All About GOD - Growing Relationships with Jesus and Others
What if I don't want to get married?
Thoughts, perspective?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by James on
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Yes, we will have to disagree. And you cannot convince me short of a phd in psychology and a very very lengthy report, that people over 25 are unaffected and unworn from life mentally/emotionally. It just DOES NOT happen, *ever* (except perhaps in the times of Noah). Not even a person changed to being the best christian there ever was would be the same as they could have been were they 19yrs old.
I know what I'm talking about because I know a christian teenager who's 17. It's very difficult for me to even *like* males, but this christian guy is such a teenagery person, I actually like him like a brother. I know 1 more christian male over 40 who I also like like a brother, but I don't have the same bond with him I have with the younger guy. Were I to meet 2 women of similar minds, there's no way I could consider the older one as a wife. Most of the people I've formed close bonds with online have been under 25, and those I knew when they hit 20-25 became completely different people (and I've known 3 such females online, aged 16, 18 and 24, for over 3 years in each case).
I understand it might sound like a want to you, but my needs are different and I haven't lived that time of my life so that I can "get over it" and/or move on. If I never "get over it", then I'm as good as hellbait.
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Permalink Reply by Amanda on
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James, you are making some very hasty statements here. Hell is eternal and there are people in Hell right now longing to die and to be free from their suffering. This suffering is not anything close to the temporary suffering of not having your needs of a loving relationship met in this life with a wife. If your allegiance to the Lord is less than what it would be to a girl in the age range you would like to meet and marry, then IMO you are not in alignment with God in your relationship with Him as you claim. Sorry if that offends you...but admonition in this case is approproate because you are making some statements that are out of line.
As far as wanting and needing a mate goes...some people are called to remain single...but it is a need for others not to be single and it is better for that need to be met than not to be met. Even Jesus said this. Matthew 19:
10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”
11 Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”
If you cannot accept your situation, then pray for God to help you in your situation. He will help you decide if anyone you have met or will meet in the future is right for you. He will help that woman also decide if you are right for her. But don't sit around waiting for God to send you a mate.
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Permalink Reply by ManassehKnight on
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Hello Char, I'm another to disagree with you on his. I think its admiral that there are some out there chosen by God to be not married, staying innocent, giving God more of there time :). Now as for me, this isn't Gods will for me, I'm a Romantist! And have the need for a good woman and have the need to to treat her like Juliet! Or like how Jacob in the Bible treated Rachael! Working all them years for her. Yes I'm married to my lady for 13 years, her name is Nichole and with our one daughter Macie, the pretty tween girl on my page with long brown hair and the classical brown eyes and darker shade. Yes marriage is a struggle, but we prevail against the sands of time and inlaws LOL. hahaha, funny. And it is a struggle raising a tween lol, heheheh. But at the end of the day, I'm so blessed! I don't know what I would do without them! I know there's much Evil in the world that's against them, and in Spirit, I have to be as Swift as a Pharaoh on his Chariot with Gods Authority for them, against the dark forces of this world and Satan! For if I lost them, oh would I be in pain and hurt! May God above strengthen us and me to protect them, besides God, I'm all they have and that's rather humbling!
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I don't believe hell is eternal Amanda, unless you mean eternal death, which I desire anyway really. But it's more than just temporary suffering I'm feeling from having my needs unfulfilled. By having them unfulfilled, it makes God *appear* like a liar, a promise breaker, and completely uncaring. How can I *possibly* ever truly respect or care about God *if* HE (not satan) totally trashes everything of meaning to me? How can I respect God after God showing me something only to be metaphorically slapped in face with it and told too bad? See, it's not just about suffering to me anymore, but because God let me be tortured for over 30 years, and all FOR NOTHING. How can I live with that? I can't!! Who can? Not even Job had to live with being tortured over 30yrs for NOTHING.
My allegiance to Jesus eclipses everything I've said. I'm still serving him aren't I? But if I die and he cannot give me my needs, then it was a complete waste of his time ever creating me, and I was only spited by him doing so.
...and I'm sorry to say this Amanda, but you're wrong. God hasn't helped me. I haven't been sitting around. I've had 18 jobs, tried around 30 dating agencies, prayed for years, tried the occult, and even tried to get into mental hospital....JUST TO MAKE REAL LIFE FRIENDS. Don't dare accuse me of sitting around waiting. I mean ok, maybe I am, but I have no choice, as God has denied me help when I sought it with everything I had.
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James, I am sorry to hear you say these things. At this point, based on your statements here, I must ask you if you are born again? Additionally, Hell is eternal and the Bible clearly says so.
Question: "Is hell literally a place of fire and brimstone?"
Answer: By raining down fire and brimstone upon the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, God not only demonstrated how He felt about overt sin, but He also launched an enduring metaphor. After the events of Genesis 19:24, the mere mention of fire, brimstone, Sodom or Gomorrah instantly transports a reader into the context of God’s judgment. Such an emotionally potent symbol, however, has trouble escaping its own gravity. This fiery image can impede, rather than advance, its purpose. A symbol should show a similarity between two dissimilar entities. Fire and brimstone describes some of what hell is like—but not all of what hell is.
The word the Bible uses to describe a burning hell—Gehenna—comes from an actual burning place, the valley of Gehenna adjacent to Jerusalem on the south. Gehenna is an English transliteration of the Greek form of an Aramaic word, which is derived from the Hebrew phrase “the Valley of (the son[s] of) Hinnom.” In one of their greatest apostasies, the Jews (especially under kings Ahaz and Manasseh) passed their children through the fires in sacrifice to the god Molech in that very valley (2 Kings 16:3; 2 Chronicles 33:6; Jeremiah 32:35). Eventually, the Jews considered that location to be ritually unclean (2 Kings 23:10), and they defiled it all the more by casting the bodies of criminals into its smoldering heaps. In Jesus’ time this was a place of constant fire, but more so, it was a refuse heap, the last stop for all items judged by men to be worthless. When Jesus spoke of Gehenna hell, He was speaking of the city dump of all eternity. Yes, fire was part of it, but the purposeful casting away—the separation and loss—was all of it.
In Mark 9:43 Jesus used another powerful image to illustrate the seriousness of hell. “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.” For most readers, this image does escape its own gravity—in spite of the goriness! Few believe that Jesus wants us literally to cut off our own hand. He would rather that we do whatever is necessary to avoid going to hell, and that is the purpose of such language—to polarize, to set up an either/or dynamic, to compare. Since the first part of the passage uses imagery, the second part does also, and therefore should not be understood as an encyclopedic description of hell.
In addition to fire, the New Testament describes hell as a bottomless pit (abyss) (Revelation 20:3), a lake (Revelation 20:14), darkness (Matthew 25:30), death (Revelation 2:11), destruction (2 Thessalonians 1:9), everlasting torment (Revelation 20:10), a place of wailing and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 25:30), and a place of gradated punishment (Matthew 11:20-24; Luke 12:47-48; Revelation 20:12-13). The very variety of hell’s descriptors argues against applying a literal interpretation of any particular one. For instance, hell’s literal fire could emit no light, since hell would be literally dark. Its fire could not consume its literal fuel (persons!) since their torment is non-ending. Additionally, the gradation of punishments within hell also confounds literalness. Does hell’s fire burn Hitler more fiercely than an honest pagan? Does he fall more rapidly in the abyss than another? Is it darker for Hitler? Does he wail and gnash more loudly or more continually than the other? The variety and symbolic nature of descriptors do not lessen hell, however—just the opposite, in fact. Their combined effect describes a hell that is worse than death, darker than darkness, and deeper than any abyss. Hell is a place with more wailing and gnashing of teeth than any single descriptor could ever portray. Its symbolic descriptors bring us to a place beyond the limits of our language—to a place far worse than we could ever imagine.
Recommended Resource: Four Views on Hell edited by John Walvoord.
www.gotquestions.org
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I have about 6 different interpretations for "born again". No one at this website fits the first 2 of them (if they fit my 2nd definition of born again, they would have to be comparable to great Christians like AW Tozer or Oswald Chambers for example), maybe a handful fit the 3rd, and I believe I fit the 5th interpretation as I know God and do my best to obey him. So I don't fit the 4th interpretation due to not having a relationship with God, that's not my fault. It doesn't mean that's not possible for me, nor does it mean I'm going to hell because I don't have it yet.
I think "born again" is not a helpful term because there are millions of christians who say they are...and they are LYING. Either because they falsely believe they're born again, or because they're not even seeking God. I'm at least seeking God above anything and everything else in life, it just doesn't take away an ounce of my pain.
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I've been waiting for God to change me for NINE years, Char. And he hasn't. I even know what to expect on a level probably only a few on this website understand, BUT, being changed does not necessarily mean that my greatest need is completely tossed out the window for eternity. It only means I'll be able to cope and perform God's will in the meantime. And I'm willing to do that, to perform God's will with NO reward, not even heaven itself, but personally I would rather cease to exist if that be the case. Considering a reward is not even conceivable or imaginable, I cannot feel any different from what I do.
I'll be straight with you: I can't ever remember having "growing pains". My mother and no one else ever told me about them either. Your example is void because the desire/need I had 25yrs ago remains roughly almost identical, and I have not stopped hurting, due to God denying me love ALL my life, never mind only the past 25 years. God give me what I need? NOPE!!! At least he has consistantly failed to.
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Question: "How is eternity in hell a fair punishment for sin?"
Answer: This is an issue that bothers many people who have an incomplete understanding of three things: the nature of God, the nature of man, and the nature of sin. As fallen, sinful human beings, the nature of God is a difficult concept for us to grasp. We tend to see God as a kind, merciful Being whose love for us overrides and overshadows all His other attributes. Of course God is loving, kind, and merciful, but He is first and foremost a holy and righteous God. So holy is He that He cannot tolerate sin. He is a God whose anger burns against the wicked and disobedient (Isaiah 5:25; Hosea 8:5; Zechariah 10:3). He is not only a loving God—He is love itself! But the Bible also tells us that He hates all manner of sin (Proverbs 6:16-19). And while He is merciful, there are limits to His mercy. “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon” (Isaiah 55:6-7).
Humanity is corrupted by sin, and that sin is always directly against God. When David sinned by committing adultery with Bathsheba and having Uriah murdered, he responded with an interesting prayer: “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight…” (Psalm 51:4). Since David had sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah, how could he claim to have only sinned against God? David understood that all sin is ultimately against God. God is an eternal and infinite Being (Psalm 90:2). As a result, all sin requires an eternal punishment. God’s holy, perfect, and infinite character has been offended by our sin. Although to our finite minds our sin is limited in time, to God—who is outside of time—the sin He hates goes on and on. Our sin is eternally before Him and must be eternally punished in order to satisfy His holy justice.
No one understands this better than someone in hell. A perfect example is the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Both died, and the rich man went to hell while Lazarus went to paradise (Luke 16). Of course, the rich man was aware that his sins were only committed during his lifetime. But, interestingly, he never says, “How did I end up here?” That question is never asked in hell. He does not say, “Did I really deserve this? Don't you think this is a little extreme? A little over the top?” He only asks that someone go to his brothers who are still alive and warn them against his fate.
Like the rich man, every sinner in hell has a full realization that he deserves to be there. Each sinner has a fully informed, acutely aware, and sensitive conscience which, in hell, becomes his own tormenter. This is the experience of torture in hell—a person fully aware of his or her sin with a relentlessly accusing conscience, without relief for even one moment. The guilt of sin will produce shame and everlasting self-hatred. The rich man knew that eternal punishment for a lifetime of sins is justified and deserved. That is why he never protested or questioned being in hell.
The realities of eternal damnation, eternal hell, and eternal punishment are frightening and disturbing. But it is good that we might, indeed, be terrified. While this may sound grim, there is good news. God loves us (John 3:16) and wants us to be saved from hell (2 Peter 3:9). But because God is also just and righteous, He cannot allow our sin to go unpunished. Someone has to pay for it. In His great mercy and love, God provided His own payment for our sin. He sent His Son Jesus Christ to pay the penalty for our sins by dying on the cross for us. Jesus’ death was an infinite death because He is the infinite God/man, paying our infinite sin debt, so that we would not have to pay it in hell for eternity (2 Corinthians 5:21). If we confess our sin and place our faith in Christ, asking for God’s forgiveness based on Christ’s sacrifice, we are saved, forgiven, cleansed, and promised an eternal home in heaven. God loved us so much that He provided the means for our salvation, but if we reject His gift of eternal life, we will face the eternal consequences of that decision.
Recommended Resource: Four Views on Hell edited by John Walvoord.
www.gotquestions.org
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Question: "Is annihilationism biblical?"
Answer: Annihilationism is the belief that unbelievers will not experience an eternity of suffering in hell, but will instead be “extinguished” after death. For many, annihilationism is an attractive belief because of the awfulness of the idea of people spending eternity in hell. While there are some passages that seem to argue for annihilationism, a comprehensive look at what the Bible says about the destiny of the wicked reveals the fact that punishment in hell is eternal. A belief in annihilationism results from a misunderstanding of one or more of the following doctrines: 1) the consequences of sin, 2) the justice of God, 3) the nature of hell.
In relation to the nature of hell, annihilationists misunderstand the meaning of the lake of fire. Obviously, if a human being were cast into a lake of burning lava, he/she would be almost instantly consumed. However, the lake of fire is both a physical and spiritual realm. It is not simply a human body being cast into the lake of fire; it is a human’s body, soul, and spirit. A spiritual nature cannot be consumed by physical fire. It seems that the unsaved are resurrected with a body prepared for eternity just as the saved are (Revelation 20:13; Acts 24:15). These bodies are prepared for an eternal fate.
Eternity is another aspect which annihilationists fail to fully comprehend. Annihilationists are correct that the Greek word aionion, which is usually translated “eternal,” does not by definition mean “eternal.” It specifically refers to an “age” or “eon,” a specific period of time. However, it is clear that in New Testament, aionion is sometimes used to refer to an eternal length of time. Revelation 20:10 speaks of Satan, the beast, and the false prophet being cast into the lake of fire and being tormented “day and night forever and ever.” It is clear that these three are not “extinguished” by being cast into the lake of fire. Why would the fate of the unsaved be any different (Revelation 20:14-15)? The most convincing evidence for the eternality of hell is Matthew 25:46, “Then they [the unsaved] will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” In this verse, the same Greek word is used to refer to the destiny of the wicked and the righteous. If the wicked are only tormented for an “age,” then the righteous will only experience life in heaven for an “age.” If believers will be in heaven forever, unbelievers will be in hell forever.
Another frequent objection to the eternality of hell by annihilationists is that it would be unjust for God to punish unbelievers in hell for eternity for a finite amount of sin. How could it be fair for God to take a person who lived a sinful, 70-year life, and punish him/her for all of eternity? The answer is that our sin bears an eternal consequence because it is committed against an eternal God. When King David committed the sins of adultery and murder he stated, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight…” (Psalm 51:4). David had sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah; how could David claim to have only sinned against God? David understood that all sin is ultimately against God. God is an eternal and infinite Being. As a result, all sin against Him is worthy of an eternal punishment. It is not a matter of the length of time we sin, but the character of the God against whom we sin.
A more personal aspect of annihilationism is the idea that we could not possibly be happy in heaven if we knew that some of our loved ones were suffering an eternity of torment in hell. However, when we arrive in heaven, we will not have anything to complain about or be saddened by. Revelation 21:4 tells us, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” If some of our loved ones are not in heaven, we will be in 100 percent complete agreement that they do not belong there and that they are condemned by their own refusal to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior (John 3:16; 14:6). It is hard to understand this, but we will not be saddened by the lack of their presence. Our focus should not be on how we can enjoy heaven without all of our loved ones there, but on how we can point our loved ones to faith in Christ so that they will be there.
Hell is perhaps a primary reason why God sent Jesus Christ to pay the penalty for our sins. Being “extinguished” after death is no fate to dread, but an eternity in hell most definitely is. Jesus’ death was an infinite death, paying our infinite sin debt so that we would not have to pay it in hell for eternity (2 Corinthians 5:21). When we place our faith in Him, we are saved, forgiven, cleansed, and promised an eternal home in heaven. But if we reject God’s gift of eternal life, we will face the eternal consequences of that decision.
Recommended Resource: Four Views on Hell edited by John Walvoord.
www.gotquestions.org
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This is too much reading for me, but I will point out 1 thing:
"A spiritual nature cannot be consumed by physical fire."
<--- who says the lake of fire is not spiritual? I believe it's more than just physical.
But I'm not going to debate over this, because I don't have the hope of annihilation (I wish). I would have to have God promise me that first.
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One more point to consider is that hell is not the lake of fire, at least I did not get that impression from reading the Bible. How can hell be thrown into itself? Unless that's an implosion?
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Permalink Reply by Leonard T on
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Greetings All,
The comments on this forum have long since departed from the topic posted by the originator of this forum. Please return to the topic and/or start a new forum with the addressing the new topic.
Lord Bless,
LT
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