I saw a hell testimony for a first time ...

[B_T]

Several days ago me and my girlfriend went to a Pentecostal church. There was a meeting for young people and we were prepared that there would be a guest and he would preach about salvation and so on. The pastor said: "I believe that what this man will speak will be inspired by the Holy Ghost". And I started listening to him with great enthusiasm but I was very disappointed with what it proved to be a hell testimony.

"Hey, you have parents, you have mothers and fathers who are not saved! You have friends who are not saved! Imagine they will be in the great fire of hell and you will see worms eating them and these worms will never die! They will stare at you and shout: Why didn't you tell us about Jesus? Why didn't you tell us about this horrible place?"

and more and more:

"Everybody on this Earth is supposed to go to this horrible place because they will die without Jesus.."

Then a girl sitting next to me asked me:

"Listen to him... If this had been your first time you had gone to church, would you have ever believed in Jesus?"

It was a very good question. But, thanks to God, I no longer believe in this "truth".

[SeekerSA]

Yeah, you see when they do not know the truth of the Love of God, all they can revert to is scare tactics.

Always would say (or sing) God's not given us a spirit of fear but of love power and a sound mind.

Really would be nice for someone to have an NDE and actually see Hitler in heaven but naah, no one would believe that, hell NDE's are more colorful :pointlaugh:

Blessings

[hopeful]

Then a girl sitting next to me asked me:

"Listen to him... If this had been your first time you had gone to church, would you have ever believed in Jesus?"

It was a very good question. But, thanks to God, I no longer believe in this "truth".

I had never heard "hell" preached until years after I had come to the Lord.  I'm glad!

[SeekerSA]

Hell preachers = scarevangelists :pointlaugh:

[Craig]

I heard hell messages any time I went to a church I was not familiar with. I always rolled my eyes to it.

Craig

[hopeful]

There was a time that I loved "hollering" preachers
and the more condemnation and fear they preached
the more thrilled I felt.  :mblush:
How weird... 
Kind of like going through a house of horrors for fun.
How in the world was I ever into that?   :sigh: 
Life's a trip.  :declare:

[reFORMer]

One child's experience (mine) with the Eternal Torment doctrine...

     When I was about 4 years old I remember lying in bed one night thinking about my Dad's Sunday evening sermon that taught me new words for my vocabulary.  As if I had a natural affinity for poetry, I very much liked the way they compared to one another.  "Man is finite. God is infinite."
    What didn't make any sense to me, in fact it seemed just wrong, was the idea that a finite man could ever do anything to deserve an infinite reward, such as hell was said to be.  The infinity of hell was justly deserved by those who go there, I was told; yet, man is but a finite creature I was also told.  I recall as I rolled over I dismissed the conundrum by thinking, "Oh well, I guess it's just something you're supposed to believe."
     Much later, after years of walking with God believing Him to be not only the very best, but also the very worst of all beings who endlessly tortures millions of conscious hopeless victims with no possibility of any outcome but to be miraculously sustained in burning torments in order to be tortured more and more to no other purpose other than to be ceaselessly tortured for ever and ever...I really believed that as true about the Holy God and thought my defending it was from the Bible.
     Now, for about 25 years (since July 18, 1981 at 3 am) I walk with God -- still believing every letter and every word of Scripture to be Divinely inspired and inerrant in the original, but having learned how to study what is (or is not) written, particularly with concordances -- as I say, I now walk with "the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe." (1Tim 4:10)  He is what He does.  He's real and true, the living God.  There is not only a special salvation for the believer, He is the Savior of all mankind.  If it was limited to the believer this verse wouldn't exist.  I looked at my watch when I believed that because, as the rest of the just quoted verse says, "For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach..." I don't like reproach and I wasn't ignorant of what Institutional Christianity teaches.
     There is processing for all of us whether here, in death or beyond.  However long it takes, whatever we have to go through, "This mortal MUST put on the immortal..."  We must all be changed!  That "the living God...is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe," is prefaced in Verse 9 with, "This is a faithful (not for unbelief) saying and worthy of all acceptation (not rejection).
     See, it's good to have the peace in all your labor knowing whatever you do, God will teach us all.  Jesus is "...the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. (Jn 1:9)  "Good and upright is the LORD: therefore will he teach sinners in the way." (Ps.25:8)
     That child grew up a man who has come back to his conscience.  No one has explained away the truth God sowed in his heart though he turned ignorantly to religious tradition for many years.
     Let me go on to say that:  The only mediator between God and man died to bring us into direct intimate relationship with God.  Now other men are inserted between us and God and they expect us to pay them for it.  I don't care how gifted or knowledgeable the man on stage is, he's not the body of Christ, and JESUS WANTS HIS BODY BACK!!!

---James

[Hennessey]

"The only mediator between God and man died to bring us into direct intimate relationship with God.  Now other men are inserted between us and God and they expect us to pay them for it.  I don't care how gifted or knowledgeable the man on stage is, he's not the body of Christ, and JESUS WANTS HIS BODY BACK!!!"

---James

Brother I actually got sick today and went to bed to pray with a heavy broken heart. I have been striving with many that have traded in their Righteous Priest and True Mediator for a man in a collar with a bully pulpit.

James, I love the ending of of your many messages where you powerfully write, " JESUS WANTS HIS BODY BACK!!!"

God bless ya,

Jack

PS. I"ll tell ya when you see a grandmother laud the writings of Calvin on the subject of "Hell" that will set ya back as it did me today.  I thought about, what it would be like for a nurturing sensitive mother to hold her baby while wondering if this little one was an "elect infant" or a "retrobate infant."

Yes that will make one sick to see how far the carnal mind will twist our Father's Love. 

[ken]

I'll bet that hell sermon sounded a lot like THIS.

This guy has it down pretty good. Hell gets really unbearable about the 7 to 8 minute mark. :thumbdown:

[Hennessey]

Here's one entitled "love a stranger and tell 'em .... "AIN'T NO HELL"

http://www.mychurch.org/blog/84985/Love-a-stranger-and-tell-em--AINT-NO-HELL

[AbbasChild]

Just watched the video with the hell preacher and feel sorry for him. Did you look at his eyes? Or was that just me? I 've seen this spirit before staring at me through  radical muslims that hated my guts. Not a very pleasant experience. I suggest its the same image of God that they believed in. At least the guy is honest over what he believes. I appreciate this more than someone who beleives this stuff but wrapps it up in nice politicaly correct language and doubletalk. With that guy you know at least where you are at.

[Redkora]

I'll bet that hell sermon sounded a lot like THIS.

Ack! "Bad air! Bad air!"--Nietzsche

This part is even more frightening.

[firstborn888]

I'll bet that hell sermon sounded a lot like THIS.

Ack! "Bad air! Bad air!"--Nietzsche

This part is even more frightening.

Yeah, that's rough stuff sis. It's like "All hail the mighty power of infinite sin". Ugly.

   - byron

[firstborn888]

PS. I"ll tell ya when you see a grandmother laud the writings of Calvin on the subject of "Hell" that will set ya back as it did me today.  I thought about, what it would be like for a nurturing sensitive mother to hold her baby while wondering if this little one was an "elect infant" or a "retrobate infant."

Yes that will make one sick to see how far the carnal mind will twist our Father's Love. 

I recently had the displeasure of having a conversation with a Calvinist who insisted that eternal torment was a quote "LOL" matter. :mshock: Yes, no joke, and then quoted "He that sits in the heavens shall laugh" to support his stance. Unbelievable.

[hopeful]

Sometimes I wonder if it is a case of hardening the heart in order to deal with the thought of an angry God.  The human heart can't hardly stand the thought of ET, but some humans have believed in it anyway and a hardening is necessary to endure the thought of ET.  Therefore, their heart is hardened to all men because- who wants to be soft toward anyone who is supposedly going to burn forever?  That would hurt right?  So, if your nose is up in the air toward all men, then it won't hurt so bad once you see them burning...  am I making sense here?

[martincisneros]

...It's like "All hail the mighty power of infinite sin"

Well, the infinity of sin is a sacred doctrine to many Churches, particularly Calvinist ones.  Limited Atonement, but infinity of sin :icon_jokercolor:

That's based off of the good ol' KJV and a verse in Job that mentions the infinity of sin, but it's clear from the context that it's talking about that in the secondary sense of just talking about a great multitude - just like Josephus and others have used the word.  Psalm 16 talks about righteousness not extending to God.  If righteousness doesn't extend to God, how much less sin??!!!

We're judged for the deeds done in the body, according to Paul.

Those who've died have ceased from sin, according to Paul.

all come to the same end, according to Ecclesiastes.

But make sin however infinite you'd please, and you're still stuck with the truth of the work of Christ being much more infinitely infinite.  On that every Arminian and Calvinist will agree when you corner them about it when none of their peers are watching :cloud9:

[SeekerSA]

...am I making sense here?

As always, no!  :pointlaugh:

Just pulling your leg :wink1:

[hopeful]

 :blah:  Is how I felt trying to explain myself. 
Thanks for making me feel better.   :tease: 
Ouch!  Me leg hurts!

[shibboleth]

There was a time that I loved "hollering" preachers
and the more condemnation and fear they preached
the more thrilled I felt.  :mblush:
How weird... 
Kind of like going through a house of horrors for fun.
How in the world was I ever into that?   :sigh: 
Life's a trip.  :declare:

I went to a Baptist church for about 5 years. It was very legalistic in that we couldn't dance, smoke, drink, play cards, swim with the opposite sex, or go to movies. I smoked, drank, played cards and went to movies when I attended that church. I really tried to give them up, but I just couldn't in the flesh.

Anyways, my favorite sermon was the hellfire ones, and noone preaches hellfire like a Baptist. The preacher would walk, more like stomp, his way across the stage and yell and scream and put the terror of God into you. I was always petrified of hellfire and I never knew the love of God for me. It was like being on a roller coaster ride....one from hell that never ends. Now when I hear a hellfire sermon, I turn it off. If I do listen to it, it's to find the illogical and irrational reasons the speaker has for hellfire. I also hear how many scriptures they quote wrong or out of context.

[Hennessey]

That was good Shibbo. I wish the other crew could read such, even enlarged.

I have one God has put in me to write after having my heart broken so many time by "women that espouse Hell." How a nurturer could think a God known as El Shaddai could torture the majority of His children forever just confounds me so often. I know He sows the darkness in their hearts but it still hurts. 

Bless you,

Jack

[hopeful]

The nuturers believed a lie about God and hardened their hearts to deal with it- to face it...  But yes, why do they believe that lie?   :gboohoo:

[Hennessey]

The nuturers believed a lie about God and hardened their hearts to deal with it- to face it...  But yes, why do they believe that lie?   :gboohoo:

Holly  Decades ago, I shared the great hope of "all mankind  saved" with my mother in law, a Christian. I shared because I thought it would give her comfort having lost her only son a ten years earlier while he was drunk and driving. He was not a professing Christian. I will never forget how she rejected the idea, willing, rather to see her deceased son in Hell forever.

That was my first experience of seeing this strong darkness and I was baffled and  crushed. I would like to say the rejection of this message has gotten easier as I see other mothers reject the Real Good News but instead it hurts even more today.

Be blessed,

Jack

maybe we print up some "MOTHERS AGAINST HELL" bumper stickers.

Here is one I am working on right now but it is with one of the male persuasion so I cut him some slack.   :laughing7:


The male:
Your verse is interesting because you don't account for the "anger".  What if God does correct with anger?  You're picking the part of that verse you like and ignoring the rest. 

If punishment is always remedial, what am I to believe Jesus learned when He was punished by being bearing the weight of my sins?

My timid responce:
I hope you are not hinting that you espouse the horrendous doctrine of "penal substitution" held by some Catholic leaders for centuries and then taken up by the Calvinists to be dispersed amongst many Evangelical Protestants even today. Whew! that's a particularly nasty one and has been coined  by some as the theory of "cosmic child abuse."

How do you stand with this one my friend?  Are you a "cosmic child abuser " ?

Jack

[hopeful]

maybe we print up some "MOTHERS AGAINST HELL" bumper stickers.

Hi, Jack,

Yeah, some mothers get so angry at drunk drivers for destroying innocent lives but yet some of those same mother's think that God is holy in his supposed torturing of those who never heard the supposed good news...   :sigh:

I wanted to let you know I've been checking up on you guys over at MyChurch.  :winkgrin:  My heart just brims with love for all those awesome people!

Still reading Sonshine, too.   :HeartThrob:

[Hennessey]

Well Holly, will you still love me if I told you I just answered Randy's blog question "Why Do You Attend Wednesday Night?" with:

"two dollar well drinks and cheap hot wings" 


:laughing7:

[hopeful]

Well, Jack... (Hopeful sips her morning coffee)
Let's just put it this way... 
No matter how cantankerous and ornery you can get,
you're still (somehow) a lovable guy.   :HeartThrob: 
Just don't cross me and everything will be fine!   :happygrin:

(What thread is this? :dontknow:)

Sorry thread starter!