There. How are you guys doing? Pretty sure we're live right now. Let me jump in here and
just double check. Hey Michelle, good to have you. Great to have beautiful people with us.
Cool. Very nice. Hey, good to see you. Hi. How are you doing? Really good.
That is cool. Very, very cool. Hey Kerry. Hey Michelle.
Good to have you guys here. And I'm just checking in on the...
This is cool. We've got a couple of people watching the live as well. The link is there
for anyone who's in the live. Hey Rod, I see you there, my man. Very cool. If you are watching
in the Facebook group, live or delayed, then always feel free to be chatty. And then I know
you're there. I love tracking with you guys. So that is very cool. Beautiful.
So, how are we doing team? How are we doing? We'll just take a moment here
and then we go get right into it just in a moment.
Have you guys been finding the hard things challenge? What's been happening?
Here's my little chart. Oh, champion. Yeah. And I've been getting the mark like every day.
That is fantastic. Does that feel great? Oh, it does. It feels fantastic. Feels amazing.
That is excellent. Do you know what that feeling comes from?
Success. Every single time you release one of those tics, your brain rewards you with a chemical
called dopamine. And dopamine is the feel good chemical. So nothing feels so good like achieving
something because your brain goes, yes, and it rewards you with a good hit of dopamine.
So that's good. It's good news. And then also you get to just see
results as well. Are you seeing any results for yourself?
Actually, I had something happen to me in my car. I was on the way to the city and I had like a
whole day that I had to do things and I was driving and I just like deliberately decided to do the
trigger while I was driving. And all of a sudden I had this tangible experience of the presence of
the Trinity in the car with me. And it was like, they were happy to be with me. Yeah, they were
happy to be with me. And I had this sense that they were looking forward to spending the day
with me. And it was almost like a jokey, funny kind of experience. And I just burst out laughing.
And then I started to cry. And then I was laughing again. I've never had anything like that happen
to me. It was just, yes, it was really, really amazing.
Oh, that is fantastic news.
Yeah.
Yeah. Hi, Michelle. Welcome, Ramila. Great to have you guys. Hey, well, let's pray.
And we're just going to keep this session to an hour and pray for a moment. And then we'll jump
right into it. But feel free to be chatty in the Facebook group or here in the Zoom room.
And we're going to have fun in this session. We're going to be talking about the Christian
spectrum of beliefs around hell and also going into a PowerPoint presentation on the origins
of the gospel. So we're going to break this into two sessions. We'll do one today. We'll do one
next Wednesday.
So, yeah, feel free to ask questions as we go, but let's pray for a moment and then just
see what happens.
Hello Yeshua, Holy Spirit, we love you, we delight in you, we worship you, we give you high praise, we exalt you, we are delighted in you, we are delighted in you, we are delighted in you.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.
We welcome your flow, Holy Spirit, we welcome your glory, we welcome your nearness, we welcome visions, and dreams, and encounters, and we welcome signs, and wonders, and miracles, and we welcome angels, and we welcome the cloud of witnesses, and we welcome all of heaven, we welcome the throne of heaven, and the atmosphere of the throne of heaven to flood this time.
We want you to be enthroned on high, Jesus, we want your name to be lifted high, we enthrone you in our praise right now, we enthrone you in our adoration right now, we declare you are the King of Kings, we declare you are the Lord of Lords, and we love you.
We thank you for your kingdom manifest in this place right now, we thank you for your love, and your presence, and your power, and your word, and your spirit moving in this place, we thank you for the lightnings of God, we thank you for fresh encounter, we thank you for fresh nearness, we thank you for wrapping people up in your love, I thank you that you break out in front of them with breakthroughs, and signs, and miracles, we thank you, Lord, we thank you for that encounter for Haiki this week, we thank you for more, more, more.
We thank you for the miracles that have unfolded this week, we thank you for all that you've done this week, we love you, we honor you, we bless you, we thank you for grace to do hard things like never before, in Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
Wow, I'm very, very delighted to be enjoying him, so good to be with you guys.
Just a hands up again, who's enjoying the concept around doing hard things?
Who's getting some value out of that?
Yeah?
Very cool.
I can't underestimate and can't, I guess I can't emphasize enough the value of the doing hard things component, that practical component.
You know, we are at day eight, right, but this is day eight, day eight is week five, and we've still got, you know, like, six weeks to go.
Seven weeks to go, seven weeks to go, so we've got a long way to go, you know, we're just beginning but that's where the growth is and the consistency and remember our objective in the Open Heaven Masterclass is the divine life being reproduced in our lives.
And if we look at the, again, if we bring it back again to the parable of the sower, it's not the seed that's the issue, it's the soil.
And we have to recognize that the seed of the gospel is being planted in our hearts our whole lives, right?
The seed's not the issue.
If the seed of the gospel, if the seed of our knowledge of Christ has not, you know, produced everything that we desire it to produce, there's no point in going around and blaming other people and looking at other places, we want to look at the soil, right?
That's a confronting moment when we realize, oh, wow, this is probably less about the seed and more about the soil.
soil. And so the doing hard things on a daily basis is about
tending to the soil of our hearts and our minds. Even the
physical things that we are doing, you know, just moving our
bodies that releases chemicals, okay, that gets chemicals
flowing through our bodies that help our minds function better.
And the better our mind can function, the easier we can
renew it. You know, if our brains aren't functional, it's
very difficult to renew our minds. But when we move our
bodies, we release chemicals, you know, your brain is
constantly releasing chemicals, either the fight or flight
chemicals of cortisol, and adrenaline, or it's releasing,
you know, like the positive chemicals of your endorphins,
dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin that we need in
exercise, you'd be amazed at how much just moving your body
releases chemicals that you need to renew your mind. The water,
again, that's blessing your health, that blesses your gut
health, your gut is the only other place in your body that
has neurological pathways. So your neurological pathways are
in your stomach and in your brain. So part of the part of
you know, like, I've got this gut feeling that saying I've got
this gut feeling, it's because you've got neurological
pathways, your stomach thinks, your stomach has neurological
pathways that are thinking, that's why you get a gut
feeling because your stomach is thinking, well, your water is
going to help with your gut health. And that's going to help
with your overall health, that's going to enable you that's going
to tend to the soil, right in the spirits going to tend to the
soil, reading the words going to tend to the soil, gratitude has
a huge capacity to increase our brains neuroplasticity. So it's
our brains ability to renew the mind. With no, if you don't have
any neuroplasticity, your brain can't learn, you can't renew
your mind. So gratitude, as well as bringing the atmosphere of
the presence of God and the atmosphere of heaven, renews
your mind. So everything that we're doing, we're tending to
the soil. Is that good news? Is that a good plan? Yeah. Yeah. So
don't underestimate the daily, okay, the daily is more
important than what I'm going to all the learning, okay, the
learning is important. But if we keep throwing lots of seed on
the same soil, you know, sure, are we really going to get much
of a different outcome? We need to tend to the soil. Cool, cool.
So we are chatting. Yes, I see Paul there saying soil.
Lavinia is getting good value from doing the hard things. Yeah,
loving people. Oh my goodness as well. Like loving people is
nothing more powerful. Yeah. There's nothing more powerful
than loving someone to soften your heart. And your ability to
renew your mind depends on the softness of your heart. Is
anyone else getting that echo that Patti, I just see Patti
dropped the message about echo. Shouldn't be anything different
on my end. Okay. Yeah, might be those. Okay, cool. All right. So
right now, let's drop any questions you've got about hell
in the comments. I'm not. So I just want we're going to talk
about hell now. So we're going to transition into that part of
we're going to transition to that part of the chat now where
we are talking about we're going to talk about the Christian
spectrums of belief on hell. So why don't you drop in the
comments, ideally on Facebook, drop your comments around hell.
What are your questions? What are your beliefs? Anything you
like? Okay, so we're just going to like brainstorming about how
what do you think about hell? And we're going to chat, we're
going to chat all sorts of things about hell. So okay. Now
who thinks that hell is not just a scary place, but a scary
conversation? For me, hell is a scary conversation. If you're a
minister of any sort, talking about hell is really, really
scary. Because what you think about hell
people will judge like everything else about your life based on what you think about hell.
How crazy is that right? And so um and I guess it's a belief that whatever you think about hell
or whatever your conversations are around hell it's uh it's a topic where there is a huge amount
of punishment right? Um just last week a little five-year-old girl asked my wife this question
she at so my wife and her friend both christian ladies were hanging out and this little five-year-old
girl asked him hey do you think Jesus would forgive the devil if he said sorry?
Now a five-year-old is allowed to ask that right but if you're 25 or 35 or 15 or 65 you are not
allowed to ask that question right like you get a lot of punishment you know for your thoughts
your perspectives even just your conversations or wanting to ask questions about how you get
a lot of punishment right you guys notice that like have you have you have you experienced that
yes or no? I'm watching the I'm watching the comments as well just to the idea here is just
to engage you know initially engage um some conversation around this dynamic of hell um
oh Neil's asking has a pagan idea of hell influenced our christian view of hell?
Um what is the fire? Is it complete separation from God?
Um yeah so there's just a range of comments coming here in the Facebook group as well so
first first thing that I just want to do is I just want to say that it's okay to be on a journey
around this it's okay to ask um questions I haven't really found many safe places in my life
to dialogue around this okay so especially if you're a pastor or a minister um they're like
it's not a it's not a safe conversation to have with people like it's um it's something that
seems to generate a lot of uh I would say almost irrational emotion like you get a lot of emotions
going down um Kerry said never looked at it brought up catholic um lived in hell uh
yeah I guess you know like experienced hell on earth okay hey Raewyn good to see you Andy good
to see you um so Raewyn you've just jumped in we're just um just chatting about hell um so
um I guess what I'm trying what I'm trying to create right now is just a little bit of
safety for you guys around the conversation because it hasn't been a safe conversation
in my life okay so wanting to know wanting to learn wanting to grow wanting to understand
it hasn't been a safe question or topic to ask about how so I want to kind of take this slowly
and here's here's a um here's a mindset where that kind of um here's a mindset that
has made talking about hell an issue okay so just think about this kind of this paradigm where um
when we've grown up in church a lot of the time we've been taught what to think
and not how to think and it's not just that and that's because in seminaries and bible colleges
you're taught what to think not how to think you're taught this this is the interpretation
this is it and you have to believe that and you have to stick within the confines of this
definition all right and if you don't you fail if you don't you're punished if you don't like
you have this so that church that culture starts in how we train our leaders where we punish our
leaders if our leaders don't think exactly down the line down the status quo of that particular
group of people okay so um interestingly if you change groups of people the um the thin line
changes as well does that make sense you go into this particular group of people and there's a
thin line now it's not just related to the topic of how like it's just a mindset in general around
um organizations that want to control people teach people
to think not how to think okay so organizations that don't mind like you know there's not many
organizations right that just are happy to teach people how to think and how to look at things
objectively and subjectively and just take deep conversations and explore things and there's not
many yeah so like Andy's saying you know it can go the other way if you if you believe and there's
this whole performance-based culture again as well right so you're you're going to be accepted
in that group or not accepted in that group based on what you think at that particular point in time
and we have to understand like who here has changed what they thought about something in their life
yeah I have changed what I've thought about thought about so many times and so what I'm
inviting you guys into is I'm not gonna like approach this topic and give you what to think
okay and for some people who are used to being told what to think that will be really frustrating
because you just want to go Benji what do I believe and I'm not going to say this is what
you believe okay I'm gonna I'm gonna say here's some ideas that have been talked about for
thousands of years why don't you explore it why don't you research it so so for some people they
just want to be told what to believe like just tell me what to believe and I'm not going to
tell you what to believe okay I'm uh I've been journeying on this you know for well over a
decade myself exploring it you know uh doing in-depth study on it and you know sometimes
you know you have bandwidth for that and you go real deep on it in that particular season then
other other seasons you don't quite have as much bandwidth to go real deep on a particular topic
so you're like okay I'm gonna have to explore this later so I guess here's me setting the context of
safety here's me creating the culture of I'm like sometimes here's a little a little different
like kind of dynamic for you as well like if someone if you're preaching right when you the
whole dynamic of preaching is to like hammer the truth into someone right that's the that's the
objective of preaching right when you're preaching you're trying to you're trying to impart you're
trying to put that truth in a person but a sermon is a different thing right uh it's different like
a sermon versus preaching a sermon is supposed to actually just cause people to ask questions and
you know in the Jewish culture if um if you went to a to a rabbi with a question
the rabbi thought they'd succeeded if you left with a hundred more
right the rabbi's job wasn't to answer your questions the rabbi's job was to get you thinking
so Jewish culture is far more revolved around how to think and kind of the Greek mindset that we have
established in all of our kind of western world is what to think so you've got to this is what
you've got to think that a Jewish mind is more like let's be curious let's explore let's ask
explore let's ask questions in fact um when a rabbi is teaching in the Jewish seminary
the greatest uh the greatest achievement or the greatest accolade that they can give their
students in a Jewish seminary is when they're teaching something is is this you raise a good objection
it's the opposite it's the opposite of a punishment culture right they celebrate it
if someone can raise a good objection to what they're teaching
because it's it's about the critical thinking it's about the learning process oh this is how
we think this is how we process this is how we explore and what that creates is much more depth
more depth to your conviction much more depth to your perspective much more
uh what do we call it
uh it's just yeah I guess more depth it's more solid in what you're thinking so
Christian's perspectives on hell
who's got a left hand and a right hand all right put your left hand out show me your left hand if
you're on um if you're on Facebook just say left hand okay left hand um yeah Neil's just saying uh
I am getting just getting some good comments in the Facebook there I can't comment all of them now
but um left hand
Right hand. Let's see the right hand, left hand, right hand. Say left hand, right hand.
You're going to use your hands as the spectrum of belief. Your left hand. I'm about to talk
to you about what your left hand represents in the spectrum of belief. Say again with
left hand. All right. Actually, we're going to change it. We're going to change up. It's
going to be right hand. We're going to start with right hand. Say right hand. Right hand.
Okay, right hand. Benjamin. My name, Benjamin, means son of the right hand. So we're going
to start with right hand. So the right hand represents the most extreme perspectives on
health in terms of the most extreme punishment. And the left hand represents the most extreme
redemption. Okay. Say punishment and redemption. Right hand is punishment in this particular
spectrum. Right hand is punishment. Left hand is redemption. So remember, this is a Christian
spectrum of the beliefs of hell. So it's not just hell. It's salvation. It's inclusion. It's all
these things. So on the right hand and the most extreme side of judgment, you've got this small
group that lives in a place called Maramarua. All right. Now, please bear in mind that this
particular group is made up. Okay. They don't actually exist. I'm just making this up
for an example, but you'll get the picture as soon as I get into it. So the small group of
people in Maramarua, and there's 12 of them. Okay. There's 12 of them in this whole group,
and they got the revelation. They discovered that they are the only ones on the planet who actually
receive the true gospel. Right. They're the only ones. No one else is saved. Just this group of 12
people in this little country area called Maramarua. Right. And in that group of 12,
there is the 12 of them, but they're not really sure about six of them.
And then two of them are kind of iffy, and one's right on the fence, but there's three that they're
pretty much certain they're going to make it. Right. But the rest of humanity won't.
So that's on your extreme judgment hand is just like this group of people, and they're like,
okay, only three of us out of all humanity are really actually going to make it through. We're
the only ones that got the revelation. Everyone else is going to hell, and they're going to suffer
unending, unspeakable torments in hell. Okay. So you kind of get that picture, right? That's
the extreme version. And then just down, right, probably on your risk. Okay. So now on your risk,
a little bit further down the spectrum is you've got extreme Calvinism. Okay. So extreme Calvinism
has a dynamic called double predestination. So double predestination. And double predestination
is the flip side of predestination. So predestination is God decided before time
who would get to go to heaven and who would go to hell. So that's the flip side of predestination.
So obviously, if he decided who gets to go to heaven, he also decided who gets to go to hell.
So extreme Calvinism, their picture on this is the ones that don't go to heaven that God chose
before the foundation of the earth, he chose to send them to hell. And that's what gives him great
pleasure, right? This was God's pleasure. Before the foundation of the world, God chose to send
them to hell. And when they're in hell, they suffer unspeakable, unending torment at the hand
of God, right? It's God is the one that's actually taking pleasure in their torment, in their torture.
So I don't know about you, but to me, that sounds like that God is a satanic psychopath.
Agree or disagree? Does that picture of God sound like God is a satanic psychopath?
Yeah. To me, that is worse than Hitler, right?
like there's no comparison like hitler's like hitler makes you know like hitler in that context
as a saint um that concept that god would before the beginning of time predestine the majority of
humanity to suffer unending unspeakable torment is pretty gnarly right yeah so let me pause there
for a moment because millions of people believe that right now on the planet millions of people
believe that millions of people in churches are being taught that every week okay so it's not
like that's some bizarre thing that doesn't exist no millions of millions of christians around the
world are taught that and what do you think that does for your image of who god is and what god's
life does that you know like what now something that something that makes this this topic of how
so important is that there's there's no like our second i always i talk about identity all the time
right identity is one of the most powerful beliefs that you'll ever have it's your second most
powerful belief your your first your single greatest most powerful belief in your belief system
is who you believe god is what's he like that's why it was jesus number one
focus when he came is to reveal the nature of god
so that's what jesus did he came to reveal the nature of god because it's our most powerful
belief and if right if you can shift that one belief of the nature of god your image of god
if you've got a if you've got a false image of god this is what it's like if you've got a false
image of god it's like a demon aircraft carrier
in your in your life all the infrastructure nearly all the demonic infrastructure satanic
infrastructure of satanic beliefs and satanic curses and bondage are built on the foundation
of a corrupt image of who god is so when you get rid of a false image of god it's like sinking a
demon aircraft carrier that's why i might make the focus of my ministry revealing the father
and revealing identity because if you deal with those two lies what i've seen so many times is
all of a sudden people go i feel so free i feel so free wow because those are the foundational
lies that all the other demonic infrastructure gets built on those two lies so if you just focus
on that it actually like the rest almost takes care of itself if you if you nail those two things
nearly everything else in your world will fall into place so this is one reason why talking about
hell is really important because whether you have consciously processed it or not your beliefs around
hell dramatically shape your image of god
and it might not be something that you think about consciously right but
subconsciously and unconsciously if you think that god does you know predestined the majority
of humanity to suffer unending unspeakable torments in hell before the foundation of time
you know before time began if you think that's what he did and you think it gives him pleasure
to do that and to cause them you know people to suffer unending torment in hell um if that if
that's what you honestly believe is the truth what do you think in your heart you're going to actually
feel like god is like yeah um i think you're going to think that he is actually at heart
a twisted satanic psychopath and you're really not going to want anything to do with it right
okay so that's just one so uh that's one picture of hell okay now um catholics talk uh a bunch about
um catholics talk a bunch about purgatory which is you're in hell for a time for a season
um tammy welcome good to have you tammy and sue welcome good to have you with us
So, St. Peter's Basilica, who knows what St. Peter's Basilica is?
Let me, give me one second, I'll pull up for you a picture of St. Peter's Basilica.
St. Peter's Basilica is one of the most phenomenal pieces of architecture in the world.
Let me screen share here, I'll just show you a few pictures of St. Peter's Basilica.
Okay, here we go, this is like, oh I don't know, I think we might be covering that up
a little bit, here we go, look at that, can you see that?
Um, I don't know if that's going to take me, it's going to take me to the wrong place,
sneaky. So, look at the ornateness of St. Peter's Basilica, look at this, this is crazy,
this is like crazy amazing. So, Michelangelo, the famous Michelangelo, this was one of his
masterpieces, he actually died before it was finished, but he was the main, you know, one of
the main guys involved. This place, St. Peter's Basilica is off the charts, phenomenal, one of
the single greatest pieces of artwork on the planet, like this, this is just mind-blowing,
this place. Okay, so, so the interesting thing about St. Peter's Basilica is that it wasn't
cheap, right, that was really expensive, but they did their fund, a lot of their fundraising, right,
the Catholics did a lot of the fundraising for St. Peter's Basilica by selling indulgences,
and this is one of the things that's, you know, that was a catalyst of sparking the Reformation
with John Calvin and Martin Luther, is that the selling of indulgences, they, they told people,
so this is important because this is deeply ingrained in people's mindsets around health,
is that they told people how badly their relatives were being punished in purgatory.
Like, oh yeah, I mean, they've got another 10,000 years to go, and then do these elaborate teachings
on the extreme tortures that people are going through, and how long they're suffering there,
and then at the end of that say, but, you know, like for 10 bucks, if you give me 10 bucks right now,
I'll talk to the boys, and we can actually, actually get them out, and so what we'll do is,
we'll actually give you a certificate that shows and proves this certificate, it proves
that we got him out of purgatory, and people were like, yeah! Now, not just a few people
believe that, right, remember, look at how expensive St. Peter's Basilica was,
they made a lot of money doing that, okay, so that again is, is that teaching people what to think,
or how to think? What was the purpose of teaching people what to think? Control,
manipulation and control was the purpose, okay, and they were obviously just blatantly
just blatantly swindling people, so that has a big impact on the psychology, you know, of
people's perspectives around hell, all the imagery that came around it, all the
emotional talking about it, you know, that all had a big deal, you know, create a big impact around it,
so that's another aspect of hell, and then, then the next kind of, if you kind of move along, right,
so you've got Calvinism, and then most Christians, most Christians are aware of Calvinism,
and then they're aware of Arminianism, okay, so Arminian was a guy, he actually was a Calvinist
initially, he was part of that crew, then he was like, no, I'm not into this predestination stuff,
I think it's wrong, so Arminian, he came out of Calvinism, and he created some new ways of thinking,
which is what most of the Western Church would be nowadays, or kind of class themselves as Arminians,
so an Arminian perspective is that
God didn't predestine people to be saved, or, you know, go to hell, or anything like that, everyone...
has a fair chance to choose, right?
So they'll be like free choice.
Calvinism is predestination.
Arminianism is free choice.
You actually, you get to choose how it happens, okay?
You get to choose Jesus or refuse Jesus.
Calvinism is, it's actually all pre-decided
and you don't get a choice.
God's decided this for you.
Arminianism is you get a choice, right?
It's your choice to come to Jesus.
So that's how people preach the gospel most of the time.
You know, like if they're doing an old school,
like, hey, would you come and receive Jesus?
You know, you can come to Jesus.
And so, but then ultimately, right?
The perspective on hell is,
if you don't choose Jesus right now,
and this would be a classic thing.
You don't choose Jesus right now,
you go out of the church tonight
and you get hit by a car,
you're gonna go to hell forever and ever
and you're gonna suffer intense,
unspeakable torment forever and you will never escape.
That will be your lot.
Now, some people in this comedy,
Arminian Stream and a few other dynamics
have talked about annihilation,
that you get annihilated.
That's the gist of it.
You just get, you cease to exist.
That's your punishment.
Now, there's the next one along the line.
Okay, so that's probably middle of the road
would be Arminianism.
That'd be kind of the middle of the road perspective.
And then the next one along is Trinitarianism, okay?
So remember Calvinism, it's predestination.
God decides if you're in or out
and majority of people are out.
Okay, Arminianism is you decide
if you're in or out,
but still majority of people are out.
Still, even if you look at it like that,
on that kind of dynamic, you're still talking,
you know, like 10% of humanity ever
makes it, you know, goes to heaven
and 90% of humanity suffer unending,
unspeakable torment in hell forever.
So, going all right with this so far?
You getting it?
Yeah.
Okay, cool.
So, the next one along is Trinitarianism.
Now, I didn't even know that there were other options
apart from Calvinism and Arminianism, okay?
So when I started my research and study
on the origins of the gospel and all those things,
I didn't know there was any other thoughts.
I thought that my little way of thinking
that I'd been told, you know, raised in Arminian,
you know, raised in an Arminian church.
Not a Baptist church, but it was Arminian theology.
So, I was like, oh yeah, cool.
This is the only way of thinking.
I didn't know that, you know,
there was other ways of thinking.
I was like, I thought I was real clever
when I branched out and realized
that Calvinism was another way of thinking.
I was like, oh, wow, there's another way of thinking
that Calvinism exists.
That's crazy.
I didn't know that there was another way of thinking.
Whoa, this is a big paradigm shift
to discover that there was,
remember how I told you in a particular type of group,
they just tell you about one way of thinking
and you have to stick to that one way of thinking
or you'll be punished in that group.
And you're kind of like, hey, Linda, welcome.
So, it was a big surprise to me when I found out,
oh, Calvinism, wow, that's a thing as well.
Wow, I thought like, man, I've had the enlightenment
to think that there's another way of thinking.
And then after really getting into the gospel for a while,
I started to discover Trinitarianism.
I'm like, oh, wow, Trinitarianism, what's this?
This is another huge dynamic.
And actually when we go do our next session next week,
we will do the origins of the gospel PowerPoint.
We won't get to the PowerPoint today,
but we'll do the PowerPoint next week.
And I'll show you, I'll take you back
to all the key players in this process.
And I'll show you the origins of the gospel.
I'll take you back to all the key players in this process.
So, you'll see all the people
that were involved in the process.
But the gist of Trinitarianism is that when it comes...
So, a key point here is inclusion, okay?
So, Calvinism, God only predestined a few people
to be included in Christ.
Because if you look at your inheritance,
if you look at the Bible,
all the good stuff comes if you're in Christ, right?
If you're not in Christ, there's no good stuff.
If you're in Christ, you've got everything, right?
So, that's the big concept, right?
Who's in Christ?
So, inclusion is a major, major factor here, inclusion.
And at a later date, we'll do more,
I'll be like, to this session,
I'm not giving you any Bible.
versus it's just kind of more chatting, setting the scene. At a future date, and probably not
in the master class, but in a future date, I'll get all the scriptures out for you for inclusion,
and we'll go through, you know, like do a real word study on inclusion, okay? But today,
we're just going to racing through chatting, setting the scene for next week's history lesson.
So it's all about inclusion, right? Because if you're in, then you go to heaven. If you're not
in, you go to hell, right? That's the conversation. So the big question is about how do you get in?
So Calvinism, you get in if God decides before you're born. Arminianism, you get in if you
respond and you accept Jesus, then you're in. And Arminianism is like you can be born again,
but then if you're backside, all of a sudden you were born again, and now you're backside,
now you're born, you're not born again. You're in, you're included, but you're backside,
and then you're not, and you do that twice in one day, and you feel like a yo-yo.
So then Trinitarianism, which you guys will all know that Trinitarianism is more
like kind of the area that I preach from and teach from is more of a Trinitarian
dynamic. So the Trinitarian perspective is that when it comes to inclusion,
all humanity has been included forever. Like we've always been included in him.
That's why when Paul preaches in Acts 17, you know, through there he's in Acts 17, 27, 28,
those verses he says, in him we all live and move and have our being. So Paul's message to
the unbelieving people was a message of inclusion before they believed, was a message of inclusion
before they knew God. Paul's message was actually all humanity is included in Christ.
So, and you know, lots of people wouldn't agree with me there because they would be
in the Arminian camp or if they're in the Calvinist camp. So if they're in the Arminian
camp or the Calvinist camp, they'll be like, no! And bear in mind, I used to be in the Arminian
camp and I would have said, ah, nah, I don't think so bro. What is this thing you're talking
about? You and your crazy ideas. Then as I got deeper into it, I was like, holy moly,
these crazy ideas work. So that's the Trinitarian perspective is that all humanity is included
in Christ. But when it comes to Trinitarians talking about hell, they don't say so much
about hell. Not that they don't believe that hell exists, but just in the Trinitarian
mindset, there's not a huge conclusion about everyone's eternal dynamic. A good way of putting
the Trinitarian perspective was C.S. Lewis was a raving Trinitarian. So C.S. Lewis in his book,
The Last Battle. Does anyone know the book, The Last Battle? Yep, cool. The Last Battle by C.S.
Lewis. I think it's the end of the whole Narnia series. The very end of the whole Narnia series
that starts way before Narnia and goes on way after the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. So
the very final moment of that entire huge series, that's one of the most outstanding
series of novels on the planet. The way that that finishes is C.S. Lewis, there's these dwarves,
there's been this big battle, there's these dwarves, there's the goodies and the baddies,
and they all kind of had this awakening in this new place. It's kind of like everything goes dark
and they have this awakening in this new place. And there's like the dwarves and who are the baddies,
and their level of consciousness in that place is darkness and chaos. But everyone else who's
in the exact same dimensional space, they're in the exact same place, their eyes and their
perspective is totally different. They're enjoying each other, it's not dark for them,
it's light, it's paradise. What they're experiencing in the exact same dimension
is heaven and what these dwarves, I think they're dwarf creatures, what they're experiencing is
hell basically. And so that was kind of how he leaves it in the last battle. And that was C.S.
Lewis creating his picture, his perspective on hell and another C.S. Lewis quote. So remember,
I'm not saying this is what to believe, I'm just saying these are different perspectives and you
explore them yourself. C.S. Lewis quote would be, hell is a door locked from the inside.
Okay, so that's a really interesting dynamic
of him saying that hell is a door locked from the inside.
So those are some Trinitarian kind of concepts.
And then after you go, okay, so we're going down
a little bit further now, we're going down here.
We get to another mindset called apocatastasis in the Greek.
Okay, apocatastasis.
Now, apocatastasis, let me bring this up for you.
Give me one moment here.
I'm just bringing up a little bit of Bible for you.
And I'm going to bring you Acts 3.21 and Matthew 17.11.
So you can hear where these guys are coming from.
Say apocatastasis really fast.
We're looking at Acts 3.21, it says,
it's talking about Jesus.
Heaven must receive them until the time comes
for God to restore all things as he promised long ago
through his Holy Spirit.
So say, restore all things.
Restore all things.
And then Matthew 17.11, Jesus replied,
to be sure Elijah comes and will restore all things.
All right, so that's Matthew 17.11 and Acts 3.21.
And that's where you get a Greek phrase, apocatastasis.
And the Greek phrase apocatastasis means
the restoration of all things, okay?
So the restoration of all things is another dynamic.
And like I said, next session, we'll get the PowerPoint out,
we'll jump through, we'll race through church history.
It's going to be pretty dynamic
and we'll meet some pretty amazing characters there.
And some of the characters that we'll meet next week
preach this dynamic apocatastasis
in the church mainstream for centuries, right?
And so the restoration of all things
has a few different levels to it within itself, okay?
So level one of the restoration of all things
that a number of church fathers taught for centuries
is level one is all of humanity eventually gets saved.
So they're not saying that hell doesn't exist,
but what they're saying is hell is finite.
They're saying that hell isn't age, there's a season
and that hell passes and that ultimately
hell is about purification
and that there's a process there that people go through
and then, yeah, but ultimately all humanity gets restored,
okay?
That's one line of thinking that was taught.
Another line of thinking that was taught is that,
yes, all humanity gets restored
and all the fallen angels get restored.
And then there's another line
and then there's another way of thinking that says,
yes, all humanity gets restored,
all the fallen angels get restored
and Satan himself actually gets restored
and that's what the restoration of all things is, okay?
So that's another like, whoa, there's a whole new paradigm
and that's something that you could get yourself
into lots of trouble, even just for mentioning the fact
that that has been historically taught,
you get in trouble for even being aware
of history about that, you know?
Like, there's been a lot of punishment come on people.
So all I'm saying, not saying you should believe that,
not saying I believe that,
I'm just saying that's what was taught for centuries.
And then the reason that, I think one of the reasons
why people really rage against that,
yeah, so I see different people's comments there,
doesn't sound like what it says in Revelation.
Like I said, right now I'm not going real deep
on all of those things,
but she says it doesn't sound like,
doesn't sound like what it says in Revelation.
I'm not preaching this to you,
I'm not teaching this to you right now.
All I'm saying is this is the historical story, okay?
So if you did miss the start of,
if you did miss the start of this chat,
then you probably wanna go back
and just kind of like catch the beginning,
let's set the context to make sure everyone's like,
boom, like vibing with us, cool, cool.
So then the next,
so apocatastasis or the restoration of all things
is also called Christian universalism, okay?
Now, Christian universalism,
there's another dynamic to universalism, okay?
So Christian universalism,
So everyone's, every knee bows, every tongue confesses,
Christ is still your savior,
Christ is still no way to the Father
except through Christ, okay?
So that's Christian universalism,
but there's another thing called Unitarian Universalism.
And in the Second Great Awakening,
there was, you know, it wasn't just Christianity
that really flourished during the Second Great Awakening,
Mormons flourished across the states,
all sorts of different dynamics, you know,
of spiritual beliefs flourished across America,
including what is known as the Unitarian Movement, okay?
Or the Unitarian Universalist.
So Unitarians, they had their origins in Christianity, okay?
But then they came out of Christianity
and created their own dynamic of Unitarianism,
but Unitarianism is not a Christian belief
and it is a Christless salvation is what they teach, okay?
They teach a Christless salvation.
So it's not even on the spectrum of Christian belief,
okay, it's off the scale.
So if you're looking at the left hand,
so Unitarian Universalism is off the scale,
it is not on the spectrum of Christian teaching, okay?
It is not a Christian doctrine.
And this is something that's really important
because historically there's a big like,
whoa, these guys are crazy, they're teaching it,
like this is a Christless salvation.
And what people don't realize is that Christian Universalism
that was taught for centuries,
apocatastasis, the restoration of all things,
Christian Universalism and Unitarian Universalism
are two completely different things.
Unitarian Universalism is not a Christian teaching,
it's a Christless salvation, okay?
So that is not something,
like that is something that we absolutely
don't agree with or we don't endorse that concept
of a Christless salvation at all in any way.
So that's not on, right?
It's gone beyond your left hand, it's not on the scale.
I hope that makes sense, right?
So we've got way over here that little home group
that thinks that only the three of them are gonna make it
all the way through extreme Calvinism,
Arminianism, Trinitarianism, apocatastasis,
the restoration of all things or Christian Universalism
where all humanity gets restored,
where humanity and the fallen angels gets restored,
where humanity, the fallen angels and Satan get restored.
And then off the scale on the other side,
like off the chart where there's like,
so the very far part of the left hand,
that would be that everything humanity,
fallen angels and Satan,
everything that God ever created gets restored.
That's like, that's the extremity, right?
Of the left hand.
And then just past the extremity
in the area of non-Christian beliefs
is Unitarian Universalism.
So I hope that makes sense.
And I wanna wrap it up with a few questions
that I wanna kind of like,
kind of, and a couple of issues, right?
A couple of problems that I'm seeing with people
as our generation starts to explore some of these.
There's some issues, some problems that I'm seeing
that are causing people to miss out on their destiny.
These are actually big issues, okay?
So that's one thing, right?
There's the perspectives.
Okay.
Now, I very rarely teach this.
I spend most of my time talking about identity, okay?
And you guys will understand,
that guy, he just talks about identity all the time.
He's got like a school called
the School of Sonship or something.
So let me ask you a quick,
let me ask you this question.
What would, how would it change your life, right?
How would it change your life?
This is just a hypothetical, so you can relax.
It actually gets to the point of identity
at the heart of it.
But how would it change your life if hell didn't exist?
How would it change what you do today
if hell didn't exist?
I want you to think about that, right?
I want you to think about,
how would it change your life if hell didn't exist?
If it wasn't a thing at all?
Which I'm not saying, okay?
I'm not saying that.
I'm just asking this to get to more of an identity question,
okay?
Because if it would change your life in any way,
if hell didn't exist,
then there's an identity problem.
Okay, that's an identity issue.
Because for so many people,
their motivation is hell.
And that what they do, they do because of a fear of hell.
Okay. And I want to say that is an identity issue.
And I'm, you know, plenty of times,
hell has been a good start to motivating people.
And I'll agree, you know, there's been countless people.
And my personal belief is hell is real.
Okay. So don't think that I'm saying that hell isn't.
I believe hell is a real place.
It's amazing how many people have had encounters
that have gone there, been there.
The Bible talks about all sorts of dynamics
of how Jesus taught about all sorts of dynamics of hell.
And actually, interestingly,
we won't be going into it on this chat,
but actually, if you look at the words
that are translated as hell,
when Jesus talked about hell or the Bible talks about hell,
most of the times, Jesus wasn't actually talking
about like a literal place called hell.
Like Sheol wasn't hell.
Sheol was a place of rest.
Oh, come on, man.
Brain's just letting me...
Gehenna, right?
Gehenna is not hell.
Gehenna was the rubbish dump outside of Jerusalem.
And so Gehenna was a place where there was, you know,
always constant burning fires
because that's where they burned the rubbish dump
and it smelled really, really bad.
But what happened with the translators
is they took all these different places
and translated them all as hell.
So Gehenna, Sheol,
just quickly off the top of my head,
that's all I can remember right now.
But they all got translated as hell.
If you actually look at the context,
he was actually talking about the rubbish dump
out of Jerusalem, but we interpret it,
we look at it from our context as,
oh, this is about hell, oh my gosh,
he's talking about a rubbish dump,
a place just over there that I can see.
So not getting into that,
coming back to this question,
we're gonna wrap this up pretty shortly.
But the question is,
what would change if hell didn't exist?
Okay, and so the reason that's an issue
is because so many people just do what they do
out of obligation.
And if you're doing what you're doing out of fear,
or if you're doing what you're doing out of obligation,
or if you're doing what you're doing because of hell,
you've got the wrong motivation.
Because you're not supposed to do what you're doing
out of fear, obligation, or because of hell,
you're supposed to do what you do because of who you are.
And if you know who you are, you are love,
and you do what you do because you are love.
And if you are love, right, if you are love,
the existence of hell is irrelevant
to how you want to impact people's lives, okay?
And it's not, if you're,
if you understand that you are love
and your motivation is love,
your motivation is not just to get people into heaven,
your motivation is that you really help people right now.
Oh my gosh, people are suffering hell right now.
We need to help people right now, right?
We need to help people right now
and the best way that we're gonna help them right now
is bring heaven to earth.
Like we want to bring real change into their life.
We're not just concerned, like, did they pray a prayer?
No, we're concerned for the holistic transformation
of their entire life.
What we're concerned for is that the life of Christ
comes to full fruition in them.
That's what we want.
We want heaven on earth for people.
We want the divine life manifest in people's lives.
We want the fruition of all the promises
that God has for them.
We want them living in the fullness of heaven on earth.
We want them living in the fullness of all their promises
and all their gifts being right now, okay?
So that's what we want.
Yeah, great, Rowan there, quoting 1 John 4 as well.
The perfect love casts out all fear, absolutely.
So our motivation is not to be fear or obligation or hell.
Our motivation, the thing that moves us is who we are.
It's not because of how we love,
because it's who we are.
And then the other dynamic that I want to just say
where I'm seeing a real issue popping up for people
is people exploring this concept, right?
So there's people going,
yeah, we're free to explore this concept, whoo,
which is great, you know, I celebrate that.
But then they're coming to this conclusion, right?
And this is Christians.
Christians coming to conclusions that kind of miss,
that are, again, not connected to their identity, right?
So Christians that come.
to conclusions like say they say they come to a conclusion we've seen this a lot right we see a
lot of Christians going oh no everyone gets saved right everyone gets saved so why bother doing
anything it's exactly the same problem right it's like dude you've got a major identity problem what
do you mean and so there's no motivation at all because like everyone gets saved well there's no
point in doing it that's the same right as the same conclusion that people came to in extreme
Calvinism right well like well God does everything so there's no point in us doing anything anyway
so they just sit back and do nothing and let the world go to hell right so that is a major
major issue again and it that issue too flows out of an identity problem right it flows out
of an identity issue it's like hey you're not grounded and established in love because if you
were grounded and established in love then you wouldn't go oh well we don't need to do anything
because there's people suffering all around you there's people in desperate need if you understood
that you'd probably even realize that your own life is really dysfunctional and you need the
Christ life in you right so there's this other major issue there with it's like oh my gosh people
like Christians are exploring all this they're getting the books on it and they're going shallow
they're missing it you know like they're going oh yeah everyone gets saved like God restores
everything yeah cool I don't have to do anything it's like what that is just as much an identity
crisis you know as as the person who is living in in this place of fear and obligation those are two
major problems that we've got happening in the world right now so there are two things to be
majorly concerned about but let me let me um I think I've got I think I've got two questions
to so this this other here's another thing right because remember we what we talked about at the
start um Michelle's saying we do things to make life better what I'm saying is we do things out
of love right we do John 5 19 which she said I do what I see the father doing we do Matthew
6 9 and 10 which was we bring heaven to earth we so if you look at what the father was doing in the
life of Jesus he was always serving people he was always love looks like something right so
so love looks like something if we understand our identity love looks like something and we
step into that right love has purpose love has destiny love fights for the least of these love
um love rages against the giants of darkness love fights for nations love disciples nations loves
destroys poverty love destroys abuse love fights like um you know like William Booth said I'll
fight I'll fight to the very end you know love looks like something so that's what I'm saying
is you know when people have an identity issue they'll just go like oh it doesn't matter it's
like whoa dude love fights man love is seriously engaged in what's happening right now another
reason why the conversation of hell is really important is because remember our very most
foundational belief is our image of God now um if you were to take two dangerous thoughts right two
dangerous perspectives that I disagree with right here's two dangerous perspectives that I totally
disagree with and ask which one's most dangerous all right so which which perspective is more
dangerous okay the perspective of Unitarian Universalism which is a Christless salvation
right I don't endorse that that's a lie it's not a thing we don't endorse Unitarian Universalism
the concept is a Christless salvation right but another lie which I also don't endorse is
Calvinism's concept of double predestination where God before the foundation of the world
and this is considered a Christian doctrine okay this is Unitarian Universalism is not part of
never been on the Christian spectrum of belief Calvinism extreme Calvinism is strongly on the
Christian spectrum right you know it has been millions of Christians around the world believe
this but which is more dangerous Unitarian Universalism which is a Christless salvation
which I don't endorse or um a Calvinism which says God pre-designed that the majority of humanity
would suffer unending unspeakable torments forever and that gives him great pleasure and he is
actually involved in the torment of all of these of all of this you know of all of what's going on
which one creates
a worse image of God.
Calvinist one. I think actually, to be honest, I think actually the Calvinist
image of God is more dangerous because that would drive a person
away from God. That would drive you into hiding. You would not actually
feel safe around that God, whereas the Unitarian Universalism
doesn't really even say much about God. It's kind of like this open,
it's kind of a new, almost a new agey kind of space, which is actually,
like I said, I'm not endorsing that, but I'm just saying one completely
corrupts your image of God, and one doesn't really say much about your
image of God. So they're both extremely dangerous, but my point is
that in the Christian spectrum of belief, we celebrate this
image of a maniacal being gets celebrated, and it's not
challenged. It's not even talked about like that's an issue, but I'm
kind of like, okay guys, that might be an issue, right? That might be an
issue that's causing us to have a corrupt image of God, and remember our
image of God becomes a demon aircraft carrier that all of the satanic
infrastructure gets built on. So I'm kind of like, guys, do we realize that
we're causing all our own problems? Do you wonder, are you wondering why
Christians have got so many problems? It's because we established a demonic
aircraft carrier with these corrupt images of God that set people up to
fail and be oppressed and live in bondage, rather than stepping into the
Christ-like, where they've got the divine-like manifest in them, which is
what happens when you discover the Father, which is why I like
Trinitarianism, because the whole focus of Trinitarianism is helping people
to reveal the Father, helping people to discover the image of who God really
is. So there you go, I think that's us for today, and we'll pick up again next
week with part two. It'll be Origins of the Gospel, it'll be PowerPoint, and
we'll look at some of these historical characters who've been teaching this
stuff. What do you think? Yeah, sounds good. Wonderful, Benji, thank you so
much. Welcome. Any last comments or feedback from anyone? Anyone got anything
burning on their heart that they wanted to jump out and say? I'm loving reading
John. It's so good to revisit it, isn't it? Yeah, definitely. I've been reading
it in the Passion Translation with some of the notes, and one of the verses that
sticks out that I just love is that picture of the, I can't remember if it's
John 6, I think it is, the picture of the crippled man by the pool, and how
Jesus heals him and says, but heals him by saying, get up with your mat and walk,
and that picture of rest, he's actually saying, he did it on the Sabbath,
but he's actually in the action saying the Sabbath is something you carry around
with you all the time. You are a person of rest. There's no sin in you now, you are
rest, and I just love that picture. I think it's so cool. Beautiful, fantastic, love it.
So, was someone else going to jump in there just quickly before we wrap up? Benji, can I ask a
quick question? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, with our declarations, the one of vision, is that
more the vision how we see ourselves, or is that the vision that we have for how we want to see
the earth, or how we want to see the earth restored? It can be anything at all, you just ask this
question, what do you want, and then fill in the blanks. Yeah, okay. What do you want, that's your vision.
So, what do you want, fill in the blanks, and you can ask that question as, you know,
with as much detail as you like, you know, you can answer the question as detailed as you like,
about anything that you like, and yeah. Okay, thank you.
All right, Benji, we'll bless you all, catch you soon, love you.
So, let's keep up with the daily side of things, and let's, I just want to encourage, I guess the
thing I would like to challenge everyone on is keeping your accountability.
levels high on the posts each day right so each day I'm dropping the posts in there and I want to
encourage everyone and challenge you with accountability on that because this is where
you're going to see the growth is the consistency and the accountability and actually doing it on
the daily okay so you want to um I'm trying to keep you accountable to your greatness that's
what I'm wanting to see is I want to see your greatness and where I want to see your greatness
is I want to see your greatness demonstrated with um you know like actually engaging every day like
putting up your picture or putting up like how you're doing so that's that's an accountability
dynamic that will drive you to greatness so I'd love to challenge you with all that you're like
really I'm going to put you
it's frozen
I want to see you guys getting in on it sweet sweet well I love you bless you bye