And here he was espousing universalism. All will be saved. No one will be lost. There is no eternal punishment.

I started out with warnings. I even suggested once, knowing his sense of humor, that perhaps he was putting all his Facebook friends on. He was going to lead us into thinking he had gone off the deep end so we would rise to the occasion and preach the truth online, for others to see. Then he would jump out of hiding, say "gotcha", and life would go on.

No. He really believes in the doctrine of inclusion. That all will be saved. No hell.

And yet in his eyes, I am vicious. Biblically that adjective applies to wolves, the kind that come in with no concern for the flock, and, well, eat the flock. Now that's vicious. I wanted to shake my brother, but not consume him. Not even hurt him.

The universalist heresy is decidedly vicious by the above description. Vicious on many counts. These are the ones that come to mind:

1. It allows man to continue on in his sin, since he knows that eventually all will be saved.

2. It nullifies the command for us to call all to repentance.

3. It denies the sinfulness of sin, suggesting that God should not judge it so severely.

4. It suggests that God is unjust to allow men to have an eternity without Christ. This sort of suffering is over the top.

5. It denies clear Scriptures that talk of eternal punishment, thus calling into question the inspiration of Scriptures.

6. It depends on the sayings of selected church fathers and even apocryphal writings to prop it up. The sufficiency of Scripture is thus also questioned.

7. It heavily leans on that most unworthy of supports, human reasoning and logic.

8. It draws no clear lines between righteous and unrighteous.

9. The entire missions program of the church, begun by the Great Commission of Jesus, is abrogated. All will be saved. Why go?

10. It applies faulty hermeneutics to writings of Paul, Peter, and John where there are sentiments that seem to support universalism.

11. It joins forces with all the major cults and the deepest feelings of carnal men all over the world. No one likes to be punished.

12. It assumes that if Jesus takes punishment for sin, man must never suffer consequences.

Any religious system that denies the Word, trusts man, belittles God, bypasses repentance, and espouses false promises to the unregenerate can only be called vicious. Awful. Damnable.