WHAT HELPED ME OUT OF DEPRESSION

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THE GOSPEL – BERT BAUMAN

“Our popular English Bible carries the name of an earthly monarch and so bears mute testimony to the influence the English King had over the translators. His directive to ‘do nothing that will disturb the tranquility of the church’, appears to have been taken very seriously by the translators since they often chose to interpret certain Greek words to support then current church doctrine, rather than render a faithful and consistent translation of the original.

I must confess to the admiration I feel for the absolute brilliance of Satan’s cunning and strategy. He has effectively polluted the entire fountain of truth from which Christians drink by causing confusion in the meaning of the single word aion, and its adjective aionios. It does not seem that this single word could be so important as to produce calamitous results, but it is just here that we see the utter genius of our adversary. Perhaps no other word, erroneously translated, could cause such widespread confusion and distortion of the truth. Practically all Christian doctrine is affected: the purposes of God, the nature of God, judgment, man’s destiny, and salvation – to say nothing of its effect upon our concept of the very God we worship and the way we treat one another as Christians, and the world at large.”

EDITOR’S ADDITION
AIÓN -- AIÓNIOS
www.tentmaker.org/books/Aion_lim.html

BERT BAUMAN continues, “The doctrine of eternal torment is not found in the Scripture but the teaching of judgment certainly is. But why judgment? Is it a matter of God’s vengeance only? The scriptures suggest that God’s judgments are desirable but not necessarily enjoyable. It is never pleasant to be judged, but the fruit of judgment is desirable. Correction produces righteousness which yields the fruit of the Spirit. Therefore, while the chastening is unpleasant, the results are a blessing. Out of love for His creatures, God chastens, and corrects. He judges His creatures for their own good.

Did not Jesus teach us to love and do good even to our enemies? And while He admonishes us to be perfect even as our heavenly Father, would our Father be less than we are expected to be? Can love pour out vengeance for its own gratification, or judge to satisfy its own sense of justice? The result of God’s judgments must ultimately be profitable and beneficial to the one being punished, ‘for the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them’ (Luke 9:56).”

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WHAT GOD SAYS CONCERNING HELL – J.F. RODGERS

“May some poor soul whose loved one has died without receiving Christ as their Saviour, find a measure of relief in the assurance that they are neither now, nor ever shall be, tortured endlessly and consciously in an inferno of fire wrongly described as the eternal abode of the dammed. Instead, they will be deprived of life until the lake of fire which is the second death no longer exists.”

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MAN’S FAILURE OR GOD’S SUCCESS – WHICH WILL STAND? – LEE SALISBURY

“The teaching of the ultimate exaltation of Jesus Christ and the ultimate reconciliation of all men unto Him, make God’s judgments consistent with His plan of creation. God’s judgments become understandable, purposeful, and constructive without violating any aspect of justice, truth, or mercy. If just one person were condemned to eternal torment, then God’s purpose in creation would have been defeated. God’s judgments are redemptive.

The end result of God’s judgments is, ‘That in the Name of Jesus every knee will bow, celestial, terrestrial, and subterranean, and every tongue will acclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord, for the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:10,11). God planned for the maturity of the times and the climax of the ages to unify all things and head them up and consummate them in Christ, both in the heavens, and on earth (Eph. 1:10). Amplified Bible

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ETERNITY EXPLAINED – LEE SALISBURY

“Eternity and its synonyms are grievous mistranslations of Hebrew and Greek words. Both the Old and the New Testament misuses indicate a biased mind-set which hides God’s true nature and purpose. Based upon decisions made in this life on earth, it is supposed that the vast multitudes that miss heaven enter an eternal hell of burning torment and anguish.

The uniform translation of aion and its adjective form aionios solves many inconsistencies in Scripture study. Jesus came to give life eonian, a quality of relationship with the Father through Himself, a life that is only the earnest of much more to come.

The most shameful consequences of this error are the grotesque images which Christianity projects of God, Who is really so loving, wise, and powerful. God’s love nature corresponds with His purpose. His wisdom and majesty dominate the ages through which all mankind will be drawn to God’s goal of creating man in His own image, ‘that God may be All in all’ (1Cor. 15:28).

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JUST WHAT DO YOU MEAN? (SERIES OF16 CHAPTERS) J. PRESTON EBY

A great sixteen chapter introductory series to ultimate reconciliation.
J. Preston Eby does a thorough job covering many aspects of the topic.
Fundamental reading for any person interested in studying universal salvation from a solid Biblical perspective.
Highly Recommended!
Internet version
www.godfire.net/eby/saviour_of_the_world.html

Also watch the testimony video of J. Preston Eby
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEwcWR8kxUs&feature=sub

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FUNDAMENTALS OR BASIS OF BELIEF – Thomas Griffith

“We will get good out of evil. Our gracious Educator does evolve for us out of corruption, temptation and sin, new purposes, new skill, new triumphs.

Beyond the overruling of intermediate evil into subserviency to a higher good, what has been superinduced as a transition state of things is therefore seen to be necessary only for a time. It will pass away with the functions which it is made to fulfill. It will at last be superseded by the highest good for everyone.”

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DOOMED TO BE SAVED – Frances Power Cobbe

“I think if we were not caught in the meshes of that wretched Augustinian scheme of theology which postulates eternal hell to compel us to accept it, -- I think, I say, if it were not for this theology, all Christendom must have long ago come to see, that, at the very least, God feels towards a sinner as a saint would do, and not as a man less good, or wise, or merciful.

We do not think man’s evil can, in the long run of the ages, finally outspeed God’s ever-pursuing mercy. He must overtake us sooner or later. We may temporarily choose evil rather than good, and vileness instead of nobleness, and be ungrateful and sinful. But God will get the better of us at last.”

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This is a thrilling poem by Matthew Arnold, keeping in mind the following fact.
Universalism was The Prevailing Doctrine Of The Christian Church During Its First Five Hundred Years
www.tentmaker.org/books/Prevailing.html

As students of the history of Christian doctrine know, among believers in eternal torment, Tertullian was one of the most extreme. That is why I think this poem is so powerful. It sent a thrill up and down my spine. :-)

“He saves the sheep, the goats he doth not save!”
So rang Tertullian’s sentence, on the side
Of that unpitying Phrygian sect which cried, --
“Him can no fount of fresh forgiveness lave
Who sins, once washed by the baptismal wave!”
So spake the fierce Tertullian. But she sighed,
The infant church, of love she felt the tide
Stream on her from her Lord’s yet recent grave,
And then she smiled, and in the Catacombs,
With eye suffused, but heart inspired true,
On those walls subterranean, where she hid
Her head in ignominy, death and tombs,
She her Good Shepherd’s hasty image drew,
And on His shoulders, not a lamb, a kid.

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A POEM BY A.G. CAMPBELL

I deem they greatly err, who hold
That He Who made the human soul,
Will not its destinies control
For final good – but, wrathful, fold
It in the shrouds of hopeless woe,
Of deathless gloom, of quenchless fire,
The creatures of His vengeful ire,
Whence it can never ransom know.

So, in the world to come, His love
Shall freely unto all abound;
Even prisoners in the depths profound
Shall see His kind face beam above
Their dreary cells, and hear His voice,
Unheeded once, in mercy call, --
“Turn, turn to Me and live!” and all
Shall hear the summons and rejoice.

Lost men, lost angels, shall return, --
Satan himself be purified;
Death shall be conquered in his pride,
And hell’s fierce fires shall cease to burn.
Then shall our God be All in all –
His love bear universal sway;
His love preserves all souls for aye,
Nor shall the weakest fear a fall.

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FROM A SERMON ON UNIVERSALISM – Stopford A. Brooke

“That Christ should have descended to assume the nature of all men, only to cast them away as refuse to be burned, does so contradict His revelation that it is no wonder that the idea of everlasting d**nation should have destroyed men’s belief.

No, the earthly dead will move on, a mighty stream to mingle in the ocean of the righteousness of God, on that far off but certain day when God will be All in all.”

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ENIGMAS OF LIFE, POSTSCRIPTUM – W.R. GREG

“Given a hell of torment and despair for millions of our friends and fellow men, can the good enjoy heaven except by becoming bad, -- miraculously changed and changed deplorably for the worst. In a word, putting on, along with the white garments of the redeemed, a coldness and hardness of heart? Does not this simple reflection suffice to disperse into thin air the current notions of a world of everlasting pain?”

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THE SHAKING OF HEAVEN AND EARTH – Charles Kingsley

“We do not deny that the wages of sin is death. We do not deny the necessity and certainty of punishment. Only tell us not that it must be endless, and thereby destroy its whole purpose. We too believe in an eternal fire, but we believe its existence to be not a curse but a blessing. That fire is God Himself Who taketh away the sins of the world, and of Whom it is therefore written, ‘Our God is a consuming fire.”

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POEM BY HELEN BRONTE

There lives within my heart,
A hope long nursed by me;
And should its cheering ray depart,
How dark my soul would be.

That as in Adam all have died,
In Christ shall all men live;
And ever round His throne abide
Eternal praise to give.

That even the wicked shall at last
Be fitted for the skies;
And when their dreadful doom is past
To light and life arise.

I ask not how remote the day,
Nor what the sinner’s woe,
Before their dross is purged away;
Enough for me to know,

That when the cup of wrath is drained,
The metal purified,
They’ll cling to what they once disdained
And live by Him Who died.

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DISPUTED POINTS – George Dawson

“Take the doctrine in which most of you were brought up – that every man who is not saved will go to hell, and that hell is a constant fire whereunto a man must be condemned forever.

I am told this is in the Scriptures. I can’t find it; but if it were there I would not believe it. I was told that it was so, and I have no doubt I said it was so. But now I disbelieve it. If this is backsliding, I will backslide.

Well, how came we ever to doubt this horrific doctrine? Not that any commentator with marvelous exegesis showed us that the text did not mean that; -- for I am but little interested in the quibble that the fire burns forever, but that the thing put into the fire burn only so long as it is capable of burning.

What has put hell fire out is a better understanding of God, and a fuller comprehension of the quality of God’s love. The love of God conquers the assertion of orthodoxy.”

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YUSEF – J. Ross Browne

“Oh, ye who are wrapped in the selfishness of a single idea! – ye who bode eternal destruction to others! Look out upon the world and learn that there are millions of human hearts as sincere and devoted as yours, who perceive a divine power great and good and merciful enough to save all, even to the weakest and most benighted.”

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