Ezekiel 32:24 (HCSB)

Elam is there

with all her hordes around her grave.

All of them are slain, fallen by the sword—

they who went down to the underworld uncircumcised,

who ‹once› spread their terror

in the land of the living.

They bear their disgrace

with those who descend to the Pit.

The language of the prophet suggests that death is not the end. Those who go “down to the underworld uncircumcised” are those who do not know God. Here he is referring to Egypt and Assyria and all those nations who persecuted Israel. Their day of judgment is coming. They will fall by the sword. In other words, they will meet the same end they inflicted upon others.

But death is not the end. The grave is not man’s final resting place. Those who spend their lives rebelling against God, and then die in their rebellion, go down to “the Pit.” In hell they “bear their disgrace.” They continue to exist after death in a state of disgrace.

Disgrace is an emotional term. The Hebrew term comes from a root word meaning “shame.” I have done things that made my face turn red—I felt humiliated. I wanted to run away and hide. I was willing to do anything to make that feeling go away. Eventually it did—eventually I “lived it down.”

But imagine a place where you can never live down the shame. Instead, you sink down into the shame and you never “live it down.” You wear humiliation forever. Can you imagine such a place?

There is such a place. It is called hell. It is a place, not only of physical anguish, but also of emotional disgrace. There is only one way to escape this place—our shame can be covered under the blood of Jesus. There is a place where our sins are washed away. “There is a fountain, filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins; and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.”

Our disgrace meets God’s amazing grace—and grace always wins!