sorawomiagetemo

Hello! My name is Julia and I'm posting here because I'm having a little trouble in my walk with God. I've been a christian for as long as I can remember, but lately, I've been questioning a few things. I was sincerely hoping someone in this forum could help me with these. If my questions offend anyone, I sincerely apologize because that is not my intention. I just want to stop doubting God because of these questions and move forward in my relationship with God. With that said, my question is: can we really call God fair, just, or loving if he allows some of his children to go to hell? When I was little, I always assumed it was a just punishment for bad people and that was that. But lately, I've been thinking about it more deeply and I realized that hell is actually an unimaginably frightful and overwhelming thing to throw on anyone. In one of his sermons, I remember my youth pastor mentioned that God does not send people to hell, but that all people are heading towards hell because of their sin and that Jesus saved us from the punishment that we actually deserved. I accept that as true, but was it not God who allowed hell to be created? I guess this is just because I'm a teenager right now and I feel the need to be constantly blaming the world for something or another, but I also wondered about another thing: God created us whether we wanted life or not. So with the whole heaven and hell thing, it seems like God is thrusting the burden of life on people and punishing them with eternal hell if the person does not live his life the way God wants him to live it. Why did God create us to begin with? If we do not choose to believe in Jesus Christ during our short lives on Earth, why must we pay for our sins for eternity? Why does God not just erase us from existence? Why must we be tortured for eternity for one lifetime's mistakes? Is 70 years of bad choices equal an eternal life in hell? On the other hand, if we lived a faithful life and God allows us to stay in heaven with him, the Bible says there is no sorrow or pain for eternity. If that is so, then does that mean we lose the very essence of who we are? All the love and passions that we felt during our life on Earth are gone? If we are in heaven and we know that a parent or someone we loved on Earth is suffering infinitely in hell, we won't even shed a tear? Will we be constantly smiling and mechanically worshipping God with no real emotions? Was not God's purpose in creating us with free will because he wanted us to love him through our choice? Is he rewarding us in heaven by taking away our free will and full range of emotions?
..so these are a few questions I was wondering about and I really hope someone on this forum actually reads this and can help me out... If you feel that my questions are ridiculous and they offend you, I sincerely apologize, but again, my purpose in posting was only to receive some help so I can continue to grow in faith. I thank you in advance if you can help.

freedom07

Hi Julia, Welcome to the group. What you ask are very good questions. These are some of the questions I have also asked. I may be wrong, but God is probably the only one who can give the perfect answer. God loves all His children and Lucifer was a favorite in God's eye, but even he turned on his Creator. Many in this world choose to have nothing to do with the ONE true God YHVH, so what should our Heavenly Father do, force them to love him? These people say to God, I do not to be part of Your family, so they made the choice themselves to be seperated from Him.
I know I did not give you the answer you are looking for, but I am keeping you in prayer. God bless you Julia.
Love in Christ ,Tom

Boanerges

God is good always- God gives us abilities to choose- our choices affect others like ripples in a pond- yet God remains good despite mans corruption - hell was a place created for the devil and his angels- nobody goes there unless they just flat don't want to be with God- that's just another choice and God being faithful will deal with us each until our dying breath- after that comes judgement- will you be found in Christ or out- that is the only question- God knows all our flaws and every mistake we will ever make and yet He was still willing to pay the ultimate price to save us- yes God is good always and we make choices- brother Larry

GsusFrk

Those are some great Questions. I hope my measly insight might help you deal with the issues.

Let start off by understanding our God. He is a Holy God and by definition cannot be in the presence of Sin. God created man to have fellowship with him. God is Love and he wanted someone to express His love to and in return love Him back. Now in order for someone to love Him by choice because he doesn't want just robots, he has to give man the choice to love God, or not to love. He did that by giving Adam a choice to obey God or to disobey God. Adam chose to disobey God, this was the beginning of sin. Now because of God's Holiness, he created a place called Hell. A place where he will not be in the presence of sin. Now this didn't surprise God, because he already had a provision for the problem in mind. He was going to teach it to man and prepare them for this ultimate place where he could have the perfect fellowship with man by choice the way He initially intended it. If you look after Adam/Eve committed their sin the ran and hid, but God came after them and then clothes them with an animal. This was the beginning of God teaching man the cost of sin was going to be blood shed.

God establishes Holiness by giving Moses and the Jews the commandments and teaches them the Standard God requires to be in His presence and they are summed up in the ten commandments. The purpose of these commandments however was to show them that they had sin, or couldn't keep the commandments completely. He also taught them of the Passover, the Angel of Death passed the Jewish people over because of the blood of the purest lamb on their door post. These things were going to prepare them for the ultimate lamb, Jesus.

Jesus was God's provision for sin. He was going to pay the penalty for sin so that God and Man could restore the fellowship that was lost. And now the only thing God requires is that we accept the Gift God offered as the payment for our sins. God displayed His love for us in Jesus.

Now remember God is Holy, so can God be with our Sins? No, So if you have no sin than you could be with God. I think you understand this already. I just wanted to reiterate it before I started answering your questions.

What is not fair is someone who doesn't deserve our punishment paying the price we deserve, but that is what we call love.
Just is still providing a way for people to have that fellowship with Him without compromising His Holiness. That is Justice with some more Love. Second everyone is not God's Child, only those that accept His gift of Salvation into His Family. We are all his creation but His children end up in heaven. And God has provided a way for everyone to get to heaven through Jesus. It is our own choice that causing us to end up in Hell, it was never God's desire.
So yes, I think we can call God just, and loving.

As I said, God is just, the punishment of Hell is going to be different. He will judge based on their knowledge. The sentence is going to fit the crime. Sin still cannot be with God so it will be in Hell. Now Hell is described as a place with gnashing of teeth, and an unquenchable fire. It is a place full of frustration. So we know, it will be a place without God, and I think the frustrating part will be based on their knowledge. Compare the situations. Someone who has lived a descent life was aware of his sins and knows he deserves to be there, but heard about Jesus but didn't accept Him as his Savior? 2nd person was a murderer aware of his sins and knows he deserves to be there,but heard about Jesus and didn't accept Him as his Savior? 3rd person was a member of another religion tried his best to do good, but still aware of his sins, only heard of Jesus, but not sure about what Jesus did. 4th person, lived in a tribe, still aware of his sin but never heard of Jesus. We all have a conscience so we are aware of our sins, but the frustration for the different people in Hell, based on their knowledge is different and they have to remember that throughout eternity.
God's Judgment will be fair.


God created Hell so we could have a choice. To do right or to do wrong, but he couldn't be with the wrong so He needed a place to put it.

It was to create Heaven and to have that fellowship He initially desired for us, and to have it with the people who chose to have it. It allowed Him to display His love and caused His people to Love Him back, since they came to heaven based solely on what God has Done. Heaven will not be a place where people brag about the good things they did to deserve to be in heaven, because they don't deserve to be in there. That is why we sing songs like amazing grace.

To help us see the great value in God's gift. So people will not devalue God's Gift, people will not say I don't want to be with God, I'd rather be erased from existence. Instead we all get to think about how valuable God's Gift is.

in heaven we are still who we are, but everything is upgraded. we will still have emotions, there will just be no need for sorrow or pain. We will know people who are in hell, but we'll also see things from God's perspective and know that he dealt justly with them. We will be worshipping and smiling because we are eternally grateful. If you think about it we have our happiest moments when we spend time with the ones we love. And we'll have already practiced our free will to choose right from wrong, we'll have the free will to chose right from right.

These thoughts and ideas are what I've learned over my Christian walk with God, if you'd like any scripture to help enforce any part just ask and I'll try my best to get it to you.

sorawomiagetemo

Thank you very much, Tom. I think you're right; God really is the only one with all the answers... Thank you also for keeping me in your prayers, God bless you~

sorawomiagetemo

Thank you so much, Sylvanus for helping me out. Your reply helped me calm down a lot...

sorawomiagetemo

Thank you, brother Larry, for your help. Wow this is random, but I have no idea where these quick reply things are going... But yes, I agree with you about salvation being a matter of our choices and God's graciousness... Thank you so much for reminding me and for taking the time to reply.. God bless you!

sorawomiagetemo

Woooowww I'm really really thankful that you took the time to clear so much up for me... Listening to your viewpoint on these questions really touched me and helped me remember what a loving father God really is... I had somehow distorted my view of God as an angry, violent God, when really, He is the most gracious and forgiving... It's amazing how God works even through the Internet to teach me new things everyday.. But yea, thank you so much for caring enough to help me out, and I really hope my relationship with God becomes as strong as yours is with Him someday... God bless you, Gsus Frk...