In my reading and poking around the Internet, I found this site called "hell truth"...what do you think? I am still reading/thinking about all this..I am going to hold off posting my own thoughts on the subject for a while so it can be a true 'discussion' Thanks for those who have posted comments and the private messages as well!
http://www.helltruth.com/
What is heaven? Simply put, it is the spiritual place where God's people will reside forever. This place we are told is beautiful with streets made of gold and with pearly gates. Many rare gems will beautify the walls and buildings, and so on. But at the same time we are told that not "an eye hath seen, nor ear heard" the beauty of heaven. So why all the description? The descriptions are earthly and physical to try to place it upon us (who are physical and earthly) that this heavenly place is where God dwells and it is so beautiful we can't even imagine. Streets of gold?! This place is going to be more beautiful than the Jerusalem and temple of Solomon. Physical language cannot even begin to express, and our imaginations cannot even begin to understand heaven. This is a spiritual place being described with earthly language.
ReplyDeleteSo what is hell? It is a place where the reprobate will be forever. Hell, pictured in earthly language, is a spiritual place. Lake of fire, unending burning, gnashing of teeth, where the worm does not die all describes hell. When Jesus was on the cross He suffered 3 hours of the torments of hell in darkness. It was silent, it was so dark, no one dared move. Christ in His Spirit was in hell. At the end of the 3 hours, His words were- "MY, GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME?!" That is what hell is. It is the place where God is not. It is a place of utter forsakeness of God. It is complete allianation from God. For a child of God that sends terrible chills up and down the spine. What child of God would want to be where God is not?! That is where the burning of God's wrath is forever against the unbelievers; it is torment and anguish of the soul forever. Even one sin cannot be payed by only some time in hell. This is everlasting damnation and torment in hell. This is forever.
That is the beautiful miracle of the cross for the believers of Christ. God is just and sin had to be punished and payed. But man alone could not pay for the sin that man commited because man would no way be able to bare up under the wrath of God, much less pay for the huge debt of sin. Jesus Christ, Who is both God AND man, was able to bare up AND even pay the debt that His own has made with their sin. Ultimately this was done in the 3 hours of darkness on the cross, but really throughout His whole life He payed this debt. To prove that he payed and that our debt is taken away forever, He arose, ascended to heaven, and now sits on the right hand of God ruling and directing all things.