SailorofLife said in post 1:
I know for a fact many of my friends will never believe in God.
Don't ever give up on them, unless they die in unbelief. For because of the wonderful example of Saul the persecutor becoming Paul the apostle (1 Timothy 1:12-17), we should never give up on any unbelievers, no matter how hostile they are to Christians and the Christian faith. Instead, we should keep praying for them that God would miraculously save their souls. And because of the example of Saul becoming Paul, those who have persecuted Christians and reviled the Christian faith in the past, but now feel God's gifts of repentance and faith (2 Timothy 2:25, Ephesians 2:8) moving within them, shouldn't think that what they've done against Christians and the Christian faith (whether in word or deed) in the past disqualifies them from being able now to repent and ask God's forgiveness and receive his salvation through their faith in Jesus (Colossians 1:21-22).
SailorofLife said in post 1:
I know for a fact many of my friends will never believe in God.
If any of your friends do end up dying in unbelief, it will be because they weren't elect. The elect are those individuals who were chosen (elected) and predestinated by God before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4-11; 2 Thessalonians 2:13), before they were born (Romans 9:11-24), to become initially saved at some point during their lifetime (Acts 13:48b). This initial salvation is possible only because of Jesus' sacrifice (Romans 3:25-26), which was also foreordained by God before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8; 1 Peter 1:19-20).
Everyone on his own is wholly corrupt (Romans 3:9-12), and so it's impossible for people on their own to ever believe in Jesus and the gospel and be initially saved (1 Corinthians 15:1-4, John 20:31; 1 John 5:13) through their own will (Romans 9:16, John 1:13, John 6:65) or their own intellect (1 Corinthians 1:18 to 2:16). Unsaved people can't understand the gospel (1 Corinthians 2:14; 1 Corinthians 1:18) because only initially saved people, who have received the miraculous gift of some measure of God's own Spirit, can understand it (1 Corinthians 2:11-16).
The nonelect can't ever believe in Jesus and the gospel and be initially saved, even when they're shown the truth (John 8:42-47, John 10:26, Matthew 13:38-42), because the ability to believe in Jesus and the gospel comes only to the elect (Acts 13:48b) wholly by God's grace as a miraculous gift from God (Ephesians 2:8, John 6:65; 1 Corinthians 3:5b, Romans 12:3b, Hebrews 12:2) as the elect read (or hear) God's Word the Bible (Romans 10:17, Acts 13:48, Acts 26:22-23), just as the ability to repent comes only as a miraculous gift from God (2 Timothy 2:25, Acts 11:18). Satan blinds the minds of unbelievers so that on their own they can't repent and acknowledge the truth of God's Word (2 Corinthians 4:4; 2 Timothy 2:25-26).
SailorofLife said in post 1:
Why has God not destined them to find Him like He has you and I?
God doesn't love everyone: he hates the nonelect (Romans 9:11-22). During their lifetime, God hardens the nonelect in their sinfulness instead of showing them his mercy (Romans 9:18), because he created them to be vessels of his wrath (Romans 9:20-22, Proverbs 16:4). They were of old ordained to condemnation (Jude 1:4). They were appointed to disobedience (1 Peter 2:8, Acts 2:23). But God never forces them or anyone else to commit sin. He never even tempts anyone to commit sin (James 1:13-15). All people will be justly held accountable for their deeds (Romans 2:6-8), for neither election nor nonelection takes away the free will of people.
God created nonelect people to be vessels of his wrath instead of vessels of his mercy so that he might eternally make known his wrath and power (Romans 9:21-22, Proverbs 16:4, Revelation 14:10-11). And God created elect people to be vessels of his mercy so that he might eternally make known his mercy, glory, and wisdom (Romans 9:23, Ephesians 3:10, Ephesians 1:8,11).
God wants these aspects of his nature to be made known to both humans and angels (Ephesians 3:10), neither of which group yet knows experientially the full extent of God's qualities and abilities (1 Corinthians 2:9; 1 Peter 1:12b). For example, the full extent of God's wrath won't be known to humans and angels until Satan and his fallen angels and all of unsaved humanity are cast into the eternal suffering of the lake of fire and brimstone (Matthew 25:41,46, Revelation 20:10,15, Revelation 14:10-11), and saved humans and holy angels go forth from the city of New Jerusalem on the new earth to witness the suffering of the unsaved in the lake of fire (Isaiah 66:24), the eternal hell (Mark 9:45-46), and realize by seeing it not only the extent of God's wrath, but by it, by way of contrast, the extent of God's mercy toward them (Lamentations 3:22-23). Just as "up" can't be eternally known for what it is without the eternal coexistence of "down", so God's mercy can't be eternally known for what it is without the eternal coexistence of his wrath.
SailorofLife said in post 1:
I find it very harsh. So God has created souls knowing that they will never go back to Him?
As mere humans, we must be careful not to condemn the way that God himself has chosen to reveal all that he is (Romans 9:20-24): both a loving being (1 John 4:8, John 15:13, Matthew 26:28) and a vengeful being (Hebrews 12:29, Luke 12:49; 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9). We mustn't say that it's evil for God not to save everyone and to send the unsaved into eternal punishment (Matthew 25:41,46, Revelation 14:10-11). For by saying this we would be making humans more important than God and his wishes. And this is something that Satan causes people to do, just as Jesus at one point "said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me:
for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men" (Matthew 16:23).
No matter how it may irk the Satanic pride of us humans, wanting to be important like God (Isaiah 14:12-14), so important that God would never even think of not saving all of us and casting some of us into hell forever (Isaiah 14:15, Revelation 20:10,15), we must always remember that it's God's right to do whatever he wants with his creatures (Romans 9:21-23), and that even all of humanity together is infinitesimal and worth less than nothing compared with God (Isaiah 40:17-18, Daniel 4:35). We must resist our Satanic, human pride (which we can unconsciously disguise with good-sounding words about God's love for us), and completely humble ourselves before God (James 4:7-10; 1 Peter 5:6-8), pleading that he might have mercy on us sinners (Luke 18:13-14).
Satan would love nothing more than to get us humans in our sinful pride to wrongly reject the God of the Bible (YHWH) as evil, so that we will end up in the lake of fire forever with Satan and his fallen angels (Matthew 25:41,46, Revelation 20:10,15, Revelation 14:10-11, Mark 9:43-44). The future Antichrist, who will be empowered by Satan (2 Thessalonians 2:9, Revelation 13:4), will utterly revile YHWH (Revelation 13:6, Daniel 11:36). And no doubt one of his chief blasphemies against YHWH will be that YHWH is an evil god. (This is one of the ancient blasphemies of Gnosticism, another being the antichrist lie that Christ himself isn't in the flesh: 2 John 1:7.) During the Antichrist's future, literal 3.5-year worldwide reign, the world will be deceived into rejecting YHWH and worshipping Lucifer (the dragon, Satan) and the Antichrist (the individual-man aspect of the beast) instead (Revelation 13:4-18, Revelation 12:9).
It's the ultimate proof of the humility of believers (James 4:10, Acts 20:19a, Matthew 23:12) for them to accept the facts of double predestination (Romans 9:11-24) and an eternal hell (Matthew 25:41,46) without rejecting YHWH as being evil for these things. For it means that believers have humbly accepted the fact that the wholly-good YHWH God (Deuteronomy 32:4; 1 John 1:5) is infinitely more important than even all of humanity together (Isaiah 40:17, Daniel 4:35).
When I gave money to five out of ten, I was not being unfair to the others, I didn't have to give money to any of them. You and I and the rest of humanity have but one proper attitude towards what God did to save His elect - the very fact that God chose to save anyone is the evidence of the out working of the love of God and the grace of God. The way to reach your friends is by defining the gospel message to them. Because the elect only get saved by hearing the gospel and then believing it. The gospel is very simple, we are saved by grace alone thru faith alone in Christ alone plus nothing.
