Don’t be Buried Alive for Eternity

Believe it or not, I am still not perfect. From time to time, I do something that is obviously sinful. Of course, I feel bad about it later. This is especially true right now, because I keep feeling that the rapture will come before 2021. It’s possible to lose your salvation, and I don’t want to wander off into rebellion at the worst possible time.

The other day, I did something I should not have done, and afterward, I asked God for help not to do it any more.

Yesterday, I looked at Youtube while I was taking my birds out for their daily social time, and for some reason, videos about oubliettes popped up.

“Oubliette” is a French word, and it comes from the verb “oublier,” which means, “to forget.” An oubliette is a deep hole where you put people you want the world to forget. Oubliettes have been popular means of torture and murder throughout human history. They are often found in dungeons.

A common oubliette design features a cavity shaped like a wine bottle. There is a narrow opening at the top, and the cavity widens toward the bottom. There are no windows. There are no doors. The opening may be 20 feet above the floor. The living area may be too small to permit a person to lie down or even sit. Imagine having to stand until you die.

Sometimes people placed in oubliettes were fed disgusting food. Some were not fed at all. Some were lowered in on top of the bones or rotting corpses of earlier occupants.

Once you were placed in an oubliette, your only hope was that someone would eventually lower a rope, like Jesus himself, to extract you. Failing that, you were out of luck. There was no hope. You were gone for good, your enemies had won, and your suffering was going to fuel their pleasure.

It was a wonderful way for a vicious person to harm an enemy with maximal cruelty and vengeance. You take your enemy and lower him into the cistern. Once he’s in there, you go on with life, perhaps living in luxury in a palace of which the oubliette is a part, and you have the pleasure of knowing your enemy is in agony, dying slowly, in a place where no one can see or hear him. Maybe you can amplify the pleasure by having your servants throw your garbage and excrement in with him. This was done to some oubliette prisoners. How could revenge be any sharper?

The word “dungeon” means the main tower of a castle, so it must have been common for oubliette owners to keep their victims in their own houses, perhaps so they could savor their agony and humiliation.

There are oubliettes in the Bible. They aren’t called oubliettes, but they performed the same function.

Jonah was swallowed by a whale. A whale’s belly makes a fine oubliette. The language of the Bible suggests Jonah died in the whale and proceeded to hell, where he stayed until the Lord brought him back.

Jeremiah was put in a cistern in a prison yard. A cistern is a masonry structure, often underground, for storing water. My aunt got her water from a cistern. It was not a nice place. It was perhaps 10 feet deep, it was all concrete, it had an access hole big enough to let a man in to clean it, and black sediment used to accumulate in it. The water came from my aunt’s roof, and God only knows what was in it. Birds defecate on roofs. The Bible says Jeremiah’s cistern, which belonged to a prince named Malchiah, was in a prison yard, and the bottom was full of mud. “Malchiah” means “son of the king.”

Daniel was thrown into a hole where lions were kept.

Biblical tombs were like oubliettes. They had narrow entrances, they had no windows, and they were sometimes sealed with stones too large for a trapped person to move. Lazarus and Jesus both ended up in tombs. Satan tried to put Jesus in God’s oubliette under the earth, perhaps so God would have to relent and free the rebellious spirits along with Jesus.

The Bible talks a lot about saving people from “the pit” and “the mire.”

One of the worst curses in Judaism is to be forgotten. Orthodox Jews call Jesus “Yeshu,” which was never his name. They know better. His name is “Yeshua,” which means “salvation” in Hebrew. The word “yeshua” appears over and over in the Old Testament. In Hebrew, “YESHU” is an initialism for, “May his name and memory be blotted out forever.” That’s why they typically say “Yeshu” or refuse to name him at all. Some deny this, fearing persecution, but many admit it. It shows what a curse it is to be forgotten.

Today I happened to watch a video in which Messianic Rabbi Zev Porat told an Orthodox rabbi about Yeshua, and when the rabbi realized who he was talking about, he asked if he was talking about “him.” He wouldn’t say his name. Why? Because he didn’t want to keep his name alive by speaking it. He’s not the only religious Jew in Porat’s videos who won’t mention the name.

The concept of condemning someone to permanent captivity and erasing his memory is something that comes from the supernatural. God prepared the pit in the earth for spirits that couldn’t be rehabilitated. They were condemned, and that cost them their names and inheritances. They are now nameless beings without any inheritance, their presence among the children of God is unacceptable, and they will eventually be separated from us forever, in the biggest oubliette of all: the lake of fire. Once there, they will be forgotten. We will live in luxury and freedom from suffering forever, while they burn far away in God’s oubliette.

People who say they’ve seen hell describe tiny chambers and pits in which people are chewed by giant maggots and burned. Bill Wiese, who says he spent 23 minutes in hell, says he was put in a cell with two vicious creatures that had a thousand times his strength.

This stuff is real. I do not want to be in an oubliette for a minute, let alone forever. The suffering that takes place in the pit is incomprehensible to me. I can’t imagine it. Wiese said the memory of what he had seen and felt was so unpleasant it would have killed him, but God reached into his mind and changed him so he couldn’t fully recall the suffering.

I think about this, and it gives me new resistance to sin.

In the Bible, being in a confined space is a curse, and being in a large space is a blessing. You can see this in many verses and stories. You can see it in the history of Israel. When the Jews received it, it was a very big place. Now, it’s much smaller, and geographically, it’s hard to defend. Rebellion put them in a confined space. If they want it increased, they have to cooperate with God.

If you don’t make it in the rapture, you’re in danger of going to the oubliette. You have a chance to repent in the tribulation, and maybe some unsaved people will be around when Jesus returns to rule, and some of them will repent. Other than that, you’re facing the oubliette.

The rapture is a separation based on the reading of a will. “Testament” means “will.” The New Testament is the will of Jesus Christ, who died and left beneficiaries. If you’re not an heir, you have no name in heaven. You will be separated from the heirs.

It’s very scary.

I hope I keep this priceless lesson in mind until I leave the earth. I see why Paul taught about working out our salvation in fear and trembling.

I’m not overly concerned about times when I stumble. The word says that though a righteous man may stumble, he will not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholds him with his hand. But I don’t want to tempt God by sinning deliberately, counting on him to catch me afterward.

God gave me something great the other day: “The process IS the destination.” We tend to think we haven’t made it because we’re still here and we’re still imperfect. But we don’t have to be perfect on earth. We just have to be headed in the right direction when we leave. Your course is what matters. Thousands of years ago, Satan was a powerful cherub who hovered over the throne of God. Now he’s the slimiest, most contemned, most defeated and hated being in existence. I was created from dirt, and I had no idea who God was. I was born ignorant. I was misled. I sinned a lot. I damaged myself. But I’m headed for heaven and eternal joy. I’m better off here on earth than Satan was in heaven, because he was headed for hell, and I am headed for paradise. I have a name. Satan lost his.

As long as you’re sticking with the process, you’ve succeeded. It’s about all you can expect here on earth. Maybe someone down here has been perfected. I don’t know. But I know it’s not necessary in order for you to be saved or to be in good standing with God.

My life is very strange. I live in a wide place already. I have over 4,000 square feet of living space, and I live on a farm. When I drive around, I’m not jammed into crowded roads with throngs of hostile people. I feel space all around me. I think God did this for me for a reason. He wanted me to understand how he blesses people for listening.

When you look at an opportunity to sin, you’re looking at a ticket to the oubliette. I hope God reminds me of that several times a day from now on.