The message of the LORD to a lost world is this: ‘I do not desire that you go to hell. I made you for My own joy and for everlasting fellowship. You are My creation, and I love you. Call upon Me while I am near, and I will hear and answer you. I want to forgive you and bless you.’ [1]
In her book, A Divine Revelation of Heaven and Hell, Baxter writes about a vision of walking through hell with Jesus over 30 days. Some of the encounters sound so incredibly familiar that our own spirits begin to grieve.
“My soul is truly in torment. There is no way out. I wanted to follow you, my sweet LORD, I will regret that forever. I planned to serve you someday – when I got ready. I thought you would always be there for me. I was one of the most sought-after women of my time for my beauty. I knew God was calling me to repent. All my life He drew me with cords of love, and I thought I could use God like I used everyone else. He would always be there – He would try so hard to get me to serve Him, while all the time I thought I didn’t need Him. Oh how wrong I was! Because Satan began to use me, and I began to serve, Satan more and more. At the last, I loved him more than God. I loved to sin and would not turn to God.
“Satan used my beauty and my money, and all my thoughts turned to how much power he would give me. Even then, God continued to draw me. But I thought, I have tomorrow or the next day. Then one day while riding in a car, I was killed in a terrible accident. LORD, please let me out.”
The encounters the author sees in hell are heartbreaking, but the response from Jesus is always the same: It is too late, judgment is set.
There are differing judgments in hell – all are horrific and all are eternal. God did not make hell for us, He loves us. He made hell for Satan and his league of fallen angels that obey Satan. The message of the Gospel is clear – trust God’s love for you and be saved for His eternal kingdom. God knows that the evil perpetuated on earth is the outcome of Satan’s influence; He knows that you’ve been influenced by this evil during your lifetime. He invites you to recognize that you are loved and were made for something so much more than the life we experience on this earth. He invites you to trust His offer of salvation by coming to Him, confessing your sins, and recognizing your need for a Savior, then thanking Him for being your savior. (See John 3:16-21) The acceptance of the Gospel is the seed of eternal life. When that seed is planted in your heart, you do all that you can to protect it, nourish it, guard it, and God will make it grow.
God calls us to a relationship and the only thing stopping us, is us! We have a will that desires to be independent and selfish… Satan loves this. We’re so easy to manipulate! He will constantly tell us that we don’t need God. Satan will tell us that we are perfectly capable of defining what is good on our own leading us to define God on our own. That is some crazy, powerful marketing folks. If it wasn’t for God’s love constantly calling out to us with the beauty and majesty and goodness of His creation around us as well as our consciences nagging us for more, for something else, we may easily neglect His call.
Satan tells us that there is plenty of time to investigate the spiritual longing that seems just out of reach, we should probably just enjoy the moment – enjoy the goodness around us. And if we find something that is good, but not fully satisfying, then maybe we just need more! Here’s how that deception works: A glass of wine with friends is enjoyable, so more wine, much more wine, with or without friends, must be even better! 🤦♀️
Accepting God’s offer for eternal life now is critical, but it is also spiritual. We must learn to wrestle with natural/earthly knowledge and spiritual truth. What is normal and acceptable must change… and change can be scary. As humans living in a sinful world ruled by Satan, the master manipulator, we have a great deal of experience at being manipulators as well. We have learned from the master. We even lie to ourselves. We know right from wrong, but we make wrong choices, minimizing the consequences or we call it ‘survival’. We do what is wrong. thinking we have embraced human progress while knowingly dismissing God. Placing our faith and trust in Jesus as our savior is completely different from how we used to live. We no longer feel the need to secure our own survival or acceptance, we recognize that Jesus has guaranteed it already and that changes everything! People will notice and that’s okay – do it anyway!
As faithful believers we know that 2,000+ years ago, when Jesus took the punishment that we deserved, God erased our sins from our records. 🥳We are assured of our place with Him in His kingdom forever. If we die, before He returns, we know that we simply sleep in peace until time ends and He blows the trumpet calling us to Him, in glorious new bodies that will never rot or decay. We will enjoy the ’very-good’ creation that God made for us. We will rule with Him over this creation and the curse, caused by sin, will be gone.
Faithful believers have the assurance of the truth of all of these things revealed by God. And they cannot be persuaded by manipulation anymore. Their hunger and thirst has been fulfilled and they just KNOW they have found the answers, they know the truth, and live in peace. Each day on earth may be troublesome; temptations still exist. Sickness, death and suffering still breaks our heart, and Satan still thrashes about even though he’s been defeated, but salvation changes our perspective and gives us new tools and strategies and power to cope. We know we are loved and protected and saved for eternity; we live through these troubles with that truth strengthening us.
Pseudo believers try the insurance strategy. They see the outward changes in a believer and think, if they just do the same things, they can be saved too. They think their behavior will earn them the right to an eternal life in Heaven… if there is a Heaven… they’re not really sure. They may say the words, but they don’t really believe them. They won’t allow the seed to be planted in their hearts because they won’t turn to God. They’ll plead ignorance of their sin and use the sinful world around them to justify their ignorance – their focus is still on the world trying to see just how much they can satisfy themselves in this life. They are like the bystanders in the days of Jesus’ ministry – they want more bread, they want to be healed, the changing water into wine was cool, but they’re not really sure about following Him.
The truth of the Gospel tells us you can’t have both. You cannot serve two masters. You are either part of the kingdom of God or part of the kingdom of this world. Satan will entice you in many ways to stay in his kingdom. Satan knows scripture and he knows that if he can keep you from Jesus in this life, then he has kept you from God’s Kingdom, forever.😠
Pseudo-believers have no peace. While they want the assurance that faithful believers have, they also want the rewards in this life that Satan promises. Pseudo-believers want to ‘figure out’ how to get both, but it doesn’t work that way. All good things that exist now in this world are gifts from God, calling you to Him. Satan will lie and promise you great rewards but he cannot deliver. Faithful believers receiving gifts in this life are thankful to God and want to give back to Him. This is an act of love to share the gifts we have with others and that act reveals itself to be its own reward. In blessing others when we are blessed, we get a glimpse of God’s joy giving us gifts as we share those gifts with others.
When God gives you a gift, and you think you deserved it, you have missed the whole message. Pseudo-believers receiving gifts tend to think they have ‘figured it out’ – they think they are being rewarded for what they have done. This is very dangerous. Satan repeats the message that their reward is because of their behavior and the pseudo-believer will continue in their ways, apart from God. Even the gifts received by a pseudo-believer never fully satisfies their deepest desires because they are still separated from God. A cycle of trying harder for something better will wear this person out. The cycle never ends until this person dies or until they turn to God, truly repenting of their sins, and placing their trust in Jesus. They must place their very life into His hands before time runs out.
There are those that scoff and mock Jesus. They dismiss their conscious knowledge of sin and their need for repentance. They find comfort with others who believe the same as they do. Then in hell, they cry out, “Lord have mercy! Haven’t I suffered enough?”
There are those that knew Jesus, but when earthly trouble appeared, they blamed Him and in time grew to hate Him. Hell is torment for them as they remember all the opportunities they had to repent and turn back to Jesus. They remember all the people He sent with encouragement that they ignored. They regret forever that they would not repent and believe the Gospel. It is awful to think of an eternity in hell with all your senses and all your memories and all the times you chose to reject the only one who could save you.
There were those that preached the Gospel but refused to like anyone who was different in race or color and led others to feel the same. They took money and the trust of others for their own pleasure. One cried out, “LORD, now I will preach the truth to all the people. Now, Lord, I’m ready to go and tell others about this place. I know that while I was on earth, I didn’t believe there was a hell, nor did I believe you were coming again. It was what people wanted to hear, and I compromised the truth to the people in my church. I made my own rules about heaven and right and wrong. I know I led many astray… but I repent now.”
But Jesus knew the man’s heart. He said, “You not only distorted and misrepresented the Holy Word of God, but you lied about your not knowing the truth. The pleasures of life were more important to you than the truth. I visited you Myself and tried to turn you around, but you would not listen. You went on your own way, and evil was your lord. You knew the truth, but you would not repent or turn back to Me. I was there all the time. I waited for you. I wanted you to repent, but you did not. And now the judgment has been set. You should have told the truth, and you would have turned many to righteousness with God’s Word, which says that all unbelievers will have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.”
At that, the man shook his fist at Jesus and cursed Him.
This book is a solemn journey and worthy of our consideration and meditation. We examine our hearts. We look at our expectations for eternity as well as our days remaining on earth and then we search for truth in Scripture. Our eternal lives are at stake and so are the lives of our loved ones. Let us make sure to live our lives in such a way so that when others hear the invitation of God calling them to His kingdom, they know who they can turn to when they need help combatting the lies of the evil one. Kingdom life begins as a child and children need help and guidance. It is a gift to mature in the ways of God; it is a greater blessing to share that with others.
[1] A Divine Revelation of Heaven and Hell by Mary K. Baxter 2019 Lowery Ministries International.
I love this statement I copied and pasted below and I think of how long I just refused to be ALL IN! Oh how I pray that all people would discover how wonderful a relationship with Jesus truly is.
“God calls us to a relationship and the only thing stopping us, is us! We have a will that desires to be independent and selfish… Satan loves this. We’re so easy to manipulate!”
Amen – great prayer, Annelie.
When He opens our eyes to the truth of that manipulation, it takes strength and perseverance to turn away from the lies. Our relationship with God, beginning as dependent children, makes new life possible! Our God is an awesome God and He gives us His strength. Lord Jesus reigns – He cannot be manipulated… I will stand with Him, today and forever💞