Useful Idiots for Baal

I stumbled upon a Christian author I was not familiar with the other day and saw that he had written from a host of secular publications about faith. From CNN to National Journal to the Huffington Post to USA Today to the Atlantic to others — these are publications that tend to be hostile to people of traditional, orthodox Christian faith. When a Christian author is routinely published in those publications and cited as a reasonable evangelical voice by those publications, I have to think he or she is really useful idiots of Baal.

From Rob Bell to Rachel Held Evans to Donald Miller to Jim Wallis to Joel Osteen and more, these people seem to think that, if they even share the gospel (as opposed to the prosperity gospel), the gospel can be shared without every offending anyone. If only Christians would not offend people they could woo people to Christ. Truth be told, some evangelicals can be far more confrontational than need be. But, likewise, the gospel is not inoffensive. These people who think the gospel can be sold to everyone without ever offending anyone are committed more to their own house brand than to Jesus and, in so doing, prop up Baal, the god of worldly conformity, more than Christ.

The gospel offends many people. Many people will die this very day somewhere in the world because of the gospel. Frankly, I think some of these people are themselves offended by the gospel. They look at the Bible as a self-help book and redact all the stuff they themselves do not agree with. They focus on social justice Jesus and not the Jesus who said

They have convinced themselves Jesus really would have an opinion on a government healthcare program, but never really get into Jesus’s views on damnation, sin, and salvation.

This goes also to my concern about a lot of mega churches. I have friends who are pastors of mega churches. I have friends who attend mega churches. But I think some of the church industrial complex starts building a brand and the brand is more “Six Flags Over Jesus”, as I tend to call a lot of mega churches, and less Jesus. They focus on franchises and revenue stream and weekly attendance. To do that, Jesus can rarely be offensive. More so, the spirit in the attendees can often not be matured.

By that I mean a lot of these churches are so focused on upping the baptism count that they focus solely on “come to Jesus” and never really describe what coming to Jesus entails or how a Christian, once a Christian, grows in faith. So the people in the church run the risk of being spiritually immature or not convicted of their salvation. Here’s hint: often embracing the gospel turns people’s lives upside down and, from a worldly perspective, things end badly for them.

Christ said we should enter through the narrow gate. A lot of the media’s favorite voices on Christendom preach that the gate is as deep and wide as possible for all comers. That’s simply not true. There is only one way. There is only one path. There is only one savior. All truly are welcome. But that one path offends so many not all want to be welcomed.

John 3:10-12 lays out pretty well the three reasons people will not embrace Christ: (v.10) they do not understand the gospel; (v.11) they refuse to receive the gospel; or (v.12) they do not believe the gospel. Many of these useful idiots for Baal sell a gospel stripped of its full meaning and commitment. They should be commended for wanting all comers to come, but need to be cautioned that not all comers will come. They go all Jesus all the time and quickly strip him of masculinity, godliness, justice, righteousness, power, and the ability to save. They try to sand it down so no one can reject it, but often what winds up getting accepted isn’t the real gospel, but a wordily version of an emo, weepy Jesus who can’t throw a punch that people created and not the real Jesus who will one day return on a white horse, with a sword, to judge the quick and the dead.

Too many of these people, often hipster prophets, make people comfortable in their sin while trying to sell Jesus. One comfortable in his sin rarely sees the need to embrace one who will extricate him from his sin. These peddlers of pop Christianity are useful idiots for Baal because they claim their faith in Christ without ever making anyone uncomfortable in their here and now. Christ made people uncomfortable.

The useful idiots of Baal are not willing to go along for that ride. They’d rather their Jesus bake cakes for gay weddings.

That is the story of Lazarus and the rich man. It is not about our fate after the great white throne judgement. It is also not about what a lot of people think it is about. Here:

It is not about the GWTJ, but what happens before it. And i already refuted the specious attempt by Smith in the link you posted, as another poster had tried that just before you. Thus i had provided the links to my posts earlier on.

And if you had been a Jew living at that time you would have interpreted that story completely differently than we interpret it today. This is actually true of a LOT of the bible. Sometimes we need to stop listening to our teachers and get back to studying the word on our own.

That is what you need to do, as it is you who sent me to some Smith, but the fact is that Lk. 16 cannot even be simply speaking about the Jews vs. the Gentiles even if it is a parable, for as said, in parables you have know physical things corresponding to spiritual things, but if annihilationism is true then there cannot be any postmortem torment in Hell, which would render this to be science fiction, which the Lord never used. Instead, if the rich man represents the Jews, then the "place of torment" that they go to would be a spiritual Hell. But the careful details of the story and use of real names points to it being a real story.

The body would put the fire out. But the scripture above makes it clear that this fire will do its job. It’s why it is important to call the fire “unquenchable”....Many places in the bible where the original text is translated “fire”, could today be translated “light”.

All that is basically special pleading. The fire is not simply a blast furnace but unquenchable in the everlasting destruction the wicked shall be punished with.

And the smoke perpetually ascending indicates the evidence of their everlasting ongoing destruction.

And the Lord knew how souls would understand His language, and simply being burnt up after a life of fulfiling lusts versus "having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." (Mark 9:45-46)

But if you cannot see ongoing destruction being conveyed by this and being cast into the same place as the devil and his angels, etc., then i doubt there is more i should say. Over and out.

And I didn’t mean to get too far sidetracked from this posted article, which I though was a good one,

And while I don’t have anything against ‘mega-Churches’ (whatever that is) these purpose driven astrodome prosperity preachers, speaking with vague watered down generalities, paraded about in honor by those that despise the Gospel are exactly what we’re told would come, and they have their reward now,

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” 2 Timothy 4:3-4

“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.” Matthew 10:34

You did offer a refutation. Sorry, I didn’t see it because it was not addressed to me. I’ve not been reading the whole thread, but only responding to those that address me personally.

However, I disagree with your refutation. It reminds me of my teacher that, when I use revelation 7 as a “probable” description of the result of the rapture (i.e. mid-trib), he insisted that it was Rev 4. He literally argued that when John was caught up in the spirit to heaven that it was a metaphore for the rapture. People use a lot of that sort of thinking when interpreting scripture to meet their viewpoints. Catholicism does it when it interprets the mention of Jesus’ brothers and sisters to mean “cousins” because it is necessary to support their view that Mary died a virgin.

One can come up with all sorts of arguments regarding what the story of Lazarus and the rich man means (One I came across said that it was a prophesy regarding the Lazarus that Jesus raised from the dead), but using it as a description of the eternal plight of the lost and saved is the least convincing. It has other real meanings.

It’s ok to disagree with Smith, but he brings up some good points that need to be considered. Even the one regarding the connection to the real Lazarus has some interesting info.

...but if annihilationism is true then there cannot be any postmortem torment in Hell, which would render this to be science fiction...

Not really. If it is about a place no live person has experienced, and matches what was being taught by some at the time, it is a good vehicle to make the point - and the point was that the five brothers would not believe even if Lazarus was returned from the grave. And that actually turned out to be an accurate statement, proven through following events.

And it doesn’t use real names. It uses a real name and oddly does not name the other. Interesting, if you ask me. ;-)

The fire is not simply a blast furnace but unquenchable in the everlasting destruction the wicked shall be punished with.

We’re both saying the same thing. What you said is what I meant. But the key is in how we define the word “punishment”. In my case, I mean that their punishment will be that they will not receive eternal life. Rather, they will be dead. Eternally.

The fire is not simply a blast furnace but unquenchable in the everlasting destruction the wicked shall be punished with.

You said: And the smoke perpetually ascending indicates the evidence of their everlasting ongoing destruction.

Yes, their destruction is death, and it is everlasting. They “stay dead”.

You quoted: “having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.”

Yep. The fire does its job. It will finish its work. And no, I do not believe the worm here is the human’s spirit. I believe the scripture is doubly referring to the person being destroyed and the destroyer will not fail.

You said: But if you cannot see ongoing destruction being conveyed by this and being cast into the same place as the devil and his angels, etc., then i doubt there is more i should say.

Only those that take the mark of the beast are cast into the lake of fire with the Devil. It is also part of Revelation, the most symbol filled book in the bible.

The smoke perpetually ascending indicates the evidence of the everlasting ongoing destruction.

I certainly agree with that. But I think God is more efficient than building demolition teams. I don’t think it will take Him very long to destroy the lost.

I see the lake of fire, as it relates to the second death, as I see a lampstand, as it relates to a church, regarding Revelation. I.e. the church isn’t literally a lamp stand.

Yeah, the best thing to do is just gooogle “lazarus and the rich man” and read the differing opinions. And you’ll get a lot.

Honestly, the same is true with annihilation vs suffering. The great thing about the internet is that, as the printing press did, it is building up the truth, which is easy to support once you get it out there, while destroying lies or misinformation because, conversely, it becomes apparent that its supporters are grasping at straws or using half truths to support their point. A classic example would be global warming.

We are in agreement. Mega-churches are like small churches: Some are good and some are bad. But they are usually good and bad in ways different from small churches. I’ve attended both.

I don’t have a problem with “seeker friendly” churches, as long as they don’t abandon the truth. You can be seeker friendly and still obey Christ’s teachings. I suppose it depends on how you do “friendly”. If you do it by abandoning Christ’s teaching, you are doing it wrong.

And I didn’t mean to get too far sidetracked from this posted article, which I though was a good one,

This “annihilation vs eternal suffering” thing is the new hot button. Before the internet, the teaching on this was very limited, Just as the teaching about Christ was very limited at first (not a lot about him was being preached in Europe, asia, Africa, Austrailia, the Americas, etc.

The internet has allowed both sides to get their position out there and let people re-examine what the bible actually teaches. I always believed the eternal suffering thing but put it in the box of “this makes no sense, but I don’t have perfect knowledge” stuff. But the more I studied the bible and understood the personality of God, the less sense it made.

And seeing how it was used by the other side was quite troubling. And then I ACTUALLY STUDIED IT. And being exposed to the teaching of others who taught that it is not eternal suffering really opened my eyes. Or, more precisely, they opened my eyes to the biblical evidence that was right there in front of me.

An interesting side note: Friday, I prayed in the morning that God would give me clarity on this subject. I then hopped in the car for my 75 minute commute and, after the first half hour or so, switched to listening to Romans on CD. Holy cow, I was inundated with the fate of the lost being clearly described as death. And in very plain words.

Thanks, God!

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