Hell Oh!

Like with many biblical things, things of reality that we cannot see yet, Hell is taught terribly.

"How so, and who are you to spurn thousands of years of teaching from men better than you!"

I love this one. "Who are you to question?" My response?

Why do you trust men at all?

Me, I'm just a follower of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, not some man who says "follow me because I know".

Jesus warned us about trusting men. Jesus warned us about knowing God, and His word. If you are too lazy to investigate for yourself, you are forced to trust a man.

Faith in man saves no one.

I get my information from that Book. Yes, parts are hard to understand. That's where knowing God, His power, and person is essential. He is a teacher, and promised to guide us in all things, if we trust Him.

If you trust another?

Well, if your not being guided to take every word back to God, and the Book, then you are not being guided by the Author of the Book.

This is truth.

"So what is Hell then?"

It may help to understand a written biblical truth that I don't believe I have ever heard taught outside of scripture. Hell is not eternal.

Revelation 20:12

[14] And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

Hell is destroyed! It is not permanent. Hell, therfore is not eternal fire...the Lake of Fire is.

The Lake of Fire is eternal. This is where the fire is not quenched.

Mark 9:48

[48] where "`their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.' 

I heard someone explain this once, and it makes sense. Fire only burns when there is a source of fuel. When the fuel is gone, the fire is quenched, or stops. This fire, this eternal fire burns even when the fuel is gone.

The Lake of Fire, I believe, is utter and permanent destruction. It's a permanent or "forever" punishment. Whoever goes into it is not coming out. They die...forever dead.

I do not believe it is an ongoing punishment or torment. The "torment" is the comparison to what those who's names are written in the Book of Life will recieve.

Isn't the comparison awful enough? Eternal life, a wonderful life, or nothingness...utter loss of everything, after a useless life that was extremely temporary.

Just thinking that way is a torment. What a waste!

"Why are you stuck on it being destruction, not a very real constant torment?

Consider the truth of how we get saved. It is a gift, one we didnt earn, or deserve. One those who don't get saved didnt get. It is a gift from God the Father alone. Jesus said this in many places in scripture. If we are given the gift we didnt deserve, and others are not, then like us God made the others for a specific eternity.

Do you know God? If you do, you know He is neither stupid or cruel. Yes, He created evil beings. He is also more than capable of stopping their wickedness by force or changing the very natire of the evil beings, whether man or angel.

Did you really think God couldn't have stopped Satan? Do you really

think God, THE God, couldn't have sat the devil down and given him very clear options to sway Him from a destructive path?

He did it to you, me and countless others. Why wouldn't the One who can do anything do something like that?

He didnt do that for Judas.

Of course He could.

This, of course, shows intentionality. Yes, like our salvation, the lost, including angels and demons has been predetermined.

So, God, not being cruel, would He really create beings like Satan, like Judas, to fail miserably and then torment them in a spiritually physical way...for eternity.

No, it wouldn't make any sense. It definately doesn't when you see that the scripture show that Hell is temporary and destroyed in the Lake of Fire.

Additionally consider the passage above in Revelation 20, death is also destroyed in the Lake of Fire. Death is not a place like hell is. Death is an event or state of being. You are either alive or dead. Death is separation, or being without life.

In this age, death removes you from this life. Without an act of God, you do not return here. It is easy to see then that the Second Death is a separation from that life, the eternal one. The second death is separation from life forever.

The second death, according to scripture was created for the devil and his angels. It was not a place for them to rule, but for them to end.

Matthew 15:31

[41] "Then he will say to those on his left, `Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

This is also where "christian" goats will go, and all who's names are not in the book of life. They, like the devil, like hell, like death, will end...never to be seen or heard from again. I think they will also be forgotten.

Isaiah 65:17

[17] "Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.

As it says, things will be forgotten AFTER God creates the new heavens and new earth. That event happens, according to Revelation 20 & 21, AFTER Hell, Death, and the unsaved, are thrown into the Lake of Fire.

But what about the devil in Isaiah 14:15-17?

Isaiah 14:15-17

[15] But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit.

[16] Those who see you stare at you, they ponder your fate: "Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble,

[17] the man who made the world a desert, who overthrew its cities and would not let his captives go home?"

Have you never looked at the passage in Revelation 20?

Revelation 20:1-3

[1] And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain.

[2] He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.

[3] He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time.

This event is after Armageddon, but just prior to the Millennial kingdom, the one thousand year reign of Jesus on this very earth. When the one thousand years reign ends, Satan is then cast into the Lake of Fire to be destroyed. Then God creates the new heaven and new earth.

So before Satan is destroyed, for one thousand years, people will be able to look at him chained in the Abyss, and mock him terribly.

"Is this the guy? Come on, no way! This guy!?"

This is what is written, not what is taught by the big names...those who hold the seats the Pharisees and Sadducees once held.

Something to think about.

Something the Bereans did...