Death of Endless Damnation

chapter one

the biblical hell

Perverted concepts of Hell

How interesting it is that some have come forward claiming to have had some type of journey to Hell in the spirit, or in some sort of trance at night. Naturally, they precipitate much interest from the Christian community, write and sell many books etc., and often travel to churches far and wide to appear on mostly Pentecostal/Fullness type television programs. (Pentecostalist Mary K. Baxter had a very wild [very unscriptural] so-called journey thru Hell, by which she has no doubt gained considerable notoriety, attention and probably financial gain.) Unfortunately though, what they have to say certainly does not fit the Biblical description of that Biblical place of pain and suffering. I have heard them speak of skeletons with rotting flesh and clothing playing pianos (see Baxter’s so called ‘revelation’ on the internet), maggots and worms abundant, huge snakes slithering here and there, big horrible beasts which attack them and devour chunks of flesh torn from their bodies, falling endlessly through space, on and on myriads of horrors totally unknown to mankind, and revealed to them (?) for us to tremble at.

Bill Weise has written on the subject, a book entitled, 23 Minutes in Hell. While this author has no doubt that his heart is set on winning lost souls, and warning the wicked of the perils of Hell, Mr. Wiese’s description of Hell, and his supposed out of the body experience, in this author’s estimation, is indeed faulty. First, any man can claim anything, but that does not indicate the claim is completely legitimate.

We have no doubt that Mr. Wiese probably did have some sort of dream, but not a literal out of the body experience. Saying so does not make it so. Secondly, that he claimed to see spiders, snakes, 13 foot tall scaly demonic creatures with foot long claws which were used to rip his chest open, things which are all totally foreign to God’s word. Nowhere in God’s word does it say that anything other than fire and isolation are used to afflict the wicked lost. He says that there were demons around the edge of the fiery pit, pushing the ascending lost souls screaming back into the fire and brimstone. Demons, satanic spirits and the Devil himself are not in Hell yet, and when they are sent there, they will not be there to help God punish the wicked, but will be there to suffer for their rebellion against the All Mighty.

To put credibility in what he says he saw would be to be able to say anything was there, even bicycles and roller skates. No doubt the saved are relieved that they will never have to go to such a place (and of course don’t question these visions), and the unsaved rightly scoff at such revelations as being to grotesque and deranged to reflect a merciful creator, especially the man Jesus who had love and compassion for lost souls while here, and who wept over their lost estate.

The unsaved have a valid point here, namely that if Hell is endless and the horrors there are as previously stated, then these hideous sufferings can serve to do nothing but to make God out to be a sadist, or one who delights in inflicting terrible sufferings and anguish on the souls of the damned, and that being for no other reason than to sadistically terrify the lost for endless eternity. (Wikipedia defines sadism: Sadism is the derivation of pleasure as a result of inflicting pain, cruelty, degradation, or humiliation, or, watching such behaviors inflicted on others.) I think not. The Bible is clear that Jesus warned, and warned the lost about the judgment of being placed in Hell-fire, and those warnings were with great sorrow and compassion! If one is warning another about some terrible consequence `to their actions, it certainly shows love and concern to that one being warned. The scripture is clear that …His mercy endureth forever… Ps. 106:7, and that God has "…no pleasure in the death of the wicked Ez. 38:11.

Plainly then God has no pleasure that the wicked must undergo sufferings of the damned in the next life. On the other hand, since it is clear that Hell or the Lake of Fire (Rev. 20) is a place of punishment, that the wicked were …judged according to their works… then it is only reasonable to believe that the unsaved will be suffering a period for their sins, i.e. learning that sin is against God and all He stands for, and that they must suffer for what they have done in the flesh.

No doubt when they have fully suffered for their evil works, the lesson having been learned, they will gladly bend their knee (Phil. 2:10 & Rom. 10:9-10-13) and embrace salvation and the new birth into the family of God. Getting back to a true description of Hell, it certainly is a place of confinement, and is inescapable, the temperature in some levels thereof is extremely hot, but no doubt it is not unbearable. If it were ‘unbearable’ then the pain could not be borne, and God puts on no man what he cannot bear.

While the pain is horrible, and the suffering is great it will not be ‘unbearable.’ No doubt that damned (judged) sinful soul will suffer terrific hunger and thirst, having no rest day or night, extreme exhaustion, no sleep, and as well the total isolation from all family/friends, life’s blessings, and of all good on the earth will certainly be added torment (affliction) in itself. As far as scorpions, spiders, snakes, skeletons playing pianos, rotting flesh continually falling away, and other myriad mind bending terrors in Hell, absolutely not. Jesus the creator of all things in the heavens, earth and under the earth has no interest in ‘terrorizing’ or sadistically ridiculing the lost in Sheol/Hades, but yea only to bring punishment and suffering as a lesson against giving one’s self over to wickedness and neglecting God’s free gift of salvation!

God’s great love and compassion is shown for the all powerful God of the universe to put the lost in such a place as Sheol, (the place of everlasting ‘continuous’ but not ‘endless’ punishment which will ultimately bring that judged soul to bended knee, and fully humbled to repent and embrace the new birth in Christ Jesus). What greater love could be than for God to channel the wicked unsaved in a direction that will ultimately lead to their salvation and redemption? With that view of Hell, who including the wicked could fault God for sending anyone to suffer in Hell?

An Endless Hell ‘Filled’ with Fire and Brimstone?

Another very important consideration is to examine the Damnationists purported accurate (?) description of Hell/Sheol in its entirety. While it is true that there is fire and suffering in parts/sections of this place, they portray it as one which is totally filled with fire, smoke and brimstone etc. Now, where in the Word of God does such a complete description come from? The answer is ‘nowhere!’ Nowhere in the Word of God does it give such a description as that. While there are levels/areas or places in Sheol/Hell that such fire and suffering do exist, as clearly shown from the account in Luke chapter 16 for the wicked, no doubt there are areas there which will be as the ‘suffering in outer darkness’ where there will be weeping wailing and gnashing of teeth. (See Matthew chapters, 18, 13, 22, 24, 25 and Luke chapter 13).

No doubt this/these areas of Hell are in the upper sections/levels thereof. As well no doubt, some places in this ‘spirit underworld’ will be more or less neutral in so far as pain and suffering goes, for those who perhaps have reached the age of accountability/reason with some minor sin and have had an untimely death, such as younger persons etc. Who knows? A compassionate loving God executing justice, certainly will not plunge them into the lowest Hell to suffer endless fire and brimstone along with the incorrigible wicked. We dare not go beyond these above lines due to lack of fuller revelation.

Universal Salvation Plainly Taught in Romans 5

For years this author read, and re-read Romans chapter 5 and yet failed to see that universal salvation is plainly taught there. In simply allowing this important chapter to speak to us and not trying to interpret these verses no other conclusion can be reached other than eventually all souls will ultimately experience salvation and the new birth in Christ Jesus. Following we will quote verses starting with vs.6, and go on thru to the end of the chapter, giving simple comments as we go.

Vs. 6. ‘For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."

1. All of those outside of Christ are easily termed Ungodly. Now the question therefore arises Have not there been millions and millions of souls over the past six thousand years whether Catholic, Muslim, Jehovah Witness, Mormons, Buddhists, Moabites, Sodomites, Hittites, Philistines, Egyptians, etc, etc, who have lived and died without ever coming to a saving knowledge of Christ? How many heathen nations there have been who were or are steeped in false worship and idolatry, and those souls are dying every day without Christ! And NO, the church is not reaching but only a small minority of these souls!

To simply say they have their conscience to judge them (which it will do is true) is still to avoid the plain fact in this verse that Christ Jesus died FOR THEM! Jesus loved and died for these lost souls. If He did indeed die for them then to say that they died in ignorance with a soiled conscience and must be eternally damned due to violation of their conscience with never hearing the gospel, is to say that they were locked away from His death for them. Many and even most of these souls have barely (if ever) even heard of the name of Jesus, and certainly did die mostly in ignorance of the fullness of the gospels claims!

The only way these lost souls could have been saved while alive was for them to be fully educated and evangelized in the simple gospel message under the conviction of the Spirit of God. To respond to the gospel message, these souls would have to have access to its message under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit uses the Word of God, which is the ‘sword of the Spirit,’ no person can for too long resist that call to be saved. The fact Jesus died for them, the ungodly, then at some point they must have intelligent access to the truth of the gospel if not in this life then certainly the next. If such does not come in this life it will in the next. See section entitled, Deaths Improvement of the Wicked. If God does not give ALL of the ‘ungodly’ access to the gospel of free salvation at some point, then it cannot truly be said that Christ ‘died for them.’

Vs. 8-11. But God commendeth His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us…

2. Plain here that ‘sinners’ and ‘ungodly’ are synonymous; all are sinners, so all are ungodly. All means all. Remember, in Adam the entire human race was tested. When Adam fell, the entire human race fell. Now some have trouble with our having been found guilty in Adam, saying that it is not fair for someone else to be charged with the sins of another. The truth is, while we all are each accountable to God for our own personal sins and transgressions, and will be judged accordingly, we still have received the sentence of death, which was placed upon the first man and woman.

Someone says, "But that is unjust, for God to sentence us to death for what another (Adam) did. To which we answer as follows. Let us use a hypothetical illustration. Say an automobile manufacturer mass produces a brand new line of cars, with 100% of the parts used are manufactured and built by different shops in the plant. Let’s say there are 10,000 new cars ready for shipment. Proudly, the company president looks over the cars ready for delivery and shipping, when suddenly one of his R&D men comes breathlessly to him with the bad news that all cars will fail due to a common mechanical defect built into all of them. His department just finished testing one car under road conditions and the motor failed. It seems that all of the engine castings mass-produced have one faulty cylinder water jacket, which was due to a defective mold in the foundry.

What is the solution? Well all engines must be scrapped and new ones installed, what was a defect in one automatically is a defect in all. Now Adam was created a perfect man, with no defects, none at all. Had the afore mentioned automobiles been built with no defect in them, it could not be said that all should be scrapped. Now the Biblical truth being driven at here is simply that we, the entire human race, all persons of all nations and of all centuries up to the last one to ever be born, were tested in Adam.

When Adam fell, we all fell. It must be remembered that Adam was created a perfect man, fully educated, and with perfect faculties, perfect mentally and physically. No man since Adam had that honor, Eve, the same. All who have ever been born since must develop, grow and be educated, must learn, and learning presents many problems since that learning can be, and often is, faulty. Therefore all born into this world are weak, uneducated, subject to being powered by the desires of the fleshly nature, which if followed as it desires to lead us, will inevitably lead us to sin and ruin. That is why the Apostle Paul said in Romans 7:9, "…For I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died, and the commandment which was ordained unto life, I found to be unto