Immortality or Resurrection (Updated) by William West (reading strategies book .TXT) 📖

/> centuries, are regarded with contemptuous skepticism by the bulk of the existing male
population of Europe, who assigns these articles of 'the faith' as the chief reason for their ever
extending and fierce revolt against Christianity" Life In Christ, Page 65, 1878.
GOD IS NOT A GOD OF TERROR, A CRUEL AND EVIL BEING THIS
DOCTRINE MAKES HIM TO BE. DO YOU THINK HE WILL SAY TO THOSE
WHO TEACH HE IS UNJUST, "WELL DONE, GOOD AND FAITHFUL
SERVANT...ENTER YOU INTO THE JOY OF YOUR LORD" [Matthew 15:21]?
If the reason anyone converts is because of a fear of Hell, his or her conversion is just
superficial, not real, not because he or she had a love for God, just afraid of being
tormented in Hell. A conversion because of the fear of Hell makes a hypocrite, not a
Christians. The harm that has been done by the heresy of eternal torment is beyond belief.
DILEMMAS OF THEIR OWN MAKING
The doctrine of Hell puts those who teach it in dilemmas from which they have no
way out.
444
[1] Dilemma number one: According to most who believe in Hell only a few will
escape it, but they say all who die before the age accountably will escape Hell and will go
to Heaven. By their own teaching, the Abortionist maybe sending more to Heaven and
saving them from Hell than preaching is. Yet, many preachers that teach "Hell" with all
its horrors bitterly oppose abortions, which by their own teaching, is saving more from
"Hell" than they are. Why? According to their own teaching, in the US alone by abortion
millions have been sent to Heaven but most of them would have ended up being in
eternal torment if they had lived. If I believed their teaching about Hell, I would be all for
a sure way to save millions from an eternity of torment and put them safely in Heaven.
[2] Dilemma number two: Many pagans count girl babies of little or no use and kill
many of them. For centuries, millions of girl babies in China have been killed at birth.
Today, because of the law in China of one child per family, many girl babies are being
killed at birth by parents who want a boy. According to the teaching of those who believe
in Hell there are millions of Chinese girls in Heaven that would have been tormented in
Hell if they had lived, but not many Chinese boys are in Heaven.
[3] Dilemma number three: According to them, the children killed in the Old
Testament in Gehenna would be blessed for by not having a few years of life with pain
and problems they will forever live with God in Heaven.
There are many more dilemmas like these. How many children have been sent to
heaven by wars? How many children were send to Heaven when the two A-bombs were
dropped in world war two; do we need more wars and bombs to keep more out or Hell
and to send more to Heaven? How many children will be in Heaven because they had no
food or some sickness? By their teaching, a child that is killed or dies soon after birth is
blessed over those that live for most of them that do not die as a child will live forever in
torment and all those that do die when they are a child will live forever in Heaven.
According to their own teaching (if they were right), Heaven will have more in it that was
killed as a child than by all the preaching.
Annihilationnation is God giving people freedom to choose not to accept Christ and
the life He died to give them. Their not-accepting Christ and life means they have chosen
to accept death. God gives them their choice, and lets them pay the wages of their sin,
death, for they have chosen not to let Christ pay it for them. He is a just God, not a cruel
sadistic God who will torment forever. Some say, "God is a God of justice and sin must
be paid for, or God would not be just." Yes, but being sadistic is not justice in anyone's
book, and the very fact that He is just would not let Him cruelly and sadistically torment
anyone forever without end. The wages of our sins were paid by the death of Christ;
those who have not been baptized into His death will pay for their own sins in the second
death, not by having scalding lead poured down his or her throat for all eternity. God
made all out of nothing and has the right to send any back to nothing. Sending those back
to nothing that choose to not give Him the worship He is entitled to is His right and there
is nothing cruel about it. They have the life He has given to them and have chosen to live
it for themselves.
MAKES GOD HAVE A DOUBLE STANDARD
One for Him and another for us
What would be wrong for us, to torment all that do not believe, is made to be right and
good for God to do “for His good pleasure” on a scale that is infinitely greater than would be
possible for all men combined to do.
445
Many have tried to lessen the cruelty in a number of ways. [1] Perhaps the most
common one is to make Hell be only in the mind of the lost. Billy Graham said, "I have
often wondered if Hell is a terrible burning within our hearts for God, to fellowship with God, a fire that
we can never quench." This does not help any and maybe makes it crueler. Mental pain is as
bad and sometimes worse than physical pain. God tormenting most of mankind by
making them live in mental pain for eternity would not make Him any less cruel. [2]
Some have tried to justify this cruelty by saying the punishment must fit the crime. If a
person commits a crime against a person he or she does not know, it is not as bad as the
same crime would be if committed against his or her mother and the same crime
committed against God is infinitely worse, but no one could know this without a
revelation from God; where in God’s word does He say the same trespasses become
infinitely worse when it is against God? Jesus teaches that what ever we do or do not do
for mankind we do or do not do it for God [Matthew 25:40, 45], and He makes no
distinction as to whom the sin was against. For centuries many of the best thinkers in
the orthodox churches have tried to find a way to justify Hell. I think the best they
have done is to say the same crime/sin committed against an infinite God demands an
infinite punishment, and God would not be just if He did not torment all sinners forever;
they have tried to make it look as if He has no way out and must torment in Hell. What
new revelation do they have that makes God be wrong when He said, "The wages of sin
is death"?
• First: they are speaking where the Bible does not say anything and are making
God be bound by their theology; therefore, they give God no choice, making God
be bound to forever torment most of mankind all to justify their "Hell."
• Second: God's law in the Old Testament had the same punishment if the sin were
against man or against Himself. To lie was the same if the lie were to a person or
to God. His law was an eye for an eye no matter whom the sin was against. Their
theology makes it be one eye if the lie were told to a person, but if the same lie
where told to God it would be an endless number of eyes.
• Third: If any sin against an infinite God demands an infinite punishment of
eternal torment in Hell, all have sinned. If the only payment for our sin against an
infinite God is eternal torment, Christ did not pay it for us. If the payment is
death, Christ did pay it for us.
• Fourth: God made us and if He had chosen not to give anyone eternal life, to let
us pass out of exists, to return to not existing, He would still be a good and
merciful God for giving us the life we have. But, God has given us much more if
we will only believe and obey Him. He has given His only Son that we may given
life, not death. He has saved us from the wages of sin; the death that we deserve
and given us life.
• Fifth: Who could love and worship a God that according to traditional doctrine
would have made our father, mother, wife or husband, our children, and many we
know and love just so He could torment them and He gives them no change to not
be tormented.
Throughout the Old Testament, God destroyed His enemies, Sodom and Gomorrah,
the flood, drowning in the Red Sea, etc. He did not torment them forever. The Bible does
not teach it is the character or nature of God to torment the lost.
446
Not only is Hell an addition to the Bible but also Hell is many times crueler than
anything the pagans ever even thought of. Because for most it is something that is far
away and not something they can see now, I do not think they can see how cruel they are
being too most, or how cruel they are making God be. Because it is not something that is
not real to them, they are able to tell themselves "it is justice." If the Hell they teach was
real and they could look over into it and see God tormenting most of mankind in the
terrible way they now teach that He will be doing, they would be terrified of such an evil
being as they say their God is. HOW CAN ANYONE NOT SEE THIS?
The doctrine of an immortal soul that cannot die and must forever be tormented is the
most heartless doctrine any person ever believed. BELIEVING IN HELL IS AS
HEARTLESS AS ANY PERSON CAN BE, AND IS LOVING AND WORSHIPING
THE MOST CRUEL, SADISTIC AND FIENDISH OF ALL GODS. If being created in
the image of God means mankind cannot die but must forever be tormented, then
being in the image of God is a curse for most of mankind; it would have been better
for them to be as animals are. God made all things that are, if Hell does exist, it could
only have been God that thought it up and made it.
DO THOSE WHO TEACH THE DOCTRINE OF HELL REALLY BELIEVE
IN HELL? The plain inference is that they do not believe in it. They see some of their
family, their friends, those they work with or live next door, that they say are going to
Hell at death, but do little or nothing about it. If they really believe in Hell when they see
unsaved people they know and love dying all around them, why do they do so little to
save them? They seem to care more about what is on television than they do about the
eternal torment of those they say they love, and countess millions of others.
The Saints In Heaven Are Deprived Of Qualities God Has Given To Us,
Sympathy, Pity, Love For Others.
"The smoke of their torment shall ascend up in the sight of the blessed
forever and serve as a most clear glass always before their eyes to give them
a constant, bright, and most affecting view... THIS DISPLAY OF THE DIVINE
CHARACTER AND GLORY WILL BE IN FAVOR OF THE REDEEMED, AND