What Would Jesus Do...in Hell???
In 2000, a Texas police officer was shot and killed in the line of duty. He was a rookie. His name was Aubrey Hawkins (29) of the Irving Police Department. Hawkins was killed by the “Texas Seven,” the infamous group of men who had escaped from John Connally Prison the same year. Prison escapee George Rivas, the Texas Seven ringleader, had orchestrated robbing an Oshman’s Sporting Goods store in Irving. It was here that this convict and his cohorts, looking over their shoulders, running from the law in utter desperation, faced a fateful decision when encountering Officer Hawkins—kill him and escape or be captured and let him live? The decision was quickly and brutally made. Hawkins was shot and then run over. They knew how badly they wanted to escape their pursuers. Even when maintaining freedom meant killing a police officer, Rivas decided to go through with it. It was at this point that an ordinarily infamous gang became the officially deadliest mob in America.
How could these thugs have been called the deadliest men in America? Because under Texas law, anyone who takes the life of a peace officer gets either a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole, or the death sentence—no exceptions. Knowing this, Rivas and his pernicious posse could now kill anyone else they wanted and it would be a freebie. If you're already going down for life in prison or death, how can you be further penalized for any additional murders you commit?
When Rivas was finally caught, he asked for the death sentence and rightly received it. Hey, smart move on his part! Even a cretin of a human being shouldn't be kept around without a purpose. Lifetime incarcerations, much like the religious idea of eternal torture, sound justifiable to some, but they accomplish nothing. Why should a person lay around and be kept in a cage for 50 to 70 years? The purposelessness, the hopelessness, the pointlessness of it is cruel in its own rite. The waste, the consumption of resources in keeping useless human beings alive can’t be justified.
Having thought about this topic as it has to do with earthly matters, I soon began to wonder about it as it pertained to heavenly matters; namely, what would God have the unsaved do as we live out our eternity in Hell? Since Jesus doesn't want to rehabilitate us, what would he have us do in the devil's abode?
My mother used to say, "Go to your room and think about what you've done." Do you think maybe this is what Jesus is really saying to us by confining us to Hell? If this is true, it reflects wholly vapid reasoning because it implies rehabilitation, but the Bible says there isn't going to be any rehabilitation for the damned. (Luke 16:19-31)
Does God want us to suffer? If so, then he is a sadist, a monster who takes pleasure in the suffering of others, but the Bible says he doesn't take pleasure in such suffering. (Ezekiel 18:24) And if it is the case that God hates it when the wicked suffer, then why has he constructed it so that the wicked suffer eternally? It makes not a lick of sense.
So, I want to know: what does God want us to do in Hell, amidst those agonizing moments of regret and reflective thought? Amongst those endless feelings of everlasting contempt, what does God have to say to us then? When we can force back the pain of damnation long enough to think coherently, what does Jesus want us to think about? What should we do when there is no redemption, no hope, and not a drop of mercy to be found? What do we do when we’ve blown our last chance? Could a perfectly just God “run out” of mercy and have a “last chance”? If Jesus was in our lost condition, suffering eternal retribution, what would he do?
If there is some sort of hierarchy in Hell, some sort of satanic "pecking order," should we follow it to serve our master, Lucifer? What about the demons that are right under him? Can they command us too? Will demons sodomize us there as it happens in prisons here on earth? Are we supposed to obey if higher-ranking hell-spawns command us to sodomize Hell's new arrivals as sort of an initiation? Or, should we lead a salvation-less ministry in hell, in the bleak hope that perhaps the Catholics were right, and we are merely in a purgatory, and may get out if we are spiritually redeemable? Should we bathe in the hotter parts of hell to please God, hoping maybe he will see us suffering enough and change his mind? But how can we do these things, knowing full well that there is no relief, that there is no reward for us ever, and that God never changes his mind (Numbers 23:19)? When the misery is too much, does Jesus still sympathize? Does he hear us at all down there? Does he even care? Should we bother to pray, to count beads, to chant, to beg, to call upon the name of Christ?
In life, God doesn't like idleness. He likes for us to work and stay busy. But in death, he doesn't care about us anymore. He doesn't love us anymore, and apparently, doesn't even want to think about us anymore. We know this because the bible has no commandments or advice for the hellbound. By God not caring, he inadvertently encourages more evil in Hell. Because of God's neglect of us at that point, we might as well resolve to be more wicked than ever, just like the Texas Seven. We might as well wish and think bad thoughts, pleasing ourselves by looking lustfully at the "hot" curves of another cute little dancing demon on the equivalent of a table-top at a topless bar in Hell. We ought to steal from Hitler’s magma hole, and as much as is possible, add to the suffering our fellow sufferers are already being subjected to. If it’s possible, maybe I can assist Genghis Kahn in another torso-chopping raid? Maybe I'll get to bunk with Ivan the Terrible and play Chess?
God is a hypocrite. He tells us to always love those who hate us because if we love only those who love us, we are no better than sinners who do the same (Luke 6:38), but God doesn't practice what he preaches; his enduring love abides only to those who love him and will receive his invitation to come to the wedding feast of heaven. But once the rest of us (the unsaved) die, his love for us is extinguished, as is his mercy. He lets us exist only for the purpose of suffering, but with no hope of redemption, with nothing to look forward to ever again. He is a quitter who has given up on his wayward children. He has left them out on the street to be forgotten about. He is worse than a mother who leaves her children to starve, scampering for old food between the cushions of a couch. When they die, they are forgotten about, but when we die, we continue to live...to live and to suffer. No wonder the annihilationists find such Christ-like character and great comfort in their doctrine that a merciful God could never create any other hell except eternal sleep!
Christians spend a tremendous amount of time and energy getting us prepared to meet Jesus in the afterlife. For the saved, it's going to be one great big party/worship service in the New Jerusalem. But what about when the afterlife commences for the unsaved? What then? And why do we hear so little about it nowadays? Why do Christians avoid talking about it? Could it be that they are ashamed to talk about a God who plans to torture his own children?
Christians say so much about a God who has a plan and purpose for everything and everyone. But he clearly doesn’t, not for the godless. No, God keeps junk. Like an old, eccentric packrat with psychiatric issues, lounging in her bathrobe, staring out a window, sipping tea, before going into a wide-eyed tirade about the neighborhood kids, God shows purposelessness and extremely poor planning. God keeps junk. What a disappointing revelation!
(JH)
How could these thugs have been called the deadliest men in America? Because under Texas law, anyone who takes the life of a peace officer gets either a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole, or the death sentence—no exceptions. Knowing this, Rivas and his pernicious posse could now kill anyone else they wanted and it would be a freebie. If you're already going down for life in prison or death, how can you be further penalized for any additional murders you commit?
When Rivas was finally caught, he asked for the death sentence and rightly received it. Hey, smart move on his part! Even a cretin of a human being shouldn't be kept around without a purpose. Lifetime incarcerations, much like the religious idea of eternal torture, sound justifiable to some, but they accomplish nothing. Why should a person lay around and be kept in a cage for 50 to 70 years? The purposelessness, the hopelessness, the pointlessness of it is cruel in its own rite. The waste, the consumption of resources in keeping useless human beings alive can’t be justified.
Having thought about this topic as it has to do with earthly matters, I soon began to wonder about it as it pertained to heavenly matters; namely, what would God have the unsaved do as we live out our eternity in Hell? Since Jesus doesn't want to rehabilitate us, what would he have us do in the devil's abode?
My mother used to say, "Go to your room and think about what you've done." Do you think maybe this is what Jesus is really saying to us by confining us to Hell? If this is true, it reflects wholly vapid reasoning because it implies rehabilitation, but the Bible says there isn't going to be any rehabilitation for the damned. (Luke 16:19-31)
Does God want us to suffer? If so, then he is a sadist, a monster who takes pleasure in the suffering of others, but the Bible says he doesn't take pleasure in such suffering. (Ezekiel 18:24) And if it is the case that God hates it when the wicked suffer, then why has he constructed it so that the wicked suffer eternally? It makes not a lick of sense.
So, I want to know: what does God want us to do in Hell, amidst those agonizing moments of regret and reflective thought? Amongst those endless feelings of everlasting contempt, what does God have to say to us then? When we can force back the pain of damnation long enough to think coherently, what does Jesus want us to think about? What should we do when there is no redemption, no hope, and not a drop of mercy to be found? What do we do when we’ve blown our last chance? Could a perfectly just God “run out” of mercy and have a “last chance”? If Jesus was in our lost condition, suffering eternal retribution, what would he do?
If there is some sort of hierarchy in Hell, some sort of satanic "pecking order," should we follow it to serve our master, Lucifer? What about the demons that are right under him? Can they command us too? Will demons sodomize us there as it happens in prisons here on earth? Are we supposed to obey if higher-ranking hell-spawns command us to sodomize Hell's new arrivals as sort of an initiation? Or, should we lead a salvation-less ministry in hell, in the bleak hope that perhaps the Catholics were right, and we are merely in a purgatory, and may get out if we are spiritually redeemable? Should we bathe in the hotter parts of hell to please God, hoping maybe he will see us suffering enough and change his mind? But how can we do these things, knowing full well that there is no relief, that there is no reward for us ever, and that God never changes his mind (Numbers 23:19)? When the misery is too much, does Jesus still sympathize? Does he hear us at all down there? Does he even care? Should we bother to pray, to count beads, to chant, to beg, to call upon the name of Christ?
In life, God doesn't like idleness. He likes for us to work and stay busy. But in death, he doesn't care about us anymore. He doesn't love us anymore, and apparently, doesn't even want to think about us anymore. We know this because the bible has no commandments or advice for the hellbound. By God not caring, he inadvertently encourages more evil in Hell. Because of God's neglect of us at that point, we might as well resolve to be more wicked than ever, just like the Texas Seven. We might as well wish and think bad thoughts, pleasing ourselves by looking lustfully at the "hot" curves of another cute little dancing demon on the equivalent of a table-top at a topless bar in Hell. We ought to steal from Hitler’s magma hole, and as much as is possible, add to the suffering our fellow sufferers are already being subjected to. If it’s possible, maybe I can assist Genghis Kahn in another torso-chopping raid? Maybe I'll get to bunk with Ivan the Terrible and play Chess?
God is a hypocrite. He tells us to always love those who hate us because if we love only those who love us, we are no better than sinners who do the same (Luke 6:38), but God doesn't practice what he preaches; his enduring love abides only to those who love him and will receive his invitation to come to the wedding feast of heaven. But once the rest of us (the unsaved) die, his love for us is extinguished, as is his mercy. He lets us exist only for the purpose of suffering, but with no hope of redemption, with nothing to look forward to ever again. He is a quitter who has given up on his wayward children. He has left them out on the street to be forgotten about. He is worse than a mother who leaves her children to starve, scampering for old food between the cushions of a couch. When they die, they are forgotten about, but when we die, we continue to live...to live and to suffer. No wonder the annihilationists find such Christ-like character and great comfort in their doctrine that a merciful God could never create any other hell except eternal sleep!
Christians spend a tremendous amount of time and energy getting us prepared to meet Jesus in the afterlife. For the saved, it's going to be one great big party/worship service in the New Jerusalem. But what about when the afterlife commences for the unsaved? What then? And why do we hear so little about it nowadays? Why do Christians avoid talking about it? Could it be that they are ashamed to talk about a God who plans to torture his own children?
Christians say so much about a God who has a plan and purpose for everything and everyone. But he clearly doesn’t, not for the godless. No, God keeps junk. Like an old, eccentric packrat with psychiatric issues, lounging in her bathrobe, staring out a window, sipping tea, before going into a wide-eyed tirade about the neighborhood kids, God shows purposelessness and extremely poor planning. God keeps junk. What a disappointing revelation!
(JH)