Recently, Barbara and I visited Smoke Hole Caverns, just on the other side of Petersburg, WV, close to where I grew up. I was there many years ago, but this was the first time in years I had visited and Barbara was itching to see some of the caves my home state of West Virginia is famous for. For those not familiar with it, Smoke Hole Caverns is located approximately halfway between the towns of Petersburg and Upper Tract, and it has been a popular local tourist attraction for years. The reason the place got its name was from the Seneca Indians who used to live in the area, and many used these limestone caves for shelter. While setting up camp for the night, the Indians would often have fires at the entrance of the caves for either heat or cooking, and the smoke from the fires left a carbon residue on the cave ceilings near the entrance that gave the caverns their name. You can actually still see it today, and the guide will point those smoke residues out to you during the course of the tour. Over the years, Smoke Hole has been used by Indians, Civil War soldiers, and moonshiners (the prominent thing you see when you enter the cave is a replica of a moonshine still, and the guide explains about how it worked - imagine people getting inspiration from those sources!), and the caverns extend back into the mountain almost two miles or more. In visiting the caverns after many years, one aspect of the tour that the guide demonstrated to us got my wheels turning about the subject at hand, which is why I am telling the story.
Mineral formations inside Smoke Hole Caverns.
As we continued on the tour of the caverns, at one point midway into it the guide told us to stand still, and she turned out all the lights. The blackness was perfect total darkness, and you couldn't even see your hand in front of your face. After a few seconds when the guide turned on the lights, she explained the effects that prolonged exposure to such conditions can have. After 72 hours in that darkness, one can be temporarily blinded if they go back out into the sunlight. If you spend 30 days or more in it, your skin literally begins to peel off your body, your hair bleaches white, and you suffer permanent blindness. This verse made me think about an attribute of hell that Jesus describes in Matthew 22:13 and 25:30, where he mentions that "outer darkness" is the ultimate punishment for those who die in wickedness - the result of this outer darkness, as Jesus mentions, will cause "weeping and gnashing of teeth." Being in that cave for just a few seconds and experiencing extreme darkness gives you an idea of how discomforting it can be - it is not a pleasant experience at all. Imagine having to spend an eternity like that! And, the disfigurement that comes from prolonged exposure to such conditions - essentially, due to lack of sunlight, one's body literally decays alive - is a perfect picture of hell in a true sense, which is why in other parts of Scripture it is called the "second death." The mere thought of it is horrifying, as it should be to everyone who is enlightened with the knowledge of what the consequences of sin are. Yet, because we live in a world where it is so easy to return to the "comfort zones" of one's life (and, we all prefer that to be sure), an experience like that is often forgotten. As we will see though, God never intended that for us, and it is not His will to send anyone to that awful place. So, why does it exist, and why will people who die without the grace of Christ go there? Later on, we'll address that. For now, there are a couple of other aspects of the "other place" of eternity I want to talk about.
In reading Scripture, it is obvious that hell is a place of diverse landscape - it seems to have many chambers, but all of them have the same foreboding quality; they are frightening and not someplace one should strive to go. The "outer darkness" is but one aspect described in hell of Scripture, but there is another one that many people associate hell with, and that is what is called the "lake of fire." That term "lake of fire" is discussed many times in Scripture(mostly in Revelation)and was created for Satan and the fallen angelic hosts who followed him in the rebellion he instigated. While it was originally prepared "for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41), as a result of the Fall in Genesis 3 it also has become the final destination of unrepentant evil doers (Revelation 21:8). A discussion at a later date of what that all entails warrants a post of its own, so we won't get into that. Rather, here, I want to talk about the "lake of fire" and what it actually is, as it is a subject of much discussion over the centuries - is it a literal "burning lake," or is it something else? Saints and visionaries who have had visions of hell over the centuries have described it many ways - St. Teresa of Avila, for instance, described the place as damp, vermin-infested, and smelly, but she also said that she experienced the fires of hell in a personal way that was not visible around her, but rather consumed her from the inside out. St. John Bosco described it as a white-hot, blistering cavern in which the intense heat didn't incinerate or consume, but just tormented. St. Lucia of Fatima described it as a vast lake of transparent flames that combusted upon impact, while St. Maria Faustina Kowalska described the place as utterly dark but with a "purely spiritual fire" that could not be seen yet was torturing the damned souls confined there ("Five Saints Who Had Terrifying Visions of of Hell," published October 28, 2015 on ChurchPop.com at https://churchpop.com/2015/10/28/5-saints-who-had-terrifying-visions-of-hell/ - accessed 7/24/2018). One thing about all of these visions of the saints stands out - they all essentially said that the fire itself cannot be seen, like one can see the red and blue flames of a campfire, but yet can be felt and is intense. The idea of the "lake of fire" was also illustrated by Jesus in His parables, and He took an example from the Valley of Hinnom, which was a large landfill in that day where fires were continuous burning the discarded rubbish of the people of Jerusalem, and earlier a more sinister aspect of that location has left its impression on history - many commentators believe that Hinnom was the location where pagan sacrifices of small children occurred during the time period of the Old Testament, and thus Jesus used the location as a way to explain hell's torments to the disciples. It is from that particular location that one of the older names for hell, Gehenna, comes. In contrasting that illustration with the visions of the saints, Jesus was basically telling His disciples that if they thought the burning rubbish of Hinnom was hot, it only was a taste of how bad the actual "lake of fire" would be, and despite the fire attribute, it was an indescribable fire that burned yet couldn't be seen in the same way your campfire could be seen. Along those lines, some years back I had a dream of my own that sort of goes along these lines, and I want to share that now.
The dream I had was an interesting one. In it, it was as if I was in a cavern where this huge subterranean lake of clear water was, but my presence there was more like a video monitor rather than being literally there. The scene in my dream then shifts to a kitchen, where a vile of that water from that subterranean lake was on a counter. Someone else in the dream warned me to not touch or consume that water, because it would mean that I could be destroyed. It turns out that the water was also combustible, and would spontaneously burst into flames without stimulus to do so. Upon waking from that dream, it made me realize that maybe the "lake of fire" was not what popular images of it often convey - maybe it isn't a fiery pit of white-hot flames, but maybe something more insidious. The dank pitch-black darkness of the cave, as well as the clearness of the combustible lake water in the dream, suggests that hell is just that - a place of outer darkness where a flame that cannot be seen or sensed nonetheless torments those who are consigned there. Our visit to Smoke Hole Caverns kind of also put the pieces of the puzzle together, and the picture it gave was more feasible.
The horrors of hell are not something we should desire for anyone, and definitely not something we should have as a final destination of our existence either. Even God doesn't will people to go there, and contrary to popular misconceptions at times, He is not wanting to zap people to fry in the lake of fire like sizzling bacon for eternity either. God's will is that all may come to him, and be restored by supernatural grace, but he gives us the choice to accept that option. Therefore, no, it is not God who sends people to hell, but people send themselves - hell is a choice for people to go to, whether they intentionally want to or not. The worst attribute, therefore, of hell is not the darkness, the hot fires, or tormenting demons - the worst punishment is eternal separation from a God who loved us and gave Himself for our sins, that we might have what He intended for us. Hell is real, and unrepentant wickedness has as its reward an eternity in it, but we have the free will to be saved from it, but that salvation requires that we believe in Jesus Christ, and accept what He did for us to be "saved" from that fate. Again, God gives us the choice, and whatever choice we make has its consequences. Again too, it is not God that sends us to hell, but rather our choice to reject Him that sends us there. God also doesn't derive joy from the tormented souls in hell - it breaks His heart for people to be separated from Him in such a way, as His love for us, the pinnacle of His creation made in the image He designed, is without limits. But, at the same time, God wants us to choose to reciprocate, as it is more meaningful that way. Therefore, contrary to the two extremes of the Calvinist mentality that unfortunately many of our Protestant brethren fall into - one extreme is double-predestination, where God determines who is "saved" and who is "lost" (a heresy in itself, I must add) while the other extreme is universalism, where everybody is predestined (the I in the Calvinist "TULIP" in other words - irresistible grace) for heaven and hell is temporary at best and nonexistent at worst (yes, these are both fruits of Calvinism!) ala Rob Bell and others - it must be understood that hell is a reality, and for those who reject God, it is their fate, but it is not God's choice but theirs. Outer darkness and a consuming fire of torment punctuate a deeper tragedy for the unfortunate soul that ends up in such a place - that deeper tragedy being eternal separation from God. If every person professing atheism would really have a revelation of that, I don't believe atheism would be an alternative for the human race any longer. Of course, in a sense there is no such thing as a true atheist - the atheist believes in one god too; themselves.
As mentioned, this is not meant to be a comprehensive teaching on hell and the doctrines associated with it, as that is for another day. Rather, it is just some reflections of my own that one can take or leave based on some inspiration I had recently. However, one thing is for sure - God loves each and every person that reads this, and He desires you have eternal life spent with Him. He doesn't want to consign you to hell, and indeed that is not His choice, but yours - God doesn't send people to hell, but people send themselves by refusing to accept God in their lives. And, it is that thought I will leave you with today. Thanks again, and will see you soon.
