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Posted by Tentmaker
In Reply to: Re: How God saved AND delivers from Hell...(from hellfire TEACHING, that is.) posted by #####
: ***** >> "Nowhere did it say in scripture that unbelievers went to Hell.": #####
: • He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son. But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. Revelation 21: 7-8Tentmaker: (in playful dialect)
So I shud be lookin in ther fer ya, huh? We know God's first "chosen people" became the most corrupt people on earth according ta the Jewish historian Josephus. Seems ta me, judgin ferm church history, da choich isa gonna out do da Jews in lying, thievin, cheatin, sorcerin, idolarin, n abominatin n stuff. And judgin ferm sum o yer posts, you's about one of de most God blasphemin folks I ever cum across. So, ifn ther be a like of fire, I sure would be a xpectin ta find you's taken a long hot bath in them thar flames....yes siree indeedee....you outta take a bath in the cleanin flames....:-)Now here's nuther reason you would be thar ifn you de lake o fire was real:
Do You Believe What You Preach And Teach?
Dear Christian, may I ask to a "real" serious question? The reason I ask it is because most non-Christians I talk to do not believe that we take what we hear on Sunday mornings and our Bible classes very seriously. As a matter of fact, they are quite convinced the preachers and teachers who teach them do not believe what they teach and preach. Let me bring up one doctrine to show you what I mean.
Do you SERIOUSLY believe the vast majority of mankind is doomed for torment in everlasting flames? Most non-Christians I've spoken with base their opinions of what we believe by whether we LIVE what we are taught, NOT what we say. This is reasonable. If what one believes doesn't effect how they live, then this belief must not be very important to them. "You shall know them by their fruit," not by their words. If you truly believe in a Hell in which unbelievers are going to be endlessly punished, it is vitally urgent that you read on. For the sake of the lost and for yourself, I beg you to finish this article and save it to read again at another time. It's only a few pages long. But the subject matter is literally a matter of life or death. You see, we will be held accountable for "every idle word we speak." This issue is vitally important and we need to make it perfectly clear where we stand on this most important issue.
I am about to make a shocking demand. The natural impulse will be to simply stop reading and go do something else. Please…don't do it. You'll see at the end of the article why it is MOST important that you read it in its entirety.
If you really believe that all who are not born again by the time they die are going to be endlessly punished, then it HAS to be your responsibility to empty your bank account NOW! Not tomorrow, but, now, pronto, this second---immediately! You must devote ALL of your resources and your every waking moment, your LIFE, to rescuing as many of earth's teeming billions as possible from this fate that you sincerely believe awaits them.
How heartless to waste a single cent on steak or lobster---or even eating out at a cheap fast-food restaurant! From this moment on common decency DEMANDS that you no longer allot any time or funds WHATEVER on entertainment of ANY kind.
Furthermore, you should feel no shame in BEGGING (day and night) all your work associates, neighbors---and even your worst enemies---to "get saved." Since you ACTUALLY believe in eternal punishment, doesn't it go without saying that you should hound your RELATIVES to "get saved"? And hound them without ceasing? Even if it means that they come to hate you and avoid you and stop speaking to you--does it matter? We're talking about ETERNAL DESTINIES here! We're talking about twelve and thirteen and fourteen year old children WORLDWIDE who have reached "the age of accountability" (which many Christians believe in but cannot support Scripturally) and have NEVER HEARD the gospel (as you say you sincerely believe it.) We're talking of children that have barely entered puberty, who are going to...BURN FOREVER... if YOU don't reach them!
What's more important? Your retirement or your children's education---or the ETERNAL condition of a soul? Which of these most interests God? And forget vacation plans too. New clothes? What! With millions of eternal souls entering a "Christless eternity" every day? Forget clothes! You should drive the least expensive car possible, sell you house, and empty ALL financial accounts. These resources are needed for plane fares, gasoline, camping gear, tracts and Bibles to reach the WORLD---now!!!
And don't forget to urge your pastor to sell the church building. (Don't most church facilities remains empty or nearly so, week after week anyhow?) Urge that man of God to realize that the money is needed to send out missionaries---NOW! Furthermore, the church leadership must immediately empty their retirement and pension funds. There are 10's of billions of dollar$ sitting in these funds collecting interest while millions of souls are headed for Hell. Are you investing into this life which is passing away? Or in the life to come? You WILL be held accountable for that money the Lord has entrusted to you. If eternal torture is the fate of men, women, and children who have not yet been born again, how can you bear to see them slipping away into the eternal flames which your dollars rot in mutual funds and stocks?
Are you watching television to entertain yourself? To "escape?" Christian, those who end in Hell can NEVER escape…ever! What are you doing "entertaining" yourself with this filth for in the first place? Do you think a God who is going to torture the greatest portion of mankind because of sins will allow you to get away with filling your mind with the filth of Hollywood and Madison Ave? Burn those God-forsaken things and use that valuable time to bring in one of those 12 year olds who have been seduced away from Godly living BY those T.V. sets you use as an "escape."
If you believe the church tradition of hell-fire, then what I've outlined above is the very LEAST you should do to save the world's poor souls from this awful fate. You should really be willing to lay down your very own life for the worst enemy you have, if you REALLY believe in the church "tradition" of everlasting punishment. Jesus laid down His live for His enemies. Shouldn't you do the same? "Love your enemies."
The Baptists say that it takes about $25 to save a soul. Since they seem to have more evangelists than any other denomination, I guess they should know what they are talking about. Now pay chose attention. If you turned everything you had into cash, how much money would you be worth? If you gathered up $25,000 you could save 1,000 men, women, and children--$50,000 would bring 2,000 souls into the kingdom--$100,000 would snatch 4,000 poor wretched souls from the fiery pit--$200,000 would build a small city of 8,000 souls in the kingdom of God and a million dollars would steal 40,000 souls from the clutches of Satan himself.
Imagine--Jesus could be coming any day now (according to evangelical teachings). Look at what you are worth in dollars. How much are those souls worth to God? Which is more important to Him, your bank account and home or 8,000 souls? You really know the answer to that don't you?
But if I asked you to be accountable to your teaching--if I asked you to put your money where you SAY your faith is, you won't let go of the money, would you? …..See….The world is not as stupid as the church has made it. They know you don't believe what you preach.Furthermore, please stop sinning IMMEDIATELY!! Most of the world doesn't believe in hell-fire because the actions of Christians tell them that even Christians don't believe what they hear on Sunday morning. Churches of all denominations are full of backbiters, slanderers, grudge-holders, adulterers, cheaters, liars, fornicators, covenant breakers, thieves, income-tax cheaters, hypocrites, and workers of iniquity of all kinds. One can hardly read a newspaper without reading about some church scandal. Stop sinning immediately today not only for the world's sake as a witness to them of the power of the Holy Spirit which is supposed to be in your life, but for your own sake as well. Remember, despite the fact that Christians are notorious for heaping great gobs of God's mercy and grace upon themselves, the fact of the matter is, those in the lake of fire that burns forever and ever are there BECAUSE OF THEIR SINFUL WORKS! (Rev. 20:12,13)
NAS Matthew 7:19-27 "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits. "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.' Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine, and acts upon them, may be compared to a wise man, who built his house upon the rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock. And everyone who hears these words of Mine, and does not act upon them, will be like a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house; and it fell, and great was its fall."
Because of Scriptures like the above one, even the high and mighty Pope, leader of half the Christian "faith" tells us that he can only "hope" he makes it to heaven. He, himself, lives in fear everyday of being condemned as being unfit to escape from the Hell he teaches. And yet this man, drinks from gold cups, drives in the most expensive cars in the world, has hundreds of billions of dollars of stocks, bonds, and real estate all the while telling the world we should do more to help the poor.
But let us not leave out the Protestant church. While she is not quite as rich as her Catholic counterpart because she is still quite young, nevertheless, the American Protestant daughter, by now, is probably worth over a trillion dollars in stocks, bonds, and real estate. Not bad for being only 400 years old. At the Baptist estimate of $25 a soul, the American church could save the whole world this year if they turned all their assets into cash and spent it to evangelize the world to deliver it from everlasting torture. What do you think the odds are that the leaders of the 30,000 denominations of Christendom would do such a thing? Not likely. And why? Because they don't believe what they preach!!
In Matthew 7:23, Jesus tells these people who said they were His people, "I knew never you!" Today there are over 30 thousand denominations of Christianity in the world. Man is certainly an amazing creature. In a gambling game they would never feel very secure making a bet of 30,000 to 1 odds against them. If their life depended upon it, they would NOT play such a game. Those are the odds a Christian has of being in the "right" denomination…30,000 to 1. Many denominations teach that they are the way to salvation, the other denominations are deceived. And it is amazing how little time, how little research people do to make absolutely certain that they have placed their lives and their families lives in the right denomination before committing to its creeds, articles of faith, rituals, convenants, etc. And what is even more incredible is that their very eternal lives and the lives of their loved ones are at risk here! Again, the world looks at Christians behavior and comes to the conclusion by our actions that we are really don't take this salvation business seriously. And if we, who pretend to be knowledgeable about the ways to heaven and hell are not too concerned, then why should they be concerned?
Imagine a huge roulette wheel with thirty thousand slots. All of them are colored black and only one marked red. And to all of them except one would come the dreadful words, "Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity. I never knew you." You see, dear reader, the world looks at how we play this game of life and it is quite evident to them that Christians are really not serious. They have learned by experience that it is better to judge a person by their actions than by their words.
Besides casting all UNbelievers into everlasting torturous flames, MOST church denominations teach that Christians stand a good chance of being cast away forever right along with the unbelievers of this world. Do you realize, based upon the doctrines of most churches, that a single sin makes one worthy of endless torture? Do you know where that line of demarcation lies where you have gone too far? Do you keep a perfect record of all your transgressions against God and your neighbor? Reader, have you so thoroughly examined yourself that you can tell others with certainty that you stand sinless before God? Can you state with absolutely assurance that a place is reserved for you in heaven and that you've managed to beat the 30,000 to one odds of landing on the red slot? And are you quite certain that you can give a detailed set of instructions to your neighbor that will insure that if they follow your exact instructions, that they, too, will land on the red slot? According to Roman Catholic teachings, even the Pope, a man whom hundreds of millions of Christians hold up as a holy man, even he is not certain of His fate. Oh, what fear the church has instilled into the church through this wretched doctrine and yet most Christians go through life just barely luke-warm about the consequences of their behavior.
I'm sure some bold soul right now would be quick to preach the famous "Romans Road" with complete certainly that those who have built this piecemeal road did it exactly according to the divine pattern. They preach that this road is a sure and secure road. I have handed out many thousands of "Roman Road" tracts in my Christian lifetime. And I can say today, having traveled and studied the Roman Road of the Evangelical/Fundamentalist world quite thoroughly, that this road has Scriptural potholes in it wide enough and deep enough to swallow truth itself.
Oh, dear reader, please, please, reflect on the seriousness of the matter we are discussing. Examine the reasons why you are in the church you are in. Examine your lifestyle. Search your life with a microscope. Search the Scriptures with concordance, lexicon, interlinears with the Greek and Hebrew languages to make certain your doctrines are based upon the VERY word of God, and NOT the traditions of men, not on some man or woman that "sounds" sure of him or herself. I can't begin to list the strange reasons Christians give for why they attend a particular church. Their brother is the pastor, the youth ministry, nice building, its convenient, family tradition, they like singing in the choir, similar social background, they're all white, they're all black, they're all Greek, etc. etc. Not a single one of these are listed in the Bible as a criterion for selecting a pastor or church. Such unimportant reasons and yet they and their families eternal fate is at stake, according to those who insist Christians must attend a church of some kind.
Pick up the Bible. Go to Deuteronomy, Leviticus, Ezekiel, or Revelation. Read a few pages from each of them. Do you completely understand what you are reading? In most Protestant circles of Christendom, the Bible is called the "Word of God." How well do most Christians REALLY know it? Honestly…between studying the Bible and watching TV, going to sports events and other worldly activities, which one do most Christians REALLY spend most of their time on? See? The world looks at this and comes to the conclusion that Christians are not really serious about what they tell others about.
So then, if you truly believe in a literal Hell in which real people are eternally tortured, it is expedient, it is urgent, it is a matter of life or endless torture that you abandon immediately ALL worldliness which may inject a sin into you that might cause you to burn forever or cause even a little one, a neighbor, a relative, or a work associate to stumble. It is NOT your words by which you will be judged, but your actions. Luke-warm actions tell the world Christians are not serious about their beliefs. Dear reader, you MUST begin to show your hot passion for your beliefs this second. Every second that ticks away consigns some poor soul into the everlasting fiery pit from which there is absolutely no escape. Right? Who knows, this very second may be your last. Are you sure you've been listening to the "right" preacher? Are you sure an angel will not come up with a list a mile long of things against you that you and your pastor have used in times past to consign others to the pit?
Get hot in support of the fires of Hell or get hot for the will, plan, and purposes of the "All-consuming fire" of God who "will have all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth." Get hot for whichever you believe, but for God's sake….GET HOT for what you believe! Put your life into it!
For God's sake….and for mankind's sake….CHOOSE…..so the world can see what you truly believe!! Once you truly get hot for your beliefs, it will be obvious to all which belief system is the true one. You see, those who allow themselves to be burned up with passion for Hell-fire quickly go quite insane. Go visit some poor deceived souls who got hot with hellfire. You will find those who are still alive in our insane asylums. Most you will find in the graveyards. And a few you will find behind fundamentalist pulpits. See what living in daily fear of everlasting torture does to the human mind.
Now I personally don't believe that you should go out and do all the things I mentioned above although there are many evangelists today who are using this fear to get further support for their ministries. I have discovered that God has already provided the means to save all mankind and He will accomplish what He came to do…save the world. So please don't misunderstand my words as a plea to you for funds. I don't want you to sell our homes or empty your bank accounts because I don't believe in that abominable teaching anymore. But if YOU do, you must show the world your faith in this teaching by turning it all into cash so buy souls for the kingdom. You MUST do this, if you expect the world to take you seriously. You are hesitating, aren't you.
Why?
Because the teaching of Hell is impossible to embrace with hot passion without going completely mad!
In my files I have letters from Christians who became hot for hell. They went nuts! It was impossible for them to take the teaching of hellfire truly seriously without going completely insane. The human mind is incapable of maintaining a "hot" passion for everlasting punishment of the wicked. And that is why most Christians are quite luke-warm about the teaching. It's a lie! The soul of man is incapable of holding it with dear life because God did not make it to hold this poison!! It is the poison of the serpent!
However, the hot passion of God's love for ALL mankind IS a teaching that man can embrace fully without going mad. It bring full Glory to God. It gives hope to the hopeless. It brings forth the highest ideals and declares boldly that LOVE CONQUERS ALL!! Universal salvation is true to the great declarations concerning love in the Bible: Love NEVER fails; with God ALL things are possible, Mercy triumphs over judgment, God IS Love, Love worketh no evil, love overcomes evil. Contrast these bold Scriptural declaration with the teaching which consigns the greatest part of God's creation in eternal rebellion against this love. The Scriptures declare that Love NEVER fails, and yet the great majority of the church tells us that this love will fail for perhaps as much as 99.99 percent of humanity.
Look: It's really as simple as math. God makes a plan to save everyone who got lost in Adam and it's an utter failure. He looses almost everyone he tried to save. Those that preach this "good news" run around warning everyone to trust this god before its too late. And these preachers wonder why nobody's knocking their doors down to get in. Hey, preacher! Has it ever occurred to you that the sheep and goats out there are smart enough to realize that a god who is going to lose most of who He came to save can't be too smart, or too powerful? And if He did such a lousy job on this side of the grave, how can we trust that He'll do a better job on the other side? See? The "good news" of the orthodox church does NOT produce trust in those who are called to embrace this "good news." And without faith, "it is impossible to please God." Hellfire teaching is a faith destroyer! Therefore, it cannot be from God.
To non-Christians, a god who did such a rotten job the first time around really CAN'T be trusted to do a better job the second time around. As a matter of fact, if the greatest part of mankind will be serving Satan on the other side of the grave which is what orthodoxy says is the case, it stands to reason that the old devil will have even a better chance of controlling it all in the next round. It's really quite impossible to "trust" the kind of god the orthodox church presents us. Lip-service? Yes! But to get passionately HOT for this god? No. But a God who says He loves all mankind, says He is going to save all mankind and then does what He says He will--there is a God we can trust and get HOT for.
Another writer says of this kind of God:
"This concept of eternal punishment is bizarre in the extreme. It's pathological and reflects human pathology not any kind of divinity. Love and fear are totally distinct and mutually exclusive energies. You cannot win love through fear. You cannot derive love from fear. You can get lip-service and pretense. You can generate poisonous attachment if the fear is great enough and the person who fears you cannot get away. But no one, now or ever, came to love anyone, including God, from a space of fear.
"No God who would purpose to torture any sentient being "forever and ever, world without end" is worthy of anything but absolute contempt. Even the truly terrible human beings such as Adolph Hitler or Pol Pot stopped well short of this, not perhaps out of compassion but out of necessity. Human cruelty can only go so far. Anyone who thinks that divine cruelty exceeds human cruelty justifying this perversion on a very twisted concept of righteousness is locked into a poisonous conception of God. And the root of that poison is fear.
"If this obscenity *were* true, anyone with an ounce of moral integrity and the courage of their convictions would walk away from such a being, shaking the dust from their feet as they went, in the sure and certain knowledge that they themselves were morally and ethically superior to this abomination. If this obscenity were true, and if such a God could somehow read the human soul, which is doubtful in the extreme, it would know to the core of its filthy heart that no one anywhere loved it. In the entire universe, there would only be terrible fear and more terrible violence.
The Bible says that we are to love God with all our heart, mind and strength AND to love our neighbors as ourselves. As the above writer says, it is utterly impossible to love such a heinous hypocritical image of God. We can feign worship, but our hearts will despise such a creature. And so our love is NOT of the heart. So if we are to take these words seriously, all of us are headed for hell because it is quite impossible for a normal human being with a healthy concept of love to actually give heart love to such a god.
How long do you think an average mother who loves her children dearly, could take one of them and throw them into a furnace to watch them burning, and burn, and burn, and burn? If we were standing by watching this, what would we think of this mother? So what would you think would make you change from your utter disgust of a mother who would do such a thing to her children to love of a Father God who would do such a thing to not only one of His children, but almost all of them? Is a natural mother's love, a woman born in sin, more loving than our Heavenly Father? Have we gone totally insane? Have we drunk from the cup of madness belonging to the woman described in Revelation who sits on a beast? Perhaps we have.
One of these teachings, Everlasting Torture or Universal Salvation is a great terrible lie. The other is a great truth that will set all of creation free. Get hot for one of them, dear reader. Your very life is dependent upon your choice to get out of the luke-warm waters of complacency. Those BELIEVERS whose works for what they believe is luke-warm will be "vomited" out of His mouth. (Rev. 3:15-17) We're talking about serious stuff here. Don't take this lightly.Can Children Love Such A God?
Jesus always encouraged little children to come to Him. He often used them as example of what the kingdom of God was like. As an innocent little child, before it has been poisoned by fear which image of God is most compatible to their faith and trust? If trapped in a house set on fire and they had to jump down from a second story building, into whose arms would they cast themselves? You know the answer. There is a little child locked up deep within you. It knows the answer. And you must yield yourself to the trust and faith of a little child. Children could never love the fiendish monster orthodoxy has manufactured through creating an image of God composed of some of the foulest thoughts of several ancient pagan mythologies.
If a person who believes in hell-fire who is reading this article does not this second become passionately hot for the teaching of unending torture, then they are showing to the world that they do not REALLY believe what they are saying. They are lying. And everyone knows where lies come from….Satan…the father of all lies. And that is where the greatest lie of them all--the doctrine of endless punishment came from. And if you don't believe that, then it is expedient for you to immediately prove to the world that you believe what you say. Go sell all that you have, save your 1,000, 2,000, 4,000, 8,000 or 40,000 souls and lay down you lives for the lost of this world. And if you don't do this, then shut up once and for all because no one wants to be around a hypocrite. And we know how Jesus feels about hypocrites. "Woe, woe to you Scribes Pharisees, hypocrites who put burdens upon others you are not willing to carry yourselves!!"
If you continue to believe and desire to convince others to believe that God is going to eternal torture anyone who has not accepted Him on this side of the grave, don't ever open your mouth again until you show us by your life, by selling all that you have, by stopping sinning immediately, by scrounging through the Bible thoroughly and making absolutely certain that you are in the right denomination….unless you do all this…you are nothing but a hypocrite fit to be spewed out of Jesus' mouth for being luke-warm!
A word of warming to those who may try to make an attempt to get passionately hot for trying to deliver all their friends, family members, work associates, and enemies from this fiery dragon. The hotter one becomes in this endeavor, the more likely they will find themselves a new home in an insane asylum. The pressure of this teaching taken seriously produces such a strain on a person's mind and heart, that causes them to snap. I have some letters from a few people that this happened to. Fortunately for them, someone introduced to them the Biblical teaching of the Salvation of all mankind through Jesus Christ and their mind and health was restored to them.
"I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are luke-warm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth." Revelation 3:1516
Whatever it is that you presently believe, the command has been sent forth…be HOT for it. I've tried to be hot for everlasting punishment and I burned out. And thousands, nay, millions of others have also tried and they burned out. But when they discovered that the Bible does NOT teach such a un-Christ-like doctrine; that this doctrine which crept into SOME Bible translations (not all) is NOT true to what is contained in the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts; that it was rejected by most of the early church as originating from the pagan religions--then a Christian can become passionately hot searching church history, studying various Bible translations to discover that what the Bible REALLY teaches is the Salvation of All mankind through the finished work of the Cross of Jesus Christ.
And if you are ready to begin this glorious study so that you may truly begin to glorify our Risen Savior in a way that brings true honor to Him, below are listed a few publications to help you on your way. They are free just as all the others things He provides us to be able to live an abundant life.
Books:
The Origin and History of the Doctrine of Endless Punishment
The Bible Hell
Bible Threatenings Explained
Aion
An Analytical Study of Words
One Hundred Scriptural Proofs that Jesus Christ is the Savior of All Mankind
Hope for All Generations and Nations
The Judgment
And more…Articles:
The Power of Life and Death in a Four-letter Greek Word--Aion
Eternal Death, One Step out of Hell, One Step Short of Glory
Does ForeverS and EverS Makes Sense to You?
Rich Man and Lazarus
And many, many more…Also available are many audio teaching tapes of this subject and many others.
TENTMAKER - 118 Walnut - Hermann, MO 65041