In the last two posts I have quickly outlined what the Bible really says about ‘hell’. That has caused a certain amount of controversy (to put it mildly). But I am not trying to invent a new theology or doctrine, or even ask you to believe what I believe, and this time I am simply going to share my testimony with you.
Renewing my mind
In recent years, God has given me experiences that demonstrate the strength of His love, profoundly challenging my beliefs and what I used to think the Bible was saying. This all happened as part of the removal of the manmade constructs of my mind, and it was not an easy process for me as those mindsets, doctrines and theological frameworks of my thinking were very strong.
For 3 weeks I felt severe pressure around my mind, almost like a physical pain. God was challenging me to reconsider the issue of ‘hell’ but my long-held belief systems discouraged me from doing so. You see, I had even been to the fire. I had had visions of people in anguish in what I called ‘hell’. So I purposely held back, even though frequent love-encounters were making it increasingly difficult to deny what I now believe. That is, until Jesus actually took me back to the fire to see.
Satan’s trophy room
Wisdom’s heights was my entrance.
Does not wisdom call, and understanding lift up her voice? On top of the heights beside the way, where the paths meet, she takes her stand; beside the gates, at the opening to the city, at the entrance of the doors, she cries out (Prov 8:1-3).
Some years ago, I was a given a seal and staff and went through a door on Wisdom’s heights. It was a tunnel of fire which opened into a place of extreme restriction and sadness: satan’s trophy room. There I saw 3 things:
- The sparkling diamond trophies of the destinies of those living and dead who had not believed the good news
- Stolen mantles and crowns
- An area of the heritage of my generational family lines
Now Jesus took me back there. He showed me the heritage area and I looked at the family line of my father’s father.
Jesus said to me, “Do you want to see this restored?”
I asked “How?”
Into the fire
Then He showed me a door I had not seen when I came before. He explained that the door had been there all along, but my framework of beliefs would not allow me to see it. Then He gave me a silver heralding trumpet and we went through the door into the fire. There were thousands of people there from that part of my family line, not talking to one another; isolated individuals who appeared to be in anguish of soul. They were not being tormented; there was no devil there with a pitchfork or anything like that. They were there, on their own, in a place of consuming fire.
So I looked to Jesus, hoping He was going to do something. He just stood there looking right back at me. So eventually I preached the good news to them, though not very well! I felt rather tongue-tied and overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with love, actually, and of course completely unprepared. But at least I told them that they could accept Jesus and come out.
I figured Jesus must have given me the trumpet for a reason, so I blew it. He turned to walk out, and there was no way I was going to stay in there on my own, so I followed Him back through the tunnel of fire. I went through the door back to Wisdom’s heights and this time I saw that the door was like a fiery sword (I knew that a fiery sword guards the way to the Tree of Life).
I looked back and a few hundred people had followed us to the door. As they approached I saw them kneel, I heard them confess Jesus as Lord and they walked out and through the gates into Zion.
Authority
I turned to Jesus. “What have you done to me? I’m in trouble now! How do I explain this?”
Jesus said “Just tell people that you are doing what I did – and I told you to do what I did, and greater things. This is just the beginning”.
I asked Jesus why so few of them had followed us out of the fire. If it was me and someone offered me a way out, I would have been out of there as fast as I could. This is what He told me:
“You can only preach with authority to the degree that the fire has consumed generational things in you. That is why not everyone responded. Keep presenting yourself to the fire of the altar and you will be able to reach more of your generational lines. Embrace the coals to touch areas of your life that have come from your generations; that will give you authority.”
So I present myself as a living sacrifice on the altar in the temple every day.
Back again… and again
Since that first time, I have been back to engage each of my 4 generational family lines and preached the good news to them. When I was in China in 2017 someone gave me a silver heralding trumpet just like the one Jesus had given me. One morning while I was there I woke at 3am and felt a strong desire to engage the altar and ask for the fiery coals to touch a specific area of behaviour, the area of divorce.
As I did, I began to feel intensely loving towards everyone in my generations who had been divorced, not angry or resentful, and I began forgiving them and blessing them. Once I finished I went to the fiery place again. I preached to all my generational lines with boldness, blew the silver trumpet and this time many more responded. They followed me out, came to the door, confessed Jesus as Lord and went through.
Later, on a Sunday morning here at Freedom as I was embracing the fire another area surfaced. I again went back and preached with renewed boldness and once again many more responded. Another time, I wondered what it might be like if I took communion down into the fire. So I went back there and offered communion, the body and blood of Jesus, to those who were in the fire. Yet again, many responded!
More recently I became aware that there were many in that place with fractured souls, what we sometimes call ‘stuck parts’, mostly caused by trauma in their lives. They were double-minded, triple-minded or worse and were unable to make a decision to follow Jesus. So I asked Jesus to come with me and I told them they could come to the Prince of Peace (shalom means ‘wholeness’) and be made whole. Vast numbers of them did so.
My strong desire is to empty that place, but for that to happen I need to embrace the fire myself. I need to be good news and demonstrate that good news in my own life.
I have now had many experiences of going into the place of fire both for personal refining and on rescue missions. The fire of God is for purifying and refining and removing all the dross in people’s lives. They are waiting for someone to come and share the good news with them.
Testimony
One day, before I even mentioned this publicly, a friend I meet with online said he had something to share with me. He had been engaging in heaven when some of his family members came up to him. He was surprised and said “I didn’t know you were believers in Jesus!” And they said, “We weren’t. But we remembered that you said your whole household would be saved, and Jesus came and preached the good news to us, and that’s why we are here.” This really did not fit my friend’s theological box, as he put it. He was encouraged when I then shared my experiences too.
Since then (and especially after this topic cropped up in several of my regular online mentoring groups) I have had conversations with others and I have heard many testimonies of people who have gone into the fire and preached the good news as Jesus did. After I shared this in the Vision Destiny 2017 series I had a number of emails from people thanking me for opening up the discussion as they had been afraid of sharing their experiences because of the reaction they knew it would cause (a reaction I have experienced for myself).
Labels
This view of the fire as purification and a place from which people could be rescued is not some strange new doctrine. This was the position of many of the early Church Fathers and others across the church spectrum through the last 2000 years: Clement of Alexandria, St. Macrina, St Gregory Nyssen, St Isaac of Nineveh (and many other Fathers), and moderns including Fr. Sergei Bulgakov, St. Silouan the Athonite, Fr. Alexandre Turincev, Metropolitans Kallistos Ware and Hilarion Alfeyev.
There are many accusations people throw at you if you start talking like this. You will be called a heretic, and a Universalist (I am neither). I do not believe that all roads lead to God. I am not even a Christian Universalist because I do not believe that it is guaranteed. I believe that Jesus gives people the choice. I like what Brad Jerzak’s article Permit me to hope says about hopeful inclusivism: “We cannot presume that all will be saved or that even one will be damned. Rather, we put our hope in the final victory and verdict of Jesus Christ…” But I do not accept any of these labels – as soon as you accept a label,
- you immediately narrow your options to the views espoused by those who carry that label.
- you are assumed by others to believe everything they think that an [insert label here] believes.
Objections and accusations
Some will say “If people are going to be saved anyway, then what is the point of preaching the gospel?” Is that not a rather selfish view? Do we not want people to know and enjoy relationship with God now? Or to find and fulfil their destiny in this life? And I certainly do not want anyone to go into the consuming fire of God’s presence without knowing Him. It is not a pleasant place to be if you don’t know Him. If anything, I find I want to preach the good news more than ever.
They will also say, “Well, if there are no consequences to my behaviour then I might as well just keep on sinning.” If that is true, then they are only behaving as they do out of fear. They are living under the law, not grace (whilst they sadly shake their heads and accuse us of promoting ‘another gospel’). Why on earth would we want to keep on sinning, when sin messes up our relationship with God and everything else in our lives and its wages are death?
Embrace the fire
It is best not to argue with people. We can share our testimony, and just love them whether they agree with us or not. We are not looking to provoke controversy, enter into fruitless disputes or draw people into making accusations. These posts are not intended for those who only want to fight their corner and prove that they are right. They are for those who are open to lay down their own presumptions and assumptions, to engage with God for themselves and allow Him to reveal the truth about His love for them and for all His creation; for those who will embrace that truth and be part of the ‘restoration of all things’ (Acts 3:21).
Jesus told me to release this message and encourage the Joshua Generation to arise and be bold, to come to Him and He will open the gates to reveal the consuming fire and show them the way just as He has shown me. I believe we all have the ability to engage the fiery place and do what Jesus did, to preach the good news to those spheres that we are mandated to engage.
The refining fire of the altar is where the authority to preach will be given. As we embrace the fire with urgent desire, great authority will be released to us. I believe we get to choose when we go to the place of fire. We can go now, or later, but God is a consuming fire and we cannot escape His love. That love is an unquenchable fire, intended to refine and purify us.
Let’s choose to embrace the fire now.