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From reading this and other threads it seems to me that we argue back and forth about what God will do and how to intepret the scriptures. One thing I think needs to be understood is that GOD IS LOVE. God does not love, he is love. God does not hate anybody. Love can not hate. We keep treating God like he is a man, he is not. When the scripture say God hated Esau it is put in terms we can understand but it is not the same as we would hate. He favored Jacob over Esau for the purpose on his plan of creation.
God has created many thing that he uses to teach his children. He created evil to teach us rightousness, greed to teach us charity, persucution to teach us forgivness, pride to teach us humility, and all the other terrible sinful behaviors to teach us the opposite virtue. God is none of these vile things but he uses them to "judge and teach" us. When all the world has learned rightousness all these sinful things will be done away with.
God is not a man!!! to try to treat him like one is blasphemy. Nothing is too hard for God. To think that he can not save all his children because some may ,for a while , be spiteful, and rebelous, and hateful, is to demean God. To think that he can not change any man's will to his will, without force but with judgements, is demeaning to God. God is smarter and wiser that we can comprehend, for him to cause us to change our will to his will, by our own volition, is easy for him.
Yep.... !!
It's also called the lack of the Holy Spirit in the life...... you'll know them by their fruit..... The fruit of the Spirit is LOVE, PEACE, FORBEARANCE, KINDNESS, GOODNESS FAITHFULNESS, GENTLENESS and SELF-CONTROL.
And those kind of post LACK without exaggeration every ounce of the fruit of God's Spirit !!
We can see and read that the acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
So what does that tell one about those when one reads such post on a continuous basis with so much of the flesh in it, one truly questions very much where is God in that life...... ones good option is to pray for that soul !!!
From reading this and other threads it seems to me that we argue back and forth about what God will do and how to intepret the scriptures. One thing I think needs to be understood is that GOD IS LOVE. God does not love, he is love. God does not hate anybody. Love can not hate. We keep treating God like he is a man, he is not. When the scripture say God hated Esau it is put in terms we can understand but it is not the same as we would hate. He favored Jacob over Esau for the purpose on his plan of creation.
God has created many thing that he uses to teach his children. He created evil to teach us rightousness, greed to teach us charity, persucution to teach us forgivness, pride to teach us humility, and all the other terrible sinful behaviors to teach us the opposite virtue. God is none of these vile things but he uses them to "judge and teach" us. When all the world has learned rightousness all these sinful things will be done away with.
God is not a man!!! to try to treat him like one is blasphemy. Nothing is too hard for God. To think that he can not save all his children because some may ,for a while , be spiteful, and rebelous, and hateful, is to demean God. To think that he can not change any man's will to his will, without force but with judgements, is demeaning to God. God is smarter and wiser that we can comprehend, for him to cause us to change our will to his will, by our own volition, is easy for him.
HE IS GOD
You're right ... GOD IS LOVE
And.............. GOD IS JEALOUS
And.............. JESUS IS GOD
And ............. GOD IS ALWAYS THE SAME
Exodus 34:14
Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
Deuteronomy 32:16
They made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him
Joshua 24:19
Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins.
Ezekiel 36:6
Therefore prophesy concerning the land of Israel... ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I speak in my jealous wrath ...'
Nahum 1:2
The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. The LORD takes vengeance on his foes and maintains his wrath against his enemies.
I'm not going to post in this thread any more. There is no argument or scripture that will that will open a blind man's eyes to the truth. That is the perogitive of God Almighty. How many times does Jesus say they have eyes but they do not see. They have ears but they do not hear?
Many of you folks out there believe that man is Justified by his own death. This is a lie of the Devil for sure. The Bible teaches clearly over and over and over again what the result of unforgiven sin is going to be.
From reading this and other threads it seems to me that we argue back and forth about what God will do and how to intepret the scriptures. One thing I think needs to be understood is that GOD IS LOVE. God does not love, he is love. God does not hate anybody. Love can not hate. We keep treating God like he is a man, he is not. When the scripture say God hated Esau it is put in terms we can understand but it is not the same as we would hate. He favored Jacob over Esau for the purpose on his plan of creation.
God has created many thing that he uses to teach his children. He created evil to teach us rightousness, greed to teach us charity, persucution to teach us forgivness, pride to teach us humility, and all the other terrible sinful behaviors to teach us the opposite virtue. God is none of these vile things but he uses them to "judge and teach" us. When all the world has learned rightousness all these sinful things will be done away with.
God is not a man!!! to try to treat him like one is blasphemy. Nothing is too hard for God. To think that he can not save all his children because some may ,for a while , be spiteful, and rebelous, and hateful, is to demean God. To think that he can not change any man's will to his will, without force but with judgements, is demeaning to God. God is smarter and wiser that we can comprehend, for him to cause us to change our will to his will, by our own volition, is easy for him.
I'm not going to post in this thread any more. There is no argument or scripture that will that will open a blind man's eyes to the truth. That is the perogitive of God Almighty. How many times does Jesus say they have eyes but they do not see. They have ears but they do not hear?
Many of you folks out there believe that man is Justified by his own death. This is a lie of the Devil for sure. The Bible teaches clearly over and over and over again what the result of unforgiven sin is going to be.
Indeed, it is only God who can make the blind see and the dead live ...
However, wont it be interesting if when we come to judgment we if find that it is we who were blinded?
I am certainly willing to admit that i might be wrong about everything that i believe to be true, but i live by hope, faith and love, and i try to live as i believe, by my convictions.
And like me, though you think you are the one who can see and who is believing the truth, you may discover one day that you were the one who was deceived the whole time.
I hope you are able to admit at least to yourself that you may be wrong, as many people are not able to do so ...
Well, your answer to my post is forcing me to reply when I said I wouldn't. Sure, I agree there are many things I might be wrong about but and it's a big but. I'm not wrong about the basic message of the bible. It's so clear that even a child can understand it. That message is this. All mankind is lost in their sin. It's been inherited from Adam on down. There can be no relationship between a sinful man and a holy God. God pronounced a judgement for sin, "You shall surely die". Because of His own reasons God decided to save some from this judgment. These people who will be saved are the people of faith. People whp trust in the promises of God. Those who read the Word or hear the Word and trust and obey are the children of God. Those who don't believe and trust are not the children of God. Unless you reject the bible and make up your own Theology according to your human understanding of how God must be then this is the message of God's holy word. I'm not really concerned with heresy. It has always been around and always will because the devil and his demons will never stop trying to subvert the message. All that I am called to do is to witness to the world the gospel of Jesus and live my life as an example to the unsaved. Other than that it's God's work to call the sinner to repentence.
Well, your answer to my post is forcing me to reply when I said I wouldn't. Sure, I agree there are many things I might be wrong about but and it's a big but. I'm not wrong about the basic message of the bible. It's so clear that even a child can understand it. That message is this. All mankind is lost in their sin. It's been inherited from Adam on down. There can be no relationship between a sinful man and a holy God. God pronounced a judgement for sin, "You shall surely die". Because of His own reasons God decided to save some from this judgment. These people who will be saved are the people of faith. People whp trust in the promises of God. Those who read the Word or hear the Word and trust and obey are the children of God. Those who don't believe and trust are not the children of God. Unless you reject the bible and make up your own Theology according to your human understanding of how God must be then this is the message of God's holy word. I'm not really concerned with heresy. It has always been around and always will because the devil and his demons will never stop trying to subvert the message. All that I am called to do is to witness to the world the gospel of Jesus and live my life as an example to the unsaved. Other than that it's God's work to call the sinner to repentence.
That sure is allot of "basics" that you are "sure" about ... And many of them at odds with what i see the bible to actually be saying on a basic level. You say you admit you may be wrong about some things but you know for sure that "..." is true ...
1 Timothy 4:10
That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe.
God is the savior of all people, especially, not only of those who are beleiving on him.
1 Timothy 2:3-4
For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
You say that you know for sure that what you believe about the things you noted in your last post is true, yet the scriptures clearly tell us that God is the savior of all people, and that he will have all people saved.
The above scriptures do not agree with what you say that you know to be true ...
And the fact is that the majority of Christians in the first 5 centuries believed and taught Universal Salvation, it was not until Rome made Christianity the religion of the state that the doctrine of "eternal torment" was finally made the orthodox doctrine of the church.
Quote:
George T Knight See p. 96: "In the first five or six centuries of Christianity there were six theological schools, of which four (Alexandria, Antioch, Caesarea, and Edessa, or Nisibis) were Universalist; one (Ephesus) accepted conditional mortality; one (Carthage or Rome) taught endless punishment of the wicked."
My guess is that you might not have much understanding of the development of Christianity in the first few centuries and how much it has changed since the times of the apostles.
Perhaps you have you been programmed to interpret the scriptures a certain way by the traditions of fundamental orthodoxy, and those interpretations also may seem to be validated in many of the modern English translations as well.
But when you begin to go back to the original Greek, and start studying the scriptures in light of the proper context and audience relevancy and take into account how the earliest Christians believed concerning these things who themselves where mostly native Greek speaking peoples, the contemporary interpretations of the fundamental and orthodox traditions fall flat.
From reading this and other threads it seems to me that we argue back and forth about what God will do and how to intepret the scriptures. One thing I think needs to be understood is that GOD IS LOVE. God does not love, he is love. God does not hate anybody. Love can not hate. We keep treating God like he is a man, he is not. When the scripture say God hated Esau it is put in terms we can understand but it is not the same as we would hate. He favored Jacob over Esau for the purpose on his plan of creation.
God has created many thing that he uses to teach his children. He created evil to teach us rightousness, greed to teach us charity, persucution to teach us forgivness, pride to teach us humility, and all the other terrible sinful behaviors to teach us the opposite virtue. God is none of these vile things but he uses them to "judge and teach" us. When all the world has learned rightousness all these sinful things will be done away with.
God is not a man!!! to try to treat him like one is blasphemy. Nothing is too hard for God. To think that he can not save all his children because some may ,for a while , be spiteful, and rebelous, and hateful, is to demean God. To think that he can not change any man's will to his will, without force but with judgements, is demeaning to God. God is smarter and wiser that we can comprehend, for him to cause us to change our will to his will, by our own volition, is easy for him.
HE IS GOD
Awesome post..
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