OK, God is in control but that doesn't help.
Well actually it does, cos' He has said what is coming and Jesus has advised people to get ready for it ... strangely even 'christians don't listen to Jesus what Jesus said though ... so most folks are gonna get taken by surprise when he returns and takes only the saints, and things go very wrongas mankinds false palns of running the planet for the greedy and letting the poor starve come to nothing and men suffer so badly and die miserably for relying on sinners to lead us....
God knows every sparrow that falls but they keep falling.
The earth is here for God's plan, not to save sparrows from dying... God will redeem all His creation when the time comes for that, but this is not taht time, it is the time for trial of the faith given to saints so that they are perfected in love ready to serve in the redem,ption of the masses in the new earth [after the second resurrection]
The elect get "pie in the sky, by and by," but there is no objective test for election.
Yes ,there are many 'tests' or criteria given in scripture, each equally valid ... perhaps the least controversial is that given by Jesus :-
John 16:13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth:
Very FEW men know all truth of God in time before they die to perfect their love and be thus ready to be redeemed at Jesus' return , most men die as sinners just as they lived as sinners never knowing even how much they sin habitually, institutionally, endlessly but for God's intervention and freeing them from sin in DEATH :-
Romans 6:7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
But first the proof that God is right and men have NOT devised a better way to live than love, our ways fall apart before our eyes and God's 'wrath' against our ways is to just not stop it because we have to know that He was right and we were wrong...
And the elect are taken out of the way ONLY because God requires then as His servants [Rev 7:3-10] who will be the kings and priests ministering to the masses in their redemption in turn in the new earth... so the many will be perfected in love in the next life in the body after the second resurrection ,but God really does need to get the priests ready FIRST , so He elected Israel to be His priests ad kings in His kingdom when it comes in the new earth... who do they minister to and rule over perfectly? Just the masses of sinners freed from sin by death , there is no-one else to rule and minister to
The strange thing is that God told this to Moses several millenia ago and men still didn't understand that Israel are chosen to be first to BENEFIT all the gentiles by SERVING as priests and kings under their messiah, Jesus.... but men cannot accaept that the paganise House of Israel and the Jews can come to believe before Jesus comes... people do not trust what Gd has said will happen and make up their own stories, even getting jealous of Israel [but the lot of the Israelite saints is mostly to die at the hands of men who do not understand their love for all men, it is not a particularly easy life in that sense , and men have no reason whatever for their bizarre hostility toward israel's two Houses just because God had to choos e someone and chose them from the beginning... men really are mostly very sick indeed , even ironically those who call themselves 'holy' and dress up like OT priests of Israel and hide behind hewn altars [ that would be funny were it not so pathetic ]
Thus the elect KNOW they are elect because they receive all truth in this life FROM GOD by His spirit of truth as Jesus promised them ... but everyone else must wait for the promised baptism of all flesh in God's spirit until after death and the second resurrection [the first time all flesh is alive to receive spirit baptism en masse]
Joel 2:28 And it shall come to pass
afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon
all flesh;
So if one does not know all truth in this life, one knows on is not one of the very few elect [God requires only 144,000 perfected saints from this earth]
But we know that they are just the FIRST fruits of the spirit, priests are created to serve !
The many are saved afterward , in the new earth , where the mANY fid out how hard it is to be a saint , t perfect one's love, buthave a lot of help from the firstfruit sainst from this earth.. and Jesus rules over these king-priests as king of kings....and high priest ...
That is why Jesus is the messiah [or 'christos' in greek] , the annointed king of Israel come to re-unite the two Hosues [kingdoms] of Isarel into one holy nation of ROYAL priests
He starts with the House of Israel because they are paganised fully and scattered worldwide, living as gentiles amongst all gentile nations... and then at the very last 'hour' he enlists the Jews [House of Judah] by making them jealous of the knowledge of 'their' messiah in what seems to be mere gentiles... and how the Jews will yelp when they find out the truth written in their own Torah and Prophets, that the House of Israel indeed was lost and ceased to be a people, but have become the people of God ahead of them to draw them in too...
So ehre is another 'test', there are very many Israelites who are NOT Jews , but they carry the genetic proof that they are truly descended from Jacob, even though they have been living as gentiles since long before Jesus came... the ONLY NATION that is NOT a people is indeed the lost House of Israel , a nation that disappeared after captivity , merging with gentile nations all over the world, but Gd has not lost track of a single one ...
I Pet 2:9 But ye are a
chosen generation, a
royal priesthood, an
holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
10 Which
in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but
now have obtained mercy.
Amos 9:9 For, lo, I will command, and I will
sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve,
yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.
Exodus 19:6 And ye shall be unto me a
kingdom of priests, and an
holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the
children of Israel.
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Anyway, I worry about the grandkids. I lived through the best times in the best place since Adam got booted out of the Garden but they will have a much harder row to hoe.[/quote]
I think you made a mistake about the value of material benefits which were NOT shared equally between all men... 24,000 little kids died miserably in awful starvation to death every day of your life so that you could say you lived 'well'... changes the meaning of living 'well' a little doesn't it , when it was bought at cost of such misery by others ??? God is watching and He can hardly approve of the way men mostly do not care for other men , it is not loving....
Any way God will let the whole awful grreedy nations suffer the consequences of ther greed, we have global warming to destroy our food [farmers cannot grow food where plants cannot stand the changed weather, too ry, too wet, to windy, too hot, too cold] and industry and mechanised agriculture will fail now because it depends on oil so much and has not time to adapt before the crsis breaks down the money system and industry just more-or less ceases in the most terrible world slump ever known...
t could be seen as God's poetic justice to let the rich starve who never cared about the poor starving, but it is more than that, it is to take down the false pride of man in himself when he is actually not nice inside at all...
Rev 3:17 .... thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: [Jesus]
So it will be, and it will come as a shock to many men who live carelessly , not caring that the oil their lives run upon is peaking and will go up in price continuously from now on until their system of life fails and kills them and their children and their grandchildren...
So why WORRY my friend, God TAKES life only to restore it in resurrection to the new earth...
and the new earth is RIGHTEOUS, a loving place, wheras this is an EVIL time with Satan in power in this earth now [Rev 13:3-7]
2 Peter 3:13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
There is thus no point worrying or being sad about God's ending of evil by His own way of doing things... rather instead look forward to perfecting your love inthe new earth perhaps ??? In which case what you can do NOW for the grandkids is to get them reading and understanding the scripture about what is coming, we cannot change what is written from happening, so perhaps the best way to be ready is to read what is coming ?
