Christianity everywhere has become perverted, corrupted and apostate

SolitaryRoad.com

Website owner:  James Miller

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I submit that the Christianity that one finds everywhere, the Christianity of all Christian denominations all over the Christian world, is twisted, perverted and corrupted. It is perverted and corrupted because the most central, fundamental, important teaching of Christianity, the teaching that ought to be the main emphasis of Christianity, is universally slighted, rarely talked about. What am I talking about? I am talking about hell. To talk about it is taboo. It has been, for all practical purposes, dropped from the religion. If one studies the four gospels, examines the words of Jesus, one realizes that almost everything he said is connected directly or indirectly to hell. He was always either talking about hell explicitly or talking about how to live to avoid it. It is the central theme of what John the Baptist preached. Their message was that there is a very real hell and mankind had better take it seriously. John the Baptist and Jesus both proclaimed with great passion that there was a final judgment and a hell and that man had best take notice and repent of his wickedness. That mankind was living immorally and wickedly and he had best listen. God came down to this world in the form of Jesus to inform mankind explicitly and emphatically about a final judgment and a real hell. Why would preachers almost universally not preach it? Either because they don’t really believe in it themselves, or because they are afraid that if they do preach it, the people will all leave the church and they will find themselves without a job. They don’t preach it because they perceive that people don’t want to hear about it. Preachers have a strong incentive to preach what people wish to hear and not preach what people don’t like to hear. Preachers are human. They have personal self-interest to consider. Preaching hell is just not socially acceptable. It is just not in fashion. They don’t wish to become a laughing stock. And they want to keep their jobs. There are just some lines you can’t cross, some things you can’t do. But such considerations didn’t prevent John the Baptist and Jesus from preaching about a final judgment and hell. Not everyone was receptive to their message. The people of those days didn’t like hearing about judgment, hell and repentance either. I think of Jesus’ words,

Matt:11:20 - 24: Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not: Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.

Both John the Baptist and Jesus paid a price for having the courage to stand up and speak God’s truth regardless of consequence: John the Baptist was imprisoned and beheaded and Jesus was crucified.

Inseparable from the concept of hell is the concept of sin. For it is sin, wrong behavior in the eyes of God, that results in damnation. What kinds of behavior result in damnation? Debauched, profligate living. Licentious, drunken revelry. Fornication, adultery, homosexuality. That is a partial list.

1 Cor 6:9-10 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, {10} nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

God won’t tolerate that kind of conduct. The message of John the Baptist and Jesus was to repent and reform. The way of God is the way of goodness, virtue and chastity. It is that simple. The way of true Christianity is a straight, clean, pure, upright godly life. In God’s eyes, goodness, purity and morality is everything. That is what we will be judged on in the Day of Judgment.

Jesus died on the cross to atone for the sins of man. But that atonement only applies to those people who repent of their sins and turn away from them i.e. those who subsequently go God’s way, live the good, virtuous life that God requires. No one is sinless or perfect but there is a world of difference between the upright, God-fearing man and the follower of the ways of the world.

Mar 2014