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This has been a trying discussion. I have had a great time with you guys this morning even though you've given me a headache. Wish I didn't have to go right now, but I'll be back later to hear what you guys arrive at! Very difficult stuff here. It can't all be handled without the whole of scripture. It's hard.
but men choose for themselves the evil way. They were not predestined to do evil. So God's anger was kindled against all men in that all have sinned. On the other hand those who are chosen to do good are the elect. God foreknows men and chooses them that they might be justified and glorified. Rom 8.29-30
Quick run in after my shower and before I have to go.
This brings up my previous point again. He was angry at those who claimed Him as their God and yet were lying because they didn't do what He said. Out of all the people of the earth, He chose them, released them from bondage, and saved them through the sea. They continually said they were His people and He was their God, but then refused to have the obedience of faith and to go instead with the way the rest of the world did things. They wanted to collect more than enough for the day so they wouldn't have to rely on Him every day but instead could rely on their stockpile to feel secure. They got thirsty and complained that He was going to let them die in the place where He had led them. They wanted a king like all the people around them. It goes on and on. I see us making some of their same mistakes. We also want to stockpile money for security and retirement. This is what the world says we have to do to not be eating catfood in old age. So we go fearfully with the world instead of truly believing He can make a pair of shoes last 40 years and sew up a whole in our pocket and multiply food supernaturally.
The point is that those who He became angry and displeased at were those He had saved! We are those He has saved! Yet we somehow think we can make the same mistakes of mistrust as Israel, who He also saved and released, and yet it will go differently for us. And so here comes the working out of your salvation with fear and trembling and the horror of realizing that we are doing the same thing. We be the seed of Abraham begins to sound like an echo of we be the seed of the Holy Spirit. And yet without the continued trust through which no man can please Him? Repentance is called for, and a fair amount of trembling. Because we seem to have begun to think God will wink at unfaithfulness and that the blood covers that unfaithfulness. And how is that possible when that trust is what saved us by His kindness? We have every doctrine nailed in place that explains away the continuing in trust to the end. His hands are tied concerning mistrust and compromise. Something is wrong there. It should provoke shivers, not insistence that our mistrust and following the worlds ways won't cause our downfall. It's all based on trust. And we are lying if we say we trust Him and then worry about stockpiling millions for our security. This is a HARD thing to struggle with. Does the blood cover lack of faith? Yes - if we repent and turn back to faith. But we even seem to be making doctrines that say repentance is once and then no more. Even in SPITE of the fact that it is the ongoing story of the entire OT, turning, turning back, turning, turning back. Yet we only have to do it once and then we have caught Him in a trap in which we make a deal to cheat death? This is all scary to me. That we have something wrong in what we've been taught and that we don't see it.
This brings up my previous point again. He was angry at those who claimed Him as their God and yet were lying because they didn't do what He said. Out of all the people of the earth, He chose them, released them from bondage, and saved them through the sea. They continually said they were His people and He was their God, but then refused to have the obedience of faith and to go instead with the way the rest of the world did things. They wanted to collect more than enough for the day so they wouldn't have to rely on Him every day but instead could rely on their stockpile to feel secure. They got thirsty and complained that He was going to let them die in the place where He had led them. They wanted a king like all the people around them. It goes on and on. I see us making some of their same mistakes. We also want to stockpile money for security and retirement. This is what the world says we have to do to not be eating catfood in old age. So we go fearfully with the world instead of truly believing He can make a pair of shoes last 40 years and sew up a whole in our pocket and multiply food supernaturally.
The point is that those who He became angry and displeased at were those He had saved! We are those He has saved! Yet we somehow think we can make the same mistakes of mistrust as Israel, who He also saved and released, and yet it will go differently for us. And so here comes the working out of your salvation with fear and trembling and the horror of realizing that we are doing the same thing. We be the seed of Abraham begins to sound like an echo of we be the seed of the Holy Spirit. And yet without the continued trust through which no man can please Him? Repentance is called for, and a fair amount of trembling. Because we seem to have begun to think God will wink at unfaithfulness and that the blood covers that unfaithfulness. And how is that possible when that trust is what saved us by His kindness? We have every doctrine nailed in place that explains away the continuing in trust to the end. His hands are tied concerning mistrust and compromise. Something is wrong there. It should provoke shivers, not insistence that our mistrust and following the worlds ways won't cause our downfall. It's all based on trust. And we are lying if we say we trust Him and then worry about stockpiling millions for our security. This is a HARD thing to struggle with. Does the blood cover lack of faith? Yes - if we repent and turn back to faith. But we even seem to be making doctrines that say repentance is once and then no more. Even in SPITE of the fact that it is the ongoing story of the entire OT, turning, turning back, turning, turning back. Yet we only have to do it once and then we have caught Him in a trap in which we make a deal to cheat death? This is all scary to me. That we have something wrong in what we've been taught and that we don't see it.
As I've said in other posts - predestination/election is very much misunderstood.
Deu 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
The "choose" is obviously with in our "power" otherwise the statement above becomes meaningless.
Does anybody know what the meaning of meaningless is??....
Deu 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
The "choose" is obviously with in our "power" otherwise the statement above becomes meaningless.
Does anybody know what the meaning of meaningless is??....
If I decide to pray for Albert Einstein, how is that God answering my prayer before I'm born? Einstein is dead. I'm not. And God isn't linear. He's omnipresent.
I haven't prayed for Einstein, but I have prayed for prayer request about an upcoming surgery, even after the surgery (usually before I find out how it went), because I really am going that God doesn't care that I didn't see the request until 11 AM, but the surgery was scheduled for 5:30 AM. He's counting my prayer like he counted all the others.
I haven't prayed for Einstein, but I have prayed for prayer request about an upcoming surgery, even after the surgery (usually before I find out how it went), because I really am going that God doesn't care that I didn't see the request until 11 AM, but the surgery was scheduled for 5:30 AM. He's counting my prayer like he counted all the others.
Let's clarify this.
1. A surgery is scheduled for 5:30 AM, and at 11:00 AM you are praying for 5:30AM surgery to go well.... AFTER the surgery is over.
For clarity, you are not praying for the RESULTS of the surgery to be good, or the for patient to RECOVER well... you are actually praying for the doctors to do a good job DURING the 5:30AM surgery, which is already over, and in the PAST by 5.5 hours.
2. I am not about to tell you what to do in your prayer life... you can certainly do whatever you like.
3. I can however point out biblical doctrine, and logic, for the other readers here.
4. There is NO biblical support that we can pray for PAST EVENTS.
5. Praying for PAST EVENTS, in order to CHANGE THEM, is NOT IN THE BIBLE.
6. If we were to get into the biblical doctrine, or the philosophy, which regards this kind of thing, it is all about God INTENTIONALLY CREATING and INTENTIONALLY PLACING US into LINEAR TIME.
The creation of linear time, and the act of placing us into linear time, were INTENTIONAL ACTS OF GOD.
7. In the same way God did not place you into a different model of space (like living in 12 spatial dimensions) God also did not place you into a different model of time.
God placed you into THIS model of space, and THIS model of time.
He placed you into a linear, temporal time for his reasons, and his purposes.
8. Nowhere in the Bible does God say you can BREAK OUT OF this model of TIME.
According to scripture, you are STUCK in this model of time, and there is no way to break out of it.
There is not even a way for your PRAYERS to break out of it.
You, your prayers, and everything you do, and everyone you know... are all STUCK in this model of linear time.
God made it this way.
He made it this way for his purposes.
9. Nowhere does God say you can pray for past events, and your prayer will effect them.
That's not in the bible.
It doesn't matter what TERMS you use, or what PHILOSOPHICAL EXPLANATION you use... it simply IS NOT IN THE BIBLE.
It's not in there.
YOU have no effect over the past.
That is contrary to EVERY SINGLE THING IN SCRIPTURE.
10. If you COULD pray for past events, and that would effect them, then almost nothing in life would be either REAL, or FINAL.... you could even pray people BACK OUT OF HELL... if retroactive prayer were possible.
The bible says man dies once, and then the judgment.
But if your version of retroactive prayer were possible in God's eyes... then we could very justly expect to pray people back out of hell after they've died.
Philosophically... if you could change the past, that would be to UNDO CAUSALITY.
This would undermine, and undo, the very fabric of existence.
If praying for past events could effect them, because God looks into the future, from the past, and sees our future prayers, and answers our future prayers back in the past... we'd have to apply this logic to EVERYTHING... and we'd quickly see it undoes all of scripture. It simply breaks everything in scripture.
- You could pray people back out of hell after they'd died.
- You could pray for that accident you had 20 years ago... that God would go back and undo it.
- We could all pray for our past relationships... that God would go back and keep our spouses from divorcing us, or boyfriends and girlfriends from breaking up.
- You could even go back and pray for your college transcripts... that God would make us study harder for that test 20 years ago, and change our grades.
IT'S ALL ABSURD!
* YOU certainly have the freedom to do whatever you like in your own prayer life.
* But if you're going to propose it here publicly, and it's something unbiblical, then I also have the freedom to examine it, and show how it doesn't fit with the bible.
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If I decide to pray for Albert Einstein, how is that God answering my prayer before I'm born? Einstein is dead. I'm not. And God isn't linear. He's omnipresent.
I haven't prayed for Einstein, but I have prayed for prayer request about an upcoming surgery, even after the surgery (usually before I find out how it went), because I really am going that God doesn't care that I didn't see the request until 11 AM, but the surgery was scheduled for 5:30 AM. He's counting my prayer like he counted all the others.
I haven't prayed for Einstein, but I have prayed for prayer request about an upcoming surgery, even after the surgery (usually before I find out how it went), because I really am going that God doesn't care that I didn't see the request until 11 AM, but the surgery was scheduled for 5:30 AM. He's counting my prayer like he counted all the others.
Depleted,
I forgot you're a Calvinist.
So in my above comments, just disregard the mention of "praying people out of hell", and replace it with prayer for any other past event.
I'm not arguing about calvinism here, but about the nature of temporal time, and why God placed us into it.
The philosophical and scriptural problem is that praying to change PAST EVENTS would undo the LAW OF CAUSALITY... it would undo all laws of cause and effect which God built into the universe, and which he built into scripture, and doctrine.
If you could pray for past events, and change them... then you could pray to UNDO some sin you committed yesterday.
But you cannot.
You cannot undo time.
I forgot you're a Calvinist.
So in my above comments, just disregard the mention of "praying people out of hell", and replace it with prayer for any other past event.
I'm not arguing about calvinism here, but about the nature of temporal time, and why God placed us into it.
The philosophical and scriptural problem is that praying to change PAST EVENTS would undo the LAW OF CAUSALITY... it would undo all laws of cause and effect which God built into the universe, and which he built into scripture, and doctrine.
If you could pray for past events, and change them... then you could pray to UNDO some sin you committed yesterday.
But you cannot.
You cannot undo time.
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It makes perfect sense. The Holy Spirit prays to the Father also on our behalf. There are many times when a person knows that they are in need of God's help but don't know specifically what to pray for. Looking back, they may see that their prayer and those of others were indeed answered to address their specific need even though they were not sure what it was at the time.
Every Scripture you have given about partiality, is about Jew, Greek, salve or free, God has no partiality, as to who He choses or who He judges from these groups. The first two Scriptures you posted show that God does not chose those that go to hell, because He desires, would have, is wanting for all men to be saved, He is not willing, not wanting, not desiring that anyone should perish. But they are condemned already. John 3:18 "Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God." His sacrifice does not guarantee that all men could be saved, John 3:17 "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."
How do the verses with John 3:16 end, verse 21, "But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God.” or as John writes it in John 1:12-13 "Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. or as John writes in 3:3
"Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again." or as Paul writes I Corinthians 2:14 "The natural persondoes not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned."
Notice what Paul says what happens once we are in Him/made alive/born again/born of God. Ephesians 1:13 "In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,"
How do the verses with John 3:16 end, verse 21, "But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God.” or as John writes it in John 1:12-13 "Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. or as John writes in 3:3
"Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again." or as Paul writes I Corinthians 2:14 "The natural persondoes not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned."
Notice what Paul says what happens once we are in Him/made alive/born again/born of God. Ephesians 1:13 "In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,"