Is
Hell Real?
“He
shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy
angels and in the presence of the Lamb.”
Revelation 14:10
Last week I tried to answer
an often asked question about going to Heaven and also included several
scriptures about Hell. However, there
are many people who do not believe in Hell.
I grew up knowing there was a Heaven and a Hell, but was confronted with
“Hell is not a real place and there is no such a person as Satan.”
In 1973, I attended a
Cursillo, a movement of the Catholic Church.
Later this brought around the DeColores, an all church movement which I
became involved with. However when I attended
Cursillo, a 3-day study of God, we had a question and answer meeting. The spiritual directors were a Priest and a
Reformed Pastor. Someone asked the
question, “Is Hell a real place and is Satan real?” Both the priest and the pastor agreed that
there was no Hell and Satan was not real.
Their explanation was this, “There is evil in this world and we should
strive to overcome it in our lives, but everyone will go to heaven when they
die.”
I never forgot the horror I
felt when I heard this because I knew they were leading people astray with these
words. I had not committed my life to
Jesus at that time, but I knew they were wrong.
Later I began to study the Bible and search out things of God and still
have a burning desire to learn the truths in the Bible. Following are the scriptures that confirm “Hell
is real.”
Starting with Isaiah 14:15, “Yet you shall be brought down to
Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit.” What is Sheol and
what is the Pit? According to the Hebrew
Bible, Sheol is considered
to be the home of both the righteous and the wicked, separated into respective
compartments. [Which I wrote about last
week] When the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek in ancient Alexandria, the word "Hades" was substituted for Sheol, which you find in the
New Testament.
The word, Pit, is mentioned
227 times in the Bible, but not all refer to Hell; many do. Isaiah 38:18 says, “For Sheol cannot thank you, death
cannot praise you; those who go down to the pit cannot hope for your
truth.” In other words, once you have died and went
down to the Pit, (Hell) is total separation from God and cannot be
changed. Another scripture is found
where God gave this Word to Ezekiel 32:18, [NLV], “Son
of man, weep for the hordes of Egypt and for the other mighty nations. For I
will send them down to the world below in company with those who descend to the
Pit.” Another
scripture in Revelation 9:2 talks about the Pit, “And he opened the bottomless
pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So the
sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit.”
When the Bible speaks of Hell in any form it uses
words like, ‘go down’ or ‘descends’. It
is very consistent about Hell, Sheol, Hades, being ‘below’. Another term for Hell is the “Abyss” and is
found in Romans 10:7, “Who will descend into the abyss?” Luke
8:30 reminds us of the time that Jesus and the disciples were in the boat and
they landed on the shore of the Gadarenes.
They came across a man who was possessed, “Jesus asked him, saying, "What is your name?" And he said,
"Legion," because many demons had entered him. And they begged
Him that He would not command them to go out into the Abyss.” Luke 8:30-31.
Revelation 14:10 describe
Hell as; “He
shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels
and in the presence of the Lamb.” Did you know that science says that the
inside the earth is fire and brimstone? Brimstone is another name
for ‘sulfur’. When Mt. Saint Helens
erupted, 150,000 tons of sulfurous gas spewed out and is one of the reasons
people had to leave their homes and it came from inside the earth.
In
the book of Revelation 20:10, John gives God’s description of Hell, “The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire
and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”
Again in Revelation 21:6-8, “And He said to me,
"It
is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give
of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who
overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My
son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral,
sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which
burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
Bringing this study to a close, and
referring to the above scripture, God says that He will give of the fountain of
the water of life freely to him who thirsts. All who seek after God and receive
Christ as their Savior will live forever in the presence of God. This is about choices we make in life – to
serve God or Satan. Earthly pleasures
only last for a while, but living for God lasts for Eternity.
Next week we will be studying
whether or not these troubling times will bring “The End of The World”.
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