Heaven and Hell

In an earlier post, I'd written a blog entry about the Description of Heaven. For those of you who haven't read it yet, you can click on this link http://shieldoffaith62.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-biblical-description-of-heaven.html and it will take you to it! But what about Hell? What does the Bible say about Hell? Is it a physical, spiritual or a place of conscious physical torment? And many people ask the proverbial question, “If God is a LOVING God, why did He create Hell?” Let's take a look at what the Bible has to say.

The CHOICE is yours

Let me begin with the last question, but the first one that everyone wants to argue the validity of the Scriptures and the existence of God with, “If God is a LOVING God, then why did He create Hell?” First, you have to realize that hell was NOT originally created for people. Hell was created for Satan and the angels that followed Satan, those who rebelled against God Almighty. This has one direct answer with many parts attached to it. In Matthew 25:41 it says very clearly, "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." So first and foremost, as you can see, Hell was never intended for His own children that He created in His image. It was created for the rebellious Satan and the angels that followed him. You should know and fully UNDERSTAND that God does not send anyone to hell. God doesn't want any person to go to hell because He created us to have a relationship with Him and to spend eternity with Him in Heaven. 2 Peter 3:9 tells us, "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering towards us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

But if a person rejects Jesus Christ, they are also rejecting heaven, then that person must accompany Satan forever. God gives us a choice, either we choose eternal life with Him or we choose eternal suffering with the devil. You would think that it would be an easy choice for people to make, but, unfortunately, so many people reject Jesus Christ and God's offer of heaven. And God will not force Heaven or Jesus on anyone. It's all a CHOICE. There won't be one person in Heaven who didn't want to be there. So, if a person chooses to reject Christ, that person has chosen hell for themselves. God did NOT send them there. Sadly, there is going to be a whole lot of people in hell, even the so-called good people. So many in fact that hell had to be enlarged! Look at what Isaiah 5:14 tells us as proof, "Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure." 


What does Hell look and feel like? Here are just a few scriptures to describe this horrible place!Hell is described in the Bible as a place of great despair, sorrow, darkness, torments and agony. Read the following verses, and you will see what I mean.

1) A place of weeping and gnashing of teeth - Matthew 25:30 "And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

2) A place of outer darkness - Matthew 22:13 "Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." 

3) A place of torments - Luke 16:23 "And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom."

4) A place of Sorrows - 2 Samuel 22:6 "The sorrows of hell compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me;"

5) A place of everlasting destruction - II Thessalonians 1:9 "Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;" 

6) A place where men are tormented with fire and brimstone - Revelation 21:8 "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death."

7) A place where fire is not quenched - Mark 9:44 "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."

8) A bottomless pit - Revelation 9:2 "And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit."

9) A place of no rest - Revelation 14:11 "And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name."

10) It is ultimately a lake of fire - Revelation 20:14 "And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death."

11) A permanent separation from our Creator - Matthew 13:49-50 "So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

By the above descriptions, I would say hell is truly a place of torment! Those in hell will not only face physical torment, but emotional and mental anguish as well. Forever! Without ceasing! You see, those in hell will be fully aware of the fact that they could have gone to heaven if only they hadn't chosen to reject Jesus Christ. Luke 13:28, "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out." In hell people will learn the true meaning of regret.

For those who think, mistakenly, that hell is here on earth, think again! Matthew 12:40, Jesus Christ says: "For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly: so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Clearly hell is IN the earth, not ON the earth. In Numbers 16:32-33, another good description from the Bible giving an account of people falling into hell alive, says, "And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them:" The Birmingham News, April 10, 1987 had an article entitled "Earth's Center Hotter Than Sun's Surface, Scientists Say". The article stated that scientists had discovered, "THE EARTH'S INNER CORE HAS A TEMPERATURE OF OVER 12,000 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT!" And THAT was in 1987!

Fire and Brimstone

Have you seen pictures of a volcano erupting, spewing a lake of fire from inside the earth — consuming everything within miles just from the heat? I remember when Mount St. Helens erupted back in 1980, reporters were comparing it to when hell surfaced upon the earth. I've also heard them being compared to a “descent into Hell.” Thousands of years ago, the Bible described a place called hell in the heart of the earth that matches exactly what science is discovering. It's in the Bible! Volcanoes have always fascinated me, not only for the fierceness of it's eruptions, but for the mere fact of how it elicited my deeper comparison to the center of the earth being hell and what it must feel like. By the time a volcano erupts and the molten ash is shot hundreds, and even thousands, of feet into the air and land nearby, one can only imagine the intensity of just the HEAT emitting from the fiery ash!

Our minds cannot wrap around the intensity of how truly horrendous and horrible this punishment really will be if one chooses not to follow Jesus Christ into Heaven, accept God's free gift of salvation and reside eternally with Him! Revelation 14:10 says, " . . . and he shall be tormented with fire and BRIMSTONE . . ." And Job 18:21 describes the " . . . PLACE of him that knoweth not God," in Job 18:15 as, " . . . BRIMSTONE shall be scattered upon his habitation." (emphasis mine.) Do you know what brimstone is? It's sulfur. And do you know where sulfur or brimstone is found? INSIDE THIS EARTH! According to the book Volcanoes by Pierre Kohler (p. 43), when Mt. St Helens erupted in 1980 — 150,000 tons of sulfurous gas was ejected! Job is the oldest book in the Bible, written over 3,000 years ago, and yet Job knew what science wouldn't know for years — inside this earth is BRIMSTONE! Nature magazine discovered (July 2002) what the Bible knew over 3,000 years ago. Inside this earth is "fire and brimstone."

Interesting to note here is that in Mark 9:46, Jesus Christ says about hell: "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Jesus explicitly says THEIR worm, not A worm or THE worm, but THEIR worm. The Bible teaches that Christians will one day have a body like the Lord Jesus Christ. So then is it possible to conceive, as some Bible students teach, that men and women in hell take on the form of their father, Satan (John 8:44)? In Revelation 12:3, Satan is described as a red dragon. Maybe Jesus Christ is referring to the body lost men and women will have for eternity in hell? That's just a thought, not a biblical fact. It's a possibility though, I would think, that if God's children will one day have a body like Jesus, then why wouldn't Satan's children have a body like the snake that he is...hence a worm?! Scientists have discovered cracks on the ocean floor where fire was leaking out. Do you know what they found around these fire-breathing vents in the crust? Eight-foot long worms, found no other place in the world! The book, The Deep Sea, by Joseph Wallace (p.39), reads, "Perhaps the strangest of ocean creatures recently discovered are Riftia, the giant tube WORMS. Measuring up to 8 feet in length, the worms are ONLY FOUND NEAR DEEP SEA VENTS."

The people that will reside there are only those who have chosen NOT to accept Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, who have chosen NOT to repent, and who have chosen NOT to ask for forgiveness of their sins. It's not because they did something bad. It's not because they murdered, raped, or were adulterers. It's not because they broke the Ten Commandments because ALL of us have broken them. We ALL fall short of the Glory of God and it's ONLY through His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who shed His blood on the Cross for ALL of OUR sins, who took ALL of our pain, our sins, our anguish and emptiness away, taking it upon His body. All He asked was for US to CHOOSE to believe in His birth, death and resurrection for our sins in this world. All He wants is for us to repent, confess, accept and receive His free gift of salvation so we can be covered in His shed blood, have a relationship with Him, and where our sins are remembered no more! It's a CHOICE.

Spending eternity in Hell with Satan will be a choice all of us have to make in this lifetime! If death comes before the choice is made, then THAT will be your choice....hell. We never know when we are going to leave this world. We are not promised tomorrow. TODAY has been given to us and it's an opportunity to receive the Lord Jesus into your hearts! I've already made mine years ago! Some people love their sin more than they love God and find it difficult to surrender to His Truths. Some blatantly turn their faces from him and seek the wiles of Satan because of all the lies he brings to them, all of the empty SHORT LIVED promises he gives to them....and some just are so broken that they MISTAKENLY feel they are UNLOVABLE and UNFORGIVABLE and believe they have to get "right" in their lives FIRST before seeking out Jesus! It's the other way around.....SEEK HIM FIRST and the transformation will follow!

Good and Evil. Darkness and Light. Paradise and Hades. Eternal Life and Eternal Damnation. All these opposites can describe the differences of Heaven and Hell. God is not the Father of all. He is the Creator of all, but not the Father of all. He becomes our Father only when we come to Christ. Jesus said in John 8:44, "Ye are of your father the devil...." He was thinking of lost and unsaved people of the world. John 1:12 tells us that "as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God....." These are the ones who can claim God as Father. They are saved, and they'll never go to hell. But remember this, you are not a child of God until you come unto Him through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. Even though the world tries to extinguish the cries and reality of hell, the truth of hell echoes all throughout our world. We desperately pretend to cover our ears and ignore the "screams, the weeping, the wailing, the gnashing of teeth" but it is there. . . And we know it. People refuse to accept that such a place exists. But it is there. And we know it. Nothing we can do, nothing we can say, can erase the horror of hell from our minds. Because it is THERE......AND WE KNOW IT!  

So which will YOU choose today? Heaven or Hell?

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