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A sermon by a lost soul

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A SERMON BY A LOST SOUL Or ?The Salvation of the Soul?* Scripture reading 1 Peter 1: 3-23. [*This writing has been edited.] PREFACE In the Holy S
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The Help Received
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POST SCRIPT
21 Reasons - Pray for Israel
Why Pray for Israel?
52 Poems and Quotations
SELECTED POEMS
A Believer's Baptism
Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
A Brief Commentary on Isaiah 53
A BRIEF COMMENTARY ON
A Better Resurrection - Exposition of John
A Better Resurrectoin
A Book Review and Letter
A Book Review
Absalom - Arch-Demagogue and Type of Antichrist
Absalom – Arch-Demagogue and Type of Antichrist
Accounted Worthy
Accounted Worthy
Accounted Worthy to Escape
Accounted Worthy to Escape
A Correct Understanding
A Correct Understanding of Pre-Millennial Truth - An Aid to Faith
Aceldama
CL
Acts of Apostates
Contending for the Faith
Adam and Christ: The Two Heads of Men
Adam And Christ
A Death Letter
A Death Letter
A Diagram of the Ages
A Diagram of the Ages
A Disillusioned Modernist
A DISILLUSIONED MODERNIST
Adolph Saphir on Christian Babyhood
Adolph Saphir On Christian Babyhood
A Father Finding His Lost Son
A Father Finding His Lost Son.
Affiliation
AFFILIATION,
A Heavenly Calling
A HEAVENLY CALLING
A Hymn For The Last Days
A Hymn For The Last Days
A Letter Answered
A Letter Answered
A Letter from Pember to Lang
A Letter from Mr
Ambition, Good or Bad?
Ambition: Good or Bad
A Message to Preachers
A Message to Preachers
Amillennialism
A Millennialism
Am I Ripe for Reaping
Am I Ripe For Reaping?
A Missionary Cry
A Missionary Cry
A Morning Star of The Kingdom
A Morning Star Of The Kingdom
An Affirmation
AN AFFIRMATION
A Nearing Crisis in Heaven and Earth
A Nearing Crisis in Heaven and Earth
An Appeal to Pentecostalists
AN APPEAL TO PENTECOSTALISTS
An Exposition of John Chapter 18: 33-37
An Exposition of the Gospel of John
An Exposition of John Chapter 19
14
An Exposition of John Chapter 20: 13-23 
An Exposition of the Gospel of John
Animal Redemption
Animal Redemption
Animals
Animals
An Exposition of John 6:37-39
An Exposition of John
A Hebrew Martyr
A HEBREW MARTYR*
An Important Text (1)
An Important Text (1)
An Important Text (2)
An Important Text (2)
An Important Text (3)
An Important Text (3)
A Negro God
A NEGRO GOD
Another Christmas
Another Christmas
Anticipation of Future Delights (+ Various others)
Anticipation of Future Delight
Antinomanism
Antinomianism
Antinomanism True and False
Antinomianism True and False
An Urgent Danger
An Urgent Danger
Anxiety Forbidden
ANXIETY F(MBIDDEN
A Passion for Life, Israel and The Inheritance
A Passion for Life, Israel and The Inheritance
Apocalyptic Landmarks
Apocalyptic Landmarks
Apostacy and Contending for The Faith
Apostasy And Contending For The Faith
Apostacy in The Church
Apostasy In The Church
A Repentant Apostate In The Great Tribulation
A REPENTANT APOSTATE
Are We Ready For The Coming?
Are We Ready For The Coming
A Selection of interesting Cristian correspondance
A Selection of interesting Christian correspondence.
A Sermon by a Lost Soul
A sermon by a lost soul
A Trumpet call to Revival 
A TRUMPET CALL TO REVIVAL
Athaliah and Jehoseba
Athaliah and Jehosheba
As with Adam, so with us
As with Adam, So with Us
At Cross-Purposes with God
At Cross-Purposes with God
Athanasius
Athanasius
A Thousand Years Of Justice
A Thousand Years Of Justice
Atoning Blood - What it does and what it does not do
Atoning Blood - What it does and what it does not do.
Authority And The Millenium
Authority And The Millennium
Author of Eternal Salvation
Author of Eternal Salvation unto all them that obey Him
A Warning and An Appeal
A WARNING
A Word to Young Folk
A WORD TO YOUNG FOLK
Back To Pentecost
BACK TO PENTECOST
Babylon and Her Doom
BABYLON AND HER DOOM
Balanced Christianity
BALANCED CHRISTIANITY
Bank Notes
Bank Notes
Baptism
Baptism
Baptism, an act of Faith, Obedience, and Salvation
Baptism, an act of Faith, Obedience and Salvation
Baptism and the Flood
Baptism and the Flood/Baptism and the Kingdom
Baptism in Relation to The Coming Kingdom
Baptism In Relation To The Coming Kingdom
Beautiful Snow
BEAUTIFUL SNOW
Behold, The Bridegroom Cometh
Behold The Bredegroom Cometh
Believe not every Spirit
And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, 1 will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people
Beware of False Prophets
Beware Of False Prophets
Be Sure You Are Right
THRONE WORTHINESS
Be Ye Also Ready
Be Ye Also Ready
Big Wrong
Big Wrong
Blandina
The Story of Blandina
Blindness Within The Church Of God
Blindness Within The Church of God

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A sermon by a lost soul A SERMON BY A LOST SOUL Or “The Salvation of the Soul”* Scripture reading 1 Peter 1: 3-23. [*This writing has been edited.] PREFACE In the Holy Scripture the word “Salvation” is used on numerous occasions, and the context in which the word is found will determine its correct interpretation.  A major rationalization of ravages existing amongst regenerate believers today, is the usage of the word “salvation’” which is wontedly taken to midpoint justification or the forgiveness of sins through faith in Jesus Christ, and as stuff limited to that meaning.  But the word “salvation” is not unchangingly used in the New Testament (or the Old Testament) as equivalent to justification, that is to say the transpiration which takes place in a repentant sinner’s relations with God when he/she believes on the Son of God.  The salvation of God goes far vastitude that; and the word “salvation” itself, as used in Scripture, often refers to something future. In Romans 8: 22-24, it is supposed that we are saved in hope.  “We know that the whole megacosm has been groaning in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.  Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.  For in this HOPE WE ARE SAVED.”* [* the verb “saved” = the noun “salvation”.] In the epistle to the Hebrews the word “salvation” is used as signifying the future manna into which the redeemed people of God are to be brought, whereas redemption is regarded as having been once accomplished.  “Christ was sacrificed once for all to take yonder the sins of many people; and He will towards a second time, not to withstand sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him” (Heb. 9: 28). We often hear the passage “How shall we escape if we ignore such a unconfined salvation?” used in preaching to the unregenerate, and presenting as a warning to them of the danger of neglect of the forgiveness and justification which God has made misogynist to all who believe the gospel of His grace.  It needs but the slightest sustentation to the context to make it perfectly well-spoken that the “we” who are in danger of suffering loss through neglect of such “great salvation” mentioned there are the regenerate people of God, those who will inherit salvation. It unmistakably appears from chapters 3 & 4 that the “great salvation” of installment 2 is closely unfluctuating with God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the land of Canaan, and has to do with a future earthly inheritance pensile the redeemed people of God.  God is now leading His redeemed people through the wilderness of this present age.  He has revealed to them, for their encouragement, the glories of the age to come, and has given to them a taste of the works of power of that age (Heb. 6: 5).  Those glories centre in Christ as the Priest-King – the High Priest of good things to come.  That is the destination and the glorious Rest that awaits them; and it will be theirs if they show diligence to the very end, in order to make their hope sure (Heb. 6: 11, 12).  God has not only given His word, but He has confirmed it with an oath, 6: 17-20. The “great salvation” of Hebrews 2: 3 is identified in verse 5 as stuff identified with “the inhabited earth to come.” The inhabited earth to come is thus supposed to be the subject “about which we are speaking” (2: 5).  That is what the Writer connects with the “great salvation” which was at first spoken by the Lord.  It is the glorious Kingdom of the Son, when He shall occupy the place of First-born, in all that is signified in that unconfined title. The Scriptures make it well-spoken that “this present evil age” (Gal. 1: 4), during which the people of God are strangers and pilgrims in the earth - (because it is the scene of the dominion of sin and death) - is to be succeeded by an “age” of manna and glory in which the earth and all created things will be under the righteous rule of the Son of Man, with Whom will be associated all those who shall be considered worthy to participate with Him in the wardship of the wires of His Millennial Kingdom. To the same effect, “the salvation of the soul” in 1 Peter installment one, is a future salvation for those who have once received eternal salvation by grace through faith of Christ Jesus: and the title, ‘A Sermon by a Lost Soul’ is descriptive of those who will be judged by Christ as unworthy to rule with Him in that kingdom.  Hades is the place of disembodied souls, therefore, the lost souls - (i.e., lost in the sense that they goof to enter the coming kingdom of Christ) -must remain in Hades – the place of the sufferer – until the resurrection of all the remaining sufferer and theUnconfinedWhite Throne judgement. -------   It is one thing to ponder the horrors of the comingUnconfinedTribulation, which may yet be decades distant,* or the judgment at theUnconfinedWhite Throne, occurring at least ten centuries later: it is perfectly something else to contemplate what may be the fate of any or all of us in a few minutes from the moment that this is read.  The purlieus between this life and the next is so slight, and the inrush unelevated in Hades** can be so sudden, that it may unquestionably be experienced by anyone of us in a moment.  It is among the wondrous things of revelation, which we so little realize, that, reported by the Lips in which dwelt all wisdom and knowledge, a man is overheard speaking in Hades for the only time in the history of the world.  The sufferer suddenly victorious in Hades** - that waiting-place of disembodied souls between the time of death and resurrection - whose tickets have once been taken for (1) life in ‘the age to come’ (Luke 20: 35) - the millennial kingdom of reward, and afterwards, Eternal Life. (2) "Eternal life" without the last resurrection of the sufferer in ‘a new heavens and a new earth’(Rev. 21: 1). (3) An eternity in ‘the lake of fire’ (Rev.20: 15) - the eternal place of punishment for all those separated from God.  Each soul is transported by ‘the angels,’ with whimsically a perceptible unravel by death, into the underworld "in the heart of the earth" (Matt. 12: 40); and our Lord reports an very conversation - the only pure report of a conversation between two disembodied souls overly recorded - not to satisfy our curiosity, or to reveal secrets, but to show us, who at any moment may be there.*** [* The original writing was published in 1932. ** The interim between the time of Death and that of Resurrection is shown in scripture to be spent in Hades, Luke 16: 23, 30. cf. Rev. 6: 9-11.] [*** What we are presented with on this occasion, is a plain statement of facts which had unquestionably taken place surpassing they were given.  It will not transpiration the impact and severity of our Saviour’s words, to seem this story is only a parable, for, if that were the case, it has been said: "It would then teach what might be: and the Saviour would never build a parable upon a falsehood." (J. R. Graves.)] It is the teaching of Scripture that not all regenerate believers behave as they should without conversion: "Instead, you yourselves trickery and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers" (1 Cor. 6: 8); it is therefore sound logic to conclude that the ‘rich man’ may himself have been a regenerate soul, and therefore typical of other disobedient, regenerate, disembodied souls who are at this very moment with him in the same compartment of Hades.   When addressing his disciples, Jesus said: "Do not be wrung of those who skiver the soul but cannot skiver the soul.  Rather be wrung of the one who can destroy both soul and soul in Gehenna" (Matt. 10: 28).* [* Such a statement by Jesus would not be necessary, if it was not intended to warn His followers of a righteous heavenly Father’s willpower for unrepented wilful sin and mutiny in His redeemed children!] The first villainous fact that bursts upon us is that punishment is once an very experience, and is deliberately so stated by the tenderest Lips in all history.  "In hell [Gk. ‘Hades’/Heb. ‘Sheol’] where he was in torment, he looked up" - up, for the inner whirligig of earth's centre is the lower circle; up, for there is a lower department in Hades, than that described by our Lord as ‘Paradise’ - (Luke 16: 23). "The lake of fire" (Rev. 20: 15) is not Hades; but willpower for misbehaving children of God, can uncork without death in Hades: Sodom and Gornorrah, says the Apostle: "Serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire" (Jude 7).* ‘Condemned already’ (John 3: 18) in this life, an unbeliever's condemnation is made irrevocable at death.  If anyone imagines that a disembodied soul cannot suffer pain, and that therefore there is no flame that can reach the Devil and his angels - who never have been, and never will be, anything but spirits - let him listen to the only man in that fire who has overly yet been unliable to speak to the living, in words reported and endorsed by the Son of God.  It is an villainous cry:- "Cool my tongue, considering I am in traumatization in this fire."  Four times (verses 23, 24, 25, 28) the torment is asserted.  When the unclean spirits cowered surpassing our Lord, "they begged him repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss" (Luke 8: 31), saying, "Have you come to torture us surpassing the scheduled time?" (Matt. 8: 29.).  "Even the demons believe ... and shudder" (Jas. 2: 19).  The word of a man who has felt the flame outweighs the word of two thousand millions who have never plane seen it.  Unbelief in a coming punishment for wilful sin and mutiny in regenerate believers, sedulously [diligently and perseveringly] cultivated by ‘liberal’ theologians, is a snare to the regenerate and unregenerate alike, leading the ignorant amongst them straight to the place of temporal punishment, in a department of Hades, equal to one who is there.* [* It would towards from this that the fire of the Lake is lit from the flame of the Abyss.  We know (from Rev. 20: 14) that the Abyss itself is ultimately tint into the Lake.] In the whole accent throughout Christ lays on a physical contrast, underneath which lies a far profounder prophetical unrelatedness in two men whose place in Hades indicates their place during the Millennium in "the age to come"*: "I supposed on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest’ " (Heb. 4: 3; Ps. 95: 11; cf. Num. 14: 23.).  Abraham's wordplay sums it up: "Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things," - reached your own platonic of wealth, prosperity, power - "while Lazarus" - a name which, pathetically, ways ‘God is my help’ - "received bad things; but now he is comforted here" - in the underworld of reversal - "and you are in agony."  If the world could, by economics, make everybody a rich man, it would finger that it had reached an platonic higher than its highest dreams.  The no-go thing is that not a single sin is laid to the tuition of the Rich man by Abraham: nowhere does Christ Himself say that he was a vicious man, or a criminal, or irreligious, or possessed of ill-gotten wealth:** he suffered merely considering of his worldliness.  ‘Your good things’ – (the things money can buy) - ease, comfort, pleasure; with the worldly nature of man - wilful sin; thoughtlessness, and the lack of compassion or help toward others in need: ‘Lazarus bad things’ - scorn, poverty, disease, with God: therefore the rich man has pall-bearers, Lazarus has angels.  The reversal without death is appalling. Surpassingdeath, Lazarus is the beggar, and the rich man the refuser - in Hades without death, the rich man is the beggar, and Lazarus the refuser. Surpassingdeath, the rich man refuses a talc on the tongue - there, in Hades, Lazarus refuses a waif of water on the tongue: the rich man saw the suffering beggar, and did not relieve him, Lazarus sees the tormented rich man, and cannot relieve him.  And the moral chasm in this world of the living, becomes an impassable physical chasm in the underworld of the souls of the sufferer - "a unconfined chasm has been fixed, so that" - for the very purpose that - "those that want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone navigate over from there to us."  God’s myriad warnings crystalize at last into an impassable chasm.  Lazarus lost everything in this world, but he lost worldliness with it:  The rich man dies in worldliness, and wakes up ‘in torment’. [* "God has yet room to punish offenders.  The millennial day is the day of recompense for our works, whether good or evil.  A thousand years of time is time unbearable to mark God’s pleasure in our works, or his displeasure versus them.  As eternal life shews his pleasure in the work of Christ, and in those who by faith are one with him, so will the recompense of the millennial day, for good or for evil, exhibit his sentiments concerning the special work of each [regenerate] believer. The worldly often cry out versus professors of religion, as guilty of cheating, and taking unfair wholesomeness in business.  It is doubtless too often true.  Not a few converted persons offend thus.  Here then is the threatened justice of God versus such.  If His saints sin [wilfully], they shall not go unpunished.  He hates the offence in them, as surely as in the worldly [unregenerate].  He has devised a way, whereby he will make his displeasure visible to all intelligent beings, and felt by themselves." (R. Govett, Entrance Into The Kingdom, pp. 207) ** That material wealth does not necessarily ruin a Christian is proved by the fact that of the two men - the rich man and Abraham - it is scrutinizingly unrepealable that Abraham, in his life time, was by far the richer man.] Now what does a man, who finds himself in a place of punishment, say in Hades?  What he does not say is overwhelming: unutterable volumes lie in the sudden silence of the soul who, on the other side, knows. (1) It never crosses the rich man's lips, for theoretically it never crosses his mind, to cry - ‘Let me out!’ The clanging of the ‘Gates’ overdue him (Matt. 16: 18. cf. Matt. 12: 32), the villainous locking of "the Keys of Death and Hades" (Rev. 1: 18), require no remoter treatise and shoehorn of no remoter doubt.  The rich man has to be told that no soul can navigate the Chasm that divides the good from the evil and misbehaving dead; and he has to be told that a good soul sent out on to the earth would not convince; but he needs no one to tell him that there is no escape (before the time of resurrection) out of the department of punishment for one who has died unrepentant. Rev. 3: 17-21. (2) His only other cry, abreast that of pain, is a cry that involves well-constructed self despair:- "Send to my father's house."  The occupants of Hades say that there is hope (by ways of repentance) for the living, but none for the dead.  The rich man knows, without question put or complaint made or request lodged, that he is doomed to suffer: "Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction: the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal [‘age-lasting’]* life.  Let us not wilt weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not requite up" (Gal. 6: 7-9). [* The word translated “eternal,” can moreover be translated “age-lasting” or “life for the age”: and the context here demands that translation.  We do not “reap” eternal life by our works; it is a “free gift” of God,  Rom. 6: 23.  See moreover Heb. 5: 9; 1 Tim. 6: 12, where this Greek word translated ‘eternal’ should be translated ‘age-lasting’: the former life is a reward for the overcomer; the latter life is gratis by the grace of God through faith in Christ Jesus. ]Withouthis death a sermon issues from the Rich Man’s lips: "Send Lazarus" - how remarkably he does not say, ‘send me’: he knows the ‘Gates’ are locked and that the resurrection is yet a long way off, sometime in the future, (Rev. 20: 13) - "to my father's house, for I have five brothers.  Let him warn them, so that they will not moreover come into this place of torment ... If someone from the sufferer goes to them, they will repent."  The rich man is yellow-eyed his brothers should repent surpassing death; not once does he speak of his own repentance in Hades: he is keenly enlightened that repentance will alimony his brothers from the place where he is, but he never dreams that repentance will get him out from there at the time of the resurrection of reward, (Luke 14: 14; 20: 35; Phil 3: 11; Heb. 11: 35; Rev. 20: 4.)*  It is untellable to siphon our sins into Heaven, and the moment we are in the underworld we shall know it.  The rich man suffers from remorse, not from repentance.  Not one word of ticket of sin; not one word of regret for sin; not one thought for the cleansing from sin; not one cry for the pardon of sin.  He, like multitudes of regenerate believers today, manifestly never believed that there is punishment in Hades for misbehaving and scoundrelly disciples of Christ; he infers that all who obfuscate or deny the fact are doing men a fearful wrong; and his one request for his brothers is that they should be told that punishment in Hades is a fact.** And that they may escape it he concentrates all on one word - REPENT!  That is what a disembodied soul thinks every living regenerate turncoat ought to be doing.  He was sure that if only his brothers knew the facts of the underworld, they would move heaven and earth to stave stuff justly placed by God in the place of ‘agony’.  O what weird hands, which lay in the same cradle with ours, are waving us off from the very same fire at this moment, crying with parched throats - Repent!  The Saviour Himself has warned us in words that could not be increasingly well-spoken or sure, and no soul who overly entered the gloomy portals but knows that they are true:- " ... Unless you repent, YOU TOO WILL ALL PERISH"*** (Luke 13: 5).  Instructing ‘His disciples’, (Matt. 5: 1, 2), He says: "I tell you that anyone who is wrestling with his brother [without cause] will be subject to the judgment. Again anyone who says to his brother, ‘raca,’ is surefire to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell [Gk., ‘Gehenna’]" (Matt. 5: 22).* See Footnote [* The ‘rich man’ now knows what multitudes of regenerate believers today do not know.  All who say the resurrection IS PAST ALREADY, "have wandered yonder from the truth" (2 Tim. 2: 18), and teach the soul ascends with the spirit into heaven at the time of death! ** The word "punishment" can vary from keeping a misbehaving child serving in his room, to an idea that has come to be associated with horrible physical afflictions, including those by fire.  Objection to the teaching wontedly arises for mistaking symbols for facts. “The Christian view of future punishment is to be reached through the Bible teaching that God has designed men for a unrepealable purpose.  He is a Creator who would moreover be a Father: men are made the creatures of His power in order to become, if they will, the sons of His love (John 1: 10-13).  The various ministries of the Holy Spirit are the ways God employs to bring men to this sonship; the inside of these ways is Jesus Christ, described as "the firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8: 29; cf. Col. 1: 15, 18), the Head of a new humanity.  God will use all His resources to bring to pass this purpose.  Either in this life or (if not possible in this life) in another. “Punishment is nowhere increasingly solemnly depicted than in what Jesus said well-nigh "unforgivable sin" (Matt. 12: 22-34).  He had freed a man from an evil spirit.  His critics, observing the deed, supposed that he could "cast out demons" considering he was himself in league with "the prince of the demons."  Jesus took this to midpoint that they were morally veiling - so single-minded to their own evil ideas that they could squint on a deed which judged by any standard should be esteemed good, and say that it was evil and wrought by an evil power.  He said that men who talked like this were doing far worse than defaming him: they were blaspheming the Holy Spirit by Whom sooner every good deed was done.  He unsaid that they had wilt "hardened" that they could no longer respond to the request of the good.”  In that specimen they could not repent, and if they could not repent God could not ignore their sin. *** That is ‘perish’ in the sense that the persons of the regenerate will lie decomposed in the grave – their mankind will reap corruption; and they (as disembodied souls) will remain in Hades during the Millennial reign of Christ: therefore, they can be described as LOST SOULS considering they lost the salvation of their souls.  That is, the deliverance of their souls from the underworld in Hades, at the time of the “First Resurrection,” (Rev. 20: 6).]  -------   Black’s Bible Dictionary definition on Gehenna, (pp.217,218):- "(1) The New Testament Greek name for the Valley of the Son of Hinnom* (Arab, Wadi er-Rababi), surrounding Jerusalem on the West and South. One of its steep scarps of rocky soil supported a portion of the municipality walls.  The highest point in the Gehenna Valley slope lies 2,379 ft. whilom the Mediterranean, but 200 ft. lower than Jerusalem’s highest point.  The valley itself is open, and is approached from the Zion Gate.  It joins the narrower Kidron Valley at a point South of the spring Gihon. Gehenna separated Judah from Benjamin (Josh. 15: 8, 18: 16) as it ran lanugo between the Hill of Evil Counsel, associated with Caiaphas, and the Rephaim Plain on the South.  The road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem intersects the Hinnom Valley. Excavations indicate that the Biblical period tideway was made to Gehenna by way of the Valley Gate (Neh. 2: 13), near the South West corner of the present municipality wall.  (See moreover the ‘east [sun] gate,’ Jer. 19: 2.)  Because children, in Solomon’s ‘golden age’ and the eras of Ahaz and Manasseh, were burned in sacrifices to Molech* in this ‘valley of slaughter’ (Jer. 7: 32; see moreover Lev. 18: 21; 1 Kings 11: 7; 2 Chron. 28: 3, 33: 6), the zone took on a sinister significance.  Later it was desecrated and made into a garbage and rubbish heap that was kept burning; these flames were an image of the fires of hell [Hades], and Gehenna thus came to midpoint "hell" (cf. Matt. 5: 22, 25: 30, 46, 10: 28). “(2) Thus the foul Valley of Gehenna supplied the imagery for Sheol, the Hebrew counterpart of the gloomy Greek and Roman underworld, Tartaros, Tartarus.  In Hebrew eschatology Gehenna was the region under, but increasingly wide-stretching than, the earth, where sinners [as disembodied souls] were punished by ‘hell-fire’ (Matt. 18: 8 f.) and [as to their bodies] by worms immediately without death.  According to late Talmudic teaching, Jews who had once gone through such purification were released from remoter torture.  Gehenna was the stasis of heaven, the joyous state of all who had experienced resurrection.*  Just as the Valley of Gehenna was to warmed-over Jews the Valley of Woe, so to Hebrews, as well as to later Moslems, the Valley of the Kidron (Jehoshaphat) was the Valley of Judgment (Joel 3: 2, 12)." [*Better to have said: ‘of all who will wits the First Resurrection’ for resurrection has not yet occurred; and all will be resurrected from Hades, at the end of the millennial reign of Christ.]   FOOTNOTES 1. “Now the startling fact in Abraham’s wordplay is that the five brothers had in their hands something increasingly convincing, increasingly saving, than any evangelist resurrected from Hades who might walk straight into their house has. "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets," he says, "they will not be convinced plane if someone rises from the dead."  Abraham's reply reveals that Divine information can save any man, in any epoch of the anywhere.  God Himself can requite no increasingly than He has given. Christ Himself never once appeared to an unbeliever without His resurrection.  I do not want news from Hades, but pardon from Heaven: could a messenger from Hades cleanse my foul soul?  No! But the Scriptures can be instrumental in doing so.  No messenger from the underworld could make goodness increasingly lovable, or punishment in Hades increasingly terrible, or Calvary increasingly cleansing, or Christ increasingly Divine, or duty increasingly clear, or visualization increasingly urgent, or the thousand years increasingly important, or eternity increasingly solemn, than the Scriptures do which we hold in our hands.  The sufferer might lie: God’s Word and holy typesetting cannot.  We have a proof that Almighty Wisdom sees to be the right proof, we have unbearable proof: increasingly would only deepen condemnation; and no increasingly will overly be given. All the Bible that we have is all the Bible that we need.” 2. “The disclosure of our Lord - perfectly unique in the history of the world - focuses everything on firsthand decision.  How few words our Lord devotes to these two men’s lives: how He concentrates all on the hereafter!  Two men, travelling the same earthly way, pass at once into opposite sides, as surely as vapour rises and water falls; between them is stock-still ‘a unconfined chasm’ which no human traffic can cross, for the good will not navigate when the day of mercy is closed, and the misbehaving and bad may not cross, when the day of opportunity is gone; and all virtually are walls un-scalable, un-pierceable, immovable.  At any moment we may be there. ‘I knew a man," says John Wesley, "who had profoundly signalled himself as an enemy to all serious inward religion.  He was going on pleasure as usual.  His foot slipped, and as he was falling a thought came, ‘What if instead of falling to the earth thou hadst now died, and fallen into hell?’  That thought brought him to a sense of sin, to repentance and to God.’ " -------