There is somewhat of a war going on right now between those who wish to preserve the Dark Ages doctrine of eternal torment in hell versus the emerging common sense (and biblically-based alternative) view that Love Wins and God will ultimately reconcile all things to himself. That this battle is really going on became very clear to me last week when a particular lady began to post on a friend’s facebook wall warnings of a sort to reconsider and believe in eternal hell. The giveaway that these hell supporters are active and working hard after being put on the defensive by books such as Love Wins and Raising Hell came in the middle of this conversation on Facebook. The lady mistakenly cut and pasted something to people she was carrying on multiple (who knows how many) conversations with… the proof was there was another person’s name in the middle of the post. I busted her for cutting and pasting, of course, in fun. There is no law against pasting the same thing to multiple walls. But, that was exactly what she was doing. So she was launching this attack against the universal love and mercy of God under the same old guise of being concerned for our souls. Now, she very well may have been. But what is this really? This is mistrust of God, plain and simple. The lady was pleading in a personal tone as if the message was crafted specially for this one person. In fact, she was distributing this message of fear en masse to hundreds if not thousands of people who are ever realizing that eternal torture and God being Love are things that cannot both be true.
The warped reasoning of these folks is that if people become convinced God is really Love and really will save all, and this turns out not to be the case….that is, if it turns out that the supreme being really is the Eternal torturer instead of Love, then believers who trust God to reconcile all to himself and have mercy on all are actually deceived and are leading millions of people – billions potentially, into eternal torment! What is behind all this sudden defensiveness of the medieval doctrine of hell? Well, three huge reasons continue to be--fear, fear, and fear! More of the same, but these folks are getting more desperate as the battle for Hell is being WON by those who believe God will have mercy on all and hell is in no way a place of everlasting torment. If God created a place of everlasting torture for his own creatures, don’t think for a minute that God can be trusted because he can’t. Even people who think he has provided a way out (how nice of him, considered he made the place, right? This is totally irrational), are not really safe and must “tremble” lest this being, this fiend send them to eternal torture themselves. Such a being would not be god, he would be a demon, and that is unthinkable. Thankfully, we know it is also not true. God is love! And Love wins. Realizing this will cause you to read the Bible in an entirely different light. Your eyes will be opened to this glorious truth!
Blessings,
David
