we can I think we can conclude that Hell is a place of constant torment, a place of extreme heat and a place of complete isolation away from everyone else.

In today’s culture so many folks have adopted a mentality that if one thinks that Hell does not really exist, then it must not exist. How absurd! Let’s say that yesterday while I was standing on the ground, I didn’t believe that it was going to be really hot when I got up on the roof. That would be to say that when I laid my arm down upon the roof, it didn’t burn my arm. Oh but it did burn.

You see friends, there are plenty of absolutes within this creation. Take gravity for instance. The argumentative person will say, “Well we have tunnels that defy gravity and when you get into one, you float.” To which I respond, “Yes but without the absolute of gravity, you wouldn’t be able to walk into such a facility to escape gravity for a few minutes.”

You see, as I said the other day, “This earth is all the hell a believer will ever experience, and it is also all of the heaven the unbeliever will ever experience.” As sure as the sun, moon and stars are real, Heaven and hell are real regardless of our human opinion regarding their existence. If a person chooses to not believe that Hell is absolute isolation, is constant extreme heat and is eternal suffering it doesn’t change the fact that the real Hell is all of those things.

When I was a youngster, parents and teachers started telling children, “You can become anything that you believe you can be!” For the past fifty-plus years we have exemplified this lie to our little ones. The power of positive thinking can be helpful in certain situations, but it seldom changes the life course of most people. In my opinion, all it does is create an environment of disappointment when life doesn’t turn out the way I “dreamed” it would be.

As the ‘ol country song states, “God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy.” Could it be that we have allowed crazy people to tempt us into believing that nothing as bad as hell can exist. To which, I say, “Well just take a look around you!”

I for one am extremely grateful for salvation in Jesus, and that living here on this earth is all of the hell I will ever have to experience. I can tell you for sure, that spending a hot day on an extremely hot roof is way closer to hell than it is to heaven.

Experiencing reality with you, Neal