Prayers for salvation of deceased family members

[PrettyboyAndy]

If God is outside of time, Why would I not be able to pray for deceased family members...

I understand once you pass away your in the presence of God.

My Question would be my prayers in the future, would it not be able to impact previous events. If God is soverign and all knowing, he would know that I would pray for such a matter.

 

[Leevo]

What would you be praying for? If it is for their salvation, it would have no bearing on it. Once someone dies, their eternal destiny is set in stone. They are either saved through their faith in Christ and in heaven, or damned to hell.

 

[twin1954]

If God is outside of time, Why would I not be able to pray for deceased family members...

I understand once you pass away your in the presence of God.

My Question would be my prayers in the future, would it not be able to impact previous events. If God is soverign and all knowing, he would know that I would pray for such a matter.

If you remember David while his child was sick he prayed and fasted and sought for God to restore him. But once he was told that the child was dead he washed himself and ate and quit his seeking the Lord to help.

While God does know all things from the beginning and has ordained all things He does work in time. You will remember that Christ did not come until the time appointed.

We can't live in yesterday or in the future for we are none promised another second. We must live today because today is the day of salvation. We can't look back at our faith yesterday nor to our faith tomorrow but our faith today is what sustains us. We walk by faith today not by what happened yesterday nor what might happen in the future.

 

[JM]

An interesting quote from John Calvin:

"As to purgatory, we know that ancient churches made some mention of the dead in their prayers, but it was done seldom and soberly, and consisted only of a few words. It was, in short, a mention in which it was obvious that nothing more was meant than to attest in passing the affection which was felt toward the dead. As yet, the architects were unborn, by whom your purgatory was built; and who afterwards enlarged it to such a width, and raised it to such a height, that it now forms the chief prop of your kingdom. You yourself know what a hydra of errors thence emerged; you know what tricks superstition has at its own hand devised, wherewith to disport itself; you know how many impostures avarice has here fabricated, in order to milk men of every class; you know how great detriment it has done to piety. For, not to mention how much true worship has in consequence decayed, the worst result certainly was, that while all, without any comand from God, were vying with each other in helping the dead, they utterly neglected the congenial offices of charity, which are so strongly enjoined."

Yours in the Lord,

jm