do we go to Hell if we backslide in our faith?

[Andromeda_Organa]

"Jesus spoke to the backslider again, "You should have told the truth, and you would have turned many to righteousness with God's Word, which says that all unbelievers will have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone."You knew the way of the cross. You knew the way of righteousness. You knew to speak the truth. But Satan filled your heart with lies, and you went into sin. You should have repented with sincerity, not halfway. My Word is true. It does not lie. And now it is too late, too late." At that, the man shook his fist at Jesus and cursed Him."

I try to witness- I tell people about Christianity and what we believe- but I worry I won't be doing enough because of stories like this.

What if we're tempted?
"In the darkness I became aware of an even more evil presence than I had already felt and there, high above anything, was this creature I just know was Satan. I didn't know what to do because this wasn't just a dream, this was reality. In my terror I screamed out, "I'm a Christian and I belong to Jesus. I shouldn't be here", but Satan looked down and laughed a hideous laugh that I will always remember, and said, " When I tempted you, you gave in to me, you belong to me now", and at that moment I knew it was true. What could I do? There I was in Hell, with Satan, and in total despair. I had thought I was a Christian, but I had not committed my life to Jesus."

http://www.hellandjustice.com/satan_prosecuter.htm

[Paul Hazelwood]

You will reach who God intends for you to reach, just keep telling others.

[CHB]

"Jesus spoke to the backslider again, "You should have told the truth, and you would have turned many to righteousness with God's Word, which says that all unbelievers will have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone."You knew the way of the cross. You knew the way of righteousness. You knew to speak the truth. But Satan filled your heart with lies, and you went into sin. You should have repented with sincerity, not halfway. My Word is true. It does not lie. And now it is too late, too late." At that, the man shook his fist at Jesus and cursed Him."

I try to witness- I tell people about Christianity and what we believe- but I worry I won't be doing enough because of stories like this.

What if we're tempted?
"In the darkness I became aware of an even more evil presence than I had already felt and there, high above anything, was this creature I just know was Satan. I didn't know what to do because this wasn't just a dream, this was reality. In my terror I screamed out, "I'm a Christian and I belong to Jesus. I shouldn't be here", but Satan looked down and laughed a hideous laugh that I will always remember, and said, " When I tempted you, you gave in to me, you belong to me now", and at that moment I knew it was true. What could I do? There I was in Hell, with Satan, and in total despair. I had thought I was a Christian, but I had not committed my life to Jesus."

http://www.hellandjustice.com/satan_prosecuter.htm

Jesus said "it is finished".  He has already paid for our sins. I believe every time we ask for forgiviness we are crucifying Christ all over again. If I went to the bank and paid your debt for you would you continue to try to pay the bank even though you didn't owe the debt any more? Would you keep calling me and saying thanks over and over, even though I have already said "your welcome"?

CHB

[Doc]

Yes, this is a common misconception.

Christians tend to keep asking forgiveness for sins, but the scripture is clear that they are forgiven. We are to confess our sins, and God is faithful and just to forgive them and cleanse us from the resulting unrighteousness.

[WhiteWings]

I find the whole backsliden concept weird.

a] An unbeliever genuinely seeks the truth and finds Christianity.
b] A believer of an other religion  seeks the truth and finds Christianity.
c] A good Christian want to become better and keeps seeking. But unfortunately he takes the wrong path?

Why is c the bad guy? He is also on the quest of true knowledge. He only got on the wrong path because God capped his IQ to 210....

[Doc]

The other thing you gotta remember Andro, is that Satan is called the accuser of the brethren for a reason. He's going to accuse you and try to convince you that you don't belong to Jesus. Don't believe his lie. You do belong to Jesus. Everything was created by Him and for Him.  :thumbsup:

[martincisneros]

Yes and no.  Many people in Calvinist, Arminian, and even in UR circles don't rightly divide the difference between what 1John 2 calls little children in Christ (irrespective of biological age), and as all translations will vary there's an implication next of an adolescent level of Christianity, and then there's spiritual adulthood or what 1John 2 would call fathers in the faith.  These ideas carry throughout the whole New Testament though with different phrases and particularly different ways in which each translator will handle them. 

A little child in Christ regards one only after the flesh according to 1st and 2nd Corinthians, an adolescent would regard no one after the flesh according to 2Corinthians 5:16, and a spiritual father would regard one after both the flesh and in the Lord according to Philemon 1:16.  The spiritual father differs from the little child in that the child will regard one after the flesh in a worldly manner while the spiritual father will regard one after the pattern of 1Thessalonians 5:23 with anticipating the sanctification of spirit, soul, and body. 

An adolescent believes many things from the Scriptures that are only transitional truths, and may find much private discomfort in alleged inconsistencies, though they may believe many of the transitional truths that they hold to, to be absolute truths, while the spiritual father will see the consistency of absolutely all of the Scriptures.  Trying to avoid controversy on the boards that's beyond the scope of their UR purpose, but briefly, an example of a transitional truth is that the flesh profits nothing, yet Romans 8:11, 1Thessalonians 5:23, Philemon 1:16, Hebrews 5:12-14, and many, many other passages will look to the reclaiming of the flesh as a spiritual instrument.  Origen would have heaped the undying worms and the fire that's not quenched as a transitional truth 'cause there's Scripture that'll yet eclipse that with yet a higher mountain peak of greater truth for those that are ready.

With that said, there is the matter of Hebrews 6 that talks of those that have walked in all of the manifestations of harvesting all 9 of their Galatians 5 fruit and of the 1Corinthians 12 gifts of the Spirit together with the solid food of the Word of God, and yet reach the point where it's impossible to bring them to repentance where they essentially wind up being in the same category as the fallen one in Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14.  The only salvation for someone that's morphed themselves into a minister of Satan and knows what they were doing as they started doing it is after long ages after they've gone into the Lake of Fire. 

But the Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10 sin of trodding under foot the Blood of the Covenant and bringing fierce aggrivation to the Spirit of Grace can't be committed by a spiritual baby or by a spiritual teenager 'cause our heavenly Father knows the difference between a big mouth kid and an adult in spiritual things that needs his mouth washed out with some lava because they didn't heed the parable of the sower's warnings and allowed themselves to become offended at very very advanced stages of the game.  But Assemblies of God and quite a few other groups will try to make the sins of a spiritual adult for whom there remains no more sacrifice for sins into the plight of what someone that's still struggling with their fleshly appetites and an unrenewed mind and that's nothing but the grief of the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 4 as far as Holy Spirit is concerned. 

He's not going to punish the natural man, the little child in spiritual things, or a spiritual adolescent on the level that He'll deal with an absolute equal in absolutely all things that knows that they're there and through an offended heart steps across that line in telling Him and the Church to go to Hell.  1John says to not even pray for someone like that.  This is one on one between Him and them and He's going to be in their face perpetually until He's purged that sin from their lives.  But although it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, as the author of the book of Hebrews says, David said in the Old Testament (2Samuel 24:14; 1Chronicles 21:13) that it's MUCH BETTER to fall into the LORD's hands than into the hands of man -- which couldn't be true if ET were true.

[Doc]

I would have to agree with you, Martin. There do seem to be different levels of accountability. For those to whom much is given, much is expected. For example, those who do wrong in ignorance will be given few stripes, while those who knowingly do wrong will incur many stripes...

[martincisneros]

He only got on the wrong path because God capped his IQ to 210....

I hope I'm not capped at 210.  Everybody else's IQ is fluid and growing or waning throughout their lives.  If 210's the limit, then I've got nowhere to go but down. :mshock:  210 is just the highest that the experts have confidence that they're able to test, so that although I'm a 210, when they claim that Marilyn Vos Savant's IQ is 228, then she may actually be anywhere from my IQ to 240 or 300.

Extremely high IQ measurement is an inexact science: high IQs are very difficult to quantify because so few people have IQs at that level, giving rise to the problems associated with small sample sizes, ceiling bumping caused by tests not designed to measure such high IQs, and fat tailing which gives the impression more high IQs exist than predicted by a normal distribution. Moreover, there are general disagreements and controversies over the validity of IQ scoring at any level.

The two reasons for why we can't really determine higher IQs are both mathematical and practical.  They lack the precision in being able to determine IQs of higher IQ'd people and so much of IQ is environmental to where if every higher IQ wrote half a dozen books a year that were sufficiently large enough to engage much of the intellect and if someone read all of those works each year, then you could theoretically grow beyond them.  But ironically, very few really high IQ people are prolific writers.  Some of that is from the depression that often accompanies it that nobody's going to understand anyway so why bother.  While much of the rest of it is that they do what writing that they do for a specific field of research, art, or whatever and don't go out of their way to test their limits in writing.  There are many theories about how to measure IQ, but few on how to use it proficiently.  It often just winds up being wasted on solving puzzles with little practical application.

Some of it could be argued that they're way ahead of their time and this is a world that's primarily built for people with IQs from 100ish to 130ish.  Higher IQs could probably shine more if there weren't so many supercomputers around.  My computer can do in fractions of a second something that it might take me 2 minutes to do in my head.  And the computer is less easy to distract.  If it's set up to multitask, then it's just set up to multitask, but any human being anywhere can reach their overload point in trying to mentally do too much at one time, particularly if caffeine, refined sugars, or other narcotics and excitotoxins are in their system.

Most "backsliding" [as the term is currently used in most churches] is simply getting distracted.  Many Christians consider someone "backslidden" if they're not at Church 5 to 15 times every single month.  When the Bible uses the word backslide (I'm thinking in Jeremiah), it's not talking about having said one naughty word or having missed synogogue on Saturday in talking to the people that it's talking to.  It's likely talking about having gotten caught up with self, secularism, other religions, and appeasing others to where you've squeezed God totally out of the equation of your conscience, your thoughts, your words, the usage of your money, where your praise and attention are going, the underlying guiding philosophy that you're having your marriage and children nurtured in, etc. 

It would be really odd for me to go a whole year without assembling myself with other believers.  But, if I'm personally not at Church for an entire year, I'm probably still having a minimum of a couple thousand hours of envolvement in His Word in that year.  And that's a skimpy minimum.  But the criticism from mainstream Christianity for not having been in Church is that not only have I gone astray but that I'm leading other Christians and the world astray and that my missing a couple of hours each Sunday at Church is leading quite a few folks to Eternal Hell. 

The usage of the idea of being "backslidden" by many Christian groups these days is the furthest from the idea as it's used in the Bible.  It's frequently used in spiritually developing Christian circles for those that aren't growing as fast as they want for them to be growing, and who still have struggles, and the charge is often thrown around by ministers that are fed up with the spirit of this age and are lashing out at Christians.  But in Jeremiah 3 the word is more closely linked to the New Testament idea of apostacy rather than being a Christian who is not consistently getting a minimum of a hundredfold in everything that they do spiritually, financially, and in their relationships.  It was never used in the Bible for being in sin.  If you were in sin, you were to repent and appropriate the sacrificial system of the covenant of God's grace that you were a part of, whether Moses' sacrificial system or partaking of the work of Jesus Christ.  But while there was still that willingness to get things right, one was never viewed as being backslidden.

[WhiteWings]

He only got on the wrong path because God capped his IQ to 210....

I hope I'm not capped at 210.  Everybody else's IQ is fluid and growing or waning throughout their lives.  If 210's the limit, then I've got nowhere to go but down. :mshock:

Then you get an ET again like you where before  :laughing7:

210 is just the highest that the experts have confidence that they're able to test, so that although I'm a 210, when they claim that Marilyn Vos Savant's IQ is 228, then she may actually be anywhere from my IQ to 240 or 300.

Depends a bit on the scoring method. It can vary a lot for the same person.

Extremely high IQ measurement is an inexact science: high IQs are very difficult to quantify because so few people have IQs at that level, giving rise to the problems associated with small sample sizes, ceiling bumping caused by tests not designed to measure such high IQs, and fat tailing which gives the impression more high IQs exist than predicted by a normal distribution.

If the samplesize is small and the tails are fat it can also means the measuring method are getting false results.
Because (parts of) IQs test hasn't to do much with education I'm not suprised by it.
In my youth there was a Chinese boy in my class. He was really bright but struggled with language. He did well in everything vaguely math related. The school system just blocked his way up. You can't graduate in math because you never get the change when you feling for language lags behind. Because education is often seen as a gauge for IQ I can understand the fat tails.

Moreover, there are general disagreements and controversies over the validity of IQ scoring at any level.

True.

The two reasons for why we can't really determine higher IQs are both mathematical and practical.  They lack the precision in being able to determine IQs of higher IQ'd people and so much of IQ is environmental to where if every higher IQ wrote half a dozen books a year that were sufficiently large enough to engage much of the intellect and if someone read all of those works each year, then you could theoretically grow beyond them.  But ironically, very few really high IQ people are prolific writers.

And IQ doesn't have to be spread equally in capabilities. You can for example score very high in the 3D tests and worse in the other parts.
You know the movie rainman? I bit after that was a documentary called something like friend or ranman. All very autistic kids. Needless to say its even impossible to measure their IQ. But still they had vast IQs. At least on some point that they expressed. After years they still impress me. A short rundown.
a] A kid saw St. Peter cathedral for a short while. At home he just draws it with every small tiny detail.
b] A kid went with his parents to a piano concert of a grandmaster that played on false note. The kids plays it on his parents piano exactly when he heard it for the first and last time.
c] Get large box of cocktail sticks pour it out on the table when the kid watches. Almost instantly he tells you how many there are.
d] The 4th kid was extremely bad at calculus/math. When you asked things like 1+1 or 2+5 you almost saw his heart pound because he tried so hard to solve the question. But when you asked things like the square root of 209964608888416209 he instantly knew the answer.

The above may be not IQ tests. Some might even say they have nothing to do an IQ. But it does show a brain can have hidden talents.

Code Select Expand

  Some of that is from the depression that often accompanies it that nobody's going to understand anyway so why bother. 
Surely. Many are dropouts. At very young age they get bored because they are smarter than the teacher.
Or graduate at uni at very young age. Sometimes that you they can't even get their degree. So they just study for an extra one while they are 'waiting' for the 1st one.

While much of the rest of it is that they do what writing that they do for a specific field of research, art, or whatever and don't go out of their way to test their limits in writing.  There are many theories about how to measure IQ, but few on how to use it proficiently.  It often just winds up being wasted on solving puzzles with little practical application.

Ha! Assesment puzzles  :grin:

Higher IQs could probably shine more if there weren't so many supercomputers around.  My computer can do in fractions of a second something that it might take me 2 minutes to do in my head.

Depends on the task Martin. Try to emulate vision or simply balance. You 'outrun' an array of Crays with that.

Most "backsliding" [as the term is currently used in most churches] is simply getting distracted.  Many Christians consider someone "backslidden" if they're not at Church 5 to 15 times every single month.  When the Bible uses the word backslide (I'm thinking in Jeremiah), it's not talking about having said one naughty word or having missed synogogue on Saturday in talking to the people that it's talking to.  It's likely talking about having gotten caught up with self, secularism, other religions, and appeasing others to where you've squeezed God totally out of the equation of your conscience, your thoughts, your words, the usage of your money, where your praise and attention are going, the underlying guiding philosophy that you're having your marriage and children nurtured in, etc. 

Ha! Finally we get to my question! I alnost started to fear you forgot the topic :-)
What I meant was that people get misled. Switching a religion can be part of a honest search.
Or the one that 'sells' the religion tricks you like a good salesman. He outsmarts you. That's why I mentioned that 210 IQ
(a fairly random number BTW)

It would be really odd for me to go a whole year without assembling myself with other believers.

Not "what's the point" that you wrote about writing books noone (is able to) read?
I can understand the same happens if you are completly lonely in a ET group.

Bill Wiese know what a backslidden Christian is. The inhabitant of hell enter by sliding down into hell on a red hot slide.
On their backs ofcourse.... :laughing7:

[Andromeda_Organa]

may I add this to the discusstion?  :laughing7:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4gDfNNkPb0

[WhiteWings]

HEAVEN
population 1,656

The number #1 episode to own for every caring ET

[IceDash]

population of Hell
#900,003,000,000 (included Adam, and other who haven't heard jesus's good news. Included babies, included africa, asians, muslims, heck ALL GOD's CREATION, even me, might be as you.)