My dear brothers and sisters-in-Christ,
May the grace of God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit be with you all during such uncertain tumultuous times. I hope you all have been doing well despite the current state of affairs and that the Lord has been generously providing you all with adequate, sufficient and sustainable amounts of resources to get you by each passing day.
In my spiritual journey as a Christian thus far, I have come to notice that for as much as our brethren incline to be thrilled and joyful to proclaim and acclaim the immense goodness and the tender mercy of our God, not many (these days, at least) are willing to preach of His incredible wrath and His poetical retribution, especially against those who do the bidding of the adversary.
This naturally befuddles me, for how can one claim that our God, the Lord of Hosts, is purely and only the embodiment of eternal unconditional love, and yet in the same breath, claim that He is righteous and just in the face of evil?
It is then that I’ve come to realise that for quite a long while now, there has been a broader sentiment and proclivity amongst our brethren to selectively and blissfully ignore the vengeance of the Lord while particularly and exuberantly focusing on His undying and everlasting love for us.
Ironically, in their (seeming) inability or inconceivability to reconcile the seemingly contrasting demeanours of God during the Old and New Testaments, our brethren’s perceptions of God Himself is no different than that of the Gnostics – a heretical group who infused pagan and proto-new age spirituality concepts into their brand of Christianity. The Gnostics believed that the God of the Old Testament (whom they refer to as the Demiurge or Yahweh, a being completely separate from that of the God of the New Testament) as an evil creator god who created this material world; a deity who is inferior to that of the true supreme God of the New Testament. In addition to this blasphemy of theirs, the Gnostics also believed that Jesus was simply just a mere mortal spiritual man who attained divinity and exaltation via unrevealed secrets pertaining to spirituality.
The truth of the matter, of course, are the facts that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are one and the same, and that Jesus Christ is God as well – the second person in the Triune Godhead.
Don’t get me wrong: I am more than well aware of the infinite and titanic greatness of His affection and compassion towards me, having felt them on a number of occasions myself and being utterly touched by His Divine Grace during such remarkably poignant and transcendental experiences). And I know this to be true for many, many more others as well too.
Nevertheless, to prevent further permeation and proliferation of this pseudo-Gnostic outlook amongst our brethren, the other half of the grim and gritty truth of Our Lord needs to be said with complete and unrestrained candour:
Hell is more real of a place than anything you could ever possibly imagine, and it is more guaranteed of a final destination of eternal torment and torture than any other site on Earth by virtue of the transgressional nature of our sins.
For narrow is the way and strait is the gate, and not all who saith 'Lord, Lord' unto Him shall enter into His Heavenly Kingdom (Matthew 7:14, 21).
Beware of and be not afraid to call out all false teachers and preachers, those ravenous wolves in sheep’s' clothing (Matthew 7:15), who downplay the significance and the severity of the Lake of Fire to the blissfully ignorant masses...as they (un)knowingly lead the sheep astray, condemning them to that very same afterlife of eternal damnation and horrors beyond the comprehension of Man; an afterlife where there is much weeping and gnashing of teeth (Luke 13:28, Matthew 8:12,13:42 & 50, 22:13, 24:51, 25:30).
For I know Our Father in Heaven as well, and for as much as He is kind, loving, compassionate, merciful and hopeful to us...He is just as equally angry, unaccepting, intolerant, vengeful and destructive towards all evil-doers. The Lord our God is every bit the Lord of vengeance as much as He is the Lord of love, and He will not acquit the wicked on the Day of Judgment (Nahum 1:3).
True Love is not synonymous with tolerance and acceptance. If that were the case, Our Heavenly Father would not have washed the world of its iniquities during the days of Noah. If that were the case, the Lord would not have rained fire and brimstone from Heaven out of Himself upon Sodom and Gomorrah. If that were the case, God Almighty would not have commanded Joshua (and Israel by extension) to vanquish territories and municipalities populated to the brim with despicable, heretical heathens of all kinds, such as it was in the case of the city of Jericho (Joshua 6:21).
And lest you think that these were all merely the acts of the 'God of the Old Testament', is it not written that when the transgressors are come to the full in the latter-days (Daniel 8:23), that the Lord will arrive with thousands of His Heavenly Hosts of angels to execute judgment and convict all who blaspheme His Holy Name and perform deeds which go against His Word and Will? (Jude 1:14-15)
Is it not also written that the unjust (fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, prostitutes, homosexuals, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, nor extortioners) shall not inherit the kingdom of God? (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)
My dear brothers and sisters, it is high-time that we no longer shy away from the gruelling and dark reality and gravity of what is to become of us if we continue to remain dead in our transgressions and in our sinful nature. Now more than ever, during such a time when there are much confusion and chaos on scales the likes of which the world has never seen, heard and felt before, should we be armed with the armour of God (Ephesians 6:11) and spread word of the Good News, in spite of the attempts by the forces of malevolence which seek to tear us down and drag us to our eternal demise.
I only humbly plead, urge, beg and implore with you all to please accept for yourselves and preach to others the True Gospel of our Lord, Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Christ - the acceptance of the free yet conditional gifts of eternal life and salvation by believing in His Atonement and Resurrection, and the constant need to repent of our sins on a daily basis….before it’s too late.
For you never really and truly know which day will be your last, and as such, the time for repentance and belief in the Gospel is now.
With all of that said, I leave these things with you all in the Mighty Name of Christ Jesus – Amen.
The Significant Gravity of the Everpresent Reality which is Hell
