Serving Zion
Seek First His Kingdom & Righteousness
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It began higher in the chain of command (Ephesians 6:12).I'll simply put out that the very thing that got humanity into trouble in the first place was man's desire to not submit to God's authority.
It began higher in the chain of command (Ephesians 6:12).
The serpent was the most cunning of all God's creatures - but why did it turn against God and humanity? Matthew 25:41 and Revelation 12:9 show that the rebellious ones in the heavenly realms are doomed in Jesus' name.Sorry, not following you on that one. Can you explain?
Lol! Feel however pleases you. That's between you and God. I'll simply put out that the very thing that got humanity into trouble in the first place was man's desire to not submit to God's authority. Way to keep the trend alive.
The serpent was the most cunning of all God's creatures - but why did it turn against God and humanity? Matthew 25:41 and Revelation 12:9 show that the rebellious ones in the heavenly realms are doomed in Jesus' name.
Whether life is good or bad, is an opinion. That opinion takes our expectation as a reference. Some expectations are fair (eg, that we should breathe freely and have food, shelter and love). Some expectations are not fair (need I point at anyone in particular?).
Our actions impact the world, to change it. Sometimes it is good for us and others, sometimes it is bad for us and others. What makes us act in the way that we do? It is our beliefs.
The humans were created free of all rules - no problems, they could eat freely of any tree. But that is because their beliefs were pure, holy and good. One day they were tempted to believe a lie - that they could be as God, yet opposed to God, and also to not die.
Soon after this, Cain killed Abel. This was the first recorded murder. How did that happen? Simply, the human was not obeying God (Genesis 4:7). He also was not loving his brother, and blessing his brother's approval, instead being jealous and hating his brother for what his brother did that is good. Also Joseph suffered this way at the hands of his brothers.
If, therefore, Cain did what was unholy and chose to disobey God despite that God spoke clearly to him, where did the alternative perspective come from? Why did his thoughts get consumed by the hatred toward his brother? This is an unholy spiritual influence that tempted him by his sin.
Today's humans are tempted the very same way .. those spirits who oppose God are very much alive and active within churches, where jealousies and pride cause Christians to hate instead of love. This is because the spirit of the antichrist has poisoned the church with false doctrines so that it's members believe all sorts of lies that make them depart from real truth and yield unto the father of lies instead of God. You can read of this in 2 Peter 2:1-3 for an example. The sin that then grips them hates with murder, the ones having righteousness to convict them with truth (John 16:2).
However, many prophecies state that God's plan will save the world, and there will be no longer a place for the devil in the world, because at that time, the knowledge of God will fill the earth. Satan's empire will be ground up and blown away like dust in the wind (Isaiah 11:6-9, Isaiah 6:13, Daniel 12:3, Daniel 2:35).
This is how it works: the light has come into the world, but those who hate the light refuse to go near it for fear their deeds be exposed. To him who has, even more will be given, but to him who has not, even what he has will be taken away from him. The ones who take the best seat at the table will be displaced by those having greater honour when they enter. In this way, many who are first shall be last, and last, first.
Just as it was in the days of Noah, the people will be feasting and having merry celebrations right up until the rains began to fall, then it will be too late to repent, the door will have been locked.
"I came to light a fire on earth that will never be extinguished, and what more could I wish for if it had already been lit?"
Therefore I echo Jesus: keep watch, for you do not know on what day your Lord will come.
That is not my heavenly Father-Not by a long shot.
You could just need time, and to take the words slowly (even prayerfully). Also consider Ezekiel 8:6.Okay. No clue how that was supposed to clear up your previously cryptic statement but, thanks for the response...I think.
So God created someone that He knew before creating them would reject Him and, thus, suffer eternity in hell because...He loved them?
And why do some choose to "return His love" and some choose to "turn their back on Him?"
And was He successful? Did He restore the relationship between us and God?
But didn't Jesus know exactly who would embrace Him and who would reject Him, and didn't He know who those people were before they were even created?
Neonap said in post #1:
Why does God form someone, if he knows that person will reject Him and end up in hell . . .
Neonap said in post #16:
Well some do hold the belief that a Christian can fall away or lose their salvation,
which side I agree with I'm not sure.
God, the Father, and, God, the Son... God the Father does not hate anything or anyone and never has, (although he does create some people bad and to be and stay bad, in order to use for his purposes in bettering his chosen ones and making them more like him) But, he doesn't hate the bad ones...Because 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 justly be 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 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 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 character to be made known both to 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 non-Christians of all times 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 Christians and holy angels go forth from the city of New Jerusalem on the New Earth to witness the suffering of the damned 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.
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The elect are those individuals, whether Jews or Gentiles, 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 by faith in Jesus Christ and His Gospel at some point during their lifetime (Acts 13:48b; 2 Timothy 2:10; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4). This initial salvation is possible only because of Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross for our sins (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). So it's impossible for people on their own to ever believe in Jesus and His 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 Christ and His Gospel and be initially saved, even when they're shown the truth (John 8:42-47, John 10:26, Matthew 13:38-42). For the ability to believe in Jesus and His 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 Holy 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 non-Christians so on their own they can't repent and acknowledge the truth of God's Word (2 Corinthians 4:4; 2 Timothy 2:25-26).
Because they have not gotten a revelation of how much God truly loves them. If Christians spent less time beating people with the word of God, and more time showing them how much God loves them then more people would return that love back to God. But instead, we Christians go around telling unbeliever how terrible and sinful they are, and how they are a stench in God's nose, and we wonder why people aren't lining up to get saved.
Absolutely! Paul makes this point very clear in the book of Roman. Jesus took the punishment and wrath for our sins and made peace between us and God and brought us back into right standing and relationship with him. How people can rejects such a great salvation is a mystery to me, but it doesn't help when people are misrepresenting Him.
So with that, we can safely assume he knows everyone who is also going to reject him as well. So why create them? That is the million dollar question. Now, I don't have a full revelation on this answers, so I'll probably end up repeating myself, but again, it all comes down to love. God created us so that he could love on us, and so that we return that love back to him.
God just wanted people he could show his love and goodness to, and in return he hoped they would love him back.
So why did he allow people to be born who he knew would forsake him? For the chance of having someone love him back.
Not only that, but God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 peter 3:9).
Reformationist said in post #93:
Does God have no control over His creation or is He helpless in the face of their weakness?
Reformationist said in post #93:
There's no such thing as "chance" in a conversation about God.
Reformationist said in post #93:
For whom did Christ die, and what was He trying to accomplish in His atoning sacrifice?
Reformationist said in post #93:
So, do you think God would stop people from perishing if He could?
And it brings up a question relevant to the OP: "Doesn't God's omniscience negate free will, so either God isn't omniscient or there's no free will?"
The answer is God is definitely omniscient, for in Him is found all knowledge (Colossians 2:2b-3; 1 John 3:20b). He's able to declare the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10), and His foreknowledge is determinate (Acts 2:23, Revelation 1:1). But His omniscience coexists with His giving people free will. He still lets people choose for themselves what they're going to do (Joshua 24:15, Deuteronomy 30:19, Isaiah 1:19-20, Philemon 1:14).
An analogy for how people can have a meaningful free will and yet God can already know what they're going to choose to do, would be a symphony conductor who wanted to make a film of a "Free Will Symphony" which sounded good enough to show off to the world. So he told his symphony musicians his plan, set up a movie camera in front of them, and said each of them could start playing whatever he or she wanted for an hour. But when they all started playing, it sounded awful for the entire hour. It was utter cacophony. So the conductor sent them home and told them to come back the next day and try again. The next day sounded worse than the first. And the day after that was also bad. This went on day after day for months, until one day the most amazing sound arose from the symphony, a congeries of all the different melodies and rhythms which was unlike anything anyone had heard before. So the conductor kept the movie of that day, and showed it off to the world.
But when the symphony musicians began watching the movie at its world premiere, with all the most-famous musicians of the world seated around them in the theater, some of the symphony musicians began to squirm in their seats. For example, one of the bass players had happened to choose that day (the day the movie was made) just to stand there and not play anything. The movie showed him eating Twix, and just staring off into space for the whole hour. And one of the violin players had just happened to choose that day not to play anything either, but to file her nails and flip through a magazine.
After the movie was over, those two musicians, as well as some others who had been publicly mortified, filed a civil suit against the conductor for defamation of character. At the trial, they testified before the judge: "Before the movie was shown, we all had good reputations as fine musicians. Now we are the laughingstocks of the musical world. Our careers might never recover from this. The conductor knew before he showed the movie to the world that it would result in our ruin, and yet he showed it anyway. Clearly, his intent was malicious, and we seek damages".
But then the conductor testified: "Your honor, I honestly had no malice toward these musicians. The procedure of making the film was quite random. We made scores of different films, and in many of them, these musicians played brilliantly. But the sound of the symphony as a whole on those days was unbearable to listen to, so those films had to be rejected. It was just by chance that the one day which sounded wonderful, they happened to have made fools of themselves by their own free will. They themselves chose to act that way that day. I didn't make them do anything".
The judge agreed and dismissed the case. He told the musicians: "I'm sorry, but you don't really have a legal leg to stand on. For you knew the conductor was making a film of that day, and the plan was to show it off to the world if it sounded good. It's your own fault you chose to act the way you did that day" (cf. James 1:13-15).
Similar to this analogy, before God created the world, He could have reviewed an infinite number of different threads (as it were) of all the possible free-willed sequences of events which could occur in the world, based on all the possible choices each individual could make during his or her lifetime. For example, in one thread, right after God created Adam, Adam could have chosen first to walk around the south side of the Garden of Eden, while in another thread, Adam chose first to walk around the north side, and in another he chose first just to sit on the grass and look at the trees, and so on through all the different possibilities for his first choice, and then through all the different possibilities for all his subsequent choices, and then through all the possible choices made by everyone else from the beginning of the world to the end of it. After reviewing the infinite number of threads of all the possible sequences of free-willed choices, God could have chosen to create, to bring into actual existence, that one thread which would give Him the best opportunity to eternally show both His mercy and His holy wrath (Romans 9:22-23).
Thanks! I definitely would never want anyone to think that I would worship a god who is imagined to send people to be roasted alive forever. That would not just be silly-it would be sick.Silly Radrook...no need to clarify. Anyone who reads your posts would realize straight off that you worship some other god. But hey, thanks for clarifying that anyway. It helps.
Please try to keep in mind that, hell could be any other reality (like this one), where there is always weeping and knashing of teeth, which the fire that "burns" or hurts forever but does not consume or burn up, that the fire could be only "symbolic" or metaphorical fire (of)... Hell could be any other reality besides Heaven, that when, in comparison and compared to the reality of Heaven, is a hell...Thanks! I definitely would never want anyone to think that I would worship a god who is imagined to send people to be roasted alive forever. That would not just be silly-it would be sick.
BTW
Try not to accuse my heavenly Father of doing something that you personally would never do neither to another human but not even to an animal.
"Potential" isn't a word that applies as the issue being raised is why God creates those He knows will reject Him. "Potential" is a mathematical term describing probability given specified parameters. This is a term humans use because our knowledge is finite and so we calculate probability. God's knowledge is not contingent upon His creation.
As I said, it doesn't apply in a discussion about God's choices.
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