Sometimes I wonder how the heart of God endures the collective sin, pain, suffering, anguish, heartache and evil of this world. Each of us, if we had the opportunity to share deeply from our hearts with one another, could recount painful stories from our life—the death of loved ones, rejection, betrayal by friends and family, victimization of criminal acts, parental abandonment, financial devastation, struggles with physical and mental health, injustice, slander or libel with false accusations, marital struggles, and the list could go on. I know in my life, I have a fairly lengthy list of experiences that includes some horrific things like experiencing abandonment by my earthly father, finding the brutally murdered bodies of my niece and sister-in-law at the hands of my nephew, watching my cousin commit suicide, having my life (health, family, finances) ravaged by Lyme disease, and struggling horribly with my own brokenness and sin in a marriage for what will soon be 31 years. I have no doubt you have a list of your own. So, take your list or mine, and multiply it by 7-8 billion people. That’s billion with a “B”. What an unfathomable collective weight of sin, evil, grief, pain, heartache and sorrow. Now, let’s talk about some good news. One day soon, that trumpet is going to blow. The dead in Christ will rise first, and then those of us who are alive and remain will be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air. Our mortal, corrupt bodies will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. We will be free from this wretched carnal nature of sin. And ultimately, after the millennium, we will live in the presence of the Lord for eternity in a place where there are no tears, sorrow, death or pain. We’ve read the end of the Book. God wins and, because we belong to Him, so do we!!! Weeping may last for the night, but joy is coming in the morning!!! And so our hearts cry out to our King, Maranatha!!! Amen brother! It's simply a matter of holding on till the very end. Another wonderful aspect of course, is that many alive today shall never taste death! That's the cherry on the top. The second thing that gives us pause is the fact that some will be left behind. That raises questions about who the true Church is! Those that have seriously given their lives to the Lord seems to weigh most heavily. And that is something that only the Lord can answer. We have been given many promises and assurances for those that are truly saved. Our good works and personal righteousness doesn't save us, this we know. And the Lord has a long arm extended towards the back slider. And some shall even enter Heaven smelling of hell fire smoke. So then do we look at personal relationship with Lord?! Established relationship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit seems to also weigh heavily. Does communion in fellowship with Him grant us access into Eternal live?! And what of those who broken fellowship with Him?! Or are we to understand that those who have not availed themselves of grace through faith will be the only ones left behind? Many who have claimed glimpses into the Rapture have spoken of church attending people being left behind! While yet literally last minute acceptance of Christ still seems to effectuate salvation. Are the doctrines of salvation that cut and dry, or is there wiggle room for the Lord to sovereignly decide?! What does everyone think? TR That may be 7-8 billion sinning souls alive today, but what about God's "heartbreak" since Adam? Several more billions I expect. Yes Watchman, how does the Lord handle it? I cry just thinking about it. I believe the scripture makes it clear, TR. I know you know that God doesn't "grade on the curve". It's strictly pass/fail. In or out. Righteous or not. Born again or not. Blood-bought or not. Sealed by the Holy Spirit or not. Adopted into the family or not. We, with our finite capabilities, can only look at the outward appearance and often have a very hard time figuring out whether someone is "in or out". God does not have that problem. Sometimes we as true believers do a really, really pathetically poor job of reflecting who He is, but that doesn't make us unborn again, unsealed, or unadopted. God looks upon the heart and knows instantaneously and with 100% flawless accuracy whether a soul has been clothed with the imputed righteousness of God in Christ by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. When the trump sounds, the dead in Christ rise first, and then those of us who are alive and remain are caught up to meet the Lord in the air, the ONLY thing that will matter is whether we are clothed in the imputed righteousness in Christ. And God will be the only One who can make that assessment with divine accuracy in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. How kind of God to give us an assurance of being harpazoed and saved eternally from judgement based soley on believing on the finished work of Christ and completely devoid of any pride-producing works on our part. And yes, tragically, there will undoubtedly be a huge number of "churchgoers" who will be left behind because, in the end, they simply were never born again of God's Spirit. Perhaps then they will turn to Him, at the cost of their earthly life, when faced with the horrific realization that they have been playing church and have been left behind. Nevertheless, Thy Kingdom come and Thy will be done, Abba. Maranatha, Lord Jesus!!! Amen Watchman - my wife and I run a faith based recovery program and our hearts ache for the hundreds of people who have walked through our doors over the past 3 years. While we do our best not to take on the pain that those who participate in our program has served, its hard not to be impacted by it. At the end of the week we're often exhausted, physically and emotionally from dealing with everything that people are struggling with. And to your point, multiply our hundreds by a big number and that's what God has to feel on a daily basis. We love on our people in our program but not like God loves each of us, so I can imagine the pain is even greater. We help our folks and send them out for the week to work on themselves but God is there 24X7X365. We recently decided that we had to take a break from our ministry due to the physical and emotional toll it was taking on both of us from working with dozens of people every week. Fortunately we have trained up leaders who are doing a great job of carrying the torch and loving on the folks in our program. But in my own small way - I can definitely relate to your words. Truly being made in His image and likeness we have been given hearts, as He has. We often forget that the Lords' heart can either be blessed or grieved. His having a heart is something that He doesn't turn off at will. No doubt after an eternity in glory we may all but forget those that are bound in Hell. And we know the Lord will forget our sins never more to be remembered. But I wonder if the Lord's heart will always remember those that exist apart from Him?! And should He retain them in His knowledge will the Lord's heart forever be grieved?! TR I heard someone say the worse part of hell wont be the awful smell, the heat, the crying and moaning, the feeling of always being thirsty but the fact that God is not there. Yet before the cross ... those in hades were able to see and communicate with the believers in the waiting compartment called Abraham’s bosom. You have the rich man communicating with “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.” And Abraham replying “between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.” Then he is pleading with Abraham to send Lazarus to his father’s house to warn his 5 brothers so they do not end up with him. But Abraham’s response was they have Moses and prophets (the Scriptures to read). So it looks like those in hades did see a temporary paradise side from a distance at one time and then after Jesus died and rose again ... He opened up heaven for those O.T. Saints. So my guess now hades is total darkness? This passage is interesting too ... Was Jesus preaching/informing the fallen angels that left their first estate the work on the cross is now finished and their efforts to try to ruin the whole human race before the flood was not successful. Its hard to imagine God’s heart in knowing more people will end up in hell vs heaven. Matt 7:13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Maybe we will understand it all better in our glorified bodies how the Lord feels and perhaps He wont remember the unsaved any more ... just like He promises to His sheep when we confess our sins, He remembers them no more. Hebrews 8:12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. Isaiah 43:25 I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. Well said Geri7 TR Something I was reminded of last night during our church's Christmas program: God's enormous ability to love. John 3:16 talks of God loving his creation so much that he chose to send his son to die for our sin, but 1 John says that God IS love! I believe that it is his (God the Father) being love itself that allows him to not be crushed by the enormity our sin (although it does say that Jesus was crushed for our sin - Isaiah 53:5). I'm not sure I explained that well, but it's the best I can do to explain what I am saying. Another story they shared last night was of three religious men talking about all the similarities between their different religions. Two of the men were recognizing that their religions had so many similarities and when the third man spoke up, he said, "So what you are saying is that God is sitting at the top of a great mountain and all the world religions are down at the bottom. We are all going up the mountain, but on different paths." Both men got excited that this third man seemed to understand what they were saying, but then he added, "But Christianity is different in that God loved us and realized our sin would never let us get up the mountain, so he took human form and came down the mountain to us and died for our sin and showed us the way to God." Let's keep encouraging each other as we all hang in there! Great illustration and picture showing we need to pray for one another! :good: Yes, God IS love ... He provided the way with the eternal free gift and offers it to everyone. He doesn’t force himself on people ... He gives everyone free will to accept His generous pardon and free gift of eternal life or to reject Him. I believe at the Great White Throne judgement the lost will be shown every opportunity that they had to accept and when they said no or just put it off making a decision.
I Peter 3:18-19 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
