and let me just add, that there are rules for a reason- not because God and judges want to impede on our fun- but rather because some of the people’s idea of ‘fun’ impedes morally on other people’s rights- and harms them- hence the universal moral laws-
God is fully righteous- He is pure- His very nature is purity- Where He is the can be no sin- hence the NEED for sinners to call upon Him for Salvation to wipe away all our sins
The GOOD news is that He has invited us ALL to accept His Son to wipe away all our sins so that we may stand in His Holy and Pure Presence-
He in His mercy however, Gives us free will- otherwise we truly would NOT have a choice, but would be forced to ‘love’ Him and accept Him- but it would be a FALSE love, because a TRUE love entails choice-
A man who has the CHOICE to step out on his wife, BUT CHOOSES not to shows true love for his wife- He shows that he loves her above all other women- IF he were forced to love her above all other women- don’t you think he would develop a growing hatred for her? A resentment?- Rather- TRUE love NEEDS the freedom of choice in order to freely express itself
God doesn’t coerce anyone to accept Him- We know the ‘rules’ and make a free choice- We know WHY the ruels must be as they are- and we either accept that reality, or we rebel and shake out fists in His face and get angry at Him unjustifiably
Having wrestled many a time with this issue I believe I can fairly say that the prospect of an impending personal doom CAN get someone to blindly call out to God, who can then engage with the person in compassion quite independently of the source of the doom message.
That’s something that due to pride we can’t swallow in our own humanity. I am no exception.
An especially challenging situation can be posed when you get the phenomenon we know as the hellfire preacher. His message is unbalanced and can make it easy to confuse a providential God with substantial (not just permissive) mercies with an entity whose essential strength lies in his power to threaten. God is larger than situations like this, and can bring in a “more accurate” view of the faith and disabuse such confusions in the end. But the preacher himself might not be much nearer to a reward than the devil is, and God’s chief work in the life of those who are moved through the instrumentality of his message is to persuade them that no, this is not where His heart is.
I don’t see Christ’s biblically documented conduct as being an actual exception to that. Various individual warnings were given by Him to various individual persons, who were also by circumstance positioned to hear the love side of the gospel from the Loving Master personally. If that side is not ever present, I daresay it ceases to be gospel. It becomes just another religion painting Jesus in monster colors.
Understand all that, Bob. I recognize it is His game and He can do as He pleases. I am just pointing out your judge analogy has to factor in that God is judging us for being sinful and yet God designed us this way. that’s all
The condition of being eternally angry at God is the condition of hell. In a real sense its occupants had a hand in architecting its miseries. They denied His love access to their hearts and left the only thing possible as an alternative — the enslaving charm of Satan.