Hellfire preaching usually hurts people and makes them afraid.
It is obedience to God to love people and not to cause fear or pain.
Since hellfire preaching causes fear and pain, it is sin.
The bible says that "Whatever is not done of/by the spirit is sin."
These misguided preachers are listening to what their denomination teaches
rather than listening to the spirit of God/Love.
Most I've talked to struggle with it. Some realize they are out of a job if they "buck the system" and preach doctrines contrary to that established by the "official" church.
I think most though preach what they were taught in seminary. We almost always make the wrong assumption that our teachers know more than we do concerning the subject being taught.
THE HOUNDS OF HELL
THE HOUNDS OF HELL, HEAR THEIR BAY
OVER DISTANT FIELDS THEY LAY
LISTEN...AS THEY SEEK YOU OUT
WITH NOSTRILS FLARED ON THIER SNOUT
YOUR'E SCENT THEY'VE CAUGHT....THEY TURN YOUR WAY
TO SEEK YOU OUT....WHERE YOU LAY
THE HOUNDS OF HELL ARE BAYING.....
HEAR THE CALL OF THE PACK?
GROWLING THROAT...EARS LYING BACK
THE CITY GATE..LIES AHEAD...AND BECKONS WITH A GLOW....
A WARM EMBRACE AWAITS YOU THERE...
A FEAST...A SUMPTOUS MEAL
THE HOUNDS OF HELL ARE THWARTED....
AND QUICKLY TURN ON HEEL.
REV 22;15 OUTSIDE ARE THE DOGS, THOSE WHO PRACTICE MAJIC ARTS, THE SEXUALLY
IMMORAL, THE MURDERERS,THE IDOLATERS, AND EVERYONE WHO LOVES AND PRACTICES LIES
Preaching hellfire is tickling the ears and following the customs of the gentiles.
DID YOU EVER NOTICE HOW DOGS LIKE TO HAVE THEIR EARS STROKED?
Yes, but not only dogs.
:iagree: :laugh:
:laughing7:
Quote from: WhiteWings :link=topic=10680.msg142481#msg142481 date=1349881316
Yes, but not only dogs.
That is true, our cats that we now have like to have their ears stroked, and I once had a horse while working on a cattle ranch in Montana that liked to have his ears stroked, however that is a responce to love toward these animals who share this world with us. preaching hell fire is not love, it appears to me that it might tickle the ears of those who want justice by way of vengance or revenge against those they percieve to be rebels, rank enemies , or what ever as a self justification to release their wrath against their fellow man, and that is a sin, The subtle dark spirit involved to preach hell fire it is not motivated by love nor a real desire to correct or reform, it is a desire out of fear to hold their positions authority or control over others so that if compliance is not accomplished then it moves to kill or maim by the letter. Remember though that most preachers in organized church religion are paid to preach what they are told to preach or they themselves may actually believe what they have been taught. ( or else! they are taken before what may be considered a modern day version of the old Sanhedrin? )_to be shunned, cast out, ex-commnicated or worse by their church.
Where is there any hope or grace being revealed by preaching hell fire? personaly I don't believe anyone here finds any good thing coming from preaching hell fire.
Fire Walker
Wonderful Post!! :iagree:
I guess hell really just means a concept of death. It is standard doctrine that Jesus gives life and that sin robs us of life. So when Jesus speaks about hell as a punishment, he is reiterating the problem that existence without Him is void of life, or in other words, is followed by death. I think the key is to take Christ into your ontology and to examine how this changes your life and your very existence because there are really deep fundamental changes then.
I don't mean that we become nicer or that we are suddenly God's favourite pharisees or something. Just the whole outlook of becoming children of God much like Jesus is the son of God makes such a big difference. Sometimes we must mentally go into atheism or into the systems of another religion to see again what we have in Christ, and in the spiritual things that he gives us and the life principles we follow as christians.
For example, in my family I have a sister which got 50 years old recently and who is pretty much atheistic and agnostic in her beliefs. She is so scared of getting sick and having to die now that she gets older. When she was younger life was fresh and she never thought of death, but now she is starting to sometimes look into that black hole with is death and which annuls much of our life if we see it atheistically.
So what I am saying is that Jesus speaks of this when he speaks of hell. When we advance in life our sins become troublesome later because we cannot cross the gulf between us and those Lazarus'es we sinned against in life, and with our without God most of us are moral and ethical beings with a conscience and so our life's sins trouble us later. But if we have Jesus we can turn to Him, we can think of an afterlife and that we will meet back those we have wronged and we can, in this afterlife, make things good again.
Personally, there were two women in my life that I would love to apologize to and to show how much I care for them and for how much I loved them, but they are lost to me because we separated ways a long time ago and I don't even know about one of them if she is still alive, and we don't speak with each other. The thought that I have is that after death we all go to Heaven and we get thoroughly changed and love is much much easier to find in yourself there and I can speak with these women there and get a hug and a kiss on my cheek and this pain that I feel about it here will end there. I have Jesus, I don't go to hell.
This is not about a literal hell as a place of afterlife punishment, this is about an experience of a hellish kind of life that is followed by spiritual death, without Jesus we die in our sins meaning we can't escape the spiritual death and the fiery consequences that follow them.
But one day hell will be thrown into the lake of fire, and that's it, and all men will be with God and there is universal love and Christ all in all!