I am new to this and anticipating posting much on here later... but being new to all this, I have always understood people such as comedian Bill Burr, for example, who has said "I resent the fact that I will be judged one day. God created this mess up. And you're going to judge me for the way I was created?" Looking forward to carefully thought out answers!
God's creation
- Thread starter Project4711
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I get how people say this and yet God held Adam responsible for the fall of man and corruption of all creation....
Also God's existence is made evident through creation and on this basis man is without excuse.
“Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last. Imagine that you are doing this but that it is essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature...in order to found that edifice on its unavenged tears. Would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me. Tell the truth.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
God did not create you a mess up, that is the result of sin, following your own idea, trying to cover up your sins, etc.
God created man in His image and after His likeness. Yes, sin came in, that is a problem for us, but not for the Lord. He shed His blood to redeem us so that we would be free from sin. His Spirit can indwell us if we receive Him, that Spirit will give us a new heart, it will transform us, give us the mind of Christ, and we can be raised up through the power of resurrection. This is why God says "to be holy as I am holy", yes it is possible. If we walk by faith we can do mighty works of faith, even greater than what the Lord did. Not greater in quality but greater in quantity as the Lord can now move through millions of believers.
As a result the glory is greater than it would have been. When we consider the glory involved in a victorious life we always look at where they started and how far they have come. The fact that we are sinners at the start, a total mess, just means there is even more glory to the Lord who saves us, transforms us, and leads us in glory.
God created man in His image and after His likeness. Yes, sin came in, that is a problem for us, but not for the Lord. He shed His blood to redeem us so that we would be free from sin. His Spirit can indwell us if we receive Him, that Spirit will give us a new heart, it will transform us, give us the mind of Christ, and we can be raised up through the power of resurrection. This is why God says "to be holy as I am holy", yes it is possible. If we walk by faith we can do mighty works of faith, even greater than what the Lord did. Not greater in quality but greater in quantity as the Lord can now move through millions of believers.
As a result the glory is greater than it would have been. When we consider the glory involved in a victorious life we always look at where they started and how far they have come. The fact that we are sinners at the start, a total mess, just means there is even more glory to the Lord who saves us, transforms us, and leads us in glory.
When God answered Job's complaining, He pretty much said, "Job, I'm God and you are not." God also says, "Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker—one clay pot among many. Does the clay ask the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘He has no hands’?"
Isaiah 45:9
Bill Burr is very funny, but his foul mouth puts me off. It's almost mandatory for worldly entertainers to be atheists these days.
The bit that all sinners miss is that God did NOT create us sinners. We inherit the sinful nature from Adam, who disobeyed God in the beginning. God need do nothing to save us, but He has through the gift of His Son. Like everyone else, Bill Burr could come down off his high horse and accept God's judgement that he is a sinner. Then he would qualify to be saved.
If you created a masterpiece and gave me stewardship of it, how could you help but judge how I had cared for it?
Pretty close to my thinking NT, i think Adam and Eve were the only humans so far to have free will, perfect discernment etc, which they trashed, for us all, because of a lie. Also think Eve sinned before eating the fruit, her becoming able to look at it and think it was good to eat, suggests she had already fallen to me.
Added to that, i think they probably are saved, the LORD graced us with many powerful, precious gifts which i think means the problem was guaranteed to arise sometime. He knew this but i think the payoff will be so great, it's worth all the pain and misery to Him and us. Guaranteed no issue like it will ever arise again too.
God doesn't judge people for their sins because everybody's a sinner and deserving of judgment. But God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting Life. You are deserving to be punished for your sins, as is everyone else . But God loved you so much that He gave His only Son to take your punishment for you. Now the only thing you will be judged for is your rejection of Jesus.
But God does judge sins. He either judges the sinner, or, as it says in John 3:16, the verse that you referred to, His only begotten Son took the judgment upon Himself, for all who believe in Him. If God doesn't judge anybody for their sins, why did Jesus need to die on the cross to save sinners? You say that the only thing sinners will be judged for is their rejection of Jesus, but that rejection is a sin too. Where do we find in the bible that God now only judges unbelief and not other sins? Jesus said:
““But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire.” (Mt 5:22 NKJV)
A Good tree can't produce corrupt fruit. Examine yourself; do you have a will to do such things? Or do you despise the thought of doing such things? & even if you did, do you refrain yourself?
Sorry, I have probably misunderstood, but I don't see how your post relates to mine to which you were replying.
Yes, so if you are producing bad fruit:
Cut it off
1 John 3:7 Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.
How is it that anyone would fall for this deception? This is how the devil operates, a person gets saved, they love the Lord, but they are not taught to purify themselves. They continue to hang out with the friends that are unbelievers, they continue to do all the things in the world they used to do. The TV, the radio, the record albums, the movies, go to the bars, etc. So of course they are dragged back into sin repeatedly. They are miserable, they don't want to sin, but no one ever taught them about sanctification. You need to separate yourself. If you change your location from the bar to the temple, that change of location will sanctify you. If you remove all the things that open you up to the devil, that will also separate you and sanctify you. So they know something is wrong, but don't know what it is. So then the devil teaches them "don't worry, when you prayed six months ago the Lord forgave you of your sins, you are righteous, no one is perfect, everyone sins". They learn that they are righteous because of the Lord's blood, this is true, and that if they fall into sin every day the Lord is faithful to forgive them, also true, and so it is OK that you are falling into sin every day, you are still righteous, which is not true. it is not OK, and he that sins is a sinner and he that doeth righteousness is righteous. I like to think of this as a garden with two different plants growing. When I got saved a small seed was planted, but the garden was primarily all the plants of the flesh, the self, and the natural man. What you need to do is focus on that seed that was planted. It needs to be watered everyday, it needs lots of sunlight and it needs to be fed. In addition you can weed your garden removing all the competing plants that would hinder the growth of that seed. You will also discover stones in your heart of unforgiveness and bitterness, root those out. The better the soil the better you will grow in the Lord. Also make sure no one is walking through your garden and trampling the plants. The seeds planted by the wayside where everyone is walking. Maybe that is where you were when you got saved, well now it is time to move.
8 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
When you see the Son of God, when He is manifested to you then the works of the devil are destroyed. Pray for revelation of the Son of God. Pray to see His exceeding great power, pray to see what is the wonderful deposit He has made in the saints, and pray to see what is our inheritance.
9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
This doesn't mean that if you sin you are not a child of God. What it means is you have a garden with both plants in it, and any one that brings forth sin is not born of God. Let's say you go to the bar and sin. OK, that plant is not of God, remove it. But what am I now going to do on Friday night? When you remove one plant you must plant another. There are plenty of opportunities to find Christians gathering for fellowship on Friday night. When I burned my albums I replaced them with songs of the Bible (these were not from any of the big publishers but were done by Christians out of their homes).
10 In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.
Take this attitude, I am looking to remove anything that is of the devil. If it does not do the righteousness of God, then it is gone from my life. Also if it does not love my brother it is gone from my life. Here we are on Christianchat.com and it is stunning how many comments on here are not an expression of love for the believers. Just because someone claims to be a Christian, it doesn't mean they also don't have the plants that are of the devil growing in their garden and you will hear them expressed.
11 For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
We should, not that we do. John understands this is not the situation when you first get saved. It takes years and years of sanctification and a revelation of Jesus Christ before this is true. However, know that every time you have a thought or express this in word or deed that you don't love your brother, well that is of the devil, you need to root that out.
12 Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous.
So be warned, this is ultimately what happens to many in religion. This is what happened to the Jews who slew Jesus. You cannot ride the fence, you must be absolute for the Lord, if not, those evil plants will grow up and who knows, this could be you.
When I think of being absolute I like to think of Ronnie Lott. He was the safety for the San Francisco 49ers. He mangled his pinky at the end of one season as the playoffs were beginning. The doctors told him he would be out for the playoffs because they needed to put the pinky into a cast. He asked "what if we cut it off?" They were shocked but agreed that if they cut off his pinky he could play in the playoffs and so he had his pinky amputated. I see myself with this big cleaver in my hand and any time I see something that is not of God in my life, wham, I cut it off.
I think I misunderstood the thread I'm in; when I wrote it I thought I was responding to a predestination/free-will argument, but I'm just switching tabs around while forgetting that I do.
The only (good) choice a bad tree is left with is to believe in the (only) good tree which saves them.