Posted on 02/16/2014 8:20:17 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3120969/posts
Well, just for instance, the Catholic Church teaching:
1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, “eternal fire.”617
Either way, I don’t want to go there.
Refer to Luke 16:23. The place described is not Hell. It is Hades. The word is Strongs G68.
Hades and Hell are not the same place. See Revelation 20:14a.
"Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire."
Keeerect!!
It doesn’t make sense to me. Why would God create us, and then torture us for eternity? Why inflict so much pain? What is the point? To scare us into accepting Jesus Christ? I didn’t get this when I was a kid, and I still don’t get it.
You just can’t get enough of this, can you SoFloFreeper?
I can’t speak for God, but the point of human punishment is to change subsequent behavior.
We don’t eternally punish a child for a transgression, a swat on the butt and “a clean up this mess” suffices.
With eternal punishment there is no subsequent behavior, being that there is no “subsequent” in which to behave.
As to adults?
“It is not the fear of punishment that keeps Marines in line, it is the certainty!”. ~ Lt. Gen. Victor “Brute” Krulak
Our culture has lost that certainty, it seems an interested/engaged God would keep that from happening, or at lest restore it.
He wouldn't! Man sinned and God set the Salvation plan in motion!
The Lord is [...] not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)
You got it Olepap...never made any sense to me either...
It would seem that way, but Eternity has no place for error or injustice, otherwise it would become corrupt. There is no room for either.
Also God is described as a 'consuming fire' - any sin gets burned up in His presence in heaven (or removed as in the Devil and his demons).
The problem is that mankind has inherited the sin nature from our forefather and is none are ready to be in the presence of God on their own.
That's why we need a Savior and that God sent one: The Lord Jesus Christ. He came to pay the penalty of the errors (sins iniquities etc) of folks like us on the Cross. And in resurrecting Himself, He has proven that death and being unable to stand in the presence of God IS NO MORE for folks like you and me.
For He is Worthy of our Love, for doing such for folks like us out of sheer Grace and Kindness.
One must understand the utter Holiness of God and the purity of what Eternity in heaven with God must be. That all human beings are eternal creatures with one of two destinies. The tragedy is that many will chose the worst of the two willfully.
God created man to have free will and that includes the freedom to either be good or not. If He hadn't given us such freedom, we would be nothing more than robots.
When we chose to sin and not live as holy beings, we became diseased (much like a drug addict is diseased).
God gave us the Cure (Salvation), but since the cure requires an abdication of sin, we have free choice to either accept the treatment or to reject it.
If we reject it, our eternal souls live forever in their diseased state (which as any addict will tell you...is living hell).
The punishment of hell is OUR CHOICE.
From a purely empirical observation, it appears that we must make that choice to accept the cure while we still have living bodies. Ergo, the state of our souls at death is irreversible. Why this is so, only God knows. But I am guessing that the souls of those who have rejected God while they were embodied merely continue to reject Him after the death of the body.
You will be re-educated quickly on how up is down and black is white.
LOL.
So how is it that billions of Indians, Chinese and Japanese who have already lived and died chose to burn forever?
The percentage of (former) Asians in Heaven must be exceedingly small. Is it Justice in your opinion, that having made that choice, they suffer forever?
For relatively few who did convert, I wonder what they think about their loved one burning forever.
It is all about redemption. God made a way for us. He chose us and we must chosee Him. Redemption is a love story.
Hell was created for Satan and his followers. So if you don’t chose God you chose Satan and are free to spend eternity with him.
God doesn’t chose for you but we each chose for ourselves.
Redemption is the greatest love story ever written, and it was written for you.
I’ve experienced a mental LAKE OF FIRE while here on earth a few times..
I suspect others have as well...
What if “Lake of Fire” is just a metaphor..
How else can you be burned and not be consumed.?...
Small minds can see small images..
All Israel will be saved. God’s promises to the Jews are no less truthful and reliable than His promises to those choosing to graft into the (Jewish) People of God as followers of Christ, see Romans 9-11 inclusive. Even though some aspects of His plans remain mysteries beyond our present comprehension, we must never read or selectively interpret scripture in ways that would make Him out a liar. He will honor all of His promises, including those to the Jews as well as to Christians.
I/We, should not follow the teachings of the “Church”, but the teachings of the Word of God. You/we need to study history. Hellfire was a concocted view from the Mother Church (let him who reads understand) to scare or divide potential followers into the Church. Jesuit teaching if you ask me.
Ecclesiastes states, that “the dead know nothing” Ecclesiastes 9:5, and on the same breath—their memory, that is their consciousness is in an unconscious state, not that we forgot them...
What “Eternal Fire” represents are the PERMANENT, IRREVERSIBLE consequences of the destruction of the SOUL in the SECOND DEATH in the LAKE OF FIRE, after the SECOND RESURRECTION. The devil knows this, but he wants you to believe the GOD is a stern and unjust judge and Christians believe this lie like the law of gravity. The second is true, but the first is a flat our lie.
ASHES DO NOT BURN. This is what that means, since the same word use to describe that ‘Hellfire’ in the New Testament by Peter, referring to the destruction of SODOM and GOMORRAH, is the same Greek word used in Revelations.
My question is.... Is Sodom or Gomorrah still burning? The answer is obvious... it is now under the dead sea and definitely no light show there.
It never ceases to amaze me how the false, stubborn view of this point remains so prevalent and has such an enchanting grip on its adherents, in spite of the fact that is contradicts so diametrically what God is and respresents, which is LOVE.
John 3:16 says that “God SO LOVED THE WORLD...”, “so that NONE should PERISH” Perish, mean ‘to expire or be destroyed’ NOT to continue to have ETERNAL LIFE BURNING IN HELL... if this is so, then CHRIST DIED IN VAIN, and we all have by default of our existence “Eternal Life”, whether it be in HEAVEN or HELL.
The Great White Throne Judgement described in Revelations, refers to the Second Death and the Destruction of the SOUL, or God deleting your consciousness file from His archive, as it where, to illustrate in technological terms.
Gotta run.... but if any of you need all the pertinent chapter and verses, I would be more than happy to give you more reason to believe, from a Biblical, rather that “Traditional” perspective, that Hellfire does not exist in the popular sense. God is merciful and gives everyone what they ultimately want, to live with Him Eternally, the ONLY source of LIFE. ...or to be unplugged from HIM Permanently and perish.
Lucifer CANNOT CREATE or SUSTAIN or PERPETUATE Life, like his adherents stubbornly claim and cling to. Lucifer is nothing but a created being, but he is more than happy to deceive you all on this point. He know what is coming to him, but the claimed followers of Yeshua do not. This is a sad thing truly indeed.
“The people perish for lack of knowledge” and I would add, the prevalence of deception.
Shalom
Paul explains clearly in Romans that the Jews had to reject Jesus so that he would be adopted by the non-Jewish world first. If Jesus had become the Jewish Messiah at that point, the Gentile world would have said "He's the Jewish Messiah...what has that got to do with us."
But as Paul says, after all the Gentiles that are going to accept Salvation have done so, the eyes of the Jews will be opened to the Truth.
I certainly don't understand all the ways God operates, but His Covenant is with the Jewish people (actually the Israelites...not just the Tribe of Judah) And he most certainly has a plan for them.
Now how does this all work for those Jews and Gentiles who have already died without their Salvation or who have never heard of the Messiah? I have no idea. But can be sure that the God of Israel (and thank God, the God of the rest of humanity) has a plan.
By the way, there is a wonderful book entitled Salvation is from the Jews.
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