ꓰternity

Eternity

     There is only one of two places in eternity that we can go: Heaven or Hell.  Each one of us will be placed in one of these two places on Judgment Day to be there forever and ever.  Our Lord in speaking of eternity in Matthew 25:46 says, "And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life".  Notice that the duration of the lost in Hell is exactly the same as the duration of the saved in Heaven, "forever and ever".  It is hard for us as mortals to grasp how long eternity will be, but after we have been there a billion years, eternity will have just begun.

     According to the U. S. News & World Report, January 31, 2000, 36% of people do not believe in Hell.  But Hell is a real place.  To say there is no Hell is to make God a liar.  “Let God be true and every man a liar” (Romans 3:4).  Satan does not want you to believe in Hell.  Satan is accomplishing his purpose since there is very seldom any teaching on Hell today.  It is not a “politically correct” subject.  A person who does not believe Hell is real will most likely go there.  Ignoring or scoffing at Hell will not do away with it. 

      We do not like to think about eternal punishment.  But it evidently must be very important or God would not have told us about it.  Let's first consider what the Lord says about eternal punishment of Hell and then we will turn our attention to a more pleasant thought, Heaven.  Jesus spoke as much about the eternal punishment of Hell as He did any other subject.  He took our punishment and gave His life to keep us out of Hell.  In His attempt to persuade us not to go there, He has given us numerous warnings in His word.

     Our Lord in describing how horrible that Hell will be for the many who will end up going there, says in Matthew 13:42, "And will cast them into the furnace of fire.  There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth".  This definitely will be a horrible and terrible place beyond description. Jesus says in Mark 9:43-48 concerning those who are lost, that they will be "cast into Hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched: where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched".

     Jesus tells us if there is anything in our life that is going to cause us to be lost, to correct it or to get rid of it now.  Notice Jesus says a person is cast or thrown into Hell.  The worm is a flesh-eating maggot that does not die, but will continuously feed forever and ever on the lost in Hell.  In Hell, one is burning over every square inch of his body and even all on the inside but is never consumed.  The continuous fire and the worms will never accomplish the annihilation of any of the lost.  The lost in Hell will prefer to cease their existence, but they cannot.  Their perpetual nightmare of torment will continue forever and ever.  It will never cease.  The lost “shall be tormented with fire and brimstone…and the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night” (Revelation 14:10-11).  The occupants of Hell will never know relief or rest from their torment.  Hell is such a horrible place.  Hell is not a fictitious place, it is real.  

     There will be no reprieve or appeal to a higher court, because we will have been judged by the highest.  The Lord is trying to get our attention and to give us fair warning.  He is pleading with us not to go there because He has already paid our price and taken our punishment.  But we make the choice.  The choice is ours.  We will bear the responsibility and the consequences.

     One of the many warnings Jesus gives us is the true account of the rich man and Lazarus.  “There was a certain rich man” and “there was a certain beggar named Lazarus”.  [The rich man was lost],“And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.  Then he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.  But Abraham said, son remember…and besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us” (Luke 16:19-20, 23-26).  Notice it says there was a certain rich man and a certain beggar named Lazarus.  This is not a fictitious fairy tale.  In Hell people will be in continual unceasing torment and pain in which all will be constantly pleading for mercy.  With their unquenchable thirst they will beg for even one drop of water, but they will not receive it.  How much relief and how long would one drop of water last on the tongue of those who are being eternally tormented in the burning fires of Hell?  It would not last even one second.  We must wake up and heed our Lord’s warning.  Their desperate and hopeless state is permanent where they will remain eternally.  They are condemned there forever.  In Hell people are conscious and will see, feel, wail, and remember as they endure the continual intense pain and suffering.

     The many who end up in eternal punishment will not be there alone.  They will have company. Revelation 20:10 says, "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".  Not very good company to be in.  Notice that the torment goes on "day and night forever and ever".       

     There are many people who scoff at the idea of eternal punishment, but they are scoffing at what God says.  The fire will burn forever and those who are lost will be there in the fire for eternity whether they want to believe it or not.  In eternity their scoffing will quickly change to weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.  We must take what our Lord says in the Bible seriously. Hell is real!  There is no way for the horrors of Hell to be adequately described in human language.  Many people do not realize the danger of eternally losing their souls.  This is very serious!

     Those lost in Hell will be those “whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever” (2 Peter 2:17).  Those in Hell will attempt to find God, “Then they will call on Me, but I will not answer; they will seek Me diligently, but they will not find Me” (Proverbs 1:28).  They will not be able to forget their rejection of God.  There will be no atheists in Hell, because all those in Hell will believe that there really is a God, but it will be too late then.   

     “The Lord knows how to…reserve the unjust under punishment for the Day of Judgment” (2 Peter 2:9).  Hell must be avoided at all costs.  No one can begin to exaggerate how horrible Hell is going to be.  Its misery and anguish is beyond description.  It will never, never, never, ever end.  

    We are being warned, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31) and “Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord we persuade men” (2 Corinthians 5:11).  We must make sure we don’t end up in Hell, and we must warn other people who will listen.  We “must be even more diligent to make your calling and election sure” (2 Peter 1:10).  Jesus has promised, “Be faithful until death and I will give you the crown of life” (Revelation 2:10).  Anyone who ends up in Hell will only have himself to blame.

     In Hell there will be billions of people crying out in indescribable pain and agony for which there will be no relief or hope that things will ever get better.  There will be haunting memories of all the opportunities of salvation that they passed up.  Eternity is forever and has no end.  There will be no opportunity for second chances.  Hell is eternal, final, and irrevocable. 

     We read in Revelation 14:11, "And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever, and they have no rest day or night."  But reading further we see in Revelation 20:15, "And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire".   It is imperative that our name be found in the Book of Life.  Is your name in that book?  Do you know for sure, or are you making a wishful assumption?  It will be too late on the Day of Judgment to find out that your name is not there.

Heaven

     Now let us turn our attention to something more pleasant, Heaven.  Our Lord says in John 14:2-3, "In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there you may be also".  Heaven will be a very wonderful place.  For the few who go there it will be beyond their wildest dreams and they will be totally surprised and amazed.  As we read in 1 Corinthians 2:9, "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him."  There is no way that the glories of Heaven can be adequately described to us mortal beings.  The only way will be to see it.

     Heaven will be the very opposite of eternal punishment.  Revelation 21:4 says, "And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.  There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away".  There will be no weeping, and no wailing, and no gnashing of teeth as will be happening in eternal torment.  But there will forever and ever be nothing but joy, and peace, and happiness, beyond description.  What a wonderful place Heaven will be.  But again, the choice is ours.  We cannot escape the consequences if we make the wrong choice.  We will not accidentally end up in Heaven.  Heaven is a prepared place for prepared people.  Our Lord says in Matthew 6:33, "But seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness."  Going to Heaven has got to be our number one goal in this life.  We must want to go to Heaven more than anything else.

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He paid for us

Christ Has Paid Our Penalty

     We have all sinned, and the penalty had to be paid in order for God to be just.  Christ has paid that penalty.  Romans 5:6-10 says, "For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.  For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.  But God demonstrates His love toward us, in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.  For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life".  It is such wonderful love for God and Christ to have paid our penalty.

     Also, we read in I Peter 3:18, "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God."  Yes, Christ is the just, who had to die for us the unjust, so that it would be possible for us to be brought back to God.  He was the righteous dying for us the wicked.  "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:21).  He was the innocent taking the punishment for us the guilty.  He accomplished for us what we could never accomplish for ourselves.  He paid the debt for us that we could not pay.  If man had not been guilty of sin, there would have been no need for Christ to have died on the cross.  All accountable people are guilty of sin.  But with Christ dying on the cross, God has a way to forgive man and still preserve His own justice and righteousness.  Because of the death and suffering of Christ for us, God can now be just in saving us.  If our goodness could save us then it would not have been necessary for Christ to come into this world and die for our sins.

     The only way that man can be saved is through Christ.  There is no other way.  John 14:6 says, "Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: No one comes to the Father except through Me."  The only way we can get to God is through Christ.  We also read in Acts 4:12, "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."  We cannot be saved by relying on Mohammed, Buddha, Judaism, Hindu gods, denominationalism, or any other false religion.  Neither can we devise our own system of "Christianity" as is being done today and expect it to save us.  Only Jesus Christ can specify the conditions for our salvation, because He paid our price and is our only Saviour.      

     Christ went through much suffering for our sins.  It is beyond our imagination what He endured.  Christ came to this earth for the purpose of dying for our sins.  There are many Old Testament prophesies that foretell the inevitable death of Christ.  For example 700 years before it happened we read in Isaiah 53:5-6, "But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed....and the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all."  Christ’s death was no accident, because this was in God’s eternal plan to redeem man.

     Christ in his omniscience, fully knew what was soon going to happen.  In Matthew 20:17-19 we read, "Now Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples aside on the road and said to them, Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify.  And the third day He will rise again".  Christ went there willingly to die for us.

     Christ was both divine and human.  The human part of Christ dreaded his death on the cross as much as we would if we were on death row.  He fully knew what was going to happen.  When Christ was in the garden of Gethsemane with His apostles the night before His crucifixion, we read in Luke 22:41-44, "And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down, and prayed, saying, Father, if it is your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.  Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him.  And being in agony He prayed more earnestly.  Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground".  Yes, Christ was dreading the horrible death that He was about to endure for you and for me.

     Also, we read in I Peter 2:24, "Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness: by whose stripes you were healed."  Jesus has personally paid the price for our sins, so that we can be made righteous before God.  When a person is made righteous, by obeying God’s plan to save man, God will then save him.

     The human side of Christ knows how we feel.  He had the same feelings, the same sorrows, the same fears, and He experienced pain just like we do.  He fully knows what it is to live a human life.  On the Day of Judgment, no one will be able to point a finger at Christ and say, "You just don't know what it is to live as a human."  Yes He does.  The dread, the fear, the sorrow, the mocking, the humiliation, the spitting, the pain of scourging, and the crucifixion were all dreaded by our Lord.  It hurt Him as much as it would us.  Jesus did not deserve such treatment, but He endured it for our sakes, taking our punishment, in order that God could be just in saving us.  He was the innocent dying for us, the guilty.

     Crucifixion on a cross is the cruelest form of torture that has ever been devised by man.  There is nothing worse.  Our Lord hung there in pain and agony for six long hours in a slow death, enduring punishment, so that God could be just in saving us.  What wonderful love beyond description that God and Christ have for us.  Do we have the same love for Them which is shown by our obedience to Their word?

                 In Jesus name.......... ahtar ( mogok lisulay.)

The Salvation

Our Eternal Salvation

     Are you really sure of your eternal salvation?  This is a very important question, and one that will have lasting eternal consequences.  If you were to die today, do you know for certain that you would go to heaven?  This is a question about which we cannot afford to be wrong, because eternity is very permanent.  One day each of us will know the true answer to this question, "For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ", Romans 14:10.  Every one of us have two appointments that have already been made for us and that we will definitely keep, whether we want to or not.  They are, "And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment", Hebrews 9:27.  These two appointments, death and the judgment, cannot be cancelled.

     The tragedy of what happened in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. on September 11, 2001 shows the uncertainty and brevity of life.  God tells us in James 4:14, "Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow.  For what is your life?  It is even as a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away."

     We must not make an error concerning our salvation in following what "seems right" to us, or that we "feel in our heart that we are saved".  The Bible says in Proverbs 14:12, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death".  Our feelings are not a safe guide, but only the Bible is.

     What prior assumptions have we already made about our salvation?  Many of these assumptions, that people make, contradict what God says in his word to us.  All we have to do is to look around at all of the many differing doctrines that are being taught, and then compare them to what God says in the Bible, and we can see a great difference.  Our Lord says in Mark 7:7, "And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men".  Our worship is vain if it comes from the doctrines of men and not from God.  Can we say that all these many differing doctrines have come from God?  I think not.  I Corinthians 14:33 says that, "God is not the author of confusion."  Or are they from men?  Where else could they have come from, if they did not come from God?  This becomes a very serious question.  Our worship becomes vain and useless, if our doctrines come from men when they meet in their conventions and conferences to decide what they are to believe and do.

     As the apostle Peter told the Jewish council in Acts 5:29, "We ought to obey God rather than men".  Do not believe anything that I tell you, because we are not going to be judged by what I say.  Do not believe anything any other person tells you, because we are not going to be judged by what some other person says.  In fact, we are not going to be judged by what we personally believe.  On the Day of Judgment we are going to be judged only by what the Lord says in the Bible.  That is going to be the only standard for judgment, for our Lord says in John 12:48, "The word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day".  So, if I or any other person cannot point to it in the Word of God, then please do not believe it, because there is too much at stake – your soul!

     Our soul is worth more than the whole world and everything in it.  Jesus says in Matthew 16:26, "For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?  Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?"  Our soul is the part of us that is going to continue to live on forever throughout all eternity.  We cannot afford to lose our soul and be eternally punished.