It bes dismayed as well. Perhaps it worded that too dramatically. It has been in dire torment all week and it bes exhausted and probably too much reactionary to things.
Understood. Our approach should be one of patience.
It agrees with unmitigated grace. It agrees unreservedly that our own works are unable to add to the salvation that God has Himself provided. But Victor it honestly believed -- could have sworn even you saying so directly -- that you shared in common with Moriah the extension of that by definition to the whole thing about human effort, including supposed human "choice" and supposed human "free will" (which it does not believe in to begin with). It genuinely -- but perhaps mistakenly? -- believed you shared Moriah's perception of that, that man cannot add to the salvation God has provided and that includes the whole notion of having to "choose" it.
The idea of "irresistable grace" is one of the tenets of Calvinism, and I have to reject it.
While there are concepts that are introduced such as predestination, these find themselves tempered by the necessity to call on the Lord in order to be saved, a prime example being Romans 10:9:
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
That carries with it some connotation of action on our parts. Is this a work that we have added to our salvation? No, it is the realization that we have no works and we aren't going to establish our own righteousness and are in submission to His (see Romans 10:3 in this same chapter).
I encourage you to read and think on Psalm 73 sometime, as it comes to mind as pertinent to this discussion of destruction of the unrighteous and the need to draw near to God.
How does all of this reconciled with predestination? It is only my speculation at this point, but I believe that Father sees the end of time and already knows those who have desired His salvation and just need a clue how to call on it.
Maybe it had you confused with someone else. It will have to comb your posts & see if it can find what it bes thinking of.
I certainly hope I have presented a consistent message throughout.
God's wrath already GOT exercised ultimately -- upon His own Son. No takebacks crossouts or do-overs. Done deal, everyone gets the same, regardless of when they come, whether now or at the last hour.
Throughout Scripture, including the new testament, the presentation of "us" and "them" changes the address a specific message goes to. Yes, for those of "us" that have had the righeousness of Christ imputed onto us, Jesus has borne the entire judgment that we ourselves cannot bear.
That is not true of "them".
Look at this passage from 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11, and see the dichotomy of "us" and "them" that it presents:
1: But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.
2: For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
3: For when
they shall say, Peace and safety;
then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and
they shall not escape.
4:
But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
5:
Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
6: Therefore let
us not sleep,
as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
7: For
they that sleep sleep in the night; and
they that be drunken are drunken in the night.
8: But let
us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
9:
For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
10:
Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
11: Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.
The portrayal of the wrath of God bes secondary to His election to give the full measure of that wrath to Christ to bear for us, secondary to the salvation He wrought for us all, and a MUCH misunderstood and poorly exegeted notion. Far from any sort of "Scriptural reality" in the way it typically bes parsed, no, it should not be ignored. It should be worked through -- but not by reverting back to common fundy ignorance on the subject invoking an eternal torture chamber and a "God of Love" whose version of "love" consists in claiming not to violate free as an excuse for refusing to save, deliver and heal, in order to, in the end, do precisely that (violate free will) without caring one whit, in order that He may torture or destroy them what displeases him, like some fussy self-important old man who cannot bear to have His ego bruised by being questioned or disagreed with.
That portrait of God bes filth and Moriah most definitely rejects that. Unfortunately, it represents an accurate assessment of anyone or anything with "impotent omnipotence" what resorts to torturing creatures for things they had no choice about and no power over in the first place for not having recognized in something that may have struck them as odd, bizarre, or unseemly, a key to the golden land of actually meriting that blame. A God what bes a molester of innocents first and a destroyer of them afterwards for having been molested and lost their innocence.
I have seen Adventists reject the Christian description of the Gospel for the very reasons you have elaborated on. For this reason I questioned Sentipente immediately with "what are you saved
from?". It is important to note the passages of Scripture that don't shrink back from identifying a portion of his creation that is subject to wrath, destruction, and the lake of fire and the winepress of His wrath.
"Torture" is foreign to Scripture, in as far as my feeble memory serves - we don't have license to add that description in.
Equally true is the necessity that we not add in conclusions that deny His sovereign ownership rights as Creator, who has created a whole so that He may save a remnant.
Romans 9:18-24
18: Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
19: Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
20: Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
21: Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
22: What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
23: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
24: Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
We aren't in a position to judge God's intentions and conclusions.
We are in a position to understand the wrath we have been delivered from, and place our trust in Him rather than remaining in Egypt.
Victor