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Justdodie
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Username: Justdodie

Post Number: 106
Registered: 2-2006


Posted on Tuesday, December 02, 2008 - 9:25 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

If you'd like to get just a small inkling of why I so eagerly devour anything I can lay my hands on which successfully refutes, repudiates, or invalidates the Christian teachings, please check out this web site.

http://www.tentmaker.org/articles/hells_fruit.html

This article consists of testimonies of so many frightened and desperate souls whose lives have been virtually ruined by the teaching of a 'loving God' who tortures non-believers in hell. These stories could be MY story--they ARE my story!

I'll just quote a small portion....

"I have suffered from severe anger and depression because of the teachings of an "eternal" hell and suffering. I also found myself unable to truly love or respect a god that could send anyone to such a place. It has been said also that "we send ourselves to hell" but how can that be, if God is totally sovereign and in total control?"

.....and I will add only that, regardless of what the 'ultimate truth' of the Universe turns out to be, I am comforted knowing that I will never be required to spend eternity with THAT 'God'. I know that many Christians are happy in their world, but I just can't live there. The truths I continue to find outside that world are the only ones that will ever set ME free!

Joyce N. Williams
Former Adventist

"Free at last! free at last! thank 'God Almighty,' I AM free at last!"
Colleentinker
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Username: Colleentinker

Post Number: 9088
Registered: 12-2003


Posted on Tuesday, December 02, 2008 - 11:16 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Joyce, I'll be very frank with you. You have been very frank with us, and you deserve the dignity of having your words taken seriously.

I believe you are double-minded. You clearly are in some internal conflict, wanting some sort of deep resolution on one hand, but resenting those of us who have quite literally had our deep anguish touched by the truth of Jesus and have repented of our rebellion, allowing Him to both forgive and discipline us.

You come here, I believe, for two compelling reasons. You know we understand your background, and one part of you longs for us to embrace you and understand you and give you our blessing to find your answers wherever you wish. I suspect that you know we deeply understand what you are experiencing, and even though we believe (in general as a group) that you are resisting truth, you also know that we actually do care about you. I believe the fact that you know we care and that we actually do understand you at a deep level is one reason you come here.

Attached to that sense of sharing something in common with us is the part of you that is drawn to what you know we have: a personal relationship with the Triune God. You are drawn at one level, but repelled at another.

This brings me to the second reason why I believe you are here. Simultaneously with being drawn to us and to what we offer, you also have a deep feeling of rebelliousness toward surrendering your own control and authority to that of One who is greater than you. In a sort of perverse way, you want us to be disillusioned. You want us to be proven wrong. You want us to be frightened of what and of Whom we believe. I believe you wish to undercut our faith and cause us to doubt.

You want us to join you, to affirm you by becoming what you are.

Joyce, we are here because we KNOW Jesus. He has changed us and made us alive. Our Father has transferred us from the domain of darkness to the kingdom of His beloved Son (Colossians 1:13). And quite bluntly, truth is ONLY found in the Almighty God. Truth is not in our own heads. It is revealed in the Word of God, and unless we are willing to put that truth into our own heads and allow it to replace the sophistry of our own reasoning, we are not ready to be psychologically or emotionally or spiritually well.

Right now, Joyce, you are point-blank refusing to look at truth. You are entitled to refuse truth, but you may not argue against it in this venue where people are honestly struggling to come to terms with reality after being steeped in the same warping, God-dishonoring heresy that you yourself grew up in.

I know that at some deep place you suspect and may even feel spams of occasional conviction that what we tell you is actually right. Yet your sense of control and authority over your own destiny is your top priority right now. Right now, in spite of your words that say you are personally suffering, you are not suffering enough to give Truth a shot.

We actually do feel deep compassion for you, Joyce--you know that we do. And you also know many of us are praying for you. I suspect that knowledge is at least somewhat annoying to you.

And no—the God we love is not cruel. He alone is just. He alone can and will justly mete out what every person should experience. We can actually release our anger to Him knowing that the Hitlers of this world will be dealt with justly. Those who have hurt you, Joyce, will also be justly dealt with.

You may not persist in blaspheming God on this venue—and you may not persist in attempting to persuade those who share your past to follow you into unbelief.

God has each of us in His hands, Joyce—and I know I can trust Him to continue to reach your heart. But with a real sense of love and sadness for you I must tell you that you can't badger this forum into arguments or God-dishonoring conversation. His Spirit is literally here with us, and we have dedicated this forum to Him for His purposes and glory.

Normally, Joyce, I would not post anything like this in response to a post like yours. I would deal with it differently. But you have a past with us, and you also have let us see your pain. Your pain, however, does not justify your destructive attempt to dishonor God and our faith in Him.

I continue to pray for you.

Colleen
River
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Username: River

Post Number: 3829
Registered: 9-2006


Posted on Wednesday, December 03, 2008 - 2:00 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Although the waters threaten to overflow me, I will yet praise my God.

Although the storms threaten to sweep me away, I will yet praise my God.

Although the way seems dark, I will yet praise my God.

He is merciful, full of kindness. so gentle, so loving.

He watches me while I sleep and he will not go away in the midnight hour.

He see's every tear drop that falls, he gathers them as precious jewels, I will yet praise my God.

He come to me in his moment of time and his glory is revealed in the desert.

Even now he comes, my Rose of Sharon, I see him in the distance, his loving kindness he brings to wipe away my tears.

I will bow on bended knee in praise to my God.
River
Toria
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Username: Toria

Post Number: 495
Registered: 2-2006


Posted on Wednesday, December 03, 2008 - 4:25 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

AMEN!
Peperpat
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Username: Peperpat

Post Number: 125
Registered: 7-2006
Posted on Wednesday, December 03, 2008 - 6:43 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I echo your Amen! Toria.
Esther
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Username: Esther

Post Number: 456
Registered: 5-2004
Posted on Wednesday, December 03, 2008 - 7:48 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I know this has already been said, but let me add my own "AMEN" !
Flyinglady
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Username: Flyinglady

Post Number: 6093
Registered: 3-2004


Posted on Wednesday, December 03, 2008 - 8:23 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Another AMEN from me.
Diana L
Gcfrankie
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Username: Gcfrankie

Post Number: 253
Registered: 1-2007
Posted on Wednesday, December 03, 2008 - 10:35 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

River,
Truer words were never spoken and all I can say is AMEN!
Gail
Psalm107v2
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Username: Psalm107v2

Post Number: 23
Registered: 10-2008
Posted on Wednesday, December 03, 2008 - 4:30 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

My heart goes out to you Justdodie. yes Hell is scary, yes it's difficult to wrap one's head around it but God didn't create Hell for you and for me, it was created for the Devil and his angels. By God's grace I don't have to go there. Even if hell was just a place of nothingness-a future without being in heaven with my God and Savior is hell because my life (work in progress that it is) without Jesus is nothing at best and hell on earth (like when I was an SDA) at worst
Flyinglady
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Username: Flyinglady

Post Number: 6096
Registered: 3-2004


Posted on Wednesday, December 03, 2008 - 4:36 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Joyce,
I have been thinking what I would like to say to you. I have told you that you remind me of my oldest sister. She is my half sister (we have the same Dad). My Mom did not love her step children (my sister and her younger brother)and mistreated them badly. Now my sister will have nothing to do with God, religion, or church. That is because of my Mom, being an SDA, and claiming to love God, mistreated two innocent children. I understand why my sister thinks the way she does.
I am praying for you as I do for my sister.
Diana L
Asurprise
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Username: Asurprise

Post Number: 559
Registered: 7-2007
Posted on Wednesday, December 03, 2008 - 9:01 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Joyce, I don't know what to believe about hell myself yet. But in any case, Jesus said that the severity of the punishment would depend on how bad the person was. See Luke 12:47,48. So as you can see God is just.

I still tend to lean toward the understanding of hell that I had as an Adventist. (Though, since they are wrong on nearly EVERYTHING, I'm not just taking their view of it. The Lord may teach me something different.) My reasoning is this. The words, "everlasting" and "forever" to human minds seem to mean to go on and on without ever stopping.
Abraham was given circumcision as a sign of an "everlasting covenant" (Gen. 17:13), but when Jesus died, circumcision was no longer required.
If a servant in Old Testament times decided not to go out free on the seventh year, but to stay and serve his master; his master was to pierce his ear and then the servant was to serve his master forever. (Exodus 21:6 Deut. 15:17) Obviously, there isn't slavery in Heaven, so "forever" must have meant until death.

Anyway in each of these cases, death ended the "forever." Now, I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that hell could go on "forever" in the same way - until the death of each being in it.
In any case, Jesus said there are degrees of punishment, depending on the evil of the individual. (Luke 12:47,48)

Joyce; once you got to that judgment: if you found that eternal death followed a time of punishing, depending on how bad a person was; wouldn't you be embarrassed??? I mean, turning away from God for something that turned out not to be true?? Satan is trying HARD to keep people decieved with whatever he can deceive them with. For Adventists, it's getting through the investigative judgment and getting the Sabbath stuck firmly to their foreheads. For those comfortable with a soothing belief system, he leaves those alone! He doesn't want them searching and finding the Lord!!! For those living in a wrongness that they don't want to turn over to the Lord, Satan tempts them to think they can't trust the Lord to give them something better than the wrongness that they want to hang onto.

Anyway whichever way hell is: remember, Jesus DID say there would be degrees of punishment. God is just, as well as loving.
Akweavers
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Username: Akweavers

Post Number: 80
Registered: 8-2008
Posted on Thursday, December 04, 2008 - 1:40 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I don't know about hell either. I do know that since I have excepted Jesus as my Savior that I won't be there. Do we go to heaven when we die? Do we have to know these things? It is the human in us that thinks we have to know and understand everything. Then, if in our way of reasoning it doesn't make sense, we just shake our heads and say..ahh it's all a load of ...I think we have to get past the idea that we have to understand and it has to fit our way of thinking. We can never think like God so why try. We have to to say, "Well, makes no sense to me but He is God. I know He is fair and he cares or He would not have sent His Son to die for us. So I ain't worrying about the details. He will get it right and it will be fair and I do NOT have to pretend that in my human mind I can ever have a better plan then He does". Otherwise, we might very well wrestle the scriptures to our own destruction.
This is how I let go of stuff that "seems" to make no sense.
River
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Username: River

Post Number: 3832
Registered: 9-2006


Posted on Thursday, December 04, 2008 - 7:58 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The cross is a perfect example of Gods love and justice.

If you study the vicarious substitutionary theory, then you will understand.

The Adventist seems to have gotten a mixture of two incomplete theories.

1. Ransom to Satan Theory.
2. Moral example theory.
Both wrong because they are both incomplete.
The unbeliever will not suffer eternity in hell because of one sin.
He will suffer because of perpetual unbelief, perpetually shaking his fist at God.
Why should a person become believer in hell? If he won’t believe here he won’t believe there.
I believe it was Spurgen (Spurgon?) who said that the doors of hell will be locked from the inside.

What better example do you need than what Joyce has just written?
I quote “.....and I will add only that, regardless of what the 'ultimate truth' of the Universe turns out to be, I am comforted knowing that I will never be required to spend eternity with THAT 'God'. I know that many Christians are happy in their world, but I just can't live there. The truths I continue to find outside that world are the only ones that will ever set ME free!

There is a thing about the vicarious substitution theory. It says that even though Jesus died for the sins of the world, it is not blanket coverage of all the world, it says that you must accept his atonement.

Unlike the governmental theory of atonement it says that Christ died for your sins specifically, each and every one of them, it takes into account Gods righteousness, his justice. We are justified only through him and not anything we can do.

It is my own opinion that the reason many former’s cannot accept the fact that there exist an eternal hell is that they have lived so long under the moral example theory or a mixture of the two I mentioned. Just my thought’s on it, not blame placing.

I just have to keep saying this, we are all at some place of spiritual understanding of the Bible, don’t mean that we are not saved, don’t mean that we are heretics it just means what I said, we at different levels of spiritual understanding. The thing that makes us different from heretics is that we do not refuse the knowledge offered as we grow. Gimme another hunk of meat if you don’t agree with what I just said, I wanna grow up to be a Jesus and us kid. :-) Or more specifically, a Jesus kid.
River
Jrt
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Username: Jrt

Post Number: 41
Registered: 10-2008
Posted on Thursday, December 04, 2008 - 11:25 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

A Jesus' kid --- me too, River. . .

I am one that feels like I'm on milk right now . . . I'm attending a "new believer" group at a "Sunday" church pastor's home . . . Funny, "new believer" . . . I've believed in Jesus' all my life, but now that I'm stepping out of Adventism - I'm a "new believer" - it is true . . . Anyways, I thought I had finally gotten a grasp of salvation when the last time this "new believer" group met . . . well, I felt a little shaken again . . . won't go into it, because it is the Arminian/Calvinism thing . . . anyways, the pastor's wife said something that brought me back to ground again . . . she said, Sometimes we can get all caught up in what all the different scriptures say and it can seem confusing, I just return back to the scripture text, "accept you become as little children - you will never enter the kingdom of God" . . . When she said that, my internal "shaking" subsided . . . I need to trust as a small child would. . . I want to be a Jesus' kid, too :-).

JRT
River
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Username: River

Post Number: 3833
Registered: 9-2006


Posted on Thursday, December 04, 2008 - 12:56 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I exactly what you mean JrT, I am constantly learning and I see something most every day that I didn't see before. I go from milk to meat and from meat to milk. The Calvin and the Arminians each have their scripture, I suppose I lean toward a Calvinist more than Arminian, but when it comes to push and shove I go back to this "Lord I am thankful for the salvation you have given me" I love to study theology with good theologians throwing out all sides, their strengths and their weakness.

When you study Calvinism, some Calvinist believe in double predestination and it really gets wild.

So when they throw all that at you just bring it back to the fact that it was Jesus brought you salvation, not theology. I'm a Jesus kid first and a theologian second.

You hang in there, there is a time and place to study theology and it's time to give God his praise and glory all the time.

Nothing pulls me out of a funk quicker than just beginning to praise the Lord for saving a wretch like me and if you knew my story you would know the true meaning of wretch.

You hang in there we are all pulling for you.

River
Colleentinker
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Username: Colleentinker

Post Number: 9095
Registered: 12-2003


Posted on Thursday, December 04, 2008 - 4:18 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

River, great insights; thank you.

Jrt, I understand. I so remember feeling like a baby Christian when we began attending Trinity--and I'm glad your pastor's wife grounded you in the truth! Indeed, if we cling to Jesus, these other issues fall into place. We will always hold certain truths in tension because our limited view does not allow us to see ALL reality. We aren't supposed to be able to make a mathematical formula to explain God and His ways.

The Bible tells the truth; the Holy Spirit reveals it to us. We can trust Him, and we can trust Him to continue to teach us as long as we live. We never unlock all the mysteries of God—but miraculously, He gives us the ability to KNOW Him. How amazing is that?!

Colleen
Flyinglady
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Username: Flyinglady

Post Number: 6099
Registered: 3-2004


Posted on Thursday, December 04, 2008 - 4:33 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

It amazes me that God gives us the ability to KNOW Him. On the other hand I do not understand the love He has for us. I do not understand the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But I do know God and for that I am so thankful.
Diana L
Jrt
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Username: Jrt

Post Number: 42
Registered: 10-2008
Posted on Thursday, December 04, 2008 - 6:04 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Thanks for the encouragement River and Colleen . . . I don't know if this will make sense but . . . in Adventism I felt like everything was wrapped up and given to me in a tightly bundled explanation . . . now, . . . I'm learning to live in the tension of scripture . . . it isn't as neatly wrapped up . . . . Let me see if I can give a "visual" . . . you know how some magazines give a picture of a perfectly wrapped package- i.e. bow is in perfect proportions, paper is tightly cornered, etc. . . . that is how I felt with Adventism . . . now I feel more like a four year old that is learning to wrap a Christmas package for the first time . . . (you all know how little kids presents look when they wrap them themselves), corners partly untucked, bows in disaray . . . Glad Jesus isn't so concerned that my understanding is a perfectly wrapped bundle . . .

River, I've never heard of double predestination . . . but I had finally grasped the not having to worry or wonder if I was saved or not, but then the pastor (he leans towards Calvinism) started talking about difficult texts and Heb. 6 (probably trying to show 'the other side' of understanding salvation) and then the group mentioned you needed genuine faith . . . and I started worrying whether I had "genuine" faith - what is that? . . . but the becoming like a little child - the pastor's wife mentioned . . . yeh, I could get that . . . :-)

JRT
Colleentinker
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Username: Colleentinker

Post Number: 9098
Registered: 12-2003


Posted on Thursday, December 04, 2008 - 11:12 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Jrt, genuine faith is what you have when you believe in Jesus and are born of the Spirit. Ephesians 2:8-9: "It is by grace we are saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast."

You don't need to worry whether or not you have genuine faith if you know Jesus. When you follow Him no matter the cost, when you are willing to go where He leads and to give up everything He asks for the sake of integrity and truth and loyalty to Him, you HAVE genuine faith.

God gives us faith; we don't generate it ourselves. And anyone who is willing to sacrifice what they know and are for the sake of being true to Jesus and to embracing truth is operating from genuine faith. It's not possible to give up everything you know in the interest of integrity and obedience to truth unless one has genuine faith.

Yes, the faith of a little child is that same faith. It's trusting One who is greater than you for your security and provision and for your identity and value.

Colleen
Jrt
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Username: Jrt

Post Number: 43
Registered: 10-2008
Posted on Friday, December 05, 2008 - 2:51 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Colleen,
May I ask one more question . . . (By the way, I appreciate what you've written above on faith/genuine faith) . . . The pastor was using the example of the parable of the sower and the seed . . . and likening it to salvation . . . Matt. 13:20 - the discussion was that some think they have salvation - but they don't ---- like in Matt. 7:21-23 . . . and using the parable of the sower . . . How the cares of this world can choke the plant out . . . and other things and only the seed that was grounded deep stayed 'secure'.

For myself, I've lived all my life in "fear' that I would lose my salvation. I know that understanding was based in a "works" modality, because of Adventism. So when I finally got 1 John 5: 11-13 that it is knowing the Son, I felt so relieved - so grateful - can't even put words to it. And the understanding that I can't save myself - it truly is a gift - that I am chosen . . .

The parable of the sower - seemed to indicate that you could lose salvation (at least that is how I was 'hearing' the discussion) . . . and so I felt like I had just grasped a wonderful "truth" and now I was being told/shown something different. The whole qualifier of genuine faith threw me off . . . I know that in Calvinism the belief is you can't lose your salvation once the Lord has drawn you to Himself . . . Arminism says, you can lose, by losing faith . . . I don't want to get into "that" discussion . . . It was the parable of the sower and the phrase "genuine faith" that as I said threw me. And I'm sure the enemy was hounding me, because thoughts crossed my mind. . . this is no better than Adventism - if I jump back into 'fear' of losing salvation again. .

What is your understanding of the parable of the sower and the seed in Matt. 13:20- ? And again, I'm not really wanting to open the Calvinism/Arminian debate . . . I just really want my understanding to be grounded deep . . . the pastor also used a text in Heb. 6:4-6 . . . His statement was, "Not all those who profess faith are truly saved".

Struggling just a bit,
JRT
P.S. I did "get" your definition of genuine faith above . . . now I'm asking about the parable of the sower and Heb. 6:4-6.

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