April 14, 2007

Dear Rodger Tutt,

I have given the materials and information you provided on my Web Forum further thought. I am a very carefully guarded person when it comes to proper and effective application of the Word of God.

This thought that the Bible teaches us "universal transformation" for all creatures is bunk. In that ideaology, there is no room for maintaining a properly balanced "fear of God." There must of necessity be a fear of God in the hearts and minds of the believer because without it, there is no careful regard for obedience. Love as defined by scripture cannot be truly achieved if one believes all are saved. Love is an unwavering comittment to abide a selfless life for God after the pattern Christ afforded us. That pattern He established does not set us free until we ourselves can abide by it. It therefore takes a strong and unwavering comittment to do as God wills. Secondly, only a true believer can grasp the faith of their own salvation but a non believer who opposes God on all levels cannot begin to understand because they have been delivered over to a deluding influence. They freely chose to reject God and are thus separated from Him in their willful sin.

Such an ideaology as you support would mean that the likes of men as Stalin, Hitler, Hussein and such will be redeemed and saved by the grace of God. I hardly think so because God promised long ago that "vengence was His and that He would repay." The souls of the martyred saints beneath the altar before God's throne as depicted in Revelation cry out for vengence and God promises - "a little while longer until the last of their brethren and fellow servants is killed." There is and always has been a place reserved for the condemned and the promised "Lake of Fire" is no picnic my friend. So, you see, I take great issue with you teaching an abborant doctrine which does not harmonize well with what the whole of Scripture teaches us.

Furthermore, promoting newer translations of the Holy Bible to somehow show or prove a universal transformation is vain in itself because understanding comes from God and His Word needs not to be changed or manipulated in any way.There are bad translations and I don't use them but I have learned to trust the KJV and NAS because of their accuracy to the Hebrew and Greek being better than most. But still, it is the discernment which comes from God that gives an individual the ability to understand. Man's endless works in attempting to understand before God is ready to reveal a matter is fruitless.

There is far too much disagreement between what you are teaching and the rest of Scripture and the historical pattern recorded in it. What you promote puts the sinner at ease rather than striking fear in the hearts of the unrepentant. God does make the grace available to all mankind but men must freely choose to walk in it thereby proving their love for God. There are no free tickets to heaven my friend. Read again my first reply to you written last summer and check against all known scripture.

This is not a come one - come all - come as you are invitation. The whole of scripture reproves us to seek out a genuine repentance and embrace the selfless love Christ patterned for our lives... to walk in it. That becomes our love and is a true definition of love in God's eyes. Look around you Rodger. I don't see a saved world but a fallen one. We are yet still carnal and walking in our fallen nature until we begin to see God for who He truly is - an all consuming fire towards His adversaries and a refuge of faith, hope and love to those that obey Him. One type repents and by faith and through grace becomes saved but the others are saved only for judgment on the last day. I'm sure many will see grace and mercy as they account for the lives they were given but many more will also be cast outside where torment awaits them as their reward for all their unrepentant sins against God and humanity.

"God loves judgment."

With all Godfearing sincerity, Nicholas A. Stivers

Hi Nicholas.

The strongest sets of influences will always dictate what we choose to believe, every time, without exception. This is an irrefutable truth.
You have to believe what you believe, and so do I. We are both just as convinced that we are believing the absolute truth, and we will both probably die believing the way that we do now. We will all try to influence others as much as we feel we should, but within the wise counsel of His decretive will (that which must occur), God will decide how successful we will be.

In my life the strongest influence is the thousands of pages of evidence that is contained in the tentmaker search engine about what a correctly (literally, not interpretively) translated Bible teaches. Here is what I firmly believe and here is what I post on hundreds of forums.

HERE’S WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN NOW



Based on my experience of posting on many hundreds of forums, here's what's going to happen now.

The people who want to keep believing that the Bible proves that everyone deserves to suffer forever in hell just because they were born into this world, or because they don’t make the “right” choice before it’s “too late,” or that God created beings with a will so strong that they can irreversibly choose themselves into a state of eternal torment - these people will keep believing it because they want to.

But people who want to believe that the Bible nowhere supports such a concept of God will examine the evidence contained in HIS ACHIEVEMENT ARE WE by James Coram at http://concordant.org/expohtml/HisAchievement/index.html
and they will learn that the Bible actually teaches universal salvation instead, not even annihilation.



Or, they will go to the search engine at the top of http://www.tentmaker.org and will type in a key word or phrase from any argument or scripture passage.

Ten articles will come up refuting the claim that the Bible teaches eternal torment.

Then they may click to the next page and ten more articles will come up, and so on and so on for thousands of pages.

The many entries in my guestbook that is accessed towards the bottom of my front page at http://greater-emmanuel.org/Hope4You/
and the many entries at http://www.tentmaker.org/visitorcomments.htm
show just how much this information is helping people.

This was the information that enabled me to recover from a twelve year nervous breakdown, and it gives me great joy to keep learning every day that it is helping more and more other people too!!

Regarding arguments against the Bible teaching universal salvation, see
http://www.tentmaker.org/books/BibleThreateningsExplained.html
Any hell that anyone will experience the Bible calls "kolasis aionian," which means age-during corrective chastisement.
http://www.tentmaker.org/books/asw/Chapter11.html
It is limited in duration, and corrective in purpose.
http://www.tentmaker.org/books/Aion_lim.html

My testimony contains information that, according to the 150 entries in my guest book, and the many positive emails in my email file folders, is helping many people. My guest book can be accessed towards the bottom of my front page at
http://greater-emmanuel.org/Hope4You/

Also see the testimonies at http://www.tentmaker.org/visitorcomments.htm
My guest book only holds 150 messages. Then the oldest ones are automatically deleted to make room for the newest ones.

So much suffering is caused by the horrific false doctrine of endless suffering in hell, that it gives me great pleasure to guide people to the evidence that a correctly (literally, not interpretively) translated Bible teaches universal salvation, not endless suffering in hell, or even annihilation.

We agree with fundamentalist Christians that we should not believe things that go against Biblical teaching. We don’t.

I'm 68, and I am acquainted with many people who are, or were in various stages of nervous breakdown over their inability to love a god who would let anyone suffer forever. Even though they have embraced Christ and His gospel, they are afraid of what God might do to them after they are raised from the dead for not being able to love Him. The information in my testimony has helped many of these people.

If any member or surfer on this forum is suffering because they are unable to successfully emotionally cope with the idea that God is going to let any creature suffer forever, they can Google up the more than 600 page search engine at the top of the TENTMAKER front page. Just type in a key word or phrase from each argument or scripture passages and ten articles will appear that refute the eternal hell and annihilationist doctrines.
Then click to the next page and ten more articles will appear, and so on and so on for
many pages.

Most fundamentalist Christians are not even aware that there are two sides to the argument about what the Bible teaches.
I have exhaustively studied both sides myself. This debate always ends with the words, "My Greek scholars are more reliable than your Greek scholars," and the result is a stalemate.

If your readers think it glorifies God more to believe that He is going to let some of His creatures suffer forever, then they should keep believing that.
But if they think it glorifies God more to eventually meet everyone on the level of their greatest and deepest need, which is a change in their stubborn will, then I would like them to know that that is exactly what the Bible teaches that God is like.

I am a Concordant Christian. I have read and recorded gleanings into my more than four thousand page personal journal from most of the back issues of UNSEARCHABLE RICHES that has been published back to 1909. Every argument that I have ever heard against the Bible teaching universal salvation have been repeatedly dealt with in these magazines.

Largely, but not exclusively, because of the contents in these magazines, I am convinced that the evidence in support of the Bible teaching universal salvation is irrefutable. That is why the argument that we should teach endless suffering in hell just in case it might be true is unacceptable to me. IMHO the greatest of all manifestations of God's grace in action on this earth is that anyone can believe in "eternal suffering" for anyone and not have a nervous breakdown thinking about it.

Here are several Concordant websites.
http://www.concordant.org/
http://www.saviour-of-all.org/
http://www.godstruthfortoday.org/
http://www.godstruthfortoday.org/Library/index1.html
www.gracetruth.com
http://www.tentmaker.org/

From Rodger Tutt in Toronto, Canada
“That God may be All in all” 1Cor.15:28