Vision of Warning

A Vision of Warning
Time of vision: the night of Thursday, 11th of January 2007


         I believe wholeheartedly I have received a message from the Lord Our God.  As for whether the message was only for me or for others to hear, I am not sure, but I feel the need to share what it has done in my life.  My hope is that it will speak to your hearts, giving you the need to reexamine your lives, and turn away from sin.
         On Thursday, January 11th 2007, I received a call from the Page Library saying that they had the book I requested.  My husband had recommended that I read a book by Bill Weise called, “23 Minutes in Hell.”  I was quite hesitant to read it because, let’s face it, hell is not a subject we Christians like to think about; nonetheless, I went and checked it out. 
         I started reading it as soon as I got home, and was completely enthralled by it.  The premise is this: Bill Weise, in 1998, was physically taken whilst asleep one evening and thrown into the depths of hell.  He thought he had died.  He awoke in a prison cell of some sort.  He noticed that the air was thick and putrid, smelling of backed up sewer, rotten food, and every other foul smell you could imagine times one thousand.  He also was aware of an intense heat, so intense that he was wondering why his skin was not melting completely off of his bones.  The air was so thick that he had to fight for every breath.  He then was aware of evil presences in the cell with him... he looked over and there were two enormous creatures which could only describe as demons, both glaring at him and snarling with complete hatred.  The reality of his situation then struck him, and he thought, “I’m in hell ”  He recalls more of his experience which I will not get into, but he remembers that the knowledge of God was completely gone from his mind.  He recalls the horrifying reality that he would never again get to see his beloved wife, and that he would have to endure excruciating pain, intense heat, and utter helplessness and hopelessness for all eternity. 
         Just as this imminent reality took hold, he was rescued out of the pits of hell by Jesus, and at once he fell to his knees in reverence and worship.  He asked Jesus why he was in hell.  Jesus told him that he would have to bring a message to the world and Jesus said the words, “Tell them I am coming VERY, VERY SOON ” 
         
         You’re probably thinking to yourself, who is this Bill Weise guy?  He must have been a very bad person.  But you’d be wrong.  He is not unlike many of us.  He was a man pretty conservative in his Christian views, he attended church regularly, and had a strong faith in Jesus as His Savior.  So why this warning? Later in the book, Weise recounts a story and uses it as an analogy.  He tells of a man he once knew who had acquired a number of parking tickets.  Being that parking tickets do not usually show up on insurance or driving records, the man let them pile up.  He then got summoned to court for payment of these speeding tickets, so the man tallied up all of the tickets, added court fees, and brought $700.00 to the court.  The judge said to him, “Sir, I will save you that $700... you’re going to jail.”  Weise later asked his friend, “Why didn’t you pay the tickets?” to which his friend replied, “I figured they’re only parking tickets... they’re no big deal.”  Weise points out in his book that in the same way we trivialize our sins, thinking that they’re no big deal, but these sins that we fail to change or keep rationalizing, could in fact be our detriment. 
         
         So, as you can see, by this time I’m completely freaked out.  I’m thinking to myself, “What have I done that I haven’t repented?  What little sins am I saying “no big deal” to.  So I spent a long night in my Bible, and in prayer.  I remember before falling asleep asking the Lord, “God, I will not end up in hell because I am doing so much good and have turned away from my old lifestyle.  My little sins that I can’t acknowledge won’t land me in hell for eternity, right?”  This was the question that God so vividly answered that night.
         That night I had a dream, or rather a vision.  Jesus was standing over my Bible.  It was my Bible, my translation with my little pretty cover with a cross on it.  (I have the Life Application Study Bible).  I know it was Jesus, I can’t tell you how I know this because I can’t now recall a description of Him at all.  He pointed to my Bible and said clear as day, “Romans 3:6 ”  He repeated it, and I woke up.
         So of course I’m sweating by now.  I think it’s important for me to mention that I am currently for the first time ever, reading my Bible from cover to cover.  I am no where near Romans, in fact I’m only now on I Samuel.  So I open my Bible to Romans 3:6, which in the Life Application Study Bible says, “Of course not  If God were not entirely fair, how would he be qualified to judge the world?”
         At first I didn’t quite understand, until I looked at the previous verse.  The Jews were asking Paul the same exact question I had asked the night before, “Our sinfulness serves a good purpose, for it helps people see how righteous God is.  Isn’t it unfair, then, for him to punish us? (This is merely a human point of view).”  So then I read the footnote in my Bible for these verses and it says, “Some may think they don’t have to worry about sin because 1) it is God’s job to forgive; 2) God is sol loving that He won’t judge; 3) sin isn’t so bad– it teaches valuable lessons; or 4) we need to stay in touch with the culture around us.  It is far too easy to take God’s grace for granted.  But God cannot overlook sin.  No matter how many excuses they make, sinners will have to answer to God for their sin.” 
         After I had read this, God opened my heart and my eyes to two very specific things I was doing and had no intention of changing that were in fact offensive to God.  I had completely rationalized them in my mind.  If God had come the day before January 12th, these two little sins that I had completely overlooked, could have led to my detriment.  I felt that the Lord was warning me in my vision that we have become such a liberal and accepting society that we forget our Christian fundamentals: that God will in fact hold our sin against us if we fail to repent.  I’m not talking about the sins that you unintentionally do that may have hurt someone, no.  You can pray for forgiveness for those.  I’m talking about those sins that you keep repeating, that you have no intention of changing because they have become overly accepted or overly rationalized in your mind, and the minds of those around you.  I ask that you pray to the Lord to open your eyes to the sins you commit that are offensive but you take for granted and trivialize.  I hope that you take my story to heart and reexamine your lives to identify these things and make the sacrifice to live a more Christ-like life.  Ephesians 5:1 says, “Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children.”