“Hello, Mr. LaMonte. Thank you for inviting me to your show.”

“We haven’t started yet,” he said a bit roughly. “So, save your thanks for the audience to hear.”

I didn’t say anything. I had the distinct impression he didn’t really want me there. But then the lights came on rather strongly and I had to blink a few times to get my bearings and see straight. Then I heard someone say, “5,4,3,2,1 You´re on the air.” I tried to smile for the cameras although I couldn’t see exactly which one was pointed at me.

“Welcome to our show,” Mr. LaMonte said. “Our special guest today is Mr. Amsing from Desert Warrior Ministries.”

He seemed to expect me to say something, so I repeated what I had said earlier. “Thank you for inviting me to your show.”

“Well, you deserve it,” he said. “My people tell me that you have written more than twenty books and that you have just passed a million followers.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“Well, frankly, I find that a bit of a mystery,” Mr. LaMonte said. “You seem to be a controversial sort of writer and say things that are hard to swallow.”

“Like what, Mr. LaMonte,” I asked. We were getting off to a rocky start.

“Well, you know that I have a wide and diverse audience, everyone from Catholics and Evangelicals to Seventh Day Adventists and even a number of atheists.”

I nodded.

“I think many of them believe that hell is a bit of a joke.” He stopped abruptly, expecting me to reply.

“Are you saying that many people in your audience don’t believe in hell?”

“No, what I’m saying is that the whole concept of hell is a bit like a cruel joke. How can you believe in a God who sends people to hell?”

I wasn’t sure what to say but I sent a quick prayer toward heaven and took a deep breath. “Well, it may be even worse than what you think, Mr. LaMonte. A lot of people also believe that the whole concept of hell is a way for the church to manipulate people into doing what it wants.”

Mr. LaMonte looked smug but a bit surprised. “So, you agree with me?”

“Are we talking about what you think or about what your audience thinks? I asked quietly.

Silence.

“Well, to be honest, probably both,” he finally said.

“Ok, no problem. I actually agree with you up to a point.”

“Up to what point?”

“That the church often tries to manipulate people through a fear of hell and that the way a number of pastors and leaders use that fear to raise funds and support their ministries is a cruel joke.”

Mr. LaMonte nodded his head but was at a loss for words. He had expected the conversation to go in a different direction. “But I thought you believed in hell?”

“I do,” I said, “and I believe it is also the cruelest, most evil joke that has ever been played on mankind.” I paused. “But not by God, rather by the Devil.”

“But I thought God was the one who sent people to hell?”

“That’s true, but hell was created in the first place because of the Devil. It was his rebellion against God that made hell a necessity.” I paused. “Perhaps the best way to describe it is to say that when the Devil deceived all of mankind to join him in his rebellion against God, he knew there would be repercussions. We call it hell, but it is just a home for the Devil and his angels without any of the blessings and benefits of the Creator God. In that sense, it was a cruel joke that he played not just on us but on God, Himself.”

“On God?” Mr. LaMonte said. “What do you mean?”

“Well, God certainly doesn’t want any of us to join the Devil in hell, does He?” I waited for him to answer.

“I suppose not.”

“2 Peter 3:19 tells us that God is “not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

Silence. I decided to keep going.

“God is heartbroken about anyone going to hell but when we sided with the Devil we also chose to live with him forever.”

That seemed to wake Mr. LaMote up a little. “Well, I don’t think many people would agree with that. I certainly don’t. I never chose to go to hell or live with the Devil.”

I was quiet for a long minute. Finally, I decided to ask him a question.

“Is evil an option for you, Mr. LaMonte?”

“What do you mean? Of course not. I don’t do evil.”

“So, you never do what you know is wrong just to get what you want? Ever?”

Silence. I realized he couldn’t answer that on live television.

“No, don’t answer that. But the truth is that it describes every single human being on earth. That is what the Devil does as well. He is his own judge of what is good and evil for him and if he wants to do evil to get what he wants, well, he does it. Just like we do. But worse and on a grander scale.”

“So, hell is the Devil’s cruel joke on God, you’re saying, because he managed to turn a lot of people to his way of doing things.”

“Everybody, not just a lot of people, and yes. Which is why we end up with the same punishment and get to live with our partners in crime for all eternity.”

“So why wait?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why is God waiting? Why not just send everybody to hell and be done with it?”

“Well, you have heard the good news, haven’t you?” I looked at him and smiled. “God has a plan for saving us.”

“Of course, I know about all of that. Jesus and the cross and the good news. But why bother? Why go through all of the trouble of becoming a human and getting tortured on the cross and all of that? Why not just get rid of hell directly? That solves the whole problem.”

“Oh, I see what you mean.” I thought about it for a moment. “So you understand the love of God and get that he did all of what he did in order to save us. What you want to know is why the justice of God won’t allow him to just destroy the Devil and the whole hell thing in one fell swoop?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, we say that God is good, really and honestly good, at the core of his being because he is both just as well as loving. It’s true that if we had not sided with the rebellion, the justice of God may never have been revealed but the truth is that it happened. Adam and Eve, you and I, have a choice to love or not love, to make evil an option or not to. The reality of our choices makes the justice of God a necessity.”

“But why? Can’t he just forgive and forget?”

“Yes, he can but not in the way you’re thinking about it. Not without the whole good news part where Jesus dies on the cross as your substitute and all that. God’s justice still needs to be satisfied otherwise he wouldn’t be good.”

“You’re saying that he would be a corrupt judge?”

“Exactly. And more than that he would be a judge without any love for his people either.”

“That I don’t understand.”

“Think of it this way,” I said. “The justice of God is the flip side of his love for us. After all, what is justice in the first place? It is an attempt to put things right. It attempts to right wrongs and fight for those who have been hurt, for the victims. It attempts to determine true responsibility and blame for evil and then limit that evil in some way.”

“That makes sense, but how does it apply to us?”

“We have decided that evil is an option at times. That hurts people, including us. If God was good, he would try to stop it, to protect people, to change things. That is what justice does.”

“Yes, but God doesn’t do that.” Mr. LaMonte sat up in his chair, the audience forgotten, the discussion was getting interesting. “He doesn’t stop evil. He allows it. How do you explain that?”

“It’s part of the plan to save us,” I said. When people ask me how I can believe in a God who allows such evil to go unpunished, I tell them it’s because he loves us.”

“He allows evil because he loves us? That makes no sense.” Mr. LaMonte almost snorted his disgust.

“It makes perfect sense,” I said. “If we all do evil in smaller or larger ways, then God would have to stop the world right now and put us all in hell without any possibility of rescue in order to deal with all of the evil in the world.”

“Well, he could just get rid of the bigger kinds of evil and leave the rest of us mediocre people alone, couldn’t he?”

“It wouldn’t be fair or just to discriminate like that,” I said. “But the real issue is that God has established a truce with mankind for the time being.”

“A truce?”

“Yes, he has decided not to destroy the Devil or his demons for the time being, and he has decided not to punish us by simply throwing us all in hell and being done with it. It would have saved him a ton of pain and suffering if he had.”

“True enough. That’s what I was saying before.”

“But God’s love found a way to fulfill the requirements of his justice even though it cost him dearly. That’s why we call it the good news.”

“Tell me more about this truce,” Mr. LaMonte said. “I’ve never heard it called that way before.”

“Well, the truce still carries some heavy consequences,” I said. “If you remember at the beginning, God established a few curses that we have to live with.”

“Pain in childbirth and thorns and thistles, if I remember correctly.”

“Yes, and death. Life is no longer easy but difficult and it will end at some point.”

“We’ve gotten used to it for the most part,” Mr. LaMonte said. “That’s not so bad.”

“It depends on how easy or how hard your life is and whether you contract cancer or get crippled in a car accident, don’t you think?”

“I hadn’t thought about that,” he said.

“Yes, I know because I left out the most important curse that there is and we must all live with it.”

“What curse are you talking about?”

“The curse of the evil within,” I said. “Now the world is full of people who can hurt you, who can deceive you, rob you, murder you, and so on.”

“Not everyone is like that.”

“No, thank God, but a lot of people are. Otherwise, why are we always complaining about the evil in this world and blaming God for it?”

“Good point.” Mr. LaMonte looked at his watch and then looked up at me with a half-smile on his lips. “I have a bit of a surprise for you, Mr. Amsing. We have a special guest that I want you to meet.

I have to admit that I trembled just a bit to see this new guest walk into the studio.