How can a loving God send someone to hell?

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers;  and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

I can just hear the evil one as he whispers:

“God welcomes ALL into his body; He doesn’t mind if you are living the gay lifestyle or if you are a transgender – He welcomes ALL because God is LOVE.” <hissssssss>

Almost every heretical ministry can be traced back to an unbalanced and unbiblical view of the attributes of God.

Isn’t God Love?

Of course He is Love. But He is also Just, Righteous and Holy. These attributes of our Lord are not as popular with the apostate churches.

God is God and we are NOT. GOD IS GOD AND WE ARE NOT!  When we forget this, and feel empowered to change God’s Holy Word, then the Bible becomes a smorgasbord from which to pick and choose what we like, and discard the rest.

Let’s look at some apostate movements.

The Emergent church

When Brian McClaren wrote his testimony of how he came to a new understanding of the Word of God, He said that his daughter had returned from college and was very emotionally upset. She told her father that she just couldn’t believe that her wonderful friends at the college were destined to hell because of lifestyle or just not believing in the Gospel.

McLaren said that this was life-changing for him. He began to view God in a different way. He began to question the inerrancy of the Word. I have written before how the love of family can negatively impact a person about God’s Word. We must never allow our emotions to question the inerrancy of the Word of God. If we do, then we are saying that we know more than the Creator of the Universe.

Jesus was very clear when He warned us of losing or being at odds with family members because of Him.

“Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division. For from now on five in one house will be divided: three against two, and two against three. Father will be divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law” (Luke 12:51-53).

I have shed many a tear because of my family and how I have been alienated because of my belief and devotion to Jesus Christ. Sometimes I even hear the whispers of the evil one saying, “If you would just come back to Judaism, your life would be much less complicated.” I rebuke that thought immediately – knowing from where it came, and also knowing that my belief and love for the Lord Jesus Christ is True and Right and that I could never turn my back on Him.

The inevitable slippery slope has brought Brian McLaren into all sorts of heresy, even suggesting that the Old Testament was an “immature” view of God. He states that the New Testament brings a sharper and clearer look at God through the lens of Jesus Christ. He is picking and choosing which Scripture fit his new-found belief system about the Bible, Jesus and Salvation.

This clearly shows that leaders such as McLaren have never understood that the entire Word of God was written by men BUT these men were under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So, in other words, God wrote the entire Bible. When one does not understand that this belief is foundational to the Christian faith – everything else becomes corrupted.

Rob Bell “Love Wins”

In a website which promotes the sale of “Love Wins” – this is the blurb under the book title:

“In Love Wins, bestselling author, international teacher, and speaker Rob Bell (Velvet Elvis, Drops Like Stars) addresses one of the most controversial issues of faith—hell and the afterlife—arguing, would a loving God send people to eternal torment forever? … And ultimately, Love Wins.”

Sounds good, right? Evidently millions of people think it sounds good, having bought the book and Bell’s beliefs – lock stock and barrel!

From gotquestions.org

Question: “How can a loving God send someone to hell?”

Answer: In order to address the question of a loving God sending someone to hell, we need to define a few terms and correct a few wrong assumptions. Our definitions must be biblical, and our assumptions must be correct.

We must first define the term loving God. This phrase assumes some things about God, and answering the question at hand according to flawed assumptions leads to wrong conclusions. Our culture defines a “loving God” as a completely non-confrontational being who tolerates anything we want to do. But that is not a biblical definition. First John 4:16 says that God is love. That means that He does not possess love as we do; He is the very definition of love and therefore cannot do anything that is unloving. The law of non-contradiction states that something cannot be both true and untrue at the same time. So, if God IS love, then He cannot be at the same time unloving.

So the first fallacy present in the question “how can a loving God send someone to hell?” is the idea that allowing people to go to hell is an unloving act on God’s part. If we humans decide that God is somehow wrong to allow unrepentant sinners to pay their deserved penalty, then we have declared that we are more loving than God is. We have set ourselves up as God’s judge and jury, and in doing so have closed the door to deeper understanding. Therefore, the first step in answering this question is to agree with Scripture that God IS love; therefore, everything He does is an expression of that perfect love.

The second fallacy presented by the question “how can a loving God send someone to hell?” concerns the word send, which denotes an action only on the part of the sender. If a man sends a letter, sends a request, or sends a gift, all action was done by that man. No action was taken on the part of the letter, request, or gift. However, this understanding of the word send cannot be applied to the question at hand because God has given human beings freedom to participate in their life choices and eternal destinations (John 3:16–18). The way this question is worded implies that, if anyone goes to hell, it is the result of God’s unilateral action, and the person being sent to hell is a passive victim. Such an idea completely disregards the personal responsibility God has entrusted to each of us.

“How can a loving God send someone to hell?” The entire question is wrong. A better wording is “If God is love, then why do some people go to hell?” Romans 1:18–20 lays the foundation for the answer: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” (emphasis added).

There are several key points in this passage that give us glimpses into the heart of God. First is the fact that people actively “suppress the truth.” People have been given enough truth to know and surrender to God, but they refuse it. Self-will wants to deny God’s right to tell us what to do. So, with the truth in front of them, many people turn away and refuse to see it. Atheist Thomas Nagel has said, “It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.”

Second, Romans 1 states that God has “made [God’s nature] plain to them.” In other words, God has taken the initiative to make His truth known to everyone. History has proved this since time began, as every people group has sought some understanding of a Creator to whom they owe allegiance. Such knowledge is an integral part of what it means to be created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Romans 1:20 then says that “people are without excuse.” And to whom would they give such an excuse? The very One who says He has made Himself known to them, if they would only humble themselves and accept such revelations. God judges each of us according to the truth He has given us, and Romans 1 states that we each have enough truth to turn toward rather than away from Him.

When answering the question “how can a loving God send someone to hell?” another facet of God’s nature comes into play. God is not only love, but He is perfect justice as well. Justice requires adequate payment for crimes committed. The only just punishment for high treason against our perfect Creator is eternal separation from Him. That separation means the absence of goodness, light, relationship, and joy, which are all facets of God’s nature. To excuse our sin would require God to be less than just, and to allow sin-tainted humans into His perfect heaven would render that place less than perfect. That’s why only the perfect Son of God could go to the cross in our place. Only His perfect blood was an acceptable payment for the debt we each owe God (Colossians 2:14). When we refuse Jesus as our substitute, we must pay the price ourselves (Romans 6:23).

God gave us the freedom to choose how we respond to Him. If He forced us to love Him, we would be robots. To give us no option but obedience would be a violation of our free will. Love is only love when it is voluntary. We cannot love God unless we have the option of not loving Him. Because God honors our autonomy, He will never force surrender or loyalty. However, there are consequences for either choice. C. S. Lewis summarizes this truth in his classic work, The Great Divorce: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it.” source

Rachel Held Evans

I wrote an article on Ms. Evans recently. She is wildly popular with the younger crowd. She is the proverbial “Wolf in sheep’s clothing.” She is bright and pretty and so laid back. People just want to have lunch with her or have her over for Sunday dinner. She truly is the “face” of the Social Justice gospel movement.

“For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15).

“I’m Okay -You’re Okay”

There was a book which my mother gave me when I was a teen. The title was “I’m Okay – You’re Okay.” I had not thought about that book in years, but recently it dawned on me that this is exactly what the Apostasy movements are all about.

The leaders of these movements will throw in some Scripture to make the reader/listener/viewer believe that they are Bible-believing Christians. But as the layers of their beliefs are peeled back, the true child of God should discern that these so-called leaders are counterfeit. When the subject of being ‘all inclusive’ and empowering the “gay Christians” comes up, born-again believers should discern that these teachings are devilish and deceptive.

God’s LOVE was demonstrated on the Cross

The followers of the Emergent churches and other apostate churches have missed the true meaning of the Love of God.

His great Love cannot be separated from His Holiness, Righteousness, and Justice. He knew the condition of all people, that we are sinful beings. But His desire for us to be reconciled to Himself led our God to offer the greatest act of Love this world has ever known.

We could never be reconciled to Him in our state of sinfulness. Something had to happen to make us acceptable to God, so that He could offer us a place in heaven with Him when we die. Our sin had to be wiped away, for we know that the wages of sin is death (eternal).

What God did to offer us Salvation and to make us able to stand before Him as holy and righteous: in His incredible LOVE, He sacrificed His only Son Jesus Christ to come to earth wrapped in human flesh, and to shed His blood and die on that Cross on Calvary as payment for our sins. Only Jesus could accomplish this for us. And God watched as His Son took upon Himself the sins of the whole world.

THAT is the Love of God. And His Word is inerrant and infallible.

“For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation” (Romans 5:6-11).

Don’t listen to the whispers of the devil!

How Can I Be Saved?

A Sermon for Sunday

Shalom b’Yeshua

MARANATHA!

grandmageri422@gmail.com

Articles at grandmageri422.me

 

Persecuted Underground Church in China is Praying for Us! 

I will never forget something that was told to me back in 1983 when I was saved. I was attending a home group, and the Bible teacher said to us:

“The Christians who must go underground to worship in China are praying for the Christians in America. They are saying that the persecution of believers in China is causing them to draw closer to God and His Word, and they are evangelizing the lost like never before. The reason that they are praying so hard for us here in America is that they know that the distractions and freedoms we enjoy will cause complacency, and many will fall away or become prey for heretical teaching.”

When I think about this now, in light of the mainline churches becoming apostate, and the many mega-churches which corrupt the Word of God – it sends chills up my spine. I believe that what the persecuted church said about America was prophetic.

Xi Jinping and his Hatred for Christians

Xi Jinping of China has a hatred of Christians that has not been seen in China since the reign of Mao Tse-tung. And now, since Xi has declared himself ruler for life in China, nothing short of a revolution will change the hateful regard for Christians by the Chinese government.

Bible Downloads Banned in China (Video)    < click to watch

From express.co.uk

China President Xi Jinping thinks churches are ‘severe national security THREAT’

CHINA’S President Xi Jinping has been accused of having “particular animosity” against Christians in the country and sees underground churches as a “severe national security threat” as the Communist state continues to crack down on how citizens practice the religion, the leader of a Christian persecution group has warned.

The outburst came from China Aid founder Bob Fu. When speaking during a discussion on religious oppression sponsored by the Heritage Foundation in the US, he claimed Mr. Xi sees the rise of Christianity as a threat to his rule.

There are now more than 38 million Protestants in China; but according to Mr. Fu, the number of persecuted Christians in the country over the course of just 12 months has “dramatically increased.”

“The number of people we documented who are persecuted among just Christians alone last year reached 223,000 compared to these 48,000 in 2016.”

The China Aid founder said “persecution will only help accelerate the growth” of the faithful, noting that even the number of Christians “who worship at the government churches” has also risen significantly.

Mr. Fu said: “You can see that he [Xi] has particular animosity against Christianity in particular,” acknowledging that the Communist regime has identified “underground churches” as a “severe national security threat.”

He added that, in efforts to better control religion, Beijing is forcing churches to install facial recognition systems to identify those who attend services.

“Every church is forced to install face recognition systems, and every church building … is forced to put a sign [up] banning children, students, civil servants, military personnel, and Communist Party members from entering.

Mr. Xi has cracked down on Christianity and asserted state control over religion, having previously said that “all religions must be Chinese-orientated.”

Last month, Christians were placed under house arrest as the Communist government continued to crack down on churches in an Easter purge.

Authorities imposed an effective ban on Christian gatherings with police requiring Christians to report where they are going every time they leave their home in the Henan province.

During Easter, China removed sales of the Bible from online stores, having previously only allowed for the holy book to be distributed and printed by state-sanctioned churches.

Chinese Catholic bishops are not appointed by the Pope, stemming from a breakdown in relations between Beijing and the Vatican in 1951. – source

Much thanks to my sister in Christ Rebecca Clark for this:

Her words to me: 

“Now that he has declared himself a ruler for life, Xi is going full tilt against Christianity, and I feel that this is only the beginning. You know how bad it has become when the liberal Miami Herald decries it in its paper!”

And I could not agree more that for the “Liberal” Miami Herald to post this story; it has to be REALLY bad!

From miamiherald.com

Christian heartland opens window into fight for China’s soul

NANYANG, CHINA

The 62-year-old Chinese shopkeeper had waited nearly his entire adult life to see his dream of building a church come true — a brick house with a sunny courtyard and spacious hall with room for 200 believers.

But in March, about a dozen police officers and local officials suddenly showed up at the church on his property and made the frightened congregants disperse. They ordered that the cross, a painting of the Last Supper and Bible verse calligraphy be taken down. And they demanded that all services stop until each person along with the church itself was registered with the government, said the shopkeeper, Guo, who gave his last name only from fear of retribution.

Without warning, Guo and his neighbors in China’s Christian heartland province of Henan had found themselves on the front lines of an ambitious new effort by the officially atheist ruling Communist Party to dictate — and in some cases displace — the practice of faith in the country.

Under President Xi Jinping, China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, believers are seeing their freedoms shrink dramatically even as the country undergoes a religious revival. Experts and activists say that as he consolidates his power, Xi is waging the most severe systematic suppression of Christianity in the country since religious freedom was written into the Chinese constitution in 1982.

The crackdown on Christianity is part of a broader push by Xi to “Sinicize” all the nation’s religions by infusing them with “Chinese characteristics” such as loyalty to the Communist Party. Over the last several months, local governments across the country have shut down hundreds of private Christian “house churches.” A statement last week from 47 in Beijing alone said they had faced “unprecedented” harassment since February.

A dozen Chinese Protestants interviewed by the Associated Press described gatherings that were raided, interrogations and surveillance, and one pastor said hundreds of his congregants were questioned individually about their faith. Like Guo, the majority requested that their names be partly or fully withheld because they feared punishment from authorities.

“Chinese leaders have always been suspicious of the political challenge or threat that Christianity poses to the Communist regime,” said Xi Lian, a scholar of Christianity in China at Duke University. “Under Xi, this fear of Western infiltration has intensified and gained a prominence that we haven’t seen for a long time.”

Officials once largely tolerated the unregistered Protestant house churches that sprang up independent of the official Christian Council, clamping down on some while allowing others to grow. But this year they have taken a tougher approach that relies partly on “thought reform” — a phrase for political indoctrination. Last November, Christian residents of a rural township in southeast Jiangxi province were persuaded to replace posters of the cross and Jesus Christ inside their homes with portraits of Xi, a local official said.

“Through our thought reform, they’ve voluntarily done it,” Qi Yan, a member of the township party committee, told the AP by phone. “The move is aimed at Christian families in poverty, and we educated them to believe in science and not in superstition, making them believe in the party.”

The poster campaign appears to symbolize what analysts see as the underlying force driving the change in the party’s approach to religion: the ascendance of Xi.

“Xi is a closet Maoist — he is very anxious about thought control,” said Willy Lam, a Chinese politics expert at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “He definitely does not want people to be faithful members of the church, because then people would profess their allegiance to the church rather than to the party, or more exactly, to Xi himself.”

Various state and local officials declined repeated requests to comment. But in 2016, Xi explicitly warned against the perceived foreign threats tied to faith, telling a religion conference: “We must resolutely guard against overseas infiltrations via religious means.”

Those who resist pay the price. After Jin Mingri, a prominent pastor who leads Zion Church in Beijing, refused local authorities’ request to install surveillance cameras inside his house church, police individually questioned hundreds of members of the 1,500-person congregation, he said. The congregants faced veiled threats, Jin said, and many were asked to sign a pledge promising to leave Zion, which the government agents called illegal, politically incorrect and a cult. Some people lost their jobs or were evicted from rented apartments because police intimidated their bosses and landlords.

“A lot of our flock are terrified by the pressure that the government is putting on them,” he said. “It’s painful to think that, in our own country’s capital, we must pay so dearly just to practice our faith.”

In Zhengzhou, Henan’s capital, all that is left of one house church is shattered glass, tangled wires and torn hymnbooks, strewn among the rubble of a knocked-down wall. Pegged to another wall is a single wooden cross, still intact.

The church inside a commercial building had served about 100 believers for years. But in late January, nearly 60 officials from the local religion department and police station appeared without warning. Armed with electric saws, they demolished the church, confiscated Bibles and computers and held a handful of young worshippers — including a 14-year-old girl — at a police station for more than 10 hours, according to a church leader.

Even Protestant churches already registered with the state have not been spared greater restrictions. When reporters visited five such churches in Henan this June, all bore notices at their entrances stating that minors and party members were not allowed inside. A banner above one church door exhorted members to “implement the basic direction of the party’s religious work.” Another church erected a Chinese flag at the foot of its steps.

Guo’s brick house was largely deserted this summer. Around the door frame, tattered red outlines remained of a scroll that once read “God’s love is as deep as the sea.”

Inside, Guo has refused to remove the cross and other decorations, telling authorities they are within his private property.

Among them, pinned to a wall in the nave, is a bright blue poster that quotes China’s constitutional promise of religious freedom. source

Brethren, there is legislation pending in California to outlaw the Bible in that state. I believe that if the Democrats are victorious in the midterms and take back the White House in 2020, we are going to see persecution like we never could have imagined in America.

But I remind the reader to go back to the beginning of this article. You will see clearly that our God uses the persecution of His saints to bring revival. I believe that this is the only way that a revival will happen in our country.

Will we have to go underground to worship? Probably.

Will we be arrested for hate speech? Most likely.

Will the Bible be banned across America? I believe that it will.

Will Christianity flourish underground and revert back to Sound Bible-Based teaching? MOST DEFINITELY!

“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

Jesus was not speaking in the aforementioned passage of Scripture about the coming “Tribulation.”  He was speaking about the constant battles and persecutions against us in this world which is not our home.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake.  Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:10-12).

We have not been persecuted to the degree of being incarcerated or killed in America – not yet.  And please do not think that I am saying that this will definitely happen to us.

But keep this in your hearts that the persecution which our brethren are suffering in China presently, God will use to grow His body there – not just in number, but in deep spiritual discernment of the Word of God.

Pray for our brethren in China as they pray for us!

How Can I Be Saved?

A Sermon for Sunday

Shalom b’Yeshua

MARANATHA

grandmageri422@gmail.com

Articles at grandmageri422.me