In his 35-page booklet, Is Hell Real?, Dane Ortlund offers a concise overview of a profoundly important and serious Bible topic:

• Hell is needed.  “The absence of hell would be a problem.  Hell is the affirmation that God is a God of justice, of fairness, of dealing with humans in a way that is right” (p. 12).  It is a “comforting reality that God himself will right all wrongs one day” (14).  The divine Judge does what is just (Genesis 18:25). 
• Hell is awful.  “In heaven, joy squeezes out any opportunity for sadness. In hell, sadness squeezes out any opportunity for joy” (18).  Saying hell brings “destruction” (e.g., 2 Thess. 1:9) “does not mean that those in hell cease to exist at some point” (20).  In fact, the just punishment of the unrepentant goes on for­ever.  Hell is so awful that God’s enemies will “beg the moun­tains and the rocks to fall on them, crushing them, rather than endure the wrath of the Lamb (Rev. 6:15-16)” (23). 
• Hell is deserved.  Defiance of an infinitely glorious God and idolizing ourselves instead (as we have all done, Romans 3:23) is a crime deserving of an infinite punishment.  
• Hell is close.  Life is short; the end could come at any time.  “Hell and heaven, one or the other, is inevitably hurtling at us, and it will be here before we know it” (35).  So don’t assume you have time the way the rich fool did (Luke 12:19-20)!
• Hell is avoidable.  This is the most important point:  “there is a way out.  And it isn’t hard.”  Christianity “provides a Savior who endured hell in our place” (38).  Turn to him, in faith.

“The real scandal of this universe is not that there is a hell, deserved by all, but that there is a heaven offered to all” (11).  An awareness of hell “should swell our affections for the gospel—the good news that Jesus endured the horror of hell in the place of all who collapse into his open arms in trusting faith” (10)!