Great thread! All the posts here brought out something unique and beautiful...very inspiring.
Here's what stuck out to me about this verse:
Psalms 23:4
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.The Lord brought to my mind the
valley of Hinnom, which is Gehenna in the New Testament. It is the Elect that first experience the judgment fire of Gehenna...it is spiritually dying daily....so perhaps walking through this valley is a
shadow or
type of the spiritual death we must all experience...but the Elect experience it first and so they
foreshadow the spiritual death that all the rest will experience in the Lake of Fire.
From Ray's paper:GEHENNA FIRE IS JUDGMENT FIRE ON ALL GOD'S ELECT
Clearly the sermon on the mount was not directed toward the Pharisees, or the Sadducees, or the Scribes, or the chief priests, or the Jews, or Judea, or the multitudes, or the unbelieving nations of the world, but rather for Christ's followers. That is for you if you are a follower of Jesus. Although by the time Pentecost came around after the resurrection of Jesus, there was a total of only 120 disciples waiting for the promise of God's Holy Spirit to come on them in Jerusalem (Acts 1:15), nonetheless, earlier, Jesus had many disciples.
Mount Tabor is traditionally thought to be the mountain on which Jesus gave His famous sermon. It is inconceivable that thousands of elderly, sickly, and crippled people followed Jesus up the mountain. No, they were with Him at the base, and waited for Him till He returned where He continued healing and teaching.
Yes, of course, the whole world of unbelievers and ungodly will experience God's Divine consuming fire-His Gehenna fire,
but not before it has first purged all of His Elect, the called and Chosen of the House of God. Which judgment the "House of God" has been experiencing now for 2000 years.These instructions are decidedly not written for the "Many [who] will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, ...in Thy name done many wonderful works?... I will profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me..." (Matt. 7:22-23).
Only the living experience "Gehenna fire." And during this life, It is rather the living chosen elect of Jesus Christ who go through "Gehenna fire." "If you be reproached [insulted] for the name of Christ, happy are you... yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf, for the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God..." (I Pet. 4:14, 16-17).
http://bible-truths.com/lake16-D3.htm
Peace,
Diana