Fallen angels' very specific holding cell

"We understand that a volcano is melting, but spiritually there is in the lowest hell . . . When Jonah describes being in the belly of hell, he describes these mountains. He describes this burning, this fire; it's a spiritual fire.

"That's why when the Lord Jesus said, 'You unbelieving apostate nation of Israel, I'm not going to give you a sign' . . . 

"Doesn't the Jew require a sign? The Pharisees come to the Lord Jesus and, as Jews that require a sign, they demanded a sign of Him. And what did the Lord Jesus say? 'No.' He says, 'I'm not going to give you a sign.' Why? 'Because you're a bunch of unbelievers, that's why. You don't come by faith. You come trying to trip me up,' " explains Alex Kurz.

"Jesus says, 'I'm not going to give this generation a sign, but there is one sign. Just as Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, so to the Son of man is going to spend three days and three nights,' and you know what sign the Lord Jesus Christ gives to unbelieving humanity and an unbelieving nation? His resurrection. Jesus said, 'That's the ONLY sign I'm going to give you.'

"He likens His experience to Jonah's and says that what's happening to the Son of man is because Jesus Christ is going to the same place as Jonah. Jonah was a dead man who actually sees the lowest parts of hell. 

Deuteronomy 32:22: [22] For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.

"This whole issue of a fire that's going to consume to the lowest hell, as we progress through the Book of Revelation we're going to learn more about this fire that will consume down through the earth to the lowest hell.

"There's a lot of information in the Book of Deuteronomy that's already referring to the events described in the Book of Revelation. Lot of interesting parallels.

Romans 10: [6] But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:)

[7] Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)

"Paul's quoting Deuteronomy 30. Paul's saying, 'Israel, do not commit the same mistake that your forefathers committed back there in Deuteronomy and their life in the wilderness.'

"When calamity struck, you know what Israel argued? 'Nobody told us!' You know what's going to happen in the 70th Week when Israel experiences the calamities of judgment? They're going to plead ignorance and is ignorance a legitimate argument you can make? Ignorance?! What has God been doing for thousands of years?!

"Paul's warning in verse 6, 'Don't do what your forefathers did almost 2,000 years previous. Don't argue this.' What Israel's saying is, 'You know what, if maybe somebody went up there and got the message from God and came back, we would have believed.' The audacity of these people! That's in effect what they're arguing.

"Paul offers a bit of commentary here in verse 7: [7] Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)

"In other words, Israel's saying, 'Okay, Paul, you've got this message and you're saying Israel's fallen and so forth--you know what, why doesn't God send somebody down?' 

"Paul's saying, 'Well, that's like saying Let's bring Christ down again.' Christ's not coming down again until He wipes you out. You don't want Him coming down again! He came down once, and the second time He comes it's not to save sinners; it's to destroy sinners. Israel, if you want Christ to come back, it's the end.

"You see that term 'the deep' in verse 7? That word 'deep' is used a minimum of three times. Why does Paul use the word deep? The term 'bottomless pit' is also called the abyss and the deep.

"In Ephesians it says of Jesus Christ, [9] (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?

[10] He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)

"Jesus Christ's physical body was in that tomb, but where was His soul? In a part, a region of the earth that's also described as the deep. Paul is saying some things by way of the parenthesis to educate the nation Israel.

Psalm 71:20: [20] Thou, which hast shewed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth.

"Again, there's something more going on than just six feet deep. Your body being planted in six feet of soil is not the depths of the earth. It isn't 'the deep' as Scriptures say.

Psalm 135:6: [6] Whatsoever the LORD pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places.

"It's sort of singled out for us. Psalm 140:10: [10] Let burning coals fall upon them: let them be cast into the fire; into deep pits, that they rise not up again.

"There are 'deep pits' plural. We're talking about the lowest hell. This indicates there are different realms, different regions.

II Peter 2:4: [4] For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

"There is in the earth realms called 'the deep.' There's an area called paradise, an area called 'a gulf' and then there's an area called 'torments' and then there is somewhere . . . These angels who left their first estate, their confinement is not just hell as the general locale, but there's a specific word being used--Tartarus. Evidently these angels don't mix with what will be the souls of men. This is a very specific holding cell, if you will.

"Jude 1 provides further commentary: [6] And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

[7] Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

"Here's a region where these creatures are chained by darkness. I do believe that's these angels being referred to are the angels, the sons of God, who descended in Genesis 6. They left their first estate. They had no authority to leave their angelic realm but, in their free will, they came down and married the daughters of men and as a result they were 'men of renown' and God said, 'I've got to wipe out all of humanity.' "

(to be continued)