Rob Bell Gets Honest and Calls

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is dr. James White director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now at 602 973 460 to or toll-free across the United States. It's 1 877 7 5 3 3 3 4 1. And now with today's topic here is James White. And good afternoon. Welcome to the dividing line.

It's Thursday afternoon. I have a few things lined up, but also gonna have plenty of time for your phone calls. It well as well. 877 7 5 3 3 3 4 1 dividing dot line via Skype. I got locked out of Skype.

Did you know that I didn't tell you that I got locked out. I had to do all this fun stuff to get back in and reset passwords and they said I had gotten that I don't know. They said I gotten hijacked but nothing changed.

So I don't know that I did. I think they just lost me Anyway 877 7 5 3 3 4 1 just a reminder. We're heading back out to sea in January. I have contacted some Friends at a church. I'm gonna be at the first weekend in June down in Houston.

And I need to get back with them again and say hey guys if you've come up with anything. I'm Basically asking if they know of any Muslims in the area that might be you know A good dialogue partner or debate partner something like that.

There is a very large Muslim population in the Houston area, of course, Houston's just huge. Houston is larger than we are here in Phoenix. So they we are right behind them. It's you know, New York LA Chicago Houston and then Phoenix at least according to list I've seen anyways and So I'm gonna see if we can we can add something to the trip down there or Do it on the cruise itself.

That might be something to do. So take a look at the banner ad at a omen org and consider joining with us. I Listened to about the first hundred and ten, I think around 110 pages of Michael Brown's book a queer thing happened to America this morning while riding.

I hope to get through the rest of it on My ride on Saturday. I have asked The the buzzmeister the master of the Amazon bookstore For Alpha Omega Ministries to put it in there. And once he does I will be blogging it there's so much that I would like to say it is a I'll limit it to this because I'm gonna ask Michael to be on and Knowing how gracious he is.

I'm sure he will join us. He's already said he'd like to To talk about his new book Which is on the homosexual agenda in the United States. He spent a number of years writing this book. I know how difficult that is.

Writing books on homosexuality is not enjoyable. And things have changed a lot since I wrote the same-sex controversy thankfully the same-sex controversy really isn't dated because We were not focused upon what's going on In America, we were providing a response to the homosexual arguments on the key biblical texts and those haven't changed.

Very very frequently the homosexual advocate will actually use numerous contradictory arguments on any one text because it's all they want to try to do is Say there's no way that it means what you think it means it could mean all these other things and and so it really isn't dated along those lines, but I Was amazed even while we were writing the book and how many books came out during the process of my writing the book that were promoting homosexuality and it's only gotten worse and The educational system United States from kindergarten Through the university level has been utterly hijacked completely Infiltrated by pro-homosexual Individuals and programs and agendas and it is absolutely positively amazing and I could not help but think of The legal decision and That means it was made by a judge.

I I would just simply point out and I want everyone to remember Mr. Or mrs. Judge. You have a judge above you and You will be judged someday by how you have judged and I know there are some Christians who disagree with me on this, but I think I have very good grounds for stating this.

Like the entirety of the teaching of the Old Testament. Which by the way, you know, it's just it's just sad when I hear modern-day Christians. Well, we're not under the law. We're under grace and is throw out the entire Ethical foundation of Scripture and show no understanding whatsoever of New Testament concepts either but bit as it may.

Mr. Mrs Judge there is a holy judge who will judge you by what you have said and done and when I think of the judges in Massachusetts that basically told parents we own your kids. We don't have to tell you what they're what we're gonna teach them we don't have to give you the opportunity of opting out of being of having your your Young young kids we're not talking Seniors in high school here.

We're talking kindergarten first second grade. You don't have the option of opting out of this stuff. We are going to tell them that that's not just that homosexuality is an equally valid lifestyle. But they're finally getting beyond that.

Having two daddies is a better way of going having two mommies is a better way of going it. It's just I don't know how long ago was I started saying these people want uber rights. They don't want equal rights.

They want uber rights. They want to silence anyone. I was listening to one thing that he mentioned that This one fellow recently had listed as and as homophobic attitudes. Tolerance and acceptance. That's not enough.

That's not enough. You have to consider it to be a positive Lifestyle you cannot just tolerate it. That's a homophobic concept. But what I was gonna say see I'm starting to get in all this stuff and I don't want to do that before I got one collar and you can go can get online as well, but I Really think that one of the reasons you got to understand.

For the homosexual this is their life. This is their world this is what they wake up in the morning to and they go to bed at night to and That's why they never give up and that's why they will dedicate themselves this for the rest of us.

We don't want to think about it. We we have lives to live we have Children to care for and families to build and we don't want to think about what they do. And that was one of the toughest things. That's what I sort of skipped in my thing there was reading the stuff I had to read even to write the same sex controversy was.

It's just not enjoyable it's it's repulsive is what it is. I Had never envisioned some of the things I had to read about. Learned a few things this morning, unfortunately, and I think that's why a Lot of my generation and certainly the generation ahead of me my parents generation.

Just do not want to deal with this these are not things you're supposed to be talking about in public you're not supposed to talk about these things in public and You know, I remember when I debated Dan Barker.

I Simply showed a picture of a book that he quotes from that had a woman's bare back on it. Not not even all of her just her back. There's bear. Oh You shouldn't do that. Oh, you shouldn't do that. Not even thinking about what the point I was making is and if and if you got an attitude like that These folks are not going to be reading Michael Brown's book and as a result We're losing the battle because we have our heads firm firmly stuck into the sand.

We just we just oh that's happening out there. No, no, no. No, I don't want to think about it I don't want to interact with it. It disgusts me. It's it's Only other that only happens someplace else. No folks.

It's happening in your local community and We are surrounded by it and we just can't ignore it anymore. And so I'm looking forward to having Michael on. I haven't Talked to him about when but his his program has become syndicated now it's gonna be on a bunch of Salem stations and things and so I'm sure he's busy and one-armed paper hanger and He may discover that after that program.

When you do it every day, you know, we can move this around to fit our schedules and blah blah blah blah. Yeah, it doesn't doesn't work that way when you're once you once you're on the on the network, man.

Not only do you got to do it every day? But you got to find somebody to take your place and you can't you got to take breaks all at the exact same time and And we don't have to do any of that because it's just us.

Not that smart enough to actually I can do I've done it before I'm a radio guy. I could do it. But I know thanks anyway, I think that's why we're losing this battle far faster than any of us ever thought that it could be lost is that we won't talk about it and We won't think it through and we'll just give knee-jerk reactions and not the best sharp reactions to what's so what's going on around us and It's it's time to wake up.

So anyway, it's I Hopefully we'll have more next week to let you know about that book and Things like that did want to play one quick thing here. Well, it's not really all that quick. No, we'll get to our calls John in Chicago and to everybody else at eight seven seven seven five three three four one dividing that line.

Via Skype if you would like to get in today. I Mentioned the last program that we had a very good program on Tuesday morning Unbelievable that will be posted I would assume somewhere in the late morning here in the United States anyways on Saturday and as soon as it's available, I will link to it on the blog and I will be very interested in hearing your reactions to my my discussion with Brian McLaren one of the texts one of the quotations that I Read from Brian McLaren's book a new kind of Christianity ten questions that are transforming the faith.

Page. Well, let's see. What does this could tell me? This is this this is page 108 according to Kindle. That means it's somewhere between you know, 105 and 113 or so in the printed edition. That's what I'm discovering anyways.

He's talking about the flood. And Let me actually back up here. For example for me today the Noah story in which God wipes out all living things except one boatload of refugees Has become profoundly disturbing.

True, I learned as acute children's bedtime tale complete with cuddly pairs of furry animals in line with the old maxim. What you focus on determines what you miss. I was trained to read as a story of divine saving.

So I missed the small detail of divine mass destruction on a planetary scale in recent years, though I began thinking about how some might use the story as a constitutional precedent if God Single-handedly practiced ethnic cleansing once and if God cannot do evil then there is apparently a time and a place when genocide is justified.

Let me stop just for a moment. I didn't get a chance to at least I don't think I got a chance. Or I might have very very quickly criticized McLaren's constant utilization of this. I did say that any divine truth Can be twisted and abused.

That doesn't mean that divine truth is no longer true it just brings guilt upon the one who twists that truth and but that is just so much a part of the emergent criticism of Christianity is. Well, God created.

God did genocide. No God brought justice according to his just law and He showed mercy in the midst of it, but The fact of matter is the day you eat of it you shall die. There was there was mercy and grace from the start and The world was filled with evil and God brought judgment and God God will bring judgment again.

That's it's amazing to me. That's that's part and parcel of what we're supposed to be proclaiming to the world. I sort of wonder what emergent folks are proclaiming. But the idea that well, yeah. But then somebody can take that and they can commit genocide and that's the Bible's fault is such fallacious thinking.

As if because God did something well God created. I guess that means we can to. I mean It's just so facile. But anyway I continue on and that and that means that maybe we or enemies could be justified in playing the genocide card again at some time the future another sobering reason to take this quest for a new kind of Christianity seriously in spite of the risks and opposition there the Crusaders out there the explorers taking us to a new world.

Anyway, the possibility of using the Bible to justify using the genocide card is chilling. Especially when one recalls this is not a hypothetical question. This very thing happened again and again the past from Genesis 7 to Deuteronomy 7 to American colonization.

To the Holocaust the Rwandan genocide to Darfur which has to do with Muslims. I'm not sure but anyways in comparison now. Here's here's here we go in comparison to a global flood that destroys all life except for a tiny remnant on one lifeboat a few Nuclear bombs are after all I shudder to write this minor disturbances and Here's here's the line in this light a God who mandates an intentional supernatural disaster.

Leading to unparalleled genocide is hardly worthy of belief much less worship. So there you go Brian McLaren. That says page 109 in this light a God who mandates an intentional supernatural disaster leading to unparalleled genocide is hardly worthy of belief much Less worship.

So Brian McLaren does not want to worship a God who actually follows through on his word. Which is to bring judgment upon sinners? That's that's that's out of bounds can't be done. Shouldn't be done and that means that such a God is unworthy of belief.

He does not believe in a God who judges sinners and He certainly will not worship a God who judges sinners. I Hear that folks. We cannot live in our enclaves any longer if we want to be salt and light in the world and You better get used to hearing these things and you better control your emotions when you hear them and be ready with good Solid answers that make people think rather than knee-jerk reactions like oh, you're a blasphemer.

They may be but that's how lost people are. That's the sort of the way things are and I was watching Bill O 'Reilly and Bill O 'Reilly was had something about Easter recently and he was responding to a someone had emailed in who had said Jesus is the only way and Bill O 'Reilly's that Jesus isn't the only way he says God is a just God and that would be unjust.

Which shows you just how far Bill O 'Reilly is from anything that could be remotely called a biblical Christian. But that's the way the world thinks God owes us something we're not sinners. We're not.

God has to provide many ways of salvation. Not just one. One's not enough. Because there's we have a lot of different tastes. We have to have different styles and colors and Languages and cultures and and so it can't be just one.

Relating all to playing this I was directed to. I don't remember how I was directed to this now. I think it's Twitter. Twitter is 140 characters is a bummer. But it's a real easy way of getting information out and especially links.

Hey, take a look at this bump. There it is and you let everybody know and I think that's how I got this. This was an interview of Rob Bell. I don't know how many interviews Rob Bell has done. Rob Bell's done more interviews in the past month.

Than I've ever done my entire life. I would imagine and Here Rob Bell is a little more honest than he was on unbelievable. Just a little more honest. I think I'm believable. He was dissimilar dissimulating.

He was being coy. Coy is the term I would use. He knew that there was opposition. And so, you know. This this unwillingness to actually answer direct questions very very troubling and and bothersome. Really bugs me to death.

But here he was on a more liberal talk show and You know what if you want to hear what a liberal really believes get him on a liberal talk show. Don't give a conservative talk show get him on a liberal talk show this isn't what Rob Bell had to say and Uh, I don't know if I can find one of the calls.

I may skip the calls if we get many more calls in because I can tell John right now. That's though. I know that Vantel and Clark were on opposite sides of things. I'm not an expert on all the issues and involved with it.

And I can tell you right now a Clark is not on my top 10 list of anybody to be reading though. Turretin van likes him. So, you know, there's some there's. But there's been some really weird people that are big Clark guys.

There's that what's that red beetle dude on on YouTube what is his name? I don't know what it is. He thinks everybody's a heretic and Trinity Foundation guys that you know. Since I didn't call a Robertson Genesis a papist or something in one paper than that was a terrible horrible compromise.

It's had to be a little on the radical side. Just a little little weird, but. Except for Turretin van. He's he's he's about the only Clark. Completely loopy. But anyways, we'll see what John has say. But if you want to get in as well a seven seven seven five three three four one.

Let's listen to Rob Bell being a little more honest than the normal Rob Bell.

On this program. Thanks for joining us pastor Bell. It's great to be with you. Yeah. You ask in this book whether a loving God would send sinners to hell and I guess I'm going to ask you. Would he?

Well, one of the reasons I wrote the book is I Want to get at the simple idea that God is love and that God's love demands freedom. So we are free to choose love we are treated choose the decent human right thing to do and so in the book, I simply explore people's conceptions of the divine and how this shaped us and.

So essentially we create our own hell when we choose destruction greed abuse. We see hells around us all the time. So the book explores sort of this power of human choice to make these kinds of decisions.

So we see that hell is human choice.

It's not really the biblical terminology, but hey. It's it's not it's not God's wrath. It's not God's justice. It's it's the result of Man's freedom. Love demands freedom. As someone said they said someone mentioned I forget who it was on Twitter Said isn't it interesting that Rob Bell and Brian McLaren sound like the logical conclusions of what love is this by Dave Hunt?

Which is pretty much true and.

You're suggesting that that hell is right here and now if. If we make certain choices, yeah.

Yes as a pastor One of the things you see again and again is the power of the human will to make both extraordinarily beautiful Choices that benefit others and ourselves and then the power to make other kinds of choices that bring a sort of hell on earth.

And I think my experience is the same with a lot of people of watching how Christians have made a big deal about heaven and hell when you die when We have those sort of choices right now, so let's do something about the hells on earth right now.

Well, ultimately Christians say that if you don't accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, then you are condemned to hell.

Yeah, and that's actually that was one of the main reasons I wrote the book is what about the people who have never heard if I just stop right now.

Why do I don't know who this interviewer is? He was taking somebody else's place anyway, so I don't know it really matters but You you have to catch The badly phrased questions. If you don't believe in Jesus you're condemned to hell.

No, you're condemned to hell and the only way out of it is believing in Jesus. Those are not equative sentences. One makes the reason of your condemnation to hell Your non-belief in something and that then raises all the questions about but what about people who didn't hear?

But to state everyone is condemned to the judgment of God which takes place in hell unless You are in Christ Jesus. That's a completely different foundation. Similar concepts, but There you have to be able to make that distinction or you're not going to get anywhere.

And when you hear people asking questions like that you can tell they've either never heard a meaningful discussion of it or are Specifically attempting to guide the conversation by means of the questions God.

That kind of God that would truly send billions of people to hell for not believing in a Jesus. That they've never heard of and I think a lot of people.

Find that and notice Bell. Bell bought it. Because that's how he presents it. That's how he presents it in love wins. He does not present an orthodox perspective. That all men because of sin are condemned by God's holiness.

To separation from he who is holy everything is unholy is separated from him who is holy. So he buys it and says oh, yeah.

Questions of Christian and faith they've encountered. They're unable to stomach it because of its inability to ask very basic questions like that. So I come from a tradition of CS Lewis Billy Graham tradition that Always left room for the mysterious grace of God.

And I'm not the judge. So somebody else can make those.

And You say for folks who have who have never heard of Jesus Christ. What about for those who have heard of Jesus Christ and said well, I'm not necessarily going to accept him as my personal Savior.

Yeah, that's a great question. One of the things in the book I talk about is this Woman who used to was abused by her father and he would recite the Lord's Prayer while he raped her. And so I explore for some people the name Jesus is deeply tied up with lots and lots of destructive things and.

So I assume in all those sorts of situations God has all sorts of grace and patience. And and that's something that it's very important. I think for Christians to acknowledge God.

So God has grace and grace and patience. So for Rob Bell grace and patience means Saving outside of the self-giving of the Son of God in Jesus Christ. So evidently that wasn't enough there. That's not gracious enough.

That's too restricted now. Do you see the foundational element that leads to this? Do you catch where this is since he's coming from an Arminian anti-reform background? That makes sense because God can't really save anybody anyways.

He's got to leave it up to them. So if there's only one way of salvation and God can't bring his elect by that means and it's up to us to Cooperate. Well, then you've got your objection and that's the whole grounds of it.

Theology matters.

Sorts this out. And so we announced this good news this love and we trust God to sort this out. What are you trying to do in your book? I'm trying to recapture the historic Good news that God loves everybody and Jesus came to announce this to give us this love to show us this love to invite Us into this love so that we could experience it and we could share it with others.

I think lots of people we need to hear. That's what happens when you.

Overemphasize one divine truth at the expense of all other divine truths. God loves Everybody and Jesus came to announce that. Really what were the first words of Jesus's preaching? I think it's Mark.

I Looked it up just recently. Jesus comes preaching. What does he preach? Repent. The kingdom of God is at hand. Well, Mark just be it must be telescoping and he forgot the God loves Everybody part. Where is that?

Yeah, you know as long as you don't read the Bible these guys, you know can make a Can make a good case a I mean a post-modernist and just loves it. It's you know, real but if you read the Bible you go wait a minute this Jesus guy talks about hell and repentance and sin and all this other stuff and yeah, the love of God's in there, but it's.

It's connected with all this other stuff that may puts it in balance and I don't want that.

Good news. And you say the word Christian in our culture and lots of people have lots and lots of other Associations that have nothing to do with the love of God for everybody. So in some senses, I'm trying to recapture a very pure beautiful message that I think got hijacked along the way.

Well, it's interesting. Your book has drawn a lot of criticism from folks on what's traditionally called the the Christian, right?

They're calling you a heretic even a universalist. Oh, yeah, I'm I am told that that's happened. Well. There was a strong religious establishment that had a very strict rigid hierarchy for who's in who's out who's clean.

We're the Pharisees unclean who have God's favor who doesn't. And Jesus essentially. He turned over those tables. He Dined with tax collectors and prostitutes and he touched lepers. And what did he say to the tax collectors and prostitutes?

Repent and sin no more. Not. Oh God just loves you right where you are. Not that's that. That might be the Living Bible translation.

But he upset the power structure in his day. So I think religious people have had a problem with God's mysterious grace for a long time now.

Yeah, religious people have had a problem with God's mysterious grace for a long time now. And that's why we just listened to Rob Bell telling us that God's grace in the one way of salvation Jesus Christ is too narrow.

We need something beyond that a.

Problem with mystery. Yes, I think it's a problem with mystery. I think we naturally want to create categories. We naturally like black and white categories of who's good. Who's bad? Who's us? Who's them?

Who's in? who's out and Jesus doesn't like those categories. He continually tells stories about Who people who everybody assumed were in being out and the people all the people who are in assumed were out if you haven't read?

Love wins a lot of it. A Lengthy portion of it is trying to string together a number of passages for which Bell has been strongly criticized as far as. Trying to come up with this paradigm of who's in who's out now, it's very clear.

I don't know how many years since the 80s. I know I've been talking about how the Pharisees Believe the the Amha audits the people of the land were beyond the grace of God and. So there is an element of truth to this but it's what Bell uses.

To turn on its head the concept of divine truth. The singularity and uniqueness of the atoning work of Christ. The uniqueness of coming only via Christ to the Father, etc, etc.

Finding out that they were actually in he sort of turns all that upside down and I think it's Something that we all instinctively know and just needs to be said again and again and again.

We're talking to a pastor Rob Bell who might be described as one of the hottest Christian ministers in the country. We will continue that conversation after we check in to the APCC. Well, did Jesus talk about a hell?

And then to is. What about the concept of a purgatory? Great question.

Occurs a little less than 20 times in the Gospels. There are three words. One is the word Tartarus. It's in the letter to the one of Peter's letters. Jesus used two different words. He used the word Hades, which is essentially Greek word that is equivalent of the Hebrew word shale.

So it's sort of a fuzzy murky Place after death. And then the main word is the word Gehenna and Jesus used that roughly 12 times. And Gehenna is the Greek word it means Valley of Hinnom and it was the south and west Valley of the city of Jerusalem.

And it was the town dump in the first century. And there were actually wild animals that would fight Over the scraps of food and then they would have it on fire all the time to sort of burn the trash.

So Gehenna was the place where the teeth of the animals would clash against each other. It was the place of the gnashing of teeth where the fire never goes out. So what's fascinating why your question is so interesting is Jesus when he used the actual word hell was referring to an actual first century town dump a place of sort of waste and Destruction.

And the context he used the word in was generally violence against another person. Exploiting against another person saying essentially be careful because the way that you treat your fellow man fellow woman.

There are profound destructive consequences for the way that we treat each other.

So does he actually say if you treat people this way you're going to end up in a place like this the town dump?

Well, this is yeah, that's actually. The great question is to what degree is the town dump a metaphor or is it Of destruction. And to what degree does it have implications for when you die that the central idea seems to be you can reject God's call to be a person of light and hope and good in the world and and there will be Consequences to that now.

How exactly that plays out. Now we have lots of room to discuss and Christians have sort of analyzed and discussed.

It just bugs me when he goes. Well now we've got lots rooms. He's taking a position, but he's just too wimpy to come out and say it. Or his post-modernism Makes him do this and now we can talk about a lot of things.

I've just said your positions wrong, but we cannot talk about a lot.

It gives the impression that well, I'm open to correction. No, he's not. What are you talking about for hundreds and hundreds of years? Kevin that answer your question.

Yeah, and I just the concept of purgatory and right I've had that debate with people over over the actual interpretation of Guyana being hell and Jesus talked about a second death, but he never talked about sending us to Do a sadist or in this case Satan to be tortured for all eternity.

Right for what we can do on earth. And that does not sound to me like a loving caring God that could do something like that.

Okay, so here's your standard Person United States loving caring. God will never do that for just I mean, come on. We're not that bad. We're really not I mean, you know and and I.

Love being caring gods. I'm gonna do that. Let's see what Rob Bell does and then I guess the flip side of this what would warrant. That kind of punishment. What could we do on this planet? Yeah, that wouldn't warrant.

Eternal suffering. Okay pastor, right? Yeah, and in the book.

That's the fundamental challenge of the book is. I agree with you. How is that a loving God now? I.

Agree with you. How is that a loving God? So What happens when you follow when you fall off the cliff. Dave Hunt has fallen off of a. Dave Hunt would disagree with this guy but read debating Calvinism when it comes to the nature of the will the nature of freedom and the and the absolute preeminence of omnibenevolence as the essence of all divine qualities.

How can hunt avoid this? It's their their stand on the same on the same ground. Rob Bell's just taking it to his logical conclusion that.

Conclusion that hunts not willing to follow thankfully both agree in the Gospels. What Jesus does insist again and again is that God is for us and God's desire is that we would? Flourish in a good world.

God is for us.

So one of the problems in reading love wins was that he would take text specifically about the elect of God and universalize them because he doesn't have an elect of God and so he universalizes them and thereby ignores all the texts of Judgment that demonstrate that if you don't recognize that there is a distinction.

Then you're turning the Bible into a mishmash. That is just what you want to say.

And so God's desire is that all of that which we would get in the way of us flourishing in God's world We need to get rid of so greed indifference abuse hardness of heart. These are all the things this is why Jesus calls Disciples that we would learn to be the kinds of people who were more and more and more.

The kinds of people that God created us to be. And so I struggle with the idea of a purgatory or the idea of flames although one of the things in the book I trace is that we tend to and the way that religious people have talked about fire is Destruction, but but I think you can argue biblically for fire as refining.

There is this. You go.

Tim Staples online to Tim Staples for Rob Bell online to Rome is waiting for you.

You're a fine process that we go through in life and it is because God loves us and desires that we would become More and more mature and compassionate and lacking nothing. So yes, I agree with you. What kind of God would do that?

Not a God. I'm interested in trusting.

Give us a call if you'd like to get in on this conversation with pastor Rob Bell author of love wins 866 8 9 3 kpcc 8 6 6 8 9 3 5 7 2 2 or you can give us a. Does the Bible say if you don't accept Jesus as your personal Savior you're going to hell well again.

Do you have a verse that says that literally no again and again and again is the invitation to trust Jesus that God is really that? Good that sins are forgiven that on the cross everything was taken care of that There's going to be a new creation a new heaven a new earth.

There's Endless sort of insistence you can trust this Jesus. At the same time Jesus says things like I have other sheep. He says things like there will be a renewal of all things.