(Toronto) A Canadian man, driving a car packed with weapons and ammunition, was intent on killing as many people as possible in a Toronto neighborhood but gave up the plan at the last minute when he encountered a friendly dog. The middle-aged man, who police said was mentally disturbed, had planned to carry out the shooting spree to ensure he would be put in jail permanently.

He had set himself up in an east-end park to load his weapons and then planned to drive around shooting. He later told police that a dog then approached and started playing with him. The encounter melted the man’s heart, and he then went in search of police to give himself up. He happens to be a pet lover, and decided that since there was such a nice dog in the area, that people were too nice and he wasn’t going to carry out his plan.

Friendly Dog Prevents Killing Spree?
June 27, 2004. Reuters – Oddly Enough

Comment: God can use all sorts of things to protect us from harm, even puppy dogs.

(Washington) Economists searching for reasons why some nations are richer than others have found that those with a wide belief in hell are less corrupt and more prosperous, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Believing in Hell Has Its Benefits
July 28, 2004. Reuters – Oddly Enough

Comment: Interesting... but the Law has a greater purpose - to show everyone's need for a Savior, who has readily come and offers eternal life to all, so all nations might be saved by putting their trust in him.

Early colonists in North America brought with them the concept that fences were important in defining personal spaces, as well as for keeping animals away from dwellings. In some areas such as Colonial Williamsburg fences were the law as early as 1631 and one of the first undertakings for a homeowner.

Bramlage, Georgene. A Homeowners Guide to Landscaping
- Fences Build Good Neighbors - Part 1
March 12, 2002. Suite 101.com

Comment: God put up his own fences to (his commandments) to keep our interests and hopes in that which is beneficial, and away from gifts he has given to others.

(Clarksville, Ind.) A 22-year-old man who climbed an electrical tower survived a 69,000-volt shock that a utility official said was nearly always fatal. Jason Grisham was in fair condition Wednesday in a hospital burn unit. Police and a Cinergy/PSI employee found Grisham asking for help as he emerged Sunday from behind a building at a substation where the tower was scaled. Grisham “appeared to have extensive burn marks on his chest and his pants appeared to have exploded,” police said.

Grisham, from New Albany, scaled the fence around the tower about 6:30 a.m. and then started to climb the tower itself, rising 12 to 15 feet before he “received a dose of ... electricity and was knocked to the ground,” said police, who were seeking a toxicology report.

The shock disrupted power to 6,800 customers. The fence Grisham climbed is 7 feet tall and has three strands of barbed wire on top of it, and there are clearly visible signs saying “Danger/High Voltage.

Ind. Man Survives 69,000-Volt Shock
June 2, 2004. Associated Press – Strange News

Comment: What a claim to fame – surviving your own foolishness! Isn’t that what every sin is; God guards all evil deeds with his Law – fence, signs, barbed-wire; but since we are insistent on killing ourselves, we go out of our way to destroy ourselves. Instead of listening to the gentleness of his Word, we often wait to feel the wrath of his anger before turning back from the sinful path.

As sociologists of religion have observed in relation to the tidal wave of religious pluralism sweeping across our cultural landscape, the currently massive migration of evangelicals from exclusivism [Jesus the only way of salvation] to inclusivism [Jesus merely the best way of other possible ways to salvation] and occasionally to annihilationism {unbelievers cease to exist after death} and to or toward universalism…; it carries with it enormous implications for the evangelistic-missionary impetus that has characterized evangelicalism. Zeal to the perishing will wane to the extent that Christians stop thinking evangelism absolutely necessary if non-Christians are to be saved, or to the extent that in their thinking Christians reduce eternal punishment to external extinction.

[explanations by Lamport] {explanations by me}

Gundry, R.H.
quoted by: Lamport, Dr. Mark A. The Questionable Future of Hell, p. 22,23
Spring 2003. Evangelical Journal, Vol 21.
cited by: Gurgel, Richard L. Postmodern Hell? p. 148
Spring 2004. WLQ – News and Comments, Vol. 101, No. 2