685 - BELOW

ALfrEd was a diminutive figure and his large ears gave his an elfin appearance. He was a fearless soap-box preacher and was quick to respond to hecklers in his audience. Alfred was saying, "Turn around from your wayward lives and come to Jesus to have the penalty for your wrongdoing wiped out. Don't finish your life rejecting Jesus and finish up in sheol." "Did you say finish up in a shell?", scoffed an onlooker. "I said sheol, also known as hell", responded Alfred. "Oh, this is all nonsense", responded another onlooker, "We start off life in a mother's bulge and finish up in the ground and that's it." Alfred responded: "You are only thinking of the material realm. There is a spiritual realm where, just as the sky is above us, so we think of God's dwelling, heaven, is above us and, just as the ground is underneath us, we think of sheol as below heaven. But these are just ways of grasping something beyond our reasoning."