Wordkeeper said in post #547:
God made men and put them in different places and situations hoping they would seek him, grope for him.
Acts 17:26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
Note that the desire to seek the omnipresent God is not in anyone before they become a Christian (Romans 3:11). And nonelect people are not considered by God to be His children, but the children of the devil (John 8:42-47, Matthew 13:38b-39), even though they can only exist because God exists, just as even the devil himself can only exist because God exists.
Wordkeeper said in post #547:
Some became God's sheep, most didn't.
John 10:26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.
27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
This means that those who are Jesus Christ's sheep (elect people) will hear His voice in His Word (the Bible), and will eventually believe in Him at some point during their lifetime (Acts 13:48b), while those who are not His sheep (nonelect people) cannot ever hear (accept) His Word and believe in Him (John 8:42-47). Elect people come to Jesus and get saved only because they had previously been given to Jesus by God the Father (John 6:37). And they come to Jesus only by God the Father drawing them to Jesus (John 6:44). Faith is a miraculous gift from God (Ephesians 2:8, John 6:65; 1 Corinthians 3:5b, Romans 12:3b, Hebrews 12:2). Elect people believe and are initially saved by God's choice, not their choice (Romans 9:16, John 1:13, John 15:16). But the ultimate salvation of elect people will depend on their choices subsequent to their initial salvation (Hebrews 10:26-29, Hebrews 6:4-8, Matthew 25:26,30). For salvation does not take away free will.
Wordkeeper said in post #547:
. . . each found that being friends of the world would require them to ignore what their better nature told them was right.
James 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
Wordkeeper said in post #547:
They admitted they were foreigners in this old man, and God was not ashamed to be called their God, and He built a new city, a holy city, a new man, a new humanity for them to rest in, at great cost.
Revelation 21:2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
Revelation 21:9 ¶And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife.
10 And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,
Revelation 21:12 And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel:
Note that this refers to Israel's twelve tribes in its description of the bride of Christ in Revelation 21:9. And the bride of Christ is the Church (Ephesians 5:30-32; 2 Corinthians 11:2).
Revelation 21 means that the physical structure of the literal city of New Jerusalem in heaven is a picture of the Church. Something can be literal and at the same time symbolically picture something else. For example, in Matthew 21:19 the fig tree was literal, and at the same time its being without fruit pictured unbelieving, Old Covenant Israel being without fruit (Matthew 21:43).
Just as New Jerusalem's literal wall foundations have the names of the twelve apostles on them (Revelation 21:14), so the Church's foundation is the apostles (Ephesians 2:20). And just as New Jerusalem's literal pearly gates have the names of Israel's twelve tribes on them (Revelation 21:12,21), so the Church consists of Israel's twelve tribes.
New Jerusalem is a literal city, 1,500 miles cubed (Revelation 21:16), with literal pearly gates and literal streets of gold (Revelation 21:21). It is God the Father's house in the third heaven (Revelation 21:2-3, cf. 2 Corinthians 12:2b,4, Revelation 2:7b, Revelation 22:2,14), in which house Jesus Christ left to prepare a place for the Church (John 14:2). All those in the Church, whether Jews or Gentiles, have figuratively come to New Jerusalem by coming under the New Covenant (Hebrews 12:22-24, Galatians 4:24-26), which is made only with Israel (Jeremiah 31:31-34), and which only the Church comes under by believing in Jesus' New Covenant suffering and death on the Cross for our sins (Matthew 26:28; 1 Corinthians 11:25; 2 Corinthians 3:6, Hebrews 9:15), the very heart of the Gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-4).
The Church looks for Jesus Christ's future, Second Coming, from heaven (Philippians 3:20), and His setting up of the physical aspect of His Kingdom on the earth with the physically resurrected Church for 1,000 years (Revelation 20:4-6, Revelation 5:10, Revelation 2:26-29), a time period commonly called the Millennium. New Jerusalem will not descend from the third heaven to the earth until after the future, New Earth (a new surface of the earth) has been created (Revelation 21:1-4), sometime after the future Millennium and subsequent events (Revelation 20:7-15). The Church will physically live and reign in New Jerusalem with God the Father and Jesus on the New Earth (Revelation 21:1 to 22:5). The Father and Jesus themselves will be the only temple in New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:22).