The Lake of Fire

Nothing was scarier then the fear of “The Lake of Fire”.

Most kids in the “world”, as we called it, were scared of monsters under the bed, or shadows under the room. Make no mistake, I was afraid of these too, plus demons and demonic activity and scary things happening in the house that seemed paranormal. The Lake of Fire, though, for many of us kids in the church, met or exceeded these fears – because we knew these were “real”.

For years, this was the threat that was repeated over and over and over if you didn't give enough money when they needed it – you were a slacker, and you were in danger of the Lake of Fire if you didn't give more. Once, the Lake of Fire was threatened because buildings were needed for his campus of Ambassador College. Through hell or high water – literally – that college was going to be built – and we were the ones that were going to pay for it – again, literally.

The Lake of Fire – Gahenna Fire – as we called it – was the eternal fire mentioned in scripture that was prepared for the devil and “his angels”. It was a lake of burning sulfur, we were told – the final extermination of our sad and putrid lives – eternally – mainly threatened again, because we didn't listen to the minister – or because we didn't give enough money. It was used as a power tool that caused us to live in fear and petridation of not only the Lake of Fire itself – but of leaving the church, or any even remote measure of disobedience. It wasn't our body that was threatened to be burned alive – it was our soul, and it was our spirit that would be annihilated. I can't tell you enough – we were scared of it – and we were constantly, always, threatened with it as a manipulative tool. This was part of our church culture – fear of a burning, eternal lake of fire that would make us, as stated earlier, as if we never were. This is one reason why we were under the complete subjection of the ministry – we believed what they said. None of us wanted to even think about going through it – the abuse of the ministry was easier to handle to be in the Kingdom, instead of leaving the church just to go to our version of hell.