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posted by B. W. Melvin | Sunday, October 08, 2006
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In the opinion of many eternal death means a state of nothingness and punishment is seen as flames meant to destroy into a state of non-existence, yet the flames of punishment remain eternal? Why would flames be forever burning up nothingness? What point would God have in that?
Punishment is just recompense – what a person’s sow’s that they will also reap the bible tells us. Eternal punishment is just recompense – what a person’s sow’s that they will also reap meaning it is eternal. The wages of sin is death but does this death involve non-existence or eternal punishment?
Many find the thought of a loving God sending one off into eternal punishment as a little too harsh and unfair. So they have reasoned that eternal punishment no longer means eternal recompense but rather eternal non-existence. They base this claim on that God can do anything and nothing is impossible for God, so he can blast off a person into the the eternal flames of nothingness.
Yes, God can do anything he wants as nothing is impossible with God. Could God make that proverbial rock He cannot pick up, which would prove God cannot do all things? This analogy describes how Satan works trying to make God do an impossible demand. Yes God can blast one off into non-existence but would this be one of those rocks He cannot pick up?
God is a God of the living – not the DEAD. Yes people do die in mortal life but they do continue in the afterlife as God made man in His Image and Likeness and placed eternity within our hearts. So for God to extinguish life into non-existence extinguishes His gift of life to men and women. The gifts and callings of God are without repentance. Whatever God does is forever. We have His word on this.
God will not renege on that Gift. God promises to keep his word no matter what. The only limits God has are those He imposes upon Himself. He does so to ensare the wicked who spend time tempting and testing God daring that He make that impossible rock to pick up. God keeps his word as this proves that He is a God of Character and also this defines as well as proves what all powerful truly means. God keeps His word and will perform it. He will not take life and extinguish it into a state of non-existence.
Instead he gives eternal recompense and grants those that do not want God, or hate God, or deny God, or do not want to retain the knowledge of God a place as they so desire – a place banished and separated from God. A place where what they sow – they will reap. Since there is no non-existence – justice does have consequences.
Also, if one were permitted into heaven after a temporary affliction in Hell, they would learn to view punishment as temporary and can sin and rebel in heaven as there would be no true justice. Likewise, if death is non-existence then God reneges on life, as well as on His word, His gift. God’s justice and judgment then has no real consequences and you have proved the proverbail rock true
Thoughts on Acts 2:23
My position on Acts 2:23 is aptly expressed by Robert A. Peterson discourse in the book, Hell under Fire, page 160 HB - Concerning Acts 2:23.
Quote, “At one and the same time Jesus’ crucifixion filled God’s plan and was the greatest crime ever perpetrated! The tension between God’s sovereignty and human freedom displayed in the Cross is in indeed mysterious. To tamper with either aspect produces terrible results. To deny human responsibility transforms the perpetrators into God’s servants who do good when they crucify the Son of God. To minimize divine sovereignty transforms the cross into an emergency measure of God. Such transformations are wrong in the extreme. Inscrutably the Cross is both God’s will, without tarnishing Him with evil and culpable deed of evil doers, without making them puppets whose strings are pulled by God.” End quote.
Again Peterson writes on page 161 regarding comment on Revelations 20:10-15 quote, “…it would be incorrect to conclude from this that scripture chiefly assigns the reason people perish to God’s sovereign will. Instead the accent is on misused human freedom, as both the Old and New Testament consistently proclaim that God will judge sinners according to their deeds.” End quote.
The following scripture references are given, Psalms 62:12, Ezekiel 7:27, Hosea 4:9, Zechariah 1:6, Matthew 16:27, Romans 2:8-9, Galatians 6:7-8, Revelations 20:13.
Again Peterson states on page 162 after the above scripture quotes, “Passage after passage points to a holy and just God who gives sinners what they deserve. Judgment is according to deeds, or more precisely, according thoughts – I Corinthians 4:5, words – Matthew 12:36 – and deeds - Revelations 20:13. Those whose lives are characterized by evil thoughts, words, and deeds reap God’s wrath. When one inquires of the judgment passages why sinners end up in hell, Scripture repeatedly shouts the answer: corrupted human freedom and evil deeds.” End quote.
As I understand Calvinistic Hard Determinism, it denies human responsibility and transforms the perpetrators of the crucifixion into God’s servants who do good when they crucify the Son of God as well as assigns the full weight of God’s election on God specifically selecting and making sinners sin and not on a holy and just God who gives sinners what they deserve. This produces great theological error.
God’s predetermined counsel and foreknowledge was that Jesus would be that offering for sin. God worked through people by placing them at that specific time foreknowing more about them than we can humanly comprehend, Psalms 33:15, Job 34:11 and set things and events in motion by simply mixing people together.
The best I can say is for the readers to explore the methods God uses to carry out his sovereign plans. It is much like chemistry. You mix chemicals together you get a reaction. The same chemicals mixed will always produce the same reaction. The reactions itself is a chain of events leading to a conclusive result.
In the criminal justice system in the United States there is documented proof of criminal acts committed by two or more people. If these people remained apart, never have met, they would have never committed any horrible crime. However, put these people together, they feed off each other and they jointly commit a crime of their own free volition as what was truly inside their hearts and minds becomes known by the act they committed.
Add in another element into the mix, say someone innocent coming along, you’ll get a specific reaction, a string of events occurring like a chemical chain reaction, and the crime is committed. This leaves the guilt of the sin, or crime, as the individuals own.
God’s method at the Cross was to draw sinners together to perform God’s predetermined counsel and foreknowledge that Jesus would be the sin offering, the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world to forgive sins and reconcile believing humanity back to God as God said would happen. Jesus was the agent that would stop the chain reaction of sin from producing its predicable results.
Thus you can rightly say that human responsibility and God’s sovereignty met at the cross and were reconciled. As Peterson quoted - “Inscrutably the Cross is both God’s will, without tarnishing Him with evil and culpable deed of evil doers, without making them puppets whose strings are pulled by God.” End quote from, Hell under Fire, page 160 HB, Zondervan.
North Korea
The actions of North Korea have set a sad tone for the fate of humanity. During the 1990's I felt deep fear when the Clinton administration gave a green light to North Korea to build their Nuclear Light Water Reactors. This was touted under the guise that these were to be used only for peaceful purposes.
How can you trust evil to behave and be good? Evil taunts and cries that its rights are always violated. It seeks to use the words of good intentions as avenues to gain advantage. Evil seeks to manipulate in order to dominate. Evil cannot be appeased or placated. Diplomacy with good intentions fails in the face of evil because such diplomacy cannot decipher it is being had.
We have been had. North Korea tested a bomb. It exploded. The repercussive fallout from this remains to be seen. Peace cannot coexist with evil as evil seeks to exploit the desire for peace for rougeful gain. Under these conditions what course is left for good to do? The cost to the world is much more than it cost to aid North Korea in building its Reactor. Was worth it?
For those so Inclined not to believe in Eternal Punishment’s Recompense:
There are many scriptures that point out that we were designed to live forever after we die. Ecclesiastes 3:11 shares this but those who are so inclined not to believe will change its meaning to fit their doctrine. If I show that Ecclesiastes 3:14 states that whatever God does He does forever those so inclined would flavor its meaning to their taste.
If I then point out Genesis 1:26-27 that God made man in his image and likeness and through sin that image lost, stained, defiled those so inclined would come up with some reason why that can’t be true, living forever – in eternal punishment for this because God placed eternity in ones heart and holds them too account for what they did in mortal life due to sin, mortality fleeting however it may be – preposterous! They would cry! Unfair! Unjust! Unloving! It can’t be as our enlightened human intellect can’t discover a logical rhyme or reason why God would punish eternally. The scriptures must be wrong and our intelligent reasoning’s must be right.
Again, if I point out Matthew 22:32 that God is a God of the living and not the dead in the light that what God does is forever, those so inclined will change the meaning of the text to suit their taste. If I share in light of Ecclesiastes 3:14 Luke 16:23 those so inclined will refuse to hear as Luke 16:31 is true indeed.
If I show that in Deuteronomy 5:11 that God will not hold one guiltless for taking his name in vain and in the light of Ecclesiastes 3:14 what does this mean to those so inclined to disbelieve? Psalms 7:9-16 would mean nothing to them as they would simply explain away that verse 16 cannot mean that this could last forever.
No matter what proof text is used, those so inclined will not be convinced of the truth Jesus that spoke in Matthew 25:46, Luke 12:4-5, and what Psalms 9:17 proclaims within the illumination of Ecclesiastes 3:14. Those so inclined would poo-poo the message and use reason on loan from Plato to discredit the truth.
Does such wisdom show respect for God and his word? What would it take for them to believe as nothing from the bible will ever be proof enough to show that there is eternal recompense to those so inclined not to believe eternal recompense true.
Haunting Memories Still:
What can I say? Memories still haunt me 26 years later. The other day I was in a store with my wife. Its square shape caused a mental flash back. There I was back in a terrible place seeing things I can never forget all in a split second of time.
I remember well, in the hospital they told me my blood was congealed. Estimated time I was gone for this to occur would have take about four hours. I was found in my bedroom. Breath laboriously returned and so did the pain. Whoever found me brought me in. Wires taped to my chest, heart monitor pinging, IV tubes hooked into my arms, doctors and nurses coming and going.
Why was I alive? What right did I have to return? I still feel guilt for surviving, even today. I did not deserve the mercy I experienced – none. I always wondered why this happen me. Who would ever believe me if I told them?
For years I remained quiet about it, spending my time pacing back and forth in my house and waking up from nightmares. They say war veterans never forget the things they saw and remember experiences as though they were yesterday. I understand what they mean.
I came to Christ because of a nightmare. Why did you bring me back is a prayer someday I hope to have answered. Some people I know wish I never came back, maybe even some of you. Back then, 26 years ago, I was an atheist and never believed in God, the devil, heaven or hell. It didn’t matter.
It does not matter. Reality cannot be denied. Standing before judgment, the thoughts and intents of ones heart fully exposed, clothed yet naked, nothing concealed. Realizing and seeing how I lived my life held no comfort. Revelations of insightful truths about God and why’s explained in manners so profound to fathom completely. Becoming aware of how perfect God is and for a brief glimpse seeing the wonder of who He is without ever seeing His face.
The awful realization that my life denied Christ dawned upon me clear that day, long ago. If only I had another chance to be reconciled but at that moment – impossible. If allowed into a glorious land, I would pollute and defile it. Eternity is real. No death after one dies. No sweat sleep to forget. Only a realization of God and who He is and forever will be: Majesty! Spender! Purity! Glory! Awesome! Powerful! Holy! Righteous! Just! Wise! Fair! Penetrating! Consuming!
26 years ago back then, I forsook God. Standing before Glory it was made clear to me if I was allowed to continue unchanged – throughout eternity I would remain that way because God is perfect in all His ways. True to Himself is He. He gives life and the Lord will not steal it away. Instead accountable to God alone and alone you’ll stand facing a new reality. Everything exposed. You come to an understanding that a place of restraint is necessary because of God and find yourself hurled there due to love.
To be rejected by love is pain indeed. Realizing how you reject true pure love by how you lived life with disdain towards the one that truly loves is agony. In an act of profound love, you are granted a place you desired as evidence and made absolutely clear by your very life course: a land without God and His love, banished forever from these. What you really desired now made obvious. There, a new reality rings clear; what you sow, you will reap in many varied degrees.
It is a place of shadows, weeping, gnashing of teeth, cries, shrieks, hideous laughter, a hot wide broad dusty road traversed with odd beings: a land that is hot, cold, dry, sulfurous, smells of rotting life, old roses, linseed oil, and fleshly decay. A domain of fire, pale yellowish light; it is a circle with cells or cubes pressed within its walls, inside each a person trapped in their own nightmares and scenes once lived in life: recompense. Some suffer more than others all in just degrees way too hard to explain to the human ear unaccustomed to sights unseen.
What is made clear – eternity is real – you were designed for life that can’t be stole. If you remain as you are unchecked, unredeemed, in eternity you would continue to spread it around. A place of just restraint was thus made. Once placed there, you will never be able to return and the reason why is made so clear that acceptance comes willingly.
Why would God allow such a place as this? The human mind rejects the notions that it could ever be. That God designed it as a place to restrain. You see, the majesty of God so fair, so right, so pure, so just, that He will not steal back what He gave, life, but seeks voluntary love returned – not coerced. He is fair and just beyond compare. None are like the Lord.
He will permit woe and sin and rebellion and holds it to account. It is part of His plan to remove dross for the purity to come. Only His purity shared will seal and redeem. Those that reject His gift, He grants them just recompense. The Lord rejects them that reject Him and loves those that love Him. With those He loves He imparts purity and cleansing divine so forever one may abide forever without rebellions decrees ever occurring again.
Those that reject will always reject, as that is how righteous and fair and just God is; He will not steal nor take life’s gift away in a blinding flash of nothingness. That is how Grand God is. Though He can, He will not extinguish as He remains true to Himself, a God of the living and not the dead. One long ago knew this, iniquity was conceived and rebellion was born and for a short time gotten away with. Dross removed so purity will remain, all in the due course of time.
After all these years, I still cannot find the right words to describe this. Poetic discourse fails - bluntness too. After all, who would believe my account? How many would argue that it is not true? Why did it happen? I know not. It did and its mystery still haunts my mind.
I remember well, standing in a horrible fix. Both diabolically beautiful and ghastly beings began to rush me in order to place me inside a fate I deserved. Then they cowered and ran away as someone grabbed me from behind lifting me with a force of grace, power, and love indescribable. I was carried out of that place, held fast; He should have dropped me and left me there. I deserved no better.
He did not. I wept on his shoulder such tears. As He carried me form the shoulders and from the bend of my knees, I noticed the ugly gnashes in his wrist, holes they were, you could see how the bones of the wrist had been pulled apart as if by a great weight. I will always remember this part and continue to ask why, why did you do this for me? Why? Why? Why?
A sound, a sight, a smell, and it all comes back, hauntingly real leaving more questions than answers. Who would ever believe one really returned from the land of the living dead? For that matter would anyone really care? I am a no-body. This should have happened to someone famous as the world would listen and the media would become a circus. But to me? Who cares? Who would believe, certainly not those so inclined to dogmatic prejudice.
Now you know my story and why I know that Hell is real and eternal and nothing anyone can say will ever change my mind: I was there and only by God’s mercy and grace, I returned. Laugh scoff, mock, make fun, it matters not. I know the truth that you seek. For years I have kept this quiet and yet made it known as the Lord permits. Maybe I should no longer speak about it or maybe instead shout from the house tops God’s love sublime.
God Bless You All!
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