The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? – Jeremiah 17:9

My previous entry in this space, Forgiving the unrepentant, took a small swipe at the biblical illiteracy of American Christians. We have greater access to Scripture and more tools for understanding it than any group of people in history, yet we don't know the Word of God. We don't grasp its grand themes; we misdefine its simplest words. We've collected some doctrines, some scattered Bible stories, and a few verse-of-the-day snippets of truth – all adding up to not much.

It's as if God made for us a gigantic stained-glass mural telling the whole story of His plan, from the Beginning to the New Beginning, and we're staring at a few bits of colored glass.

So pretty.

The lack of a coherent view of God's Word leaves us unable to think or reason clearly. We don't know the difference between a proof-text and an argument, or between an argument and a logical fallacy.

This is not a small problem. Our biblical ignorance is toxic. It has the potential to kill you, and others around you.

But there's a danger even worse than Christians not understanding the Bible. It's "Christians" who think their tiny minds and warped feelings trump the Bible.

I wonder: If we could see people as Jesus sees them, how many would we see claiming allegiance to Christ who are actually pagans? Quite a few, I think. Universalists? Oh, they smother the land like locusts. Materialists? Heretics and cultists? De facto Satanists?

Yes, Satanists.

If you believe that your god lies, you're worshiping the Father of Lies. Kids, that's the devil. (And by the way, hypocrisy is a species of lie. A god who would command us to forgive the unrepentant while he did not, for example, is a hypocrite – a liar – Satan. A god who does forgive the unrepentant is the mush god of Universalism.)

We're seeing a lot of absurd comments about God and the Bible, lately. Oh, I'm not bothered by non-Christians like Joy Behar filled with all sorts of nonsense about Christ. As far as I can tell, Joy labels herself an agnostic. An agnostic is a person "without knowledge," and in her case that is a demonstrably true statement. No, I'm concerned about people who've convinced themselves that they're followers of a Person whose words they reject.

The sticking point right now seems to be the doctrine of Hell. I wrote a few articles about this some years back: Hell is separation, Hell is good, and Hell is foundational.

The only thing I would add today would be this:

Did your feelings die on a cross for your sins? If not, why are you listening to them over the One who did?

Have your feelings led you astray in the past? (Yes, often, from childhood. And you will never escape childhood if you're led by your emotions.)

Is your reason perfect, or is it corrupted and damaged, and therefore untrustworthy? Is your knowledge complete, or are there a couple of gaps here and there?

It's OK for believers to say, "I don't understand the doctrine of Hell." It's OK to say, "I'm uncomfortable with the doctrine of Hell." It's supposed to make you uncomfortable. But it's not OK to tear out enormous chunks of Scripture because you don't like them. If you do that, please do all of us a favor and don't claim to be a Christian.

And, since we mentioned the Cross:

Would anything less than eternal consequences justify the death of the eternal Son? In other words, if Hell is bad, but you're going to make it out of there eventually, then the Cross is unnecessary, and God is blamable for putting Jesus through it – as the ignorant atheists say.

Don't put yourself in the seat of the ignorant atheists.

To deny the existence of eternal punishment is to deny the One who saves from eternal punishment. It brands Him a liar, and it rips out the foundation for his infinite sacrifice.

The feelings-based position isn't just anti-Bible, it is anti-Christ.

And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night forever and ever. – Revelation 20:10 (Note that the "beast" and the "false prophet" are human beings.)