Jesus stood at a distance on the crest of what looked like a volcano. His piercing eyes stared me down. I saw agony in his face as spoke to me “Come up here”.
Immediately I was standing next to him. I could see the entire volcano from here. A stream of people at least half a mile wide and as long as the eye could see walked along path leading into the destructive volcano. Angels with pitchforks lined both sides of the endless stream of people. They were preventing anyone from escaping and ushered the people over the crest and into the burning lake of fire.
Steam rose from the flaming lake wrapped in smells of sulfur. Their bloodcurdling cries sounded more animal than human. It sent chills up and down my spine. Jesus didn’t look at them he only kept staring at me. I looked into his agonizing eyes.
He spoke to me “Come here. I want you to feel what I feel when my people perish”. Suddenly I was right in front of him and He grabbed me. He put his arm around my neck like a wrestler, and pulled me to his chest. An inrush of incredible grief filled my body, a thousand times greater then any earthly grief I had ever known. My body fell limp as I hit the ground and I began to vomit out my nose and mouth while sobbing with indescribable agony.
Suddenly I was back in my room and fully awake. Jesus was still floating in my room standing next to the volcano and the lake of fire burning behind him. I could still hear the bloodcurdling cries in the background. Jesus just stared at me. Two purple curtains slowly closed the scene and then vanished.
For days, the vision bothered me. Who were those people I thought? Why did Jesus call them his people? I lost my ability to concentrate and had great difficulty on my job. Even now twenty years later that vision scares me.
I won't speculate on the theology of free will decisions vs. calling and election, but I will say that it is His will that no one perish; and inasmuch as every human being is created by God and is in a very real way His child--and no parent can see his child suffer and die without suffering himself--then God does suffer *a lot* as His creation groans and as multitudes of people march into Hell daily.
ReplyDeleteIf any person experienced for one second the full suffering that God goes through almost all the time, I believe it would snuff out that person's life in an instant.
God needs people who will help make the situation on earth better, but He also needs friends who can empathize and comfort Him. Let us be those people!