Beyond Heaven and Earth

by Steven H. Propp

  Pastor Conley had a fiery look in his eyes, and said, “You can’t just take an isolated verse or two like that; you have to see what the whole Bible says about how salvation is imparted…”

  Jobran raised his hands, and said in a softer voice, “Look, I think that this is just one of those issues where you and I are going to have to agree to disagree, OK?” He waited for a confirming nod from Pastor Conley—which didn’t come—so he continued, “I’m not really from a religious tradition where the Bible is the one infallible source for doctrine and practice, anyway.”

  With a satisfied expression on his face, Pastor Conley said, “So in other words, no matter what I prove to you from the Bible, you won’t believe it anyway, right? Because you don’t believe that the Bible is God’s Word, and the only infallible source of doctrine for us.”

  Jobran said, “Well, actually…no, I don’t. For example, where does it say in the Bible that the Bible is the ‘only infallible source for doctrine’?” Turning in the Bible, he said, “Not Second Timothy 3:16, which is only referring to the Old Testament scriptures, and in any case only says that they are ‘profitable,’ and not ‘infallible.’ And also not Revelation 22:18, which only says that one should not ‘add unto’ or ‘take away’ from the things written in the Book of Revelation itself. In other words, do you have a ‘proof text’ that clearly states your belief about the infallibility and sufficiency of the Bible?”

  Pastor Conley frowned, and said, “If you reject what the Bible says, then you have no infallible standard for guidance.”

  Jobran said, “Exactly—but I’ve read the entire Bible, and it didn’t exactly convince me that it is a divine revelation from God; in fact, it almost persuaded me in the opposite direction.”

  “So are setting your own opinions against the Word of God?”

  “I’m saying that I’m not persuaded that the Bible is the ‘Word of God,’ as such.” Jobran looked frustrated, and added, “This whole conversation would sound unbelievable in any sort of liberal or mainline church in the country, where…”

  Pastor Conley cut him off sharply, saying in a grave voice, “You came here asking my views on life after death; as I’ve said, my views are simply what it says in the Bible. Therefore, it is my sad duty to inform you that your wife has most likely been condemned to eternal Hellfire—and, unless you repent and accept Jesus, you will share the same fate.”

  “What?” Jobran said in disbelief. “She would go to Hell just for being a faithful Catholic?”

  “Just for being a sinner—who apparently didn’t take advantage of the salvation that God offered to her, through Christ Jesus,” corrected Pastor Conley. Then he backed off a bit, and said, “Look, I’m not the judge: God is the judge; only He knows the fate of each individual soul.” Fixing his eyes directly on Jobran’s, he continued, “And it might very well be that God allowed your wife to die in order to bring you to a saving knowledge of Jesus!”

  Jobran looked at Pastor Conley as if he were a madman. “You actually believe that God would have sacrificed my wife—who you believe is now in Hell—to try and save someone like me?” he exclaimed in disbelief. “Wouldn’t it have made more sense for God to sacrifice me to save her?”

  With a voice of genuine concern, Pastor Conley replied, “Son, I’m just suggesting some things to you; but you don’t need to be asking those kinds of questions right now. The only question that you need to concern yourself with is, ‘What can I do to ensure that I don’t go to Hell?’”

  Angrily, Jobran shot back, “If my wife is in Hell, then I would prefer to be with her there!” He stood up, and said to Pastor Conley in a voice shaking with passion, “I would rather be with Sophia in Hell, than live forever in Heaven without her!”

  “Please, don’t have that attitude,” Pastor Conley said, beseechingly. “You and I can’t imagine or comprehend how horrible Hell is!”

  Cynically, Jobran replied, “But I suppose you’re going to tell me all about it, right?”

  “Please, sit down again; let’s talk about this like reasonable men; ‘Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord,’ in the first chapter of Isaiah,” Pastor Conley said in a calm tone. Hesitantly, Jobran sat down again, and Pastor Conley said, “I’m just going to tell you what the Bible says about it.” He turned in his Bible, marking the place with his finger, saying, “Although in the churches you are used to—and unfortunately, even in a lot of evangelical churches these days— Hell is almost never talked about, the person who spoke the most about Hell was Jesus! Of the 22 references to Hell in the New Testament, 15 of them are the words of Jesus. For example, in the 16th chapter of Luke, we are told of a rich man who went to Hell. He begged Father Abraham for even one drop of water to cool his tongue, ‘for I am tormented in this flame.’ But even this single drop of water was denied to him.”

  “Rather hard-hearted of Father Abraham, it seems to me,” Jobran said, dryly.

  Ignoring Jobran, Pastor Conley continued, “But it occurred to the rich man to ask Abraham to send someone to appear to his brothers back on Earth, ‘For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’”

  Impatiently, Jobran said, “I’m familiar with the parable. It ends with Abraham saying that such persons wouldn’t be convinced, even if someone rose from the dead. What is your point?”

  With an expression of absolute frankness, Pastor Conley said, “My point is that even if your wife was indeed a good woman by earthly standards—and I’m sure she was, which is why you are so loyal to her—then the last thing she would want would be for you to join her in eternal torment!” Paying no attention to Jobran’s shocked expression, he added, “You can’t help her, by allowing your own soul to go down into the pit of Hell.”

  Jobran looked directly at Pastor Conley for a long time, then said in a low voice, “Well, quite frankly, I’m very glad that God is the one who would judge such matters, and not you.” Shaking his head, he added, “You sound like you’re ready to condemn us and throw us into the ‘bottomless pit’ right now.”

  “You were the one who wanted to know my views, remember? I’m only telling you what the Bible says.”

  Jobran replied, “No, you’re telling me your interpretation of what the Bible says. Other people interpret it differently.”

  “I merely take the plain words of Scripture as having plain meaning,” Pastor Conley said, reasonably. “In reality, I don’t condemn anyone to Hell, or even judge them; only God can judge their eternal souls.” In a solemn voice, he added, “Jobran, I know that we’ve been talking about some difficult subjects—but believing what I believe, what kind of a person would I be if I didn’t try and persuade you to turn to Jesus and be saved, even by using the most extreme means of persuasion at my disposal?”

  Jobran thought about that for a moment, then replied, “You’d be a hypocrite.”

  Pastor Conley almost shouted in reply, “Exactly! If I knew that there was a bomb set to go off in this room, and I didn’t frantically try and warn you, but just quietly slipped out of the room by myself, God would certainly condemn my silence. And in this case, there is something much more serious than a bomb that’s at stake—what’s at stake is your eternal soul!”

  Jobran nodded, and said, “You’re right. I didn’t mean to seem like I was questioning your motives, in speaking to you the way that I did.”

  Pastor Conley put his hand gently on Jobran’s arm, and said, “Look, I’m sorry that I have to speak with you so frankly about the situation of your deceased wife, but I’m trying desperately to get you to recognize your own situation. There’s nothing we can do for her, at this point; but what we need to do is to get you reconciled with God, so that you can have that kind of personal assurance I was speaking about.”

  Jobran said sadly, “The only thing I’m able to consider about my own situation is that I n
o longer have my beloved Sophia.” He looked down, and there was a moment of silence before he added, “But you can’t know what it’s like, to be separated from one you love so much.”

  Calmly, Pastor Conley said, “As a matter of fact, I was married before I got saved; and my first wife did die, in a car accident, after we had been married for just over a year—and she wasn’t saved; neither of us was.”

  “And you loved her?” Jobran asked.

  “In earthly terms, yes.”

  Suddenly interested, Jobran asked, “So what is your assessment of her chances to make it to Heaven?”

  Gravely, Pastor Conley said, “My Bible teaches me that right now, she is experiencing torment, which shall last until the Second Coming of the Lord. After that, she will be resurrected to appear before the Judgment Seat of God, and will be condemned to suffer the fiery torments of Hell for all of eternity.”

  Jobran looked aghast. “And it doesn’t bother you to think that?” he asked, incredulously. “I thought you said you loved her?”

  Pastor Conley shook his head, and said, “Brother, until I came to know Jesus, I didn’t even know what love is.” He opened up his Bible, and read, “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” (Jn 15:13) “My first wife and I married right out of high school, and I was motivated more by earthly lusts, than by true agape love for her. I was living for myself, not for the Lord, and my marriage didn’t have the Lord’s blessing.”

  “And because of that, you believe that your wife is now enduring eternal torment.”

  “No, I believe that she is now enduring eternal torment because she refused to accept God’s way of salvation,” he clarified. “The same as I would have endured, had I been the one to die.”

  Jobran shook his head and said, “I take it you’re still unmarried?”

  “Praise the Lord, after I got saved he led me to my second wife, who was a good, Bible-believing, Spirit-filled Christian woman. So I know that she and I will spend eternity with Jesus.”

  “This is really amazing,” Jobran said. “You evangelicals claim to be ‘pro-family,’ and yet your doctrines divide up families—not only in eternity, but in earthly time! You claim that you want to make the father the ‘head of the household,’ and yet you teach children that their unsaved fathers are going to spend eternity in fiery torment, and that this is justified by the laws of a ‘loving’ God.” When Pastor Conley didn’t object, Jobran continued, “Don’t you think that would undermine the authority of a father, if his Christian children believe that he is righteously going to be damned for all time?”

  Pastor Conley said, “In earthly matters, we teach that children should honor their fathers and mothers, whether or not they are saved, because that is a Commandment of God. But in eternal matters, Acts 5:29 says that ‘We ought to obey God rather than men.’”

  Having heard enough, Jobran rose from the pew, and extended his hand to Pastor Conley, saying, “Well, I sincerely thank you for your time, and for your honesty. But I think it’s safe to say that associating with your church and its doctrines is not the path for me to follow if my goal is to be reunited with my wife again.”

  Sharply, Pastor Conley replied, “But it is the path you must follow in order to achieve eternal life in Heaven with Jesus.” Passionately, he said, “Listen! God had a purpose in bringing you here this morning; you should expect the Holy Spirit to work in your heart now, to convict you of your sins.” Then, handing Jobran a business card, he said, “That’s my personal phone number on there; give me a call—any time of day or night—and I’ll lead you through the Sinner’s Prayer; and praise God, you’ll be born again! And then you’ll know that you’re going to Heaven!”

  Jobran handed the card back, and said, “That’s OK; I’ll just have to take my chances, won’t I?” and he headed toward the door to exit.

  In a louder, commanding voice, Pastor Conley said, “Be warned! You must realize that Jesus has now presented the gospel to you, and that I have told you in no uncertain terms what you must do in order to be saved. So, as it said in the Book of Romans, you are without excuse!” Pausing for effect, he added, “So I firmly suggest to you, in the strongest possible terms, that you not leave this room until you’ve gotten right with God!”

  Jobran, his voice turning angry again, replied, “Quite frankly, I think that leaving this room is a step in the direction of getting myself right with God!”

  In a fiery tone, Pastor Conley thundered, “If you turn your back on the gospel, once you’ve truly understood it, it’s like turning your back on Jesus, who said in Matthew 10:33, ‘Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in Heaven.’”

  Just before stepping through the door, Jobran turned back and said, “I’m hardly turning my back on Jesus, simply because I’m not persuaded by your interpretation of the gospel.” He closed the door, and started to walk down the sidewalk back to the street.

  A side door in an adjoining section of the church opened suddenly to his left, and he heard a hushed, but intense voice call after him, “Wait a minute—please, would you come over here? Can I talk to you for a moment?”

  Jobran turned back, and replied, “Thanks, but I think I’ve already been talked to.”

  The voice came from a young, twenty-ish man, casually yet fashionably dressed, who was hurrying to catch up to Jobran. “I know; I was in the next room, and I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation.”

  “And who might you be?”

  The young man extended his hand, and said, “I’m Robbie Yaconelli; I’m the Minister of Music here.” They shook hands, and he continued, “But I thought you should know that not everyone in this church agrees with all of the stands taken by Pastor Conley.”

  Jobran was surprised. “You disagree with your own minister?”

  Robbie shook his head vigorously, and said, “I’m 1000% behind him in terms of his basic theological orientation. Pastor Conley is a man called of God, and has been mightily used by him. This congregation was down to 60 or 70 members when he was hired, and now look at us.” He paused a moment, as if choosing his words carefully. “But not all of us in the congregation—particularly the younger members—agree with all of the old-time, hard-line ‘Hellfire and Brimstone’ ideas as they have been traditionally taught.”

  “That’s fine,” Jobran said, “But you said that you were a just a Minister of Music, right? That doesn’t give you any sort of position of theological authority in this church, I wouldn’t think,” and he smiled.

  Robbie smiled back, and said, “It’s true, that I have no ‘theological’ standing in this church. But on the other hand, I did attend Bible College for four years, and I did study theology for several years, because I was originally considering studying for the pastorate. But ultimately, I realized that God was leading me in the direction of a ministry in music.” He crossed his arms, and said, “I guess that I decided I would be more effective at moving people by singing to them, than by preaching at them—I wanted to sing songs that answered questions, rather than raised doubts.”

  Jobran laughed, and said, “That was probably a good decision; if you had continued, you might have ended up like Pastor Conley.” Seriously, he added, “But if you minister here, don’t you have to believe what the pastor believes?”

  Robbie said, “Our pastor is teaching what he was taught, and what he himself believes in his heart. But quite frankly, many evangelicals such as myself are more than a little uncomfortable each time when Pastor preaches his semi-annual sermon about Hellfire and eternal damnation.”

  “Uncomfortable in the ‘guilty’ sense? Or uncomfortable with the ideas he is presenting?”

  Robbie replied, “The God that I believe in is a God of love; the Jesus I believe in died on the cross for us because he loved us, and he didn’t want to see us living apart fr
om him.”

  “So your God might have some sympathy for those who are sincerely misguided?”

  “I think that if God can find a way to save an African villager who has never even heard of Jesus, God can find a way to save a faithful Roman Catholic in America,” Robbie said, with genuine conviction. “I think that God has a great deal of mercy for those of us who are misled, in one way or another, into false doctrines. After all, even great men of God like Martin Luther and James Arminius were capable of believing doctrines that we no longer believe. Luther made some very unloving and anti-Semitic remarks about Jewish people, for example, and Arminius called the Pope the ‘adulterer and the Pimp of the Church.’ I can’t endorse sentiments like those; but I do believe with all my heart that God has saved both of those men, and that God mightily used both of them in his Church.”

  Jobran nodded, then said, “Well, then, let me ask you the same question I asked your Pastor: Do you think my Catholic wife is damned—basically because she was a faithful Catholic?”

  Robbie said, confidently, “The God I believe in is capable of, and is sufficient unto, the salvation for all sincere persons who are trusting in Jesus—even those from a Roman Catholic tradition. Frankly, although I don’t agree with a lot of Roman Catholic doctrines, at least I appreciate their general theological conservatism—they believe in the Trinity, in Jesus’ divinity, in the virgin birth, and they oppose ungodly practices like abortion. To me, they’re like Seventh-Day Adventists: they have some doctrines with which I disagree—but for that matter, so do those Baptists who think that speaking in tongues is of the devil—but I don’t think they are necessarily unsaved.” Almost as an aside, he added, “Frankly, I’m a lot more concerned about the fate of a lot of theological liberals than I am about most Roman Catholics.”