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A Glimpse of Hell: Part II
RaptureReady ^ | Not Dated | Donna Wasson

Posted on 06/09/2012 3:18:12 PM PDT by GiovannaNicoletta

In part one of this article, I told you I wanted to share the stories of two different men who had literally visited hell and been allowed to come back to tell about their experiences. The first gentleman was Bill Wiese, who subsequently penned a book about what he saw and heard on his unexpected journey called, 23 Minutes in Hell. I highly recommend it, as well as giving a copy to your unsaved friends and family.

Let me briefly recap what happened to Mr. Wiese, who was a Christian at the time. He was awakened at 3am one morning by the sensation he was falling. He states he was fully awake and conscious of his surroundings when he landed, naked, in a dimly lit cell with stone walls and iron bars for a door.

He was totally confused and terrified as well as astonished at the suffocating heat and stench of his surroundings. All light disappeared from the room and he was left in darkness so profound, he felt it enter into him. Unfortunately, there were two huge, demon-like creatures in the cell with him who took turns throwing him around and shredding the skin of his torso with their monstrous claws.

Inexplicably weak physically, mentally and emotionally, he crawled from the cell only to shortly find himself standing by a massive pit filled with fire whose flames shot up high into a huge cavernous room. In the unbearable heat, he could see people writhing in agony, screaming in the flames. Hideous demons perched on the perimeter of the pit, preventing any hope of escape.

One of the most profound aspects of this nightmarish journey was the utter hopelessness of his situation because he was completely separated from God. He instinctively knew he would never leave, never be able to speak to or share the misery with another human being and was totally at the mercy of the demons who took delight in torturing the inhabitants. No rest. No peace. No moisture or water. Just continual suffering throughout eternity.

He was lifted up, out of that place of torment by Jesus, who explained that he was allowed to visit hell for just a few minutes because He wanted Bill to spend the rest of his earthly life telling others about his experience and warning the lost that hell is indeed a real place with real suffering. Jesus wants everyone to understand that He died so that NO one would ever end up in that place that was created for satan and his demons.

Now, you may not believe such a fantastic story from this first man because it IS such an incredible tale of horror. Although I don’t personally know Mr. Wiese and I’ve no reason to doubt his word, I freely admit that I can’t be 100% certain this actually happened to him in 1998 as he reports.

However, I can be 100% sure of the second man’s story because he was my grandfather and his personal tour of hell occurred 37 years earlier, in 1961!

Chester Herman Robinson was my mother’s father and he was not a nice man. He spent a great deal of his adult life as a cynical, critical, very angry man who, though never physical, was emotionally and verbally abusive to his wife and children. He was a hard smoking, hard drinking alcoholic whose hair-trigger temper caused him to quit job after job, cursing a blue streak at anyone who crossed him.

My grandmother, Roxie, was a Christian woman who took her children to church every Sunday and made sure they were brought up with the knowledge of the Lord and His Word. Chester, called ‘Jack’ by friends and family, refused to attend services with his family but he never prevented his wife from going or taking the children. However, he would get into heated arguments with Roxie about God and the Bible, especially when he was drunk.

He would taunt her with the fact that he’d heard that Jesus was coming back all his life but it hadn’t happened yet, so he didn’t believe it ever would. “Where’s your Jesus? When’s He gonna come back?” My grandmother answered with a soft, sad answer, “I don’t know, Jack." She faithfully prayed for her husband’s salvation for 30 long years, and stayed with him through thick and thin, enduring his abusive ways, trying to make the best home for her children she could.

In 1961, when Chester was 55 years old, he developed a life threatening torsion or twisting of his intestines, which quickly became gangrenous. He was deathly sick and rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. His family gathered the waiting room, preparing themselves for his probable death due to the doctor’s prognosis. Roxie sat there, head bowed, praying fervently for her husband and reminded God that He had promised her He would not take Chester’s life before he was safely saved.

Almighty God, being the highly intelligent person He is, knew it would be best not to disappoint Nana (Roxie), so He answered her prayer in grand fashion!

Because he had abused his body with cigarettes and hard liquor for years on end, Chester was not in the best physical shape to fight off a serious infection like gangrene, much less endure major, open abdominal surgery and while he was on the operating table, his heart stopped several times. He didn’t have a warm, fuzzy near-death-experience of traveling through a tunnel towards a loving source of light. Nope, he got a personal tour of hell from Jesus Himself.

In subsequent weeks, while he was recovering, he began to recount to his family and friends what he experienced while he was in cardiac arrest. He said he was fully awake and conscious and became aware that someone had taken his elbow and was escorting him downward into a place of darkness.

He said it wasn’t normal darkness as we know it, but a darkness that inspired a feeling of abject terror. The deeper they went and the darker it got, the more he wanted to fight and escape the unseen danger and mounting panic he felt. He found himself in a very large cavern like space, whose only light was from a huge fire. In the suffocating heat, horrible demon-like creatures kept crawling out of the flickering shadows to leer at him.

He described a huge pit filled with flames and he watched as many, many people were being shoved and pushed into it by these hateful creatures. Their agonized screams were deafening and constant but there was no one to help them escape or provide relief for their suffering. Although engulfed in fire, they were not being consumed by the flames. They just kept burning and burning…

He looked around and could see other people seemingly attached to the walls of the cave, though he couldn’t tell how. They were unable to move or escape. He watched as huge demons plunged their long, sharp talons into the prisoner’s chests, shredding their skin all the way down their torso, leaving the tissue hanging in ribbons like they were being filleted.

Somehow, their skin would mend itself, only to have the demons tear them apart again and again. He noticed the creatures of unparalleled evil seemed to take great delight in torturing the people and hearing their screams for mercy. However, even though these physical torments were beyond the stuff of nightmares they couldn’t compare to the worst aspect of the suffering.

Every human being is made in the image of God. There is a spark of the divine in all of us which allows our hearts to be touched with joy when we hold our baby for the first time or when we marvel at a gorgeous sunset or feel the touch of a loved one. Even the most evil serial killer on earth experiences fleeting moments of transcendent joy and wonder during their earthly lives. They may deny the existence of God and commit atrocities but their spirit is still connected to their Creator until the moment they die.

When recounting his tour of hell, Chester described what it was like to realize he was completely cut off from all contact with God forever; that he would never again, for all of eternity, have any connection to the One who made him in His image. Therefore he would never know light and peace and rest and joy again. He felt entirely orphaned.

The feeling was that of complete hopelessness, overwhelming grief, despair and the most profound loneliness beyond his wildest imagination. And it would last forever and ever and ever. No rest. Not one second of relief from the continual harassment and torture by the demons surrounding him. Unable to defend himself. Constant panic. No escape. No camaraderie or conversation with any other human being, ever. Totally alone.

NO. HOPE. FOREVER.

The tour guide holding his elbow told him, “I can leave you here if this is what you really want or you can go back and totally surrender to Me. What is your choice?” He quickly made up his mind to give his heart to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and knew he would not be given another chance if he didn’t live up to his promise.

2nd Corinthians 5:17 states, “Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

That was certainly true of Chester Herman Robinson from then on! God answered Roxie’s faithful prayers and saved her husband. But God didn’t force his decision; Chester still retained his free will to choose. God simply made sure he understood the ramifications of making the wrong choice.

Before his hellish tour, Chester was not a man to ever be caught weeping! Afterwards, he was a broken, humbled, grateful man who was gentle and kind, whose heart was completely changed. For the remaining four years of his life, he was unable to recount his experience, especially the horror of being completely separated from God, without breaking down in tears. He and Roxie are now together in the presence of their Creator and Savior and will enjoy each other forever!

Why did I tell you these two stories? First, I want to make sure every single person reading this understands that they have a decision to make before they die and ignoring the issue IS deciding ‘no.’ We all have to decide whether we will accept the pardon for our sins that the Son of God, Jesus, died to freely provide for us. There are only two choices. Eternal life or eternal death. What kind of blithering, rebellious idiot would a person have to be to choose eternal death?

Second reason is this: I want you to notice the incredible, undeniable similarities between these eyewitness accounts, made 37 years apart, by two very different men who never met. What are the odds the details of their stories would match so closely? Zip. Absolutely zero odds!

Listen up, people! None of us are guaranteed another hour of life, much less another day. You could be in a car wreck today. You could contract a deadly disease. You could be the victim of murder. Don’t be a fool and assume you’ll live to a ripe old age!

2nd Corinthians 6:2 says, “For He (God) saith I have heard thee in a time accepted and in the day of salvation have I succored thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”

Hell is a real place with real physical, emotional and mental suffering beyond our comprehension. Think about it. Two accounts, that similar cannot possibly be lies! Now, you’re correct when you claim a loving God would never send anyone to such a place.

Hell was never meant for men and women, but for Lucifer and the angels who participated in his weak, pansy rebellion against God. But people who join in that rebellion by rejecting Jesus will automatically join them in that place of punishment.

Christ died in our place, giving us a chance to choose to serve Him and live with Him in heaven forever. Therefore, the people who end up spending an eternity in hell freely CHOOSE to go there!

No excuses. No whining. No escape. Forever.


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To: smokingfrog

There’s always one in the crowd. LOL


21 posted on 06/09/2012 7:22:08 PM PDT by TribalPrincess2U (Criminaliens or Crimigrants...0bamao's people?)
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To: GiovannaNicoletta

I can’t reconcile the concept of a loving God with hell. I can’t.

My parents love me. They would never give up on me no matter how much I screw up. Yet many people believe that God would give up on me and consign me to hell for eternity. My parents would never subject me to eternal physical and psychological torture.

How is it possible that God would allow what my parents would not? I can’t reconcile that.

Here is where many of you will say “God didn’t send you to hell, you sent yourself”.

My point is, your parents love you and would never allow you to be put into a position of eternal physical and mental torture. They wouldn’t. So then how would an all-loving God create a universe in which hell exists to permanently, eternally torture the people he loves. It makes no sense.

Think of it this way. Even a man as sinister and evil as Adolph Hitler only had his SS torture people for a defined time before killing them. He didn’t torture people for days on end, mend them then torture them again, then mend them and then torture again, for a full lifetime.

I can’t reconcile that our loving God and Jesus would allow a system where the level of eternal torture is far more evil than what Adolph Hitler would do to people.

There is no convincing me and there is no convincing those who believe in hell as a state of everlasting mental and physical and psychological torture, including the complete knowing loss of God’s love, which is the worst torture of all.

I’m sorry, I just cannot reconcile the brilliant, unfathomable, deep, everlasting, all encompassing love that God has for us, with a system he is supposed to have created that results in the fallen being tortured ad infinitum. I can’t believe it.

As a temporary state to wake up the fallen, OK I could believe that. As a place to learn your ultimate lessons, OK, I can believe that. But hell as a state of everlasting and eternal damnation, to suffer without end for all eternity...

I’m sorry, I can’t accept that outcome from a God who loves us so deeply and completely. I may well be wrong, but I just can’t reconcile that the Lord God, whose love is so complete that my heart would burst if I ever loved so, and that would melt down my mind if I could feel it all at once as it is from God, I can’t reconcile that perfect love with the idea that God would allow even the most sinister of his fallen angels to create a state of eternal damnation for his imperfect beloved people.

I can’t believe it.


22 posted on 06/09/2012 8:08:57 PM PDT by Freedom_Is_Not_Free (REPEAL OBAMACARE. Nothing else matters.)
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To: Freedom_Is_Not_Free

It’s pretty simple. Your first premise is faulty: “They would never give up on me no matter how much I screw up.” It requires a leap of faith on your part, and is very possibly untrue, as they are human beings, not god-like. You are getting overworked, following your own logic. Relax, and live.


23 posted on 06/09/2012 8:20:13 PM PDT by GopherIt
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To: Freedom_Is_Not_Free

Do you believe that God is 100% righteous and cannot look upon unrighteousness? Would having unredeemed in His presence for eternity be possible in your calculations? What would be the net result of everyone, all created beings being redeemed whether they chose it or not? Do you believe what God has given us regarding a Hell for the devil and his fallen ones and the possibility of human beings being in that place too? God will not be sending human souls to the place of torment, they will have chosen to be there, away from God for eternity because they made the choice to reject redemption freely offered. Now, when God makes that offer and under what circumstance is in His purview, completely. But don’t reject the Grace of God. It places one where you are not in His presence for eternity because to allow unredeemed in His presence would change Whom He Is.


24 posted on 06/09/2012 8:20:54 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Being deceived can be cured.)
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To: daniel1212
Here's another from Gary Habermas, on Youtube no less!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skGf_vsthl8

25 posted on 06/09/2012 8:23:13 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Being deceived can be cured.)
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To: GiovannaNicoletta

I think one of the most loathsome aspects of the concept of hell is to cause 100% of Christians to try to buy Heaven from Christ so as to avoid suffering in hell.

This takes our love of Christ and the Lord God from wanting to be with them and to pleas them and to do right for rights sake and to follow God’s will so as to please him and earn his love and respect, and turns it into a negotiation from punishment.

Once you enter the concept of hell into the equation, then every person who wants to be saved through Christ is only doing so to buy Heaven and avoid Hell.

I think this stinks. This is sucking up to Christ and to God in order to fool them into thinking you love them so you can avoid hell. This is not for me. No thanks.

My love for God and for Christ and for the trinity is because they are the greatest good and love in the universe and created us for their joy and to return their love. I think of God as a positive. I want to be in his good guys club. I want to do good things and behave because it makes Him happy to have me make the world a better place and to behave. All of the commandments he has given us makes the world a better place for everybody and if all of us just followed his Word, then the world would be like Heaven on earth, although not with the splendid presence of Christ and God.

Now bring up hell, and Christians are less about loving God and pleasing him, and wanting to be with his splendid being, but about negotiating to avoid the suffering of hell.

I reject that concept. I won’t abide by it. I may well be wrong about it, but I just refuse to buy the Kingdom of Heaven in a negotiation with Christ. I refuse to say “Christ I accept you as my savior” while winking with fingers crossed because I really mean, I hope I can fool you into letting me go to Heaven where life is easy and joyful and comfortable and fine, and you won’t send me to hell where I will suffer excruciatingly and forever.

No, I refuse to see Christ as an escape from a tormenting punishment. That to me is not why Christ came to save me. Christ came to let me be with him and his grace allows me to be with him. I want to be with him to be with him, not to avoid the suffering of hell. I want to be with him because, by an infinite order of magnitude, Christ and the Lord God are the nicest, most loving, most beautiful, most generous, most fabulous, most wonderful people who will ever exist and I want to be with them, selfishly, to bath in their perfect love.

No, I’m not out to fool Christ so I can avoid suffering in hell, if it exists, which I really can’t see it existing if Christ and God are so perfect in their love for us.

No, I want to please God and Christ because they love me so much, and so deeply, and so overwhelmingly that I can’t help but return that love, and I selfishly long to be with them forever and just bask in their love and kindness and mercy and tenderness and joy and beauty.

Hell just doesn’t make sense to me. Buying the Kingdom of Heaven just doesn’t make any sense to me. I can’t fool God. I can’t fool him with a wink to con him into taking away eternal suffering in hell. I’m not even going to try to do that.

I am saved by Christ because he saves me out of his sheer love and generosity and not because I fooled him into buying his Kingdom of Heaven. I’m saved because I’m letting him save me because that is what he wants. He wants me to be saved and I’m just letting him.

You can’t buy Heaven. You can’t pretend you love God so you avoid hell. You can’t. Either you are going or it doesn’t exist because God’s love is too complete to let his children suffer there.

Whenever you bring up the subject of hell, it is always going to end in a negotiation in your heart with Christ to AVOID hell. And I am dead certain that is not what he wants. He does not want to motivate you with avoiding an unfathomable punishment. He wants you to love him and to let him help you from your free love and faith. Not conning him into buying Heaven because you fear hell. I just don’t believe that.


26 posted on 06/09/2012 8:28:20 PM PDT by Freedom_Is_Not_Free (REPEAL OBAMACARE. Nothing else matters.)
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To: Freedom_Is_Not_Free
One more point to ponder.

When God made you, He made you an eternal being. The reality of giving you a spirit in your soul made you a resident of eternity. If you are eternal, does it not follow that some emans to isolate the ungodly from God and the redeemed is part of God's planned creation?

Oh, and one more little thought: we really do not have a prefect concept of dimension Time. We exist in a state of present residency receiving data from alredy happened moments, projecting very efficiently what will be from what we process; eternity may actually be a state of processing not past data but current data thus shifting our state into the volume of futre rather than merely projecting what will be.

27 posted on 06/09/2012 8:29:57 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Being deceived can be cured.)
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To: MHGinTN
God will not be sending human souls to the place of torment, they will have chosen to be there, away from God for eternity because they made the choice to reject redemption freely offered.

India has over 800M hindus. Why are they choosing to go to hell, in your opinion?

28 posted on 06/09/2012 8:31:35 PM PDT by Ken H (Austerity is the irresistible force. Entitlements are the immovable object.)
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To: Freedom_Is_Not_Free

IF becoming a Christian was ‘buying’ from Christ, you would be correct to view it as loathesome. but it is a gift not something that can be purcahsed. But gifts are received only by those who accept them. If you do not accept a gift freely offered, it never is yours. Jesus Christ, in the Plan of God Whomtook flesh and dwelt among us, is the propitiation for that which you are unable to accomplish. But to receive this propitiation you need to accept the Grace, The Gift, and to accept that Gift requires only that you believe He offers His Grace to you at no charge, no purchase price that you could afford.


29 posted on 06/09/2012 8:35:52 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Being deceived can be cured.)
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To: MHGinTN

I knew someone would say people choose to go to Hell.

That is asinine. I don’t intend to insult, I simply mean...

OK, let me say this.

Lets say you have a deluded kid who really wants to fight in a war and thinks it will be just a lot of fun. Going in to the war he is ignorant of its horror. After 4 years of seeing peoples bodies torn to shreds before him, smelling the carnage, hearing the bombs dropping, living in terror, he no longer is ignorant. Now he clearly understands the horror or war. If he could go back to being that young kid but with knowledge a foresight, he would avoid the war because he clearly understands the terror of it in advance.

Same for hell, if it exists. If people went to hell and suffered first hand, then came back to earth for a 2nd chance, there isn’t a single person who would “choose hell”.

In fact, isn’t that the conclusion of every one of these “I’ve been to hell” stories. There certainly isn’t a single story where the person said they came back from hell and just can’t wait to go back to hell again. No, once they “experience” hell, they will do anything to avoid it.

So in the end, nobody can possibly “choose hell”. At worst, people are ignorant and don’t know not to, or how to, avoid hell. Nobody is going to “choose” hell.

How could it possibly be that anyone sane would choose eternal suffering and separation from God. It isn’t possible for anyone to get up one morning and say “gee, I would just love to spend the next 1000 billion years, just for openers, in daily torment, massive horrific physical pain, blistering fire, stunning grief and remorse, and knowing I caused it myself.”

Right. As if that is humanly possible. There is not one sane person on earth who would consciously choose to experience that unfathomable torment. It just isn’t possible. You either have to be insane or ignorant.

I don’t see Christ condemning the insane. As to the ignorant, I pray that he gives them a 2nd chance to redeem themselves, and experiencing hell, I can’t believe there would be a sane person in the history of man who would not leap at the chance to reform.


30 posted on 06/09/2012 8:40:23 PM PDT by Freedom_Is_Not_Free (REPEAL OBAMACARE. Nothing else matters.)
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To: Ken H

I am sorry to have to respond this way, but what you ask is poorly thought out. We do not know the Mind of God, so we do not know how it is that He makes His Grace available to those billions of souls who live and die. we do not now how God weighs, but we are told He does weigh and some will be found wanting because they refused the Grace He offered. But we definitely do not know, I mean really know, the circumstances of the offering to each. There may even be a moment of timelessness at death, when God makes the offer and the soul has the choice to make before ‘moving on’. We just do not know, so I cannot answer your query adequately.


31 posted on 06/09/2012 8:41:26 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Being deceived can be cured.)
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To: Freedom_Is_Not_Free

Are you familiar with Jesus telling His disciples the story of the richman and Lazarus?


32 posted on 06/09/2012 8:44:34 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Being deceived can be cured.)
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To: Freedom_Is_Not_Free

There’s gravity there? Why?

Satan and his minions undermine monotheism.

Jesus ostensibly had insight into life after death. The divine, if you will. Yet, as God, he knew nothing of later to be revealed microbial theory when refusing to wash his hands before eating with his disciples?

A fairly good rabbi, I think, but no moshiach.


33 posted on 06/09/2012 8:45:07 PM PDT by onedoug
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To: onedoug

Microbes are neither good nor evil. Jesus said when Satan came at Him he could find nothing in Him to attach to. I doubt that microbes could attack Jesus, but your assertion assumes that you know he did not wash His hands. That isn’t what the story of the wedding at Cana indicates from tradition, since the jugs of water summoned for making the wine were set aside for washing. It might further be noted that we either believe God or we don’t. Abraham believed God and it was counted for him righteousness. Since I believe the Tanach was given from God to Moses, I believe Jesus as God with us was well aware of the data He gave to Moses, and in fact to all the prophets recorded for our learning.


34 posted on 06/09/2012 8:53:04 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Being deceived can be cured.)
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To: MHGinTN

My question is straightforward. The NT says there is only one way into heaven, and that most will not choose that path. How can you say that Hindus are not going to hell if they don’t convert before dying?


35 posted on 06/09/2012 8:55:12 PM PDT by Ken H (Austerity is the irresistible force. Entitlements are the immovable object.)
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To: MHGinTN

If you are eternal, does it not follow that some means to isolate the ungodly from God and the redeemed is part of God’s planned creation?

I guess I am naive because I just can’t fathom anyone rejecting God who really knows him. Yes, our faith is what saves us through Christ’s grace. I get that.

God is not evil. Christ is not evil. By definition they cannot be evil, they are all that is good. They are Good. So how could they allow Satan to create a place where the people they love, even those ignorant souls who don’t understand to love and accept Christ and God, go to suffer the ultimate tortures for all of eternity.

To suffer hell strikes me as an evil. I wouldn’t take my worst enemy and torture them for 80 years and then reincarnate them and torture them for another 80, etc. I’m not an evil person. I could not impost such a horrific punishment on anyone, right down to Hitler or Stalin or Mao.

God is pure good and love. If I am not so evil that I could torture someone for 2 lifetimes, then how could God be so evil as to allow Satan to set up a shop where souls are tortured for an infinite number of lifetimes.

Like I said, call me naive. But I have never been able to reconcile the concept of an ever-lasting evil hell with an all-loving and merciful God and Christ. They are incongruent to me. They can’t co-exist. Either hell can’t be eternal or God has to have a spark of evil, and I know he can’t have any evil, therefore hell can’t be eternal.

That is how I think. I can’t get over that paradox.

Now, if those who reject God just cease to exist, OK I can fathom that. If God grants people their wish that they wish to reject him and their spirit just ceases to exist, then I can see God granting that wish. Even then I have a hard time with Christ not saving everybody, but he was pretty clear on the Father separating the chaff from the wheat and that some would not be saved. I believe that many of us are not going to be saved.

I just can’t accept that God would allow an interminable hell of everlasting suffering.

If fact, I see it this way.

Cold is not the opposite of heat, but the absence of head. I can’t generate cold, I can only remove heat.

Dark is not the opposite of light but the absence of light. I can’t emit darkness, I can only remove light waves, causing dark to exist in their absence.

I see Heaven as the same thing. I have a hard time believing that hell is the opposite of Heaven. I believe it is the absence of Heaven. I believe it could well be nothingness and God could terminate your “eternal” spirit in the flames of hell. You may just cease to exist, rather than to exist for eternity suffering.

That is what my logic says. On faith, I just don’t know. Jesus mentions hell in the New Testament but I don’t see a source where Jesus says that hell is a state of everlasting suffering. Even when he says there will be great gnashing of teeth, it does not say infinite gnashing of teeth.

Could there not be a great gnashing of teeth as the condemned spirit realizes he is being consumed in the fire of hell and will cease to exist rather than to sit beside Christ for eternity?

Obviously I can’t possibly know if hell exists or what it is. It certainly may exist as the mulch-tiered, demon populated, eternal torture chamber that most Christan envisions. I guess I’ll know if I end up there.

I just can’t reconcile and all loving and all merciful God creating a universe in which a fallen angel Satan has the Lord God’s OK to create torture chamber of infinite suffering for an infinite duration.

I think only an evil being could create hell of an infinte suffering for an infinite duration. And while Satan has the evil to do just such a thing, Satan can only do that if God allows him to do it, as God is all-powerful and Satan can only do what God allows him to do. Unless I am missing something here.


36 posted on 06/09/2012 8:58:42 PM PDT by Freedom_Is_Not_Free (REPEAL OBAMACARE. Nothing else matters.)
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To: Ken H
Well, if you know that each has no opportunity to accept or reject, knowing The Truth, then why would you ask your question. We do not know the calculus of God so we cannot say with certainty that there is no timeless moment when God makes the offer of His g=Grace to each and every soul regardless of race, creed, or nationality. I'm sorry to have to turn your assertion back on you, but I don't believe you can honestly make your leap of 'blame' since you cannot know the truth of where. when. or how God makes the offer of His Grace.

referring to the NDE experiences, could it be that when someone sees 'the tunnel and 'the light' the absolute truth of God offering redemption is at hand? Frankly, you nor I can give an adequate answer on that. We do however have a great deal of scripture which teaches us that there is an offer of His Grace and we are obliged to accept it or it is never our gift possessed.

37 posted on 06/09/2012 9:01:55 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Being deceived can be cured.)
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To: MHGinTN

I read you loud and clear and I see it as you see it.

Tell that to my late Grandmother. Everything she did, she did to buy Heaven and escape hell, and she wasn’t even subtle in hiding this.

That is why I said, most Christians who speak of hell are so terrified of it, that their Christian desire stems more from a desire to “buy” heaven so as to avoid hell, rather than from a pure clean love and acceptance of God and Christ, which is what I believe the Holy Trinity desires of us.

They want our unconditional pure love and to receive that love on faith, not on proof. I know lots and lots of Christians who are highly motivated on the overwhelming desire to avoid hell, rather than any sincere desire to be with the Lord God and Christ.

That is what I meant by “buy” Heaven. I didn’t mean they can buy Heaven, I meant they desire to buy it because they fear hell.

For my part, my Christian motivation is not a fear of going to hell, but of an overwhelming desire to be with God, with Christ, and to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

I know this is going to be magnificent to the point of exploding my heart and my brain from the overwhelming nature of their love and goodness and mercy and generosity.

I want to be in Heaven to be with them, not to avoid some punishment. But I tell you that if I believed in Hell as infinite suffering for an infinite duration, then that would motivate me as much. And I REJECT that motivation. I do not want to be motivated by a fear of suffering, but by a pure overwhelming desire to be with Christ and Lord God and filled with the Spirit.

I don’t have any desire to “buy” Heaven to avoid hell. I don’t even want to think in those terms.


38 posted on 06/09/2012 9:06:17 PM PDT by Freedom_Is_Not_Free (REPEAL OBAMACARE. Nothing else matters.)
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To: Freedom_Is_Not_Free
Our faith does not save us. Our faith accpets His Salvation by believeing that God is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

Satan creates nothing. As an eternal being you are, what would be the effect of being without God and having only the company of thsoe who are by their chosen nature, rejectors of God, beings who hate you simply for being something that God loves?

You keep posing your reasoning aqs God tortuing someone. That is incorrect and we are trying to explain why that is so incorrect.

God made you so that you will never 'cease to exist'. That is what it means to be an eternal being.

39 posted on 06/09/2012 9:13:50 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Being deceived can be cured.)
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To: MHGinTN

I am familiar. I don’t see a duration place on that story. I also believe it is a parable by Jesus and he is not stating a literal story. Even were it not a parable, Jesus had not yet risen from the dead to save us from sin, and therefore the dead in Hades were all there awaiting his judgment. So whether after his resurrection and after the Christ’s final judgment of the world, that story does not indicate if the rich man received infinite torture for an infinite duration.

I can’t find anywhere in the New Testament where Jesus told his disciples or taught that hell was infinite torture for an infinite duration. It could be, and most Christians believe it is. But I don’t see a definitive, clear, undeniable and obvious statement from Jesus through his apostles that this is so.

If there is one, I would really appreciate it as I am still learning. As sinners go, I’m right there with the best of them.


40 posted on 06/09/2012 9:16:03 PM PDT by Freedom_Is_Not_Free (REPEAL OBAMACARE. Nothing else matters.)
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