WesleyGospel Ministries

The cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral,
sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part
in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone.
–Revelation 21:8 (NKJV)–

The serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals
the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say,
‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
–Genesis 3:1 (NIV)–

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing,
but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.
–Jesus Christ in Matthew 7:15 (NKJV)–

Originally from here.

CANTO 28

Whilst eagerly I fix on him my gaze,
He ey’d me, with his hands laid his breast bare,
And cried; “Now mark how I do rip me! lo!
“How is Mohammed mangled! before me
Walks Ali weeping, from the chin his face
Cleft to the forelock; and the others all
Whom here thou seest, while they liv’d, did sow
Scandal and schism, and therefore thus are rent.
A fiend is here behind, who with his sword
Hacks us thus cruelly, slivering again
Each of this ream, when we have compast round
The dismal way, for first our gashes close
Ere we repass before him.  But say who
Art thou, that standest musing on the rock,
Haply so lingering to delay the pain
Sentenc’d upon thy crimes?”—“Him death not yet,”
My guide rejoin’d, “hath overta’en, nor sin
Conducts to torment; but, that he may make
Full trial of your state, I who am dead
Must through the depths of hell, from orb to orb,
Conduct him.  Trust my words, for they are true.”

More than a hundred spirits, when that they heard,
Stood in the foss to mark me, through amazed,
Forgetful of their pangs.  “Thou, who perchance
Shalt shortly view the sun, this warning thou
Bear to Dolcino: bid him, if he wish not
Here soon to follow me, that with good store
Of food he arm him, lest impris’ning snows
Yield him a victim to Novara’s power,
No easy conquest else.”  With foot uprais’d
For stepping, spake Mohammed, on the ground
Then fix’d it to depart.  Another shade,
Pierc’d in the throat, his nostrils mutilate
E’en from beneath the eyebrows, and one ear
Lopt off, who with the rest through wonder stood
Gazing, before the rest advanc’d, and bar’d
His wind-pipe, that without was all o’ersmear’d
With crimson stain.

—

Originally from here.

CliffsNotes on Canto XXVIII (28)

The canto opens with Dante wondering how to describe the sinners in the ninth chasm. This is the place of the Sowers of Discord and Scandal, and the Creators of Schism within the papacy. He warns that the punishment in this part of Hell is bloody and grotesque. Indeed, the sinners in the ninth chasm are damned to walk around the chasm until they arrive at a devil who slashes them with a long sword, according to the nature of their sin (cp. Matthew 24:51).

The first one Dante sees is Mahomet, disemboweled, who tells him that his son-in-law, Ali, is in the same condition and that all the others are horribly mangled in some manner. As they circle the chasm, the wounds heal, but when they complete the circle, the wounds are renewed by a devil with a sword.

Mahomet explains that these sinners were responsible for scandal and rift, and therefore, they are torn apart as they tore others apart in life. Mahomet asks Dante to tell Fra Dolcino, who is still alive, to store food for the winter or risk joining him in the chasm. After asking Dante to warn his friend, Mahomet moves on.

In keeping with the theme of Divine Retribution that runs throughout Inferno, the sinners in the ninth chasm, the Sowers of Discord, are brutally split and mutilated, just as they split and mutilated aspects of religion, politics, or kinsmen. Each sinner is punished according to degree of sin, as well as suffering punishment specifically geared toward their particular sin.

Dante obviously sees Mahomet as one of the chief sinners responsible for the division between Christianity and Islam. Dante blames Mahomet’s successor, Ali, as well. Dante describes these two shades as being split in two, just as he feels they split the church.

Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it;
for their wickedness is come up before me.
–Jonah 1:2 (KJV)–

Thou shalt not lie with mankind,
as with womankind: it is abomination.
–Leviticus 18:22 (KJV)–

The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man,
neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment:
for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God.
–Deuteronomy 22:5 (KJV)–

God says that the Sodomites were
“wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly” (Gen. 13:13),
and their sin was to Him “very grievous” (18:20).
–Dr. Hugh Pyle, The Truth About the Homosexuals (Sword, 1978), p. 8–

SICK!

You’re not imagining things: many pastors avoid this topic; and there are several common reasons. Topics like homosexuality are highly charged in today’s culture. Many pastors worry they’ll be misunderstood as just attacking people rather than addressing the behavior from a moral or Biblical perspective. Pastors know these issues affect people sitting in the pews: people addicted to porn, couples living together, church members with homosexual family members, etc. Because they want to keep people coming back and open to hearing the gospel, some avoid topics that feel “too confrontational.” Addressing sexual sin can create conflict with influential and wealthy church members. Pastors sometimes feel pressure–spoken or unspoken–to “keep things positive.” Some pastors genuinely want to address these topics but fear doing it in a harsh or simplistic way. They may not feel equipped to speak with both Biblical conviction and so-called pastoral compassion. So pastors are actually pressured by church staff to keep the show going with non-confrontational sermon topics like hope, grace, purpose, dream fulfillment, and forgiveness. And to classify subjects like homosexuals as just a “negative” topic to be removed from all church communications. They are increasingly focused on being “seeker sensitive,” which often means avoiding topics that would make newcomers feel uncomfortable.

And so these pastors have failed to be watchmen, and the people’s blood is on their hands, and they’re guilty of not warning sinners of the hell-deserving danger they’re in! Because they don’t adequately point out the specific sinfulness of their homosexual, shackin’ up lifestyles. They might say the word “hell” or the word “cross” if they’re really daring in the typical Rick Warren influenced seeker-sensitive church, but no, they’re not going to boldly confront the homosexual lifestyle, because they ultimately want homosexual money to be tithed to their churches. And so they cave into the sissified gay affirming church culture instead of being truly prophetic. Such pastors should be viewed as wolves in sheep’s clothing, carnal, and not filled with the Holy Spirit. Homosexuals, the Bible says, “shall not inherit the kingdom of God,” and these pastors could obviously care less about them (1 Corinthians 6:10). If they’re gonna die and go to Hell, then they better do it, and decrease the surplus population! But let’s keep things “positive” around here; and not preach against the unmentionable sin of the homosexuals in this holy sanctuary. Ezekiel 33:6: “If the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand.” Lazy purpose-driven pastor! You’re no preacher! Can’t you see all those dead homosexual ghosts that died of AIDS a few years ago, rolling around in the lake of fire, screaming and yelling in pain? They used to listen to you preach! They used to come to church and pay you a tithe. But can you see ’em down there in Hell right now? They’re all down there because of YOU! Because you were too afraid of the conflict that would come from warning them about their sin from the pulpit. And so now God will require their blood of you! This means God holds you guilty for their suicide! You could’ve warned ’em about the cliff they were headed for, but you just let ’em fall right into a lake of burning lava!

I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and making my request to the Lord my God for his holy hill.
–Daniel 9:20 (NIV)–

—

Apathetic and doctrinal,
never ready to confront sin from the pulpit!
–J.B.–

Originally from here.

Will such a God as reason demands reveal himself in any special way to man? All who accept Theism must believe in the (possibility of such revelation as we need to have. A God of infinite wisdom and power surely can reveal himself in some way that will be satisfactory to us. By divine revelation we mean a supernatural communication of truth from God to man. By supernatural is meant beyond the flight of nature or reason. Men who oppose the Bible and reject Christianity, oppose the doctrine of a revelation from God as unnecessary, and improbable and impossible. All true theists to be consistent must take the other side.

I. Revelation is necessary. Modern infidels have been loud in their assertions that the light of nature is sufficient to conduct mankind to truth and virtue and happiness. But it is infidels in Christian lands who say this, infidels who have always dwelt in the light of the Bible they reject, and in the moral environment made by the Christianity which they despise. It is easy to test this by considering what has been the life of those ages and nations where the truths of revelation had not come, and the light of the gospel did not shine. Very fair systems of Natural Theology can be, and have been framed in Christian lands by opponents of Christianity; but some of their best views have been derived not from their own unassisted reasons, but, as Rousseau himself confesses, from those very Scriptures which they despise and revile, from their early education, and from living in a country where, in spite of themselves, everybody’s thinking, their own with the rest, is leavened by the Gospel. Let it be understood, we are not considering now what views of God seem reasonable to Christian men in a Christian land. We are considering what depraved and fallen men needed in this world before God made His revelation to it, and what is needed now where it has never come. Bear in mind also that, though man is fallen, he still retains a nature inclined to religion, and a distinct capacity for it. “Indeed,” says President Mark Hopkins, “no fact can be better established, both by philosophy and history, than that mankind are so constituted that they must have some religion. Man has a religious nature, which is a fundamental and necessary and elementary constituent of his being. This nature will manifest itself. Let the true religion be removed, and a false one will come in its place.” Now as a historical fact, this rational being, this child of God, with his capacity for religion, lost this moral image, and consequently the true knowledge of God. As “he did not like to retain the knowledge of God,” under the influence of his depravity, his “foolish heart was darkened,” and he went off into Pantheism and, every form of degrading idolatry. Now can such a being, lost in sin, get back to God without a direct revelation? He has never done it. This is confirmed by an appeal to facts. “An impartial survey of the condition of those portions of the earth that have been without the light of revelation, shows conclusively that the reformation of man was hopeless without it. A full and fair experiment has been made. It has been extended through thousands of years, and ample time has been given to test every principle, to follow out every tendency to its results, to call forth every inherent energy of man. It has been made in every climate, under every form of government, in all circumstances of barbarism and refinement, by individuals who, for intellectual endowments, have been the pride of the race, and by nations who have made the greatest advancement in science, in literature, and in the arts. What unassisted man has done therefore, to disperse the religious darkness, and to remedy the moral maladies of the world, may be regarded as a fair exemplification of what he would do. After so long and fair a trial, it is extremely probable that the race would have continued to be hopelessly benighted and degraded without a direct revelation from God.”1 1. Mark Hopkins, Evidences of Christianity, p. 49.

That such an authoritative revelation was necessary will appear from the following considerations. 1. Human reason was insufficient to speak with due authority to men. “Among those who professed to be guided by it, some worshiped the true God, some His works, some their own works, and some no God at all, though all ages had the same book of nature, and the same reason from which to derive moral rules.” Reason, once fallen into sin, did not speak with authority, but only speculated. 2. Knowledge of Divine Unity was lost. The mass of men became worshipers of natural objects, or of the powers of nature personified, or of idols, or of deified men and women. If a few philosophers saw the folly of this, and really held to the Divine Unity, it was rather to ridicule and despise than to help the multitude. It does not appear, however, that they held to the doctrine, except as a matter of speculation, or that they had any habit of worshiping one infinite God, or taught that He ought to be worshiped. What must have been the practical blindness and uncertainty of the common mind, on this all-important subject, when Socrates one of the clearest minded of all the ancient philosophers, could make a dying request of a friend, that he sacrifice a cock for him to Esculapius? If that noble and immortal man had reached no firmer ground of faith in God, where must the common herd have been? 3. The heathen nations lost the knowledge of God, as a holy God. Somehow reason failed to bring them back to the simple conception of the Divine Being as a perfect moral character, exercising a righteous moral government over the entire universe, and taking notice even of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Without such a knowledge of God there can be no pure and spiritual religion. Generally, the ancients transferred to God the moral character, the affections, the passions and even the lusts, of men. Whether their reasons might not have attained to a better knowledge of God we will not positively affirm. We think they might, Paul seemed to think so. But the fact is, they did not; and God acted upon the fact. 4. The loss of the conception of God’s holiness induced a separation of religion and morality. There was an abundance of religion in the ancient heathen world, as there is in the modern; but it did not lead to purity of life. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans bears awful testimony to the fact. “Heathen writers themselves also confirm the charge. They testify that the greatest crimes were countenanced by the arguments and examples of their moralists and philosophers. Infanticide, theft, and crimes against nature, the detail of which modesty forbids, were not only tolerated but even enjoined by their legislators and praised by their poets. This would not have been, had not public opinion consented to, and in some measure, invited them. “Even their religions sanctioned gross vices. In Corinth was a temple of Venus with a thousand female votaries bringing to her treasury the gains of their impurity. The Babylonians had a temple to which every virgin was religiously taught to resort for unchaste purposes. Plato taught that to lie was honorable. Cicero pleads for fornication and commends, and at length practices, suicide. Cato, extolled as a model of virtue, was guilty of prostitution and drunkenness, and advocated and finally practiced, self murder.”1 1. Binney and Steele’s Theological Compend, pp. IS, 16.

Is the modern heathen world any better? Bishop Heber said of the Modern Hindus, “I have never met with a race of men whose standard of morality is so low,-who feel so little apparent shame in being detected in a falsehood, or so little interest in the sufferings of a neighbor not being of their own caste or family,-whose ordinary and familiar conversation is so licentious, or in the wilder and more lawless districts, who shed blood with so little repugnance.” Says Mark Hopkins: “The tendency to this separation of morals and religion is strong everywhere, and nothing can be more destructive both of true religion and morality, or more fatal to every interest of man…How much more must this be the case, when the character of the object worshiped is such as to excite and encourage every form of iniquity, and drunkenness and obscenity, instead of being forbidden, become a part of religious rites! ‘When the light that is in men becomes darkness, how great is that darkness!’ This is a point of the greatest moment, since no false religion ever did, or ever can, teach, and adequately sanction, anything like a perfect system of morality.”2 2. Hopkins, Evidences of Christianity, pp. SI, 52. 5.

Men had lost all sure and certain knowledge of the immortality of the soul. Philosophers threw across the grave the frail bridge of speculation, but left the question debatable and doubtful. Some regarded this belief as only a vulgar prejudice. Even Cicero, who had carefully studied the arguments of Socrates, and added others of his own, said, “Which of these is true, God alone knows; and which is most probable, a very great question.” As a practical power in human lives, it may be truthfully said, that “Christ brought life and immortality to light through His gospel.” Now it is barely possible that reason, put to its utmost stretch of power, might have reached these truths-the unity of God, His holiness, the duty of morality, and, the immortality of the Soul, just as Newton and Euclid might have reached unaided the highest mathematical truths; but they never would have been known by the great mass of mankind. There are, however, still other truths greatly needed, that nature does not teach, and reason could not discover.

1. The truth that God can pardon sin. The unaided mind of man never would have been clear about it. Natural religion teaches that God is sternly just. How a just God could possibly pardon sin was a problem that the greatest minds wrestled with in vain. The difficulty seemed so great to Socrates that he said to his disciple, “Crito, I do not see how God can possibly forgive sin, for I do not see that He ought to.” Even modern theologians, who get befogged about the atonement, begin to deny that sin is ever forgiven. Many Universalists tell us that the due punishment of every sin must be borne, and there is no escape. Now to a race of sinners, it was indispensable that this fact should be known before any rational system of religion could be framed. Conjectures here would not lead to practical salvation. 2. On what grounds could God forgive sin? Even if somehow the impression became lodged in the mind that the Divine Being would forgive sin, we would still need to know the conditions of the pardon. Modern deists tell us, especially Lord Herbert, that it is a dictate of natural religion that God will pardon sin on repentance. Nothing is farther from the truth. No heathen religion ever taught any thing of the kind. “Having the light of the Bible, we see distinctly that God can not properly pardon the guilty without repentance, meaning a thorough forsaking of sin even in the secret feelings of the heart; but who ever heard of such a repentance in other religions? And who ever heard of a deist exercising such a repentance and remaining a deist?…The truth is, deists have borrowed this partial truth from the Bible, and then used it to show that we do not need the book from which they borrowed it.”1 1. Hopkins, Evidences of Christianity, pp. 54, SS.

3. Furthermore, if a man should endeavor to reclaim himself from the dominion of sin he could not know by himself whether God would encourage him or put obstacles in his way. The foreboding of conscience would deter reason from conjecturing that there was gracious help, divine aid for the sinful and the tempted, so sustaining to the weakness, and so consoling to the wretchedness, of man, coming directly from a personal God. The grace in Christ Jesus, that we hear so much about in Christendom, is utterly unthought of in heathen lands. 4. Without revelation man could not know either his origin or his destiny. How we came to be, or why we are here, or what is the purpose of our existence, or the end of our journey,-what mists of darkness hang over it all, apart from the blessed light of revelation! “Now, when we consider the passions of men, the collisions of interests, the obtrusiveness of the objects of sense, the pressure of animal wants, the vices of society, and the shortness of life, who can believe, with this total darkness resting upon others, that one man in a million would sit down calmly to solve these great questions respecting God and His government, and human destiny?”1 And who can believe for a moment that any merely speculative solution of these questions would have sufficient power to control the passions and predominate over the senses, and produce a religion that could save men? No; it is exceedingly clear that, if anything was to be done to enlighten man, it must be by a voice from heaven, a voice that could speak with the authority of Eternal Truth. 1. Hopkins, Evidences of Christianity, p. 56. Moral darkness, voluntarily incurred, always and necessarily involves practical wickedness. Falsehood, cruelty, selfishness and nameless licentiousness enveloped humanity like an all pervading atmosphere. Men found themselves, therefore, in this dilemma. They had lost the true knowledge of God. But they could not annihilate their religious faculty; they must still have a religion. Therefore superstition, fanaticism, pantheism and idolatry, united with every gross form of sin, came in to make still darker their darkened hearts, and still more depraved their wicked lives. Manifestly a voice from heaven must speak or humanity is lost forever.

II. Is a revelation probable? Here is the issue: Granted a Personal God in the universe, and a race of moral beings created in His image and lost in sin, will He take steps for their recovery?’ 1. Yes; if He has the heart ot a Father, He will be concerned about the fate of His children. Any true father would seek a lost child. Surely the Infinite Father will seek billions of His lost children, will break the awful silence that surrounds them, and speak with a voice of love the message that is necessary for their present and eternal wellbeing. 2. Yes; if He is a God of infinite goodness, He who cares for all the sentient beings he has made, and “openeth His hand and satisfieth the wants of every living thing,” who notes the sparrow’s fall, and ministers to all life, will surely care for the souls of His immortal children. He will not feed and clothe the bodies of men, and ignore the dire needs of that part of their nature that endures forever. 3. Yes; if God is a holy God. He must hate sin with an infinite hatred. All the impulses of His infinite heart must be against it. The forces of His government must be arrayed in opposition to it. Whatever His wisdom can suggest and His love prompt, and His power execute will be put in operation to counteract sin. It is the nature of holiness to desire in every other moral being a resemblance to itself, .and to hold sinfulness, wherever it exists, in utter abhorrence. So we may conclude that God wishes us to be holy like Himself, and, to that end, will be impelled by His own nature, to give us every proper assistance. It is inconceivable that a being of infinite wisdom and power should will a moral end, and then not put forth all proper moral means essential to that end. 4. Yes; if our race is as important as we suppose it to be. We are a race of sentient beings capable of bliss or woe, and that forever. No finite mind in all the universe can remotely comprehend the possible aggregate of the blessedness or misery of one single soul in a career of endless duration. But multiply, this by the uncounted billions of immortals who have lived, and will live in this world, and there will be an amount that staggers reason to even contemplate. Only the Infinite Mind can comprehend this problem. Surely, if a case ever could occur in the universe, in which we might infer from the wisdom and holiness and benevolence of an infinite Heavenly Father, that he would make a special revelation of himself, this is that case. On the fact of such an interposition hung the destiny of our race; and to one who could conceive of the possibility of mercy in God, it could not appear improbable that such an interposition would be made. This probability is, also, greatly strengthened by the fact that the race has generally expected such a revelation, and the readiness which they have shown to receive it, and the natural tendency of man to crave and welcome divine help.

III. Is a Divine Supernatural Revelation Possible? Many infidels say “no.” But even Bolingbroke admitted that, “An extraordinary action of God upon the human mind is not more inconceivable than the ordinary action of mind on body, or of body on mind.” What is the nature of the impossibility of a revelation? Does it lie in God? Cannot the Creator, who had power enough to create moral beings in his own image, discover or invent some way of revealing himself to them? If a father can invent a telephone and speak to his child hundreds of miles away and even his voice be recognized, can not the Infinite Father somehow send a message and make his voice known to man? Surely by signs, miracles, audible voice, visions, inspiration, or something of the kind, a message can be sent which shall get through to the soul and be understood. If President Hoover can send a message by radio to the people of the United States, cannot God speak to the people of the world? Is the impossibility in man? Has He not, with all His wonderful complement of faculties, spiritual perception and moral discernment enough to know when God is near, and apprehend what He is trying to reveal? To doubt it is to cast reflections upon man, and to degrade Him to the level of the brute.

The fearful, and unbelieving, and the ABOMINABLE, and MURDERERS, and WHOREMONGERS, and SORCERERS, and idolaters, and all LIARS, shall have their part in THE LAKE WHICH BURNETH WITH FIRE AND BRIMSTONE: which is the second death.
–Revelation 21:8 (KJV)–

—

THE PROPHET MARRIED ME WHEN I WAS SIX YEARS OLD,
AND CONSUMMATED THE MARRIAGE WITH ME WHEN I WAS NINE.
–Aishah, one of the prophet Muhammad’s twenty two wives–
—Sahih Muslim, Volume 4 (Darussalam Edition),
The Book of Marriage, Hadith No. [3480] 70, p. 46–

—

Aesha was only eight or nine years old
when Muhammad took her to his bed.
This facet of Muhammad’s sexual appetite
is particularly distressing to Westerners.
–Dr. Robert Morey, The Islamic Invasion (Harvest House, 1992), p. 86–

—

Dr. Robert Morey, The Islamic Invasion: Confronting the World’s Fastest Growing Religion (Harvest House, 1992), ch. 6: “The Life of Muhammad.” Morey was a Baptist evangelist, apologist, and pastor.

Dr. Alfred Guillaume, Islam (Penguin, 1954). He was Anglican.

—. The Life of Muhammad (Oxford University Press, 1955).