What Is Hell?

I always found M.Thomas-Benedict's near death experience description of hell to accurately sum up what hell is:

"During my near-death experience I had a descent into what you might call Hell, and it was very surprising. I did not see Satan or evil. My descent into Hell was a descent into each person’s customized human misery, ignorance, and darkness of not knowing. It seemed like a miserable eternity. But each of the millions of souls around me had a little star of light always available. But no one seemed to pay attention to it. They were so consumed with their own grief, trauma and misery. But, after what seemed an eternity, I started calling out to that Light, like a child calling to a parent for help.

Then the Light opened up and formed a tunnel that came right to me and insulated me from all that fear and pain, That is what Hell really is. So what we are doing is learning to hold hands, to come together. The doors of Hell are open now. We are going to link up, hold hands, and walk out of Hell together."

Darkness is not really the presense of anything - it is an absense. It is an absense of light. When you are made aware of darkness it is most often accompanied by a feeling of coldness.....sorta funny because hell is always pictured as a hot place. Anywhere that the Son is not shining is a mighty cold place. But as SilentR always says, "Heaven is hotter than hell"...Hallelujah! Holy Ghost Fire!

So we all know that natural darkness's only remedy is the turning on of a light. We can stand and rebuke the darkness and try to cast it out of the room, but that will not change a thing till we reach over and turn the switch on which releases electrial power to flow into the light bulb producing light.

Where did the darkness go when we turn on the light? Nowhere. Because it has no source. Light is the only thing that has a source.

Our daylight has a source, the sun. But our darkness, has no source...in other words, there is not some moon of darkness shining down darkness upon our earth during our nighttime providing a source for this darkness. Our earth has merely turned away from the sun in its daily orbit creating an absence of light.

So neither does spiritual darkness....which is a turning away from the light, either consciously or unconsciously. Now I am not saying that darkness is not a condition that doesn't need remedied...it does. "Let God arise and his enemies be scattered." The rising sun never needs to fight the darkness does it? Its mere presence does the job. Darkness finds no hiding place in the presence of the light.

I would like to add some more thoughts about this in connection with the Melchisedek priesthood ministry perhaps later.

Brightest blessings,

Karen