Tilling and Planting

Tag: Hell

  • What Age?

    What Age?

    Intro

    If you’ve been around the Christian community long enough, you’ve likely heard the term Age of Accountability. And even if you never heard it put that way, I’m sure you’re familiar with the idea. The basic idea stems from the question, “When are you old enough to be accountable for your sins and thus need Jesus as your savior to go to Heaven?” But where does the innocence that starts at birth end, 5, 10, 12? Let’s take a look.

    The Question

    Most people would agree that infants would have no business going to Hell because they don’t have the ability to grasp simple concepts let alone complicated ones such as theology. This naturally leads us to wonder what happens to infants and other very young children who die. And when they cross that line to needing a savior. As always, we shall turn to the Bible for guidance, but be forewarned, the Bible doesn’t discuss this topic directly. So, we won’t have clear-cut answers.

    Too Young

    I’m sure we’ve all heard the phrase “Too young to die.” Whether in a movie or real life, it’s pretty common. And for us as Christians, it creates the question that we need to be ready to answer: What happens to infants and toddlers and other young children when they die? Many a sobbing mother and father have asked some form of this question. And God called us to mourn alongside those who mourn (Romans 12:15).

    God gave us the Bible to lead and guide us along life’s journeys. And to answer our questions about life. So, we should first turn there when we have questions to see what it says. In this case about where these young children go, there isn’t a lot in the Bible that is explicit. But don’t despair! There is hope. There is evidence in the Bible that young children go to Heaven when they die.

    David’s Son

    When David committed adultery with Bathsheba and got her pregnant, God told David that the child would die. And he did. Look at what David said after that.

    But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me. 1 Samuel 12:23 (NIV)

    Notice the phrase “I will go to him”. Here David acknowledges that he will see his son again someday. David was a man who frequently looked forward to the Kingdom of God and eternity with Him. And here David is confident that he will see his son in that eternity. And we have reason to trust David’s faith since he frequently spoke prophetically through the Holy Spirit.

    God’ Character

    Another solid reason for believing in children going to Heaven when they die, is the character of God and His compassion. All throughout Scripture we see God and Jesus loving on children. In various places, God refers to young children as “innocents” (see Jeremiah 19:4-5 for an example). God’s tender mercies and compassion lead to these children being safe in His arms since they cannot understand or comprehend sin.

    Jesus also displayed immense love for children. The most famous example comes from the story of the disciples’ rebuking children and their parents for getting too close to Jesus. And Jesus rebuked His disciples and blessed the children instead.

    Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there. Matthew 19:14-15 (NIV)

    Furthermore, also in Matthew (18:14), Jesus makes this statement “In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these littles ones should perish.” Clearly Jesus and His Father have great love and compassion for the children. And the loving hand of God is the safest place one can be.

    Condition For Salvation

    Yet another reason we can know from Scripture what happens to young children: the condition for salvation. What does Romans say we must do to be saved? We must believe in our heart God raised Jesus and confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord (Romans 10:9). Thinking about an infant, they haven’t even learned their own name yet, so how could they confess Jesus as Lord? No, children that are too young to even comprehend simple things are too young to be held accountable for their actions.

    When talking to the Pharisees in John 9 Jesus put forth a truth that can be easily applied here and sums up this position very well.

    Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.” John 9:41 (NIV)

    In other words, if you don’t have the capacity to understand or recognize sin, you are not guilty (or held accountable) of it. This applies very well to infants and other young children who haven’t quite grasped right from wrong or the ideas of Heaven and Hell.

    What About the Unborn?

    How about those who haven’t been born yet? Not to worry! The unborn children fall into the same reasons already listed above. How do I know that? Jeremiah says that God formed him in his mother’s womb (Jeremiah 1:5) and Psalm 139 declares that we were “knit together” in our mother’s womb and are “fearfully and wonderfully made” and God saw our “unformed body” (vs 13 and on). From these passages and more we can confidently declare that God sees the unborn as human children – even in a physically incomplete stage of life. Therefore, they fall under all the same protections and rules laid out before. This is a great comfort for anyone who has had a miscarriage or an abortion that they regret.

    What About the Mentally Disabled?

    Many people who ask the question about where young children go when they die also ask similar questions about those who have severe mental disabilities, such as Autism and Aspergers and other similar disorders. Personally, I believe that they are covered by all the same things I’ve already talked about. When you think about it, these people have the same mental capacity as very young children and often display those same behaviors. Their ability to grasp complex concepts are severely limited. Consequently, God would grant them the same grace, mercy, and compassion He grants to the children. As someone who has interacted for many years with a couple of different people on the severe end of the spectrum, this brings comfort to my heart.

    The Accountable Age

    So, ultimately, there is no definitive age. It can vary from child to child when they reach the point of understanding and choose to reject God and knowingly choose to do wrong despite knowing and understanding what’s right. While that can sound difficult to hear since some of those kids can still be young, is it any different when that child is all grown up? Every person is a child to someone. No matter the age, a parent has a hard time losing their child.

    Wrapping Up

    Hopefully I answered some of your questions by reading this. Let us remember that one of our chief duties on earth is to spread the message of the gospel to the ends of the earth.

    Outro

    If you enjoyed this post, please consider doing one or all of these things. First, subscribe if you haven’t. If you have, thank you! Second, spread the word. Send these to everyone you know and encourage them to read and subscribe. This blog is purely word of mouth right now. I rely on you, my readers, to help me get more readers. And third, please consider donating. It’ll enable me to continue to offer regular posts.

    Feel free to leave a comment with any questions about what I’ve written, any additional comments about the post, or if there’s a topic you’d like me to write about. Before doing that though, be sure to check out all my posts here and see if I’ve covered it already. And if you find I’ve done it already but aren’t satisfied or still have more questions, let me know!

    Thank you for reading this! I greatly appreciate each one of you. Until next time, God bless you all!

  • Salvation Defined

    Salvation Defined

    Intro

    I’ve mentioned several times the concept of salvation. Especially in my last two posts about Heaven and Hell. At the time I said that I wasn’t going to get into the details about salvation and what it means, etc. However, since I teased it so many times and since it is a foundational concept in Christianity, I think now is the time to address it.

    The Basics

    When it comes to the word, salvation. What does that mean? According to the Oxford Dictionary, the word salvation means “preservation or deliverance from harm, ruin, or loss”. To be saved from drowning is deliverance from death and the preservation of your life. And when it comes to Christianity and Biblical salvation, it is deliverance from sin, Hell, and oppression from Satan. And it is an eternal preservation of your spirit to dwell with God in Heaven. Now if that were all, this would be a very short post. But there is so much more to salvation. Especially the questions of “Who’s saved?”, “How are you saved?”, etc. So let’s get started.

    Why Do I Need Salvation?

    The first question to answer is why. Why does mankind need salvation? I hinted at it before in my definition of salvation from a Biblical perspective. But I’ll expand upon that here.

    To put it simply, we have sinned. Mankind lives in open (and closed) rebellion to God and His commandments. The Bible teaches that all have sinned. Nobody can make the claim that they have not sinned.

    If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 1 John 1:8 (NIV)

    And being a holy and just God, He cannot allow sin to go unpunished. The punishment for sin is death and eternal separation from God in the Lake of Fire.

    For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23 (NIV)

    Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 20: 14-15 (NIV)

    Can’t Save Ourselves

    In addition to pointing out the main problem, I also need to point out that we are wholly unable to save ourselves. No amount of good works or money or whatever can save us. The Bible declares that “all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6) and all “fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). It doesn’t matter what we do, we can never measure up to the holiness of God – which is the only standard that can get us into Heaven. Only perfection gets us into Heaven. And I think we all can agree that none of us are perfect.

    Now that I’ve established the problem, let’s take a look at God’s solution.

    The Plan of Salvation

    The Bible says that before the foundations of the world were laid, Jesus was chosen to die (1 Peter 1:19-20). That means that God knew that mankind would sin and reject Him and He still created us. All because of His great love. That alone is mind boggling. But God also planned out how to buy us back from the devil.

    The What

    God’s plan entailed coming to Earth as a human being (Jesus) (John 1:1), living a perfect life (2 Corinthians 5:21), and sacrificing Himself to satisfy the righteous requirements of God to cover all sin for all humans for all time – past, present, and future (Hebrews 10:10). The fact that He lived a perfect life is key. Because of that, Jesus did not deserve to die. He deserved to live forever. However, because He died a willing, sacrificial death, God could place upon Jesus the sins of all people from the past, the present, and the future and consider all of them atoned for. And God demonstrated His acceptance of the sacrifice by raising Jesus from the grave. Furthermore, His sacrifice and resurrection defeated death, Hell, the grave, sin, and Satan.

    The How

    “That’s all well and good, but what do I have to do to ‘get saved’?” The process is very simple. While Jesus did all the heavy lifting, He does ask you to do one thing. Believe. Yep, that’s it. In Acts 16, a man asked Paul what he must do to be saved, and Paul responded with “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” (Acts 16:31 NIV).

    Many religions have lists of things to do in order to get to their version of paradise. Biblical Christianity says, “God already did it, just believe.” God only requires that you have faith in Him and His sacrifice. After you’ve prayed a prayer of faith to receive salvation, the righteousness of Jesus covers all your sin and brings your spirit back to life and places Holy Spirit within you. After that, you are a new creation, and you will find yourself living a new life. A life pleasing to God.

    And before you ask, God offers salvation as a gift. He doesn’t force it upon anyone who doesn’t want it and won’t receive it. Think about a gift for a minute. If you give someone a gift, they have to open their hand and accept it in order to benefit from it. That’s why Jesus’ sacrifice didn’t automatically make everyone saved for all time. Everyone can still choose for themself whether they want to accept the gift or not.

    This actually leads into a heresy that I wish to briefly address.

    Universalism

    I don’t intend on spending a lot of time on this topic, but I do feel like I need to address it. And that’s this idea of Universalism. Universalism claims that all people will go to Heaven. No matter which religion you subscribe to, you end up going to Heaven. People come to this belief usually through one of two ways. To some, the thought of people being tormented for all of eternity makes them uncomfortable and search for an alternative. Or they emphasize God’s love and goodness while downplaying His righteousness and justice. But the Bible clearly teaches that people go to Hell when they die. And they will ultimately be thrown into the lake of fire for all of eternity (see my post on Hell for Biblical evidence of that).

    I agree that God is full of love and compassion. In fact, 2 Peter 3:9 reveals that God doesn’t want anyone to perish. But God cannot allow sin into His presence so the sin must be covered. And that’s where Jesus’ sacrifice come into play. For that love and compassion drove God to send Jesus (and made Jesus willing to go along with it) to Earth to die so that we may live. Jesus declares in John 14:6 that “no one comes to the Father except through me.” Time and again, the Bible reveals the exclusivity of the road to Heaven. It’s a narrow path and few find it. The way to Hell is broad and many more walk that path.

    From this, we can conclude that Universalism doesn’t exist as a Biblical truth. It’s a dangerous heresy that we must not fall for and must be ready to demonstrate – in love – the truth of the gospel.

    Wrapping Up

    I did my best to explain in simple terms what salvation is. I hope you find it useful as you explain to others the wonderful news of the gospel. It’s especially important to understand salvation when talking to the lost. A lack of understanding leads to people not actually being saved but believing they are. That’s a bit scary to think about.

    One last note, the Bible doesn’t talk about a “salvation prayer”. The Bible says to “declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead” (Romans 10:9) in order to be saved. So, we do need to open our mouths and profess to God that we believe and accept His sacrifice. How that prayer looks varies. The specific words don’t matter so much as the heart behind them.

    Outro

    If you enjoyed this post, please consider doing one or all of these things. First, subscribe if you haven’t. If you have, thank you! Second, spread the word. Send these to everyone you know and encourage them to read and subscribe. This blog is purely word of mouth right now. I rely on you, my readers, to help me get more readers. And third, please consider donating. It’ll enable me to continue to offer regular posts.

    Feel free to leave a comment with any questions about what I’ve written, any additional comments about the post, or if there’s a topic you’d like me to write about. Before doing that though, be sure to check out all my posts here and see if I’ve covered it already. And if you find I’ve done it already but aren’t satisfied or still have more questions, let me know!

    Thank you for reading this! I greatly appreciate each one of you. Until next time, God bless you all!

  • Hell: Eternal Separation

    Hell: Eternal Separation

    Intro

    Man – Woman, Hot – Cold, Up – Down, Heaven – Hell. Opposites. When two things are opposites, there’s little to no similarities between them. In my last post, I talked about Heaven and how we as believers should look forward to it with hope. Today, I’m going to talk about Heaven’s opposite: Hell. Yes, Hell is a real place – and I’ll show that from Scripture – and people really go there. Buckle up. Talking about Hell isn’t for the faint at heart.

    Does Hell Exist?

    The first question I need to address is does Hell even exist? Not all Christians even believe that it does. And if I don’t offer Scriptural evidence, I might as well not bother talking about the rest, because some people might tune it out.

    The short version is that, yes, the Bible does refer to Hell as an actual place. Several verses describe Hell as the place of torment for the unbeliever when he dies. Some examples follow.

    If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut if off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and thrown into the fire of hell. Matthew 18:8-9 (NIV)

    Then the king told the attendants, “Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Matthew 22:13 (NIV)

    Notice in these passages how Hell is associated with grief, fire, darkness? Clearly Hell is not a place where you would want to go. As the place of eternal punishment and suffering, you would do well to avoid it at all costs. Jesus used strong illustrations in Matthew 18 to describe the seriousness of it.

    Notice that the examples I gave are both spoken by Jesus. And if you ever need good Scriptural evidence of a particular doctrine, find out what Jesus says about it. While these are only a couple of examples, there are several more I could pull out. But for brevity, I’ll just list the references of a few more: Mark 9:44-48, Matthew 8:12, Matthew 13:40-42. And this is still a partial list. Now I will admit avoiding some very common or popular ones because those reference the Lake of Fire more specifically. And you may be wondering, what’s the difference? I’m glad you asked.

    Hell Vs Lake of Fire

    Many people get a bit confused. What’s the difference between Hell and the Lake of Fire? Are they the same place or different? From what I can tell in Scripture, they are two distinct places. And to quickly set up this next verse, another word for Hell is Hades.

    Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This lake of fire is the second death. Revelation 20:14 (NIV)

    This passage is perhaps the clearest in showing that the two are different. After all, you can’t throw something into itself. The passage goes on to say that anyone whose name isn’t found in the book of life will be thrown into the Lake of Fire. Since unbelievers are dying every day, they have to go somewhere, and Revelation shows that the Lake of Fire is the final judgment and currently no one is in it. However, Revelation tells us that not only will unbelievers end up here, but Satan and all his angels will too.

    Why Hell?

    People don’t like the idea of Hell, and I don’t blame them. Frankly, I don’t like the idea of Hell. I don’t like the idea of an eternal Lake of Fire where billions will spend all of eternity in torment. But that doesn’t negate its existence. However, I should address the questions of why God would create such a place and how could He send people there, because a lot of people ask them.

    Why Did He Create It?

    First of all, Hell (and the Lake of Fire, but from now on I’m going to lump them into the one word) was not originally created for man, but for Satan and his hordes of demons.

    Then he will say to those on his left, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Matthew 25:41 (NIV)

    Unfortunately, Hell shows us another example of things that (many) humans experience or will experience that we were not meant to. Other examples of that are we were not meant to life live apart from God, we’re not meant to live a fast-paced stressed-out life, and we’re not meant to live in bodies that suffer various physical ailments. Yet humans experience all these things.

    How Could He Send People to Hell?

    The second question that a lot of people have is how could a loving God send people to Hell? Well, the fact of the matter is that we humans have free will. God created us to make choices. And because of the fall, not all of those choices are good ones. God will not force us to love Him or follow Him. Therefore, there needs to be a place for those who reject God. And when they reject God, they choose to go to Hell. And while that sounds ridiculous, think about it. They spend their entire lives saying, “I don’t want your presence in my life.” So, when they die, why would God force them to be in His presence for the rest of eternity? Hell is the one place where they can spend eternity apart from the presence of God, just like they wanted in life.

    And once you die, it is too late.

    Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, Hebrews 9:27 (NIV)

    Understanding Your Fate

    Something else that is interesting is that in Luke 16, Jesus tells the story of a rich man and a beggar named Lazurus. In this story, Jesus describes the rich man dying and going to Hell and being in torment but notice that he does not ask Abraham (whom he sees in a place of comfort) to get him out, but rather asks for water to cool his tongue – to make it more bearable. This suggests that – at least in the intermediate place of Hell – people will be at least passively okay with being there. At least to a certain degree. Whether that’s more of a resigned “I deserve to be here” or if it goes back to what I said earlier about not wanting to be in God’s presence, I don’t know.

    I see this as a demonstration of his accepting his own fate but understanding that it is a terrible fate, and he has a sense of regret. Consequently, he doesn’t want others to end up with him.

    Abraham’s Bosom

    Now something else I’m going to address (really quick) about this story is the existence of a place of comfort that can be seen from Hell. Referred to as Abraham’s Bosom, the Jews believed that the righteous would go here when they died. And it is true that without going through Jesus, there is no way into Heaven. So, the righteous of the Old Testament would need a place to go that is a place of comfort until Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.

    And while the Bible isn’t clear about it, it is likely that sometime after Jesus’ death (and possibly after His resurrection as well), God took those in Abraham’s Bosom up to Heaven to be in His presence permanently (some see Ephesians 4:8 as a reference to this event).

    Wrapping Up

    I hope you see the horror of eternal separation and I hope it stirs you to reach out to loved ones and others with the gospel. I know I need to do better in this area. I’ve got many people in my life that needs to know about Christ. I have not been a very good verbal witness. I say verbal witness because I do believe I live a lifestyle that points to God – or at least is different enough from the world to be noticeable. Let us all pray for strength, boldness, and the words to speak so we can save people from this unspeakable horror and to a life of freedom.

    Outro

    If you enjoyed this post, please consider doing one or all of these things. First, subscribe if you haven’t. If you have, thank you! Second, spread the word. Send these to everyone you know and encourage them to read and subscribe. This blog is purely word of mouth right now. I rely on you, my readers, to help me get more readers. And third, please consider donating. It’ll enable me to continue to offer regular posts.

    Feel free to leave a comment with any questions about what I’ve written, any additional comments about the post, or if there’s a topic you’d like me to write about. Before doing that though, be sure to check out all my posts here and see if I’ve covered it already. And if you find I’ve done it already but aren’t satisfied or still have more questions, let me know!

    Thank you for reading this! I greatly appreciate each one of you. Until next time, God bless you all!