Searching for Truth in Vegas, Hollywood, & Bethlehem
Summary
Searching for Truth in Vegas, Hollywood & Bethlehem is a relatively short, easy-to-read book that addresses many of the questions thoughtful people often ask about the nature of God, the nature of life, and the validity of Biblical faith.
For example: Is there a God? What about evolution? How about Eastern mysticism? Is the Bible really God's Word? How close is the Bible of today to the original Bible? How does it differ from other great works of religious literature? Did Jesus really rise from the dead? If God is good and sovereign, why is there excessive pain and suffering in the world?
The book follows a logical progression of thought from one question to another and includes interesting stories and historical information to help people think through the issues It provides honest answers to honest questions.
People today desperately want to know what is true and authentic in a world increasingly characterized by cultural confusion and a loss of trust in established institutions.
Are the answers to life found in the writings of secular scientists who tell us that we’re simply a product of chance – an accidental mixture of elements in one stage of development, no more important in the long range scheme of things than a rock, or a sea urchin?
Are the answers found in the philosophical musings of Eastern mystics who explain that we're a very small part of an all-pervasive life force that in the end draws us into itself so that we lose our individuality and become nothing?
Are we unique individuals created by an all-powerful Creator who has a purpose for each person? But, if so, why is there so much pain and suffering in what should be a perfect world?
Endorsements
Your MS is an excellent popular case for biblical faith. It is carefully researched, very well written, and stylistically attractive.
John Warwick Montgomery
Lawyer, Professor, Theologian and Author
Heaven’s Doors: Wider Than You Ever Believed!
Summary
Silver Medal Winner in Theology in 2018 Illumination Awards for Exemplary Christian Books.
What happens to us after we die?
For the first 500 years after Christ, most Christians believed that God would ultimately redeem all of his creation. Hell was real, but it had a positive purpose, and it didn’t last forever.
Then beliefs changed. For the past 1,500 years we’ve been told that most of the billions of people who have lived on this earth will remain separated from the love and mercy of God for all eternity. The moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas, sons and daughters, relatives and friends who have not exhibited the “right kind” of faith here in this life will suffer in hell forever.
But is that really true?
The idea of hell as a place of never-ending suffering is not taught in the Bible. It’s a myth that was forced on the Christian Church by a power-hungry Roman emperor, was supported by a highly respected but misinformed cleric, and has endured for centuries because it became the status quo.
Heaven’s Doors exposes that myth. It explains both historically and Biblically how Jesus Christ succeeded in His mission to seek and save the lost. And it shows how the doors to heaven really are wider than you ever believed!
Endorsements
George Sarris has performed a splendid service in tracing the Christian view of universal salvation, which has deep roots in the Bible and in the Church Fathers. . . . Sarris’ book is gracefully written, deeply thoughtful, and based on careful scholarship; it deserves the widest audience.
David Konstan
Professor of Classics, New York University; Professor Emeritus of Classics and Comparative Literature, Brown University
Evangelicals congratulate themselves on their willingness to submit to the final authority of scripture. Yet they also have cherished beliefs that they defend to the hilt . . . Quite rightly, George Sarris insists that even these beliefs should be subjected to the test of scripture.
Nigel G. Wright
Principal Spurgeon’s College London and Council Member of the Evangelical Alliance, UK
Additional
AWARD
Heaven's Doors . . . Wider than You Ever Believed! received the prestigious Illumination Book Awards Silver Medal in Theology from the thousands of Christian books published in the past year.
The book challenges many traditional beliefs about heaven and hell. It addresses Church teaching from the time of Christ till the present from a historical and Biblical perspective that the judges deemed "exemplary."
Winners were selected from publishers large and small, including HarperCollins, Zondervan, Oxford University Press, Faith Words, Thomas Nelson and Tyndale House Publishers.
Author George W. Sarris says the book exposes a 1,500-year-old myth about hell that began with a power-hungry Roman emperor, was supported by a highly respected but misinformed cleric, and has endured for centuries because it became the status quo. He says that for the first 500 years after Christ, Church leaders and laity believed that, ultimately, all the people God created will be in heaven.
"Hell is real," Sarris says, "but it doesn't last forever, and its purpose is to transform sinners, not torture them for all eternity. That's the only answer that's consistent with an all-loving, all-powerful God."
INTERVIEW
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How Wide Are Heaven’s Doors? The Biblical Case for Ultimate Restoration
Summary
This short book is designed to briefly introduce people to information from Church history and the teaching of the Bible that have been misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misrepresented to show that what most people have been told about the nature and duration of hell is not true.
The true teaching of the Bible is that God will one day restore all of his creation to the perfection he initially intended. Hell is real, but it is temporary in its duration and remedial in its nature. At the end of time, all those God created in his image will experience the joy of being in his presence.
A more complete development of the information presented in this book can be found in my book, Heaven’s Doors: Wider Than You Ever Believed! which was awarded the Silver Medal in Theology in the 2018 Illumination Book Awards for exemplary Christian literature.