Q&A Home > H > Hell I notice it says to crush under one's feet ALL the prisoners the LORD does not approve. Perhaps some will be punished, but the passage shows God is a just and loving God. If God does not willingly afflict the children of men, why would there be a hell unless the doors of hell are locked from the inside?
Please see these verses: "For the Lord will not cast off forever. Though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. For He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. To crush under one’s feet all the prisoners of the earth, to turn aside the justice due a man before the face of the Most High, or subvert a man in his cause—the Lord does not approve" (Lamentations 3:31-36).
A loving parent disciplines a child not because he delights in his child's penalty, but chastises the child for his betterment. Chastisement is not an easy matter for any loving parent, and especially a beneficent and merciful God, nor is it a matter of willingness, but rather of necessity for the child. A person who persists in rejecting the Holy Spirit and refusing to repent will ultimately put himself in peril. When his life on earth ends, that is when the doors will close. However, it is he himself, by his own free will, who put himself on the wrong side of the door (Read the parable about the wise and foolish virgins—Matthew 25:1-13).
There is a unique resemblance between Jeremiah the Prophet and the Lord Jesus Christ because they both lamented over their rebellious people. The people familiar with the prophets of the Old Testament must have recognized that Christ was much afflicted by own His people and easily moved to tears as was the prophet Jeremiah. Perhaps that is why when the Lord asked His disciples who people say that He is, they responded, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets," (cf., Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34). The Church reads the prophecies of the Twelfth Hour on Great Friday of the Holy Pascha Week from the Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet.
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