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The question which we are
addressing is this.
What is your final destination?
Is it purgatory, hell or heaven?
What does the bible have to say
on the matter?
Purgatory
The word purgatory appears
nowhere in the entire bible.
Neither does the concept of
purgatory, although over a billion people
of just one denomination, the
Roman Catholic church, teaches that it exists.
The basic idea is that someone
can be prayed out of the purifying
fires of purgatory and be
promoted to heaven.
One additional problem is that
the bible does not teach that heaven is the ultimate
reward of the true believers.
The promoters of purgatory say
that prayers of the living are required
and more importantly those of
the priests for this to happen.
The most effective way is to pay
the professional priests to pray you out
of this state, by performing a
Mass for ‘the soul of the faithfully departed’.
To put it crudely it matters not
what sort of life you have led
as long as you can pay someone
to pray, all will be well.
The more you pay the quicker
will be your release from purgatory.
The very concept of celebrating a
Mass is wrong and totally against scripture.
There is the problem of idolatry
as it involves bowing down and kneeling to a wafer,
in addition to many other
blasphemous things.
Every time that a mass is
celebrated what is happening is the priest is celebrating
the crucifixion of Christ one
more time.
The Bible however states that
Christ died just once and not many times as per
the whim of any human/Satan
agency.
Hebrews 9:28 So Christ
was once offered to bear the sins of
many;
and unto them that look for him
shall he appear
the second time without sin unto
salvation.
Hebrews 10:10 By the which will we are sanctified
through the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ once for all.
1 Peter 3:18 For Christ
also hath once suffered for sins,
the just for the unjust, that he
might bring us to God,
being put to death in the flesh,
but quickened by the Spirit:
Limbo - Limbus Patris
In addition to hell there is the
idea of Limbo, where the innocent,
but unpurified babies go. The
principle is the same they can be prayed
out of Limbo - Limbus Patris. This is sort of a midway
point between
hell and purgatory.
Once again scripture mentions no
such place.
Hell
The English word Hell hides the
fact that there are several different
words in the bible which are translated
hell.
The break down is as follows.
Sheol is Hebrew
Strongs No 07592
It is translated as hell 31 times.
It is translated as grave 31 times.
It is translated as pit 3 times.
AV-grave 31, hell 31, pit 3; 65
1) sheol, underworld, grave, hell,
pit
1a) the underworld
1b) Sheol-the OT designation for
the abode of the dead
1b1) place of no return
1b2) without praise of God
1b3) wicked sent there for
punishment
1b4) righteous not abandoned to
it
1b5) of the place of exile (fig)
1b6) of extreme degradation in
sin
Gehenna or the Gehenna of
fire.
Strongs No 1067
1) Hell is the place of the future
punishment
call "Gehenna" or
"Gehenna of fire".
This was originally the valley of
Hinnom, south of Jerusalem,
where the filth and dead animals of
the city were cast out and burned;
a fit symbol of the wicked and their
future destruction.
It appears 11 times in the
bible.
Christ used it 10 of the 11
times
and it is always translated
hell.
The origin of the word is Hebrew
and refers
to the valley of Hinnon which
was a public constantly burning rubbish dump.
Christ did not mention it to
frighten people but rather to ensure
that they got the message that
it was very real. In fact as real
as the burning rubbish dump which
His hearers would have been fully aware.
Tartarus
Strongs No 5020 (the deepest abyss
of Hell); ; v
AV-cast down to hell 1; 1
1)
the name of the subterranean region, doleful and dark,
regarded
by the ancient Greeks as the abode of the wicked dead,
where
they suffer punishment for their evil deeds;
it
answers to Gehenna of the Jews
2)
to thrust down to Tartarus, to hold captive in Tartarus
This word which appears only
once in the bible refers to the place of torment
to which the rebellious angels
are confined until their judgement.
2 Peter 2:4 For if God spared not the angels that
sinned,
but cast them down to hell,
and delivered them into chains of darkness, to
be reserved unto judgment;
Hades
Strongs No 86 AV-hell
10, grave 1; 11
2.
The Greek word hades of the New Testament has the same scope
of
signification as sheol of the Old Testament.
It
is a prison #1 Peter 3:19
with
gates and bars and locks #Matthew 16:18 Re 1:18
and
it is downward #Matthew 11:23 Lu 10:15
The
righteous and the wicked are separated.
The
blessed dead are in that part of hades called
paradise
#Luke
23:43
They
are also said to be in Abraham’s bosom #Luke 16:22
All these scriptures give no
suggestion whatsoever, that any one can be prayed
out of any of the areas designated
as ‘hell’.
This is a spurious
non-scriptural teaching.
Heaven
The word heaven appears 551 times in the bible.
The word heavens appears 127
times in the bible.
It can refer to the atmosphere
surrounding the earth.
Genesis 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth
abundantly
the moving creature that hath
life,
and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of
heaven.
It can refer to the vast area
of the universe.
Genesis 1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament
of the heaven to divide the day from the night;
and let them be for signs, and
for seasons, and for days, and years:
Genesis 1:15 And let them be for lights in the firmament
of the heaven
to give light upon the earth:
and it was so.
Genesis 1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the
heaven to give light upon the earth,
It can refer to the area of
Gods throne and its surrounding area.
2 Chronicles 6:39 Then hear
thou from the heavens,
even from thy dwelling place, their prayer and their supplications,
and maintain their cause, and
forgive thy people which have sinned against thee.
2 Chronicles 6:33 Then hear
thou from the heavens,
even from thy dwelling place,
and do according to all that the
stranger calleth to thee for;
that all people of the earth may
know thy name, and fear thee,
as doth thy people Israel, and
may know that this house
which I have built is called by
thy name.
The teaching that our final
destination is heaven promotes the idea that
we will be in heaven where God
is at present.
The main problem is that while
man is trying desperately to get to heaven
God is patiently waiting to come
to earth.
I wonder if while on the way to
heaven these proponents of destination
heaven pass the Eternal on His
way down to earth what would they do?
Christ returns to the Earth with
his bride the New Jerusalem.
Whatever interim steps there
might be, the final destination is the earth.
Revelation 21:2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem,
coming down from God out of
heaven,
prepared as a bride adorned for
her husband.
3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying,
Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them,
and they shall be his people,
and God himself shall be with them,
and be their God.
9 And there came unto me one of the seven angels which
had the seven vials full of the
seven last plagues,
and talked with me, saying, Come
hither,
I will shew thee the bride, the
Lamb’s wife.
10 And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high
mountain,
and shewed me that great city,
the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,
At this time, the earth is the
final destination of the Eternal God and his created mankind.
Psalm 37:11 But the meek
shall inherit the earth;
and shall delight themselves in
the abundance of peace.
Matthew 5:5 Blessed are the
meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
It is not a small thing that the
Creator God gave up his splendour
of His heavenly abode to come to
earth.
He came humble and despised the
first time.
Isaiah 53:3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of
sorrows,
and acquainted with grief: and
we hid as it were our faces from him;
he was despised, and we esteemed
him not.
The good news is that His second
coming will be with power and great glory.
Revelation 19:11 And I saw
heaven opened, and behold a white horse;
and he that sat upon him was
called Faithful and True,
and in righteousness he doth
judge and make war.
12 His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many
crowns;
and he had a name written, that
no man knew, but he himself.
13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood:
and his name is called The Word
of God.
14 And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white
horses,
clothed in fine linen, white and
clean.
15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should
smite the nations:
and he shall rule them with a
rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress
of the fierceness and wrath of
Almighty God.
16 And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written,
KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF
LORDS.
In the following scriptures we
see that we will get an inheritance
and that our reward is reserved
in heaven for us.
We also see that this will be awarded
when Christ returns.
Colossians 3:24 Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive
the reward
of the inheritance: for ye serve
the Lord Christ.
1 Peter 1:4 To an inheritance incorruptible,
and undefiled, and that fadeth
not away, reserved in heaven for you,
Revelation 22:12 And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward
is with me,
to give every man according as
his work shall be.
Because the record of our
reward/inheritance is kept in heaven,
it does not mean that we will go
to heaven any more than if the document
of a property which we will
inherit is held in a bank that we will go to live
in the bank.
Heaven is where the records, the
books are kept.
Revelation 20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great,
stand before God; and the books
were opened: and another book was opened,
which is the book of life: and
the dead were judged out of those things
which were written in the books,
according to their works.
Many of us think of having a
little luxury apartment of gold and precious stones etc.,
in the kingdom of God as our
reward.
Many think of our inheritance as
a place,
and even use scripture to
justify this belief.
Darby John 14:2 In my Father’s house there are many abodes;
were it not so, I had told you: for I go to prepare you a place;
We have to ask what is the Father’s house?
The Father’s house is where He dwells.
We have already quoted above where the Eternal dwells in Revelation 21.
The abodes are the people and
their position in the New Jerusalem.
We do not to concern ourselves
with praying for the dead,
but rather to diligently seek to
save as many people as we can.
Salvation requires a freewill
decision of the individual to accept Christ and to repent,
not a remote decision by others
to manipulate their removal from punishment by prayer.
We have to be careful not to
judge others, as we have absolutely no idea
how they will be judged by the
Eternal.
First of all it is not our
business.
Secondly we are making a
spiritual judgment which we are not equipped to make.
Matthew 7:1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
We can be assured that all will
be judged mercifully and in love.
We might find that many whom we
might condemn because they do not
conform to our concepts are in a
much higher position in the kingdom
of God than, we who have been
given so much, while they have been given
so very little.
Our goal is to be a part of the
New Jerusalem and to help and encourage
any who are brought to us to
walk in the light of Truth.
John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth,
and the life:
no man cometh unto the Father,
but by me.
What is of critical importance
is not what is our destination,
but rather what am I?
Our goal is to be a spirit
filled obedient believer.
If we are genuine ‘Christians’,
we will find that right now we
already experience a little bit
of heaven right here on earth in
the midst of the chaos, and confusion
which surrounds us, because the
Peace of God dwells in us.
We need to greatly appreciate
that repentant obedient believers already
have the fullness of the Godhead
dwelling in them.
Although in our experience we
only have a small taste of this,
it does not negate the fact this
is the most stupendous thing possible,
and cannot be remotely compared
to living in any building no matter
how luxurious.
We cannot conceive what it will
be like when we experience this in its fullness.
We must remember that although
we might feel that we know everything
already we only see through a
glass darkly.
1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly;
but then face to face: now I
know in part;
but then shall I know even as
also I am known.
The wonderful truth is that:
1 Corinthians 2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor
ear heard,
neither have entered into the
heart of man,
the things which God hath
prepared for them that love him.
Our Final destination is to be
the bride of Christ, a part of the New Jerusalem.
The only way
out of this dilemma is Jesus Christ.
He is the only way of escape.
Praise the Lord.
Come
soon Lord Jesus.
Amen.
(Bible Explanations,
Messages of Life, Hope
& Encouragement)