Hell

Scriptural discussion of Hell What does the Bible reveal about Hell? A wonderful, thorough survey of all Scripture says about this place of the dead, dispelling myth and revealing the love and goodness of God towards men.
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What the Bible really says about HELL

In Hell, What Can People Do?

In Psalm 6:5, "the sweet psalmist of Israel" wrote, "In death there is no remembrance of you. In Sheol, who will give you thanks?" The word "remembrance" here refers to worship, but in using it, David was not suggesting that those in Hell forget about God; rather, he was saying there is no worship of God in Hell. Other verses in the Bible also use "remembrance" this way, such as Hebrews 10:3: "In those sacrifices, there is a remembrance made of sins every year."

By such Scriptures, the Reader is at first left with the impression that in Hell there is no worship of God at all. That would certainly be the case if we were speaking only of the worship God ordained in the Old Testament, with its animal sacrifices, holy days, circumcision, and water cleansing rituals, etc. obviously, there cannot be any of that kind of worship offered to God from Hell. But it is equally true that in Hell, there is no worship of God such as He has ordained in this New Testament. Jesus described the only acceptable form of New Testament worship: "True worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is a spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth." Now, there may well be some true confessions in Hell because everyone in Hell, like the rich man in Luke 16, is forced to acknowledge their miserable spiritual condition, but there is no holy Spirit within people in Hell to sanctify their worship, thereby making it acceptable to God (Rom. 15:16).

Paul taught that Christ living within us is our "hope of glory" (Col. 1:27). Then, if those in Hell have no hope, Christ cannot be living within them. If while on earth, any damned people belonged to Christ, then in Hell they are temples that have been abandoned by the Spirit of God. It is probably the case that such unfaithful saints were abandoned by the Spirit before they even died. At any rate, we know they are without the Spirit once they are in Hell itself, for the Spirit gives us hope, and Hell is the home of the hopeless. Those in Hell who refused Christ while on earth never received the Spirit at all, but children of God who are cast into Hell at the end of their earthly lives are "reprobate", as Paul would put it, for Christ no longer dwells within children of God who are reprobate (2Cor. 13:5).

From at least the tragic story of Aaron's two foolish sons in Leviticus 10, and throughout the rest of the Bible, we are repeatedly warned that worship is acceptable only if God's Spirit inspires it (Rom. 15:16); that is, worship is acceptable to God only if it is offered as God wills. Then, another reason there is no acceptable worship in Hell is that God no longer communicates His will to the dead. After all, what is there that God desires any dead man to do? The land of the living is the only place where there is hope, and therefore, labor. Job said of death, "There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest. There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. The small and the great are there, and the slave is free from his master" (3:17-19). For those who have died, all deeds are done, and their judgment is set. The wicked man's degree of torment is already determined, being based on the deeds he performed while living on earth. Therefore, God does not speak to him. David seemed to understand this: "Unto you will I cry, O Lord my rock! Be not silent to me; lest if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down into the Pit" (Ps. 28:1).

Prayers on earth that receive no response from God are a warning; they are an earthly foretaste of Hell. A truly godly life is characterized by responses from God to one's prayers (Isa. 58:6-9a; 1Jn.3:22). And such communion with God is an earthly foretaste of the heavenly world to come.

Nobody?

Isaiah joined his voice with others concerning what souls in Hell can and cannot do when he said (38:18), "Sheol cannot praise you. Death cannot celebrate you." But this declaration, repeated by others in the Old Testament, brings up a question as to whether this inability to praise God applied to all who were in Hell at that time or just to the wicked dead. Rhetorical questions about this were asked by David and others. David strongly suggested that to go down into Sheol was to go into a dreadful place where God is praised by no one. In Psalm 30:9, David sang, "Shall the dust praise you? Shall it declare your truth?" In Psalm 88:10-11, David's friend Heman asked, "Shall the dead arise and praise you? Shall your lovingkindness be declared in Sheol or your faithfulness in destruction?" And in Psalm 115:17, David stated plainly, "The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence." So, it appears that neither the righteous nor the unrighteous dead praised God in Sheol.

Solomon said, "Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in Sheol where you are going" (Eccl. 9:10). The curse of God on man after Adam's sin was that he must labor (Gen. 3:19). In Hell, that is one curse from which man is released forever, for in Hell there is no labor. There are no occupations or professions, nor philosophical or scientific inquiry, nor clever invention, nor even a thought for learning and growing in knowledge. There will be degrees of suffering in Hell, but there is little indication of any other distinctions among the damned. Earthly prestige and position will be forever lost and will mean nothing. No one will be intimidated or ruled over by anyone else. The earthly kings in Hell offered this greeting to the once feared king of Babylon when he descended into it: "Are you also become weak as we? Are you become like one of us?" (Isa. 14:10). All his fearsome glory and power were gone. They were left on earth for some other proud fool to glory in; there is no such glory in Hell.

To have God, by His Spirit, reaching out to us, willing to teach us, warn us, correct us, and guide us in His holiness and truth, is an element of earthly life that is so common that it is routinely taken for granted and vastly undervalued. Carnal men, because of covetousness and ignorance of holy things, pant after rare earthly objects rather than humble themselves to receive the free gift of God. God's great kindness in pursuing us, the living, so completely envelopes all mankind that we cannot even imagine what it would be like to live in a place where He is altogether and forever silent. But untold millions are experiencing that fearful reality right now. The Word of God no longer comes to the wicked dead. It was with that knowledge that Isaiah said to God, "They that go down into the Pit cannot hope for your truth" (38:18). Those seeking to know the truth should be warned to seek it here and not to wait to obtain the knowledge of God in the grave.

The Church of Your Choice

In Hell, then, without the Word of God, people are forever damned to call on God, to "worship", so to speak, however they think is best. Each person in Hell seeks God - earnestly, unashamedly seeks God - in whatever way he thinks will best serve his own desperate purpose. Alas, they have no other choice, for the damned are liberated forever from the holy Spirit's pressure to worship God as He demands. This means, of course, that they are cursed forever to follow the advice of some well-intentioned religionists today who exhort men here on earth to do such things as "worship with the church of your choice." If a fundamental part of the damnation of Hell is the absence of the opportunity for true worship of God, then lost souls will be forced forever to worship, so to speak, "with the church of their choice."

Contrary to what I stated earlier, the Lake of Fire will offer its inhabitants a choice, but only this one. In that place of final punishment for the wicked and unbelieving, the damned will be granted the choice of how they would like to worship God. But damnation will also impose upon them this restriction: they may only worship God as they see fit to do so because the way God sees fit for men to worship Him will no longer be an option. That opportunity is only for the living.

The condition of people in Hell is reminiscent of the sad comment at the end of the book of Judges, describing the miserable confusion of God's people at that time: "Every man did what was right in his own eyes." Not one of the rebellious Israelites who was living according to "what was right in his own eyes" understood the danger of self-willed service to God. Self-willed hearts cannot understand that to live as it seems best to oneself is rebellion against God.

But, what of it? What does it matter that the wicked cannot understand? Are men to be judged merely by what they understand, by the standards they set for themselves, or by the standards for human conduct established by the Creator? At the time of the Judges, the wise were earnestly asking, as the wise are always asking, "What does God say?" for they knew that what God says is the standard by which we will all be judged.

If those ancient, rebellious Israelites never repented of worshiping God as they thought best, rather than as God commanded them to worship, then it is certain that they are still worshiping God that way now, as they writhe in the tormenting flames of Hell. And, Reader, if you are worshiping God now in a way that you have chosen instead of worshiping in the way that God has ordained, then you are already experiencing a foretaste of the Hell to which you are headed.

In ancient Athens, Paul declared that God, in ages past, tolerated some errors in worship among men but that since the time God's Son gave his life for our sins, "God . . . commands all men everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:30). No man now has the right, the authority, or even the permission to worship the Creator as seems right to himself. Throughout the Bible, the death penalty hung over the head of anyone among God's people who dared worship God in a way God had not ordained (e.g., Lev. 10:1-2). But it is Hell, and afterward the Lake of Fire, that will be the supreme display of God's righteous judgment on those who worship and live as they see fit while on earth. On them, God will have the last laugh. "Because I have called, and you refused, I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded (but you have made light of all my counsel, and would have none of my reproof), I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when your fear comes . . . Then they shall call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. . . . Therefore shall they eat the fruit of their own way and be filled with their own devices" (excerpts from Prov. 1:24-31).

The next time you see a sign or bumper sticker that reads, "Worship with The Church of Your Choice", know that you are seeing with your own eyes an invitation to enjoy a little bit of Hell on earth.

What, Me Choose?

Man cannot possibly choose the right way (Mt. 19:25-26); he does not possess such wisdom. "Where shall wisdom be found?" asked Job. "And where is the place of understanding? Man knows not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living. The depth says, 'It is not in me'; and the sea says, 'It is not with me. ' It cannot be gotten with gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof . . . Whence then cometh wisdom? And where is the place of understanding, seeing it is hidden from the eyes of all living and kept close from the fowls of the air? Destruction and Death say, 'We have heard the fame of it with our ears.' God understands the way thereof, and He knows the place thereof . . . And unto man He said, Behold! The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding" (excerpts from Job 28).

Even a man of small intelligence, if he believes these verses, can comprehend the fact that if wisdom "is not found in the land of the living", then the wisest and most diligent of living men will be unable to find it. A truly wise man, then, confesses the uselessness of his own wisdom, and while there is hope, he cries out to God for true wisdom, knowing that it is not to be found anywhere on earth. This path to holy wisdom, this way of humble, child-like supplication to God for help is hidden from the proud and worldly wise, and Jesus rejoiced in that: "I do praise you Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the learned and intelligent and have revealed them to babes. Yes, Father, for so it was pleasing in your sight" (Mt. 11:25-26).

God must choose you (Jn. 15:16) and draw you to the light of His Son, Jesus Christ (Jn. 6:44); otherwise, you will never find it. Man cannot even guess what is right about God. It is hidden, and there is not in any man the ability to discover by his own work and wisdom the holy truth of Christ. We must be invited and then guided to the throne of grace.

So, the answer to the question, "What can people do in Hell?" is this: Not much, other than to suffer helplessly and worship in their own way. And after that, when the damned have been cast into the Lake of Fire, they will be able to do even less than they could do in Hell.