Hell???

[OneAccord]

wicked men of the past who are still in hell

^That's a sermon by Jonathan Edwards.Should shed some light on the subject I hope.

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Yikes! What an article!!! That's like preaching the gospel with a gun to somebody's head. Hail Jesus!!!! We'll get everyone's knee to bow one way or another!

[Guest shiloh357]

wicked men of the past who are still in hell

^That's a sermon by Jonathan Edwards.Should shed some light on the subject I hope.

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Yikes! What an article!!! That's like preaching the gospel with a gun to somebody's head. Hail Jesus!!!! We'll get everyone's knee to bow one way or another!

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Sometimes the truth hurts. Its like a doctor that has to tell his patient that she has cancer. It is not something he wants to say, but he would do her a graver disservice by withholding the knowledge that she is in danger. Only when we know of the danger can we take steps to avert it. The truth has to be known. Where your eternal destiny is concerned, what you don't know, will kill you.

And far as your other remark is concerned: The Bible says that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of God. Every person including Satan himself, WILL bow. They will bow by choice, or they will bow by force. But they WILL bow.

[angels4u]

Now there was a certain rich man, and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, gaily living in splendor every day. And a certain poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, and longing to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man

[DEA]

I would like to say thank you to all who have replied, I have found your words to be very wise, and I have learned much from you all. So thank you kindly

I myself, and I'm sure many others of you will agree, find this topic very hard. I would much rather just praise the Lord that I am not going there. But I believe that I need to understand in order to better understand God's plan (not that I will ever be able to even begin to fully understand it). I think that if more people truly understood what hell is, they would be a little more vocal about God and their faith. That is why I have brought this topic up.

I know that hell will be truly aweful, but yet I do not go and warn my co-worker about it. So do I have a full understanding of it? I think not

Of course with the above statement the opposite can be said. "God is so wonderful" but do I understand God's love enough to go and witness. I must admit that I do not. But I would love to learn.

That is why I would like to say thank you all for your word of wisdom. And I can only hope that I will learn more from God, my bible and all you here at Worthy.

Thank you, to all my Brothers and Sisters in christ

Daniel.

[mrs]

wicked men of the past who are still in hell

^That's a sermon by Jonathan Edwards.Should shed some light on the subject I hope.

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Yikes! What an article!!! That's like preaching the gospel with a gun to somebody's head. Hail Jesus!!!! We'll get everyone's knee to bow one way or another!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sometimes the truth hurts. Its like a doctor that has to tell his patient that she has cancer. It is not something he wants to say, but he would do her a graver disservice by withholding the knowledge that she is in danger. Only when we know of the danger can we take steps to avert it. The truth has to be known. Where your eternal destiny is concerned, what you don't know, will kill you.

And far as your other remark is concerned: The Bible says that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of God. Every person including Satan himself, WILL bow. They will bow by choice, or they will bow by force. But they WILL bow.

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Thanks.

[mrs]

"The doctrine of eternal punishment is probably the most unpopular,hated and feared teaching in the entire Bible. The thought of people burning in hell for eternity is most repugnant to the human mind. It is a doctrine which the natural heart revolts from and struggles against,and to which it submits only under stress of authority. The church believes the doctrine because it must believe it, or renounce faith in the Bible, and give up all the hope founded upon its promises.

Yet the most terrifying imagery and detailed descriptions of hell are found in the discourses of the Redeemer! Jesus Christ, who foretold the He would come again to judge the entire human race, spoke more about hell and its terrors than the prophets and apostles combined.To ignore and disregard the clear teachings of Jesus is to deny Christ.

Before the day of judgment, which will occur at the end of human history, those who die who do not believe in Jesus Christ will immediately go to hell. The soul is separated from the body at death and cast into hell. This fact is clearly illustrated in the account of the rich man and Lazarus: "The rich man ...died, and was buried; and in hell he lifted up his eyes,being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom." LK 16:22,23

On the final day of human history, everyone who ever lived and died will be resurrected and judged by Jesus Christ.( You can read the account in Rev 20: 11-15) Before the last judgment, the souls of those who died without Christ suffer in hell without their physical bodies. Their physical bodies are rotting in the earth. "For dust you are, and to dust you shall return" Gen 3:19 Immediately before the final judgment both soul and body are reunited during the resurrection of the dead. (John 5:28,29)Then both soul and body shall be cast into hell.(Rev 20:15)

Some theologians and commentators believe that 'the lake of fire" into which unbelievers,Satan and his demons are dumped after the final judgment is a different and worse place than hell. Those who hold this position view hell (hades) as a prison or holding pit for the wicked until the resurrection;then after the final judgment the wicked go to the lake of fire. Others teach that the wicked will be in the same place before and after the resurrection ,that place being hell. Before the resurrection the damed suffer without the physical body and after the resurrection both body and soul suffer torment together.Both views are in total agreement that hell is a literal place created by God for the devil and his angels.

Hell was created by God for those who are unfit to dwell in His presence. (2 Pet 2:4,Jude 6) It is a pit of darkness for those who reject Jesus Christ and His gospel. (John 3:36,Matt 22:11-14) Hell is called the 'bottomless pit' (literally 'the pit of the abyss' in Greek) Rev 9:2 The picture of hell that the Bible presents is not a clean,modern prison but rather a dark, subterranean dungeon. The word translated pit in the language of the New Testament [phrear] was also used to describe a well or cistern.The Bible presents hell as an immeasurably deep pit..

In hell the wicked suffer the punishment of sense, with eternal torment."And being in torments he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. Then he cried and siad,"..I am tormented in this flame"(Luke 16:23,24) The Greek word for torment [basanos] often described hideous instruments of torture used in extracting information from prisoners. The word also depicted the severe pain caused by disease. The Bible sets before us many differing aspects of the torments in hell as a warning.The torments of hell help us to understand how much God hates sin, and just how precious is the saving blod of Jesus Christ (1 Pet 1;18,19)

Hell is a place of eternal destruction.(2 Thess 1:7-9 Phil 3:18,19 Rom 9:22) This eternal destruction is illustrated in many ways. One of the most terrifying is the designation Tophet(Gehenna). Tophet came to be a designation of hell because of the terrible things which occurred there.The wicked, unbelieving Jews of old would come to Tophet to sacrifice their children to the god Molech.(I'll just skip the description of this) Tophet became associated with judgement and slaughter in Judah's history. The armies of Babylon would come and slay so many people of Judah that there would be too many bodies to bury.(Jer 7:32,33) By the time of the birth of Jesus Christ, Tophet had become a garbage dump for Jerusalem.In the same way, hell is the garbage dump of all human history.Those who refuse to repent and submit to Jesus Christ become eternal garbage.Without Christ's cleansing blood, sinners are polluted and unclean before God.( Mk 9:43-49)

Hell is a place of eternal fire, a place where tthe fire is not quenched. "As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire;so shall it be in the end of this world.The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."Matt 13:40-42

It is well known that those who die by burning to death suffer tremendous pain.Throughout history, death by burning was reserved for only the most wicked of criminals.Yet the fire in hell is much worse than earthly fire.In hell, the pain will not cease because the fire of hell does not consume . Rather than being consumed by it they are preserved to burn and suffer and be tormented on and on, forever and ever. "They are to be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever." Rev 14:10

The flames of hell have the ability to torment the souls of men while their physical bodies are still in the grave before the resurrection. They also have the ability to torment the fallen spirt beings: Satan and his demons. Therefore the fire in hell is probably not a literal earthly fire, for an earthly fire would not torment spiritual creatures. The fire of hell, whatever its nature, is much worse than an earthly fire. Rev 20:10" [1]

"O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in:it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are hed over in the hand of that God,whose wrath is provoked and incensedas much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done,nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment.....it is everlasting wrath. It would be dreadful to suffer this fierceness and wrath of Almighty God one moment; but you must suffer it to all eternity. There will be no end to this exquisite horrible misery. When you look forward, you shall see a long for ever, a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts ,and amaze your soul;and you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at all. You will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages, in wrestling and conflicting with this almighty merciless vengeance; and then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains. So that your punishment will indeed be infinite (infinite sin demands infinite punishment) Oh, who can express what the state of a soul in such circumstances is! All that we can possibly say about it, gives but a very feeble, faint representation of it; it is inexpressible and inconceivable: For "who knows the power of God's anger?"[2]

1.excerpts from 'The Biblical Doctrine of Hell Examined' by Brian Schwertley http://www.reformed.com/pub/hell.htm

2.excerpts from ' Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God' by Jonathan Edwards http://www.jonathanedwards.com/sermons/Warnings/sinners.htm

[jc49]

Good day to all who come and read this.  I am new to the boards, but have found them to be very interesting and enjoyable.  So I thought I would throw something out there and see what kind of response I get.  With that said I shall get right to the point.

I read a book not to long ago entitled  "Letters From A Skeptic"  by Dr. Gregory A. Boyd.  I found it to be very good,  but there was one part that made me think.  I would really like to see what others think about it. 

"First, hardly anyone takes all the talk about hell being a place of fire and brimstone literally.  The Bible uses a host of metaphors to describe this place, metaphors which would contradict each other if taken literally.  So, for example, hell's described as a place of total 'darkness', but also of  'fire'.  It is described as a 'pit' but also as a 'lake burning with brimstone.'  It is described as a place of punishment, but also of total destruction.  Sometimes the inhabitants are portrayed as being 'cast out' from a dinner (in heaven); sometimes 'cast down' into a pit; sometimes whipped by servants.  Sometimes they seem rebellious ('gnashing of teeth'), sometimes even sorrowful (Luke 16).

The metaphors, you see, vary greatly,  and none of them are to be taken as a literal 'snapshot' of what hell is going to be like.  Rather, the goal of each is to impress on us that hell is a very bad place!  Hell is everything which is opposite of what God wants for humanity.  In fact, the term hell itself metaphorically expresses this.  'Hell' in greek is gehenna, and gehenna was a valley outside of Jerusalem which was used as the city's major dump.  What ends up in hell,  the biblical authors are saying, is simply the refuse of humanity.  It is the dumping grounds of the cosmos.  It is the ultimate destiny of people who freely choose to live a life God never intended for them.  They become 'garbage'.  They are 'cast out'.  The are 'burned in the fire'.  All the metaphors in Scripture point in this direction.

A second point is that it is people who put themselves in hell, not God.  'God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance,' the Bible says.  If anyone goes to hell, then, this is against God's will! 

Now God, to be sure, allows these people to go to hell.  But He does it by giving such people their own way.  Read Romans 1:20-32 carefully.  Here Paul says three times about the reprobate Romans that 'God gave them over to do what they wanted to do.'  God's judgement was giving the sinners their own way.  When a person's heart is beyond hope - remember, we become the decisions that we make - God finally leaves him alone.  'Go your own way,' He says.  And in saying this,  He casts them into hell.  God allows them to become eternalized in their self-creation.

God gives the self-addicted sinner who will not accept Him what he wants.  But because of this, the sinner misses out on what life was really all about.  Having cut himself off from the only lifeline of love, joy, and peace which humanity has, the individual gradually sinks into a wholly loveless, joyless, peaceless existence.  He becomes refuse, not suited for the purpose God intended for him.  He is now the opposite of everything God intended him to be.  His existence is a tragic abortion."

I remember going to church as a kid  (not that long ago),  and being taught that hell is a "lake of fire"  and so on.  But after reading this, it makes it sound like hell is more just a "state" where God is not,  and the fact that God is not there makes it such an aweful place.  So I would just like to know what others think of this idea.  Is hell really a "lake of fire"?  If not,  what is hell really like?

Thank you for your time to read this, and I hope that you will share with me your thoughts on this issue.

Daniel.

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Is Hell really for "Eternity?"

Chapter: 10.10

(Section 10: Understanding Salvation)

Copyright

[bukeye2745]

My interpretation is such.

Hell is the grave.

[Guest Bro David™]

My interpretation is such.

Hell is the grave.

[bukeye2745]

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