Tunneling down

When a lady in our assembly returned from a secular tour of Israel a couple of years back, she informed us that the tour guide, an Arab who gave a clear testimony of salvation, read passages out of the King James Bible about the different ancient landmarks as the group was visiting them, prompting others to gasp in unbelief, “What’s he reading the Bible about that for?!”

Given how the Israelis just recently learned of all the secret tunnels Hamas had dug to go from Gaza into Israel, it’s very interesting to note that the Bible reveals that around the land of Palestine are literal passageways down into the heart of the earth into the underworld.

“Isaiah 13 and 34 present two of the places in the land of Palestine where there are openings that go down into the underworld,” says Jordan. “Now, there a number of departments; a number of places in the underworld. There’s the bottomless pit. There’s the place where the angels are held in chains of darkness; the Greek word for that is Tartarus.

“There’s the place where the souls of people are—hell. So there are a number of different departments for the departed spirits. The Greek word ‘Hades’ and the Hebrew word ‘sheol’ simply mean ‘the world of the departed’; the underworld. The Bible talks about the ‘nether parts of the earth.’

“When you hear somebody say, ‘Well, he died and went to Hades,’ that doesn’t tell you where he went specifically; that just tells you generally he’s in the place where the departed dead go.

“Hell is the word used to describe the place where the souls of men go and they’re in torment. In Luke, the rich man dies and it says ‘in hell he lifted up his eyes.’ The same word ‘hell’ is used for where the angels are. And it’s the word that describes what’s down there in that torment.

 

*****

“Upon Christ’s return at the Second Advent, just like the opening that goes down into the bottomless pit is located in the Red Sea, right south of the Dead Sea, and just south of there in Bozrah and the land of Idumea, there is a shaft--a passageway--that goes down into what we call ‘hell.’

 

“Now, you understand when I say that to you, in the spirit world you’re not confined to what’s in the Carbon-14 material world, so that opening that goes down into the center of the earth into the confines of hell is filled up with earth and dirt right now, and all you see physically is the dirt, but it’s still there.”

“When Israel is brought out of Egypt across the Red Sea in Exodus 15, a phenomena takes place, pointed to many times in prophetic Scripture, that has everything to do with the underworld, the bottomless pit, Satan, demons, hell and the souls of lost dead people.

“Where Israel crossed the Red Sea is an opening that goes down into ‘the pit’ and very well could be the ‘bottomless pit’ from Revelation 9 in which, during the tribulation period, an angel comes down and opens the door, letting out onto the earth demonic creatures who will inflict torture on people.

“At this time, men will want to die but can’t. Verse 6 says, ‘And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.’ ”

 

(To be continued tomorrow . . . )