The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Gods Character??

I want to apologize for my absence.. I just got married Aug 4th and because of that I was away for a few days prior and then 2 weeks after for our honey moon and such. I see that there has been much discussion since I was last logged on and I will attempt to read all of it before long.. It may be a few days before I attempt another post but know that I am reading all of your responses in hope that God will show me truth through them. I thank you all so much for your interest in helping a fellow believer further his walk.

Congratulations! <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/bravo.gif" alt="" /> Enjoy the journey!

[color:"0000FF"]Proverbs 18:22 "Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD."[/color]

Congratulations Clinton! <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/bananas.gif" alt="" />
May the Lord richly bless.


William

Yes, I also congratulate you both! I am a "johnny come lately" to this discussion, but as far as marriage, I am a veteran. My wife and I have been married for 45 years. My Christian walk would not be the same without her. We are walking together, and I pray that you two will also. There are answers to the questions you have, here, and on the other good sites you have been given, but especially in the word of God. I pray that the Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth.You might read my article here on The Highway, What Jesus Christ Said About God's Sovereignty, and the current top article on my blog titled "Three Crosses" Maybe they can be some help in viewing God's working with human beings "behind the scenes". my blog: http://cyberwordoftruth.blogspot.com
(you may have to type or paste it in your browser address bar). God bless you in your life adventure, Charles in GA
<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/ClapHands.gif" alt="" />

I think I am finally ready to answer your question Pilgrim.. As scared as I am of getting "ripped a new one" LoL, for not having the knowledge and training you so obviously have, here it goes..

I do not feel that the men that drove the nails into Christ's hands were acting against their will. I believe whole heartedly that they just like any other murderer or rapist or child molester did exactly as they wanted to with no thought about the consequences.. However, do we not feel remorse for things? I know of non believers who after wronging another person, though at the time they wanted to do it, felt remorse.. Where would this feeling come from? If God has created an image of Himself, should we not be able to feel compassion and love? If we can feel love can we not feel God? I believe in a God of Love. I understand that He is also a jealous God and a God of wrath and will exercise these feelings in time of need, but ultimately is not everything He does out of love?

Read it here:
Leviticus 26:3-28
Listen to this passage
3 " 'If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, 4 I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit. 5 Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.
6 " 'I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove savage beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country. 7 You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. 8 Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.
9 " 'I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you. 10 You will still be eating last year's harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new. 11 I will put my dwelling place [a] among you, and I will not abhor you. 12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. 13 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high.
Punishment for Disobedience
14 " 'But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, 15 and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and drain away your life. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. 17 I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.
18 " 'If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over. 19 I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze. 20 Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of the land yield their fruit.
21 " 'If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve. 22 I will send wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you so few in number that your roads will be deserted.
23 " 'If in spite of these things you do not accept my correction but continue to be hostile toward me, 24 I myself will be hostile toward you and will afflict you for your sins seven times over. 25 And I will bring the sword upon you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be given into enemy hands. 26 When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat, but you will not be satisfied.
27 " 'If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, 28 then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over.

Is God not telling the people that IF they do what is right he will take care of them, yet if they do wrong He will destroy them? If statements seem to me as though He is making it clear that we have a conscious ability to follow, or not. Even though my actions are not a "surprise" to God so to speak, I believe He allows me to make them.

No good Calvinist does. The Scripture is VERY clear:

Note that God predestined the event to happen, but that moral responsibility is also assigned to man for taking the action they did. God has predestined all that has and will happen and yet He does not violate man’s will in the process. The WCF puts it this way:


Having put away a bunch of these bad guys, I can agree with you in part, however MANY do know and think about the consequences – both temporary and eternal. However, thinking about them and taking and being able to take the appropriate action are entirely different things.

There is a difference in the remorse of the world and the remorse of true repentance. Paul puts it nicely,

From personal experience with murders, molesters, rapists, etc. I can assure you that most of their sorrow was from “I am sorry I got caught.” In addition, major problems with world’s repentance “even if it brings a permanent result” is (1) it does not atone for past sins, (2) there is no turning to Christ, etc. True repentance is a GIFT from God (2 Tim 2:24-26). It is on the flip side of faith, which is also a GIFT from God (Eph. 2:8-10). God only gives these gifts to whom He has elected.

There are numerous errors here. Adam and Eve were created in the image of God. However, they “corrupted” this image. You and I no longer have a perfect image of God. Thus, God’s love cannot be fully and completely communicated by us. In addition, before slavation the soul – the spirit – is dead (Eph 2:1). Dead men cannot love. Moreover, love is action (1 Cor. 13), that may cause certain fellings, but love itself is not a felling – God’s action which corrupted images and dead man cannot “do.” You do not understand Total Depravity.

NO, you do not understand this. God ALSO “hates” (Rom 9:13; Ps. 11:5). God is “angry” with the wicked everyday (Ps. 7:11). God gets “mad” (righteous, controlled holy, etc.) when He

I could go on and on, but I hope you get the point. I might add that, unlike us, all these are characteristics of God are “without sin.” God is 100% love and 100% just. It would be unholy of God not to exhibit His justice at sin – thus He would not be God. If not for election all would have seen ONLY His justice. Election however allows His elect, and His elect alone, to be saved and to exhibit His character in a limited way.

The law was given to lead us to grace. It was given to show us that we could not keep it (Rom. 5:20). The law has never been kept (Rom. 8:3) except by One man and that man is Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:12-21). He and He alone fulfilled the law and all righteousness.

I should have been more detailed, but time does not allow. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/hello.gif" alt="" />

I do even if I may not show it, understand total depravity.. I understand that according to total depravity that I am empty of all good; and not only am I empty of good, but I am full of all bad.. I look at the scriptures brought before me by yourself and others such as pilgrim and my old youth pastor and I truly wonder about them.. God created man.... Why??? Not because he needed us, but wanted us for something?? I feel that scripture shows a tremendous love between father and son. (God and Christ Jesus) and we (humans) are nothing but a gift from father to son. If God were creating a gift for His son, why would he only choose some? If every thing He created is/was perfect, why not allow all to be given? I am truly sorrowed by the idea that the God I believe in would not offer hope of eternal life with Him to every single person He created.. Why should my eternal life or death be any different than the next? I sin and make mistakes just as much as the next guy and yet God gave me eternal life and not that next guy.. I am like I said, intrigued and saddened by this thought.. Before I forget though, it seems as if choice is still mans... Pilgrim made it sound as if I make my choices but God guides me by circumstances and things of the sort WITHOUT changing my will or bending my will... If I am walking down a hall and there are hundreds of doors leading either left or right and I want to walk in a door but God does not want me there so he shuts it.. Is that not forcing me somewhere else? Sure I may choose to walk through another door but my desire was still the first door.. I know also that I may find greater joy in door two than the first I would have chosen and God knew that and that is the reason he closed the first door yet my question still remains.. is that not the same?

CMH,

In response to your questions:


here are a few questions for you to consider:

As you know from Scripture, some of the angels created by God rebelled against him while others did not. As you also must know, God has never offered salvation to those who rebelled: For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. (Heb. 2:16)

Question 1) Is God perfectly holy and just in his treatment of demons?

Question 2) Does God's treatment of the demons cause you to praise him for his holiness and justice?

Question 3) Has God bound himself to not display his holiness and justice in his treatment of the children of Adam?

Question 4) If no to (3), who are you, o man, to desire for God to be so bound?

Question 5) If yes to (3), please exegete Scriptures detailing this self-binding of God.

In reply to:


Paul S has nailed it, above (even though he answered your questions with questions). There are two sides to God's character - His justice and His mercy. His purpose is to display both in creation.

Now if God is obligated to show mercy to rebels, how can we call it mercy? If He chooses to show mercy to one, how does that obligate Him to show mercy to all? And if He shows mercy to all, what of His justice?

And if God truly wants to show mercy to all, but is being thwarted by human "free will," then He is not all mighty after all.

Jesus was asked this same kind of question about the seeming unfairness of providence (see Luke 13:1-5). Where was God when the tower of Siloam fell on innocent passers-by? What about the innocent Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices? Christ's answer was a terse as the Deuteronomy passage above:


The Galileans and victims of the Siloam tower collapse were not innocent victims who deserved better than they got, according to Jesus. They all deserved what they received. NO ONE IS INNOCENT, and God is under no obligation to show mercy to anyone.

The wonder is not that God shows mercy to some and justice to the rest. The wonder is that God shows mercy to anyone at all!

Only once in history has an innocent ever suffered.

If any act of God should truly offend us, the Cross is it. A completely innocent, totally pure, sinless and perfect Man suffered and died for the wrongdoing of others.

Was that unfair? Absolutely yes. Yet was God unjust? Absolutely not.

Since I'm late to this discussion I'm not sure what has been said before so forgive me if I repeat a point that's already been made. BTW, Hello to all - obviously I'm new here as far as posting goes.

If we're talking about salvation, then the choice belongs to God alone. If left to yourself you would never choose God. For example:





Even your faith is given by God. For example:






If we're talking about God's providence in the choices we make in everyday life, then as the saying goes, "man proposes, but God disposes."





Here are a couple of examples of man's will and God's providence working together:

I think I misstated my question about God offering all of His creation hope and salvation.. I never intended for it to sound as if God was obligated to show mercy to everyone if He offered it to one person.. My question would probably be better asked like this: (I guess my question might only make sense to me from a non reformed view)If I was offered/given hope, why would God not offer/give it to the next? Maybe I have an extreme case of compassion or something but I do not feel better about myself in a view that I was chosen over another FOR NO REASON.. God chose me... Great.. But what about my friend Bob, or Jason, or Joey, or Brian?? Why was I chosen instead of them? Am I any better? I think not.. I am saddened by this choice of God not because I think it was a bad choice or wrong choice, but because I was given/offered something that they could never experience.. I feel as though my friendship with them is not pointless because they are not "elect".. (I understand that I do not know who is "elect" and who is not and therefore should never assume) yet I feel as if my time here on earth is wasted because I can not offer the good news to everyone and even have it considered...

I want to ask a question that is WAY hypothetical yet one that bugs me every day... Who are we to define "works"?? Is a choice a "work"? Why could God not made His "election" of people based on His foreknowledge, (foreknowledge in webster dictionary means:–noun
knowledge of something before it exists or happens; prescience: Did you have any foreknowledge of the scheme?) By this definition could God not made His choice of election based on who Hew knew would accept?? I feel that when I make a decision about something to believe or not to believe as not being a work... When I made my decision to believe or not to believe we landed man on the moon, was that really a "work"??? If your answer is yes, I would love to know how you define "work" and if your answer is no; What says God did not do that? (I also understand that I will probably be told that our salvation is not from ANYTHING WE DO, DID, or WILL DO, but to say that God could not ALLOW His own decision to be based on that sounds like we are taking power and authority from God..)

I ask what probably seems like elementary questions but please remember that I am uneducated in the ways of scriptures and such and am just trying to find truth..(in other words, please be gentle.. I do not hope to start a fight in which people are having to use !!!!!!!! in there sentences..)

Greetings C.M.H,


The Scriptures don't say that we are elect for no reason at all. We are chosen according to the council and purpose of God's will through His wisdom and insight. This, of course, bugs us because we want to know what all of this entails. Unfortunately, we're just not told. I can only guess that there is a very good reason for this "mystery."


As far as your concern for your friends go, just remember that Christ told us to preach the Gospel indiscriminately because we just don't know who is elect and who is not. Just because a person doesn't believe now doesn't mean we have the right to "write them off" as reprobate.

Mat 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations . . .



We don't. The inspired Scriptures do that for us. Here's one of the best to help us do that:


We can see from the preceding quote that faith, belief and trust are "counted" as righteousness and that they are "apart from works." I also pointed out in the "predestination" thread that faith and repentance are granted to the elect by God so that even these things are not your own and therefore cannot be considered "works."

P.S. I hope I'm being sensitive to your struggle with these things as you have asked. I, as well as many others, can relate to what you're going through. Believe me . . . been there, done that.

I have a couple of questions regarding your premise that you stated .

On what basis does God know this? Is He looking into the future or does He know our disposition by the way He made us.

Regarding the former, if he know by looking into the future is He responsible for bringing two Christians together for marriage or is it just a random occurrence. IOW, He foreknows how the randomness of men will play out, but He does not take an active part in it. But, I think you would say that God played a big part in bringing the two together, based on His knowing who will accept. I just don't see how God is providential in all (or most) things
except salvation.

If the latter, then that is really not a choice on our part.