What if you’re wrong about hell?

Carl Emerson

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If I remember correctly, you said the pit was empty. Is that right?

To be accurate, I only saw the rim. Whether there were souls in there or not was not shown to me.

The main message was - You definitely don't want to go there... hard to explain in english - fearful stench maybe... I recoiled at the glimpse I got...
 
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To be accurate, I only saw the rim. Whether there were souls in there or not was not shown to me.

The main message was - You definitely don't want to go there... hard to explain in english - fearful stench maybe... I recoiled at the glimpse I got...

I don't deny the visions of hellish torment to which many have testified over the years (not all of them). However, the personal revelation I had was much more er standard scriptural - being shown amazing grace, true divine saving fatherly love, absolute power, seeing the truth of the error of my ways, humbled by forgiveness, changed heart and eyes to see. Much rejoicing!

So after momentary exposure to the perfect presence of God, baptism of fire and spirit - I can hardly go around threatening ppl with the torments of hell if they don't get with the pogrom, now can I?
 
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Carl Emerson

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I don't deny the visions of hellish torment to which many have testified over the years (not all of them). However, the personal revelation I had was much more er standard scriptural - being shown amazing grace, true divine saving fatherly love, absolute power, seeing the truth of the error of my ways, humbled by forgiveness, changed heart and eyes to see. Much rejoicing!

So after momentary exposure to the perfect presence of God, baptism of fire and spirit - I can hardly go around threatening ppl with the torments of hell if they don't get with the pogrom, now can I?

Yes I agree - I have had both...

Regarding the "return of the nations" - that to me is the believers who are from every nation tribe and language. There is death, judgement and thats it... no second chance, no refinement for the wicked. If this were not the case those who have suffered at their hand would have no ultimate justice.

This talk of 'eternal torture' is being attributed to God rather than being seen as a consequence of the refusal of love. imagine, if you can, being in the company of those who have no love, no respect, no interest in you, no mercy, just hatred, abuse, every evil thing.

The Bible repeatedly shows disastrous consequences for wickedness, and no hint of God planning to rehabilitate the damned. This is a human construct to avoid the appearance of having an evil God. But God is not evil, nor does He need our fabricated theories to make Him look OK.
 
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Yes I agree - I have had both...

Yes, many have 'looked into the abyss', some on multiple occasions sadly.

This talk of 'eternal torture' is being attributed to God rather than being seen as a consequence of the refusal of love.

Well, how do you deal with the words 'cast/ thrown into' the lake of fire in Rev 20:15? It is clearly a deliberate act of divine judgment. Sinners don't just drift into the lake.

imagine, if you can, being in the company of those who have no love, no respect, no interest in you, no mercy, just hatred, abuse, every evil thing.

Sure, it's like when one appears in court to defend the rights of the poor against an institutional adversary, like a bank or government agency. You're public enemy no.1. But keep in mind Jesus himself was in that very position. And he showed God's mighty hand - do your worst and I'll still save you.

The Bible repeatedly shows disastrous consequences for wickedness, and no hint of God planning to rehabilitate the damned.

Idk what you make of the atoning sacrifice of the Christ then. God overcomes evil with good. That's, if you like, His modus operandi, His schtick, His governance policy.

But God is not evil, nor does He need our fabricated theories to make Him look OK.

Well, He would be evil if He turfed everyone into a lake of fire set up in such a way to make them burn forever in hideous agony, all because they didn't 'love Him back'. That would be classic psychopathic narcissistic spiteful behaviour, my friend. Am I wrong?
 
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Carl Emerson

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Well, how do you deal with the words 'cast/ thrown into' the lake of fire in Rev 20:15? It is clearly a deliberate act of divine judgment. Sinners don't just drift into the lake.

God has destroying angels, we see them at work in the OT against wickedness. Thumb you nose at the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and things will not end well. It is His prerogative to Judge - not yours or mine.
Have you had a direct encounter with the Fear of the Lord? I was praying with friends and 'The Lord Passed By...' I was speechless for hours - an encounter like that changes you attitudes forever.

what you make of the atoning sacrifice of the Christ then. God overcomes evil with good. That's, if you like, His modus operandi, His schtick, His governance policy.

Repeatedly the atonement presented as available to all, but realised by those who believe and repent.

Well, He would be evil if He turfed everyone into a lake of fire set up in such a way to make them burn forever in hideous agony, all because they didn't 'love Him back'. That would be classic psychopathic narcissistic spiteful behaviour, my friend. Am I wrong?

Yes you are very wrong - You seem to have little grasp of what Holiness is with respect to sin. You choice of words indicate some disrespect for El Shaddai. Have you 'seen' the chasm between His Holiness and our so called righteousness? These things are an eternity apart.

You position certainly demands that God was amiss to rain down fire on the Sodomites.
 
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God has destroying angels, we see them at work in the OT against wickedness. Thumb you nose at the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and things will not end well. It is His prerogative to Judge - not yours or mine.

Agreed, somewhat. It's not a 'thumbing of nose', God stretches out His arm all day long to a stiffnecked and idolatrous people. Ok, ppl bring disaster upon themselves, most obviously the great flood, the Babylonian captivity, the Roman destruction of the 2nd temple, and on it goes. But this 'wrath of God' isn't the end of the story, it's a necessary destruction of the sinful parts in order to bring forth salvation/ restoration. God's judgments are always righteous - they may involve a painful process, but the purpose is to set right, not get even.

Have you had a direct encounter with the Fear of the Lord? I was praying with friends and 'The Lord Passed By...' I was speechless for hours - an encounter like that changes you attitudes forever.

To fear God is to hate evil. To not hate evil with a passion is to incur the wrath of God. To be handed over to the devil for the destruction of the flesh, for example.

Repeatedly the atonement presented as available to all, but realised by those who believe and repent.

And we simply affirm that ALL will believe and repent. Man's collective destiny is salvation. Behold, I make all things new.

Yes you are very wrong - You seem to have little grasp of what Holiness is with respect to sin. You choice of words indicate some disrespect for El Shaddai. Have you 'seen' the chasm between His Holiness and our so called righteousness? These things are an eternity apart.

Ah, you're one of those fellows who bizarrely equates holiness with eternal torment. I'm sorry sir, but that is simply untenable. The argument that to sin is against an infinite God and therefore warrants an infinite punishment is patently unsound. By that logic, anyone who's missed confessing any sin, no matter how trivial, deserves eternal punishment. There's nothing fair, just, condign or equitable about infinite punishment for any crime, no matter how you spin it. God's justice is perfect, not 1 size-fits-all.

You position certainly demands that God was amiss to rain down fire on the Sodomites.

No, but He'd be amiss in then waking them up just in order to consign them to eternal torture. That would be double-jeopardy, res judicata etc.

You might recall Jesus in Matt 10:15: Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.

He's not breathing out rabid threats that God will gleefully roast these unfriendly townsfolk over a slow flame as their comeuppance for rejecting the gospel. He's warning that's going to be painful for these heartless types to repent when they see the error of their ways. Really Carl, I'm smh.
 
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Carl Emerson

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Ah, you're one of those fellows who bizarrely equates holiness with eternal torment. I'm sorry sir, but that is simply untenable. The argument that to sin is against an infinite God and therefore warrants an infinite punishment is patently unsound. By that logic, anyone who's missed confessing any sin, no matter how trivial, deserves eternal punishment. There's nothing fair, just, condign or equitable about infinite punishment for any crime, no matter how you spin it. God's justice is perfect, not 1 size-fits-all.

Yes I should have withdrawn from the discussion when I intended to. (you are indeed a shrewd manager...)

You have no idea what kind of fellow I am.

Applying Logic to God is folly.

Please do not reply I am leaving the discussion.
 
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Yes I should have withdrawn from the discussion when I intended to. (you are indeed a shrewd manager...)

You have no idea what kind of fellow I am.

Applying Logic to God is folly.

Please do not reply I am leaving the discussion.

If I've misrepresented your view Carl I apologise. But there's no need to get huffy and cast aspersions.
 
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ClementofA

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Have you had a direct encounter with the Fear of the Lord? I was praying with friends and 'The Lord Passed By...' I was speechless for hours - an encounter like that changes you attitudes forever.

I have to question what lord that was from.

Many other people have had NDE where God is most welcoming & loving.
 
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Saint Steven

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You see, it is as if a common deckhand in the line of duty, during a raging storm, is swept off a great ocean liner into the foaming sea. The rescue party goes to work fast and before long the deckhand stands on his feet, the crowd gathered around him. He has been unconscious. He feels his clothes, and they have been changed. He feels his head, but a new brass cord trimmed cap is upon it. The deckhands who were his fellows stand to salute him, and in astonishment he asks why. The captain comes to him and calls him mate and the vessel rolls on while he assumes his newly gained place of authority next to the captain of the ship. He fell off a deckhand, he is rescued a mate! This is the way grace works. This is the "much more" abounding grace in Jesus Christ!

MUCH MORE! "Where sin did abound, grace did MUCH MORE abound!" You cannot understand God nor His language apart from it. Nor can you really fellowship deeply with the Father in prayer unless you understand HIM as being "much more" than. Nor can you understand what His Kingdom is, nor how it shall develop, nor His plan and purpose for the ages to come, unless you understand what "much more" means. If your hope is merely something for you, and the rest of the "little flock" of saints, and not "much more," then it is not from the heart of God but is a product of self. Listen! "The love of God is broader than the measures of man's mind; and the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind." "Much more" is something for HIM - yes, ALL for Him! Much more means abundance - MORE THAN ENOUGH.

Source: The Savior of the World, by J. Preston Eby
Kindgdom Bible Studies Savior of the World Series Part 1
 
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Carl Emerson

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I have to question what lord that was from.

Many other people have had NDE where God is most welcoming & loving.

The same Lord that rendered Paul blind for days.

He manifests in a variety of ways - not always a cuddly daddy.

Sorry I just realised I had withdrawn from this one...
 
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I have to question what lord that was from.

Many other people have had NDE where God is most welcoming & loving.


ClementofA - Sorry to intrude here. I tried to PM you, but you are set up not to take messages. My new book, A LAYMAN INVESTIGATES UNIVERSAL SALVATION, is almost ready to publish. Would you like to be one of the reviewers for my publishers?

Okay. . . back to our regularly scheduled programming.
 
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You see, it is as if a common deckhand in the line of duty, during a raging storm, is swept off a great ocean liner into the foaming sea. The rescue party goes to work fast and before long the deckhand stands on his feet, the crowd gathered around him. He has been unconscious. He feels his clothes, and they have been changed. He feels his head, but a new brass cord trimmed cap is upon it. The deckhands who were his fellows stand to salute him, and in astonishment he asks why. The captain comes to him and calls him mate and the vessel rolls on while he assumes his newly gained place of authority next to the captain of the ship. He fell off a deckhand, he is rescued a mate! This is the way grace works. This is the "much more" abounding grace in Jesus Christ!

MUCH MORE! "Where sin did abound, grace did MUCH MORE abound!" You cannot understand God nor His language apart from it. Nor can you really fellowship deeply with the Father in prayer unless you understand HIM as being "much more" than. Nor can you understand what His Kingdom is, nor how it shall develop, nor His plan and purpose for the ages to come, unless you understand what "much more" means. If your hope is merely something for you, and the rest of the "little flock" of saints, and not "much more," then it is not from the heart of God but is a product of self. Listen! "The love of God is broader than the measures of man's mind; and the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind." "Much more" is something for HIM - yes, ALL for Him! Much more means abundance - MORE THAN ENOUGH.

Source: The Savior of the World, by J. Preston Eby
Kindgdom Bible Studies Savior of the World Series Part 1
And what is this raging storm you propose God is working against? This force of nature from which He must rescue us, not simply by commanding the tumult to stop by through entering into our world and suffering at the hands of His creation? Why the dog and pony show of making us think there is a danger when none is present?
 
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You see, it is as if a common deckhand in the line of duty, during a raging storm, is swept off a great ocean liner into the foaming sea. The rescue party goes to work fast and before long the deckhand stands on his feet, the crowd gathered around him. He has been unconscious. He feels his clothes, and they have been changed. He feels his head, but a new brass cord trimmed cap is upon it. The deckhands who were his fellows stand to salute him, and in astonishment he asks why. The captain comes to him and calls him mate and the vessel rolls on while he assumes his newly gained place of authority next to the captain of the ship. He fell off a deckhand, he is rescued a mate! This is the way grace works. This is the "much more" abounding grace in Jesus Christ!

MUCH MORE! "Where sin did abound, grace did MUCH MORE abound!" You cannot understand God nor His language apart from it. Nor can you really fellowship deeply with the Father in prayer unless you understand HIM as being "much more" than. Nor can you understand what His Kingdom is, nor how it shall develop, nor His plan and purpose for the ages to come, unless you understand what "much more" means. If your hope is merely something for you, and the rest of the "little flock" of saints, and not "much more," then it is not from the heart of God but is a product of self. Listen! "The love of God is broader than the measures of man's mind; and the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind." "Much more" is something for HIM - yes, ALL for Him! Much more means abundance - MORE THAN ENOUGH.

Source: The Savior of the World, by J. Preston Eby
Kindgdom Bible Studies Savior of the World Series Part 1

"Real Christians" understand MUCH MORE, while the rest of us just wiggle in the dirt. They say.
 
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And what is this raging storm you propose God is working against? This force of nature from which He must rescue us, not simply by commanding the tumult to stop by through entering into our world and suffering at the hands of His creation? Why the dog and pony show of making us think there is a danger when none is present?

Why not head to the back of the boat, wake him up and ask him?

[spoiler alert!]

And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. (Mk 4:39)
 
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Saint Steven

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No one will dispute that SIN abounded, or that it overflowed, spilling out of Eden's fair garden and saturating the whole earth and all men. Abound means overflow - constantly filling and running over like a spring of water or an ocean wave. Ah, yes, sin overflowed, flowed all over, flooded the world, permeated the minds and temperaments and nature of all men everywhere, until the seed of Adam's disobedience has grown and increased through six long millenniums in the field of the world and has now come to horrible fullness. Wicked men and seducers are waxing worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. The grapes of wrath are not only ripe, but they are over-ripe, as the original implies in Rev. 14:15. The fullness of sin and death is such that no flesh could survive the desolation that lies ahead unless the Lord Himself were to cut the days short. We recognize this fact. Men in all walks of life recognize it. Men in high places recognize it. The hearts of men who know what the score is in this treacherous hour are failing them for fear, as they contemplate the things that are about to come upon the world in this generation.

Source: The Savior of the World, by J. Preston Eby
Kindgdom Bible Studies Savior of the World Series Part 1
 
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Saint Steven

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But what about the other seed that was cast into the earth, the second man, the last Adam, the OBEDIENT SON? Are we going to credit the disobedience of Adam with having more power and authority than the Christ? Are we going to infer that the law of sin and death has an even greater potential than the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus? Are we going to believe that the law of sin and death has the power and ability to stretch forth its poisonous tentacles into every area of mankind, to the complete perversion of body, soul, and spirit, and then at the same time draw back in unbelief at the revelation of the Word concerning the law of the Spirit of life (more abundant) in Christ Jesus? Five times in Romans 5 does the apostle Paul use the expression "Much more" relative to the POWER OF THE GRACE OF GOD, IN CONTRAST TO THE SIN OF ADAM. Shall we not believe that there is a greater and MUCH MORE potential in the redeeming grace of Christ, than there is in the law of sin and death? Is there not a MUCH MORE effectual working of the grace of God through the last Adam, than there was of the power of disobedience through the first Adam? In other words, are we going to honor the power of Adam and Satan ABOVE THE REDEEMING POWER OF CHRIST? Shall not the Christ redeem and restore every man that Adam's sin cursed, and make every one of them better men than Adam was? Is that not what MUCH MORE means?

Source: The Savior of the World, by J. Preston Eby
Kindgdom Bible Studies Savior of the World Series Part 1
 
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Getting back to the subject about hell, IMO there is a hell until after the final judgment, after which “death and hell are cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.” Revelation 20:14 IMO, the second death means no more life and no more suffering. Meanwhile the true faithful, those in the lamb’s book of life, will be in heaven forever. Based on Luke 16:22, the faithful will wait for eternal heaven in paradise. Also there might still be time for repentance for those in hell, before the final judgment.
 
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