....No matter how we analyze the concept of hell...
One of the best Visualizations of Hell ever made:: Constantine - Keanu Reeves
Posted on 02/21/2015 7:50:13 AM PST by RnMomof7
We have often heard statements such as “War is hell” or “I went through hell.” These expressions are, of course, not taken literally. Rather, they reflect our tendency to use the word hell as a descriptive term for the most ghastly human experience possible. Yet no human experience in this world is actually comparable to hell. If we try to imagine the worst of all possible suffering in the here and now we have not yet stretched our imaginations to reach the dreadful reality of hell.
Hell is trivialized when it is used as a common curse word. To use the word lightly may be a halfhearted human attempt to take the concept lightly or to treat it in an amusing way. We tend to joke about things most frightening to us in a futile effort to declaw and defang them, reducing their threatening power.
There is no biblical concept more grim or terror-invoking than the idea of hell. It is so unpopular with us that few would give credence to it at all except that it comes to us from the teaching of Christ Himself.
Almost all the biblical teaching about hell comes from the lips of Jesus. It is this doctrine, perhaps more than any other, that strains even the Christian’s loyalty to the teaching of Christ. Modern Christians have pushed the limits of minimizing hell in an effort to sidestep or soften Jesus’ own teaching. The Bible describes hell as a place of outer darkness, a lake of fire, a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth, a place of eternal separation from the blessings of God, a prison, a place of torment where the worm doesn’t turn or die. These graphic images of eternal punishment provoke the question, should we take these descriptions literally or are they merely symbols?
I suspect they are symbols, but I find no relief in that. We must not think of them as being merely symbols. It is probable that the sinner in hell would prefer a literal lake of fire as his eternal abode to the reality of hell represented in the lake of fire image. If these images are indeed symbols, then we must conclude that the reality is worse than the symbol suggests. The function of symbols is to point beyond themselves to a higher or more intense state of actuality than the symbol itself can contain. That Jesus used the most awful symbols imaginable to describe hell is no comfort to those who see them simply as symbols.
A breath of relief is usually heard when someone declares, “Hell is a symbol for separation from God.” To be separated from God for eternity is no great threat to the impenitent person. The ungodly want nothing more than to be separated from God. Their problem in hell will not be separation from God, it will be the presence of God that will torment them. In hell, God will be present in the fullness of His divine wrath. He will be there to exercise His just punishment of the damned. They will know Him as an all-consuming fire.
No matter how we analyze the concept of hell it often sounds to us as a place of cruel and unusual punishment. If, however, we can take any comfort in the concept of hell, we can take it in the full assurance that there will be no cruelty there. It is impossible for God to be cruel. Cruelty involves inflicting a punishment that is more severe or harsh than the crime. Cruelty in this sense is unjust. God is incapable of inflicting an unjust punishment. The Judge of all the earth will surely do what is right. No innocent person will ever suffer at His hand.
Perhaps the most frightening aspect of hell is its eternality. People can endure the greatest agony if they know it will ultimately stop. In hell there is no such hope. The Bible clearly teaches that the punishment is eternal. The same word is used for both eternal life and eternal death. Punishment implies pain. Mere annihilation, which some have lobbied for, involves no pain. Jonathan Edwards, in preaching on Revelation 6:15-16 said, “Wicked men will hereafter earnestly wish to be turned to nothing and forever cease to be that they may escape the wrath of God.” (John H. Gerstner, Jonathan Edwards on Heaven and Hell [Orlando: Ligonier Ministries, 1991], 75.)
Hell, then, is an eternity before the righteous, ever-burning wrath of God, a suffering torment from which there is no escape and no relief. Understanding this is crucial to our drive to appreciate the work of Christ and to preach His gospel.
Summary
Biblical passages for reflection: Matthew 8:11-12, Mark 9:42-48, Luke 16:19-31, Jude 1:3-13, Revelation 20:11-15.
Hell need only be Fear unleashed, Fear rampant. Dread. Horror. Unending. Period. Done.
You may want to read Paul's letters as it pertains to laws and grace.
>>You do your thing. It’s your soul.<<
Yes, it is. And it's safe in the hands of Jesus with the guarantee of the Holy Spirit.
Excellent article and very accurate based upon my experiences. The “Lake of Fire” bit is very accurate. Eternal damnation is holding onto the garbage that keeps us at the level of fire rather than being purified to the point where fire can not harm us. This is the reason that a prayerful blessing to an evil person is like heaping hot coals upon their heads.
This is also why the weeds will be burned in the end times.
It’s the reason that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when thrown in the fire they never get burned. (Daniel 3:23)
It’s the reason why the demons can’t come close to a person filled with the Holy Spirit as they are afraid it will burn them.
We, when we cleanse our souls can allow the Holy Spirit to enter us and we are raised up to the level of consciousness where fire does not harm us.
I was severely burned by fire and hot oil when a fryer exploded in front of me (due to my own stupidity). I put our the fire and raised my left arm up to look at the severity of the burns. The skin was burnt away and just as I was getting ready to go to the hospital, this energy moved down into my finger tips and down through my arm to my armpit. My arm was totally covered with goosebumps the size of huge zits with white heads on them. Scared the crap out of me. After about 30 seconds the goosebumps went away and my arm was totally healed. the skin that was burned away was back and totally healed. Not even any redness or tenderness. This whole event scared the heck out of me at the time as I didn’t understand it. I did not pray for it to happen, it just happened, in spite of me. I do feel a lot of loving gratitude for it though.
It is that same energy that radiates through me that protects me when doing exorcisms. I’ve had the spirits take over people’s bodies and come charging at me swinging, hissing and spitting. When they hit that energy a few feet from me it stops them as though they hit a block wall. It is the strength that only comes through my weakness.
The one point where I disagree with the article is that forgiveness is also available to souls who were recruited by satan even though they no longer have physical bodies. Forgiveness is available right up until the Bridegroom returns.
If you could hear the demons scream when they are surrounded by the Holy Spirit, it gives you a good idea how they perceive hell. They are the worst screams I have ever heard.
When they finally calm down and allow me to guide them to redemption, they find that they too have a spark of God essence at the center of their soul. This is true if the soul ever had a physical body prior to being recruited by satan’s minions.
You are 100% correct.
I have experienced both in this life and the experience of both is beyond words.
Being with God is pure total bliss. Being separated from God is pure torture.
Being caught in the middle where I catch glimpses of both is the wildest roller coaster ride possible and is also torture. Our souls are but seeds planted here on this earth to grow, up out of the darkness of the earth to utilize the Light to grow. This is why Jesus explained what He did in Matthew 13 when the Disciples asked to understand the parable of the tares in the wheat.
The only innocents are those of us who have been declared righteous by virtue of our acceptance of and faith in Jesus Christ as our divine Lord and Savior. Man is born in sin, and the only remedy for that sin is to be born again as an innocent man or woman. That 2nd birth is the result of the believer's faith in Jesus Christ as God's divine, sinless Son who by his death on the cross paid the penalty for our all our sins past, present, and future.
Not many of today's mainline protestant pastors or Catholic priests who preach salvation by good works will agree with this, but the Holy Spirit who wrote my bible does.
Romans ch 10 v 9-10:"That if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from death you will be saved, for it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved."
Romans ch 10 v 13:"Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved".
The ‘faith without twitching a muscle’ crowd is actually quite athletic; triple jumpers, one might say.
Jumping over the commissions of the Lord: Matt. 28:19; Mark 16:16; Luke 24:47; and John 20:23.
Jumping over Acts 2:38 (and really, most of that book).
Jumping over the examples in the epistles that reminded those folks how they were born again, such as in Romans:
Rms 6:3; “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?”
4. “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death:....” (That’s certainly not Spirit baptism, because the Spirit is life.) “..that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the GLORY of the FATHER, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
5 “For if we have been planted together in the LIKENESS of his death, we shall be also in the LIKENESS of his resurrection.”
“But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being THEN made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.” 6:17,18
They high hurdle over the efforts of obedience that Abraham performed, BEFORE God first commended him as faithful in Gen. 15:6
As if that’s not enough, they pole vault over the witness of the Lord Jesus Christ:
Let’s just look in Matthew for a few examples:
8:5-13 “There CAME unto him a centurion, BESEECHING him..”..you know the rest, where Jesus says. “..I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel”.
9:2 “They BROUGHT unto him a man sick of the palsy.....and Jesus SEEING their faith....”.
9:21 The woman with the issue of blood: “If I may but TOUCH his garment......Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole”.
15:21-28 The Canaanite woman: “..CAME she, and WORSHIPPED....., “Truth Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master’s table. Then Jesus answwered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith...”.
Your thoughts?
Incidently, the “raised up” referred to in the rapture is merely our souls being raised up to the same operational frequency of the “Holy Spirit” or “Great Helper” that can exist within us when we are no longer full of ourselves.
This being raised up is what protects us from the tortures of hell.
“They just think that they love their sin. Imagine the Hell that it would be to know that total fulfilling love was held away from you and all you had for yourself was the stain of what you had done, forever.”
It tortures my soul to have tasted heaven and be sent back here against my will. When I died, I did not want to return to my physical body. I miss being in the feeling of heaven more than words can ever describe. It is a great torture to remember the feeling and not be there in it.
>>What is innocence?<<
“Having been completely forgiven through Christ’s death and resurrection.”
Very true, but there is more to it. Being forgiven cleanses our soul. Allowing Christ to be in us through perfect communion maintains the innocence.
Without remission of sins, Hell is the reward.
**Romans ch 10 v 9-10:”That if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from death you will be saved, for it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.”**
Written to people already born again:
Romans 1:7 “To all that be at Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints...”.
They were reminded of their conversion here:
Rms 6:3; “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?”
4. “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death:....” (That’s certainly not Spirit baptism, because the Spirit is life.) “..that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the GLORY of the FATHER, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
5 “For if we have been planted together in the LIKENESS of his death, we shall be also in the LIKENESS of his resurrection.”
“But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being THEN made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.” 6:17,18
**Romans ch 10 v 13:”Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved”.**
Let’s keep it in context by continuing:
“How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent?..” Rms 10:14,15
Now go back to Acts to see how these preachers preached to the lost, starting with Acts 2:14, and coming to the part where the convicted souls ask, “Men and brethern, what shall we do?”
“Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost”. Acts 2:38
They are laws for those that choose to be saved by them
Romans 2:12 All those who have done wrong without the law will get destruction without the law: and those who have done wrong under the law will have their punishment by the law;
Romans 3:19 Now we know thatwhatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.
Just as Paul had to confront Peter..Rome must be confronted with this truth
Gal 2:16nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified.
The law was given because no man can keep it PERFECTLY ...and as James tells us in 2:10For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.
So one lie has made one guilty of adultery, murder, idolatery etc.
So why would God give us laws that he knows we can never keep??
As Paul says he never would have known he was a sinner without the law.. because its purpose was to show us that we can nevr save ourselves
Gal3:24Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. 25But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.
So my friend the saved are no longer UNDER the law..because Christ kept it perfectly for us ...does that mean the law is ignored by the saved..NO.. it still calls us to seek God when we fail.. but we know we have one that payed the price for that on the cross
If Catholics want to believe they will be judged by their law keeping..they are all damned to hell for no one can keep it..
God bless and keep you - and see you there someday.
Thank you for your testimony
None of us can "earn" a place with God ...
Romans as it is written, "THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; 11THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD; 12ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE."…
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