With so many words everywhere, where do we go to find the truth?

Answer: The Bible.

Because of debate taking place everywhere online over the truth of the Bible, I felt led to share the big picture in a blog post. Then I will share a statement that triggered a controversy in my local area and will counter it line by line with truth.

One might wonder what qualifies me to do so, and I encourage you to read on and then read the Bible for yourself. This is important as it has to do with where one will spend eternity: Heaven or Hell.

In order to understand the overarching picture of the Bible, one must be a student of the Bible and ask God for revelation. 

Call to Me, and I will answer and show you great and unsearchable things you do not know. Jeremiah 3:33

In a nutshell–God created our planet so He could create us in His image. Just as we find fulfillment in our families (ideally) He who is love wanted a family to love on. 

Like those of us who are parents, God wants His children to reflect Him in character, to honor Him in representation, and to respond to Him in humility, love, devotion, and loyalty. His goal was a family who would steward His creation under His leadership. 

The Test:

Like us, as His image bearers, God wants to be loved for who He is. He wants to be honored by trust and obedience. Obedience is an outflow of trusting that God is good and He is love. When we disobey, we are making a statement.

God made Adam and Eve. He placed them in a lush garden. Prior to creating Eve, He told Adam that he could eat from any tree in the garden, but he was not to eat the fruit from one certain tree or he would die. (See Genesis 2:15-17)

God’s enemy showed up in the form of a serpent and reasoned with Eve that God was holding out on her by forbidding her from knowing good and evil. (When He actually was PROTECTING her from evil)  Satan opposed God’s word saying to Eve, “Surely you will not die.” 

Eve bit the apple and then gave the fruit to Adam. He who had heard directly from God, did not seek to prevent Eve from biting, and he bit too. Adam is credited for this sin because His was the responsibility to obey. 

Both disobeyed God’s one “do not” commandment that forbade them to eat the fruit of one tree. (See the story in Genesis 3:1-7)

God’s consequence was not physical death. It appeared they did not die. Did God lie then? No, God cannot lie. It was their relationship with Him that died–their union was severed. They lost their position as son and daughter because they’d aligned with Satan. In doing so, they came under a dark force called sin. Sin’s force made them feel their nakedness. Nakedness is a metaphor for unholiness and shame. They felt the horrible feeling of shame for the first time and so they hid from God. 

God could have annihilated them for their rebellion, but instead came to them and made a way for them to remain living. He cast them from the garden so they wouldn’t eat from the Tree of Life and live forever as slaves to sin. Then He sacrificed the first animal. This was the first blood that was shed on their behalf, in order to clothe their nakedness, indicating the costliness of sin.

God told them that the result of their sin was curses for humanity. Our life on earth would be hard. Childbirth and rearing would be hard. Cultivating the earth to feed our families would be hard. But, then He issued a promise. He would send a Savior one day from the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the enemy and redeem us from the curse of Sin. (See the story in Genesis 3:8-24)

The Old Testament

The Old Testament stories are shadows of the battle of this life and of the coming (now here) promised Savior. They show how God loves us despite our sin, and how we most often (naturally) do not love Him back. There were times when His people loved Him, but most often they rebelled. He never gave up on them. When they fell into idolatry and rebellion, He disciplined them in order to humble them. He continually disciplined in order to reestablish them to bless them. 

To understand God’s great love and desire to be with His Family, a close look at The Day Of Atonement (Leviticus 16) as the foreshadowing of the wonderful GIFT of God, our Messiah-Savior, Jesus Christ, illuminates the blood-cost and intense labor of the High Priest once a year to atone for sin. 

All of the processes and rules of Levitical law were meant to serve God’s Family in discerning and despising sin and understanding the cost it was to God to bring them near.. 

The Old Testament closes with the book of Malachi, and then God was silent for 400 years. 

Christ, the Savior is Born!

Jesus was born in Bethlehem over two thousand years ago–our Christmas Light and Joy. He lived among us for 33 years to show us what God is really like in healing and delivering and loving and saving many. 

His earthly life also displayed the horrors of sin in the human heart (as seen in His opposers and murderers). Like the Pharaoh in the book of Exodus, the religious leaders in Jerusalem displayed hard and hardening hearts that refused to submit to the Son of God. 

They preferred to submit to the sin-force they were born under, resulting in betrayal and murder of God’s Way and Truth and Life and Light. 

Jesus was crucified by His own chosen people who preferred darkness to light, pride to humility, and self-reliance to trusting God. 

Jesus’s great mercy resounded from the cross when He cried out, “Forgive them Father, they do not know what they do.”

He’d spent three years showing and telling them they were spiritually blind. (The “death” of Adam and Eve is a spiritual death.) 

They Refused To Seek To See By Listening To Him. 

One day Jesus took three of his disciples up on a mountain where he was transfigured into glory and was joined by Moses and Elijah. In Mark 9:7 God comes: Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: 

“This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” Mark 9:7

The group of people who opposed and ultimately killed Jesus were called Scribes and Pharisees. They could never see the miracles Jesus was doing because they wanted to keep their way as the way. Jesus, in gaining followers, was disrupting and threatening the power-system they held in place. Jesus warned His disciples about them, stating, “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees.” They were too proud to listen to Him and therefore they were blind to truth. 

Here is a short story from Mark 7 demonstrating what He meant (emphasis, mine):

Then the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus, and they saw some of His disciples eating with hands that were defiled—that is, unwashed. Now in holding to the tradition of the elders, the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat until they wash their hands ceremonially. And on returning from the market, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions for them to observe, including the washing of cups, pitchers, kettles, and couches for dining.

So the Pharisees and scribes questioned Jesus: “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders? Instead, they eat with defiled hands.”

Jesus answered them, “Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written: 

‘These people honor Me with their lips, 

but their hearts are far from Me.

They worship Me in vain; 

they teach as doctrine the precepts of men.’

You have disregarded the commandment of God to keep the tradition of men.”

He went on to say, “You neatly set aside the command of God to maintain your own tradition. For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever you would have received from me is Corban’ (that is, a gift devoted to God), he is no longer permitted to do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by the tradition you have handed down. And you do so in many such matters.” Mark 7:1-13

So, we can see that their sin was not listening to God. They were disobedient because they had their own agenda and it wasn’t to love and obey God.

After Jesus rose from the dead, He poured out His Spirit upon and into those disciples He’d prepared to begin His church. The Spirit was the gift of the LIFE and LIGHT of God that fills in the cavernous hole in our souls—the life and light that rebellion had snuffed out in the garden. 

Then Jesus sent His Spirit-filled disciples out to bring His gospel message to the world promising that the gates of hell would not prevail against His church. And here we are! All these years later, enduring by His Spirit. 

Since His ascension into Heaven, His born again sons and daughters filled with the LIGHT and LIFE of Jesus have been on mission to share the gospel wherever He sends them. 

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, then to the Greek. Romans 1:16

False Teaching On The Homefront:

Recently, a pastor from a Universalist church in our area made a bold statement against the true gospel on his Facebook page. Because their church is in our area, the implications of the heresy being spread is a direct attack on my church family and my ministry. Therefore, I was compelled by Jesus to engage in defending the true gospel by refuting the lies. (I have also had many private messages thanking me for doing so, as well as wanting to understand more deeply.)

*Below is the statement in italics.

*Below the statement, I break the statement down line by line and counter it with truth. 

“There is a kind of universalism that has infiltrated the American church—not the universal hope that God’s love is truly for all, but the universal damnation that claims every soul is born stamped for destruction unless they somehow manage to find and submit to Jesus.

What kind of Father creates His children with the default destiny of eternal torment, only offering rescue if they can solve the riddle of salvation in time? Would any loving parent conceive a child with the intent of casting them away unless they proved themselves worthy? And yet, we are told this is “good news.”

Don't tell me God is good, merciful, and loves unconditionally while simultaneously painting Him as the cosmic architect of a sick survival game, watching to see who makes it out alive. The world is waking up. It sees the contradiction. And maybe—just maybe—it’s not rejecting God, but rejecting a distorted version of Him that was never real to begin with.”

Countering the false or twisted claims:

every soul is born stamped for destruction unless they somehow manage to find and submit to Jesus

TRUTH: Every soul is born with a void that needs to be filled, a wick that needs to be lit, a hunger and thirst for God that needs Jesus. The gospel answers this need by the infilling of the Spirit of God at the new birth. (See John 3:3 and Acts 2:38)

What kind of Father creates His children with the default destiny of eternal torment

TRUTH: Romans 9:22-25 states that God, foreknowing that some people would choose to reject Him, preferring evil to loving Him, chose to create us all so that those who would choose Him had the opportunity to become His Family and live with Him forever in His eternal kingdom.

He did this [bore with great patience the vessels of His wrath, prepared for destruction] to make the riches of His glory known to the vessels of His mercy, whom He prepared in advance for glory— including us, whom He has called not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles. Romans 9:22-24

only offering rescue if they can solve the riddle of salvation in time?

TRUTH: The implication of this statement is actually an accusation against God. It may be that the author of it is offended by God because he doesn’t understand God’s holiness or the gospel of love. There is no riddle. There is a gospel (good news of salvation for everyone who believes) built on the story of God that I summarized above, and a very open display of love on the cross of Christ–His arms are open for all who want Him. “Come to Me” and “Open to Me” are the choices He gives to all. (See Matthew 11:28 and Revelation 3:20)

Would any loving parent conceive a child with the intent of casting them away unless they proved themselves worthy?

TRUTH: Though we are created in the image of God, we are not God. The parental relationship is metaphorical only as it shows the relational aspect. The mind of God is above us. We cannot assume He thinks like us, and are told to conform to His mind and will in Romans 12:1-2. This human-reasoning fails to take into account that God is HOLY and we cannot be in His presence without the atoning sacrifice of blood. Jesus’ blood is available to all, but it costs us our life. 

Then Jesus said to all of them, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.

What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet lose or forfeit his very self? If anyone is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. Luke 9:3-26

Don't tell me God is good, merciful, and loves unconditionally while simultaneously painting Him as the cosmic architect of a sick survival game, watching to see who makes it out alive.

TRUTH: Again, the language used here indicates bitterness in the heart of the author toward those who hold to the historic gospel of Jesus Christ. God indeed loves unconditionally, but because of His holiness, in order to have a relationship with us, we must repent and come to Him for salvation. He wants us to want Him. He tells us that our love is proven by our obedience.

Concluding Truth:

If one has been born again by the Spirit of God and is a serious student of the Bible, God reveals Himself to that one. Though it is good to listen to preaching and teaching from others, if you were a missionary in a foreign land with limited fellowship, God has promised you can know His heart and mind through the scriptures by the revelation of the Holy Spirit.

And as for you, the anointing you received from Him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But just as His true and genuine anointing teaches you about all things, so remain in Him as you have been taught. John 2:27

But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have told you. John 14:26

If one is not born again, they do not have the Revealer (Holy Spirit) within, and the scriptures cannot fully be understood. 

But the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to understand them, because spiritually they are discerned. 1 Corinthians 2:14

Having an intimate knowledge of God requires both the Spirit of God and the Truth of God (Jesus is the Truth) abiding in the believer. With the Holy Spirit living inside of us, we can have fellowship with Him because He is in us and we are in Him. The result of our relationship with Him is that we become like Jesus and lay down our lives for Him. 

Go here to read my statement of faith: Cherished Beliefs

Further Reading:

Obedience;

Cherry Picking the Bible;

Am I Becoming More Real or Fading Away by Timothy Willard;

Wolves in Sheep's Clothing;

Everyone Is Everlasting by John Piper