[Two Kids' Dad]

So if God determined before the beginning of the world which individuals are to be saved, does that mean that a lot of people are doomed and whether they’re good people or evil bastards they’re still not gonna be raptured? Sounds like a pretty crappy system to me.

“Sorry, but even though you’ve lived an exemplary life you’ve drawn a short straw and will have to be... Left Behind!”

Religious stories were written by people long before they had enough knowledge to get it right. The end of the world happens on an individual basis when we die. that’s all. The planet keeps chugging right along. No heaven, no hell, no rapture. I even asked God about it and he didn’t answer because he’s not real.

[svcw]

So you mock God and want Him to answer you? You mock Him saying He doesn't exists. What a strange little man you are. For a person who doesn't believe in Him, you certainly spent a lot of time focused on Him.

[JustCallMeFrank]

Amen!

[OrangeHoof]

So if God determined before the beginning of the world which individuals are to be saved, does that mean that a lot of people are doomed and whether they’re good people or evil bastards they’re still not gonna be raptured? Sounds like a pretty crappy system to me.

The mystery can only be understood with the realization that God invented time and exists outside the boundaries of time. It is how free will and predestination can co-exist for if there is no free will, there could be no just punishment for unbelief. And if there was no predestination, no one could be considered God's chosen.

God knows the results before they happen because he exists beyond time.

That "crappy system" as you call it is how man can choose salvation or choose to reject it and yet God can already direct the outcome.

[andyk]

So if God determined before the beginning of the world which individuals are to be saved

Well, I'm no theologian, nor am I a religious person, but given the concept of free will, I think it would be more accurate to say that God knew before the beginning of the world which individuals are to be saved. Think of the sorrow that would bring Him.

[andyk]

You made me curious, so I started looking into it. I guess some Christians believe that God knows everything, and some don’t. One of the arguments for those who don’t insist that God must know everything is a quote from Genesis where God claims to be sorry to have made man (Genesis 6:5-7). It’s a compelling argument. Anyway it is interesting to me, but I’m a conflicted soul :)

[BipolarBob]

I even asked God about it and he didn’t answer because he’s not real.

You will get your answer in due time. He will answer you and then you will answer Him.

[rightly_dividing]

That’s so sad. I will pray that you see the light Of Jesus and for your kids to also.

[dmam2011]

Just the idea of your taking the time to post only to create frustration speaks volumes of your state of mind. You may intend sarcasm, but I read your post as personal disappointment in not being able to find God on your own terms.

[Shimmer1]

No, because you wouldn’t know His voice if He was standing right in front of you.

[GiovannaNicoletta]

he didn’t answer because he’s not real.

Well, He is real, no doubt about that. We have hundreds of prophecies, made by God, which have been fulfilled to the smallest detail. Only God could tell someone that something was going to happen hundreds and sometimes thousands of years beforehand and then have it come to pass. Here are one or two of those fulfilled prophecies that prove God's existence:

• Some time before 500 B.C. the prophet Daniel proclaimed that Israel's long-awaited Messiah would begin his public ministry 483 years after the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem (Daniel 9:25-26). He further predicted that the Messiah would be "cut off," killed, and that this event would take place prior to a second destruction of Jerusalem. Abundant documentation shows that these prophecies were perfectly fulfilled in the life (and crucifixion) of Jesus Christ. The decree regarding the restoration of Jerusalem was issued by Persia's King Artaxerxes to the Hebrew priest Ezra in 458 B.C., 483 years later the ministry of Jesus Christ began in Galilee. (Remember that due to calendar changes, the date for the start of Christ's ministry is set by most historians at about 26 A.D. Also note that from 1 B.C. to 1 A.D. is just one year.) Jesus' crucifixion occurred only a few years later, and about four decades later, in 70 A.D. came the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.

  (Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 105.)*

• In approximately 700 B.C. the prophet Micah named the tiny village of Bethlehem as the birthplace of Israel's Messiah (Micah 5:2). The fulfillment of this prophecy in the birth of Christ is one of the most widely known and widely celebrated facts in history.

  (Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 105.)

• In the fifth century B.C. a prophet named Zechariah declared that the Messiah would be betrayed for the price of a slave—thirty pieces of silver, according to Jewish law-and also that this money would be used to buy a burial ground for Jerusalem's poor foreigners (Zechariah 11:12-13). Bible writers and secular historians both record thirty pieces of silver as the sum paid to Judas Iscariot for betraying Jesus, and they indicate that the money went to purchase a "potter's field," used—just as predicted—for the burial of poor aliens (Matthew 27:3-10).

  (Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 1011.)

• Some 400 years before crucifixion was invented, both Israel's King David and the prophet Zechariah described the Messiah's death in words that perfectly depict that mode of execution. Further, they said that the body would be pierced and that none of the bones would be broken, contrary to customary procedure in cases of crucifixion (Psalm 22 and 34:20; Zechariah 12:10). Again, historians and New Testament writers confirm the fulfillment: Jesus of Nazareth died on a Roman cross, and his extraordinarily quick death eliminated the need for the usual breaking of bones. A spear was thrust into his side to verify that he was, indeed, dead.

  (Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 1013.)

• The prophet Isaiah foretold that a conqueror named Cyrus would destroy seemingly impregnable Babylon and subdue Egypt along with most of the rest of the known world. This same man, said Isaiah, would decide to let the Jewish exiles in his territory go free without any payment of ransom (Isaiah 44:28; 45:1; and 45:13). Isaiah made this prophecy 150 years before Cyrus was born, 180 years before Cyrus performed any of these feats (and he did, eventually, perform them all), and 80 years before the Jews were taken into exile.

  (Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 1015.)

• Mighty Babylon, 196 miles square, was enclosed not only by a moat, but also by a double wall 330 feet high, each part 90 feet thick. It was said by unanimous popular opinion to be indestructible, yet two Bible prophets declared its doom. These prophets further claimed that the ruins would be avoided by travelers, that the city would never again be inhabited, and that its stones would not even be moved for use as building material (Isaiah 13:17-22 and Jeremiah 51:26, 43). Their description is, in fact, the well-documented history of the famous citadel.

  (Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 109.)

• The exact location and construction sequence of Jerusalem's nine suburbs was predicted by Jeremiah about 2600 years ago. He referred to the time of this building project as "the last days," that is, the time period of Israel's second rebirth as a nation in the land of Palestine (Jeremiah 31:38-40). This rebirth became history in 1948, and the construction of the nine suburbs has gone forward precisely in the locations and in the sequence predicted.

  (Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 1018.)

• The prophet Moses foretold (with some additions by Jeremiah and Jesus) that the ancient Jewish nation would be conquered twice and that the people would be carried off as slaves each time, first by the Babylonians (for a period of 70 years), and then by a fourth world kingdom (which we know as Rome). The second conqueror, Moses said, would take the Jews captive to Egypt in ships, selling them or giving them away as slaves to all parts of the world. Both of these predictions were fulfilled to the letter, the first in 607 B.C. and the second in 70 A.D. God's spokesmen said, further, that the Jews would remain scattered throughout the entire world for many generations, but without becoming assimilated by the peoples or of other nations, and that the Jews would one day return to the land of Palestine to re-establish for a second time their nation (Deuteronomy 29; Isaiah 11:11-13; Jeremiah 25:11; Hosea 3:4-5 and Luke 21:23-24).

  This prophetic statement sweeps across 3500 years of history to its complete fulfillment—in our lifetime.

  (Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 120.)

• Jeremiah predicted that despite its fertility and despite the accessibility of its water supply, the land of Edom (today a part of Jordan) would become a barren, uninhabited wasteland (Jeremiah 49:15-20; Ezekiel 25:12-14). His description accurately tells the history of that now bleak region.

  (Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 105.)

• Joshua prophesied that Jericho would be rebuilt by one man. He also said that the man's eldest son would die when the reconstruction began and that his youngest son would die when the work reached completion (Joshua 6:26). About five centuries later this prophecy found its fulfillment in the life and family of a man named Hiel (1 Kings 16:33-34).

  (Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 107).

• The day of Elijah's supernatural departure from Earth was predicted unanimously—and accurately, according to the eye-witness account—by a group of fifty prophets (2 Kings 2:3-11).

  (Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 109).

• Jahaziel prophesied that King Jehoshaphat and a tiny band of men would defeat an enormous, well-equipped, well-trained army without even having to fight. Just as predicted, the King and his troops stood looking on as their foes were supernaturally destroyed to the last man (2 Chronicles 20).

  (Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 108).

• One prophet of God (unnamed, but probably Shemiah) said that a future king of Judah, named Josiah, would take the bones of all the occultic priests (priests of the "high places") of Israel's King Jeroboam and burn them on Jeroboam's altar (1 Kings 13:2 and 2 Kings 23:15-18). This event occurred approximately 300 years after it was foretold.

  (Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 1013).

http://www.reasons.org/fulfilled-prophecy-evidence-reliability-bible

So, the existence of God is proven and is undeniable not only through His personal, intimate involvement in the lives of those who know Him as Savior, and the ways He has changed the lives of those who know Him as Savior, but also through the fulfillment of prophecies not only throughout all of human history, but the fact that fulfillment of God's end-time prophecies are happening in our day.

We are all born with a sin debt and at enmity with God because of our inborn sin and rebellion against Him. Until that sin debt is paid by our acceptance of Jesus Christ's death on the cross as payment for our sin, and until our acceptance of Him as our Lord and Savior, God cannot hear our prayers. Our unforgiven sin creates a gulf between us and God that cannot be bridged apart from Jesus Christ. God does not hear the prayers of those who have not been reconciled to Him through His Son and His death on the cross.

There is a way to communicate with God and have Him hear us and respond to us and He has created that way and it is the only way. And until we meet Him on His terms, we pray to Someone Who cannot hear us.

[Matchett-PI]

“...I even asked God about it and he didn’t answer because he’s not real.” ~ Two Kids’ Dad

You unwittingly just proved that He is! :)

Tip of the iceberg:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2687844/posts?page=194#194

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2687844/posts?page=298#298

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2687844/posts?page=241#241

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2687844/posts?page=182#182

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2687844/posts?page=180#180

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2687844/posts?page=179#179

[presently no screen name]

I even asked God about it and he didn’t answer because he’s not real.

That's your assumption. He already spoke through His Word. How can one really be interested in The Truth, if they don't want to know Him/The Truth/The Word?

[DannyTN]

"So if God determined before the beginning of the world which individuals are to be saved, does that mean that a lot of people are doomed "

God didn't determine who would be saved, He just knew, because he knows the future. He apparently interacts with time different than we do. We have free will. It's our choice, not God's. God would rather have all men come to salvation, but many won't.

"and whether they’re good people or evil bastards they’re still not gonna be raptured? Sounds like a pretty crappy system to me.'"

The problem is that we are all evil when compared to a perfect holy God that knows no evil. God doesn't just us by man's standards or by a bell curve of human goodness where if you are closer to Mother Theresa than to Adolf Hitler you're ok.

God judges us by His own standard, which is holy, which is perfect unblemished love. Given that it's no wonder that scripture says repeatedly, that "none are righteous" and that "all have fallen short of the glory of God".

The goal according to scripture is to be "perfect". Scripture says "Be perfect, for I am perfect." "Be holy, for I am holy." Jesus said to the Rich young ruler, "If thou wilt be perfect, ...."

There are two ways to be perfect. Never ever sin. Or be forgiven. There is only one way to be forgiven, and that's through Jesus.

"I even asked God about it and he didn’t answer because he’s not real."

When you really want to do what is right....when you really want to find God with all your heart, He WILL answer you.

[esquirette]

“Sorry, but even though you’ve lived an exemplary life you’ve drawn a short straw and will have to be... Left Behind!”

Exemplary lives only exist on our curved grade scale. They do not exist in the ultimate reality where God is perfect, and He sets the standard.

In our hearts we know we are at war with that standard, and we require reconciliation with the One Who made us and Whom we have offended. Enter the Good News - He came Himself to make it right by offering Himself as the perfect substitute to take the punishment we deserve.

And let me ask you this - say you had the opportunity to be Adam, and you were perfect. Do you think you would fare better than he did?