Acts 17:26-27

It does not say that "all men would seek him." It says that men would seek him. Men can seek God, but not on there own. Men seek God because they are drawn by him. Never did you see the sheep find the lost shepherd. Always the Shepherd would seek out the sheep.

 

You obviously have not been witness to transformation of the most vile of men who had reached the bottom and had nowhere else to look but up. I have, and it is a glorious site to see! "Once I was lost but now I am found", blind but now have sight". Like many of illustrations of the Christ at work healing, it is always the sick persons faith or belief in Jesus whereby healing is enabled or the faith of someone associated with the sick. All it took was change of persuasion, from unbelief to belief. Did the sick heal themselves? No, the Christ did the healing, but the sick did need to have a either personal belief or the belief of others in the Christ to bring about the healing. Christ did not go about finding those who had no belief, "the lost", in order to heal them, but rather those who sought out Jesus to be healed. Even the parents faith brought about healing and restoration to life of the child. The belief of the blind, the leper, the lame even on the name of Jesus enabled Jesus to work in their behalf.

 

Ok, it says "I once was lost and now I am found, I was blind nut now I see." It does not say, "I was lost but now I found myself, I was blind but I corrected my vision."

Faith or belief is given by God. You asked, "Did God go out and find 'the lost'?" The answer is yes. God came to "seek and saved that which was lost."

John 9, the blind man was blind for one purpose, for God to recieve glory at that time. Read it, you might like that story. Everywhere that a miracle happens it happens because of faith. I don't disagree with you. Only where did that faith come from? Man or God? The scriptures say God. That is what I hold too. That if there be a difference, God made tge difference, if this is not the case, then man must share in the credit. "My belief AND God's power made the difference. That is arrogance.

 

Haply? Do you know what "haply" means? It means "by chance". Do you think that we find God by chance? The Greek word is "ara". The interesting thing about "ara" is that it is often used when a negative answer is presumed. That is not necessarily the case in Acts 17:27, but it is enough that it means "perchance".

Do you honestly think God relies on the chance we might seek after Him, especially when God says in black-and-white that no one seeks after Him, no not one? Or do you think God's predestination is so precise that He decides exactly the time and location for every man (Acts 17:26), but His foreknowledge is so limited that He relied on chance to see if they'd seek Him (Acts 17:27)?

If your interpretation creates such a contradiction, I suspect that you are interpreting these verses incorrectly.

 

sturgman!

I was blind, but now I exercise my own free will to go to the mall and visit the God Vision Center to get an eye exam.

 

Certainly don't see it that way Sturgman.

On the Cross, Jesus said "it is finished" meaning that divine work for the redemption of fallen man is complete, nothing is left undone. That means that "the work of God is belief" is already accomplished. But God has no reason to have belief, because God is omniscient knowing all. So what remains for man's redemption? Man's belief, because man cannot know all, he must believe. Thus it remains for man to believe to have the redemption that is already accomplished for all mankind, whosoever will believe is redeemed, saved, has eternal life. God does not make that choice for any man! Even Paul could have refused to believe, but he didn't and neither would any of us if we had been likewise recruited.

It is God's work already accomplished that I believe in, and it is my belief that saves me from condemnation!

 

If we indeed have free will, then yes God has chosen to let us freely choose or not choose Him. By definition, this fits the description of chance. So do we have free will or not? </font>[/QUOTE]For Jesus knew from the beginning that there was a chance some might not believe, and the chance someone might betray Him. And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless free will has been granted to him by My Father, and since free will has been granted to everyone by my Father, that means there's a chance any one of you could come to me and a chance any one of you could betray me. Since this is all self-evident and unrelated to what's going on at the moment, then what I just said to you is totally irrelevant. Forget I said it."

 

Yelsew, I thought when he said, "it is finished" he meant that the wrath of GOd had been satisfied. Read Romans 3:25,26.

And you just stated in another thread that mans nature is to rebel against God, so now you are speking with both sides. Pick a side, you keep playing leap frog with your theology. Either man can seek God and Romans is incorrect, or he cannot and mans ability to seek God is incorrect. They cannot be both true.

Jarlaxle,

When Paul is speaking here he states that from "One man God made MANY NATIONS." So the verse prior to it does not mean every man that walked the face of the earth. Do you read the living bible? man, don't add to it.

And the answer is no we do not have free will. It is not in scripture. The only time free will is mentioned in scripture it is refering to a free will offering that a child of God can make it is never refering to an unregenrate man,

Now the next arguement (we have heard it a million times) is that that makes men Robots. No it doesn't. Robots do not have wills. Men do have wills, but they are slave to our nature. A moose can go anywhere on land that he wants to. But can a moose fly? No. A moose cannot fly because he is enslaved to the nature of a moose. Can men be holy and seek God. No because we are enslaved to a nature that rebels against God. Do we have some amount of freedom within that fallen will? Yes, I can be a good looking sinner, or I can be a perverted sinner. That doesn't make me a saint.

 

Well said.

 

The tiny problem with your argument, Jar, (tiny as in Galaxy-sized) is that you jumped from free will with respect to salvation to determinism and never demonstrated that they are the same. The rest of your argument is based on that false assumption, though.

 

Go read you bible... That is not the case. You jump to conclusions that you really cannot support. If you will look at Romans 9, Paul already answered this arguement. "You will say to us, 'how can God blame us, for who resists his will?' On the contrary, who are you 'Oh Man' to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to that whick formed it, 'why did you make me like this' or does not the potter have right over hte clay?"

I am getting sick of writing this same thing over and over. Take a pen and write this down. We will call this proof number 1. So when someone feels the need to ask this question, or make the same foolish comment I don't have to retype the whole thing, I can just say "proof number 1"

 

Then you misinterpret "it is finished"! God did not send His son to humanity in order to satisfy His wrath! But that man, through belief in God's Son, is Justified before the throne of God.

We are not in the past, but we are part of this present age, the age or "times of" the Gentiles where the gates of heaven are open to whosoever believeth on the son of God.

It is the judgment of God that those who believe on His son, even on his name are not condemned, but those who believeth not are condemned already. Judgment is a foregone conclusion. But those who believe in Jesus, even on his name are Justified before the throne of God, and are thus spared from the lake of fire where the self condemned shall be cast.

I do not pick sides, I don't think either side is correct!

 

I htink you did pick the side of foolishness, because you made youself out to be one with this past post.

You did not post scripture, you posted what you wanted the scripture to say. That is a very dangerous thing. I wouldn't do that.

In fact, I don't feel I have to respond anymore to your post for it is already full of whole, I tfear no one will read it withou laughing.

 

Jarlaxle, you too added quite a bit ofyour own logic to the text. Again, I feel that scripture is very plain. Let's deal with it instead of trying to find a way to disprove the scriptures that we don't like.