I’d rather live like Jesus died for my sins and I accept Him as my personal savior. The Hell thing becomes pretty irrelevant for me
That's the way it should be... but it is not the way everybody sees it. Imagine someone is driving down the road, past a "wrong way" sign, towards the proverbial bridge that is down. You are saying that, unless I stop them because they ignored the "wrong way" sign, I have no business stopping them! If I stopped them because they are going to fall in the river, I am guilty of fearmongering, right? Yes, if they had obeyed the traffic sign they bridge down would be irrelevant... but the fact is they didn't and if I don't stop them they are going to get killed. I'll stop them first, then I might point out the traffic sign. Same here, if someone comes to Jesus out of fear from hell, there's plenty of time for that person to later on understand what Jesus did and follow Him out of love! But I won't stop hollering "the bridge is down" or "hell is eternal" for as long as people are heading to their doom.
If you say a steer was slaughtered in a slautherhouse that existed for 100 years, it does not mean the first steer was slaughtered for that long. The steer did “stay slaughtered” though, for at least that long. ;->
Maybe that's your problem, you are trying to understand God! Do you remember Isa 55:8-9? “ For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. “ For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts."
—Maybe that’s your problem, you are trying to understand God!—
Well, thats not really the case here. I am trying to understand what he is communicating to us in His Word. And since He made the effort, I figure there is something He is trying to tell me.
Also, I am a VERY black and white thinker. I believe that issues are like black and white newspaper photographs. EVERYTHING is black and white. Even the “gray areas”, for if you look at them through a magnifying glass you will see that they are made up of individual black and white dots (actually black dots on white). So if I see an area as “gray”, it means I need to break it down further to its black and white components.
And likewise with the slaughterhouse analogy. I am saying that people infer things from God’s Word that are really not there. If I say I paint a fence blue for all eternity do I mean I spend eternity painting it blue, or that I paint it once and it “stays blue” for all eternity. I think that is actually what is being said about Hell and the lake of fire. People (in whatever post “first ressurection” form they take) are thrown into the lake of fire, to be destroyed and they stay destroyed, never to be heard from again.
But those who accept Jesus death and resurrection as the complete and perfect sacrifice as a covering for their sins will enjoy eternal LIFE in the presence of the Lord for all eternity.
One is called death and the other is called life. Those words have very “black and white” meaning. Death is an ending. A ceasing to exist. It is not “eternal life” in suffering. It is the opposite of life. And I don’t get into Pat Robertson’s twisting of the meaning of words by calling something a “form of death”. Death is death, within the context of the subject.
For mankind, post this life, there are two possibilities. It is black and white: 1. Eternal life in the presence of the Lord. 2. Eternal punishment - death. Ceasing to exist in any form whatsoever. The body dies when you go to the grave, whether Christian or not. What is left dies in the lake of fire if your sins are not covered via the blood of Christ.
Sorry. I didn’t mean to get so wordy. It just sort of flowed...
And to clarify, everything above is offered in the spirit of “opinion”. With further study, it is possible that some of that opinion could change. It is where I am now, though.
—You are saying that, unless I stop them because they ignored the “wrong way” sign, I have no business stopping them! If I stopped them because they are going to fall in the river, I am guilty of fearmongering, right?—
I admit it does sound like that is what I am saying, but it is really not. Yes, I think people should be warned of the outcome of their life as they are currently living it. But the way I see it is that I can warn them of the impending disaster and offer them a better way. But, to expand the analogy, it is not merely to tell them to turn around. Rather it is to tell them that there is a better road - one that takes them to a relationship with their creator - or they can continue on the road that they are on and come to an end. There is no “turning around” as I see it. There is merely taking a fork in the road before you get to the bridge.
I like to use Ecclesiastes to explain this to people that are not Christian, but open to its teachings. Eccleistes is actually my favorit OT book and reminds me a bi of the movie “The Sixth Sense” in that the twist at the end causes the reader to see the whole book from a completely different perspective than when they were first reading.
The book of Ecclesiastes basically says people eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor. And, without Christ, they then die. IOW, they are like animals. And I sometimes wonder if that is what is meant when we are referred to as the “natural” man.
And that, coupled with the message of Christ sums up what I like to share with non-believers.