Lord, precious Heavenly Father I Repent of my sins, I asked that you forgive me and wash them away permanently, which is the only way you do things. I love you, and I praise you, and I thank you in Jesus' name, amen
Seeing all of those people walking forward to accept Christ in their lives is absolutely amazing. In Luke 15, Jesus says that there is joy all over heaven, and the angels, rejoice over one person who repents. Imagine the celebration in heaven during that moment. GLORY TO GOD ❤🎉
1 Corinthians 15:1-4 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; 2 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. 3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; 4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: Please repent and give your life to Jesus Christ
THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS STORY IS NOT ABOUT HELL Most of the Jews of Jesus' day believed their souls went to "sleep" when they died, that is, if their bodies were properly buried. The only way they could ever have consciousness again was to be "awakened" on the Resurrection Day, when they would get new, living bodies. Trouble is, not all the Jews believed in the Resurrection. Some, most notably the Sadducees, changed what their Israelite ancestors believed about sleeping souls in an underground cave called Sheol to align better with what the pagan Greeks believed--that a "soul" is the "real you," which survives death as a conscious entity and travels to a spirit world to be rewarded or punished by the gods...no Resurrection needed! Consequently, some of Sadducean-influenced Jews got the idea that obedient souls in the Sheol Underworld were not asleep but having a good ol' time with their Father Abraham, but others, who were not faithful Jews, would have to be punished for the wrongs they did, at least for a while, in the lower part of Sheol. It's not at all likely that Luke inserted one of the Sadducean morality tales (like the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus) in his Gospel. But a Greek Christian copyist of his Gospel (perhaps in the Second Century) thought it would make a nice addition to the teachings of Jesus...though he could only have done so by having no clue what Jesus and most of the, Pharisee-influenced Jews of Jesus' day believed about the afterlife! There are many reasons why the place where the Rich Man's soul went was not Hell! For one thing, the text says in the Realm of HADES, as in the mythological underworld governed by the brother of Zeus! If anyone wants to say this story is real, then you'd have to also believe in all the other gods of Mt. Olympus, like Poseidon, the god who ruled the seas! Further, he's able to talk to Abraham. He could never carry on a normal conversation if he were burning alive, but would be screaming at the top of lungs! Yes, he complains about the heat being too high, but only in the same way it is outside on a hot, summer day in places like Texas! It's really bizarre to hear Neo Evangelicals assert this story has to do with Heaven and Hell, because Lazarus never does anything other than to be a poor and sickly Jew to get into "Abraham's Bosom." He never "accepts Jesus as his Lord and Savior." And then it gets any worse for Neo Evangelicals who then quote I Peter 3:18-20 to claim Jesus actually went to Hell where all the Old Testament saints, like Abraham, were waiting for Jesus to redeem them on the cross, so they got to have a chance at going with him to Heaven, assuming they believed what his soul preached to them while he was dead for three days...except that's NOT what Peter said! What Peter said is that AFTER Jesus died and was made alive by the spirit, i.e., after he was RESURRECTED from the dead, he made a "proclamation to the spirits in prison." But these "spirits," he goes on to say, were not the righteous Jews, but the spirits of all the people who turned down a chance to get on the ark of Noah, and died in the flood as a result. In other words. Now the King James translators who were doctrinally committed to the "Harrowing of Hell" belief, so they mistranslated the Greek word EKERYXEN as "preached," instead of "proclaimed," to align better with the teaching of the Church of England, inherited from Catholicism. But all Peter was doing was making a FIGURATIVE comparison between the ark of Noah that delivered him and his family from the Flood and the death and resurrection of Jesus that, similarly, delivers all sinners from sin! Rick Lannoye, author of www.amazon.com/Hell-No-Certain-There-Place/dp/1477401938 Got questions? Go to ricklannoye.com
