The Evangelical Universalist Forum

What will it be like to discover you were wrong about UR???

I am not ashamed IF I am wrong. The reason? God, the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being holds also a responsibility to instruct us in His Ways, so that we would know what is right and what is wrong. If I am wrong, this is not an excuse, but I would stand before Him and tell Him plainly, I acted out what He had instructed and my deeds bear no evil (since I do everything out of love and support for my fellow brother and sister and neighbor) and I did carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth reaching people in spiritual need and material need (such as food and shelter) in my life.

As Jesus said:
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

"Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

"Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

"The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

"Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

"They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

"He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” **Matthew 25:31-46 **

Well, self-critically speaking, I can (and did sort of :mrgreen:) testify that one thing I had to seriously overcome before I began to seriously believe UR to be true, was my own disappointment that some people wouldn’t be hopelessly damned.

A major turning point in my willingness to seriously accept it (rather than kind of vaguely and romantically hope for it :wink: ), after I began to see the logical ground for UR, was to run a detailed and analytical thought experiment on whether I could really forgive and hope for the best for my worst enemy–with Satan being considered as, nominally, my worst enemy.

(Ironically, he’s a safer target to work on having the right attitude toward, than some persons in my actual experience. :laughing: C. S. Lewis used to point out, to people having lived (like him) through the Blitz and WWII, that a new Christian needn’t bother trying to be able to forgive Hitler, since there are usually enemies in our immediate experience who are more challenging for us to hope for! But since Satan, i.e. the chief rebel against God at any particular time, is technically the worst enemy of any of us, he’s also the most extreme example possible of the principle application.)

I can’t really say that I’m good enough yet to rejoice for the sake of all those whom I may consider my enemies, but I think I can say that I’m able to rejoice for God’s sake in confessing His mighty victories of salvation–and that includes everyone whom I might consider my enemy. :slight_smile:

By the way, her surgery went fine. :slight_smile: She’s back home safely now, and currently far more put down by the head cold she developed a few days ago than by the surgery (which, being her, she thinks is very amusing. :smiley: )

Back to the topic at hand…