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How can a good God send people to Hell
I have friends who cannot believe in a God who sends decent people, maybe any
people, to hell.
Any ideas of what I can say?
people, to hell.
Any ideas of what I can say?
Views: 652
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by maggie hancox on
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Does this sound loving to you??
Do you really think God sends good people to hell?
Did you feel the tug on your heart from God?. indeed showing you his great love.
Our feet are walking there to hell all ready, it is the mercy of the act of Jeusus Christ that saves us!
It is God reaching out to us to guide us from the path to destruction, not willing us and pushing us or even leading us into hell...we know who it is that does this and it is not God!!
Like a child about to cross the road in traffic he stands arms outstreached calling to us to turn from our sin!!
In everything measure your thoughts against love, GODS TRUE NATURE.
God bless and uplift your soul because God is the God of love and mercy!!! Amen
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Permalink Reply by gone away on
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Hi Jan,
This charge of "God is cruel for sending people to hell therefore I will not believe in him" was a stumbling block for me before I became a believer and was a point of doubt in my faith once I believed until I got it sorted. I found the writings of CS Lewis very helpful in understanding how God can be both Kind and Just
The question is: How can a God who cruelly tortures beings in a lake of fire for eternity be truly called merciful? Would not a description of cruel and vengeful be more true than kind and merciful?
For those who don’t know the book
the Landlord represents God
the free tenants are people
Mountain apple is sin
Vermiculate will is sinful nature
The black hole is hell
An Excerpt from THE PILGRIMS REGRESS by C S Lewis
'But what about the charge of cruelty?'
The Landlord has taken the
risk of working the country with free tenants instead of
slaves in chain gangs: and as they are free there is no
way of making it impossible for them to go into forbidden
places and eat forbidden fruits. Up to a certain point he
can doctor them even when they have done so, and break
them of the habit. But beyond that point - you can see for
yourself. A man can go on eating mountain-apple so long
that nothing will cure his craving for it: and the very
worms it breeds inside him will make him more certain
to eat more. You must not try to fix the point after which
a return is impossible, but you can see that there will be
such a point somewhere:
'But surely the Landlord can do anything?'
'He cannot do what is contradictory: or, in other words,
a meaningless sentence will not gain meaning simply because
'Someone chooses to prefix to it the words "the Landlord
can". And it is meaningless to talk of forcing a man
to do freely what a man has freely made impossible for
himself:
'I see. But at least these poor creatures are unhappy
enough: there is no. need to add a black hole:
'The Landlord does not make the blackness. The blackness
is there already wherever the taste of mountain-apple
has created the vermiculate will. What do you mean by
a hole? Something that ends. A black hole is blackness enclosed,
limited. And in that sense the Landlord has made
the black hole. He has put into the world a Worst Thing.
But evil of itself would never reach a worst: for evil is
fissiparous and could never in a thousand eternities find
any way to arrest its own reproduction. If it could, it
would be no longer evil: for Form and Limit belong to the
good. The walls of the black hole are the tourniquet on the
wound through which the lost soul else would bleed to a
death she never reached. It is the Landlord's last service to
those who will let him do nothing better for them:
excerpt finished
I do not think you can explain this idea of hell to a non believer .
But I do think that it is important that we as Christians have a true
understanding of God as far as we are able.
God is merciful and just at the same time.
Hell truly is a place of immense suffering and many will spend eternity there
(broad is the way and many there are that follow it)
The only practical way to explain to a non-believer God’s nature in this
matter is to tell of how God in Jesus was tortured to death on a cross
to save from hell and the power of the enemy any who will turn to him.
Other lucid books from C S Lewis on this matter are “The great divorce”
about the final and absolute separation of the Kingdom of light
from the Kingdom of darkness and “God in the Dock” where the case
for God being cruel is put and refuted.
cheers
JohnO
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Permalink Reply by Jared on
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The Master Musician uses both high and low notes in His Musical Masterpiece
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Permalink Reply by RoxChelseaGilmore on
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Does that include all my tutors and myfriends atcollege??? willthey go to Hell??/ I want Mike Swaits, Anne Timmis, and Jacki Greogry and Sophie Dixon,and Lewis and Nathan to go to Heaven to be with God please pray for this
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Permalink Reply by edmun09 on
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You can say this to them: "God didn't make Hell for us. It was originally made for Satan and his cohorts. But those who follow the steps of Satan will also go to Hell with him."
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Permalink Reply by SavedYouzer on
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First of all God never sends anyone to Hell, we send our selves there. The Bible also teaches no matter how good of works a person does, or feels they are they still need to call on Jesus Christ as their Savior period! We can go scripture for scripture but the point is When you Truly call on JESUS with all your heart, and he sends the Holy Spirit to us, no matter how your character was before good a bad, He totally changes who you thought you were, into who he made you to be! So do that Today and ask him to forgive you of your sins. Believe in him with ALL yor HEART! And REPENT... The Hebrew translation for repent is "to change your mind, and ways" So If you truly repent you no longer want to be that old sinner who lived for Satan and the world, you now make the "commitment to be Christ-Like and be new in HIM! But the sad conclusion is this lets put your friends to the side for a second, how is your relationship with CHRIST? Thats the important issue! God Bless everyone who does repent and believe in the our Lord and savior Jesus Christ!
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Reallly Yeah that is true really I did not know that cool that is awesom I think someday my tutor will become a christian
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Permalink Reply by Stew on
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Hey Jan,
That is a great question and one that we should all be prepared to answer. Thank you for posting it here.
The scripture is pretty clear. We all fall short of the glory of God and are sinners by our very nature. The law was given to provide a standard by which we would be judged if we chose to be judged. That is an interesting concept: IF WE CHOOSE TO BE JUDGED. Can you imagine any court in the world that would give you a choice? How can you have a choice in a matter like that? Well as it turns out we can choose to go down that path where we get to be “judged” on our “good and bad deeds” or we can take that free amazing gift of salvation from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Think if that as a “get our of judgment free card!” Its amazing but true.
The story of the gift of Jesus Christ is offered to us in the pages of the Bible. From the beginning, God was with us. After the fall in the Garden, God’s plan of redemption was already underway. The word was to be revealed to a people that would be known as Israel. These chosen people were regular people of that day. God selected an individual named Abram who He would later name Abraham. From his offspring came, Issac and then from Issac, came Jacob. Jacob would father 12 sons and he would be renamed Israel. From his twelve sons came the 12 tribes of Israel. The tribes of Israel made many mistakes and the specific line leading down from Abraham to Jesus was filled with lots of “bad folks” that recognized their broken state and called to God for guidance in their life.
Around 2000 years ago the leading priests and teachers of religious law from the tribes of Israel had grown cold to God’s love. They were going through the motions of what they believed to be following the “law”. They were in fact in a significantly broken state. Their hearts were not humble. They imagined themselves better than others. Those that prayed the loudest and gave offerings where everybody could see how “good” they were believed themselves to be “good people.” In fact, they believed themselves to be the best of the best. They had even constructed layers of human laws designed to keep them from physically breaking the 10 simple laws of Moses. Well this was a broken house in need of a makeover. All part of God’s perfect plan. Some that were living during this time would witness the beginning of a makeover of humanity, but not be able to put it into historical context. We have that ability looking back 2000 years to see the fulfillment of scripture and the coming together of the greatest makeover that humanity has ever seen.
The amazing thing in this story of human history is how God did the great “reveal”. Sort of like what you see in those home makeover shows. The persons house seems to be in a sorry state. (There were all those Jewish priests and teachers of religious law sitting high on their ideals – imagining themselves to be right with God, but in fact being so far from God in their hearts – they were in need of a major makeover!!!) The priests and teachers of religious law could not see themselves as broken and in need of a savior. If we are reading the bible up to the point before Jesus is born we might get pretty depressed with the story. Here is a nation waiting for God, but one that has really gotten far from God in their hearts. Just putting on a show and thinking at this point its about how “good you are” in God’s eyes. A nation that does not realize that it is impossible to get to the level of “good” that makes the grade for God. So just before Jesus arrives on the scene, we too can’t imagine how it will be made “better.”
Well it it was one of those home makeover shows, we would be looking for that expert to step in and do an amazing thing on this broken down home. We are that broken down home. We need somebody to fix us up. We need somebody to transform the home into something beautiful. In those home improvement shows the great “reveal” is when the home owner gets to see their home “makeover” in an instant.
As we look back over history, we are most fortunate to be able to see God’s great reveal in the form of Jesus Christ. Who could have imagined that God would do a makeover of humanity by sacrificing His only Son on our behalf. That was truly a great reveal. God’s gift is for all that have a heart that will see the truth. Sometimes our eyes deceive us and our ears grow dull and we cannot hear. God touches our heart through His holy word and only God can see the true nature of our heart.
To address an often spoken statement: “How can God sends good people to Hell?”, one must consider what God has truly done. He has done everything to keep humanity from being distracted by Satan and taking the easy path – the wide road – the road that leads to destruction. God in the form of Jesus died on our behalf so that we don’t have to do the impossible. We cannot follow the 10 commandments in our heart. It is impossible. God did not give us an impossible task, he did the exact opposite. He saves us from our own destruction. God stands in judgment against sin since He is perfect and in that perfection he must not bend the rules. However God has given us a “get out of judgment card” that takes the form of Jesus Christ. We need only accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior in our hearts and we are forgiven. We don’t have to stand in that judgment line anymore.
Romans 3:23 , 5:8, and 10:13 tell the glorious story of redemption
* 3:23 – for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God;
* 5:8 - But God commendeth his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
* 10:13 - for, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Heaven and Hell sometimes get confused. I’ve often used the following phrase to distinguish (in crude human terms) the difference between Heaven and Hell:
1. Hell is for people that imagined themselves good enough but never sought forgiveness from God. People that went through life comparing themselves to others and created a standard for entry into Heaven that was based on a justice system that grades on the curve. One that overlooked sin. But in God’s eyes, all sin is bad. There is no different from “little sin” and “big sin”. It is all sin. And a righteous God and judge must be fair. This fairness requires that all sin be judged by God’s holy law and the judgment for sin is eternal separation from God in a lake of fire where the soul is tormented for eternity.
2. Heaven is for bad people that have been forgiven by God through Jesus Christ. Everyone should reflect on that. It speaks to the core of what we must do. We must humble ourselves before our loving Father in Heaven and through the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ, we must seek forgiveness. This prayer must come from our heart. It must be an honest reflection of our true feelings for the loving Father that offered His Son as a sacrifice for our failings.
One cannot reconcile the statement that “God sends decent people to Hell” when considering the prior commentary. Our God in Heaven is the most pure form of love. So amazing is His love for us that it defies human understanding and human language cannot begin to fully represent God’s love.
Philippians 4:6-7
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
In our human condition, we cannot fully understand the glory of God and His ways. All that we can know for sure is that His ways are right and perfect, and full of love on our behalf.
In the truth of God’s love,
-Stew
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Permalink Reply by Natasha Mayes on
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I may be very late in replying to this but here goes. The Bible states very clearly that Hell was a place prepared by God to receive the devil and his Beast and his False prophet. It also states very clearly that God never intended for any of His people to go there. He sent us His Son to die for our sins, so that we may be free to CHOOSE HIM. There in lies the answer. We have to make the choice FOR God or FOR sin. He allows us to make that choice for ourselves. He does not send us to Hell. We choose to go there if we make our choice against Him.
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God does not send people to hell, people send themselves to hell by rejecting Jesus. Hell was created only for the devil and his angels(the third that fell with lucifer). Bible says that hell's mouth has to be widened to fit everyone else who is going. God loves us so much, that he will stand by our right to go to hell if that's what we choose. Now, if God knows everything, He knows who will go before he even creates them, I have no answer for that. God does not want us to be robots serving him against our own will. His word says I set in front of you life and death...choose life. He even tells us which one to choose so we don't screw it up and claim ignorance. We are given every opportunity....every chance to go to heaven...if we go to hell, it's our fault not his. I hope this helps, maybe you can glean some good info out of this.
Ask your friends how they get their standard of who is decent...how do they determine who is decent. EVERYONE deserves hell, that's why Jesus died. All you have to do is steal one little thing....once... and you are a thief in God's eyes. All you have to do is tell one little lie and you are a liar in God's eyes. How do you reconcile that sin? How do you get clean of that. when you become saved, God looks at you and doesn't see your sin he sees Jesus. The blood of Jesus is the only thing that can forgive us of our sin.
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Permalink Reply by Paul Perez on
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We are made for eternity. The question is where are we going to spend it? God gave us the free will. He want us to worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. Although God is love, He is also a God of justice. Although Hell is made for the devils, God cannot do otherwise if we really want to go there. How? By not accepting Jesus Christ our personal Lord and Savior. The only way we can go to heaven is through Jesus Christ. Ways other than that will surely led us to Hell.
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