Hell. The final frontier of free will. A shadowy abode choked with eggy, sulphurous fumes; the stench of blackened, bubbling flesh and screams of agony from souls trapped forever in a lake of fire, tortured by a worm that dieth not. A vision made all the more terrifying by the fact that God–the only being who could possibly save us from such a fate–is the one who consigns or abandons us there instead.

Such horrific depictions of hell have gripped humanity for centuries. And rightly so. Throughout history, people of all faiths have agonized over why God allows so much evil in the world. Their only comfort has been the hope that somehow, someday, God will make things right. Evildoers may get away with murder in this life. But in the life to come, there’ll be hell to pay.

But the traditional view of hell also presents us with a dilemma: Of course we all want to see the scales of justice balanced. But if God is our pure, all-loving Creator, can he really allow (presumably) billions of people to suffer in hell for eternity? Evil is evil, but doesn’t the traditional view of hell tip the scales too far the other way? To many people, it seems like we can have a good God or we can have the traditional view of hell, but we can’t have both…

@HellboundMovie responded to a post of mine, a quote from Blaise Pascal’s Pensees which I posted from my Kindle:

God has willed to redeem men, and to open salvation to those who seek it. But men render themselves so unworthy of it, that it is right that God should refuse to some, because of their obduracy, what He grants to others from a compassion which is not due to them.

Regular readers of my blog will not be surprised that I hold a classical Evangelical Christian worldview, including an orthodox view on hell. I’m not completely certain what @HellBoundMovie’s beliefs are, but the admin I spoke with (if not the yet-to-be-seen documentary) questions the orthodox view of hell.

Although we clearly disagreed about some things, we had a very civil discussion about hell (which I was glad of, because in my experience, most people who comment on my post who are not already followers of mine on twitter are immature twitter trolls). Here is how our conversation unfolded:

Me: Can a just God allow unbelievers to suffer in #hell? http://amzn.com/k/2EDHYGC8G0TM0 #Kindle

Hellbound?: @PastorJaredROLM To put it in perspective, would you ever reject one of your children on the basis of his or her beliefs about you?

Me: @HellboundMovie No. To put it in proper perspective, the children reject the Father, and because He loves them He allows them to live with their own choices–but not without warning them of the consequences. John 3:17-19 ESV For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

Hellbound?: @PastorJaredROLM Are you saying our will is stronger than God’s will, that we get what we want but God doesn’t? (1 Tim. 2:1-6).

Me: @HellboundMovie That’s an interesting way of putting it. Does our will have to be stronger than God’s if He gives us a choice in the matter?

Hellbound?: @PastorJaredROLM If our will prevails, then our will must be stronger. Or else he just lets us win, but how does that serve us or him?

Me: @HellboundMovie He does allow us our own free will, although I wouldn’t say this means we “win.” It just means He allows us to make our own choice to accept, reject, or ignore Him.

@HellboundMovie How does that serve Him? If we choose Him, we really choose Him. We’re not automatons. If we don’t choose to love Him, we don’t really love Him.

@HellboundMovie How does that serve us? If we love Him, we receive our eternal reward. If we don’t love Him, it doesn’t serve us well, but it’s still our choice to make.

Hellbound?: @PastorJaredROLM In other words, both God and us want the same thing–the greatest good. We are just confused on constitutes the good.

Me: @HellboundMovie On that much we are agreed.

Hellbound?: @PastorJaredROLM How free is our will, really? A loving God would intervene to free our will rather than abandon us to our bad choices.

Me: @HellboundMovie 1) Not absolutely free, but free enough 2) He did intervene. He didn’t make His way to freedom compulsory.

Hellbound?: @PastorJaredROLM But maybe we don’t choose him b/c we’ve come to believe lies about him. Or we’ve been hurt by people representing him.

Me: @HellboundMovie That happens, unfortunately. Still, the responsibility to seek out the truth lies with the each individual.

Several days later, I heard from @HellboundMovie again:

Hellbound?: @PastorJaredROLM Thanks for the mention. BTW, our interaction inspired a recent blog post: http://hellboundthemovie.com/?p=847

What do my readers think about all this?

Does hell exist?

If so, would God be just to send those who ignore or reject Him to it?

For eternity? At all?

I intend to respond to all the points of Hellbound?’s blog over the course of several posts.

Reblogged from STR Place Blog:

A Muslim has responded to Jefferson Bethke’s spoken-word poem with the claim that Christians don’t know the real Jesus. Here’s my take on the Muslim video.

Titus 2:11-14 ESV

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

One of the least understood concepts in the Bible is grace. Most people understand that grace is God’s unmerited favor; it is that, but it is so much more than that.

Grace is not a licence to sin. Grace trains us to renounce ungodliness. Grace is a drill instructor, pushing us to our limits, forcing us to stretch beyond our limits.

Grace is undeserved because we sin, but it is also power over sin. When sinless Christ died on behalf of sinners, He not only imputed to us His own righteousness, but He actually redeemed us from all lawlessness, and actually purified us! We were not only forgiven for all of our sins (past, present, and future), but they were taken away forever. We became a new creation, free from sin, and possessed by God.

Grace is not fire insurance; it actually trains you to be a firefighter!

This transformation is so radical that it takes our thoughts and deeds a little while to catch up with our new nature. We really are pure and blameless before God, but we still screw up. Nevertheless, through God’s grace we are not only forgiven, but actually victorious over sin. That is how amazing grace really is!

This is what “separation of Church and State” means. It means freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. It means that Christians, Jews, Muslims, Pagans, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hindus, Buddhists, New Agers, Satanists, Santorinos, deists, theists, atheists, agnostics, and anyone else, may live according to whatever religious persuasion they see fit. The government cannot prohibit the free exercise of any religion.

So where did we get this notion that “separation of Church and State” meant that religion has been banned from the public square? Certainly not from the men who founded the United States and framed the Constitution!

Where did the phrase “separation of Church and State” come from, anyway?

In October 1801, the Danbury Baptist Association wrote a letter to President Thomas Jefferson. The Danbury Baptists were a religious minority in Connecticut at the time, and were concerned that their state constitution did not guarantee them religious liberty. Apparently, members of the Connecticut legislature saw religious freedom as a “favor” they were kindly granting religious minorities, rather than God-given right.

President Jefferson responded by reassuring the Danbury Baptists that he also was a proponent of religious freedom, and reiterated the establishment clause in Amendment I of the Constitution, which guaranteed that no State religion would be established, and no religious exercise would be prohibited.

…I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.
~Thomas Jefferson, from his response to the Danbury Baptist Association

This is where the phrase “separation of Church and State” originated.

Nothing, in either the original letter from the Danbury Baptists, or President Jefferson’s response, suggests any kind of ban on expressions of faith in public. Instead, freedom of religion, not freedom from religion is emphasized. No one is asking that any religious group be silenced. Rather, the Danbury Baptists only want reassurance that they will not be silenced.

Christians cannot use the establishment clause to silence non-Christians. Or (as it is more commonly attempted nowadays) antitheists cannot use the establishment clause to silence theists. Simply because the government cannot establish any religion, it does not logically follow that the government is atheistic. Antitheists have no right to use the government to enforce their opinion on religion. If anyone ought to be silenced, it’s the Freedom from Religion Foundation, the ACLU, and any other threat to religious liberty.

According to Amendment I of the Constitution of the United States of America:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…

The Constitution, the highest law of the land in the United States, forbids Congress, the legislative branch of our government–the branch that writes our laws–from tampering with anyone’s religion. The citizens of this nation have the right to free exercise of their respective religion, whatever it might be. Congress–the law-making branch of our government–is prohibited from restricting them in any way. They cannot establish a State religion, and they cannot prohibit any religion.

The Constitution clearly defines what the rights of the people are, and what the boundaries of government are. The people get liberty, and the government gets limits. This is true concerning religion, and generally everything else in the Constitution.

I am not alone in this interpretation. Our nation’s current president, Barack Obama–a former law professor–has been quoted as saying,

…generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf…

While he seems to think the government being limited by the Constitution is a flaw, I would disagree. However, my intent here is to point out what the Constitution says, not what it ought to say (though I must confess, I like it just as it is).

Here’s the real issue I want to get at: “freedom from religion.” There is no such thing in our Constitution. And yet, we have an organization in the United States called the Freedom from Religion Foundation. As the name implies, this group believes in, and fights in the courts for, “freedom from religion.” This is just silly.

This is silly because, per Amendment I of the Constitution, these “freethinkers” already have every right to practice their religious persuasion, and the government is prohibited from restricting them in any way (and yes, atheism is a religious persuasion, in the sense that atheists and agnostics have an opinion about religion, even if they don’t practice any religion). But this isn’t good enough! These people also think that per the “separation of Church and State,” the government is obligated to protect them from religion. However, according to Amendment I of the Constitution, this is just the sort of thing government is not allowed to do. The government is not allowed to prohibit the free exercise of religion.

Amendment I does not actually prohibit crosses from being erected at Veteran memorials on government land.

It does not prohibit prayer in school (provided the prayer is not organized by the school district).

It does not prevent churches from displaying Nativity Scenes during the Christmas season. Though, admittedly, the courts are somewhat confused about this example.

Congress cannot prohibit the free exercise of religion, and so it stands to reason that Congressmen, both Representatives and Senators, are also free to practice religion. They open congressional sessions with prayer.

Fire departments, police departments, and units in the Armed Forces have chaplains.

Clearly, “separation of Church and State” does not mean restrictions on religion in the public square. It only means that a State religion cannot be established, and that religious expression cannot be prohibited in any way.

So where did this notion of “freedom from religion” come from? Certainly not the Constitution. I have to point out that the overwhelming majority of atheists and agnostics that I have met would agree with me. They have no wish to prevent me from practicing Christianity, and only ask that they not be prevented from expressing antitheism either. A small, but vocal, minority–backed by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, the ACLU, and similar groups–wants to the government to forcibly remove any trace of religion from the public square.

Though they call themselves “freethinkers,” the fact of the matter is, they are antitheist fascists.

I will not be silenced. While I greatly appreciate that the establishment clause of the Constitution endorses freedom of religion, I do not need a piece of paper grant me freedom of religion. My liberty comes from Almighty God!

My answer to antitheist fascists is the same answer given by the Apostles to those who wished to silence them:

We must obey God rather than men.
~Acts 5:29

Reblogged from Captivated by Christ:

Although I in no way would promote myself as a great apologist for biblical faith (But shouldn’t we all be defenders of our belief system?), I do know that our worldview, the framework or lens through which we view life, is critical. It, it many ways, defines who we are (our character), determines our behavior (our conduct), and predicts our sense of well-being; happiness in this life and hope in our death (our contentment). One might say that they have no worldview but that is illogical. Having no …

I trained for four months for this fight. Three months of actual hard, hard training. I beat myself up through the training camp. Whenever one punch ended it, I was sort of in shock.

Johnny Hendricks’s words remind me of the words of Paul.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 ESV

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

The Christian life is a constant battle against the sinful nature; the flesh. We all have sinful impulses that we know run contrary to the way God wants us to live. Some people would complain that it just isn’t fair that God doesn’t want us to have any fun–as if God had arbitrarily set up a moral system that contradicted our natural impulses as a joke!

The truth is, God’s moral system was in place long before humans were ever created. God did not invent morality to frustrate our desires. Moral standards and duties are rooted in the very nature of God. They only seem to contradict human nature because we are conceived in iniquity. We are rebels from the womb. We are the ones who live to frustrate God’s desires, not the other way around.

Even the Apostle Paul had sinful desires. To keep from sinning he disciplined himself like a professional athlete. He wrote that we too need to run the race to win. We need to have God’s goals and purposes in mind. When we fight our flesh, we need our punches to connect. We need to punch for the knockout and give the flesh a black eye!

Paul said, I discipline my body and keep it under control. The English phrase “keep it under control” is a translation of the Greek word hupopiazo. Hupopiazo literally means to beat black and blue. The English Standard Version (the Bible translation I typically use in this blog) includes the note: Greek I pummel my body and make it a slave.

Hupopiazo is a derivative of the Greek word for the part of the face under the eyes. Paul might be paraphrased, “I give my carnal nature a black eye!”

In a day and age when grace is preached as if it meant “anything goes,” we need to discipline ourselves like the Apostle and Johnny Hendricks. We need to be ready to knock out our sinful nature anytime it tries to lead us away from the Lord.

Not only do we need to be morally disciplined, but we need to be intentional about prayer without ceasing, regular fasting, and study of God’s Word. We need to practice these things when we feel like and when we don’t feel like it. While we don’t need to be under any delusion that these things will save us, we need to recognize that we will never bear the fruit of the Spirit unless we cultivate them by walking in the Spirit. We cannot be Christ’s disciples without discipline.

Let’s give our sinful nature a black eye!

It’s no use! It’s time to stop running from God.

Psalm 139 ESV
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
 ¹ O LORD, you have searched me and known me!
² You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
   you discern my thoughts from afar.
³ You search out my path and my lying down
   and are acquainted with all my ways.
⁴ Even before a word is on my tongue,
   behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
⁵ You hem me in, behind and before,
   and lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
   it is high; I cannot attain it.

 ⁷ Where shall I go from your Spirit?
   Or where shall I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
   If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
⁹ If I take the wings of the morning
   and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand shall lead me,
   and your right hand shall hold me.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
   and the light about me be night,”
¹² even the darkness is not dark to you;
   the night is bright as the day,
   for darkness is as light with you.

 ¹³ For you formed my inward parts;
   you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
   my soul knows it very well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
   intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
   the days that were formed for me,
   when as yet there was none of them.

 ¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
   How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
   I awake, and I am still with you.

 ¹⁹ Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
   O men of blood, depart from me!
²⁰ They speak against you with malicious intent;
   your enemies take your name in vain.
²¹ Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD?
   And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
²² I hate them with complete hatred;
   I count them my enemies.

 ²³ Search me, O God, and know my heart!
   Try me and know my thoughts!
²⁴ And see if there be any grievous way in me,
   and lead me in the way everlasting!

If God–such a God as any adult religion believes in–exists, mere movement in space will never bring you any nearer to Him or farther from Him than you are at this very moment. You can neither reach Him nor avoid Him by traveling to Alpha Centauri or even to other galaxies. A fish is no more, and no less, in the sea after it has swum a thousand miles than it was when it first set out.

How, then, it may be asked, can we either reach or avoid Him?

The avoiding, in many times and places, has proved so difficult that a very large part of the human race failed to achieve it. But in our own time and place it is extremely easy. Avoid silence, avoid solitude, avoid any train of thought that leads off the beaten track. Concentrate on money, sex, status, health and (above all) on your own grievances. Keep the radio on. Live in the crowd. Use plenty of sedation. If you must read books, select them very carefully. But you’d be safer to stick to the papers. You’ll find the advertisements helpful; especially those with a sexy or a snobbish appeal.”

C. S. Lewis, “The Seeing Eye”

Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge,
but he who hates reproof is stupid.

Here is a quick thought: Jesus commanded us to make disciples of all nations. A disciple is a disciplined follower. While it is true that some churches are legalistic and works based, in my observation many churches go to the other extreme. They preach such strong message of grace, and against trying to please God with good works, that some Christians are under the delusion that God doesn’t want us to perform any good works at all!

This is not Biblical. Before we can make disciples of all nations, we must be disciplined disciples ourselves. We are saved by grace through faith, and not of works–but the caveat is created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:10). We have each have a purpose and a mission from the Lord, and so we need to disciplined.

I challenge the readers of this blog to get in God’s Word, and find out what God has to say about discipline.

Knowledge precedes faith.~Francis Schaeffer

Many people think that faith and knowledge are opposites. Atheists often attack Christianity by criticizing a “faith” that they say is not supported by, or even contradicted by, evidence. Some Christians seem to agree with them. They support their view with verses like 2 Corinthians 5:7 for we walk by faith, not by sight (ESV).

Here’s the problem: to interpret this verse in such a way, one has to take it out of context.

To interpret faith as meaning a blind leap of faith, one has to ignore the passages surrounding this verse, ignore the context of Scripture as a whole, and ignore the original language the Bible was written in. Let’s start with the language. The Greek word translated into English as faith is pistis. Here is what Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary says about pistis:

…primarily, “firm persuasion,” a conviction based upon hearing (akin to peitho, “to persuade”)…
All this stands in contrast to belief in its purely natural exercise, which consists of an opinion held in good “faith” without necessary reference to its proof….

In the original language faith is not good “faith” held without rhyme or reason. Faith without evidence, or in contradiction to evidence, has no basis in the Bible. In fact, because our English word “faith” has thus been twisted, it might be better to translate pistis as “trust.” Only a fool would trust what he/she does not know. Christians who proclaim a blind leap of faith are the blind leading the blind.

This erroneous view of faith has made Christianity an easy target for antitheists. All they have to do to rob Christians of credibility is to set up a straw man argument against us, based on this idiotic view of faith!

In fact, if we read 2 Corinthians 5:7 in full context Paul says,

2 Corinthians 5:1-10 ESV (emphasis mine)

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Paul first gives an argument from desire, arguing that the believer knows he has eternal life because he longs for the eternal. Secondly, he says we have the Holy Spirit as a guarantee. The Christian believer has a rational belief in God on the basis that the very Spirit of the Almighty God lives within him or her! This faith may be “blind” in the sense that God is not seen, but the Believer has more than enough evidence that God is real. It is no leap of faith.

The Christian can truly claim to be fully convinced, and this is why his/her faith is counted as righteousness.

The faithful know that God is real, but what about the unbeliever? Without a direct experiential encounter with God, the Christian must attempt to show that he is real. If Christianity is true, we should find some evidence for it. With the help of the Holy Spirit, if the Christian will discipline themself to learn how to defend the faith with evidence, the skeptic may be convinced.

Apologetics is the Biblical way to witness to the skeptic. The term “apologetics” is derived from the Greek apologia. It does not mean Christians need to apologize for their faith. Apologia is translated as “answer” or “defense” in 1 Peter 3:15.

Since knowledge precedes faith, the Christian’s primary mission is to know God and to make Him known.

John 17:3 ESV

And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.