Secrets from Beyond The Grave

and can be found in the Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, Jewish, and Christian religions. Some skeptics believe that the older religions simply reinterpreted the hell idea to hold their followers in bondage to their religion and simply redefined the doctrine that someone a long time ago came up with to scare people into having faith. The Book of Genesis gives the earliest accounts of world history from Adam to Nimrod, who constructed the Tower of Babel. According to Moses (the writer), after the Flood, all of mankind spoke one universal language (Gen. 11:1). Thus any beliefs in heaven, hell, angels, and demons were known and understood by all people. At the destruction of the tower, the languages were confused and the people separated among the nations. However, they would have carried with them their original beliefs, which would eventually become altered or changed over time. I suggest that one reason so many world religions have a similar concept of hell and the afterlife may be because Adam and his descendants all knew of the existence of God, heaven, angels, the fall of Adam, the angels coming unto the daughters of men, evil angels, the Flood, and the existence of hell. The Worm Does Not Die According to the Gospel of Mark, when Christ alluded to hell He emphasized eternal punishment. The phrase mentioned three times was: "Their worm does not die." Christ also warned five times: "And the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:43-48). This warning did not originate with Christ's teaching, but it was penned six hundred years prior by Isaiah: And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh. --Isaiah 66:24, KJV This phrase, "their worm shall not die," refers to the fact that after death, a human body encounters a natural decaying process and can actually produce worms that feed off the body itself. The Greek word for " worm" in Mark 9:48 is the word skolex ( sko´ lakes ) and means "a maggot" or "an earthworm." The implication is that the spirit of the person will never be destroyed but will endure forever. Some teach today that at some point in time God will destroy the spirits of those in hell and cause their memories to forever perish. The main point that counters this theory is the phrase "eternal damnation" (Mark 3:29, KJV) or "everlasting fire" (Matt. 18:8). Both terms are used in connection to souls being in hell. In Matthew 25:46, Christ said: "And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." In the New Testament the Greek words eternal and everlasting mean "everlasting, perpetual, and never ending." Jesus spoke of everlasting life for the righteous and everlasting punishment for the wicked. Everlasting means everlasting--nothing more and nothing less. Why would we teach that the righteous continue to live forever (everlasting life) but that the same word used for the sinner (everlasting punishment) is a limited time and not perpetual? The scriptures dealing with future punishment all have the word eternal linked to the length of the punishment: "Everlasting punishment" (Matt. 25:46) "Everlasting chains" (Jude 6) "Eternal condemnation" (Mark 3:29) "Eternal judgment" (Heb. 6:2)