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Kat:
Stello, "always pray" (21:36; 2 Thess 1:11) and do the best you can do... you are in God's hands.
--- Quote from: Wittenberg on May 09, 2016, 04:15:10 PM ---You say rightly that God causes evil. Does He cause men to do evil? If so, then He causes sin in men. Otherwise God's evil is limited to lightning strikes and other natural disasters.
--- End quote ---
God is certainly the 'first cause' of all things in that He is the original Designer and Creator (through Christ, Eph 3:9) of everything to be as it is, that's why He is the 'first' cause... He put all the laws of the universe in effect to start with, He created all of us so spiritually weak that we cannot resist the lusts of the flesh, and then created Satan to be His adversary/enemy, who is so cleaver and cunning that we cannot resist his influence, without the Spirit of God. God does not have to directly cause/tempt a person to sin, He has already designed the whole creation to accomplish that.
James 1:13 Let no one say when he is tempted G3985 (to test (objectively), that is, endeavor, scrutinize, entice, discipline: - assay, examine, go about, prove, tempt (-er), try.), "I am tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.
v. 14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.
v. 15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.
http://www.forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,2477.0.html -----------------
"Free Will" does not exist because it is a physiologically impossibility and the Scriptures CONDEMN any such vanity-crazed idea.
Have you ever heard of the law of "cause and effect." It means for every effect there is a CAUSE. This IS scientific. Therefore all of your thoughts and actions ARE CAUSED by something. Usually something that you are not even aware of, but being caused nonetheless. This "cause" is what is responsible for your thoughts and actions. And once something is "caused" to happen, it could not have been otherwise.
God is the FIRST CAUSE of all law and matter. I use the Scriptures to prove to Christians that they have no free will, as they claim to actually believe the Scriptures. I would not use the Scriptures to prove to an athiestic evolutionary scientist that he has no free will. There I would use scientific law.
http://www.forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,2354.0.html --------------------
Dear Whirlwind:
You are not understanding this subject and the principle behind it. You ask: "Is it man making the choices or is it God's predestination of things?" It is BOTH. Listen: God is SOVEREIGN! Man therefore has NO FREE WILL OR NO FREE CHOICE. That's it. That's all there is to it. That IS the principle. That IS the Truth. That IS what the Bible teaches. It is not a contradiction to say that "Man makes his own choices." You and millions of other just think it is a contradiction to say man makes his own choices if indeed God is sovereign and God is behind all in His creation. It is not a contradiction. It only sounds like a contradiction for those who do not believe that "God is Sovereign, and Man has no free will."
I hardly know what else to tell you. God made man's heart. Man did not make his own heart, or his body, or his mind, or his brain, or his will, or his hopes and dreams. They are all PREDESTINATED by the foreknowledge of God. So then we don't make choices, right? NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO....WE DO MAKE CHOICES. It's just that they are CAUSED by things we can't always see. Sometimes we can see what makes our choices and some times we can't, but either way THEY ARE CAUSED. And God, not us, already knows in advance the outcome of all of those caused choices. How does He do that? He is very smart (has over a 150 IQ), plus HE IS SOVEREIGN, ALL WISE, AND ALL POWERFUL.....and don't forget LOVE.
So, does God FORCE EVIL MEN TO RAPE LITTLE GIRLS? Well, does He? Does God being Sovereign prove that God forces evil men to rape little girls? That's what evil theologians deduce from the truth of no free will. They turn the Sovereignty of God into one of the biggest evils in the universe. If God is Sovereign, then God must be EVIL, because there is so much evil in the world, and God is in control of all things, right? Wrong, wrong, wrong! Man makes all his own choices. Just because they are CAUSED does not mean that he does not make them. He is, in fact, CAUSED TO MAKE HIS CHOICES. But God does not directly do this. He is responsible, but He does not directly cause those choices. Things like the Devil do such things. And who created the Devil? That's right, that One Who is Sovereign and in charge of all things. Evil men like raping just like evil theologians like stealing widow's social security money. God doesn't make them do it--THEY LIKE TO DO IT. They volunteer with little outside influence. God made humanity this way. He created them spiritually weak. Eve couldn't help but sin. God has a good purpose and God will straighten it all out in the end.
I guess I could just keep writing and writing and writing and one day someone will say................OHHHHHH, now I get it. Maybe today is your day. I'm pulling for ya!!!
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mercy, peace and love
Kat
stello:
Everyone, thanks for your help, prayers and advice. God is such an amazing God, i cry inside when i think of how much sin i do. I know i am not worthy of his smallest mercy but everything i have God has given it to me and i know i don't deserve any of it. I yearn so much to love Him with all my heart, but as you all have shown me, it is a process. I'm very grateful for God's love and mercy and i so look forward to the day when i am completely saved. Not just me but everyone of us. I don't know any of you personally but i love you all.
stello
AwesomeSavior:
Stello:
I can relate to your long journey (Luke 15:13). I have learned a couple of things in regards to this whole situation of overcoming:
1) The Beast Within does not want to be deposed of its throne, and this beast is described as "exceeding strong" (Daniel 7:7). At times, it is a titanic struggle of overcoming certain sins, and eventually everyone is going to journey down this path (Revelation 21:7). You are heading down this "wit's end" (Psalm 107:27) path right now, in this lifetime. Even though it seems strange, "rejoice, again I say rejoice!" (Philippians 4:4). And that whole chapter of Psalm 107 is very revealing. It's worth a look.
2) "Resist the devil, and he will flee" (James 4:7). There is a lot involved in this verse. Satan is a master at using a) guilt and b) shame in conjunction with c) the temptation, in order to keep us in bondage to the same sins over and over again. This is the way he works: An evil thought will enter your mind, and as soon as you contemplate this thought (which is not sinning), the devil will hit you with a Mike Tyson combination of guilt and/or shame for 1) the thought appearing in your mind (even though it was the devil which put it there!), and 2) reminding you of your past failures in this particular area of sin. He is brutal. It comes down to a process of training your mind to recognize HOW he is attacking you, personally (Matthew 16:23). Until you learn this 3 pronged strategy of the wicked one, you will struggle in your efforts to overcome that particular sin. "We are not ignorant of his schemes" (2 Corinthians 2:11), even though we actually ARE ignorant of the devil's schemes, until the Father's appointed time for us to learn righteousness. It's no wonder the Bible refers to Satan as "more subtle than ANY BEAST which the Lord God had made". (Genesis 3:1) INDEED, he IS!
I hope this helps, as it helped me greatly during this struggle to mentally analyze what was occurring during my temptations. There is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9), and this goes for the devil's schemes as well.
God Bless You.
Dean
cheekie3:
stello -
Our Heavenly Father looks at the desires of our hearts. He judges our heart's desires. He also forgives all of our sins if we forgive all others who sin against us.
I pray on these lines each and every day - I repent of all my sins and I forgive all those who have sinned against me - and I sometimes think of the pain caused to me by individual people and this helps me to choose to forgive them in spite of my hurt.
I always pour out my heart to Him - and ask that He guide me each and every step of the way - after all He prepares the steps we all must walk (and this includes the Good and the Wicked).
I also state my heart's desire to Him - that I do all that He Commands - and that I please Him by the way I conduct my Life - with His awesome Help each and every step of the way.
There are certain groups of people who believe that we are all God or gods (and this power is within us all) - but the Scriptures state that we are born naturally and He then (each of us, in the time of His selection in this Age or the Next Age) are transformed a day at a time into His Image (and characteristics - which are the nine-fold Fruit of His Holy Spirit and Personality).
I hope this helps you a little.
Kind Regards.
George.
rick:
Hi Stello,
Jesus is the great deliver, it is Christ who is going to save us from ourselves we cannot do it but Christ can and not only can He, He wills that all men be saved and what God wills comes to pass in His time not ours.
It's good to see that we are not ok because that tells us Christ is working with us.
God bless.
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