Divine This!

A Divine Revelation of Hell
By Mary K. Baxter
ISBN: 0883682796

I opened this book with an open mind and soon wished that the author would have taken the same courtesies.

First, the Introduction began with an explanation of the how long it took to write, edit, and publish the book. I'll summarize--it took many years. Yet, within the first page, and oh so many after, there were continual grammar and punctuation mistakes. Credibility alert! The mistakes would not have bothered me if the author hadn't been compelled to point out how much effort this book took to create.

Before I go on, I must admit that I was unable to finish the book. At approximately 220 pages, I read 110. The ONLY reason that I endured it that far was because a close friend asked me to read the book and I knew my credibility would be at stake if I quit too early. Also, let me make it clear that I am an avid reader and I can count a total of five books that I've begun but not finished (mainly George Elliot-the prose is just too much for me.) I did scan through the entire book and would have finished had I saw anything that significantly differed from what I had already read.

I'm not sure why I expected more details surrounding the events and less emotional appeal to put faith in God. It was a disastrous set-up for myself. I kept wanting to get to the heart of things but the dialog was painstakingly slow and the events of the book crawled. One reason for this was Mary's use of repetition. It's going to be a long time before I can read, "Repent your sins. Hell is horrible and you don't want to come here." Seriously, that line is repeated in nearly every other paragraph. There is so much of Mary's own dialog strewn throughout the novel that the few points she does make become obscured. I found a site on the web that claims to have been written by Mary. It appears to be the exact words from the book, except Mary's comments are stripped out: http://www.christrevealed.com/baxter/

But now, on with the review...

It began with events surrounding Jesus's visit to the author, Mary. She points out that she had been praying for 7 days straight before the first visit. A little niggle in my mind wondered, 'Hallucination?' Basically, over a period of months (possibly, years--during the entire time she was writing the book), Jesus would visit Mary and take her to Hell during the night and during the day she would lead as normal of a life as she could. Jesus did all this because he wanted to give everyone here on earth proof that not only does Hell exist, but it's a terrible, terrible place that can be avoided if only you repent your sins.

Apparently Mary was able to reach Hell with Christ through tornado like funnels that act like slinkys jumping over the earth. There are many of them and they are constantly moving. Mary and Christ jumped into one and made it to Hell, which just happens to be at the center of earth, and which just happens to be shaped like a human. Hell is literally shaped with a head, two arms, a belly, and two legs.

Upon arriving in hell she saw many terrible creatures but didn't take the time to expound on them. Instead she covered in depth, several pits in which a person judged to hell stands in and burns. Mary and Jesus would walk up to a pit where invariably someone would moan to Jesus for help. These people were skeletons with 'grey' souls--which meant they had refused to repent while on earth. And they were always on fire. Anyway, Jesus and Mary would approach them and they would say, 'Help me. Help me.' Jesus would say 'Here's what you did on earth:' (Many typical examples of hell-bound practices: prostitution, wife murdered husband for committing adultery, minister who preached falsehoods, etc). To all of these, Jesus would say, 'You have been judged. I feel bad for you but this is where you belong. You asked for this by not repenting your sins and now you must endure it for all of eternity.' Mary would weep and say how terrible it was that these people just hadn't repented. They could have been saved. The pits are located in both 'arms' of hell.

In the belly of hell are more terrible things. Satan is there and its his fun ground. Supposedly all the satanists who practiced on earth are there and receive specially tough punishments for believing Satan would share his kingdom with them. They were fools who deserve a fools punishment.

Also mentioned deserving extra punishment are those who followed God but then lost him. Satan has extra tortures for them, too.

The demons are of all shapes but the bigger they are, the more power they have. That's all I remember about them.

This is where I'll let you go. This was half of the book. Basically I learned that if you don't repent your sins God will send you to Hell and Satan will torture you for eternity. Mary would like you to know that Hell is as bad of a place as rumored. I didn't have the patience to finish the rest--it was too fable-ish but without the conventions of good storytelling.