(This article was written for Christians and non-Christians alike. When the second person plural (you) is used in this article, it usually refers to the Christian audience. The first few pages are addressed primarily to the Christian audience. It is rather ironic and perhaps tragic that the basic message of this book will be better received by the non-Christian community than those in the Church.
You will be hearing the voices of men and women who have passed to the other side. Some of the characters like Methuselah, Havilah, Eliazar, David, Radbod, Abraham Lincoln, Hannah Whitall Smith and others are real historical people. Others like like Ali, Kim, and Rachael Abraham, are fictional composites who represent millions just like them. While these characters are fictional, their experiences and thoughts are not.
Many of you who are presently non-Christians will greatly identify with the thoughts expressed by these characters. Some Christians, due to the doctrines they have been taught will have a difficult time with some of the thoughts expressed by some of these voices. I beg the reader to try to place themselves into the shoes of the voices you will hear in this publication. Christians must learn to identify with our brothers and sisters around the world, not only in our generation, but in all generations. It is sad but true, non-Christians seem to have more compassion for the world-at-large than most Christians. This should not be so. Christ's compassion in a believer should be able to hear the heart's cry of those around us for whom we are to be a guiding light.
With greater compassion, we Christians, must break through our hardness of heart. It is our hope that this writing will open some eyes to truths which have been hidden from much of the Church and the world for many centuries. I pray the Christians who read this book will open their hearts and minds to the questions raised by the following voices who represent billions of others.)
Have you really ever thought through your beliefs?
Since the declaration given by Jesus Christ, "Go ye into all the world," Christians throughout the centuries have felt they have been given the awesome responsibility of declaring the hope of the Christian faith to all mankind. However, this "hope" has taken many shapes and forms since the message was first sent forth. Today, there are thousands of denominations of Christianity each sounding trumpets of different messages which, quite frankly, have not been harmonious to each other. Have you ever wondered if your denomination is sounding the right message?
It is easy to defend our sect's teachings against another sect of Christendom. We just have to believe in our set of Scriptures and hold them up as a shield against other viewpoints. Rarely do we bring ourselves to the place where we truly attempt to see from the other's point of view. Why should we do something like that? We may fall into disbelief and perhaps have to dismantle the kingdom we have built around our set of Scriptures. Furthermore, considering the fact there are literally thousands of different denominations and sects, who has the time to make an honest comparison?
So few Christians really ever embark on a thorough search to test their message, the partial hope which their sect offers to some of the world. Therefore, unless the Lord prepare a fire to test the gold to see if it be pure, Christendom will continue to appear as an orchestra whose instruments have not been tuned to the same pitch, nor are the players playing the same piece of music.
As long as this is the state of affairs in the church, we should not expect the world, our audience, to respond with an ovation. To the contrary, we should expect to be ignored or mocked and scorned because we have the audacity to declare our music is of heavenly origin. As long as the factions of Christendom continue to sound a discordant, contradictory sound, is it reasonable to expect the world-at-large to flock to our message? Of course not! We should expect the very response which we presently are getting, bewildered looks, disdain, sarcastic comments, and thumbs down on a poor performance.
Yahweh declared to Abraham that through him all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. (Gen. 18:18) This is truly a blessed sound which might cause the whole earth to stand in ovation. The angel who appeared to the shepherds of Israel declared joy to all people. (Luke 2:10) This might even bring on an encore! But are these two trumpets in tune and harmony with the message the majority of Christendom has sounded forth? Let us sample the audience of mankind. Let them recount for us the message they heard, whether it was a sound of blessing and joy or the sound of children just learning to play their instruments, or something far worse.
Let us take a trip on the river of mankind and speak with some of the souls the Creator has made. Let us hear from those who have run their course. Hear the words of those who now watch the institution called the "church" race through the decades sounding the clarion call of a thousand different voices to bring what they each call the "good news to all mankind." Let us hear from those who many church leaders say have no further hope. They weren't "born again" or did not make the "right choice" before they died or they weren't among the "elect," chosen of God.
Most of these souls never had the opportunity to join the "right" denomination with the only "true" message of salvation. Few of them ever heard the word "baptism" let alone the "correct" way to be baptized. As to keeping the Ten Commandments, they may have kept thousands of commandments, but as to the Moses' big ten list, few ever heard of such a list, let alone attempted to keep them. Many who have returned to the dust have attempted in their lifetime on earth to do many "good" things to attain a peaceful existence on the other side of the grave. Yet what most of them would call "good" according to their culture and belief system, are often at odds with traditional church teachings regarding what constitutes good and evil.
Contrary to Paul's teaching, Christendom offers many means and methods of salvation. Let us hear from some of those for whom Christ died. Let them tell us what the modern gospel of Christendom means to them. Perhaps, by stepping out of ourselves for a moment, looking at the river of mankind from the viewpoint of those who died before us from different times and cultures, we may learn something about ourselves. Perhaps our journey may enlarge our understanding of God and His plan of redemption.
To those of you who use the name of Christian, who are clinging to your denominational standards as firmly as one would handle their sword in a fight for life itself- since you are unable to hear the sounds of other denominational trumpets sounding a different tune from yours, and since you are probably incapable of rising up from the confusion the world hears to hear for yourselves that the sound of the universal church is not harmonious, not truthful, not rich with mercy, not glorious, but rather the sound of confusion-to you I say: why not be honest and acknowledge that your denomination's trumpet sound is equally discordant and unharmonious? Are you afraid to be honest with yourself? Are you afraid that if you take an honest appraisal, you may be left with nothing on which to cling? Are you afraid you may have wasted years of your life, perhaps all of your life, adding breath to something that is not alive? The breath you have lent to the trumpet sound of your denomination or movement may prove to be very "unsound" indeed.
There are millions of Christians who would rather continue on their courses, even if it is an intercourse with death itself, rather than come to an honest time in their lives to "test" what they are doing, saying, and literally giving their lives to.
But Jesus says, "He who clings to his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for My sake will find it." Repeating the messages of dead men like Luther, Calvin, or Pope Pius may not be life at all. It may be nothing more than the death the elders of Israel were sounding forth in Jesus' day. Oh, they had the Scriptures, did they not? They used those very Scriptures to condemn the Lord of Life. Are we so vain to think that we are incapable of doing the same thing with the same Scriptures? Let us humble ourselves for a moment. Let us put off our robes of tradition and hear the voices of our brothers and sisters from ages past. Some would not call these men and women brothers and sisters. They would call them enemies. O.K., then call them enemies. But hear them out. Did not Christ command us to "love our enemies?" Hearing one out is certainly in the bounds of love. Let us hear them out. Let them tell us if our gospel is truly "good news to all mankind." Let us see if our trumpet sounds reach these dead men and women or whether our sound falls short of the mark. Let us see if the angel who appeared to the shepherds of Israel declaring joy to all people actually reached all people, or if His declaration was nothing more than vain boasting, or a Jewish figure of speech, not meant to be taken literally-an exaggeration for effect.
The men and women whose voices we will hear have run their course. They can speak to us only through history, archaeology, and literary devices such as this article. See if your trumpet sounds like good news to these men and women. Is it a glorious sound of love, joy, and peace to all men, or does your sound fall short, or on deaf ears, or do pursed judgmental lips and gnashing teeth prevent the full measure of liberty from coming forth? See if tradition or fear of what the elders might think is holding back the liberty which is necessary to declare the full sound of the pure gospel. Remember, one day you will have to look into the loving eyes of the One who gave His life for you while you were yet in your sins. To Him, you will one day give an account, not your pastor, your pope, or denominational superintendent.
I have assembled together an audience to judge the sound you have accepted as the pure sound of the gospel. Sound forth the message you have been taught, the message you have incorporated into your very life. Now let us hear from all the corners of the earth to learn what your sound means to them. Listen to their words and re-examine your foundations. Does your trumpet reach all generations with glad tidings based upon Scripture? Or does it fall short, which is what the English word "sin" means in the Greek and Hebrew Languages? Judge yourself, today in the privacy of our own heart. The elders of tradition need not participate. After all, they will not be your counselors at your judgment. So then, learn to speak and hear for yourself. Now then, open your heart to hear their cries.
Pre-flood
My name is Methuselah. Your scholars have difficulty determining the meaning of my name. I won't spoil the mystery. I usually appear in your Bible trivia games as the man who lived longer than anyone else. I died in the year of the great flood.
I am quite perplexed at the great variety of Christian doctrines your generation presents to mankind. I will not bother you with all my questions regarding your perplexing doctrines. It would take too much time to ask them all. Furthermore, I am afraid I will get many different conflicting answers depending upon which stream of Christendom I tap. But I will ask one. At the center of this "good news" which is so often mouthed in your day, are Scriptures like, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household." (Acts 16:30,31) Here is another: "He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned." (Mark 16:16)
When I was alive I never knew or even heard of this man named Jesus. And saved from what? Death was imputed to me because of Adam's transgression, not my own. Furthermore, death was never defined as everlasting punishment. We, of the pre-flood age, never heard of such things. We also never heard of the Mosaic Law or the Ten Commandments. God never left us a warning about "everlasting punishment." We were never told to accept this Jesus as our savior.
So I ask you Christian, where is my hope according to your beliefs? I only know I died because of Adam's transgression. (Romans 5:14) How can you consign me to everlasting torture because I did not accept the teachings of a man I never heard speak? Am I to be judged by a different standard than you will be? Is God a respecter of persons?
Now some of you are wise enough in the Scriptures to have read the portions which say that Jesus went to those who were disobedient before the flood and preached to them. But most of the Christian sects do not accept that He preached the gospel to the dead because this would violate their sacred traditional doctrine that there is no hope of hearing the message of salvation after death. They consign us all to torment except the eight on the boat. But were the eight in the boat righteous? If they were without sin, wouldn't they never die? But they died just like me! Death was imputed to them just as it was to all the family of Adam. In Adam, we all die! I ask you to think, reason.
As to the ark incident, I ask you for a moment to picture yourself in any of your big cities. They are as corrupt if not more than our generation. Picture some man building a boat in Central Park in New York City. At the same time he tells passerbys that the entire world will be covered with water and destroy everyone who doesn't get into his boat. Be honest with yourself. No one supports the man except his immediate family, no distant relatives, no church leaders, and no government officials, not even religious zealots! Just his immediate family. Do you really think you would get on that boat in Central Park? (Many scholars believe it never rained prior to the flood which would add to one's inability to believe Noah.)
You may glibly exclaim you weren't born in my time. You don't have to think about what you "might" have done in this circumstance. This shows to me your lack of understanding of even the basics of life. You are joined to me much more than you think. There is only one family of Adam in this world and we all share the same grave. "In Adam all died." Being closer to the first Adam then you, I understand the mystery in Paul's words much better than you moderns. I lived longer than any man who ever lived. I understand living in death better than anyone. I understand very well, "The wages of sin is death." Many of you have twisted this to say, "The wages of sin is eternal torment." If any of us on this side of the flood were taught of such a thing and given an opportunity to escape such a fate, surely more of us then one single family would have done so. All we knew was that the "the wages of sin was death." I succumbed to this fate when I was 969 years old. I lived longer than the righteous Noah did. No, I did not enter the Ark. My death served as a marker. But remember, Noah and his family also suffered the same fate that all in the family of Adam suffer, death.
I share this for your benefit. I am joined to you through Adam. We all share the same fate, death. However, your Roman Catholic/Protestant teachings of "salvation from eternal torture" separate you from me. I know nothing of these things. If what you say could possibly be true, then you offer me no hope. Our Creator would certainly be a respecter of persons. Your Scriptures declare Jesus went to hell (Hades) to preach to those who were disobedient in the days of Noah. What do you think He preached-good news or bad? What do you think the outcome of His preaching might be? How do you think you would respond to His preaching being locked up in Hades for several thousand years? Oh, by the way, according to the first three quarters of the Bible, the righteous and the unrighteous before and during the Old Covenant all went to the same place, Sheol. Despite what your modern theologians might say, King David, a man after "God's own heart," was with me in Sheol (Hades in the Greek). All of us went to the same place-Sheol.
Post-flood, third generation
My name is Havilah, son of Cush, son of Noah. I am also confused by the teachings of your "Christianity." You speak of an opportunity for all mankind to be "saved from everlasting torture." Yes, I used the word "torture" to drive home a part of your teaching which is quite foreign to me. We never heard of such a thing. You call it "punishment." We call it barbarism. We know what cruelty is. Is that what you call your God, an eternal torturer?
Now your theology must make sense to all mankind if your God is the God of all mankind. He must make provision for all of us, unless of course, He just arbitrarily does as He pleases with no regard to justice, mercy, and love. I understand some Christians have created gods in such an image. They call themselves "Calvinists" to separate themselves from others of the Christian persuasion. We have many gods such as these, cruel, cold and callused. I know the nature of such gods and do not wish to ask you questions about such gods. They offer no hope. I am looking for hope.
Some Christians say that a man like me can receive salvation by seeing God in nature. They interpret Romans chapter one as saying that one can hear the gospel through trees, and rocks, and the sky. If this is your belief, I ask you, are tree worshippers then saved? Is Christianity pantheistic? Or are you saying that Jesus Christ will reveal Himself in a physical cloud? Or are you saying that just belief in a god suffices for salvation? Then almost all religions of our day will bring salvation apart from believing in Jesus Christ. We all worshipped trees, and stones, and the stars. Of course we did not actually worship the tree itself, we know there is a power superior to the tree, but we need something on which to focus. So then, are we saved because we believe in a god? Are we more saved because we believe in more than one god? How do you reconcile your reasoning here against the many other Scriptures you also quoted telling your generation there is salvation only in the single name of Jesus Chrst? If one can be saved by believing there is a god based upon looking at a cloud, then there is no purpose for Christ, nor his apostles, nor the Bible, nor evangelists, nor the church. This line of reasoning contradicts so many other passages in the Bible, that I am amazed how many Christians have deceived themselves with false interpretations such as this. Faith in Jesus Christ does not come from a cloud, or river, or a tree. Believe me! No one in my day ever heard of such a man as Jesus. Yes, we came to believe in gods from these things, but will that bring the salvation of which you speak? These things never brought us to this Jesus. Where is my hope, Christian?
Canaan, Abrahamic period
My name is Eliazar, a servant of Abraham, the first Hebrew. My name means "God is his help." You must understand, Abraham and I were not Jews, nor Christians. We came from a region which became part of the Babylonian empire. There was no belief in the "God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" in my day.
But in Abraham came a promise from Yahweh that in his seed would all the families of the earth be blessed. (Gen 12:3) Tell me, does your sect's teaching negate this promise? If it does, then by all means flee from such a monster because this promise shall surely come to pass.
I look at the teachings of the church of your day and it reminds me of what the priests of Babylon taught. Why even the concept of the universe being eternally divided into good and evil comes directly from the land we left behind. I am amazed. I have seen the power of Yahweh and am convinced He will do all He has promised. I suggest Christians carefully study the promises written in the Book. It seems many Christians of the modern era are in great unbelief! Is it not the unbelievers, who find themselves in a great "lake of fire?" (Rev. 21:8)
Goshen, Egypt Pre-Mosaic Law
I am a Hebrew born in the land of Goshen just before the Exodus. I am a slave as was my father and his father before him. I died making bricks. My whole life was spent in the mud. Yahweh decreed that I should live my life out in the mud and die in the mud. Where is my hope? There was no Mosaic Covenant-no New Covenant, just mud. Perhaps you should spend your life stepping in mud. Perhaps you may also feel the anger and frustration which burns in my heart. Shall God remain a respecter of persons, who relegated me to the slime pit, while you enjoy the benefits of the twentieth century and your "gospel?" Does your Bible not say Yahweh is not a respecter of persons? (Acts 10:34) It is easy for you to say he is not a respecter of persons. Come down to the pit with me for a lifetime and then tell me if you still believe that.
So how will He make this right? Where is my hope? Do you care? I do not know this Jesus you boast in. I know only mud and a God who consigned me to it, quite independent of asking me whether I would like to spend my life there. Modern Christians speak of "free will." I would laugh at such a foolish teaching, but it brings tears to my eyes instead. You moderns have lost your connection to the whole human race. I see the modern Christian as passionless, selfish, unreasonable, and cold. What hope do you bring me? I was made of clay and walked out my entire life in it. If hope does not go past the mud grave I am buried in, then I have no hope at all. I find no hope in the Roman Catholic/Protestant gospel for me. May Yahweh provide an arm of salvation for me, for the arm of the modern church is too short to reach me.
Israel, Mosaic Covenant Period
My name is David. All of you know who I am. I am the man after "God's own heart." I wrote much of the Bible. My cries to my God have been the source of hope for countless millions throughout the centuries.
Many sins were committed by me. I killed many in battle. Through my sins many in Israel were punished. Adultery was punishable by death under our law. I had one of my best commanders murdered to hide my adultery with his wife. I allowed the people to behold the Ark of the Covenant, a sin according to Moses. Of the priest's portion did I eat, again, a crime. I raised sons, one who committed every sin imaginable and another who rebelled against me. According to the Mosaic Law, I was to stone Absolom, but I didn't. Between me and my sons, Solomon and Absolom, we piled up a mountain of sins, especially according to modern church theology.
Many in the church say that people who commit the kind of crimes I and my sons have committed, should and will be eternally punished. Have I been condemned to everlasting torture by the very men and women who find comfort in my writings? Or have they waved some theological magic wand and whisked me into the arms of Abraham as an exception to the standards by which they judge others? "Let this one in because he gave us so many great Psalms." If you are a Christian, then hear me! I speak from a heart which is after God. Are you consistent in your judgments or do they change as quickly as do your emotions? Do you judge with balanced scales? Do you really know anything about judgment and mercy? Modern Christian, my psalms were desperate pleas for mercy, for God to change me from within. "Wash me and I shall be clean. Renew a right spirit within me," was my heart's cry. My hope was in the arm of the Lord to deliver me. But I find little hope in your message.
I will take my place among the rest of the adulterers and murders of this world and come before God asking for mercy, a mercy which many of you have denied the sinners of this world. You quote my psalms, but you have lost the Spirit in which I wrote them. I am among the very few in history who was given the revelation of the Messiah. Yes, I a murderer, adulterer and much more. I placed my hope in a man hanging on a tree for me. No, most of my generation does not understand Psalm 22. I could not say that I understood it when I wrote it. Prophets often do not understand what the Spirit speaks through them. I do know that those words gave me great hope, not only for myself, but for all like myself-sinners. I did not know the name of this man. I did not know when and how He would come. But I knew His arm would be long enough to reach me from wherever and whenever He was born. Of this I was certain.
Some of you teach that we "Jews" will enter heaven by a different means than Gentiles. What is this system? The Scriptures declare all Israel will be justified and saved. (Isaiah 45:25; Rom. 11:26) However, the Scriptures equally declare no one will be justified by the Law of Moses. (Rom 3:20) What is your basis for making this separation? Think, meditate, and cry out as I have done many times in my life and you will reach the Rock of Salvation, both of the Jews and Gentiles. You will not have to twist the Scriptures to do so. It will be plain as day.
The Roman Catholic/Protestant "good news" is worthless to me. I know something about the Spirit of the Lord. Your message does not come from the same Spirit. I will keep my hope in my Lord, the Rock of my salvation!
Israel, Davidic period
My name is Sheshai. It means "noble." However, there is nothing noble about my life. I was killed by one of King David's men when they conquered Jerusalem. They killed men, women, and children as commanded by their Law. I did not choose to be born in this time and place. I did not choose my parents. I came into this world in hope. I had hoped to fulfill my name, but my hope was never realized. I was killed because I lived in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I knew the Israelites as savage warriors who showed no mercy, as a foreign people who stole our land. Christians justify David. How? I do not understand. My hatred against Israel is just as yours would be if a foreign army came and killed all your relatives, including the babies. Yet you somehow justify these men in your strange understanding of justice. What about me? I carried no sword. I played like all the children of the world and I died because some man named David thought he had the right to kill my parents and myself and steal our land. I hate these Israelites and the god they claim who makes them the savages they are.
I know nothing about gods. I am a child. My candle was just lit before it was violently snuffed out at the age of five by the "chosen" of God? Do you have hope for me? Can you find it in your Bible without having to twist Scriptures out of context? Oh, I know about this modern concept of the "age of accountability." Many justify this barbaric god by saying that He considers children innocent until they can make moral decisions. Some sects make it the age 7, others 12, and still others say whenever a child is able to make moral decisions, which may vary from child to child.
Conscience prevents many from consigning little ones to the torments of the Christian Hell, but the Christian Scriptures betray them. There are no Scriptures which speak of an age of accountability. Instead, they speak the opposite. "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." (Rom. 3:23) "There is none righteous, nay not one." (Rom. 3:10) "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." (Psalm 51:5) "For God has committed them all to disobedience (unbelief, KJV), that He might have mercy on all." (Rom. 11:32, NKJV) "...through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned." (Rom. 5:12)
In light of these and many other similar Scriptures, how can you consign any to sinlessness because of the innocence of youth? If I was sinless, how do you justify your God's command to the Israelites to kill even the children, if we are, as you say, "innocent?" I admire the softness of heart of this line of reasoning, but it does not line up with your Scriptures.
So then, where is my hope? Five short years and then death at the hands of the "chosen ones" of your God. And now eternal torture? Is that what your God of love has in store for me? He made my life on earth miserable through his "chosen" people and now some of you say He Himself will make me miserable for eternity. You speak of a merciful and loving God. As far as I can see, He does not exist in your system of belief. I see a hypocrite made in the same image of the "chosen" people who created Him. Hypocrites create hypocritical gods.
Northern Europe, 692 AD
Radbod is my name, chief of the Frisian tribe. Your historians have recorded a part of my life. I was ready to be baptized into the Christian faith by Bishop Wolpan when I asked him, "Where are my dead forefathers at present?" His reply was, "In hell, with all other unbelievers." Your historians have recorded my words to him. "Mighty well, then will I rather feast with my ancestors in Woden, than dwell with your little starveling band of Christians in heaven." Let me ask you, Christian, are you all still as cold and callused as Bishop Wolpan? If you believe as he did, you make pagans like me look kinder and more concerned than you and your God. Do you still offer no better hope than Bishop Wolpan?
Arabia, 700 AD
My name is Ali. I followed the traditions of my father who followed the traditions of his father. This is the way it has always been in our lands. Our God is Allah. There is none else and His prophet is Mohammed. I was taught this from my father and my tribe. I knew nothing else. We did not have books in our tents. They were useless to us since we did not know how to read. Even the founder of our faith, Mohammed, could not read. I know it is difficult for the modern Western mind to realize most of the peoples of the world could not read anything, let alone the Christian Bible.
Many members of modern Christian sects spend thousands of hours combing their Bibles trying to be certain their lives will be acceptable to their God when they die. If this diligence is needful, then the vast majority of mankind is lost. Furthermore, your God would be guilty of not giving mankind the tools needed to prepare themselves for the afterlife. He did not provide us with teachers, the time to study, nor the Bibles to read. Your Scriptures say God is not a respecter of persons. Then why didn't He provide me all these things you possess? Is it possible for an all-powerful, miracle working God to not be able to provide all these things equally for all mankind if their very life after death depended upon it? Surely He could do such a thing, but He didn't. This tells me your God is either a respecter of persons or the traditional churches' understandings of God's requirements are inaccurate.
Some of you tell me, that even though I could not read, although I did not have a Bible, I am still without excuse. Somehow your God still made a way to give me the gospel.
Hear then, the gospel which I was fed. I was told by my elders Christians were great idolaters. From what little I saw of them, this was true. Why, they ate a piece of bread and said it is a man who died hundreds of years ago. They worshipped dead saints and put their body parts in jars and hid them under their altars. They told us to kiss a stick with an image of a dead man on it. They did and still do many strange things like this and then tell us if we do not join their church and eat this piece of bread which they say is their God, then we will be tortured by their God forever. They say their God is love and yet they killed many Arabs for their properties. These Christians even kill each other, both sides claiming to do it for the cause of their God!
I am not a learned man, but I have some common sense. In my opinion, these Catholics, as they call themselves, must be demon possessed! They have gone mad. Is it any wonder that we Arabs seek to drive them from the earth? There are many of you whose ancestors fought these madmen and now many of you moderns have joined forces with them. Your Protestant evangelists send converts to the Catholic Church by the millions. Tell me, Christian, how can I have hope in such madness? Can you not see how insane you appear to the rest of us? Can you not see how difficult it is for us to have hope in your inconsistency and hypocrisy?
Many modern Christians say that unless I accepted their Christ, I will be endlessly tortured and then you have the nerve to call Islam a cruel religion. To that kind of Christian I would ask, which Christ is the real one? In my day there were two kinds of Christians, those who worshipped statues, their Pope, and the bread and those who worshipped icons, their Patriarchs, and the bread (Roman Catholic and Orthodox). However, the modern Christians, they have multiplied their gods by the thousands. They have divided into so many different sects over thousands of different rituals, rules, and concepts of their God, that my head spins from confusion. Then they say my eternal life depends upon making the right choice! I am a simple man, even childlike in many ways. Christendom is too complicated for me. I am not good at puzzles.
The Christian Bible says do not follow Paul, or Apollos, or any other man, yet Christians have divided themselves between thousands of different men's voices. Do I not rightly say this is confusion? Pray tell me dear Christian, how can I find hope in such a mass of hypocrisy!?
American Inca Empire 1000 AD
I am called by the name of Zuma. I died in a great battle. The year before I died I made my fame. It was I who captured a warrior from another tribe whose heart was offered to the gods to resurrect the New Year. My act was very noble and moral, highly honored among my people. Some of you Christians even say that one can attain heaven through righteous acts, being moral, being a good person. Will my act be counted as a good deed by your God? You see, good and moral, is quite different from one culture to another. To some societies, it is considered good to kill people of other societies. You only need to look to your Bible for examples. So then, to you, Christians, who tell us that doing good will bring one to heaven, who decides whether the act is good or not? Will you, a Greco-Roman Westerner? Or may we choose the standard of our choice like you have? If whether one is good determines their fate, then for what purpose did Jesus Christ die?
Now I have heard another quite foolish teaching among some Christian sects. They say that God must give everyone on earth a chance to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior because He would become a "respecter of persons" if He did not give the invitation to everyone before they died. Therefore, they say that God sends angels to them. The angels deliver the "Gospel." If they accept it, they are then "saved." This reasoning is often used for loved ones who showed no sign of ever being "saved," or "born again." It is also used for civilizations like mine who did not hear the gospel from missionaries since our part of the world did not see Christian missionaries until long after we were dead. Foolish Christian, think! If this fable was true, then your archaeologists should have uncovered hundreds of civilizations with signs of some believing in Jesus Christ. This is not reality. Only where there were Bibles and missionaries does one find traces of Christianity.
Those who have been fed this sort of nonsense are usually told by some missionary of a tale about finding an African native who believed in Jesus Christ through an angel. This "witness" of course is never telling the story, it always comes from a third party. Oh, Christian, please allow your mind to dig a little further than these myths and tales perpetuated by ministers of fear. If this "angel gospel" were true, then archaeologists would find traces of Christian civilization in every corner of the world in all periods of time! However, this is not the case.
Paul, the apostle, made it very clear in his letter to the Romans that the gospel would be delivered by "sent preachers" not angels. (Rom. 10:14,15) What need would there be of Bibles, missionaries, tracts, etc., if everyone had an angel appear to them? Wouldn't an angel have greater effect than those the church has sent forth to preach? Look to the crusades, the money hungry televangelists, and the power thirsty priesthood. Can you see how confusing their gospel message is? Surely angels would be much more effective than these mortals chained to their own lusts and special varieties of doctrine. Archaeology tells us the message of Christ is only found where a "sent one" went. Whether he was sent by God or by "the elders of tradition," is not for me to decide. In light of archaeology, a reasonable person would surely put no faith in the "evangelist angel" myth. Why is it so hard for you moderns to think, to reason past the lame excuses you are fed on Sunday morning? By the way, the missionaries sent to us by Spain, Portugal, and other "Christian" countries did not bring us "good news." They took our gold and gave us their diseases in exchange. They "converted" us at the end of the barrels of their muskets, not with Paul's gospel. Was that my hope?!
Southern Europe, 1213 AD
Maria, (named after the blessed Virgin), is who I am. I was a concubine to one of the cardinals in Rome. I did many shameful things. The cardinal reassured me that all he made me do was for the cause of Christ. I received communion every Sunday. There are many thousands of us belonging to Priests throughout Europe. Why even some of the Popes have lovers and concubines. Many of you modern Christians say that people like me will have their part in the lake of fire. My priests told me I must obey them or be excommunicated. Modern Christians are so quick to condemn people like myself saying the Scriptures make it clear not to follow any man, but only the Word of God, by which they mean the Bible. But I say to you, you may be doing the very thing you condemn me for. Perhaps you are a slave to tradition much more than you realize. From God's Holy View, you may thereby be committing spiritual adultery by co-habiting with churches who have replaced the true image of God with false images of God created by demons through religious men and women who are full of lusts of the eyes, lusts of the flesh and the pride of life. You may discover at the end of your days, that your spiritual fornication with false religious systems may be a greater sin than my own sex sins.
Have you no comprehension of how few people in this world throughout the course of mankind have ever seen a Bible much less ever read one? I, as well as most of those who have come into this world, was illiterate!! Even if I was literate, it was forbidden for a common person to have a Bible. Do you not quote, "Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word?" Do you not read, "How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe on Him in whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?" (Rom 10:14,15) Tell me, do you think my master, the cardinal, was a "sent one?" Do you have any idea of the kind of "gospel" I heard from my master, the cardinal? The only kindness he ever showed me was after he had his way with me in bed! And tell me, dear Christian, what will become of all my illegitimate children who hate anything to do with God because of what has happened to them in the name of Christ!
So tell me, Christian, from your great knowledge of the Scriptures which were denied me, is there hope for me? I never heard of this "born again" jingle you Evangelicals throw around. Do you have any hope to sell, my friend? You object to my use of the word "sell?" Believe me, in the church of my generation, there was nothing free, except my body, which I had to freely give to the cardinal. Hope, Christian, can you sell me some hope?!
Kagoshima, Japan, 1550
My name is Kim. I was perhaps among the first in the history of Japan to hear about Jesus Christ. This was over 1500 years after Jesus walked this earth. For hundreds of years, while monks and priests canvassed Europe Christianizing all those nations, we Japanese heard nothing from your God. All our ancestors died without hearing of the one Name in which men might be saved. What is their hope?
According to the missionary who shared his "good news" with me, they have no hope. He, himself wrote in his diary in 1552, "One of the things that most pains and torments these Japanese is that we teach them that the prison of hell is irrevocably shut. For they grieve over the fate of their departed children, of their parents and relatives; and they often show their grief by their tears. So they ask us if there is any hope . . .and I am obliged to answer that there is absolutely none. The grief at this affects and torments them wonderfully; they almost pine away with sorrow . . . I can hardly restrain my tears sometimes at seeing many so dear to my heart suffer such intense pain about a thing which is already done and can never be undone."
The man who wrote these words is Saint Frances Xavier, who was canonized as a Saint by the Roman Catholic Church. You see, he did not bring us hope-he brought us tears and torment!
Some Christian evangelists excuse the fact that few Japanese convert to the fact that we are involved in deep pagan ancestry worship cults. They say that the demons which hold us to our ancestors are strong. How cruel! The tears "Saint" Frances Xavier saw were not a manifestation of demons-they came from a deep love of our family and all our brothers and sisters who had gone to the grave before us!! They came from love!! How is it that so many Christians can confuse love with demons?
Japan will never become a Christian nation until the Western Church abandons its heathen doctrines and its cruel and demonic ways! You say you are not heathens? Do I need to remind you, Christian Americans, how many innocent civilian Japanese you killed in Hiroshima? Oh, by the way, you had Christian missionaries preaching your "good news" in the two cities in which you burned to death tens of thousands of Japanese.
Since the day your first missionary set foot upon Japanese soil, you have not given us "good news." We are still waiting for the "Good News." We are still waiting for hope. We are still waiting for a message which will open the graves of our ancestors, whom we love dearly-a message which goes to the graves and delivers the captives from their bondage. We are still weeping over our ancestors. We are also weeping over the fact that such a beautiful person as Jesus could be marred and smeared by His own people with such a hideous doctrine as everlasting sufferings. Suffering we understand, but everlasting torture for never having heard the name of Jesus is beyond the grasp of my sense of justice. We remain weeping, waiting for a better hope.
England, 1911
My name is Hannah Whitall Smith. Some of you are aquainted with some of my writings, the most popular of which was the book The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life. In one sense, I really don't belong in this section of this book. You see, I died having great hope. I died quite secure in my own salvation and not only my own, but the salvation of the entire world!
This hope did not come to me from my denomination's doctrines, it came by way of divine revelation and Scripture!
The reason why my words are placed in this portion of this book are two: first of all, I couldn't think of a place in this book that would make me more happy. As you will see from my brief testimony, my heart greatly goes out to those without hope. What a wonderful place to allow me to express my joy-between two groups of people who have been greatly hardened to the hearing of the truly Good News. These people (Japanese and Jews) have yet to really hear the news which will set them free from their bondage.
I have been given this Good News. I wrote about it in my autobiography entitled My Spiritual Autobiography: The Unselfishness of God and How I Discovered It.
And this brings me to the second reason why I prefer my testimony be placed among those who have died without hope. I wrote this last book for the very purpose of giving great hope to all mankind. I hoped that my book would continue to be published after my death, which it was. Several Christian publishing companies have been reprinting my books. The first book I mentioned has sold millions of copies.
However, the greatest hope I wanted to share with all the world was my discovery that our Heavenly Father will draw all mankind unto Himself. I share this wonderful news in my autobiography and these modern Christian publishers have removed this message from my book!! The very heart of my book, that God Himself showed me He was going to save all mankind-that part of my book they removed without notifying the reader they did such a deceitful thing! How in the world are people going to believe in Jesus as the Truth when Christian publishers behave in such a manner. I know that I am not the only writer suffering at the hands of dishonest religious publishers. Even the Bible translations of deceased Christians have been reworked by some publishers changing major doctrines without bringing this to the attention of the readers.
Cutting out those chapters was like cutting out my heart. They have taken my "Unselfish God" and made Him into their own image-very selfish. They cut those chapters from my book because it was not "popular theology." It did not fit in with the traditional "Evangelical" circles. In other words, they "cut out" those chapters because they would have "cut into" their profits. They felt they needed to "edit" it to attract the largest readership. Therefore they removed that which they felt might offend some of their readership. Imagine-Christians being offended that God is loving and powerful enough to save all of us! It grieves me greatly to know that many Christians are offended by the love and mercy of the True God.
I am grateful that the heart of my autobiography is printed in this book Hope for All Generations and Nations and located between these peoples who have longed for so many centuries for a hope which would reach all their ancestors. I pray that my testimony be used to reach some in every nation of the world.
Here are the chapters which the "workers of iniquity" have removed from my autobiography. Thank you, Father for restoring what You Yourself have given me to share with my brothers and sisters around the world:
The Unselfishness of God and How I Discovered It
by Hannah Whitall Smith
Chapter XXI
Questionings.
"During all the years of which I speak the Plymouth Brethren were, as I have said, among my principal teachers. But I began gradually to find some things in their teachings that I could not accept; and this was especially the case with their extreme Calvinism.
There have always been, I believe, differences of opinion among them in regard to this view; but those with whom I was thrown held very rigidly the belief that some people were "elected" to salvation, and some were elected to "reprobation", and that nothing the individual could do could change these eternal decrees. We of course were among those elected to salvation, and for this we were taught to be profoundly thankful. I tried hard to fall in with this. It seemed difficult to believe that those who had taught me so much could possibly be mistaken on such a vital point. But my soul revolted from it more and more. How could I be content in knowing that I myself was sure of Heaven, when other poor souls equally deserving, but who had not had my chances, were "elected", for no fault of their own, but in the eternal decrees of God, to "Reprobation"? Such a doctrine seemed to me utterly inconsistent with the proclamation that had so entranced me. I could not find any limitations in this proclamation, and I could not believe there were any secret limitations in the mind of the God who had made it. Neither could I see how a Creator could be just, even if He were not loving, in conigning some of the creatures He Himself, and no other, had created, to the eternal torment of hell, let them be as great sinners as they might be. I felt that if this doctrine were true, I should be woefully disappointed in the God -whom I had, with so much rapture, discovered.
I could not fail to see, moreover, that, after all, each one of us was largely a creature of circumstance-that what we were, and what we did, was more or less the result of our temperaments, of our inherited characteristics, of our social surroundings and of our education; and that, as these were all providentially arranged for us, with often no power on our part to alter them, it would not be just of the God who had placed us in their midst, to let them determine our eternal destiny.
As an escape from the doctrine of eternal torment, I at first embraced the doctrine of annihilation for the wicked, and for a little while tried to comfort myself with the belief that this life ended all for them. But the more I thought of it, the more it seemed to me that it would be a confession of serious failure on the part of the Creator, if He could find no way out of the problem of His creation, but to annihilate the creatures whom He had created.
Unconsciously, one of my children gave me an illustration of this. She waked me up one morning to tell me that she had been lying in bed having great fun in pretending that she had made a man. She described the color of his hair and his eyes, his figure, his height, his power, his wisdom and all the grand things he was going to do, and was very enthusiastic in her evident delight in the joy of creation. When she had finished enumerating all the magnificent qualities of her man, I said to her, "But, darling, suppose he should turn out badly; suppose he should do mischief and hurt people, and make things go wrong, what would thee do then?" "Oh," she said, "I would not have any trouble; I'd just make him lie down and chop his head off."
I saw at once what a splendid illustration this was of the responsibility of a Creator, and it brought to my mind Mrs. Shelley's weird story of the artist Frankenstein, who made the monstrous image of a man, which, when it, was finished, suddenly, to his horror, became alive, and went out into the world, working havoc wherever it went. The horrified maker felt obliged to follow his handiwork everywhere, in order to try to undo a little of the mischief that had been done, and to remedy as far as possible the evils it had caused. The awful sense of the responsibility that rested upon him, because of the things done by the creature he had created, opened my eyes to see the responsibility God must necessarily feel, if the creatures He had created were to turn out badly. I could not believe He would torment them forever; and neither could I rest in the thought of annihilation as His best remedy for sin. I felt hopeless of reconciling the love and the justice of the Creator with the fate of His creatures, and I knew not which way to turn. But deliverance was at hand, and the third epoch in my Christian experience was about to dawn."
Chapter XXII
The Third Epoch In My Religious Life
"As I stated in the last chapter, after a few years of exuberant enjoyment in the good news of salvation through Christ for myself and for those who thought as I did, my heart began to reach out after those who thought differently, and especially after those who, by reason of the providential circumstances of their birth and their surroundings, had had no fair chance in life. I could not but see that ignorance of God, and, as a result, lives of sin, seemed the almost inevitable fate of a vast number of my fellow human beings, and I could not reconcile it with the justice of God, that these unfortunate mortals should be doomed to eternal torment because of those providential circumstances, for which they were not responsible, and from which, in a large majority of cases, they could not escape. The fact, that, I, who no more deserved it than they, should have been brought to the knowledge of the truth, while they were left out in the cold, became so burdensome to me, that I often felt as if I would gladly give up my own salvation, if by this means I could bestow it upon those who had been placed in less fortunate circumstances than myself.
I began to feel that the salvation in which I had been rejoicing was, after all a very limited and a very selfish salvation, and, as such, unworthy of the Creator who had declared so emphatically that His "tender mercies are over all His works," and above all unworthy of the Lord Jesus Christ, who came into the world for the sole and single purpose of saving the world. I could not believe that His life and death for us could be meant to fall so far short of remedying the evil that He came on purpose to remedy, and I felt that it must be impossible that there could be any short-coming in the salvation He had provided. I began to be convinced that my difficulties had simply arisen from a misunderstanding of the plans of God, and I set myself to discover the mistakes.
As I have said, my first refuge had been in the annihilation of the wicked. But this had soon seemed unworthy of a wise and good Creator, and a very sad confession of failure on His part, and I could not reconcile it with, either His omnipotence or His omniscience. I began to be afraid I was going to be disappointed in God. But one day a revelation came to me that vindicated Him, and that settled the whole question forever.
We very often had revivalist preachers staying with us, as we sought every opportunity of helping forward with we called "gospel work". Among the rest there came one who was very full of the idea that it was the privilege and duty of the Christian to share, in a very special manner, in the sufferings of Christ, as well as in His joys. He seemed to think our doing so would in some way help those who knew nothing of the salvation of Christ; and he had adopted the plan of making strong appeals on the subject in his meetings, and of asking Christians, who were willing, for the sake of others, to take a share of these sufferings upon themselves, to "come forward" to a front bench in the meeting to pray that it might be granted them. Somehow it all sounded very grand and heroic, and it fitted in so exactly with my longings to help my less fortunate fellow human beings, that, although I did not go "forward" for prayer at any of his meetings, I did begin to pray privately in a blind sort of way that I might come into the experience, whatever it was. The result was very different from what I had expected, but it was far from tremendous.
I had expected to enter into a feeling of Christ's own personal sufferings in the life and death He bore for our sakes, but instead I seemed to have a revelation, not of His sufferings because of sin, but of ours. I seemed to get a sight of the misery and anguish caused to humanity by the entrance of sin into the world, and of Christ's sorrow, not for His own sufferings because of it, but for the sufferings of the poor human beings who had been cursed by it. I seemed to understand something of what must necessarily be His anguish at the sight of the awful fate which had been permitted to befall the human race, and of His joy that He could do something to alleviate it. I saw that ours was the suffering, and that His was the joy of sacrificing Himself to save us. I felt that if I had been a Divine Creator, and had allowed such an awful fate to befall the creatures I had made, I would have been filled with anguish, and would have realized that simple justice, even if not love, required that I should find some remedy for it. And I knew I could not be more just than God. I echoed in my heart over and over again the lines found by one of George Macdonald's characters engraved on a tombstone.
"Oh Thou, who didst the serpent make,
Our pardon give and pardon take."
I had been used to hearing a great deal about the awfulness of our sins against God, but now I asked myself, what about the awfulness of our fate in having been made sinners? Would I not infinitely rather that a sin should be committed against myself, than that I should commit a sin against any one else? Was it not a far more dreadful thing to be made a sinner than to be merely sinned against? And I began to see that, since God had permitted sin to enter into the world, it must necessarily be that He would be compelled, in common fairness, to provide a remedy that would be equal to the disease. I remembered some mothers I had known, with children suffering from inherited diseases, who were only too thankful to lay down their lives in self-sacrifice for their children, if so be they might, in any way, be able to undo the harm they had done in bringing them into the world under such disastrous conditions and I asked myself, Could God do less? I saw that, when weighed in a balance of wrong done, we, who had been created sinners, had infinitely more to forgive than any one against whom we might have sinned.
The vividness with which all this came to me can never be expressed. I did not think it, or imagine it, or suppose it. I saw it. It was a revelation of the real nature of things--not according to the surface conventional ideas, but according to the actual bottom facts--and it could not be gainsaid.
In every human face I saw, there seemed to be unveiled before me, the story of the misery and anguish caused by the entrance of sin into the world. I knew that God must see this with far clearer eyes than mine, and therefore I felt sure that the sufferings of this sight to Him must be infinitely beyond what it was to me, almost unbearable as that seemed. And I began to understand how it was that the least He could do would be to embrace with untold gladness anything that would help to deliver the being He had created for such awful misery.
It was a never to be forgotten insight into the world's anguish because of sin. How long it lasted I cannot remember, but, while it lasted, it almost crushed me. And as it always came afresh at the sight of a strange face, I found myself obliged to wear a thick veil whenever I went into the streets, in order that I might spare myself the awful realization.
One day I was riding on a tram-car along Market Street, Philadelphia, when I saw two men come in and seat themselves opposite to me. I saw them dimly through in veil, but congratulated myself that it was only dimly, as I was thus spared the wave of anguish that had so often swept over me at the full sight of a strange face. The conductor came for his fare, and I was obliged to raise my veil in order to count it out. As I raised it I got a sight of the faces of those two men, and with an overwhelming flood of anguish, I seemed to catch a fresh and clearer revelation of the depth of the misery that had been caused to human beings by sin. It was more than I could bear. I clenched my hands and cried out in my soul, "O, God, how canst thou bear it? Thou mightest have prevented it, but didst not. Thou mightest even now change it, but Thou dost not. I do not see how Thou canst go on living, and endure it." I upbraided God. And I felt I was justified in doing so. Then suddenly God seemed to answer me. An inward voice said, in tones of infinite love and tenderness, "He shall see the travail of His soul and be satisfied." "Satisfied!" I cried in my heart, "Christ is to be satisfied! He will be able to look at the world's misery, and then at the travail through which He has passed because of it, and will be satisfied with the result; If I were Christ, nothing could satisfy me but that every human being should in the end be saved, and therefore I am sure that nothing less will satisfy Him." And with this a veil seemed to be withdrawn from before the plans of the universe, and I saw that it was true, as the Bible says, that "as in Adam all die -even so in Christ should all be made alive." As was the first, even so was the second. The "all" in one case could not in fairness mean less than the "all" in the other. I saw therefore that the remedy must necessarily be equal to the disease, the salvation must be as universal as the fall.
I saw all this that day on the tram-car on Market street, Philadelphia--not only thought it, or hoped it, or even believed it--but knew it. It was a Divine fact. And from that moment I have never had one questioning thought as to the final destiny of the human race. God is the Creator of every human being, therefore He is the Father of each one, and they are all His children; and Christ died for every one, and is declared to be "the propitiation not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:2). However great the ignorance therefore, or however grievous the sin, the promise of salvation is positive and without limitations. If it is true that "by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation," it is equally true that "by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." To limit the last "all men" is also to limit the first. The salvation is absolutely equal to the fall. There is to be a final "restitution of all things", when "at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." Every knee, every tongue-words could not be more embracing. The how and the when I could not see; but the one essential fact was all I needed-somewhere and somehow God was going to make every thing right for all the creatures He had created. My heart was at rest about it forever.
I hurried home to get hold of my Bible, to see if the magnificent fact I had discovered could possibly have been all this time in the Bible, and I had not seen it; and the moment I entered the house, I did not wait to take off my bonnet, but rushed at once to the table where I always kept my Bible and Concordance ready for use, and began my search. Immediately the whole Book seemed to be illuminated. On every page the truth concerning the "times of restitution of all things" of which the Apostle Peter says "God Hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began," shone forth, and no room was left for questioning. I turned greedily from page to page of my Bible, fairly laughing aloud for joy at the blaze of light that illuminated it all. It became a new book. Another skin seemed to have been peeled off every text, and my Bible fairly shone with a new meaning. I do not say with a different meaning, for in no sense did the new meaning contradict the old, but a deeper meaning, the truemeaning, hidden behind the outward form of words. The words did not need to be changed, they only needed to be understood; and now at last I began to understand them.
I remember just about this time, in the course of my daily reading in the Bible, coming to the Psalms, and I was amazed at the new light thrown upon their apparently most severe and blood-thirsty denunciations. I saw that, when rightly interpreted, not by the letter, but by the spirit, they were full of the assured and final triumph of good over evil, and were a magnificent vindication of the goodness and justice of God, who will not, and ought not, and cannot, rest until all His enemies and ours are put under His feet. I saw that the kingdom must be interior before it can be exterior, that it is a kingdom of ideas, and not one of brute force; that His rule is over hearts, not over places; that His victories must be inward before they can be outward; that He seeks to control spirits rather than bodies; that no triumph could satisfy Him but a triumph that gains the heart; that in short, where God really reigns, the surrender must be the interior surrender of the convicted free men, and not merely the outwar surrender of the conquered slave. Milton says, "Who overcomes by force hath overcome but half his foe," and I saw that this was true.
Read in the light of these views, my whole soul thrilled with praise over the very words that had before caused me to thrill with horror. "Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered; let them also that hate Him flee before Him. As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: as wax melted before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God." God's wrath is against the sin not against the sinner, and when His enemies are scattered, ours are also. His sword is the righteousness that puts to death sin in order to save the sinner. The fire of His anger is the "refiner's fire", and He sits, not as the destroyer of the human soul, but as its purifier, to purge it as gold and silver are purged.
"Implacable is love
Foes may be bought or teased from their malign intent;
But He goes unappeased Who is on kindness bent."
The Psalmist says, "Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though thou takest vengeance on their inventions;" and with this key to interpret it, all the denunciations of God's wrath, which had once seemed so cruel and so unjust, were transformed into declarations of His loving determination to make us good enough to live in Heaven with Himself forever.
I might multiply endlessly similar instances of the new illumination that shone in entrancing beauty on every page of the Bible, but these will suffice. I began at last to understand what the Apostle Paul meant when he said that he had been made the minister of the new testament, not of the letter but of the spirit, for "the letter killeth but the spirit giveth life". Things I had read in the letter, and had shuddered at, now, read in the spirit, filled me with joy."
Chapter XXIII
The Unselfishness of God
"I have always felt that this time my real discovery of the unselfishness of God began. Up to then, while I had rejoiced in the salvation for myself that I had discovered, I had been secretly beset from time to time with a torturing feeling that, after all, it was rather a selfish salvation, both for Him and for me. How could a good God enjoy Himself in Heaven, knowing all the while that a large proportion of the beings He had Himself created were doomed to eternal misery, unless He were a selfish God? I had known that the Bible said that He was a God of love, and I had supposed that it must be true, but always there had been at the bottom of my mind this secret feeling that His love could not stand the test of comparison with the ideal of love in my own heart. I knew that, poor and imperfect as my love must be, I could never have enjoyed myself in Heaven while one of my children, no matter how naughty, was shut out; and that He could and did enjoy Himself, while countless thousands of His children were sht out, seemed to me a failure in the most essential element of love. So that, grateful as I had felt for the blessings of forgiveness and of a sure and certain hope of Heaven for myself, I still had often felt as if after all the God I worshiped was a selfish God, who cared more for His own comfort and His own glory than He did for the poor suffering beings He had made. But now I began to see that the wideness of God's love was far beyond any wideness that I could even conceive of; and that if I took all the unselfish love of every mother's heart the whole world over, and piled it all together, and multiplied it by millions, I would still only get a faint idea of the unselfishness of God.
I had always thought of Him as loving, but now I found out that He was far more than loving:--He was love, love embodied and ingrained. I saw that He was, as it were, made out of love, so that in the very nature of things He could not do anything contrary to love. Not that He would not do it, but actually could not, because love was the very essence of His being. I saw that the law of love, like the law of gravitation, is inevitable in its working, and that God is, if I may say so, under this law, and cannot help obeying it. I saw that, because He is love, He simply, in the very nature of things, must be loving. It is not a matter of choice with Him, but a matter of necessity. And I saw that, once this fact was known, to trust in this God of love would be as natural as to breathe. Every doubting question was answered, and I was filled with an illimitable delight in the thought of having been created by such an unselfish God. I saw that as a matter of course the fact of His being our creator was an abolute guarantee that He would care for us, and would make all things work together for our good. The duties of ownership blazed with tremendous illumination. Not its rights, of which I had hitherto chiefly thought, but its duties, the things ownership necessarily demands of its owner. I saw that just as in a civilized community people are compelled by public opinion, or if necessary by the law, to take proper care of things that belong to them, so our Creator, by the laws of common morality, is compelled to take proper care of the creatures He has created, and must be held responsible for their well being.
It was all so glorious that it often seemed too good to be true, that we actually did belong to such an unselfish God; that many a time, when a fresh insight into His goodness would come over me, I would be obliged to get my Bible and open it at the texts that declared we really were His property, and put my fingers on them, and read them aloud, just to reassure myself that they did actually say, without any limitations, that He was my owner.
The expression "Remember thy Creator" assumed a totally different aspect to me. I had always thought of it as a kind of threat held over us into good behavior; but now it seemed full of the most delightful warrant and assurance that all was well for the creatures this unselfish Creator had created. I saw that God was good, not religiously good only, but really and actually good in the truest sense of the word, and that a good Creator was of course bound to make every thing go right with the creatures He had created. And the fact that nothing was hid from His eyes, which had once been so alarming, now began to seem the most delightful fact in the whole universe, because it made it certain that He knew all about us, and would therefore be able to do His best for us.
My own feelings as a mother, which had heretofore seemed to war with what I had believed of God, now came into perfect harmony.
My children have been the joy of my life. I cannot imagine more exquisite bliss than comes to one sometimes in the possession and companionship of a child. To me there have been moments, when my arms have been around my children, that have seemed more like what the bliss of Heaven must be than any other thing I can conceive of; and I think this feeling has taught me more of what are God's feelings towards His children than anything else in the universe. If I, a human being with limited capacity, can find such joy in my children, what must God, with His infinite heart of love, feel towards His; In fact most of my ideas of the love and goodness of God have come from my own experience as a mother, because I could not conceive that God would create me with a greater capacity for unselfishness and self sacrifice than He possessed Himself; and since this discovery of the mother heart of God I have always been able to answer every doubt that may have arisen in my mind, as to the extent and quality of the love ofGod, by simply looking at my own feelings as a mother. I cannot understand the possibility of any selfishness on the mother's part coming into her relation to her children. It seems to me a mother, who can be selfish and think of her own comfort and her own welfare before that of her children, is an abnormal mother, who fails in the very highest duty of motherhood.
If one looks at what we call the lower creation, one will see that every animal teaches us this supreme duty of self-sacrifice on the part of the mother.
The tiger mother will suffer herself to be killed rather than that that harm should come to her offspring. She will starve that they may have food. Could our God do less? I speak of self-sacrifice, but I cannot truthfully call it sacrifice. Any true mother, who knows the reality of motherhood, would scorn the idea that the care of her children involved a sacrifice, in the ordinary sense of sacrifice, on her part. It may involve trouble or weariness but not what I could call sacrifice. The sacrifice would be if she were not allowed to care for them, not if she were. I know no more fallacious line of argument than that which is founded upon the idea that children ought to be grateful for the self-sacrifice on the mother's part. Her claim to love and consideration on the part of her children depends altogether to my mind upon how true a mother she has been in the sense I describe; and I believe that thousands of disappointed mothers, who have not received the gratitude and consideration they would like,have only themselves to thank, because they have demanded it, instead of having won it. All this has taught me to understand God's feelings towards us that what we call self-sacrifice on the part of Christ was simply the absolutely necessary expression of His love for us; and that the amazing thing would have been, not that He did it, but if He had not done it.
Since I had this insight of the mother-heart of God, I have never been able to feel the slightest anxiety for any of His children; and by His children I do not mean only the good ones, but I mean the bad ones just as much. Are we not, distinctly told that the Good Shepherd leaves the ninety and nine good sheep in order to find the one naughty sheep that is lost, and that He looks for it until He finds it? And, viewed in the light of motherhood, has not that word "lost" a most comforting meaning, since nothing can be a lost thing that is not owned by somebody, and to be lost means only, not yet found. The lost gold piece is still gold, with the image of the King upon it; the lost sheep is a sheep still, not a wolf; the lost son has still the blood of his father in his veins. And if a person is a lost sinner, it only means that he is owned by the Good Shepherd, and that the Good Shepherd is bound, by the very duties of His ownership, to go after that which is lost, and to go until He finds it. The word "lst" therefore, to my mind, contains in itself the strongest proof of ownership that one could desire. Who can imagine a mother with a lost child ever having a ray of comfort until the child is found, and who can imagine a God being more indifferent than a mother? In fact I believe that all the problems of the spiritual life, which are often so distressing to conscientious souls, would vanish like mist before the rising sun, if the full blaze of the mother-heart of God should be turned upon them.
Moreover I saw that, since it was declared we were created in the image of God, we were bound to believe that the best in us, and not the worst was the reflection of that image, and that therefore things which to us in our best moments looked selfish, or unkind, or unjust, or self-seeking, must never, no matter what the "seeming", be attributed to God. If He is unselfish, He must be at least as unselfish as the highest human ideal; and of course we know He must be infinitely more.
All the texts in the Bible revealing God's goodness shone with a new meaning, and I saw that His goodness was not merely a patronizing benevolence, but was a genuine bona fide goodness that included unselfishness and consideration, and above all justice, which last has always seemed -to me one of the very first elements of goodness. No unjust person could ever, in my opinion, lay the slightest claim to being good, let their outward seemings of goodness be as deceiving as they may. I had in short such an overwhelming revelation of the intrinsic and inherent goodness and unselfishness of God that nothing since has been able to shake it. A great many things in His dealings have been and still are mysteries to me; but I am sure they could all be explained on the basis of love and justice, if only I could look deep enough; and that some day I shall see, what now I firmly believe, that His loving kindness is really and truly over all His works.
I do not mean to say that all this acquaintance with God came to me at once; but 1 do mean to say that when I had that revelation on the tram-car in Philadelphia that day, a light on the character of God began to shine, that has never since waned in the slightest, and has only grown brighter and brighter with every year of my life. It is enough for me to say "God is" and I have the answer to every possible difficulty.
The amazing thing is that I, in company with so many other Christians, had failed, with the open Bible before me, to see this; and that all sorts of travesties on the character of God, and of libels upon His goodness, can find apparently a welcome entrance into Christian hearts. To me such things became at this time well-nigh intolerable. I could listen patiently, and even with interest, to any sort of strange or heretical ideas that did not touch the character of God, but the one thing I could not endure, and could not sit still to listen to, was anything that contained, even under a show of great piety, the least hint of a libel on His love or His selfishness.
I shall never forget a memorable occasion in our own house, when a celebrated Preacher from Boston, was visiting us. The conversation at the breakfast table turned on the subject of God's love, and this Preacher declared that you must not count on it too much, as there were limits as to what His love could endure, just as there were limits to a mother's love; and he went on to declare that there were certain sins a daughter could commit which the mother never could forgive, and which would forever close her heart and her home against her child, and he asserted that it was just so with God, and that he considered it was a grandmotherly religion that taught anything different.
I have no doubt his object was to combat my views on Restitution, although we were not talking on that subject; but he evidently wanted to convince me that God was not quite so foolishly loving as I thought. It was more than I could endure to hear both mothers, and the God who made mothers, so maligned, and, although the speaker was my guest, I broke forth into a perfect passion of indignation, and, declaring that I would not sit at the table with any one who held such libelous ideas of God, I burst into tears and left the room, and entirely declined to see my guest again. I do not say this was right or courteous, or at all Christ-like, but it only illustrates how overwhelmingly I felt on the subject. The honor of God seemed to me of more importance than any ordinary rules of politeness. But I see now that I might have vindicated that honor in an equally effectual but more Christ-like way.
Still, to this day, the one thing which I find it very hard to tolerate, is any thing which libels the character of God. Nothing else matters like this, for all our salvation depends wholly and entirely upon what God is; and unless He can be proved to be absolutely good, and absolutely unselfish, and absolutely just, our case is absolutely hopeless. God is our salvation, and, if He fails us, in even the slightest degree, we have nowhere else to turn."
Auschwitz, Germany 1947 AD
My name is Rachael Abraham. I'm sure you know much about me just by my name and the year in which I died. The fire was very hot, perhaps not as hot as the fire that vaporized those poor Japanese. And you say the fire of G-d's wrath upon unbelievers will be much hotter and last much longer. You are a stupid person who says such foolish things!! Don't quote me your, "call no man of fool" Scripture. I probably know the Scriptures better than most of you. You should read some of the things your Jesus and His apostles said of some religious people in their day. Their words would make stupid sound very mild. White-washed tombs, den of snakes and hypocrites were among some of Jesus' words for people who acted very much like many of you. Yes, you people who believe such nonsense are stupid. Innocently stupid, maybe, but still pretty dumb. You don't think. You don't feel!
Tell me, my dear, do you really think you have this salvation business figured out? My life was ended in fire. Who put me there? Christians (Catholics and Protestants) wearing belt buckles inscribed with "In God we trust!" Who is going to get these eternal flames you warn about?! Those Lutherans who made me stand in a tank of human excretion up to my nose for hours? Or me, for hating the very name of Jesus for what Christians have done to my people in His name?
Oh, you may glibly say, they weren't true Christians! Tell me, is Martin Luther a "true" Christian? Listen to what he thought should be done to us. Here are his own words: "Whenever you encounter a real Jew, you may in good faith make the sign of the cross and openly and fearlessly pronounce the words 'This is a veritable devil.' Therefore, do not doubt and never forget, beloved Christians, that apart from Satan himself, you possess no more deadly, poisonous, and dreadful enemy than a real Jew. I know that. They poison wells, kidnap and maltreat children....It is impossible to teach or re-educate the Jews...Were God to promise me no other Messiah than for whom the Jews hope, I would much rather be a pig than a man...Never ought a Christian to eat or drink with a Jew."
On being asked whether it would be right to box the ears of a Jew, Luther replied "Certainly. I for one would smack him on the jaw. Were I able, I would knock him down and stab him in my anger. It is lawful, according to both the human and the divine law, to kill a robber; then it is even more permissible to slay a blasphemer...If I had to baptize a Jew, I would take him to the bridge of the Elbe, hang a stone round his neck and push him over with the words 'I baptize thee in the name of Abraham....We ought to take revenge on the Jews and kill them."
Little wonder the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. William Temple said, "It is easy to see how Luther prepared the way for Hitler." Perhaps now you can understand why you hear so much anger in my voice-why I call Christians who believe in an eternal torturing God "stupid." Don't you realize that you yourself will be conformed to the God you hold in your heart?! If you worship a ruthless, wrathful God who plays the hypocrite, telling his followers to love their enemies while He endlessly tortures His own, then you will become just like that kind of a God-an ugly hideous hypocrite! Think! Reason this out! And don't stick your heart in the freezer. Let it bleed for a moment. Do you realize Martin Luther ordered the death of tens of thousands of his own Christian countrymen who rebelled against the Princes due to lack of food!? Listen to how he speaks about his own poor starving Christian countrymen. These were not Jews, they were Christians!
What is so terribly sad is that Luther was the catalyst and leader who started the "Peasants War." Listen to what he at first had to say about the German Princes who had greatly oppressed the peasants: "God Almighty has struck our princes with madness so that they imagine they may treat and command their subjects just as they please; and the subjects too are crazy enough to think that it is their duty to obey all that is commanded them...God has delivered the princes up to a perverted mind, and means to make an end to them...All the princes could do was to rob and oppress the people, heaving tax upon tax, and rate upon rate...The princes are the greatest fools and the worst scoundrels on earth. The people cannot, will not any longer, endure your tyranny and your presumption." Words like these encourage the peasants to surround themselves around their champion, Martin Luther-a man bold enough to come against the highest powers of Germany. The peasants, under the encouragement of Luther, drafted a document asking for better living conditions. The document was a very reasonable and Christ-like plea for improved living conditions.
When things finally came to a head, what did Martin Luther, the very one who encouraged the peasants to rise up, do? He sided with the Princes! Here again are Luther's own words: "To kill a peasant is not murder; it is helping to extinguish the conflagration. Let there be no half measures! Crush them! Cut their throats! Transfix them! Leave no stone unturned! To kill a peasant is to destroy a mad dog!. . . Our princes must in the circumstances regard themselves as the officers of the divine wrath which bids them chastise such scoundrels. A prince who failed to do so would be sinning against God very badly. He would be failing in his mission. A prince who in such circumstances avoided bloodshed would become responsible for the murders and all the further crimes which these low swine might commit. It is no longer a question of tolerance, patience, pity. It is the hour of wrath and for the sword; the hour for mercy is past."
See, I told you so. If one worships a god who is a hypocrite one becomes a hypocrite. Or perhaps Luther's god of wrath was nothing more than an idol he created in his own image-a wrathful god of hypocrisy. He also said, "I will not forbid such rulers as are able, to chastise and slay the peasants without previously them offering terms, even though the Gospel does not permit it." We see here that Luther placed his own words above the Gospel itself! After all this (and much more that I could tell you about him) Luther had the nerve to call us Jews "swine." What nerve! (Quotes from Martin Luther were taken from Martin Luther: Hitler's Spiritual Ancestor by Peter F Wiener, Hutchinson and Company LTD publishers.)
Let's change the subject. My stomach turns when I think of some of the things Christian leaders have done. What sickens me even more is that few pew-warmers know these things ever happened. Worst of all, most Christians probably don't really want to know. There, there little ostrich. Put your empty little head back in the hot sand and bake it a little longer.
You know Jews like to study. That's why many Jews become doctors, lawyers, professors, etc. I personally happen to know more about Christian history than most Christians. After all, we Jews share a part in your history. You might be surprised at how many of my ancestors have been killed in Christian wars, inquisitions, and progroms. I am not surprised because I have read European history which really is also Church history.
I'm not too bad on your Bible either. Did you ever read in your own Bible, "Salvation is of the Jews?" (John 4:22) You know, of course, the Bible was written by Jews, even the New Testament. Oh, I know Luke may have been a Gentile, but the rest of the Bible was written by Jews. Do you know, we Jews know of no such thing as "hell?" We know of one place "Sheol" where all go, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Oh, I know the King James Bible translators divided Sheol into "hell," "grave," and "pit," but they never consulted a good Rabbi on that one. They were as anti-Semitic in those days as many are today. Now your modern scholars are getting much smarter. They don't have "hell" in the Old Testament anymore, because it was never in the Hebrew Scriptures in the first place!!
Now you ought to get busy cleaning up your New Testament Scriptures. Maybe we Jews might start listening to what you have to say when you stop talking foolishness! Think! God never spoke about hell to any of His people from Adam to Malachi. Why should He start talking about it in the first century AD? Your scholars should have gone to us for advice instead of the pagans. That is where you got your concept of hell. Gehenna, which your translators translate Hell, was the Valley of Hinnom outside the southwest wall of Jerusalem.
It was the dump, a symbol of worthlessness, and not a symbol of "eternal torture." Yeshua (Jesus) used it as a symbol of a place to put things that are worthless. Jesus told the religious leaders of his day that their lives weren't worth anything. To a pious Jew, this was the worst of insults. But where did you get the idea Gehenna was a place of eternal torture or even a symbol of it? Certainly not from the Jewish Scriptures! Oi Veh!! Such nonsense from the mouths of those who parade themselves as G-d's know-it-alls. You have lost your ability to think. You accuse us of following the "traditions of the elders," and yet most of you Christians follow a bunch of theologians and preachers who have so totally rewritten history and twisted the original languages of the Bible that the God of the Bible is hardly recognizable anymore.
As a Jew, I am not too fond of Paul, the apostle. But you Christians, if you want to follow the "gospel" thing had better pay attention to Paul. He said something like, "If anyone preach another gospel other than mine, let him be accursed." Those are pretty strong words. Now I have a question for you. Before you try to answer it, put a little oil in the brain, crank up the gears and think! Ready? If salvation is deliverance from this "hell" which most of you modern Christians say is a place of endless torture, why did Paul never use the word even once!!!! Think! No hell in the Old Testament. Paul, whose commission it was to declare the gospel to the nations, forgets to use this word, or did he? Maybe he didn't forget. Maybe Hell, as is commonly taught in Christendom, was never part of G-d's plan! Maybe it never was in the Scriptures, New Testament or Old. We Jews have never had a "hell" in our Scriptures. All we have ever had is Sheol. Remember, the Scriptures are from us. Yes, we do know better on this one! Now you should go and study for yourselves.
If you don't want to study this out, then study out my fate. I despised this Jesus you Christians have been trying to cram down our throats literally for two thousand years. Do you know how many Jews have been killed because we wouldn't call a piece of cracker, "Jesus Christ?"
Are you so pure and righteous that you think you will escape the barbecue you so vividly describe for us? Wake up! Think! Study! And pray sincerely. Remember, your God is an "all-consuming fire." Why don't you go to Him and let Him burn some of the dross clogging up your brains and your heart. Who knows, maybe then enough of Christ's love will flow out of you so that all can finally see their Messiah. We, Jews have waited a long time for the mercy which Christians are supposed to be filled with to flow forth to the nations. After all, aren't you supposed to provoke us to jealousy? (Rom. 11:11) We have become very cynical from waiting so long for the love of the Messiah to soften our hearts. We are still waiting. "How long, Oh Lord!" When will a people come forth exhibiting your character and love?!
Moscow, USSR, 1954 AD
My name is Ivan Magog. Yes, I know my name is in the Bible. I know many of you Western Christians believe we Russians are the Anti-Christ power on earth. I am in the third generation of Russians programmed from birth into atheism. We knew no God. Most of the priests of the Russian Orthodox Church in my day were stooges of the KGB. Most of them value their own lives more than their so-called faith. We remember the evils the Russian Orthodox Church and what its aristocracy did to the Russian people.
You Americans do not know what we peasants suffered in the name of your Christ. You Americans are very ignorant of the things done in the name of your God in Europe and Russia. Sadly, you cannot understand why Marx called religion "the opiate of the people."
Many of you despise the cold, inhumane appearance of the Russian Communist. Perhaps you should take a good look at many of the priests your religion has produced and the blood they left behind. The blood we spilled in the name of atheism is but a puddle compared to the sea of blood spilled by your church leaders. Look to your history and see how many wars were fought by Christians. Your Prince of Peace leaves a trail of blood up to the horse's bridle!
Ah!! But you disassociate yourself from this history, but we can not! We have seen nothing but corrupt priests and royalty feeding upon our children and our children's children!! So we picked up the sword just as your priests have done.
Do you hear anger in my voice? Yes, there is much anger!! Who will quench it? Communism gave me nothing. Promises, but no fulfillment. The Communist leaders made themselves gods. They act just like the priests who ruled before them. The priests lied to us, stole from us, and yes, even killed us. The hope I had in Communism also faded away. I am locked up in my anger and frustration with no place to turn. Is there hope only in a bottle or the end of a gun? But even this hope you Christians take away from me. You tell me I will be tortured forever by your "God of love." Oh, you say, it is not He doing it; that it would be my doing. Did I create this place you call the lake of fire? Did the devil? Did Krushchev? Who created these kind of monstrosities? Can you be honest one single time to one very angry, confused, hopeless Russian? You Christians say there is hope only in your faith. Why is it that I cannot see it? Am I not sincere enough? Do I speak the wrong language? You appear as monsters to me, hypocrites, double-talkers, and yes, robbers of poor people!! How can I possibly have hope in your God? You Christians through your actions and teachings throughout history have painted Him so ugly that I find no beauty in Him. I see coldness all around me. My heart is as ice. I look at your church history and it reminds me of Siberia, cold and lifeless. You speak to me of "good news." I would rather drink my vodka than to swallow this concoction of poisons. Hope. I desperately need real hope and you, Christian, do not have it for me!
USA, 1996 AD
My name is Joseph Simon. A part of me doesn't feel akin to these other voices who just spoke. You see, I am a "born again Christian," although my conscience has been gnawing at me to the point that I am not sure what I am anymore. Although, I believe I truly had a conversion experience, I am finding my assurance has slipped away. Even hope seems to be alluding me.
I was raised Roman Catholic. I must have been a pretty good Catholic because the priests never came down on me too hard. There were times when they felt they had to squeeze me for a few more dollars, but then nobody's perfect- right?
One day I heard a preacher on television telling me all my good deeds were nothing but filthy rags. Oh, I can't tell you how enraged I was! But then he had the nerve to tell me that was what the Bible said. Well, I was going to show him! He probably was quoting one of those Satan inspired Protestant Bibles. I was taught never to read one of those Protestant Bibles so I went to my big Catholic family Bible, (which commanded a very prominent place on our bookcase) to see how badly he twisted that verse. After I cleaned off the dust, I went to the verse he was talking about. (It's amazing how much dust a book can pick up in 10 years!) But to my absolute amazement, my Catholic Bible said the same thing!
Well, this made me listen to this preacher more, until one day I found myself following his instructions on how to receive eternal life. I can't explain to you how, but something deep inside of me changed. I felt clean and new. What a wonderful experience! Why didn't this happen when I went to my Catholic Church for mass every Sunday? Now don't get me wrong, I had many good "feelings" at my Catholic Church. I used to get all kind of "holy" feelings when I looked at all the stained glass and beautiful architecture. The ritual of the mass used to give me goose bumps. But this experience, when I confessed Jesus as my Lord and Savior, well, this came from an entirely different place inside of me. It brought a change in my life.
One of those changes was an incredible hunger for the things of God. My Bible no longer collected dust. I spent many hours devouring the Bible and read a lot of material which I ordered from that television evangelist.
In no time I was surrounded by various different Protestants flooding me with tapes, booklets, and all kinds of teachings. I know that many of you hearing me right now know what I am talking about. This has happened to millions of Catholics in recent years.
I had a hard time with the fact that there were so many different Protestant points of view on many areas of the Bible. What made matters worse is they all felt they were right. Everyone one of them said they based their teachings on the Bible.
I was a hard working man. While I loved to Bible study, I didn't have the time to study each one of these different denominations to find out which one was right. In the Catholic Church, "right" was easy. The priests had all the answers and we had an infallible Pope who was "Vicar of Christ." (Substitute of Christ) It was easy being a Catholic. Follow the rituals, listen to the priests, and don't make too much trouble.
When I made it known at work I was looking for a new church, I was bombarded with all kinds of reasons why to go to certain churches and to definitely stay away from others. I imagine it is difficult for people to understand how fearful and confused a person might become being told by various church leaders from organizations like United Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Full Gospel, Methodist, Unitarian, Jehovah's Witness, and Fundamentalist that their system is the only one which is true to the Bible. They told me my very soul was at stake in the matter of joining the "right" Church. How could I know for certain which one was right? I knew I couldn't spend the rest of my life studying all these different denominations. The pressure was enormous!
One of these men, who was an elder in his church, seemed to know the Bible much better than the others. At least he backed up everything he said with a Scripture. He often even quoted chapter and verse. He quoted a Scripture which really caught my attention and caused me to decide to close the door to these other denominations and join this group. He said the way to life was narrow and straight and few find it, but the road to destruction was broad and wide and there were many on it. I decided that day to chose "his" narrow way. I see now that what I really chose, was the "narrow-minded" way.
At that time, however, not having to deal with the many different teachings from dozens of Protestant denominations all telling me they had the real truth took a lot of pressure off me. Why, the Protestants not only had many different teachings in which they differed, they even had many different Bible translations that differed from each other.
As a Catholic, I didn't have to worry about things like which translation is closer to the original languages. We were not encouraged to read the Bible at all. We just needed to follow the Priests.
I read a book one day on the subject of Bible translations. This writer's view was that only the King James Bible was God's "authorized" Bible. He made a case that all the other Protestant Bible translations could be traced back to false Greek texts coming from Alexandria, Egypt. His reasoning sounded plausible to me, especially in the light of the fact that I was desperately crying for some simplicity in my life. The peace and joy I had found at my conversion had eroded leaving great anguish in my mind.
As a Catholic, I was not a very "moral" person. I drank, I cussed, and yes, I did some things much worse than that. But as a Catholic, as long as you went to Mass and went to the confessional from time to time, one was alright with God. True, one might have to spend some time in Purgatory for some of the serious stuff, but even there, the Catholic Church had ways to shorter a Catholic's stay there. They had indulgences and prayers for the dead which would reduce the time spent in Purgatory. I felt pretty secure that with as large as my family was, they would buy enough prayers from monks locked up in monasteries somewhere to make my stay in Purgatory short.
As a Protestant, this assurance quickly vanished. While I was given the assurance by the televangelist that if I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior I would receive eternal life, I soon discovered that was not the case at all. I was told one could "lose" their "eternal" life. A person could forsake Christ and return back to the mire from which he came.
From the comparing of the different denominations of Protestantism that I did , I noticed that what would cause a person to lose their "eternal" life varied greatly from one denomination to another. Looking back on this subject now, I wonder how these evangelists could promise "eternal" life, if in fact one could lose it again. It's not very "eternal" if a sin can undo it. I guess I didn't think that through at the time. As a matter of fact, I didn't do much thinking at all, just listening to Church leaders as if God was speaking and memorizing God's Word, the Bible. They encouraged this kind of reasoning. After all, wasn't it a sin to "question" God's Word? Doubt came from Satan, we were told.
Anyway, every pastor had his own view as to how one could lose their salvation. This was very frustrating for me. Who was right? How did forgiveness work? Most of them agreed that almost all sins were forgiveable except the "unpardonable sin" of blaspheming the Holy Ghost. That is, if a Christian committed a sin and repented of it before he died, he would be forgiven of it. But if he did not repent of it, he would have to pay the penalty for it. Here is where everything was very fuzzy-which unrepented sins could cause one to end up in Hell?
The torment to my mind trying to understand exactly where I stood with God in the sin issue was great. The joy of my salvation was gone. The teaching that there was only one Bible authorized by God helped simplify my life and so I closed the door to all other Bible translations and anyone who used those Bibles. I convinced myself they were all wrong. They were deceived by Satan himself, who was blinding them because they were reading Satanically inspired Bibles.
So I found myself among the hard line branch of Evangelicalism-the Fundamentalists. We were tough on sin and sinners. Judgment, damnation, Hell, Godliness, Holiness, righteousness were among our favorite words. We knew all the Scriptures which proved the way to eternal life was very narrow and there were few who were on it. Most of the world, including most Christians were on the broad road which leads to destruction. (Matt. 7:13) Of course we had many of the passages of Scripture which supported the idea that most people would go to Hell memorized. We could quote chapter and verse on many of them. Among our favorites were: Hebrews 6:4-8; Heb. 10:28, 29; Matt. 25:31-46; Mark 9:38-48; Rev. 20:7-10; 2 Thess. 1:7-10; Rev. 21:8; Jude 6, 7, as well as others.
Looking back at that time in my life, I now realize that the more often I used Scriptures like this to condemn others to Hell, the less love, joy, and peace I had. The more I focused on why others deserved to go to hell, the smaller became the group I thought might make it to heaven. Those who left our group were immediately shunned and condemned to the torments of Hell. We would quote Scriptures like, "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us." (John 2:19)
Because we believed that the way to eternal life was narrow, we isolated ourselves from other groups which might influence us away from the truth. The leaders spent much time warning us of the errors of these other groups and denominations which were leading people to Hell.
Although I was among believers who spent much time together in church related activities, I was very lonely. At my conversion, my marriage became a disaster. My wife was a strong devotee to Mary and the Catholic Church. The Protestants had not Mary. Our fights about religion drove us further and further apart, ultimately climaxing into a divorce.
Being a man with normal sexual needs and being without a wife became a very difficult situation for me. Our denomination was very clear regarding sex. Sex outside of marriage was clearly forbidden. Of course adultery was out of the question. Three years of being without a physical relationship was extremely difficult for me. There were certain Scriptures I read which just seemed impossible for me to live by. In Matthew 5:27 and 28, Jesus said that to have lust in one's heart was equal to committing adultery. To have hate in one's heart was the same as murder. (Matthew 5:21, 22)
These two Scriptures were giving my conscience fits. There were many times when I looked at an attractive woman in Church, or at work. Watching television, my imagination went wild. I never acted upon my lusts. However, according to the words of Jesus, I was guilty of adultery! As to hate, when I was really honest with myself, there were several people who I despised.
One day my problem with lust got so bad, I felt I needed to talk to my pastor about it. Memorizing Scriptures and cold showers was not giving me victory over my imagination. Being in the neighborhood, I decided to stop by to see if he could spare me a few minutes of his time. His wife answered the door and invited me in. She told me the pastor was away on a men's retreat and was not expected to return until the next day. Knowing by the expression on my face that I was troubled, she asked me what the problem was.
From hindsight I can now see my response to her question was not prudent. I told her that I just couldn't seem to overcome the lustful feelings I often have when I looked at an attractive woman.
Within a few minutes she explained to me that she knews exactly how I felt. She and the pastor had not had sexual relations in the last two years. She found it suspicious that on many of the trips her husband made, the church secretary was also not available. She could never prove anything, but she knew that for the last two years she needed something her husband wasn't giving her.
I still can't quite figure out how we got to the bedroom, but it didn't take long. While laying in bed, she related to me that many couples in their Church were having great difficulty overcoming sin in their lives. She said it seemed that the more her husband preached against sin, the harder it was for the congregation to have victory over sin. She told me her husband didn't love her anymore. They were just staying married because divorce was severely frowned upon. The pastor knew that if he got a divorce, he would lose his Church.
All of a sudden the door burst open. "You're both going to rot in Hell!" were the last words I heard before I felt the burn of a bullet burying itself deep into my chest. The pastor had come home early from his "men's" retreat. The court hearings revealed that the pastor's secretary had put an end to their affair that weekend. She had fallen in love with a new young convert.
The pastor was released on a temporary insanity plea. He asked his congregation to forgive him of both his affair and double murder. His denomination asked for his resignation. According to the Church's doctrine, because he asked for forgiveness, he was forgiven by God of his crimes and sins. His wife and I did not have a chance to ask for forgiveness. I died guilty of unconfessed adultery. According to my denomination, I would go to Hell. The pastor's wife would also go to Hell, while her husband, being forgiven because he asked for forgiveness, would qualify for heaven.
Quite frankly, I don't see justice in this. Looking back, it seems rather strange now how we placed the eternal fate of so many people on simply speaking a handful of words. If someone spoke "Jesus come into my heart," and then died, we would say that person was in heaven even though he murdered dozens of people. Commit adultery and then ask for forgiveness and you're home free. Forget to ask or don't have time and your fate is being tortured endlessly for all eternity.
Since I have had a lot of time to think about it, this type of teaching just doesn't seem fair or just to me anymore. I wish I had thought this through before I joined that denomination. I just wanted simplicity. Religion had become too complicated for me. Now I await the resurrection of the just and the unjust, wondering what is the truth. While living I didn't have much concern for all those lost unbelievers and Christians caught in what we thought were false religious systems which would lead them to Hell. Oh, we mouthed concern-but our words were pretty empty of action or compassion. We felt the Scriptures were plain enough. If we could figure it out,. so could everyone else-but most people loved the things of this world more than God. Therefore they deserved to go to Hell.
Now I'm not sure about anything. I am not too quick to judge anyone. Confusion fills my mind. The hypocrisy which we all practiced in our denomination stands out so clearly now. Why couldn't I see it while I was living? When we evangelized we were so confident we were the only ones who had the truth. We told the world we had the true hope. Now I am without hope. I pray that the mercy we denied to most of the world somehow finds a place for me. All my foundations and traditions have been shaken and tested. They were found wanting. Did I ever really know God? Is there still hope for me?
Now, for some
HOPE.....
Rome, 1st Century AD
My name is Paul. This city, Rome, along with the city of Jerusalem have given me much grief throughout history. Many church leaders from these cities have done much to hinder the hope which comes from the gospel commissioned to me to be delivered to the whole world for all generations.
My message of reconciliation came from above-from Jesus Himself and from the heavenly city, New Jerusalem, not from men of tradition and earthy cities. Those who truly heard and walked in my gospel became ambassadors of Christ, (not the Pope, or Luther, or Calvin or any other man.) They received their instructions from the above, not from political/religious centers of the world.
Over the centuries apparently few have really heard my Gospel. Rome has resurrected the Gospel of the Circumcision, (Peter's gospel), which mixes law and grace. Peter's Gospel, the gospel of the Circumcision, was a temporary gospel which was given to those born under the Mosaic Law to give them time to come into pure grace through faith. But God ended this Gospel when the last generation born under the Mosaic Covenant died. This occurred at the end of the generation in which Jesus the Messiah was born. Yahweh made it abundantly clear that the Mosaic Covenant was to end and be replaced with a New Covenant. The Mosaic Covenant was a detailed set of laws and rituals which had to be performed exactly according to the instructions Yahweh gave Moses on Mount Sinai. These rituals could not longer be performed according to God's instruction to Moses after Rome destroyed Jerusalem, the Temple and its priesthood.
(To those of you who are not Christian, forgive me for going into something of which you may have no understanding. But believe me, it is quite clear to me that the Church-at-large in your age doesn't have much understanding of these subjects either, so you are not too far behind. I do not exaggerate when I say you will learn more about true Christianity in these next few pages than you will sitting in many Churches. So bear with me, as I speak about some unfamiliar things. Perhaps it will stir you to pick up a Bible and search these things out a little further for yourself.)
The Mosaic Law was one single package. To violate one part of it was to violate it all. (James 2:10) Furthermore, it was a two-sided Covenant between a specific group of people and Yahweh, that is, the Hebrews. It is very important to note, this covenant was not with any other peoples or nations other than Israel. Many modern Christian denominations and sects have tried to force the laws and rituals of this covenant upon the nations and peoples of this world. This covenant was never meant for that. This covenant is finished! It was only for Jews up to 70AD at which time God made it quite clear He had inaugurated a New Covenant not based upon nationalism or ethnic preference.
Jerusalem was the only lawful place to fulfill the sacrifices and rituals commanded by Yahweh through Moses under what Christians term the "Old Covenant." One of the specifications in this Covenant was that the priests, especially the High Priest, had to be able to trace their descendency back to Aaron and Levi. (Exodus 40:12-15; 2 Chronicles 35:3) When the Roman Army entered Israel to stop the rebellion, they raped thousands of Jewish women, thereafter making it difficult for many Jews to prove a descendancy which was pure. Furthermore, when the Temple was burned, the genealogical records were burned thus destroying any evidence which could prove one's descent.
But the Temple was torn apart stone by stone just as Jesus had prophesied. The furniture was taken to Rome. In later years, it was even unlawful (at the pain of death) for a Jew to even visit Jerusalem which was once the only lawful place, according to Moses, where a Jew was commanded to appear before God three times a year- Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Those who say the Mosaic Law was still in effect after the destruction of Jerusalem do not understand the Law. They are blind guides. It is the very Law which they cling to which makes them blind! Did I not call the Ten Commandments, the cornerstone of the Mosaic Law, the ministry of death, the ministry of condemnation whose glory was fading away even as I wrote? (2 Cor. 3:7-15)
The Mosaic system, after 70AD, could no longer operate lawfully. It was finished. And so was Israel as God's "chosen" nation. Since Yahweh inaugurated a New Covenant, not based upon genealogy or race, Peter's Gospel to the Circumcision (Israel) no longer served any purpose. In Christ, circumcision avails nothing! (1 Cor. 7:19)
If we study history, however, a group of Jewish Pharisees, seeing that the destruction of Jerusalem totally destroyed their religious system of laws and rituals, created a new type of Judaism, not based upon the sacrificial system, but based upon "good deeds." Yahweh never authorized creating such a system. Modern Judaism is not based upon God's covenant with Israel made on Mount Sinai, but is based upon a group of Pharisees who refused to accept the Messiah which Yahweh had sent to them. Modern Judaism is a perversion, not true to Moses nor true to the Messiah! Do not be entangled with Judaisers whether they call themselves Jews or Christians! But don't hate or kill them either! They must be won with the love of Christ in you, not with hate. But do not join yourselves to these systems-they are false.
Just before the destruction of Jerusalem, many who I preached to had abandoned my gospel. As I said, they returned to Moses or their pagan practices, or they mixed some of my teachings in their old ways. This mixture made the word of God of no effect in my day and it has the same effect in your day.
When the Temple was destroyed, my gospel received a breath of fresh air. For a brief season, many saw what I was trying to explain-that Yahweh was doing a new thing. Old things were passing away-Yahweh was making a New Creation, yes, even a New Man in which there was no Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave or free. The destruction of Jerusalem vindicated my Gospel, a Gospel based upon grace through faith, not of works of the Mosaic Law. Those Judaizers who were destroying my work among the Gentiles were exposed as deceitful workers by the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD. The last generation of Jews born under the Law saw the judgment of God upon Israel as a nation It was a terrible judgment, indeed! (Read Josephus' Wars of the Jews) The Lord fanned the fire and my gospel spread throughout the Roman world.
I did not preach Moses. I preached the Law of the Life in Christ Jesus, a New Law, and a New Word. I preached a New Man, a New Creation, a New World, and for those who could hear it, a new heaven and earth.
I spoke of the ministry of reconciliation. I spoke of the in-gathering of all things in heaven and earth, and yes, even under the earth, under the headship of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. But today I see thousands of different sects of Christendom and I weep. I said do not divide based on men's teachings. Paul and Apollos are nothing! Yet most Christians have divided themselves under names like Luther, Calvin, Wesley, and the list becomes endless. Why do you read my words?! Why do you keep them in their Bibles?! You should tear them out!! Apparently no one heeds them.
Most church leaders preach a salvation FROM everlasting torture. Where did they ever get such an idea? Certainly not from my writings! Where did I ever preach deliverance from the pagan concept of Hell? Where did I ever use the word Hell? Where did I