Friday, July 18, 2014

The Ultimate Punishment

I have drafted only a few thoughts regarding the following subject matter.  I prefer to share encouraging messages that uplift the spirit rather than such an alarming topic.  But without the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, how can a person know the fullness of God’s love and the reasons He gave His Son to die on a cross for the sins of mankind?

There is no doubt in my mind that God loves humanity.  To give one’s child to save heathens and sinners like me exceeds comprehension, but God first loved us before we loved him and paid the ultimate price for sin through the brutal death of Jesus.

I believe most everyone has heard the word ‘hell’ spoken sometime in their life; and no doubt they understand that it is a place to avoid.  Old time preachers use to preach sermons of hell-fire and brimstone to their parishioners, because of the obvious; hell is an awful place of torment. 

It seems that with this present generation of preachers, fewer messages center on this dreadful place.  I hear message after message about God’s love, which is certainly needed and received, but messages on hell should not be ignored even though they make the hearer uncomfortable. 

No-one has visited hell to know just how hot it is or if it even exists.  I believe that it is searing hot; a place of endless suffering.  It exists because the Bible tells me that it does.

I do not have to jump off a ten story building to experience the sudden stop at the bottom to prove that death is real.  I need not go into outer space to grasp the meaning of weightlessness when I can read about it in science books.  I do not have to sail across the ocean, like Columbus, to prove that the world is round and not flat. 

The Bible is the inerrant Word of God.  He has protected its integrity through the millenniums for our perusal and the ingesting of truth.  It is the will and testament of God to all mankind, because He desires that no man perish, but that all would come unto repentance. 

God wants to save us from the punishment of hell, which is the sentence for unbelievers that reject God’s Son.  Jesus is the only means of salvation.  Jehovah God instructed honorable men of high moral values and godly principles to pen His words on scrolls as the Holy Spirit breathed upon each of them.  

The Bible is for our spiritual gain and edification, which gives insight about redemption and that it is free to everyone and not earned by anyone's works, lest they boast in themselves.  Salvation is the gift from God through Jesus.  We need only to accept God’s Word as truth and receive Jesus Christ as Lord, and we will be saved.

People are sometimes narrow-minded and quick to say that the Bible is a book of fairy tales and full of errors.  These people have not met the God that I know.  In that He created the heavens and earth and all that dwell on earth, don’t you think He is omnipotent enough to protect His Word from err?  I do!  I believe the Bible is God's Word to you and me.  Its content is for those desiring truth and willing to believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ unto salvation.

People everywhere are pushing their agenda to nullify the Bible as divinely inspired, because it causes them to see themselves as they really are; lost without a Savior.  The Bible reveals the evilness in those that scoff at its truth.  They do not want to perceive for a moment that its content might be correct, so they refuse to accept any of it as being valid for today's needs.  The mere thought of going to hell is more than they are willing to admit could happen.

Believers that abide in the teachings of the Bible and testify of its truth are seen by unbelievers as heretics, (those that hold beliefs opposed to them).  For this reason they removed Bibles and prayer out of public schools and took down the 10 Commandments from walls in courtrooms and city offices.  A Christian in the military can now be court-martialed if they share their faith with any man or woman in uniform.

But the above efforts to stifle truth and any other negative attempts to do likewise cannot cancel out the truth of God’s Word.  Though they burn the Bible, it still does not remove or negate the punishment for such acts of rebellion against Christians or sinning against God.  Hell is still a real place where sinners will spend eternity without God’s presence.

Though hell is the punishment that God created for Satan and his angels, because of their rebellion in heaven; if any person goes there, they enter uninvited; doing so because of their own choices and sinful lifestyle.  They have rejected the only escape from such a place—Jesus.  There is no other name under heaven whereby we can be saved.

I am not referring to hell as being the ultimate punishment in the title of this writing, which in itself is most devastating, but I believe the ultimate punishment is the total absence of God’s Spirit.  Never to feel His loving kindness or the tenderness of ongoing efforts to woo a person to Jesus, even in their sinful state, is beyond my intellectual capacity to grasp.  I cannot imagine what it would be like to not feel the Lord, because the Holy Spirit not only strove with me when I was away from God, but in my every day walk as a Christian He is with me.

Evidenced in Bible scriptures are the last moments before Jesus died on the cross.  He not only endured a manipulated trial with false accusers giving false testimony against Him, but He suffered the scourging of His body, large nails driven through His hands and feet, and the rejection of those around Him.  But when God the Father turned His back on Jesus, this abandonment was more than He could bear.  Jesus cried out with a loud voice!  “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

(Matthew 27:46), “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me’ ”    

The heart of Jesus melted within Him during the crucifixion, but when God turned away from Him, I believe that this was the moment that Jesus became sin; taking upon Himself the sins of the world; every sin from the smallest of white lies to murder in the first degree; especially the sins of those that crucified Him.  While hanging there He said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”

I believe that Jesus suffered the sting of death that the Bible says is sin.  Could it be that He died the death of a sinner; lost, without hope, and feeling what they feel when they pass?  Perhaps the Father had to turn away from His Son, because God cannot look upon sin.  He is holy and all that is good; the total opposite of unrighteousness.

When a person accepts Jesus as their Savior, God the Father sees them as perfect, because of the blood that Jesus shed on the cross.  His blood makes every forgiven sinner pure as the driven snow.  No longer does God see the blackness of a sinful heart, because He sees each individual through the blood of His perfect Son.  We become a new creation through Christ the Lord.  Old things pass away and all things become new, because the blood cleanses us from sin.


Born again Believers are children of the Father in heaven and need not worry about the ultimate punishment of separation.  God will never leave or forsake them, but will always be in their presence throughout eternity.

Written by,
Papa Boyd

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