Please, come with me, patiently... Here on Earth, if someone with a conscience does something bad, evil or wicked, he (or she) usually would feel really uncomfortable. He would feel some pains and would go through some sorrows. If he does something amazing and really good, he would feel happiness, joy, love and satisfaction.
In the after-life, when the physical body shell is discarded, these feelings of pains/sorrows or joy/gladness are highly, greatly amplified to the "nth degree". The joy, gladness and love become really, really "unspeakable"! The pains, sorrows and guilt become really, really amplified too. The physical, carnal body really does insulate us from or limit us from having a complete or total, all-encompassing feeling of "actual realities". The mortal death (the first death), changes all that.
This explains why souls feel great pains in hell or great joys unspeakable in heaven. God does not take pleasure in punishing you. But you reap what you sow. Plain and simple.
However, the heavenly Father, the Father of all does not keep souls in hell forever. We must ask, "Keeping souls in hell eternally... ...Please, what purpose does it serve? How does that add value to the eternal plan and purpose of God? Who benefits from that?"
Revelation 20:14 says, "And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death." Clearly, "hell" is not the same as "the lake of fire". If they are the same, hell will not be cast into the lake of fire. Hell cannot be cast into itself. So, please, what does this text mean? The mortal death is the first death. Now, some people will find themselves in hell. But after a while, "death and hell" would be cast into the lake of fire. What does this mean? It means they would go from hell to the lake of fire. Why?
The thing is, the love, mercy and justice of our changeless or immutable heavenly Father is far, far beyond our human understanding. Even in hell, people would have an opportunity to make an eternally binding decision to totally and completely reject God and his eternal plan and purpose. This decision, in all fairness, has to be made "consciously" and "wholeheartedly". True justice demands this. And many times, the confusion and turmoil of the very short life on Earth does not afford people the opportunity to make this decision. In all fairness, they must be afforded this opportunity. We are talking about souls that cannot be admitted into "heaven" - they have not met the requirements but at the same time, they have not fully and wholeheartedly rejected God - consciously or knowingly.
This is where "hell" comes in. It's a temporary holding place. If the soul repents completely and wholeheartedly submits to the Father's eternal plan, purpose and love, he (or she) gains the right to "ascend" to the celestial abodes of glory (a.k.a. heaven). If the soul refuses to wholeheartedly embrace the divine love and to fall in line with God's eternal plan and purpose, then there's nothing else Deity can do for such a soul. His/her final destination becomes "the lake of fire", which is "the second death" (Revelation 20:14).
"The lake of fire" is a coded term for annihilation or cessation of being. The individual will cease to exist. That's it. To God and to righteous spirits, cessation of being is a most painful thing - beyond what human words can describe. To them, it is synonymous with being cast into a lake of fire, world without end. The lake of fire is cessation of being. The soul has consciously and wholeheartedly decided not to be a part of God's eternal adventure. He (or she) would be let go!
Yes, Jesus Christ said in hell, the worms do not die and the fire is not quenched (Mark 9:48). But he never said the soul would be there eternally. After the first death (physical body death), if the soul lands in hell, he/she would continue his/her existence there. If that soul totally and completely refuses to be salvaged, he/she would experience death. This is the second death - the death of the soul. This means, "death and hell" for that particular individual is cast into "the lake of fire". This is the final judgment. There is no resurrection whatsoever for the individual at this stage. There is no resurrection from the second death.
The first death is death of the mortal flesh. But the soul continues to exist. The second death is death of the soul. With regards to "the spirit", it is with God - the spirit returns to God after the first death. At the second death, "the personality" returns to God. The soul disintegrates into nothingness. Anything of eternal value from the life experiences of the individual is preserved in "the spirit".
It is very important for us to understand that many times, symbols are used by the heavenly realms to communicate information to us, who live in the earthly realm. In your dream experiences, you may be shown "hell fire". This does not mean in literal terms there is a physical fire with people burning in it. The fire, the worms, etc that you may see are symbolic. You may even see angels interacting with the souls there. And the "interaction" may appear to your mortal mind as "torture". In actuality, the angels are ministering to the souls, seeking to assist them to evolve. What you see as "torture from angels" is symbolic. The soul is being provided opportunities to face what is holding him/her back from wholeheartedly embracing the divine love and the divine way. The weights and chains keeping him down in the pits of hell have to be broken to allow him ascend to heaven. It's not a walk in the park. There's conflict. There's pain. There's sorrow. It is what it is. But one day, a final choice will be made...
No one will be in great pains and sorrows forever and ever in some hell. Being in hell eternally serves no value to anyone. It adds nothing to our heavenly Father's eternal plan and purpose. Nothing. It benefits no one. It adds nothing to the Father's eternal Kingdom. Plain and simple. The unfathomable love of the Father of fathers will go at any length to salvage or save his child. But that which love cannot save does not exist forever. Justice will terminate it. Some people do not understand these things, in part, because they have a very, very limited and a very, very faulty viewpoint of the concept of the soul. May the eyes of our understanding be enlightened. Amen.
Now may the will of God, our heavenly Father, the Father of spirits, be done by you! 👉🕴👈
