Posted on 02/21/2015 7:50:13 AM PST by RnMomof7
We have often heard statements such as “War is hell” or “I went through hell.” These expressions are, of course, not taken literally. Rather, they reflect our tendency to use the word hell as a descriptive term for the most ghastly human experience possible. Yet no human experience in this world is actually comparable to hell. If we try to imagine the worst of all possible suffering in the here and now we have not yet stretched our imaginations to reach the dreadful reality of hell.
Hell is trivialized when it is used as a common curse word. To use the word lightly may be a halfhearted human attempt to take the concept lightly or to treat it in an amusing way. We tend to joke about things most frightening to us in a futile effort to declaw and defang them, reducing their threatening power.
There is no biblical concept more grim or terror-invoking than the idea of hell. It is so unpopular with us that few would give credence to it at all except that it comes to us from the teaching of Christ Himself.
Almost all the biblical teaching about hell comes from the lips of Jesus. It is this doctrine, perhaps more than any other, that strains even the Christian’s loyalty to the teaching of Christ. Modern Christians have pushed the limits of minimizing hell in an effort to sidestep or soften Jesus’ own teaching. The Bible describes hell as a place of outer darkness, a lake of fire, a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth, a place of eternal separation from the blessings of God, a prison, a place of torment where the worm doesn’t turn or die. These graphic images of eternal punishment provoke the question, should we take these descriptions literally or are they merely symbols?
I suspect they are symbols, but I find no relief in that. We must not think of them as being merely symbols. It is probable that the sinner in hell would prefer a literal lake of fire as his eternal abode to the reality of hell represented in the lake of fire image. If these images are indeed symbols, then we must conclude that the reality is worse than the symbol suggests. The function of symbols is to point beyond themselves to a higher or more intense state of actuality than the symbol itself can contain. That Jesus used the most awful symbols imaginable to describe hell is no comfort to those who see them simply as symbols.
A breath of relief is usually heard when someone declares, “Hell is a symbol for separation from God.” To be separated from God for eternity is no great threat to the impenitent person. The ungodly want nothing more than to be separated from God. Their problem in hell will not be separation from God, it will be the presence of God that will torment them. In hell, God will be present in the fullness of His divine wrath. He will be there to exercise His just punishment of the damned. They will know Him as an all-consuming fire.
No matter how we analyze the concept of hell it often sounds to us as a place of cruel and unusual punishment. If, however, we can take any comfort in the concept of hell, we can take it in the full assurance that there will be no cruelty there. It is impossible for God to be cruel. Cruelty involves inflicting a punishment that is more severe or harsh than the crime. Cruelty in this sense is unjust. God is incapable of inflicting an unjust punishment. The Judge of all the earth will surely do what is right. No innocent person will ever suffer at His hand.
Perhaps the most frightening aspect of hell is its eternality. People can endure the greatest agony if they know it will ultimately stop. In hell there is no such hope. The Bible clearly teaches that the punishment is eternal. The same word is used for both eternal life and eternal death. Punishment implies pain. Mere annihilation, which some have lobbied for, involves no pain. Jonathan Edwards, in preaching on Revelation 6:15-16 said, “Wicked men will hereafter earnestly wish to be turned to nothing and forever cease to be that they may escape the wrath of God.” (John H. Gerstner, Jonathan Edwards on Heaven and Hell [Orlando: Ligonier Ministries, 1991], 75.)
Hell, then, is an eternity before the righteous, ever-burning wrath of God, a suffering torment from which there is no escape and no relief. Understanding this is crucial to our drive to appreciate the work of Christ and to preach His gospel.
Summary
Biblical passages for reflection: Matthew 8:11-12, Mark 9:42-48, Luke 16:19-31, Jude 1:3-13, Revelation 20:11-15.
That should be a sobering thought for anyone preaching law.
We were given that choice, it's called freewill.
Remember that story of the woman caught in adultery - and when the accusers had left, Jesus said "there is no one left to accuse you and nor do I - go forth and sin no more".
The whole reason Jesus came to redeem humanity was to offer us that chance for forgiveness and redemption.
When they finally calm down and allow me to guide them to redemption, they find that they too have a spark of God essence at the center of their soul. This is true if the soul ever had a physical body prior to being recruited by satan’s minions.
So you're saying DEMONS can be saved?
And YOU'RE guiding them to redemption?
Just who is redeeming them? Cause it sure isn't teh Jesus of Scripture....
“This is true ONLY if the soul ever had a physical body prior to being recruited by satan’s minions.”
These are not demons, they are just misguided souls. The demons can be cast out, but not saved as they are in the category of fallen angels who never had physical bodies.
Just yesterday I was looking for an old tape recording that I made many years ago that’s about a half hour long. It made the hair stand up on the back of your neck when you listened to it. This one was pure nasty.... If you try to deal with them yourself they suck the energy right out of your body. The only thing that can protect you is the Holy Spirit as they can’t take that level of energy.
Very convenient to have no role for free will. Reason and free will cause choices that lead to damnation.
Matthew 25:31-46 is totally clear that the ones who don’t DO the good works listed WILL go away into eternal punishment.
Matthew 7:21
James 2:24 and Galatians 2:16 appear on the surface to contradict themselves. Scripture can never contradict itself.
SO: both verses are true - not Galatians 2:16 instead of James 2:24.
How? the works referred to by St. Paul in Galatians are the dead works of Jewish law, not the good works required for salvation as set forth in Matthew 25.
Martin Luther got this very wrong by throwing out James 2:24 and misapplying Galatians 2:16 so he could get rid of the sacrament of penance.
The bible speaks for itself- Martin Luther garbled the correct meaning of Galatians 2:16.
More works (not the dead Jewish works) scriptures:
Colossians 1:10
Matthew 7:21
Revelations 20:12-13
Romans 2:6
I can’t see anything in your post #35 that I disagree with, or anything that contradicts what I wrote. If we disagree on anything I wrote please point it out so I can compare our viewpoints on the issue in question.
Before one can do any “works” that matter to God (Matthew 7 and 25), one must have first done the WORK of God by believing “in the One He sent” (per Jesus) or, per Paul in Galatians, “believing what you heard” (ie. the Good News).
This is not hard at all...until you do it and then begin a new existence of being harassed in extremis by the World, the Flesh, and the Devil until you die, ha!
Those with the impressive resume of Matthew 7 were told they were, in fact, “workers of lawlessness”. We believers need to stop the verse-bound surface skimming and get down to the HEART of what GOD is about in Jesus Christ!
The righteous shall live by faith!
We have a process of justification, sanctification and glorification and none of it is our work,.
It is His..
We see three different ‘folds’ in His Kingdom.
30/60/100
Certainly a picture of the Exodus we all have to take..
Scripture hints to who the 30 fold, 60 fold and 100 fold are..
His sanctuary shows the same with the court, holy place and most holy place.
I sometimes wonder how many are focused on the justification when His Spirit is here to lead us to holy, 100fold priestly lives.
Go and sin no more is as much a command as any other command in scripture.. and it is His Work in us that can lead us to be holy... He lives in us after all!
If that message was good for that adulterer, it is good for me..
True freedom ..
I then shall live as one who’s been forgiven...
A work in us that He accomplishes with His Holy Spirit..
A journey that just starts at justification or ‘salvation’
Rahab was ‘saved when the walls of Jericho fell and still lived outside Israel’s camp..
Nowhere near the holy place or the most holy place.
We see that she ends up being in our Savior’s geneology!
A picture for all us harlots.. salvation is the first step that the Holy Spirit leads us too..
But the goal is holy priesthood..for all of His children..
1000 years is a long time to live in the outer court..the Holy Spirit’s work is to lead us from a 30fold to a 100fold priest of Zadok..
There is nothing new under the sun. Where on earth is some of this stuff coming from?
Who says they’re suggestions? They are commands. The difference, however, is that men are not saved by their works, but by grace; and it is by grace that we obey God, as the fruit of our salvation, but not the cause of it.
That’s all. No one denies the necessity of good works.
That doesn't mean that we can sin and not pay a price for it, we can't. We pay a price for breaking God's law by falling out of fellowship with our Lord and forfeiting, temporarily at least, the blessings of a close personal relationship with Him, but not by losing our irreversible salvation. My salvation was paid for in full on the cross in my precious Savior's sinless blood, and "PAID IN FULL" is written large over God's record of my sin debt. I strive daily to obey his laws with the aid of the ever present Holy Spirit, but I fail more often than I succeed. If not for Jesus' boundless grace I would be condemned to the lowest level of hell, but with Him all things are possible, even the salvation of my eternal soul.
Provide some Scripture to back up your claims.
That’s it in a nutshell.
Seems a lot of people have a problem with the judicial pardon for our sins that God gives us and calls forgiveness and grants freely for the asking.
Notice that those who “...gladly received...” (Acts 2:41) the instructions Peter gave in Acts 2:38 were referred to as “...all that believed...” in Acts 2:44 and were said to have been “...added to God’s people (KJV, church)...” in Acts 2:47.
Speaking of “...calling on the Lord,” a good example of what that includes is contained in the actions of Saul recorded in Acts 22:16 and this is said in Acts 9:6 to be something Saul “...MUST do...”
Acts 6:7, Romans 1:5, and Romans 16:26 all speak of “...obedient faith...”
Another case of interest involves the sinful Corinthians who were mentioned in I Corinthians 6;9-10 as having been ‘washed,’ “sanctified,’ and ‘justified.’ What had they done? Acts 18:8 gives the answer.
A great article and comments to cause us each to pause and meditate on the message of New Testament Christianity.
Finally, consider I Thessalonians 1:3-12: “...when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction...”; Matthew 13:41-42: (even out of His Kingdom, the Church) “...things that offend; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth...”.
Whoa! I missed that one! Backtrack!!!
Um....no! Demons can not be saved.
Those are not "misguided souls". And even if they were they had their chance while living and it's over.
Say what??? Our free will is the will of God through the Holy Spirit we have indwelling within us. Why would we will anything that would separate us? Catholics are required to submit their will to the magisterium. True believers submit their will to the Holy Spirit within.
And just how can you earn being with God? Can you become good enough to enter Heaven, as Rome holds you must, or are you saved by recognizing God is so holy that you could never earn being with Him, and instead you are damned for your sins.
Thus you must come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you by His sinless shed blood, and be baptized and live for Him.
The latter confessions do not earn you salvation, but testify, justify that you are of faith, and fit to be rewarded under grace, (Heb. 10:35) which God does for souls who really have earned only one thing: eternal damnation, while eternal life is a gift. (Rm. 6:23)
Abraham was not justified by the works that he did prior to Gn. 15:6, but his faith was counted for righteousness. But his works justified him as being a saved soul, as God worked in and thru him, to the glory of God.
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