Toxic Churches/Toxic Leaders

 

I was reading 3^rd John and was amazed by how toxic a Christian church had already become just a few years after Jesus was here on earth.

John was a disciple of Jesus. He walked with him for more than three years, learning and growing in his presence. Yet, here in this book of the Bible, John was writing to Gaius, a believer in Jesus, about a toxic church and leader.

First John commended Gaius for helping the “traveling teachers” who had come from Jerusalem to encourage the church. Gaius took them into his house and cared for their needs. But there was a man in the local church who refused to do this. In fact, he would throw anyone out of the church who helped these teachers. John said this man, Diotrephes, would not listen to those of the church in Jerusalem. “I wrote to the church about this, but Diotrephes, who loves to be the leader, refuses to have anything to do with us.”   3 John 1:9

Imagine the rebellion of not listening to the disciples of Jesus at that time. John said this man had always wanted to be a “leader.” Now he was, and he was committing great sin and leading others to do the same.

Paul, in his letters, spoke of the same thing. False teachers leading others astray. I think some people think the Christian churches are doing something new by being unlike Christ. No, it isn’t new, it has happened for more than 2,000 years. Jesus warned us of this. He said, “Beware of false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?  Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, by their fruit you will recognize them.”  Matthew 7:15-20

And this is the fruit: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”  Galatians 5:22,23

If a pastor, leader or church does not have the fruit of the Spirit, it will become toxic and harmful to everyone it touches. They bring upon all Christianity a bad name. They slander God and the gospel.

So be careful about what and whom you believe. The Bible says, “Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world.”  1 John 4:1

Is There an Eternal Hell? No.

I do not believe there is an eternal hell of torment for those who are wicked. I could not worship or love a God who would do this to anyone. Very few human beings would torture people forever. If God is just, then this would not be justice.

The Jewish people of old did not believe in this teaching either. There are hundreds of scriptures that teach us the wicked will be destroyed, not live on forever. There are a few that have made some people think differently. But that is because they misinterpret the Bible.

The Bible must be searched carefully from beginning to end to understand a subject. We must not take a verse here or there on which to hang our teachings.

I have found some studies on Hell online and share them with you now. If you want to know the truth, you must study. “Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”  Acts 17:11

The Origin of Hell-Fire in Christian Teaching.

Taken from: The Origin of Hell-Fire in Christian Teaching (truthaccordingtoscripture.com)

The concept of a soul within us that cannot die first became a ‘Christian’ doctrine at the end of the second century AD. Hell had been taught in Greek philosophy long before the time of Jesus, with Plato (427-347 BC) as the important leader in this thinking.

The teaching of an everlasting place of punishment for the wicked is the natural consequence of a belief in an immortal soul. By the year AD 187, it was understood that life, once we have it, is compulsory; there is no end to it, either now or in a world to come. We have no choice as to its continuance, even if we were to commit suicide to end it.

At the end of the 2nd century Christianity had begun to blend Greek philosophy —human speculative reasoning, with the teachings of God’s Word. Such words and phrases as ‘continuance of being’, ‘perpetual existence’, ‘incapable of dissolution’ and ‘incorruptible’ began to appear in so-called Christian writings. These had come straight from Plato, the Greek philosopher, all those years before Jesus. Other phrases used were ‘the soul to remain by itself immortal’, and ‘an immortal nature’. It was taught that this is how God made us. But this idea derives from philosophy, not divine inspiration. There are no such words in the Bible. It was Athenagorus, a Christian, but whose teachings, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, were strongly tinged with Platonism, who had introduced the teaching of an immortal soul into Christianity. In this way, he paved the way for the logical introduction of eternal torment for immortal, but sinful, souls. This was a hundred years and more after the time of the apostles, and came straight from popular philosophy. The apostles had consistently taught that death is a sleep, to be followed by resurrection. The early church leaders – Clement, Ignatius, Hermas, Polycarp, and others who also believed that death is a sleep, taught that the wicked are destroyed forever by fire – their punishment was to be annihilation.  These leaders did not teach of an immortal soul to be tortured by fire in hell for eternity.

About AD 240 Tertullian of Carthage took up the teaching of an immortal soul. It was he who added the further, but logical dimension. He taught the endless torment of the immortal soul of the wicked was parallel to the eternal blessedness of the saved, with no sleep of death after this life.

This came at a time when many Christians were being burned for their faith and it was natural for them to accept that their persecutors would at death be consigned to an ever-burning hell for the persecution they had inflicted on others while they went straight to eternal bliss.

From the third century the darkness of the infiltration of man-made beliefs into Christianity deepened until the Dark Ages had smothered almost all the light of God’s Word. At the beginning of this time, the first attempts were made to create a systematic set of beliefs. It is not surprising that an ever-burning hell and the immortality of the soul were prominently included.

It is at this time that such beliefs, held by most Christians today, had their origin. An ever-burning hell has remained a commonly taught doctrine of the Christian religion to this day. It was not based on the Bible but on philosophy. Bible verses were later sought to uphold the ancient philosophies of the Greeks, and added to the teaching.

Eventually under the influence of Augustine, AD 430, the concept of endless conscious torment was brought into general acceptance by the Catholic Church in the Western world. He taught that all souls were deathless and consequently the lost would experience endless fires of punishment, immediately upon the end of this life.

Doesn’t everlasting fire mean that hell will be burning ceaselessly and eternally?

There are some Bible verses that may appear to say that. Let us look at some of these verses. ( From: How long does hell burn for? | Bibleinfo.com)

Everlasting” Bible texts

In Matthew 25:46, Jesus said, “These shall go away into everlasting punishment but the righteous into eternal life.”

Mark 9:43, “And if your hand makes you sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched.”

Revelation 14:11, “And the smoke of their torment ascends up forever and ever.”

Other Bible texts

Before we make a Bible doctrine from these verses, we need to see if there are other verses that speak of the punishment of the wicked.

First let us go to Malachi 4:1,3. “For behold the day is coming burning like and oven, and all the proud, yes all who do wickedly shall be as stubble. And the day that is coming shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, that shall leave them neither root nor branch. . . You shall trample the wicked for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet.”

These verses tell us that the wicked will be burned up, burned to ashes.

In another place the Bible says in Psalms 37:10, 11, “For yet a little while and the wicked shall be no more; Indeed, you will look diligently for his place, but it shall be no more.”

Jude 7 makes this subject very plain. “As Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them in a similar manner, having given themselves over to sexually immorality and gone after strange flesh,  are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” Sodom and Gomorrah are not burning today, yet the Bible says they suffered the vengeance of eternal fire. How can this be explained? It means that these cities were completely burned, until there was nothing left.

What does everlasting mean?

There is another way to determine the meaning of the word eternal or everlasting.

In English these words mean that the fire will go on forever, but in the Greek it has a different meaning. Dr. Basil Atkinson explains it this way. 

“When the adjective aionios,  meaning  everlasting is used in Greek  with nouns of action it has reference to the result of the act, not the process. The phrase everlasting punishment  is comparable to everlasting redemption and everlasting salvation, both Scriptural phrases. No one supposes that we are being redeemed or saved forever. We were redeemed and saved once for all by Christ with eternal results. In the same way the lost will not be passing through the process of punishment forever but will be punished  once and for all with eternal results. On the other hand the noun ‘life’ is not a noun of action, but a noun expressing a state. Thus life itself is eternal.”

God is love

The Bible says, God is love, 1 John 4:8. God loves His enemies. As the soldiers were nailing Jesus to the cross, He prayed, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do (Luke 23:34). As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways!  For why should you die, O house of Israel (Ezekiel 33:11).

God cannot allow sin, crime and violence to continue to cause suffering and death in this world. But He is not one to torture His children. So He does the most loving thing He can do, He destroys them eternally. The Bible says, “he will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time” (Nahum 1: 9).

Myths About Hell.

Myths About Hell – Publishing (adventistpublishing.org)

Interestingly, the Bible gives us explicit information on when hell would begin and where it would be located. As you might have guessed, misconceptions abound on these two points. In Matthew 13:49 Jesus speaks plainly saying, “So shall it be at the end of this world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”* According to this text and many others like it,(1) the flames of hell will not exist until the end of the world. That’s right! Your loved ones are not being burned alive as you read this tract.

Next, we see that the apostle Peter gives us clear information on where hell will be located. Speaking of the end of the world he says, “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.”(2) The prophet Zephaniah also speaks of, “the whole land,” being “devoured by the fire of His jealousy.”(3) Here we see that hell is not some giant chasm of flames in the center of the earth; rather, it will be located right here on earth at the end of the world devouring “the whole land.”

Perhaps the most important thing to understand about hell can be found in the famous text John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Here Jesus clearly states that it is the believers who are the ones that live eternally, not the wicked. What!? The wicked don’t live eternally writhing in flames? Correct!

The wicked are to burn only until there is nothing left to burn. Malachi brings this point out well: “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up,”(4) In fact, just so we could be sure that he was speaking literally about the utter destruction of the wicked he goes on to say, “’You shall trample the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day that I do this,’ says the Lord of hosts.”(4) Also, not only will the wicked be destroyed completely in the flames of hell but so will Satan and his wicked angels according to Matt. 25:41 and Rev. 20:10. Contrary to popular belief, God plans to destroy the forces of darkness, not put them in charge of an eternal fire pit in the center of the earth!

But some might say that there are other texts like Rev. 14:11 and 20:10 which point out that the wicked burn eternally. Well, the Bible also says that the prophet Samuel would abide before the Lord in the sanctuary forever,(5) and that the bars of the earth closed about Jonah forever(6) when he was thrown into the sea. Now it is clear from scripture itself that neither of these events lasted forever. What we see here are two examples of the Bible using the term, “forever” to mean a time of indefinite duration where the beginning and ending of that time depend on the nature of the person, circumstance, or thing to which it is applied. An example in our day which is similar is when a man and woman commit to their marriage vow forever. When they do so, the term “forever” simply means as “long as they live.” So how do we know how long “forever” is for those burning in hell? Simple: other passages on the topic explain that “forever” in this instance means until the wicked are utterly consumed. Context is key!

“The LORD preserves all who love Him, but all the wicked He will destroy.” Psalm 145:20

Insomnia.

 

I’ve had trouble with insomnia for many years. I remember it starting when I would go to sleep at a normal time but within a half hour I would wake up with a jolt. I couldn’t get back to sleep so I would start reading or looking at my ipad.

I’ve looked this up online and they call this, Hypnic Jerks.

Hypnic jerks are involuntary muscle movement that can happen as you fall asleep.

·         Hypnic jerks are painless but can accompany other sensations like dreams, hallucinations, or sounds.

·         Researchers theorize that nerves in the brainstem trigger the startling reaction.

·         Caffeine, exercise before sleep, emotional stress, and sleep deprivation can increase your risk of hypnic jerks.

Hypnic Jerks: Why You Twitch When You Sleep | Sleep Foundation

 

Another doctor writes that experts don’t know the exact cause of sleep starts, but what seems to be happening is that there’s a neurological tussle between the brain systems that keep you awake and the ones that encourage you to fall asleep.

Why Do I Jerk Awake Right As I’m Falling Asleep? (thecut.com)

 

But I thought the cause was something different. I had tried giving up caffeine and staying off my tablet to no avail. I thought it might be because my grandson had died and I was fearful of what may happen next to my family.

Two weeks ago, I talked with the Lord about this. I did feel convinced then that it was from a deep fear within me. I told God I knew I couldn’t do anything about that. I needed him to take that fear from me. So I laid my fear at his feet and asked for him to help me. He did do that. I have slept all night without the jerking awake and I have slept for 8 or 9 hours.

 My insomnia was so bad I used to stay up all night and finally flop on my bed in exhaustion. I didn’t like being up at night. It was hard to know what to do besides play video games and listen to podcasts. And since being awake during the day I am happier. I can think of more things to do and just generally feel better.

I want to thank God for this. I’m sure having such fear now in his hands is probably the reason I’m happier. Of course, this doesn’t mean I can just go gaily on ignoring the fear. I pray each night for him to take it. Most things in our life don’t just disappear, they come back over and over because they have become ingrained in our minds. Our battle as Christians is to not get discouraged at this, but to realize God understands our struggle and loves us.