Actually all the child needs to do is have sex with his girlfriend at 16 years old and then die in a car accident on his way home and he has eternal torture. You could raise them near perfect, but one slip up and you’re burning forever and ever and ever and ever…yep still burning billions of years later…
It is not “one slip”. It is a choice; and actually, it is a series of choices.
“one slip” is the mantra of people who are not willing to face the fact that they make choices, and those choices have consequences.
"Oh, I made a “
mistake”.
No, that was not a mistake. A mistake is wearing a polka dot tie with a stripped shirt.
It was a choice;; and it was a choice for evil, not for good. In old fashioned language, which didn’t weasel about choices, that was a sin.
But with the “new” definition of morality, no one sins - they just make “mistakes”.
The Bible, however, was not built on secularism and word games.
Which is not to say that God does not have mercy - that was exhibited by Christ on the cross, to the “good thief” (Luke 23: 39-43); but mercy is not a “get-out-of-jail-card”; it requires repentance.
You are playing a word game on about the level of a sophomore. “But!” “But!” “But!”. There is nothing particularly hard about what it takes to get to heaven:: “Love one another as I have loved you” is a self-giving, sacrificial placing of the other’s needs over your own wants. Not a particularly difficult concept to grasp.
But due to our own selfish and self-centered predilections, it is hard to do. Clearly not impossible, but definitely hard, because we want what
we want - not what Christ asks of us.
It is really kind of simple. I seriously doubt that you would have a best friend who was selfish and self centered, and used you for whatever they want, never mind what it costs of you.
You might say they are a “best friend”, but in truth what they are is an acquaintance. Friends don’t use friends.
And Christ expects the same from us.
And your 16 year old doesn’t “have eternal torture”. He creates that torture. God doesn’t send him to hell; he chooses hell. Oh - there is that word “choice” again.
As long as you want to go around treating choices you or others make as “mistakes”, there is no intelligent conversation which can be had, because to do so is to be in total denial that you or others make a choice, and that is choosing evil over good.
A mistake is walking out the door and locking it behind you without checking to see if you have the key to get back in.
The attitude that “I made a mistake” is part and parcel of why we have over 59,600,000 abortions since Roe vs. Wade - because people choose evil over good. It has consequences (a baby), and they don’t want to deal with it, so they kill the baby. But that baby was not a “mistake” it was the natural result of intercourse, and intercourse outside of marriage is not a mistake; it is a choice. And it is a choice of evil, not good.
