(Introduction)(Dial.1)(Dial.2)(Dial.3)(Dial.4)(Dial.5)(Dial.6)(Dial.7)(Dial.8)(Dial.9)DIALOGUE 10

(Dial.11)(Dial.12)(Dial.13)(Dial.14)(Dial.15)(Dial.16)(Dial.17)(Dial.18)(Dial.19)(Dial.20)

ABOUT HEAVEN AND HELL

DIRTY_C: You know, I don’t like the way you talk to me and yet, as we speak on, I feel some strange peace trying to take over my soul and I am not used to this kind of peace. Can you explain that to me?

CLEAN_C: Have you ever heard about the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God coming to people?

DIRTY_C: Jesus used to say: “Repent, for the Kingdom of God has come”.

CLEAN_C: Yes. That means heaven is knocking at you door. It is from there that strange peace comes, to invite you into it. It means the Kingdom of God is at hand and you must grab the opportunity which is being given to you. It is very near you. Anyway, it is only a mere taste of the real thing. You are just experiencing a mere smell of it.

DIRTY_C: According to you I haven’t cleansed my life yet. Why would I feel it if I have not cleansed it?

CLEAN_C: When you smell food, it does not mean you are eating or tasting it already. I believe what you are experiencing is just the smell or the tasty peace God is willing to grant. It might be an invitation to have it. We know the smell of food does not fill anyone. Sometimes God does that, even though it doesn't always work that way. God can invite us in through the taste of what is ahead of us, to grant it to us in case we repent. God says, “Come in”, or, “Run in for your life”!

DIRTY_C: What do you mean?

CLEAN_C: You may be drawn by God towards peace by smelling it beforehand. However, you may also be drawn away from hell and inner turmoil by experiencing how it feels to be permanently separated from God. God may draw Himself away from you in such a way that you feel so sick you wish to die. Both are meant to lead you further into the Kingdom of God. They are both invitations for you to clean up the mess you have made in your life at once. God does not always give that taste of peace because most people become content with very little and they search for no more than that. They become content with nothing. You shouldn’t be happy with the invitation, but rather that you eat at the table of peace. Most people enjoy listening. Yet, what makes a real difference is obedience and not learning how it works. Anyway, I believe what you might be experiencing now is like smelling some good food when you are very hungry. Smelling it is not eating it at all. Smelling it makes you hungrier for it than ever before and causes you to be less satisfied with the state of your life.

DIRTY_C: How can I eat the whole dish then? It feels so good and so tasty I feel I want more.

CLEAN_C: It is tasty yes, and you should eat of it instead of only smelling it from afar. Come near. This is why the Bible talks so much about entering into the rest of God and also talks about a kind of rest which is still there for the people of God, Heb.4:9. You consider yourself a child of God, don't you? This chapter of the book of Hebrews talks quite extensively about people not getting into it because they want to carry on sinning. Many will dare to enter if they only think their sins will come along and if their ways can be maintained in the Kingdom they are invited to. And it doesn’t work that way. It is the way of God and not ours we must follow. It is either His way or none at all. We cannot decide how it shall be, but only God can.

DIRTY_C: But, you believe I can get in and eat from that kind of peace and love?

CLEAN_C: You must get in yes. Of course you may get in. It is your duty to come in. It isn’t a question of whether you can at all. You must get in, whatever it costs. That’s the main reason why peace is calling on you. If it is calling upon you, you must surely go in without delay. That peace which you might be experiencing now is not the real thing yet – it is an open invitation for you to come in and have more. Many believe they are saved only because they become content with what you are experiencing right now. Afterwards, the devil will use them to spread false gospels.

DIRTY_C: I understand what you mean.

CLEAN_C: The good smell of love and peace attracts us to it. It works much like a pleasant person presenting himself to you: that person must show a little of his heart to you. But, it doesn’t mean you are intimate with him already. By having a taste of what it is all about, we are invited into heaven and all its virtues. We cannot possibly mistake it for anything else. Many think of heaven as a place where we can get all without being cleansed. And this peace - in its fullness - is a direct consequence of purity. What you are experiencing now is a fulfilment of what Jesus said: “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to Myself”, John 12:32. He is just attracting you to Him. He is drawing you to Him. You should hurry towards Him. “Blessed is the one whom You cause to come near You”, Ps.65:4. You are blessed. Please, do not despise this blessedness!

DIRTY_C: Is that what is happening?

CLEAN_C: Well, it is one of the ways how it happens. Jesus uses many other means to call people unto Him. Sometimes, he gives people a strong odour of hell so they will flee from wrath. It works with some people. Either way, Jesus is simply using the truth about it all to cause people to come to Him as quickly as they possibly can. Some other times, a few miracles or signs call the attention of people towards deeper truths, even though many stay at the miracles and will not enter deep into those truths because miracles has a astonishing effect upon them. "...Be not dismayed...", Jos.1:9. There is no limit to the means He is able to use to talk sense into people. A good look into hell and its horrors works very well sometimes. God uses pieces or smells of truth to redirect your full attention towards the whole of many truths.

DIRTY_C: I think that if Jesus did give me a real smell of hell, I would be paralyzed to death. I wouldn’t even think of repenting! I think I would be simply too shocked to repent.

CLEAN_C: That’s what you think! Jesus usually does something He knows will work out quite well and which shall bring some fruit back to Him. Besides, He only uses truth to show us further truth. It won’t matter if people get scared since it is the truth.

DIRTY_C: I would prefer the smell of heaven to attract me, surely. I hope He will never show me how hell is like! Will He?

CLEAN_C: There you are again! You are asking God to use the means which allow you to carry on with your old life! I don’t believe you wish to forsake sin at all. Why would you be scared of hell if you believe you are going to heaven?

DIRTY_C: Do you think I am scared of hell only because I don’t want to forsake sin?

CLEAN_C: I think so, yes. It happens to everyone who will rather imitate truth to avoid being truthful for real and permanently. People who do not wish to follow truth in a practical way are the ones who would like to be able to choose the means by which they are drawn to be converted. Usually, such people love to meditate on truth very much, and to talk about it and even preach to others. But, they won’t easily be made doers of the truth. Dreaming about truth and heaven is not the same thing as living of it. All those who dream about being truthful are not truthful yet or they wouldn’t be dreaming about it.

DIRTY_C: I see.

CLEAN_C: A false hope can’t be real hope. And what turns a hope or faith false is to deny to experience it in a truthful way. It is most convenient to sinners to dream about truth and heaven for two reasons: it gives them false hopes and makes them believe they are good enough to be with God or that God will accept them unchanged. They won’t feel any need to change rapidly. I have seen people approving and even encouraging others to give back stolen things. Yet, they themselves wouldn’t ask for forgiveness for anything they have committed against others. They delight in hearing about how others did it, though. They love to hear testimonies of converted people. However, it will work only out in your life when you go back to people and to God to give them what you owe them or may have taken from them. Praising the attitude is never enough. The world needs to see how your conscience is being cleansed. People around us need to see how it is done. If you were not ashamed or afraid to sin, you shouldn't be afraid or ashamed of doing the right thing for a change? “Therefore whoever shall be ashamed of Me and of My Words in this adulterous and sinful generation, I shall also be ashamed of him”, Mk.8:38.

DIRTY_C: Now, you are speaking the truth! I would feel very bad to go back to people to give them back things I have stolen from them. Not that I have stolen, but it would be a big trial to me, personally. I remember something I have taken, as a child, from a store of a man who is a friend of my mother. I took sweets from there. How would my mother feel had she known the whole thing? It would be just as humiliating for her as it would be for me. 

CLEAN_C: No one may ever hide a city in a mountain. Besides, if that’s what you have done, that’s what needs to be repaired, whatever it costs you or others. It doesn’t matter if it hurts people who reason according to the flesh. Truth is good for anyone. There is no better thing in this present life than to cleanse ourselves thoroughly. At least, it will be set as an example and people would see the way of light. They would come to know how things ought to be done. It shall be a practical example to them.

DIRTY_C: Allow me to ask you an honest question: Is there any way we can avoid going back to people? Is it possible to skip it? I mean, is it really needed to hurt others because we have sinned? If they don’t know about it, why should we go back to them?

CLEAN_C: It is not a question whether they know about it or not, but rather if your conscience is cleansed or not. I am sure there is no other way to go about it. You can’t find peace unless you put all your sins in the light where anyone can see them. If you have sinned, you must clean up the mess you have done. Nothing in this world may ever cause you to waver between good and bad. What must be done, we must do it at once. We cannot avoid the right way if we wish to be right and, also, if we are to be right with God. Jesus almost never used the word “hurry” in His teachings. In fact, there are places in the Bible where we read that to make haste is sin. But, when He spoke about fixing our lives and revealing our bad deeds, He used the word “Hurry”. He said: “Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are in the way with him”, Mat.5:25.

DIRTY_C: I see. Is that only what you believe or is it the truth?

CLEAN_C: The pain or the sadness of a moment should never hinder you from doing what you ought to do. Humiliation is not a bad thing. God says we should humble ourselves and He wouldn’t require it from us if it was a bad thing to do. Besides, what will God do to you if, when He comes, He finds something in your possession which does not belong to you? And there is another thing we should keep in mind: Judgment Day will reveal everything we have done and thought, anyway. If that day shall reveal all to everyone around, why not start right now? Let's bring ourselves to judgment! It shall be known anyway! We cannot avoid it happening. And we would better start right away.

DIRTY_C: You mean that every person in this wide world will be able to see everything I have done so far? How can God do such a thing to me?

CLEAN_C: He won’t do it only to you. Even angels shall be judged that way. No one will ever avoid it being done that way because we shall be judged by Light. God is light. If He is to judge us and if He is light, every piece of thought and deed shall become visible. The Lord cannot avoid being Light. God will ask you “Why have you done this seeing it would be revealed?” We should walk and talk in such a way that we shouldn’t fear the coming of that day. In fact, we should look forward to it. It should sound like good news to us. The best way to go about it is to be judged right now. We should put all things in the light in such a way that it must feel we are already in Judgment Day. “For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged”, 1 Cor.11:31.

DIRTY_C: Why? Why should I do it that way? Why expose it now? It is better to postpone it if it is to be done anyway! Why must I show to everyone around all I have done? Why must everyone see it now? Why would people see me as a bad person if there is no need for that?

CLEAN_C: I am not saying everyone should know about it now. But, those people you have wronged should know about it. And, what is so wrong by having others know about it? So what? Let them know we are cleaning our lives! It will do them good to have a practical example of how it ought to be done. Do you remember the woman people wanted to stone to death because she had been caught in adultery? Everyone knew about it, and yet, she was never condemned. Each person there learned something from the whole situation. Even we are still learning from it. If you have stolen, you must give back, even if what has been stolen was the honour of someone. If you did things in darkness, you must now push them into the light and do the opposite of hiding and of covering up. It must be an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth in the opposite direction. You must do the opposite of it now. Jesus said, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness”. The righteous thing to do when you have stolen is to give it back or, at least, to ask for forgiveness if you have already squandered it away and you are not able to pay it back. You seek to be righteous right from the start! You did not feel ashamed to sleep with your neighbour’s wife – why would you be ashamed of doing the right thing now? It must be an eye for an eye!

DIRTY_C: There you are pointing at me again! It is so sad that you always point at me. The only thing you wish is to break me down and to do it speedily.

CLEAN_C: No, I don’t think that is what is happening at all. Perhaps, what I am doing is trying to build you up. Your conscience points at you and you believe it is me who is doing so. You should never conceal yourself behind lies. It is not the righteousness of God which cause us to protect ourselves against healing. Hiding does not come from above. You should never feel sorry for yourself, not even when accusations are false. Usually, accusations (true or false) cease when self-defense ceases.

DIRTY_C: But, I only feel sorry for myself because it is an amazingly hard task to do carry out, if we are to do things the way you say they ought to be done! Can you understand me?

CLEAN_C: Your fears are unfounded. You need not fear to be put in the light the right way. If you, indeed, wish to go to heaven, you must get used to the ways things are done there. The heart you have now will go along with you when you die. If you hate light now, you shall not feel comfortable with it then. You must change now or God will hit you with a curse because you do not love His light when He comes. 

DIRTY_C: There is no sin in heaven. So, there is nothing to hide there. There it shall be easy.

CLEAN_C: You are misusing truth now. The proper attitude is have it all in the light; in fact, to be light ourselves is what is demanded from us, whatever it costs and wherever we are. You cannot think you have the right to hide only because your deeds are bad. In fact, it should be a greater reason to expose when they are bad. No one has any right to call upon permission to hide. Hiding is never an option to God. It shouldn’t be to us either. Perhaps, it could have worked some other way if Adam and Eve hadn’t preferred to hide behind those leaves. And if hiding was their first instinct after sinning, surely the opposite is the first thing to do in the way back. Revealing is the way back if hiding was the way to move away from the truth and from God. Besides, if things separate us from God, we won’t live because God is real Life. We must be truthful! We must choose the way of truth! “And justice is driven back, and justice stands afar off; for truth has fallen in the street, and right cannot enter. Yea, truth fails. And the Lord saw, and it displeased Him”, Is.59:14,15. 

DIRTY_C: But, what is justice all about then? I always understood justice as something which avenges bad deeds and mischief. I cannot see hell as justice, though.

CLEAN_C: Justice also condemns, yes. Righteousness does that. But, when God talks about us seeking righteousness, it means we are to seek to be righteous the way He is righteous. If we are to be justified, we need to be righteous people. The Bible mentions the “righteous” many times. We must seek to be righteous. Justice does not condemn righteousness in the inner parts. It shall uphold it. And by walking with Christ we ensure the continuance of that sort of living forever. If we really see Christ as He is, we shall become like Him by assimilating what He really is, step by step, going from glory to glory. It really works that way! We cannot but be transformed by enjoying His presence.

DIRTY_C: I thought to seek justice is to seek the vengeance of the deeds someone committed against us! Here, in this world, we have an idea of justice which is much linked to police, courts and judges.

CLEAN_C: That’s true. But, there shall be a Judgement day, also. However, when God says we must seek justice or His righteousness, He means that we seek to be righteous and not vengeance. It doesn’t mean we should seek justice against anyone, but rather that we be righteous people. It is like when the love of God is poured into us: it is not love for ourselves, but it is love for us to love through. When God grants righteousness, love and faith, it means we are to become righteous, loving and believing. We should never expect to be loved or to be believed, but rather love and believe.

DIRTY_C: The way people understand justice is rather confusing then. I am a little confused about it myself.

CLEAN_C: We hear a lot about justification. Justification does not mean that we are justified the way the world understands it. The world sees it as someone being excused of something. But, it only means that we are made just and righteous people. Christ is righteous. If we meet Him face to face for real, and if we become one with Him, we shall be made righteous ourselves. It all works through Him. Grace accomplishes that in willing people. That is the kind of justice we should seek to have in us. It is a kind of righteousness which bubbles out from the inside and runs over towards the outside. Then, we learn how to use Light’s weapons and ways by dealing with it every day of our lives and by refusing to have it done any other way. By living with Christ, we should use the same weapons He uses. “The Word of Truth, in the power of God, through the weapons of righteousness on the right hand and on the left”, 2Cor.6:7.

DIRTY_C: And will it work out with me as well?

CLEAN_C: Of course it shall! Christ would never promise something which He Himself would not be able to fulfil. The only thing He demands from us is that we look to Him through the new eyes He grants. In the world, we used to look at him through the eyes of the world as if He would sustain our worldliness. Christ is not fleshly that we should be selfish about His ways and things. Our visions about righteousness and love and faith should be as heavenly as they are real. They should be changed. God’s love is poured into us so we should become love ourselves. If it must happen, it must be real. We cannot skip the reality of it if we are to love as God loves. We have to think as eternal beings after we meet with Christ in a real way. By rejecting eternal life’s ways, we shall surely reject eternal life itself. And by rejecting eternal life, God will grant us eternal death as a reward. It shall be an eye for an eye of what we rejected.

DIRTY_C: I still can’t see it as fair. I don’t know the whole truth about it, though! Why would I be punished that way?

CLEAN_C: The little peace you are trying to experience is enough evidence against you. Aren’t you being invited to go into His kingdom? In fact, you are being invited to enter into God Himself. Why would you allow stubbornness to deprive you of that greater experience of the fullness of God which He grants freely to anyone who obeys Him?

DIRTY_C: I don’t know. I think it is not fair to condemn me eternally.

CLEAN_C: You have sinned, right? The salary one gets for sinning is according to the rule of heaven and not according to ours. Besides, disagreeing with it won’t change a thing. What is righteous to do is fair. You want an advice from me? There is still a long way ahead of you. You’d better start fixing your life right now or you might not be able to finish it.

DIRTY_C: How can hell be a just reward for us? It makes me angry to think eternal burning is what every person gets as a reward for sinning.  

CLEAN_C: Being angry is just one more excuse not to fix your life immediately. Blaming God won’t change the law He must fulfil Himself. If you reject eternal life by sinning, you will have a condemnation which is according to what you have rejected as a reward.

DIRTY_C: And there is something else I can’t understand as well. It is said it is eternal death, right? If it is death why aren’t we dead there? I mean, how will we be burning if we are dead? If we burn and suffer we won’t be dead, right? I don’t understand that! Oh, how I wish I could stop thinking about these things! Maybe, I should give it all up.

CLEAN_C: Giving up is just another form of resistance. Giving up is resisting. Many people will rather give up than change. They prefer it the hard way. Giving up amounts to saying, “I will rather give up than change!” That’s what it is. Because resistance is strong, people give up. If things rolled according to what man wishes, he wouldn’t wish to give up at all. Many people believe that those who give up are weaklings. In fact, they are not that weak at all. They are resisting. They are quite strong and stubborn. Giving up is the last resource people often use against a change and against God.

DIRTY_C: You are aiming at me again, aren’t you? You should feel sorry for me! Instead, you keep attacking me!

CLEAN_C: God does not feel sorry for people who would rather give up than change. If He doesn’t, why should I? It is a harder way to give up than to change. Changing is much easier. Yet, people prefer to have it the hard way. People breed this vain idea that God will feel sorry for them whenever they think of giving up. Giving up is blackmailing God. I believe God becomes angrier when we give up. Giving up means people will deny accepting mercy because it changes them. Giving up is tempting God, since it says to God: “Can’t you see I need my sin? I am so miserable without my sin and I will rather give up than live without it!” God won’t accept that as a valid argument. Any argument against life is never valid in His eyes. “God is angry against sinners every day”. That is what the Bible says. We can’t change His mind through giving up.

DIRTY_C: What do you mean it makes God angrier when we think of giving up?

CLEAN_C: The more we wish to give up the more we are defending sin and the flesh. It just shows God is working hard against the flesh to exterminate it once and for all, to have it annihilated forever, and we won’t allow Him to complete His work. Giving up on God is an annoying way to defend the flesh against its crucifying by God. That’s the work He came to do. Many people go on strike and some even on a hunger strike. They refuse to eat till they are heard. Some others go on a Life strike – they refuse to have life if their demands are not met. “And you will not come to Me that you might have life”, John 5:40. People fight to death for their love towards self. They should be fighting towards living instead.

DIRTY_C: It reminds me of people fighting for the love of their life.

CLEAN_C: Yes, they fight for the love they have towards death. Christ said, however, that only those who lose their lives shall gain it. If you would rather give up than lose your life, it just shows how much you are resisting. People fight for their sinfulness as hard as they can. They even wish to believe many lies with the express purpose of holding on to what they still are. Christ is trying to crucify the flesh and it the flesh is refusing to die at any cost. Giving up is a way out. It is a last resource to avoid being crucified with Christ. It is a huge illusion to think Christ will feel sorry for the flesh when people give up. Love towards self won’t have the power to call upon the mercy of God. Mercy is there specifically to free us from that sort of self-care and not to uphold it. The amount of love a sinner has towards self is the amount of love he should have for God.

DIRTY_C: Even so, I can’t agree with hell. Heaven is good, though. I would love to go to heaven.

CLEAN_C: Hell is the righteous, proportional measure for rejecting eternal life. Sin rejects life and because it does so, it shall have a correspondent kind of death. You cannot believe that because you hate the idea of hell, it won’t be righteous.

DIRTY_C: How can we see it as justice? What is it to die and suffer eternally? How can we suffer after we die? How can it be death if we suffer?

CLEAN_C: Let me try to explain again. If you reject eternal life, you should get a correspondent penalty for it. The righteous penalty for it is dying eternally. It means you shall be in a state of dying without being able to die, eternally. You shall experience a continual state of dying. You shall be dying eternally. Dying is not being dead, but it is a continual dying. You won’t be dead, but dying. You will be dying all the time since you rejected living all the time. If you reject the joy of heaven, you shall live the correspondent sorrow and pain of hell eternally. No one will ever come to an end in hell. Everyone in there shall always be in a process of dying. It shall be an eye for an eye of what we have rejected from the loving hands of God.

DIRTY_C: I am not rejecting heaven, am I? I already said I would love to go and stay there.

CLEAN_C: What you mean is that you wish to go to heaven and take along with you the sinful heart you hold on to. If you reject the ways of life, you are rejecting life as well. You can no longer hold on to sin if you wish to go to heaven.

DIRTY_C: And you are saying we shall always be dying and never die there?

CLEAN_C: That’s right. Christ said hell is a place where “where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched”, Mk.9:44.

DIRTY_C: How do you expect me to receive it as a righteous measure against sin?

CLEAN_C: It is justified, alright. Besides, it is a decree of God. No on can ever change that. You should think of cleansing your life instead of trying to change God’s mind about sin and hell. He won’t change. If you change your whole life, the decree against you will change from eternal death to eternal life. You won’t experience the emptiness one usually experiences away from God and which shall only be ten times worse in hell. I believe that sort of emptiness, there, is worse than the fire of hell itself.

DIRTY_C: I cannot agree with you about this. I surely hope you are wrong about this whole issue of hell. You make me scared. You are talking about it as if it shall really happen to me! Your assurance about it drives me crazy!

CLEAN_C: How can I not be sure about something that shall happen indeed? You should be thankful God is granting you a taste of heaven and hell in your present state of mind! If you feel the absence of peace, be sure that it is because you have been delaying cleansing your whole heart. What is coming shall be very real, anyway. It won’t be a mere perception of things, as you are experiencing now. It shall be the real thing then. You have the perception and the knowledge of eternity inside your heart now. You know it is for real. What scares you is what you know is true and not my assurance. “He has set eternity in their heart”, Ecc.3:11. You know eternity is there. However angry it makes you to think about the reality of what lies ahead, try to remember that the peace you are experiencing now is a sort of invitation to enter and the struggle is the smell of the emptiness one experiences in hell. It is not the real thing yet. Don’t trust it as eternal possession, but rather as an invitation to have God in an abundant way. You should take that invitation seriously and dare to let have God dealing His way with you. What you taste is like a sign of times. You should be able to discern it. “When it is evening, you say, ‘Fair weather; for the sky is red’. And in the morning, ‘Foul weather today; for the sky is red and gloomy’. Hypocrites! You can discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times?” Mat.16:2-3.

(Introduction)(Dial.1)(Dial.2)(Dial.3)(Dial.4)(Dial.5)(Dial.6)(Dial.7)(Dial.8)(Dial.9)DIALOGUE 10

(Dial.11)(Dial.12)(Dial.13)(Dial.14)(Dial.15)(Dial.16)(Dial.17)(Dial.18)(Dial.19)(Dial.20)