The Truth About Hell (David, Gospel, Jehovah, believe)
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How can one believe in Jesus Christ, if they do not also believe there is Satan and hell?
Believing into Jesus Christ is the beginning & the ending of our life. There is indeed a devil and hell. Do you know that both death and hells final end is the Lake of Theos/Pur?
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There is good, and there is evil.
Yes indeed there is! The question is, will evil exist forevermore?
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Definitely, I believe in hell, and I do not want to go there.
I also. I also believe our God is omnipresent. Do you believe our God is consumming fire? Do you want to go there?
The question of all questions is essentially this: can evil finally triumph over Good?
If evil ultimately triumphs
If we answer affirmatively with the popular creed of unending evil and sin, we are practically falling into dualism; if we reply negatively, we are teaching the Restitution of all things. The Calvinist settled the question by, in fact, affirming that if evil triumphs it is because God so orders, that is, because God decrees to evil an eternal existence; thus saving or trying to save God's omnipotence, but at no less a cost than that of blackening His character, yes, of virtually making Him a partner in evil.
God Satisfied With Endless Disobedience?
But the popular creed of despair and unending curse saves neither the omnipotence of God, nor yet preserves His character. Sin, the one thing most utterly hateful in His sight, He tolerates forever and ever, poisoning and defiling His works, and defying His power--satisfied, if in this brief life He cannot have obedience and righteousness--satisfied with endless disobedience and sin hereafter.
A Baffled Saviour A Victorious Devil?
He appears before all creation as trying to dislodge sin, only to fail; as sending His divine Son to save all men in order that He may return rejected, baffled, vanquished. And so the curtain falls on the great drama of creation and redemption, presenting such a picture as this- a baffled Saviour, a victorious devil, a ruined creation, sin triumphant- and so to continue forever- a heaven wholly base, a hell wholly miserable.
God's Essence
Strong as these words are, they are not strong enough, for the horrors and the contradictions of the popular creed alike defy description. And these horrors are taught, these contradictions are believed in the face of the plainest teaching of God's two revelations, His primary revelation to our moral sense, His written revelation in Holy Scripture. From the first page to the last the Bible is the story on one who is our Father- one whose 'wrath', and 'fire', and 'judgement', are at once most real, and yet one and all are the expressions of that essential LOVE which He is- One who being Almighty is sending His Son to assured victory, to reconcile to Himself all things, 'whatsover and wheresoever they be.'
Vain Attempts
I know how eagerly men strive to save the popular creed, by diminishing the number of the lost, by softening their torments, by asserting their annihilation, etc. What are all these but to many tacit confessions that men everywhere feel it impossible to maintain the creed still generally professed? What are they but in fact so many vain attempts to disguise the awful fact of God's defeat, to hide if it may be the victory of the evil one? For so long as sin lingers in a single heart, so long as a single child of the Great Parent perishes eternally, whether annihilated, or sent to hell, so long is the Cross a failure, and the devil practically victor.
How shallow is the common view of "fire" as only or chiefly a penal agent. Fire, in Scripture, is the element of....
"Life"....Isa. 4:5
"Purification"....Matt. 3:3
"Atonement"....Lev. 16:27
"Transformation".....2 Pet. 3:10
And never ever of preservation alive for purposes of anguish.
And the popular view selects precisely this latter use, never found in Scripture, and represents it as the sole end of God's fiery judgments! If we take either the teaching of Scripture or of nature, we see that the dominant conception of fire is of a beneficent agent. Nature tells us that fire is a necessary condition of life; its mission is to sustain life; and to purify, even when it dissolves.
Extinguish the stores of fire in the universe, and you extinguish all being; universal death reigns. Most strikingly is this connection of fire and life shown in the facts of nutrition. For we actually burn in order to live; our food is the fuel; our bodies are furnaces; our nutrition is a process of combustion; we are, in fact, "aflame to the very tips of our fingers." And so it is that round the fireside of life and work gather: when we think of home we speak of the family hearth.
Fire Is The Sign Of God's Being
And what Nature teaches, Scripture enforces in no doubtful tone. It is significant to find the Great Source of life constantly associated with fire in the Bible.
Fire is the sign, not of God's wrath, but of His being.
When God comes to Ezekiel there is a "fire unfolding itself" (Ezek. 1:4, 27) and "the appearance of fire." (Ezek. 8:2)
Christ's eyes are a flame of "fire" (Rev. 1:14).
The seven lamps of "fire" are the seven Spirits of God (Rev. 4:5). So a fiery stream is said "to go before God," His throne is fiery flame; its wheels are burning fire (Daniel 7:9, 10). His eyes are lamps of fire (Dan. 10:6); He is a wall of fire (Zeph. 2:5). At His touch the mountains smoke (Psl. 104:32). And God's ministers are a flame of fire (Psl. 104:4...Heb. 1:7). It is not meant to deny that the Divine Fire chastises and destroys.
Purification, Not Ruin Is The Final Outcome
It is meant that purification, not ruin, is the final outcome of that fire from above, which consumes--call it, if you please, a paradox--in order that it may save. For if God is Love, then by what but by love can His fires be kindled? They are, in fact, the very flame of love; and so we have the key to the words, "Thy God is a consuming Fire," and "Thy God is a merciful God" (Deut. 4:24-31). So God devours the earth with fire, in order that finally all may call upon the name of the Lord (Zeph. 3:8, 9)--words full of significance.
So Isaiah tells us of God's cleansing the daughters of Zion by the spirit of burning (Isa. 4:4)--suggestive words. And, so again, "By fire will the Lord plead with all flesh." (Isa. 66:16) And Christ coming to save, comes to purify by "fire." (Mal. 3:2).
Fire A Sign Of Favorable Response?
Let us note, also, how often "fire" is the sign of a favorable answer from God; when God appears to Moses at the Bush it is in "fire:" God answers Gideon by "fire;" and David by "fire." (1 Chron. 21:26) Again, when He answers Elijah on Carmel, it is by "fire;" and in "fire" Elijah himself ascends to God. So God sends to Elisha, for aid, chariots and horses of "fire." So when the Psalmist calls, God answers by "fire." (Psl. 18:6-8)
And by the pillar of "fire" God gave His law. And in "fire" the great gift of the Holy Ghost descends at Pentecost."
Fire Is The Portion Of All
These words bring us to the New Testament. There we find that "fire," like judgment, so far from being the sinner's portion ONLY, is the portion of all. Like God's judgment again, it is not future merely, but present; it is "already kindled," always kindled: its object is not torment, but cleansing. The proof comes from the lips of our Lord Himself. "I am come to send fire on the earth," for it is certain that He came as a Saviour. Thus, coming to save, Christ comes with fire, nay, with fire already kindled. He comes to baptize with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.
Therefore, it is that Christ teaches in solemn passage (usually misunderstood, Mark 9:43) that everyone shall be salted with fire. And so the "fire is to try every man's work." He whose work fails is saved (mark the word saved), not damned "so as by fire," by consuming what is evil, saves and refines.
The ancient tradition that represents Christ as saying, "He that is near Me is near fire," expresses a vital truth. So Malachi, describes Christ as being in His saving work "like a refiner's fire." And so, echoing Deut 4:24-31, we are told that "our God is a consuming Fire," i.e., God in His closest relation to us; God is Love; God is Spirit: but "Our God is a consuming Fire"--a consuming Fire, "by which the whole material substance of sin is destroyed."
When, then, we read (Psl. 18:12) that "coals of fire" go before God, we think of the deeds of love which are "coals of fire" to our enemies. (Rom. 12:20) Thus, we who teach hope for all men, do not shrink from but accept, in their fullest meaning, these mysterious "fires" of gehenna, of which Christ speaks (kindled for purification), as in a special sense the sinner's doom in the coming ages. But taught by the clearest statements of Scripture (confirmed as they are by many analogies of Nature), we see in these "fires" not a denial of, but a mode of fulfilling, the promise--
I want to be with Jesus. It's that simple, really. Wherever He is, is where I want to be. 'Nuff said.
There is nothing simple with wanting to be with Jesus, my friend. The purpose of His calling upon us is to cause us to be with Him where He is, and to behold His glory where He is in the bosom of the Father. It is a fearfully wonderful place where He is!
I have looked upon the face of Love Himself, and as a result all my earlier conceptions of the nature and character of God and His purposes for Mankind have been swallowed up. It feels almost as though I have seen a new God altogether, but I know of course, that the real fact is I have seen the True God in a new way—in the face of the Risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. As a result, "old things have passed away and all things have become new. -Hannah Hurnard-
"How could the Bible possibly speak of the perfect victory of God our Creator who loves righteousness and cannot bear evil, if that victory really means that He cannot bring His own creatures at last to hate evil as He hates it, but must confirm multitudes, indeed the majority of them, in their choice of evil for ever and ever?... What sort of victory is it to be able only to subdue evil and prevent it harming any but those who choose it, and to be unable to bring human souls to abominate it and desire to forsake it, so that the evil itself ceases to exist?" -Hannah Hurnard-
How could the Bible possibly speak of the perfect victory of God our Creator who loves righteousness and cannot bear evil, if that victory really means that He cannot bring His own creatures at last to hate evil as He hates it, but must confirm multitudes, indeed the majority of them, in their choice of evil for ever and ever?... What sort of victory is it to be able only to subdue evil and prevent it harming any but those who choose it, and to be unable to bring human souls to abominate it and desire to forsake it, so that the evil itself ceases to exist?" -Hannah Hurnard-
There is nothing simple with wanting to be with Jesus, my friend. The purpose of His calling upon us is to cause us to be with Him where He is, and to behold His glory where He is in the bosom of the Father. It is a fearfully wonderful place where He is!
My point was that I want to be with Him, wherever He is. I'm not going to be into any sort of theological or doctrinal debate; I'm simply telling you, and the world at large, that wherever He is, is where I want to be. So yes, it is just that simple. I believe that's why the Lord told us to come to Him as little children....JMO
My point was that I want to be with Him, wherever He is. I'm not going to be into any sort of theological or doctrinal debate; I'm simply telling you, and the world at large, that wherever He is, is where I want to be. So yes, it is just that simple. I believe that's why the Lord told us to come to Him as little children....JMO
But do you not know that sheep are always weak, and helpless, and silly; and that the very reason they are compelled to have a shepherd to care for them is just because they are so unable to take care of themselves? Their welfare and their safety, therefore, do not in the least depend upon their own strength, nor upon their own wisdom, nor upon anything in themselves, but wholly and entirely upon the care of their shepherd. And, if you are a sheep, your self also must depend altogether upon your Shepherd, and not at all upon yourself. -Hannah W. Smith
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