I don't know what to believe.

[Deborah-Leigh]

The way I've had it explained

We have all to shed the way it was explained to us as well! 

We all have to get rid of every stupid, blind, heretical blasphemous explaination we ever assimilated knowingly or unknowingly. Everything we have been taught in Babylon is not true, not real, not reflecting the One True God that we are drawn by His Spirit to know through the Truth that we are blessed and privilaged to be recieving through Ray Smith.

Arc

[Roy Coates]

Lupac,

My brother you are not the first, wont be the last and surely are not alone. Peace to you in the name of Jesus Christ.

Rom 12:12  Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;

[daywalker]

Maybe you guys can help me. I'm at the point now where I don't know what to believe. I've talked to Roy and Kat about this, but I figured maybe someone else could help me. I'm starting to think the the bible, isn't anymore true than any other religion's book. I want to believe the scriptures. I want to stop worrying about this and that. And despite my best efforts, I'm still afraid that no matter what I do, if I don't follow what I used to believe, God is going to be angry at me and put me in hell. For a long time, I looked for every way to validate what I believed, because if I thought anything wasn't true, I was going to hell. I tried so hard to believe, because if I didn't, it was hopeless for me. I want to believe this (Truth, what the scriptures teach.), I'm GOING to believe this. Can anyone help me? Thank you.

Hello Lupac,

What you are going through right now is the crushing of your former religion. You're not the first to go through it, and you won't be the last either. Just hang in there buddy... Put everything you know [or think you know] aside and just focus on this ONE TRUTH:


GOD IS YOUR LOVING FATHER; AND HE IS IN COMPLETE CONTROL OF EVERYTHING.

Period.


The rest is will fall into place in time.


Christopher. 

[aqrinc]

Do a Brain Dump, Please, DO NOT MIX OLD WINE (Teaching, Knowledge) WITH NEW (Teaching, knowledge).

These are words to live by every minute of every day, Jesus Christ Said Them, and Remember The Words Are Spirit, not carnal.

Mat 9:17 (CEV)
No one pours new wine into old wineskins. The wine would swell and burst the old skins. Then the wine would be lost, and the skins would be ruined. New wine must be put into new wineskins. Both the skins and the wine will then be safe.

Mar 2:21 (CLV)
21 No one is sewing a patch of unshrunk shred on an old cloak. Yet, if so, is not that which fills up taking away from it, the new from the old, and a worse rent is occurring?

22 And no one is draining fresh wine into old wine skins. Yet, if so, will not the fresh wine be bursting the wine skins? And the wine is spilling, and the wine skins will perish. But fresh wine is put into new wine skins."


Luk 5:37-39 (CEV)
37  No one pours new wine into old wineskins. The new wine would swell and burst the old skins. Then the wine would be lost, and the skins would be ruined.

38  New wine must be put only into new wineskins.

39  No one wants new wine after drinking old wine. They say, "The old wine is better."

george .

[Roy Martin]

Lupac, Have you considered the free will thing? Its very obvious that you want to believe in God, and trust in Him, but you haven't been able to. You fear Satan , but you don't want to. Do you think your choice to play music was of your own free will? Do you think you can of your own free will choose not to play any more? Trust me, you can't quit playing music of your own free will, and you can't want to want to believe in God of your own.
 The truth of not having free will is blasting you in the face like an explosion. Its a truth you can cling to. Its a step in the right direction. The evidence is overwhelming. Can you see it now?
Ask my wife about free will. She can't make her thoughts go away no matter how hard she tries. The more she fights it the worse it gets.
Consider this one truthful tool, and dwell in just that for a few days. Wow! you have one truth you can rely on.
The reason you want so much to believe in God is because He is drawing you to Him. Your just having to travel some rough ground to get to Him just as I had to. Its not of your own to want to believe in Him and not fear a destiny of what Satan might do to you.
Your grabbing at too many things right now when you need to focus on one thing at a time. Not having free will is a major truth that becomes a wonderful tool that will dig you out of this mess you think your in. When you are in a pit there is only one way out and that is up. I've been in that pit, and God is the one that put me there to bring me out of it one step, one tool at a time. This is a process of trusting and relying on God as you will begin to see that it is Him providing the tools to lift you from the pit of unbelief and fear and all that stuff that you have that you want to get rid of that you are trying to do of your own. NO FREE WILL is your tool. Use it. To me this is the key to taking a giant step forward. Its also the greatest snare that keeps one from seeing any truth.
Its like the parables of not understanding one; means you don't understand any of them.
You will never understand or except any scriptures until you get past the free will myth.

Peace little brother
    Roy

[Lupac]

Thank you. It might be easier to for me to accept what you're saying, if I hadn't had the evil version of "predestination" drilled into my head. Here's exactly what I was taught, so you'll know where I'm coming from.

I was taught that there is no way you can come to god without Him "calling" you. If you are called, you are one of the "elect" and god will continue drawing you through "sanctification" until you are very holy, then you'll die and go to heaven. Everyone who is not called, or one of the elect has no choice. They will live and die godless, and then finally go to hell. There is nothing anyone on Earth could do if God has not chosen them. It had been decided from the beginning that you would go to heaven, and they would go to hell. god is just. If he decided to put everyone in hell, right now, and never let them out, we would deserve it, and it would be "fair and just".

And, that's what I used to believe. You see what evil teaching I came from. This is what's been so hard for me to let go. I want to really badly, but I have such deep seated fear of God. Remember the scene in Indianan Jones, when the Nazis who opened the ark had their faces melted off? That was kind of taught to me, what would similarly happen if we looked at god, because he's so holy and we're not. (It was ALWAYS stressed to me how HOLY God is.)

So it's very hard for me to use "no free will" as a tool to fight these things. Having free will used to be the way I could cope with these teachings, as I couldn't believe that god would be so... dare I say evil?

[Astrapho]

No, not evil. God uses evil for a greater good, I believe Ray has mentioned this many times. Okay I'm young and inexperienced, but in everything I do, everything I see, I realize that when something bad happens, it always, always!... Turn out to be a blessing later on. Too many examples to cite for me, but you must have them too. Maybe He's harsh at times (read: Yes He's very harsh), but I wouldn't say "evil".

As for everything else... I went through a similar phase not too long ago, and all I can say is, read the LoF again. The entire damned thing. Throw away everything you've learned in babylon and read again. Ray addressed all of it.

[Lupac]

If you noticed, I said those teachings were evil. God is NOT evil, the teachings in the church about Him are. I will read it again. Thank you.

[Kat]

Hi Lupac,

The beliefs you hold came from a trusted source (your parents) and now are 'real' to you, whether they were really true or not, now you believe in them. To stop these false beliefs that have been controlling your life you must continue to challenge them and by challenging them you will weaken them. Yes it's hard to unlearn the beliefs you have held for so many years, but you know that these false beliefs that you hold are what your parents repetitively fed into your mind when you were young.  That is how you gained these beliefs, it's called brainwashing. You can see the reality of this because most often the child of a Hindu will remain a Hindu, the child of a Muslim remains a Muslim, as well as the child of a Christian remains a Christian.  There may be exceptions, but this is generally true.

Your parents and friends have influenced you and transferred their false beliefs to you and the results is that you developed these deep seated fears. I think that in order for you to embrace the truth you must first get rid of your fears and anxieties about God, that is what's interfering with you accepting who and what He really is, "God is love" (1John 4:08). You must break this chain of learned fears by continually challenging them, until you have overcome them.

There is one source of the Truth and that is God.  We have a very precious source of God's revelation to man preserved down through the centuries, the Holy Scriptures, but we need the original manuscripts set forth by the Apostles. This BT site is a source for us to have the false interpretations from Bible mistranslations removed, so if our eyes are opened we can have this wonderful Word of God to guide us into this one Truth.

John 8:31-32  Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, "If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

mercy, peace and love
Kat

[Vangie]

Great post Kat.  I so agree with what you've said--very good advice for all of us.

Vangie

[Lupac]

Thanks Kat, I'm working on throwing out all the junk I've learned. I guess God's love was never really taught to me, at least, not nearly as much as His wrath, justice, and anger. The only real act of love I was taught about God was Him giving His Son to die. But even then, that was to fix a problem Satan caused, but He knew about, and it only was for his "elect".

[arion]

You will come to experientially know these truths in time and will assimilate themselves into you so they become a part of you.  The time is coming that you will no longer question them.  Ray has said it many times that if something really indeed is true then all your honest study will prove that it is true.  The same with the false beliefs you were taught.  As you study them and find out where they came from and why people believe them then as time go's on you will come to know more and more than they indeed are false.  Obviously this is only true if God is indeed working on you to know the truth and I certainly believe that he is.  Otherwise you wouldn't be here and you wouldn't care one way or another.  In a way I envy you because I didn't come to know these truths until three or four years ago and this summer I will be 48 years old.  To know these things and really know them before your even 20 years old is a tremendous advantage for you during the rest of your life.

[Roy Martin]

Lupac, the fact that you can't get rid of the things you have been exposed to, and can't believe in what you want to is absolute proof that you are in control of nothing, not one little thought. God is in control, and you have no free will. I can't emphasize this enough that this is  a solid truth you can cling to. Its the one that can't be denied. Just look at yourself and determine if you can choose what you want of your own. Its impossible for anyone to do this, but with God all things are possible.
You are trying to do things of your own. What your going through is God dragging you to Him, but you fight it by hanging on to the un-truth which is just one of those things that God puts us through in Him dragging us. Not everyone goes through it this way. God has placed you on a roller coaster, and He will take you off when He is ready, but first you will learn that you have no free will and that He is in control, not you, and not Satan. You will know this one way or the other.


Roy

[Ninny]

Bryant..we are all going to be so happy when you finally are able to let God do everything in you...You are going to get it one day! I have prayed for you a lot and I know that you are God's! He is going to reach into your mind and plant a joy in you that you will recognize as a gift from Him!! I want God to continue planting peace into MY mind, as well! God is  a Father in love with His children..of which YOU are one!! Don't ever give up hope, because God is real, He is your Father and HE will never let you go!! You're making it, buddy! Soon God will give you His peace!! 
Kathy

[Lupac]

Thanks, I'm doing better. I read this guy from Tektonics a couple of months ago, that had me a little worried. So I went back to their page. Man, this guy is so wrong. He see hell as "eternal shame", which I can only guess would be people kicked out of heaven, being "shamed". According to him, there's no "eternal torture", only being separate from heaven. (BUt not from God, as he admits God will be "all in all".) Anyway, his whole argument is based on free will. I don't think any serious "christian" can argue with Ray apart from "free will", which Ray has completely destroyed with Scripture. Now, the reason I wrote all of this, is that things that man said, I would be afraid to be in his shoes. His answer to 1 Tim. 2:4 is that God "desires" lots of things, but it doesn't mean it will happen.  He said "Would anyone argue that God desires everyone to be perfect?"

I would say, no, God doesn't at this time. Otherwise it would be. (But it will be in the future, because He is making us in His image.) Anyway, this thing he said really is blasphemous:

God can, by definition, cause things to turn out any way he wishes; again by definition, he can never be forced to choose a course of action with substandard results.

Can an omnipotent being, by definition, cause things to turn out any way it wishes? Actually, no. An omnipotent being cannot alter a free will choice to obtain a desired result (this results in both A and not-A being true at the same time and in the same sense, which is a contradiction). Can an omnipotent being be forced to choose a course of action with substandard results? No, and what of it? It is incumbent on Skeptics to establish that our omnipotent being (God) chose a course of action which obtained comparatively substandard results.

He's basically saying God is powerless to alter any of our "free-will" choices, even if God does not want them to be.

[Lupac]

Lupac, the fact that you can't get rid of the things you have been exposed to, and can't believe in what you want to is absolute proof that you are in control of nothing, not one little thought. God is in control, and you have no free will. I can't emphasize this enough that this is  a solid truth you can cling to. Its the one that can't be denied. Just look at yourself and determine if you can choose what you want of your own. Its impossible for anyone to do this, but with God all things are possible.
You are trying to do things of your own. What your going through is God dragging you to Him, but you fight it by hanging on to the un-truth which is just one of those things that God puts us through in Him dragging us. Not everyone goes through it this way. God has placed you on a roller coaster, and He will take you off when He is ready, but first you will learn that you have no free will and that He is in control, not you, and not Satan. You will know this one way or the other.


Roy

I understand that, what I worry about is, what if God does want me, or someone else, to go to "hell"? Have you ever been on the site CARM? That's what I used to believe, that's what I keep falling back into worrying about. Right now, I'm worried about it...

[Jennie]

Lupac, I see your pain in your writings. My heart goes out to you. I am just an old mountain woman and I will pray for you and love you in my heart asking all the while for God's comfort to be on you. It hurts my heart for my own child to be in pain over anything but there are times I can't fix it. I wish I knew the words to say that would bring you peace but I don't. What I can tell you is that you are loved and cared for by many that have never even met you face  to face. I hope and pray for you to find happiness and peace. I do believe those are some of God's greatest gifts to us. When I start wondering about things I go off in the woods in these old mountains. We have huge boulders that are no telling how old and couldn't be made by the hand of man. I watch the creek water tumble over those old rocks and I feel peace in my spirit. If God cares enough for those old rocks to be on this earth.... how much more does He care for us? I am comforted by that. I hope this day brings you peace, jennie

[Kat]

Hi Lupac,

What if 

What if, the present economic recession plunged into a deep depression?  How could we survive if we lost all of our conveniences?

What If, another ice age got started and it was going to freeze the whole earth?  How would we be able to survive something like that?

Well what if, a huge asteroid hits the earth?  How would we survive that?

What if, there was a pandemic and a terrible disease spread around the world and there was no treatment for it?  Would anybody survive?

What if, there really are evil aliens and they take over the earth?  Could anybody survive that?

I mean we could come up with plenty of 'what if' scenarios and find plenty to worry and fret about. Now let's say none of these 'what ifs' happen, then we have put ourselves through a lot of anguish for no good reason.  We have to find a way to separate what we need to apply our time and effort towards and what is not worth wasting our time with. I personally rely on the Word of God, not the translations and their errors of interpretation, you have to get to the original words spoken by the Apostles.  I am convinced that we have that here at BT. 

Now what will it take to convince you?  Clearly it will be God and He will do that in you at some point and you give up this fantasy of a literal hell.  Then you will know God has done a great work in you.  I hope that will be some day soon.

Mat 6:27  Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

Mat 6:32  ...For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
v. 33  But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
v. 34  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Php 4:8  Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy--meditate on these things.
v. 9  The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.

mercy, peace and love
Kat

[mharrell08]

I understand that, what I worry about is, what if God does want me, or someone else, to go to "hell"? Have you ever been on the site CARM? That's what I used to believe, that's what I keep falling back into worrying about. Right now, I'm worried about it...

Before I came to BT, I used to study the teachings at CARM. And as Ray has noted, whenever someone attempts to explain an unscriptural doctrine, they have to rely on unscriptural words. That pretty much sums up everything about the CARM ministry.

Lupac, from all your many comments in this and other threads, it seems you want be on both sides of the fence. What I mean by that is, you want to trust in the scriptures presented about our Loving God who will save all His children. But you also want to give credence to the doctrine of eternal hell, 'just in case'.

James 1:5-8  If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

I, for one, sincerely believe you are seeking wisdom of the Lord. But as we keep reading the words of James, our requests must be done 'in faith', not wavering. For one who wavers will not receive 'anything' of the Lord. This is similar to our Lord's words that we be either 'hot or cold' and not lukewarm [Rev 3:15-16].

So what it comes down to is: you have to decide. You have to live your life...no one, neither here from the forum or anywhere else, can live it for you. You can continue to waver and question and the members can continue to give you scripture after scripture...but you still have to decide.

Can you really live a life where you look to everyone else to make your decisions? Every single day? Not even you could keep that up, I believe. The rubber meets the road in everyone's life Lupac and the points comes when you have to 'let go' and trust in God. That's the only way you'll have peace of mind.


Hope this helps,

Marques

[Lupac]

You're right, I have to let go... I can't live in fear my whole life. I am going to read Ray's study on love, several times. I don't want to waver anymore, and I won't.

Kat, you're right too. That's thing with me, you know the thing I always feared more than going to "hell"? Not know whether I would or not. Uncertainty. That's a problem with me, that I need to work on. I don't know what it will take, I'll get there though.

Jennie, I do feel alone. I know you all care about me, I care about you too. Thank you.

I was going through some verse in the Bible about God's love. (Because, any way you look at it, that's where I'm stuck, believing that God doesn't love everybody.) I came across this verse, Ephesians 5:25:

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

Now that's a verse I've heard used to say that God doesn't love everybody, only the church. But that's not what it says, it doesn't say Christ gave Himself up for the church "ONLY", 1 John 2:2 says this:

And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

So Christ died FOR the "whole world". Believe it or not, I've even had it told to me that "whole world" doesn't necessarily mean the whole world. How much more twisting can you do to a verse? John is indeed speaking to other Christians, that's why he says "not only ours". Am I going the right way with this?

Thank you all, with God's help, I'm going to pull myself out of this hole.