Hell is real and their will be many go there. Jesus said the road there is wide. I believe few will be saved. Most people seem to think most will be saved. I see no indication of that in scripture. One of the reasons we are to "fear" the Lord, is to have reverence for His Word, and not to take it for grated that we are going to heaven because God is good and loves us. Jesus said there is "none good, no not one."
There is no second chance given either. What you do with Jesus while alive on earth is it, period. There is no chance for someone else to "pray" you to heaven. It is a personal invitation from the Holy Spirit that saves you. A family member has no control over what happens to anybody else. Otherwise you could blame mom for dads trip to hell because she didn't pray hard enough. Self righteous people will scoff at what the Bible teaches and make up what they want to hear because they don't fear God. A person that reads about the character of God and believes what is written about Him( after all He wrote it), will inquire diligently into His Word in order to make sure that they are saved. That path is truly narrow. They must believe that Jesus is God on earth in the flesh and that He gave His life willingly on the cross to pay for our personal sins. They must confess they are sinners and Jesus is perfect. Jesus is the only way to Heaven. There is no other. I hear people saying they are Christians, but that others can get to Heaven just by being good people. That is blasphemy to Jesus and you are saying to God that He wasted His Son's sacrifice because you didn't need it. Even to say that YOU found God is boasting that you had something to do with salvation. Grace is a mystery and should be studied endlessly to see the depths God went to to keep us from Hell. We ALL deserve Hell and death, and yet some are saved for only reasons God knows.
yet some are saved for only reasons God knows
Because they accepted Him as their Lord and Savior, obeyed and followed His Word. We take up our cross daily and daily crucify our flesh.
Amen. Great post, chuckles. Your first two sentences says it all:
Why can't people just read and believe their Bible. If you claim Christ, you must believe what He says
Part III. Of a Christian Commonwealth.
Chap. xxxviii. Of Eternal Life, Hell, Salvation, and Redemption.
[12] And first, for the tormentors, we have their nature and properties exactly and properly delivered by the names of the Enemy (or Satan), the Accuser (or Diabolus), the Destroyer (or Abaddon). Which significant names (Satan, Devil, Abaddon) set not forth to us any individual person, as proper names do, but only an office or quality, and are therefore appellatives, which ought not to have been left untranslated (as they are in the Latin and modern Bibles), because thereby they seem to be the proper names of demons, and men are the more easily seduced to believe the doctrine of devils, which at that time was the religion of the Gentiles, and contrary to that of Moses, and of Christ.
[13] And because by the Enemy, the Accuser, and Destroyer, is meant the enemy of them that shall be in the kingdom of God, therefore if the kingdom of God after the resurrection be upon the earth (as in the former Chapter I have shewn by Scripture it seems to be), the Enemy and his kingdom must be on earth also. For so also was it in the time before the Jews had deposed God. For God's kingdom was in Israel, and the nations round about were the kingdoms of the Enemy; and consequently, by Satan is meant any earthly enemy of the Church.
Part IV. Of the Kingdom of Darkness
Chap. xlvii. Of the Benefit that proceedeth from such Darkness
[1] Besides these sovereign powers, divine and human, of which I have hitherto discoursed, there is mention in Scripture of another power, namely, that of "the rulers of the darkness of this world," [Ephesians, 6. 12] "the kingdom of Satan," [Matthew, 12. 26] and "the principality of Beelzebub over demons," [Ibid., 9. 34] that is to say, over phantasms that appear in the air: for which cause Satan is also called "the prince of the power of the air"; [Ephesians, 2. 2] and, because he ruleth in the darkness of this world, "the prince of this world":[John, 16. 11] and in consequence hereunto, they who are under his dominion, in opposition to the faithful, who are the "children of the light," are called the "children of darkness." For seeing Beelzebub is prince of phantasms, inhabitants of his dominion of air and darkness, the children of darkness, and these demons, phantasms, or spirits of illusion, signify allegorically the same thing. This considered, the kingdom of darkness, as it is set forth in these and other places of the Scripture, is nothing else but a confederacy of deceivers that, to obtain dominion over men in this present world, endeavour, by dark and erroneous doctrines, to extinguish in them the light, both of nature and of the Gospel; and so to disprepare them for the Kingdom of God to come.
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-contents.html
Just curious. It's thrown about so much and never defined, exactly.
I don't agree. God created us to be with HIM forever. It is by our choosing poorly that we separate ourselves from Him. He gave us the freedom to find our way to him, and sends 'messengers' of all kinds to help us on our way.
Some of us are blessed to have parents who brought us to Church, and supported us as we learned His Word, and our faith. Some stayed with the Church, some left and never came back for whatever reason. Some left, but found their way back because, as St. Ignatius said of God, "Our hearts are restless, until they rest in Thee."
So where are all the people who lived before Jesus was born? They can't be "saved" because they can't believe Jesus died for their sins because there was no Jesus. Are they in heaven? If so, how did they get there without being saved? Are they in hell? If so, why?
Sez who?