Author and minister Asfaw Berhane shares his supernatural experiences, including visitations from Jesus and angelic beings, that gave him a revelation into heaven and hell. He not only shares his personal testimony but discusses the supernatural topics of dreams, visions, and the Tribulation. Throughout the book, Scripture references are given to support the visions and visitations. This is not a scare tactic but rather solid teaching on heaven and hell that will inspire readers toward righteousness and the pursuit of a tangible relationship with Christ. The purpose of the message is to show heaven is a reality and that living purely is not an option but a must.

Heaven Is Empty offers a new comparative perspective on the role of the sacred in the formation of China's early empires (221 BCE–9 CE) and shows how the unification of the Central States was possible without a unitary and universalistic conception of religion. The cohesive function of the ancient Mediterranean cult of the divinized ruler was crucial for the legitimization of Rome's empire across geographical and social boundaries. Eventually reelaborated in Christian terms, it came to embody the timelessness and universality of Western conceptions of legitimate authority, while representing an analytical template for studying other ancient empires. Filippo Marsili challenges such approaches in his examination of the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han (141–87 BCE). Wu purposely drew from regional traditions and tried to gain the support of local communities through his patronage of local cults. He was interested in rituals that envisioned the monarch as a military leader, who directly controlled the land and its resources, as a means for legitimizing radical administrative and economic centralization. In reconstructing this imperial model, Marsili reinterprets fragmentary official accounts in light of material evidence and noncanonical and recently excavated texts. In bringing to life the courts, battlefields, markets, shrines, and pleasure quarters of early imperial China, Heaven Is Empty provides a postmodern and postcolonial reassessment of "religion" before the arrival of Buddhism and challenges the application of Greco-Roman and Abrahamic systemic, identitary, and exclusionary notions of the "sacred" to the analysis of pre-Christian and non-Western realities.

Every day, millions of people who don't know Jesus Christ as their Savior move farther down the dark road to destruction. But as international evangelist Reinhard Bonnke says, hell was never designed for people, and heaven is expecting them! Tens of millions of people have come to know Christ through Reinhard's ministry. In this book, he shares his contagious passion for bringing the gospel to the lost. Each chapter in Hell Empty, Heaven Full discusses biblical stories that highlight how God's priority is saving people and how He wants us to join Him in that process. As Reinhard says, "Our calling is to put a kind hand on the shoulder of the world and turn it round to see God. It will adore Him. The Lord is the Savior.... He loves because to love gives Him joy. He loves beyond all the parameters of human affection and makes even the assault of the cross an expression of His love. His pain asserts it. He finds satisfaction in giving, pouring Himself out to us, surrounding us with wonders, making His redeemed the garden of delight in which He walks. To proclaim the gospel is to move for Him, act with Him, love in Him, and delight in His joy as the privilege, meaning and purpose of all life." Filled with vivid illustrations, this book is designed to show you how to reach the lost as Jesus did: with the passion and compassion of the heavenly Father.

This is a collection of photographs examining contemporary Japanese society. The photographer, Paul Graham, identifies a collective amnesia in Japan which, 50 years after the end of World War II, obscures the memory of total defeat and unconditional surrender. Simultaneously, the book recognizes the cloud of benevolence masking the true source of political power.

This book is perhaps one of the most misunderstood works of Catholic theology of our time. Critics contend that von Balthasar espouses universalism, the idea that all men will certainly be saved. Yet, as von Balthasar insists, damnation is a real possibility for anyone. Indeed, he explores the nature of damnation with sobering clarity. At the same time, he contends that a deep understanding of God’s merciful love and human freedom, and a careful reading of the Catholic tradition, point to the possibility—not the certainty—that, in the end, all men will accept the salvation Christ won for all. For this all-embracing salvation, von Balthasar says, we may dare hope, we must pray and with God’s help we must work. The Catholic Church’s teaching on hell has been generally neglected by theologians, with the notable exception of von Balthasar. He grounds his reflections clearly in Sacred Scripture and Catholic teaching. While the Church asserts that certain individuals are in heaven (the saints), she never declares a specific individual to be in hell. In fact, the Church hopes that in their final moments of life, even the greatest sinners would have repented of their terrible sins, and be saved. Sacred Scripture states, “God ... desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2:4–5).

It's amazing how heavy the weight of emptiness can feel, how much room it can take up in our souls, how much pain can be caused by something that isn't even there.But while we may see the emptiness of our lives as our greatest problem, that's not how God sees it. When God looks into the empty places of our lives, He sees His greatest opportunity. God does His best work in the emptiness of our . . . Insatiable craving for things that don't satisfy Relational disappointments and loneliness Frustrated search for purpose and meaning Relentless desire for comfort and security Ongoing struggle to live with loss and unfulfilled dreams Join Nancy Guthrie in discovering why emptiness has never been, and never will be, a problem to God. As Nancy pulls back the curtain on God's work to fill up emptiness as revealed throughout the Bible, you'll experience page after page of grace and hope that your emptiness can and will be filled. You'll begin to see that God really does do His best work with empty--as he fills it with Himself.

Release the negative thoughts and feelings that are weighing you down and make room for the good things you should have in your life with #1 New York Times bestselling author Joel Osteen. You were created to be filled with joy, peace, confidence, and creativity. But it's easy to go through life holding on to things that weigh you down-guilt, resentment, doubt, worry. When you give space to these negative emotions, they take up space that you need for the good things that move you toward your destiny. How much room are you giving to shame, to regret, to being against yourself? Whatever it is, it's too much. Life is too short for you to live bitter and discouraged, letting your circumstances hold you back. Every morning you have to empty out anything negative from the day before and put on a fresh new attitude. Power up and get your mind going in the right direction, and you'll step into all the new things God has in store for you.

In this lively history of the rise of pentecostalism in the United States, Grant Wacker gives an in-depth account of the religious practices of pentecostal churches as well as an engaging picture of the way these beliefs played out in daily life. The core tenets of pentecostal belief--personal salvation, Holy Ghost baptism, divine healing, and anticipation of the Lord's imminent return--took root in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Wacker examines the various aspects of pentecostal culture, including rituals, speaking in tongues, the authority of the Bible, the central role of Jesus in everyday life, the gifts of prophecy and healing, ideas about personal appearance, women's roles, race relations, attitudes toward politics and the government. Tracking the daily lives of pentecostals, and paying close attention to the voices of individual men and women, Wacker is able to identify the reason for the movement's spectacular success: a demonstrated ability to balance idealistic and pragmatic impulses, to adapt distinct religious convictions in order to meet the expectations of modern life. More than twenty million American adults today consider themselves pentecostal. Given the movement's major place in American religious life, the history of its early years--so artfully told here--is of central importance.

Well known for his historical accounts of Satan and hell, Jeffrey Burton Russell explores the brighter side of eternity: heaven. He not only examines concepts found among Jews, Greeks and Romans, but asks how time 'passes' in eternity.