O That the Atheist....

[Kokavkrystallos]

O that the theist would question the gods and stop excusing every divine horror.

O that the theist who has even a modicum of doubt that there is any intelligent force behind the operations of the Cosmos would open their heart to see such utter complexities as the Universe, on down to the smallest known particle, all show plainly the utter naturalness of reality.

O that the theist would recognize that the absolute horror of a god that demands absolute love, which unrequited demands absolute and eternal torture, who gave His Son Jesus Christ to appease himself for a system he set up himself.

Believe if you must, but none of your surmises will bring your fantasies into existence and, being non-existent, will accomplish nothing despite your belief and worship. Debate with gods for none shall answer you!

Thou art human and wert born human. There is no penalty of sin for there are no gods to sin against. Live a good life for it is the only one thou hast and shalt ever have.

O that the theist wouldst come to know the non-existence of God, who is doing absolutely nothing that you might be saved (from what?)! (A KJV Bible? Really?) Read philosophers. Understand the vacuousness of the wisdom of the bible. For nothing therein, being profound, is true, and nothing therein, being true, is profound. Knowest thou this: there is no hell from which one might be saved. Awaken thine heart to reality here and now for there is none other.

Turn now from wasteful imaginings. Life is to be lived here and now and if thou doest nothing for which thou couldst be remembered then truly thy life that thou hadst lived was in vain.

I'm still interested to know how you went from allegedly Christian for 44 years to Atheist?

I pray for your soul, and all who don't know Christ, because when it comes time to part this world, it will be a massive shocker.

 

[Kokavkrystallos]

You think people who don't believe in the Christian god think that they themselves are a god? What godly powers do they think they have?

I think they mean not that you think you are a god, but by default, if self is all you have and rely on, that becomes an idol ahead of God, even if you don't worship self.

 

[Tinker Grey]

I'm still interested to know how you went from allegedly Christian for 44 years to Atheist?

I pray for your soul, and all who don't know Christ, because when it comes time to part this world, it will be a massive shocker.

Feel free to not pray for me. I'm not interested in your incantations.

As to becoming athest: What's to say? Investigating my beliefs, I found them unjustified.

 

[comana]

I think they mean not that you think you are a god, but by default, if self is all you have and rely on, that becomes an idol ahead of God, even if you don't worship self.

Which is a strange idea from an atheist’s point of view. We have family, friends and community to rely on.

 

[Larniavc]

that becomes an idol

So hold on, but if you don't worship yourself as an idol, how can you be said to call yourself an idol?

I think they mean not that you think you are a god, but by default, if self is all you have and rely on, that becomes an idol ahead of God, even if you don't worship self.

Rely on for what?

 

[dlamberth]

Feel free to not pray for me. I'm not interested in your incantations.

Your way more accommodating than I.
He would not have my permission to pray for my soul.

 

[Ophiolite]

But then I had nagging questions near 40 years ago now, and Jesus spoke to me, and revealed Himself by the Word of the LORD. The change was immediate, and the complete 180 I did from the life of sex, drugs & rock n roll & the occult was abandoned.

Some of us agnostics and atheists had more than enough purpose in life and moral compass not to join the sex, drugs and rock and roll bandwagon. Please don't project your failings on to others. It make you look foolish and ensures your message is ignored.

I suspect the poster hit a nerve here. I pray that it go smoothly .

The poster very definitely hit a nerve. As others have remarked many (most) people object to being preached at. This is especially so when the preacher makes inaccurate statements about what they think and why they think it, patronises them and seems wholly unable to understand any rebuttals. If any one wants an example of how not to practice evangelism just use this thread.
FYI: it's not going smoothly.

 

[Kokavkrystallos]

Feel free to not pray for me. I'm not interested in your incantations.

As to becoming athest: What's to say? Investigating my beliefs, I found them unjustified.

Prayer is not "incantations" Those are occult oriented. Prayer is pouring your heart out to God, asking in Jesus' name, praising Him and thanking Him for His mighty power.
I certainly cannot harm you or anyone with prayer for the salvation of your souls.

PS: I've investigated my beliefs also, and found them completely justified.
Ever read Case For Christ by Lee Strobel, or Evidence that Demands a Verdict, More Evidence, and More than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell, or look at any of the Creation science evidences?
I have but I did not NEED them to affirm my faith. That was affirmed by God's dealing with me over many years.

 

[Desk trauma]

Ever read Case For Christ by Lee Strobel, or Evidence that Demands a Verdict, More Evidence, and More than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell, or look at any of the Creation science evidences?

Yes.

 

[Paulos23]

You realize many of us here have seen this before? Heck, I have been preached at on this forum since day one.

The only thing it has done is make me question what people believe, and then drive me away.

That is pretty much all you are going to do here. You might want to settle down and think out what you want to say, and if that is coming across why you have said.

 

[Kokavkrystallos]

You realize many of us here have seen this before? Heck, I have been preached at on this forum since day one.

The only thing it has done is make me question what people believe, and then drive me away.

That is pretty much all you are going to do here. You might want to settle down and think out what you want to say, and if that is coming across why you have said.

I'm saddened that preaching drives you away. I somewhat understand because there was a time in my life I felt same. Even a girl I was very interested in was preaching to me, mostly via letters, and I rejected her and chose Satan. And I was single! And looking! How hard hearted and deceived I was!
But it was the reading of all her letters, still not believing, but then a few days later praying in general out into the Universe, that Jesus revealed Himself to me. The letters, however, certainly were seed planters.

And my preaching ain't been nothing compared to this! Considered by some the most famous sermon ever, and yes, people were converted to Christ during it...

"Awakening unconverted persons

1. The reality of your situation​

The use of this awful subject may be for awakening unconverted persons to a conviction of their danger. This that you have heard is the case of everyone out of Christ. That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell’s wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon nor anything to take hold of; there is nothing between you and hell but the air. It is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up.

You are probably not sensible of this: you find you are kept out of hell, but [you] do not see the hand of God in it, but look at other things: as the good state of your bodily constitution, your care of your own life, and the means you use for your own preservation. But indeed these things are nothing; if God should withdraw His hand, they would avail no more to keep you from falling, than the thin air to hold up a person who is suspended in it.

Your wickedness makes you, as it were, heavy as lead, and to rend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink, and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf. Your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider’s web would have to stop a falling rock.

Were it not for the sovereign pleasure of God, the earth would not bear you one moment, for you are a burden to it: the creation groans [at] you (Rom 8:22); the creature is made subject to the bondage of your corruption, not willingly. The sun does not willingly shine upon you, to give you light and to serve sin and Satan. The earth does not willingly yield her increase, to satisfy your lusts; nor is it willingly a stage for your wickedness to be acted upon. The air does not willingly serve you for breath to maintain the flame of life in your vitals, while you spend your life in the service of God’s enemies. God’s creatures are good, and were made for men to serve God with; and do not willingly subserve any other purpose, and groan when they are abused to purposes so directly contrary to their nature and end.

And the world would spew you out, were it not for the sovereign hand of Him Who hath subjected it in hope. There are black clouds of God’s wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder; and were it not for the restraining hand of God, they would immediately burst forth upon you. The sovereign pleasure of God, for the present, stays His rough wind—otherwise it would come with fury; and destruction would come like a whirlwind, and would be like the chaff of the summer threshing-floor.

The wrath of God is like great waters that are restrained for the present; but they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given; and the longer the stream is stopped the more rapid and mighty is its course when once it is let loose. It is true that judgment against your evil works has not been executed hitherto; the floods of God’s vengeance have been withheld. But your guilt in the meantime is constantly increasing, and you are every day treasuring up more wrath; and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God that holds the waters back, that are unwilling to be stopped, and press hard to go forward. If God should only withdraw His hand from the flood-gate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would come upon you with omnipotent power; and if your strength were ten thousand times greater than it is, yea, ten thousand times greater than the strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil in hell, it would be nothing to withstand or endure it.

The bow of God’s wrath is bent and the arrow made ready on the string; and justice directs the bow to your heart, and strains at the bow—and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being drunk with your blood.

Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls (Eze 36:26); all you that never were born again and made new creatures (2Co 5:17), and raised from the dead in sin to a state of new (Col 2:12), are in the hands of an
angry God. However you may have reformed your life in many things—and many have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets and in the house of God—it is nothing but His mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction.

However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it. Those that are gone from being in the like circumstances with you, see that it was so with them; for destruction came suddenly upon most of them; when they expected nothing of it, and while they were saying, “Peace and safety.” Now they see that those things on which they depended for peace and safety, were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.

The God that holds you over the pit of hell—much in the same way as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire—abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire; He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire. He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in His sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in His eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended Him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet, it is nothing but His hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else that you did not go to hell last night, that you were suffered to awake again in this world after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given while you have been reading this address, but His mercy; yea, no other reason can be given why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.

O sinner, consider the fearful danger you are in! It is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God Whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it and burn it asunder. And you have no interest in any mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself—nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you have done, nothing that you can do—to induce God to spare you one moment.

Flee to Christ​

And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Christ has thrown the door of mercy wide open (Luk 4:17-21), and stands calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners (Pro 8:1-11), a day wherein many are flocking to him and pressing into the kingdom of God. Many are daily coming from the east, west, north, and south; many that were very lately in the same miserable condition that you are in, are now in a happy state with their hearts filled with love to Him Who has loved them and washed them from their sins in His own blood (Rev 1:5), and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God (Rom 5:2). How awful is it to be left behind at such a day and see so many others feasting, while you are pining18 and perishing! To see so many rejoicing and singing for joy of heart, while you have cause to mourn for sorrow of heart, and to howl for vexation of spirit! How can you rest one moment in such a condition? Are not your souls as precious as the souls of those who are flocking from day to day to Christ?

Are there not many who have lived long in the world, who are not to this day born again, and so are aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and have nothing ever since they have lived, but treasured up wrath against the day of wrath? O sirs! Your case, in an especial manner, is extremely dangerous. Your guilt and hardness of heart are extremely great. Do not you see how generally persons of your years are passed over and left in the dispensations19 of God’s mercy? You had need to consider yourselves, and wake thoroughly out of sleep; you cannot bear the fierceness and wrath of the infinite God!

And you, young man and young woman, will you neglect this precious season that you now enjoy, when so many others of your age are renouncing all youthful vanities and flocking to Christ? You especially have now an opportunity; but if you neglect it, it will soon be with you as it is with those persons who spent all the precious days of youth in sin, and are now come to such a dreadful pass in blindness and hardness.

And you children who are unconverted, do not you know that you are going down to hell, to bear the dreadful wrath of that God Who is now angry with you every day and every night? Will you be content to be the children of the devil (1Jo 3:10), when so many of the children of the land are converted, and are becoming the holy and happy children of the King of kings?

And let everyone that is yet out of Christ and hanging over the pit of hell—whether they be old men and women, or middle aged, or young people, or little children—now hearken to the loud calls of God’s Word and providence (Mar 1:15)."

~~~ Excerpts from Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, by Jonathan Edwards - Enfield, 1741

 

[Nithavela]

I'm saddened that preaching drives you away. I somewhat understand because there was a time in my life I felt same. Even a girl I was very interested in was preaching to me, mostly via letters, and I rejected her and chose Satan. And I was single! And looking! How hard hearted and deceived I was!
But it was the reading of all her letters, still not believing, but then a few days later praying in general out into the Universe, that Jesus revealed Himself to me. The letters, however, certainly were seed planters.

And my preaching ain't been nothing compared to this! Considered by some the most famous sermon ever, and yes, people were converted to Christ during it...

"Awakening unconverted persons

1. The reality of your situation​

The use of this awful subject may be for awakening unconverted persons to a conviction of their danger. This that you have heard is the case of everyone out of Christ. That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell’s wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon nor anything to take hold of; there is nothing between you and hell but the air. It is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up.

You are probably not sensible of this: you find you are kept out of hell, but [you] do not see the hand of God in it, but look at other things: as the good state of your bodily constitution, your care of your own life, and the means you use for your own preservation. But indeed these things are nothing; if God should withdraw His hand, they would avail no more to keep you from falling, than the thin air to hold up a person who is suspended in it.

Your wickedness makes you, as it were, heavy as lead, and to rend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink, and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf. Your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider’s web would have to stop a falling rock.

Were it not for the sovereign pleasure of God, the earth would not bear you one moment, for you are a burden to it: the creation groans [at] you (Rom 8:22); the creature is made subject to the bondage of your corruption, not willingly. The sun does not willingly shine upon you, to give you light and to serve sin and Satan. The earth does not willingly yield her increase, to satisfy your lusts; nor is it willingly a stage for your wickedness to be acted upon. The air does not willingly serve you for breath to maintain the flame of life in your vitals, while you spend your life in the service of God’s enemies. God’s creatures are good, and were made for men to serve God with; and do not willingly subserve any other purpose, and groan when they are abused to purposes so directly contrary to their nature and end.

And the world would spew you out, were it not for the sovereign hand of Him Who hath subjected it in hope. There are black clouds of God’s wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder; and were it not for the restraining hand of God, they would immediately burst forth upon you. The sovereign pleasure of God, for the present, stays His rough wind—otherwise it would come with fury; and destruction would come like a whirlwind, and would be like the chaff of the summer threshing-floor.

The wrath of God is like great waters that are restrained for the present; but they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given; and the longer the stream is stopped the more rapid and mighty is its course when once it is let loose. It is true that judgment against your evil works has not been executed hitherto; the floods of God’s vengeance have been withheld. But your guilt in the meantime is constantly increasing, and you are every day treasuring up more wrath; and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God that holds the waters back, that are unwilling to be stopped, and press hard to go forward. If God should only withdraw His hand from the flood-gate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would come upon you with omnipotent power; and if your strength were ten thousand times greater than it is, yea, ten thousand times greater than the strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil in hell, it would be nothing to withstand or endure it.

The bow of God’s wrath is bent and the arrow made ready on the string; and justice directs the bow to your heart, and strains at the bow—and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being drunk with your blood.

Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls (Eze 36:26); all you that never were born again and made new creatures (2Co 5:17), and raised from the dead in sin to a state of new (Col 2:12), are in the hands of an
angry God. However you may have reformed your life in many things—and many have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets and in the house of God—it is nothing but His mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction.

However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it. Those that are gone from being in the like circumstances with you, see that it was so with them; for destruction came suddenly upon most of them; when they expected nothing of it, and while they were saying, “Peace and safety.” Now they see that those things on which they depended for peace and safety, were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.

The God that holds you over the pit of hell—much in the same way as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire—abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire; He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire. He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in His sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in His eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended Him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet, it is nothing but His hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else that you did not go to hell last night, that you were suffered to awake again in this world after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given while you have been reading this address, but His mercy; yea, no other reason can be given why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.

O sinner, consider the fearful danger you are in! It is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God Whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it and burn it asunder. And you have no interest in any mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself—nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you have done, nothing that you can do—to induce God to spare you one moment.

Flee to Christ​

And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Christ has thrown the door of mercy wide open (Luk 4:17-21), and stands calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners (Pro 8:1-11), a day wherein many are flocking to him and pressing into the kingdom of God. Many are daily coming from the east, west, north, and south; many that were very lately in the same miserable condition that you are in, are now in a happy state with their hearts filled with love to Him Who has loved them and washed them from their sins in His own blood (Rev 1:5), and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God (Rom 5:2). How awful is it to be left behind at such a day and see so many others feasting, while you are pining18 and perishing! To see so many rejoicing and singing for joy of heart, while you have cause to mourn for sorrow of heart, and to howl for vexation of spirit! How can you rest one moment in such a condition? Are not your souls as precious as the souls of those who are flocking from day to day to Christ?

Are there not many who have lived long in the world, who are not to this day born again, and so are aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and have nothing ever since they have lived, but treasured up wrath against the day of wrath? O sirs! Your case, in an especial manner, is extremely dangerous. Your guilt and hardness of heart are extremely great. Do not you see how generally persons of your years are passed over and left in the dispensations19 of God’s mercy? You had need to consider yourselves, and wake thoroughly out of sleep; you cannot bear the fierceness and wrath of the infinite God!

And you, young man and young woman, will you neglect this precious season that you now enjoy, when so many others of your age are renouncing all youthful vanities and flocking to Christ? You especially have now an opportunity; but if you neglect it, it will soon be with you as it is with those persons who spent all the precious days of youth in sin, and are now come to such a dreadful pass in blindness and hardness.

And you children who are unconverted, do not you know that you are going down to hell, to bear the dreadful wrath of that God Who is now angry with you every day and every night? Will you be content to be the children of the devil (1Jo 3:10), when so many of the children of the land are converted, and are becoming the holy and happy children of the King of kings?

And let everyone that is yet out of Christ and hanging over the pit of hell—whether they be old men and women, or middle aged, or young people, or little children—now hearken to the loud calls of God’s Word and providence (Mar 1:15)."

~~~ Excerpts from Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, by Jonathan Edwards - Enfield, 1741

When you put it like this, I'd rather be tossed into hellfire than spend eternity with such a being.

 

[Paulos23]

I'm saddened that preaching drives you away. I somewhat understand because there was a time in my life I felt same. Even a girl I was very interested in was preaching to me, mostly via letters, and I rejected her and chose Satan. And I was single! And looking! How hard hearted and deceived I was!
But it was the reading of all her letters, still not believing, but then a few days later praying in general out into the Universe, that Jesus revealed Himself to me. The letters, however, certainly were seed planters.

And my preaching ain't been nothing compared to this! Considered by some the most famous sermon ever, and yes, people were converted to Christ during it...

"Awakening unconverted persons

1. The reality of your situation​

The use of this awful subject may be for awakening unconverted persons to a conviction of their danger. This that you have heard is the case of everyone out of Christ. That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell’s wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon nor anything to take hold of; there is nothing between you and hell but the air. It is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up.

You are probably not sensible of this: you find you are kept out of hell, but [you] do not see the hand of God in it, but look at other things: as the good state of your bodily constitution, your care of your own life, and the means you use for your own preservation. But indeed these things are nothing; if God should withdraw His hand, they would avail no more to keep you from falling, than the thin air to hold up a person who is suspended in it.

Your wickedness makes you, as it were, heavy as lead, and to rend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink, and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf. Your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider’s web would have to stop a falling rock.

Were it not for the sovereign pleasure of God, the earth would not bear you one moment, for you are a burden to it: the creation groans [at] you (Rom 8:22); the creature is made subject to the bondage of your corruption, not willingly. The sun does not willingly shine upon you, to give you light and to serve sin and Satan. The earth does not willingly yield her increase, to satisfy your lusts; nor is it willingly a stage for your wickedness to be acted upon. The air does not willingly serve you for breath to maintain the flame of life in your vitals, while you spend your life in the service of God’s enemies. God’s creatures are good, and were made for men to serve God with; and do not willingly subserve any other purpose, and groan when they are abused to purposes so directly contrary to their nature and end.

And the world would spew you out, were it not for the sovereign hand of Him Who hath subjected it in hope. There are black clouds of God’s wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder; and were it not for the restraining hand of God, they would immediately burst forth upon you. The sovereign pleasure of God, for the present, stays His rough wind—otherwise it would come with fury; and destruction would come like a whirlwind, and would be like the chaff of the summer threshing-floor.

The wrath of God is like great waters that are restrained for the present; but they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given; and the longer the stream is stopped the more rapid and mighty is its course when once it is let loose. It is true that judgment against your evil works has not been executed hitherto; the floods of God’s vengeance have been withheld. But your guilt in the meantime is constantly increasing, and you are every day treasuring up more wrath; and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God that holds the waters back, that are unwilling to be stopped, and press hard to go forward. If God should only withdraw His hand from the flood-gate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would come upon you with omnipotent power; and if your strength were ten thousand times greater than it is, yea, ten thousand times greater than the strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil in hell, it would be nothing to withstand or endure it.

The bow of God’s wrath is bent and the arrow made ready on the string; and justice directs the bow to your heart, and strains at the bow—and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being drunk with your blood.

Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls (Eze 36:26); all you that never were born again and made new creatures (2Co 5:17), and raised from the dead in sin to a state of new (Col 2:12), are in the hands of an
angry God. However you may have reformed your life in many things—and many have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets and in the house of God—it is nothing but His mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction.

However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it. Those that are gone from being in the like circumstances with you, see that it was so with them; for destruction came suddenly upon most of them; when they expected nothing of it, and while they were saying, “Peace and safety.” Now they see that those things on which they depended for peace and safety, were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.

The God that holds you over the pit of hell—much in the same way as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire—abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire; He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire. He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in His sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in His eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended Him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet, it is nothing but His hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else that you did not go to hell last night, that you were suffered to awake again in this world after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given while you have been reading this address, but His mercy; yea, no other reason can be given why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.

O sinner, consider the fearful danger you are in! It is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God Whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it and burn it asunder. And you have no interest in any mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself—nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you have done, nothing that you can do—to induce God to spare you one moment.

Flee to Christ​

And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Christ has thrown the door of mercy wide open (Luk 4:17-21), and stands calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners (Pro 8:1-11), a day wherein many are flocking to him and pressing into the kingdom of God. Many are daily coming from the east, west, north, and south; many that were very lately in the same miserable condition that you are in, are now in a happy state with their hearts filled with love to Him Who has loved them and washed them from their sins in His own blood (Rev 1:5), and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God (Rom 5:2). How awful is it to be left behind at such a day and see so many others feasting, while you are pining18 and perishing! To see so many rejoicing and singing for joy of heart, while you have cause to mourn for sorrow of heart, and to howl for vexation of spirit! How can you rest one moment in such a condition? Are not your souls as precious as the souls of those who are flocking from day to day to Christ?

Are there not many who have lived long in the world, who are not to this day born again, and so are aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and have nothing ever since they have lived, but treasured up wrath against the day of wrath? O sirs! Your case, in an especial manner, is extremely dangerous. Your guilt and hardness of heart are extremely great. Do not you see how generally persons of your years are passed over and left in the dispensations19 of God’s mercy? You had need to consider yourselves, and wake thoroughly out of sleep; you cannot bear the fierceness and wrath of the infinite God!

And you, young man and young woman, will you neglect this precious season that you now enjoy, when so many others of your age are renouncing all youthful vanities and flocking to Christ? You especially have now an opportunity; but if you neglect it, it will soon be with you as it is with those persons who spent all the precious days of youth in sin, and are now come to such a dreadful pass in blindness and hardness.

And you children who are unconverted, do not you know that you are going down to hell, to bear the dreadful wrath of that God Who is now angry with you every day and every night? Will you be content to be the children of the devil (1Jo 3:10), when so many of the children of the land are converted, and are becoming the holy and happy children of the King of kings?

And let everyone that is yet out of Christ and hanging over the pit of hell—whether they be old men and women, or middle aged, or young people, or little children—now hearken to the loud calls of God’s Word and providence (Mar 1:15)."

~~~ Excerpts from Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, by Jonathan Edwards - Enfield, 1741

And you completely missed my point and continued with your one note song.

This is not as convincing as you think it is. This drives people away.

 

[Tinker Grey]

A true atheist™ doesn't choose Satan.

 

[Larniavc]

I've investigated my beliefs also, and found them completely justified.

Who could argue with this?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Prayer is not "incantations" Those are occult oriented. Prayer is pouring your heart out to God, asking in Jesus' name, praising Him and thanking Him for His mighty power.
I certainly cannot harm you or anyone with prayer for the salvation of your souls.

PS: I've investigated my beliefs also, and found them completely justified.
Ever read Case For Christ by Lee Strobel, or Evidence that Demands a Verdict, More Evidence, and More than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell, or look at any of the Creation science evidences?
I have but I did not NEED them to affirm my faith. That was affirmed by God's dealing with me over many years.

Some of us have not only read those same sources but have gone way, way beyond them .................................

Maybe, keep that in mind.

 

[dlamberth]

I'm saddened that preaching drives you away. I somewhat understand because there was a time in my life I felt same. Even a girl I was very interested in was preaching to me, mostly via letters, and I rejected her and chose Satan. And I was single! And looking! How hard hearted and deceived I was!
But it was the reading of all her letters, still not believing, but then a few days later praying in general out into the Universe, that Jesus revealed Himself to me. The letters, however, certainly were seed planters.

And my preaching ain't been nothing compared to this! Considered by some the most famous sermon ever, and yes, people were converted to Christ during it...

"Awakening unconverted persons

1. The reality of your situation​

The use of this awful subject may be for awakening unconverted persons to a conviction of their danger. This that you have heard is the case of everyone out of Christ. That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell’s wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon nor anything to take hold of; there is nothing between you and hell but the air. It is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up.

You are probably not sensible of this: you find you are kept out of hell, but [you] do not see the hand of God in it, but look at other things: as the good state of your bodily constitution, your care of your own life, and the means you use for your own preservation. But indeed these things are nothing; if God should withdraw His hand, they would avail no more to keep you from falling, than the thin air to hold up a person who is suspended in it.

Your wickedness makes you, as it were, heavy as lead, and to rend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink, and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf. Your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider’s web would have to stop a falling rock.

Were it not for the sovereign pleasure of God, the earth would not bear you one moment, for you are a burden to it: the creation groans [at] you (Rom 8:22); the creature is made subject to the bondage of your corruption, not willingly. The sun does not willingly shine upon you, to give you light and to serve sin and Satan. The earth does not willingly yield her increase, to satisfy your lusts; nor is it willingly a stage for your wickedness to be acted upon. The air does not willingly serve you for breath to maintain the flame of life in your vitals, while you spend your life in the service of God’s enemies. God’s creatures are good, and were made for men to serve God with; and do not willingly subserve any other purpose, and groan when they are abused to purposes so directly contrary to their nature and end.

And the world would spew you out, were it not for the sovereign hand of Him Who hath subjected it in hope. There are black clouds of God’s wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder; and were it not for the restraining hand of God, they would immediately burst forth upon you. The sovereign pleasure of God, for the present, stays His rough wind—otherwise it would come with fury; and destruction would come like a whirlwind, and would be like the chaff of the summer threshing-floor.

The wrath of God is like great waters that are restrained for the present; but they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given; and the longer the stream is stopped the more rapid and mighty is its course when once it is let loose. It is true that judgment against your evil works has not been executed hitherto; the floods of God’s vengeance have been withheld. But your guilt in the meantime is constantly increasing, and you are every day treasuring up more wrath; and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God that holds the waters back, that are unwilling to be stopped, and press hard to go forward. If God should only withdraw His hand from the flood-gate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would come upon you with omnipotent power; and if your strength were ten thousand times greater than it is, yea, ten thousand times greater than the strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil in hell, it would be nothing to withstand or endure it.

The bow of God’s wrath is bent and the arrow made ready on the string; and justice directs the bow to your heart, and strains at the bow—and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being drunk with your blood.

Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls (Eze 36:26); all you that never were born again and made new creatures (2Co 5:17), and raised from the dead in sin to a state of new (Col 2:12), are in the hands of an
angry God. However you may have reformed your life in many things—and many have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets and in the house of God—it is nothing but His mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction.

However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it. Those that are gone from being in the like circumstances with you, see that it was so with them; for destruction came suddenly upon most of them; when they expected nothing of it, and while they were saying, “Peace and safety.” Now they see that those things on which they depended for peace and safety, were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.

The God that holds you over the pit of hell—much in the same way as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire—abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire; He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire. He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in His sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in His eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended Him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet, it is nothing but His hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else that you did not go to hell last night, that you were suffered to awake again in this world after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given while you have been reading this address, but His mercy; yea, no other reason can be given why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.

O sinner, consider the fearful danger you are in! It is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God Whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it and burn it asunder. And you have no interest in any mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself—nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you have done, nothing that you can do—to induce God to spare you one moment.

Flee to Christ​

And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Christ has thrown the door of mercy wide open (Luk 4:17-21), and stands calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners (Pro 8:1-11), a day wherein many are flocking to him and pressing into the kingdom of God. Many are daily coming from the east, west, north, and south; many that were very lately in the same miserable condition that you are in, are now in a happy state with their hearts filled with love to Him Who has loved them and washed them from their sins in His own blood (Rev 1:5), and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God (Rom 5:2). How awful is it to be left behind at such a day and see so many others feasting, while you are pining18 and perishing! To see so many rejoicing and singing for joy of heart, while you have cause to mourn for sorrow of heart, and to howl for vexation of spirit! How can you rest one moment in such a condition? Are not your souls as precious as the souls of those who are flocking from day to day to Christ?

Are there not many who have lived long in the world, who are not to this day born again, and so are aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and have nothing ever since they have lived, but treasured up wrath against the day of wrath? O sirs! Your case, in an especial manner, is extremely dangerous. Your guilt and hardness of heart are extremely great. Do not you see how generally persons of your years are passed over and left in the dispensations19 of God’s mercy? You had need to consider yourselves, and wake thoroughly out of sleep; you cannot bear the fierceness and wrath of the infinite God!

And you, young man and young woman, will you neglect this precious season that you now enjoy, when so many others of your age are renouncing all youthful vanities and flocking to Christ? You especially have now an opportunity; but if you neglect it, it will soon be with you as it is with those persons who spent all the precious days of youth in sin, and are now come to such a dreadful pass in blindness and hardness.

And you children who are unconverted, do not you know that you are going down to hell, to bear the dreadful wrath of that God Who is now angry with you every day and every night? Will you be content to be the children of the devil (1Jo 3:10), when so many of the children of the land are converted, and are becoming the holy and happy children of the King of kings?

And let everyone that is yet out of Christ and hanging over the pit of hell—whether they be old men and women, or middle aged, or young people, or little children—now hearken to the loud calls of God’s Word and providence (Mar 1:15)."

~~~ Excerpts from Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, by Jonathan Edwards - Enfield, 1741

Its been a blessing to my soul to have been freed from all of this.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Didn't Israel become a nation again in 1948, after 1,870 years?

Like the overwhelming majority of Christians, I don't regard the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 to be religiously, spiritually, or prophetically significant.

As far as evangelism, like I've said already, I think what we have, and have had, in the Church for the last two thousand years is all that we need. A Church faithful to Jesus is a Church that proclaims Good News.

A church that isn't faithful to Jesus, on the other hand, will preach all kinds of things.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Hans Blaster]

If I'm speaking in Church or Bible study I may. In writing I do often.
It's been said people will put down "King James language" but not Shakespeare, which is much the same.
Then again, I do read books such as this: Printed in 1645. This portion being quite relevant here.

View attachment 343802

this is an even worse font choice than the rest of your posts.

 

[Kokavkrystallos]

this is an even worse font choice than the rest of your posts.

ne byð þam ge-demed þe on hym ge-lyfð. Se þe ge ne lyfð (sic) hym. byð ge-demed. for-þan þe he ne lyfde on þanne namen þas akennedan godes sunu. - Iohannes 3.18