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Sorry I was not more clear. I wanted to stress the difference between being ' created ' and ' made '.
Satan and Adam were ' created ' by God, but they ' made ' themselves into rebels.
They made themselves into poor quality clay that could No longer be molded by the Great Potter into a useful vessel.
Like Satan or Adam choosing, an atheist makes himself [ not created to be an atheist ] but makes himself into one.
- James 1 vs 13-15
I believe athiests indeed were created to be athiests at this time. Pharoah hardened his heart but it was God causes him to harden his heart. Athiest don't understand Christ because God hasn't given it to them to believe. A real athiest would not even participate in the discussion for even Paul explains unbelief:
1Co 15:32 If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die.
Paul knew the logic of the Atheist that it is rediculous to restrain if the dead are not going to rise again. He knew that would be the logical conclusion.
God did Not create Satan to become a Satan and a Devil. Satan turned himself into a Satan and a Devil.
Satan is not his proper name. Satan just means resister and devil means slanderer. [ serpent as deceiver and dragon as destroyer ] Satan is a self-made sinner.
Satan started out as a beautiful cherub angel. - Ezekiel 28 vs 13-19
Adam was not forced to break God's law. Adam used his free-will choices to choose to disobey God.
Satan is a character that appears in the belief systems of many religions, including Christianity and Islam. In Judaism "satan" is not a sentient being but a metaphor for the evil inclination – the yetzer hara – that exists in every person and tempts us to do wrong.
I believe athiests indeed were created to be athiests at this time. Pharoah hardened his heart but it was God causes him to harden his heart. Athiest don't understand Christ because God hasn't given it to them to believe. A real athiest would not even participate in the discussion for even Paul explains unbelief:
1Co 15:32 If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die.
Paul knew the logic of the Atheist that it is rediculous to restrain if the dead are not going to rise again. He knew that would be the logical conclusion.
HaShem did not cause him to harden his heart, HaShem Himself hardened it...Even Paul points out that HaShem raised him up for that very purpose...
Well, everyone should visit their attic once in a while June, if only to keep the spiders and whatever else may have moved in up there on their toes. And you sure did a lot of reading.
The question of why God allowed the fall is easily answered. God created both angels and man with volition. He wanted His created beings to have the ability to make moral choices. In order for volition to exist and to function God had to therefore allow both the angels and man to fall. And since God is omniscience He had always known that the respective falls of angels and man would occur and made provision for them. The Bible does not reveal whatever means of salvation God provided for the angels who fell. It does of course reveal God's plan of salvation for man.
But the issue is more involved than that.
The angelic rebellion which was instigated by the cherub angel who since his fall is known by the titles 'Satan' and 'the devil' took place before the creation of man. And yet, Satan and the fallen angels will not be sent to the lake of fire until after the end of human history (time as opposed to the eternal state) when the Millennium ends. After the Millennium the eternal state - the new heavens and new earth will begin (Revelation chapter 21). In between Satan's fall and the carrying out of his sentence to the lake of fire, is all of human history.
Because Satan wasn't sent immediately to the lake of fire, and because the angels are intently looking into those things involving God's redemptive plan for man (1 Peter 1:12), it can be deduced that Satan objected to his sentence, and that while God created man for the purpose of bringing many sons into glory (Romans 8:29-30), he is also using mankind to demonstrate to all of creation that the angels who rebelled were without excuse. Since volition was involved in the angelic fall, man's volition is the issue in showing why the angels who were disobedient are without excuse.
The angels are a higher creation than man. They are both physically and mentally superior to man. They had access to heaven, to the very throne room of God, they knew and saw God's glory, and yet approximately a third of the angels chose to side with Satan in his rebellion. They made a volitional decision to go with Satan. And so, God created man as a lower creation, confined him to planet earth, and gave him the same volition which the angels had. God then provided a test for man's volition. He told Adam to not eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He then allowed Satan to tempt Adam.
When Satan had succeeded in causing man to fall he thought he had thwarted God's plan. But instead, he merely advanced God's plan to the next stage. Immediately after the fall God promised that a Savior would come into the world and that He would crush Satan (Gen. 3:15). Though out human history prior to the Cross salvation had always been through faith in the promise of the coming Messiah. Since that time in history when Jesus went to the Cross we look back at the Cross for our salvation. Through the various dispensations or stewardships of human history, and the different circumstances involved in each dispensation, the means of salvation has always been the same. The issue is that each time a member of the human race, not having had the advantages of the angels, responds to God's offer of salvation through the gospel it further demonstrates that the angels who rebelled were absolutely without excuse. Through out human history Satan's appeal trial is taking place and Satan is being given an opportunity to prove that God is being unfair for sentencing him to the lake of fire.
If you're inclined to do some more reading June, here is a five part series on what I referred to above concerning the 'angelic conflict' which is the spiritual warfare which rages though out human history.
I was first taught of this angelic conflict by my original pastor, Robert B. Thieme Jr. of Berachah Church which is in Houston TX. He is now with the Lord. Donald Grey Barnhouse who was a well known pastor and theologian wrote a book called 'The Invisible War' which deals with this conflict in the spiritual realm, and my current pastors teach it as well.
Here is 57 hours of class in MP3 concerning the angelic conflict by Pastor Robert McLaughlin of Grace Bible Church.
So if you're interested, check them out. <--- see Mike smile!!!
Yes, there's nothing like a periodic visit into one's attic! It was akin to a dusty trip down memory lane, or June's having fallen up into the proverbial Rabbit Hole! --No critters, save for a few spiders, thank goodness!
June's been up since 4:00am, and read the five-part study that you provided in your post, Mike. You also did a great job of explaining June's questions pertaining the fall, for which she thanks you. She was familiar with the vast majority of it, but nonetheless still holds out with the same initial question that she had. (To follow.)
As for the MP3 class, well, um, 57 hours is quite a bit of time! No question June has a passion for knowledge and learning, but 57 hours!? "Dear Lord!" says June! (With all due respect however, and a word of thanks for your including it.) It would no doubt take her clear till Spring to get through something of that length, but she'll check it out, and see if it is something that will further clarify things for her....
In one of the links above, the Pastor writes: "All that Satan does, he does only through God's permissive will and, in the end, he cannot hinder the inexorable progress of the plan of God in even the most minute way." While the point has been made that "volition" on the part of mankind is implied as a central issue based on the fall and God's divine plan for man, June can't help but question the fact that God would purposely recreate from Himself evil, in the form of Satan, which in turn seems to be justification for the role that volition plays in the part of man. It doesn't make sense. No disrespect intended, but June can't help but question what she can only term a "narcissistic God" who essentially sets mankind up for the potential for either unification with Him once again through salvation, or damnation eternal upon death. Granted, June can comprehend that God did this out of "justice" and for the purposes of his own glorification, but on the most basic level can't help but ask herself "Why?" --To June's way of thinking, all the dynamics that go into the fall in the first place were completely unnecessary. God is essentially imparting free will upon mankind, and yet woe to those who don't adhere to what His own narcissistically-based agenda is: The adulation of His own self-glory. Why would that be necessary? --So it's truly God's volition that June calls into question here. As sophomoric on her part as she knows it sounds, she simply sees no reason why God's "Divine Plan" should have been necessary in the first place, other than as a means by which to purposely orchestrate the means by which He could draw His own creation back to Him with the culmination of salvation through Jesus Christ. (Which June can understand as being an altruistic agenda on God's part, but the orchestration and means by which one is to do so, and penalty to be had for not, is not quite so altruistic as it may first appear!)
Obviously, June does not take the things she reads in Genesis from a literal standpoint, but rather, a cultural and historical one, along with it's being an aftermath account of events eventually to be written down after eons of oral tradition, and various other influencing factors as well. That does not mean, however, that June feels that Genesis does not possess meaning, any less than it does in laying the theological groundwork upon which man's salvation originally is derived from, and based upon. --But while it provides the basis for, and the necessity of the coming of the Messiah, June still fails to see just why God chose to orchestrate history, (and more importantly) what is alleged to be His love for His own creation in the way in which He did!
One last thing that June can't refrain, stop herself from mentioning, after which she will willingly turn herself in for whatever portions of this post are "off topic" (although she somehow feels they aren't, as she is attempting to address the basis for the necessity of salvation in the first place) and will determine whether or not to infract herself for having gone off topic! June remembers giving birth to her son. She can truly say it was the high point of her life: Nothing since has ever quite come close, nor could compare to the experience of holding one's newly born child for the very first time. June's son was born very alert, and although newborns are unable to fully focus in the minutes after their entrance into this world, nonetheless, June's son looked directly into June's eyes (as hers did into his) and this individual can only say that the beauty that exists in the newly born person of a child possesses no sin. There is no force on the face of this earth that could ever convince June that such an experience as childbirth, and those initial moments when true love through bonding take place are anything less than a supreme experience of sheer, pure love. And as such, no force on either heaven or earth could possibly convince June that the beauty and wonder of that newborn child possessed even a semblance of depravity or sin. Rather, if June was religiously-oriented, she would say that it was an experience of such profound beauty that for her, the universe as a whole was recreated for her in the moment in which she looked into her son's eyes, and if --IF-- a "god" exists, then he most certainly stared back at her through the eyes of her child in what can only be described as a moment of true joy, true awe that borders on the transcendent, and most of all, true love....
And the closest this atheist can come in reflecting back on that initial moment is in saying "There is where your God is to be found!"
Satan is a character that appears in the belief systems of many religions, including Christianity and Islam. In Judaism "satan" is not a sentient being but a metaphor for the evil inclination – the yetzer hara – that exists in every person and tempts us to do wrong.
I actually believe that Satan is the disobedient nature of man. No man = no Satan. In other words, there is no third entity apart from man that can be called Satan.
I actually believe that Satan is the disobedient nature of man. No man = no Satan. In other words, there is no third entity apart from man that can be called Satan.
I believe everyone is by nature a creature of SELFISHNESS. We will by nature satisfy our flesh with whatever wants we desire. God created us this way:
Rom_8:20 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,
The framework in which we exercise choice or volition is done in the context and framework that God provides. Therefore, if God wants you to perform something deemed sinful (by our perspective) then God can make that happen since He controls the context in which the choice is exercised knowing the heart and the programming on how the heart executes its choice. It doesn't remove the fact that it is our own volition. But Pharoah's exercise of his volition (which was being done under the context that God provides - as are we all), was done by his own desire which was evil, while God's hardening of Pharoahs heart is accomplishing that which is Good. This is how God is. He is in control of everything. As the Bible says - even the hairs on our head are numbered and not a sparrow falls to the ground without His knowledge/power.
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<--- see Mike smile!!!
--No critters, save for a few spiders, thank goodness!
(With all due respect however, and a word of thanks for your including it.) It would no doubt take her clear till Spring to get through something of that length, but she'll check it out, and see if it is something that will further clarify things for her....