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Posted on 03/10/2004 9:37:27 PM PST by malakhi
I like these too ...Actual announcements from church bulletins
Don't let worry kill you. Let the Church help.
Thursday night-Potluck Supper. Prayer and medication to follow.
Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our church and community.
For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
The rosebud on the altar this morning is to announce the birth of David Alan Belzer, the sin of Rev and Mrs. Julius Belzer.
At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice.
Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.
8 new choir robes are currently needed, due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.
The Senior Choir invites any member of the congregation who enjoys sinning to join the choir.
The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new tithing campaign slogan last Sunday: "I Upped My Pledge--Up Yours."
Eph 1:5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
1Cr 1:27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
Cindy you would not have come to Christ if the Father did not draw you (John 6) , that is the bottom line.
All those that call the name of Christ he has adopted, and like all adoptions the parent (the Father) chooses the child .
I have had people say to me that they had refused the gospel many times so that proves we have a free choice. Then I ask them if at the very minute they believed if they though "should I or shouldn't I ?"
Usually the answer is at that very minute they went , they knew they wanted to .
That is why I say it is Gods time. He sees that we are in the right place , at the right time .
mating???? :')
Well, if you're having difficulty getting your point across ... you can always write it REAL BIG.
Seriously though, ... most Christians understand that there is nothing good that we have which is not a gift from the Father.
There is no little recess within us from which we draw any good inspiration, ... other than what God has given us.
Once again, most christians understand this ... All that is good is of God.
No Johnny he provided salvation for one man and his family..not all men
In Sodom He called out one family to be saved (because of Abraham)
You are right , that was justice. Why do you think that God would be just then and not now? He could have withheld His judgment from man if He desired all to be saved.
We keep coming back to the question. Why does God owe to man an opportunity to be saved? What has mankind ever done to deserve an opportunity? Does a Holy God have a right to judge all men and put them in hell?
We live in a time where men have been taught that they have some intrinsic worth to God so in "fairness "God must offer all an opportunity to be saved. We stand and sing how he saved a wretch like us ...and then think we are deserving because of ???? .We are wretches but not "quite" wretched"
The truth is every day of your life and every day of my life we prove we have no right to stand in the presence of a Holy God, we all deserve Hells fire . If God were Just that is where we all belong. He has justice tempered by His mercy. That is he will have mercy on some and not others. His word tells us that He chooses on whom He will have mercy. The convicted does not deserve a set of keys to get out..
I am saying God has shown His Grace by giving us His Son. He has supplied a way of Salvation. God's Grace is not in giving some the eyes to see, but in providing all of us a Way to see if we only call upon His name. In the Gospels you see blind men asking Jesus for healing, for sight. Jesus does not give them sight without these men first crying out to Him.
The question is never one that God not reveal himself to all men..the question is who will hear and who will see. Who will choose to come, that is the focus. Paul teaches very clearly in Romans 1-3 , that no man deserves to be saved . Men do not seek or understand God.
What we do read in the gospels is that no one can come unless the Father draws him.We read that God has closed some ears to the gospel so that they will not be saved. Jesus says to whom His gospel is sent "let he that has ears hear" . It is God that that draws us and opens our ears .
"Our answer" has nothing to do with our salvation, nothing to do with whether or not God wrote our names in the Book of Life from before the foundation of the world.
As you've said so aptly before, RnMom, if God wants us, we are already His from before time began.
I've never heard anyone say that before. Where in Scripture do you find anything even close to that?
If their name was there it was there.. from before the foundation of the world.
Calvinists do not believe there is an age of 'accountably ' (as scripture never teaches such a thing...it is a throw back to RC doctrine and baptismal regeneration)
We believe that it is God that does all the work in salvation , so just as John leapt in the womb at the presence of Christ , Gods grace does not rely on age to acknowledge Him .
The majority of Calvinists ( like Calvin that lost a young child) believe that God saves all children that die. Not because they 'deserves' it based on innocence , but based like all of our salvation on His mercy and grace.
I am of the school that believes we can not ever know what God does until we stand in His presence. At that time no matter how he handles the death of a child , we will see it with as just and right
'Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?' Gen. 18:25.
In Revelations
Revelation 3:5, "He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life…"
It does not say the name of the saved can be blotted out , because the saved are those that have already overcome
1 John 5:4: "For whatever is born of God overcomes the world." Everyone who is born of God is an overcomer.
When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee." -- Isaiah 43:1-2.
"All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.
And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day." -- John 6:37-40.
Faith in Jesus Christ is our ticket to heaven. Everyone who has a ticket will get in.
But we didn't buy the ticket ourselves. We didn't print the ticket, steal the ticket or earn the ticket.
God alone, according to His mercy from before the foundation of the world, gave us our ticket, paid for by the blood of His only Son, Jesus Christ, who will not lose any whom the Father has given Him.
Sounds pretty indelible to me.
Actually Our answer is dependent on being able to hear the question :>))
Jesus told His disciples to "rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven." (Luke 10:20). Christ told them to REJOICE because their names were already recorded in heaven.
They couldn’t rejoice if they could be blotted out the next day. Revelation 17:8 , "And those who dwell on the earth, whose name has not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will wonder when they see the beast…"
"Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world…" (Eph. 1:4)
You might try wading through my post of Erickson's idea in post #3022. The Reader's Digest version is at the moment in which we realize we have a propensity to sin and we affirm that propensity to sin not only as natural but "ok", it is then that we participate in the original sin of Adam. Does that make sense?
The bible says we are born as sinners.. not when we know that we are. After all we are not sinners because we sin..we sin because we are sinners.
Just as we were in Adam when He sinned , we must be in Christ to be saved .
"Adam stands in a twofold relationship to his descendants: he is their natural head and he is their covenant head. As the natural head, Adam is the father of all mankind and Eve is the mother. Way at the beginning to time God placed a law that everything reproduces according to its own kind, that like begets like, that every creature produces offspring in its own image or likeness. In the case of Adam and Eve this means that their descendants, like them, are sinners."
Rev. Adrian Dieleman
That's why it is noted that Jesus was born without sin (a spotless lamb) )
Rom 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Rom 5:17 For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.)
The minute that you make any exception to this , then you have men that God owes salvation to based on their righteousness not Grace
with the exception of 2, God only brought the under 20 crowd out of the wilderness. They weren't held accountable .
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