Re: The Myth.

Many people are at least partially in Hell while they are still alive on this Earth, but we are buffered from the torment of Hell because of our physical bodies. It is only once you begin to become self-aware and experience something outside of Hell through receiving the grace of God that you can understand that you were in Hell before surrendering to Him. For myself, I would say that most of my life was spent experiencing hell without realizing it, even at times that I was attempting to follow Christianity but without a true understanding. It was only when I began to fully surrender and seek God that I was able to experience what it is like to not be in hell. I have not seen the actual physical place of hell, but I have experienced it partially at various times in my life.

What I know about hell is that it is timeless and eternal, in other words in the blink of an eye, you can experience endless suffering and torment; it is complete and total separation from God, there is no comfort of the Holy Spirit that even the evil people still feel somewhat while in a physical body; there is a burning that can be experienced but it is not so much a physical burning as a burning of mental anguish; in hell you experience the feeling of complete hopelessness. In the experience of Hell, you do not wonder why you are being punished that you don't deserve this, you are completely aware that not only do you deserve this, but you are experiencing exactly what you are. I do think that the experience of hell will vary depending on the individual and the hell that they have created within their own soul.

I have heard the testimony of people that have had near death experiences and actually visited hell and everything that they say fits exactly with my own experience of hell, although I have never visited physical hell.

I am not a fan of preaching about hell to scare people into believing in God, but at the same time, anyone that understands the experience of hell would never wish that fate on their worst enemy. The faithful to God that ask for his grace and help do not need to worry about hell because Christ removes the possibility of that fate. Therefore, being God-fearing is not necessary, he doesn't create hell or condemn us to it, he is pure love and light, but he does judge us as worthy of entering into His Kingdom or not, but His judgement is not on were you a good person, did you do good or bad things (although those that are truly surrendered to God automatically do good works), His judgement is on the desire of our heart, Is the desire of your heart to be with God or separate from God? Some might say, with their mouths that they want to be with God and they think they don't want to go to Hell, but at the same time they want to keep their freedom and refuse to surrender to God. Where your heart is, there will your treasure be also. If your heart is surrendered at the lamb of God, that is where your eternity resides. If your heart desires to be free from God, you want to remain separate, your treasure will be eternal hell.

The reason Christ preached about the threat of Hell was for the true non-believers, the hard of heart; they literally need to be scared into changing the direction of their lives because just preaching them the gospel has no effect on them, and even telling them about the terrible fate that awaits them also has very little effect on them but at least maybe there is a chance they could change their ways.