Jesus's death on the cross was the payment for the sins of all people, but to receive the benefits of that sacrifice, a person must accept Jesus Christ as Lord/Savior and commit to following the commandments/doctrines of the Bible.
As usual, you're half right...
God does not exclude anyone, they exclude themselves by their own personal decisions.
Revelation 3:20 states, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him and sup with him and he with me."
Don't see anything here about the commandments/doctrines of the Bible...
John 3:16-17 says, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved."
Still don't hear anything here about following a bunch of arbitrary rules...
Could it be, clirus, that it's not the Bible, but your own pride which makes you think all these people are excluded? That you just couldn't bear the thought of sharing the Kingdom with certain others?
Alas, the decision is not yours to make any more than the Kingdom is yours to deny.
__________________ "If I told you what it takes to reach the highest high,
You'd laugh and say 'Nothing's that simple!' But you've been told many times before,
Messiahs pointed to the door, And no one had the guts to leave the temple!" -- The Who
Could it be, clirus, that it's not the Bible, but your own pride which makes you think all these people are excluded? That you just couldn't bear the thought of sharing the Kingdom with certain others?
Response
Galatians 5:19-22, "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkness, revellings, and such like: of which I tell you before, as I have also told you in the time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Could it be, clirus, that it's not the Bible, but your own pride which makes you think all these people are excluded? That you just couldn't bear the thought of sharing the Kingdom with certain others?
Response
Galatians 5:19-22, "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkness, revellings, and such like: of which I tell you before, as I have also told you in the time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
You might as well finish it:
Originally Posted by Gal. 5: 22-23
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
23Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
tulc(just thought this part was as important as the first part)
__________________ So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls,
why don't somebody wake up to the beauty of old women?
-Harriet Beecher Stowe
To hold the same views at forty as we held at twenty is to have been stupefied for a score of years and to take rank, not as a prophet, but as an unteachable brat, well birched and none the wiser.
- Robert Louis Stevenson
The main doctrine of a fanatic's creed is that his enemies are enemies of God.
-Andrew White
We've all been conditioned to think of love as the heart-pounding,
breathless passion of the young -- not the complex feelings shared by two
time-ravaged people who spend afternoons holding hands, as a defense against
loneliness, disease and death.
-Kate Zernike
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