{"id":1123,"date":"2010-11-17T08:00:22","date_gmt":"2010-11-17T07:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cvmen.org.uk\/blog\/?p=1123"},"modified":"2015-02-16T11:17:12","modified_gmt":"2015-02-16T11:17:12","slug":"heaven-is-for-wimps-and-posh-women-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/thoughts-from-the-cvm-team\/heaven-is-for-wimps-and-posh-women-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Heaven Is For Wimps And Posh Women – Part Two"},"content":{"rendered":"

Did you read \u2018Heaven Is for Wimps and Posh Women Part One<\/a>\u2019? Did it annoy you? \u2013 I hope so. Preferably because you sympathised with blokes who can\u2019t connect with churchy views on heaven, not because you thought I was being unfair on the preacher. It\u2019s all lies though\u2014I mean the western secular world\u2019s take on heaven and hell. When you think about the effect this has on ordinary blokes, and when you judge this take against the real thing\u2014well, if there really is a personal force of evil\u2014a devil, then he\u2019s a really cool operator; I mean, really shrewd (1<\/a>). He could twist us around his little finger. It\u2019s frightening.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s this thing which is the greatest thing we can ever experience. What we\u2019ve all been made for, born for and we\u2019re waiting for; the thing which trumps all other pleasures, satisfactions and experiences in life. And he\u2019s got us so we hardly ever think about it and then, hardly ever seriously and often we find ourselves using our flawed church services, as a pathetic illustration of it.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s this thing which really is much worse than your worst nightmare; something which would be the biggest, most heart rending regret you could ever, ever imagine. And he\u2019s got us thinking about it as though it\u2019s an inspiration. He\u2019s insidious, a manipulator, brilliant, and fiendish. And he\u2019s against us.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve got to break the cultural lie that hell is a tough, blokey, jokey even inspiring idea, not a reality. It\u2019s not said directly\u2014he\u2019s far too shrewd for that. It\u2019s all slowly drip-fed by vague associations.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t have to look far to break the lie. We\u2019ve started to produce the beginnings of hell, right here. In this world, people can be innocent victims of a hell caused by other people or guilty inhabitants of a hell caused by themselves.<\/p>\n

Think of how it must have felt, being a child on the wrong side in the Rwandan genocide. You\u2019re hearing the men with the machetes getting nearer and the screams getting louder. Your mum and dad are already dead and there\u2019s nowhere left to run. You\u2019re sinking into a pit of fear and despair with no way out. That\u2019s the tentacles of hell, on Earth in the recent past.<\/p>\n

Think of a young East European woman, an illegal, alone, today in a room somewhere in central London, held captive as a sex slave. She\u2019s kept from making contact with the outside world so near at hand and forced to have sex with ten strangers a night. She\u2019s beginning to lose her mind and wonders whether she\u2019s still a person or whether she\u2019s become just a living piece of meat. Suicide is looking like the only way out. That\u2019s hell\u2019s grip on our country, now.<\/p>\n

Hell must be something like being a father who was in a road accident while driving under the influence of alcohol, and it killed his child. He lives for the rest of his life in an agony of regret. That degree of frustration might be something like Jesus\u2019 meaning when he said hell was a place of \u2018weeping and gnashing of teeth\u2019 (2<\/a>).<\/p>\n

If we can make hells like this in this world where there is still some holding us back by God, through his common graces of law and order and basic civilisation, just think what sort of hell we can make if He finally accepts our repeated rejection of Him and He just leaves us to it, finally and forever outside His help.<\/p>\n

If you found yourself in the real final hell and were conscious of its meaning, surely you would see that you had been completely conned about the whole of life, sold out, had been made the butt of a stinking joke, ratted on, been made a fool of because you were one, used and spat out by the person you realised you had been following\u2014no less than the devil– and who you now saw was the Great Con Artist of all time (3<\/a>), who hated you and who was still laughing at you.<\/p>\n

You hardly need to add any sort of Divine retribution to that. But surely there has to be that as well, however unwanted or revolting the idea might seem to us. Otherwise the unknown, unheard victims of hells caused by other people would never have any comeback. They would not, in the end, matter. People would not, in the end, matter. Without real, final justice you do not matter\u2014but you believe you do.<\/p>\n

We know Jesus once described hell in terms of a local valley (4<\/a>) known to his hearers which had a history of being the ancient site of child sacrifices and which at one time had been the place to burn the entire city\u2019s filth. In their minds it must have been linked with everything which made you feel sick; everything which would disgust you.<\/p>\n

I was once driving off-road in the mountains of southern Spain, and I suddenly found myself driving through the rubbish site of some village or other. Dark smoke filled the air. I was lost and alone and the only things I could see clearly were the glowing red centres of fires looking out at me like angry eyes, from inside smouldering rubbish piles. Until I finally found my way out, I felt something of the effect of Jesus\u2019 illustration, even though for me the place didn\u2019t have the horrific links which that valley had in the minds of his original hearers.<\/p>\n

We should start to describe hell in some accessible earthly terms from today\u2019s world, so men start to take it seriously for what it is.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0Genesis 3:1<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0Matthew 25:30<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0John 8:44<\/p>\n

4.\u2018Gehenna\u2019(Greek), from \u2018Ge Hinnom\u2019(Hebrew) or The Valley of\u00a0 Hinnom\u00a0 south of Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

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