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Today I'm wrapping up my series on the spiritual component of health. As I've mentioned in the previous episodes in this series, I feel inspired to share truth with you, no matter how controversial that truth may be. Well, this is probably going to be the most controversial episode I've ever recorded. As you, the natural nation, know, we maximize our health potential by aligning our lives more fully with God's natural design for spirit, mind, and body.
In order to align our lives that way, we've got to trust God. How we view God and our understanding of his true nature and character have far-reaching implications as to how we live our lives. You know, this show is called Christian Healthy Lifestyle, and I can't think of a lifestyle habit that's more foundational to becoming more whole than worshiping God in spirit and in truth. So we've got to get this right.
We can't afford to let an inaccurate or distorted view of God's true nature and character fill our hearts with mistrust towards God. Let me explain. Let's put this in a modern context. Imagine you're watching the reality TV show The Bachelor. It's the final episode of the season. And this young man says he's in love with this beautiful young woman. He believes they have a strong enough connection to get married and live happily ever after.
But the young lady is privately having some reservations. He's eliminated all the other women and he's down to the last one. This is it. The moment we've all been waiting for all season. He gets down on one knee and asks her to marry him. Of course, with the famous words, will you accept this rose? The girl pauses and says, no, this is all moving way too fast. I can't marry you right now.
And then the guy pulls out a can of gasoline he had hiding in the bushes and pours it all over her and he lights a match and says, you'd better say yes or I'll light you on fire. What would that young woman be feeling? Would she feel more love for him and be drawn closer to him? Or would she be horrified and want to escape as soon as she had a chance? Then why do we expect God to behave the same way?
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and cause us to fall in love with him when he's threatening to torture us with hellfire for all of eternity if we don't love him back. The fact is, he doesn't behave that way. With this episode, I'd like to clear the air in this distorted view of God's nature and character. Let's talk about it.
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Welcome to the Christian Healthy Lifestyle Podcast, where I help you navigate natural health so you can stay out of the doctor's office, age gracefully, and live a more purpose-driven life. I'm your host, David Sandstrom. I want to explain why this topic is so important. Our spiritual condition is foundational to becoming more whole. In life, we're going to face challenges. Life's going to throw us some curveballs.
If we're going to be successful in our pursuit of a purpose-driven life, we're going to need all the spiritual strength, mental-emotional fortitude, and physical vitality we can get. We've got to remember that we are spirit, we have a mind, and we live in a body. Our spirit is designed to be connected to and animated by God. When it is, our spirit is stronger and healthier. A healthy spirit will animate our minds in healthy ways,
and a healthy mind will animate our brains in healthy ways, and the brain runs the body. We can't afford to ignore our spiritual component. Our spiritual condition is foundational to becoming more whole. We should be careful about allowing any false beliefs about God's true nature to keep us from enjoying a more intimate connection with Him. As you're listening to this episode, you may come across an idea
or a concept that you can't buy into at that moment. That's okay. If you're in a fine restaurant enjoying a great fish dinner and you came across a bone, would you throw the whole plate out? Of course not. You'd pull the bone out and keep enjoying your delicious meal. I encourage you to do the same here. If there's something you don't agree with, just set that aside for the time being and keep listening. There's going to be a lot of useful information here.
The enemy has been very successful in spreading this particular lie about God, and he has no interest in letting go of his grip. It's a little bit like when Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency, was formed, and they started uncovering just how wasteful and unaccountable the spending in Washington, DC is. The Washington insiders pushed back hard against any level of transparency as to how our tax dollars are being spent.
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In the same way, the enemy is happy with the status quo. He doesn't want you to hear the truth I'm about to share. Don't hand him the victory. Keep listening. Now I'm about to challenge many people's long-held beliefs about heaven and hell. And just as I did in episodes 141 and 142 where I talk about how almost everyone got it wrong about the health hazards of saturated fat,
In those two episodes, I provide plenty of evidence for why all those institutions and government agencies got it so horribly wrong. Now, I'm going to do something similar here. So this episode is going to be a little longer than most. I thought about splitting it up into two episodes, but I think this topic is so important that you deserve to enjoy the continuity of a single episode. So I'm going to make my case from the Bible and provide
plenty of scripture references to support my conclusions. Love cannot thrive without liberty. You can't get love by threatening to kill people that don't love you. Instead of loving you more, people would be afraid of you and want to get away from you. Many people, whether they realize it or not, see God the same way. So this is an important topic and we should spend some time getting this right.
I had a hard time believing the truth about this topic for quite some time, years even. I hope it doesn't take you as long as did for me to become convinced. I encourage you to keep an open mind and check out the scripture references I'm going to share here on your own. Be a Berean. If you can take notes while you're listening, great, I encourage you to do that. If not, can always download the transcript from my website or Apple Podcast.
Now this information really does have the power to set you free. So I encourage you to make an effort to remove any distractions. And you may want to listen to this episode a couple of times to really let these truths sink in. Something similar to what I described in the opener takes place in many Christian churches around the globe every Sunday. It goes something like this. You're going to spend eternity somewhere. You've got a choice.
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You can spend eternity with God in heaven, or you can spend it in hell and be tortured with fire and brimstone forever and ever. Turn or burn, as they say. These pastors are using really bad theology that they were probably taught in seminary to scare people into the kingdom rather than painting an accurate picture of who God is. When you believe that way and you pray the sinner's prayer and you come to Christ that way, it's kind of like you're buying a fire insurance policy.
not entering into a love relationship with God. There's a big difference. God is the very definition of love, and he's altogether trustworthy. We shouldn't be hiding from him. We should be running to him. C.S. Lewis said, genuine Christianity is irresistible, and I agree. And I would add to that, an accurate view of God makes him irresistible as well.
And that's why I wanted to spell this myth that God is a sadistic monster that's created a universe where billions of people, if they reject God, are tortured for all eternity in the fire of hell. If we were to believe that, it would create in us a great deal of fear. And nothing gets our fight or flight reflex rubbed up more quickly than fear. This idea of God sentencing us to eternal torment in hell
just runs contrary to what the Bible teaches about God's true nature and character. As you, the natural nation, know, our bodies prefer to do their repair work and healing when we're in rest and digest mode, not jacked up in fight or flight from fear. God's desire for us is health and wholeness. 3 John 1-2 says, Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health. And here's another verse that I often quote in the show.
Proverbs chapter 4 verses 20 through 22, my son, pay attention to my words, do not let them depart from your sight, keep them in the midst of your heart, for they are life to those who find them and health to all their body. If we believe God is sending billions of people to hell and torturing them forever and ever, that would foster fear in our hearts. And we all know that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power.
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love and a sound mind. That's 2nd Timothy 1 7. Someone may be asking right now, but Dave, are you saying that because God is love that everyone goes to heaven? No, that's not what I'm saying at all. The idea that everyone goes to heaven has been popularized by a guy named Rob Bell. He wrote a book called love wins. I've read that book and I very much disagree with Rob's conclusions.
Non-believers don't make it into heaven, but they're not tortured with hellfire for all of eternity either. I'll be getting into the specifics on that a little later. First, I want to lay the groundwork. God doesn't need to scare people into having a love relationship with Him. It's His desire to woo us, to draw us in with truth and love. Not by power, not by might, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts.
That's Zechariah 4.6. In Genesis 3, Satan accuses God of lying and convinces Adam and Eve that God can't be trusted. What did Adam and Eve do after they believed Satan's lies and acted on that deception? They were afraid and they hid. It worked then, and it's still working today. Satan is still using lies to slander God and
plant the seeds of mistrust in our hearts so we're afraid of God and keep him at a safe distance. Slander steals someone's good character, and we know the enemy has come to steal, and destroy John 10.10. Once someone's character has been put in question, the damage is done and it's very difficult to undo that damage. Satan's accusations about God that he's not trustworthy are still
echoing through the universe, and God is working to set the record straight. But God can't eliminate distrust by enforcing laws with punishment or using power to exterminate anyone that doesn't trust Him. He can't just say, Satan lied when he said I wasn't trustworthy. I just wiped him out. And if you don't believe me, I'll wipe you out too. That would not promote love and trust. It would promote more fear and mistrust.
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and push us away from God. This is why God hasn't destroyed Satan and his angels yet. That act would not promote more love and trust, but more fear. God's working to set the record straight about his true nature and character. Now you, the natural nation, know that I often criticize the medical profession for chasing symptoms and ignoring the root cause of what's ailing us. When it comes to resolving our health issues,
were always better off addressing the root cause. The root cause of all sickness and disease is sin. There was no sickness and disease before the fall. What's the root cause of sin? A lack of trust in God. Sin is not our biggest problem. Our biggest problem is a breakdown of love and trust in our hearts. Sin is a symptom of a heart that's not whole.
Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5 verses 27 and 28, you have heard that it was said, you should not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. The problem is not so much the behavior. The root problem is the condition of our hearts. Romans 14 23 says, whatever is not from faith is sin.
Faith can be thought of as trust. Whatever is not from trust is sin. Sin is a loss of trust. If we mistrust God, we'll choose our own way of doing things instead of God's way. 1 John 3, 4 says, everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. That word for lawlessness is enomia, or it means no law or outside the law.
When we sin, we're out of harmony with the laws that God created reality to operate on. If you haven't already, I encourage you to listen to episode 198 where I talk about God's law versus man's law. It's really important. So we have a heart problem, not a sin problem. God wants to take away the fear and selfishness in our hearts and replace it with love and trust. Ezekiel 36 26 love this verse. I will remove your heart of stone and
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give you a heart of flesh. How does God eliminate distrust of him? By revealing his character, not by using brute force. I already quoted this, Zechariah 4,6, not by power, not by might, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts. Where does God's spirit live? In our hearts. So let's get to the meat and potatoes of this episode. There's three core beliefs that lead people astray.
Mistaken belief number one is God's law functions like man's law that requires punishment in order to be enforced. Mistaken belief number two is human beings are born with a part of them that lives forever. In other words, all people are immortal. Mistaken belief number three is the fiery flames of God is the just punishment for unforgiven sinners and it's definitely not the place you where you want to be.
All of those beliefs are false. And when we hold those beliefs and use them as presuppositions to interpret scripture, we end up with the wrong conclusions. We'll have to twist scripture and take many passages out of context in order to fit our belief system. Okay, false belief number one, God's law versus man's law. I covered God's law versus man's law in episode number 198, so I'm not going to go into a great deal of detail here.
But real quickly, God's creation has physical laws, moral laws, and laws of health. Those laws are the reality that life is designed to operate under. When we fail to recognize these laws, we're out of harmony with the created order and we suffer harm. Let's take the law of respiration for example. If I tied cement blocks around your feet and threw you into a lake,
It wouldn't be long before you became acutely aware of the law of respiration and you would drown. Your death wouldn't be a form of punishment. It would be the natural consequence to not being in harmony with the law of respiration. Man can pass laws to make marijuana legal, but you could never pass a law to make it healthy. So God doesn't have to punish us for our wrongdoing. The natural consequences of those poor choices are enough.
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Romans chapter 1 says, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Therefore, God gave them over in the lusts their hearts to impurity. That's Romans 1, 26 and 28. God doesn't punish us when we mess up. The wrath of God
is God removing His hand of protection and allowing us to experience the consequences of being out of harmony with the created order. Someone may say, but what about the person who steals and lies and takes advantage of people and becomes rich and never gets caught? If God doesn't punish them, don't they just get away with it? If that were true, then it would be okay to commit bad deeds as long as you don't get caught, right?
So that is to say the only thing wrong with mistreating people is the threat of getting caught. People who reason this way are trying to understand God's natural law through a man-made law lens. Man-made law requires the threat of punishment in order to be enforced. God's law doesn't require punishment because it's simply the way God designed reality to operate. Operating outside of that reality or out of harmony with it brings consequences.
no one ever gets away with their sin. God doesn't forbid alcohol consumption, but he does say, don't be a drunk. If someone abuses alcohol long enough, the natural outcome would be cirrhosis of the liver. God doesn't have to punish that person for their excessive alcohol consumption. They bring that harm on themselves. God doesn't use his power to enforce punishment and make us obey his law. The natural
consequences of behavior that's outside of harmony with God's created order is enough. But Dave, I get a great deal of peace and satisfaction from believing that people that have wronged me in this life will pay for what they've done when they die and suffer in hell for all of eternity. No one ever gets away with their sin. There is always a price to be paid. In the end, sin repeated over and over will sear our conscience
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and warp our character to the point where no amount of truth and love will convince us to choose God in his way of doing things and will ultimately bring about our own demise. I'm going to revisit this concept a little later when we talk about the final judgment, the great white throne judgment in Revelation. So the second myth that needs to be dispelled is that all human beings have immortality. This too is a false belief.
Again, the thinking goes like this. When we die, that's not the end. We will spend eternity somewhere, either in paradise, in heaven with God, where the streets are paved with gold, or in hell with Satan, burning with eternal torment. There's an assumption here that all human beings are born with at least part of them that is immortal or eternal. Our bodies may die, but we don't. We go on.
We shouldn't get our theology from movies or music, but oftentimes movie screenwriters and songwriters will get their inspiration from theology. The idea that death is not the end was illustrated quite well with the movie Titanic, where Jack Gretz rose on the staircase of the new refurbished Titanic and Celine Dion sings that iconic song, My Heart Will Go On. Titanic was an epic movie and the song is beautiful.
I sometimes move to tears listening to it. Because I believe there is a measure of truth to those lyrics. The righteous will go on, but the unrighteous don't. They perish or die. What the Bible describes as the second death. I'm going to more to say on that in just a little bit. The question worth asking here is this. Did Adam and Eve have eternal life when they were created?
Did they have some part of themselves that was created as immortal and never die?
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What was the first lie told Needon? In Genesis 2,4, Satan says, surely you will not die. That was a lie. God alone possesses immortality. Mankind is born mortal. Our lives are finite unless we've been born again. Romans 1, 22 and 23 says, although they claim to be wise, they became as fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God
for images made to look like mortal man. The Bible teaches that it's the righteous that live forever. The unrighteous will perish. Here's a verse I'm sure everyone listening to this show is familiar with, John 3.16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. And no one will ever snatch them out of my hand. That word perish in the original Greek,
is Appalumi, which the Strong's concordance defines as to destroy fully or to lose. So using the Strong's definition, Jesus was saying that those who believe in him will never die and will never be lost. Those who don't believe will die and are lost forever. This isn't just a New Testament concept either. Ezekiel chapter 18 verses 4 and 9, the person who sins will die
But if a person practices justice and righteousness, if he walks in my statutes and my ordinances, he is righteous and will surely live. How about Proverbs 12 28? In the way of righteousness, there is life. Along that path, there is immortality. John 10, 27 and 28, Jesus speaking.
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and they will never perish. Romans 2, 7, those who persist in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality. For those who do that, he will give eternal life. Why would God need to give us eternal life if we already have it? 1 Corinthians 15 verses 53 through 55. For this perishable must put on the imperishable.
and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then we'll come about the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory, O Death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting? Why would we need to put on immortality if we already have it? 1 Timothy 6.15, He who is the blessed and only sovereign
the King of kings and Lord of lords who alone possesses immortality. Or how about Romans 6 23? For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. If we already have eternal life, then why do we need it as a gift? These passages and a whole lot more speak to the idea that every person is born mortal.
We're born with a sin nature and sin leads to death. We receive eternal life as a gift from God, but we must appropriate that gift by having a born again experience. If you want to learn more about what that looks like, listen to the first episode in this series, episode number 197, Are You the Victim of a Watered-Down Gospel? By the way, that episode is, far and away, the most listened to episode I've ever produced.
The Bible describes two deaths. The first death is a state of what the Bible calls sleep, and the second death is to perish or to be no more. The computer metaphor illustrates the three parts of a human being quite well. The computer's hardware is similar to the body. The software is the mind, and the power or electricity is the animating energy or the breath of life or the spirit. The hardware
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doesn't make my computer unique. Many people have the same hardware I have. It's the content contained in the software that makes my computer unique. My pictures, my videos, my documents. That's what makes my computer different from all the others. A computer's data, the soul of the computer, can be backed up to the cloud. If my house burns down, my computer's hardware is destroyed. I can buy a new computer and install my backed up data from the cloud
My computer is as good as new. It's as if it never was destroyed. Jesus said to Matthew 10, 28, do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul. When your computer is no longer powered, it's in sleep mode. If I unplug my computer from the wall and let it sit for 10 years and then powered it up again, what state is the computer in? The exact same state it was in when I unplugged it.
when it went to sleep. As far as the computer is concerned, there was no gap in time. It's one moment to the next. So the first death is death of the physical body that the Bible refers to as a state of sleep, where our souls are kept intact, stored in the heavenly cloud servers, awaiting the resurrection. The second death is after the resurrection, where
everyone who has fallen asleep or died will rise up out of the grave, the righteous will live forever, and the unrighteous, the non-believers, will ultimately be lost forever. They cease to exist because they're consumed in the lake of fire. And I promise you, the lake of fire is not what you think. I'll be addressing that in just a moment. Okay, before you label me as a heretic and unsubscribe from the podcast,
Let me give you some biblical references from my position. Remember, when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, he referred to him as asleep. John chapter 11 verse 11, said to them, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go so that I may awaken him out of sleep. The disciples were confused. They were thinking that if Lazarus was ill or sick, sleep would help him recover. So Jesus told them plainly.
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Lazarus is dead. And then there's Matthew 19, 18. While he was saying these things to them, a synagogue official came and bowed down before him and said, My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her and she will live. And then in verses 23 and 24, when Jesus came into the official's house and saw the flute players and the crowd and noisy disorder, he said, Leave, for the girl has not died, but is asleep.
and they began laughing at him. Jesus proceeds to go into the room and raise the dead girl to life, to the amazement of everyone in the room. That's Matthew 9, 23 and 24. So that's the first death, where the spirit or the breath of life leaves the body and returns to God, and our souls or psyche are stored in the heavenly service or the Lamb's Book of Life, awaiting the resurrection.
Let's have look at Revelation 2.11. He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death. Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection. Over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him. That's Revelation 20 verse 6.
then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. That's Revelation 20 verses 14 and 15. He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God, and he will be my son. But for the cowardly and the unbelieving,
and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. That's Revelation 21 verses 7 and 8. Some will be resurrected to life and others will die. They will come to an end or cease to exist. Because that death is irrevocable, it's eternal.
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There's no awakening from the second death. Some would call it annihilation. I used to go to Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church down in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. the time, Pastor D. James Kennedy, he's since now deceased, but he wrote many books and he was an incredible theologian. He put it this way, born once, die twice. Born twice, die once.
This is the concept that Jesus was explaining to Nicodemus in John chapter 3. In other words, everyone is born physically once, but non-believers, people who haven't had a born-again experience, will die a physical death, which Jesus himself describes as sleep, and experience a second death that's permanent. If we've been born twice or born again, as Jesus explains in John 3, we inherit eternal life
and we only die once. We'll be immune to the second death, which is permanent. So the first death is a state of sleep. The second death, only the non-believers will experience, and that's permanent.
The and last myth that we need to dispel is the fire of God is to be feared and it's the place we don't want to be. Okay, this is the big one. This is the myth that the enemy has perpetrated on the human race and has caused millions, even billions of people to refuse to trust God. There's a lot of confusion over the fire of God. Let's start off with the foundational passage regarding the fire of God.
It's found in Isaiah chapter 33 verses 14 and 15. Sinners in Zion are terrified. Trembling has seized the godless. Who among us can live with the consuming fire? Who among us can live with continual burning? So if we stop reading there, that sounds like hell, the place where the unforgiving go when they die, right? But the very next verse tells us who can live in the continual burning.
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Verse 15, he who walks righteously and speaks with sincerity, he who rejects undisgain and shakes his hands so that they hold no bribe, he who stops his ears from hearing about bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking upon evil. Drop the mic. So it's the righteous that get to spend eternity in the fire, not the unrighteous.
Now that's a different message than I've been told most of my life. There's more scripture supporting this point of view, a lot more. Remember Moses encountered God in a burning bush and the bush was not consumed? The Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush and he looked and behold the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. Then he said, do not come near here, remove your sandals from your feet for the
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In Exodus 19, verses 18-21, we see Mount Sinai was in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire.
and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently. When the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him with thunder. The Lord came down on Mount Sinai to the top of the mountain, and the Lord called Moses to top of the mountain, and Moses went up. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, Go down, warn the people, so that they do not break through to the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish.
That's similar to the scene when Moses asked God to see his face, and God said, Moses, I'd love to, but you can't see my face and live. But come down tomorrow morning and I'll show you my back. So if we're in an unrighteous state, gazing at God's face will cause us to perish. On Mount Sinai, this was a very scary scene, but the mountain wasn't scorched with wildfire.
It wasn't destroyed as if it had a nuclear bomb dropped on it. This fire consumes sin, which is not made of matter or molecules. The people were in danger because they were in an unrighteous state. So God gave them a restriction in order to protect them. God shielded them from the full extent of His fiery glory. Second Chronicles, Chapter 7, documents the dedication of Solomon's temple to God. Let's pick it up in verse 1.
Now when Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering, and the sacrifices and the glory of God filled the house. The priests could not enter into the house of the Lord because the glory of the Lord filled the Lord's house. All the sons of Israel, seeing the fire come down and the glory of the Lord upon the house, bowed down on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave praise to the Lord, saying, Truly he is good.
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truly his loving kindness is everlasting. That's 2 Chronicles 7 verses 1 through 3. The priest could not enter because the brightness of God's glory was so intense, but the building didn't burn down. Ezekiel 28 says Lucifer used to walk among the fiery stones of God's presence. Daniel chapter 7 verses 9 and 10.
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Burning fire. A river of fire was flowing and coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands were attending him, and myriads upon myriads were standing before him. The fire of God consumes sin, not matter. The righteous have nothing to fear because their sins have been removed. As far as the east is from the west, so has He removed our transgressions from us. That's Psalm 103 verse 12.
In Isaiah chapter 6, Isaiah has a vision where he was taken into God's throne room and he gives us a similar description of being in the presence of God. Here's what we find. Isaiah 6 verses 1 through 6. I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, and the train of His robe filling the temple, and the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of Him who called out,
while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said, Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with the tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said, Behold, this has touched your lips, and your iniquity is taken away.
and your sin is forgiven." Isaiah needed some encouragement. So, a seraphim, some angelic creature, touched his lips with a burning coal as proof of Isaiah's righteous state. The burning coal didn't take his iniquities away. Being touched by the burning coal without being harmed was proof that his sins had been forgiven. Or how about Hebrews 12, 29?
God is a consuming fire. God is repeatedly described as a being of light. In Revelation 21, referring to the New Jerusalem, verse 23 says, In the book Matthew, when Jesus was transfigured in front of Peter, James, and John, he was in a human state.
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and subject to injury and death. They said his clothes were brighter than the sun, yet he was not burned. The fire could not hurt him because there was no sin in him. This light is the burning fire of God, and the righteous will live in it forever. The lie perpetrated on Christianity is the place you don't want to be is the place of eternal burning and eternal fire.
And that place is God's very presence. Let that sink in a little bit. The enemy wants us to be afraid of the fire and do everything we can to stay away from it, but that place is God's very presence. When Christ returns at the great white throne judgment in Revelation, he'll cease to conceal himself and his full shekinah glory will be on display for all the world to see and the whole
planet will be bathed in truth and love. So what happens to the unbeliever then? They perish, as Jesus said in John 3.16. And as we've already discussed, the righteous will bask in God's glory and be safe and protected in the holy fire of God, and the unrepentant sinner will be consumed by it. Once again, here's another movie depicting some good theology.
In Raiders of the Lost Ark, when the Germans open the Ark of the Covenant, Indy tells those people that are around him to close their eyes and not look at the Ark. The unrighteous German soldiers do look at the Ark, they gaze on it, and are consumed by the fire and light that burst out of the Ark, which is where God's presence is. Again, we don't get our theology from movies, but if we understand good theology, we can recognize it when we see it on the movie screen.
What's thrown into the lake of fire? Death and the grave. How do you kill death? With life. This is the fire of God's life-giving glory. I believe this concept is part of the lesson from the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from Daniel chapter 3. As the non-believing servants turned up the heat in the furnace, some of them were killed by it. What happened to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego?
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They were thrown into the fiery furnace. Jesus met them there. They were in the fire, but they were unharmed. They were, fact, probably rejoicing. Their clothes were not burned, and they were safe in God's presence. Just as in many other Bible stories, I believe what happened to them is a picture of what is to come. Those who choose to reject God will come to an end and be no more.
It won't be God finally giving them what they deserve. It'll be the natural outcome to their rebellion. Galatians 6, 8 says, He who sows to the sinful nature from that nature will reap destruction. The righteous will be rejoicing in God's presence. God will restore creation back to its original design. Remember, Jesus said he's going to make all things new.
Now know many of you may have some lingering questions such as, what about that passage in Luke 16 where Lazarus goes to heaven and the rich man goes to hell and he asks for some water to cool his tongue? Or what about Revelation chapter 14 and the smoker of their torment goes up forever and ever and they have no rest day and night? Those passages do not conflict with this point of view. There are reasonable explanations and answers.
However, I'm going to address those questions in the full version of the podcast inside my Christian Healthy Lifestyle community. If you'd like to join a community of like-minded people where we're all pursuing natural health from a Christian biblical perspective, go to my website, christianhealthylifestyle.com forward slash membership and get signed up today. Well, I hope you found this episode useful. As I said earlier in the series, what comes to mind when we think about God?
is the most important thing about us. God is good, He's the lover of our souls, and He's altogether trustworthy. And it's my hope and prayer that your view of who God is has been expanded, and that causes you to pursue Him more fully, and you encourage others to do the same. If you enjoyed this series on the spiritual component of health, would you share it with a friend?
David (44:12.474)
This series starts with episode number 197. Sharing is caring. Don't let your friends continue with false beliefs about God's nature and character that limit their intimacy with Him. That's it for now. I appreciate you. Thank you for listening. I'll talk with you next time. Be blessed.
