Outer Darkness?

[Sons to Glory!]

I know this is an older thread, but I see no reason to start a new one as the original subject and initial discussion about it started off good I think. (although it became something of an interesting & amusing study of going "snorkeling in the weeds" with all the sidebars and repeated calls to stay on topic, only to conclude totally off topic! Humans - we be something - gotta love us!) Maybe this time we can stay more on topic . . . mostly . . . sorta . . . kinda.

My current interest in this topic, Outer Darkness, is somewhat because of a recently written book (2015) I just purchased, "Your Eternal Reward: Triumph and Tears at the Judgment Seat of Christ" by Erwin Lutzer. I don't actually have the book in hand (it's being delivered tomorrow), but I have read some of it online. Has anyone else read it or heard of the author?

As others on here have testified, I used to be in general fear & trembling over the WL doctrine of spending a thousand years in outer darkness - if I left the LC. Well I did leave, but the fear has taken me awhile to recover from (yes, I get the irony in using that word). Regardless, I certainly can't ignore all the warnings in the NT about running the race well and not being disqualified (as Paul says). But I believe there is a healthy balance to be found in the word, such as He tells one of the profitable servants, "Well done, good and faithful servant! You were faithful over a few things; I will set you over many things. Enter into the joy of your master!" Here's a key I think: "A FEW things." Maybe this is what it means to be an "overcomer." Not being a SuperSaint, but rather being faithful in a few . . .

Personally, I believe that once we're saved we're always saved ("saved" meaning we've received the free gift of Christ's life in us and become children of Father). However, the Bema Seat will render unto us reward or loss according to our works, according to things done while in this body of flesh (will they will be wood, hay, stubble or gold, silver, precious stones?).

I've got a lot more to say, but that's good to start things off. How about it - let's resurrect this thread on OUTER DARKNESS and see if we can stay on topic this time!

Decent article on Bema Seat at Bible.org HERE

[awareness]

Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!

As others on here have testified, I used to be in general fear & trembling over the WL doctrine of spending a thousand years in outer darkness - if I left the LC.

Psa 139:8* If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.*

[Trapped]

My response is just going to be about my personal experience in the LC on this topic.... but not so much about the accuracy thereof.

Basically:

1. Believers who are overcomers are rewarded with the millennial kingdom. Somewhere along the way I picked up the thought that this involves being friends with lions and having the ability to walk through walls. Even to travel to other planets. Funny to type that out actually.....must be things I heard as a young kid maybe? Cool if true and backed up Biblically though.
2. Believers who are not overcomers are sent to outer darkness for 1,000 years to experience discipline and learn to gain the Lord since they did not do that sufficiently on earth. The gnashing of teeth indicates the regret they feel.
3. After 1,000 years the non-overcomers will now be fully transformed and all believers will enter the New Jerusalem together.

I do not recall ever hearing in trainings and conferences the explicit thought that only those in the LC will be overcomers and those not in the LC will not be overcomers. However, it was definitely said that, essentially, your best hope to be an overcomer was to remain in the LC's (the fear-based thing that keeps you in), which is more than enough to heavily imply without stating it explicitly that if you leave the LCs you will end up in outer darkness. So I certainly see how many could get the thought that LC = kingdom, and denominations = outer darkness.

I was pretty clear, though, that you could be in the LCs and still have a straight shot to outer darkness. That would be those who backslide or are closed to the Lord or do not allow Him to break them down enough, etc. I know this for sure because that described me and I knew for years that based on that I had no hope to make it into the kingdom. In other words, those who have enough oil "make it", and those who did not give themselves to "gain the oil" do not "make it". However, for something with as gigantic consequences as 1,000 years of fun or pain, the fact that there were no parameters given for me to know whether I had enough oil at any given point or would have enough oil at the end of my life, this did inject a fair amount of stress into me. It also gave me very little incentive to "gain the oil" since there was simply no way to gauge the result of my efforts until after it was too late to adjust them! Especially if you throw in the assurance of eternal salvation, it seemed to me that once you were saved, your time on earth then just became "kingdom or outer darkness". I.e. once salvation was under your belt, the WHOLE POINT of your life then became "kingdom or outer darkness". (okay, besides preaching the gospel and bringing others into the full knowledge of the truth). For something so consequential I couldn't understand why there was not some kind of gauge on my arm that showed my current level of oil so I could gas or throttle my openness as needed!

Throw in the "lighthearted" sessions at the trainings where the co-workers would joke by saying, "If you think you are in your spirit, you probably are not! And if you don't think you are in your spirit, you probably are! So best not to think about it at all!" (obviously "in your spirit" = "gaining the oil"). What is anyone supposed to do with that circus merry-go-round of "the Lord's present speaking" rattling around between their ears? The best way for the most important determining factor in my life to be carried out is not to think about it at all? AHHHH!!!

[Sons to Glory!]

Originally Posted by Trapped

My response is just going to be about my personal experience in the LC on this topic.... but not so much about the accuracy thereof.

Basically:

1. Believers who are overcomers are rewarded with the millennial kingdom. Somewhere along the way I picked up the thought that this involves being friends with lions and having the ability to walk through walls. Even to travel to other planets. Funny to type that out actually.....must be things I heard as a young kid maybe? Cool if true and backed up Biblically though.
2. Believers who are not overcomers are sent to outer darkness for 1,000 years to experience discipline and learn to gain the Lord since they did not do that sufficiently on earth. The gnashing of teeth indicates the regret they feel.
3. After 1,000 years the non-overcomers will now be fully transformed and all believers will enter the New Jerusalem together.

For something so consequential I couldn't understand why there was not some kind of gauge on my arm that showed my current level of oil so I could gas or throttle my openness as needed!

That last statement was a hoot! (yeah, I'd like one of them gauge thingies . . .)

I would say your three points sums up the basic concept I got too. One of my questions now is where does the teaching for #2 specifically come from? I do believe in the millennial kingdom, but where does it say that non-overcomers are sent to outer darkness for 1000 years to ripen properly?

[Sons to Glory!]

by J. Hampton Keathley III found HERE

THREE VIEWS OF THE BEMA
For a summary of three major views, let me quote Samuel L. Hoyt from Bibliotheca Sacra.

1. Some Bible teachers view the judgment seat as a place of intense sorrow, a place of terror, and a place where Christ display all the believer’s sins (or at least those unconfessed) before the entire resurrected and raptured church. Some go even further by stating that Christians must experience some sort of suffering for their sins at the time of this examination.

2. At the other end of the spectrum another group, which holds to the same eschatological chronology, views this event as an awards ceremony. Awards are handed out to every Christian. The result of this judgment will be that each Christian will be grateful for the reward which he receives, and he will have little or no shame.

3. Other Bible teachers espouse a mediating position. They maintain the seriousness of the examination and yet emphasize the commendation aspect of the judgment seat. They emphasize the importance and necessity of faithful living today but reject any thought of forensic punishment at the Bema. Emphasis is placed on the fact that each Christian must give an account of his life before the omniscient and holy Christ. All that was done through the energy of the flesh will be regarded as worthless for reward, while all that was done in the power of the Holy Spirit will be graciously rewarded. Those who hold this view believe that the Christian will stand glorified before Christ without his old sin nature. He will, likewise, be without guilt because he has been declared righteous. There will be no need for forensic punishment, for Christ has forever borne all of God’s wrath toward the believer’s sins.

This last view I believe to be the one that is in accord with Scripture. Reasons for this will be set forth and developed as we study the nature, purpose, and basis for the Bema. But for now, lest we draw some wrong conclusions, we need to be ever mindful that God’s Word clearly teaches there are specific and very serious consequences, both temporal and eternal, for sin or disobedience. Though we will not be judged in the sense of punished for sin at the Bema since the Lord has born that for us, we must never take sin lightly because there are many consequences.

Numerals added by me.

[Drake]

Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!

That last statement was a hoot! (yeah, I'd like one of them gauge thingies . . .)

I would say your three points sums up the basic concept I got too. One of my questions now is where does the teaching for #2 specifically come from? I do believe in the millennial kingdom, but where does it say that non-overcomers are sent to outer darkness for 1000 years to ripen properly?

Matthew 18:34 is a starting point.

Drake

[Sons to Glory!]

Originally Posted by Drake

Matthew 18:34 is a starting point.

Drake

The next verse is about forgiveness. No mention of a thousand years.

[Drake]

Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!

The next verse is about forgiveness. No mention of a thousand years.

Yep. What does v34 say will happen to those who do not forgive?

Drake

[awareness]

Originally Posted by Drake

Matthew 18:34 is a starting point.

Yes. Forgive. Or get tortured.

For that reason a long time ago I forgave Witness Lee. And ever since I keep finding more to forgive him for.

Unforgiveness is torture for the unforgiving. It must be thorough.

[Trapped]

Originally Posted by awareness

Yes. Forgive. Or get tortured.

For that reason a long time ago I forgave Witness Lee. And ever since I keep finding more to forgive him for.

Unforgiveness is torture for the unforgiving. It must be thorough.

If you have any more to say about this topic I am all ears. I have a hard time forgiving people, or if I manage to, it is hard for it to last or be "ongoing forgiveness". I know, "Christ is our forgiveness" but some of us have a harder time of it than others. Any more experience or advice would be much appreciated.

Unforgiveness truly is torture for the unforgiving!

[awareness]

Originally Posted by Trapped

Throw in the "lighthearted" sessions at the trainings where the co-workers would joke by saying, "If you think you are in your spirit, you probably are not! And if you don't think you are in your spirit, you probably are! So best not to think about it at all!" (obviously "in your spirit" = "gaining the oil"). What is anyone supposed to do with that circus merry-go-round of "the Lord's present speaking" rattling around between their ears? The best way for the most important determining factor in my life to be carried out is not to think about it at all? AHHHH!!!

Then I must be in my spirit all of the time. haha ... I was certainly out of my mind in the LC, and for years of cognitive dissonance thereafter. I wasn't in my spirit in those days.

What irony that those that Jesus should have inoculated against the contagion of fear, are fear-mongering about outer darkness.

What's that about anyway? I think it's about contagions. As I remember it, there were always contagions of some sort in the local church. They called 'em waves.

I remember Kangas on the phone with me, trying to get me to come to Anaheim, telling me about a New Wave in Anaheim. But unbeknownst to him, he blew it. He told me that some weren't catching on to the New Wave.

In other words, some hadn't caught the contagion. Looking back I see "The Vision" as a contagion. I should know, I caught it.

But the contagion hardest to fight is fear. I thought Jesus inoculated his followers from the contagion of fear on the cross. I just don't see a lot of evidence of it in many of my Christian brothers and sisters. Many of whom are so fearful they're as skittish as a cat trapped at the dog pound.

Please local churcher's. When fear is guiding you, you can bet your spirit is not. And watch out for other contagions too.

Thanks for a great post Trapped.

[ZNPaaneah]

Originally Posted by Trapped

For something so consequential I couldn't understand why there was not some kind of gauge on my arm that showed my current level of oil so I could gas or throttle my openness as needed!

The NT is full of various "gauges"

When Jesus touches the bier of the dead boy that is a gauge. According to the law if someone with a nazarite vow touches death the vow is over and they have to start again. Since Jesus is our high priest and he is not of the priestly lineage but rather is a priest after the order of Melchisedek He is a nazarite. When He touches death something has to give, He was putting His entire earthly ministry on the line because of his compassion for the widow.

This "gauge" as you put it is described in the book of James where he says that: "The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working."

This should be your experience, if not, that is an indication that you are "low on oil".