Reflections On The Minor Prophets Of The Bible

I recently read through the Minor Prophets of the Bible for the first time in several years. The quotes are from the Asser translation of the LXX, which is no longer readily available online. It’s kind of like the Wycliffe Bible, passed along in PDFs with questionable legality.

Some notable passages stood out to me.

Hosea 9  11Ephraim is flown away like a bird; their glories are from childbirth and travail and conception. 12For though they bring up their children, they shall be bereaved of people; yea, woe also is to them; My flesh is of them. 13Ephraim, as I saw, gave their children as a prey, even Ephraim, to lead out his children for piercing. 14Give them, O LORD; what wilt Thou give them? a childless womb and dry breasts. 15All their iniquities are in Gilgal, for there came I to hate them; for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of Mine house; I will love them no more; all their princes are disobedient. 16Ephraim hath suffered; his roots are dried up; he shall bear fruit no more; yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay the desirable fruit of their womb. 17God shall cast them away because they did not hearken unto Him, and they shall be wanderers among the nations. 

So what this reminds me of is something I often say that usually makes people upset, and that is that most parents don’t love their children. There’s nothing sacred or special about a mother’s love. It’s just animalistic attachment.

We see here in verse 13 that Ephraim (which I assume is code for the ten northern tribes) has used his children as bait for his own gain instead of taking care of his children. My oh my are the paralells with our society glaring.

In the early 1960s this country was the most prosperous society on earth with a chicken in every pot and limitless opportunity to make a decent living, and within fifty years it was all gone. At this point it is almost impossible to support yourself on a single income, even without children. My generation has the widest gap of opportunity promised and actual opportunity, and we are mad as hell about it. The older generation who ruined everything is totally unsympathetic. Half the reason I’m so racist is because I know it upsets the old people who flooded my country with third word savages.

But anyway, the Bible clearly says that just because you produce children doesn’t mean that you actually care about them. Whole nations, in fact, can use their kids as a means to an end. And what is the result? The complete barrenness of the nation. Verse 16 is where America is at right now. Verse 17 will happen within my lifetime.

And yet earlier in the book,

4 10And they shall eat, and not be satisfied; they have committed whoredom, and shall by no means prosper, because they have left off to hold fast unto the LORD. 11Whoredom and wine and strong drink have taken hold upon the heart of My people. 

Israel had become a sex paradise and yet could not sustain a birth rate. Again, the parallels shine like a beacon.

The passage continues,

12They asked counsel through signs, and by his staffs they declared unto him; by a spirit of whoredom have they erred, and gone a whoring from their God. 13They have sacrificed upon the tops of the mountains, and upon the hills have they sacrificed under the oak and white poplar and thickly shading tree, because the shade thereof was good. Therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom, and your daughters-in-law shall commit adultery. 14And I will not shew My care for your daughters when they commit whoredom, nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery; for themselves mingled with harlots, and they sacrificed with initiates, and the people that did not understand embraced an harlot.

And later on,

13  5I tended thee in the wilderness in an empty land 6according to their pastures. And they were satisfied to the full, and their hearts were exalted; therefore have they forgotten Me. 7Therefore I will be as a panther unto them and as a leopard according to the way of the Assyrians. 8I will meet them as a she-bear that is perplexed, and I will rend the caul of their heart, and there shall the young lions of the thicket devour them; the wild beasts of the field shall tear them in pieces. 

It’s often said that Orthodoxy doesn’t believe in an angry God like the prots do. I’m just not seeing that. Israel is clearly sinners in the hands of an angry God. God is saying that he is like a mother bear towards people who have broken his covenant.

However, I think the dominant narrative of the Old Testament is not anger but patience. Atheists often say that the God of the Old Testament is far more angry than the God of the New Testament, but I have always seen it the opposite way, that New Testament God is much more quick to bring judgment for much smaller infractions than he was in the Old Testament.

And if God doesn’t get angry, what reason is there to fear him? If Judgment Day is just a formality, then why worry about it?

So again, the prots are correct but in the wrong way. God is angry, but it’s not the anger of a hurricane, nor does the anger need to be satisfied by a replacement. It’s the anger of a husband whose wife is whoring with the coloreds downtown. Which is the exact metaphor the Bible uses, that Israel has abandoned the bridegroom to sleep with other nations. Basically, ancient Israel is a coal-burner and a mudshark.

The inherent disgust white men feel for their daughter sleeping with a negro or an Aztec is the same disgust God feels for Christians living in sin. That’s the exact metaphor used. And what happens then? We saw what happens in chapter 9 — the end of the nation. You give your children away to another nation, and your grandchildren won’t be the same race as you. You let your children (especially your daughters) marry protties and papists, and your grandchildren will be heretics who think you’re a superstitious old fool. You send your children to college, and they will come out in four years as a communist and an atheist.

Wouldn’t that make quite the Sunday morning sermon?

Amos 2 10Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt and led you about forty years in the wilderness to inherit the land of the Amorites. 11And I took of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for consecration. Are not these things even thus, O ye sons of Israel?’ saith the LORD. 12‘But ye gave the consecrated ones wine to drink, and commanded the prophets, saying, “Prophesy not”. 13Therefore behold, I shall roll under you, as a wagon is rolled that is full of straw. 14And flight shall perish from the runner, and the strong shall not hold fast his strength, neither shall the warrior save his soul. 

Again, the parallels are striking. So the philosophy of the American founders wasn’t totally Christian, but this was still a “one nation under God” kind of thing, and the Enlightenment tried to see reality as it really is, whereas today’s secularists try to distort reality to be whatever they wish it to be.

America had the potential to be a super Christian country, and for a while we sort of were. We had a great economy, we had the ability to create and invent and reach the height of human potential. We had total control of our government. The arts and sciences flourished. Every possible blessing that could be given to a nation, we had.

It wasn’t the same kind of covenant that Israel had, but there was still no lack of opportunity. We didn’t have the Orthodox Church, but we had the Bible mass produced, and the protestantism of the 1800s wasn’t that bad. We have no excuses. We are not the theoretical “good man on the Ganges River”.

And what have we done with it? We used these great gifts to create an air conditioned Babylon. American values aren’t freedom and apple pie. If you want to know what actual American values are, look at the Democrat debates.

The Republicans are no different. They are calling for red flag laws, they have done almost nothing about internet censorship, they have pushed for amnesty, and Trump has bragged about coercing other countries to decriminalize homosexuality. They certainly don’t want to end welfare. How are the Republicans any diffrent than the Democrats of the 1990s?

A people gets the rulers they deserve, and this is especially so in a democracy, so I have little sympathy for the complaints about the two party system. The reason people like Barry Goldwater and George Wallace don’t run anymore is because they can’t win. The kinds of candidates who can win are George Bush and Barack Obama.

So yes, God took our sons for prophets and our young men for consecration, and we gave them wine to drink and commanded the prophets to not prophesy, and now God will destroy our country with earthquakes, hurricanes and the feral “people” of the third world. God will mow us down like a tank, and there is nothing we can do to stop it except repent, and that’s not about to happen.

And what do we hedge our bets on? That if we give enough money to Israel then the rapture will happen and we won’t have to die. That’s what Christianity has turned into.

I think this is what the Minor Prophets are about. You aren’t supposed to understand them — it’s supposed to be a warning. It’s supposed to make you fear God.

These kinds of passages, though, always beg the question of whether this is a prosperity gospel. After all, the New Testament sees suffering as a good thing. An abundance of suffering teaches you how to become a saint. A lack of suffering is a sign that God is not working with you. 

I think the issue is that these promises of blessing and curse are for entire nations, not individuals. The Old Testament never promises that every righteous Israelite will be wealthy, and the law makes provisions to take care of those who are not wealthy.

These promises are also looking at the long term, so while a nation may be wealthy or poor right now, that doesn’t mean they will stay that way in the future.

And because the Holy Spirit hadn’t come yet, God had to appeal to people’s most basic drives. The law is written in such a way that it will naturally teach you humility if you merely follow the externals of it.

7 Thus hath the LORD God shewed unto me; and behold, a breed of locusts coming at the early morning; and behold, one caterpillar, Gog the king. 2And it came to pass, when they had made an end of devouring the grass of the land, that I said, ‘LORD, O LORD, be merciful; who shall raise up Jacob, for he is very small? 3Relent, O LORD, at this.’ ‘And this shall not be’, saith the LORD. 

Famine. We don’t really have famine do we? Well, we do.

The food we eat is garbage. It’s not at all the food we were eating a hundred years ago, and it’s almost impossible to eat healthy today. You would basically have to buy all your food at the farmer’s market. I did that for about two weeks. It’s not easy.

In America our poor don’t starve — they get obese. Either way their poor diet kills them.

But it’s not just the poors. We all eat this way. It’s almost impossible to avoid. Soy is in everything. Our grains and dairy are mad science distortions of what they used to be. Eggs don’t taste like they came from a farm. Everything has sugar in it. Even the packaging is poison.

We’re dying from our food, and it’s because drunk on our own hubris we played God and tried to manipulate the food source for short term economic gain, and the cost is our children.

Further on in the same chapter,

17Therefore thus saith the LORD: “Thy wife shall become an harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be measured by a line, and thou shalt die in an unclean land, and Israel shall be led captive out of his land”.’ 

Where are we in America? Our women are all whores. We kill our children through abortion and contraception, or if we decide to let them live, we kill them spiritually and emotionally in the school system. Our land is being overtaken by invaders (“thy land shall be measured by a line”). Our cities are crumbling, trash lines the streets and there is graffiti everywhere (“an unclean land”).

“All of this is kind of racist. How would this make Mexicans feel?”

Well it’s not Mexicans’ land, so their feelings don’t really matter. They are the invaders. And anyway, the Mexicans who have been here for generations or who were legal immigrants generally hate the illegal immigrants. I saw a poll where a majority of Hispanic voters, including those who voted for Hillary Clinton, support building the wall.

Our nation is being invaded by feral “people” who have nothing in common with us, and it’s because of our own sinfulness. The descendants of the original founders of this country are dying out and being replaced.

Chapter 9 9‘For, lo, I give commandment, and I will sift the house of Israel among all the Gentiles, like as that which is sifted in a sifting pan, and not the least corn shall in any wise fall upon the earth. 10All the sinners of My people shall die by the sword, which say, “Evil shall not draw near, nor come upon us”. 11In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down, and I will build again the ruins thereof, and set up those things that have been broken down, and build it up as in the days of old; 12that the residue of men and all the Gentiles upon whom My name is called may earnestly seek Me,’ saith the LORD, Who doeth all these things.

God is going to kill all the gays and feminists and race hustlers, and only the fundamentalists who have ten children will survive. And then those of us who actually want a civilization will have the liberty to create one.

Micah 2  2 They devised troubles and worked evils upon their beds, and with the daylight they practised it, because they have not lifted up their hands unto God. 2And they desired fields, and spoiled the fatherless, and oppressed families, and spoiled a man and his house, even a man and his inheritance

Atheists talk about how Christianity is a bunch of rules that don’t matter, but what God really wants is you to show respect for other people. Notice God isn’t like, “You said some dirty words.” What he’s saying is, “You’ve exploited the poor.”

This idea that Christianity is a bunch of arbitrary rules is ridiculous. Christianity is justice.

Occultists and liberals delight in being the opposite of Christianity. This imagery is all through their music, art and literature. So what most secularists are really supporting is landlords refusing to maintain slum apartments or sweatshops using child labor for pennies an hour. Which makes sense, since these things become more common the more secular society becomes.

3 5Thus saith the LORD concerning the prophets that lead my people astray, that bite with their teeth and proclaim peace unto them, and when nothing was put into their mouth, they raised up war against them: […] 7And the seers of night visions shall be ashamed, and the prophets shall be laughed to scorn. And all the people  shall speak against them, because there shall be none to hearken unto them.’ 

How can you tell when a prophet is false? A false prophet tells you what you want to hear. He tells you that humanity can become gods. A real prophet will always tell you what you don’t want to hear.

This is near identical to an anti-Christ, someone who sets himself up as a Christ substitute. Pope Francis is an anti-Christ. Barack Obama was an anti-Christ. Mark Zuckerberg is an anti-Christ. Hillary Clinton wants to be an anti-Christ, but no one pays her any attention.

5 14And I will execute vengeance on the heathen in anger and wrath, because they have not hearkened.’ 

Again, yes, the protties are right that God is angry with all those who do not fear him. He is still patient and loving, but that does not diminish his wrath.

What they misunderstand is that this wrath is not an essential trait of God’s that must be vented somewhere. It is the same wrath that a father has when someone mistreats his child. It is the wrath a righteous judge has when someone breaks the law and harms other people. It is the wrath a king has when someone close to him leads a coup. It is the anger of giving money to a homeless man, only to watch him spend it on crack cocaine. We are but sinners in the hands of an angry, patient and loving God.

10Is there not fire and the house of the wicked heaping up wicked treasures, and that with the pride of unrighteousness? 

The pride of unrighteousness. What is the single most defining virtue of the sodomite community that they self-identify with? What’s the word they use? It’s on the tip of my tongue.

11Shall the wicked be justified by the balance or deceitful weights in the bag, 12whereby they have filled their riches with ungodliness; and they that dwell in the city have spoken lies, and their tongue hath been exalted in their mouth? 

Justified by false weights. This is the rationalizations we use to create modern ethics. “It’s okay for me to divorce my husband, because I’m not the real me when I’m around him.”

16For thou hast kept the statutes of Omri and all the works of the house of Ahab, and ye have walked in their ways that I might deliver thee to utter destruction and them that inhabit the city to a hissing, and ye shall bear the reproach of nations. 

I think a good modern equivalent of this is our love affair with Islam. For decades we have angrily shaken our fist at God, all the while petting this scorpion, and then every time a Musloid does the predictable thing they have done for centuries, we have the gall to say, “Thoughts and prayers.”

Like with Constantinople in the 1400s, I do not care in the least about these terrorist attacks. No one else takes them seriously, so why should I? It’s what we’ve chosen. We’ve abandoned the real God for the pagan gods of the desert.

Last week at work I told a teenage girl she should marry wealthy and have seven kids. She said she only wants two children. I told her that whites are well below replacement rate and that birth control should be illegal. She said that’s a horrible idea, because people shouldn’t be forced to have so many kids. I told her not to have sex if she doesn’t want to have kids and that society is about to collapse. One of the male waitresses said I sound cynical. I told him I’m definitely pessimistic about the future.

7  5Trust thou not in friends, and put not your confidence in guides. Beware of thy wife, that thou commit not any thing unto her. 6For the son dishonoureth his father; the daughter will rise up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law; a man’s enemies are all those in his house. 

The end times are marked by a dissolution in what should be unbreakable bonds of loyalty. People have no loyalty. Your best friend for years will decide he’s bored with you and will quit answering your messages without warning. As we saw above, most parents don’t love their children.

8Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy, for I have fallen, yet shall I arise; for though I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me. 9I will bear the anger of the LORD, because I have sinned against Him, until He make good my cause. He also shall maintain my right, and bring me forth to the light; and I shall behold His righteousness. 

Micah both hopes in God’s salvation and realizes that he has been part of the problem. No one is innocent. We are all collaboraters.

11During a day of daubing of brick, that day shall be thine utter destruction, and that day shall utterly abolish thine ordinances. 12And thy cities shall be levelled and parted among the Assyrians, and thy strong cities shall be parted from Tyre even to the river, and from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain

During your demeaning labor working at a convenience store for a wage less than you can live on despite your years of education, the Mexicans will conquer California and Texas, the blacks will take the mid-Atlantic, and the Muslims will have the upper Midwest.

13And the land shall be utterly desolate, together with them that dwell therein, for the fruit of their doings. 

Have you seen a picture of Seattle lately? And that’s without the immigrants. Imagine what a couple million Aztecs could do to the Pacific Northwest.

18Who is a God like unto Thee, removing iniquities, and passing over the sins of the remnant of His inheritance? And He hath not kept His anger for a testimony, for He delighteth in mercy. 19He will return, and have mercy upon us; He will sink our iniquities, and they shall be cast into the depths of the sea, even all our sins. 20He shall give blessings truly unto Jacob and mercy unto Abraham, as Thou didst swear unto our fathers according to the former days. 

Thus the book closes with a glimmer of hope, that while we are all guilty, God’s anger will not hold against the penitent. In chapter four there is a section about how there will be world peace.

Which reminds me of something in chapter four.

4 5For all the people shall walk every one in his own way, but we will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever. 

That’s the difference between hell and heaven. No need to read C S Lewis to discover the Orthodox concept of hell — it’s right here in the Bible. Hell isn’t merely punishment for being out of communion with God — it is walking in your own way by your own rules for all of eternity.

Obadiah 8In that day,’ saith the LORD, ‘I will even destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of the mount of Esau. 

This makes me think of academia. We have all these wise men with wise thoughts and wise book deals. Our wise congressmen and bureaucrats listen to them and make wise decisions based on the, and like with the Edomites, it will only lead to our own ruin.

15For the day of the LORD is near upon all thee. As thou hast done, so it shall be done unto thee; thy reward shall be returned upon thine own head. 

Again, the Orthodox concept of hell. Actually, it’s not “the Orthodox concept”. It’s the Biblical concept.

We all like this idea, of people getting what they deserve in the eternity, but we all think that applies to other people and not to us. Yes, George Soros will (probably) go to hell, and perhaps we can rejoice at the justice, but the more important question that’s not asked is if we will join him.

I think it’s also interesting in these minor prophet books the tie between faith and works. These two things are inseparable. You can judge the amount of one by the other. The text doesn’t even really focus on motivation. It’s sort of implied that if you have respect for people then it’s because you see the image of God in them.

Jonah 1 14And they cried unto the LORD and said, ‘Forbid it, LORD, let us not perish for the sake of this man’s life, and bring not upon us righteous blood; for Thou, O LORD, hast done according to Thy pleasure’. 15So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea, and the sea ceased from her raging. 16And the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the LORD and made vows. 

So God’s wrath can do a lot to bring people to repentance. I’m seeing a lot of secular people look at the way the far left has gone and how the mainstream narrative has changed and virtually all of this is unopposed, and these secularists are realizing that Christianity was right all along. Chateau Heartiste, Andrew Anglin, Roosh V, Jim Goad and Stephan Molyneux are some of the more famous examples of anti-liberal secularists who are at the least sort of defensive of Christianity and at the most have totally converted in recent years. I also know some people in my personal life.

Wouldn’t it be nice that every time you did something you shouldn’t have done, God would send a storm? Things would be so much more clear. Though that wouldn’t make much of a difference. Ultimately repentance is an attitude, not a logical proposition. The Pharisees had no shortage of evidence. Neither did Pharoah. This relates to my point about chapter three.

3  9‘Who can tell if God will relent and turn from His fierce anger, and so we perish not?’ 10And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil ways; and God repented of the evil that He had said that He would do unto them, and He did it not.

I am of the belief that everyone believes in God. There are no atheists, no agnostics, and no pantheists. Everyone on some level knows that there is one God and that Jesus is his son. The athys and the Jews rage against the Christians, because the Christians by their mere presence and identity are a painful reminder that the athys and Jews aren’t having the integrity they claim.

So you can’t argue someone into faith. People convert by choosing repentance.

This is what it means in Exodus about “hardening the heart”, that when someone who hates God is forced to be around God, it causes that person’s hatred to flair up into an uncontrollable rage. The more miracles Jesus did, the more the Pharisses wanted to kill him. This story repeats itself in early martyr stories, that some saint would survive whatever torture the Roman government did, which would only make the governing official devise an even more cruel torture.

And again in Zephaniah 1,

12And it shall come to pass in that day that I will search Jerusalem with a lamp, and take vengeance on the men that despise the things that are committed unto them; but they say in their hearts, ‘The LORD will not do any good, neither will He do any evil’. 

This reminds me of Jesus’s parable about the wicked servants who assume the master will not return from his voyage.

Continuing on in this book and chapter,

14For the great day of the LORD is near; it is near and very speedy; the voice of the day of the LORD is made bitter and harsh. 15A mighty day of wrath is that day, a day of affliction and distress, a day of desolation and destruction, a day of gloominess and darkness, a day of cloud and vapour, 16a day of the trumpet and cry against the strong cities, and against the high corners. 17And I will greatly afflict the men, and they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the LORD; therefore shall He pour out their blood as dust, and their flesh as dung. 18And their silver and their gold shall in no wise be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD’s wrath, but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of His jealousy, for He will bring a speedy destruction upon all them that dwell in the land. 

I understand that this specifically refers to something in the Old Testament times (I’m assuming the captivity to Babylon), but if we see this as a statement about God’s general nature, I find it very comforting. The day is coming when God will no longer hold back his wrath, and all those who thought they could live without the fear of God will understand that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

This is not me rejoicing in bloodlust like Jonah. This is me seeing how the world is broken and knowing that God will fix it, that the ways in which people have ruined that which was supposed to be and easily could have been good and beautiful have not gone unnoticed. The day is coming when those who were supposed to do the things that were committed to them but despised these things, who believed that the Lord will not react with praise or condemnation, that these people will fall into the hands of the living God. That which is broken will be made right. God is not the absent clockmaker he often seems like.

2  8‘I have heard the revilings of Moab, and the reproaches of the children of Ammon, wherewith they have reviled My people, and magnified themselves against My borders. 9Therefore as I live,’ saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, and Damascus shall be left as an heap of the threshingfloor and desolate for ever; and the remnant of My people shall spoil them, and the remnant of My nation shall inherit them.’ 

Now that Eugene Peterson is dead, here is my own The Message interpretation for today’s audience:

I have seen the subversion of California and the persecution by New York, by which they have persecuted the Christians in the Southeast and Midwest and forced their godless ideology upon the regions which still try to hold to Christian morality. Therefore as a I live, California will be destroyed like Sodom just as the New Yorkers will be like Gomorrah, and Seattle will be left as a pile of used heroin needles on the sidewalk and will be abandoned forever, and those who practice traditional family structures will take their place.

Except that Damascus was not desolate. It eventually became a Christian and then a Muslim city. Maybe this just means the pagans there. Though Islam is pagan. So I don’t know.

“You shouldn’t wish death and destruction on people.”

So I shouldn’t wish for God to do the things he said he would do? Is God making a mistake? Does God not understand what it means to turn the other cheek?

3 8Therefore wait ye upon Me,’ saith the LORD, ‘until the day that I rise up for a witness. For My judgment shall be upon the gathering of the Gentiles, to draw kings unto Me, to pour out upon them all My fierce anger; for all the earth shall be consumed with the fire of My jealousy.

Wow, sounds like God is angry with “all the earth”. And what are we to do in the meantime? “Wait ye upon Me unitl the day that I rise up for a witness.”

All I ever do is wait. Like Linus waiting for the Great Pumpking to give him his Halloween gift. Sitting alone in the cold, clinging to faith while feeling like the only idiot in the world.

19‘Behold, I will work in thee for thy sake at that time’, saith the LORD, ‘and I will save her that was oppressed, and receive her that was rejected, and I will make them a praise and honoured in all the earth. 20And they shall be ashamed at that time when I shall deal well with you, and at the time when I shall receive you; for I will make you honoured, and a praise among all the nations of the earth when I turn back your captivity before you,’ saith the LORD.

I don’t know why people say that the Old Testament God is full of anger. These are books of hope.

You would also think that the liberals would like this God, whatwith all the stuff about justice for the poor and taking down wealthy landowners and bankers. But instead they prefer the pot-smoking Jesus whose best friends were homosexuals, abortion activists and negroes.

Zechariah  3 3Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angel. 4And He answered and spake unto those that stood before Him, saying, ‘Take away the filthy garments from him’. And unto him He said, ‘Behold, I have taken away thine iniquities; 5and clothe ye him with a robe of a full length, and set a clean mitre upon his head.” And they set a clean mitre upon his head, and clothed him with garments;

This reminds me of the parable of the wedding garments. So again we have the Orthodox/Biblical concept of heaven. Only those who have been cleaned can join the wedding. Those who are not clean have to stay outside and wallow in the mud. 

I think part of the indignation people have over hell is the concept. American Christianity sese sin as breaking rules, not as something with a nature to it. In reality, all hell is is sin fully manifested in its nature. If you’re a sinful person, you belong with sin. You can’t show up to a wedding dressed like you’re going to a tavern.