Advice from Hell

If you are reading this it is not too late!!!!  Over 2000 years ago it was too late for me! ☹  I went through my short life in your world, believing that I was a good man, at least better than most.  I was thought of by others as a good husband and father, a productive employee, a leader and respected citizen in my small town.  I went to synagogue, paid my tithes and was always ready to give to those who begged in the streets, poor wretches.   And I heard this itinerant preacher they called Jesus on more than one occasion speak of the Kingdom of Heaven, of which I most certainly thought myself worthy.  This same Jesus also warned many more times of Hell, however I believed this to have little to do with someone like myself.   Besides, most of the religious leaders judged Him to be a false prophet, misleading, shall we say, the “less informed”.  Also, I was casually acquainted with one of His brothers, who thought He was insane.

I lived a relatively long, comfortable life, an ethical life by most standards. But death came unexpectedly, and upon my last breath I immediately saw a glorious figure in dazzling light before me whom I believed to be an angel ready to take me into Heaven.  However, the words that came from that figure’s lips terrified me beyond any words I had ever heard in your world when He said, “Depart from Me you worker of iniquity, I never knew you!!!”  And from that moment on, light departed from me and I have lived in darkness and shadows ever since.  I was in Hell.

Since I have been here, I have learned that Hell is essentially a cosmic prison – the place where men and women from throughout human history, who lived lives centered on themselves rather than God, living for their purposes rather than His, will reside throughout eternity, forever separated from the glorious life with God for which we were created.  Unlike consignment to prison in your world, there is no appeal, no parole, no pardon, no completion of your sentence, no escape through death.  Your time in Hell is forever!

I have found Hell to be a place of unmixed, unending pain and suffering, as incapable of exaggeration I imagine, as are the joys and pleasures of the redeemed in Heaven.  There is hardly anything that you can experience or conceive of in your world comparable to the terror, pain and suffering we experience here in Hell.

It is a place of unimaginable horror, void of any of the goodness, grace and kindness of God you experience, at least in part, while in your world.  It is a place of unending emotional, mental and physical agony and torment. And there are no drugs, no distracting entertainments, no laughter, no consoling relationships, nothing to mediate the unending misery of my existence.

In my five senses, which I now understand that God gave me to experience the infinite variety of pleasures He created for mankind to enjoy, I now experience only continuous pain, agony, and torment. All that I can see amidst the darkness and shadows is ugly, disgusting and vile.  The unending stench that permeates the environs of Hell is so offensive that I want to cut off my nose.

Everything I touch brings only excruciating pain, and the ongoing heat is unbearable!! The only sounds, the only voices I hear are cursing’s, obscenities and groanings, intermingled with the weeping and gnashing of teeth inherent in a people who have been cursed and forsaken by God.  In addition, we have to put up with the devils and demons constantly mocking, taunting and ridiculing us for believing their lies, which resulted in us joining them in their rebellion against God, as well as in their eternal punishment for doing so.  And even though we still hunger and thirst, there is nothing in Hell to satisfy either.

Hell, despite the multitude who are here, is a place of abject loneliness, a place where no one knows your name or cares to, a place where everyone here hates you and you hate everyone, including yourself, wherein shame and self-loathing is taken to a whole new level.  It is a place where interpersonal violence runs rampant, as we have been loosed to act on our most base and vile instincts and lusts.

Since I entered this horrid place, my mind has been filled with shame and regret, tormented day and night by the knowledge that my needs, my desires, my longings for true love and intimacy, for joy, pleasure and delight, for significance, meaning and purpose, all continue to burn passionately within my soul, yet with no hope of ever being fulfilled as I exist now only as an object of God’s wrath.  All of my faculties are now given over to nothing but enduring incapacitating pain and anguish, wherein I am unable to do anything but curse God , inviting more of His wrath   Thus, the only future I have is one of learning more of the depths of God’s wrath and of His hatred of sin.

And that is of course, what makes Hell, truly Hell – the hopelessness, the realization that there will be no rescue from nor end to my suffering – ever.   But there is hope for you, reader of this litany of misery. It is in the Lord Jesus Christ (yes, we confess Him here as Lord, though contemptuously).  “HEAR HIM!!!” “TRUST HIM!!!” “OBEY HIM!!!” “LOVE HIM!!!”

Grace, Peace and HOPE  ×