What is going on!?!?!

[blackwings]

the last 2 lengthy replies have been extremely well thought out and provocative - thanks to both you guys

[friarted]

I like to encourage people to study all they can from a variety of sources, but seriously, I think you are taking in too much & are scattered all over the place.

Focus on serving Jesus & helping people. Trust that the Ultimate Love & Justice of God will be fulfilled. There is no evil that God has not suffered for & that He will ultimately not avenge. There is no Healing that God will not ultimately send forth. IF indeed all human souls, maybe even all demonic spirits, are reconciled back to God, their evils have
been avenged on the head of Christ Himself, and when we are all glorified in Christ, we
will glimpse what He suffered on our behalf and that may well be the only HellFire we need to experience.

The "Hole Drilled to Hell" hoax- http://www.snopes.com/religion/wellhell.asp
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/d/drilltohellfacts.htm

[martincisneros]

Hi Friar Ted,

We do appreciate your concern with all of our hearts.

I like to encourage people to study all they can from a variety of sources, but seriously, I think you are taking in too much & are scattered all over the place.

Everyone here is a servant to all of mankind and to all of Creation as well.  We follow our Lord where ever He goes.

Focus on serving Jesus & helping people.

You've said it so well, Friar Ted.  Seeing the suffering of Christ is the suffering of the believer, the chastisement of the world, and the fulfillment of the law and the prophets.

...when we are all glorified in Christ, we will glimpse what He suffered on our behalf and that may well be the only HellFire we need to experience.

Blessings.

[xiaoknight]

wow, this is great responce from everyone.  Ok i think we are really hitting the nail right in the head.  Let me continue on, asking some more questions:

*  Sin, what is sin? where does it come from? and how is it generated?

*  What about the serpent in the garden of eden?

*  what about revelations, the rapture of the church, and the second coming?

*  Why did God choose Israel to deal with in the OT times?

thanks everyone

[friarted]

Hi Friar Ted,

We do appreciate your concern with all of our hearts.

I like to encourage people to study all they can from a variety of sources, but seriously, I think you are taking in too much & are scattered all over the place.

Everyone here is a servant to all of mankind and to all of Creation as well.  We follow our Lord where ever He goes.

Hiya, actually, I was addressing that to the OP, I didn't mean for it to be a blanket comment to everyone.

[friarted]

wow, this is great responce from everyone.  Ok i think we are really hitting the nail right in the head.  Let me continue on, asking some more questions:

*  Sin, what is sin? where does it come from? and how is it generated?

*  What about the serpent in the garden of eden?

*  what about revelations, the rapture of the church, and the second coming?

*  Why did God choose Israel to deal with in the OT times?

thanks everyone

Sin is our deliberate failure to do what we know God wants of us. It comes from us. I believe there are tempting spirits, and fallen angels, who perhaps sinned before humans were created. However, it's just as conceivable that sin was a human invention.

The Serpent, I think, was a Seraphic being, assigned to guard & tutor Adam & Eve, but instead was jealous of their position as God's Image-bearers & decided to corrupt them.
I have no problem applying the Heylel (Lucifer) passage of Isaiah 14 & King of Tyre passage of Ezekiel 28 to he. It's possible that after this, he led an angelic rebellion which is referred to by the "sons of God/human woman intermarriage" passage of Genesis 6. However, I'm not married to the latter theory. (It's just as likely that refers to Adam&Eve's children marrying pre-Adamic peoples.)

Revelation was primarily God's decree of Judgement against apostate Jerusalem & pagan Rome, and His assurance that Christ reigns & will vindicate His people. It applied to the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., to the turmoil of Pagan Rome, to the Christian conversion & apostasy of Rome/Europe, and continues to apply wherever there is a struggle
between Christ's faithful people & harlot-religions & beastly-rulers, even unto the Final Victory when Jesus returns to wind up the show. If there is a future final Tribulation, I think the Rapture is in Revelation 14, the Son of Man harvesting the Earth, before the Seven Vials of Wrath.

There is a Jewish tradition that God's call came to every people, but only Israel accepted it. There may be some truth in that. We do not know how much God revealed Himself to other nations, tho interesting hints do arise in diverse places. However, Jesus chose to come via Israel, assuring us that He was the Revelation of YHWH & the Expectation of Israel's Scriptures/Prophets.

[xiaoknight]

Wow exellent, so you think that what's in revelations does apply to what the traditional church calls the end times?

I mean i look at the news and all the things that are happening and it only seems to me that everything is simply lining up to what is getting ready to happen.  I believe the prophecies of the end of times very much, and i believe there is plenty of reason why so.  With that in mind, what do you say about all the judgements and seals, specially the anti-christ and the white throne of Christ, i am currious to know what you believe.  Thank you so much and God bless!

[Molly]

I know that God loves me, and i love Him, I know he has forgiven me of my sins and that when i see Him again he will embrace me in his arms forever.  But when i see this world I see so much wickeness, evil, rappist, genocide, all this things that are allowed to progress, I ask myself, there most be payment for that, these pigs that are doing this things to humanity must receive retribution and judgement of God! they must, how else will they ever be served justice!  the governments wont do anything about it, if anything, they are part of it!

He is allowing you to see it,-- how bad it is.  I've been going through the same thing myself for a while now.  It's an incredibly painful experience.  How could I miss this all these years?  How can I bear it?  This is a fire I've never experienced before. And, of course, nobody wants to hear it, or admit it's possible, that it could be so bad.   Do you think it's a purification process?


Malachi 3

2But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap:

And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.

[97531]

*  Sin, what is sin? where does it come from? and how is it generated?

*  What about the serpent in the garden of eden?

*  what about revelations, the rapture of the church, and the second coming?

*  Why did God choose Israel to deal with in the OT times?

thanks everyone

Warning - These are long reads on my blog

What is sin <-- click here

The rapture question aka saved to serve not to escape.

The second coming is spiritual not literal.  He did say some of this generation shall not taste death before they see Him coming in glory with His angels.  Well he was talking to folk alive back then he did come back and spent 40 days with His disciples and in spite of this - they still asked Him if He was going to now establish His kingdom, so IMO he had to appear to Paul to get the NT church going.

Did God choose Israel or did they just claim that?  The covenant with Abraham appears to be more inclusive than what the Jews later espoused.

You also mentioned end times - well considering most of the NT was compiled by 400AD then we have been in end times for 1600 years so do you not think the ETM stuff is getting a bit bland?  BTW the rapture, ETM et al seems to be a very American thing.  What it seems to me that most American folk kinda like to see themselves in the role of the new israel - the phrozen chosen - us vs. them et al.

Lastly the sepent and the garden of eden - do you take that as a literal event?

I have done a few studies on the Genesis account primarily to get a fresh perspective for those willing to explore.  They are all on my blog. See The Curses or Blessings? of Genesis

Sorry for all the links but as I have addressed these types of questions in the past, I collated them there to save retyping.

Blessings

[Average_Bear]

ok! first of all, I want to thank tentmaker for bringing all of this subject up.  As of course most the folks in here, I was at one point or another in the traditional way of thinking about salvation and hell.  Now I do not fully embrasse the theology of universalism and neither do i fully embrase the traditional teachings of the church. 

At this very moment I am extremely confused because tentmaker proclaims that there is no such thing as Hell.  And has much evidence to proof the case, in which i said: "ohh ok, great, what's next?"  But then they post an audio conversation of the Stetson vs Strange Debate.  Which I believe tentmaker supports Mr. Stetson, which is fine, but Mr. Stetson explains and shows strong evidence of evangelism in Hell, and that Hell is a real place.

So my question is, what is going on?

My experiences so far have taken me to see demon possesed persons, both me and my family have encountered many occasions where we were faced with visual demonic presence, and no we were not on drugs or drunk or had bad pizza the night before, what i have experienced, i have experienced and there is not one person in this world that can convince me otherwise.

I am just trying to be honest and giving you my prespective on all of this, here are some questions that you may find interesting that i have come up with from both sides of the hall:

*  Why does the bible say: with out holiness no man shall see the Lord?

*  Where is satan and his demons?

*  Where are the fallen angels?

*  What about the scientists that found hell in the center of the earth? with sound and everything, they even said that they are still atheist but yet believe in hell?

*  What about the book "the divine revelation of hell"?

*  What about the belief that if you believe in heaven then you must also believe in hell?

*  What about the book "Talmud Immanuel: The Original Book of Matthew"?

*  What about "www.zeitgeistmovie.com"?

*  And last but not least, why doesn't God just wipe us all to Hell and save us all there?

Blessings to you X and thanks for your posting!!  It has generated such a lively discussion.
Here's my
Your confusion is totally understandable and normal. I've been a believe for 20+ years and only discovered UR a few months ago. At first I thought "this is just a cult or something", then I began to look into it and accept it. There are still times when I doubt and think " :omg: What if I'm wrong?!" Even so, I've written a few short articles on related topics, including my testimony (click the globe on the left).

As for Stetson, I've read some of his stuff and I find it encouraging and inspiring, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with all of it. The nice thing about Tentmaker is that it's not a church or cult where you have to sign on to some rigid doctrinal statement. Here you are allowed to question things. Stetson believes in a "temporary hell" I agree with you and I wouldn't want to go to any hell for even 5 minutes. Maybe we shouldn't call it hell because that just brings up visions of the eternal torture prison taught by the mainstream. I understand the possible need for some kind of process to make all fit for the Kingdom. Let me give an analogy: Suppose you stand before a judge and the judge tells you " you have committed these crimes but someone else has already paid your penalty. You are free to go" You would be free to go, but likely you would continue to commit the same crimes unless there is some cleansing process. I believe the forgiveness of sins is a done deal (see I John 2:2), but the cleansing from sin is a process. Some go through it in this life and others may have to wait.

As for demons and the like, I have had encounters with evil spirits myself. I don't know much about them, but their existence or nonexistnece, essence, origin, and purpose have no bearing whatsoever on the doctrine of eternal torment in hell.

Visions of hell??? I've read many and I admit at first they scared the hell out of me!! Many claim to have visions of hell, heaven, other planets, and the like. There are just as many people who claim to have been abducted by aliens. Should we believe them as well? And don't forget near death experience (most of which are somewhat pleasant and life changing, rather than hellish). I wouldn't put much faith in a vision even if it was my own.

Here is something to read on hell being discovered in the center of earth:
http://www.snopes.com/religion/wellhell.asp

I hope this helps.

[xiaoknight]

Wow Guys, this is really great, thank you so much, as i continue to pray and ask the Lord to guide me into His truth, I have begun to feel a weight being lifted off my chest.  I ask the lord to show me His truth, I dont care anymore for the teachings of the traditional church, all I want is Him, and Him alone.  I also want to thank everyone that has taken the time to post so much to help me understand.  God bless everyone, I hope to meet all of you one day!

[97531]

Wow Guys, this is really great, thank you so much, as i continue to pray and ask the Lord to guide me into His truth, I have begun to feel a weight being lifted off my chest.

Mat 11:28  Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Mat 11:29  Take My yoke on you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest to your souls.
Mat 11:30  For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.

I ask the lord to show me His truth, I dont care anymore for the teachings of the traditional church, all I want is Him, and Him alone.  I also want to thank everyone that has taken the time to post so much to help me understand.  God bless everyone, I hope to meet all of you one day!

Religion derives its meaning from the ancient word Religāre which literally means "to bind up" How much more opposite can one get.  To say I am religious is to say I am in bondage.  If you are yoked to Jesus only, that bondage will in essence be a light burden.

[Origin: 1150–1200; ME religioun (< OF religion) < L religiōn- (s. of religiō) conscientiousness, piety, equiv. to relig(āre) to tie, fasten (religāre to bind, tie; cf.

[Middle English religioun, from Old French religion, from Latin religiō, religiōn-, perhaps from religāre, to tie fast; see rely.]

Take my yoke infers something voluntarily not forced or coerced.  Pop your head into this

A yoke is used to put two animals in unison when (beasts of burden like oxen or horses) so that they all share in the load. Much of modern agriculture is now mechanised but there are still many countries where rural farmers make use of animals in tilling the land.

What you need to picture is you on the left and Jesus on the right and both of you are pulling. He works with you and he never leaves you. We tend to unyoke ourselves or unyoke Him and then that is where it goes wrong.

The light burden He speaks of is what is being pulled - just pearls of great price.

You have heard of "beasts of burden?"

Although this is is an excellent pictorial metaphor, He in fact will actually carry you in those dark valley times - google footprints in the sand.

Luk 9:62  and Jesus said unto him, 'No one having put his hand on a plough, and looking back, is fit for the reign of God.' (YLT)

This is not about placing heavies on you either - what does one NOT look back at?

Old revelation - old wine - the law - tradition - religion - man-made doctrines...

What lies before you is virgin soil - as you move forward, thing will be upturned - tilled - and you will begin to see things from a new perspective - the Father wants to reign in you and wants to sit on His throne in your heart.

Be blessed

[Akira Takahashi]

I know how you're feeling.  I, too, cannot fully accept Universalism, but nor can I accept the teachings of Eternal Damnation.  Now, I also have had terrible experiences with spiritual warfare.  I also believe in Hell, although I'm shaky on the issue of whether or not it's eternal.  I'd say, at my current place in my journey, I desperately hope for Universal Salvation, knowing full well that Satan will not give up on tormenting our souls while we live.