A Story from Netcast that must be read. (Thank You)

As many already know, our journey of planting Netcast Church has been something totally unexpected. I still remember a year ago wondering to myself, "how in the world does someone plant a church? In Greater Boston none-the-less?" Today we have already made our first move to a new facility because we outgrew our first facility. We have seen a record attendance this month with 350 people in a service. We just started our 9th community group and have 2 more in the process of being started within the next month. Already in 2012 we have had about a dozen people become Christians at Netcast.

I stand in absolute awe of what Christ has done and is continuing to do in our midst.

I attached this email below that I just got from one of the people who recently became a Christian at Netcast. It's emails like this that remind me that the excitement at Netcast is not about all the numbers but about the stories behind ever person we are blessed to be able to shepherd. This story is possible because of your faithfulness. Amazing!! I cried as I read of God's grace.

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Hi Pastor Matt,

Listening to last Sunday's service and reading your blog about the questions of whether is hell real or not, motivate me to share this with you.

I practiced voodoo for 4 maybe 5 year. I spent lots of money on witchcraft and had a room for my "saints" (of course those were not saints) where I would offer them things like candles, food, drinks so they could give me what I wanted. That's where I had my faith for all those year and yes! I believed in God but my voodoo believes were my priority .When I started getting involved with that my mom came to my room one morning crying and told me that Jesus had spoken to her in a dream and told her to save me because I was close to lose my soul. I told her to not think about that and in my mind I thought " ahhh my mom is crazy". My mother has been a Christian for about 15 years and I never wanted to be part of anything that had to do with Christianity, to me they were all crazy.

All those years that I spent believing on voodoo "saints" and doing all source of insane things turned me into a very angry person that felt stronger than everybody and wanted to take revenge on anybody that I felt did something wrong against me. When I met Roma I thought she was a wonderful lady and a great boss, she made me feel peaceful and the fact that we have the same birthday (August 8) made me even more curious about her. One day she told me that she started to go to a new church and that the pastor was crazy and very funny and she gave me a connect card. I had the card for months sitting on my desk and everyday day I looked at it but that's all I did, just looked at it. I knew that what I was doing was wrong, I knew that I couldn't walk around trying to hold God's hand on my right and the Devil's on my left, I knew that I had to pick one and it was hard!! I felt restless, heavy, unhappy so one day I picked the connect card and went to the website and listed to you. Every time something went really, really wrong I listened to you but all those negative, demoniac things I had around did not let me free my soul and run to Jesus. Not until my daughter's father and I got into a bad accident. He was in the hospital for 5 days with pretty serious brain injuries. One of the nurses I got to talk to was from Haiti and I automatically though that we were going to start talking about voodoo but we didn't! We started talking about Jesus, she was a Christian!! That shocked me because a lot of people from Haiti practice voodoo.

That night I downloaded the bible and asked God to show me why I should believe just in him and the first things that I read was:

Peter 1 5:1-11 and Deuteronomy 11:13-18 it was Nov. 1st of 2011.

I listened to you next morning and the last words of your services were "do you want to be healed?" I cried like a baby so, on Nov 6th I walked into Netcast, I felt Jesus! I felt welcomed! I felt loved! During worship I kept telling Jesus "please hold me! Get inside my heart right now and never leave me and I promise you I will commit myself to you and to this wonderful place you have brought me in and he did, he is inside my heart now. That night I took all the voodoo staff I had and a dumped in the trash. Today I am a believer, today I am a Christian and there's no better place that God could had chosen for me than Netcast.

I have felt demons trying to take me away in my dreams! There's hell! I have seen it in dreams! but I have also seen the power of God and his constant battle so we won’t end up in hell. I am not walking around trying to pick a side anymore. I walk with Jesus in my heart.

Thank you for being my Pastor!

Amen!

Hell…Is it real? Is it eternal?

In light of a conversation that got brought up on Wednesday in my community group, I thought I would send this out for clarification to everyone. There a bunch of scriptures below that you can reference yourself for further study.

The question was…..."Is hell real? Is hell eternal? What happens to the un-repentant sinner (non-christian) after they die?"

It is interesting that a much higher percentage of people believe in the existence of heaven than believe in the existence of hell. According to the Bible, though, hell is just as real as heaven. The Bible clearly and explicitly teaches that hell is a real place to which the wicked/unbelieving are sent after death. We have all sinned against God (Romans 3:23). The just punishment for that sin is death (Romans 6:23). Since all of our sin is ultimately against God (Psalm 51:4), and since God is an infinite and eternal Being, the punishment for sin, death, must also be infinite and eternal. Hell is this infinite and eternal death which we have earned, and asked for, because of our lack of desire for Jesus displayed through our sin. Heaven is a place where the people who love Jesus, get Jesus in all his fullness.

The punishment of the unbeliever in hell is described throughout Scripture as “eternal fire” (Matthew 25:41), “unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:12), “shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2), a place where “the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:44-49), a place of “torment” and “fire” (Luke 16:23-24), “everlasting destruction” (2 Thessalonians 1:9), a place where “the smoke of torment rises forever and ever” (Revelation 14:10-11), and a “lake of burning sulfur” where the wicked are “tormented day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10).

The punishment of the wicked in hell is as never ending as the bliss of the righteous in heaven. Jesus Himself indicates that punishment in hell is just as everlasting as life in heaven (Matthew 25:46). The wicked are forever subject to the fury and the wrath of God. Those in hell will acknowledge the perfect justice of God (Psalm 76:10). Those who are in hell will know that their punishment is just and that they alone are to blame (Deuteronomy 32:3-5). Yes, hell is real. Yes, hell is a place of torment and punishment that lasts forever and ever, with no end. Praise God that, through Jesus, we can escape this eternal fate (John 3:16, 18,36).

My main job at Netcast is to make sure we uphold sound doctrine and I was burdened to clarify as my personal bible reading was in Matthew 25 this morning. The entire chapter is on this subject.

Reference: www.gotquestions.org for additional answers.