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What I have come to see and realize over the years is that our sense of "time" is so relative and to God there is no time.
I have been disabled for near 10 years. In that period I have learned that time is irrelevant unless one has set an epoch at which they are to keep an appointment with another.
Days go on for days, weeks into weeks, seasons and years come and go as do birthdays. Man has seemingly made time a foe to us all. We live and there is no brake handle. It is horrible to age in today's society yet we try in vain to extend our lifetimes. Aging in our society is truly horrible as adolescence/young adulthood are the preferred ages for acting/modeling and sports; two of the most high profile forms of employment one can have. Take notice.
I have experienced a few life threatening surgeries in a 12 year span and I can honestly say you won't know JESUS unless you realize what hell is. I think it can be put the other way around as well - you won't know what hell is until you know JESUS.
The two are intertwined - "No one gets to the Father except through ME". What does that tell you? JESUS is trying to steer you out of hell. It's an individual choice. JESUS said the famous line "Get thee behind me, Satan" when rebuking Peter. Read the bible and see how many times he confronts Satan, speaks of him or mentions hell in some form.
How many might think "that's too religious" or have friends that might feel so?
Most people you know believe in hell - they might use the word several times a day. Atheists get wound up about it and a lot of them know the bible better than Christians. That says a lot to me and I wonder where their hearts truly are.
Hi there,
I am a 31 year believer who has also suffered serious illness. There has been weeping and gnashing of teeth for sure. Like Jonah, I have cried from the belly of hell (sheol) for deliverance from this body of death. I preach God's love through Jesus everywhere I go. If anyone cares to read my 'testimony' it can be found on my friend Debbie Boutwell's site scared of hell ? (http://scaredofhell.com/ - broken link)
My testimony is on the testimony page found here: Testimonies (http://scaredofhell.com/Testimonies.html - broken link)
Mine is the third one down called "Byron's story"
I am committed to share the good news to every creature, the news that Jesus has conquered the power of death and hell (the grave). He has reversed what occurred in the garden when Adam lost fellowship with God. The full effect of what Jesus has done will be shown in due time when every creature will worship in the presence of the the Creator of all things.
blessings,
- Byron
Last edited by firstborn888; 02-19-2008 at 06:27 PM..
Reason: spelling
Many preterist types point out the conquering of Jerusalem in 70 ad and how the bodies were too numberous to bury and were burned in the Valley of hinnom and how the Christians escaped that judgment (of Jerusalem).
I have read this also, Byron. Thanks for sharing.
Quote:
He has reversed what occurred in the garden when Adam lost fellowship with God. The full effect of what Jesus has done will be shown in due time when every creature will worship in the presence of the the Creator of all things
Yes I believe hell is a real place and I believe it is eternal and I believe the only way to Heaven is through Jesus.
Matthew 25:41 "Then the King will turn to those on the left and say away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons".
John 14:6 "Jesus told him, I am the way, the truth, and life, no one can come to the Father except through Me".
This is why I like the internet , hopefully many can be reached in a time when Oprah Winfrey is openly preaching the "new age religion", actively telling housewives all over America that it's ok, just read this book called the "secret"(neverminding the fact that it extracts some of the very principles of the Bible )!
Like they will get to heaven that way!Like this should be their new answer in life. What makes me so sad is that my very own sister seems to buy into this crap!And she has children!!
She now thinks that everyone should read the "secret".
Churches have ministers that do not even know if there is a God, in some cases, I can attest to this because there was one in the local paper who wrote to Dear Abby, asking if she thought he should continue behind the pulpit, because he just "did not believe".You had better know it folks there are ministers out there that do not know.
There are misinterpretations unfortunately by some.
I go for the Bible.The KJV.
It is about having a real relationship with God and Jesus, being forgiven through Jesus Christ's substitutionary death.
And if you do not, it is like this poster said above.
There is a hell , because that is what the inspired word of God says there is.
I am actively pursuing my friends and family so that they can get this.
Before it is too late.
The other part of that is that it is just like the devil to have us believe that the complacency we are in will be ok.
The man that posted on here that God and Jesus are watching over the good and the evil here on earth, that was eye opening , the fact that He is still present, and that being our state until death when judgement comes.
I have heard people say that they think we are in hell here!! Oh boy.
If I had one wish that I could make come true, it would be that I could show everyone the truth.Warn them of that fate.
There is a hell , because that is what the inspired word of God says there is.
Yes, Gretchen, there is not only a hell, there are five hell's: sheol and hades and pit and tartaroo and gehenna. And, hell, whether it be one or many, is ultimately consummated with death in the Lake of Theos/ Pur. Are you aware that "from Him everything comes, through Him everything exists, and in Him everything ends"? It is true! He is the Source, He is the Guide, He is the Goal of all that is. The ta pavnte!
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And the leaves of the Tree of Life are for the healing of the nations. And there shall no longer be a curse upon anything.
If I had one wish that I could make come true, it would be that I could show everyone the truth. Warn them of that fate.
"And every creature which is in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, blessing and honour, and glory and power, be unto Him that sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever."
Revelation 5:13 -Robertson New Testament Word Pictures-
Every created thing= pan ktisma.
Every creature in a still wider antiphonal circle beyond the circle of angels (from ktizw, for which see 1 Timothy 4:4; James 1:18), from all the four great fields of life (in heaven, upon the earth, under the earth as in verse 3, with on the sea epi thv talasshv added).
No created thing is left out. This universal chorus of praise to Christ from all created life reminds one of the profound mystical passage in Romans 8:20-22 concerning the sympathetic agony of creation (ktisiv) in hope of freedom from the bondage of corruption.
If the trail of the serpent is on all creation, it will be ultimately thrown off.
Jesus preached on hell more than anything. ...that and money.
Is that insider information or are you merely repeating a big fib?
The Logic of Hell by German Theogian Jürgen Moltmann
The logic of hell is nothing other than the logic of human free will, in so far as this is identical with freedom of choice. The theological argument runs as follows: 'God whose being is love preserves our human freedom, for freedom is the condition of love. Although God's love goes, and has gone, to the uttermost, plumbing the depth of hell, the possibility remains for each human being of a final rejection of God, and so of eternal life'. Does God's love preserve our free will, or does it free our enslaved will which has become unfree though the power of sin? Does God love free men and women, or does he seek the men and women who have become lost. It is apparently not Augustine who is the father of Anglo-Saxon Christianity; the Church Father who secretly presides over it is his opponent Pelagius.
The first conclusion, it seems to me, is that it is inhumane, for there are not many people who can enjoy free will where their eternal fate in heaven or hell is concerned.
What happens to the people who never had the choice, or never had the power to decide? The children who died early, the severely handicapped, the people suffering from geriatric diseases? Are they in heaven, in total non being, or somewhere between, in a limbo? What happens to the billions of people whom the gospel has never reached and who were never faced with the choice? What happens to God's chosen people Israel, the Jews, who are unable to believe in Christ? Are all the adherents of other religions destined for annihilation? And not least: how firm must our own decision of faith be if it is to preserve us from total non being? Anyone who faces men and women with the choice of heaven or hell, does not merely expect too much of them. It leaves them in a state of uncertainty, because we cannot base the assurance of our salvation on the shaky ground of our own decisions. If we think about these questions, we have to come to the conclusion that in the end not many are going to be with God in heaven; most people are going to be in total non being. Or is the presupposition of this logic of hell perhaps an illusion the presupposition that it all depends on the human being's free will?
If ultimately, after God's final judgment on human decisions of will, all that is left is 'heaven' and 'hell', we still have to ask ourselves: what is going to happen to the earth, and all the earthly creatures, which the Creator after all found to be 'very good'? If they too are to disappear into 'total non being', because they are no longer required, how can there then be a new earth'?
The logic of hell seems to me not merely inhumane but also extremely atheistic: here the human being in his freedom of choice is his own lord and god. His own will is his heaven or his hell. God is merely the accessory who puts that will into effect. If I decide for heaven, God must put me there; if I decide for hell, he has to leave me there. If God has to abide by our free decision, then we can do with him what we like. Is that 'the love of God'? Free human beings forge their own happiness and are their own executioners. They do not just dispose over their lives here; they decide on their eternal destinies as well. So they have no need of any God at all. After a God has perhaps created us free as we are, he leaves us to our fate. Carried to this ultimate conclusion, the logic of hell is secular humanism, as Feuerbach, Marx and Nietzsche already perceived a long time ago.
Jesus Christ Brings God To The Forsaken
The Christian doctrine of hell is to be found in the gospel of Christ's descent into hell, not in a modernisation of hell into total non being. Our century has produced more infernos than all the centuries before us: The gas ovens of Auschwitz and the atomizing of Hiroshima heralded an age of potential mass annihilation through ABC weapons. So many people have experienced hells! It is pointless to deny hell. It is a possibility that is constantly round about us and within us. In this situation, the gospel about Christ's descent into hell is particularly relevant: Christ suffered the 'inescapable remoteness from God' and the 'God forsakenness' that knows no way out, so that he could bring God to the God forsaken. He comes 'to seek that which is lost'. He suffered the torments of hell so that for us they are not hopeless and without escape. Christ brought hope to the place where according to Dante all who enter must 'abandon hope'. 'If I make my bed in hell thou art there' (Ps 139:8). Through his sufferings Christ has destroyed hell. Hell is open: "Hell where is thy victory?' (I Cor 15:55).
For Luther, hell is not a place in the next world, the underworld; it is an experience of God.
For him, Christ's descent into hell was his experience of God forsakenness from Gethsemane to Golgotha. In the crucified Christ we see what hell is, because through him it has been overcome. The true universalitv of God's grace is not grounded in 'secular humanism'. It is on that humanism, rather as the logic of free will shows that the double end is based: heaven hell, being non being. But the universality of God's grace is grounded on the theology of the cross. This is the way it was presented by all the Christian theologians who were criticized for preaching 'universal reconciliation', most recently Karl Barth. In his 'confession of hope' the Swabian revivalist preacher Christoph Blumhardt (who profoundly influenced modern Protestant theology in Germany) put it this way: 'There can be no question of God's giving up anything or anyone in the whole world, either today or in all eternity. The end has to be: Behold, everything is God's! Jesus comes as the one who has borne the sins of the world. Jesus can judge but not condemn. My desire is to have preached this as far as the deepest depths of hell, and I shall never be confounded.'
Judgment is not God's last word.
Judgment establishes in the world the divine righteousness on which the new creation is to be built. But God's last word is 'Behold, I make all things new' (Rev 21:5). From this no one is excepted. Love is God's compassion with the lost. Transforming grace is God's punishment for sinners. It is not the right to choose that defines the reality of human freedom. It is the doing of the good.
"And every creature which is in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, blessing and honour, and glory and power, be unto Him that sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever."
Revelation 5:13 -Robertson New Testament Word Pictures-
Quote:
Every created thing= pan ktisma.
Every creature in a still wider antiphonal circle beyond the circle of angels (from ktizw, for which see 1 Timothy 4:4; James 1:18), from all the four great fields of life (in heaven, upon the earth, under the earth as in verse 3, with on the sea epi thv talasshv added).
No created thing is left out. This universal chorus of praise to Christ from all created life reminds one of the profound mystical passage in Romans 8:20-22 concerning the sympathetic agony of creation (ktisiv) in hope of freedom from the bondage of corruption.
If the trail of the serpent is on all creation, it will be ultimately thrown off.
Quote:
'Behold, I make all things new' (Rev 21:5).
Birdy
Isaiah 25:6-8
The LORD of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain;
A banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow,
And refined, aged wine.
7. And on this mountain He will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples,
Even the veil which is stretched over all nations.
8. He will swallow up death for all time,
And the Lord GOD will wipe tears away from all faces,
And He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth;
For the LORD has spoken.
Praise God
God bless.
Last edited by ShanaBrown; 03-22-2009 at 10:26 AM..
Well, I'll read your links when I have a chance and while I understand that the Jews were the guys who read, write and speak Hebrew, I also understand the New Testament isn't written in Hebrew, so I'm a bit confused on the point.
But I will read your links, I promise.
The question I asked came up during my time in study Saturday evening and I was reading/looking at some text on Hell for a lesson I was teaching Sunday morning. I was reading and studying and the 'thought' came to mind "Gehenna, garbage dump, Lake of Fire or whatever--what goes in, stays in'
I felt like I was 'supposed' to share that here and I think it's ironic it's one of the only things you and I have ever agreed on. What I struggle with is how you can make that concession and then say Hell isn't forever. If the terms used to describe the place (hell) were 'once and done' then how can you not equally apply that to Hell?
But all in all it's a good day when you and I can agree
And we so know where that thought came from.....! I'm glad I went through this thread once again!!!
That thought you received Alpha from the Father.....has spoken to me so deeply and confirming more of the truth about hell!!!
Some will continue to deny it for what ever reasons only God knows....and He knows that it breaks my heart how the hearts have been harden and that the ears can not hear what the Spirit is saying through many in this thread.....
I'm so thankful that His Holy Spirit sealed me in His truth and is keeping, leading, teaching all that is needed in this life, till He takes me home!!!
Blessings
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I am with you on this..thank you for your post.
came to mind "Gehenna, garbage dump, Lake of Fire or whatever--what goes in, stays in'
! I'm glad I went through this thread once again!!! 
