I still remember the day and where I was walking with my uncle and we had our conversation on heaven and hell. Uncle Jacob couldn't believe that famous people, and he named a few that lived a good life, would go to hell. He himself, who looked after my grandmother for years, doing all the menial work that went along with that - he said do you believe I will go to hell even after all of that?
He was implying that there was no hell, and if he had to play harps all day in heaven, he would rather spend eternity in hell.
“British journalist and Christian Malcolm Muggeridge has stated (paraphrased) that the doctrine of the total depravity of man is the most empirically demonstrable doctrine in the bible, yet it is the one most universally denied. The basic idea is that when we look around, we see the sinfulness of mankind played out on every stage. In every newspaper, every news website, every television news program, we see the evidence of the sinfulness of mankind on display. Yet this doctrine is often denied, because we don't like to think of ourselves as 'bad people.' Some of these people would say that we are born 'basically good.' Others would see us as being 'good, with the choice to do good or evil.' These people note, rightly enough, that we don't do everything bad that we could do. Even some of the most evil people have some good qualities.”It is true that Jesus did not come into this world to make bad people good. He came into this world to make dead people live. Those who were dead to God were to be made alive to Him through the work of the Holy Spirit,
•What do we mean by good anyway?
•Do we each have our own definition?
•Do we deny everyone else the right to have their own definition of good?
I think that we all think we see the big picture. We think we see everything there is to see. However, bring a microscope to bear upon an object, and a world we didn't see suddenly startles the mind as it comes into view. That's in effect how God sees the world - He sees everything.
A woman died and could not go to Heaven because she had been mean and cruel to everyone all her life. She went to Hell, and from there she prayed for mercy. Was there no way she could be admitted to Heaven?
The angel who guards the gates looked around and asked all the souls in Heaven, "Is there anyone here who has ever had a kind word or an act of generosity from this woman?" Only one stepped forth. He said that in life he had been a starving beggar, and one time this woman had given him an onion. The angel told him, “Bring me the onion.” It wasn’t much of an onion—small and shriveled—a pretty poor meal even for a beggar. Would it be enough of an act of kindness to raise the old woman out of Hell?
The angel took the onion and reached down with it into Hell. The old woman grasped it and the angel began to pull her up. The thin dry stalk seemed like it might snap at any minute, but as she held onto it, her feet were lifted from the ground. The other damned souls around her saw her beginning to rise Heavenward and they grabbed at her skirts and her feet, hoping to be pulled up with her. The onion stalk was so spindly. Would it hold?
The old woman looked down at the other damned souls clinging to her and yelled, “Let go! It’s my onion!” And with that, the onion broke.
•Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky (who also wrote Crime and Punishment)
Claiming complete innocence in the eyes of God is unjustifiable.
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