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Results from: Answers On or After: Thu 12/31/70 Author: paulta Ordered by Date |
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Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | Why so many destined for Hell? | 1 Pet 2:8 | paulta | 70297 | ||
'The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance' (2 Pet 3:9) While I agree with the literal implication of 1 Pet 2:8, it doesn't necessarily have to be a cause for fear or anguish with respect to family members. The reason is that, despite the fact that we live in a universe which is under the control of Almighty God (see my notes on Rom 9:18 with respect to predestination vs free will), there is abundant Scripture that would suggest, paradoxically, that God's heart can be turned by the intercessional prayers of man. My favourite examples in this regard are found in the Torah. For example, in Numbers 14:11-20, the intercessional prayer of one humble man - Moses - caused God to change His mind about destroying Israel. That is, the prayer of one man saved 2,000,000-plus lives from instant death at the hands of an angry God. Two other examples where intercessional prayer turned the heart of God away from destroying all His people are found in Numbers 16:20-24, and Exodus 32:9-14 (the golden calf incident). The point is this: prayer is capable of causing God to look upon the lives of each of your sister's children with mercy, and to save them from eternal death, which is what the Israelites faced if Moses hadn't intervened on their behalf as a kind of pre-Christ high priest. It is not productive to worry about whether or not each of those children is predestined for destruction. Rather, it is our job to pray for the lost - particularly those who we love - knowing that if we ask we shall receive (Lk 11:9-13), and that there is strong Biblical precedent pointing to the capacity of man to change God's mind through intercessional prayer. |
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2 | does this mean we aren't born of God. | 1 John 3:9 | paulta | 60042 | ||
I have reproduced here a part of Kalos' response to Elice Fox' question: 'Can believers sin for extended periods of time? And how can such people know whether their sin is a temporary failure or proof that they are unsaved? Obviously even in Scripture we see that believers sometimes sin grievously and over long periods of time. David is one example (2 Samuel 11-12; Psalm 51); Lot is another (2 Peter 2:7-9). Christians who sin in such a fashion should not expect to enjoy assurance, however. Of course, true believers do not lose their salvation when they sin (cf. Romans 8:35-39), but even David testified that he had forfeited the joy of salvation (Psalm 51:12). We are urged in 2 Cor 13 (I think v5) to 'examine yourselves, test yourselves to discover whether you are in the faith'. I wouldn't go so far as to say 'of course' you don't lose your salvation when you sin - John's letters to the churches at Sardis and Laodicea are written to 'Christians' on the highway to hell because of their hypocritical lifestyle (and we all know from Mt 23 how Jesus felt about hypocrites). True salvation is evidenced by conduct; this conduct is weighed up by God over whatever time period He has allocated to you. Again, look at the way God assesses the churches in Revelation: He weighs their good conduct against their bad, and comes up with an assessment based on the balance of the two. John the Baptist said "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance" - true repentance (which is the foundation of salvation) is measured and evidenced by changed conduct and increasing fruitfulness. |
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