BookExcerpt 'The Pissed Off Writings Of A Prophet'

Chapter 7

Hell: A Two Part Saga

 

Part II.

         ¹Who is this coming from Edom, from Bozrah, with his garments stained crimson? Who is this, robed in splendor, striding forward in the greatness of his strength? 

         "It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save."

         ²Why are your garments red, like those of one treading the winepress?

         ³"I have trodden the winepress alone; from the nations no one was with me. I trampled them in my anger and trod them down in my wrath; their blood spattered my garments, and I stained all my clothing.

         ⁴For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my redemption has come.

         ⁵I looked, but there was no one to help, I was appalled that no one gave support; so my own arm worked salvation for me, and my own wrath sustained me. ⁶I trampled the nations in anger; in my wrath I made them drunk and poured their blood on the ground."   Isaiah 63:1-6 (NIV)

     

        ²⁶If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, ²⁷but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the    enemies of God. ²⁸Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. ²⁹How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? ³⁰For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," and again, "The Lord will judge his people." ³¹It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.   Hebrews 10:26-31 (NIV)

    

    I pulled out these two segments to illustrate three points of view. The importance of these viewpoints is that they are valid and true, and legitimized because of the Witnesses themselves. 

   

    The first segment is the words of Christ himself, spoken to Isaiah the prophet, concerning His attitude, His mentality in prophetic retrospect of that which would be done to Him. He doesn't sound very happy at all.

    I know we always quote "For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross…" (Heb. 12:2) and that's a great thing to know about our Savior, but we must understand, though we are not permitted to vengeance, to retribution, He is. There will come a day, when Christ will let loose His anger; He will let it go, and what He does, He will do in anger. You must understand; He was alone. No one helped Him, at all. No one. We say all the time, His love kept Him nailed to the cross, and I believe it did, but He says that what sustained Him through this whole desolate-typed ordeal, was His wrath.

    Let me give you the definition of the word "wrath."

          strong, stern, or fierce anger; vengeful anger; deeply resentful indignation; ire (intense anger). (Random House) 

    The Hebrew word is defined, "hot, bottles, furious, poison [from the heat]." It also is the Hebrew word for "curdled milk or cheese."         

    Essentially it can be described as a hot, fierce, rage that festers, becoming bitter and poisonous from the intensity of it. It sours.

    The implications are terrifying beyond words. Christ is saying that what sustained Him, what kept Him going in His torment and crucifixion, was the rage of the Almighty, that has been festering, bitterly, from before time began. And this rage is so intense, it has a poisoning affect. He had deep resent, and let no man say otherwise. This does not mean that He did not or does not love the world. That's clear. We have been rectified with no cost, no debt, to ourselves. I bring these things up, though, because He said the day of vengeance is actually in His heart. He thinks about it all the time. The One who died for us, all alone, wants retribution for what was done to Him, and the day is coming where He will have it. Is anyone hearing me? I have to move on.      

    The second perspective comes from a Father's perspective.

    Can you imagine seeing your child go through this, knowing there is nothing you can do?

    Has your child been ridiculed? His was.

    Has your child been beaten? His was, by hundreds.

    Has your child been raped? His was, several times over, including the very same one your own child may have experienced?

    Has your child been killed; murdered? Do you see where I'm going with this?

    He not only had to sit there and watch; at some point, He has to abandon his little boy, only for the reason that His Son was now guilty of your sin. And to put the cherry on top, His Son cries out for Him. "What have I done, that you would leave me?" (Mark 15:34) He gives up His Son… for you. How do you think He's going to react, if He places all of sin's consequence on His very own Son, His only kid, for you, and you decide you don't need it? The Bible says you have crucified him "afresh;" (Heb. 6:6) all over again. One time and we get away with it. Not twice...

    The third viewpoint, is the Spirit of God. The life-force of God. The Godliness of God. The One who gives grace, unmerited favor; favor that is not earned, nor deserved. He is the Spirit of grace.

     You think some lowly "bags of dirt," with some capacity to think, yet wretched in all forms, is going to treat the One who formed and holds together the inner and outer workings of the universe, and everything in it… you think He's going to let these abominations give that kind of treatment to the King, and walk away acting as though nothing happened?

     God is just and holy. This is why I have spoken of the need for perfection and justification. For the sake of all parties involved. "It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." On that day, there will be no more safety net. There will be no more "what He can do for you." He did his very best. He gave himself. There's nothing more, nothing greater to give. Nothing else. He can have no part in sin. He abandoned His own Son in his time of greatest need in order to separate Himself from sin; so it couldn't touch Him. He despises sin. What do you think He will do to those of us who deserve death?          

    I was reading in Revelation one day when God began to speak to me concerning the Scriptures.

            ¹⁰The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: ¹¹And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.    (14:10-11; KJV)

               The smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever...

    He then took me back to the Old Testament. There was one thing that appeased Him. One thing that quells His anger when men sinned. Sacrificial purging.

        ¹And this is the thing that thou shalt do unto them to hallow them, to minister unto me in the priest's office: Take one young bullock, and two rams without blemish

        ²⁵And thou shalt burn the whole ram upon the altar: it is a burnt offering unto the LORD: it is a sweet savour, an offering made by fire unto the LORD.

        ⁴²This shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD: where I will meet you, to speak there unto thee.

               Exodus 29:1, 25, 42 KJV

    These sacrifices were two-fold in what they represented. Most of us know that when a lamb or ram or dove, etc., was offered up as an offering for sin, that God would see it, and "remember" the sacrifice His Son would pay. But consider the similarities between the descriptions of these two scriptural excerpts.    

    Sin is an act (thoughts are actions, too) that stems from an evil; an inadequacy that creates an infinite void between our being and His being. God is perfect, flawless; infallible. He is not perfect because He does everything right. He does everything right because He's perfect. Any action that is less than perfect, He literally cannot connect with, even if He wanted to. He is. To grasp that, you have to try to think about a universe without sin. A universe where only He existed. All was good. Then everything that He created was good. No concept of sin. Sin doesn't exist, because its evilness is merely in the fact that it's something God can't do. Therefore He is not capable of empowering one to do so either.

    So when we sin, we betray God; we betray everything that is. Sin is not. Essentially it's trash. It's waste. And what do you do with trash, with contaminants? Excessive heat. You burn it. Purified by fire. Even we as Christians, when we stand before the Throne, will be tried by fire. That which is pure, that which is godly will remain. The waste will be burnt up. (1 Corin. 3:13-15) Christ himself has baptized with us with the Holy Spirit and fire. (Luke 3:16) We have been submerged in fire.  

    Consider also, in God, time is of no consequence. He is eternal. That is who He is, that is what He is. There is no beginning for Him, nor end. This is the natural process. This is normal for Him. That is why things that are temporal, including the old heavens and the earth, will be consumed in fire. The opposite of infinite is temporary. Temporary is not a part of Him. So to appease Him, it has to be an eternal appeasing. (You have to try and reason like Him.)

        For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Heb. 10:14 (KJV)

    How so? The Bible says "without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sin." (Heb. 9:22) When his blood was shed, it was poured out to cover us [as a means of protection] (1 Corin. 5:7) and cleanse us. (1 John 1:7) The life of any creature is in the blood. (Levit. 17:11,14) Christ as a man, was still God with the Life of God flowing through his veins, and remember, God is eternal. Therefore his blood is never quenched. It never dries up. An eternal sacrifice, for an infinite debt, giving eternal atonement, resulting in eternal appeasement. We who believe, have by faith in the sacrifice (by grace) partook in the sacrifice. The Father can no longer find fault in us.

    The only problem is for those that haven't believed. Those that embody sin. There is no other sacrifice to appease a holy and just God. So they themselves become the eternal "sacrifice." A perpetual purging in order that the vengeance and wrath of God, be appeased, and that which can only be eternal. Justice.

    Is it unfair, or excessive? Let me say this. He so despises sin, and is so just in His ways, that His own Son was not spared the penalty of sin, though it wasn't even his own. The presence of God was denied to the Son of God.

    So let me break this down.

    Think on the pain and suffering you have endured in your life. Think about those unbearable days and nights where there seemed to be nothing or no one that could comfort you. Even the people that were present did nothing for you. The pain still isolated you from the rest of the world. Or maybe the world had isolated itself from you. No one cared. No one understood. The times it got so bad, the only thought to comfort you was death. The times you could start to grasp how a man could take his own life. Think on the worst times, whatever they may be. Understand that even in those times, the presence of God was still with you. He was still there.

    You may say, "Well, that says something about His presence." No, it says something about your ignorance; your lack of knowledge, understanding. But there, in the Lake of Fire, there will be no joy. You will not see it. No good thing. Only suffering and pain that cannot be fathomed.

    Bill Weise, the author of "23 Minutes in Hell", put it this way: "For those that want to have nothing to do with God, there is a place made just for you." There, the flames are so hot, they will have the capacity to melt every substance in the universe. But not you. You know, a supernova has a core temperature of approximately 100 billion Kelvin? That's 180 billion degrees Fahrenheit; 6000 times hotter than the sun.  

    Peter tells us that on:

        "the coming day of God… the flaming heavens will be dissolved, and the [material] elements [of the universe] will flare and melt with fire?" 2 Peter 3:12 (Amplified Bible)       

    Who could stand under such an affliction..? You. You will be given a body "fit for destruction." (Romans 9:22) Not for any period or amount of time. There is no purgatory. We cannot earn salvation now; we certainly will not be able to then. And it will never end. Not the slightest bit of relief or mercy.

    I say these things for those who have been redeemed as much as I do for those still lost. Child of God, this could have been your fate. A godless eternity. I'm not saying that we have to go out and tell everyone we see, every second of every day, that Jesus can save them. Quite frankly, when would you sleep? (I guarantee you Jesus did.) But in truth, how can we continue to just "walk" past multitudes everyday knowing that many to most of them are on their way to hell? On their way to this? We have to start doing something. Something more than we have been. I could wish this upon no one. We were not made for this. (Matt. 25:41) God Himself knew this to be true. That is why He gave a way out, and it was a Way that cost… so dearly.