Yeah, well I don't speak for 'them'. Christianity's been twisted and distorted in so many different ways by so many different people, I'm just getting back to what the Bible says. The Bible doesn't say anything about accepting Christ, only believing in Him and what He did. That's the only point I was making. Once you believe on Him he becomes your Lord and Savior, but only then. There is a difference between believing and accepting. There will be many people at judgment day who will cry out, "Lord, Lord", and Jesus is going to say, "Depart from me, I never knew you".
There is a difference between believing and accepting. What is it? There will be many people at judgment day who will cry out, "Lord, Lord", and Jesus is going to say, "Depart from me, I never knew you". Yeah I think I got that forward from grandma too.
Actually, the number of people going to hell has been a fixed and static number since before the worlds were formed. No one knows it except God.
No, God judges the heart. Spreading the gospel can inspire people to change for the better and follow the example of Jesus.
Ill just say i agree with op and believe as long as you live a good life and try to help your fellow man you wont go to hell..i believe more in a type of reincarnation where you observe different timelines until you finally become one with "god" and the worse your life the further from god you get..which could be considered hell..i think all the religions have truth and are there to help people that can find their path on their own
I'm talking about the people who havent heard of the gospel...if those people die, my understanding is that God judges their heart. We all have a conscience.
believe: to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so: Only if one believes in something can one act purposefully. accept: to take or receive (something offered); receive with approval or favor: to accept a present; to accept a proposal. Yeah, I pasted from dictionary.com.
Then there is no free will. If one knowingly rejects god, according to you, they go to hell. If one hasn't been exposed to the idea, according to you, then that isn't reason to send them their. So you contradict yourself. If one accepts god as their savior, they acknowledge It exists, obviously believe. I don't get your point about how accepting isn't enough and believing is. I was asking your definition.
The bible teaches both God's sovereignty and man's responsibility for his actions as two sides of the same coin. If God wasn't in absolute control of everything it would mean he isn't all-powerful or omnipotent. With our limited human minds there are concepts we can't fully grasp. This is one of them, much like trying to understand eternity.
Sure, its worse to knowingly reject it. Its worse to do something that is wrong when its been revealed to you that its wrong. That still doesnt mean spreading the gospel increases the amount of people going to hell, there are many people who dont reject it and change for the better.
The bible teaches both God's sovereignty and man's responsibility for his actions as two sides of the same coin. Go on... If God wasn't in absolute control of everything it would mean he isn't all-powerful or omnipotent. Exactly, I'm glad you underst- With our limited human minds there are concepts we can't fully grasp. This is one of them, much like trying to understand eternity. In other words, you can simply excuse bible contradictions as incomprehensible because we aren't god.
I don't like the word acceptance because it implies that I did something on my part to 'get' God's favor. My faith is grounded firmly in the idea that salvation comes to me totally as a gift from God, and that there was absolutely nothing that I could do of my own weakness to earn it or obtain it. Because of this I have nothing to boast about. This is humility for me. I do not brag about being a Christian, nor think of myself as being better than other human beings because of my status in Christ. I was chosen by God- I didn't choose Him. I love God because He first loved me, not the other way around. I'm just a sinner like everyone else in the world, but I'm a sinner saved by grace.
There are many concepts about reality we can't grasp. I'm not using it as a cop-out. I'm just simply stating that God is infinitely greater than us- much higher above us than we are above bacteria. He gave us everything we need to know in the bible, and in that book we learn that yes, there is an eternity, yes it has no beginning and no end, and no we cannot begin to understand it, but we accept in on faith. We also learn that God has engineered everything that has ever happened and ever will happen in the universe to His glory and for His glory. We also know that we have the ability to make choices in this life and that we are held accountable for them. No we don't understand it.