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made of one blood all nations of men?
Pierdut:
I wanted to avoid talking about race on here but that didn't last very long. I said in another thread that there are certains things about me that are from a scriptural point of view contrary to being Christ's desciple; things I cannot change and which have no way out. Unlike my sexual sins which can be fixed once married to a woman, and it's then acceptable to God; this "idol of the heart" or whatever you want to call it I see no way of making it "acceptable." So if it's a "sin" I see no way of making it disappear. I can't just disregard everything I know, deny reality, and start believing falsehoods. But I am starting to no longer care because I have my own problems, and so why should I care about the future of this country, of future generations; about the fate of this world? I can see society decaying before my very eyes - in America, in Europe, in Australia, etc.
I wish I never heard of God or Jesus or even this site, because I see people that are ignorant, are atheists, that never once prayed to God, never believed in Him and they have good and decent lives. Whereas my life is a mess, everything always goes horribly wrong for me (and again today, another disappointment) no matter how hard I try. So I have to conclude that God is working against me and not letting me succeed in life. You might say that it's because of my sins or whatever, but I tried to change and do better but I always ended up doing the same things I repented of. And the main reason for repenting was so that God would have mercy because life's become so unbearable, so miserable, so disappointing. So it seems like I am in limbo or something.
Dave in Tenn:
Trust me, it's not that I have no compassion for you. You are experiencing what I went through years ago, and it lasted for decades. Ray said you cannot come to really love God until you have first hated Him. Been there...done that. The house we've built on the sand has to fall, and GREAT is the fall.
You had every intention, you say, of not bringing this up, but you did anyway. You don't have a free will, and I'll let you know now I didn't believe for a minute you could go without bringing it up.
You think you have the answers for the world's problems, and if all those pesky OTHER people will just do right, the world would be better. But you DON'T have them. And you CAN'T have them. Neither can I. We are beasts. GOD is God.
Yes, the ungodly have easier lives often...not all, but many. And we'll think that is unfair until we don't any more. You "tried to change" and do better, but you CAN'T. Neither can I by my own will. But you WILL change. Guaranteed.
You bemoan your life, and that's understandable. You will think THAT is unfair until you don't any more. You don't recognize the mercy God has already had on you. And you are in limbo or something. Salvation is a process. It has a beginning and an end. Most of us are somewhere in-between, hanging on by faith.
NOTHING is harder to get rid of than a deeply held set of beliefs. I know this is true. I grew up primarily in the American south, after all. Even when we WANT to, we can't until they are replaced with the mind of Christ. The "light" you think you have is darkness, but nobody will be able to convince you of that except the Spirit of God. It's not love, peace, joy. It's worry, indignation, and if not outright HATE, it's ignorance.
I'm not going to promise you an easy time of it, or predict how long it will take, but our Apostle Paul, before his conversion, had possibly a more deeply ingrained sense of "racial" separatism than you have, yet he is the one who declared us all of one blood. He counted all that baggage that came before (and then some) as dung. The Lord changed him, and He will change you too.
Stay or go. It's your choice and you will make the one He has predetermined.
Kat:
Hi Loretta,
You know it amazes me now how much I used to blindly accept that those 'learned' men of the church taught. When Ray brought up the idea that there were people before Adam, I remember thinking, wow that does make sense. It was at his 2008 Nashville conference when he was discussing a lot of scientific evidence that shows there was no worldwide flood that he mentioned this. Now he just briefly spoke about there were people long before Adam and did not get into any of the proof archaeologist has uncovered. But here is a few sections where he mentioned it.
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,9130.msg76395.html#msg76395 -----
Now I talked a little, not during the conference so much, but in some of the bull sessions in the evening we had. Where it was said, ‘were Adam and Eve the first humans?’ Well, I said, not necessarily and I gave numerous reasons for that. I thought of another one here just yesterday, so I’ll throw this out just for fun and just to think about. I’m not making some big stand on this.
v
Now when we come to Adam and Eve, He gives them a name and we know it’s just one. Are they the first ones though? Maybe not. Because we later have Cain, that says his sentence is too great, wherever I go, they will kill me (Gen. 4:13-14). Who will kill him? Who? There was only Abel and he killed Abel. So if there’s only Adam and Eve and their two sons, Cain and Abel… well Cain killed Abel, so now there’s only one man left, and his mother and father. He says to God, wherever I go, “anyone who finds me will kill me." Who? He killed the only other man alive on earth. Well if we interpret it that way, there are problems. Then Cain took a wife… so there’d be all these other things to contend with and so on. Alright.
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,8385.msg76394.html#msg76394 ------------
So He made the fowl of the air and the fish in the sea and on the next day before He made the first humans… I’m not sure that was Adam and Eve, because Adam comes along in chapter 2. But God said in verse 25, “And God made the wild-beast of the land after its kind, and the tame-beast after its kind, and every creeping thing of the ground, after its kind.”
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Ray was saying that he believes there is a significant amount of time between God creating male & female in Genesis chapter 1 and God making Adam & Eve in Genesis chapter 2. He also showed the Hebrew has different words to describe God 'creating' males & females in Genesis 1, compared to God 'making' Adam & Eve in Genesis 2.
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,9502.msg80842.html#msg80842--------
In Genesis it says, “in the beginning God created,“ the word is bara and it means to bring in something new, something really new. In Exodus 20, it says “for in six days God made…” First of all, even the translators knew not to put create. They put “created” in Genesis 1:1, but not in Exodus 20:11. Why didn’t they put, for in six days God created the heavens and the earth? Because He didn’t do that in six days. Then what did He do in six days? He “made” the heavens and the earth. What’s the difference? All the difference in the world.
In Genesis 1:1, He brought into existence everything that exists in the universe. From day one through day six He formed all of that into everything as we now see it in the universe. Two totally different operations. Totally, totally different, they are not synonymous.
The word bara (created) and the word asah (made) are two different words and they mean two different things. In the beginning He created it all, it was all there. But it wasn’t until certain things transpired before He began His work of asah.
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So anyway that does give you a lot to think about.
Hi Pierdut,
The sovereignty of God is a very hard thing to grasp on to and really believe. If you believe that God is sovereign than you know He is in control of everything "knowing the end from the beginning," and that what is happening is this world is according to HIS plan and we really have no say in the matter.
We can stand down here is all our self determined righteousness and tell Him how wrong He has gotten it, how messed up things are and if He would just listen to us we could tell Him what needs to be done to fix it... Can't you see how arrogant that attitude is, think about how He answered Job out of the whirlwind.
Job 38:1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:
v. 2 "Who is this who darkens counsel
By words without knowledge?
v. 3 Now prepare yourself like a man;
I will question you, and you shall answer Me.
v. 4 "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding.
v. 5 Who determined its measurements?
Surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
What I'm trying to say is until you really let go of the idea that YOU can do anything right; in your life, for this society or anything at all, you will never be at peace. We are absolutely carnal minded, arrogant, ignorant beast, pure and simple, there is nothing good in us.
God has a plan... IT'S PERFECT! It doesn't matter if we can't understand it now or cannot comprehend why things must be as they are now, He is not going to deviate off course because we don't accept His sovereignty and wisdom in this.
The beast must be recognizing that you are getting close to the truth, because it sure is putting up a fight, it will not go down easily. Now I believe Ray said something about how hard getting saved is.
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,3849.0.html -----------
“getting saved” is the hardest most difficult thing that any human being in the history of the universe will ever do. There is nothing harder than “getting saved.” Are you hearing me? It is the hardest thing any human being will ever do in all of eternity. It’s the ultimate hard task. But, when you read the scriptures, it doesn’t sound that way.
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mercy, peace and love
Kat
microlink:
Thanks Kat ,
Neat post and pretty long. Each time I re-read or re-listen to Rays material I glean additional information that I did not catch before.
The analysis of the creation of man is really a new way of looking at this that I did not see anyone even consider this idea before Ray's mentioning it.
Deep and insightful. I am still dwelling on Gen 1:25 and when that may have occurred, Gen. 2:7 and when that occurred. Likely not at the same time based on Ray's teaching. Still pondering these things. And the first time God calls the man Adam is in Gen 2:19.
I just listened to Ray first message from Nashville in 2007 and found that background interesting and he does mention you in that message. Keep up the good work.
Nathan:
--- Quote ---Let me throw this in the stew pot.
Adam is the Hebrew word for man, mankind, humankind.
Eve is the mother of all living. If Eve came along after the creation of other humans, wouldn't that make her the mother of some of the living?
--- End quote ---
Very true. This could also tie in the term "one blood" to mean just what it says. The Genesis account definitely seems to point to pre-Adamic man, but there are Scriptures that make it difficult to have 100% certainty about this topic.
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