REPENTHOUSE

EMPOWERING BELIEVERS TO PUT FAITH INTO ACTION

 

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…where those who seek true revelations from above…

…may find, comprehend, and apply them in their day-to-day lives!

 

 

“There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;

one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all,

who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”

 

Ephesians 4:4-6

 

OUR STATEMENT OF FAITH

 

Originally compiled by Reverend Father Hubert Hickey,

a Messianic Black Jew and pastor of our Mother Church in Dallas, Texas, in 1998.

 

 

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John the Baptist

Mary Magdalene

Maimonides

William Tyndale

Father Divine

 

1
WE BELIEVE in God the Father, the Creator, Sustainer, and Judge of the living and the dead throughout all Creation; the Omnipresent, Omnituent1, Omniscient, Omnificent, Omniprovident2, and Omnipotent God of the Hebrew patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; of the prophet, lawgiver, and teacher Moses; of his successor Joshua; of the proselyte Ruth: of her descendant the anointed king David; of the wonder-working prophets Elijah and Elisha; of the visionaries Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel; of the religious reformers Hezekiah and Josiah; of the diplomat Daniel, of the enterprising queen Esther; of the Talmudic sage Hillel the Elder, of the Lord's handmaiden Mary, Mother of Christ3; of the precursor of Christ, John the Baptist; of the Christian disciples Peter, James, and John; of the Lord’s faithful servant Mary Magdalene, out of whom He cast seven devils (Mark 16:9); of the apostle Paul; of the famous Doctor of Jewish Law Gamaliel the Elder; of the Biblical exegetes Rashi (1040-1105) and Maimonides (1135-1204); of English scholar and Biblical translator William Tyndale (ca. 1495-1536); of Early American theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703-58); of African American historian W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963); of controversial spiritual leader Reverend General Jealous “Father” Divine (1880-1965); of pioneering glossolaliac Agnes Ozman (1870-1937), of pioneering evangelists Dwight L. Moody (1837-99), Billy Sunday (1862-1935), Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944), and Kathryn Kuhlman (1907-76); of assassinated Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-68); of evangelical cartoonist Brother Jack T. Chick (1924-2016); of outspoken televangelists Jack Van Impe (1931-2020), John Hagee (1940-  ), Joyce Meyer (1943-  ), and Bishop T.D. Jakes (1957-  ); and, last but by no means least, of internationally syndicated talk radio host Dr. Laura Schlessinger (1947-  ).

 

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2

WE ACCEPT the Blessed Lord Jesus Christ as our long-awaited Messiah and Redeemer.  As foretold by the prophets of yore, He was begotten of God the Father, born of the (then4) Virgin Mary in Bethlehem, circumcised according to the flesh on the eighth day of His life on earth, presented to the Lord in the Temple at Jerusalem, acknowledged by the sages of His time, baptized5 by John, driven of the Holy Spirit into the wilderness, and there tempted, albeit unsuccessfully, of the Devil.  We further believe in His Divine Nature as the only-begotten Son of God (John 3:16), His sinless life, His unerring wisdom, His miraculous works, His ignominious suffering on behalf of all sinners at the hands of pagans (not Jews), His atoning death on the Cross of Calvary, His bodily resurrection, and His literal ascension into heaven, where He now sitteth at the right hand of God the Father awaiting the glorious day in which He shall be instructed to return to earth to separate the wheat of humanity from the chaff, rewarding the former and punishing the latter.  In so doing shall He establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

 

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3

WE BELIEVE that Christ Jesus came to earth not to abolish the Law, but instead to fulfill it, in part by teaching us through His example that our righteousness must exceed that of the prideful and hypocritical scribes and Pharisees if we are ever to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 5:20).  He called us, His Faithful Servants, to proclaim the Good News about the Coming Kingdom to all men and women, speaking in tongues where necessary, to reprove sinners, to cast out demons, to cleanse the lepers, to heal the sick, and, when and where the Lord allows, to raise the dead (Mark 16:17, II Timothy 4:2, and Matthew 10:8).  Christ furthermore came to earth to establish one Church, a worldwide community of faithful, humble, dutiful brothers and sisters from all walks of life united in their assurance of Salvation through the boundless Grace of God.  This Holy Church has since become fragmented and corrupted by the Great Mother of Harlots who sits upon seven mountains and utters vile blasphemies to all who will hear them (Revelation 17:1-9).  We must strive at all times to restore the Transcendental Unity of the Original Church, God’s One True Church of Holy Assurance (Colossians 2:2), in order to protect its members from attack by the forces of darkness that threaten True Believers on all sides, and to silence and thwart the Great Whore of Babylon and her master the Devil whenever and wherever possible.  We teach the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity of God in Three Persons or Hypostases – God the Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit – but we don’t overemphasize it over the fundamental Oneness of God (Deuteronomy 6:4) lest it become a stumbling block to believers.

 

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4

WE ARE CALLED to live lives of exemplary Holiness and Purity, eschewing and denouncing the temptations of the flesh, the world, and the Devil while faithfully serving God and keeping His commandments.  We are both justified and sanctified through our faith and obedience, remembering that we must walk humbly in God's sight, avoiding all pride, hypocrisy, vanity, and boastfulness (Micah 6:8).  In order to gain a greater knowledge of God the Father and Our Creator, Our Savior Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit Who sustains us, we study the Scriptures6 in their original tongues, Holy Hebrew, Angelic Aramaic, and Gospel Greek, and expound their teachings in our thrice-weekly worship services. The Holy Bible, particularly the King James Version published in 1611 and revised in 1769, is doctrinally inerrant, although many passages prove difficult for contemporary readers to understand.  We teach that God deliberately planted booby traps within the Sacred Text to test our faith in His revelations.  With regard to the family, we believe in the diligent rearing, strict discipline, and tough love of children, who are to be considered Gifts from God to be cherished and guided by our example as God’s Servants to the end of our days – never abused or neglected (Mark 9:42).

 

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5

WE BELIEVE in a literal Heaven, in which the truly faithful will spend eternity in the Presence of God Almighty praising His Holy Name, and also in a literal hell, in which unrepentant sinners will suffer the agonies of eternal damnation far removed from the Presence of God and His Mercy.  Although we are all born as children of Adam and Eve with innately sinful dispositions, we shall each be judged according to our own willful sins and not those of our forebears.  Our virtues, however noble, are nevertheless little more than filthy rags in God's sight (Isaiah 64:6), and we can attain Salvation only through unwavering faith in God’s promises and strict obedience of the Sacred Commandments contained in the Holy Hebrew Scriptures and further elucidated in the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ contained in all twenty-seven books of the Christian New Testament.

 

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6

WE TEACH that both the Black and White Jews of the world are not obliged to accept Jesus Christ as their Personal Savior at present as long as they faithfully follow the dictates of the Law of Moses and its exegesis the Talmud according to the Covenant God that made with their ancestors at the foot of Mount Sinai (in Mother Egypt) in days of yore. Moreover, the pre-Christian prophets Manu, Zoroaster, Mahavira, Buddha, Lao Tzu, and Confucius, among others, were forerunners of Christ, like John the Baptist before Him, and as such shared in His Divine Wisdom.  Their present-day followers will be judged according to their adherence to the Word of God as it was taught from days of old by their true spiritual masters.

 

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7

ALTHOUGH WE FULLY ACKNOWLEDGE that “the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof,” as the Bible teaches in Psalm 24:1, we also understand that the present world system is controlled by Satan, the Fallen Angel, Prince of Darkness, and Ultimate Adversary of God and man, largely through corrupt governments, false religions, sexual aberrations, and the various sin-saturated communications media that disseminate lies throughout the world.  Satan and his legions of malevolent demons can and do possess human beings and otherwise influence human behavior in order to fill the ranks of hell with the souls of the damned.  As True Believers and Faithful Servants of the Lord God, we are called to resist the Devil and his wiles and to oppose his influence in human affairs by practicing faith healing, snake handling, and book burning in accordance with the Word of God.  As the True Christian Elect washed in the Blood of the Lamb, we must also preach, teach, pray, praise, testify, and prophesy in the Lord Jesus’ Precious Name, ever careful to avoid engaging in vain babblings (II Timothy 2:16), while dutifully carrying out the exorcism of demons and the ostracism of sinners who refuse to repent.  We also conduct periodic and unannounced witch hunts7 throughout our congregations to weed out infiltrators from the Great Whore’s cults of liberalism, ecumenism, free love, and pantheism, among others.   

 

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1“Hearing all.”

2“Providing all that is needed” (Matthew 6:8).

3But not the “Mother of God” as she is often addressed – and occasionally even worshipped, contrary to the Bible’s teachings (I Timothy 2:5) – in certain large so-called “churches” that retain many pagan doctrines devised by the Devil to deceive those looking for easy answers from ready-made religion. 

4The Bible states that Mary went on to bear at least six other children (Mark 6:3), the Lord Jesus being her “firstborn” (Luke 2:7).  Since the Gospels elsewhere clearly distinguish between cousins (syngenes) and actual siblings (adelphoi; cf. Luke 1:36 and 58, 6:16, and 10:39), we can only presume a pagan, which is to say Satanic, origin for the doctrine of the “perpetual” virginity of Mary of Nazareth in those “churches” that ignore the teachings of the Holy Scriptures in favor of heathen traditions.

5True Christian Baptism is always by immersion, which represents a Christian’s death to sin and rebirth to life in Christ.

6By “Scriptures” we mean the traditional twenty-four books of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings that make up the Holy Hebrew Bible, further divided into thirty-nine books in later editions while retaining their textual integrity, along with the twenty-seven traditional books of the Greek New Testament.  We do not accept the so-called apocryphal or deuterocanonical works as inspired scripture – though they may be read along with Gnostic writings for their limited historical value.

7Witches are unregenerate pagans of both sexes who make secret pacts with the Devil to gain undue power and influence over others, including Bible-believing Christians. Whether they admit it or not, they are in league with the Devil, who typically appears to them in the guise of a seemingly benevolent pagan goddess in order to lead them astray. 

 

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REVEREND MOONEY’S REVISIONS

 

1

WE BELIEVE in God the Father, Creator, Sustainer, and Judge of heaven and earth and all that is in them (Exodus 20:11 KJV), including the rest of the universe (Isaiah 66:2 GNT), which we also refer to as God’s starry heavens, a plural in English as it is in Hebrew (Deuteronomy 10:14 GNT).  With so much to attend to in the rest of the universe, God takes only a passing interest in human affairs, having left instead a plethora of natural laws, including but not limited to the laws of gravity, motion, entropy, probability, and so on, in place to govern creation.  Those who want to learn about the Lord and His orderly world should study the laws of physics and logic.  God put them all in place to shape the course of our everyday lives. 

        The Good News Translation (GNT) is my preferred version of the Bible, though I’ll admit it’s probably not the most accurate.  If you’re not going to give people good news, why give them news at all?  

God nevertheless welcomes our sincere petitions to suspend His physical laws when they’re made through supplication (in Greek deesis, or needfulness).  Though seldom used in the New Testament (only six times in all, and then always preceded by the word prayer, almost as if one’s needs should be appended to a more formal prayer and not presented outright), the noun supplication has become mostly archaic in the 21st century.  It essentially means asking God for a favor.  The equivalent techinnah, used over twenty times in the Hebrew Bible, is related to the noun chanan, meaning “grace.”  Supplication is therefore a request for a special application of God’s grace to a specific and presumably needy situation.  The term was phased out of the GNT: “Don't worry about anything, but in all your prayers ask God for what you need, always asking him with a thankful heart” (Philippians 4:6), and earlier “The Lord hears my weeping: he listens to my cry for help and will answer my prayer” (Psalm 6:9).

God obviously answers prayers in His own way – often with absolute silence and possibly with inferred indifference.  Can you imagine the sheer ingenuity required just to tabulate the prayers offered in a single day, much less to answer them all?  Should it rain in Rochester, and if so for how long?  Should it snow in Syracuse, and if so to what depth?  Who should win the lottery and when?  Should the Genesee River be allowed to flood?  Should Green Lake be allowed to freeze?  Who should win the election in Troy, Texas, or Tataouine, Tunisia – and why?  Should the people who live in these locales be allowed to choose their own leaders, for better or worse, or should God intervene to preserve peace and tranquility? 

Job 42:2 reminds us, “I know, Lord, that you are all-powerful; that you can do everything you want,” so it’s surely no great feat for an omnipotent, omniscient God to answer prayers any way He sees fit.  Some say God heeds the prayers of some but ignores those of others.  It seems to me that God takes a mostly hands-off approach when it comes to answering prayers.  Some people have the wherewithal to get what they want without praying, or at least without seeking God’s guidance or help.  “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Genesis 18:14 GNT).

 

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2

WE ACCEPT Jesus Christ, His Only Begotten Son (John 3:16) and Our Lord (Philippians 3:20), as our long-awaited Messiah (Isaiah 61:1-11 and John 1:14), Redeemer (Isaiah 44:24), and Savior (Mark 16:16).  By Lord we mean Master (or mar in Aramaic), a Teacher (John 1:38 and 3:2) we can learn from and whose example we can follow (1 Thessalonians 1:6).  The world asked Almighty God the Father to take a step toward humanity so He could better understand its weaknesses and struggles, and He did just that through His incarnation in the person of Jesus Christ (even though, traditionally, Jesus existed long before humanity was created, as God revealed in John 1:1-3).  Jesus saves us from our sins (Mathew 1:21) and above all their consequences, which is to say, from damnation (Romans 8:1).

        Jesus obviously doesn’t save us from physical death, since both Christians and non-Christians die every day.  Christians aren’t necessarily more virtuous than non-Christians either.  It’s true that Jesus taught, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one goes to the Father except by me…” (John 14:6), but He also revealed, “The Father and I are one,” so it isn’t necessary to be a Christian to find the Father, or by extension to be saved.

        We understand that not everyone understands why an immortal God would need or want to have a son, much less to father a child with a human mother whose life was forever transformed by the experience, so we don’t insist that members of our microchurch accept Jesus as their personal savior.  He offers those services to those who desire them.  “Come to me,” says Jesus, “all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke and put it on you, and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in spirit; and you will find rest. For the yoke I will give you is easy, and the load I will put on you is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

 

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3

WE BELIEVE in the Holy Trinity consisting of God in Three distinct Persons or hypostases: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in whose name believers are typically baptized (Matthew 28:19).  But because this esoteric doctrine can prove to be a stumbling block for some believers (cf Deuteronomy 6:4 and 32:39), we choose not to emphasize it, preferring to stress God’s Unity instead.  However, because God fully supports traditional family values, we have added honorary members to the Holy Family in heaven.  Many believers address their prayers to Mary of Nazareth, for instance, whom the Council of Ephesus in AD 431 formally named the “Mother of God,” or more accurately “Mother of God Incarnate,” since she wasn’t directly involved with the pre-existing Jesus (Colossians 1:17) until the time of the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38).  So we believe she has been invited to sit at the table with God the Father and His Son as the Heavenly Hostess and Spiritual Mother to the faithful.   

 

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4

THE LORD JESUS was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the (then) Virgin Mary in Bethlehem.  We don’t believe she remained a virgin after Jesus was born, that she was herself immaculately conceived or preserved from sin during her lifetime on earth, that she performs miracles, that she was bodily assumed into heaven like the prophet Elijah, or that she is in any dissatisfied with the total rewards package she received in heaven after she arrived there – enough for her to shift her focus back to the material world.  Mary is the Lord’s handmaid (Luke 1:38), not a goddess or a queen.  We never understood why anyone should place such importance on a woman’s virginity.  What satisfaction does it give a man to be the first to enter that chamber by breaking a special seal?  It’s true that Mary prompted Jesus to work His first documented miracle at the Wedding in Cana (John 2:1-12), but like many she also seems to have had her share of doubts about her Son’s ministry in its early years (Mark 3:21-35).  Doesn’t the concept of perpetual virginity imply that human sexuality is innately sinful?      

 

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5

THE LORD JESUS suffered the outrage of crucifixion under Pontius Pilate, not from “the Jews” as a group, as has often been taught in the past.  Most Jews living at the time had no idea who Jesus was.  Many who encountered Him in Galilee or later in Jerusalem remained indifferent to His message, so similar was it to the teachings of their rabbis.  Moreover, Christianity didn’t fully distinguish itself from Judaism, which was even then not a monolithic religion, for a full century after its inception.  It is difficult for us to know how much of Jesus’ original message is preserved in the New Testament.  We learn as many valuable lessons as we can from Scripture, understanding that it records humanity’s striving for a closer relationship with God and not necessarily its attainment.  Most of it was written to be understood symbolically, not literally as many maintain. 

 

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6

THE LORD JESUS was crucified, died, and was buried, after which He descended into “hell.”  The Bible makes only a passing reference to this descent eis ta katotata or ad inferos, literally “to the lowest depths,” in 1 Peter 4:6 (and maybe also in Ephesians 4:9), so it isn’t entirely clear what happened down there.  I suppose it’s fair to say that He effectively added a heavenly realm onto the traditional Jewish She’ol or abode of the dead, but not to Hades where the gluttonous rich man who fed the beggar Lazarus his table scraps wound up after he died (Luke 16:19-31).  The virtuous could now follow Jesus into the Kingdom of Heaven over which His Father reigned, direct access having apparently been theretofore denied.  The Iranian prophet Zarathustra (or Zoroaster) had laid the foundations of this teaching centuries earlier, but they were adopted slowly and cautiously during the Persian Period of Jewish history (cf Daniel 12:2).  Often misunderstood to this day, this line is dropped from the Nicene and many later creeds, where it may be replaced with the words “descended to the dead.”

 

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7

WE FURTHER BELIEVE in Jesus’ Divine Nature as the only-begotten Son of God (Colossians 1:15-17), His sinless life, His unerring wisdom, His miraculous works, His ignominious suffering on behalf of all sinners at the hands of pagans (not Jews), His atoning death on the Cross of Calvary, His bodily resurrection, and His literal ascension into heaven, where He now sits at the right hand of God the Father awaiting the glorious day in which He shall be instructed to return to earth to separate the wheat of humanity from the chaff, rewarding the former and punishing the latter (Matthew 3:12).  In so doing shall He establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.  We also believe that it’s entirely within the realm of possibility that the Lord Jesus will never come back to earth.  What kind of world have we given him to come back to?  It’s more filled with corruption than it was before Noah’s Flood (Genesis 6:5-13).  Humankind was supposed to “fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28 JB).  Instead we’ve overburdened it and depleted its limited resources.  Greed has become the common people’s god – and everywhere the wealthy are using it to exploit the poor. 

Two thousand years ago, Jesus was eager to return to a thriving church whose members, as the Apostle Paul wrote, made it obvious “how you put your faith into practice, how your love made you work so hard, and how your hope in our Lord Jesus Christ is firm” (1 Thessalonians 1:3).  Today’s churches are more like the infamous Laodicean community that John of Patmos wrote to: “You say, ‘I am rich and well off; I have all I need.’  But you do not know how miserable and pitiful you are! You are poor, naked, and blind.  I advise you, then, to buy gold from me, pure gold, in order to be rich. Buy also white clothing to dress yourself and cover up your shameful nakedness.  Buy also some ointment to put on your eyes, so that you may see” (Revelation 3:17-18).  Why would Jesus want to come back to such confusion? 

I personally believe He’s changed his mind and currently has no intention of coming back.  Can you imagine the ingratitude He would be met with if he did?  He’d be asked to leave at once, don’t you think?  Feel free to disagree with me.  I only ask that you remain polite and respectful in your response.  If Jesus came back to earth today, He’d no doubt be accused of interfering with the natural development of His church – a “development” that looks more like disintegration than the growth we witness in the Acts of the Apostles (2:43-47).  Now, we might possibly be able to persuade Him to change His mind again and come back to earth one day in the future, but I think that to accomplish that we surely have our work cut out for us.  We can’t expect Jesus to do everything on our behalf – even if we can’t save ourselves.  We’re making precious little effort to save anything.  We have to clean up at least some of our messes on our own.  He sends His Holy Spirit to motivate and guide us.  Surely the rest is up to us to prepare the world for his return.  Do you think He’d come back to Varanasi, Moscow, Istanbul (not Constantinople), Jerusalem, Addis Ababa, Rome, Hannover, Canterbury, Boston, Washington, Philadelphia, Manhattan, Amish country, Nashville, Dallas, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Honolulu, or some other city?  That’s how fractured the original church has become. 

 

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8

WE HOLD that He will come again – or not, as He so chooses – to judge the living and the dead.  Why is everyone in a hurry for Judgment Day?  Are we really all that eager to be judged?  What if we’re judged and found wanting?  If it’s true – and I have no doubt that it is – that “everyone has sinned and is far away from God’s saving presence” (Romans 3:23 GNT), then surely most of us will be found wanting.  Don’t most of us actually want to see others judged – and to learn their fate in the hereafter without regard for our own, which we often take for granted?  Isn’t it true that most of us want to see those who disagree with us suffer, if not actually in hell or purgatory then in some sort of rapture or tribulation?  Most people seem to think the whole world will be judged by his or her own personal standards.  Do you think that’s likely?

        Most of us seem confident of our own salvation – at least outwardly – yet unsure that others will be joining us in heaven.  Does that mean we’re actually judging others by our own personal standards?  We both understand and easily excuse our own faux pas but don’t consistently apply the same standards to others’ conduct.  Isn’t that what Jesus warned us against in the Sermon on the Mount?  “Do not judge others, so that God will not judge you, for God will judge you in the same way you judge others, and he will apply to you the same rules you apply to others” (Matthew 7:1-2).  That’s food for thought.

        When Jesus judges the living and the dead (2 Timothy 4:1), He will separate the wheat from the chaff, gathering the wheat into His barn and burning the chaff in a fire that will never go out (Luke 3:17).  The chaff, of course, makes up the casings or husks that house the edible parts of cereal grains – barley, oats, rice, rye, and wheat – as they grow.  An integral part of the grass plant, it is not entirely a waste product.  It can sometimes be plowed back into the soil and even fed to livestock as roughage when it is mixed with other grains.  The same is true of the weeds or “tares” Jesus mentions in Matthew 13:25-40.  Probably examples of the poison darnel or Lolium temulentum, tares too play a role in the worldwide plant kingdom, having established themselves throughout the Eastern hemisphere.  Similarly, the toxic personalities among us “who cause people to sin and all others who do evil things…[the angels] will throw them into the fiery furnace, where they will cry and gnash their teeth” (Matthew 13:41-42). 

Sinners who sincerely wish to live their lives according to the laws of the Kingdom of Heaven, and who make a serious effort to do so, will find a permanent home in the celestial realm.  For most, this effort involves believing in the Lord Jesus’ Divinity, Incarnation, Authority, Wisdom (or Sophia), Miracles, Atonement, Resurrection, Ascension, and Final Judgment of the Living and the Dead, along with the sense of Community as depicted in the Bible.  For others it involves committing one’s life to ethical behavior.     

We don’t doubt that unrepentant sinners who are condemned to hell, objectively shown the error of their ways, will experience extreme regret.  But we don’t believe they’re tormented for all eternity.  Honestly, what purpose would that serve?  If you can’t mend your ways, make amends, or even say you’re sorry for the wrong you’ve done, however serious it may be, how does that do anyone justice?  People certainly suffer for their sins, either on earth or in the hereafter, but not forever.  What’s more, they’re given the opportunity somewhere to make restitution for any damage done.     

Finally, I’m not sure the eternal bliss that many look forward to is preferable.  Surely it would overwhelm the senses after a time and produce severe apathy.  A Roman Catholic catechism I read once assured readers that no one would ever be tired or bored in heaven.  If that’s true, it’s likely that we’ll have some sort of work to do there, whether or not it drains our physical or mental energy.  Most people today are counting on more than just the “rest like God’s resting on the seventh day” (Hebrews 4:9ff).      

 

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Repenthouse Publications

Prayer Box 2925

Antioch, CA 94531-2925

USA

 

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