Immediately, one of the first truths revealed to us from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is that Christians are chosen by God. Not you, and not anyone else, but God. Ephesians 1:4-6 declares,

" According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved." There have been contentions for literally centuries over the issue of predestination. The reason, of course, is the theological problems it brings up, that people would rather just ignore than try to answer. The problem is this; If God chose us before the foundation of the world to be adopted as sons, to be Christians, then what about the rest of Mankind, and what about free will? This issue has caused much division in the church and has even led to bloodshed, and caused entire denominations and doctrines to be formed.

It is easy to see the confusion this teaching brings when you look at it in the light of theology. Traditions on one side claim that God chose us to be saved, and therefore must have chosen the rest of Mankind to go to hell. The other side tries to put more of the decision on people, saying you have to chose to be a Christian yourself, of your own free will, or you will go to hell. The problem is that neither of these positions line up with Scripture. Either way, as we all know, a vast majority of Mankind ends up lost to the Devil, and God loses. One position is that God wants everyone to be saved, but just can’t do it. The other is that God chose a small percentage of people to go to heaven and the rest go to hell because He doesn't really care about them at all. So you either have God lacking in power to save, or lacking in compassion and love. One side claims God is impotent, the other that He is a sadistic psychopath. Yet the bible clearly teaches that God is ALL powerful and ALL loving. The conclusion we must come to is that we have misunderstood the message.

When you come to a contradiction in your religious thinking, it is not God Who is confused, but us. The only 2 current answers to the question of why isn’t everyone going to be saved, which a vast majority of Christians believe, is either God won’t save them or God can’t save them. I happen to believe God can and will save them, so I am in the minority. That doesn’t really bother me much, because I am not out to be accepted by Man. I believe with all my heart that I am to teach what God has revealed to me through His Holy Scriptures, as to what His plans are for the race of Adam. In fact, I believe He has commanded me to do so. He has also made it clear that I will face much persecution for what I teach. Seems ironic to be persecuted for saying God is better and more powerful than anyone in the church believes, but I have already faced it and I know I will again.

First I would like to point out some of the many contradictions in traditional church theology. Let us look at some things God, in the person of Jesus, said in that wonderful book of Revelation. This book is called the Revelation of John, but that title does not really impact our thinking as it should. It is also called the Apocalypse, which can be described as the "drawing back of the curtain". It means to reveal something that was previously hidden. Not make a new thing, but to reveal something that had always been there but never shown to Man. Let’s just get this straight right now, God is not planning this thing as He goes. He has had a plan for Mankind from the very beginning, BEFORE the foundation of the world. The book of Revelation is meant to reveal that plan to us, as is the rest of the bible.

I do not claim to understand every detail in the bible, only those things that God has shown me. God’s account of what He will do does not just apply to those people who lived after the coming of Jesus, but to all people in every age. It is true that people who lived before the coming of Jesus could not have had the Gospel of Jesus preached to them, and God will take that into account on Judgment Day, but they still will face that Day. The church has tried to group people into many different categories. There are the people who died before the Messiah, there are those that rejected the Messiah, there are pre-tribulation saints and post-tribulation saints. There are those that lived in the last 2000 years that never heard the Gospel, and those that heard a perverted form of the Gospel. To each of these, the various denominations have tried to place in there own little group. There is one problem with that. The book of Revelation discusses only 2 groups of people, the overcomers and those that don’t overcome. Period. Look at what the bible says.

Revelation 2:7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

Revelation 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. Revelation 21:7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.

Now let us consider then what happens to the people who do not overcome. They won’t get to eat of the tree of life, they will be hurt by the second death, they won’t eat of the hidden manna, or get a white stone, they won't rule over the nations, they won’t be clothed in white, their names won't be in the Book of Life, Jesus won’t confess their names before the Father and His angels, they won’t be pillars in His temple or have God’s name, God’s city’s name, or Jesus’ name written on them, they won’t get to sit down on the Throne of Heaven, and they won’t inherit all things. If you are not a Christian when your physical body dies, no matter what age you lived in, you ARE NOT AN OVERCOMER, and all those events are true for you. Pretty harsh isn’t it?

Now consider that this book was not written to the world, but to the church of Jesus Christ. This is not a warning to the world, it is a warning to the church. The world pays no attention to this. God knew they wouldn’t believe it. Of the message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified and resurrected, Paul says it is an offensive stumbling block to the Jews and un-philosophical nonsense to the Greeks, but to those who are being saved, whether Jew or Greek, Christ it is the Power of God and the Wisdom of God. This book was only meant for us, the Christians. Most people who ever lived fall into the category of non-overcomers.

Now, does that mean God is going to torture in hell almost everyone who every existed on planet earth, including lukewarm Christians? If that is your god, you can have him. That idea goes so totally against the character and nature of God, as revealed in Jesus Christ, as to be ridiculous. It is time for us Christians to admit we have a major problem with our theological understanding and traditional beliefs as they have been handed down to us from our forefathers. In recent years we have had some denominations try to water down hell by saying God is just going to blink them out of existence, or others say that you are just separated for eternity. Folks, do any of you realize just how long eternity is? I’d bet most of you can’t even accurately envision the distance between here and the sun, and 93000000 miles is a lot less than the years in eternity. I don’t believe any of you realize just what you are saying when you tell someone they are going to hell for eternity. For one, that goes completely against what God has said about Himself and contradicts Scripture in many places. Just what sort of crime do you think deserves a sentence of forever?.

All through the Scriptures it refers to God as a righteous God, fair and just, punishing people according to what they have done and bringing there own crimes back upon their own heads. Of God’s judgment of the earth, the psalmist wrote,

"O let the nations be glad and sing for joy: for thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth. Selah."( Psalm 67:4) and Isaiah says,

"With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments [are] in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness." (Isaiah 26:9). According to God’s word, judgment is meant to teach and correct, and in the end will bring joy to those being judged. According to church theology, Judgment Day will result in an overwhelming percentage of humanity being either tortured or banished from all love and peace for eternity. I am sorry to say that not only is that not scriptural, but it is sick and twisted and only the mind of carnal Man could come up with something quite so perverse to say about our heavenly Father and Lord, Jesus Christ.

I am sorry if I seem to be taking this personally, but you are talking about my Father and Brother, the One who saved my life and showed me boundless mercy and love. It is personal. It is just as personal as if you were talking about my earthly parents or family. Every misunderstanding and contradictory church doctrine has come from not understanding the Scriptures. You take that, and mix it with the pride of Man, and the current doctrine of hell is what you get. God so loved the world (world meaning sinners because it was before any Christians were in it), that He sent His only begotten Son to it. He loved us while we were yet sinners, and Jesus continued to love it so much that He sent it the church. Did you hear what I said? In the same way God sent Jesus to the world, Jesus sent us to the world. Jesus so loved the world that He sent His church to them to proclaim to them the message of reconciliation, which is this;

"...That God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; (2 Corinthians 5:19) We, as a church have yet to tell the world this. We were commanded to teach this. 1 Timothy 4:9-11 says,

" This [is] a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.(not only) These things command and teach." You know something, after listening to hundreds of hours of preachers preaching the Gospel, I have yet to hear anyone command or teach that.

It is time we started telling the world just how good God really is and drop this self righteous garbage that we are the only ones God really cares about. We are the overcomers, we rule and reign with Him forever, but we will rule and reign over them. Not only that, but we will be called upon to judge the world along with Jesus. Don’t believe me? look at what Paul said. 1 Corinthians 6:2-3 says,

" Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?" Now that puts a different spin on things doesn’t it? If anyone is going to hell for eternity, we will be the ones sending them there. And before you answer, I will just leave you with one little thought. You had better judge them according to the same standards God used to judge you when you were a sinner. Think about it and pray. God Bless.

MF