Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks...
satan must be rejoicing at much of what has been typed in this forum of late.
Isaiah 9:2
"The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined."
You know who'll have the last laugh though.
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Speaking of predestined outcomes; I don't mean to revive this thread but this is how I understand it...maybe it'll help someone:
1. There are two seeds on the earth...only two.
2. God has *predestined* his seed - The Elect - for salvation, and the seed of that old serpent - the children of perdition - he's predestined for destruction. The Elect will
not be destroyed, nor will the serpent's seed see salvation.
And Christ was slain from the foundation of the world to secure this destiny. The Elect WILL be saved and the Damned WILL be destroyed...this is a foregone conclusion; two trains on two different tracks leading to two specific outcomes. And these trains can't be derailed.
3. However, each person has a choice on which train to ride. That's all one's free will amounts to: the choice between trains "life" or "death"; between the elect's pre(determined)destination or the pre(determined)destination of the damned.
Deuteronomy 30:19
This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live
And the choice is simply (but profoundly) belief in his son, "for God so loves the world..."
4. Now, from God's perspective (being greater than time itself since he
"was, is and will be") he's
already seen - from time immemorial - who (by their own free will)
will choose to believe in his son and who
won't...and when. Yet we can't know this because we only exist in the present, one moment at a time. For example, he knew Paul would choose his son, but he also knew it would be after his time as a murderer. He knew Judas would choose against his son, but he also knew it would be after he was selected as an apostles who witnessed all of Christ's miracles.
These men freely made their choice when the time came...but God still foreknew the free choice each would make all on their own, simply because he's outside of time; so big that he exists at all points across time at once. He can see it all at once; time is that small to him.
[Imagine time was a simple ruler...
If you had a ruler in front of you, notice how you can see the entire length of this ruler at once. No portion of it escapes your gaze. It's the same with God and time.]
Romans 8:29
For whom he did foreknow [because he's outside of time], he also did predestinate [i.e. predetermined the last destination on the "train"] to be conformed to the image of his Son [i.e. the last stop], that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
God doesn't force anyone, as he's the still small voice (1 Kings 19:12). But from God's unique perspective, each person who will ever live has already made their free will choice about his Son, once the time came that they learned the truth. So he's ordered the steps for each path (Psalm 119:133) to reach his final destinations...we've each just gotta walk it out in our own time.
Again, *we* can't know which choice we've ultimately picked in time because we only ever exist in this moment, so there isn't a guarantee for anyone to freely sin, saying "oh, well I'm the elect" or "oh well...I'm the damned". Because of this, I'm thankful and I constantly pray that I never lose the faith I now have.
