Southside Fall Video Update!

Fall Video Update 2011 from Southside Community Church on Vimeo.

Erasing Hell by Francis Chan

What in the Hell? Part 2

Several years ago I worked for a man in Washington state, he was a good guy and had all the best intentions in the world... he was a Christian and was not afraid to share his faith. At work there was a 20 something coworker who was not a believer. One day I came into work and found my boss trying to convince my coworker that a group of scientists had actually drilled a hole into the center of the earth, lowered a microphone and recorded the screams of those below suffering in hell... I wanted to curl up in a little ball in the corner and pretend this had been a bad dream, I was embarrassed. I remember going home that day and looking up this claim on www.snopes.com found that it was a scam that a guy had actually used to swindled a local church out of several thousand dollars to get more money to "keep drilling", and "keep the research going". I printed out the papers and took them into work the next day and ever so humbly shared what I had learned. My ex-boss looked at me like I had just slapped his mamma... It wasn't long after that that he fired me.

This experience brought up a really good question though... where IS hell?
for this blog I want to focus on one of the words that I mentioned in my last post, Gehenna (ghe-hen-nah).

Gehenna is the Hebrew gê-hinnom(Nehemiah 11:30), or the longer form gê-ben-hinnom(Joshua 15:8), and gê-benê-hinnom(2 Kings 23:10) "valley of the sons of Hinnom". Hinnom seems to be the name of some lucky mystery guy.

Whoever this guy was, he had a valley that was SO bad they use the name synonymously with hell.

This Valley of Hinnom is south of Jerusalem and is now called Wadi er-rababi. It was notorious as the scene, in earlier days, of the horrible worship of Molech. For this reason it was defiled by Josias (2Kings 23:10), cursed by Jeremias (Jeremiah7:31-33), and held in abomination by the Jews.

The reason why the history is important is because Jesus made it important. Jesus was a master story teller and he used every day object lessons to drive home spiritual concepts. In the N.T. Jesus refers to "hell" just under a dozen times.

In the King James Versionof the Bible, the term appears 13 times in 11 different verses as "valley of Hinnom," "valley of the son of Hinnom" or "valley of the children of Hinnom."

The traditional description of the valley is that it may have been the town dump and had fires burning all the time to consume the trash and even cadavers that were thrown into it.

There is evidence as shown in the picture that it was a graveyard and had tombs... bottom line, really creepy valley.

When speaking of hell, Jesus uses the term Gehenna 11 times to describe hell. It would have been a powerful word picture in the mind of the Jewish listeners and also helped them understand that hell is a real deal.

Soooo, am I saying that THAT is where hell is located? No. But, I think it does illustrate for us that fact that hell is not only a spiritual realm, but it can in fact be here with us now, right here, right now.

A few years ago I took a group of teenagers on a mission trip to Matamoros, Mexico where we built small homes for people who lived IN the dump.
Not by the dump or near the dump, IN the dump.

These people lived in and by the dump, the dump provided everything they needed, it was their mother... it was disgusting.

I will NEVER forget the smell of that dump, the children playing in bare feet, the maggots, the families digging through the trash to get food and things they could recycle or sell for money.

I will NEVER forget the garbage truck pulling up and dropping a load in the "front yard" of one family so that they could pick through the trash.

I will never forget the rabid dogs with mange wandering around with gnashing teeth. I will never forget the fires that would randomly start and burn day and night there from all the decomposing trash... it... was... hell.

We have all seen different pictures of hell, stories that we could tell that would fill up this blog.

Jesus point was simple, hell is a very bad place and we should do all that we can to make sure we are living in the kingdom of heaven now, that we are bringing the kingdom of light here and that we are pointing the way to His kind of living not only in THIS age but in the AGE TO COME!
Pastor Willy

Hell is HOT!! Introduction

Well, here we have it. I have finally decided that I would bite the bullet and write about hell. Not exactly the funnest subject, clearly an odd one for me to tackle. As odd as it may seem, the thought of hell has been in my mind as of late. We all know and have heard our whole lives about this place of misery... what is it, where is it, who goes there, for how long? These are just some of the questions we have all pondered and over the next few blog posts I will share with you my study, my reflection and some of my conclusions about this murky, mystery. My hope is that by studying hell, we will solve some of the puzzles and misunderstandings about this place. So with no further adieu, we will begin our study. 


The first thing that I would like to consider is the fact that the word "hell" is not really found in the bible, there are actually a few different words in the O.T. and N.T. that we have translated to the word hell. I have added a scripture reference for each so that you get the idea. The first step to understanding the scriptures on the subject of hell is understanding what the scriptures are referring to when we read the word hell. I would also suggest doing a word study on Hell to prepare for upcoming teachings, a great resource for studying the scripture can be found here: e-sword.net. My hope is that you will all feel free to post what you are thinking and learning so that we can discuss together what we find out!


Pastor Willy
www.southsidenewberg.org 


ταρταρόω

tartaroō tar-tar-o'-o From Τάρταρος Tartaros̄ (the deepest abyss of Hades); to incarcerate in eternal torment: - cast down to hell.

2Pe 2:4

5020 tartaróō – properly, send to Tartarus ("Tartaros"). The NT uses 5020 (tartaróō) for the netherworld – the place of punishment fit only for demons. Later, Tartaros came to represent eternal punishment for wicked people.

"5020 (tartaróō) is a Greek name for the under-world, especially the abode of the damned – hence to cast into hell" (A-S); to send into the subterranean abyss reserved for demons and the dead.

[In Greek mythology, Tartarus was a "place of punishment under the earth, to which, for example, the Titans were sent" (Souter).]

Γέεννα

 geenna

gheh'-en-nah Of Hebrew origin ([H1516] and [H2011]); valley of (the son of) Hinnom; gehenna (or Ge-Hinnom), a valley of Jerusalem, used (figuratively) as a name for the place (or state) of everlasting punishment: hell.

 Matt. 5:22

ᾅδης

hadēs

hah'-dace From G1 (as a negative particle) and G1492; properly unseen, that is, “Hades” or the place (state) of departed souls: - grave, hell.

Rev 20:13

שׁאל שׁאול

sh e 'ôl

sheh-ole', sheh-ole' From H7592; hades or the world of the dead (as if a subterranean retreat), including its accessories and inmates: - grave, hell, pit. 

Psa 16:10

Dave Ramsey - Financial Peace

The Great Recovery is a grassroots movement spread by people who are tired of looking to Washington for answers. The truth is that the government can’t fix this economy. It’ll be restored one family at a time, as each of us takes a stand to return to God and grandma’s way of handling money.

Together, we’ll bring this country back on track—one family, one church, one community at a time.

As part of The Great Recovery movement, this fall Southside will be hosting two Financial Peace University classes. We want everyone to be involved, so don’t delay and sign your family up today.
 

Sign up HERE.

If you would like to be a part of this movement and join one of the Financial Peace University classes happening this fall at Southside, then simply fill out the information for the class you’d like to join and the leader for that group will contact you with more information.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact Evelyn Barnes by EMAIL.

Class # 1

Saturday Mornings – 9:30 to 11:30 (breakfast at 9am)
Barnes Upper Room – 429 S Main St
Preview Session on Sept. 10, 2011 – First Class Session on Sept. 17