In case you have not heard of Rob Bell, he is a pastor of a church "Mars Hill" in the USA.
He is considered by many to be either a genius, a heretic, confused, false teacher or a wonderful christian leader.
His book Love Wins seems to present the suggestion that even after death everyone will be given an opportunity to go to heaven regardless of what they believed or did during their lifetime.
This would also label him as a Universalist something he flatly denies.
Ininterviews he seems to respond to most questions not with a definate reply but with another question so he is able to dodge the original question and its implictions.
Yet Revelation has invited Rob Bell for an interview.
It is giving airtime to a man who to my mind is a best very confused and at worst someone who picks and chooses scripture to fit his pseudo-theology.
Please watch the following:
15 comments:
Rob Bell has been on RTV before and many were unhappy with the soft approach of the interview. How many betrayals have there been by this kind of broadcasting we will never know. Where we live it is difficult to find a church and initially we thanked God for Revelation tv as I am sure many like us will have done. We are pensioners on limited income and we tithed to help build this foundation. May the Lord forgive us. You have sounded a clear warning Bob and may the Lord bless you for your faithfulness. It looks as though this has been on an extremely dodgy foundation from the word go. May all of us learn the lessons intended from this and God help Revelation tv.
Ann
I bought the book last year in my local 'Christian' book shop. I used to think similarly to Bell, but now no longer believe that ALL people will be saved. I still however, cannot accept that God will 'burn' the majority of humans forever. I've tried to 'step out' in faith and trust God to do what is right and in all honesty, in my mind and heart, that means God destroying the wicked - yes they suffer anguish etc but not forever. This doctrine of eternal conscious torment is interfering with me trusting and loving God. If the majority of 'christians' are telling me that hell is real and people will go there to suffer for all eternity, my mind and heart recoil and I can't get past this. I'm so confused. Catherine
I do hope that RTV find the strength to counter his universalism with the truth, lives depend on it.
God bless Bob.
This is scheduled for Sun 8th Jan at 5pm, I have just looked the book up on Amazon, there are extensive reviews, as you would expect either completely supportive or radically against. In my opinion, a very dangerous man, whose writings are an insult to God's Word and our Saviour's death and resurrection, will RTV consider his opinion's seriously, will they give a platform to such heresy?
Brother Bob; A book that I have here at home known as the Holy Scriptures tells me that once the outer shell of a person has become deceased and the spirit leaves the body it either goes to one of two places, Heaven or Hell. That final destination becomes dependent on whether the person who has just died had a belief in the salvation plan for humanity brought to us by the Lord Jesus Christ, and because of that belief repented of their sins before death. The cold hard reality of the matter is that once a person has crossed over the line from this life to the next it is far too late to reverse the decision made while they were alive relative to their final destination. Once death has taken place and the deceased person reaches their eternal destination that is where they are going to have to languish, or spent eternity in heavenly bliss, depending on whether they find themselves in Hell or Heaven. Accordingly, for Rob Bell to state publicly that the deceased person has the possibility of another chance and may reverse the decision made while alive relative to that final destination if they find themselves heading into Hell is nothing more than sheer hearsay. Any such proclamations are the ramblings of a lunatic, or in the very least someone who is very confused as to the salvation plan for humanity. For the benefit of one's sanity it may then best be if this man were ignored altogether as he is not doing the work of the Lord, but rather the work of Satan. This man is not a genius. He is an idiot of the worst kind! Is this is the calibre of person that Revelation TV allows on air? What a disgrace Revelation TV has turned out to be!
Hi bob and sarah, praise the lord, this is what the lord is talking about in 2 peter 2 v 1 these are in the church bringing there false doctrine with them, jesus taught more about hell then heaven , and to avoid hell by coming through him , praise the lord, God bless you both , Gwyn , from wales
There are no ifs buts or maybes here, one is saved before dying, or one is not. If one is saved then the saved person is Heaven bound. On the other hand, if one is not saved before having the death experience then there eternal destiny is Hell fire. There is no other alternative to the above. Love does not win at all but only Christ wins, as the rest is just so ridiculous to contemplate that it is not even really worth the time of day to do so.
The deeper one goes into deception, the steeper the path becomes, meaning it becomes even harder to reject error, and return to Biblical truth.
A rise in deception, with a corresponding rise in those who fall prey to it, is one of the major signs of the Last Days.
If only the Management of Revelation could do what our Lord exhorts us in Matthew 24:4.
Sadly, I fear they will not.
Jesus Christ died for the sin of the whole world.
Sin has been dealt a death blow. Sin is no longer the issue.
no one goes to hell who accepts the free gift of Salvation by Grace through faith alone.
If anyone ends up in hell, it will be as a result of refusing the free gift of Salvation.
So faith is the issue NOT sin because Jesus paid the wages of sin on the cross.
All bought and paid for by FREE GRACE.
BOB BELLS teaching deliberately complicates and confuses with a forked tongue.
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
Rob Bell's message is deadly in his twisted wisdom. the man is a universalist and a pagan dead in sin because he will not accept the free gift of ONLY BELIEVE.
Quite clearly, Rob Ding-Dong has very little insight into the correct interpretation of the scriptures. I make that evaluation mainly because he had said right at the beginning of that DVD the word of God teaches that there are only a few that are going to inherit the Kingdom of God. At the same time suggesting the majority of those who experience death are Hell bound. What that indicates is that Bell is claiming to have insight into the final destination of the departed soul when there is no one who has access to that information, except for the deceased and God alone. On the other hand, the word of God quite clearly says the salvation plan through the Lord Jesus Christ is for anyone at all to accept, and once having repented of sin eternal salvation is guaranteed. I am not claiming to know how many souls are in Heaven and how many souls are in Hell; however, if what I have mentioned above is any indicator at all, over the centuries there must have been literally millions and millions of Christians that would have gone to Heaven and not the scanty few as Bell has suggested. Because of the teachings of heretics such as Bell, those that have gone to Hell must surely outweigh those who have gone to Heaven. However, that statement is only supposition, as I really do not know that is the instance at all. Nevertheless, there is one certainty that I am sure of, I am not going to Hell.
Actually Bell questions the bible and even the Lord Jesus himself regarding how many will be saved.
Jesus said in Matthew 7:14 few find the way to life and many do not.
Simply because one said a prayer 30 years ago and now lives like anyone else on the planet does not mean you are saved because of that prayer.
Paul said you will be saved IF you continue.
The obvious question is "What happens to you if you do not continue."
I know a gentleman on Rev.tv who said he sent some people through a hospital asking everyone there "Would you like to go to heaven when you die?"
When the people responded with a yes they were told to repeat a prayer accepting Jesus and asking for forgiveness.
The gentleman smiled at me and said "So you see everyone in that hospital was saved."
This is a cheap gospel.
The bible says otherwise.
I relate to what Ann said (1st comment), we have, over the years, learned much from RTV and have supported them financially. This was a part of our Christian journey but there is a time to move on, to stay focused on God's Word and not on any human source. Many times, we have had to turn from what we thought was sound teaching, to repent and turn back, after revelation from God's Word. It is too easy to become dependent upon or overly attached to a church / TV station / a seemingly good teacher of The Word, we must pray for wisdom and discernment as deception is rife. For me, it is a sign that our faith is real, that God keeps correcting us, He does not allow us to become complacent and comfortable in our faith, there is a constant tension as we seek His truth and realign ourselves with His will. I used to hate this, just wanting to find the 'perfect' church and be settled, everytime we thought we had reached this position, God shook us out of our complacency; He wants us to trust Him not our comfortable routines, not human ministries and doctrines that are not seeking to cut through error, to be as God's Word, sharper than any two edged sword.
The Heaven / Hell question (Catherine, 2nd comment), I think as long as we try to reconcile God's ways with our human perceptions of love and fairness, we will always be at odds with God's Word. For me, this is true faith, trusting that His ways are greater than ours, so far above that we will never truly understand the big picture, this side of Heaven. He has revealed enough for us to trust, He has given His Son for our sins to be forgiven, who are we to question His mighty plans for Eternity (does the pot confront the potter?)because they do not sit comfortably with our human understanding and emotions.
'Christians' have alot to answer for in all that they have spoken, written and taught, supposedly in the name of Christ's love for the world.
As has been pointed out above,the Lord Jesus Christ did in fact major on hell.
There is much in the flesh that cannot accept the doctrine of eternal torment/burning in hell. God is righteous,divine justice will be done. It all depends whether we want to accept the plain literal teaching of the abiding Word of God or not, i.e; Daniel 12.2.
As an unregenerate man I am sure that I 'sent people to hell' (obviously I have repented of doing such-I was ignorant). You only have to switch on the tv or listen to secular people converse, they quote hell more than true believers! Such deception abounds!
The fact IS that eternal torment IS clearly taught in scripture.
Revelation 20.14 says; 'And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.'
Death; i.e. those whose names were 'not found in the book of life' were thrown into the lake of fire; Revelation 20.15.
Now turn to Revelation 20.10 and we read that the 'lake of fire' torments Satan,the Beast and the False Prophet for eternity. And Revelation 21.8 confirms that unbelievers etc will 'have their part' in this same lake of 'fire and brimstone; which is the second death.' Revelation 20.10 confirms that this lake burns for eternity which agrees with Daniel 12.2.
Not pleasant but true. This IS why God 'Commandeth all men everywhere to repent'; Acts 17.30. The gospel is not an invitation but a commandment!
I don't like the idea of eternal damnation, but just because I don't like it,doesn't mean it isn't true.
False teachers are everywhere in the Church today. Most churches from my understanding never open the last book of the bible.
I wonder if I would get an invite on RTV?
From our human vantage point Bell seems right regarding hell. As Catherine felt in her post near the top: it seems impossible that a loving God would send billions of people to eternity in hell - it just doesn't make sense.
First off, we need to understand that this "feeling" has its root in, and has come from, our very limited experience, it also has come through our very limited 5 senses, as well as through our sinful and fallen sense of what is right and wrong.
Second, we need to see that right now, at this time in history, as He has for the last 2 thousand years...God is showing and offering His love to all. He gave His precious Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as a sacrifice!!!! Now is the time of salvation!
But then...later...when the books are opened...it is then that we will see and know His holiness...His perfect, just and righteous holiness. I wonder if it will be such holiness that, by comparison, we will know that even a person guilty of the smallest, most insignificant single sin - that is not covered by the precious blood of Christ, would be deserving of an eternity away from the LORD.
If there is no hell then we don't have to waste our time preaching the Gospel or financialy supporting or praying for our favourite ministries to do it too, we don't really need to take our thoughts captive and we can pretty well do as we please cos it doesn't matter . we're all going to heaven ! It is of course correct that the word 'hell' in the KJV is often used for what should say Gehenna or Hades but this does not take away from the actual message, Jesus is obviously relating the experience to something they can have an understanding of, along with that is the word 'eternal' whick kind of sums it up to less intelectual types like me and makes the seriousness of it all pretty obvious. I often think that people can become so educated that it makes them thick, without meaning to be judgemental I place Prof Stephen Hawking in that category, he is a very inteligent man with an understanding of quantum physics, astronomy and maths but he can not see the blatantly obvious intelligent design of it all. Some pastors are the same, with great knowledge of the bible and Jewish history/culture but for some strange reason they preach a message that is not actually in the bible. It upsets me that many people will end up there whom I consider pretty decent people but I have to submit to the King Creator and accept His wisdom and justice is perfect, which in fact it is.
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