You might be a little in shock right now to learn that hell fire is not what you expected. The Second death is an eternal event. It’s just that the 14th century view thinks the punishing goes on forever. No, it’s not the punishing, it’s the punishment. God is the source of all life, even of the life the wicked currently have. One the final day, He will remove that life.

Here are a few of many Bible texts that prove this. Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” How can someone depart from the all-seeing, all-knowing God except to cease to exist?

Psalm 37:10, 11 “For yet a little while and the wicked shall be no more; Indeed, you will look carefully for his place, But it shall be no more. But the meek shall inherit the earth, And shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.” Once again we see the earth reserved for His people, this time they’re referred to as ‘meek’. Good will triumph eventually, that’s the point of this Psalm. Notice as well that word ‘inherit’. It doesn’t happen in this life, which is the central focus of all false interpretations of prophecy.

Isaiah 28:21 and Ezekiel 18:32 show us how God feels about destroying the wicked. He truly is a God of love after all. Hellfire is like a mercy killing, one great act of euthanasia. “For the LORD will rise up as at Mount Perazim, He will be angry as in the Valley of Gibeon — That He may do His work, His awesome work, And bring to pass His act, His unusual act.” “’For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,’ says the Lord GOD. ‘Therefore turn and live!’”

This brings us back to John 3:16 again. Key in on that word ‘perish’. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” THE PENALTY OF COMPLETE REMOVAL OF LIFE ITSELF IS WHAT JESUS SUFFERED WHEN HE ‘DIED’ FOR US ON THE CROSS! Since the first death is simply falling asleep, Jesus didn’t die the first death, He died the second death. After a life of complete unbroken connection with the Father through the fact that He never sinned, God broke that connection to the same depth He will with the wicked on that day. That’s why Jesus said in Matthew 27:46 “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

As we’ve already briefly discussed, from the story of Adam and Eve and the references in Job Satan still represented the earth up until the time of Jesus. Now that Christ had come and shown by a living example that all of Satan’s charges against God are false, no one in the universe would have felt sorry for the devil from that point on. Whatever questions there were that may still have been lingering in the minds of the angels and those living on the other planets as to whether or not God really is fair would have been answered. This is what Luke 10:18 meant when Jesus said “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” Now if there had been any other ‘heavenly conventions’ like the ones in Job, Jesus would be the earth’s representative. Luke 18:19 and 20 continue with “Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”

Here’s another overview of the subjects we’ve been discussing from Hebrews 2:7-11, 14,15:
"You have made him a little lower than the angels; You have crowned him with glory and honor, And set him over the works of Your hands .You have put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.

"For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."

Secret key two then is the fact that Jesus did exist before being born here on earth. The theology of most Christian Churches emphasizes His time here and that He went off to heaven after rising from the dead. Though they will speak of the over three hundred prophecies in the Old Testament that foretell Christ’s coming, they don’t always have a clear handle on the fact that he is mentioned in the Old Testament as being present. He simply hasn’t used the name “Jesus Christ” yet.

Most people today have seen Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments”, starring Charlton Heston. It’s on TV practically every Easter. If you’ve seen the film or any other Bible movie on Moses, you’ll be familiar with the story of how God appeared to Moses and spoke to him out of a burning bush. Yet look very carefully at the actual reference from Exodus 3:2-6.
And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.” So when the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then He said, “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.” Moreover He said, “I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.

Notice it was an “Angel” who talked with Moses, yet He is clearly God. This is why of all the modern English Bibles I could have quoted form in this blog, I chose the New King James Version. Wherever in the Old Testament of the NKJV Bible you see “Angel”, that’s Christ. There are 59 such references with another 2 that use the ‘angel’ asnd then in the margin have ‘Angel’.
This maybe a hard concept to grasp as it’s so easy to conjure up old pictures of angels being winged human–like creatures who may have great power and strength, but are clearly not God. The misunderstanding comes from the word itself. It simply means “messenger” According to Isaiah 59:1, 2, we are cut off from God the Father by sin. Therefore God the Son comes as His messenger, or Angel.

Similarly in Joshua 5:15 He is “Commander of the Lord’s Host”. We see the same message given to Joshua here to remove his footwear. Therefore it’s the same being giving the message as the One who appeared to Moses. He is Holy and therefore no ordinary angel. “Then the Commander of the LORD’s army said to Joshua, “Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy.” And Joshua did so.”

Here are a few extra texts to look up if you feel so inclined. In Judges 13:20-22 Samson’s parents offered a sacrifice and the Angel accepted this worship. Ordinary angels don’t do this, see Revelation 19:10. Genesis 19:24 is from the story Sodom and Gomorrah. Read the whole story and you will see three beings from heaven who appear to Abraham. Two of whom are angels, one of whom is God. Here we have two references to “the Lord”. One “Lord” is on earth calling the judgements down and the other “Lord” is in Heaven raining down those judgements. Jesus must be one while God the Father is the other.

Daniel 10:13 calls Michael “one of the chief princes”. A prince is a royal term. The Hebrew word in verse 13 for ‘chief princes’ actually refers to the Trinity. So Michael is one of the Trinity! Verse 21 calls Him “your prince”. Our Lord and Saviour has over three hundred names in the scriptures. Some are titles, others are descriptions. None of them take away from His divinity. This includes the title of ‘Michael’.

I’ll have a little more to say on this in the chapter “John 3:16 in-depth”. For now the important thing is the effect this truth can have one your understanding of who Jesus is. He is not a mortal man who was deified by later generations of believers. That would make the gospels useless. Indeed the whole Bible would be pointless. No, Jesus is God. And God became a man in the early first century, AD to die on the cross for our sins. That one wonderful weekend was the end all and be all of the plan of salvation in one sense; and yet in another it wasn’t. Jesus has working through every generation of human history from the very first day Adam and Eve sinned and the world needed a Saviour. He has also been working since His time on earth to bring world history to where it is today. Soon we will be ready for the next great change to come. That change will be His return in the clouds to rescue His people.

If you’ve never heard of this concept before of the resurrection, it can be a little startling. We don’t become ghosts when we die means there’s very few people in heaven right now. So far it’s only Enoch, Moses, Elijah and a small handful of others who rose with Jesus the day He did. Enoch and Elijah were taken to heaven without having to die and Moses was resurrected. Jude 9 speaks of it and of course Moses and Elijah were both with Jesus when He was transfigured. The others were given a special resurrection early to illustrate what Jesus will do for His people when He returns again. Matthew 27:52, 53 speak of them.

The resurrection can be illustrated by a scene from the 1998 movie version of “Lost in Space” starring Matt LeBlanc of TV’s “Friends”. In this one particular scene the family is being attacked by spider-like alien creatures. They barely get back to their own ship alive leaving the robot to continue fending these creatures off. Then when the robot is overwhelmed Will, the youngest boy, steps into a special holographic chamber and takes direct control of the robot because he can fight the aliens better than the robot can. After a certain point though, things are still going badly. So before the ‘spiders’ destroy the robot, the boy downloads all the robot’s software onto a disc and later builds a new robot. He then inserts the disc and reloads everything the old robot once had.

You and I are in a battle here on earth with an alien force out to destroy us. That force is Satan and his angels. They are doing everything they can to lead us into temptation and get us to cut ourselves off from God. They are constantly on the attack and they never give up. What Jesus did in living a perfect life was to defeat satin by being tempted the same way we are and never giving in. Now that He is in heaven, if we will surrender ourselves to Him, it’s like Jesus lives out that life in us again. We are not robots in that we have free choice. However, we have inherited weaknesses and tendencies toward sin. It is easier for us to give in than to stand firm. Only through God’s power in our lives can we have hope.

There comes a time though when every one of us will die. What Jesus does then is ‘downloads our minds’ essentially. On the day Jesus returns again He will use the same power He did when He originally created this world to recreate new bodies for his friends. Then He will ‘reload their minds’ into those bodies. Again however, this is only for those who have surrendered to Him and are His faithful followers. There’s two resurrections, one to take His friends to heaven and one to rid the universe of those who hate truth and goodness. They’re brought back to life only for a short time to show them all how much God did try to save them.

This explains why there is so much multi-level prophecy in the Bible. From any one person’s point of view, they face death, go into their graves, and come up on the other side not knowing anything about the time that passed in between. Remember to them it’s like being asleep. So in any one generation when God spoke through a prophet and gave a promise of reward to the faithful or punishment to the unfaithful, though they were going to receive whichever reward at the end of history; from their point of view that end would be as soon as they died. The prophecies were worded in such a way as to appeal to the needs of the immediate generation receiving them and also appeal to the later generations who would be influenced in their respective times by the current generation’s actions as world history rolled on.

The Secret Keys That Unlock The Real Truth Post Three

Death then, is simply the process of creation in reverse. God removes this breath of life from the body He has put it in. Ecclesiastes 12:7 describes this process “Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, And the spirit will return to God who gave it.” Here the word used is ‘spirit’. Another important word to connect with death is the word ‘sleep’ as the concept of sleep is used a metaphor for death almost 70 times in the Bible. Here are just a few references:

Psalm 133:3 Consider and hear me, O LORD my God; Enlighten my eyes, Lest I sleep the sleep of death;

Job 14:10-12 But man dies and is laid away; Indeed he breathes his last And where is he? As water disappears from the sea, And a river becomes parched and dries up, So man lies down and does not rise. Till the heavens are no more, They will not awake Nor be roused from their sleep.

Acts 7:58-60 and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

1 Kings 11:43 Then Solomon rested with his fathers, and was buried in the City of David his father. And Rehoboam his son reigned in his place.

Psalm 146:3,4 elaborates on this by saying “Do not put your trust in princes, Nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help.His spirit departs, he returns to his earth; In that very day his plans perish.” The King James English says “his THOUGHTS perish” (emphasis supplied). Death is a state of complete unconsciousness. This is confirmed by Ecclesiastes 9:5,6 “For the living know that they will die; But the dead know nothing, And they have no more reward, For the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished; Nevermore will they have a share In anything done under the sun.”

Should we then give up hope? No! That’s why Jesus came to earth and died on the cross, to make a way out of death for us. He will return again to the earth at the end of the world and rescue all His friends from the graves they went into. He said it Himself in John 5:28, 29 “Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice “and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.”

The Resurrection is the day when the Lord makes the dead come back to life. There will also be two of resurrections. The first will be for Jesus’ friends and then another resurrection will take place later where Jesus’ enemies will be punished for their sins. Notice He said the difference would be made clear by those who’ve ‘done’ good or bad. A lot of Christians like to go on and on quoting certain verses in the New Testament that we can’t buy our way into Heaven with our own good deeds. Man has sinned and cut himself off from God that is true. Man is also not capable of obeying God in his own strength as well and must accept Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins. However, it is possible to use the words and not really live up to them. Salvation is a practical thing. You see the only way anyone can be truly good is when God is working in that person’s life. Real faith is shown in works, see James 2:17-22.

1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17 describe the first resurrection in a little more detail. “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.” Jesus Himself will call His friends out of their graves. The last generation, the one that faced death in the form of the mark of the beast, does not have to die. Both sets of true believers go to Jesus to be with Him forever.

This is the truth about death. On the practical side, this truth completely destroys all the devil’s lies on the subject. When anyone claims to have received a message from beyond the grave, they didn’t get that message from God. Dealing with dead spirits in séances, channeling, and many other forms is really dealing with evil angels in disguise. It is the same with appearances of Mary, the Saints, dead relatives, and ghosts. In the final section in this chapter I will have a little more to say on the practicalities of this truth once the other secret keys are all combined.

The Secret Keys That Unlock the Real Truth Post One

A few years ago a friend of a friend told me about a practical joke someone once played that I thought was really funny. The victim of the gag was a woman hosting a Thanksgiving dinner. She had made effort upon effort to get everything just right for the special meal. What she didn’t know was that hours before, one of her guests had snuck into the kitchen and stuffed a Cornish game hen inside the turkey. When she went to carve up her beautiful bird, there was this other bird inside it. As the scene unfolded, the hostess was overwhelmed with shock, guilt and horror. “I killed the baby”, was her only thought. Morbidly funny I’ll admit, but think about this situation, birds lay eggs right? All birds do, yes, WITHOUT EXCEPTION! If this was the first case ever of a bird giving birth like a mammal, why wasn’t the baby bird whole and intact? Why was it prepared for eating just like the turkey? Even though the evidence in that immediate moment seemed completely overwhelming, logic and truth needed to prevail because what she saw was only a trick played on her by someone else.

What if you were in a similar situation? What if you saw something so overwhelming it had to be true, even though every single bit of logic and truth said it wasn’t, what would you do? What would you believe? People who buy into the modern, scientific mindset have no room in their belief system for the spirit world at all. Yet miracles still happen that science cannot explain all over the world. However, what very few are willing to consider is that there is such a thing as a false miracle. This is not to use the word ‘false’ in the sense of some slight of hand magician’s trick. What I mean is a real, supernatural event, but one that does not come from God.

First and foremost the Bible very clearly speaks of two supernatural forces working on this planet. On one side we have God and on the other there is the devil. 2 Corinthians 11:14 says “And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” In other words, you can’t always tell them apart. God will work in your life and when He does He will make sure you know it is Him who is working. Satan will work in your life and will also try to make you thinks its God working. So how then can you tell? You can’t just trust your own eyes and ears; you need a standard beyond yourself. Satan has the power to work miracles that lead people to believe his lies. This kind of question is something the whole world has to face more often than people realize, especially in stories of near-death experiences. Millions of people say, “But I know what I saw, it was real!” Was it really? Why would God clearly and consistently say one thing about what death is really like for 59 centuries and then contradict Himself in our time?

Isaiah 8:19, 20 says “And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” There you have it. Satan’s false miracles are always shall we say, “flashy”; they’re designed to wow people with no real purpose. When God works, there’s a message there. The “law and the testimony” refer to the Bible and the Ten Commandments. A true miracle from God will pass the test of His word. Notice something else here. That is a connection between false miracles and death. The God of the Bible is referred to as the Living God. He works through living people, who are called prophets. Satan’s way of working is very often contained in “messages from beyond the grave“.

So the very first secret key we’ll look at is the fact that when you die you really do die. We have already found the proper balance between creation and evolution, that God has been creating solar systems for countless eons of time, but that each one was created and did not evolve. He has the power to cause matter to come into existence and that’s what makes Him God, among other things. Therefore the creation story of Genesis chapters 1 and 2 is not mythical but a realistic account of the very first week in planet earth’s history and it happened about six thousand years ago.

Genesis 2:7 gives us the process whereby the Lord created our first father, Adam. “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” The word being there is translated soul in other Bible versions. This is something that must be fully understood, Man does not HAVE a soul man IS a soul. The combination of a physical body and this ‘breath of life’ make a soul. The Bible uses the word ‘soul’ almost 1700 times and never calls it immortal.

A SOUL IS NOT A GHOST! So says 1 Peter 3:20 “who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.” Did eight ghosts get onto Noah’s Ark? No, eight living, breathing people did.

What most people think of when they use the word soul is this “breath of life”, which is another great mystery we’ll never fully solve and simply have to accept. Whatever it is, it has something to do with the ability to breath and something to do with the electricity that runs our minds. This ‘breath’ is also called ‘spirit’ or ‘ghost’ in certain Bible verses. It is the energy God gives to make life. This energy is not a conscious entity of its own. Job 27:3 puts it this way “As long as my breath is in me, And the breath of God in my nostrils”. When Paul spoke to the Greeks of his day, from whom we get our modern science, he said in Acts 17:28 “For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.”

Life comes from God and only from Him. Think about the computer you are using right now to read this blog. It has a hard drive and a processor, which are physical piece of equipment that parallel the functions of your brain. These cannot work unless the machine is turned on and plugged into the electrical power source, which is simply energy and nothing more. There is no way to communicate directly with that energy, it simply powers the machinery.