The word brings bemusement from one segment of the world’s population, fear from another. Often used as a verbal weapon, people have been told to go there. Others are warned that they were going to end up there if their life-style does not drastically change. Sinners are often told that it is a place they will one day “bust wide open.” According to those issuing the warning, other evil souls have already done so. With so much being said about the place, several questions come to mind, for example, what is hell; where is it; what is it like; who goes there, and when? See Life After Death.

Ask people about hell and one will find basically two schools of thought: 1) hell does not exist, but is merely a figment of the religious mind, and 2) hell is a place of fire and torment where those who do not belong to “the church” go immediately upon death. Upon arrival they reportedly come back to life and live forever in a state of unimaginable torment in the presence of an ugly red creature with horns, a long tail and a pitchfork with which he adds to the pain and suffering of the condemned reprobates that surround him. Catholics have their own version, called “Purgatory,” where the dead undergo a well-deserved purging process while waiting for someone to do whatever it takes to get them out. The process can include prayer, financial considerations, etc. on the part of interested parties. I once heard a local celebrity say that his wife and a friend had prayed another friend out of purgatory, but that the process had been quite lengthy in that the deceased had led a sin-saturated, worse-than-normal life. The speaker assured his audience that the ex-sinner, having been extracted from purgatory, was then living with Jesus in heaven. In an earlier posting I told of a man who had used a bottle of booze to help expedite the extraction process.

The common concept of hell found throughout professing Christendom aligns with option #2 as stated above. Until I began studying God’s Word for myself I was certain that #2 was a Biblical fact not to be questioned. I had entered late childhood having been repeatedly assured (threatened) from pulpit and podium that if I did not join “the church” I would end up with the pitchfork-wielding devil grinning at me as I lay writhing in indescribable, never-ending pain and agony. The threat worked.

Is any of this Biblical? “Yes,” say those who have first-hand knowledge of what the church describes as hell. A number of people have reportedly visited hell while experiencing temporary death. Having witnessed horrible scenes of agony, these once-dead souls have come back to life describing scenes very much like option #2. Books have been written and movies made about people of various ages and religious conditions who, upon passing into another dimension, have reportedly witnessed people being tormented in the fires of hell, which is always located underground. I once read the account of a man who, along with a group of boys, had laid on the floor peering downward through a hole into hell where they saw and heard masses of people screaming in fiery agony. Could this be true? Have people actually visited a burning hell or see it from above? Did they actually see once-dead sinners, now alive, being tormented in a burning hell? Are they visionaries who have “seen the light” of truth? Or have they been been deceived by the “angel of light?” Let us consult the only source of Truth concerning these questions.

In Mark 9:43 Jesus spoke of hell as the fire-filled place into which those who do not obey Him will be cast. Let us understand that “hell” in this instance is an English word that has been translated from the Greek word “gehenna.” Gehenna equates with fire. In verse 47 Jesus makes it more clear, stating that one who continues to sin will be cast into “… hell fire,” or the “fire of hell (Gr.-gehenna).” The word “gehenna” is derived from the name of the Hinnom Valley which lies just outside the walls of Jerusalem. In ancient times this was a place where refuse of all kinds was burned, including the corpses of animals and criminals. Everything cast into the valley was consumed by the fire–turned to ash by the constantly burning flames. Jesus used the total destruction of everything thrown into the valley to picture the eventual fate of sinners. But this information does not tell us everything we need to know about the place the church world knows as “hell.” To be continued. L.J.