So it is.
Unleashed, unbridled, and without the power and wisdom of God above, the tongue produces destructions, houses ablaze! People cursed and damned to hell.... a trail of smoke, ash and rubble. Satans deadly poison spewed abroad, covering the earth. But then, God also appeared to Moses as a fire, ... in a burning bush.... He is himself is a consuming fire, but who exactly, is in charge of hell?
Jesus referred many times to “hell” and the “unquenchable fire” (Matt 3:12) and the terrible torment of souls that exists there. (Luke 17:29-30; Mark 9:43; Luke 16) He is said to have ddied a horrific death, descended into hell... and rose again from death to life in order to set sins and satan's captives free Satan on the other hand, is doomed hell... considered Hell's great ruler and as such he seeks to destroy and kill, and murder, anyone he can. The Bible informs us that he knows his time is short, whants to take God's precious souls, the ones He loves, down with him, and he will do it anyway he can.
The one who will someday be cast into the “lake of fire,”this place called Hell, where “the worm never dies and the fire is never quenched," is working hard to change his image, and the image of “biblical” hell in the minds of men. According to a US News and World Report cover article by Jeffery L. Sheler, titled, Hell Hath No Fury, polls show that many Americans believe in hell, (more than in previous polls,) but not as a literal place and not as a place where there will be literal and eternal fire. Instead they think of hell as simply "an anguished state of existence."
Sheler’s report quoted a 1992 Roman Catholic Catechism proclaimed that “To die in "mortal sin" without repenting, means remaining separated from God forever by our own free choice.This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called 'hell.'”
Truly, the catechism is not as strong as Jesus' description. This, compared to a literal fiery hell, is putting it mildly. Fear of the One, (GOD) who has the power to send us to the fiery hell with Satan, who is cursed beyond redemption, should help us understand our despairing need for salvation, but instead this teaching makes hell, the mere "natural consequence" of human choice to live life apart from God. J
esus teaches in Luke 16, for example, that Hell is a place of unquenchable fire and torment.... we see this through they eyes of the rich man, who did not care for the poor, in verses, 27-31. "(KJV) The rich man, in hell said to Abraham, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him (Lazarus) to my father's house:. For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." Not only did Jesus raise one named Lazarus, but he himself was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. And yet, people refuse to believe in god's judgment, or in Hell.
Sheler also reported that teachers of the faith, like Prof. Stephen J. Patterson of the Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, and Martin Marty of the University of Chicago Divinity School in Illinois, say that people who have heard about hell, don’t think of hell as literal, and that it has even become “politically incorrect” to talk about it as such. So, ask yourself if you think there is such a thing.
Ask the average person on the street too. Studies show that he will not think of hell as a place of fire, or of the eternal resting spot for the judgment of God for humanity's sin, but something a person merely chooses or creates for his or her self. Sometimes people talk about such a "hell" being our lifetime here on Earth., and because our leaders tell us certain things, we tend to believe what they say, that "hell" is but a state of self-isolation and loneliness. Biblical speaking, hell is full of fire, a place where there is no water.
But one thing should be made perfectly clear, and that is that God takes no pleasure in the destruction of the wicked. Ezekiel 18 (21-23) says, “but if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?”
In the New Testament, we read that "God, is love." and we see how in the beginning of it all, (in Genesis,) God did not create man with anything but goodness, he never made mankind or life on earth to be toilsome or painful, he did not create it all, simply to punish him or to destroy. Sin entered and judgement procured for the evil one who perpetrated it and would not repent. Hell is not created for the sake of mankind, yet it is the ultimate judgment for sin, created and reseved reserved for Satan, the devil, that old serpent himself.
Hell is not just a matter of being separated from God, it’s not a matter of simple isolation from a happy community of smiling people here upon the earth, Hell is God's judgment, and it is as Jesus said, "a lake of fire."
Revelation chapter 20 tells us that he (the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, is cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet [are], and there they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. It gives you the idea that hell is eternal and that Satan will go there, that is, if you believe in God and what he says and what he has done and will do. Hell, associated with fire and judgment, is something we can understand as a construct of the one that the Bible is about, Almighty God.
All have sinned. All have sinned and deserve the end result of being in sin, they deserve the same end that Satan, the father of all lies will meet one day. But the good news is that God, our real father in heaven, loved us enough to rescue us, to save us from the grips of Satan and from hell. Right there, that very day that Adam and Eve sinned, God made a promise out of his love and righteousness, and he keeps is promise because God is faithful and God is true. God had judged them for their sin, by putting them out of the garden, but he gave them grace because God is merciful and gracious, loving kind and longsuffering toward his children, and all that he has made.
He is God, and as God, he gave them a promise to believe in... and they did, and their children too. Noah, Abraham...and onward…each faithfully believing, trusting hoping, in God as they lived out their earthly life, until they, in God's mercy and in faith, looking to the fulfillment of his promise, died.
The scripture says that whosoever believes in God’s promised son Jesus Christ shall not perish, but have every lasting life. They are redeemed (Luke 1:68; Rev. 5:9) from sin and death forever.
Revelation 20:15
And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is life, eternal life, (Romans 6:23) and the lake of fire, which is hell, is reserved for death and Satan, who will go there because of judgment for sin.
Unrepentant, unregenerate man, though he may think he can balance his life perfectly, or control his ultimate destiny, even earn his way to heaven, but as such he is deceived. He is stuck in the world, separated from God, but Jesus, crossed that chasm.... and he redeemed us. Taking our place and with our sin upon himself, he wrote down our name, and gave us his as he paid the price for us, leaving no balance would ever come due.
Revelation 20:15
And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
James says, (James 3:10) “My brethren, these things ought not so to be.”
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