bible-truths.com/forums

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Forum related how to's?  Post your questions to the membership.


.

Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: Free Will Email To Ray  (Read 5867 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

hillsbororiver

  • Guest
Free Will Email To Ray
« on: January 28, 2008, 07:58:48 PM »

This email was posted yesterday, and I am quite sure there will be more of this type to follow, it is not an easy concept to accept, the fact that we live within a very definite and confined set of perameters and we either embrace or despise the things that are put in our path, we do not establish the path, it is all God;



        Mr. Smith,
         
        Greetings to you brother.  As far as your teaching on the myth of free will, I believe what you teach on it, but now I was wondering if you have touched on the subject of Yahweh our Father, does He have free will?  Here is what I found in Job:
         
        Job 2:3 (Young's Literal Translation)
          3And Jehovah saith unto the Adversary, `Hast thou set thy heart unto My servant Job because there is none like him in the land, a man perfect and upright, fearing God and turning aside from evil? and still he is keeping hold on his integrity, and thou dost move Me against him to swallow him up for nought!'
         
         
        So my question is is Yahweh, in this passage/context:

            *
              Free from "PRIOR CAUSES."
            *
              Free from "CONSTRAINT."
            *
              Free from "EXTERNAL CIRCUMSTANCES."

        Thank you brother.
         

        Dear Liebe:  I will be answering questions on "free will" till kingdom come. My last email was also on "free will." My 120 page paper on the subject answers the subject thoroughly, but people still think there is "wiggle" room in the Scriptures to contradict God's sovereignty and man's supposed free will.
         
        Are we now to assume from this verse in Job that SATAN HIMSELF is able to CAUSE GOD ALMIGHTY to do something that He had not planned for Himself?  Nonsense.
         
        The King James says, "thou MOVETH Me."  Did Satan actually and literally "move" God from where He was to a different position in this matter?  Again, nonsense.  The Hebrew word for "move" in this verse means to "seduce" or to "entice."  Now then, did Satan really "seduce" God Almighty and MOVE Him to take a different position from what He originally planned. TOTAL NONSENSE.
         
        Yes, Satan "seduced" God and "enticed" God, but it was about as effective as when God says in Malachi that the people "CURSED" God.  When the people "cursed" God, WAS GOD CURSED?  Of course not. When Satan "seduced and enticed" God, WAS GOD SEDUCED AND ENTICED?  Did Satan "seduction" WORK? Of course not.  God is still sovereign.
        God be with you,
        Ray
         
         
It is amazing how difficult it is for so many to grasp the sovereignity of God, I know that I had problems for a while trying to wrap my mind around this truth, our own minds reject this out of hand it is the Spirit of Christ which reveals and makes His Word alive in us.

His Peace and Wisdom to you,

Joe
Logged

Evan600

  • Guest
Re: Free Will Email To Ray
« Reply #1 on: January 28, 2008, 09:22:37 PM »

Hi Joe,

I'm glad that you posted that email here, and your thoughts about it.  Realizing that we don't have a 'free will' is an extremely hard concept to grasp.  It definetly takes the Spirit of God to reveal that to us.

Hope to see you in Nashville again this year!  I'm going to try to make it.

take care,

Jason
Logged

hillsbororiver

  • Guest
Re: Free Will Email To Ray
« Reply #2 on: January 28, 2008, 09:57:40 PM »

Hi Jason,

Good to hear from you Brother, yes I will be in Nashville. It is going to be a busy couple weeks as I have a wedding to attend in New York the following weekend.

Free will, sin, evil and what actually is God's plan for salvation are all tied in together and if we have a part of it skewered we tend to lose sight of what this experience in the flesh and on this earth truly entails.

I was just rereading the article The Origin of Satan, Evil and Sin, LOF Part II and it once again drove home some very pertinent points, here is a bit;


http://bible-truths.com/lake2.html

I heard a world-famous televangelist say in his sermon that it was never God’s intention that Adam and Eve disobey His command and sin by eating of the forbidden tree. Most Christians would agree. They think God did not want Adam to sin; and Adam did not need to sin. If Adam had not sinned, we would all be living in a giant Garden of Eden to this very day. We would be in perfect health, there would be no sorrow, we would have pleasure twenty-four hours a day, we would never die, we would be happy and God too would be happy.

If Adam had shown just a little restraint the world wouldn’t be in the giant mess it is in today. Oh really? Well, why then didn’t Adam exercise restraint. What went wrong? Did the first humans malfunction? Was there a flaw in their original design. God was the Designer; is God the blame? Not according to Christendom. Is He at least responsible? Not according to Christendom. But why not?

Now listen carefully. Here is wisdom beyond its years. When a scientist creates an experiment or machine that malfunctions, is he responsible for the malfunction? Yes. Does he hold the experiment or machine responsible? No. Does he hold God responsible? No. Okay.

Now then, according to Christendom, when God creates an experiment or machine that malfunctions, is He responsible for the malfunction? No. Does He hold the experiment or machine responsible? Yes. Does He hold man responsible? Yes. See the wisdom?

I have just shown you one reason why God calls the WISDOM of this world, STUPIDITY!

"For the wisdom of this world is foolishness [Greek: stupidity] with God. For it is written, He takes the wise in their own craftiness" (I Cor. 3:19).

First, Christendom assumes that God’s creation of humans malfunctioned -- they did NOT!

Second, they assume that God is not responsible and does not take responsibility -- He DOES!

One unscriptural assumption added to another unscriptural assumption does not equal a Bible Truth!

Few indeed have ever stopped long enough to consider that just maybe God intended for the world to be in the hellish mess that we find it. Not for all eternity, but for the present, for a period of time, for a great purpose. It just seems so wrong to Christian thought to believe that God would have purposed such an evil and unhappy world. But look at the alternative. Are we to believe that God tried (albeit unsuccessfully) to make a good creation, but was unaware of its potential to run amok? And ever since, God must therefore either lack the love for humanity to straighten it out, or He lacks the power and ability. But either way it disowns God’s sovereignty and presents us with a God Who either CANNOT or WILL NOT STOP THE INSANITY! They would have us believe that God’s solution to rid the world of sin and evil is to torture most of humanity in fire for all eternity.

The whole idea is blasphemous. If a carnal-minded human can take responsibility for an invention that malfunctions, I submit, that God is bigger and more responsible than puny man. Be it known to all that God takes full responsibility for His creation, and absolutely nothing in His creation is malfunctioning. Here’s the proof:

If a thousand Christians were given the assignment to write an essay describing the world as it was after God completed it, but before man sinned, I am positive that we would get one thousand essays describing the unbelievable beauty, harmony, and perfection of all creation including man and beast. However, would such essays be based on the Scriptures? Let’s look at a little understood Scripture.

"For the creature [and/or creation itself] was MADE subject to VANITY NOT WILLINGLY, but by reason of Him [that’s God] Who HATH SUBJECTED the same in hope. Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the BONDAGE OF CORRUPTION into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the WHOLE CREATION groans and travails IN PAIN until NOW" (Rom. 8:20-22)!

Wow! Did you know that Scripture is in the Bible? Have you ever meditated at length on its meaning? This one Scripture does much damage to Christian doctrine. From a strictly carnal-minded approach, this Scripture is devastating. Let’s see what these words entail from Strong’s GREEK DICTIONARY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT:

VANITY: empty, profitless, vain, transientness [temporary], depravity [wickedness].

BONDAGE: slavery, subjection, subserviency.

CORRUPTION: shrivel, wither, spoil, ruin, deprave, defile, destroy, decay, perish

GROAN: moan, calamity, be in straits, murmur, grief, grudge, anguish.

TRAVAIL: pangs, to pain together, travail as in birth.

PAIN: anguish, toil for daily subsistence, starving.


The force of these verses in Rom. 8:20-22 is inescapable. It was God HIMSELF Who subjected the whole creation to vanity, and He didn’t ask anyone’s permission before He did it. And it is only God Himself Who will deliver the whole creation from the bondage of corruption, pain, and suffering. Make no mistake about it: God is the Creator of evil, and He takes full responsibility for the deliverance from the consequences of all the evils that have caused the creation to "groan and travail in PAIN until NOW" as Paul describes. God takes responsibility for the temporary failures of creation so that He can take all the credit and glory for its successes.

And most of the glory that God will receive is from the glory that He gives to all mankind.

It was not possible for Satan NOT TO SIN -- he was created for the express purpose of being God’s Adversary, and so, of course, he was a sinner "FROM THE BEGINNING"!

It was not possible for Adam and Eve NOT TO SIN -- they were created for the express purpose of being molded into the "image of God," and so of course, they had to eat of the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil or they would have NEVER reached this first spiritual step in becoming LIKE GOD (in His IMAGE), a step of paramount DIVINE REQUISITE:

"And the LORD God said, Behold [consider, to perceive, to know, to understand], the man is BECOME AS ONE OF US [Hebrew for ‘God’ is elohiym which is the plural of elowahh, hence ‘us’], TO KNOW GOOD AND EVIL..." (Gen. 3:22).

Knowing "good and evil" is one of the most essential requisites in being formed in the image of God. To truly "know" both good and evil they HAD to partake of its source, which was the "TREE of the knowledge of good and evil," which then DEMANDED that they SIN in order to obtain this "knowledge." NO OTHER TREE IN THE GARDEN POSSESSED THIS NEEDED KNOWLEDGE!

And so it was GOD, and none other than GOD, Who intended from the beginning that Satan and man SIN! That does not make God a sinner, for a sin is a "mistake," a "missing of the mark," a "falling short of the glory of God," and God has NEVER MADE A MISTAKE OR FALLEN SHORT OF TOTAL PERFECTION! God knew what He was doing and how things would turn out BEFORE He created ANYTHING! "Declaring the end from the beginning..." (Isa. 46:10). Satan and man are "accountable" for their sins, because they sinned willingly from their heart, but God takes "responsibility" for their sins, and therefore had already provided them a Saviour BEFORE the foundation of the world:

"But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was FOREORDAINED BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD, but was manifested in these last times for you" (I Pet. 1:19-20).

"And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb [Christ] slain from the FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD" (Rev. 13:8).

Is anyone so naive and blind as to believe that God had prepared a Lamb, a Sacrifice, His SON, to be slain for the sins of the world at a time when theologians would have us believe God didn’t even KNOW there was shortly coming such a thing as SIN? God knew; God is smart! It was God Who created the tree of the knowledge of good and evil It was God Who placed it right in the middle of the garden to catch Eve’s eye. It was God Who made the tree particularly attractive and desirable. It was God who placed in the humans the desires and passions that would CAUSE them to partake of the forbidden fruit. It was God who placed Satan the serpent in the garden to tempt Eve and fill her head with the glories of enlightenment. It was God Who had ALREADY made preparation for their salvation through the slain Lamb of God.

Only ignorant and foolish theologians would ever charge God of being ignorant of the conduct and behavior of His own creation. It was not the temptation or deception entering INTO Eve that caused her to sin and bring separation from her Creator and God. It was what was already in her that caused her to sin. Proof:

"For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies" (Mat. 15:19).

Notice it: "And when the woman saw [in her heart] that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eye [in her heart], and a tree to be desired [in her heart] to make one wise [an idol of the heart], she took [’For out of the heart proceed ... thefts...’] of the fruit thereof, and did eat" (Gen. 3:6).

Did you notice that last phrase "...and did eat"? It was not the "eating" of the fruit that made her a sinner -- she had ALREADY sinned by looking, lusting, and fantasizing about her potential wisdom. It was AFTER she sinned that she "did eat."

The good news is that all of our suffering is for a grand purpose and will ultimately bring huge rewards. Just two verses before, Paul tells us how God subjected the whole creation to these many evils and he gives us this comforting thought:

"For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time [’groaning and travailing in pain together until now’ Ver 22] are not worthy to be compared with the GLORY which shall be revealed in US" (Ver. 18).

His Peace and Wisdom to you,

Joe


« Last Edit: January 28, 2008, 10:17:42 PM by hillsbororiver »
Logged

Deborah-Leigh

  • Guest
Re: Free Will Email To Ray
« Reply #3 on: January 29, 2008, 02:02:29 AM »

Hi Joe

I have also been thinking of the Myth of Free Will. It is as you say, a subject that requires the Spirit of Christ to reveal the Truth of it. Nothing happens outside of the Sovereignty of God. That is pretty amazing when I think that anyone who persecutes me, has no free will either!

That makes is easier to see them in a different perspective. How else are we to love our enemy if we think they have a "free will"!  :D

So I find that the application of this teaching touched me first and then spread to include others in the equation.

I believe that if Albert Einstein were to read Ray's teaching on the Myth of  Free Will, that he too would see the sense, depth and purity of it! Einstein said that there are only one of two ways to live life. You can live life either as if EVERYTHING is a MIRACLE or as though NOTHING is a miracle. Rather like either you will serve Christ or not. No one can have two masters!

Peace to you brother

Arcturus :)
Logged

hillsbororiver

  • Guest
Re: Free Will Email To Ray
« Reply #4 on: January 29, 2008, 10:58:41 AM »


I have also been thinking of the Myth of Free Will. It is as you say, a subject that requires the Spirit of Christ to reveal the Truth of it. Nothing happens outside of the Sovereignty of God. That is pretty amazing when I think that anyone who persecutes me, has no free will either!

That makes is easier to see them in a different perspective. How else are we to love our enemy if we think they have a "free will"!  :D


Hi Arcturus,

I agree wholeheartedly, it is sometimes very easy to forget that we are on the path God created for us and that the situations He presents us with is like an Artist who sculptures a plain, ordinary stone into a masterpiece of art.

Those among us in our daily lives who may annoy or even inspire anger are also part of this process and we must have patience and pray for discernment when dealing with them, God is directing their steps as well as ours.


Jer 10:23  O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.

It is easy to praise God for the good things we receive but how about when things are not so good do we then take God out of the equation and blame bad people or the devil or our own wickedness? It is difficult sometimes to keep the perspective that everything that happens flows from One Source, this life is not a playground for blissful happiness, it is more like a bootcamp. We give thanks to God for the obvious good things we enjoy but it is the very spiritually mature that give thanks for the evil we experience, but this evil is for our ultimate good, for our immortal good.

God does not deny His part in the things the world experiences.


Isa 45:7  I form the light and create darkness: I make peace and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Job understood this;

Job 2:9  Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.
 
Job 2:10  But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive  good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.

Isn't that remarkable? Job claims that we should expect to receive evil in our lives from God and "in all this Job did not sin with his lips."

We may not understand it or be joyful as we experience it but through faith and trust in Him we can and should pray for our will to align with His will and to have the strength to continue the race.

His Peace to you Sister,

Joe

 
Logged

Kat

  • Guest
Re: Free Will Email To Ray
« Reply #5 on: January 29, 2008, 11:48:26 AM »


There is no question we are put through it is this life.

Ecc 1:13 I applied my heart to inquiring and exploring by wisdom concerning all that is done under the heavens: it is an experience of evil Elohim has given to the sons of humanity to humble them by it. (CLV)

We read this Scripture and maybe we feel it's not fair to have to go through this experience of evil, but we don't have a choice do we.

Well maybe we just don't know why God is doing things the way He does.  I believe He has not yet revealed, things we just can't yet comperhend about all this.  Don't you suppose all these experiences we have to endure now are for a very grand reason and purpose.  Maybe some time in the future we will actually look back and be very thankful for all we experienced while in the flesh, both good and bad.

Just the way I look at this, because....

James 4:14  Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

mercy, peace and love
Kat

Logged

Patrick

  • Bible-Truths Forum Member
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 672
Re: Free Will Email To Ray
« Reply #6 on: January 29, 2008, 07:16:49 PM »

I suppose, with all my heart, that these experiences we have to endure now are for a very grand reason and purpose. Romans 8:29 is a pretty grand reason and purpose, I believe.
It's a tough one to swallow, but the Scripture is pretty clear.
Logged

ez2u

  • Guest
Re: Free Will Email To Ray
« Reply #7 on: January 30, 2008, 03:15:22 AM »

reading this post has help me.  I have known these scriptures for sometime but it helps to apply it to the every day life.  My mind does not want to accept what I read here.  But the Spirit tells me it is right.  It causes a lot of questions in my mind like, spouse abuse and do we have a choice to stay in such a relationship?  Marriage is a prime example.  I understand that problems causes us to grow and we can not escape them on this earth.  So what is a problem?  Is something a problem any more if we understand that all things are from God.  It still hurts, because the flesh is dying, but is it a problem?  Peggy
Logged

hillsbororiver

  • Guest
Re: Free Will Email To Ray
« Reply #8 on: January 30, 2008, 08:13:27 PM »


 So what is a problem?  Is something a problem any more if we understand that all things are from God.  It still hurts, because the flesh is dying, but is it a problem?  Peggy
 

Hi Peggy,

Not in the overall, giant scheme of things it isn't, the victory is already ours in Christ!

Now living through the chastising, purging and the sinfulness of the world is the "grievous" part but once we are raised incorruptable and immortal I am more than sure it will all seem like just a very difficult day a long time ago.

His Peace and Comfort to you Sister,

Joe 
Logged
Pages: [1]   Go Up
 

Page created in 0.027 seconds with 23 queries.