By Elizabeth Prata
SYNOPSIS
In this reflective piece, I contemplate the profound and often staggering reality of death, drawing parallels between historical battles and contemporary mortality rates. Citing biblical accounts, particularly from 2 Chronicles and Isaiah, the narrative explores the weight of human loss throughout history, emphasizing the eternal significance of souls lost to death.
Continue reading “Life, Death, and Salvation: A Christian Reflection”By Elizabeth Prata
A relative of mine died. My great-uncle’s son who would be my cousin once removed. He was 85. He was married for 62 years, ran our family business for 60 years, led an active, and by all accounts, a happy life.
I remember him as a jokester, lots of bonhomie, personable. In our large Italian family, the relatives all bought houses close to each other, and all us cousins played while the grownup men smoked cigars and played cards and the women sat around the table drinking coffee and talking. We were all around each other, all the time.
I hadn’t seen him in 50 years and I was not close. But still, as I age and my older relatives age even more, it is a time when I do think about eternity.
He was given a “Concelebrated Mass of Christian Burial at the Catholic Sacred Heart Church” which performs a Rite: Roman-Latin rite.
The life he is now living, the one living after death, is likely not as happy.
To the saved, death is something we may be concerned about, but we know our life after death will be filled to the brim with joy and love. Death is a mysterious and foreboding thing to the unsaved, woefully ignored until one’s number of days is up. But as to the other demographic of humans who will face Jesus, the unsaved who THOUGHT they were saved, departing this life into the next will come as a huge shock.
Matthew 7:21-23 gives us a glimpse of that moment,
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; LEAVE ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.‘
If a person is a lifelong atheist, Catholic, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Wiccan, Druid or any of the other religions, and does not repent before death, they will go to eternal hell. That is what the Bible teaches. Jesus said,
“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me”. (John 14:6).
If you do not go through Jesus who died to cleanse us, then the person will remain in their filthy sin and be punished forever for it.
Matthew 5:22, But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be answerable to the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be answerable to the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.
Matthew 10:28, And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Matthew 13:42, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Matthew 25:41, “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you accursed people, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;”
He is the ONLY way. He is the way, the door, the narrow path. All other religions are false, including Catholicism.
Resource: Are Catholics Deceived? by Mike Gendron
What is hard to see, too, are misguided comments on the Obituary page. I see these all the time. People say things like,
You’re in the loving arms of Jesus now
Rest in peace
See you on the other side
You are now in the residence of the Lord. You will find peace and comfort in his arms.
Until we meet again
No, none of these comments are true if the person spoken of did not repent of the neglect of their soul, address their sin, and seek the One True God. But the unsaved do not really want to contemplate fiery hell, eternal torment, and gnashing of teeth. And the ones who falsely believe they’re saved think they are all set for heaven.
I don’t know the final state of the souls of my relatives who have passed, of course, but it doesn’t look good. One hopes for the best but prepares for the worst upon the Day of Judgment. Time will reveal.
The Rich Man in torment in Hades begged Abraham on the other side to send a message to the Rich Man’s brothers so they would not have to come to this place.
But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ But he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!’ But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.'” (Luke 16:29-31).
And Who rose from the dead? Jesus. He lived the perfectly holy life that we cannot, pleasing God the Father. Jesus died on the cross as the sacrificial lamb that God requires, shedding His blood for us. God raised Jesus from the dead, and Jesus ascended to glory to be seated at the right hand of the Father. If we repent of our sins, Jesus will apply His blood to our lives and we are covered, forgiven, and may join Him in glory when we pass.
Some say that a discussion like this at a time of someone’s mourning is inappropriate. But when, WHEN is the time? It is a perfect time to speak the truth in love. It’s evident that those giving misguided consolation need to hear this, even if it is too late for the departed.
Satan deceives many. But there is only one way to heaven. No matter how many platitudes one may write on an obituary page, there is a reality that is more real than even the real earth, and that is eternity.
for He says, “AT A FAVORABLE TIME I LISTENED TO YOU, AND ON A DAY OF SALVATION I HELPED YOU.” Behold, now is “A FAVORABLE TIME,” behold, now is “A DAY OF SALVATION” (2 Corinthians 6:2).
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as you did in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness” (Hebrews 3:7-8).
Romans 13:11
And do this, understanding the occasion. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.
Matthew 4:17
From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.“
By Elizabeth Prata
According to several passages in the Bible, it is believed that angels may escort believers to heaven when they die, (Luke 16:22). We read about the poor man Lazarus who was carried to heaven by angels after he died. After all, Hebrews 1:14 says that angels are ministering spirits who serve those who will inherit salvation. It isn’t a stretch to surmise that they might minister to us as our flesh fades away and our spirit ascends to heaven, guided along by gentle zephyrs in the company of angels who tenderly bring us to our eternal place.
It’s a soft, comforting, lovely thought of the care that Jesus has for our souls, even at the end and beyond.
The difference of how the lost’s souls are handled is stark. Far from being guided in love to safely and gently dock in pastures so green in heaven, only the fires await those who are not in Christ. The lost are THROWN away (from the presence of Jesus). They are CAST into hell.
When you blow your nose and wad a tissue do you gently deposit it into the wastebasket? No, likely you toss it. A wadded up piece of paper? Throw it…score! When you deem something trash or waste, you don’t handle it gently. It is of nothing to you. Toss without care.
The word ‘cast’ or ‘thrown’ is used repeatedly in the Bible referring to those whose destination is hell. Every time. Sin and Hades itself are also thrown or cast into the Lake of Fire.
Matthew 5:29, Now if your right eye is causing you to sin, tear it out and throw it away from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
Matthew 7:19, Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Matthew 8:12, but the sons of the kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Matthew 18:9, And if your eye is causing you to sin, tear it out and throw it away from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fiery hell.
Luke 13:28, In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being thrown out.
John 15:6, If anyone does not remain in Me, he is thrown away like a branch and dries up; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
Revelation 20:10, and the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
Revelation 20:15, And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
The word used here is ballo with an ek in front. Ek means out. The definition is To cast out, to drive out, to send out, to expel. Expel is to remove something by force.
We are so used to the notion put forth by false teachers that Jesus is a boyfriend romantically pursuing us, or that He is a ‘gentleman’ who wouldn’t not force Himself on us. Neither of these characterizations are accurate. He is meek, yes. He is compassionate, yes. He is never soft on sin. He is angry at sin. He has no use for those who did evil in His sight and there is no need to gently lay into the fire those who rejected His gospel. They are tossed.
Yes, He has compassion on those who are without a shepherd, but when it comes time for the judgment, it will be rough, hard, and a display of the ultimate rejection, them against Jesus and Jesus against them.
Why write this? To awaken a renewed sense of wonder at Jesus’ gospel. To spark a deeper gratitude that He saved us from this. We who are in Him will be witnesses to it. During the Tribulation there will be silence in heaven for ‘half an hour’. (Revelation 8:1). It is a solemn silence of profound expectation of the final and decisive catastrophe- wrath unknown and unexperienced until now.
And yet, the final judgment of casting souls inside fitted bodies into the fires will be worse. Isaiah 66:24 says
“All mankind will come to bow down before Me,” says the LORD. “Then they will go out and look At the corpses of the people Who have rebelled against Me. For their worm will not die And their fire will not be extinguished; And they will be an abhorrence to all mankind.”
Most commenters take this as figurative language, of those viewing the bodies of the Jews who had rejected Jesus and lay rotting in abundance in their deaths in the aftermath of the battle at Gehenna. I personally think it is literal, that there is a literal lake of fire with literal bodies of the lost in a literal fire. It will be literally somewhere and occasionally the saved will view them and remember as a testimony to God’s mercy that there but for the grace of God, go I.
Therefore let’s approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace for help at the time of our need says Hebrews 4:16. As we approach that throne of grace, let gratitude flow that He has dealt gently with us.
By Elizabeth Prata
It is pretty simple. There are only two options, accept the Lord’s offer of pardon for sins by repenting and gain heaven, or refuse it and gain hell and eternal judgment. Stay strong. I have observed that the longer people go in Christianity the wobblier they get on the basics. Some of them. For example, here are three quotes from people in their unscriptural beliefs which you may not be aware. Who said it? None of these are from Rob Bell or Joel Osteen. The answers may surprise you.
This first quote speaks of Annihilationist doctrine, the doctrine that Hell is not eternal and punishment does not happen-
1. “Scripture points in the direction of annihilation, and that ‘eternal conscious torment’ is a tradition which has to yield to the supreme authority of Scripture.”
2. “All who live a just life will be saved even if they do not believe in Jesus Christ … “The gospel teaches us that those who live in accordance with the Beatitudes… ‘the poor in spirit, the pure of heart, those who bear lovingly the sufferings of life’ will enter God’s kingdom.”
3. “…there’s the Body of Christ. This comes from all the Christian groups around the world, outside the Christian groups. I think everybody that loves Christ, or knows Christ, whether they’re conscious of it or not, they’re members of the Body of Christ … And that’s what God is doing today, He’s calling people out of the world for His name, whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world, or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ, because they’ve been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus, but they know in their hearts that they need something that they don’t have, and they turn to the only light that they have, and I think they are saved, and that they’re going to be with us in heaven.”
These are the people who said it:
1. Prominent and influential Evangelist John R.W. Stott, in the book, Essentials pp. 306-326, discussed here.
2. Pope John Paul II, the pope everyone liked.
3.Billy Graham, American evangelist
Are you surprised that Billy Graham, formerly the world’s most famous evangelist, thought that Muslims who don’t know Christ are in the body of Christ? That people who live a good life with a longing heart knowing they vaguely ‘need something they don’t have’, will meet Jesus as his friend? I listened to the interview where Graham had said that. He went on to say that his ‘views had softened with age’, that he ‘used to be more fiery and brimstone-like’, but he’d ‘mellowed’.
If people who enter the kingdom not knowing Jesus as Graham stated, (which is actually impossible) makes a lie of this verse: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” (Mt 7:21-23).
You HAVE to know Jesus.
People who believe that hell isn’t eternal and that there is a way to heaven aside from Jesus suffer from one problem: a high view of sin and a low view of His holiness. It is simple. It all boils down to sin, holiness, repentance – and eternal justice for the unrepentant. It began with sin in Genesis 3, it ends with sin in Revelation 20:11-15 at the Great White Throne judgment of sinners for all time. Sin-judgment-repentance-salvation, that is the foundation of His work in the world. Period.
Be careful of incremental chipping away of your faith and belief in the foundational doctrines Jesus taught us in the bible. There is one way to heaven. It is narrow. “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.” Stay praying and stay in the Word and stay being built up by brethren at regular worship services! It is a dangerous time for us all, spiritually.
“The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life…. He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” (Rev 22:17, 20)
By Elizabeth Prata
I am working my way through a course called Heaven and Hell led by Dr. Kevin Zuber. The first half of the course focuses on hell and those false philosophies that try to explain hell away. The second half focuses on heaven. I’m almost there.
I’ve learned a lot, but mainly I’ve decided that we do not talk about hell enough.
When you mention ‘Jonathan Edwards,’ people immediately think of his famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” a sermon that sparked an awakening in the pagans who heard it, an awakening which spread throughout New England and beyond, thanks to George Whitfield who pushed it on. Edwards is also known for his sermon titled “A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton (1737),” a treatment on justification by faith. This sermon was reprinted and read widely across America and in Britain.
But Edwards was more than just the hellfire preacher. He was genuinely concerned for the sluggish, apathetic, sleepy pagans and the nominal Christians who professed but likely didn’t possess the Spirit. One of his goals was to awaken them to both heaven’s bliss and hell’s agonies. He actually preached on heaven more than hell, but his preaching on hell was startling and made deep impressions.
The following is from his 16 part series (16 parts!!) called “Heaven, a World of Love”. It is from part 16, the last part. Edwards contrasted the bliss of heaven he had already preached on in previous parts, with the holiness of God’s wrath in hell.
I know hell isn’t the most comfortable subject, but it is a big part of the Christian life. When we say ‘I’m saved!’ we should ask, FROM WHAT? From the just penalty of eternity in hell, paying for the sins we performed in this life against a holy God. Every person born on this planet is destined for hell by default because of our sin nature. (Babies and the cognitively unable are another subject). Please, please, gird up your loins, take a deep breath, and read on. We must confront the uncomfortable subject of hell. We must!
When you share the Gospel, DON’T leave out hell.
Here’s Jonathan Edwards:
What has been said on this subject may well awaken and alarm the impenitent. — And,
First, by putting them in mind of their misery, in that they have no portion or right in this world of love. You have heard what has been said of heaven, what kind of glory and blessedness is there, and how happy the saints and angels are in that world of perfect love. But consider that none of this belongs to you. When you hear of such things, you hear of that in which you have no interest. No such person as you, a wicked hater of God and Christ, and one that is under the power of a spirit of enmity against all that is good, shall ever enter there. Such as you are, never belong to the faithful Israel of God, and shall never enter their heavenly rest.
It may be said to you, as Peter said to Simon (Acts 8:21), “Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter, for thy heart is not right in the sight of God;” and as Nehemiah said to Sanballat and his associates (Neh. 2:20), “You have no portion, nor right, nor memorial, in Jerusalem.” If such a soul as yours should be admitted into heaven, that world of love, how nauseous would it be to those blest spirits whose souls are as a flame of love! and how would it discompose that loving and blessed society, and put everything in confusion! It would make heaven no longer heaven, if such souls should be admitted there. It would change it from a world of love to a world of hatred, and pride, and envy, and malice, and revenge, as this world is! But this shall never be; and the only alternative is, that such as you shall be shut out with “dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie,” (Rev. 22:15); that is, with all that is vile, and unclean, and unholy. And this subject may well awaken and alarm the impenitent,
Secondly, by showing them that they are in danger of hell, which is a world of hatred. There are three worlds. One is this, which is an intermediate world — a world in which good and evil are so mixed together as to be a sure sign that this world is not to continue forever. Another is heaven, a world of love, without any hatred. And the other is hell, a world of hatred, where there is no love, which is the world to which all of you who are in a Christless state properly belong. This last is the world where God manifests his displeasure and wrath, as in heaven he manifests his love. Everything in hell is hateful. There is not one solitary object there that is not odious and detestable, horrid and hateful. There is no person or thing to be seen there, that is amiable or lovely; nothing that is pure, or holy, or pleasant, but everything abominable and odious. There are no beings there but devils, and damned spirits that are like devils. Hell is, as it were, a vast den of poisonous hissing serpents; the old serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and with him all his hateful brood.
In that dark world there are none but those whom God hates with a perfect and everlasting hatred. He exercises no love, and extends no mercy to any one object there, but pours out upon them horrors without mixture. All things in the wide universe that are hateful shall be gathered together in hell, as in a vast receptacle provided on purpose, that the universe which God has made may be cleansed of its filthiness, by casting it all into this great sink of wickedness and woe. It is a world prepared on purpose for the expression of God’s wrath. He has made hell for this; and he has no other use for it but there to testify forever his hatred of sin and sinners, where there is no token of love or mercy. There is nothing there but what shows forth the Divine indignation and wrath. Every object shows forth wrath. It is a world all overflowed with a deluge of wrath, as it were, with a deluge of liquid fire, so as to be called a lake of fire and brimstone, and the second death.
Further Resources
The sermon excerpt above, source is here.
The entire sermon contained in a short booklet you can download free or read online, is here.
A six-part series on the Life of Jonathan Edwards is here at Ligonier. I took this class, it’s good. First message is free, successive lessons are behind a paywall. Or, you can get Nichols’ book Jonathan Edwards: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought in paperback (used) for $1.99 at Amazon.
Institute for Christian Life: Heaven & Hell by Dr. Zuber is here.
By Elizabeth Prata
He was comfortably retired. He was old. On a fine and bright winter’s day in Sunny Florida, an unconverted man left his fine and comfortable home, and drove toward town. Where he was going…only God knows. Perhaps to the store to pick up a newspaper or milk. Perhaps to the diner to commune with cronies. Perhaps just to take a nice drive along the shore and admire the day.
Continue reading “The Last Day of an Unconverted Man”By Elizabeth Prata
The question in my title was a discussion on Facebook.
“If God is omnipresent, does that mean he is also in hell?”
Hmmm, interesting!
First, let’s make sure we understand the word omnipresent. Omni means all. Present means present. It means God is present in all His creation. There is nowhere God isn’t.
Neither the noun “omnipresence” nor adj. “omnipresent” occurs in Scripture, but the idea that God is everywhere present is throughout presupposed and sometimes explicitly formulated. God’s omnipresence is closely related to His omnipotence and omniscience: that He is everywhere enables Him to act everywhere and to know all things, and, conversely, through omnipotent action and omniscient knowledge He has access to all places and all secrets (cf Ps 139). The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia
These are two verses among many addressing declaring God’s presence everywhere: Jeremiah 23:24, Psalm 139:7.
So yes He is in hell. He is omnipresent. That means everywhere. Even in hell/sheol/the Lake of Fire to come. As for the question asking whether God (or Jesus) is in hell, there is this verse to consider.
Revelation 14:9-10 says “Then another angel, a third one, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, 10he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb“.
A women came into the discussion asking:
“Why would a holy God be in hell? Through Christ’s salvation we are made holy so as not to go to hell.”
I replied, “True! But He is also a God of wrath who punishes sin, as is stated in Revelation 14:9-10. He glorifies Himself through his redemption of saints – and also through his punishment of sinners. God is not ONLY love but also justice.
Then I received the “whatabouts”
What about 2 Thessalonians 1:9 verse?…
(which says-)
These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, AWAY FROM THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD AND FROM THE GLORY OF HIS MIGHT,
I replied: Yes the Revelation 14 and 2 Thessalonians verses do seem to say the opposite of each other. In Thessalonians, that the people in hell are out of the presence of the Lord, and Revelation 14 the people in hell endure the wrath in His presence. But we know the Lord is not the author of confusion, and He does not contradict Himself. So what can this mean? Bottom line is, it means we need to study it more, because the scriptures are perspicacious (clear) and the Spirit will illuminate any confused understandings we may have- if we ask. (James 1:5).
As Michael Horton explained, about the apparent contradiction,
“These verses are best reconciled, in my view, by recognizing that judgment consists in being excluded from God’s presence as the source of all blessedness, but not from God’s omnipresent lordship.”
Further, we see that Matthew 10:28 warns of the presence of God in hell, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Jesus is the One who dispenses the wrath. Who else would it be? Horton said hell is torment not just because of the fiery punishment, but BECAUSE of the presence of the Lord.
“Hell is horrible because of God’s presence, not his absence.“
Michael Horton
God is omnipresent. Omni means all. He is everywhere at all times, but not everyone everywhere is experiencing Him in the same way. Saved Christians experience His presence in glory with blessings, unrepentant sinners in hell experiencing the wrath due them for sin.
On Hell:
‘The torments themselves will be universal. It will not be merely one or two torments but all torments united. Hell is the place of torment itself (Luke 16.28). It is the centre of all punishments, sorrow and pain, wrath and vengeance, fire and darkness’. ~Ralph Venning, The Sinfulness of Sin
By Elizabeth Prata
Yesterday I posted an article about the fact that hell exists, why it exists, and why people go there (and how to avoid it). Here-> Betty White talks about her own death with Larry King. I was asked about how to handle knowing a loved one is very likely in hell enduring eternal torment. It’s a troubling question, an important concept to dig though – if tough on the heart and mind.
Continue reading “How can we deal with knowing someone we love is probably in hell?”By Elizabeth Prata
Actress and animal advocate Betty White died last week. She was 99 years old. She was just two weeks shy of her 100th birthday.
She had longevity not only in years that the Lord graciously gave her, but had longevity in her career that she loved so much. It’s a wonderful thing to love what you do and be given so many years to do it.
When she died, as many times happens with a celebrity death, the concept of death suddenly becomes real to people. It does to me, it brings the afterlife into the forefront of my mind. I am in Christ and I fear death no more. The curiosity I’d had about what happens two seconds after my last breath is finally satisfied in the certain knowledge that I will be with Jesus in heaven. I do not know what I’ll be doing, apart from praises and songs of worship to Him, but given His intellectual creativity these last 7000 years, I know it’ll be wonderful.
Continue reading “Betty White talks about her own death with Larry King”By Elizabeth Prata
I grew up in a family of means, where the breathless rush of the ‘new’ was king. We bought the first and newest of everything. Color TV? Got one. Remote control? First on the block to have it. 27″ TV? Over there in the living room. Pong just came out? We played it. Central vacuum? Installed. And so on.
When I met my husband in 1990, I decided to switch gears, and we went the frugal route. Downsize. No debt. Use things till they break, and then if possible, fix them instead of buying new. I sold my new house with its mortgage, and he sold his. He owned a camp by a lake that had been in the family since the 1950s. Thus, it had no mortgage. “Camps” were the name for a summer seasonal dwelling by the lake to which the family would decamp from the city. The places were usually small and closed up after Labor Day. In the 1950s, moms would take the kids to camp and stay for the summer while dads worked in the city and arrived at ‘camp’ on weekends.
I was amazed that most of the furniture in the camp to which I and my husband moved still contained its original furniture. Floor to ceiling pole lamps, coiled, braided rugs, rattan rocking chair, heavy black dial phone, lol, and so on.
The vacuum cleaner was an Electrolux and it weighed a billion pounds. When I asked if we were going to get a new vacuum, he said why? it still works. And it did.
This was a new concept to me, no waste, keep using old things that still worked. My life had been one of disposable consumerism, so this was refreshing attitude because it took a lot of the weight off in needing to keep up with the latest and greatest.
When he and I later downsized again and moved onto the sailboat and cruised down the Atlantic Seaboard from Maine to the Bahamas, we passed a lot of garbage scows and barges. NYC harbor was full of garbage barges with piled-up trash, heading to some landfill or other. It was the first time I’d been visually confronted with the enormity of waste. It made me sad.
I love the beach. I spent a lot of time there growing up and in my early adulthood. I am fascinated with edges of things. The equator. The Southern US border. The tide line where the water meets the sand. At the tide line in the north there is usually a line of dead seaweed, kelp, broken shells, and other ocean detritus. It’s sort of an ocean version of the trash line except it’s natural and organic. It’s a great visual to show where the tide had been.
You know what else makes me sad? Hell.
I think of all the piled up trash and the seaweed languishing there above the tide line and I envision those as flesh. All that wasted flesh that did not honor God. All that wasted flesh that Jesus disposes of in hell. I can’t imagine the piles of people in the gaping maw of hell. The Flood, all peoples on earth except Noah and his family cast into hell, the billions of people since all waste.
The worst waste is the people who did not honor God. Gentiles, AKA Pagans, do not honor God. They cannot. They are corrupt through and through with sin and God hates sin.
It seemed like the Electrolux was going to last forever, but it eventually died. Boy did my husband ever get his money’s worth out of that thing! Almost 50 years of life. But eventually it gasped its last and it went to the landfill where all the other waste went. No matter how permanent the vacuum cleaner seemed, no matter how well made it was, it eventually ran out of days for its life span.
Hell is real. It is a place where people who have denied Christ, sinned, loved the world will be cast to endure active, conscious punishment forever. Cast, thrown, like when you throw a used tissue into the trash. You don’t place it there, you throw it. You’re hurled without a second thought. That is how the people who did not repent will be thrown into the lake of fire which burns for all eternity.
And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:15)
This is weighty! This is huge! This requires some thought!
Hell is not a pleasant topic, but it is real and there are already billions of people dwelling there. My father died at the scene of a car crash in 2014. I am 99.999% sure he was outside of Christ. He was a rabid atheist for all his life, so… The concept of hell became personal to me on that date. Looking out over a beach and seeing the piles of dead seaweed reminds me of all the wasted flesh in hell, groaning and gnashing teeth, fists up against God and tormented forever. Jonathan Edwards said in his famous sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,
'Tis 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 Forever, 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 our Punishment will indeed be infinite. 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; 'tis inexpressible and inconceivable: for who knows the Power of God’s Anger?
Sheol, the barren womb, land never satisfied with water, and fire that never says, ‘Enough!’ (Proverbs 30:16)
No matter how long we live and however permanent things seem, they’re not. Whether you dispose of items as soon as the next pretty, shiny things come along or whether you keep it as long as possible, eventually things get thrown out. There is waste no matter how much we recycle. Of bodies, of human flesh that dies, that is the one thing that lasts FOREVER. The question is, where will you spend it?
the-end-time.org 