THE SHOCKINGTRUTH ABOUT HELL…
What does the Bible really say?
What kind of God would send a child to burn in hell forever and ever just because they died before being baptized?
Would you do such a cruel thing? Of course not...and neither would God! Many false concepts are widely believed about hell. Are you ready to learn the truth about this mysterious subject? Let's start with how this place of punishment was originally the garbage dump of Jerusalem. And how there are 4 different words in the Bible that are translated hell. Read on for "the rest of the story. You don't have to ever worry about burning in hell forever! The truth is incredible and brings peace of mind to many who have been tormented by false teachings....
Hell is not a place of eternal torment....the real truth about hell is that it was an actual place in Jerusalem where the garbage and refuse of the city were burned up...which is a future type of it's genuine purpose to be revealed at the return of Christ. As the Bible teaches, Christ will come back and rule the earth with a rod of iron, and at that time, He will use the fires of hell (in the Valley of Gehenna, Jerusalem) to dispose of the bodies of criminals and the rebellious, and as a message to all who choose evil. It will be a place of maggots and half rotted corpses of evil folk. It was never intended to be a place of ever burning torment for anyone, as some falsely teach! Read this article to learn the true purpose of hell, and learn the amazing meaning of the 4 words translated "hell."
Vessels made for destruction…to be cast away
Disaster and rejection have long been associated with the Potter's field in the Valley of Gehenna.
The famous field known as “The Potter’s Field” was located in the Valley of Gehenna, (hell). In the ancient morning mist, in the valley of Gehenna, long ago, a potter grabbed a lump of clay, and threw it on the spinning wheel and began to form a pot. It looked good. He fired it in the glowing embers of his primeval kiln. The next day or so, on further inspection, he found a large crack on the bottom of the pot. It was unusable for his purposes, so he tossed it into the Potter's field and it broke into a hundred pieces. Here we begin to see the true intention of hell. It is a place of rejection.
Many hundreds of years later, we see this again when a man named Judas Iscariot set his eye on purchasing the Potter's field in the Valley of Gehenna. He planned to pay for it with the “30 pieces of silver” that he received from the priests for betraying Christ. In the end, his conscience ate him alive so he tried to give the money back saying, “I have betrayed innocent blood!” And they said to him, “What is that to us?”
So he threw the money at their feet and went out and hanged himself in the Potter’s Field. His body finally fell headlong and the Bible says that his intestines burst out. It was then sarcastically called “the field of blood.” Since the priest’s could not lawfully use this “blood money” as an offering to God, they bought the Potter’s Field to bury foreigners in. So far, we see that Gehenna, the valley of hell is a place for castaway vessels, and things that are rejected or "foreign" to God. (Matthew 27:1-10)
This is the same field that God told Jeremiah to go to and prophesy the coming disaster that befell Judah. They were punished for their lawless foreign idolatry that was committed right there in the “Valley of Gehenna from the Valley of Hinnom.” It was in this very valley that they practiced human sacrifice of their firstborn children. They dispatched their children in the worship of a sun god called Baal. Cannibalism began here, as they ate of the sacrificed children, thus the term "Priest of Baal" was Cahna a Bal. Cannibal.
HELL…has 3 meanings!
There are 4 words for hell in the bible, Sheol (OT) and Hades (NT) have the same meaning...the grave, or a pit. So we see that there are 3 separate meanings to the word. Some modern religions teach an ever-burning hell. This concept comes from a work of fiction called Dante's Inferno and from a fundamental misunderstanding of the plan of God and of the word hell itself! Of course the Bible does teach that there is a hell. Of the three different words that are translated "hell," we see quite different meanings. They are Tartaroo, Hades and Gehenna. We are going to closely examine the 3 words for “hell.”
1. Tartaroo
This word occurs only one time in the New Testament. It describes the place of restraint for the demon world. “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to (Tartaroo) hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment…” 2 Peter 2:4.
Tartaroo is the abyss or "bottomless pit" of Revelation. We know this because when Christ cast the demons out in Luke 8:30-31, they begged Him not to make them go into the abyss. “Jesus asked, "What is your name?" "Legion," he replied, because many demons had gone into him. And they begged him repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss.” This is where the worst of the demon world have been restrained since the flood of Noah. They are kept imprisoned in this “bottomless pit” to this very day, as they are the most dangerous ones of the lot. In Revelation, they are unleashed right at the end. But, they will be put back in there at the return of Christ, and not only them, Satan himself will be restrained there too for 1000 years, after the return of Christ. “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.” Revelation 20:1
The word Tartaroo is only used one time in the Bible. It is translated “hell” in the book of Peter and it only concerns the demon world, so obviously it is not for people... So is the second word translated "hell" the ever burning hell that some teach?
2. Hades…the grave
The Greek word "Hades" in the New Testament is comparable to the Hebrew "Sheol." They both mean “the grave, a pit." In Psalm 16:10, we read a prophecy of Christ which says, "thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; (Sheol) neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." Corruption happens in the grave. This same scripture is quoted in Acts, “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, (Hades) neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." These two identical scriptures one from Acts and one from Psalms, show that Sheol and Hades have the same meaning...the grave, a hole in the ground. The old timers used to “hell” their potatoes out in the winter. In other words, they buried them! “Hades” or “the grave” is used only 10 times in the whole New Testament. There is only one more word for hell left. Since tartaroo and hades are not everburning....what about Gehenna?
3. Gehenna has 3 applications!
Gehenna is the last word left that is translated “hell” in the New Testament. You might think this last word for hell is used hundreds of times in the Bible, but it is only found 12 times in the whole New Testament! And six of the 12 concern the same passage…so they are “duplicates.” The tremendous amount of confusion over an ever-burning hell comes because this last word “Gehenna” has 3 completely different applications in the Bible. If you try to apply one to another, it causes major confusion! Let’s look at all three, starting with the garbage dump of Jerusalem.
1. THE Literal VALLEY OF HINNOM (Ge-hinnom)
This Gehenna is historical…not ever-burning!
This place was located back of Jerusalem and it was horrible! The things they did in this place disgusted God deeply. It was a hellish idolatrous place of child sacrifice. Smoke filled the air. The priests who attended the fires wore black robes to hide the smoke stains. They were called Chemarim meaning idolatrous priests. Kamar means black and this term in neo-Hebrew is still applied to Catholic priests and monks because of their black robes.
“They built high places for Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom (Gehenna) to sacrifice (by fire) their sons and daughters to Molech, though I never commanded, nor did it enter my mind, that they should do such a detestable thing and so make Judah sin.” Jeremiah 32:35
This area later became the burning garbage dump of Jerusalem where dead bodies of criminals and carcasses of animals were thrown. Jeremiah 7:32 prophesies “So beware, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when people will no longer call it Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter, for they will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room.” This is obviously not the everburning hell! Is is historical. On to the second meaning of Gehenna!
2. GEHENNA OF THE MILLENNIUM
This Gehenna fire is established at the return of Christ! Will burn during the Millennium and is not ever-burning!
When Jesus Christ comes back and sets up His Kingdom, it will be right here on earth. Read Revelation 11:15, "The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said:
“The kingdom of the world has become
the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah,
and he will reign for ever and ever.”Also, Zachariah 14 is a prophecy about the return of Christ. It says that He will be King over all the earth! He will begin to meet out justice. Those that insist on mayhem and murder, will be justly executed and their body will be thrown into the garbage dump just back of the temple...yes into Gehenna! But it will not be “ever-burning.” There will be dead bodies of criminals there and they will have maggots eating on them!
Isaiah 66:23-24 has often been misused to “prove” some sort of ghoulish hell in which ever living worms eat on people in an ever burning hell fire. But, the people who propagate this false concept never look at the millennial context of this scripture! Keep that in mind as you read about this “hell fire.”
“From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath (not Sunday) to another, ALL MANKIND WILL COME AND BOW DOWN BEFORE ME, says the Lord, and they will go out and look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; their worm will not die, (not immortal maggots, just busy ones! Note that the scriptures specifically says that these maggots eat on “dead bodies”---not on living people jumping around in hell. And besides, no maggot ever “dies” anyway, because they all turn into flies!)…“nor, will their fire be quenched, (no one puts out a fire God wants to burn) and they (the dead rotting bodies) will be loathsome to all mankind. Those that try to use this to prove an ever burning hell should note that it says this people will look on the DEAD BODIES...not ever living ones.
This Gehenna fire in Isaiah 66 will be ignited at the return of Christ, and it will keep on burning during the whole 1000 year long millennial reign of Christ on the earth. BUT---this Gehenna fire is not burning right now, nor will it be an “ever burning” fire when it does come!
This Gehenna has rotting bodies in it----not ever living ones! It is obviously a physical fire that will exist during the millennium. There is one easy proof that this scripture is millennial! Think about it, when once has all mankind ever come and bowed before the Lord from one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another??? Never----but, this will happen during the millennium!
We will soon discuss the third example of Gehenna called "the Wrath of God," or "The Wrath to Come" but before we go to point number 3, let's look at some important points to remember about the millennial Gehenna in the Potter's Field. Obviously the law is not done away with, if they are required to come and appear before God every Sabbath! And rebellion and refusal to keep God's laws will result in being tossed in the garbage pile or in Gehenna!
To knowingly rebel against God's system and reject Jesus as your future king is dangerous… Now it is time that we look at the 3rd application of the word Gehenna called “the Wrath to come.”
"THE WRATH TO COME…” THE FINAL ONE DAY GEHENNA THAT BURNS THE EARTH UP.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness…” Romans 1:18
Peter clearly says that this “day of wrath” or “day of judgment” comes on a single day. How can hell fire be ever burning then? It is certainly not burning right now---and when this fire does come, which is prophesied by Peter, the whole earth burns up on a single day! “The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. (From “Katakaio,” meaning “to burn down to the ground, i.e. consume wholly: burn up utterly.”) Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation (conduct) and godliness, (*doing what is godly and right protects you) Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the Day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 2 Peter 3:10
The Wrath of God fire is the last Gehenna fire. This is the fire that burns up the entire earth, to prepare the way for the new heavens and new earth, wherein dwells righteousness! This is not an ever-burning fire, nor is it burning right now because it is called “the wrath to come.” Who does this wrath fall on???
HOW TO WALK IN THAT FIRE AND NOT BE BURNED…
Don’t be unrepentant chaff…
John the Baptist said, “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Matthew 3:11-12 Unquenchable simply means that no man will be able to put the fire out that burns up the wicked… God will wipe out the wicked with this fire, but the righteous will not be harmed by it. The story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego walking in the fiery furnace is an example of the baptism of fire that is coming on this earth.
THE UNPARDONABLE SIN…and utter fiery destruction
How do you commit the unpardonable sin? Jude 4 says that we do so by denying or “rejecting” Christ as our Sovereign. (King)
“For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and (thus they) deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.”
Sin or the “transgression of the law” is what always gets us in trouble with God. Unfettered sin is why a person goes to Gehenna. Christ said, “If your right eye offends you (causes you to sin), gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” Matthew 5:28-29 Offend in the Bible simply means “make you sin.” In one fell swoop, Christ had wiped out their license to sin called “grace.” They can no longer say, “I can do whatever I want to do, I’m under grace!” Why??? Because Christ plainly says to rid yourself of whatever causes you to sin, because, it would be better for us to lose a small part of our life, i.e. “our eye,” than to be cast into hell fire! The message of early Christianity was repentance of sin---so that you could receive the Holy Spirit and forgiveness of your sins. Acts 2:37-38 says, “…repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
HOW TO AVOID TOTAL DESTRUCTION....Fear God and keep His commandments, including the 7th day Sabbath. There is no "license to sin." Keeping the law won't give you salvation, but breaking it can get you burned up...permanently.
The Churches of God
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