The Worm

January 13

One of the most haunting verses of scripture touches on the concept of patience because it suggests it will require that virtue to be exercised throughout eternity. In light of the fact that it will not be exacted from the inhabitants of heaven, it is obvious that the sobering requirement will be placed upon those who are withering in hell.

Certainly, there is ample scriptural evidence to make us aware that hell is a place of anguish. Patience would hardly be expected there in any form or to any degree. Whether the place is Dante’s molten inferno, or whether it is populated with vile demons that demoralize its human captives with taunts of the sin that brought them there, or whether it is another form of torment that hasn’t been imagined, it will not be a pleasant place.

But perhaps the most haunting verses of scripture regarding hell are those that Jesus tells us repeatedly in Mark 9:44, 46, 48, “Where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.” Is hell a literal fire? Perhaps so. Perhaps the torment of it is unbearable. But at least as bad is the idea that the ‘worm’ doesn’t die there. The gnawing anguish of remembering the opportunities a man had to receive Christ as his Savior and Lord—but rejected—will never stop tormenting him!

He will know he brought himself to that awful place because the Lord made a way of escape for him by paying God’s death penalty for his sin—and he refused to accept it! That heart-wrenching thought will never leave him. Will all eternity enable him to develop a patient acceptance of his loss of heaven because of his own recalcitrance? May every man spare himself the awful contemplation of that potential eventuality by simply embracing Jesus to his heart.