Glimpsing the Heights of Heaven and the Depths of Sheol!

Let us discover a truth the son of the Morning Star, the prideful fallen one: the commands of Hashem (G-d) are not burdensome (“For this is the love of G-d, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.”- {Book of Yochanan I/1 John 5:3}). The great Advisory (Lucifer) would have us to believe Hashem's commands are tortuously burdensome and the death of our independent happiness. Evil would have us believe that Hashem is withholding joy from us in the ‘limitations’ of His commandments. That is the insidious photo-negative of reality. The commands of Hashem can only be liberating, especially in their limitations.

What the Advisory knows, and we often fail to see at first, is that trespassing beyond Elohim’s (G-d’s) merciful limits is not the freedom of self-determination.... it’s selling ourselves into the bondage of an unclean heart and evil. As we obey the commands of Hashem in faith, He sets us free or keeps us free from the blinding, oppressive, destructive slavery of sin and increases our capacity for joy. The commands of Hashem are not burdensome; they are the narrow gate to a life in joy, gratitude and true freedom (Book of Mattiyahu/Matthew 7:13–14; Book of Yochanan/John 8:32). The greatest of all of Elohim’s commandments is that we love Him with our entire being (Book of Mattiyahu/Matthew 22:37–38).

It is of course the greatest commandment as it is the fountainhead of all the others. It is the very heart of every other joy-producing commandments, and the only way we can faithfully obey those commandments (Book of Mattiyahu/Matthew 22:40). The great commandment is so much more! It opens for us a world of unparalleled and fathomless beauty. For the greatest affection we can ever experience is love (Book of Qorinti’ im I/1 Corinthians 13:13), and the greatest love we can ever experience is love for our Father in heaven.

We may only experience this greatest love because the greatest to have loved us with an infinitely greater love first (Book of Yochanan/John 15:13; Book of Yochanan I/1 John 4:19). From the wellspring of Hashem's love for us, and our reciprocal love for Him, flows the capacity to love everyone else justly and equally (Book of Yochanan I/1 John 4:7; Book of Mattiyahu/Matthew 22:39). This greatest of all commandments opens the door to the heaven of heavens.... what Jonathan Edwards described as “a world of love”.... where we experience the fulfillment of our deepest longings: the fullest joy and pleasures forever (Book of Tehillim/Psalms 16:11). In keeping this commandment there is truly a great reward (Book of Tehillim/Psalm 19:11).

It is a dark and evil deception if we understand in this commandment a narcissistic, insecure, tyrannical Elohim who simply insists He be highest in our affections or we be damned. beyond question, this is how the fallen son of the Morning star views Hashem. That is Lucifer’s own evil heart projected onto Hashem, and the distorted view he wishes the faithful to believe. For the pure see Elohim as pure, but the crooked.... the evil one and all who follow his deception.... see Elohim as tortuous (Book of Tehillim/Psalm 18:26).

Indeed, Sheol (most often mistranslated as hell) exists. What the Tanakh makes clear, is that Sheol is not the place where evil people are damned to. It’s merely the place where everyone goes. Everyone dies and goes down to Sheol… even the patriarch Ya'acob (Jacob) knew he would go there, eventually. Here was his response after he heard that his son Joseph had died (although really, he had not): It is not a sadistic cosmic Auschwitz created by a divine despot. “So Jacob tore his clothes, and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for his son many days.

Then all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, “Surely I will go down to Sheol in mourning for my son.” So his father wept for him.” – {Book of Bereishit/Genesis 37:34-35} Although Sheol is not the hell that our culture imagines; it is not a happy place either. Sheol was a place of darkness; it was a pit with worms, where we all eventually would go, down into the dust (think of the perception of purgatory). “My days are past, my plans are torn apart, even the wishes of my heart. They make night into day, saying, and ‘The light is near,’ in the presence of darkness. If I look for Sheol as my home, I make my bed in the darkness; if I call to the pit, ‘You are my father’; to the worm, ‘my mother and my sister.’

Where now is my hope? And who regards my hope? Will it go down with me to Sheol? Shall we together go down into the dust?” – {Book of Iyov/Job 17:11-16} But Sheol wasn’t just a place dusty dark place to lay your head when your days on earth came to an end, what made it worse was the fate of being forgotten: “Drought and heat consume the snow waters, so does Sheol those who have sinned. A mother will forget him; the worm feeds sweetly till he is no longer remembered. And wickedness will be broken like a tree.” – {Book of Iyov/Job 24:19-20} Is there anything worse than being forgotten? How far away from life would you have to be for even your Mother to forget you? How do you escape that fate?

Sheol was also described as a monstrous ingestion of souls: Moses said, “By this you shall know that YHWH has sent me to do all these deeds; for this is not my doing. If these men die the death of all men or if they suffer the fate of all men, then YHWH has not sent me. But if YHWH brings about an entirely new thing and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that is theirs, and they descend alive into Sheol [Sh’ohlah], then you will understand that these men have spurned YHWH.” – {Book of Bamidbar/Numbers 16:28-34}

As he finished speaking all these words, the ground that was under them split open; and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, and their households, and all the men who belonged to Korah with their possessions. So they and all that belonged to them went down alive to Sheol; and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly. All Israel who were around them fled at their outcry, for they said, “The earth may swallow us up!”

In commanding us to love Him most, Elohim is bidding us to enter the door of heaven. He is commanding our greatest happiness! He is commanding that we receive and treasure the most valuable Treasure, that we experience the deepest satisfaction in the most satisfying Person, that we most enjoy the most enjoyable, that we trust most the most trustworthy. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to obey this commandment? This is pure Christian hedonism. Such is the insanity and tragedy of sin. All of us have disobeyed this commandment and refused heaven, preferring the empty, destructive deception of self-determination (Book of Romi’ ‘im/Romans 3:23).

Therefore, we could all be sentenced to the great and just woe of being sent away from the presence of heaven forever (Book of Tasloniqim II/2 Thessalonians 1:9). That was not what Elohim desires. Hashem wants mercy to triumph over justice for us (Book of Ya'acob/James 2:13). Hashem desires grace to triumph over condemnation for us (Ephesians Book of Ephsi’’im/2:8;Book of Romi’ ‘im/ Romans 8:1). Elohim desires His love to triumph over our hate (Book of Romi’ ‘im/Romans 5:8}. Therefore, Hashem showed His love for us through Ben Elohim (the Son of G-d) Yehoshua Ha’ Moshiach (Joshua, The Anointed One) by sending “his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” so that we “should not perish but have eternal life” (Yochanan I/1 John 4:10; Yochanan/John 3:16).

This is love! This is how much He loves you. Beyond the self-sacrifice of Yehoshua in our redemption, the greatest commandment would be the sentence of the death of the forgotten to us. All it could produce in us is terrifying condemnation. For the continuing willful sinful can never truly love Hashem with all their being. Sheol would be our destiny. Through the gift of redemption of Yehoshua, this commandment becomes pure treasured gospel to us. For when we receive in Ha’ Mashiach, His perfect love for His Father is credited to us!

This means heaven, that expansive world of love, is now open to us. We can receive foretastes of it now in increasing measure as we walk after the Spirit (“That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” – {Book of Romi’ ‘im/Romans 8:4). When Yehoshua finally sees us “safely into His heavenly kingdom,” we will receive the ability to fulfill this command and experience the full range of its soul-satisfying rewards of heaven, “And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” - {Book of Timotios II/2 Timothy 4:18}.

Be it all joy to us that Hashem's greatest commandment does not command our performance, but our affection. Thus illustrating the purity of the heart shall then dictate our actions. Elohim is most concerned that we experience the joy of love, not that we merely comply with a rigid regiment of behavior. The glorious secret of the Faithfull’s obedience, that gracious divine conspiracy, is that the more we experience this joy of being loved by Hashem and loving Him in return, the less His behavioral commandments feel as though they are anything like rigid commands of compliance which we begrudgingly endure.

In this great and mutual love, His commandments become our joyful means of expressing our love for Hashem as in His mercy, shepherds us through the narrow gate to His kingdom. This is why Yehoshua said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” {Book of Yochannan/John 14:15}. These are not the manipulative words of a dysfunctional Messiah meant to guilt the Faithful into doing what He wants.

Our Yehoshua was revealing a glorious reality: love is the only motivation for our obedience which Hashem desires. Elohim desires us to obey Him out of love, not fear of condemnation (“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” – {Book of Yochannan I/1 John 4:18}). Hashem knows that when we love Him, His commands in love are not burdensome, but joyful and love filled. The fallen son of the Morning Star shall contrive every possible way to keep us from believing any of this.

He wants you to hear and feel drudgery, boredom and bondage in our Father’s commands, especially the greatest command. Elohim desires you to hear His love in His commands, especially His greatest command. Hashem desires you to hear and feel life in His commands. He desires you to know that His commands, which Yehoshua has already kept perfectly for you… now following your heart, see clearly the path through the valley of shadow to the narrow gate which leads to life. This gate will open to you the most expansive world of joy you will ever know: heaven, Hashem’s kingdom of peace and of love.

Walk in Faith, go in His Grace and know that YOU are loved.

Pastor Mark