[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for sharing your insights, dearest sister in Christ!

And thank you for your reply, dear kosta50!

kosta50 keeps insisting that we prove God to him.

Yet those of us who have been born again know God personally. Proof is absurd to us.

Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and [of] the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. - John 3:5-8

But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. – Romans 8:9

For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. – Colossians 3:3

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [which is] in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? - I Cor 6:19

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye [are] the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. - John 15:4-5

God cannot be subjected to the scientific method. He cannot be put under a microscope, observed with a telescope or fathomed by the mind of mere mortals.

Man is not the measure of God.

And signs and miracles will not convince a person who does not have “ears to hear.”

And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Ye have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land; The great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles: Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day. And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot. - Deuteronomy 29:2-5

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where [is] the wise? where [is] the scribe? where [is] the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. - I Corinthians 1:18-25

And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. – Luke 16:31

But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: - Matthew 12:39

Bottom line, faith comes by hearing. If a person has “ears to hear” – a gift of God – He will. And if he doesn’t, all we can do is pray for him.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: - John 10:27

Why do ye not understand my speech? [even] because ye cannot hear my word. – John 8:43

And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. – John 6:65

So then faith [cometh] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. - Romans 10:17

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. – John 6:63

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. – John 5:24

kosta50 also remarked on my spiel about the second death and muwth muwth in Genesis 2. He said:

It's sad that God (or more likely someone pretending to speak for God) has to threaten people to make them believe and that people believe in order to be saved from God instead of by God.

The point is that man is condemned already. His die was cast in the Garden of Eden. "Surely die" is muwth muwth - death death - not just the returning to the ground that a cockroach experiences when we step on it.

God did not “owe” Adamic man anything. Our salvation is a gift.

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die [literally, muwth muwth or “death death”]. – Genesis 2:17

He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. – John 3:18

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. – Matthew 10:28

So also [is] the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam [was made] a quickening spirit. – I Corinthians 15:42-45

And if we Christians fail to sound the alarm, then we will be held accountable.

But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take [any] person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand. – Ezekiel 33:6

God’s Name is I AM.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

I can certainly understand Kosta's hesitancy in declaring the absolute truth of Christ risen. It is, after all, a matter of faith.

But that faith is not blind. It is predicated on the evidence of the good fruit of the Holy Spirit.

And it is measured according to the word of God.

That's why sola Scriptura is so important and so true. If we were just to accept faith without thought or substantiation, then we would be people simply going through the motions because we would have given over our mind and conscience to other men who presume a higher authority. And as we know, men vary. Men lie. Men scheme. Men make mistakes.

Or we would be a denomination of one where anything we "felt" would become what we were. But as we all know, the heart is deceitful above all else. And a lot of what we "feel" is not good or true or even real.

All unlike the word of God which is "pure;" "eternal;" "given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness."

So we have this constancy left to us which we can order our lives by and learn from and prosper through. Thus faith becomes more than hope. It becomes evidence of God's love for us by Christ, through Christ, for Christ.

[spirited irish]

snip: kosta50 keeps insisting that we prove God to him.

Spirited: It is sheer hypocrisy and the folly of pride for kosta to insist that God be proven to him when kosta cannot even prove the existence of his own dreams. That he dreams is self-evidently true.

He knows he dreams,we know he dreams, yet kosta cannot prove by way of his senses that he does in fact dream.

That said, should kosta attempt to convince us that he dreams, we could ‘do unto him as he does unto us’ by donning the armor of doubt, dishonesty, denial, and mockery. We could dishonestly claim, as all agnostic-atheist doubting-Thomases do, that we know nothing about dreams and that unless he presents sensory evidence of his dreams he is just ‘imagining’ them.

We could say as Scrooge said, “It was just a bit of bad meat,” the implication being that kosta is crazy while we, the dishonest mockers, are sane.

This brings us to another issue: While we, the defenders of the living God hold ourselves to transcendent moral standards, the deniers-of-God do not, for with ‘God’s death,’ came the death of immutable truth, objective standards of right and wrong, sex norms, and yes-—of man’s God-endowed individual soul and mind. The point being that while we strive to speak truth, deniers-of-God have licensed themselves to equivocate, deceive, double-speak, and tell outright lies.

[kosta50]

kosta50 keeps insisting that we prove God to him

Well, if it is a "fact' than it should be provable. Otherwise it's not a fact, but a hypothesis, or at best a theory.

Yet those of us who have been born again know God personally. Proof is absurd to us

I think tha's obvious. You will claim it's real but having to prove it is dismissed as "absurd." That's rich.

God cannot be subjected to the scientific method. He cannot be put under a microscope, observed with a telescope or fathomed by the mind of mere mortals.

This is all hypothetical. By the way, neither are my pink unicorns on Jupiter.

And signs and miracles will not convince a person who does not have “ears to hear."

That's odd. I thought signs and miracles are something that are seen and not 'heard.' Be it as it may, so who are the signs and miracles for? The 'earless' will not be convinced, and the believers don't need a proof (because it's 'absurd,' remember?)!

[kosta50]

Bottom line, faith comes by hearing. If a person has “ears to hear” – a gift of God – He will. And if he doesn’t, all we can do is pray for him.

So, God determined who will hear and who will not? Yet those who don't will be 'punished?' For what?

The point is that man is condemned already

For what? Not having 'ears' which God didn't want to give him? This is like saying that all men will be punished for not being able to fly like the birds because God didn't want to give them wings! So, he condemned them for being wingless. In other words, you are 'condemned' for no reason whatsoever except that God made you 'deficient.' Nice. Really nice.

[kosta50]

God did not “owe” Adamic man anything. Our salvation is a gift.

Obviously. God who is (get this) impartial and who would "like all men to be saved," gives his passes out only to those he favors! The rest of the humanity he created is just 'earless' junk. Way to go.

[kosta50]

And if we Christians fail to sound the alarm, then we will be held accountable.

LOL! Alarm for what? Like the 'earless' will hear it? God wants you to talk to the 'deaf' who have no ears or you will be held 'accountable?' I love it! Quick, sound the alarm!

So, you believe your alarm will make unchanging God change his mind and give 'ears' the the wretched 'earless' masses whom God rejected? Fascinating.