"So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy."

"So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.".

Friday, August 20, 2010

This does not mean that He violates human volition, it simply means that He brings in the events which He knows will cause certain responses.

As a revelation concerning God’s attitude toward sin, the fact is obvious that God commanded Adam not to sin, and yet, unless Adam did sin, there would be no need for the Savior who was decreed to die in eternity past.

The will of God will be accomplished even though mankind has negative volition.

MAT 7:13,  “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it.”

MAT 7:14,  “For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it.”

Would we ever realize the tremendous impact of God’s grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness, if mankind never fell?

God needed sin to reveal His glory, for that would be the teaching behind many forms of Eastern religion, such as Buddhism.

What God really did was to decree or determine to  allow for His creatures to have their own free will and then He turned the curse into a blessing for the deliverance of their own selves.

Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it.

But more than just getting us out of trouble, He got us into life.

But sin doesn’t have a chance in competition with the aggressiveness of forgiveness which we call we call grace.
When it’s sin versus grace, grace always wins hands down.

God’s desire is to bless His people but He permits His creatures to reject His desires.

2PE 3:9, The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

Even in the controversy between Jehovah and Satan as recorded in the first two chapters of Job, Satan admits that he can bring no testing upon Job apart from the permission of Jehovah; and it is stated that Jehovah gave Satan this permission.

After the sin has been committed, the one who sins could say: God is to be blamed because of the divine decrees.

However, the sinner does not say that because there is within him a consciousness that he alone is responsible.

Martyrs could have prevented the sin of murder on the part of their slayers had they but recanted from their position relative to the truth in question which was following the word of God and TLJC.

Even Christ Himself could have prevented an uncounted number of men from the measureless sin of the crucifixion of the Son of God, had He come down from the Cross.

All this suggests the obvious fact that the mere avoidance of sin is not always the primary issue.

The primary issue is that God is glorified.