My Father in Heaven is Perfect

Steven was afraid of fire--God's fire, to be exact.
He'd heard terrifying sermons about God
tormenting those who didn't obey Him in everlasting fire.  
He constantly struggled with the question;
"If God is truly loving, then how could He be so cruel?"


Steven wanted to follow God,
but the threat of a torturous hell
made it impossible for him to trust God.

He imagined the fate of the lost as a terrifying event
Where human eyes rolled back in agony
while an angry and seething God
points a condemning finger like a hot iron
just waiting to sear the flesh of His enemies.
Even worse, Steven was told that this torture
would continue throughout eternity.

God's integrity has often been questioned by such images.
What loving human parent in their heart would ever consider barbequing their sick child forever if they could not be cured?
Yet many Christian churches teach that God will
inflict pain on His already lost and dying children.

The most prevalent reason for this error
lies not in actual Bible proof,
but from a human misunderstanding of God's justice.
Have you ever heard someone say,
"God is love, but He is also just?"

The word justice means to "do right" or set right.
How could that be in disagreement with love?
Unfortunately, the word justice in our modern day
has come to mean revenge or getting even.

But there is a big difference between God
setting things right and God getting even.
Since God is all powerful, the latter view
might as well declare Him a bully.

Steven often heard his preacher say,
"God chastises the children He loves."
Many of us can testify that God does indeed correct us
to lead us into a better understanding of Him.

But what about the eternally lost?
What would be the point of tormenting them?
This would not be a chastisement to correct
because at that point their choices are already made.

Steven felt it was even more disturbing that
God says He will wipe away all tears from our eyes.
How could he enjoy eternity knowing that
someone he once loved was constantly being tormented?
Does God intend to make us callous
to the suffering of our friends?
What kind of loving God would do that?
Not the true God of the Bible.

We need to examine these beliefs very carefully
because God's enemy has deceived many
with his insidious accusations toward God.
Within the very place that people go to search for God--
inside the Christian churches,
Satan has worked night and day for centuries
twisting scripture to give people this false view of God.
It is so deeply embedded in the traditions of most churches
that he has been able to use this false doctrine to scare
many people away from God.

Jesus promises that the truth will set us free.
When we realize the truth about God
as manifested by Jesus Christ,
we can be set free from fear.

Some preachers say that a healthy fear of God
is necessary in order to be saved.
But when we read the gospels,
how many times do we see people afraid of Jesus?
When the apostle warns people to work out
their salvation with fear and trembling,
is it really God that he is warning us to be afraid of?
Or is it the results of living a life apart from God
that we should fear?

Steven discovered that the Bible says
"God loves us with an everlasting love."
If God's love is truly everlasting,
then He must not stop loving people
just because they sin.

He also read that "God is a consuming fire."
And that "Love is a fire that cannot be put out."
So God is both everlasting love and everlasting fire.
The Bible also teaches that the righteous
are safe in God's fiery presence.

Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire?
Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” 
He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly,
He who despises the gain of oppressions,
Who gestures with his hands, refusing bribes,
Who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed,
And shuts his eyes from seeing evil: 
He will dwell on high; his place of defense
Bread will be given him, his water will be sure.
your eyes will see the King in His beauty...
Isaiah 33:10-20

This doesn't sound too much like the hell
some of us were taught about, does it?
But what about the lost?
How will God's everlasting fire/love affect them?

Remember when Jesus cleared the temple?
Some people, like the moneychangers, ran
while others like the poor and children ran to Him!

Could God's presence distill our true characters
when we finally meet Him face to face?
Could the God that brings joy to the saved
also bring terror to the lost?

As wax melts before the fire,
so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.
Psalm 68:2

Could it be that the nature and purity
of God's very presence is what destroys sinners?
The wicked will be destroyed by the brightness of God.
There will be gnashing of teeth
and cries for rocks to fall on them.

Do the wicked die as an arbitrary act of God?
Or do they die from the intrinsic results of sin?
Sinful beings melting in the presence of a loving God.
One view is merciful and loving, as God, the Life-giver,
allows people to experience the result of their own choices.
The other view is of a bully god who is vengeful--
much like an angry human getting even.

When God tells us to heap coals of fire
on the heads of our enemies,
does He mean for us to burn them?
We scorn the thought of someone
torching the head of their enemy.
All Christians know that Jesus said to love our enemies.
So the heart of the matter is
does Jesus practice what He preaches?

Just as Sodom and Gomorrah are not still burning today,
sinners will not be burning in torment forever.
They will be burned up like the stubble of the field.
There will not even be coals left to warm by.

For Steven, this was good news.
He is no longer afraid of the false image of a God that says, 
"Obey Me or I'll kill you!"

The intrinsic results of sin is eternal death.
The intrinsic result of obeying God is eternal life.
God is the life-giver, while sin is the life-taker. 
Just as God's justice is not human justice,
God's wrath is also not like man's wrath.
The Bible describes God's wrath as a giving up
of people to their own choices.

When God's wrath was on Jerusalem,
He removed His presence from it.
God's wrath gives people up to whatever
they have ultimately chosen for themselves.

When Jesus died on the cross,
He bore the weight of all our sins.
When the Father gave Him up
Jesus experienced separation from the Father.
This "giving up" was the wrath of God toward sin.

God's wrath is also His love.
He would not be a very loving God
if He forced sinners to remain in His presence
against their will.
This act of God letting go and allowing eternal death
is against God's wishes.
God does not want to let anyone go for eternity,
but He will never force us to be with Him.

If we choose to live selfishly,
we will eventually stop seeking God--the Life-giver, 
and will someday be given up to our sins--the life-taker.

God's wrath is His love--
it is a love that loves us so much
that God will never force His will on us.
If we continue to choose sin over His love
God sadly, will have nothing left to do but to let us go.

God is Love

God is Love. 1 John 4:16

Our God is a Consuming Fire

For the Lord your God is a consuming fire...
Deuteronomy 4:24

For our God is a consuming fire.
Hebrews 12:29

Love Is An Unquenchable Fire

Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
its jealousy unyielding as the grave. 
It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.
Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot wash it away. 
Song of Solomon 8:6,7 

God Tells Us to Heap Coals of Fire
on Our Enemies

Do not take revenge, my friends,
but leave room for God's wrath,
for it is written:
"It is mine to avenge; I will repay,"says the Lord.
On the contrary:
"If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."
Romans 12:9-10, 19

Fire Can Be Either Good or Bad--
Depending On Our Relationship With God

As wax melts before the fire, so let the wicked perish
at the presence of God.
Psalm 68:2

Fear of the Hypocrites:

Now I will be exalted,
Now I will lift Myself up.
You shall conceive chaff, you shall bring forth stubble;
your breath, as fire, shall devour you.
And the people shall be like the burnings of lime;
Like thorns cut up they shall be burned in the fire.

Hear, you who are afar off, what I have done;
And you who are near, acknowledge My might.” 
The sinners in Zion are afraid;
Fearfulness has seized the hypocrites.

Joy of the Redeemed:

Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire?
Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” 
He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly,
He who despises the gain of oppressions,
Who gestures with his hands, refusing bribes,
Who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed,
And shuts his eyes from seeing evil: 
He will dwell on high; his place of defense
Bread will be given him, his water will be sure.
your eyes will see the King in His beauty...
Isaiah 33:10-20

The Sea Of Glass is Mixed With Fire

And I saw what looked like a sea of glass
mixed with fire and, standing beside the sea,
those who had been victorious over the beast
and his image and over the number of his name.
They held harps given them by God...
Revelation 15:2 

Before Lucifer Was found With Sin
He walked among God's Fire

You were anointed as a guardian cherub,
for so I ordained you.
You were on the holy mount of God;
you walked among the fiery stones.
You were blameless in your ways 
from the day you were created
till wickedness was found in you.
 Ezekiel 28:14,15

The Prayer of the Lost
 
They called to the mountains and the rocks,
"Fall on us and hide us from the face of him
who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!
Revelation 6:16

God Will Eventually Let Sinners Go

For Israel is stubborn like a stubborn calf;
Now the Lord will let them forage like a lamb in open country. 
Hosea 4:16
      
God Has No Pleasure In the Death Of the Wicked

"As I live!," declares the Lord,
"I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked,
but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live."
Ezekiel 3:11

The Wicked Will Be Like Stubble

For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven,
And all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble.
And the day which is coming shall burn them up,
Says the Lord of hosts,
that will leave them neither root nor branch.
Malachi 4:1

Inspirational Thoughts:

This is not an act of arbitrary power on the part of God.
The rejecters of His mercy
reap that which they have sown.
God is the fountain of life;
and when one chooses the service of sin,
he separates from God,
and thus cuts himself off from life...
God gives them existence for a time
that they may develop their character
and reveal their principles.
This accomplished,
they receive the results of their own choice.
By a life of rebellion, Satan and all who unite with him
place themselves so out of harmony with God
that His very presence is to them a consuming fire.
The glory of Him who is love will destroy them. 

The Desire of Ages p. 764

"We are not to regard God
as waiting to punish the sinner for his sin.
The sinner brings the punishment upon himself.
His own actions start a train of circumstances
that bring the sure result.
Every act of transgression reacts upon the sinner,
works in him a change of character,
and makes it more easy for him to transgress again.
By choosing to sin,
men separate themselves from God,
cut themselves off from the channel of blessing,
and the sure result is ruin and death."
Letter 96, 1896

God does not stand toward the sinner
as an executioner of the sentence
against transgression;
but He leaves the rejectors of His mercy to themselves,
to reap that which they have sown.
 
The Great Controversy p. 36 (1888)

If you cling to self,
refusing to yield your will to God,
you are choosing death.
To sin, wherever found, God is a consuming fire.
If you choose sin, and refuse to separate from it,
the presence of God, which consumes sin,
must consume you.

Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing p. 62

Satan sought to intercept every ray of light
from the throne of God.
He sought to cast his shadow across the earth,
that men might lose the true views of God's character,
and that the knowledge of God
might become extinct in the earth.
He had caused truth of vital importance
to be so mingled with error
that it had lost its significance.
The law of Jehovah was burdened
with needless exactions and traditions,
and God was represented
as severe, exacting, revengeful, and arbitrary.
He was pictured as one who could take pleasure
in the sufferings of his creatures.
The very attributes that
belonged to the character of Satan,
the evil one represented
as belonging to the character of God.

Signs of the Times, Jan 20, 1890