Tag: Hell

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Second Coming

The most politically incorrect doctrine ever

For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

Malachi 4:1

You may have seen the classic film “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” with Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Terminator (Arnold) is sent back in time to protect a young boy who will grow up to lead the resistance and protect the world against Judgment Day – a complete nuclear holocaust.

The Terminator was sent to prevent Judgment Day.

The Bible also speaks about a Judgment Day. 

Not a nuclear holocaust, but a day when every single human being that has ever lived will stand before God to give an account of themselves.

However, the real Judgment Day, unlike the movie, is unpreventable.

The doctrine of the judgment of God or the notion of a Judgment Day sounds like complete lunacy to the post-modern, post-Christian world of our day. Our world despises any kind of authority or accountability that might limit my self-expression or self-government.

We can’t even handle someone telling us that we parked badly, let alone the truth of a Judgment Day.

But, just because we don’t like something, doesn’t make it untrue.

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hell

We believe in the Life Everlasting

Death is not a spectator sport.

The mortality rate of humankind is the same all over the world:  one death per one person.

The question, “What does the Bible teach about life after death?”, becomes vitally important.

Not everyone thinks there is life after death, though.

Regarding the afterlife, Stephen Hawking, the brilliant cosmologist and theoretical mathematician, declared in 2011:

“I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”

When Christian people say the last two phrases of the Apostles’ Creed we affirm our belief in life after death:

“I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.”

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Christian Worldview hell

The horror of hell and planting churches

lamentations FBWe are familiar with the idea of separation. We’ve all experienced it at one time or another.

Jesus taught that at the end of this age there is going to be a separation.  According to Jesus, this world is not going to continue forever.  There will be a supernatural end, a cataclysmic event, a universal conclusion to this present age.  Jesus called this “the Son of Man coming in his glory”.  Jesus, who first came into our world as a baby born in humble circumstances, will return again as the all-powerful King, who sits in judgment over the nations of the world.  Then there will be a separation between what Jesus refers to as goats and the sheep.  Those that belong to Christ, the sheep, the King welcomes them into his kingdom.  To the goats, those who have rejected Christ, the King says the exact opposite: to depart from him “into the eternal fire” of “eternal punishment”. (cf. Matthew 25:31-32, 41, 46)

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hell

Jesus said don’t fear ISIS terrorists


ISISOn 16 July 2016 a faction of the army in Turkey tried to take control of the government in a coup. Soldiers, tanks and F16 Jet Fighters invaded Istanbul. 280 people were killed, but ultimately the coup failed.  TIME magazine called it: Turkey’s long night of the soul.

 

The good news was that the night came to an end, warring stopped, day dawned, hostilities ceased, and the fierce anger stopped.

In contrast, the Bible teaches of future time of God’s judgment, wrath and anger on sin that will not cease.  

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hell

Hell of a subject

lamentations FBThis past Sunday at our church we started a new sermon series on the book of Lamentations. The title of this series is “Hell of a subject” because Lamentations teaches us about the wrath or “fierce anger” (1:12) of God, of which an eternal hell is the ultimate expression.

We don’t often hear about the wrath or fierce anger of God, let alone about an eternal hell.  Most people would say something like, “My God would never do that!”   Rather than worshipping and serving the God of the Bible, most people worship and serve the God of their own making, who, not-surprisingly, has all the same opinions as themselves.   Lamentations will help us.  Lamentations gives us a small foretaste of the wrath of God. 

Lamentations tells us that the work of evangelism and missions is urgent and crucial, because the fierce anger of God is a reality. There is an eternal hell and the gospel is God’s good news about Jesus and how we can be saved from God’s wrath.

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