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Date Posted: 18:54:36 04/02/08 Wed
Author: Joan
Author Host/IP: ip68-0-253-131.ri.ri.cox.net / 68.0.253.131
Subject: Ever notice how you find one thing when you're
In reply to: Joan 's message, "Hell, again. :)" on 18:33:06 04/02/08 Wed

looking for another?

I found this today, and it reminded my of the Hell fire discussions we've had in the past. I guess the question of the eternity of Hell is as old as Christianity.

"And ever-burning gehenna will burn up the condemned, and a punishment devouring with living flames; nor will there be any source whence at any time they may have either respite or end to their torment. Souls with their bodies will be reserved in infinite tortures for suffering...The pain of punishment will then be without the fruit of penitence; weeping will be uselss, and prayer ineffectual. Too late they will believe in eternal punishment who would not believe in eternal life." St Cyprian, written sometime in the 200s.

"The perpetual death of the damned, that is, their separation form the life of God, will go on without end and will be their common lot, regardless of what people prompted by human sentiments may conjure up about different kinds of punishment or a mitigation or interruption of their torments." St Augustine, somtime in the 400s

It seems that an eternal Hell or punishment, which is the unending separation from God, was a constant teaching in the earliest Christian times. I'm not sure that people today really believe in Hell, that if they're unrepentent in the end, they *will* be *eternally* punished. They will not see God.

IMO, it's the sin or presumption. They presume that, no matter what they do, God will be merciful. That's not what the Bible tells us. Paul is afraid that he won't persevere in the end, that he, after preaching to so many, will not see Heaven. Faith without works is dead. That those works have to be done for the right reason.

I wonder what would happen if more priests and ministers taught about eternal damnation. Do you think that people would be less likely to commit sins? It seems that today people commit very serious sins without worrying a bit about it. They live together. Get divorced. Have abortions. Cheat on their spouses. Cheat their employers. They're disrespectful of authority of all kinds, but especially of the police. The politicians feel no need to be respectable or to obey the laws. They don't feel that they are responsible for the people they represent. People in general don't feel responsible or answerable to anyone, *including* God. And yet they feel that God will be lenient.

Have our priests and ministers been wrong these last few decades? I don't think we need pulpit-thumping lunatics up there. But, in trying to present Jesus as a loving God, have they failed their flocks by not reminding them that God is also the law giver? That God *expects* us to obey him. That their is punishment when we don't? That that punishment is eternal separation from God?

You have to wonder how many people don't know that eternal damnation is a possibility, even for those who have been baptized.

Joan

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[> [> Please excuse the typing errors. :) -- Joan, 19:06:58 04/02/08 Wed [1] (ip68-0-253-131.ri.ri.cox.net/68.0.253.131)

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