Satan has done a number on so many people.......the worst ones are.....conditional forgiveness. Sins to bad to be forgiven. Not chosen to be forgiven.
Agape love has no bounds......turns no one away......sets all free. God is this agape love.
Heaven or hell is a true message for there are only 2 places the soul ends up. To know that hell need not be a option is the gospel message.
I agree with the majority of your statements! However, there is still the comforting doctrine of election, the milk of the Word and other details in the Gospel that must be preached.
Yes God loved the world, sent His Son, yet all unbelieving are under His wrath;
John 3:16ff. We have the book of Revelation for those to read who think of God merely as this being of love that overlooks all other things (not saying you are saying this, so take no offense).
By the way, if God loved each and every man unconditionally, the way they are, there would be no need for Christ and the transforming power of the Gospel. This type of agapao falls short of the entire reality. Yes,
God so loved the world, that He gave...and for a reason, to save us, who were under His divine wrath;
Ephesians 2:3. Yes, I've looked at this word agape and see that the church has abused, misused, and misapplied its contextual meaning. Very popular to do this by the way, but the true sense of meaning of Scripture and truth itself has always been loathed, and in particular by many in churches.
We should not discount or diminish the glory of God's justice that He has placed in His Gospel message, of His Sovereignty, warnings of reprobation, His mercy to those He wills to show mercy. These things are not preached and man has garnered a truncated gospel from all of this.
We should not be one sided on the truth;
2 Timothy 2:15. I for one am determined not to be. There are many warnings then to go along with the Gospel as even our LORD Jesus showed us during His earthly ministry. God still shows mercy on whom He wills (the very first thing God shared with Moses when he desired to know more of God and His glory) and hardens whom He wills. These remain the same - God is immutable.
I believe a candy coated gospel has led the man in the link and many others to see God as a pushover, that He loves them no matter what they do in spite of the wrath abiding on unbelievers being pronounced by God. They will have none of this and believe none of this and many in churches deny this truth.
God is their personal friend if He does what they want, an arrogant twisting of
John 15:14. These get the idea that all die and go to heaven and are greeted by loved ones, and somewhere is this grandpa god that waves at them when they get there. They cannot fathom that their soul faces impending damnation if they do not repent and believe the Gospel, in light of a candy coated god and gospel. They balk at this, and see this as the fault of the church to practice
2 Timothy 2:15, and have instead embraced pragmatism, user-friendly tactics and frankly a truncated false gospel.
