Category: punishment

Posted in bible jesus, hell, punishment

Back to Basics: What is hell?

Posted on by elizabethprata

This “Back to Basics” series explores some of the more basic doctrines of the Bible Believing faith of Christianity. After the rapture there will be millions of new believers who must come to grips, and quickly, with the basic tenets of our faith. This series is a primer. Other entries in the series are

Hello, Holy Spirit!
What does it mean to be born again?
What’s the Gospel?
What is prayer?

Hell is real. The current American culture doesn’t want to believe that hell is real. Liberal Christians all around the world don’t believe it is real either. Rob Bell wrote a book called “Love Wins” in which he says “A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better…. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’ message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear.” It should be noted that Mr Bell has become apostate by now.

Of course, Mr Bell is completely wrong, at least about the doctrine of hell being a misguided teaching. Jesus taught it. Was Jesus misguided? Certainly not.

Continue reading “Back to Basics: What is hell?” →
Posted in bible jesus, hell, punishment

Back to Basics: What is hell?

Posted on by elizabethprata

This “Back to Basics” series explores some of the more basic doctrines of the Bible Believing faith of Christianity. After the rapture there will be millions of new believers who must come to grips, and quickly, with the basic tenets of our faith. This series is a primer. Other entries in the series are

Hello, Holy Spirit!
What does it mean to be born again?
What’s the Gospel?
What is prayer?

Hell is real. The current American culture doesn’t want to believe that hell is real. Liberal Christians all around the world don’t believe it is real either. Rob Bell recently wrote a book called “Love Wins” in which he says “A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better…. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’ message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear.”

Of course, Mr Bell is completely wrong, at least about the doctrine of hell being a misguided teaching. Jesus taught it. Was Jesus misguided? Certainly not.

Of course, atheists deny hell, but they deny heaven, too. As the famous and recently deceased Mr Christopher Hitchens has said in his book The Portable Atheist, “The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell.” Unfortunately he, like all atheists, find out too late that God is very real, and so is hell. He is right, death is certain, but after that, the judgment. (Hebrews 9:27).

Some believe that only the fallen angels go there, not us human sinners. After all, God did make hell for the devil and his angels. (Matthew 25:41)

The Catholics believe in a mid-hell or waystation hell called purgatory. They think that you can buy your way out (indulgences) or be prayed out after your final purification is accomplished, because Jesus’ sacrifice was not enough, obviously. Annihilationists believe that your body is just destroyed after death.

Even for bible believers, there are a few different terms for hell that are confusing. There’s  Sheol, Hades, Hell, the lake of fire, Paradise, and Abraham’s bosom? And don’t forget Gehenna and Tartarus.

Paradise means heaven. (2 Corinthians 12:4; Revelation 2:7). It could also mean the heaven that was inside the earth on the other side of Hades with the great gulf between them, known to both Lazarus and the rich man. (Luke 16:23-31)

Abraham’s bosom is a Jewish/Hebrew term for heaven, the place where faithful Israelites went after death. It is typically thought to have been inside the earth and when Jesus ascended to heaven, took all the ones in Abraham’s bosom with Him. He did descend to hell (1 Peter 3:19) after His death to preach to the spirits jailed there, which could be a reference to the lowest dungeons of hell where the sinning angels are being kept. This lowest depth of hell is mentioned in 2 Peter 2:4, “For God did not spare angels when they had sinned, but hurling them down to Tartarus consigned them to caves of darkness, keeping them in readiness for judgement.”

Gehenna is another New Testament word for hell. Sheol is a Hebrew word for the grave.

The Lake of Fire is the final place where all people after the final judgment at the end of time receive their new bodies and are thrown into the Lake, along with death, the devil and his angels, and hades itself. (Revelation 20:14). And there the smoke of their fires go up night and day. (Revelation 14:11).

It is thought that Jesus emptied Abraham’s bosom, or Paradise and took the righteous to heaven with Him when He went up.

With all these names for the place(s) we go to after death and all the confusion about who goes there and why, we can ask, what IS hell? I can answer that. Hell is a place you don’t want to go.

Better than that, hell is a place you don’t have to go!

Hell is a place that is very real. Jesus preached on it more than He preached on heaven. It is an eternal place. Matthew 18:8 speaks of the eternal fire. Matthew 25:46 records Jesus saying that the righteous will go to eternal life and the unrighteous into eternal punishment. There is no escaping the doctrine that hell is forever–

“… the penalty of eternal destruction… (2 Thess. 1:9).
“…the punishment of eternal fire…” (Jude 7).
“… the black darkness has been reserved forever..” (Jude 12-13).
“…and there the smoke of their fires go up night and day…” (Revelation 14:11).
“…everlasting burnings…” (Isaiah 33:14)

Who goes there? Sinners. Now, if you know Romans 3:10 you know that Paul said there is none righteous, no, not one. We are all sinners. So does that mean we all go to hell? In a sense, yes. It is the default condition of every person on this earth who is ever born. It is where we all could go and where we all should go. But it is not where we all have to go.

The glory that is our God is that He made a way for us to escape that eternal fire, that everlasting punishment, that black darkness. He sent Jesus to earth, who came to die as the sacrifice for our sins. His death satisfied the justice required from God to punish sin. His resurrection proves He is God and now He reigns as Savior and Lord. All a person must do is understand this, and repent of our sins. Understand that we sin, we deserve hell, Jesus died to make a way for us to escape it, His sacrifice and resurrection is that Way. He “is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no one comes to the Father but by Me,” He said in John 14:6.

That verse means that no matter how many ways and how many times a person scrambles the scriptures, hell is real. It is the destiny of all people who literally push away the body of Jesus.

In the Luke verse it said that between heaven and hell there is a great gulf fixed and no one passes from one to the other. Therefore the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory is false. The only opportunity people have to choose heaven or hell is in this life. You can’t be prayed out later. The Universalists and Liberal Christians who believe that all paths lead to heaven are wrong. Jesus is the way, no one comes to heaven except through Him. The atheists who think that there will be no accountability to a Holy God for their sins against Him are incorrect. There will be a court and there will be justice: Divine, Holy justice. And then hell after.

It is all in the bible. If you believe the bible that is good. It means you likely believe the Good News, which is that Jesus came to make a way for us to be with Him in heaven instead of hell. If you believe the Good News then act upon it, now, because that means hell is real too.

“The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath.” Proverbs 15:24

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Posted in james tate, prom, punishment

James Tate and his prom

Posted on by elizabethprata

There is a story out of Ohio this week. It is about a boy, a girl, the prom…and rules.

It seems that James Tate, a student at Shelton High, asked his friend Sonali to the prom. He did it in an unusual way, by taping huge letters high on the wall of the exterior of the school.

But school officials say Tate, along with two friends who assisted him, trespassed on private property after hours. Tate also was told by school officials that his actions posed a safety risk.

His penalty for this hijinks was a suspension. The consequence of a suspension after April 1st is that the student is denied a prom entry. This rule is not a surprise. The “regulation is reinforced over the course of the spring by daily PA system reminders, posted signage in common areas of the building and classrooms, as well as informational letters and automated phone messages to parents.”

Yet despite the fact that there are rules, that they are posted prominently, and that the consequences are clear, there was an outcry when the consequences were applied and James Tate was denied going to the prom.

It actually got frenzied this week. Tate was on Today Show, Jimmy Kimmel, there was an instant hashtag created for #TeamTate, a facebook page was created set up, a website was set up, and the school received thousands of emails and calls from around the world, as far away as from Japan, no less.

Some of the comments about the situation were:
“But it also affects a larger scale,” he added. “We want to get the message out, beyond Shelton, that acts of love and kindness don’t deserve punishment. This kid was acting on emotions, and those first feelings of love are so powerful.”

One of them, Colby Nolan, 17, a junior, said he thought it was “ridiculous” that Tate “actually got his prom taken away.”

Some headlines are immediately shown to be biased toward the student and away from the rules. The AP wrote “Romantic gesture gets teen booted from prom”. NY Times wrote “Did the school overreact?” HotAir wrote “America’s newest grassroots movement: “Let James Tate go to the prom”. Do any of the headlines say “Teen breaks rules, officials levy forewarned consequences” ? No.

The Christian Science Monitor’s interview included a quote from the local state representative, who proposed legislation to allow Tate to go to the prom. “Representative Perillo says he heard from so many constituents that he felt impelled to act. What strikes him as unfair about the Shelton policy, he says, is the date cut-off. “A boy who (hypothetically) punches his girlfriend on March 31 can go to prom, but this kid who put letters up can’t go. That’s not equitable,” he says. “I wanted a solution that wouldn’t tie the school’s hands, but would provide flexibility.””

There has to be a cutoff sometime, somewhere. Jesus said that if you are alive you can repent. After you draw your last breath, the offer of repentance is closed. So one second a person could choose to be saved and the next, is forever damned. A deadline is a deadline, in the bible, anyway. In the fallen world, a deadline is “unfair.” People always try to skirt rules, make excuses, believe the rules don’t apply to them, or that consequences will follow. They are in for a shock when the Fair and Equitable King of Kings applies them uniformly, universally, and perfectly.

I mention this silly prom issue as a metaphor for the prevailing cultural attitude toward God, judgment, punishment, and hell. We are sinners. We break the law, God’s law. He told us why and what the punishment would be in His ministry on earth, in the Apostles’ ministry on earth, in today’s missionaries in earth, in Christians proclaiming the message, and in His bible. Despite that, people still say that “acts of love and kindness don’t deserve punishment.” They scream in outrage not when the rules are broken, but when biblical punishment is actually mentioned. The statement that “his prom was taken away” denies the truth of the situation. Tate gave away his own prom when he broke the rules.

Even Tate said of the repercussions, “I thought they would appreciate my sincerity and creativity,” Tate said on TODAY.” He said that he thought he would have to go on a clean-up detail or something. So he KNEW the rules but hoped that his personal charm would relieve him of the stated consequences.

It is the same today with the unsaved. They believe that their willful breaking of the rules will earn them heaven because they are really not so bad of a person. They were operating on emotions, and emotions trump all. Deep down they still hope that persuasion after-the-fact will rule the day. But there will be no persuasion. Jesus said that “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?'” and Jesus will reply: “Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'” (Matthew 7:22-23)

Shelton High officials stood firm on the consequences. They issued a release today. “Shelton High School is a learning community, where students are expected to meet high academic and behavioral expectations. There has been a practice at Shelton High School for many years, that any student receiving an in-school or out-of-school suspension after April 1 for any reason would not be allowed to attend the prom. This regulation is reinforced over the course of the spring by daily PA system reminders, posted signage in common areas of the building and classrooms, as well as informational letters and automated phone messages to parents. These communications are intended to remind our students and parents of the high school’s expectations and consequences. This unfortunate situation is a result of one of those consequences.”

I mention this prom thing because it is an apt metaphor for the prevailing attitude toward rules and especially toward God’s rules. We all know the drill. Heaven is through Jesus only. The broad way is the road to destruction. Yet somehow, people fail to believe the rules will actually be applied. But I am here to tell you, friend, they will. Oh, they will.
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