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To: metmom
I'm going with the plain and simple reading of the verse. All means all.

See post #104 and #63

If He wants all men to come to know Him, He will give everyone a chance, even if it's just one.

Herein lies the rub. Are you confident that everyone will receive a chance to be saved? Even those who are, perhaps, on some island somewhere? How can they believe when they have not heard? I know for a fact that there are people, even in American cities, who are so ignorant of Christianity that they do not even know that Christ claims to be God, and so wicked and God-hating, as I once was, that they didn't care to learn it. Have they received a "chance?" What is their chance? It certainly is not the flash of illumination that most of us can report to when hearing the Gospel for the first time. There is no "kicking of the pricks," there is only indifference or worse. So, then, are you confident that everyone has actually gotten a "chance?"

God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. I just cannot reconcile that with a God who would say all that and then choose to send some people to hell, or not ever give them the chance.

But consider this. If God is required to give them a "chance," isn't this the same thing as saying that God is required to show them mercy? Or, at least, the "mercy" of giving them a chance? Yet, read Romans 9. Is Paul's argument that God is required to "show mercy" on everyone, or is it that He will "show mercy on whom He will show mercy"?

And why do we assume that God takes pleasure in the death of the wicked if He will cast them into hell? You yourself must deal with this question, since, if God knows already that you will not believe, why does He allow you to be born? But what does the scripture say?

"But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? (Rom 9:20-24)

Pro_16:4 The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

What if God allows the birth of the wicked, and creates them for Himself, and raises them up for His own purpose, in order to serve a greater purpose? That though these will be punished, yes, and will commit much evil in their lives, yes, but out of this darkness God will bring a greater light? If God will bring a greater good out of this, in not only creating the wicked but in using them to fulfill His purpose, what is wrong with that?

The question of course comes to whether they deserve it. But by definition they all do deserve it, because they are of this world, and sin with this world, and will die with this world. And though God could have put an end to our race when Adam fell, so that no sinners would have been born thereafter, yet He chose to allow all of these things to fill up the number of His elect. Mankind exists then not to have God to please their purposes, but for God's purpose and Kingdom alone.

137 posted on 05/10/2014 2:50:25 PM PDT by Greetings_Puny_Humans (I mostly come out at night... mostly.)
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To: Greetings_Puny_Humans
If they respond to the truth as God has revealed it to them, God will give them more.

So, then, are you confident that everyone has actually gotten a "chance?"

Because God is not willing that any perish but all come to repentance. If that's His desire, then how could He not give someone at least one opportunity to respond to Him?

157 posted on 05/11/2014 5:49:21 AM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith....)
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