Critique on Carmelo Brenes' "testimony" of going to hell and back?

[ChiniChani]

Unfortunately the thing that pushed me to read it was my anxiety back when I was a hell-believing fundamentalist, and his "testimony" is the only one I read through-and-through due to my anxiety, which of course, made my anxiety worse. I believed in eternal hell back then so naturally it did scare the crap out of me. Now that I don't believe hell is eternal it's easier to endure, but there's still always that nagging feeling. Whether it's a demon or my anxiety or the devil, idk. But it seems the harder I try to get over Carmelo, the worse and harder it gets to find peace. That's a reason I'm desperate to have someone critique Carmelo. Literally no one has or wants to and it's driving me crazy.

[Ross]

Whether it's a demon or my anxiety or the devil, idk. But it seems the harder I try to get over Carmelo, the worse and harder it gets to find peace.

That is how I used to think when first starting to truly seek God. My brother was teaching about the casting demons stuff. Knew the law and all the requirements of confession to release demonic strongholds.
ALL of that requires personal effort.
TOTALLY overlooks the work of Christ as being the work that has paid 100% for our sins- and the FACT that He did that before we were even born.
The scripture, for me, which makes Christ work and God's love irrefutable;

Romans 8;38,39 which highlight the literality of NOTHING being able to keep us from the love of God, in Christ-
                        - specifically, neither demons, nor life, nor death, nor ANY powers.
His love is 100% and He will not fail, has not failed in any regard.

Brenes does not need to be worried about, because that is ALL his supposed personal effort even when he quotes scriptures.
When Christ was in the wilderness satan quoted scriptures.
2 Cor 11;14,15 " For Satan himself disguise himself as an angel of light.
                         So it is no great surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.
                         There end will be according to their works."

Plus Christ actually specifies that NO SIGNS WILL BE GIVEN. [Matt 12;39}
He actually also says in Matt 7;21 that "Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, even if they
                                                          perform miracles or cast out demons.'
which all seems to blow out of the water the concept of people who are teaching about demons and hell know what they are talking about.

God's love, again talked about by Paul in Ephesians 3;18-21 highlights that His love goes beyond our ability to fathom, and he can and will, do MORE THAN WE CAN ASK OR IMAGINE;  for me, that is peace beyond the negativity which tries to distract us from Christ and God and their indescribable love and forgiveness, and their true cleansing program which brings us to a glorious future.
He knows you and loves you and His love NEVER fails.

[lastpost]

I think the Jesus in Carmelo's tale acts more like Hitler than the Jesus from the Bible. Not a hint of compassion in him in Carmelo's, at least Mary's "Jesus" held some small level of compassion, Carmelo's had none at all. Jesus in his story sounds like a sociopath more than anything, and part of me wonders if his "Jesus" was actually a representation of Carmelo himself? If you read the "testimony" a certain way, it represents Carmelo's personality and feelings more than reality. He has "Jesus" say he's not the God of so and so in it, nor is the real Jesus the God of Carmelo's testimony. Not to mention he's one of the only two I've heard that include children in hell, whilst most of the others don't at all. If you want my opinion, I think Carmelo's sick, narcissistic, at least. He really doesn't care, not even about children, at least that's the impression I'm getting. I'll admit some of my anger from what he's doing is talking there, along with my past as being one of his victims for a brief amount of time, but I believe it to be truth that Carmelo genuinely does have issues.

I think that you should have satisfied yourself with your own observations here - this should be enough on your part to, in time, shake off the bonds and shackles of these earthly thoughts of man.

You may feel that you will get relief from this obsession of yours concerning this book, if someone should use their time to criticise this book - but I think that you will only move from a terrible dogma to one which is only a little less binding because you are fighting the material mind of man with the same.

May I suggest quite strongly that The Sermon on the Mount is read by you ceaselessly, yet not speedily - and that you wait in silence as you read and re-read. Please also read His parables - but allow the meaning of the words of the Sermon on the Mount to unfold as you read and re-read them.

You are young and a year may sound like a long time to you at present, but  have patience. If you are to do this for a while, that is, read Matthew 5 to 7 and again read it over, then the Christ in You will solve this problem for you. Have faith and allow the Christ Life already within you to be your perception.

Listen for the underlying meaning of it all. Listen to Christ the Teacher; hear Him from your heart and not your mind; see Him speaking volumes of Truth and guidance to simple folk, uneducated people - people belonging to a culture and religion into which He chose to be born in order to establish Truth. 

This is how I see it. He is their Saviour, remember the great body of teaching that Christ Himself taught then, and not the dogmas that the minds of men have taught since then until now - and will continue to teach.

When the person that you have been conditioned to become surrenders to the Christ within you, then you shall see with ease what are the teachings of men with their dogmas made from patching together sentences in the Bible; then you will see the shallowness behind the literalising of numbers, days, words; then you will see the triviality behind arguments of the mind over this and that instead of listening to the wisdom which God has put in the heart.

When the God in Christ is centred in your consciousness, in your awareness, then the earthly thoughts of men and their dogmas are thrown, as it were, on the wall of vision, always moving, always fading, fading because they have no life in them - no life in them expect the life that you give to them yourself. Their thoughts are but clouds passing in the sky and you watch from the permanent unchanging You, given to you out of God Himself, of Himself, who is timeless. Yes, He has given His children part of Himself - and it is His intention that all shall come to be His true children with full experience and understanding.

It is only man who thinks that God is not in his brothers and sisters. God has put Himself in each of His children. Apparent separation is but the turning away from His Love, from Himself, from Divine Law, from the Universal Law out of which came His Sermon and all His teachings.

Then when you pass out of this short life and you see what His teaching has achieved in your own soul, your heart will melt with adoration at His humility and wisdom, it will be overcome with a gratitude so deep that you will look right and left to see what you can do for Him , and you will find that His Life and teaching has brought you gifts and powers to carry out your heart's desire in Service to Him.

Remember that you are building up treasure in Heaven even now. What is done out of love and which has God in it creates beauty for a time to come, for God is in you, the Great Creator has bestowed in miniature part of Himself in you, and your treasure is stored and preserved by Him so that you will have the ability to serve Him. Now is the time to be up and doing.

Beware of material thinking. All are seen as of the same sacred Fraternity where only the humble have power. Those whose idea of Heaven is, for instance, a fire to warm themselves by as they kick out their feet in self-satisfied pleasure, those will find a hearth in their new home but with no earthly flame in it because a loving warmth is always in the environment which they think is Heaven itself: "Ah see all this, this is Heaven indeed!" But it is not, they have only passed out of the Earth life and into that just removed from the Earth and all its admixture of material thought, while others pray for them to lay aside what they think they deserve and to join the great Christ army.

Many call themselves His representatives and yet they have twisted Truth and turned it on its head. Their material thoughts also build up treasure but their treasure is of the material and it only satisfies them for a while until they awaken to their duty and seek Him once more for guidance - and awaken they must because of the God within.

The Truth is to be found in the teachings of the Saviour Christ - and the Cross signifies the unity between God and man. Christ Jesus knew God's intention for humanity from the very beginning. In Jesus, both the Son of Man and the Son of God, is to be found man's highest realisation of God.

Allow the fuller deeper meaning coming from the words of Christ so faithfully chronicled for future humanity, to arise in your heart and awareness, so that you are always with Him because He is always with you. Do not doubt this, He is the Saviour, Christ is never apart from His child for He lives within. The child's love for the Saviour may die at times but the love that the Saviour has for His child has no ending and can never fade. He is always with you, in you.

[rosered]

 

  Amen !!!

  Yes , Good  to see you again lastpost !



  God's Holy Spirit   is making all  things new to love and be loved without  hypocrisy  ,Through the Lord Jesus Christ  ,the WORD of Truth  :dsunny:  listen to His Voice and live ..


Hebrews 1 1On many past occasions and in many different ways, God spoke to our fathers through the prophets.


2But in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son,


whom He appointed heir of all things,

and through whom He made the universe.

3The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His nature,


upholding all things by His powerful word.

After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high....

[marie glen]

Amen, It's the Word which is needed.. It's our bread.. we always need to be feeding upon it.. feasting.. in it is "treasures old and new!"

And it is "the" means of "washing the mind". As others said.. give it time, be faithful and it WILL bear fruit. "The Word of God is stronger" - than anything.

And maybe think nature? Out your window or in your yard.. Nature (His creation) is very soothing and healing.

?? Read a gospel, some each day, and also read Acts.. then another gospel and still Acts.. etc.. After then you've read the four gospels start with the letters..? Psalms? :cloud9: I read 1-20 during January, the 20's during february, 30's during March.. etc.. and 120-150 through december.

And continue in learning to tell Him all these things.. You can place it all right in His hands..
:Peace2: :Pray:

[Lazarus Short]

1.  Dante established the doctrine (man-made) of "abandon all hope, ye who enter here."  So how did this fellow enter Hell and come back? 

2.  Carmelo agrees with Baxter, a known fraud.  Garbage in, garbage out.

3.  Hell is a perfectly good word for  the grave.  The rest is from paganism - take a look at any good reference book on Norse mythology, where you will meet the goddess Hel, and her afterlife realm, Helheim (House of Hel), where you were believed to go if you did not rate Valhalla.  BTW, "Hel" appears twice in the 1611 KJV - probably a misprint, but one must wonder...  Also, do an image search on the Tibetan Buddhist Hell - it is very enlightening, and what started me to question where our ideas of Hell came from.

4.  So Carmelo cannot be refuted?  Well, he can't be verified either, except by Baxter, a known fraud.  Depend, not on non-verifiable, non-falsifable accounts, but on the perfect record of God's Word, the Bible.  Get an honest translation.  Hint:  one not using the word "Hell."  This site has a long list of non-Hell translations.

[marie glen]

This site has a long list of non-Hell translations.

And on Gary's newest video he mentions 3 or 4 which sound very good.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRCCn0Icogo&t=0s

P.S. - Amen Laz! :thumbsup:

[ChiniChani]

Well I read the replies, and I think I'm coming to agree. I'm sorry I keep pushing stuff like this, my soul can't seem to find peace for some reason. I'm trying though.

Actually what I think the best thing about Carmelo would be is to pray for him, pray that he'll come to see what God really is, and not the god of his "vision". Just pray that he'll come into the light, I think it's all that can really be done.

Thank you all for the posts! I'm starting to learn to come to peace with possibilities so I can start living my life and loving others again. I think once my soul finds peace in everything, things will get much easier. I actually found myself unable to do loving actions for others nearly as much because of the crippling fear, which should be enough to convince me that I do not need to even be glancing at those hellish "testimonies". They contradict themselves, they say you have to be perfectly loving in order to avoid hell, yet they use fear and "perfect love casts out fear". Love and fear cannot dwell in the same house. You either have one, or the other. One cannot do both at the same time, I learned that from experience. And hopefully one day my anxiety disorder will finally agree with me and leave me alone. lol

The same logic can be applied to Jesus saying "You can't serve God and mammon at the same time." which is a thing of flesh. You can't serve spirit and flesh at the same time. The spirit is love, the flesh is fear. Those false testimonies attempt to use both at the same time, but mostly fear and very little love. If you really stop and think about it, those testimonies are basically Jesus telling us to rely more on our fleshy fear to obtain heaven. Fear leads to make us want to survive, thus we act out on it, and follow them for comfort. Which leads to, you guessed it, control. Love doesn't do any of those things. Fear leads to flesh, love leads to spirit, and vice versa for both. That's the logic I try to use. I've never had any kind of noticeable spiritual experience except for the occasional dream of Jesus and I don't take them literally, so I can't say anything from my own experience. I'm just trying to use logic of the higher more spiritual nature of humans and evaluating what the lower baser human nature does. lol Just my  :2c:

I rely more on genuine near-death experiences that teach unconditional love and never to fear. The legalists contradict themselves... WAY too many times.

(I absolutely LOVE being able to think clearly without my anxiety getting in the way! xD Hopefully soon I can feel this all the time.)

[Patinak]

Very nice post Bristol!

[ChiniChani]

Patinak, how did you know my name? lol (Unless I forgot or missed something). Have we met? (Forgive me if I just forgot something, I've got the memory of a goldfish)

[Patinak]

'Twas in your opening post!

Patinak (Pat)

[jabcat]

"Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Lots of love,
-Bristol"

:)

[ChiniChani]

Oh, oops... :mblush:

[marie glen]

hi all.. :hiya:

I read this today and thought this would be a good place to post it.. It runs along the lines of other discussions too.. Or anyway, it's the way I think, and I think some others think that way too - this is an article comparing things of the crucifixion with Passover,

https://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/lamb.pdf

12. The lamb was roasted by fire (Exod. 12:8-9)
Fire is a metaphor for judgment. Yeshua suffered the fire of his Heavenly Father's wrath and judgment for man's sins (Matt. 27:46; 2 Cor. 5:21).

:Peace2:

[Ross]

I've never had any kind of noticeable spiritual experience except for the occasional dream of Jesus and I don't take them literally, so I can't say anything from my own experience.

I.M.O you are being protected. The inner peace is indescribable- that is the truth.

[sheila]

 :2c:   imo I see his expierence  as a spiritual revealing of the true state of many professing believers/churches.  Hell being the grave

....those whohave a name they are alive but are dead to God.  one common theme throughout was their cries for mercy....amercy

denied,perhaps because they failed to show mercy.It would appear Godhas bound up all of them into some kind/type of disobedience...

    and we knowHe didthat in order to show mercy unto all.so no flesh would boast.which calls to mind God's rebuke of him for his

'VAINGLORY".....worthless glory. ...on earth of the flesh[Ididthusandthus] versus the glory that isto be revealed..when we are just like Him.

[ChiniChani]

@Sheila

Which I assume is temporary until they learn their lessons. I've come to accept the possibility that the experience may be real, but is heavily misinterpreted and thought to be a vision supporting legalism, but I believe it could just be an NDE that could teach him a lesson in life, like most NDEs do. It all has to do with his mind-state and beliefs, which heavily influences NDEs to me (though it did lead me to become a Universalist). To teach him to be more godly and loving. I believe hell exists, but that it's temporary purification and that they're not physical places, but states of the mind. My mom and I actually had this discussion yesterday. lol

[sheila]

yes,I see it [the expierence]as more of a representation of the spiritual state he andother's  are in presently.I do not believeitisliteral.

   there are 'terrors of thenight" in Song of songs. the adversary can give terrorizingdreams...ifGod allows them too. save some through

  fear and some through mercy.. the expierence is a good representative of being handed over to satan for the destructionof the flesh

in order that the spirit be savedon the Day of theLord..... hell/grave/destructionof flesh/death etc.

[ChiniChani]

Yeah. Is there any way I could at least get the contents out of my head though? When I remember them, my anxiety is triggered again, I'd just rather not think about the contents of his testimony, whether it was real or fake.

[sheila]

  vain imaginations.........this is why I speakto them in parables..though seeing[mercy] they do not see;though hearing they do

notunderstand.......Otherwise..they might see with their eyesand hear with their ears..andturn..andI heal them...

Matt 13;16 But Blessed are your eyes becausethey see...verse 19 when anyonehears the message ofthe kingdom[mercy/grace forall]

butdoes not understand it...the evil onecomes andsnatches away what was sown in his heart[mercy/grace all tobear the incorruptible

image of Christ]

[sheila]

Ezekiel 23;14..our body beingthe temple..unclean imagesetc on the wallof our mind...is a 'seige work'  spiritual warfareand

  defilement of the temple[our temple body with sin in it bearing the corruptible image.]

   the request made unto God for a 'clean' conscience....is the glorious freedom to be revealed...andnosuch thoughts will even

come to our mind.we shall be forever free of all the machinations of the evil one. Jesus said...'the princeof this world comes..andhe has

nothing in me."   Looking soforward tothe Liberty,salvationandglory that awaits. :HeartThrob:

[sheila]

we can bring every thought untosubjectionof Christ through correctingthe thought,rebuking it in our mind. Theauthority to pick up

serpents andtrample serpents andscorpions are  ours...satan has basically hadhis fangs removed[drink poison andnotbe harmed] and

scorpions their stings...O;Death Ishall be thy plagues! By Father andJesus.If we have faith to believe it.


like a contentious woman..a steady drip drip of these things canwear out the saints...the only way toendureis tokeep the hope of the

Gloryto be revealed.  Faith,Hope and Love remains andendures.




the most the wicked onecando..is trample our outercourt[flesh body]

[Ross]

Yeah. Is there any way I could at least get the contents out of my head though? When I remember them, my anxiety is triggered again, I'd just rather not think about the contents of his testimony, whether it was real or fake.

So when the anxiety is triggered is this at the same level as before, or is this a little less each time?
Paul advises the Philippians to focus on whatever is pure,, true, noble, right, lovely admirable, or anything that is excellent or worthy of praise. That seems to be the power of positive thinking- recommend some key point that is significant for you so as to overcome the anxiety.

Eph 1;4 " Even as God chose us in Christ before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless before God."

[ChiniChani]

Ross, it's about the same, sometimes even worse. Unfortunately, it's not very easy for me.  :sigh:

[Ross]

ChiniChani-  Please be encouraged that even though these thoughts can be in your presence at times, they cannot alter your position in anyway. This is why Paul encourages us to put on the armour of Christ as our protection.
The helmet of salvation is KNOWING that Christ's work is our salvation- no failure whatsoever.
The shield of faith is Christ's faith- he achieved His objective to rescue us from the darkness and bring us to the light.
The breastplate, or protection of our chest is the fact that Christ has placed us in correct position/standing with our Father-God.

The angel of light/Satan can be an accuser- point out all our failings and weaknesses. He knows the law inside and out. Has recorded things we have done wrong to point out to the Father our mistakes. That is Satan's job. He is the ruler of this present age- the prince.
However, Christ has paid for our sins 100%.
This age is temporary- the coming age, where Christ rules, is permanent- and we are included to reign with Him in our change of bodies to the spiritual form. We are going to be with Christ higher than angels as sons/daughter of the One true living Father/God.

Not easy for me, either, if I try to do this off my own strength and wisdom- hence Jesus tells us to take up the cross daily, which, I.M.O is our recognition that no effort from us is sufficient, but His is all inclusive.
HE LOVES US SO MUCH and HIS LOVE NEVER FAILS. :HeartThrob: