England, AD 1911
My name is Hannah Whitall Smith. Some of you are acquainted with some of my writings, the most popular of which was the book The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life. In one sense, I really don’t belong in this section of this book. You see, I died having great hope. I died quite secure in my own salvation and not only my own, but the salvation of the entire world!
This hope did not come to me from my denominations doctrines, it came by way of divine revelation and Scripture!
The reason why my words are placed in this portion of this book are two: first of all, I couldn’t think of a place in this book that would make me more happy. As you will see from my brief testimony, my heart greatly goes out to those without hope. What a wonderful place to allow me to express my joy-between two groups of people who have been greatly hardened to the hearing of the truly Good News. These people (Japanese and Jews) have yet to really hear the news which will set them free from their bondage.
I have been given this Good News. I wrote about it in my autobiography entitled My Spiritual Autobiography: The Unselfishness of God and How I Discovered It.
And this brings me to the second reason why I prefer my testimony be placed among those who have died without hope. I wrote this last book for the very purpose of giving great hope to all mankind. I hoped that my book would continue to be published after my death, which it was. Several Christian publishing companies have been reprinting my books. The first book I mentioned has sold millions of copies.
However, the greatest hope I wanted to share with all the world was my discovery that our Heavenly Father will draw all mankind unto Himself. I share this wonderful news in my autobiography and these modern Christian publishers have removed this message from my book!! The very heart of my book, that God Himself showed me He was going to save all mankind-that part of my book they removed without notifying the reader they did such a deceitful thing! How in the world are people going to believe in Jesus as the Truth when Christian publishers behave in such a manner. I know that I am not the only writer suffering at the hands of dishonest religious publishers. Even the Bible translations of deceased Christians have been reworked by some publishers changing major doctrines without bringing this to the attention of the readers.
Cutting out those chapters was like cutting out my heart. They have taken my “Unselfish God” and made Him into their own image-very selfish. They cut those chapters from my book because it was not “popular theology.” It did not fit in with the traditional “Evangelical” circles. In other words, they “cut out” those chapters because they would have “cut into” their profits. They felt they needed to “edit” it to attract the largest readership. Therefore they removed that which they felt might offend some of their readership. Imagine-Christians being offended that God is loving and powerful enough to save all of us! It grieves me greatly to know that many Christians are offended by the love and mercy of the True God.
I am grateful that the heart of my autobiography is printed in this book Hope for All Generations and Nations and located between these peoples who have longed for so many centuries for a hope which would reach all their ancestors. I pray that my testimony be used to reach some in every nation of the world.
Here are the chapters which the “workers of iniquity” have removed from my autobiography. Thank you, Father for restoring what You Yourself have given me to share with my brothers and sisters around the world:
The Unselfishness of God and How I Discovered It, by Hannah Whitall Smith
Chapter XXI — Questionings
“During all the years of which I speak the Plymouth Brethren were, as I have said, among my principal teachers. But I began gradually to find some things in their teachings that I could not accept; and this was especially the case with their extreme Calvinism.
There have always been, I believe, differences of opinion among them in regard to this view; but those with whom I was thrown held very rigidly the belief that some people were “elected” to salvation, and some were elected to “reprobation”, and that nothing the individual could do could change these eternal decrees. We of course were among those elected to salvation, and for this we were taught to be profoundly thankful. I tried hard to fall in with this. It seemed difficult to believe that those who had taught me so much could possibly be mistaken on such a vital point. But my soul revolted from it more and more. How could I be content in knowing that I myself was sure of Heaven, when other poor souls equally deserving, but who had not had my chances, were “elected”, for no fault of their own, but in the eternal decrees of God, to “Reprobation”? Such a doctrine seemed to me utterly inconsistent with the proclamation that had so entranced me. I could not find any limitations in this proclamation, and I could not believe there were any secret limitations in the mind of the God who had made it. Neither could I see how a Creator could be just, even if He were not loving, in conigning some of the creatures He Himself, and no other, had created, to the eternal torment of hell, let them be as great sinners as they might be. I felt that if this doctrine were true, I should be woefully disappointed in the God -whom I had, with so much rapture, discovered.
I could not fail to see, moreover, that, after all, each one of us was largely a creature of circumstance-that what we were, and what we did, was more or less the result of our temperaments, of our inherited characteristics, of our social surroundings and of our education; and that, as these were all providentially arranged for us, with often no power on our part to alter them, it would not be just of the God who had placed us in their midst, to let them determine our eternal destiny.
As an escape from the doctrine of eternal torment, I at first embraced the doctrine of annihilation for the wicked, and for a little while tried to comfort myself with the belief that this life ended all for them. But the more I thought of it, the more it seemed to me that it would be a confession of serious failure on the part of the Creator, if He could find no way out of the problem of His creation, but to annihilate the creatures whom He had created.
Unconsciously, one of my children gave me an illustration of this. She waked me up one morning to tell me that she had been lying in bed having great fun in pretending that she had made a man. She described the color of his hair and his eyes, his figure, his height, his power, his wisdom and all the grand things he was going to do, and was very enthusiastic in her evident delight in the joy of creation. When she had finished enumerating all the magnificent qualities of her man, I said to her, “But, darling, suppose he should turn out badly; suppose he should do mischief and hurt people, and make things go wrong, what would thee do then?” “Oh,” she said, “I would not have any trouble; I’d just make him lie down and chop his head off.”
I saw at once what a splendid illustration this was of the responsibility of a Creator, and it brought to my mind Mrs. Shelley’s weird story of the artist Frankenstein, who made the monstrous image of a man, which, when it, was finished, suddenly, to his horror, became alive, and went out into the world, working havoc wherever it went. The horrified maker felt obliged to follow his handiwork everywhere, in order to try to undo a little of the mischief that had been done, and to remedy as far as possible the evils it had caused. The awful sense of the responsibility that rested upon him, because of the things done by the creature he had created, opened my eyes to see the responsibility God must necessarily feel, if the creatures He had created were to turn out badly. I could not believe He would torment them forever; and neither could I rest in the thought of annihilation as His best remedy for sin. I felt hopeless of reconciling the love and the justice of the Creator with the fate of His creatures, and I knew not which way to turn. But deliverance was at hand, and the third epoch in my Christian experience was about to dawn.”
Chapter XXII — The Third Epoch In My Religious Life
“As I stated in the last chapter, after a few years of exuberant enjoyment in the good news of salvation through Christ for myself and for those who thought as I did, my heart began to reach out after those who thought differently, and especially after those who, by reason of the providential circumstances of their birth and their surroundings, had had no fair chance in life. I could not but see that ignorance of God, and, as a result, lives of sin, seemed the almost inevitable fate of a vast number of my fellow human beings, and I could not reconcile it with the justice of God, that these unfortunate mortals should be doomed to eternal torment because of those providential circumstances, for which they were not responsible, and from which, in a large majority of cases, they could not escape. The fact, that, I, who no more deserved it than they, should have been brought to the knowledge of the truth, while they were left out in the cold, became so burdensome to me, that I often felt as if I would gladly give up my own salvation, if by this means I could bestow it upon those who had been placed in less fortunate circumstances than myself.
I began to feel that the salvation in which I had been rejoicing was, after all a very limited and a very selfish salvation, and, as such, unworthy of the Creator who had declared so emphatically that His “tender mercies are over all His works,” and above all unworthy of the Lord Jesus Christ, who came into the world for the sole and single purpose of saving the world. I could not believe that His life and death for us could be meant to fall so far short of remedying the evil that He came on purpose to remedy, and I felt that it must be impossible that there could be any short-coming in the salvation He had provided. I began to be convinced that my difficulties had simply arisen from a misunderstanding of the plans of God, and I set myself to discover the mistakes.
As I have said, my first refuge had been in the annihilation of the wicked. But this had soon seemed unworthy of a wise and good Creator, and a very sad confession of failure on His part, and I could not reconcile it with, either His omnipotence or His omniscience. I began to be afraid I was going to be disappointed in God. But one day a revelation came to me that vindicated Him, and that settled the whole question forever.
We very often had revivalist preachers staying with us, as we sought every opportunity of helping forward with we called “gospel work”. Among the rest there came one who was very full of the idea that it was the privilege and duty of the Christian to share, in a very special manner, in the sufferings of Christ, as well as in His joys. He seemed to think our doing so would in some way help those who knew nothing of the salvation of Christ; and he had adopted the plan of making strong appeals on the subject in his meetings, and of asking Christians, who were willing, for the sake of others, to take a share of these sufferings upon themselves, to “come forward” to a front bench in the meeting to pray that it might be granted them. Somehow it all sounded very grand and heroic, and it fitted in so exactly with my longings to help my less fortunate fellow human beings, that, although I did not go “forward” for prayer at any of his meetings, I did begin to pray privately in a blind sort of way that I might come into the experience, whatever it was. The result was very different from what I had expected, but it was far from tremendous.
I had expected to enter into a feeling of Christ’s own personal sufferings in the life and death He bore for our sakes, but instead I seemed to have a revelation, not of His sufferings because of sin, but of ours. I seemed to get a sight of the misery and anguish caused to humanity by the entrance of sin into the world, and of Christ’s sorrow, not for His own sufferings because of it, but for the sufferings of the poor human beings who had been cursed by it. I seemed to understand something of what must necessarily be His anguish at the sight of the awful fate which had been permitted to befall the human race, and of His joy that He could do something to alleviate it. I saw that ours was the suffering, and that His was the joy of sacrificing Himself to save us. I felt that if I had been a Divine Creator, and had allowed such an awful fate to befall the creatures I had made, I would have been filled with anguish, and would have realized that simple justice, even if not love, required that I should find some remedy for it. And I knew I could not be more just than God. I echoed in my heart over and over again the lines found by one of George Macdonald’s characters engraved on a tombstone.
- “Oh Thou, who didst the serpent make,
- Our pardon give and pardon take.”
I had been used to hearing a great deal about the awfulness of our sins against God, but now I asked myself, what about the awfulness of our fate in having been made sinners? Would I not infinitely rather that a sin should be committed against myself, than that I should commit a sin against any one else? Was it not a far more dreadful thing to be made a sinner than to be merely sinned against? And I began to see that, since God had permitted sin to enter into the world, it must necessarily be that He would be compelled, in common fairness, to provide a remedy that would be equal to the disease. I remembered some mothers I had known, with children suffering from inherited diseases, who were only too thankful to lay down their lives in self-sacrifice for their children, if so be they might, in any way, be able to undo the harm they had done in bringing them into the world under such disastrous conditions and I asked myself, Could God do less? I saw that, when weighed in a balance of wrong done, we, who had been created sinners, had infinitely more to forgive than any one against whom we might have sinned.
The vividness with which all this came to me can never be expressed. I did not think it, or imagine it, or suppose it. I saw it. It was a revelation of the real nature of things–not according to the surface conventional ideas, but according to the actual bottom facts–and it could not be gainsaid.
In every human face I saw, there seemed to be unveiled before me, the story of the misery and anguish caused by the entrance of sin into the world. I knew that God must see this with far clearer eyes than mine, and therefore I felt sure that the sufferings of this sight to Him must be infinitely beyond what it was to me, almost unbearable as that seemed. And I began to understand how it was that the least He could do would be to embrace with untold gladness anything that would help to deliver the being He had created for such awful misery.
It was a never to be forgotten insight into the world’s anguish because of sin. How long it lasted I cannot remember, but, while it lasted, it almost crushed me. And as it always came afresh at the sight of a strange face, I found myself obliged to wear a thick veil whenever I went into the streets, in order that I might spare myself the awful realization.
One day I was riding on a tram-car along Market Street, Philadelphia, when I saw two men come in and seat themselves opposite to me. I saw them dimly through in veil, but congratulated myself that it was only dimly, as I was thus spared the wave of anguish that had so often swept over me at the full sight of a strange face. The conductor came for his fare, and I was obliged to raise my veil in order to count it out. As I raised it I got a sight of the faces of those two men, and with an overwhelming flood of anguish, I seemed to catch a fresh and clearer revelation of the depth of the misery that had been caused to human beings by sin. It was more than I could bear. I clenched my hands and cried out in my soul, “O, God, how canst thou bear it? Thou mightest have prevented it, but didst not. Thou mightest even now change it, but Thou dost not. I do not see how Thou canst go on living, and endure it.” I upbraided God. And I felt I was justified in doing so. Then suddenly God seemed to answer me. An inward voice said, in tones of infinite love and tenderness, “He shall see the travail of His soul and be satisfied.” “Satisfied!” I cried in my heart, “Christ is to be satisfied! He will be able to look at the world’s misery, and then at the travail through which He has passed because of it, and will be satisfied with the result; If I were Christ, nothing could satisfy me but that every human being should in the end be saved, and therefore I am sure that nothing less will satisfy Him.” And with this a veil seemed to be withdrawn from before the plans of the universe, and I saw that it was true, as the Bible says, that “as in Adam all die — even so in Christ should all be made alive.” As was the first, even so was the second. The “all” in one case could not in fairness mean less than the “all” in the other. I saw therefore that the remedy must necessarily be equal to the disease, the salvation must be as universal as the fall.
I saw all this that day on the tram-car on Market street, Philadelphia — not only thought it, or hoped it, or even believed it — but knew it. It was a Divine fact. And from that moment I have never had one questioning thought as to the final destiny of the human race. God is the Creator of every human being, therefore He is the Father of each one, and they are all His children; and Christ died for every one, and is declared to be “the propitiation not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). However great the ignorance therefore, or however grievous the sin, the promise of salvation is positive and without limitations. If it is true that “by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation,” it is equally true that “by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.” To limit the last “all men” is also to limit the first. The salvation is absolutely equal to the fall. There is to be a final “restitution of all things”, when “at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” Every knee, every tongue-words could not be more embracing. The how and the when I could not see; but the one essential fact was all I needed-somewhere and somehow God was going to make every thing right for all the creatures He had created. My heart was at rest about it forever.
I hurried home to get hold of my Bible, to see if the magnificent fact I had discovered could possibly have been all this time in the Bible, and I had not seen it; and the moment I entered the house, I did not wait to take off my bonnet, but rushed at once to the table where I always kept my Bible and Concordance ready for use, and began my search. Immediately the whole Book seemed to be illuminated. On every page the truth concerning the “times of restitution of all things” of which the Apostle Peter says “God Hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began,” shone forth, and no room was left for questioning. I turned greedily from page to page of my Bible, fairly laughing aloud for joy at the blaze of light that illuminated it all. It became a new book. Another skin seemed to have been peeled off every text, and my Bible fairly shone with a new meaning. I do not say with a different meaning, for in no sense did the new meaning contradict the old, but a deeper meaning, the true meaning, hidden behind the outward form of words. The words did not need to be changed, they only needed to be understood; and now at last I began to understand them.
I remember just about this time, in the course of my daily reading in the Bible, coming to the Psalms, and I was amazed at the new light thrown upon their apparently most severe and blood-thirsty denunciations. I saw that, when rightly interpreted, not by the letter, but by the spirit, they were full of the assured and final triumph of good over evil, and were a magnificent vindication of the goodness and justice of God, who will not, and ought not, and cannot, rest until all His enemies and ours are put under His feet. I saw that the kingdom must be interior before it can be exterior, that it is a kingdom of ideas, and not one of brute force; that His rule is over hearts, not over places; that His victories must be inward before they can be outward; that He seeks to control spirits rather than bodies; that no triumph could satisfy Him but a triumph that gains the heart; that in short, where God really reigns, the surrender must be the interior surrender of the convicted free men, and not merely the outwar surrender of the conquered slave. Milton says, “Who overcomes by force hath overcome but half his foe,” and I saw that this was true.
Read in the light of these views, my whole soul thrilled with praise over the very words that had before caused me to thrill with horror. “Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered; let them also that hate Him flee before Him. As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: as wax melted before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.” God’s wrath is against the sin not against the sinner, and when His enemies are scattered, ours are also. His sword is the righteousness that puts to death sin in order to save the sinner. The fire of His anger is the “refiner’s fire”, and He sits, not as the destroyer of the human soul, but as its purifier, to purge it as gold and silver are purged.
- “Implacable is love
- Foes may be bought or teased from their malign intent;
- But He goes unappeased Who is on kindness bent.”
The Psalmist says, “Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though thou takest vengeance on their inventions;” and with this key to interpret it, all the denunciations of God’s wrath, which had once seemed so cruel and so unjust, were transformed into declarations of His loving determination to make us good enough to live in Heaven with Himself forever.
I might multiply endlessly similar instances of the new illumination that shone in entrancing beauty on every page of the Bible, but these will suffice. I began at last to understand what the Apostle Paul meant when he said that he had been made the minister of the new testament, not of the letter but of the spirit, for “the letter killeth but the spirit giveth life”. Things I had read in the letter, and had shuddered at, now, read in the spirit, filled me with joy.”
Chapter XXIII — The Unselfishness of God
“I have always felt that this time my real discovery of the unselfishness of God began. Up to then, while I had rejoiced in the salvation for myself that I had discovered, I had been secretly beset from time to time with a torturing feeling that, after all, it was rather a selfish salvation, both for Him and for me. How could a good God enjoy Himself in Heaven, knowing all the while that a large proportion of the beings He had Himself created were doomed to eternal misery, unless He were a selfish God? I had known that the Bible said that He was a God of love, and I had supposed that it must be true, but always there had been at the bottom of my mind this secret feeling that His love could not stand the test of comparison with the ideal of love in my own heart. I knew that, poor and imperfect as my love must be, I could never have enjoyed myself in Heaven while one of my children, no matter how naughty, was shut out; and that He could and did enjoy Himself, while countless thousands of His children were shut out, seemed to me a failure in the most essential element of love. So that, grateful as I had felt for the blessings of forgiveness and of a sure and certain hope of Heaven for myself, I still had often felt as if after all the God I worshiped was a selfish God, who cared more for His own comfort and His own glory than He did for the poor suffering beings He had made. But now I began to see that the wideness of God’s love was far beyond any wideness that I could even conceive of; and that if I took all the unselfish love of every mother’s heart the whole world over, and piled it all together, and multiplied it by millions, I would still only get a faint idea of the unselfishness of God.
I had always thought of Him as loving, but now I found out that He was far more than loving:—He was love, love embodied and ingrained. I saw that He was, as it were, made out of love, so that in the very nature of things He could not do anything contrary to love. Not that He would not do it, but actually could not, because love was the very essence of His being. I saw that the law of love, like the law of gravitation, is inevitable in its working, and that God is, if I may say so, under this law, and cannot help obeying it. I saw that, because He is love, He simply, in the very nature of things, must be loving. It is not a matter of choice with Him, but a matter of necessity. And I saw that, once this fact was known, to trust in this God of love would be as natural as to breathe. Every doubting question was answered, and I was filled with an illimitable delight in the thought of having been created by such an unselfish God. I saw that as a matter of course the fact of His being our creator was an absolute guarantee that He would care for us, and would make all things work together for our good. The duties of ownership blazed with tremendous illumination. Not its rights, of which I had hitherto chiefly thought, but its duties, the things ownership necessarily demands of its owner. I saw that just as in a civilized community people are compelled by public opinion, or if necessary by the law, to take proper care of things that belong to them, so our Creator, by the laws of common morality, is compelled to take proper care of the creatures He has created, and must be held responsible for their well being.
It was all so glorious that it often seemed too good to be true, that we actually did belong to such an unselfish God; that many a time, when a fresh insight into His goodness would come over me, I would be obliged to get my Bible and open it at the texts that declared we really were His property, and put my fingers on them, and read them aloud, just to reassure myself that they did actually say, without any limitations, that He was my owner.
The expression “Remember thy Creator” assumed a totally different aspect to me. I had always thought of it as a kind of threat held over us into good behavior; but now it seemed full of the most delightful warrant and assurance that all was well for the creatures this unselfish Creator had created. I saw that God was good, not religiously good only, but really and actually good in the truest sense of the word, and that a good Creator was of course bound to make every thing go right with the creatures He had created. And the fact that nothing was hid from His eyes, which had once been so alarming, now began to seem the most delightful fact in the whole universe, because it made it certain that He knew all about us, and would therefore be able to do His best for us.
My own feelings as a mother, which had heretofore seemed to war with what I had believed of God, now came into perfect harmony.
My children have been the joy of my life. I cannot imagine more exquisite bliss than comes to one sometimes in the possession and companionship of a child. To me there have been moments, when my arms have been around my children, that have seemed more like what the bliss of Heaven must be than any other thing I can conceive of; and I think this feeling has taught me more of what are God’s feelings towards His children than anything else in the universe. If I, a human being with limited capacity, can find such joy in my children, what must God, with His infinite heart of love, feel towards His; In fact most of my ideas of the love and goodness of God have come from my own experience as a mother, because I could not conceive that God would create me with a greater capacity for unselfishness and self sacrifice than He possessed Himself; and since this discovery of the mother heart of God I have always been able to answer every doubt that may have arisen in my mind, as to the extent and quality of the love ofGod, by simply looking at my own feelings as a mother. I cannot understand the possibility of any selfishness on the mother’s part coming into her relation to her children. It seems to me a mother, who can be selfish and think of her own comfort and her own welfare before that of her children, is an abnormal mother, who fails in the very highest duty of motherhood.
If one looks at what we call the lower creation, one will see that every animal teaches us this supreme duty of self-sacrifice on the part of the mother.
The tiger mother will suffer herself to be killed rather than that that harm should come to her offspring. She will starve that they may have food. Could our God do less? I speak of self-sacrifice, but I cannot truthfully call it sacrifice. Any true mother, who knows the reality of motherhood, would scorn the idea that the care of her children involved a sacrifice, in the ordinary sense of sacrifice, on her part. It may involve trouble or weariness but not what I could call sacrifice. The sacrifice would be if she were not allowed to care for them, not if she were. I know no more fallacious line of argument than that which is founded upon the idea that children ought to be grateful for the self-sacrifice on the mother’s part. Her claim to love and consideration on the part of her children depends altogether to my mind upon how true a mother she has been in the sense I describe; and I believe that thousands of disappointed mothers, who have not received the gratitude and consideration they would like,have only themselves to thank, because they have demanded it, instead of having won it. All this has taught me to understand God’s feelings towards us that what we call self-sacrifice on the part of Christ was simply the absolutely necessary expression of His love for us; and that the amazing thing would have been, not that He did it, but if He had not done it.
Since I had this insight of the mother-heart of God, I have never been able to feel the slightest anxiety for any of His children; and by His children I do not mean only the good ones, but I mean the bad ones just as much. Are we not, distinctly told that the Good Shepherd leaves the ninety and nine good sheep in order to find the one naughty sheep that is lost, and that He looks for it until He finds it? And, viewed in the light of motherhood, has not that word “lost” a most comforting meaning, since nothing can be a lost thing that is not owned by somebody, and to be lost means only, not yet found. The lost gold piece is still gold, with the image of the King upon it; the lost sheep is a sheep still, not a wolf; the lost son has still the blood of his father in his veins. And if a person is a lost sinner, it only means that he is owned by the Good Shepherd, and that the Good Shepherd is bound, by the very duties of His ownership, to go after that which is lost, and to go until He finds it. The word “lst” therefore, to my mind, contains in itself the strongest proof of ownership that one could desire. Who can imagine a mother with a lost child ever having a ray of comfort until the child is found, and who can imagine a God being more indifferent than a mother? In fact I believe that all the problems of the spiritual life, which are often so distressing to conscientious souls, would vanish like mist before the rising sun, if the full blaze of the mother-heart of God should be turned upon them.
Moreover I saw that, since it was declared we were created in the image of God, we were bound to believe that the best in us, and not the worst was the reflection of that image, and that therefore things which to us in our best moments looked selfish, or unkind, or unjust, or self-seeking, must never, no matter what the “seeming”, be attributed to God. If He is unselfish, He must be at least as unselfish as the highest human ideal; and of course we know He must be infinitely more.
All the texts in the Bible revealing God’s goodness shone with a new meaning, and I saw that His goodness was not merely a patronizing benevolence, but was a genuine bona fide goodness that included unselfishness and consideration, and above all justice, which last has always seemed — to me one of the very first elements of goodness. No unjust person could ever, in my opinion, lay the slightest claim to being good, let their outward seemings of goodness be as deceiving as they may. I had in short such an overwhelming revelation of the intrinsic and inherent goodness and unselfishness of God that nothing since has been able to shake it. A great many things in His dealings have been and still are mysteries to me; but I am sure they could all be explained on the basis of love and justice, if only I could look deep enough; and that some day I shall see, what now I firmly believe, that His loving kindness is really and truly over all His works.
I do not mean to say that all this acquaintance with God came to me at once; but 1 do mean to say that when I had that revelation on the tram-car in Philadelphia that day, a light on the character of God began to shine, that has never since waned in the slightest, and has only grown brighter and brighter with every year of my life. It is enough for me to say “God is” and I have the answer to every possible difficulty.
The amazing thing is that I, in company with so many other Christians, had failed, with the open Bible before me, to see this; and that all sorts of travesties on the character of God, and of libels upon His goodness, can find apparently a welcome entrance into Christian hearts. To me such things became at this time well-nigh intolerable. I could listen patiently, and even with interest, to any sort of strange or heretical ideas that did not touch the character of God, but the one thing I could not endure, and could not sit still to listen to, was anything that contained, even under a show of great piety, the least hint of a libel on His love or His selfishness.
I shall never forget a memorable occasion in our own house, when a celebrated Preacher from Boston, was visiting us. The conversation at the breakfast table turned on the subject of God’s love, and this Preacher declared that you must not count on it too much, as there were limits as to what His love could endure, just as there were limits to a mother’s love; and he went on to declare that there were certain sins a daughter could commit which the mother never could forgive, and which would forever close her heart and her home against her child, and he asserted that it was just so with God, and that he considered it was a grandmotherly religion that taught anything different.
I have no doubt his object was to combat my views on Restitution, although we were not talking on that subject; but he evidently wanted to convince me that God was not quite so foolishly loving as I thought. It was more than I could endure to hear both mothers, and the God who made mothers, so maligned, and, although the speaker was my guest, I broke forth into a perfect passion of indignation, and, declaring that I would not sit at the table with any one who held such libelous ideas of God, I burst into tears and left the room, and entirely declined to see my guest again. I do not say this was right or courteous, or at all Christ-like, but it only illustrates how overwhelmingly I felt on the subject. The honor of God seemed to me of more importance than any ordinary rules of politeness. But I see now that I might have vindicated that honor in an equally effectual but more Christ-like way.
Still, to this day, the one thing which I find it very hard to tolerate, is any thing which libels the character of God. Nothing else matters like this, for all our salvation depends wholly and entirely upon what God is; and unless He can be proved to be absolutely good, and absolutely unselfish, and absolutely just, our case is absolutely hopeless. God is our salvation, and, if He fails us, in even the slightest degree, we have nowhere else to turn.”
Auschwitz, Germany, AD 1947
My name is Rachael Abraham. I’m sure you know much about me just by my name and the year in which I died. The fire was very hot, perhaps not as hot as the fire that vaporized those poor Japanese. And you say the fire of G-d’s wrath upon unbelievers will be much hotter and last much longer. You are a stupid person who says such foolish things!! Don’t quote me your, “call no man of fool” Scripture. I probably know the Scriptures better than most of you. You should read some of the things your Jesus and His apostles said of some religious people in their day. Their words would make stupid sound very mild. White-washed tombs, den of snakes and hypocrites were among some of Jesus’ words for people who acted very much like many of you. Yes, you people who believe such nonsense are stupid. Innocently stupid, maybe, but still pretty dumb. You don’t think. You don’t feel!
Tell me, my dear, do you really think you have this salvation business figured out? My life was ended in fire. Who put me there? Christians (Catholics and Protestants) wearing belt buckles inscribed with “In God we trust!” Who is going to get these eternal flames you warn about?! Those Lutherans who made me stand in a tank of human excretion up to my nose for hours? Or me, for hating the very name of Jesus for what Christians have done to my people in His name?
Oh, you may glibly say, they weren’t true Christians! Tell me, is Martin Luther a “true” Christian? Listen to what he thought should be done to us. Here are his own words: “Whenever you encounter a real Jew, you may in good faith make the sign of the cross and openly and fearlessly pronounce the words ‘This is a veritable devil.’ Therefore, do not doubt and never forget, beloved Christians, that apart from Satan himself, you possess no more deadly, poisonous, and dreadful enemy than a real Jew. I know that. They poison wells, kidnap and maltreat children….It is impossible to teach or re-educate the Jews…Were God to promise me no other Messiah than for whom the Jews hope, I would much rather be a pig than a man…Never ought a Christian to eat or drink with a Jew.”
On being asked whether it would be right to box the ears of a Jew, Luther replied “Certainly. I for one would smack him on the jaw. Were I able, I would knock him down and stab him in my anger. It is lawful, according to both the human and the divine law, to kill a robber; then it is even more permissible to slay a blasphemer…If I had to baptize a Jew, I would take him to the bridge of the Elbe, hang a stone round his neck and push him over with the words ‘I baptize thee in the name of Abraham….We ought to take revenge on the Jews and kill them.”
Little wonder the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. William Temple said, “It is easy to see how Luther prepared the way for Hitler.” Perhaps now you can understand why you hear so much anger in my voice-why I call Christians who believe in an eternal torturing God “stupid.” Don’t you realize that you yourself will be conformed to the God you hold in your heart?! If you worship a ruthless, wrathful God who plays the hypocrite, telling his followers to love their enemies while He endlessly tortures His own, then you will become just like that kind of a God-an ugly hideous hypocrite! Think! Reason this out! And don’t stick your heart in the freezer. Let it bleed for a moment. Do you realize Martin Luther ordered the death of tens of thousands of his own Christian countrymen who rebelled against the Princes due to lack of food!? Listen to how he speaks about his own poor starving Christian countrymen. These were not Jews, they were Christians!
What is so terribly sad is that Luther was the catalyst and leader who started the “Peasants War.” Listen to what he at first had to say about the German Princes who had greatly oppressed the peasants: “God Almighty has struck our princes with madness so that they imagine they may treat and command their subjects just as they please; and the subjects too are crazy enough to think that it is their duty to obey all that is commanded them…God has delivered the prince’s up to a perverted mind, and means to make an end to them…All the princes could do was to rob and oppress the people, heaving tax upon tax, and rate upon rate…The princes are the greatest fools and the worst scoundrels on earth. The people cannot, will not any longer, endure your tyranny and your presumption.” Words like these encourage the peasants to surround themselves around their champion, Martin Luther-a man bold enough to come against the highest powers of Germany. The peasants, under the encouragement of Luther, drafted a document asking for better living conditions. The document was a very reasonable and Christ-like plea for improved living conditions.
When things finally came to a head, what did Martin Luther, the very one who encouraged the peasants to rise up, do? He sided with the Princes! Here again are Luther’s own words: “To kill a peasant is not murder; it is helping to extinguish the conflagration. Let there be no half measures! Crush them! Cut their throats! Transfix them! Leave no stone unturned! To kill a peasant is to destroy a mad dog!. . . Our princes must in the circumstances regard themselves as the officers of the divine wrath which bids them chastise such scoundrels. A prince who failed to do so would be sinning against God very badly. He would be failing in his mission. A prince who in such circumstances avoided bloodshed would become responsible for the murders and all the further crimes which these low swine might commit. It is no longer a question of tolerance, patience, pity. It is the hour of wrath and for the sword; the hour for mercy is past.”
See, I told you so. If one worships a god who is a hypocrite one becomes a hypocrite. Or perhaps Luther’s god of wrath was nothing more than an idol he created in his own image-a wrathful god of hypocrisy. He also said, “I will not forbid such rulers as are able, to chastise and slay the peasants without previously them offering terms, even though the Gospel does not permit it.” We see here that Luther placed his own words above the Gospel itself! After all this (and much more that I could tell you about him) Luther had the nerve to call us Jews “swine.” What nerve! (Quotes from Martin Luther were taken from Martin Luther: Hitler’s Spiritual Ancestor by Peter F. Wiener, Hutchinson and Company LTD publishers.)
Let’s change the subject. My stomach turns when I think of some of the things Christian leaders have done. What sickens me even more is that few pew-warmers know these things ever happened. Worst of all, most Christians probably don’t really want to know. There, there little ostrich. Put your empty little head back in the hot sand and bake it a little longer.
You know Jews like to study. That’s why many Jews become doctors, lawyers, professors, etc. I personally happen to know more about Christian history than most Christians. After all, we Jews share a part in your history. You might be surprised at how many of my ancestors have been killed in Christian wars, inquisitions, and programs. I am not surprised because I have read European history which really is also Church history.
I’m not too bad on your Bible either. Did you ever read in your own Bible, “Salvation is of the Jews?” (John 4:22). You know, of course, the Bible was written by Jews, even the New Testament. Oh, I know Luke may have been a Gentile, but the rest of the Bible was written by Jews. Do you know, we Jews know of no such thing as “hell?” We know of one place “Sheol” where all go, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Oh, I know the King James Bible translators divided Sheol into “hell,” “grave,” and “pit,” but they never consulted a good Rabbi on that one. They were as anti-Semitic in those days as many are today. Now your modern scholars are getting much smarter. They don’t have “hell” in the Old Testament anymore, because it was never in the Hebrew Scriptures in the first place!!
Now you ought to get busy cleaning up your New Testament Scriptures. Maybe we Jews might start listening to what you have to say when you stop talking foolishness! Think! God never spoke about hell to any of His people from Adam to Malachi. Why should He start talking about it in the first century AD? Your scholars should have gone to us for advice instead of the pagans. That is where you got your concept of hell. Gehenna, which your translators translate Hell, was the Valley of Hinnom outside the southwest wall of Jerusalem.
It was the dump, a symbol of worthlessness, and not a symbol of “eternal torture.” Yeshua (Jesus) used it as a symbol of a place to put things that are worthless. Jesus told the religious leaders of his day that their lives weren’t worth anything. To a pious Jew, this was the worst of insults. But where did you get the idea Gehenna was a place of eternal torture or even a symbol of it? Certainly not from the Jewish Scriptures! Oi Veh!! Such nonsense from the mouths of those who parade themselves as G-d’s know-it-alls. You have lost your ability to think. You accuse us of following the “traditions of the elders,” and yet most of you Christians follow a bunch of theologians and preachers who have so totally rewritten history and twisted the original languages of the Bible that the God of the Bible is hardly recognizable anymore.
As a Jew, I am not too fond of Paul, the apostle. But you Christians, if you want to follow the “gospel” thing had better pay attention to Paul. He said something like, “If anyone preach another gospel other than mine, let him be accursed.” Those are pretty strong words. Now I have a question for you. Before you try to answer it, put a little oil in the brain, crank up the gears and think! Ready? If salvation is deliverance from this “hell” which most of you modern Christians say is a place of endless torture, why did Paul never use the word even once!!!! Think! No hell in the Old Testament. Paul, whose commission it was to declare the gospel to the nations, forgets to use this word, or did he? Maybe he didn’t forget. Maybe Hell, as is commonly taught in Christendom, was never part of G-d’s plan! Maybe it never was in the Scriptures, New Testament or Old. We Jews have never had a “hell” in our Scriptures. All we have ever had is Sheol. Remember, the Scriptures are from us. Yes, we do know better on this one! Now you should go and study for yourselves.
If you don’t want to study this out, then study out my fate. I despised this Jesus you Christians have been trying to cram down our throats literally for two thousand years. Do you know how many Jews have been killed because we wouldn’t call a piece of cracker, “Jesus Christ?”
Are you so pure and righteous that you think you will escape the barbecue you so vividly describe for us? Wake up! Think! Study! And pray sincerely. Remember, your God is an “all-consuming fire.” Why don’t you go to Him and let Him burn some of the dross clogging up your brains and your heart. Who knows, maybe then enough of Christ’s love will flow out of you so that all can finally see their Messiah. We, Jews have waited a long time for the mercy which Christians are supposed to be filled with to flow forth to the nations. After all, aren’t you supposed to provoke us to jealousy? (Rom. 11:11) We have become very cynical from waiting so long for the love of the Messiah to soften our hearts. We are still waiting. “How long, Oh Lord!” When will a people come forth exhibiting your character and love?!
Moscow, USSR, AD 1954
My name is Ivan Magog. Yes, I know my name is in the Bible. I know many of you Western Christians believe we Russians are the Anti-Christ power on earth. I am in the third generation of Russians programmed from birth into atheism. We knew no God. Most of the priests of the Russian Orthodox Church in my day were stooges of the KGB. Most of them value their own lives more than their so-called faith. We remember the evils the Russian Orthodox Church and what its aristocracy did to the Russian people.
You Americans do not know what we peasants suffered in the name of your Christ. You Americans are very ignorant of the things done in the name of your God in Europe and Russia. Sadly, you cannot understand why Marx called religion “the opiate of the people.”
Many of you despise the cold, inhumane appearance of the Russian Communist. Perhaps you should take a good look at many of the priests your religion has produced and the blood they left behind. The blood we spilled in the name of atheism is but a puddle compared to the sea of blood spilled by your church leaders. Look to your history and see how many wars were fought by Christians. Your Prince of Peace leaves a trail of blood up to the horse’s bridle!
Ah!! But you disassociate yourself from this history, but we can not! We have seen nothing but corrupt priests and royalty feeding upon our children and our children’s children!! So we picked up the sword just as your priests have done.
Do you hear anger in my voice? Yes, there is much anger!! Who will quench it? Communism gave me nothing. Promises, but no fulfillment. The Communist leaders made themselves gods. They act just like the priests who ruled before them. The priests lied to us, stole from us, and yes, even killed us. The hope I had in Communism also faded away. I am locked up in my anger and frustration with no place to turn. Is there hope only in a bottle or the end of a gun? But even this hope you Christians take away from me. You tell me I will be tortured forever by your “God of love.” Oh, you say, it is not He doing it; that it would be my doing. Did I create this place you call the lake of fire? Did the devil? Did Krushchev? Who created these kind of monstrosities? Can you be honest one single time to one very angry, confused, hopeless Russian? You Christians say there is hope only in your faith. Why is it that I cannot see it? Am I not sincere enough? Do I speak the wrong language? You appear as monsters to me, hypocrites, double-talkers, and yes, robbers of poor people!! How can I possibly have hope in your God? You Christians through your actions and teachings throughout history have painted Him so ugly that I find no beauty in Him. I see coldness all around me. My heart is as ice. I look at your church history and it reminds me of Siberia, cold and lifeless. You speak to me of “good news.” I would rather drink my vodka than to swallow this concoction of poisons. Hope. I desperately need real hope and you, Christian, do not have it for me!
USA, AD 1996
My name is Joseph Simon. A part of me doesn’t feel akin to these other voices who just spoke. You see, I am a “born again Christian,” although my conscience has been gnawing at me to the point that I am not sure what I am anymore. Although, I believe I truly had a conversion experience, I am finding my assurance has slipped away. Even hope seems to be alluding me.
I was raised Roman Catholic. I must have been a pretty good Catholic because the priests never came down on me too hard. There were times when they felt they had to squeeze me for a few more dollars, but then nobody’s perfect — right?
One day I heard a preacher on television telling me all my good deeds were nothing but filthy rags. Oh, I can’t tell you how enraged I was! But then he had the nerve to tell me that was what the Bible said. Well, I was going to show him! He probably was quoting one of those Satan inspired Protestant Bibles. I was taught never to read one of those Protestant Bibles so I went to my big Catholic family Bible, (which commanded a very prominent place on our bookcase) to see how badly he twisted that verse. After I cleaned off the dust, I went to the verse he was talking about. (It’s amazing how much dust a book can pick up in 10 years!) But to my absolute amazement, my Catholic Bible said the same thing!
Well, this made me listen to this preacher more, until one day I found myself following his instructions on how to receive eternal life. I can’t explain to you how, but something deep inside of me changed. I felt clean and new. What a wonderful experience! Why didn’t this happen when I went to my Catholic Church for mass every Sunday? Now don’t get me wrong, I had many good “feelings” at my Catholic Church. I used to get all kind of “holy” feelings when I looked at all the stained glass and beautiful architecture. The ritual of the mass used to give me goosebumps. But this experience, when I confessed Jesus as my Lord and Savior, well, this came from an entirely different place inside of me. It brought a change in my life.
One of those changes was an incredible hunger for the things of God. My Bible no longer collected dust. I spent many hours devouring the Bible and read a lot of material which I ordered from that television evangelist.
In no time I was surrounded by various different Protestants flooding me with tapes, booklets, and all kinds of teachings. I know that many of you hearing me right now know what I am talking about. This has happened to millions of Catholics in recent years.
I had a hard time with the fact that there were so many different Protestant points of view on many areas of the Bible. What made matters worse is they all felt they were right. Everyone one of them said they based their teachings on the Bible.
I was a hard working man. While I loved to Bible study, I didn’t have the time to study each one of these different denominations to find out which one was right. In the Catholic Church, “right” was easy. The priests had all the answers and we had an infallible Pope who was “Vicar of Christ” (Substitute of Christ). It was easy being a Catholic. Follow the rituals, listen to the priests, and don’t make too much trouble.
When I made it known at work I was looking for a new church, I was bombarded with all kinds of reasons why to go to certain churches and to definitely stay away from others. I imagine it is difficult for people to understand how fearful and confused a person might become being told by various church leaders from organizations like United Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Full Gospel, Methodist, Unitarian, Jehovah’s Witness, and Fundamentalist that their system is the only one which is true to the Bible. They told me my very soul was at stake in the matter of joining the “right” Church. How could I know for certain which one was right? I knew I couldn’t spend the rest of my life studying all these different denominations. The pressure was enormous!
One of these men, who was an elder in his church, seemed to know the Bible much better than the others. At least he backed up everything he said with a Scripture. He often even quoted chapter and verse. He quoted a Scripture which really caught my attention and caused me to decide to close the door to these other denominations and join this group. He said the way to life was narrow and straight and few find it, but the road to destruction was broad and wide and there were many on it. I decided that day to chose “his” narrow way. I see now that what I really chose, was the “narrow-minded” way.
At that time, however, not having to deal with the many different teachings from dozens of Protestant denominations all telling me they had the real truth took a lot of pressure off me. Why, the Protestants not only had many different teachings in which they differed, they even had many different Bible translations that differed from each other.
As a Catholic, I didn’t have to worry about things like which translation is closer to the original languages. We were not encouraged to read the Bible at all. We just needed to follow the Priests.
I read a book one day on the subject of Bible translations. This writer’s view was that only the King James Bible was God’s “authorized” Bible. He made a case that all the other Protestant Bible translations could be traced back to false Greek texts coming from Alexandria, Egypt. His reasoning sounded plausible to me, especially in the light of the fact that I was desperately crying for some simplicity in my life. The peace and joy I had found at my conversion had eroded leaving great anguish in my mind.
As a Catholic, I was not a very “moral” person. I drank, I cussed, and yes, I did some things much worse than that. But as a Catholic, as long as you went to Mass and went to the confessional from time to time, one was alright with God. True, one might have to spend some time in Purgatory for some of the serious stuff, but even there, the Catholic Church had ways to shorter a Catholic’s stay there. They had indulgences and prayers for the dead which would reduce the time spent in Purgatory. I felt pretty secure that with as large as my family was, they would buy enough prayers from monks locked up in monasteries somewhere to make my stay in Purgatory short.
As a Protestant, this assurance quickly vanished. While I was given the assurance by the televangelist that if I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior I would receive eternal life, I soon discovered that was not the case at all. I was told one could “lose” their “eternal” life. A person could forsake Christ and return back to the mire from which he came.
From the comparing of the different denominations of Protestantism that I did , I noticed that what would cause a person to lose their “eternal” life varied greatly from one denomination to another. Looking back on this subject now, I wonder how these evangelists could promise “eternal” life, if in fact one could lose it again. It’s not very “eternal” if a sin can undo it. I guess I didn’t think that through at the time. As a matter of fact, I didn’t do much thinking at all, just listening to Church leaders as if God was speaking and memorizing God’s Word, the Bible. They encouraged this kind of reasoning. After all, wasn’t it a sin to “question” God’s Word? Doubt came from Satan, we were told.
Anyway, every pastor had his own view as to how one could lose their salvation. This was very frustrating for me. Who was right? How did forgiveness work? Most of them agreed that almost all sins were forgivable except the “unpardonable sin” of blaspheming the Holy Ghost. That is, if a Christian committed a sin and repented of it before he died, he would be forgiven of it. But if he did not repent of it, he would have to pay the penalty for it. Here is where everything was very fuzzy-which unrepented sins could cause one to end up in Hell?
The torment to my mind trying to understand exactly where I stood with God in the sin issue was great. The joy of my salvation was gone. The teaching that there was only one Bible authorized by God helped simplify my life and so I closed the door to all other Bible translations and anyone who used those Bibles. I convinced myself they were all wrong. They were deceived by Satan himself, who was blinding them because they were reading Satanically inspired Bibles.
So I found myself among the hard line branch of Evangelicalism-the Fundamentalists. We were tough on sin and sinners. Judgment, damnation, Hell, Godliness, Holiness, righteousness were among our favorite words. We knew all the Scriptures which proved the way to eternal life was very narrow and there were few who were on it. Most of the world, including most Christians were on the broad road which leads to destruction. (Matt. 7:13) Of course we had many of the passages of Scripture which supported the idea that most people would go to Hell memorized. We could quote chapter and verse on many of them. Among our favorites were: Hebrews 6:4-8; Heb. 10:28,29; Matt. 25:31-46; Mark 9:38-48; Rev. 20:7-10; 2 Thess. 1:7-10; Rev. 21:8; Jude 1:6,1:7, as well as others.
Looking back at that time in my life, I now realize that the more often I used Scriptures like this to condemn others to Hell, the less love, joy, and peace I had. The more I focused on why others deserved to go to hell, the smaller became the group I thought might make it to heaven. Those who left our group were immediately shunned and condemned to the torments of Hell. We would quote Scriptures like, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us” (John 2:19).
Because we believed that the way to eternal life was narrow, we isolated ourselves from other groups which might influence us away from the truth. The leaders spent much time warning us of the errors of these other groups and denominations which were leading people to Hell.
Although I was among believers who spent much time together in church related activities, I was very lonely. At my conversion, my marriage became a disaster. My wife was a strong devotee to Mary and the Catholic Church. The Protestants had not Mary. Our fights about religion drove us further and further apart, ultimately climaxing into a divorce.
Being a man with normal sexual needs and being without a wife became a very difficult situation for me. Our denomination was very clear regarding sex. Sex outside of marriage was clearly forbidden. Of course adultery was out of the question. Three years of being without a physical relationship was extremely difficult for me. There were certain Scriptures I read which just seemed impossible for me to live by. In Matthew 5:27 and 28, Jesus said that to have lust in one’s heart was equal to committing adultery. To have hate in one’s heart was the same as murder (Matthew 5:21, 22).
These two Scriptures were giving my conscience fits. There were many times when I looked at an attractive woman in Church, or at work. Watching television, my imagination went wild. I never acted upon my lusts. However, according to the words of Jesus, I was guilty of adultery! As to hate, when I was really honest with myself, there were several people who I despised.
One day my problem with lust got so bad, I felt I needed to talk to my pastor about it. Memorizing Scriptures and cold showers was not giving me victory over my imagination. Being in the neighborhood, I decided to stop by to see if he could spare me a few minutes of his time. His wife answered the door and invited me in. She told me the pastor was away on a men’s retreat and was not expected to return until the next day. Knowing by the expression on my face that I was troubled, she asked me what the problem was.
From hindsight I can now see my response to her question was not prudent. I told her that I just couldn’t seem to overcome the lustful feelings I often have when I looked at an attractive woman.
Within a few minutes she explained to me that she knews exactly how I felt. She and the pastor had not had sexual relations in the last two years. She found it suspicious that on many of the trips her husband made, the church secretary was also not available. She could never prove anything, but she knew that for the last two years she needed something her husband wasn’t giving her.
I still can’t quite figure out how we got to the bedroom, but it didn’t take long. While laying in bed, she related to me that many couples in their Church were having great difficulty overcoming sin in their lives. She said it seemed that the more her husband preached against sin, the harder it was for the congregation to have victory over sin. She told me her husband didn’t love her anymore. They were just staying married because divorce was severely frowned upon. The pastor knew that if he got a divorce, he would lose his Church.
All of a sudden the door burst open. “You’re both going to rot in Hell!” were the last words I heard before I felt the burn of a bullet burying itself deep into my chest. The pastor had come home early from his “men’s” retreat. The court hearings revealed that the pastor’s secretary had put an end to their affair that weekend. She had fallen in love with a new young convert.
The pastor was released on a temporary insanity plea. He asked his congregation to forgive him of both his affair and double murder. His denomination asked for his resignation. According to the Church’s doctrine, because he asked for forgiveness, he was forgiven by God of his crimes and sins. His wife and I did not have a chance to ask for forgiveness. I died guilty of unconfessed adultery. According to my denomination, I would go to Hell. The pastor’s wife would also go to Hell, while her husband, being forgiven because he asked for forgiveness, would qualify for heaven.
Quite frankly, I don’t see justice in this. Looking back, it seems rather strange now how we placed the eternal fate of so many people on simply speaking a handful of words. If someone spoke “Jesus come into my heart,” and then died, we would say that person was in heaven even though he murdered dozens of people. Commit adultery and then ask for forgiveness and you’re home free. Forget to ask or don’t have time and your fate is being tortured endlessly for all eternity.
Since I have had a lot of time to think about it, this type of teaching just doesn’t seem fair or just to me anymore. I wish I had thought this through before I joined that denomination. I just wanted simplicity. Religion had become too complicated for me. Now I await the resurrection of the just and the unjust, wondering what is the truth. While living I didn’t have much concern for all those lost unbelievers and Christians caught in what we thought were false religious systems which would lead them to Hell. Oh, we mouthed concern-but our words were pretty empty of action or compassion. We felt the Scriptures were plain enough. If we could figure it out,. so could everyone else-but most people loved the things of this world more than God. Therefore they deserved to go to Hell.
Now I’m not sure about anything. I am not too quick to judge anyone. Confusion fills my mind. The hypocrisy which we all practiced in our denomination stands out so clearly now. Why couldn’t I see it while I was living? When we evangelized we were so confident we were the only ones who had the truth. We told the world we had the true hope. Now I am without hope. I pray that the mercy we denied to most of the world somehow finds a place for me. All my foundations and traditions have been shaken and tested. They were found wanting. Did I ever really know God? Is there still hope for me?