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Voice Of Prophecy

H.M.S. Richards

He Descended Into Hell

Lift up the trumpet and loud let it ring, Jesus is coming again.

Cheer up, ye pilgrims, be joyful and sing, Jesus is coming again.

We bring to you again the program of The Voice of Prophecy, a voice crying in the wilderness, these latter days prepare ye the way of the Lord.

Coming again, coming again, Jesus is coming again.

This broadcast is presented by the Voice of Prophecy, Inc.

We invite you now to listen to our King's Herald Radio Quartet as they call upon us to stand up for Jesus.

Stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross.

Lift high his royal banner, it must not stop her love.

From victory unto victory his army shall he lead.

Till every foe is vanquished, and Christ is Lord indeed.

Stand up, stand up For Jesus, the strife will not be long.

This day the noise of battle, the next a vicar's song.

To him that overcometh, the thrall of life shall be.

He with The King of Glory shall reign eternally.

O Lord, Thou most high and Holy 1, we are unworthy to ask anything of Thee, for we have sinned against Thee.

But we come unto Thee in the name of Thy holy child Jesus, pleading the efficacy of His atoning blood.

Our prayers thus made fragrant with the merits of our Savior's character, coming before thee as sweet incense thou has promised to accept.

With the deepest gratitude of our hearts we thank thee for such a Savior who bears away the sin but saves the sinner who proclaims liberty to the captives of sin and the opening of the prison to them that are bound by their iniquities give us this promised freedom and make us more than conquerors through him that loved us, we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.

There is a place of quiet rest near to the heart of God.

O Jesus, Blessed Redeemer, sent from the heart of God, hold us who wait before thee, near to the heart of God.

We bring you greetings, friends, and a letter from a soldier stationed in the Hawaiian Islands.

This young man attends church every Lord's Day in Honolulu, even though he has to hitchhike 35 miles each way to do it.

He says, last Sabbath marked our 52nd consecutive attendance in 1 year's time, and we have hitchhiked 3, 640 miles to church and back, but it never gets old to us.

I also want you to know that the Voice of Prophecy is doing a great deal of good here on the island of Oahu, everyone seems to know about the program and everyone seems to enjoy it.

Well friends, all we can say is this, if the Voice of Prophecy is bringing a message of courage and hope to servicemen like that, we have reason to believe that our broadcast is accomplishing something for God.

Won't you pray for William, for our service men throughout the world?

Ask God to bless every 1 of our boys and help them to find in Christ a true and loyal friend.

He drew me with all cords of love, and thus he bound me to him.

And around my heart still closely twine those ties which not can sever.

For I am his and he is mine, forever and forever.

I've found a friend, oh such a friend, So kind and true and tender, So wise to counsel, lord and Guide, So mighty our Defender.

From him who loves me now so well, What power my soul can sever, Shall I for death or earth for heaven, And now, the voice of prophecy, his subject, he descended into hell.

Our Lord Jesus Christ tasted death for every man, Hebrews 2.9, and was buried as other men are buried.

He went down into the grave, and his broken-hearted disciples left him there alone.

Of this event it has been written and repeated millions of times, he descended into hell.

In the Bible, 4 different words from the Hebrew and Greek originals have been translated to hell.

They are Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, and Tartarus.

The first 2, 1 Hebrew and the other Greek, refer to the place of the dead or the grave.

Sheol is translated hell, grave, and pit.

When the psalmist said, My life draweth nigh unto the grave, Psalm 88, 3, Sheol was in the original text.

In the 16th Psalm, verse 10, we find a prophecy of Christ, which is so quoted by the Apostle Peter in his Pentecost sermon as we see in Acts 2, 26-27.

Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad.

Moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope, because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy 1 to seek corruption." In Psalm 16 the word hell is Sheol, here in Acts it is Hades.

David was speaking of Christ's burial and resurrection from the grave.

He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh should see corruption.

To all who sorrow the loss of dear ones, it brings comfort to know that our blessed Lord Jesus experienced death and rested in the grave, as have all the billions of mankind with the exception of 2, Enoch and Elijah.

The Christian need not fear the tomb, since Jesus has been there.

Some have suggested that between his death and resurrection, our Lord went as a spirit being and preached to other spirits in heaven.

In support of this view they quote 1 Peter 3 18 and 19.

For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, that just for the unjust that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit, By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison.

Notice that the word hell is not in this passage.

Neither is anything said about our Saviour's doing anything while he was dead.

He gave his life as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

He who was utterly righteous, who alone of all who ever walked on earth was sinless, died that just for the unjust.

You see, God is always ready to forgive the men who are in rebellion against him?

Christ did not labor to reconcile God to us, but us to God.

The prodigal son was welcomed home by his father as soon as he came to himself, and said, I will arise and go to my father.

Then the next sentence here in 1 Peter 3 18 says that he was quickened, that is made alive by the Spirit.

He was buried in the place of the dead, but he arose again.

Here is the same thought in Romans 1, 3, and 4, where we are told that he was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.

And here is still another scripture passage showing the work of the Holy Spirit in Christ's resurrection and in our resurrection too.

But if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you.

He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in you.

Now let us go back to 1 Peter 3.18 and read on into the next verse.

Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit, by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison.

The same Spirit of God by which our Lord was quickened, or brought to life again, was the agent by which he preached to the spirits in prison, whoever they were, and whenever the preaching was done.

Does this scripture say that these people called spirits in prison were dead while Christ preached to them by the Spirit of God?

In fact, the Bible makes it clear that the time to preach to men is while they're alive.

At death a man's destiny is settled for all eternity.

After death man is not given another opportunity for salvation, but something far different.

Here is the word of God on that subject, Hebrews 9 27.

And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this, the judgment.

There are many Bible statements to show that those who lead sinful lives are in prison, in bondage, in slavery.

Romans 7 14 speaks of people sold under sin as though they had no freedom.

2 Peter 2 19 of a man of whom a man is overcome of the same as he brought in bondage.

The sinner is a slave to sin, Galatians 3.22.

The scripture has concluded that is, shut up or imprisoned all under sin.

And the prison house of sin is a dark prison.

If you could see the letters from men and women chained by habit, if you could hear the heartbroken please for prayer poured into the ears of a minister of God, you would know something of the hard rule of sin.

Over the door which led from the old tombs' prison in New York to the courtroom were these words from Proverbs 13, 15, the way of transgressors is hard.

And how true those words are, every transgressor of God's law can testify.

When Jesus went back to Nazareth, his hometown, he was asked to preach at the Sabbath service in the synagogue.

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He Descended Into Hell

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