Ive Been to Hell and Back and Then Back Again
Do whatsoever of these audio familiar?
- Every Sun the preacher shouted from the pulpit that you're a terrible sinner. God is aroused at you. Because of God's wrath, yous're going to burn in hell for all eternity.
- Your parents drilled it into you lot that you lot're but no good. And they're probably correct. You just tin't experience practiced about annihilation y'all do.
- You've done terrible things . . . horrible things. What yous've done is so bad that you deserve to be in hell. There is no promise for yous. You're a goner.
- No matter how hard you try, you only can't exist expert. You know what yous should practise, but you just proceed on doing the things you shouldn't do.
If whatsoever of these are much too familiar for y'all, I'll be straight: At that place are no easy answers. Besides, yous've probably tried the easy answers already, and learned the hard manner that they don't work.
I'thousand as well not going to tell you that all you accept to practice is believe in Jesus. Assertive in Jesus is keen. I highly recommend it! Being born once more is wonderful! But for Christians, believing in Jesus is only the start. Then come the many years of growing from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity.
The fact is, if any of the things on this list draw your experience, then no affair how you slice information technology, yous've got some hard work to practice. And it may take years to fully recover, even with God's help.
What I tin can offer you is new light and a new understanding of your state of affairs. Nothing I say volition snap you right out of it and instantly make your life a bed of roses. But it volition give you hope that there is a path out. And it might help you have your next steps on that path toward the life of heaven God has in heed for you.
No matter what that preacher or your parents or anyone else has said, God created you for heaven, not for hell. And in that location is no reason on globe that you can't observe your way to heaven . . . no matter what your history.
Then let's straighten a few things out.
Is a wrathful God aroused at you?
The short reply is: No.
Huh?!?
And then what about all those Bible passages the preacher quoted about God'due south wrath and fury?
Doesn't the Bible say, "God judgeth the righteous, and God is aroused with the wicked every day" (Psalm 7:11, Rex James Version)?
Well, there'south a funny story near that verse . . .
First, the word for "the wicked" came from an ancient Aramaic (or "Chaldee") version. Information technology is non in the original Hebrew text, nor is it in the other ancient translations. Even in the King James Version, the words "with the wicked" are in italics, significant they are not in the original. So information technology should read, "God judges the righteous, and God is aroused every 24-hour interval."
But wait, there's more!
You meet, the Hebrew word for "God" in the 2nd half of the verse could also mean "non," depending on how the Hebrew is interpreted. And that'southward exactly what near of aboriginal translations, including the well-known Septuagint Greek translation, have in that verse. The first one-half of the verse is besides a little off in some of the older English translations.
What does this all hateful?
The verse near certainly should read, "God is a righteous approximate, and is not angry all twenty-four hours." (Compare Young's Literal Translation for this poesy.)
Picture a estimate taking hundreds of cases, 1 afterwards another, pronouncing only judgments all 24-hour interval without ever getting aroused, even at the worst evildoers. That'south the picture the Psalmist is painting. And information technology's simply the reverse of what that former burn down and brimstone preacher said!
Now, don't get me wrong. There are lots of other verses in the Bible that talk about God's acrimony and wrath. But every bit I pointed out in the article, "If God is Dear, Why all the Pain and Suffering?" that's just how God'southward beloved looks to us when we're aptitude on an evil and destructive path that's opposed to God's love.
God's love is like the warmth of the lord's day. But what if you're a snowman? What if yous want to be cold and unloving? If you're a snowman, God'southward dearest looks wrathful and destructive. Information technology's a horrible, subversive estrus that melts and destroys you.
When the Bible talks almost God'south wrath, information technology'southward talking most the effect God'due south beloved has on everything that's evil and faux in us and in our world. Information technology's only when we identify with the evil and cling to it as our ain that nosotros feel God'due south honey as anger and wrath. And the Bible often speaks to u.s.a. co-ordinate to the style things seem to usa, fifty-fifty if the reality is unlike from God's perspective.
Did you know that the Bible talks virtually God's beloved far more than often than it talks about God's wrath? Here is a beautiful passage assuring u.s. that God feels but love toward united states, whether nosotros are evil or skilful:
You lot have heard that information technology was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you lot may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the skillful, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. (Matthew 5:43–45)
And the famous verses from the Gospel of John:
For God then loved the world that he gave his only Son, and so that anybody who believes in him may not perish merely may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not transport the Son into the world to condemn the globe, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:xvi–17)
Detect that it doesn't say God was so angry with the world, merely God and so loved the world.
So here's the showtime ray of new light, and the most of import new data almost your state of affairs: No thing what you may have been told, God is not angry at y'all. It'southward just the opposite. No matter what you take done, and no matter how horrible or worthless a person you think you are, God loves you.
God sends yous the sun of divine honey, and the rain of divine truth, whether y'all are evil or expert, and whether you are righteous or unrighteous.
At that place is nothing you lot tin do to make God stop loving you. As the Psalm says:
O Lord, yous take examined me, and yous know me. . . .
If I go up to heaven, you are in that location.
If I make my bed in hell, you lot are there.
(Psalm 139:1, 8)
Are you condemned because of what your parents did?
Our parents were responsible for bringing usa into this earth. They are supposed to love u.s.a., care for us, teach us right from wrong, and guide united states toward a healthy and responsible adulthood. And some of us were fortunate enough to have parents who did a fine task.
Unfortunately, some of us were born of parents who fell far short of the mark. Perchance they merely weren't ready to have children. Perchance they were too focused on money or ability or pleasure to really care nearly their children. Mayhap they were just plain evil and destructive types who used and abused their children at will. Bad parents tin can cause smashing damage to their children.
If yous were one of those unfortunate children, does this mean your life is ruined from the starting time, and yous might as well just throw in the towel?
In ancient times, information technology was common for whole families to be condemned and executed for the offenses of the caput of the household. For example, when iii men named Korah, Dathan, and Abiram rebelled against God's commandments to the ancient Hebrews about the priesthood, not only they, just their wives and children died equally a result of their defiance. Yous tin read the story in Numbers sixteen.
Notwithstanding, in course of time, God pronounced an stop to the do of children beingness judged guilty for the crimes of their parents. This pronouncement comes in Ezekiel 18—i of the most beautiful chapters in the Hebrew Bible. Hither's how the chapter begins:
The word of the Lord came to me: What practice you lot hateful past repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, "The parents accept eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are attack edge"? As I alive, says the Lord God, this saying shall no more be used by you in Israel. Know that all lives are mine; the life of the parent every bit well as the life of the child is mine: information technology is only the person who sins that shall die. (Ezekiel eighteen:1–iv)
The affiliate then goes on to explain in detail that if a male parent is practiced, but his son evil, then merely the son shall be held guilty; and if that son has a son who sees how his begetter lived, and resolves non to live that fashion, but to alive a adept life instead, then simply the begetter, not the son, shall be held guilty.
Sounds reasonable, doesn't it?
To us today, yes. Our justice arrangement is based on individual innocence and guilt. To the ancient Israelites, though, this seemed quite unjust. They thought information technology was right and proper that if a man sins, his whole family should exist punished!
God was quite clear, though, that this was not to exist our practice anymore:
When the son has done what is lawful and right, and has been careful to detect all my statutes, he shall surely alive. The person who sins shall die. A kid shall not suffer for the iniquity of a parent, nor a parent endure for the iniquity of a child; the righteousness of the righteous shall be his own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be his own. (Ezekiel 18:19–xx)
Notwithstanding, when it comes to our spiritual and emotional life, sometimes we oasis't gotten the message. We think that because our parents were evil, and neglected or mistreated us, that means nosotros, besides, are doomed, and headed toward hell.
It'due south not true.
Yes, nosotros may take a long, hard route undoing the damage that our parents did to u.s.. It might take much prayer, counseling, and much hard and painful introspection and rearranging of our emotional and social life.
Merely God does not hold u.s.a. responsible for the errors and sins of our parents. And neither should we. If our parents drilled into us that we're just no good, they were lying to u.s.a.. And if they used and abused united states, they were perpetrating evil on the states.
That lying and that evil was theirs, not ours. And though it did have a profound effect on u.s.a., there is a pathway out of the damage our parents did to us. Information technology is the path of recognizing that what our parents did to us had nothing to do with u.s.a.. It was their own immaturity, neglect, and evil, non ours, that damaged usa. As nosotros recognize that what they said was non true, and what they did was simply evidently wrong, nosotros can gradually recognize that nosotros ourselves are not what they said we were, nor did we deserve what they did to us.
If you were neglected or abused verbally or physically by your parents, it is not going to exist an like shooting fish in a barrel path out of what they did to yous. Simply there is a path. And information technology starts with recognizing that you are not condemned for the sins of your parents. God created y'all for a reason. God loves you, and has prepared a identify for you in heaven (run across John 14:1–3, 1 Corinthians 2:nine).
Y'all accept the rest of your life to get out behind the lies and the wrongs that were inflicted on you when you were young. You have the rest of your life to walk, even if painfully sometimes, the path toward the life of heaven that God has prepared for yous.
Accept you committed terrible sins?
What if it wasn't your parents who did a number on you? What if you yourself have done terrible, horrible things? What if y'all don't deserve to go to sky because of what you've washed?
If that's the state of mind yous're in, then Ezekiel 18 has a bulletin for you as well:
But if the wicked turn away from all their sins that they have committed and keep all my statutes and do what is lawful and right, they shall surely live; they shall non die. None of the transgressions that they take committed shall exist remembered against them; for the righteousness that they have washed they shall live. Accept I whatsoever pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord God, and non rather that they should turn from their ways and live? (Ezekiel 18:21–23, emphasis added)
Based on his experience in the spiritual earth, Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) tells us that this is precisely how it works after we dice. In Heaven and Hell #509, he writes:
No one suffers any punishment for evil things done in the world, just for current evil deeds. . . . Good spirits are never punished, though, even though they accept done bad things in the world. This is because their evils do not come back.
Swedenborg is simply affirming what God tells us in Ezekiel 18: We are not held responsible for things nosotros accept done in the by. Only for things we go along doing in the present. If nosotros accept done something terrible in the past, but have repented of it, take reformed our character, and no longer exercise things similar that, then none of the transgressions we have committed will exist remembered against us.
If you lot have done something terrible, there is no way to undo it. You lot and those you hurt will even so have to live with the repercussions of your deportment. Merely i of those repercussions is not that you must go to hell for information technology.
Of form, if there is any mode yous can make amends for what you have done, you should certainly do so. However, when your time on this globe comes to an end, y'all will observe your place in heaven or in hell depending on the person you have get in the present, and the fashion yous are living now, not based on any wrongs you lot take done in the past.
As the old saying goes, "Every saint has a past, and every sinner a future."
So please don't worry well-nigh the terrible things you have done in the past. God has already forgiven you for them. God has no pleasance in your eternal expiry. No matter what you've done, God wants you lot to turn from your old ways and live! Now it'southward time to build a new life for yourself, so that you won't do things like that anymore. For more than on how to do this, encounter the article, "What does Jesus Hateful when He Says we Must be Born Again?"
What if you continue doing things you shouldn't?
Information technology sounds like you're in the same boat as the apostle Paul when he wrote:
I know that my selfish desires won't allow me do annihilation that is practiced. Fifty-fifty when I want to practice correct, I cannot. Instead of doing what I know is correct, I practice incorrect. . . . In every office of me I discover something fighting against my listen, and it makes me a prisoner of sin that controls everything I practice. What a miserable person I am! (Romans vii:xviii–nineteen, 23–24)
Every bit he went on to say, Paul institute a rescue from this state of affairs in Jesus Christ. However, as I said before, for Christians, believing in Jesus Christ is just the get-go step. After that comes the more than challenging steps of living according to Christ's teachings.
And for many of the states who are very sensitive about our own wrongs and our own bad habits, 1 of the ways we don't follow Christ'due south teachings is to lay burdens on ourselves that are much too heavy—and are sometimes completely unnecessary.
In a recent article titled, "Is it Easy or Hard to Get to Heaven?" I expanded on this maxim of Jesus:
Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you residuum. Take my yoke upon you, and acquire from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you lot will find residual for your souls. For my yoke is piece of cake, and my burden is lite. (Matthew eleven:28–thirty)
I invite you lot to read that commodity if you feel you simply tin can't live up to what y'all know is right.
Here's another thought that might aid:
Have y'all considered that even though you have some bad habits, and do some things that actually aren't skilful, mayhap they aren't really evil either?
Let'due south face it: neither you nor I nor anyone else is always going to be perfect. Each one of united states of america will die equally an imperfect human existence, nonetheless thinking, feeling, saying, and doing some things that nosotros really shouldn't.
What we need is some standard by which to determine just how serious our bad habits and wrong actions are.
There are many possible standards. In instance you don't have one that works for yous, may I suggest something really simple? The 10 Commandments. Especially the second part of the Ten Commandments, which is almost how we humans are supposed to conduct toward one another. I'1000 talking especially about these commandments (in their brusque versions):
- Honour your father and your female parent.
- You shall not murder.
- You shall non commit infidelity.
- Yous shall non steal.
- You lot shall not give imitation testimony against your neighbor.
- You shall not covet.
"Covet" is an erstwhile-fashioned word meaning wanting something that belongs to someone else. The problem with coveting is that it tends to lead to the other offenses: murder, adultery, stealing, and lying.
And about honoring your father and your mother, if the parents who raised you abdicated their parental responsibilities and did a number on you, feel free to call back of God as your father and your mother instead. (For more on this, come across "The Mother of All the Living.")
Now here's the question: Are the things you lot're currently doing that are wrong actually confronting whatever of these commandments? Are you killing people, committing adultery, stealing, lying most other people, then on?
If the respond is yes, then you do take a real problem—and you need to do the piece of work of rebirth or "regeneration" in guild to overcome it.
But if you lot're non really breaking whatever of these commandments, information technology's quite possible that you're laying too heavy a brunt on yourself. Do you think y'all accept to be perfect in club to get to heaven?
I'chiliad not proverb you shouldn't continue to work on yourself. I'yard not saying you lot shouldn't keep taking steps to requite up your bad habits and cease doing hurtful and destructive things. There is always room for improvement.
But are the wrong things you say and exercise really bad enough that y'all should go to hell for them? Chances are, they are not. They are simply areas where you still have work to practise.
So go a fiddling easy on yourself. The very fact that you're concerned about your eternal state, and desire to become a better person, suggests that you are on the path to heaven, not on that slippery slope to hell.
God wants YOU in heaven
God wants Yous for sky
Maybe you've given upwardly on yourself. Merely God hasn't given upward on you lot. If God had given upwards on you, you lot would no longer exist live on this earth. In fact, here's a thought to accept home with you:
Equally long as you are alive and animate on this earth, you can still find your manner to sky.
God has given us a lifetime here on world because God knows that it takes some of us many years to whip ourselves into shape—with God's assist, of course. So utilize your time hither well. Then y'all volition non exist disappointed when your fourth dimension on earth is finished, and you motion on to the side by side life.
If y'all still think you're going to hell, consider these final words from Ezekiel 18:
Therefore I will gauge you lot, O business firm of State of israel, all of y'all co-ordinate to your means, says the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions; otherwise iniquity will be your ruin. Cast abroad from you lot all the transgressions that y'all have committed confronting me, and become yourselves a new center and a new spirit! Why volition you dice, O house of State of israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn, then, and live! (Ezekiel 18:30–32)
Why would God say these words to united states if God did not know and expect that we can leave our past behind, and live a new life?
Heaven is possible for you! The choice is yours. God volition be with you lot, guiding and strengthening you every step of the manner, because God loves you and cares about you. God has a job for you lot in sky, and has prepared a home for you there. Practice you really want to leave it vacant?
For further reading:
- Ezekiel eighteen: God'due south Message of Hope . . . If You Think in that location's No Hope for You
- Is it Easy or Hard to Get to Sky?
- How Tin can a Criminal Go to Sky?
- What is the Unpardonable Sin? Am I Doomed?
- What does Jesus Hateful when He Says we Must be Born Once again?
- Heaven, Regeneration, and the Meaning of Life on Earth
Source: https://leewoof.org/2014/01/16/if-you-think-youre-going-to-hell-please-read-this-first/