Missionary Trust

The main difference between Mormon heaven and Christian heaven is that in Christian heaven you get God because of Jesus' finished work; while in Mormon heaven you get god because of your works.

As we sat and discussed this reality with a young lady you could see that she was getting it. It wasn't a notion Evangelicals hold which was falling on deaf ears, no it was falling on listening ears, and from what it appeared they longed to hear more of this workless, grace-full gospel.

But time was cut short and it was time to leave.

So what happens to a missionary when they are so close to seeing one convert to Christ, but won't see it happen?

Trust.

The missionary must trust that God is sovereignly in control. The missionary must trust that God will bring his people to himself. The missionary must trust that, that one will be cared for by the Good Shepherd and brought to the fold of God. The missionary leans not on his own prowess in speaking eloquently but on God's Spirit to save completely.

The missionary must trust that it is for God to save and for man to proclaim. 

Problems with “Annihilationism”

A while ago I was tagged in a note on Facebook about why we should give annihilationism (the teaching that hell is ending) a chance. The essay used was written by well-known Open-Theist Greg Boyd (Here 'tis), who tries to support his position biblically for an ending hell.

However there are several things (there's accutally more than 'several' but for the sake of time and a blog post this only has 6), which must be dealt with when considering the ending of hell. These problems are listed below:

1) Misunderstanding of the word "immortal"

• Immortal means having no beginning AND no end. As created souls we distinctly have a beginning and therefore it is right to assume only God is immortal (1 Tim 6:16). We are just eternal beings, i.e. souls.

2) Time-centric view of eternity

• God being outside of space and time as its Creator is therefore not subject to time and by placing a capstone of time on the eternality of God and/or his creation outside of time is to limit the understanding and depth of eternity into base numbers. In other words you attempt to confound the wisdom of God by using his creation.

3) To say, "The wicked are “destroyed forever” (Ps 92:7), but they are not forever being destroyed." Is to miss the point of language and words entirely. 

• In the punishment of unbelievers in 2 Thessalonians 1, “They,” means those, “… who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. (2 Thess 1:8)” Inside this punishment is the constant continual action of, “eternal destruction” (2 Thess 1:9). Which means it goes on for eternity (true story). This is not unclear; this is not guesswork on the meaning of words. ‘Eternal’ means eternal (with a beginning but without an end) and ‘destruction’ means frick-this-is-hell. In modern vernacular, it’ll freaking suck. So arguing the semantics of the ‘end of hell’ is about as illogical as wondering if McDonalds is healthy for every meal. 

4) If hell is ending then so to must heaven be ending.

•             If hell is ending so to must heaven be ending. If the destruction of the wicked is ending then so to must the redemption of the saved. However we talk and read of salvation being a constant thing, “We were redeemed (Ephesians 2:1-10), we are being redeemed (1 Cor 15:1-2), and we are not yet fully redeemed (Matt 24:13).” If redemption were to have an end then in the midst of eternity would come a time when our salvation is no longer effective and the casting out of heaven would come for Christians and then to be annihilated, but this is simply not taught in Scripture.

5) If hell is ending then why was Jesus' death necessary?

•             If hell is ending then what is Jesus saving us from, annihilation? No. Jesus isn’t saving us from annihilation; he is saving us from the just wrath of God stored up for our personal sins. Therefore when God saves us he is saving individual people. Annihilationism takes the personal love of God and makes it an abstract teaching. God loves – in annihilationism – humanity, not individual people, but the whole humanity, and therefore when Jesus dies on the cross in the annihilationist’s view he is dying, not for you specifically or for me specifically, but he is dying for all in the abstract sense. But God’s love is personal and as such must move our hearts away from annihilationism
•             Still more on this point is the simple fact that annihilationism takes the gospel and tries to bury it in the dirt. What is the point of Jesus attempting at saving souls when the unsaved will just cease to be? Why not let them go away and be full in the Trinity as God once was before creation?
•             Annihilationism attempts at making God dependent on man, on his creation. Rather than God loving man so much that he gave his Son to give us Himself and show us his unfiltered glory, annihilationism would say that God’s love hinges on man, not God.

6) If hell was ending then why do we worry about evangelization?

•             Lastly, if annihilationism is true then why worry about telling people about Jesus? What’s the hurry in telling others about Jesus’ redemptive work if they’ll just cease to be and not endure eternal suffering?

Hell is eternal and will be endured forever and therefore Jesus’ redemption is of eternal significance and damnation is of eternal potency. Thus evangelization is of eternal weightiness and who we worship is of eternal importance. Either we worship God to our joy or we worship self (especially in annihilationism) to our destruction – God is the centerpiece of all eternity (because he defines eternity) and as such we must have eternal worship and eternal damnation.

Funeral

I sat in a funeral for a young man this morning, a boy really. His daughter won’t remember him, she’s too young; she’ll look at pictures of ‘daddy,’ but’ll never know his voice, or what it’s like to be walked down the isle to her husband by him.

18 years old is far to young to die, but it happens all the time.

Whether the pressures were too much or the showing of love not enough, we’ll never know. But a gun, in his mind, seemed to solve the problems.

Sadly, for him it’s too late. His mother weeps and his father pushes all to not waste their life. The pastor said something about now being the time to think about eternity.

And though while I agree, we should think about eternity, that’s not what we should be worried about.

It’d be far better to think about Jesus and what he’s done, and not so simplistically as to think we only think about him for what we want. No, we think about him for and in all things.

Not just cause we get heaven through him, but because we get God in what he’s accomplished. Not just because we avoid hell, but more so because he gives us himself.

You see, if we only love him for what he gets us we don’t love him at all.

Hell & Heaven

“They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.” 2 Thessalonians 1:9-10

Do you have those verses you love but forget you love them until you read them again, or is that just me? This particular one, when brought up, I love to read then I’ll sit there and go, “how did I forget how much I love this text?!?” It, this verse, shows us a few many things.

First, the punishment of unbelievers, “They,” means, “… who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. (2 Thess 1:8)” Inside this punishment is the constant continual action of eternal destruction. Which means it goes on for eternity (true story). This is not unclear; this is not guesswork on the meaning of a word. ‘Eternal’ means eternal and ‘destruction’ means Frick-this-is-hell. In modern vernacular, it’ll freaking suck! So arguing the semantics of the ‘end of hell’ is about as illogical as wondering if McDonalds is healthy for every meal.

Second, the part I love to read with vigor, “… When he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who believed…” ‘Glorified… marveled at,’ he’s not saving us because we are worthy of redemption; he’s not saving us because he is so head-over-heels in love with his creation; he is saving us because he loves himself and loves us enough to give us what is vastly more gorgeous than all things, he loves us enough to give us himself!

Let’s not mix any meanings here, there will be and is Hell, it’ll be eternal; it’ll be awful. But the juxtaposition is just as unimaginable, to glory in God and to marvel at Him, AKA Heaven. I say this all not to tout the I-want-to-scare-you-into-belief doctrine, but to simply go, we must deal with Scripture and when verses like this pop up we must understand them in relation to the whole Scriptural narrative. Hell (God’s vengeance on sin) is real, yet Heaven (Glorying in and marveling at God) is just as real.

“To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” 2 Thess. 1:11-2