THAT DIRTY "H" WORD!

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  Dangerous pastime!

  I posted this today in response to a God Journey broadcast called:Ultimate Reconciliation: The Hell with it! podcast of 8-5-2009. With Rob Bell's recent book it seems as Hell is being hushed up again (not a good idea). I'm genuinely not into Christians sniping at each other so lets be declare here how much I love the God Journey and if they veer off the road a wee bit...Bless them Lord!! I hope they'd bless me and not blast me if I too were to drift onto dodgy ground. Here's the text:
  Brad / Wayne, I love the God Journey but I wonder have you swung the pendulum too far on this one. The greek mindset speaks of either/or while the Hebrew mindset speaks of on the one hand this/ on the other hand that. It is in this context that we can begin to understand the reconciliation between the Love of God (which suggests all go to heaven)  and the Holiness of God (which suggests hell for all). The cross brings sense to all this (while being an offense to the universalists). Jesus went to hell, like all who died before him (though some were kept safe in Abraham's bosom) and the hope of escape is in Him alone. When you raise children you seek to lovingly encourage and coax them to do good but there are times of severe warnings also. Such warnings do not deny our love for them but recognizes the grave consequences of ongoing defiance. We live in an unredeemed humanistic world where God is simply seen as a means to an end (happiness and heaven) and not an end in HImself (to be worshipped). The average unredeemed person has no desire for an eternity of worship. SIn brings punishment to people on this earth and many call it their hell yet the truth is that this is their heaven while for those who follow Jesus in the new life this beautiful but fallen planet is their hell (relatively speaking). I understand where you are coming from but would respectfully suggest that we should not only warn of hell while speaking of the wonders of our saviour but do so with love in our heart and tears in our eyes. God takes no pleasure in seeing any person ending up in  a Christless place which was not even created for them, a place of no grace. I met Jesus at aged 23 and I know that I deserve hell and would have gone there had I died before my new birth ("perished' as referred to in John 3:16) I was drawn in by God's love but stepped into HIs kingdom over the threshold of a godly repentance from sin (all by His grace).  Let me know your thoughts. Keep up the good work. Your brother in Jesus from Ireland Anthony

TIME AND CHANCE MAKE BAD THINGS WORSE

The British Centre for Science Education (an anti-Creation athiest lobby group) support a campaign and petition to get any discussion of creation science removed even from religious education classes (in UK). They call it "CRISIS" (Creationism in School isn't science). Of course they forgot to insert the word "evolutionary" before science.
If this group, and their fellow Evolution supporters, are right then Jesus was a liar, the cross was meaningless and God's word can't be trusted. Personally I know Him to be the Truth, His Word reliable and the Cross and resurrection to be the Power of God manifest on earth. I find that science (not evolutionary science) supports the Genesis account. I appreciate that it is easy for either side in the debate to get emotional and just slag off the other. This seems to be what happened when Thomas Huxley debated Darwin's theory to the British Association for the advancement of science in Oxford in 1860 and had Biship Wilberforce insult him! Soon after this scientific opinion swung to the current evolutionary view.
Creation as we see it today is far from perfect and this is due to the corruption from sin and not an evolutionary act in motion!  The heart of mankind is rotten (until God intervenes and renews) and time and chance only make bad things worse. The photo is of Barack Obama today saying "Yes we can" . He's probably referring to dividing up the land of Israel (Joel 3:2) or the like (no wonder we had the windiest day ever recorded in Ireland today and he was forced to leave early by an oncoming ash cloud).  

PILGRIM TALK PODCAST NOW ON ITUNES

You can now go to the side panel and click on "Pilgrim Talk Podcast" and then subscribe to the podcast (through iTunes)  to hear myself and David O'Rourke ("Ant and Dave") in conversation about walking with God in the 21st Century. Episode 6 has a interview with PJ Hanley, Ireland's chief export to USA! We had a fab theme tune in the early episodes but the technology, and my exhausted computer, was proving too cumbersome to insert so it got dropped! Happy listening! Ant

DESSIE: DUBLIN'S DELIGHT

Dublin is a better city because of Street Preacher Dessie. He has a heart of gold and when he shares the Gospel of Jesus Christ he does it with a deep care for the hearers, even though he has to inform them of the dire consequences of their Christ-less existence. As a street preacher myself I know how important this is. We do not judge people but often pronounce God's judgment over those who reject Him. This we can't do in a heartless way. We don't preach to justify ourselves but to portray Christ who justifies the sinner. I have often listened to Dessie stop his message to engage with people, as he is doing in this photo. Many people think street preaches are simply angry people and yet testify to their approachability and grace in a one to one conversation. If you are reading this and are a bit unsure of the next street preacher let me encourage you to wait until he or she is finished and then talk to them, you will be pleasantly surprised I expect. In the meantime be glad that we live in a free country where the Geneva convention is actually practiced and Jesus is lifted high (on occasion!).