Ascetic X
Well-Known Member
I once asked my wife why humans get the opportunity to be redeemed, saved from eternal hell, through the blood of Christ, but the devil and his demons do not.
My wife said, “Because the devil and his demons knew God face to face. His will and character were totally transparent to them, so they have no excuse for rebelling.”
Adam and Eve knew God intimately, but probably not as clearly as the angels. At any rate, God sees human rebellion differently from Lucifer’s mutiny. God made humans, not angels, in His own image. God wants to rescue His image-bearers. Thus, we have a Savior to turn to.
I think about how we humans see through a glass darkly. Our ability to discern truth is limited.
We have a chance to get right with God and serve humanity, but we have no certainty about how much time we are allotted. And death seals our fate. Once our lives are over, there is no more spiritual progress or moral development. Whatever we had become in life, we are stuck with eternally.
We need teachers, devout books, commentaries, and pastors to gradually come to understand God and the genuine Christian way of life.
We must sort through the denominations to find one that we think is the best in practice and the most scriptural. We have to avoid cults, deceptive pastors, and abusive churches. We must be on guard and exercise scrutiny as we see highly popular and well regarded ministry leaders exposed as falling into shameful sins. We can get entangled in theological quarrels and can have significant difficulty determining correct doctrine.
While engaged in all this, we have our weak flesh that is often susceptible to a variety of persistent worldly influences trying to lure us away from the spiritual path. When we fall, we then have to deal with guilt and regret.
Thank God for the Bible available in our language and the freedom to read it. Praise God for the Holy Spirit who guides and guards us, if we are willing to follow Jesus! Extreme gratitude to Christ for suffering a gruesome, painful, humiliating death on the cross, so we could be born anew and have a home with Him in heaven forever.
Hell is eternal, with no escape. This freaks me out. It is probably rare that any of us face a serious problem that has no solution at all, but that is what hell is. I hate to imagine unsaved individuals and even diabolical beings trapped in hell permanently, but rejection of God results in separation from Him, with no end to the total darkness and misery.
People who hate God and work diligently against Him will bitterly regret their choices. Joining forces with wickedness will result in unimaginable punishment in the afterlife.
Jesus said people refuse to come to the light, because they loved darkness. It is not a lack of evidence for God’s existence that prevents them from becoming Christians, it is their refusal to stop enjoying their favorite sins.
Satan and his fallen angels will be in the lake of fire forever, tormented by their own memories of evil sadistic deeds, and humans who pledge their allegiance to the infernal ones will join them in this montage of extreme misery. They all will have nothing to look forward to, no hope, no rescue, and no way out.
Be supremely grateful that you have a real love for God, even if you are severely disappointed in your many failures and mistakes. Trust the infinite love and astonishing mercy of our triune God. Lean on our sweet, majestic Lord and Master who humbled Himself and died in a horrible, undeserved, demeaning execution for our sins.
May heaven be full and may hell be empty, as far as that is possible realistically.
Father, draw all souls to the cross of Christ for everlasting salvation. Amen!
My wife said, “Because the devil and his demons knew God face to face. His will and character were totally transparent to them, so they have no excuse for rebelling.”
Adam and Eve knew God intimately, but probably not as clearly as the angels. At any rate, God sees human rebellion differently from Lucifer’s mutiny. God made humans, not angels, in His own image. God wants to rescue His image-bearers. Thus, we have a Savior to turn to.
I think about how we humans see through a glass darkly. Our ability to discern truth is limited.
We have a chance to get right with God and serve humanity, but we have no certainty about how much time we are allotted. And death seals our fate. Once our lives are over, there is no more spiritual progress or moral development. Whatever we had become in life, we are stuck with eternally.
We need teachers, devout books, commentaries, and pastors to gradually come to understand God and the genuine Christian way of life.
We must sort through the denominations to find one that we think is the best in practice and the most scriptural. We have to avoid cults, deceptive pastors, and abusive churches. We must be on guard and exercise scrutiny as we see highly popular and well regarded ministry leaders exposed as falling into shameful sins. We can get entangled in theological quarrels and can have significant difficulty determining correct doctrine.
While engaged in all this, we have our weak flesh that is often susceptible to a variety of persistent worldly influences trying to lure us away from the spiritual path. When we fall, we then have to deal with guilt and regret.
Thank God for the Bible available in our language and the freedom to read it. Praise God for the Holy Spirit who guides and guards us, if we are willing to follow Jesus! Extreme gratitude to Christ for suffering a gruesome, painful, humiliating death on the cross, so we could be born anew and have a home with Him in heaven forever.
Hell is eternal, with no escape. This freaks me out. It is probably rare that any of us face a serious problem that has no solution at all, but that is what hell is. I hate to imagine unsaved individuals and even diabolical beings trapped in hell permanently, but rejection of God results in separation from Him, with no end to the total darkness and misery.
People who hate God and work diligently against Him will bitterly regret their choices. Joining forces with wickedness will result in unimaginable punishment in the afterlife.
Jesus said people refuse to come to the light, because they loved darkness. It is not a lack of evidence for God’s existence that prevents them from becoming Christians, it is their refusal to stop enjoying their favorite sins.
Satan and his fallen angels will be in the lake of fire forever, tormented by their own memories of evil sadistic deeds, and humans who pledge their allegiance to the infernal ones will join them in this montage of extreme misery. They all will have nothing to look forward to, no hope, no rescue, and no way out.
Be supremely grateful that you have a real love for God, even if you are severely disappointed in your many failures and mistakes. Trust the infinite love and astonishing mercy of our triune God. Lean on our sweet, majestic Lord and Master who humbled Himself and died in a horrible, undeserved, demeaning execution for our sins.
May heaven be full and may hell be empty, as far as that is possible realistically.
Father, draw all souls to the cross of Christ for everlasting salvation. Amen!