And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments. .. Luke 16:23

The message and seriousness of Hell is real and urgent, for no man or woman knows the day or the hour the death on this side will come knocking at your door. It is this reason this article is here. To present you with Bible truths that you may read, investigate for yourself and make your own decision as to the reality of Hell, and then I pray you give your life to Jesus in this lifetime. As it is only in this lifetime in which you can repent (turn away from sin and receive Jesus).

This decision is the most important decision you will ever make. Most people think it is okay to put off thinking about these things, but ignorance, lack of knowledge, or non-belief of Hell does not make it any less real. I pray for every person that reads this article that as you read the Holy Spirit will speak to your heart and mind and brings these words to life to you. I pray that you make an intelligent decision about your future.

Jesus mentioned Hell many times in the New Testament, we can be certain that Hell does exist. We know this because, God always speaks the truth and He always adheres precisely to His word.

The Bible tells us that Hell is a place of extreme pain, of ...weeping, and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:12 & 13:42-50, 25:30, Luke 13:27-28). Most sermons now are geared towards money and prosperity. Although these things are necessary for the Church to rise up financially for there is truly a great work to be done, but the Gospel Message cannot be lost in the process. I’ve heard many Christians deny that Satan, Hell and demons exist. Many do not believe that there a spiritual war raging and don’t believe in spiritual warfare, giving Satan an undeniable advantage. Satan knows his best attack can come if he can convince people that he is not real. If this were so Jesus certainly would have never mentioned it and never compelled man to repent for without an eternal judgment, sin becomes a trivial issue and Jesus’ dying on the cross for remission of sin becomes null and void.

One thing I know is that Satan is very deceptive and tricky at what he does. Another tactic he uses is the media. If you go into a video store there is a very large section of what the media call “horror movies”. These movies are about Satan, demons and Hell. His tactic here is that when most people watch television and movies, they condition their minds to think that this is not reality and therefore when these people are approached with issues such as Satan, Demons, and Hell they associate them to the scenes in the movie and write them off as nonrealistic as well.

To help you in your investigation were going to examine the place the Bible calls hell. I include an excerpt from Beyond Deaths Door by Dr. Maurice Rawlings and also my own personal experience. No I have not been to hell and back, but I have justify this life as we know it. So I can assure you that the soul does live on, it does not die when you take your last breath in this life.

I grew up in Miami, Florida in an area that is pretty bad; the area was actually at one time called Dodge City. My family who was well known for drugs and violence sold and used drugs, so therefore I was caught up into that lifestyle. I gave my life to the Lord at the age of 14, but because of my home environment and not having much knowledge I drifted away from God. I still believed in the Lord Jesus and prayed sometimes but I did not go to church. At that time I felt that I was still young and had time to get my life right with God when I got older.

I was seventeen when this incident happened. One day I was hanging out with my cousin who also sold drugs and a friend of his that I had not seen before. Before we justify he stashed some drugs in our house. We rode around for about two hours, doing nothing in particular just hanging out. Around 3:00 pm I told them that I needed to get home and they dropped me off.

About two hours later my a friend of my cousin knocked on my door and told me that my he wanted me to bring the package (drugs) that he had stashed at our house and that he had sent him to get me. I thought nothing of it since they had just justify a couple of hours before. So I got the package and hopped in the car with him. He drove to a nearby high school, went around to the back and stopped the car. He said that my cousin was around the corner at a building that he pointed to. Still not thinking I went with him. A few seconds later I felt something in my back and went to turn around. He said “just keep walking”. My common sense finally appeared and I knew something was wrong. I knew nothing to do except panic.

When we got to a point that was very secluded he knocked me to the ground. I began to fight with him and he put the gun to my head and said if I did not keep quiet that he would blow my brains out. So I just started to cry softly. As he was raping me he had one hand over my mouth and my nose and one on my throat choking me, I was suffocating and passed out . The next thing I remember is being up in the air as if I was floating high above the trees. I looked down and saw him on top of me doing his business. I realized that I was dying. It was so weird, watching my body lying there on the ground with him on top of me. I began to pray and ask God not to let me die. I had a son who needed me and who I did not want to grow up in the lifestyle that I was in. I pleaded with God to let me live.

Now I saw no hell, I saw no heaven. I only know that I justify my body and was up above somewhere between the clouds and the treetops. I have no idea of how long I was out of my body, but once he removed his hands from my face I went right back into my body. He snatched me up and began threatening me about not telling. He drug me back to the car shouting I do not know why I did not kill you, but you better not tell anybody or I will finish the job. I just sat in the car crying and praying quietly. I thought he would take me back to my house, but instead he dropped me off at a church on the corner from my house.

I sat there on the church steps trying to comprehend what had just happened. And again I realized that I was actually dead just a few minutes before, I cannot even begin to explain how I was feeling. I do not know how long I sat there or even what exactly was going through my mind. I do remember telling God how grateful I was for Him allowing me live and raise my son. I remember asking God to take us out of that environment, I was tired of it and did not want to live like that any more.

Finally I got up and went home, told my mother what had just happened and she called the police. Over the years there have been four other times that I know I should have been dead. I guess the enemy has been trying very hard to get rid of me. But Glory to Jesus, I am still here to glorify and magnify God. And praise God He is using me for His glory despite my shortcomings. And I do know for sure that life does not end with your last breath here on earth.

According to the Bible, Hell is a very real and terrifying place of torment for nonbelievers and unrepentant sinners. The Bible continually warns of a place called hell. Jesus mentioned the reality of Hell many times within the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and in the book of Revelations. Hell is also mentioned or implied in many other books in the New Testament. In fact, there are over 162 references in the New Testament alone that warns of hell. And the Lord Jesus Christ uttered over 70 of these references!

By examining the scriptures, we can learn a great deal about the place we call Hell. In Luke 16, Jesus Christ gives a frightening picture of hell:

 ... the rich man also died, and was buried;  And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And 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 that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.  And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my fathers house: For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. (Luke 16:22-28)

What a horrible experience for someone to remember all the opportunities they had to receive Salvation through receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior but having refused to do so and then finding themselves cast into Hell for eternity, suffering and eternally separated from God and His goodness and from their saved loved ones.

You may ask the question if you God is so good why would he allow anyone to go to hell. You should realize this is not his desire that is why he sent His son to die so that you would not have to go to hell. You should also realize that it is only by His goodness that you have life on this earth. Even as a sinner, God is good to you and eagerly desires that you turn away from sin and turn to Him so that He can forgive you and cleanse you from all sin. God is giving you an opportunity to turn away from your sins and turn to Him. However, whether you believe it or accept it, God has every right to take your life at any moment. When I woke up the morning I died, no one told me that today might be your last. I had no idea of what was to take place. It is not wise to put off dedicating your life to the Lord.

Several years ago a book was published, entitled Beyond Death's Door by Dr. Maurice Rawlings. Dr. Rawlings, a specialist in Internal Medicine and Cardiovascular Disease, resuscitated many people who had been clinically dead. Dr. Rawlings, a devout atheist, considered all religion hocus-pocus and death nothing more than a painless extinction. But something happened in 1977 that brought a dramatic change in the life of Dr. Rawlings! He was resuscitating a man, terrified and screaming, descending down into the flames of hell here is his story:

More and more of my patients who are recovering from serious illnesses tell me there is a life after death. There is a Heaven and a Hell. I had always thought of death as painless extinction. I had bet my life on it. Now I have had to reconsider my own destiny, and what I have found is not good. I have found it really may not be safe to die!

 The turning point in my own thinking occurred because of the event I alluded to previously. I requested that a patient perform what we call a stress test to evaluate complaints of chest pains. In this test we exercise the patient and simultaneously record the heartbeat. A treadmill machine paces the patients’ exercise so that he slowly builds up to a jog, then to a run. If the heart record (EKG) goes haywire during the exercise, we can be sure the patients’ chest pains originate in the heart, explaining the source of his angina pectoris, or pain in the chest.

This patient was a forty-eight-year-old white male who was a rural mail carrier. He was of medium build, dark haired, and had a personality that would please anyone. Unfortunately, he represented one of those rare instances where the EKG not only went haywire, but the heart stopped dead right in my office. Instead of fibrillating (twitching without a beat), the heart had just plain stopped. He crumpled to the floor, lifeless.

With my ear to his chest, I could hear no heartbeat at all. With my hand alongside his Adams apple, I could feel no pulse. He gave one or two sighing breaths before he quit breathing altogether. There were scattered muscle twitchings and then convulsions. He was gradually turning blue.

Although six other doctors work as partners in the same clinic, it was late afternoon and they had gone on to other hospitals to make evening rounds. Only the nurses were justify. But they knew what to do and their performance was commendable.

While I started external heart massage by pushing in on his chest, one nurse initiated mouth-to-mouth breathing. Another nurse found a breathing mask, which made it easier to expand his lungs for him. Still another nurse brought the emergency cart containing pacemaker equipment. Unfortunately, the heart would not maintain its own beat. A complete heart block had occurred. The pacemaker was needed to overcome the block and increase the heart rate from thirty-five beats per minute to eighty or one hundred per minute.

I had to insert a pacemaker wire into the large vein beneath the collarbone, which leads directly to the heart. One end of this electric wire was manipulated through the venous system and justify dangling inside the heart. The other end was attached to a small battery-powered gadget that regulates the heartbeat and overcomes the heart block.

The patient began coming to. But whenever I would reach for instruments or otherwise interrupt my compression of his chest, the patient would again lose consciousness, roll his eyes upward, arch his back in mild convulsion, stop breathing, and die once more.

Each time he regained heartbeat and respiration, the patient screamed, I am in Hell ! He was terrified and pleaded with me to help him. I was scared to death. In fact, this episode literally scared the Hell out of me ! It terrified me enough to write this book.

He then issued a strange plea: Do not stop ! You see, the first thing most patients I resuscitate tell me, as soon as they recover consciousness, is Take your hands off my chest; you are hurting me ! I am big and my method of external heart massage sometimes fractures ribs. But this patient was telling me, Do not stop!

Then I noticed a genuinely alarmed look on his face. He had a terrified look worse than the expression seen in death ! This patient had a grotesque grimace expressing sheer horror ! His pupils were dilated, and he was perspiring and trembling he looked as if his hair was on end.

Then still another strange thing happened. He said, Do not you understand? I am in Hell. Each time you quit I go back to Hell ! Do not let me go back to Hell !

Being accustomed to patients under this kind of emotional stress, I dismissed his complaint and told him to keep his Hell to himself. I remember telling him, I am busy. Do not bother me about your Hell until I finish getting this pacemaker into place.

But the man was serious, and it finally occurred to me that he was indeed in trouble. He was in a panic like I had never seen before. As a result, I started working feverishly and rapidly. By this time the patient had experienced three or four episodes of complete unconsciousness and clinical death from cessation of both heartbeat and breathing.

After several death episodes he finally asked me, how do I stay out of Hell? I told him I guessed it was the same principle learned in Sunday school that I guessed Jesus Christ would be the one whom you would ask to save you.

Then he said, I do not know how. Pray for me. Pray for him! What nerve! I told him I was a doctor, not a preacher.

Pray for me! He repeated.

I knew I had no choice. It was a dying mans request. So I had him repeat the words after me as we worked right there on the floor. It was a very simple prayer because I did not know much about praying. It went something like this:

Lord Jesus, I ask you to keep me out of Hell. Forgive my sins. I turn my life over to you. If I die, I want to go to Heaven. If I live, I will be on the hook forever.

The patients’ condition finally stabilized, and he was transported to a hospital. I went home, dusted off the Bible, and started reading it. I had to find out exactly what Hell was supposed to be like. I had always dealt with death as a routine occurrence in my medical practice, regarding it as an extinction with no need for remorse or apprehension. Now I was convinced there was something about this life after death business after all. All of my concepts needed revision. I needed to find out more. It was like finding another piece in the puzzle that supports the truth of the Scriptures. I was discovering that the Bible was not merely a history book. Every word was turning out to be true. I decided I had better start reading it very closely.

...The man, by the way, has stayed on the hook. He is now a strong Christian, although before this incident he had gone to church only occasionally. Although he is still too shy and reticent to speak before groups, he has remained a compelling personal witness for Jesus Christ on a one-to-one basis.

My eyewitness report

I previously worked in a dialysis clinic, where I saw a lot of people die. One incident in particular I will never forget. There was a young man there that the nurses dreaded dialyzing because he was so mean and bitter. He never had a kind word for anyone; he never took care of himself, adhered to his diet or did anything to increase his short life span. One day when he came in for treatment he was in bad shape. During his treatment he went out. Suddenly you saw people scurrying around trying to save his life. The doctors and nurses were working frantically to save his life. He would go in and out, in and out. Each time they would bring him back he had the most horrifying look on his face and he kept saying “help me I don’t want to go there, help me I don’t want to go”. One of the nurses who was a Christian began to pray for him. She asked him if he wanted to accept Christ and be saved. He yelled “no!” then he went out and did not come back. When he died his face retained the fright that he was experiencing. This was the most horrifying thing I have ever seen on this side of earth. Beloved I am convinced the Hell is real and that our souls live on.

Hell is a place of fire. The man in Luke 16:24 cries: . . .I am tormented in this flame. In Matthew 13:42, Jesus says: And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. In Matthew 25:41, Jesus says: Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire . . . Revelation 20:15 says, And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

The Bible gives the location of Hell. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, He descended into hell. In Acts 2, Peter is speaking, verse 31, ... seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not justify in hell. Matthew 12:40, Jesus Christ says:  “ For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whales belly: so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The Bible is clear Hell is inside the earth.

Ephesians 4:9, says of Jesus: Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth. On page 85 of Beyond Deaths Door, Dr. Rawlings writes patients who described hell said, ... this place seems to be underground or within the earth in some way.

Hell is forever. Jesus says in Matthew 25:41: ... Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, ... Rev. 14:11: “The smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night.”

In Luke 16 Jesus gives us The Parable of the Shrewd Manager , which is an account of hell "In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.'

"But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.'

"He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.'

"Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.'
" 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'

"He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' "  (Luke 16:23-31)

Will it be Heaven or Hell? Today is the day for salvation! Tomorrow may be too late! What could possibly be worth eternity in hell? No wonder Jesus Christ warned so much about hell! No wonder Jesus said in Mark 8:36, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

Jesus Christ took hell very serious. So seriously He died on the cross so mankind does not have to experience Hell. He says in the book of Mark chapter 9: “And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: (Mark 9:43-47)

Don’t get caught dead without Jesus! You may have made some terrible mistakes in your life. There may be some things in your life you would give anything to be able to change. Beloved, I assure you if you die without Jesus Christ it will be the worst mistake you could possibly make! Has there ever come a time and a place in your life, when you received Jesus Christ as your personal Savior? If not, you are on the way to hell!

Do not let anyone convince you that when you die it will be all over! I have given you several accounts that this is not so. The Bible says in Hebrews 9:27: And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. Revelation 20:15 says: “If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

If you have never received Jesus Christ as your Savior, bow your head this minute and ask the Lord Jesus Christ to save you. Do not put it off another second! Nothings worth taking the chance!

Its simple to be saved ... Realize you are a sinner. As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: (Romans 3:10) ... for there is no difference. For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23)

Realize you cannot save yourself. But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness is as filthy rags; ... (Isaiah 64:6) Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, ... (Titus 3:5)

Believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay for your sins. Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, ... (1 Peter 2:24) ... Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, (Revelation 1:5)

Simply by faith receive Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: (John 1:12) ...Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. (Acts 16:30,31) For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

Would you like to be saved? Pray this prayer, and mean it with all your heart.

Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and unless you save me I am lost forever. I thank you for dying for me at Calvary. I come to you now, Lord the best way I know how, and ask you to save me. I now receive you as my Savior. In Jesus Christ Name, Amen.

If you just prayed this prayer with a sincere heart, please share your joy with us! Send us an email. We want to rejoice with you. We will also post it on our board, so that others can rejoice as well. The bible says confess, speak and do not be ashamed of your decision to make Jesus, Lord and Savior!

God bless you

Angeline

Glory to Jesus Christian Digest   - ReadyTravel.Org