"The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." (Psalm 9:17)
The subject of hell is widely ignored today, even by evangelical teachers and pastors. Heaven is commonly mentioned at funerals, of course, since almost everyone attending a funeral wants to think that the deceased has gone there (assuming there turns out to be such a place). Hell is rarely acknowledged as even a possibility, on the other hand, even for mobsters or other criminals.
Nevertheless, hell is real and it is going to be more fully populated than heaven. The Lord Jesus said (and He should know!), "Broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: . . . narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it" (Matthew 7:13-14).
But just who are the "wicked" that will be turned into hell? According to the Bible, "There is none righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10), and "the whole world lieth in wickedness" (1 John 5:19). By the principle of Hebrew poetic parallelism, our text would indicate that "the wicked" are those who "forget God," where the connotations of "forget" is "become oblivious to."
Can whole nations become oblivious to the true God of creation--and do business and legislate and conduct all their affairs just as though God no longer existed? If so, those nations (or at least those citizens of those nations who practice such wickedness) are in mortal danger. "Thou puttest away all the wicked of the earth like dross" (Psalm 119:119).
But "Christ died for the ungodly" (Romans 5:6) and "blessed are all they that put their trust in him" (Psalm 2:12). We who trust Christ therefore surely need to work and pray earnestly for our nation, and its people, that they return to genuine love of God and His Word. HMM
