Читать книгу Journey To Hell - A.W. Trenholm - Страница 9

3. The Sanctuary

We were galloping into a wall of sand in the middle of a barren wasteland in the heart of Hell.

There was no sign of this wonderful place called Sanctuary or Paradise, that Elatia had said was not far away. The sandstorm stood like a great silicon barrier blocking our sight as well as our way. The torrent of driven sand, traveling with such a force that the swirling grains stung my skin, filled my lungs until I began to cough violently. It was impossible to breathe in this blinding vortex of misery. I coughed violently and felt Elatia, dismount and draw her sword as she led the horse still deeper into the storm cloud. She seemed to cut away at the swirling sand until a patch of open ground was cleared, and I could see what appeared to be a bridge leading to an entrance just the other side of this very wide and very deep chasm. Across this gulf I could see beautiful hills and white houses surrounded by lovely trees and gardens.

“That is the Sanctuary! It is a safe place for travelers such as us to rest and pray and prepare for our difficult journey ahead. It is also a place where searching and penitent spirits can learn more about God. Of course, they first need the faith to get through the sandstorm. Many such secure havens are set aside by God as spiritual reserves. The truth is that this sacred zone has existed ever since the very beginning when the Lord created the Earth. This zone was originally much larger and acted as a base where angels could come and rest, and relax a bit. Since the time of the Fall and the slaying of Abel, it has served many different purposes. For a long time it became the resting place of the good spirits of people who died before Jesus came. Those souls from the predeluvian world who were found worthy all waited here for the Promised One to appear and establish the Kingdom of God. Some had to wait hundreds of earth years. It became a great school for learning patience and wisdom, as they were able to see the fruit their lives bore on the Earth.”

This revelation only increased my curiosity and although we both were eager to cross over the bridge, I had questions I wanted to ask. Elatia was ever patient and understanding of this novice’s insistence on quizzing her about everything and disrupting her mission of rescuing people out of Hell.

“You mean to tell me that this place was like a reservation for the spirits of just people?” I asked.

“Yes, some of them came here, but some were taken up higher in the spirit to the place we call the mountain of God.”

I was still trying to get it straight. “There seems to be some discussion about men like Moses and Elijah, whether their bodies were taken also. Moses and Elijah appeared on the mountain to talk with Jesus, as Peter and John testified later. I assume that they came down from Heaven to be with Jesus, but Jesus had not prepared His city yet so was there a place for them in Heaven?”

“Your understanding of Heaven is a little limited,” Elatia explained. “You seem to think that the city, New Jerusalem that Jesus built for His disciples on the mountain of God, is all the Heaven there is. When Jesus said that He would go and prepare a place for them, He wasn’t implying that there was no other place in Heaven for them. Building a special city for them was only the beginning of His great plan for bringing the Kingdom of God to Earth. But first He had to finish His mission on Earth. Jesus, remember, was the key used by God to restore order in Creation and unlock the mysteries concerning the Kingdom of God in compliance with the prayer, ’thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.’ “

I interjected, “There are so many differing teachings about Heaven and life in the spirit. As soon as someone draws a circle around what they believe to be all the truth that one needs to know, God comes along and draws a bigger circle of truth that includes their circle plus a lot of other circles as well.”

“One reason you’re here, Travis, is to discover the different circles of truth there are to things mentioned in the Bible. After you’ve seen how much more there is to this region than you thought, your question may be, ‘Will I ever be able to see the whole picture or will God keep revealing greater dimensions beyond what we know and presently understand?’ ”

“Will God keep moving the goal posts of our understanding farther out every time we think we have reached them?” I asked.

“I suspect that He will keep things interesting for eternity,” she agreed. “But it may take that long just to properly introduce Himself because there is that much to learn about Him.”

”Getting back to understanding Heaven, Saint Paul says that he was caught up to the third Heaven. Are there different levels of Heaven?” I asked, eager to understand more.

“Yes, there are different levels in Heaven, but getting to go to a higher level works the opposite from getting a promotion on Earth. In God’s Kingdom those who go higher are humble souls who were the servants of all.”

“Speaking of Heaven, how does the city of New Jerusalem fit in?”

“Jesus commissioned the building of New Jerusalem so that those who His Father had given Him could be with Him to behold the glory which His loving Father had given Him before the world began. There were a lot of angels and saints at work helping Him to build it, along with His Father as well. But His city was not the only dwelling place for those righteous men and women who died before He came to Earth. Each person was judged according to his works, and taken to a place or position in the spirit world fitting his station, the role he played on Earth. Different saints went to different levels in the city of the living God. Remember that Jesus and the angels, and presumably certain saints, lived in a very nice Heaven that had many mansions in it before the physical world was created. What you have to realize is that the spirit world is not some static place that never changes. Only God Himself never changes. He said that heaven and Earth will one day pass away but the Word of God will never pass away.”

“You are saying that some saints went up into the eternal realm, while others were sent to the Sanctuary.” Seeking more specifics, I asked, ”Can you give me an example of anyone who went to Paradise, Heaven or Hell?”

“Yes. The thief on the cross who repented was told by Jesus ‘Today, shalt thou be with me in paradise.’ Jesus also told the story of the rich man who went to Hell and saw Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham. In that example we see a man punished in Hell and we see Abraham and Lazarus up in Heaven. But remember the story of the witch in 1 Samuel who called up Samuel at Saul’s request. Samuel’s spirit was at rest in the Earth. Where do you think Samuel went when he died? Up to Heaven to be with Abraham and Lazarus, or down to the Paradise in Hades in order to reflect a bit more on his life?”

“It seems that he went down to reflect a bit on his life on Earth”, I replied. “Maybe because Samuel, like his mentor Eli, had raised some problematic sons.”

“Jesus visited Hell for three days, and probably was there in the Sanctuary, to greet the thief when he died. And as you will see the Sanctuary is built on one solid rock foundation, symbolic of the Lord Himself.”

Still wanting more clarification, I asked, “But I thought that Jesus visited the prisoners in Hell itself. If He went into the Sanctuary to be with all the departed saints, how could He visit and preach to the souls in Hell, and take the keys of Hell and death away from the Devil, since He Himself said that a great gulf divided those in Paradise from those in Hell?”

“Jesus went to Hell when He died, but the Devil had no hold on Him, and by so doing He took the keys of death and Hell from Satan. He then went to Paradise and spoke to all the saints of old waiting for Him there. On the third day He began a triumphal march right through Hell with all of His saints, and began to witness to all the spirits in Hell. And He commanded that a bridge be set across the gap. Many of the deceased saints then appeared in Jerusalem as witnesses to the people. This was the first resurrection. Those were incredible times, full of marvelous triumphs and terrible atrocities. Tomorrow is the anniversary of His victorious march through Hell.”

“Well, it sounds like a very great event that we know little about! Satan has kept the accounts of Jesus’ conquest as quiet as possible. These people had lived good lives, believing that someday a Savior would come. From what you are saying I am seeing that you don’t have to be a church-going Christian to get into Heaven, but you do need to believe that God is love.”

Elatia finished my thoughts by adding, “ And God has made a way for every person to discover His love, and eventually discover that God sent His Son to save us. Jesus is the embodiment of that love. He is the universal Savior of mankind. Christians are taught that Jesus is the Savior of the world, but few realize that even if you didn’t know about Him personally in this life, you can still learn about Him and accept Him even after you are dead.”

Surprised by this revelation I said, “This whole concept is not like anything I’ve ever heard about in all my life on earth. None of these early saints of God were Christians per se or even Hebrews, so I presume they became believers through personally seeing and hearing the Good News of salvation from Jesus Himself.”

“You are getting it! I myself was never a Christian or a Jew; such categories have no meaning here. There are just two groups that people fit into: simply put, they are either a sheep or a goat. The various religions of the world usually claim to guide people along a path to better life and to let love shine through their life. And there are just two rules in life and they are: firstly, to love God with your whole heart and secondly, to love your neighbor as yourself.”

I added, ”That makes it all really simple. But that changes the whole religious landscape and does away with some of the exclusiveness and differences people feel in their religion, by putting all mankind on the same level before God, whether they are a Hindu like Mahatma Ghandi or an evangelist like Billy Graham. The Holy Spirit strives to teach all of mankind the truth of love.”

“Both men had to live for love to be great persons,” said Elatia. “But of course Billy knew more about Jesus, the source of all love. To be allowed to live with Jesus in His city of Love, New Jerusalem, one must believe in Him and receive Him. Just knowing the truth, and living the spirit of it, are two different things entirely.”

“Is there any hope for those who didn’t make it into New Jerusalem the first time around to eventually be accepted in?” I asked.

“That will be our job for millenniums to come, to lead and feed others not in the city yet with the healing fruit from the tree of life that grows in the city.”

“Wow! This is really expanding my concept of what the spirit world has to offer.”

“Well I hope that your understanding of Hell is expanding so you can share your experiences. Not many have been here and lived to report about it. Most of them only saw the worst regions of Hell, and took back those accounts and stories about them. Think of Hell as a sort of temporary sorting and storage place for people. It has many different transitional levels and degrees of existence that range from existing in the paradisiacal to being in perpetual torment.”

“What I still can’t understand is just what kind of a body that the souls down here have. Or how a person can go from life to death and still retain a semblance of himself. How is it that his being can feel pain not unlike he would have felt in his earthly body?”

“You want an entire course in astrophysics, and details about the transmigration of souls, which I cannot give you in the brief time that we have. Suffice it to say that the human soul is made of extremely sturdy stuff and can survive the passage from the physical world to the spiritual with relative ease. It isn’t that you take on new material from the spirit world to form your body. You simply shift your principle source of being from the physical to the spiritual. In a very real sense you at last become what you really are. It’s like you hatch or break out of your cocoon, free at last from your physical bonds. “

“Just what is the material that the soul is made from?” I asked.

“It was created from the very breath of God, from Whom comes all life and being. Having that origin, we are like God Himself, immortal until God withdraws His breath.”

“That is pretty heady stuff. It gives me a much greater appreciation of humans than I had before. I see what St. Paul meant when he said, ’Fear not them which can kill the body but are not able to kill the soul. Rather fear Him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell.’”

“Many souls come here for a time to adjust to this transition. It’s a kind of universal soul processing plant, where some choose to ascend and others continue down. Those going down are the souls of people who caused great pain to others in life or else saw great suffering and did nothing to prevent more or help those in suffering. Now they are experiencing some of the pain and hurt that they caused their fellow man. You see, if you think of the mass of humanity as sharing and descendent from one original body in Adam, and since Jesus came and became part of that same body, and died for us and then rose again, we also have hope that through Him Who conquered death, we too might rise again in Him.”

“Is there any hope for those who go down, or does their punishment go on forever?”

“Mercy and grace are given by God, and He gives it even in Hell. God is love, and His Spirit is love. And where iniquity abounds, His love much more abounds. A verse that I am claiming on this mission is Isaiah 49:9: ‘That thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high places.’”

We had at last reached the entrance to the bridge. It was a walking bridge, built of sturdy construction and able to take heavy traffic. It provided a way over the very large and very deep crevasse which seemed to form a natural border around this Paradise, thus separating this region from Hell itself.

Commenting on the bridge, Elatia said, “This is the bridge of Hope Eternal. Those who have faith in the Lamb may cross it, the crevasse surrounds Paradise and prevents all access to this island-like retreat, other than by the bridge. Presently it is guarded by a cherub and a pair of guerlions. Don’t be afraid. They look frightening but they will not hurt you. Come let us cross.”