If God loves us so much...

How come He is going to watch from on high as the soon coming Anti-Christ slowly beheads the saints as their family and children watch them scream in agony?

How come He allowed the Somalian man to die an undignified and torturous be-heading? I thought Jesus died to give freedom, not to let people die fates worse than that of the cross.

Let's face it, He isn't the motherly gentle Creator new Christians like myself think. That is our subjective view of the brimstone and fire throwing objective God of consuming fire. He is a hyper-masculine king who will beat and chastise you like a mule into perfection for His glory. It's not so comforting....

Not comforting to think that scarcely will the righteous be saved. That few find the narrow path. That most Christians are going to Hell and the Earth shudders as the approaching great and terrible day of The Lord inches closer. That Jesus will turn crying and wailing people with no understanding straight to the torture of Hell, including most Christians. That is entirely scriptural.

Makes me want to...err...just not waste my time on this jealous God anymore...

And no offense, but many people on this site worship the God of Sarah Palin, the CBN, Billy Graham, and Joel Osteen...a watered down "just believe and prosper" God. Most posts on here are about "What word comes next?" or "Should I get earrings" or "Should I get a tattoo?" No one ever lives in realty!!! Just a "I'm going to Heaven which must be a giant beach with paradise houses and many malls and carnivals" so let's be blissfully happy because life is good!!!! Sorry, Sorry, don't mean to be mean, but life is so terrible! Our Creator is terrible! Many reading this will not be saved! I wish I were never born!

You are a step ahead of many here. You are God conscious. Put a little of your trust in God and he will come running. God wants you to be saved but you need to do your part.

Amen.

Sorry but I gotta say its nice to see someone read the bible a little more objectively.

Look to what I put in bold. No it isn't scriptural. Now look at what I underlined. That too is not scriptural. Everything you wrote there is not scriptural and is lacking in grace. My suggestion to you, it to search for the grace message and get an understanding of God, Who is Love. Everything you wrote is so wrong that I would have to address each sentence you wrote, that's how bad your current revelation is. Ask God for wisdom and understanding so that you may see His love in the Word.

What you wrote on the righteous being "scarcely" saved, is not a point of hard it is to be saved, but that is isn't within their own merit to be saved. The difference between the unrighteous and the righteous is Christ. That is the singular difference, that is what is scarcely saving them. It is not of themselves but of Christ as to the reason they are saved. You say that most Christians are going to Hell, but you say that as a means of fear and condemnation when the Word says, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ." Those who belong to Christ are saved. Who belong to Jesus? The children of God.

Your image of God is tainted or something, to view Him as an abusive father, beating and chastening his children as a mule. This is not my Heavenly Father. Read 2 Timothy 3:16. How does God train us, and guide us into all righteousness? Through His Word. Correction is done, how? Through His Word.

People here are applauding and praising your statements as if true, but it only shows their own insecurity in their salvation and their relationship to the Lord.

First comes death then comes the resurrected life...that's the biblical pattern. Death has many horrible faces, LIFE has One.

No one is asking you to.

God has given you the will to obey him, or ignore him.
You make your own choices.

God is still going to do what He pleases, whether you're involved or not.
God is still going to do what He pleases, whether you get blessed or not.

If you want to disobey Him, and ignore him... seriously... that's your choice.

God doesn't exist to serve YOU.

We exist to serve Him

If you don't want to do that, then fine.
That's your choice.

The reason God sent Jesus was to deliver us from His wrath. God isn't mean, He is holy and just. That justice is based in the same integrity that allows Him to forgive us because of Jesus blood sacrifice.

Why does God allow suffering is one of the biggest obstacles to faith. I'd encourage you to read some Voice of the Martyrs stuff (they raise awareness about persecuted Christians). When you hear the stories of Christians who have suffered for their faith and hear the strength of their faith, it just messes with you. There's got to be something to it. We need to remember that Jesus told us to expect persecution ( Matt 10:24-25, Mark 10:30, John 15:20). And if God wouldn't spare his own son a horrific death, why do we think he would be unwilling to sacrifice our fleeting earthly lives for the furtherance of his kingdom. It doesn't mean he doesn't care about us ( see Psalm 116:15) just that our earthly comfort is not top on his list of priorities. See 2 Tim 2:3 .

So now for judgement, wrath, and hell. Most of us don't like thinking about it because it is uncomfortable. I really had to wrestle with this recently when my unsaved uncle died. He had a tough life and it is painful to think of him in hell, but God did show me something I hadn't thought of. Could a person who lived their whole life rejecting God's rule really be happy in an eternity where God's rule was absolute and they were compelled to obey? That is what heaven will be like. So the only two choices for eternity are living under God's rule or living completely apart from God. A reading of the OT law (especially Deuteronomy) will also reveal that God's heart in giving the law was to show people the way to blessing and peace, not to set up some sort of elaborate gotcha system so he had excuses to make us suffer.

The cornerstone of the Christian faith is the belief that God came after us. He sent Jesus to die and did everything so that we could be restored to relationship with him and he could make us holy and righteous. Ultimately there are only a few broad philosophical positions you can take:

• God exists, he is personal, and wants relationship with us (in Christian thought he's done everything to make that possible, in most other religions people have to fix themselves up to be good enough for God).
• There's some sort of impersonal spiritual power out there that can be used, but not related to at all
• If you can't find it with your 5 senses it doesn't exist.

None of us long time christians understand it all either, but I hope this helps. It's okay to vent and rage at God and get it all out when you are frustrated (he's big enough to take it) just take time to listen afterwards and let God reveal himself more. Your profile says you've been a christian for about 2 years so it looks like the honeymoon is over. Don't forget all he has done for you in the middle of asking all of these tough deeper questions.

let me tell you something, those people who are being slaughtered for his sake are great in his kingdom. God loves people like that, those people are among the people i have no doubt are in paradise this moment. Matthew 16:24 "if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his own cross and follow me." John 15:20 20Remember what I told you: A servant is not greater than his master, If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]There countless movies depicting the life of Jesus, and they attempt to show you what he went through carrying that cross. He was beaten like a snake that intruded someone's house, they beat him so much his whole body was stained with crimson blood. And yet he says if you want to follow me, take up your own cross, meaning that you will go through your own round of torture. Jesus did not promise anyone billions in their accounts, but he did specify that you will be hated and persecuted like animals.

Did you know that out of the 12 disciples, only one, Apostle John died of old age. Others were beheaded, speared to death, shot with arrows, burned, and crucified upside-down. And guess what, just because John died of old age does not mean he had easy; he was captured and boiled in hot oil, poisoned and tortured, after miraculously surviving all of that, the authorities got frustrated at how he just couldn't die, so they exiled him to a prison mine on an island, and thats where he wrote the book of revelations from.[/FONT]

This is the nature of God toward His children that have accepted Jesus as Savior.

James 1:17 Every good and perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

1 John 1:5 This then is the message which we have heard of Him and declare unto you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness.

The evil in the world is the result of man's actions. God will never interfer with our free will. God can intervene for His children in miraculous ways in response to prayer and faithfulness. (pray according to His will-not like praying to win the lotto )

Does He judge? Yes, He does and He is righteous is His judgement but if you accept Jesus you are saved from His wrath.

There is so very much wrong and truly sad about such a comment as this...........and it surely reveals a complete lack of understanding of Scripture............one example is quite clear.....

Not comforting to think that scarcely will the righteous be saved. That few find the narrow path. That most Christians are going to Hell and the Earth shudders as the approaching great and terrible day of The Lord inches closer. That Jesus will turn crying and wailing people with no understanding straight to the torture of Hell, including most Christians. That is entirely scriptural.

Do you understand who the "righteous" are? Regardless of what you say, your comment IS NOT entirely Scriptural......

Cinder, thank you for your comment. First let me say how sorry I am for the loss of your uncle, and I hope you can find solace and rest. I am also deeply saddened to hear that he had a troubled life. May I ask what about his life was difficult, if you don't mind? I ask as you seem to have received validation from God that your uncle did not go to Heaven. I ask because it may help me understand my view of God and who is saved. I guess I always assumed those who lived terribly troubled lives would have mercy bestowed upon them for their pain on Earth like Lazarus who died of starvation at the feet of the rich man, even if they did not have a defining born again experience while on Earth (much like children or the mentally disabled). Thank you and I understand if you do not wish to talk about personal details

My uncle may not have had a difficult life by most people's standards. Financial trouble seemed to be a constant though he worked long hard days, he battled cancer for the last several years of his life, just the normal hardships of normal life really. As far as his eternity, he didn't hide the fact that he did not believe in God and chose not to follow him. He just didn't see a need for God. God isn't telling me to rejoice about the idea the he is in hell or rubbing it in or anything sadistic like that (for hopefully obvious reasons I try not to think about it much), but neither do I see anything in scripture to support the idea that there was some sort of magical last chance and he suddenly would change his mind and no family members have said anything about a deathbed conversion either.

I think one of the downsides of using the fear of hell to get people to follow Jesus, is it leaves people with the impression that God wants to send us to hell. But Romans 8:32 reminds us that God didn't spare his son, but gave him up for us. Rom 5:8 tells us that Christ dying for us while we were still in rebellion against God (i.e. sin) is a demonstration of his love. Remembering that God has done everything he can to give us the option of heaven without forcing our choice helps keep his goodness and love in perspective when we think about people going to hell.

My thinking may be incomplete on this topic, but here is as far as I have gotten: God made the world and saw it was good (Gen 1). But because his a relational, personal being he gave people (and angels) the ability to make choices and to twist the good to other not good purposes. If God knows everything that is going to happen (and while some debate I think he must know) then he knows what people will choose to follow him and what people will reject him permanently before he makes them. Should he deny existence to those he knows will reject him? Should he limit his creativity and his expression (maybe even revelation) of himself because people will reject him? And if not, then should he force people to go to heaven? An evil man could not enter heaven as himself, he would have to be radically changed, so much so that he would be like a different person and no longer himself. How just could God be if evil men who never even admitted that they had done wrong were welcomed to spend eternity with their victims? Heck some people question God's justice because he lets the ones who repent in.

This is long enough so I don't have time to address all of the difficult cases ( those who are unable to understand truth and those who never have the opportunity to hear about Jesus). I've seen God's power change lives, I've seen the hardships of life win out over faith a few times, and I've seen God mightily use someone and then through no fault of their own their personal lives get destroyed. The world's a mess courtesy of sin. I don't understand everything now, but I do put hope in what Paul said about one day when we will see face to face and know as fully as God knows us ( 1 Cor 13:12).

Hope this helps.

Thank you for being willing enough to talk about your uncle, and for explaining your take on the prior topics. I want to thank you for your strength and bravery as well as kindness, and I also want to offer my condolences once again for your loss.

I used to wonder the same at one time, but in reading the scriptures, came to see that we are to look to what is eternal.
Scripture says, that the struggles and trials we know now, are but a blink of the eye compared to the glory that awaits us in life eternal.
I have often wondered if what we know now, is simply we are the planting of a seed, that must die, before it can grow to the fruit it is intended to be, eternally.

God bless
pickles

You are welcome. And thank you for your kindness. May God bless you and continue to reveal himself to you.

Cinder, your understanding of God and explanation is by far the best I've seen in a long time. God bless.