The Book "23 Minutes in Hell"

The book is called "23 Minutes in hell.
(I wrote this review previously, but decided that I need to re-write it. I am not above admitting when I made a mistake. My original review was in error a bit.)

Right off the bat, the book grabs your attention. Hell is just 1 of those things that fascinates us. Evil itself seems to fascinate us. Don't believe me? Well, let me prove it to ya. When we see a wreck on the freeway, it seems like just about everybody has to stop, or at least slow down, to gawk at it. The news is made up almost entirely of bad news. People getting shot, people suffering from this or that. If all this bad news was not popular, it would not be this way. But this is what we all want to see.

When young girls are growing up, there is just this fascination with that certain bad boy. Many a Pastor's daughter has found out about his attraction to the dark side only too well. There is just something about evil that is alluring. So I have little doubt that this book will not be popular because of its title alone.

Before we get to the book, I want to give you a little background on hell.

When Jesus was on earth, he talked about the mercy and kindness of God, but he also talked about the consequences of sin, which was eternal punishment. In order to make the people understand what eternal punishment was, he had to paint them a picture with his words.

He needed to make hell sound so horrible, so grotesque, that no one would want to go there. He needed a place that the people could immediately picture in their minds. A place that was so horrible that the very mention of the name would strike terror in their hearts.

Jesus found exactly what he was looking for in Gehenna. Gehenna is the name of deep narrow gorge that lies to the south of Jerusalem. It forms a continuation of the Valley of Gihon. It separates the Hill of Zion from the Hill of the Evil Counsel. Tradition has it that the Hill of the Evil Counsel was the place where Caiaphas and Judas met. Tradition also has it that the Hill of Evil Counsel is the present day site of the United Nations Headquarters in Israel.

There is a smell of sulfur in Gehenna (Enoch, lxvii. 6). According to the Babylonian Talmud, the fire of Gehenna burned sixty times hotter than any earthly fire. It was also known as “The Valley of Hinnon”. It was first mentioned in Joshua 15:8. The modern name of Gehenna is "Wadi al-Rababah".

Gehenna was a place where worshipers of the god Molech sacrificed their own children during the reigns of Ahaz and Manasseh. During the reign of Josaiah, Jeremiah was called on by God to destroy the shrines in Topheth, to end the practice and to prevent anyone sacrificing children there (Jeremiah 7:31,32). Despite Josaiah's ending of the practice, Jeremiah also included a prophecy that Jerusalem itself would be made like Gehenna and Topheth.

In Jesus’ time, city refuse, including the dead bodies of both animals and criminals, were thrown into Gehenna. It was constantly on fire with smoke rising from it day and night. Although it is full of fire, there was no light in Gehenna, but only darkness (Matt 8:12). It was a place where there were always maggots. Their worms never died and the fire was never quenched.

I find hell a fascinating subject. As a Christian, I believe it is vitally important to know my enemy. When a nation is going to war, the 1st thing they do is to find out as much as they can about their enemy. They need to know who there enemy is, what abilities their enemy has, what strategies their enemy uses etc.. The more you know about your enemy, the better chance you have of defeating him.

Its no different with satan and hell. If we are to avoid the traps of satan and defeat him in our lives, we need to know something about him. We need to know who satan is, how he works, and his strategies to ensnare us. We also need to have a better concept of hell so that we can tell non-believers about it.

We have lost this in our modern day Churches. Hell is no longer preached from the pulpit like it was in years past. Today, most Churches, Pastors and Christians won't even use the word hell. Maybe this is largely because hell is now a curse word. I believe that this was a carefully crafted plan of Satan.

My Grandad was an old style Southern Baptist Preacher. Preachers of his day were called hell Fire and Brimstone preachers (HFB for short). They were called this because they preached hell and the consequences of sin right from the pulpit. They saw things as black and white with little to no grey at all. For example, If someone did not have food on the table or money to pay bills, the answer was to get off of their lazy backside and go find a job. Or quit spending all their money on cable, or these other useless things.

They would preach a literal hell and describe it much like Jesus did. They would tell people that either they shaped up and accepted Jesus, or they would burn for eternity in hell. They did not pull punches.

Now, I don't advocate scaring people into accepting Jesus just for the sole reason of avoiding hell. But I do believe that their is value in telling both Christians and non-Chirisians alike about the consequences of their actions.

What we lack in these modern times is a symbol of what hell is and what it is really like. We need something like Gehenna so that when people hear of hell, they can pull up a mental picture in their minds. Today the word hell us used as a part of normal speech for many people. We have been desensitized to hell. No longer does it mean a place of eternal punishment and torture that defies imagination. So is it any wonder than when we as Christians tell someone that they are in danger of going to hell, they think of it as no big deal. It has no meaning to them at all. I think a book like this is invaluable to bring people back to a knowledge of this awful place.

On with the actual review of the book.

I love books like this that shake up the status quo. Another book that really shook up Christians and created controversy was The Shack.

The main reason why this book is controversial is because the author talks as though his going to hell is a factual account and so it literally happened. He claims that God sent him to hell and brought him back for the sole purpose of being able to tell everyone how horrible it is so that no one would want to go there and so they would get saved. In the book, he even describes getting beaten my demons and tortured without mercy.

This is the way the book opens up. After his trip into hell, he was taken up to heaven where Jesus explained why he was sent there. Then he says that he floated into his bedroom where his body was at. So what the author actually experienced was a dream or some sort of Out of Body experience.

Just in case you are thinking that visions and Out of Body experiences are anything new, here are a couple scriptures to ponder.

In Acts 2:17, God tells us; "'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.

In 2 Corinthians 12:3, Paul says; "I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. 2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. 3 And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— 4 was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell.

I think that every Christian should read it. We all need a fresh revelation from God of what hell is and why He does not wish that anyone choose to go there. I do want to add to this just a bit though as a word of warning.

We must avoid building a Church or ministry around something like this. As Christians, and as a Church, our focus must be on Jesus, His Love, and the positive message of salvation. There are Ministries out there that focus on things of Satan like Deliverance Ministries. I believe this is wrong. If you go looking for Satan, you will see him behind every bush. Like in most everything else in life, there must be balance. Ecclesiastes 3:1 says that for everything there is a season. While it is good to know who our adversary is, we must be careful to maintain our focus on Jesus, not our adversary.