August 7

HELL / PART 6

GEHENNA

( Hope For All Generations And Nations, Gary Amirault )

-"Israel, during one part of its history, began to mix the worship of Yahweh with some of the customs of the pagan nations around them. They molded a statue which was half man and half bull. They called this god, MLK. (The original Hebrew had no vowels. One had to put in the vowels from memory.) Some scholars render these three consonants Molock or Molech, others believed it was the word Melech, which means "king" in Hebrew. The latter view would mean that Israel had made an image of Yahweh (their king) in the image of being half man and half animal. Either way, they felt they had not abandoned the worship of Yahweh. They felt this new practice was harmonious with the other religious traditions of the Hebrew faith. Regardless of whether he was called Moloch, Molech or Melech, the Israelites took their own babies and placed them in the hands of this statue. Beneath the hands was a pot under which was a very hot fire. The child would fall out of the hands of MLK into the burning pot. As the child screamed with pain, the adults would go into a sexual frenzy as the sounds of the burning children mixed with the beating of drums. MLK was a fertility god. In other Jewish rites, the Jews were commanded to offer up the first-fruits of a harvest unto Yahweh that He might bless the rest of the harvest. The Israelites extended this practice by offering up some of their children as a burnt-offering. Yahweh told Jeremiah the prophet He was going to destroy the city in which they were committing these horrible acts. The location where these rites were performed was in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom (also called Tophet in the Bible) right outside the Southwest wall of Jerusalem! When speaking of Israel burning their own children, Yahweh said that such a thing never entered His mind. If God prepared a place in which He was going to torture billions of the human beings He created, how could He say it never entered His mind. Obviously, God never intended, nor ever will eternally burn and torture the men and women He created! This cruel teaching came from the same place from which Israel got the idea of burning their own children, that is, from a mind which was not subject to the true God; from a depraved mind. When Jesus in the New Testament used the word which has been incorrectly translated "hell" in most Christian Bibles, the place He was referring to was this valley in which Israel burned their own children, not God. The place called "Gehenna" (translated "hell") was the Greek form of the Hebrew "Ge Hinnom". This valley became a disgraceful reminder to Israel of what their forefathers did. It became the city dump. Jesus warned the very generation in which He lived that if they did not repent, they would find themselves thrown into this valley of garbage which burned night and day. To tell a Jew something like this was the absolute worst of insult. It meant that their lives were worthless. A Jew's honor was very important to him, especially at his death. It was not uncommon to hire professional mourners at one's funeral. Imagine paying someone to cry tears at your funeral. This is an example of how vain God's own people were during Jesus' physical presence on earth. Jesus told some of the most religious people of His day, their lives were only fit to be thrown into the city dump! What an insult! And what a prophecy! The very people who heard these words would find their bodies thrown over the Southwest wall of Jerusalem during the siege against the city in 70AD. Because they did not follow Christ and participated in His crucifixion, their lives truly did become worthless." ( Gary Amirault )

-Now that we are educated as to the literal history and meaning of "Gehenna", understanding that it is a place on this earth, let us take a look at what this literal valley represents spiritually and metaphorically. -FIRST THE NATURAL, THEN THE SPIRITUAL!-