Tag Archives: Rob Bell

Rob Bell Top 100??

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I know, I seem to be beating the Rob Bell bell quite a bit lately. But there is just so much noise that needs to be made about this guy so that the faithful understand his error. The latest is that he has been named to Time Magazine’s Top 100 Most Influential people of the year.  I don’t wish to say much more about him, other than to quote Frank Turk over at Pyromaniacs.com who is also answering the question of the reality of hell in an open letter to Jon Meacham of Time Magazine who wrote the piece about Bell. Frank writes:

How would we know the answer to that question? Is there a way to know whether or not the Christian faith (and specifically, the Christian church) has made any decisions about the doctrine of hell? If there’s not, I think Rob Bell is actually a kind of snake-oil salesman — because let’s face it: he’s portraying a doctrine of hell which he thinks other people ought to adopt. He’s a partisan guy — and we can see that in almost every interview he’s done for his book so far. That is: he wants us to know that for certain the Greek word “Aeon” doesn’t mean “forever and ever” (at least, not in reference to hell — in reference to heaven he’s convinced that the good stuff doesn’t ever stop). He thinks that we do God a disservice by saying hell is punishment that lasts longer than the crime(s). He wants people to get a firm grip on the doctrine of hell — and not fear it. We should embrace it as a commentary on what we do to ourselves.

What he doesn’t want for them is a doctrine in which hell is an unquenchable verdict.

That’s strange, isn’t it — if the story of salvation in the biblical discussion is, as you put it, contradictory, perhaps the problem is that Rob has put too fine a point on it. And if that’s the case, I wonder why his influence is seen as so useful by yourself and by TIME.

Turk knows that Meacham will not answer, nor will Bell. But Turk also knows we need to ask the questions for those who seem to be asking relevant questions of our day. If we are going to ask the question “Is hell dead?” we must be willing to answer the question according to the only source we have on the subject, namely the Holy Bible. Otherwise, we make ourselves to be fools like Bell and Meacham, who think themselves wise according to the world. Here is my earlier piece on the topic in which I show that even J.C. Ryle can correct Bell from the grave.

BTW, I looked at the full list, well, part of the full list of influential people for 2011, and I find that I know very few of them. That is actually good in my book. The object in life is to know Christ and be known by Him, not to know the temporary and passing movers and shakers of our society. After all, the most influential person of all time is… Jesus Christ. Only He can change the heart of a man like Rob Bell or Jon Meacham, or even Timothy J. Hammons (as He has already done). That is quite influential.

Rob Bell Impresses Time Magazine

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Poor Rob Bell. He must think he has arrived now that he made the cover of Time Magazine.

In their latest cover story, Time Magazine has an article about Rob Bell and his views on hell. They seemed to be impressed with Bell for asking the “tough” questions. Their big question: “Is Hell Dead?” I guess that is thought provoking and such. It’s sort of like Nietzsche saying “God is dead.” Trendy and all. But hardly true.

For those of you who are behind the eight ball on the controversy, Bell has written a book entitled Love Wins in which he makes the case that in the end, love wins and everyone gets into heaven… even guys like Joseph Stalin, or Mahatma Gandhi, even though they rejected Christ in this life. This is just another evangelical pastor falling for the lie of Universalism, for it means, ultimately that Jesus really didn’t have to die on the cross.

In Time’s piece, they are asking “Is hell dead?” Since I’ve already discussed Bell in two other posts, here and here, let me answer the question: “no!”

Hell is not something that can die because hell is something that God created for Satan and his angels (Matthew 25:41). He is using the place to deal with the wicked and the condemned for rejecting Him and for their sin. Shortly after the most famous verse in the Bible, is the statement that those who do not believe in Christ are condemned already (John 3:18). This means that eternal punishment rests upon them. Back in the Matthew 25 passage, we get a picture of judgment day from Christ. Those who were His are given eternal life, those who were not, are cast into the “everlasting fire.” Those are Christ’s words, not mine. He is saying that hell is a place of everlasting fire, not just temporary fire, or some such nonsense like that, but eternal.

In Mark 9:43ff, Jesus warns us not to sin, to the point that it would be better to cut off our hand or pluck out an eye, than it would be sin because sin leads to hell, and hell is a place where the worm does not die, nor is the fire ever quenched. In other words, it is an eternal place made for those who do not have the righteousness of Christ. The point is that when hell is given a time reference, it is always eternal in nature. It’s not something that passes away after a time.

Why? It is eternal in nature because God is eternal in nature. He is dealing with sinners in a just fashion, or in a way that fits the crime. When we sin against an eternal being, then the punishment is eternal. Let me explain it this way. If I hit my neighbor in the jaw out of anger, I have sinned against my neighbor. It is wrong to hit. Besides the thrashing I would receive from my neighbor, who is a cop, I would probably have to spend a few days in jail and do community service. But if I hit President Obama in the jaw, suddenly the intensity of the crime has increase manifold. Not that Obama is more important in his person than my neighbor, but because of the authority he has as president of the United States. I have not just hit the man, but hit the one who represents the office. The punishment is far more severe even though it was the same crime.

The point is that when we sin against God, we sin against the most holy, most righteous, everlasting God. The offense is far worse than we can imagine because He is far more holy that we can know. Out of His holiness, justice must come about.

The Good News!!!

Since it is Resurrection Week, I will point out the good news in this. Jesus came to take care of the wrath of God for us by dying on the cross on our behalf. The eternal Son of God comes and deals with our sin against the Eternal God. Therefore, the debt is paid in full when we trust in Him for salvation. However, those who do not trust in Jesus Christ have no hope, for there is no one to deal with that eternal debt of sin they owe to God. So He takes out His wrath on them for all of eternity.

AS for the Time Magazine article, I would discuss more of it, but it’s not worth it. Just read this one paragraph and you get the idea:

Things many Christian believers take for granted are more complicated than they seem. It was only when Jesus failed to return soon after the Passion and Resurrection appearances that the early church was compelled to make sense of its recollections of his teachings. Like the Bible — a document that often contradicts itself and from which one can construct sharply different arguments — theology is the product of human hands and hearts. What many believers in the 21st century accept as immutable doctrine was first formulated in the fog and confusion of the 1st century, a time when the followers of Jesus were baffled and overwhelmed by their experience of losing their Lord; many had expected their Messiah to be a Davidic military leader, not an atoning human sacrifice.

This comes from the school of “it’s just too difficult for us to know in today’s modern world.” Meaning, “you Christians shouldn’t be so sure about what you believe because it may lead to something we don’t like.” I always love it when unbelievers tell us that our faith if just too complicated for us to be so dogmatic. I like to remind people of this verse found in 2 Corinthians 4:3-6:
But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. 5 For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
At least let that be our reminder. Unbelievers don’t get it because they have not been given eyes of understanding being enlightened by God Himself (Ephesians 1:18). They truly are ignorant of spiritual truth because they are dead spiritually speaking. The true spiritual things are of no interest to them.
Here is one paragraph I will discuss. The  Time Mag piece writes:

Particularly galling to conservative Christian critics is that Love Winsis not an attack from outside the walls of the Evangelical city but a mutiny from within — a rebellion led by a charismatic, popular and savvy pastor with a following. Is Bell’s Christianity — less judgmental, more fluid, open to questioning the most ancient of assumptions — on an inexorable rise? “I have long wondered if there is a massive shift coming in what it means to be a Christian,” Bell says. “Something new is in the air.”

Always, and I mean always doubt the word “new” when it comes to Christian/Biblical theology. As William Hendriksen so wonderfully proclaimed about new things in Christian theology, that those thing presented as new are nothing more than than an old heresy with a new dress and new make up. In other words, the same old whore known as heresy. She is not worth dating, flirting with or courting. But here we have Rob Bell doing just that. Trying to get us to court the same old whore in an attempt to reach more people for Christ.
It’s far better to just stick with the truth of Scripture instead of courting the likes of Time Magazine.

J.C. Ryle Confronts False Teacher Rob Bell

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Imagine that. The words of Bishop J.C. Ryle, penned back in the 1800s, condemns false prophet Rob Bell from the grave. For those of you who are not up on Rob Bell, he is the latest liberal pastor to come forth and espouse such nonsense as the fact that people do not really need Jesus to get into heaven. In his book, Love Wins, he puts forth the premise that all people will eventually get into heaven after they die because love wins. This basically means the God is truly cruel in making His Son go to the cross, die the most shameful death ever, for no reason at all. I always think it odd that when guys like Bell try to emphasize the love of God, at the expense of His other attributes, they always end up making God out to be even more cruel than they imagine. Remember, in their minds, they think it cruel that God would send anyone to hell.

The reality is that men like Bell fail to understand mankind’s sinful nature. Paul shows us in Romans (8:7-8) that we are at enmity with God in our natural state. This means our flesh is at war with God. We are rebellious to the core against our Creator and He has every right to do with us as He pleases. We ALL deserve hell for we ALL have rebelled against Him. Out of His love, He does choose to save some from everlasting punishment through His Son Jesus Christ. Those who believe in Christ for salvation are saved, and do not perish (John 3:16). Those who do not believe in Him for salvation stand condemned already (John 3:18).

Bell, and others like him, go on to make the case that those in hell, if they repent, knock on the door, etc., will be graciously accepted into God’s holy presence. This is not what Scripture puts forth for two reasons. First, they will not ever repent. Remember the flesh is at war with God. Romans 3:10-20 also shows us that no one seeks after God. No one! Not on this side of death and especially on the other side of death.

God must seek us first before we will believe in Him. He must change our hearts and convert us for us to become members of the Kingdom of Heaven (John 3:5), for we are spiritually dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1-3).

Secondly, we see from Scripture that they cannot pass between heaven and hell. Jesus tells us (notice that they are the words of Christ) in the story of the Rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) that there is a great gulf fixed between heaven and hell preventing those on one side crossing over to the other side. Going between the two is not possible even if one in heaven wanted to take a day trip into hell. This is one of the deeper truths of Scripture. Jesus is telling us that when we reach our final destiny, it truly is a final destiny. This is how He created heaven and hell (Matthew 25:41, Colossians 1:15-18).

This story is instructive because it shows us that the rich man doesn’t desire heaven. Those in hell do not desire heaven. They merely want relief from their anguish. There is no desire to repent and trust in Christ, even after judgment. They remain in their sin and the very sin that kept them from ever trusting in Christ on this side of death, keeps them from trusting in Christ on that side of death. So the entire premise of Bell’s book is wrong. This is what happens when you emphasize human free will over and against what Scripture tells us. We can say that we are free to choose Christ, but not capable to choose Christ because out of the abundance of the heart, we speak and do as our heart desires. Since our hearts are rotten to the core to begin with, we will never freely choose Christ on our own accord. We need the new birth to take place in order for us to even see our need for Christ. That doesn’t happen in hell. (Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed for me to die once, but after this the judgment). There are no second chances. Bell, in his sinful, fallen attempt to make God out to be so gracious and loving, ends up making God out to be cruel and wicked for causing Christ to die needlessly.

Ryle, in his fantastic book Practical Religion, writes:

“Every reasonable conception that we can form of a future state is directly against these teachers (those who teach universalism). Fancy a heaven which should contain all mankind! Fancy a heaven in which holy and unholy, pure and impure, good and bad, would be all gathered together in one confused mass! What point of union would there be in such company? What common bond of harmony and brotherhood? What common delight in a common service? What concord, what harmony, what peace, what oneness of spirit could exist? Surely the mind revolts from the idea of a heaven in which there would be no distinction between the righteous and the wicked,–between Pharaoh and Moses, between Abraham and the Sodomites, between Paul and Nero, between Peter and Judas Iscariot, between the man who dies in the act of murder or drunkenness, and men like Baxter, George Herbert, Wilberforce, and M’Cheyne! Surely an eternity in such a miserably confused crowd would be worse than annihilation itself! Surely such a heaven would be no better than hell!”

What he is saying is that heaven really won’t be heaven if the likes of Peter and Adolf Hitler are there together. Where is the bond of fellowship? Where is the unity? One followed and died for Christ, the other despised Christ and wanted to become his own god. Peter sought to build up the church, Adolf sought to destroy it and replace it with his own religion. Peter was humbled time and time again for God’s glory, Adolf exalted himself over and over, even in his death, he refused to be humbled by God, and his sinful pride won out.

Ryle continues:

“The interests of all holiness and morality are directly against these teachers. If all men and women alike are God’s children, whatever is the difference between them in their lives,– and all alike going to heaven, however different they may be from one another here in the world, — where is the use of laboring after holiness at all? What motive remains for living soberly, righteously, and godly? What does it matter how men conduct themselves, if all go to heaven, and nobody goes to hell? Surely the heathen poets and philosophers of Greece and Rome could tell us something better and wiser than this! Surely a doctrine which is subversive of holiness and morality, and takes away all motives to exertion, carries on the face of it the stamp of its origin. It is of earth, and not of heaven. It is of the devil, and not of God.”

This last point is why this doctrine keeps coming back. What Bell is proposing is nothing new at all. The error was there in the Garden of Eden when the serpent said, “Did God really say…“Satan was challenging Adam and Eve with this premise: “does it really matter whether or not you obey God?” The answer is absolutely yes it matters. Our very conscious tell us this. How we live matters. For Adam and Eve, their righteousness was at stake in the command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They lost that righteousness and we did too. So now the difference comes in belief. If we trust in Christ for salvation, then we have His righteousness and are accepted into His fellowship and His heaven. If we refuse to believe, then we get to keep our own rotten righteousness and spend eternity in hell with it.

Bell brings us absolutely nothing new in his book Love Wins. He just recycles the same old lies of Satan. For that, Bell’s writings need to be condemned and he needs to get out of the ministry, return to the secular world and sell Blue Bell Ice Cream for a living. He would do mankind a much greater good than he is currently doing with his drivel.

BTW, I wonder if Rob Bell ever realize how much his universalist doctrine must anger the new atheist. Think about it. The new atheist is spending all his time and energy trying to say that there is no God, and that we are intellectual idiots for believing that there is a God. Then along comes Rob Bell and tells them: “Hey, it doesn’t matter that you don’t believe in God. You are going to end up in heaven any way.” The very point of the atheist is the fact that he wants nothing to do with God, and here Rob is telling them, “too bad, so sad. You’re going to heaven regardless of your beliefs!” I’m sure Bell is writing in such a manner so that he can “reach” the atheist. But he has to get past the point of angering them, and… looking like an stupid fool, for bringing down the condemnation of those of us who stand for the truth.

For more on Rob Bell, check out my earlier post here, and Neil’s post on Rob Bell’s take on John 3:16 here along with another post entitled Interesting Facebook Chat About Rob Bell. For more J.C. Ryle Quotes, go here.

Roundup and Thoughts

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Rob Bell in Review

Rob Bell’s Book in Review — You know I commented on the latest false prophet below. He is still making waves because of his book, Love Wins, which seems to say that the gospel of Christ isn’t really necessary at all for men to be saved. This non-Christian leader is saying what a lot of heretics say, “the cross isn’t necessary at all.”  Dr. Brian Lee reviews his book in more detail and writes the following:

Bell’s book is causing a stir in Christian circles not by saying anything new, but rather by saying something old. His conclusions regarding heaven and hell may be radical, but his theology is not. It conjures visions of the American religion described by H. Richard Niebuhr in 1937, in which “a God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.”

Bell places himself smack dab in the middle of the “wide stream of orthodoxy,” but his new, more tolerant Christianity has its own limits. The “traditional” God who stands behind the received teaching of hell as a place of divine judgment. Such a God is described as “cruel,” “terrifying,” “traumatizing,” “relentless,” and “an awful reality.” He is “a slave driver,” “loving one moment, vicious the next,” and “can’t be trusted.”

It seems the wide stream just got a bit narrower. Bell’s claims implicitly exclude all those too naïve to agree with him.

EAT the Rich

Bill Whittle from the Firewall has excellent commentary on what it would take for us to sustain Obama’s spending plan. He calls it “Eating the Rich.” He will put Obama’s spending plan into perspective.

Gig ‘Em Aggies

The Texas A&M Women’s Basketball team plays for the National Championship tonight against Notre Dame. This has really been exciting because the Aggies have done what is necessary to make it. I hope they win big and wish them the best of luck. Gig ‘Em Aggies! Beat the hell outta of Notre Dame!

BTW, I do get a good sense about this game. No one is talking about the Aggies at all. The focus is all on Notre Dame, as if, they have already won the game. That is never good. Hopefully, the Aggies will capitalize on this and get it done. Realize that the Aggies beat both Baylor and Stanford, two teams ranked in the top 5 going into the tournament. They have the talent to win it.

Rob Bell: False Teacher… Worthless Pastor… Savage Wolf

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The Apostle Paul warned the Ephesian elders that to take heed for yourselves and the flock given to them, for which the Holy Spirit made them overseers, and that Christ purchased with His blood. He continued: “For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves” (Acts 20:29-30).

I spoke about this in my sermon on Sunday. The problem is that when Paul describes these savage wolves, we imagine men who have a fiendish look about them, with blood dripping from their teeth and dead sheep all around them. The harsh reality is that these savage wolves always seem like very nice guys. They look and sound like guys that would be a joy to hang out with. What makes them so savagely is the fact that the message they teach and preach leads people to eternal damnation. It does not matter how nice a person is, if they preach a false gospel, they are the most wicked of men because the end result is that those who follow them, are damned eternally.

Case in point: Rob Bell, pastor, teacher, all around swell guy… but in reality a false teacher. He appeared on MSNBC recently with his book Love Wins, in which the premise is that eventually, all people go to heaven because… love wins. Watch the following video in which you will see MSNBC host Martin Basher pointing out that Rob Bell is twisting the gospel to make it palatable for the current culture.

It really sickens me when I see men who have such a large audience, putting forth such a dangerous gospel. Basher really did an excellent job showing Bell’s inconsistencies. O, the gospel is important now? But love wins, so what does it matter? Bell was being trapped and was too much of a touchy-feely guy to see it.

The problem with people like Bell, who focus solely on one attribute of God, that attribute being God’s love, is that he ignores the rest of God’s attributes as well. Specifically, Bell ignores God’s holiness which is spoken of far more in the Bible than God’s love. It is out of His holiness that God brings about His wrath and His judgment. (I feel like I’m repeating myself here… why, o why, do people listen to guys like Bell). That judgment for believes is dealt with on the cross. For those who reject Christ, there is no hope. We know this because of the countless times that Jesus tells us about hell. What Rob Bell wants to candy coat, Jesus spoke of more than anyone else in the Bible. He is the One that tells us there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. He is the One that tells us that there is a great gulf fixed between heaven and hell that cannot be crossed (Luke 16:19-31). He is the One that tells us that the worm never dies and it is better to maim yourself than to sin and be thrown into hell (Mark 9), showing us that going there has eternal consequences. Jesus is also the One that tells us there will be many who do things in the name of Christ, but will depart from Him, because He never knew them (Matthew 7:21ff). So in Bell’s view of the gospel, Jesus tells them to depart from Him on judgment day (the say with the goats in Matthew 25), but then says, “OK, come on back. I was only kidding!”

The reason that people do not change their minds once they get to hell is because they continue to hate God, and there is no longer an atonement for their sin. Jesus would have to die all over again for that to happen (Hebrews 6:4-6). The reason hell is eternal is because the sin they committed was against an eternal being. It takes the death of One who is eternal to satisfy God’s wrath. Jesus was that One and the One by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). He cannot die again, so it is vital to accept Him on this side of death. To reject Jesus is to reject the only means of salvation and once we die it is too late for that. Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment. There is no hope at that point. Remember the great gulf that is fixed between heaven and hell that Jesus told us about? Once one is found lacking, he is cast into that hell and there is no getting across that gulf. It is permanent.

But Mr. Bell would have us believe that eventually God’s love will win out and all those people in hell will be freed and invited into heaven. This ignores God’s eternal decrees of election (Ephesians 1:3-14). It makes God out to be me nothing more that a cosmic hand wringer who is hopeless with the lives of men on this side of glory. It also makes God out to be a liar for He would be contradicting His own word, which He cannot do. Poor Mr. Bell. He is trying so hard to be liked and make God likeable, that He makes God out to be a liar in the process. To make God out to be a liar is to show that the truth is not in us (1 John 1:10). Since this is true, the truth is not in Bell. He needs to repent.

I think that what Mr. Bell also needs to do is go into sales, selling used cars and quit trying to pass himself off as a pastor who cares. He does not care. He is very hateful towards those whom he pastors. He needs to be rebuked in the harshest terms, because he is leading his flock into everlasting punishment. I know, he is such a nice guy. And Satan presented himself as an angel of light too. Real pastors and those who love our Savior, get angry at guys like Bell.  He truly is a savage wolf. What Bell does is wicked beyond hope. May God silence him soon.

Here is more of his teaching.

Sounds good, but in reality he is dead wrong. Those outside of Christ are not spiritual because they are spiritually dead. Ephesians 2:1ff show that the non-believer is not spiritual at all. He is dead spiritually. This is why there is a need for new birth (John 3). Rob… read the Bible! This shows Bell to be more into New Age than true, biblical Chrisianity.

Here is another pastor, Cameron Buettel, discussing Rob Bell and his humanism disguised as the gospel.

Here is Buettel’s blog. I like what Buettel says close to the end of the clip. It is important that we point out false teachers and expose them for who they are. What a lot of people try to do is silence all criticism in the body of Christ. What this effectively does is keep men like Bell from coming under the Scrutiny of the authority of God’s word. Even the Apostle Paul was under this scrutiny. He commended the Bereans for checking out what he said (Acts 17:10-15). We should as well. That is how we know when men like Bell come along, the gospel they are presenting is no gospel at all.