Thank you for this video and for your ministry, Octavio. This video is a pastoral challenge intended, I think, to encourage us (1) toward more humility regarding what we can know (and what we cannot know) about the last things, and (2) toward more coherent, consistent belief. Fellow subscribers to your channel who want to know more about the issues and options regarding beliefs on this topic may find this resource, recommended by Iain Provan, helpful: Sprinkle, Preston M., ed. 2016. Four Views on Hell. Second Edition. Counterpoints: Bible and Theology. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan. Hope this helps. Keep up the good work!
Hey, thanks! You definitely got what I was going for: HUMILITY, tons and tons of HUMILITY whenever we talk about the afterlife and who will go where; that is what I ask for. Cheers my friend
You make some interesting points. I will say that though you have some reasonings, the God you presented seems to only show one side of Himself. Jesus presented the prodigal son as a story of someone who had rejected God and His teachings. It was through the repentance and faith that he finally showed toward his father that we see the son reunited with the father and blessed beyond measure. That being said, you mentioned "Would the Jesus revealed in the gospels really create such a place?" and the answer would be yes, because Jesus even mentioned the story of the rich man and Lazarus. All of Revelation speaks of God's judgement of unbelieving mankind, and the Lamb is the one that initiates the judgements. God told Noah to build an Ark, and Hebrews tells us that Noah was a preacher of righteousness, he would have preached what God had told him. But no-one believed him of the impending judgment that was coming. The answer would be that God does judge mankind. The words of Christ on the Cross was that "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." That was for their immediate actions that they were doing (crucifying Christ), disciples had left and forsaken Christ also at that point.
I am sorry my friend, but you are in error here. You are assuming that every human being is a son or daughter of God which is not the case. Only those who receive Him and believed in his name are children of God (John 1:12). Of course you would not give capital punishment to your children. As a matter of fact, the Bible guarantees that those who are in Jesus are not condemn (Romans 8:1). However the condition here is that you have to believe. If you do not believe you are condemned because you did not believe (John 3:18). All sin leads to death (James 1:15). And sin is doing anything that is against the Law (1 John 3:4). This is not limited to lying or stealing, but even sins committed in the comfort of your own mind (Matthew 5:28). So yes, hell does say something about the character of God. It says that God is just. He cannot sacrifice justice for the sake of mercy. But you are also right, he is also merciful and he cannot sacrifice his mercy for the sake of justice. This is the reason for Jesus. In Jesus, justice is served and mercy is demonstrated, all at the same time. The analogy of the airport serves the biblical concept better by saying that the airline offered free tickets for everyone. They had thousands of planes and could fit the entire population. However, people heard the news reports, read the reports in the newspaper, read about the free offer on twiter, and saw commercials about it on youtube and facebook. But only a few paid it any attention. Only a few actually packed their bags and went to the airport. The ones at the airport are the ones that believed, and airline choose seats for each one of those people who were at the airport. They were the only ones given tickets because they were the only ones that showed up. I apologize for this long epistle LOL. I do appreciate your videos and I will keep watching. God bless brother
I think you are wrong and you have cherry picked verses out of context. Humans are his children if he did created us on his image because of love and for his glory. Every human being is his indirect child. (Gen 1:27, Mal 2:10, Psalm 139:13-16) You are confusing creational relationship (universal) with covenant relationship (faith-based). You simply ignore parental love persistence. Isaiah 63:16 - “For you are our father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us; you, O Lord, are our father" - God always had parental relationship with Israel even they sinned. Look at the prodigal son parable (Luke 15:11-32) Son remains son even he is rebellious, distant, unbelieving. You Ignore parental love persistence, and that relationship is restorable throughout Bible! Based on what you said you understand your relationship with God as mechanical/transactional, you ignore divine initiative, underestimate God's power, misunderstand love. None of the verses you cherry picked does not talk about hell, eternal suffering or eternal destruction. You also put justice above love saying God cannot sacrifice justice for the sake of mercy. You are limiting God. Romans 11:32 "For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all." 1 Corinthians 15:22 "For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive." Your analogy with airline is false. You assume all people deliberately choose to stay and die in this city, and not go to airport. They clearly knew what is gonna happen and all of the sudden they choose to commit mass suicide and stay. I would argue the more person knows, the freer it becomes. But, then also, the more inevitable becomes the choice it will make. In fact, what follows is not really a “choice” at all; it is a purely free movement of thought and will toward a rationally desired object. it has been liberated from the need to choose arbitrarily, and has thus been determined toward an inevitable terminus by the reality of his own freedom. You my friend are fully indoctrinated, and you know where you need to be when interpreting scriptures. I pray that you stop having that existential fear of God. God bless brother
Psalm 33:4-5 For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord. God is just.
And when they don't know the answer, but say, "God's ways are higher than our ways" but then they also expect to hold some authority over you for them not knowing.
That's because few ANSWER the call. Jesus knocks, and we open. Calvinism is heresy. God doesn't send people to hell despite them wanting to know Him and become saved and sanctified.
Matthew 25:41- Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: Read Matthew 25 in its entirety before saying I’m taking this out of context my brother. I’m sorry to tell you but your theology is a little off. God created hell for the devil and his fallen angels, it was never created for man. What happens is we ourselves choose to go to hell by a lifetime of ignoring God and rejecting the salvation that is in Christ Jesus. Essentially, we choose to spend eternity separated from God by a living a life in rebellion to Father Yah’s Word and Truth. That’s the hardcore truth my brother.
Hey man, thanks for your comment. I have some thoughts though: If hell is an actual place that exist somewhere in the cosmos, it necessarily had to be created by God - I think you agree with that. If this is indeed true, God knew that humans would go there someday (He would have had to know this before earth was even a thing). This means that if Jesus created hell, he designed it not just for the devil and the demons but also for humans. If this is true, then any torturous thing in there was also created/designed for humans. Do you think that the incarnate God would ever do such a thing? Would the Jesus revealed in the gospels really create such a place? Observation 2: If hell is a real place, humans don't "choose" hell; hell is humanity's default, its destiny from the moment we are born. We are all going to hell whether we want it or not, no matter what we do UNLESS we accept Jesus' gift of eternal life (a choice millions of humans will never get to make in their entire lives) . NO ONE chooses hell. We can have a very long conversation about this but the bottom line is that HELL in not a choice.
@@OctavioMoss my friend, my brother, if one chooses to reject Jesus and His free gift of salvation, then one chooses to be separated from Him in the afterlife. And yes, God did create hell. Of course he did. He created everything in the known universe. That’s why He’s The Almighty Creator. He also created lucifer with the foreknowledge that he was going to betray Him and become the enemy satan. Hell was created for satan and the angels who betrayed God and His everlasting kingdom. I have to go to work right now but I promise we will continue this conversation later. I would love to hear your thoughts about this whole subject. Afterwards we can fact check both our opinions to make sure they stand up to the truth of The Word of God in the Bible. Many blessings and Christ Jesus be with you today my friend 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾
Hey we have to remember all things created with intention have purpose. The purpose of hell is for Satan and his angels. By default if we reject Jesus we reject our purpose and will go to hell also. When hell was created God knew people would reject Jesus but his desire still remains that nobody perish but have eternal life through Christ. We have to think of the intention and desire of God in which hell was created not just the people who go there. Hell is real.
@@OctavioMoss I think most of the problem Octavio is that you are reasoning with your emotions. You are trying to define what is right for God to do and what is wrong for God to do. His ways are not our ways isaiah (55:8-9). For example God gave the order that every man, woman, child, and infant be slaughtered by the Israelites (1 Samuel 15:3). By your reasoning, this is evil. The children did not do anything wrong. What does this say about the character of God? Yet we are assured that the Lord is good (Ps 25:8-9). How ever this is contrary to how we see things which is why we are told not to lean on our own understanding (Prov. 3:5-6). By the way. Do you see how I back all that I say with Scripture? I do this because I want to minimise my own feelings and try as much as possible to lean on God's opinion on the matter. After all, His opinion is the only one that counts.
@@arthomas70 hey brother. Thank you for such a thoughtful comment. This is a very interesting and long conversation but let me leave you with my 2 cents: When Jesus (GOD himself) said "love your enemies (Matt 5:44) and that "If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also" (Matt 5:38) this would have to mean that God himself practices this, right? Otherwise he would be a hypocrite, don't you think? And we can see this in Jesus Christ's life (remember, if you have seen Jesus on earth, you have seen the Father). How did he respond against the Roman Empire, and Jewish leaders? He did exactly that, he turned the other cheek, he prayed at the cross "Father forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing". (Luke 23:34 - see how I am using Scripture? 😉) Which brings me to my point. I don't believe 1 Samuel 15 is a complete/right depiction of God. This is a temporary/limited understanding of who God is, how he acted, and who he was for them at that time. If you really believe that Jesus is God himself, then you are forced to choose which to believe of God. And by this I am not discarding the OT, not at all, but in terms of revelation of who God is, Jesus is the ultimate and we compare the other revelations of him to the Gospels, which is something every Christian should do. As someone once said: "God let's his children write his story" P.S. I want to believe that you also think that slaughtering children is wrong BTW "minimizing" your feelings by using the Bible is not a good strategy and neither biblical 😉
The Lake of Fire exists. Hell and death, along with many people, will be thrown into the Lake of Fire. This shows "hell" is real. “Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:14, Legacy Standard Bible).
It's crazy to think people would want to be a Christian if they think God could possibly send them to hell despite them wanting to know God and be saved and be sanctified. Calvinism is heresy, AND hell is real.
Are you angry with God? I ask because I'm going through a rough patch myself and I can see it on you. Let's relate. When it comes to Ray Comforts approach, I've felt a bit awkward at one specific point in his delivery, but he does always point them back to the gate, which is Jesus Christ. It's just something unsettling before that point, though. Not saying that being rebuked or confronted about sin is ever a comfortable experience but even as a spectator I feel bad for the ones being interviewed. His style is his style and I'm careful who I speak on or of. Nevertheless, all I can do is pray that they have an encounter with God. Excuse me if I don't possess the vernacular of most "intellects" but here, I go... The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, reverence. Theology (biblical, historical, systematic and/or practical) has its place but Gods ways are not our own. Our finite being could never contain the purposes of God, try Peter when he wanted to persuade Jesus that he didn't have to die for our salvation. Emmanuel, God with us, was Elohim's turning the other cheek, one of many. God forgives and withholds righteous judgement from a majority of the nations (including myself) and in our arrogance we think we deserve it... but we don't. What we face today is the hand of men, sin which God will allow. We can do all this exploring and digging to attempt to understand who/why/what God is, but we will never come close. That makes people mad because people love to understand (through knowledge and not wisdom or humility) things giving us a sense of control or the ability to determine the "validity" of a thing from carnal viewpoints. Which of us as human beings can see through time but by the allowance of God? Who can hold the sun in its place and keep the moon from falling? We are but vapors, coming and going, but tend to focus so much on our own "importance" forgetting who gives us days, honor and every other good thing. God sent death to kill the first-born male children of Egypt (because of pharaohs arrogance and disobedience); God commanded Moses to take out the Midianites because of their wicked compliance in deceiving the Israelites by Balaam with adultery (male children included for they might seek revenge in their older years, custom of the times historically) ... the "God killed children" topic is one of a few points people use to have ammunition against God as to whether his justice is righteous or cruel, good or evil... ultimately expressing why they hate and are enemies of Jesus or as they say "the God of the bible". People mistake God's grace and patience for weakness and incompetence. The door is open for all those who will go by faith and obedience, not knowledge and humanistic understanding. If you believe Noah arc was a real thing, it was the same during that time. People had time and plenty of it, but who wanted to believe news of something they had never seen with their own eyes? None except for those who received wisdom from God. Noah tried to convince people for years, his faith and obedience spoke louder than he ever could, but it wasn't enough for man, woman or their children. Someone in high school asked me "what if God isn't real" -- my response: well, at least I lived for something. The sentiment is still the same but as I've aged, I know more. It's a decision and act of faith. The gift of faith is a real thing. We were all headed to hell because of Adam and Eve. I say all this because if you want reasoning, you will find that, if you want God, he will make himself known to you. Be hot or cold, hate God or love him, we must choose. Yes, we can inquire of God and ask questions! That doesn't make us enemies. But we must realize, God uses men to bless others, our trouble is because of sin, not God. So is hell/death our reward because of sin/transgression/inequity, not God. Hell enlarges herself, expanding without measure -- I assume, to make room for those who make their decision to not regard the works of God but the desires of their flesh. Even that, we do not fathom or truly understand without the help of the holy spirit. There are holes in my conversation because I've already typed an essay, but I have nothing to hide. I don't know it all, nor do I want too, it's too much for me to contain. Continue reading the bible, if you are. Read it as a though you were a child, we must let go of our understanding. We all have questions and God has all the answers.
Thanks for such a thoughtful comment; I appreciate you. Angry at God? Only in the occasional way one gets angry at his parent but no, not angry at God at the moment. I am angry with my brothers in Christ who unintentionally (I want to believe) preach words about God that are chocolate coated time bombs, time bombs that will explode in the years to come and mess the lives of their listeners and all those around them. That is what frustrates me. Peace my friend
Lol, very funny how we see God. Do we know that God has the capacity to save The World! Man sinned through Adam, and God being Holy n just! Said every soul that sins will dieeee. Jesus is the airplane to safety, anyone that does not accept Jesus has refused to board the plane! Anyone that calls on the name of Jesus will b saved! Stop arguing about hell cos it exists n is real! Talk more about how people can get out of hell n into heaven while alive. Jesus Jesus n more Jesus
Thank you for this video and for your ministry, Octavio.
This video is a pastoral challenge intended, I think, to encourage us (1) toward more humility regarding what we can know (and what we cannot know) about the last things, and (2) toward more coherent, consistent belief.
Fellow subscribers to your channel who want to know more about the issues and options regarding beliefs on this topic may find this resource, recommended by Iain Provan, helpful:
Sprinkle, Preston M., ed. 2016. Four Views on Hell. Second Edition. Counterpoints: Bible and Theology. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan.
Hope this helps. Keep up the good work!
Hey, thanks! You definitely got what I was going for: HUMILITY, tons and tons of HUMILITY whenever we talk about the afterlife and who will go where; that is what I ask for.
Cheers my friend
You make some interesting points.
I will say that though you have some reasonings, the God you presented seems to only show one side of Himself. Jesus presented the prodigal son as a story of someone who had rejected God and His teachings. It was through the repentance and faith that he finally showed toward his father that we see the son reunited with the father and blessed beyond measure.
That being said, you mentioned "Would the Jesus revealed in the gospels really create such a place?" and the answer would be yes, because Jesus even mentioned the story of the rich man and Lazarus. All of Revelation speaks of God's judgement of unbelieving mankind, and the Lamb is the one that initiates the judgements. God told Noah to build an Ark, and Hebrews tells us that Noah was a preacher of righteousness, he would have preached what God had told him. But no-one believed him of the impending judgment that was coming.
The answer would be that God does judge mankind. The words of Christ on the Cross was that "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." That was for their immediate actions that they were doing (crucifying Christ), disciples had left and forsaken Christ also at that point.
I am sorry my friend, but you are in error here. You are assuming that every human being is a son or daughter of God which is not the case. Only those who receive Him and believed in his name are children of God (John 1:12). Of course you would not give capital punishment to your children. As a matter of fact, the Bible guarantees that those who are in Jesus are not condemn (Romans 8:1). However the condition here is that you have to believe. If you do not believe you are condemned because you did not believe (John 3:18). All sin leads to death (James 1:15). And sin is doing anything that is against the Law (1 John 3:4). This is not limited to lying or stealing, but even sins committed in the comfort of your own mind (Matthew 5:28). So yes, hell does say something about the character of God. It says that God is just. He cannot sacrifice justice for the sake of mercy. But you are also right, he is also merciful and he cannot sacrifice his mercy for the sake of justice. This is the reason for Jesus. In Jesus, justice is served and mercy is demonstrated, all at the same time. The analogy of the airport serves the biblical concept better by saying that the airline offered free tickets for everyone. They had thousands of planes and could fit the entire population. However, people heard the news reports, read the reports in the newspaper, read about the free offer on twiter, and saw commercials about it on youtube and facebook. But only a few paid it any attention. Only a few actually packed their bags and went to the airport. The ones at the airport are the ones that believed, and airline choose seats for each one of those people who were at the airport. They were the only ones given tickets because they were the only ones that showed up. I apologize for this long epistle LOL. I do appreciate your videos and I will keep watching. God bless brother
I think you are wrong and you have cherry picked verses out of context. Humans are his children if he did created us on his image because of love and for his glory. Every human being is his indirect child. (Gen 1:27, Mal 2:10, Psalm 139:13-16) You are confusing creational relationship (universal) with covenant relationship (faith-based). You simply ignore parental love persistence. Isaiah 63:16 - “For you are our father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us; you, O Lord, are our father" - God always had parental relationship with Israel even they sinned. Look at the prodigal son parable (Luke 15:11-32) Son remains son even he is rebellious, distant, unbelieving. You Ignore parental love persistence, and that relationship is restorable throughout Bible! Based on what you said you understand your relationship with God as mechanical/transactional, you ignore divine initiative, underestimate God's power, misunderstand love. None of the verses you cherry picked does not talk about hell, eternal suffering or eternal destruction. You also put justice above love saying God cannot sacrifice justice for the sake of mercy. You are limiting God. Romans 11:32 "For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all." 1 Corinthians 15:22 "For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive." Your analogy with airline is false. You assume all people deliberately choose to stay and die in this city, and not go to airport. They clearly knew what is gonna happen and all of the sudden they choose to commit mass suicide and stay. I would argue the more person knows, the freer it becomes. But, then also, the more inevitable becomes the choice it will make. In fact, what follows is not really a “choice” at all; it is a purely free movement of thought and will toward a rationally desired object. it has been liberated from the need to choose arbitrarily, and has thus been determined toward an inevitable terminus by the reality of his own freedom. You my friend are fully indoctrinated, and you know where you need to be when interpreting scriptures. I pray that you stop having that existential fear of God. God bless brother
Psalm 33:4-5
For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.
God is just.
Amen to all of that brother
That first example still sticks out. Because it shows "God" as being petty af. And this example will encourage all sorts of pettiness.
And when they don't know the answer, but say, "God's ways are higher than our ways" but then they also expect to hold some authority over you for them not knowing.
Very petty indeed. It's hard to reconcile the God of the universe with that description of God
Matthew 22: 14 For many are called, but few are chosen.
But there is no hell
I read this same verse, but I was taught that god loves everyone
This says that one person is better than another
Hell was literally inserted into the Bible
That's because few ANSWER the call. Jesus knocks, and we open. Calvinism is heresy. God doesn't send people to hell despite them wanting to know Him and become saved and sanctified.
Matthew 25:41- Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
Read Matthew 25 in its entirety before saying I’m taking this out of context my brother. I’m sorry to tell you but your theology is a little off. God created hell for the devil and his fallen angels, it was never created for man. What happens is we ourselves choose to go to hell by a lifetime of ignoring God and rejecting the salvation that is in Christ Jesus. Essentially, we choose to spend eternity separated from God by a living a life in rebellion to Father Yah’s Word and Truth. That’s the hardcore truth my brother.
Hey man, thanks for your comment. I have some thoughts though: If hell is an actual place that exist somewhere in the cosmos, it necessarily had to be created by God - I think you agree with that. If this is indeed true, God knew that humans would go there someday (He would have had to know this before earth was even a thing). This means that if Jesus created hell, he designed it not just for the devil and the demons but also for humans. If this is true, then any torturous thing in there was also created/designed for humans. Do you think that the incarnate God would ever do such a thing? Would the Jesus revealed in the gospels really create such a place?
Observation 2: If hell is a real place, humans don't "choose" hell; hell is humanity's default, its destiny from the moment we are born. We are all going to hell whether we want it or not, no matter what we do UNLESS we accept Jesus' gift of eternal life (a choice millions of humans will never get to make in their entire lives) . NO ONE chooses hell. We can have a very long conversation about this but the bottom line is that HELL in not a choice.
@@OctavioMoss my friend, my brother, if one chooses to reject Jesus and His free gift of salvation, then one chooses to be separated from Him in the afterlife. And yes, God did create hell. Of course he did. He created everything in the known universe. That’s why He’s The Almighty Creator. He also created lucifer with the foreknowledge that he was going to betray Him and become the enemy satan. Hell was created for satan and the angels who betrayed God and His everlasting kingdom. I have to go to work right now but I promise we will continue this conversation later. I would love to hear your thoughts about this whole subject. Afterwards we can fact check both our opinions to make sure they stand up to the truth of The Word of God in the Bible. Many blessings and Christ Jesus be with you today my friend 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾
Hey we have to remember all things created with intention have purpose. The purpose of hell is for Satan and his angels. By default if we reject Jesus we reject our purpose and will go to hell also. When hell was created God knew people would reject Jesus but his desire still remains that nobody perish but have eternal life through Christ. We have to think of the intention and desire of God in which hell was created not just the people who go there. Hell is real.
@@OctavioMoss I think most of the problem Octavio is that you are reasoning with your emotions. You are trying to define what is right for God to do and what is wrong for God to do. His ways are not our ways isaiah (55:8-9). For example God gave the order that every man, woman, child, and infant be slaughtered by the Israelites (1 Samuel 15:3). By your reasoning, this is evil. The children did not do anything wrong. What does this say about the character of God? Yet we are assured that the Lord is good (Ps 25:8-9). How ever this is contrary to how we see things which is why we are told not to lean on our own understanding (Prov. 3:5-6). By the way. Do you see how I back all that I say with Scripture? I do this because I want to minimise my own feelings and try as much as possible to lean on God's opinion on the matter. After all, His opinion is the only one that counts.
@@arthomas70 hey brother. Thank you for such a thoughtful comment.
This is a very interesting and long conversation but let me leave you with my 2 cents:
When Jesus (GOD himself) said "love your enemies (Matt 5:44) and that "If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also" (Matt 5:38) this would have to mean that God himself practices this, right? Otherwise he would be a hypocrite, don't you think?
And we can see this in Jesus Christ's life (remember, if you have seen Jesus on earth, you have seen the Father). How did he respond against the Roman Empire, and Jewish leaders? He did exactly that, he turned the other cheek, he prayed at the cross "Father forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing". (Luke 23:34 - see how I am using Scripture? 😉)
Which brings me to my point. I don't believe 1 Samuel 15 is a complete/right depiction of God. This is a temporary/limited understanding of who God is, how he acted, and who he was for them at that time. If you really believe that Jesus is God himself, then you are forced to choose which to believe of God. And by this I am not discarding the OT, not at all, but in terms of revelation of who God is, Jesus is the ultimate and we compare the other revelations of him to the Gospels, which is something every Christian should do.
As someone once said: "God let's his children write his story"
P.S. I want to believe that you also think that slaughtering children is wrong
BTW "minimizing" your feelings by using the Bible is not a good strategy and neither biblical 😉
The Lake of Fire exists. Hell and death, along with many people, will be thrown into the Lake of Fire. This shows "hell" is real.
“Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:14, Legacy Standard Bible).
It's crazy to think people would want to be a Christian if they think God could possibly send them to hell despite them wanting to know God and be saved and be sanctified. Calvinism is heresy, AND hell is real.
Are you angry with God?
I ask because I'm going through a rough patch myself and I can see it on you.
Let's relate. When it comes to Ray Comforts approach, I've felt a bit awkward at one specific point in his delivery, but he does always point them back to the gate, which is Jesus Christ. It's just something unsettling before that point, though. Not saying that being rebuked or confronted about sin is ever a comfortable experience but even as a spectator I feel bad for the ones being interviewed. His style is his style and I'm careful who I speak on or of. Nevertheless, all I can do is pray that they have an encounter with God.
Excuse me if I don't possess the vernacular of most "intellects" but here, I go...
The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, reverence. Theology (biblical, historical, systematic and/or practical) has its place but Gods ways are not our own. Our finite being could never contain the purposes of God, try Peter when he wanted to persuade Jesus that he didn't have to die for our salvation. Emmanuel, God with us, was Elohim's turning the other cheek, one of many. God forgives and withholds righteous judgement from a majority of the nations (including myself) and in our arrogance we think we deserve it... but we don't. What we face today is the hand of men, sin which God will allow. We can do all this exploring and digging to attempt to understand who/why/what God is, but we will never come close. That makes people mad because people love to understand (through knowledge and not wisdom or humility) things giving us a sense of control or the ability to determine the "validity" of a thing from carnal viewpoints.
Which of us as human beings can see through time but by the allowance of God? Who can hold the sun in its place and keep the moon from falling? We are but vapors, coming and going, but tend to focus so much on our own "importance" forgetting who gives us days, honor and every other good thing.
God sent death to kill the first-born male children of Egypt (because of pharaohs arrogance and disobedience); God commanded Moses to take out the Midianites because of their wicked compliance in deceiving the Israelites by Balaam with adultery (male children included for they might seek revenge in their older years, custom of the times historically) ... the "God killed children" topic is one of a few points people use to have ammunition against God as to whether his justice is righteous or cruel, good or evil... ultimately expressing why they hate and are enemies of Jesus or as they say "the God of the bible".
People mistake God's grace and patience for weakness and incompetence. The door is open for all those who will go by faith and obedience, not knowledge and humanistic understanding. If you believe Noah arc was a real thing, it was the same during that time. People had time and plenty of it, but who wanted to believe news of something they had never seen with their own eyes? None except for those who received wisdom from God. Noah tried to convince people for years, his faith and obedience spoke louder than he ever could, but it wasn't enough for man, woman or their children.
Someone in high school asked me "what if God isn't real" -- my response: well, at least I lived for something. The sentiment is still the same but as I've aged, I know more. It's a decision and act of faith. The gift of faith is a real thing. We were all headed to hell because of Adam and Eve. I say all this because if you want reasoning, you will find that, if you want God, he will make himself known to you. Be hot or cold, hate God or love him, we must choose. Yes, we can inquire of God and ask questions! That doesn't make us enemies. But we must realize, God uses men to bless others, our trouble is because of sin, not God. So is hell/death our reward because of sin/transgression/inequity, not God. Hell enlarges herself, expanding without measure -- I assume, to make room for those who make their decision to not regard the works of God but the desires of their flesh. Even that, we do not fathom or truly understand without the help of the holy spirit.
There are holes in my conversation because I've already typed an essay, but I have nothing to hide. I don't know it all, nor do I want too, it's too much for me to contain. Continue reading the bible, if you are. Read it as a though you were a child, we must let go of our understanding. We all have questions and God has all the answers.
Thanks for such a thoughtful comment; I appreciate you. Angry at God? Only in the occasional way one gets angry at his parent but no, not angry at God at the moment. I am angry with my brothers in Christ who unintentionally (I want to believe) preach words about God that are chocolate coated time bombs, time bombs that will explode in the years to come and mess the lives of their listeners and all those around them. That is what frustrates me.
Peace my friend
You are brave 😅😅😅
Not enough...but I try. THANKS!💪
read Matthew 22 for more context. You are completely wrong on this brother
No he’s not
Hell was inserted in the Bible
Lol, very funny how we see God. Do we know that God has the capacity to save The World! Man sinned through Adam, and God being Holy n just! Said every soul that sins will dieeee. Jesus is the airplane to safety, anyone that does not accept Jesus has refused to board the plane! Anyone that calls on the name of Jesus will b saved! Stop arguing about hell cos it exists n is real! Talk more about how people can get out of hell n into heaven while alive. Jesus Jesus n more Jesus