The World Below (Hoping I'm Wrong)

“Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low and tread down the wicked where they stand.  Hide them all in the dust together, bind their faces in the world below.”  Job 40:12-13

      What do you think about what God is saying here?  What do you think about a God who would cut down the proud?  Our world celebrates pride doesn’t it?  We like to be proud of many things.  Proud of our children, proud of our accomplishments and proud to be Canadian.  Proud to be liberal or proud to be conservative.  Proud of our bank account or proud of our sexuality. I’ve even heard of pride parades.  Maybe you have to.

  But I could be wrong.  Maybe God really is fine with pride and I’m too literal.  

  What really struck me about this passage however was the reference to binding “their faces in the world below.” Job 40:13  What do you think He could be speaking of when referring to the world below>  I have read Job a few times before this, but I can’t say that I remember this part.  I tend to feel alone in the way that I interpret these kinds of words.

  It isn’t like this passage stands alone in scripture in what it seems to be saying.  It refers to a ‘world below’, which would serve to be a place of punishment for the wicked.  Being more faithful to the passage, the wicked are to be trampled down, buried in the dirt, having their faces bound in the underworld.  No.  I’m not making it up.  That is what it says.

  I can be wrong.  Maybe there aren’t people who are bound up under the earth, but it certainly seems like that is what we find here.  Maybe hell isn’t a place of fire, but little more than a burning garbage heap.  If I wanted to convince you, I would bring out other references in scripture that speak on people being under the earth. 

  Yeah.  I think there is a world below.  You can call it what you want.  I think it’s really hot, and dark with no chance of parole.  Ever.  I can be wrong.  In fact, I hope I am.

  Truth isn’t the result of a well defended thesis or argument.  Truth is the exact representation of reality, so it doesn’t much matter if you believe me or not.

   What do you really think about life after death?  Have you ever considered the possibility, that what you believe about eternity, holds absolutely no bearing whatsoever over what actually is?  Can you afford to be wrong?