Post-Flood, Third Generation
My name is Havilah, son of Cush, son of Noah. I am also confused by the teachings of your “Christianity.” You speak of an opportunity for all mankind to be “saved from everlasting torture.” Yes, I used the word “torture” to drive home a part of your teaching which is quite foreign to me. We never heard of such a thing. You call it “punishment.” We call it barbarism. We know what cruelty is. Is that what you call your God, an eternal torturer?
Now your theology must make sense to all mankind if your God is the God of all mankind. He must make provision for all of us, unless of course, He just arbitrarily does as He pleases with no regard to justice, mercy, and love. I understand some Christians have created gods in such an image. They call themselves “Calvinists” to separate themselves from others of the Christian persuasion. We have many gods such as these, cruel, cold and callused. I know the nature of such gods and do not wish to ask you questions about such gods. They offer no hope. I am looking for hope.
Some Christians say that a man like me can receive salvation by seeing God in nature. They interpret Romans chapter one as saying that one can hear the gospel through trees, and rocks, and the sky. If this is your belief, I ask you, are tree worshippers then saved? Is Christianity pantheistic? Or are you saying that Jesus Christ will reveal Himself in a physical cloud? Or are you saying that just belief in a god suffices for salvation? Then almost all religions of our day will bring salvation apart from believing in Jesus Christ. We all worshipped trees, and stones, and the stars. Of course we did not actually worship the tree itself, we know there is a power superior to the tree, but we need something on which to focus. So then, are we saved because we believe in a god? Are we more saved because we believe in more than one god? How do you reconcile your reasoning here against the many other Scriptures you also quoted telling your generation there is salvation only in the single name of Jesus Chrst? If one can be saved by believing there is a god based upon looking at a cloud, then there is no purpose for Christ, nor his apostles, nor the Bible, nor evangelists, nor the church. This line of reasoning contradicts so many other passages in the Bible, that I am amazed how many Christians have deceived themselves with false interpretations such as this. Faith in Jesus Christ does not come from a cloud, or river, or a tree. Believe me! No one in my day ever heard of such a man as Jesus. Yes, we came to believe in gods from these things, but will that bring the salvation of which you speak? These things never brought us to this Jesus. Where is my hope, Christian?
Canaan, Abrahamic Period
My name is Eliazar, a servant of Abraham, the first Hebrew. My name means “God is his help.” You must understand, Abraham and I were not Jews, nor Christians. We came from a region which became part of the Babylonian empire. There was no belief in the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” in my day.
But in Abraham came a promise from Yahweh that in his seed would all the families of the earth be blessed (Gen 12:3). Tell me, does your sect’s teaching negate this promise? If it does, then by all means flee from such a monster because this promise shall surely come to pass.
I look at the teachings of the church of your day and it reminds me of what the priests of Babylon taught. Why even the concept of the universe being eternally divided into good and evil comes directly from the land we left behind. I am amazed. I have seen the power of Yahweh and am convinced He will do all He has promised. I suggest Christians carefully study the promises written in the Book. It seems many Christians of the modern era are in great unbelief! Is it not the unbelievers, who find themselves in a great “lake of fire?” (Rev. 21:8)
Goshen, Egypt Pre-Mosaic Law
I am a Hebrew born in the land of Goshen just before the Exodus. I am a slave as was my father and his father before him. I died making bricks. My whole life was spent in the mud. Yahweh decreed that I should live my life out in the mud and die in the mud. Where is my hope? There was no Mosaic Covenant-no New Covenant, just mud. Perhaps you should spend your life stepping in mud. Perhaps you may also feel the anger and frustration which burns in my heart. Shall God remain a respecter of persons, who relegated me to the slime pit, while you enjoy the benefits of the twentieth century and your “gospel?” Does your Bible not say Yahweh is not a respecter of persons? (Acts 10:34) It is easy for you to say he is not a respecter of persons. Come down to the pit with me for a lifetime and then tell me if you still believe that.
So how will He make this right? Where is my hope? Do you care? I do not know this Jesus you boast in. I know only mud and a God who consigned me to it, quite independent of asking me whether I would like to spend my life there. Modern Christians speak of “free will.” I would laugh at such a foolish teaching, but it brings tears to my eyes instead. You moderns have lost your connection to the whole human race. I see the modern Christian as passionless, selfish, unreasonable, and cold. What hope do you bring me? I was made of clay and walked out my entire life in it. If hope does not go past the mud grave I am buried in, then I have no hope at all. I find no hope in the Roman Catholic/Protestant gospel for me. May Yahweh provide an arm of salvation for me, for the arm of the modern church is too short to reach me.
Israel, Mosaic Covenant Period
My name is David. All of you know who I am. I am the man after “God’s own heart.” I wrote much of the Bible. My cries to my God have been the source of hope for countless millions throughout the centuries.
Many sins were committed by me. I killed many in battle. Through my sins many in Israel were punished. Adultery was punishable by death under our law. I had one of my best commanders murdered to hide my adultery with his wife. I allowed the people to behold the Ark of the Covenant, a sin according to Moses. Of the priest’s portion did I eat, again, a crime. I raised sons, one who committed every sin imaginable and another who rebelled against me. According to the Mosaic Law, I was to stone Absolom, but I didn’t. Between me and my sons, Solomon and Absolom, we piled up a mountain of sins, especially according to modern church theology.
Many in the church say that people who commit the kind of crimes I and my sons have committed, should and will be eternally punished. Have I been condemned to everlasting torture by the very men and women who find comfort in my writings? Or have they waved some theological magic wand and whisked me into the arms of Abraham as an exception to the standards by which they judge others? “Let this one in because he gave us so many great Psalms.” If you are a Christian, then hear me! I speak from a heart which is after God. Are you consistent in your judgments or do they change as quickly as do your emotions? Do you judge with balanced scales? Do you really know anything about judgment and mercy? Modern Christian, my psalms were desperate pleas for mercy, for God to change me from within. “Wash me and I shall be clean. Renew a right spirit within me,” was my heart’s cry. My hope was in the arm of the Lord to deliver me. But I find little hope in your message.
I will take my place among the rest of the adulterers and murders of this world and come before God asking for mercy, a mercy which many of you have denied the sinners of this world. You quote my psalms, but you have lost the Spirit in which I wrote them. I am among the very few in history who was given the revelation of the Messiah. Yes, I a murderer, adulterer and much more. I placed my hope in a man hanging on a tree for me. No, most of my generation does not understand Psalm 22. I could not say that I understood it when I wrote it. Prophets often do not understand what the Spirit speaks through them. I do know that those words gave me great hope, not only for myself, but for all like myself-sinners. I did not know the name of this man. I did not know when and how He would come. But I knew His arm would be long enough to reach me from wherever and whenever He was born. Of this I was certain.
Some of you teach that we “Jews” will enter heaven by a different means than Gentiles. What is this system? The Scriptures declare all Israel will be justified and saved. (Isaiah 45:25; Romans 11:26). However, the Scriptures equally declare no one will be justified by the Law of Moses (Romans 3:20). What is your basis for making this separation? Think, meditate, and cry out as I have done many times in my life and you will reach the Rock of Salvation, both of the Jews and Gentiles. You will not have to twist the Scriptures to do so. It will be plain as day.
The Roman Catholic/Protestant “good news” is worthless to me. I know something about the Spirit of the Lord. Your message does not come from the same Spirit. I will keep my hope in my Lord, the Rock of my salvation!
Israel, Davidic Period
My name is Sheshai. It means “noble.” However, there is nothing noble about my life. I was killed by one of King David’s men when they conquered Jerusalem. They killed men, women, and children as commanded by their Law. I did not choose to be born in this time and place. I did not choose my parents. I came into this world in hope. I had hoped to fulfill my name, but my hope was never realized. I was killed because I lived in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I knew the Israelites as savage warriors who showed no mercy, as a foreign people who stole our land. Christians justify David. How? I do not understand. My hatred against Israel is just as yours would be if a foreign army came and killed all your relatives, including the babies. Yet you somehow justify these men in your strange understanding of justice. What about me? I carried no sword. I played like all the children of the world and I died because some man named David thought he had the right to kill my parents and myself and steal our land. I hate these Israelites and the god they claim who makes them the savages they are.
I know nothing about gods. I am a child. My candle was just lit before it was violently snuffed out at the age of five by the “chosen” of God? Do you have hope for me? Can you find it in your Bible without having to twist Scriptures out of context? Oh, I know about this modern concept of the “age of accountability.” Many justify this barbaric god by saying that He considers children innocent until they can make moral decisions. Some sects make it the age 7, others 12, and still others say whenever a child is able to make moral decisions, which may vary from child to child.
Conscience prevents many from consigning little ones to the torments of the Christian Hell, but the Christian Scriptures betray them. There are no Scriptures which speak of an age of accountability. Instead, they speak the opposite. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). “There is none righteous, nay not one” (Romans 3:10). “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5). “For God has committed them all to disobedience (unbelief, KJV), that He might have mercy on all” (Romans 11:32, NKJV). “…through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).
In light of these and many other similar Scriptures, how can you consign any to sinlessness because of the innocence of youth? If I was sinless, how do you justify your God’s command to the Israelites to kill even the children, if we are, as you say, “innocent?” I admire the softness of heart of this line of reasoning, but it does not line up with your Scriptures.
So then, where is my hope? Five short years and then death at the hands of the “chosen ones” of your God. And now eternal torture? Is that what your God of love has in store for me? He made my life on earth miserable through his “chosen” people and now some of you say He Himself will make me miserable for eternity. You speak of a merciful and loving God. As far as I can see, He does not exist in your system of belief. I see a hypocrite made in the same image of the “chosen” people who created Him. Hypocrites create hypocritical gods.