March 29, 2026 • 31 mins
Resistance
Does Hell Exist
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to KFI A six forty on demand. John,
Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show. Hey, good morning, Jesus,
Hi John, what's going on?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Yeah? My question is is that I've been baptized a believer,
and I do read scripture and I do attend church. However,
I'm surrounded by in my family what I would call
scientific atheists. In other words, there are non believers, never
been baptized. They mock every word and action that I
(00:34):
pursue in my life, and it's very damaging and very
painful to me. And I was wondering if there's a
passage in scripture that you can help me focus on
so that I can receive some answers from them.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Okay, Well, for one, I'm not sure why you'd expect
them to love you through this. I mean, they disagree
with you and every single moment. Yeah, and they think
it's silly in their own eyes. And that's okay, there's
there's Why are you looking for them to somehow pat
you on the back for something like this?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well maybe excuse me, maybe I'm not, but it sure
feels like I'm carrying the cross.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Well, that's part of the process. I will assure you,
as the one who did carry the cross, you're not,
but that there is a process of growing that happens
through this, and Scripture says that, hey, they're going to
treat you the same way they treated me, and that
(01:36):
there's going to be there's going to be problems. If
you read in Matthew chapter ten, starting at verse thirty four, says,
you know, do not think that I came to bring
peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace
but a sword. For I came to set a man
against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and
(01:59):
a daughter in law against your mother in law. And
a man's enemy enemies will be members of his own household.
And that points out that there is going to be
problems even in your own family, and that's okay. As
you grow in Scripture, as you grow in your learning,
(02:21):
expect people to press up against you. Resistance is not
a bad thing, John, If you look at everything in
life and its beauty, the bird flying, the fish swimming,
that those things can only happen due to resistance. The
bird only flies because of the resistance of the wind.
The fish only swims because of the resistance of the water.
(02:44):
Resistance is something that should propel you forward, not keep
you back. Don't expect everybody to love you. They didn't
love me. Don't expect everybody to high five you, even
your own family, when you're bettering yourself or you're living
for God, especially if they don't understand it, if they
don't conceptualize it and be able to put it, especially
(03:04):
if they're you know, as you say, scientific atheists in
your own words, and they're not always synonymous, by the way,
but just because they come from that mindset, they can't
put your experience in a petri dish. They're not going
to understand it. Steve, Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Hi, thanks for taking my call, Holy.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Host, my pleasure, Steve.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
I have a what I suspect is a very typical
hot potato, and that is my just of the horns
at the idea that as a part of the Christian faith,
that hell could really exist, or exist as it is stated,
where you know people outside the faith or those who
(03:55):
perhaps don't utter at a level of sincerity the right
words of the right time, It would then spend an
eternity in Hell. And it's not a new topic to me.
I've been involved in the church for many years off
and on, and in the last four or five years
have really given it a strong thrust, gotten involved in
the church with the Old and New Testament, not thoroughly,
(04:16):
but enough to get a good sense just you know,
sort of exited Deuteronomy and Leviticus, was a sense of
nausea with all the horrifying things that take place in
there and anyway, but the big thing for me and
it has caused me to sort of abandon, you know,
the faith as I have portrayed it in my own life,
(04:43):
and fallen on my face in front of God, said
please just help me find you, because I cannot accept
that a loving God would send people guilty or not.
The level of guilt had never equal, I think, eternal torture,
and therefore cannot except that it is un Christian. As
(05:03):
far as the logic that God has bestowed on me,
I will hold off to that the fact that what
if the this is just an excuse for you to
continue to control and enjoy certain sins it gives you
kind of a break. In other words, if there were
no hell mentioned in the Bible, would I still find
(05:26):
reasons to sort of sidestep it? Because I want my
own selfish me. So I accept, but I've examined that
pretty closely and I don't think so. And just lastly,
for instance, I have some Mormon colleagues that I work
with and are great friends, and they are far more
faithful and holy than I. And according to those in
my congregation, it's a cult and they're all held bound.
(05:49):
And just when I think of that, and then I
try to express my faith to someone else, all of
the credibility drains right out of my feet. Because I
think of that, I say, cannot, in good faith, you know,
follow a faith that would express that as a consequence
of the differing dogmas that surround the various sorts of Christmas,
(06:13):
Christian faith, and then of course all the rest of them,
you know, Muslims, Buddhism, etc.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
So that's my plight, okay, And I think it's a
legitimate one. I think it's a healthy place to be.
I think if you are a believer and you don't
go through this in your walk, if you don't ask
those questions and you're not concerned about that, I think
that there might be an issue with your heart. However,
if you don't work through it, I think that there's
an issue with your faith and possibly your head. They
(06:41):
meld together, and there's a way to explain and to
see them. And we'll go through as much as we
can that we have time for to give you a
little different perspective. First of all, I've always been humored
by the fact that the people have an issue with hell,
have an issue with hell because they feel people haven't
earned it. But they have no problem thinking people have
(07:02):
earned Heaven, which they have not. So if it is
based on those kinds of concepts, people have a problem
with that. Yet innate inherent in every culture, every belief system,
so every religious belief, everything always has a punitive or
punishment system. Always. It is inherent in man to understand
(07:27):
that punishment is not only important, that it's just and
it is good. Everyone stands up at the end of
the movie when the bad guy gets it and cheers.
Everyone stands up when the bad guy is arrested or
has to pay for the crime that they committed, because
that's good. Yet, for some reason, when it comes to
(07:50):
God or the things that are the holiest of holies,
that God should just kind of brush it off and say, eh, well,
it's all right. So let's look and see what really
is being done. And the problem is that man keeps
comparing themselves to one another. You look, you just did
it with religion, and you said, all these religions, Ah,
(08:11):
they're kind of the same, or they may be different,
but they're really trying hard, or they're sincere. And as
it's been said that the road to hell is paved
with good intentions. The problem lies in the fact not
that there are differing views, that no one believes that
there is a true view, yet they do in every
(08:32):
other walk of their life. You know, if you pick
up gasoline and put it into a glass, it looks
very similar to apple juice, but there's two very different
consequences when you consume it. So it's not about appearances,
it's not about things that you feel comfortable with. It's
(08:54):
about the reality. And the reality is that the sins
you commit are not against One of the sins you
commit are against God, who is a holy and righteous,
eternal being. So any act against that being, no matter
how small it is to you, is a complete and
(09:16):
total infraction against the holy will of God.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Sure, and I'll tell you one to in today. One
thing you had said is that everyone seems to have
a sense that, oh, gee, well, Heaven certainly exists, and
I could accept it that if I fall short of
the mark, and I hate to put it so lightly,
but if I fall sharp, No, that's.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
The actual biblical term sin is missing the mark?
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Right, So I missed the mark, and then therefore the
just consequence for me is eternal damnation. After having spent
sixty years on earth doing or not doing whatever I did,
the scale just doesn't equal. I can accept.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
But no, no, no, no, it's because you're looking towards man,
though it's not against. The analogy that I give is
that if you were to slap your brother in wrestling.
You're messing around in the house and you slap your brother,
it's a bad thing. But if you were to slap
(10:20):
your mother, that's a worse thing, right, same act on
a different person, different consequences, right, sure, Okay, Now the
police officer comes and he says, why did you slap
your brother? And why did you slap your mom? And
you slap the police officer. Different consequences, right, same act,
(10:42):
same act, right. Okay, When you slap the face of
the Holy, righteous, eternal God, the consequences by definition are eternal. Period.
Now to wrestle with that is to make God human
or to make you superior, and you're not. Neither are true.
(11:04):
The key is to understand. You get focused on the act,
and this is how humans work. They focus on themselves,
even the faithful, focus only on themselves instead of focusing
on God and who they're slapping when they reject the
will of God. That is what the punishment is. In
(11:26):
a moment, I'll explain a little bit more. So hang tight, Steve.
We'll get into what hell really is and maybe that
might give a better understanding. But marinate, think about that.
It's not about the act. You keep going back to
the act. It's about who you're doing the act upon.
That is why the consequences are so great. We were
(11:50):
chatting with We were chatting with Steve. Steve, you're still there,
Thanks so much for holding on. I marinated on our
little bit of what I was saying about that it's
not about the act, it's about who you do the
act on that creates the consequences. I will say also
that the concept of hell, which is a great concern
(12:11):
not only for you, for others, is different than what
people think it is now wash away all of the
emotive parts of different belief systems. It's not about that.
Logic states that regardless of how you feel about something,
there are certain laws in which are universal. You have
(12:32):
a phone number, it has certain digits in it. If
I call that phone number and I'm off one digit,
I don't get you by default, I don't even get
your neighbor necessarily. So in life there you can't just say, well,
if it's close enough, I should be okay. That would
be great for people who counterfeit money, it's like, well
(12:52):
it looks pretty close. There is reality and there are
things that aren't reality. There are things that are true
and there are things that are false. That's just the
way it goes. Every every truth claim is going to
have is going to be exclusionary by definition. So that's
something you need to get over because that's the reality
(13:13):
of everything. Every belief system you mentioned believes the same
of you. So it's that is everything you are who
you are, Steve, and no one can take that away
from you. Just it's the concept of a kid yelling
mom in a grocery store. You might have a bunch
of women that turn around, but only one is his Mother.
(13:36):
So there's more to it than just the term God.
There's more to it than just sincere faith. And it's
not about ignorance either. Hell is not about ignorance. It's
about rejection of God. So everyone will hear the message
and reject it. So like that that glass of apple
juice versus the glass of gasoline, everyone will be told
(13:59):
one of these, this one is gas and will hurt
you if you drink it. This one is apple juice,
and you'll be fine. But they will refuse one and
drink the other. And that's where the consequence lies. In
addition to that, the concept of hell is very different
from what people think. The concept of hell is not
about the fire and brimstone that people assume that it is.
(14:24):
Hell is the absence of the salvation of God, and
in that is a place that there's nothing to satiate
that quench. I'll explain more in a moment. We're having
(14:46):
a conversation with Steve that keeps getting rudely interrupted by
commercial breaks. A very interesting question is Steve was asking
about the concept of hell, and I love that it
comes from such a great place, Steve. I know that
this is something that is rocking your faith and the
reason why I'm so impassioned by it because I think
(15:07):
it's imperative to have an understanding that punishment is not evil.
Punishment is necessary because of evil and the concept of hell.
If you don't. Is there a particular music that you
can't stand Steve?
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Oh, yeah, you know the poka.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Okay polka, that's a legitimate choice. So polka. Yeah, Steve
doesn't like poka. I get that. I understand that can
be problematic. So you don't want to listen to poka
for a couple of hours, you certainly don't want to
listen to it for a year, right sure. And if
you don't want to listen to it yere for a year,
(15:48):
you wouldn't want to listen to it for ten years.
And if you don't want to listen to it for
ten years, you're not going to want to listen to
it for eternity. So God creates a place where the
salvation of God is not because there are those that
reject God throughout life. And God says, if you don't
want to serve me, if you don't want to love
(16:08):
me and obey me. For the seventy eighties, generously ninety
years that you have measley years that you have on
this planet. I will not force you to do it
for eternity. I will allow you to go to a
place where I am not now. The consequence of that
is that people don't understand how much God they get
(16:30):
in life. Whether they believe or not, they're still reaping benefits.
It's like somebody who drinks soda all the time says
they hate water, but don't understand that water's in soda
they're getting If they didn't get water, they'd die. So
they're getting it from somewhere. It's maybe not the best choice,
but they're getting it from somewhere. Likewise, people are getting
parts of God, even non believers are as the Bible says,
(16:53):
it rains on the just and the unjust alike. But
there must be a place, there must be a place
where those that don't want God, that reject God. That
doesn't mean you can say I believe in God or
I'm doing good, because your good doesn't matter, Steve, God's
good is the ruler. And if you think about having
(17:19):
a contractor come and build something for you in your house,
you don't want somebody who means well well, but whose
ruler is different than yours, because the house needs to
be built based on a measuring system that you adhere to,
or that the rules of the land adheres to. Otherwise
(17:41):
it's going to be built faulty. So in that sense,
if it's just anybody's belief, and anybody believes anything, then
there is no truth and there's no worthy of having
faith at all or any purpose to it. It is
all about God. It's not about you in that sense.
And to compare yourself to others and say well, I'm
(18:02):
better than this, or even as those group of Mormons
you said that, I agree and amazingly dedicated and lovely people,
and you start pointing to all these different faiths and
saying or different belief systems, and you say, well, what
about these people? What about that people? Then it becomes
a hard issue. I get that, and there's argument to
(18:23):
be said, especially for the different denominations of Christianity. And
some would put you, obviously Mormons, into that category versus
there were some, as you said, that would say, oh no,
they're separate. Well above all of that, to compare yourself
to another human being may get you far in the
(18:47):
judicial system of the United States or any government of
the land, but it doesn't get you far enough for God.
If the measuring rod is next to God and not
the person next to you, then it's it's important to
understand that God is the final judge. So to sit
there and kind of measure yourself and say, well, I'm
(19:09):
better than this person or they're better than me, or this,
and that that's not what it's about. If there is
a God, there is one. Our Jewish brothers and sisters
would say the shma shma y Israel adonai echad here
oh Israel, the Lord, our God. The Lord is one
(19:30):
ahad one. There is but one God. And if there
is one God, that one God is the one that
deserves the attention of creation, regardless of emotion, regardless of.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
What have you.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Every belief system is exclusionary. Every belief system believes that
it's right. Every belief system contradicts one another, so they
cannot all be right. They can all be wrong, but
(20:09):
they can't all be right. So it's fair to say
there is a right way to do it. You do
this every day in your life. Every day in your
life you make decisions based on what is right versus
what is wrong. But when it comes to religion, nobody
wants consequences. Nobody thinks it's fair. Well, let me tell
(20:31):
you what's fair. A holy, righteous, true, and eternal God
created you and wants you to be with him for eternity.
But if you reject him out of respect, he will
allow you to go where he is not, and in
(20:55):
doing so, you will feel burning the gnashing of teeth
not based on the punishment of flames and fire, but
on the unquenchable thirst of having an eternal decision made
by you and having the consequences. The same as if
(21:17):
you pulled a gun on somebody and shot them. The
decision is final. You don't get to say, oh, well,
I don't like the way the consequences look, so I'd
like to reverse it. Now it's done. Not because God
is mean, not because God is stamping his feet like
a child and petulant. It says, you didn't do it
(21:38):
my way, so you're done. But because God is loving
and God is just. And it's not that everywhere else
gets justice except God. That God is supposed to be
supposed to waive it. That is not loving, That is
like the parent that doesn't care or doesn't give any consequence.
To their child. That is not loving. You see it
(22:02):
every day. It is not loving to look the other
way and just hug someone when they do wrong and
harm others and reject truth. So don't expect that from
God either. Don't expect God to look the other way. Jeff,
(22:24):
Welcome to Jesus Christ Show.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Hello Jesus.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Well, hello Jeff. How can I help you?
Speaker 4 (22:32):
How does one know they are assured of salvation?
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (22:35):
You're well, the question is is a healthy one. But
you know, the principles of salvation deal with, you know,
giving your life to Christ.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Have you what does that mean exactly?
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Well, it means that there's a lot of things that
drive your life, you know, sex, drugs, rock and roll,
whatever it may be, and whoever's at the wheel is
the one controlling it, whether that be you and self
worship and that it's all about you, or whether the
principles that are in scripture and the things that are
taught in the Judeo Christian precepts are part of your life.
(23:12):
If they're not, it's like it's like you asking me
right now, well, what does a relationship mean? Well, it's
when you put somebody in a place of importance in
your life. You exchange ideas, you propel yourself based on
that relationship, protecting it and understanding it, ever deepening it.
It's a process. It's not just one particular day. But
(23:35):
as far as salvation, the word itself means security, safety.
The purpose of it deliverance. The purpose of it is
to understand that there is a God that loves you,
that created you, that wants to have a relationship with you,
and once to guide your life, wants you to understand
his will because he's the maker and his will is
(23:57):
what will help you to live efficiently in a way
that is just and loving towards the rest of creation.
And if you rebel against those ways and you continue
to just do it however you want, then you're not
in that place with God. However, if you put God
(24:17):
first and you have given your life to God, truly
to God, that is salvation. It's said in scripture that
if you confess your sins and that God is faithful
and just to forgive that if you confess before man
that God is your savior, if you believe. Some people
(24:39):
talk about it as the sinner's prayer, and that's praying
for God to be in your life. God, I give
my life to you. You are the center of my life.
I want you to direct my life for here on out.
I will see myself as a Christian. Respond to those
(25:01):
that ask that I am a Christian, not because they're
looking for a label, but because the word means to
be a follower of the anointed One, and that if
you find yourself in a good Bible teaching church and
you're reading God's word, then you're in that relationship and
(25:23):
you're your experience and receiving that salvation. That's what it means. Tom,
Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Well, hello, Jesus. I appreciate you taking.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
A call my pleasure. Tom. What's going on.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
I've had a question for a long time. I was
raised as a Lutheran. I grew up in a Catholic neighborhood,
and one of my very commandments says, I shall not
tell a false against thy neighbor. I'm crazy, Obviously that's
not tact right. And I always said, well, there's a
reason it says it that way. Doesn't say like thou
shalt not kill or thou shalt not steal. It says
(26:04):
thou shall not take telephalse set against thy neighbor. So
I think in that respect it means sometimes in consequential
lies might be okay, just because you might not know
you're lying. You passed on something you thought was fact
from someone else.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
But that's not lying, right, That's that's not lying. If
you passed on something you believed to be true. Lying
is for the purpose of deception.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
Okay, But against thy neighbor, I mean, you know, I
hate to be such a you know, persistent on this,
but I just I just think that.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
You're getting hung up on the word neighbors. That that
what I'm here.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
Well, no so much as against you know, that you're
you're lying to hurt someone. Yes, For an example, if
your wife were to ask you how she looked and
addressed that she just bought and you know, well, let's
say your wife's eighty five years old and she's, you know,
looking kind of you know, not so good. You have
(27:08):
to say you look fine, you look great, okay? Are
you sinning or are you okay?
Speaker 1 (27:16):
This is what they call situational ethics and applies to scripture.
Thuslie that there are times where it is better to
you know, kill a lie and to save a life
than to kill a life to save the truth. The
neighbor part. I will tell you this. The neighbor is
referring to anyone. It's not just the immediate people. The
(27:38):
term neighbor was because of the small communities that were
inherent back the time of Scripture.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Well, and I brought that up for a reason. I'd
need to tell you that quickly. The Catholics used to
believe very strongly that they couldn't eat meat on Friday,
and if they ate meat on Friday was a sin.
And I would tell them what I didn't believe it
was a sin. So their opinion was that that was
definitely a sin against God. And as well, how can
(28:06):
that be? It's not biblical, it's not anything, and they
know that's they all practice that. Then they talked about
it all the time, and that was one of the
big issues that we had as kids growing up, trying
to say why are you of that belief? Why do
you think that is?
Speaker 1 (28:20):
And they could never tell me, yeah, that's but see,
that's a Catholic doctrine that partakes They think of sin
as missing the mark, and the Catholic Church they believe
that that's missing the mark, and that it was disrespectful.
That's in the Catholic Church. That's not everywhere. And there
are those that Protestants would point to one Timothy chapter four,
(28:42):
verse three, don't partake of any group that who forbid
marriage or advocate of staining from certain foods which God
has created to be gratefully shared by those who believe
and those who know the truth. So there are those
that might argue back and forth. Ultimately, your first question,
(29:02):
I think stands as far as there are going to
be times. The worst sin of lying is when you're
applying it for personal gain. You're lying for personal gain,
and this comes throughout scripture. You see in Proverbs that
talks about a false weight, the merchants that would falsify
the weight so that they could get paid more for
(29:23):
produce or what have you. Well, okay, so that that
is when you know the most harmful. Now, honesty is
important in a relationship, and I think that if you
genuinely don't like the way something looks, you should say
so and why in a loving manner. And I know
many many couples that are very honest. My producer Neil
(29:46):
is he and his wife have a very open and
honest relationship where they'll tell things that they don't like,
and there's going to be tastes and flavors involved, and
someone go, oh, well that I don't like the way
that looks well, but I really enjoy it. Or you've
got something in your tea, or you need to blow
your nose, whatever it is. I think there should be
incredible open communication in a relationship. When it comes to lying,
(30:10):
you have to understand circumstance may dictate. Otherwise, if you're
in nineteen forties Germany and you're a Christian and you've
got Jews in the floorboards to save their lives and
the SS comes knocking at your door, you lie. You
lie to protict to for the purpose of protecting your neighbor,
and that's imperative. Now, if your neighbor did something illegal,
(30:33):
truly illegal, that is against the law of the land
and not against the law of humanity like it was
in Germany, and you're protecting them, then that's different. So
there are circumstances that dictate. But all lies are evil
in the sense that they are rejecting truth. God doesn't
(30:54):
want you to reject the truth. But sometimes the implied
situation is that is made up by a community. In
this case, the SS saying that that that it was
bad to harbor certain humans at the time, and that
in fact supersedes the lie. Thank you for joining me
(31:17):
this Sunday, this wonderful Palm Sunday. I hope you joined
me every Sunday, including on Easter. Remember I am with
you always, KF I am six forty on demand.
You're listening to KFI A six forty on demand. John,
Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show. Hey, good morning, Jesus,
Hi John, what's going on?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Yeah? My question is is that I've been baptized a believer,
and I do read scripture and I do attend church. However,
I'm surrounded by in my family what I would call
scientific atheists. In other words, there are non believers, never
been baptized. They mock every word and action that I
(00:34):
pursue in my life, and it's very damaging and very
painful to me. And I was wondering if there's a
passage in scripture that you can help me focus on
so that I can receive some answers from them.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Okay, Well, for one, I'm not sure why you'd expect
them to love you through this. I mean, they disagree
with you and every single moment. Yeah, and they think
it's silly in their own eyes. And that's okay, there's
there's Why are you looking for them to somehow pat
you on the back for something like this?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well maybe excuse me, maybe I'm not, but it sure
feels like I'm carrying the cross.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Well, that's part of the process. I will assure you,
as the one who did carry the cross, you're not,
but that there is a process of growing that happens
through this, and Scripture says that, hey, they're going to
treat you the same way they treated me, and that
(01:36):
there's going to be there's going to be problems. If
you read in Matthew chapter ten, starting at verse thirty four, says,
you know, do not think that I came to bring
peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace
but a sword. For I came to set a man
against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and
(01:59):
a daughter in law against your mother in law. And
a man's enemy enemies will be members of his own household.
And that points out that there is going to be
problems even in your own family, and that's okay. As
you grow in Scripture, as you grow in your learning,
(02:21):
expect people to press up against you. Resistance is not
a bad thing, John, If you look at everything in
life and its beauty, the bird flying, the fish swimming,
that those things can only happen due to resistance. The
bird only flies because of the resistance of the wind.
The fish only swims because of the resistance of the water.
(02:44):
Resistance is something that should propel you forward, not keep
you back. Don't expect everybody to love you. They didn't
love me. Don't expect everybody to high five you, even
your own family, when you're bettering yourself or you're living
for God, especially if they don't understand it, if they
don't conceptualize it and be able to put it, especially
(03:04):
if they're you know, as you say, scientific atheists in
your own words, and they're not always synonymous, by the way,
but just because they come from that mindset, they can't
put your experience in a petri dish. They're not going
to understand it. Steve, Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Hi, thanks for taking my call, Holy.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Host, my pleasure, Steve.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
I have a what I suspect is a very typical
hot potato, and that is my just of the horns
at the idea that as a part of the Christian faith,
that hell could really exist, or exist as it is stated,
where you know people outside the faith or those who
(03:55):
perhaps don't utter at a level of sincerity the right
words of the right time, It would then spend an
eternity in Hell. And it's not a new topic to me.
I've been involved in the church for many years off
and on, and in the last four or five years
have really given it a strong thrust, gotten involved in
the church with the Old and New Testament, not thoroughly,
(04:16):
but enough to get a good sense just you know,
sort of exited Deuteronomy and Leviticus, was a sense of
nausea with all the horrifying things that take place in
there and anyway, but the big thing for me and
it has caused me to sort of abandon, you know,
the faith as I have portrayed it in my own life,
(04:43):
and fallen on my face in front of God, said
please just help me find you, because I cannot accept
that a loving God would send people guilty or not.
The level of guilt had never equal, I think, eternal torture,
and therefore cannot except that it is un Christian. As
(05:03):
far as the logic that God has bestowed on me,
I will hold off to that the fact that what
if the this is just an excuse for you to
continue to control and enjoy certain sins it gives you
kind of a break. In other words, if there were
no hell mentioned in the Bible, would I still find
(05:26):
reasons to sort of sidestep it? Because I want my
own selfish me. So I accept, but I've examined that
pretty closely and I don't think so. And just lastly,
for instance, I have some Mormon colleagues that I work
with and are great friends, and they are far more
faithful and holy than I. And according to those in
my congregation, it's a cult and they're all held bound.
(05:49):
And just when I think of that, and then I
try to express my faith to someone else, all of
the credibility drains right out of my feet. Because I
think of that, I say, cannot, in good faith, you know,
follow a faith that would express that as a consequence
of the differing dogmas that surround the various sorts of Christmas,
(06:13):
Christian faith, and then of course all the rest of them,
you know, Muslims, Buddhism, etc.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
So that's my plight, okay, And I think it's a
legitimate one. I think it's a healthy place to be.
I think if you are a believer and you don't
go through this in your walk, if you don't ask
those questions and you're not concerned about that, I think
that there might be an issue with your heart. However,
if you don't work through it, I think that there's
an issue with your faith and possibly your head. They
(06:41):
meld together, and there's a way to explain and to
see them. And we'll go through as much as we
can that we have time for to give you a
little different perspective. First of all, I've always been humored
by the fact that the people have an issue with hell,
have an issue with hell because they feel people haven't
earned it. But they have no problem thinking people have
(07:02):
earned Heaven, which they have not. So if it is
based on those kinds of concepts, people have a problem
with that. Yet innate inherent in every culture, every belief system,
so every religious belief, everything always has a punitive or
punishment system. Always. It is inherent in man to understand
(07:27):
that punishment is not only important, that it's just and
it is good. Everyone stands up at the end of
the movie when the bad guy gets it and cheers.
Everyone stands up when the bad guy is arrested or
has to pay for the crime that they committed, because
that's good. Yet, for some reason, when it comes to
(07:50):
God or the things that are the holiest of holies,
that God should just kind of brush it off and say, eh, well,
it's all right. So let's look and see what really
is being done. And the problem is that man keeps
comparing themselves to one another. You look, you just did
it with religion, and you said, all these religions, Ah,
(08:11):
they're kind of the same, or they may be different,
but they're really trying hard, or they're sincere. And as
it's been said that the road to hell is paved
with good intentions. The problem lies in the fact not
that there are differing views, that no one believes that
there is a true view, yet they do in every
(08:32):
other walk of their life. You know, if you pick
up gasoline and put it into a glass, it looks
very similar to apple juice, but there's two very different
consequences when you consume it. So it's not about appearances,
it's not about things that you feel comfortable with. It's
(08:54):
about the reality. And the reality is that the sins
you commit are not against One of the sins you
commit are against God, who is a holy and righteous,
eternal being. So any act against that being, no matter
how small it is to you, is a complete and
(09:16):
total infraction against the holy will of God.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Sure, and I'll tell you one to in today. One
thing you had said is that everyone seems to have
a sense that, oh, gee, well, Heaven certainly exists, and
I could accept it that if I fall short of
the mark, and I hate to put it so lightly,
but if I fall sharp, No, that's.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
The actual biblical term sin is missing the mark?
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Right, So I missed the mark, and then therefore the
just consequence for me is eternal damnation. After having spent
sixty years on earth doing or not doing whatever I did,
the scale just doesn't equal. I can accept.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
But no, no, no, no, it's because you're looking towards man,
though it's not against. The analogy that I give is
that if you were to slap your brother in wrestling.
You're messing around in the house and you slap your brother,
it's a bad thing. But if you were to slap
(10:20):
your mother, that's a worse thing, right, same act on
a different person, different consequences, right, sure, Okay, Now the
police officer comes and he says, why did you slap
your brother? And why did you slap your mom? And
you slap the police officer. Different consequences, right, same act,
(10:42):
same act, right. Okay, When you slap the face of
the Holy, righteous, eternal God, the consequences by definition are eternal. Period.
Now to wrestle with that is to make God human
or to make you superior, and you're not. Neither are true.
(11:04):
The key is to understand. You get focused on the act,
and this is how humans work. They focus on themselves,
even the faithful, focus only on themselves instead of focusing
on God and who they're slapping when they reject the
will of God. That is what the punishment is. In
(11:26):
a moment, I'll explain a little bit more. So hang tight, Steve.
We'll get into what hell really is and maybe that
might give a better understanding. But marinate, think about that.
It's not about the act. You keep going back to
the act. It's about who you're doing the act upon.
That is why the consequences are so great. We were
(11:50):
chatting with We were chatting with Steve. Steve, you're still there,
Thanks so much for holding on. I marinated on our
little bit of what I was saying about that it's
not about the act, it's about who you do the
act on that creates the consequences. I will say also
that the concept of hell, which is a great concern
(12:11):
not only for you, for others, is different than what
people think it is now wash away all of the
emotive parts of different belief systems. It's not about that.
Logic states that regardless of how you feel about something,
there are certain laws in which are universal. You have
(12:32):
a phone number, it has certain digits in it. If
I call that phone number and I'm off one digit,
I don't get you by default, I don't even get
your neighbor necessarily. So in life there you can't just say, well,
if it's close enough, I should be okay. That would
be great for people who counterfeit money, it's like, well
(12:52):
it looks pretty close. There is reality and there are
things that aren't reality. There are things that are true
and there are things that are false. That's just the
way it goes. Every every truth claim is going to
have is going to be exclusionary by definition. So that's
something you need to get over because that's the reality
(13:13):
of everything. Every belief system you mentioned believes the same
of you. So it's that is everything you are who
you are, Steve, and no one can take that away
from you. Just it's the concept of a kid yelling
mom in a grocery store. You might have a bunch
of women that turn around, but only one is his Mother.
(13:36):
So there's more to it than just the term God.
There's more to it than just sincere faith. And it's
not about ignorance either. Hell is not about ignorance. It's
about rejection of God. So everyone will hear the message
and reject it. So like that that glass of apple
juice versus the glass of gasoline, everyone will be told
(13:59):
one of these, this one is gas and will hurt
you if you drink it. This one is apple juice,
and you'll be fine. But they will refuse one and
drink the other. And that's where the consequence lies. In
addition to that, the concept of hell is very different
from what people think. The concept of hell is not
about the fire and brimstone that people assume that it is.
(14:24):
Hell is the absence of the salvation of God, and
in that is a place that there's nothing to satiate
that quench. I'll explain more in a moment. We're having
(14:46):
a conversation with Steve that keeps getting rudely interrupted by
commercial breaks. A very interesting question is Steve was asking
about the concept of hell, and I love that it
comes from such a great place, Steve. I know that
this is something that is rocking your faith and the
reason why I'm so impassioned by it because I think
(15:07):
it's imperative to have an understanding that punishment is not evil.
Punishment is necessary because of evil and the concept of hell.
If you don't. Is there a particular music that you
can't stand Steve?
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Oh, yeah, you know the poka.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Okay polka, that's a legitimate choice. So polka. Yeah, Steve
doesn't like poka. I get that. I understand that can
be problematic. So you don't want to listen to poka
for a couple of hours, you certainly don't want to
listen to it for a year, right sure. And if
you don't want to listen to it yere for a year,
(15:48):
you wouldn't want to listen to it for ten years.
And if you don't want to listen to it for
ten years, you're not going to want to listen to
it for eternity. So God creates a place where the
salvation of God is not because there are those that
reject God throughout life. And God says, if you don't
want to serve me, if you don't want to love
(16:08):
me and obey me. For the seventy eighties, generously ninety
years that you have measley years that you have on
this planet. I will not force you to do it
for eternity. I will allow you to go to a
place where I am not now. The consequence of that
is that people don't understand how much God they get
(16:30):
in life. Whether they believe or not, they're still reaping benefits.
It's like somebody who drinks soda all the time says
they hate water, but don't understand that water's in soda
they're getting If they didn't get water, they'd die. So
they're getting it from somewhere. It's maybe not the best choice,
but they're getting it from somewhere. Likewise, people are getting
parts of God, even non believers are as the Bible says,
(16:53):
it rains on the just and the unjust alike. But
there must be a place, there must be a place
where those that don't want God, that reject God. That
doesn't mean you can say I believe in God or
I'm doing good, because your good doesn't matter, Steve, God's
good is the ruler. And if you think about having
(17:19):
a contractor come and build something for you in your house,
you don't want somebody who means well well, but whose
ruler is different than yours, because the house needs to
be built based on a measuring system that you adhere to,
or that the rules of the land adheres to. Otherwise
(17:41):
it's going to be built faulty. So in that sense,
if it's just anybody's belief, and anybody believes anything, then
there is no truth and there's no worthy of having
faith at all or any purpose to it. It is
all about God. It's not about you in that sense.
And to compare yourself to others and say well, I'm
(18:02):
better than this, or even as those group of Mormons
you said that, I agree and amazingly dedicated and lovely people,
and you start pointing to all these different faiths and
saying or different belief systems, and you say, well, what
about these people? What about that people? Then it becomes
a hard issue. I get that, and there's argument to
(18:23):
be said, especially for the different denominations of Christianity. And
some would put you, obviously Mormons, into that category versus
there were some, as you said, that would say, oh no,
they're separate. Well above all of that, to compare yourself
to another human being may get you far in the
(18:47):
judicial system of the United States or any government of
the land, but it doesn't get you far enough for God.
If the measuring rod is next to God and not
the person next to you, then it's it's important to
understand that God is the final judge. So to sit
there and kind of measure yourself and say, well, I'm
(19:09):
better than this person or they're better than me, or this,
and that that's not what it's about. If there is
a God, there is one. Our Jewish brothers and sisters
would say the shma shma y Israel adonai echad here
oh Israel, the Lord, our God. The Lord is one
(19:30):
ahad one. There is but one God. And if there
is one God, that one God is the one that
deserves the attention of creation, regardless of emotion, regardless of.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
What have you.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Every belief system is exclusionary. Every belief system believes that
it's right. Every belief system contradicts one another, so they
cannot all be right. They can all be wrong, but
(20:09):
they can't all be right. So it's fair to say
there is a right way to do it. You do
this every day in your life. Every day in your
life you make decisions based on what is right versus
what is wrong. But when it comes to religion, nobody
wants consequences. Nobody thinks it's fair. Well, let me tell
(20:31):
you what's fair. A holy, righteous, true, and eternal God
created you and wants you to be with him for eternity.
But if you reject him out of respect, he will
allow you to go where he is not, and in
(20:55):
doing so, you will feel burning the gnashing of teeth
not based on the punishment of flames and fire, but
on the unquenchable thirst of having an eternal decision made
by you and having the consequences. The same as if
(21:17):
you pulled a gun on somebody and shot them. The
decision is final. You don't get to say, oh, well,
I don't like the way the consequences look, so I'd
like to reverse it. Now it's done. Not because God
is mean, not because God is stamping his feet like
a child and petulant. It says, you didn't do it
(21:38):
my way, so you're done. But because God is loving
and God is just. And it's not that everywhere else
gets justice except God. That God is supposed to be
supposed to waive it. That is not loving, That is
like the parent that doesn't care or doesn't give any consequence.
To their child. That is not loving. You see it
(22:02):
every day. It is not loving to look the other
way and just hug someone when they do wrong and
harm others and reject truth. So don't expect that from
God either. Don't expect God to look the other way. Jeff,
(22:24):
Welcome to Jesus Christ Show.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Hello Jesus.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Well, hello Jeff. How can I help you?
Speaker 4 (22:32):
How does one know they are assured of salvation?
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (22:35):
You're well, the question is is a healthy one. But
you know, the principles of salvation deal with, you know,
giving your life to Christ.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Have you what does that mean exactly?
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Well, it means that there's a lot of things that
drive your life, you know, sex, drugs, rock and roll,
whatever it may be, and whoever's at the wheel is
the one controlling it, whether that be you and self
worship and that it's all about you, or whether the
principles that are in scripture and the things that are
taught in the Judeo Christian precepts are part of your life.
(23:12):
If they're not, it's like it's like you asking me
right now, well, what does a relationship mean? Well, it's
when you put somebody in a place of importance in
your life. You exchange ideas, you propel yourself based on
that relationship, protecting it and understanding it, ever deepening it.
It's a process. It's not just one particular day. But
(23:35):
as far as salvation, the word itself means security, safety.
The purpose of it deliverance. The purpose of it is
to understand that there is a God that loves you,
that created you, that wants to have a relationship with you,
and once to guide your life, wants you to understand
his will because he's the maker and his will is
(23:57):
what will help you to live efficiently in a way
that is just and loving towards the rest of creation.
And if you rebel against those ways and you continue
to just do it however you want, then you're not
in that place with God. However, if you put God
(24:17):
first and you have given your life to God, truly
to God, that is salvation. It's said in scripture that
if you confess your sins and that God is faithful
and just to forgive that if you confess before man
that God is your savior, if you believe. Some people
(24:39):
talk about it as the sinner's prayer, and that's praying
for God to be in your life. God, I give
my life to you. You are the center of my life.
I want you to direct my life for here on out.
I will see myself as a Christian. Respond to those
(25:01):
that ask that I am a Christian, not because they're
looking for a label, but because the word means to
be a follower of the anointed One, and that if
you find yourself in a good Bible teaching church and
you're reading God's word, then you're in that relationship and
(25:23):
you're your experience and receiving that salvation. That's what it means. Tom,
Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Well, hello, Jesus. I appreciate you taking.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
A call my pleasure. Tom. What's going on.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
I've had a question for a long time. I was
raised as a Lutheran. I grew up in a Catholic neighborhood,
and one of my very commandments says, I shall not
tell a false against thy neighbor. I'm crazy, Obviously that's
not tact right. And I always said, well, there's a
reason it says it that way. Doesn't say like thou
shalt not kill or thou shalt not steal. It says
(26:04):
thou shall not take telephalse set against thy neighbor. So
I think in that respect it means sometimes in consequential
lies might be okay, just because you might not know
you're lying. You passed on something you thought was fact
from someone else.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
But that's not lying, right, That's that's not lying. If
you passed on something you believed to be true. Lying
is for the purpose of deception.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
Okay, But against thy neighbor, I mean, you know, I
hate to be such a you know, persistent on this,
but I just I just think that.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
You're getting hung up on the word neighbors. That that
what I'm here.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
Well, no so much as against you know, that you're
you're lying to hurt someone. Yes, For an example, if
your wife were to ask you how she looked and
addressed that she just bought and you know, well, let's
say your wife's eighty five years old and she's, you know,
looking kind of you know, not so good. You have
(27:08):
to say you look fine, you look great, okay? Are
you sinning or are you okay?
Speaker 1 (27:16):
This is what they call situational ethics and applies to scripture.
Thuslie that there are times where it is better to
you know, kill a lie and to save a life
than to kill a life to save the truth. The
neighbor part. I will tell you this. The neighbor is
referring to anyone. It's not just the immediate people. The
(27:38):
term neighbor was because of the small communities that were
inherent back the time of Scripture.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Well, and I brought that up for a reason. I'd
need to tell you that quickly. The Catholics used to
believe very strongly that they couldn't eat meat on Friday,
and if they ate meat on Friday was a sin.
And I would tell them what I didn't believe it
was a sin. So their opinion was that that was
definitely a sin against God. And as well, how can
(28:06):
that be? It's not biblical, it's not anything, and they
know that's they all practice that. Then they talked about
it all the time, and that was one of the
big issues that we had as kids growing up, trying
to say why are you of that belief? Why do
you think that is?
Speaker 1 (28:20):
And they could never tell me, yeah, that's but see,
that's a Catholic doctrine that partakes They think of sin
as missing the mark, and the Catholic Church they believe
that that's missing the mark, and that it was disrespectful.
That's in the Catholic Church. That's not everywhere. And there
are those that Protestants would point to one Timothy chapter four,
(28:42):
verse three, don't partake of any group that who forbid
marriage or advocate of staining from certain foods which God
has created to be gratefully shared by those who believe
and those who know the truth. So there are those
that might argue back and forth. Ultimately, your first question,
(29:02):
I think stands as far as there are going to
be times. The worst sin of lying is when you're
applying it for personal gain. You're lying for personal gain,
and this comes throughout scripture. You see in Proverbs that
talks about a false weight, the merchants that would falsify
the weight so that they could get paid more for
(29:23):
produce or what have you. Well, okay, so that that
is when you know the most harmful. Now, honesty is
important in a relationship, and I think that if you
genuinely don't like the way something looks, you should say
so and why in a loving manner. And I know
many many couples that are very honest. My producer Neil
(29:46):
is he and his wife have a very open and
honest relationship where they'll tell things that they don't like,
and there's going to be tastes and flavors involved, and
someone go, oh, well that I don't like the way
that looks well, but I really enjoy it. Or you've
got something in your tea, or you need to blow
your nose, whatever it is. I think there should be
incredible open communication in a relationship. When it comes to lying,
(30:10):
you have to understand circumstance may dictate. Otherwise, if you're
in nineteen forties Germany and you're a Christian and you've
got Jews in the floorboards to save their lives and
the SS comes knocking at your door, you lie. You
lie to protict to for the purpose of protecting your neighbor,
and that's imperative. Now, if your neighbor did something illegal,
(30:33):
truly illegal, that is against the law of the land
and not against the law of humanity like it was
in Germany, and you're protecting them, then that's different. So
there are circumstances that dictate. But all lies are evil
in the sense that they are rejecting truth. God doesn't
(30:54):
want you to reject the truth. But sometimes the implied
situation is that is made up by a community. In
this case, the SS saying that that that it was
bad to harbor certain humans at the time, and that
in fact supersedes the lie. Thank you for joining me
(31:17):
this Sunday, this wonderful Palm Sunday. I hope you joined
me every Sunday, including on Easter. Remember I am with
you always, KF I am six forty on demand.
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