Page 19 - Prophetic Word Newsletter Archive 2010

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I well remember the flippant attitude of the late Oklahoma bomber, Timothy McVeigh, who told a reporter

that if there was such a place as Hell, being a soldier, he would fight his way out, he would find a way of

escape. He is trained to do so. There is no way of escape! It is forever and ever! Why must it last

“forever and ever?” Could not God in His mercy just extinguish them from existence in the Lake of Fire?

The answer is no, He cannot. The reason He cannot is simply that mankind was created in the image of

God. The spirit of man and the soul of man are eternal creations. They can never be exterminated any

more than God can cease to exist. In God’s great mercy He has made a place of eternal ecstasy for the

believer. Of necessity He has also made a place of eternal agony for the unbeliever who rejects God’s

mercy and plan of salvation. The spirit and soul of an unbeliever must be confined somewhere for all

eternity. The Lake of Fire is that place. Don’t blame God. Every person selects his own place in which

he/she will spend that eternity. Below are some excerpts from the opening pages of a book worth

reading:

“ONE MINUTE AFTER YOU SLIP BEHIND THE PARTED CURTAIN,YOU WILL
EITHER BE ENJOYING A PERSONAL WELCOME FROM CHRIST OR CATCHING
YOUR FIRST GLIMPSE OF GLOOM AS YOU HAVE NEVER KNOWN IT. EITHER

WAY, YOUR FUTURE WILL BE IRREVOCABLY FIXED AND ETERNALLY
UNCHANGEABLE…

THOSE WHO FIND THEMSELVES IN HEAVEN WILL BE SURROUNDED WITH
FRIENDS THEY HAVE KNOWN ON EARTH. FRIENDSHIPS, ONCE RUDELY

INTERRUPTED BY DEATH, WILL CONTINUE WHERE THEY LEFT OFF. EVERY
DESCRIPTION OF HEAVEN THEY HAVE EVER HEARD WILL BE PALE IN THE

LIGHT OF REALITY. ALL THIS, FOREVER.

OTHERS-INDEED MANY OTHERS- WILL BE SHROUDED IN DARKNESS, A REGION
OF DEPRIVATION AND UNENDING REGRET…FOR THEM DEATH WILL BE FAR
WORSE THAN THEY IMAGINED…WHILE RELATIVES AND FRIENDS PLAN YOUR

FUNERAL…YOU WILL BE MORE ALIVE THAN YOU EVER HAVE BEEN…YOU WILL
FEEL AN INDESCRIBABLE WEIGHT OF GUILT AND ABANDONMENT…

Moody Publishers NO MATTER HOW ENDLESS THE AGES, NO MATTER HOW HEARTFELT THE
CRIES, NO MATTER HOW INTENSE THE SUFFERING, YOUR TRAVEL PLANS ARE

LIMITED TO YOUR PRESENT ABODE. THOSE WHO FIND THEMSELVES IN THE
LOWER GLOOMY REGIONS SHALL NEVER ENTER THE GATES THAT LEAD TO

ENDLESS LIGHT AND ECSTASY…”

Perhaps someone has given you this newsletter. It is because they love you and care about where you
are going to spend your eternity. My wife cared enough about me to pray me into a place where I could
see clearly enough to make a choice over forty years ago. I once was an agnostic, if not a border-line
atheist. I did not like what I heard as “the gospel”, and I did not like what I saw in Christianity. Therefore,
I rejected Christ because of a few Christians and Christian ministries with obvious fakery at work. That
may be your position as well. I want to tell you not to allow Christians to separate you from Christ. The
consequences are too great. People have said, “I don’t want to spend time in church with a bunch of
hypocrites”, to which I must reply, “It is better to spend some time with them here on earth than an
eternity in hell-fire.” I would like to stress also that the majority of what I have shared with you in this
newsletter is just an elaboration of what God has said in His Word. I am very careful to always back up
anything that I say with the Word of God so that God’s people will have faith in what God has said rather
than in what a man says. That is simply because God has testified of Himself “It is impossible for God to
lie” (Heb. 6:18). Man will lie and sadly, the Word of God warns that it will even come from the pulpits of
some who “handle the Word of God deceitfully” (2 Cor. 4:2), and “peddle the Word of God (“adulterate it for
gain”-2 Cor. 2:17), some will even “lie in wait to deceive” (Eph. 4:14), and “by covetousness they will exploit
you with deceptive words” (2 Pet. 2:1-3). God’s Word warns of “false apostles, deceitful workers who
transform themselves into ministers of righteousness” (2 Cor. 11:13-15). God even warns of those who will
“turn the grace of God into licentiousness” (Jude 4). I share all of these types of troublesome passages
with you because the times in which we live can easily be classified as containing all the above
problems within professing Christianity. My counsel to you is to not throw the baby out with the
bathwater. Christ is real, His Word is real, and there are real Christians out there who care as Christ
cares.

Pastor Randy Shupe