Is Everlasting Hell Reasonable?

If you spanked your child, what could that child do to you?

Nothing

If you hit your wife, what could she do to you?

Perhaps call the cops, but probably make you sleep on the couch.

If you hit a police officer, what could he do to you?

You are going to jail tonight. Probably with some bruises.

If you hit the President of the United States, what could he do to you?

You will be shot before your fist even gets close to his face.

So, you did the same thing in every situation. You hit somebody, but you got a different consequence in every situation. So, what changed in order to give a different consequence?

It was the authority of the one whom you attacked. In each case the authority of the person was different. The President has more authority than an officer, who has more authority than your wife (in most cases), who has more authority than your child (or you have a monster, not a kid).

Apply that same logic to the Ultimate Authority, the Infinite Authority. When you sin, your sins are primarily against God because it is His image (Gen 9:6) you are supposed to bear. That means we are His representatives on Earth. When we sin we show that God is a sinner, which is a lie and is an attack on God's character. Our sins are primarily vertical (Psalm 51:4) rather than horizontal, no matter what the sin.

So, what consequence does an attack on the Infinite Authority deserve?

An infinite punishment. Everlasting Hell.

Meet Todd (4)

Todd was sitting on a bench listening to his iphone. Normally, I don't talk to people with earphones in but I did it anyway today.

Before this, Trabo had caught up with me and we prayed about the witnessing and he went to talk to a girl on a bench and I went after Todd.

Todd was probably my favorite person to talk to all day. He was a very very very laid back guy who grew up in the Presbyterian Church. I could have said anything to him and he would have been cool with it, but he was also engaged in the conversation. Usually, if you talk with some one who is laid back they are also almost oblivious to what you are saying.

Turns out I had witnessed to Todd probably a year earlier. So, I got to go down a totally different sort of questions with him. You see, I had already talked with him about the Gospel and God's Laws and he still had not changed his life.

So, I got to delve into questions like, "Why do you think you haven't submitted to God? Do you think it could be that you would rather have your sins than have God?"

Todd, said, "No." If I could sum it up, he said, that he has no interest in God. He believes in God but has no interest in reading in general, much less reading the bible. He has no interest in the things of God and thinks at the end of the day he is a good person who will earn heaven.

After talking with him for a while I brought up the fact that he must not really think he deserves hell. Then I explained why it is reasonable that telling one lie is worthy of eternity in hell. I will write another blog about that little explanation some other time. But after explaining it he understood.

Then I passionately shared what Jesus had done for us and left him there on the bench.

I remember someone saying, "If they cannot see the tears in your eyes let them hear them in your voice."

Have you wept over the lost lately, in eyes, voice, or heart?

Meet Alexa and Christi (3)

After talking with Christopher, who was a Baptist, I saw two young ladies sitting on the green.

I decided to go talk to them. They were Alexa and Christi. They had met each other in a campus bible study group called FOCUS. They were both catholics, and they were both super sweet ladies.

We started to talk about spiritual things. I was prepared for this to be a long talk because we were spending a lot of time on questions such as "Do people who have never heard of Jesus go to hell?" and we were talking about each other's lives and how we came to grow or shrink in the faith.

They had both admitted to stagnating or declining in their discipline with God. Alexa said she had not read her bible or gone to church in a while. I assume it was the same with Christi.

But before we really got to talk about the Gospel I asked, "How much time do you girls have to talk?"

Now, the reason I asked was because I wanted gauge how much time we could spend on these other things and how much time I would have to share the Gospel, but when they checked the time they had missed some calls and had to leave.

These girls were very sweet and we both hoped we could talk again another time.

The moral of the story goes never ask someone how much time they have. Just get the Gospel out there.

This may be a good place to talk about, "Why it is so important to get the Gospel out?"

You have to begin with what the Gospel is. The Gospel is the Good News of Jesus Christ. What is the Good News of Jesus Christ. It is that God Himself took on human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. He came to Earth and lived a perfect sinless life. He then proceeded to be beaten, spit upon, mocked, betrayed, flogged (whipped with a roman device that held broken bones and pottery tied to many pieces of leather), nailed to a cross, and have God the Father pour out His wrath and Crush Him. Jesus took this punishment not out of any wrong He had done, but for all the wrong we have done. He then proved His divinity by coming back to life after the 3rd day in His tomb.

This is so important because it is only through turning from one's sinful ways and trusting in this act of Jesus that one can be seen as righteous and innocent before God in Heaven even though we do not deserve it. (John 14:6, Acts 4:12).

The fine for our rebellion has been paid for and it is only through that payment can a God of justice also be a God of mercy.

Everything we do should be aimed at the cross. It's About the Cross.

Meet Christopher (2)

Before I started talking with April, I remember seeing a guy sitting on a bench all by himself. I thought, if he is still there when I am done talking with April I will go talk to him.

As providence (God's Providence [Pro 16:33, John 6:44, Eph 1:3-6, Acts 4:27-28]) would have it the dude was still there sitting all by himself on the bench.

Now, this guy was big. Not super big, but if we had to duke it out he may have been able to knock me out with one punch, but I am pretty quick. Yeah, I could have taken him.

So, I tried my line out on him. "Excuse me, are you afraid of talking to strangers?" It worked like a charm. I got to sit down with him and talk. He was studying Criminal Justice and I was like. YES!!!! If he is taking justice classes then he should get the whole God is just in punishing people for crimes thing perfectly.

Man, was I wrong. When I walked him through the law and asked him if he were concerned about going to hell he said, "No, I go to church."

Huh!? I explained to him that if he were guilty of breaking the law he could not just say to the judge, "Judge, I go to church so I know you will let me go."

He understood that, but there didn't seem to be much concern with him. I explained the Gospel to him and told him that Jesus said in order to be saved you must "Repent and Believe in the Gospel" (Mark 1:14).

He was a gentle giant kind of guy. I asked him if he had any questions for me and then said I appreciated the talk.

Then I thought I should give him an invitation card to HBC (Harvest Bible Chapel, Jacksonville).

*A Final Thought*
You never really know what is happening in some one's heart when you are talking with them. He may not have seemed concerned about going to hell, but perhaps in his heart he was trembling, or he was laughing. The only One who knows is God. It is God's job to convert the heart, it is my job to carry the message.

You could ask yourself, have you ever tried to hide from other people what was happening in your heart?

Meet April (1)

So, normally me and my good buddy Trabo (picture of us to the right ---->) will try to get some witnessing done on Tuesdays and get some Bible Study done on Thursdays. We call it our 'Tell It To'Em Tuesdays' and our 'Thru the Bible Thursdays'. Both of those terms are copyrighted so don't even think about using them.

But, I am sure you know how it goes. We looked out on the green Tuesday afternoon and were like, "I am way too scared to talk to anybody about Jesus."

Look, don't judge us, ok. I know the bible says the 'The righteous are as bold as a lion' (Pro 28:1) and it says "Whoever captures souls is wise' (Pro 11:30) and we shouldn't be afraid or nervous because Jesus said ' Go therefore and make disciples of all nations ... And behold, I am with you always ...' (Mat 28:19-20) Man, that one is a good one, but come on! We were way too chicken to talk to people that day so we went up and read our bibles together. It was really good. I think we read Job 8 and Hebrews 5.

Ok, so then our Tell It To'Em Tuesdays became Tell It To'Em Thursday and vice versa for the other day. And this is one person I met.

Her name was April. I stood around looking at potential people to talk to and there she was, just sitting on a bench staring at grass (to be fair there were some guys playing football on the green so she may have been looking at them but she had sun-glasses on, so who knows), occasionally looking at the time on her phone. So, I tried a totally new opening line on her. I said,

"Excuse me, are you afraid of talking to strangers?"

"No."

"Would you mind if I talked with you?"

"No."

And we were off. It went great. April said she was a Christian and she had grown up in the church. Now, someone might get that far and say, "Oh, you are a Christian? Then I don't need to talk to you. Good bye."

But, if God is sovereign then I am not talking to her on accident. Plus, I said I was a Christian for 10 years and the entire time I put my wants, goals, and dreams before God (just in case you were wondering, Christians should not live a life like that.)

So, I dug a little deeper. I asked her if she thought she was a good person and what she thought God thought of her. She gave a typical answer, "I am not perfect, but I do my best" (or something along those lines). Then I walked her through God's Law.

Normally, when you do this people repeat the fact that they are not perfect. Little do they know that it doesn't matter. In fact, admitting that you are not perfect is admitting that you are guilty. They get that part, but it is linking the fact that if you are guilty then you deserve punishment. Nobody ever wants to admit that they deserve hell.

*Time Out*

I deserve to go to hell for breaking God's Laws.

*Time In*

When I speak to people who say they are Christians, I try to do a couple things.

1)I want to explain the Gospel and make sure they agree with it.

2)If they do, then I try to ask them how their spiritual life is going (are they reading their bible daily, praying daily, do they have a church, etc).

Why? because if you are a Christian, then you are my brother or sister and I care about. Not to say I don't care about people who aren't Christian, if I didn't care about them I wouldn't be witnessing would I?

Oh, man, crazy convicting question coming...ready...Do you care about people who are not Christians? Are you witnessing?

Ok, ok, back to the counting thing.

3)If they are doing fine, then I usually try to enjoy a short time of fellowship with a fellow brother or sister in Christ. Those have been rare, but great times.

'And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works' (Heb 10:24)

4)Then I try to invite them to do some evangelism once in a while with me.

This time with April I am not sure if I got through #1. She had to leave early to go to class, so I wanted to make sure she understood how the penalty for her sins against God had been paid for. I explained how Jesus came and died and rose again. How He alone paid for her sins in His blood.

Of course, she said she had heard it before, but before I end this post let me leave this troubling piece of information.

She had not once mentioned the name of Jesus when I asked her about God or how to get to heaven.

'out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks' (Mat 12:34, Luke 6:45)

If your mouth never speaks about Jesus, then does your heart treasure Him?

If you are a Christian and somebody asks you about how to get to heaven, will you mention Jesus?

Do you ever mention Jesus?

It has finally come!

For the past couple of semesters at school, school has taken on a totally different role in my life. Sure, I still go to school to learn and take classes to get my degree, but now I think I have a new priority when I get on campus.

When I became a Christian I used UNF as my 'fishing hole'. The place is humongous with plenty of people walking with nothing to do so it is very easy to walk up to people and start up conversation. So when I say 'fishing hole' I mean, College Campuses are prime places for evangelism (Oh no! The 'E' word!!!).

I remember when I was first starting witnessing I would park in the farthest parking lot from school, then I would sit and pray that God would prepare me to witness to someone and then prepare someone to get witnessed to by me. Then I would wait till I saw somebody walking to class and would walk with them.

Then my evangelism turned into purposely ordering my classes so that I would have a nice break period to use for evangelism. That was great because it helped me to gain more boldness from the Lord so that one day I actually did some Open Air Preaching. If you don't know what that is, it is when you you go to place with a good amount of people and preach the Gospel loud enough for the people to hear. It has a bad rap (wrap?) because some people use this form of evangelism as a way to use harsh language and harsh tones, but not all Open Air Preachers are this way. Nonetheless, if your tone, demeanor, or looks do not inspire some animosity from the crowd THE MESSAGE OF THE GOSPEL WILL!!!

(DISCLAIMER: I know I look angry in this picture, but I don't think I was. Hehehe...Those campus reporters know exactly when to take a picture don't they? Man, I need to work out more. I think in this picture I was trying to teach them how to fly. That shirt is awesome, though. It has the ten commandments in order and they are in the form of a cross. Good Stuff.)

All of this to say, THE SEMESTER HAS STARTED AND IT IS FISHING SEASON!!!

If the whole 'fishing hole' thing is flying over your head, crack open your bible to Matthew 4:19 or Mark 1:17.

Some posts will be coming of how the fishing is going! Keep me and the people I talk to in prayer!

We are going to the beach! (Tomorrow)

"It is not my greatest work, but it will have to do. It didn't take as long as usual because I had the kids helping me out. "

That is what I am gonna be saying tomorrow at the beach after I beat everybody in the Sand Castle Building Contest.

We plan on going to St. Augustine Beach between 9:30-10am. We got some family coming and hopefully I will get to see Alana's twins and the baby girl and hopefully some friends from church.

If you read this you are invited (I think that means only Alana).

I am so lame.

Some favorite things

When I was driving to church with Daizzee today I realized something awesome.

We were driving down 295S and had just passed the 103rd and we were listening to John MacArthur preach on the Doctrines of Grace.

I turned to her and thought, I could do this for the rest of my life.

Yeah, it was pretty good. I love Sundays, I love some good ole preaching, and I love Daizzee.

(So, sappy.)

I wanted to post some of these pics, but didn't want to think of something new to write so I am gonna just piggy-back them right here.

Here are my kids...

Gabby is 7

Gracyn is 6

Eddie 2

Balderdash!

This whole day has been a clean the house day. These used to be an everyday sort of thing with me and girls.

Everyday after school I would pick them up and then tell them the first thing they would do would be clean up the house. That has kinda fallen off the way lately, but today we did it again.

*TIP
Tell your kids their jobs are important. What I do is give the girls a real checklist for their work. They really like to put their lists on the fridge and check them off when their done. It works pretty well.

So yeah, the girls cleaned up their respective rooms while I did some laundry, cleaned the bathroom, and finally cleaned my room.

That was the entire day, until...

Some old friends came over for a good ole game of BALDERDASH!

If you have never played it then an argument can be made that you may have never lived life yet. So you better get on it.

I got schooled last night my boy Paul. But, Balderdash is a game that is good even when you lose, and sometimes even better if you are losing.

Balderdash inside joke:

What is Qauckerwadger?

A game in which a badger is greased up and people attempt to strike it with flaming coconuts. The badger is eaten afterwards. This game has never been played.

good stuff...

Enter Blogger

This is my first blog. So I can update you on everything I have been doing for the last hour.

I have been thinking of names for the blog. I asked the girls to help me out and here is a list of what I got from them...

Preaching for God (gab)
Preaching the Gospel (gab)
What should I do with my sins (gra)
Singin for Jesus (gra)
Eddie boy raised both his hands (must be a pentacostal jk)
Kings of King (gab, thats right Kings of King she is 7)
Children love Jesus (gra)
Witness (gab)
Listen to the Lord God Jesus (gra)
Pray as long as you want (gra)
Jesus died on the cross for our sins (gab)
Jesus rose again (gra)
I want to know how to go to heaven (gra)

I left out a whole bunch, but I guess you kinda get the picture of what I have been doing to these kids. Ya know, 3 years ago I would have thought if some kids were giving me these answers they must have been crazy brainwashed weirdos, but now I can't help but think I have done at least a couple things right.

Eddie boy is huggin my arm and throwing himself at my body, so that means I have to go get the kids ready for a pool day.

Before I go, listen to what Gracyn just gave me as an blog site name "I need to get rid of my sins".

These kids are crazy!!!

Ok, gotta go take my brainwashed little children to play with their Auntie Daizzee and her neice (Ryan) and nephew (Ricky).

Hope this worked!