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Good evening everyone!

It's a blessing to know so many here that are serious students of God's Word!
Wabigoon probably never expected Romans 8:28 to bring up so much debate when he posted it. 😄
It's a precious promise to those who meet the requirements. I wish that I was adept at sending audio files, because I sing this verse with those who like to sing and memorize Scripture that way.

The second half of the verse is what comes into question with many folks.
"...To those who are the called according to His purpose."

Who's this talking about?
Those who are saved.
Lets walk down the Romans road for that straight way to heaven. Jesus said in John 14:6

"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

The first question that requires an answer in order to get to the heart of the issue is....
1. Who needs to be saved?

Romans 3:10
"As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one."
Why?
Isaiah says, "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away."

I cleaned a Possum cage and I wouldn't even think of wiping my mouth off with that filthy rag. Stink, flies, possum poop, yuk; now that's an illustration of what our "righteous" deeds (good works) are to God in regards to salvation.
Why?

"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;". Romans 3:23
Does that apply to you? Have you ever sinned? IF you have always been and always be perfect, this doesn't apply to you. Maybe you haven't committed murder, but have you ever told a lie?

Romans 6:
23
"For the wages of sin is death...."

Death? Well EVERYBODY dies sooner or later.
But, the death here is the eternal death of the human spirit, not the mere body. Revelation of Jesus Christ explains in frightening details what this means in 20:14, 15; & 21:8
"And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."
"But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death."

Now there's a serious promise. How many murders would a killer have to kill to be considered a murderer?
How many lies to be a liar?
There's a reason why these are both different degrees of sin yet in the same list.
2. According to God, where do you deserve to go some day?
This point is extremely important. If you can not admit your condemnation to a completely holy and righteous God, you can not see your personal need for Him to save you.

The Bible tells us that it's not wise to compare yourself to others. In doing so we are trying to justify ourselves by our own righteousness, which is holding up a dirty diaper to the Lord and saying " I've got a bunch of these for You to consider, so why not let me into heaven? These rags of my righteous works should pay for my tens of thousands of sins....right?"
Wrong!

"Lord, I've gotten baptized, tried to obey the law, treated others with respect, give to the lodge, the church, the nra, don't cuss, don't chew, don't go with girls that do!
I gave my life to You, repent of all my sins.!"
Those are all works of self righteousness....filthy rags.

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.". Eph. 2... Likewise on that Romans road 4:5
"But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."

Notice the following.
A. We are UNgodly.
B. This is to those who "worketh NOT."
C. Who are we to believe upon so we call be justified in His eyes?
D. Salvation is of faith in Him, because it is a gift that has been fully paid for.

"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.". Romans 5:8
6:23 "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Some here have given an invitation to the Savior, when He has told you to come unto Him in complete faith. Others gave their life or heart to Him....another work.
He is the One and only accepted Sacrifice Who gave His life after suffering for your sins.
From the minute you transfer the object of your faith....your filthy rags to INSTEAD making The crucified Savior the Object of faith..... that is when He gives that gift of everlasting life. You can never go to hell from that point on. What about sins? You will be treated as sons. Discipline on earth in time, but never hell. It will hurt, but Jesus is the only One Who paid for them.
3. What must you do to be saved?

"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved."

Pray now,

Dear God,
I don't deserve to go to heaven. If I got what I deserve it would be hell. There's no amount of works that I can do to be saved. So right now, I place my trust in the Savior, Your Son Jesus. He suffered terrible torments for what I have done against You....so that I will not suffer the torments of hell. Please give me Your promised gift of everlasting life.
Thank You very much Lord.
Amen."

Please PM me immediately upon praying this prayer.
I want to pray for you and be a blessing to you any way possible.

Happy Camper

I really believe that God in his infinite mercy will forgive you for believing that. But he did say through His messenger Jesus "Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven."
Torpedoed Paul right there. But you see, Paul had no idea Jesus said that. He never met Jesus except his claims of meeting Him out on a lonely road and even at that he couldn't keep the story straight. I hope Paul repented before his Roman protectors turned on him and killed him.

Thanks good men we may be preaching to the choir, better than no preaching at all.

You can't be serious.

Happy Camper, the "sinner's prayer", another difficult topic.

Reconcile this:

From the minute you transfer the object of your faith....your filthy rags to INSTEAD making The crucified Savior the Object of faith..... that is when He gives that gift of everlasting life. You can never go to hell from that point on. What about sins? You will be treated as sons. Discipline on earth in time, but never hell. It will hurt, but Jesus is the only One Who paid for them.

To this:

3 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears[a] we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

4 Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. 5 You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's[b] seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. 10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

A dude was walking to class and a guy in front of him dropped $10. First guy ran and picked it up and having just got out of bible studies asked himself, “What Would Jesus Do?”

So he turned it into wine.

Yep, just trying to get folks to thinking and researching. But I am pretty sure you and I just as well talk to a fence post as each other.

Hastings,

All mighty God, the creator of Heaven and Earth, couldn't get his word pure but we can? Who decides? You? Me? Trump? Obama? Can we all choose differently, picking what we like and tossing out what we don't? Man that would make it easy. What about Orthodox Jews that don't believe in the New Testament all together? Who is the authority on this?

I go with Jesus. And John the Baptist. And Jesus' brother James. The apostles Jesus publicly chose. And the Old Testament. I don't go with anyone that opposes Jesus' personally and repeatedly stated doctrine of salvation through repentance exemplified by works and as John said "works meet for repentance". James was obviously written in contradiction to Paul. In Revelation Jesus commended the Ephesians for giving Paul the boot. In a letter to Timothy Paul lamented that Ephesus had turned against him. I can't get past the book of Romans where Paul sets up the civil government as an agent of GOD. Check it out with an open mind. God won't punish you for seeking truth if he is just. Are you a Southern Baptist?

Hastings I"m sorry but your position does not dignify a response other than its simply completely wrong and extremely convoluted.

I am not Southern Baptist. I am a member of no denomination. I lean Presbyterian though do like a proper Baptism (but do not believe being dunked saves a person) .

Yes, ctsmith, to know Him is to place 100% of your trust in Him for salvation. That is when you become a child of God..... spiritually born into His family.

So others know the address, you are showing I John.
From the first few verses, it clearly addresses an audience of believers who have already obeyed the gospel by believing in Jesus. He goes on in the same letter to assure them that once they are saved, they will always be saved.
" And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God."
I John 5:11-13

What John states in his 3 letters is addressed to a saved audience that already have the gift of eternal life.
On the contrary, who he addresses in his larger gospel is primarily to a lost audience who has no assurance of heaven. See John 3:36 & 20:31

"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
"But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name."

It's as clear as our beautiful cloudless sky today.
After making Jesus Christ the Object of your faith, read the gospel of (St.)John KJV.
This clarifies the many supposed contradictions and confusions that the so called "reverends" cause to their churches. It's no wonder that Jesus rebuked them more harshly than any others.

May I recommend to all to prayerfully go back and study the Questions and Answers clearly stated in my previous post. There's much to gain by setting aside the other distractions for an evening or morning and settling that issue. There's nothing more important.

Christ is not illogical. He is not unjust. Show me a scripture saying He predestined some of His creation to death and others to life, rather than showing me a scripture with the word predestined in it.

Im betting you're predestined to jump if stuck with a hot poker.

Once saved, always saved, yes. But the question becomes ARE we saved. John spells out a simple test that's hard to work around, but you tried.

PS. My interpretation of this question is the result of only contemplation of just and unjust in the brain He gave me to study scripture and stand up for HIM and from the conclusions HE put in my head from reading this thread and my rudimentary knowledge of scripture.

I never studied Theology and truthfully dont know what youre talking about. I pulled up the definition of Calvanism yesterday, not having ever seen in scripture what the word means.

Im not saying we arent predestined to hell or heaven, im saying to me, it doesnt add up to what a life of scripture has impressed on me.

Maybe you're right. Maybe thats why theres going to be a great gnashing of teeth, those being believers who studied His word diligently, tried to emulate Him, tithed and still will end up going to hell, but I dont think so.

"The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.'' Proverbs 16:4

''Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory.'' - Romans 9:21-23


"And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? Or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I the Lord?" Exodus 4:11

Then therein may lie the problem. You keep making the same comment propping up double predestination as a straw man. You say that you haven’t studied theology just contemplating scripture based on a rudimentary knowledge.

Based on reading the thread there isn’t one person posting who hasn’t been influenced in the negative by bad theology. I include myself in that number. Modern Christian doctrine in America is strongly influenced by Charles Finney and Wesley’s Christian perfection doctrine. Works based salvation.

If you are truly looking to understand scriptural teaching on predestination a good starting point is to read a few papers online that contrast “the doctrine of glory” with “the doctrine of the cross”.

Good one!😊

To a certain extent we’re all stuck in our time and place with its philosophical presuppositions and blind spots. That’s been true of those who have thought about God since the very beginning; we don’t know what we don’t know, and we aren’t fully conscious of the way that our culture informs our interpretation/application of the ideas in Scripture.

A careful examination of these in light of the many wise men of the past (who again, are all fallible and had similar baggage to us) has been very helpful to me as I’ve sought to know God better and to be transformed into the likeness of His Son.

This exercise isn’t necessarily equally helpful to everyone, but at the very least realizing that each of us has severe limitations and blind spots when it comes to the things of God allows for the intellectual honesty and humility necessary to begin.



Salvation through faith as a work in and of itself, “If you would only bring your faith to the table you’ll be saved...” plus sentimentalism which manipulated the emotions rather than engaging the whole man by God’s word and through the power of the Holy Spirit by use of His appointed means.

A picture from last Sunday at church. We had a baptism, the baby was good as gold. I think Pastor Missy has a great way with the babies.