“How could God send anybody to Hell”…study

On we go… 🙂

Today many people joke about hell or consider it a nightmare left over form the Dark Ages. They ask how God could allow such a place. How could he send people there and still be moral? The idea of hell is so gut-wrenching that we almost can’t think of it. We might begin by remembering that our feelings about God and hell have nothing to do with what is true.

Hell is the place and state of final punishment for the wicked, those forever separated from God and his glory and the hope and joy and life he gives. God did not make hell for humans but for Satan and his angels (Matthew 25:41). Humans go there as the result of rejecting God, expressing their persistent desire to avoid Him. He grants their wish, deporting them to the place of their dreams–absence from him, the central aspect of hell (2 thessalonians 1:9).

Having just stood before his judgment, seeing his indescribable glory, then being banished from his presence, teh lost soul’s las memory prior to hell is God and everything good. Hell’s inhabitant suffers physical and mental anguish, knowing he’s forever in that miserable state. He will hopelessly grieve and regret forever what he missed by rejecting God and his merciful plan of escape.

I believe we miss the point when we say, "God sends people to hell." But isn’t he involved with their eternal destiny? Of course, but by a life of rejecting God and his salvation, people choose their own separation from him. In effect, they get what they wanted by refusing God. In fact, wouldn’t haven be hell for those who hate God? What is God to do, force them to choose him even though they don’t want him? Perhaps it’s an act of grace that God allows them a special place where they can hate him to their heart’s content.

But why is hell required at all? The answer lies in the nature of God. Most of what we hear of God today is that he is love. And he is! Far more loving than we imagine or understand. But God is also just, and his justice demands reward and punishment. He will balance the scales of his perfect justice even though it takes eternity to do so. His very nature requires sin to be paid for, or he wouldn’t be God.

Amazingly, God provided the payment himself–his own son, Jesus Christ. God poured out his righteous wrath on Christ while he was dying on the cross. What inconceivable love! But hell is available for those who refuse God’s payment and with to pay it themselves. He prefers that they not (2 peter 3:9), but he allows them to if they want.

God is gracious to everyone for eternity. He supplies exactly what they desire, a place suited for those who want him–heaven; and a place suited for those who don’t–hell. Our not liking the notion of hell doesn’t mean we can nullify God’s justice or prevent him from making a perfect place for those who hate him.

Ahhh, God’s love….geez. As i was reading over this entry i was imagining having kids of my own someday….i can’t imagine sacrificing my kid for somebody else. It’s just inconceivable…..God’s love…ya good stuff.

Serenitys Peace

June 25, 2005

I just read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I’ve seen the cartoon movie. Good book. intersting entries, but I think you should comment more…elaborate…i dunno…don’t listen to me..i’m never on here to read anyways…love you, miss you 🙂

Hisgrace

June 26, 2005

God’s peace be with you as you grow in the fullness of Him. Only as we become nothing, humbled as He, even unto death, does He become All in All by His Spirit. ((((hugs in Christ))))

June 27, 2005

Thanks for your notes. Re. your questions, ask the Spirit to reveal to you who the Church of Christ is. Find some of my previous entries – on ‘who is the real church’, they may help. The True Church is the Spiritual Body of Christ – you are correct. All those who have been reunited with Christ our Lord by belief, repentance, and rebirth in the new life – with the Holy Spirit – Christ Himself,

indwelling us, coming to live and breathe within us. “I was crucified with Christ – it is no longer I who live , but Christ who lives within me”. These are the spiritual children of God. Unfortunately, there are some who have only religion, and have never truly believed and received His life. And there are many who are in the Body, but are struggling under the Old Covenant of legal bondage,

not understanding what the law of grace is. It is Christ who now indwells us, and gives us the life and power to live the Christian life. It is about death, so that resurrection life can come. The death of self. While we are walking in self-effort, ‘self’ is still assuming the throne, and Christ cannot be All in All. As we become nothing, and are humbled (through trials) and die to ‘self’ He

becomes All. Whatever is not of the Spirit, is of the flesh. This includes the religious spirit, which is the Spirit of the pharisees. Only a man be humbled can he be exalted. Look at Christ…when He is living within us, as He spoke, and felt, and lived, we shall become more and more Christlike by His grace, saying and truly coming to realize ‘without Him we can do nothing’. As we see the darknes

of self/sin/flesh/me,myself, and I, we will come to understand the power and grace of our God as He lives and breathes within us delivering us from the power of sin, moment by moment. Look at the Apostle Paul, all he experienced and teaches is the perfect example. This man was ‘perfect’ in religion, and then after receiving the spirit, all that ‘stuff’ about himself he thought meant something

,that men taught him meant something, he realized was as nothing, as ‘dung’…only the Cross, the Spirit of the Cross, the Spirit of the resurrected life of Christ living within Him, the grace and power of the living God within, uniting Him with God, which was All in All. This grace, this Spirit is life, will give life, will teach life, will renew life, will be All in All, and unites us eternally.

arwen_adora

June 30, 2005

powerful!