Universalism (Christian) versus The Hell Doctrine! (Which Bears Good Fruit?)
Victorious Gospel of Jesus Christ, Our Father is UNFAILING LOVE!
Tentmaker Visitor Comments and Testimonies
May we add your testimony to our heavenly Father’s faithfulness real soon.
Some excerpts from recent emails we have gotten here at Tentmaker. We share them to encourage others who are on a similar spiritual journey. Please also check our Testimonials Page for more stories and testimonies. Glory to God!
December 10, 2005
Grateful…
I just wanted you to know that I am so grateful for you guys not giving up in face of such opposition to the truth. It can be a very lonely and more confusing when you think you are the only one asking these questions. So thanks. If we don’t meet this side of the grave. Genuinly look forward to meeting you the other side…
December 9, 2005
Refreshing
Greetings! You all have really done your “homework”, and provided one of the most honest works that I have ever seen. You are not afraid to “fly in the face of popular ideas”, and that is really refreshing to me.
December 7, 2005
Spirit is rejoicing…
Hello, I have been studying the doctrine of eternal punishment and my spirit is rejoicing. Truly this doctrine does not fit the character and nature of God the father of all. I would be very interested in attending a ministry that holds this doctrine.
December 6, 2005
I love God more than I ever thought possible…
I love your site and your matter-of-fact attitude. Also ? you defend Gods true character with strength! Before I knew the facts, I couldn’t love God thinking he was going to torture people eternally. When I found information to support my feeling I cried for two weeks. I love God and Yeshua more than I ever thought possible. Its love ? not just obedience. Love is bigger than obedience and love creates the kind of obedience God wants. I read your site often and always get encouraged. I was just thinking?God said we are made from the dust of the earth. Isn’t it true when sand is heated by fire it turns to class? Transparent, pure, etc. I see many examples where God is showing us what his ?fire? will do to us. Like the burning bush and Moses?the bush wasn’t consumed. Anyway, love to all my brothers and sisters in Yeshua. Thank you for your site.
December 3, 2005
Like being born again, again…
From our family to yours?Thank you beyond words! We have read most of the articles on your site, are thoroughly blessed, and refer many people to it. I spent 13 years teaching at Portland Bible College, a ministry of Bible Temple, now City Bible Church, in Portland, Oregon. They were good years, but over the years the Lord began to show us the traditional Church, along with the doctrines of men and demons and the traditions of the elders, had allowed so many distractions from Jesus to creep in that we just had to make a life change. It has cost us greatly to make the change?loss of salary, office, title, position, the revered title ?Pastor,? etc. etc., but the losses are more than made up for by the joy of the truth and greater intimacy with Jesus. There are still many lonely times, but I would rather be close to Jesus than anything else. We now gather with a view precious saints in our home. I’m no longer ?The Pastor,? but just a brother in Christ that loves them, cares for their souls, and enjoys the fellowship. We gather on Wednesday evenings and just drink in Jesus. I watched all your video series completely agreed with all you shared. In many ways it’s like being born again again. The truths of universal reconciliation, the proper understanding of the gathering of the saints, and so many more accurate biblical understandings, that have come over these last 4 years, are priceless. Please keep up the good work. We are definitely kindred spirit’s Gary . It’s amazing to hear you teach and believe the very same things we have seen. God bless you in all you do for Him.
December 1, 2005
Pray for Me
I am 22 years old, from North Dakota. I come from a very loving, caring, Catholic family. My family is my life, I have two younger brothers who are my best friends and mean the world to me. I have graduated from college, and am on my way to grad school. Judging by my short bio, one would think I am not only satisfied with my life, but also proud of it. I’m afraid to admit this is not the case.
As any young curious American, I started questioning my faith. I accepted an invitation to a southern Baptist church in Nashville, TN recently (I am temporarily doing an internship there). The preacher was very judging, telling us that over 3/4 of the people in the church were “not saved” and going to hell. He was very charismatic, brought everything back to Scripture. This “preacher” scared the living hell out of me, and I have not been the same ever since. I started reading Scripture, studying it, OBSESSING over it, and I found that the overall message of the Bible teaches a God who created humans simply to watch them suffer the worst possible pain imaginable forever, for his pleasure. Why would God, who is all-knowing and obviously able to tell the future, create innocent children for the sole purpose of watching them suffer forever? If this is the case, it is MUCH better to have never lived! This was two months ago. I have lost all faith and hope in God. I have been convinced I need psychological help. It seems that life it not worth living, because for some odd reason I believe what I heard in that Baptist Church. Every time I hear the word God or Jesus I feel sharp pain in my stomach. He has convinced me that that my loving, caring family and I are destined for hell.
There have been a few times I’ve seriously considered suicide, but the loving image of my family is the only thing that has stopped me. Every day I feel like I’m going crazy, literally, because God has pretty much told me nothing is worth living for, since over 90 % of us are going to suffer forever and ever anyway. I am fearful that God is going to punish me for questioning the Bible and attempting to accept Christian Universalism, as I have been doing now since that sermon. Mr. and Mrs. Amirault, I truly want to believe what you preach. I’ve even looked up the Scripture references to universal salvation that you have laid out, and they do look like they promote this doctrine….But for some reason, I can’t seem to believe it. It’s as if God is pulling me toward him, telling me to leave my family and friends and everything I love to do, and follow a bunch of wackos that believe that they are the only 5 % that are saved. It’s driving me crazy, and I don’t know what to do with my life…I want to believe you, and common sense tells me to…but I feel that God (or Satan, or a demon) is telling me otherwise. I am a sick individual, mentally sick, all because of one wrong decision to check out that awful, awful, awful Baptist Church. I can’t enjoy Christmas, or anything, or even simple love of my family because I think of these images of them burning forever, my baby brothers who are my best friends in the world, burning forever. I have grown to hate God and Christ. It’s like I’m in a trance and it’s hard for me to concentrate on anything. Please pray for me. It seems like you truly know Christ. Ask him to reveal his unconditional love for me. And hopefully, if that happens, I may be able to help you with your ministry. I appreciate you taking time to read this. Please respond whenever you get a free moment. Thank you, God Bless.
November 28, 2005
I Have Found Peace
I have found great peace studying your website. I am forty-two years of age and have been happily married for twenty-one years. I was raised Southern Baptist and served five years as an Assembly of God pastor. After having doctrinal differences I resigned from my ministry and was rejected by all my friends. My wife and I made it through a real challenging time leaning on each other and God’s amazing grace. I have a wonderful wife and a great God. It has been over seven years since our departure from our denominational ministry. During this time God has given me a new (real ministry) serving people with addictions. He has promoted me to a leadership position in a medical office with a good Christian physician. I have a question for you: My wife and I are interested in starting a local church and teaching Christian Universalism. Do you have any advice or recommendations for us? Any direction would be greatly appreciated.
November 22, 2005
Pray for Me
Thanks for the tremendous article, “The Case Against Hell”, by Mercy Aiken. It was absolutely mind-boggling. Please pray for me, as I am struggling in ways that words cannot describe. God is pouring into me new truth after new truth and I don’t know how much more I can take! I recently left the “institutional church setting” (because of the truth the Lord showed me in Scripture) and began “worshipping” in the home-setting. The wife is totally against this and against me. She continues to the “house of man” on her own every Sunday (morning and evening). Myself, and the three boys stay home. Believe me, it is an absolutely awful situation, as I am sure you can imagine….So again thank you and please pray for me. I know that much more can be said concerning my situation but for now I think I’ll close.
November 21, 2005
The REAL Jesus
I’m so very tired and sad. It’s a long story. Just the briefest of notes to let you know that your message is so right, so good, so true, and so important… I know this is true because I slammed the door in Jesus’s face a long, long time ago, saying “This is monstrous. Free will is monstrous if it allows unpardonable mistakes, christians are monstrous, take your miserable cosmic contraption and sell it in your hell. I don’t know what your will is for me, and I give up. I will be there, in hell, by choice, eternally, keeping the damned company and exercising a simple human compassion there that this stupid, vicious God and his stupid, vicious people cannot seem to comprehend. I don’t claim that it’s a great compassion, but what kind of heaven would it be if i can’t hear or help my own brothers or sisters in torment? This is supposed to satisfy me? Do you want me to be like THAT?? Let me trade places with any of them; that hell would be nearer to heaven than “heaven”. Jesus said “But i love you and you are with me and…” And i said, “Go away. Leave me alone.” Oh, decades ago.
George Macdonald knew better. I read his books. But no one else did. I became a Buddhist, and there’s much wisdom there. But I had fallen in love with Christ and it had been like hearing from strangers and friends alike that that one’s beloved sweetheart runs a bookie joint, that angry, exhausted, disillusioned leavetaking. I listened to them and rejected them and their jesus along with them. Broken hearted and in despair. I could never live up to it, anyway. But that wasn’t Jesus at all, was it? And by rejecting that false Jesus I didn’t fall out of grace at all, did I? … ? …… ??
No one can ever fall out of grace. Grace doesn’t have big holes in it for sinners to stumble and tumble through into nothingness and death. Oh… My life is a wreck. I have no idea what to do. I’ve done things that have led to awful consequences and I’m tangled up in a situation that…
But He’s here. For the first time in decades I’m opening to that presence… no. bah. I am so afraid of being tricked, by my own despair and misery, into inventing some… TRIP. Some comforting illusion that all crumbles into nothing.But He’s here. And this impossibly, hopelessly tender message keeps breathing whispering in my heart, “It’s alright, sweetheart. You have all of eternity. Rest in me for a little while. It’s been Me all along. And I was never that other one. ” o tears. I want to say “Go away. No more tricks.” but tears. Funny, there was no category called “sin” on that list of yours. Though sin gets mentioned. My parents were atheists. I fell in love with God without a church around me. Then i fell into what the Catholics call “scrupulosity”, a sin of pride, really. I was so in love with Him. I’m not going to stop sinning, I can tell. I tried and tried and tried… I was so young… I’m not even sure what a sin is any more, though I’ve read plenty of theology. Just to make love with my lover is a sin by christian accounts — if I listen to that soft voice trying to speak in my ear am I going to get tangled up in tighter and tighter prohibitions again until I can’t possibly… ?
But something is happening. And I don’t know anything about whoever this is reading this except from what I’ve been reading all day on your website, and all I can say is that what you say is good and if Jesus is real that’s what Jesus taught and teaches, that would be the REAL Jesus, I know it with certainty. And if Jesus is real then nothing else matters and the world is turned upside down. Or set rightside up. I’m an articulate, intelligent person and a good writer and this is an incoherant mess of a letter but I’m writing it anyway and I’m going to hit send…
November 21, 2005
Well done
Hell is leaving the Bible Forever: I have read your article and am most impressed by your research. I myself have heard of the mistranlsations in the Bible and have found your answer to be most comprehensive. I am glad there are some people out there fighting to purify the Bible of “creative” terms used by people with hidden agendas and ample greed. Well Done
November 13, 2005
A turning point
Hi Gary, I found your blog “Jesus Saves All.” It seems to me that the message is getting out and being received. The day I found Tentmaker was a turning point for me, so I appreciate the work God is doing through you.
November 12, 2005
Pray For Me
I learned of hell when I was 12; my uncle was a preacher, & he was preaching about hell (which he did VERY OFTEN). He believed in varying degrees of punishment in hell – not unlike Dante – in different degrees of burning. He believed that the worst sinners would suffer the hotter fires, & the lesser sinners the less-hot fires. I asked him, “But however hot the fires are, it has to be more than they can bear, anyway, or it wouldn’t be hell, right?” He affirmed that it must be so. “In that case, it doesn’t make much sense to have different degrees of heat, if it all adds up to more than anyone there can bear. If I’m suffering in a heat that is less than the heat Hitler is suffering, but we are both tortured to the same extent, that it’s more than we can bear, why have different degrees, at all? It equals the same punishment.” I don’t remember his response, but he told me he prayed for me, that God would bring me to Him at some time in my life; & that if God knew I would never accept His salvation, that He would let me die now, before I had time to stoke the fires of hell up against me, any hotter than I already had. I can’t even tell you how that made me feel, that my uncle prayed for me to accept God or die. I became even more resentful of God, I cursed Him, I told Him I never wanted anything to do w/ Him, ever – to leave me alone, & don’t ever send His message to me again, through anyone, that I hated Him, that I didn’t care if I died & went to hell, as long as it would hurt Him, that would be fine, & I don’t remember what all; I went on for quite awhile. Anyway, that’s how the doctrine of hell effected me.I recently began to look up hell on the internet because I was trying to remind myself of how terrifying it is, how to tremble before it so I wouldn’t do what I was wanting to do, & end up going there, & that’s how I found this site….Please pray for me.
November 11, 2005
More confidence in Jesus Christ
I really enjoy your website. It help to understand the truth about hell. I was plagued for sometime with the thought of people going there. I could never relax or enjoy life. Why do these things if your neighbor is going to hell? Both my wife and I have much peace in Christ since this revelation of truth. We love people more, and are more confident in our Savior Jesus Christ. Now that He is not going to lose half of the world, and people will not separated for ever, is a great comforting thought. What a Savior indeed.
November 10, 2005
Back at Tentmaker
I recently rediscovered your site. I’d been without Internet at home for a little over 2 years, and I don’t surf that much at work. Lately I’ve been feeling lost in my relationship with God, but then I remembered your site, came back and started doing some reading. I truly feel my connection with the Lord returning. It was your site, after all, that originally broke me free from the concept of a God who torments most of His Creation forever and started me down the path to learning His true character.
November 2, 2005
A Pastor
I appreciate this site. I came across it doing some research. I am a Pastor of a small Church in Northern Illinois , and have come to see these things that you are promoting in the last 5 years. I would love to help get the Word out anyway I can. I am preaching this, and publishing material through my web-site among other things. I am trying to get a local Radio program also. If you have time, I would love to chat with you. Not many around here who hold the truth.
October 27, 2005
Preterism
I just got through reading the first four chapters of the book your site has posted “Prophecy Fulfilled” by David P. Crews. Wow, what a complete eye opener. I, like Mr Crews stated, always rationalized so many Olivet prophecy verses by placing them in the future but, Like he also said, it would never go down easy due to the explicit statements Jesus said i.e “This generation.” I remember being on a “anti-bible” site titled “The Jesus Debates” reading an article that stated Christianity is hocus-pocus due to Jesus’ failure to come back when He said He would and the site quoted many scriptures that I could not ignore. I prayed and short story shorter, God led me to that book posted on your site. I am a recent convert to Universalism but I had never even heard of “Preterist.” Now I adhere to both. Anyway, thank you and God bless, keep up the good works in the faith of Jesus Christ brothers.
October 25, 2005
From a Missionary
I came across this site about 8 months ago somewhat by accident. I had just gotten off the mission field overseas after completing a two-year term. I had really been struggling with the whole ethos of my missions organization, with the focus on the “lost” and the “us vs. them” mentality. During the two years, I came to realize how I had convinced myself that that judgmental attitude was “love.” I had been struggling for years with questions about the conditionality of God’s love, His grace, and His sovereignty. If He desired that all people would be saved, then why wouldn’t they be? Either He couldn’t save them or He didn’t want to. I realize now that I was like a polytheist. There was a wrathful Father God who we had to appease and who was ready and willing at the drop of a hat to damn us all to hell forever, and then there was the gentle Jesus who was all acceptance and love. I couldn’t reconcile the two. The questions kept swirling until I found this website. I read every article on the site, printing them off and putting them into a large notebook so that I could re-read them and highlight and use them as reference. During this time, God just revealed to me in my spirit that this was True. All of my questions now made sense! Then I read Hannah Whitall Smith’s testimony of how God revealed this message to her, and I wept and wept. It was for me, just as it was for her. I was not alone. I love how she said that when she read the Bible, it was like a veil had been removed. I couldn’t have described it any better! I devoured my Bible, praising God each time I found a verse that carried a whole new blessed meaning in light of what God had showed me! What Good News the Gospel truly is!!! Even when I was on the field as a missionary, I didn’t fully understand what was so good about the news that billions of people would spend an eternity in hell. Thank you thank you thank you for this site and for your courage to speak what God has shown you. I can’t believe what I had been missing for so many years: the true message of God’s great and incomparable love, love without bounds.
October 10, 2005
You Saved My Life
This is the beginning of my second (and final) year at the (Christian) college. I spent nearly every waking moment I didn’t have to use on school work on reading religious materials. I read a lot of C.S. Lewis, some Kierkegaard, Hoekema, Lee Stroebel, Rick Warren, and Tony Campolo, and plenty of other less forgiving (and more “traditional”) authors. I read my NIV in light of these author’s, and only found myself desperately confused. There were too many incompatible ideas—I felt so helpless. “Here I am in this school,” I thought to myself “surrounded by all of these Christians who don’t seem to deal with any of the confusion as me—what is wrong with me!?” Week after week the school paper would have an editorial where a student minister would warn that if we didn’t shape up, we would all be sent to hell. Someone even wrote an article discussing how some students eating lunch near him had spent their lunch hour talking about several Seinfeld episodes they liked. He said that he “cried tears of sorrow” at hearing this conversation, as they could have used it to “discuss all of the great things the Lord had done for them.” The letter ended with “The cross of Christ takes two full hands to carry! Either use them to embrace the cross, or to embrace the flames of hell forever!” I was stunned. I heard comment after comment like this. This went on the entire year. I had to move a long distance to come here, and I live alone. I disagree with most of what I hear, but I am terribly lonely, and it is an awful experience to be surrounded by people but feel utterly alone at the same time.
Time after time I’d reach out for company and love, but instead hear comments about going to hell and eternal damnation. WORST OF ALL, was this word Calvinism that I was quickly introduced to. I couldn’t stand it. Suddenly my God was a sick tyrant who creates people with the intention of putting them into an awful hell. Each sermon I listened to, each prayer I prayed only made me feel more pathetic and hopeless. I hated life more than ever now, knowing that I was probably going to be sent to hell—and that there was nothing I could do about it—it was only where God had predestined me to go. I cried myself to sleep most nights, and eventually went on an antidepressant to deal with all of the guilt, shame, and depression I was feeling. Each person I looked at was one of the lucky elect—I was a putrid outsider unworthy of God’s love. Then I considered all of my family, all of the children, and couldn’t bear the thought that they had been born only to fill a spot in hell. The only thing that stopped me from killing myself was the idea that I would have to go directly to hell. I figured I might as well not bring it upon myself any sooner than necessary.
Well, at this point I remembered my experiences when I was younger (I am 23 now). I remembered how I boldly used to tell people that I didn’t believe in a hell, and that each person would be saved—back then I didn’t worry at all, I KNEW I was right. I was only 15!! I didn’t even know that what I believed was called Universalism—I never heard about Universal Restoration. Yet, there I was, zealously stating that each person would be in heaven, that nobody would be left behind, that THERE WAS HOPE even if people didn’t recognize it—even if they had to die to realize it. And now, here I was, going on 23, crying myself to sleep, not wanting to be an atheist as it would make life meaningless, and not wanting to be a Christian as it would make life absolutely horrifying—good news!? What good news? I didn’t leave the apartment unless I needed to. I spent hours on the phone crying to my mother. Even if I did get into heaven, how could I enjoy it knowing so many people were being tortured? I was distraught. Then I found your site.
God bless all of you, whoever you are, for making this site. You have no idea how badly I wanted to believe your message, and yet how badly I did not want to. I actually fought it for awhile, but I had to give in—somewhere deep down, I had already known God would not give up on any of us. I am interested in learning so much more. I watched most of your videos and listened to a lot of the audio clips that Gary made, and I heard him say that if we were interested in learning more we should write you. Well, I am VERY interested in learning more…Again, God bless you all. In a very real sense, you saved my life.
October 7, 2005
Free To Love others
I am a new convert to the Christian Universalist teaching and I have to tell you I am RELIEVED. I had been searching for the answer for over 15 years and have finally come to the truth. What’s more is the very truth I found was staring me in the face the whole time. Even children know these things to be true. God does love everyone and wants to save everyone. I am also a preterist Christian, which I believe you are as well, from my reading of your website….I used to cause strife among people who didn’t agree with me about preterism. In fact, I would really chew them out and want to hurt them it seemed. I almost had a hatred of people who didn’t agree with me. That is because I thought the God I believed in (the Calvinistic God) did that very thing. But, now after becoming a Universalist Christian, my tune is different. I don’t judge and condemn people who disagree with me anymore. I remember where I was and that I believed a lot of what they believe. If someone would have shown me love instead of hate, I might have been compelled to change what I believe a lot sooner. Anyway, I feel that my life is a lot better now. I can show God’s love to people without feeling odd about it. I can emulate the Father, like Jesus said to, because God loves his enemies.
October 4, 2005
An Agnostic shares some thoughts….
My oldest daughter (age 42) and I have been having a continuing debate as to whether or not all non-Christians are going to end up in eternal torment. I told her I could not believe that God would subject any one to such a fate but she insisted that is what her church teaches. My daughter is an evangelical Christian and she asked her Pastor if the Bible actual says that all non-Christians are going to finish their lives in eternal torment and he told her the Bible does say that, so I decided to find out if there were any web sites that might have an article on eternal torment. I did a search of the internet using the two key words “eternal torment” and my search produced a list of 10,200 web sites that have articles that include those two words somewhere in their articles and your web site was the first one on that list. The name of that article is, “Bible Translations That Do Not Teach Eternal Torment”. I copied the article into a document in Microsoft Word and I was so impressed with that article that I didn’t bother to go back and find out what those other articles said about eternal torment. This all happened about two weeks ago, say September 12, 2005 and since then I have spent many hours on your web site watching your online videos and reading two other articles that you have on your web site, trying to find out who the real Gary Amirault is.
October 3, 2005
From the Philippines
I received yesterday one parcel of bookles and tracts from you. One of these has the title: Hope for ALL Generations and Nations (By Gary Amirault). I am very very happy. I was not able to sleep in my bed that night so I rose up and read your booklet ubtil 3 hours in the morning. I am now bringing it with me in my work place so that I can read it while riding on a bus….