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| worshipped the dead and communed with evil angels. (2 Chronicles 33:6) It was a place hated by God and He promised to burn the area with His own fire. This has come to represent the fires of God’s judgement and wrath, resulting in the slaughter of the evil ones. |
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The breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it. Isaiah 30:33
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| The evil practice of these child sacrifices was stopped by King Josiah. He cut down the trees and laid the gardens waste and turned the whole valley into a rubbish dump for the city of Jerusalem. God prophesied in Jeremiah 7:32 that one day, because of the evil practices in the worship of idols that had taken place in this valley, it would |
become a place of slaughter and in the various wars of Jerusalem the bodies were thrown into the pit of Hinnom. The bodies of Jews, Persians, Romans and Greeks all were thrown into the vale of Hinnom fulfilling this prophecy.
When the Bible speaks of being cast out into outer darkness with wailing and gnashing of teeth, it is referring to the experience of being thrown into the vale of Hinnom.
What is the meaning of the expression – ‘hell fire’?
In the time of Jesus, Hinnom was still the place where the city’s rubbish was dumped and fires were constantly burning among the rubbish to prevent infection. It was never-ending so long as there was rubbish to burn away. But the valley of Hinnom is not burning today. The fire went out when the rubbish was burned up and turned to ashes. |
When Jesus spoke of hell fire, and it is recorded in the Gospels that He used the expression 10 times, He was pointing His hearers to the fires of the Hinnom Valley, that they knew from daily experience, reminding them of the fire that would not go out until the rubbish was burned. They understood this.
James referred once to the fires of the Hinnom Valley or Gehenna too, when he talked of the tongue, and its uncontrollability, something like a fire that has been started but cannot by man’s efforts be brought under control. James 3:6. |
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The result of the fires of God’s judgement.
When God has finished His work of purging the earth, He will make all things new. There will be nothing left of the sin or the sinner. They will be gone for always and all will be new. The Bible emphasis of ‘hell fire’ is on the consequences, the results of the fire, not the fire itself. The result of the fire is that all evil will be devoured and consumed and destroyed forever. Satan will be destroyed in those fires. Then the fire will go out. All evil and pollution will be turned to ashes, including any people who did not forsake the pollution of sin. Good and evil will not exist side by side. |
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The wages of sin is death – by fire.
The Bible principle is that ‘The wages of sin is death’. Death is knowing nothing, total decay of the body, and extinction of the thoughts and personality. God, therefore, is saying that those who have been in opposition and disobedience to Him will meet death and annihilation at the time when God’s rewards are given out. All the wicked will receive the same punishment at the same time. The earth will be as a lake of fire at that time and the devil and all the systems of the earth and the evil angels will be consigned to the flames, as well as all those, of all time, who have lived ungodly lives. Many people are concerned about what is happening in our world and its environment. God is too and He lists this among the problems that He will deal with when He destroys sinners and cleanses the earth that He once made very good. |
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