Adultery is NEVER OK

Spotlite

Resident Homesteader
That is a trail worth hiking and the overlook is phenomenal.

I would love to discuss it with you at another time.

You are not my enemy. :cheers:
This is where my mind is the rest of the day. Ran down to Panama City beach for the weekend. Our 14 month old Grandson is on his first beach trip with his parents so we decided to run down yesterday after work and hang out with him today.1003DC03-C0F5-4897-9613-0DEF1D33DEB5.jpeg
 

Artfuldodger

Senior Member
I think we all do have it when our eyes open. I’m only meaning that it takes more drastic measures in some cases.,
Then what about all the dead people in the world that were without God and without hope as in Ephesians 2? Plus think of all the people who died never hearing the gospel? Did God not look ahead and not see this? What was our just God's plan for their salvation? What about all of those people who are blinded by their own religions such as the Hindu? Many of those have died whose eyes were never opened to see the true gospel message. We as Christians have never made it to every person in history. Especially before the Cross.
 

Artfuldodger

Senior Member
Oh I definitely don’t view anyone who opposes my views as my enemy :cheers:

some get rear ended hurt because someone disagrees with them but at the end of the day we are all trying to make it………..if God let’s us ::ke:::ke: lol just picking
My main thoughts on all of this is that when we really look into how it all went down(God's Plan), it really doesn't matter or make God less just if he used hardened hearts he hardened or ones that he could foresee would never be His. The outcome is still the same. So suppose God didn't orchestrate his salvation plan on His son dying for our sins. He may not have blinded Israel to make it happen. He may have saw that Israel would not choose him, chose a remnant, and hardened the rest on foreknowledge. Yet He still got the same results. God's plan still happened and took place regardless of who God used to make it happen.

I don't have a problem with that scenario. I do have a problem saying God isn't a just God no matter what plan God used. One way doesn't make God any more just than the other. The ones God foresaw not choosing Him still doesn't get to choose Him. God still got to use them for His honor.
 
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Spotlite

Resident Homesteader
Then what about all the dead people in the world that were without God and without hope as in Ephesians 2? Plus think of all the people who died never hearing the gospel? Did God not look ahead and not see this? What was our just God's plan for their salvation? What about all of those people who are blinded by their own religions such as the Hindu? Many of those have died whose eyes were never opened to see the true gospel message. We as Christians have never made it to every person in history. Especially before the Cross.
I think as a Just God, he will still give them an opportunity as he did the thief on the cross. How he does that is beyond me, their souls are in his hands, I just think he’s that Just with us. I know that isn’t scripture but it’s what I think with the way I understand being Just.
 

Artfuldodger

Senior Member
I think that thinking in those terms could be part of the issue.

Do you see that there can be no argument able to stand against God's perfect plan?

Everything in creation...(including) both believer and unbeliever fulfill God's design to His glory in His Son.
Yes, for sure! Nothing God has done is unjust. We can't say the Potter making vessels of Wrath is unjust. God not giving every person a choice is not unjust. God going forth with His plan of man on earth, knowing many would suffer in He!! is not unjust.
Babies and cute puppies dying in a flood is not unjust. Starvation nor cancer is unjust. Man not reaching every lost soul is not unjust. God releasing Satan on us is not unjust, etc., etc.
 

Artfuldodger

Senior Member
I think as a Just God, he will still give them an opportunity as he did the thief on the cross. How he does that is beyond me, their souls are in his hands, I just think he’s that Just with us. I know that isn’t scripture but it’s what I think with the way I understand being Just.
Romans 11 alludes to that fact as well. It reads like God purposely blinded Israel to make His plan happen and then will eventually save all of Israel for having to do this. Paul even mentions that we humans will never understand all of God's ways.
 

Israel

BANNED
I think as a Just God, he will still give them an opportunity as he did the thief on the cross. How he does that is beyond me, their souls are in his hands, I just think he’s that Just with us. I know that isn’t scripture but it’s what I think with the way I understand being Just.

It seems an impasse at times, doesn't it?

If I dare diminish mercy one iota I am a liar.

Yet, if that mercy is not understood in the perfection of righteousness and justice...I already have.

Really...if I say "hilarious despair" at myself...where I can hear God laughing with me, but not at me...dare I think anyone but God could understand?

Or...is it I am laughing with God...and not He with me?
 

Spotlite

Resident Homesteader
Yes, for sure! Nothing God has done is unjust. We can't say the Potter making vessels of Wrath is unjust. God not giving every person a choice is not unjust. God going forth with His plan of man on earth, knowing many would suffer in He!! is not unjust.
Babies and cute puppies dying in a flood is not unjust. Starvation nor cancer is unjust. Man not reaching every lost soul is not unjust. God releasing Satan on us is not unjust, etc., etc.
We can't say the Potter making vessels of Wrath is unjust. God not giving every person a choice is not unjust
While I agree, he’s not unjust in anything. Where I’m hung up is it’s not that he’s not giving them a choice - it’s the idea that there is no choice.

Looking ahead and knowing what a person will choose is not removing that choice they’ll make. And, if every knee will bow and every tongue confess that he’s Lord….why would he make them do that knowing he decided there was no hope for them?

The reprobate mind is a result of their denying and refusing. Regardless if he saw it in the future or not isn’t relevant.
 

SemperFiDawg

Political Forum Arbiter of Truth (And Lies Too)
No problem at all. The select few that worship the Creator are not deterred by the select many that worship the creature.

wow. "select few"???? That very thought alone by ANYONE, in and of itself, indicates only one thing: that the person issuing it feels he is GOD. The hubris required for it is........well, sad.
 

SemperFiDawg

Political Forum Arbiter of Truth (And Lies Too)
Am I the only one out here who is meeting more and more men who are involved in ongoing adultery who consider themselves Christians?

I don't keep that kind of company. My friends know where I stand on it, and if it happens, they either keep it quiet and don't tell me, or if they do, they don't hang around anymore after I tell them where I stand.
 

SemperFiDawg

Political Forum Arbiter of Truth (And Lies Too)
The problem with predeterminism is this -
The Lord told David that IF he stayed in the city of Keilah the people of that city would hand him over to Saul. David did not stay in Keilah and Saul did not capture him.

Jesus said that the cities of Tyre, Sidon, Sodom and Gomorrah “would” have repented IF had they had seen Jesus' miracles. He knew what would have happened if the miracles would have been performed in those cities.

In each of these instances God showed his knowledge of potential events. Although these events did not happen they would have happened had circumstances been different.


The problem with predestination is this -

We are all predestined, chosen and selected - “ALL”, every man is created in His image. He chose man to commune with. Unfortunately, deception exist. A space for repentance is given for a reason.

When all scripture is used as should be, they’d learn that an all knowing God is just omniscient, not pre programming or predesigning some to fail or picking the ones to burn. To push that doctrine requires many scriptures to be overlooked.

The problem with predetermism is that it contradicts scripture, reason, annnnnnd reality. That pretty much covers it.
 

gemcgrew

Senior Member
wow. "select few"???? That very thought alone by ANYONE, in and of itself, indicates only one thing: that the person issuing it feels he is GOD. The hubris required for it is........well, sad.
Please see post #52 and then go look up the definition of "hipocrisy".
 

RegularJoe

Senior Member
wow. "select few"???? That very thought alone by ANYONE, in and of itself, indicates only one thing: that the person issuing it feels he is GOD. The hubris required for it is........well, sad.
Folks have been 'discussing' the 'reality' of predetermination (aka, pre-destination)
and/or/vs.
freewill (aka, self-will) all the way back to at least Augustine and Pelagius.
Why?
Cause both tenets are taught in The Bible
with no clear explanation of how both can be true, yet somehow are.
My 2 cents: While I'd love to comprehend how both can co-exist,
whether I subscribe to one or the other, both, or neither ( !!! : )
has no bearing on whether of not I am saved thru Jesus' Unconditional Grace.
 

SemperFiDawg

Political Forum Arbiter of Truth (And Lies Too)
Folks have been 'discussing' the 'reality' of predetermination (aka, pre-destination)
and/or/vs.
freewill (aka, self-will) all the way back to at least Augustine and Pelagius.
Why?
Cause both tenets are taught in The Bible
with no clear explanation of how both can be true, yet somehow are.
My 2 cents: While I'd love to comprehend how both can co-exist,
whether I subscribe to one or the other, both, or neither ( !!! : )
has no bearing on whether of not I am saved thru Jesus' Unconditional Grace.

You're preaching to the choir Brother. Yet, apparently some feel it is as defining of one's status as worshiping the creature instead of the Creator, but Christianity is chock full of people who's feel their personal comprehension of scripture makes them superior to all the others. In truth, it's a dead give away that their relationship is with the Book( underpinned by their valuation of their keen understanding of it) and not The Living God who authored it. There IS a very, VERY big difference.
 
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Artfuldodger

Senior Member
Folks have been 'discussing' the 'reality' of predetermination (aka, pre-destination)
and/or/vs.
freewill (aka, self-will) all the way back to at least Augustine and Pelagius.
Why?
Cause both tenets are taught in The Bible
with no clear explanation of how both can be true, yet somehow are.
My 2 cents: While I'd love to comprehend how both can co-exist,
whether I subscribe to one or the other, both, or neither ( !!! : )
has no bearing on whether of not I am saved thru Jesus' Unconditional Grace.
I think almost all of the Bible topics man has been discussing go back that far and all are in scripture both ways. This topic plus Trinity vs Oneness, Discipleship vs Easy Believism, where the dead go, keeping commandments, salvation to Gentiles before the Cross, Baptism with water, man the head of woman, etc.

Scripture has almost everything both ways. I guess that's one of those great mysteries that we should just let be but don't.
 

Artfuldodger

Senior Member
I think it's important that we all read scripture together and realize why we see it the way we do so differently than other individuals. We need to share it with Christians who offer competing interpretations, and wonder why they see it so differently than we do.

A lot of times after discussing something with another, it sometimes seems like we have more in common than different. Especially on a hard topic like the Trinity of Free Will.
 
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