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Why? God has given the answer: "God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death." This death is not only earthly, but eternal....your "lake of fire". It was their fault since " they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God"
Romans 1:26-31
"Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless."
Romans 1:32 "Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."
I can not speak to your capacity - however, if sin and holiness is not the issue, why send His Son to die? It was "primitive ignorance, barbarity and blasphemy" that Christ endured on behalf of payment for sin. Why go through all of that if it didn't matter?
It was done so that whomever joined themselves to Christ through faith will use Christ's death to pay for the wages of sin.
God did NOT require any payment for sins. Our sins were preventing our species from developing the spiritual connection to God under the veil of ignorance produced by reading the OT. We were essentially isolated from God in our carnality. Jesus came to correct our understanding of God's TRUE NATURE and elevate His consciousness in human form to resonate with and become identical to God's. His death and REBIRTH as SPIRIT (resurrection) then made His Holy Spirit available to ALL human consciousness. Our connection to God was NOWestablished and we were ALL saved from permanent separation. All WE need to do is achieve a "harmonic resonance" with Jesus' love for us all . . . in "love of God and each other" . . . and we will have the cover of Jesus' perfection and grace for all our shortcomings. That is why God ALLOWED our savage ancestors to kill Jesus. By this unambiguous example, Jesus showed that God does NOT smite anyone and that there is NOTHING to fear from death or God. As far as SALVATION is concerned . . ."It is finished."
BUT . . . that is not all that we need to be concerned about. There are consequences for ALL sins that are NOT "repented" (revisited and changed in love) . . . because they represent imperfections in our Spiritual body(hate, anger, vengeance, envy, lust, greed, egotism, unkindness, lack of love, pride, self-righteousness, condemnation, etc.) that are NOT under the cover of Jesus' grace. They will be "refined" out of us . . . IF for some reason we do NOT repent of them prior to our death.
This is a subject very dear to my heart and I will try to explain why.
I was brought up in a Catholic family. Went to mass 6 days a week, altarboy, prayed the rosary, etc etc.
They told us if you died with a mortal sin on your soul you were pretty well doomed. If you had venial sin, you'd probably spend some time in purgatory and suffer. Could be physical, probably mental.
Well, I drifted away from going to church, began my life of sin but not too bad. Booze , drugs and rock and roll became my new church. But all this time, I was still searching. My buddies and I would sit around and get high and talk about the mystery of the universe. What was it? We'd talk about time travel, the universe, God and Jesus, death. You get the picture.
Then it happened. January 19, 1974 I was born again. I became a Jesus freak. Thats what they were called back then. No more partying for me, I was on fire for God.
I attended Assembly of God churches mostly. Went to bible studies, read David Wilkerson, read tons of books on revelation,etc but something was gnawing at me. Something wasn't right.
"So your saying that my dad, who is agnostic, who volunteers in soup kitchens, helps the poor, devotes his life to helping the down and out, who was a 'saint' watching over his parents before they died is going to the lake of fire because he is NOT BORN AGAIN?" My mom too? My friends, brother, sisters, ALL going to hell?" -me asking this many times
"Well son, the bible says only a few will make it. You must be born again.
Plain as day in the bible. PLus, God will remove the memory of them from you, blah, blah blah" - them answering me many times
Well, I am not here to quote scripture to back me up because I can find as many verses as you can, those of you who posted stating how holy God is and sin and God cannot be together. So forget the bible verses right now. I've got 35 years of reading the bible so I can find them but that won't convince anyone here.
I will appeal to your COMMON SENSE instead and then I will mention 1 parable that applies to many here.
Let me ask you, if you believe most souls end up in torment in the lake of fire, well, then you HAVE TO ADMIT, God lost control of His creation. The devil won, right? AFter all, only a few are going to be saved. Sounds like Jusus failed in His mission coming to earth to be the Savior of all mankind.
Well God is perfectand cannot error. He knew we would fall before He even created us. Didn't this ever occur to anyone?
Shame on all of you to think our Father is capable of tormenting souls forever. Could any of you toss one of your own kids into a blast furnace for not living up to your expectations??
Here is the parable for you....it is the prodigal son one. When the prodigal son was welcomed back by his Father, there was great joy. Joy for everyone. Except one person, the other son, the son who never left.
This is you. Your mad because God is welcoming into His kingdom ALL of His children and you don't think this is fair.
Well, get over it because Jesus Christ is the savior of ALL mankind. Yeah, look it up, that exact verse is in the bible.
You'll get over it 1day and then you'll look back in disgust, thinking how could I ever have believed God could torment souls for all of eternity.
But God will forgive that as well.
Why? God has given the answer: "God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death." This death is not only earthly, but eternal....your "lake of fire". It was their fault since " they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God"
Romans 1:26-31
"Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless."
Romans 1:32 "Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."
It seems many people here seem to think the Lake of Fire is nothing more than an eternal torture chamber, designed to inflict as much pain as possible, whether that be physical or spiritual pain.
Why would God do such a thing?
Especially since we know God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-wise, and all-loving... how does a giant eternal torture chamber seem like a reasonable thing to create? Reason would suggest to me that eternal torture is not a loving thing.
Some would say that we cannot understand the ways of God... therefore eternal torture is good. Huh?
Others simply delight in the idea of their enemies being tortured forever, and they have delighted in teaching this to the world. But God does not delight in the death of the wicked... God does not delight in evil.
It seems to me the idea of eternal torture for any reason is pure evil at its most base form. In that sense I can understand why one would conclude annihilation as a reasonable alternative.
God doesn't create torture chambers. People do it for themselves. It is my believe that this is true in this world as well as after death in the next world.
God doesn't create torture chambers. People do it for themselves. It is my believe that this is true in this world as well as after death in the next world.
Yes...I do believe that we shall reap what we sow here on this earth. Perhaps man himself is his own bookeeper ?
This is a subject very dear to my heart and I will try to explain why.
I was brought up in a Catholic family. Went to mass 6 days a week, altarboy, prayed the rosary, etc etc.
They told us if you died with a mortal sin on your soul you were pretty well doomed. If you had venial sin, you'd probably spend some time in purgatory and suffer. Could be physical, probably mental.
Well, I drifted away from going to church, began my life of sin but not too bad. Booze , drugs and rock and roll became my new church. But all this time, I was still searching. My buddies and I would sit around and get high and talk about the mystery of the universe. What was it? We'd talk about time travel, the universe, God and Jesus, death. You get the picture.
Then it happened. January 19, 1974 I was born again. I became a Jesus freak. Thats what they were called back then. No more partying for me, I was on fire for God.
I attended Assembly of God churches mostly. Went to bible studies, read David Wilkerson, read tons of books on revelation,etc but something was gnawing at me. Something wasn't right.
"So your saying that my dad, who is agnostic, who volunteers in soup kitchens, helps the poor, devotes his life to helping the down and out, who was a 'saint' watching over his parents before they died is going to the lake of fire because he is NOT BORN AGAIN?" My mom too? My friends, brother, sisters, ALL going to hell?" -me asking this many times
"Well son, the bible says only a few will make it. You must be born again.
Plain as day in the bible. PLus, God will remove the memory of them from you, blah, blah blah" - them answering me many times
Well, I am not here to quote scripture to back me up because I can find as many verses as you can, those of you who posted stating how holy God is and sin and God cannot be together. So forget the bible verses right now. I've got 35 years of reading the bible so I can find them but that won't convince anyone here.
I will appeal to your COMMON SENSE instead and then I will mention 1 parable that applies to many here.
Let me ask you, if you believe most souls end up in torment in the lake of fire, well, then you HAVE TO ADMIT, God lost control of His creation. The devil won, right? AFter all, only a few are going to be saved. Sounds like Jusus failed in His mission coming to earth to be the Savior of all mankind.
Well God is perfectand cannot error. He knew we would fall before He even created us. Didn't this ever occur to anyone?
Shame on all of you to think our Father is capable of tormenting souls forever. Could any of you toss one of your own kids into a blast furnace for not living up to your expectations??
Here is the parable for you....it is the prodigal son one. When the prodigal son was welcomed back by his Father, there was great joy. Joy for everyone. Except one person, the other son, the son who never left.
This is you. Your mad because God is welcoming into His kingdom ALL of His children and you don't think this is fair.
Well, get over it because Jesus Christ is the savior of ALL mankind. Yeah, look it up, that exact verse is in the bible.
You'll get over it 1day and then you'll look back in disgust, thinking how could I ever have believed God could torment souls for all of eternity.
But God will forgive that as well.
Bessings to all.
The other parable is this:
Matthew 20:1-16
The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard 1“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. 2He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. 3“About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5So they went.
“He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. 6About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ 7“‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ 8“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ 9“The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. 10So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ 13“But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 16“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
God did NOT require any payment for sins. Our sins were preventing our species from developing the spiritual connection to God under the veil of ignorance produced by reading the OT. We were essentially isolated from God in our carnality. Jesus came to correct our understanding of God's TRUE NATURE and elevate His consciousness in human form to resonate with and become identical to God's. His death and REBIRTH as SPIRIT (resurrection) then made His Holy Spirit available to ALL human consciousness. Our connection to God was NOWestablished and we were ALL saved from permanent separation. All WE need to do is achieve a "harmonic resonance" with Jesus' love for us all . . . in "love of God and each other" . . . and we will have the cover of Jesus' perfection and grace for all our shortcomings. That is why God ALLOWED our savage ancestors to kill Jesus. By this unambiguous example, Jesus showed that God does NOT smite anyone and that there is NOTHING to fear from death or God. As far as SALVATION is concerned . . ."It is finished."
BUT . . . that is not all that we need to be concerned about. There are consequences for ALL sins that are NOT "repented" (revisited and changed in love) . . . because they represent imperfections in our Spiritual body(hate, anger, vengeance, envy, lust, greed, egotism, unkindness, lack of love, pride, self-righteousness, condemnation, etc.) that are NOT under the cover of Jesus' grace. They will be "refined" out of us . . . IF for some reason we do NOT repent of them prior to our death.
What text do you get this viewpoint from?
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