BE NOT DECEIVED

[Timmy]

In Second Corinthians 13.5, Paul admonished to examine and test ourselves to see whether we are in Christ Jesus and He in us...or if we are indeed reprobate.

REBROBATE: The inability to understand in the core of our being what God has revealed as right. It manifests outwardly in varying forms, yet decisions that result in consequences that are ungodly are a sure sign this factor is at work in us, until ultimately, one looses the capacity to even distinguish between right and wrong, good and bad, and the truth from a lie.

If any will shed further light on this it would be appreciated.
It seem that discrnmrnt stands in sharp contrast to reprobation...possibly it's opposite?



Second Peter 2 beginning in the middle of verse 3:

"...Their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep;
for if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into tartarus
commiting them to pits of darkness reserved for judgment, and did not spare the ancient world
but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness with seven others
when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly,
and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes,
having made them an example to those who would live ungodly thereafter,
and if He rescued righteous Lot oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men,
for by what he saw and heard, that righteous man while living among them
felt his righteous soul tormented day after day with their lawless deeds,
then the LORD knows how to rescue the godly from temptation
and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment,
and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority."

From above you can know whether or not you remain in Christ Jesus and are actually His own if He delivers you out of temptation...
or are already locked into punishment to be judged and perish acordingly by Christ Jesus after you die.

Ask yourself on which side of the fence you stand and do something about it.

[David M]

Ask yourself on which side of the fence you stand and do something about it.

Hello Timmy

I agree with all that you have written, so why not accept we are on the same side.

Reprobates do not worry about being already cast off by God. It is useful to be reminded of the dictionary definition, which is in agreement with what you say, but defines the word in a stark way.

rep·ro·bate
[rep-ruh-beyt]
noun
1. a depraved, unprincipled, or wicked person: a drunken reprobate.
2. a person rejected by God and beyond hope of salvation.


adjective
3. morally depraved; unprincipled; bad.
4. rejected by God and beyond hope of salvation.
verb (used with object), rep·ro·bat·ed, rep·ro·bat·ing.
5. to disapprove, condemn, or censure.
6. (of God) to reject (a person), as for sin; exclude from the number of the elect or from salvation.

On the question of whose side we are on, we see the same being exhibited on this forum. It is like the chaplains of two opposing armies both praying to God to give them victory, as if they are doing God's will.

One can be certain that if they remain in the will of God and have God on their side, then they fear no-one. The worst that can be done to us is to be killed.

(Romans 8:31) If God be for us, who can be against us? They can kill the body, but they cannot kill the spirit, which God retains and is simply described as a name written in the Book of Life.

The final judgement that results in annihilation of body and spirit is for those whose name is not written in the Book of Life.
(Rev 20:15) And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

The lake of fire is where symbolically, the last enemy, death, is destroyed. Hence the devil and the grave are also destroyed in the lake of fire. These things have to be destroyed before the Kingdom of God is fully restored. This is the purpose of Christ when he returns to restore the Kingdom of God and the nations have to submit to Christ's rule which will be done with authority and in righteousness. No government has been able to do, what Christ will do. Hence, without Christ, man's government is doomed to fail and there is no hope for this world.


Shalom
David

[Domenic]

Mark 10:18
"Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? nobody is good except God."

I believe this scripture. Our condition at present is not good. We are all sinners. We could not be sinless if we wanted to. I have seen many who are bad. Why they are bad only God knows the real reason. Jesus died to give all who believe in him life. He did not die to remove the sins we do daily...if he did we would not have to keep asking Father to forgive us. A person who has many sins may be better than a person who has few sins. God judges not where people are, but how far they have come from where they started.
You may have gone one foot to be better than bad, and the person behind you has gone one thousand miles, and is not as close to the mark as you, but he has gone further...and that is what God sees. That is why Father say we can not read our own heart condition, let alone the next guys.

[Timmy]

W/O EDIT

Mark 10:18
"Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? nobody is good except God."

I believe this scripture. Our condition at present is not good. We are all sinners. We could not be sinless if we wanted to. I have seen many who are bad. Why they are bad only God knows the real reason. Jesus died to give all who believe in him life. He did not die to remove the sins we do daily...if he did we would not have to keep asking Father to forgive us. A person who has many sins may be better than a person who has few sins. God judges not where people are, but how far they have come from where they started.
You may have gone one foot to be better than bad, and the person behind you has gone one thousand miles, and is not as close to the mark as you, but he has gone further...and that is what God sees. That is why Father say we can not read our own heart condition, let alone the next guys.

Hello Domenic,

Very little of what you have written in forum has been read. Only a couple posts of yours have been read...which makes me wonder if you are not in kahoots with David M????

<sub>David can be answered perhaps another day...we'll see...after addressing your posting--this thread. Through this ones eyes, the lines are clearly delineated between DM and yours truly us, so it is really wondered why the insistence for another response...but maybe those inconsistencies speak a volume and 8 more. (i just wish to finish the "Jesus is the Eternal I Am" paper in a way that there is no room for refutation, and then send it and be done with his whole issue of insisting something that neaither Jesus, the Apostles, and the historic records regarding the Body of Christ has never cliamed; but rather ousted, marked, removed from their midst, and shunned any who deny God became human as the person Yahoshuvah Ha' Meshiach and has always remained God.


i once asked him what he actually believed (in a nutshell) and...oh never mind that.

There is presently little time to allow for being drawn into lengthy conversations here (and now wish this thread was not posted when it was).

You may not know so this shall be said again: Time for internet is extremely limited here due to current IRL situations--responibilities towards talmudim of Yeshua, family life, still contracting work to be finished before winter hits, working for a company 12 hour days: 48/4 & 60/5 alternating bi-weekly ...and then there is the ongoing electrical generation project that is now turning profits...and YES YES YES FINALLY retirement from employment tasks, the light at the end of the tunnel is now in view. That light at the end of the tunnel looks like what was once literally just another dream...and not (to me) in a good way either--(with a few manifestations of it intermittently over the years). For so many long:years, writing with traveling and speaking has become a growing dread, though this is what shall be at the end of the tunnel, NTL.

...but the good side is there should be a whole bunch more time to garden and interact here, amongst many other neglected interests due to (anticipated as former) dailies.

Enough said of this one right here...except that there shall be little time to either read or respond further until further notice.</sub>


What isn't answered you here, previous or following posts to David M. regarding his defaming Jesus through his denial might.

The Messiah and His Apostles NEVER ever denied the fact that JESUS IS GOD; but David, and you, and daq (aka:toxin) do.

These are each of your own fallacious audacities you shall be forced to face up to individually when Jesus judges the living and the dead if you cannot get things right this side of your existence in this age.


I too believe that nobody but God is good, however I see clearly how Jesus qualifies on both counts. Jesus is good. So, Jesus is God.

Jesus never sinned. Jesus came from Heaven and remains the perfect holy servant of Elohim/God. Jesus returned from whence he came, now again seated in His postion of authority being the right arm/hand of Elohim in all Mercy and Judgement possessing all power in Heaven and everywhere else--the only Meshiach Adonai Elohei of Elohim:


From the end of first Timothy, consider the words penned through Paul:

"...in its own times he (Jesus, upon His return to Earth) will show who is the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings, and LORD of lords; who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light; whom no man has seen, nor can see: to whom be honor and eternal power. Amen.

Jesus dwells in unapproachable light that no man has ever seen.
How can you even think Jesus is, or could have ever been merely a man?

No mere human possesses immortality.

Jesus has revealed that He is the one who will judge all people and gives life to those whom He will.

John begins his gospel account revealing that Jesus is the life, and Jesus says these very words in chapter 14.

Show me how the one (Jesus) who is the life and light of men, and gives life as He chooses could be anyone but God.

Only God gives life, Domenic.

Thus Paul reveals (as Duxrow has already re-clarified)this fact most clearly about Christ Jesus, i re-reiterate Collosians (1.16-17)" For by him all things were created, in the heavens and on the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things are held together.

Jesus, who holds all things together, is doing what only God can do.

Now if you can, please explain to me how you can miss that Jesus is God?




From the Scriptures, Jesus own words on more than one occaison reveal a bad tree cannot produce good fruit, yet we read in Acts Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. Jesus produces good fruit, and therefore must be a good tree...but only God is good. So, unless you are just another one of those dualists, you will not deny Jesus is God and again set your own words against Jesus and His Apostles.

Since Jesus did good, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit, what does that say about Him?
He did something no mere human can do.


Put one plus one together Domenic.

Just in the book of John (who testifies the same as his Rebbe), Jesus more than once stated he came from Heaven. One example of this in John 8 is where He plainly told those religious leaders that by comparison, they came from earth. In chapter 17 Jesus speaks to His Father anticipating His return to the glory He possessed before he laid it aside to came down to Earth as God's servant.
(Paul affirms these same things in many different ways.)

Jesus only did good as He never sinned.
No mere human can do this.
He is not the seed of Adam.
He is the seed of God, His very Word living in human form.

Jesus could not be only human or Jesus, who never sinned would be sinning by breaking God's word:
"Assuredly there is not a righteous human on earth who does good and does not sin."
_{Eccl. 7:20}


Only God is good.
but
Jesus is good.
THEREFORE,
Jesus is God.

Reading your sig line from John 6:44 "No man can come to me unless the father, who sent me, draws him, and I will resurrect him in the last day."

Mayhaps the Father is drawing you?

If you are a Christadelphian as it seems, it might help looking at the history of it's founder.

If he was wrong, then what fruit proceeds forth from that tree?

Are you following in the footsteps of Jesus and the Apostles...

....or are you following a nineteenth century notjob coming here to seek a better fortune in America? He landed himself in the "Burnt Over District" of the United States. This was the place where other nutjobs also manufactured and proliferated their own bent of what they said was truth...and the mass of decieved folks bought into whatever variation of metaphysical meandorings suited their itching ears. The land where 7th Day Adventists, Church of Christ, Mormons, New Thought, Jehovah Witnesses, and a host of other slanted half-truth and falsehood doctrineers spawned and forged their wares with enough success to live high on the hog.

Think about these things.
Do you follow and advocate a man's--Dr. John Thomas--institutionalisation of a pseudochristianity among many already such pre-existing devicive organisations...yet another cultic faction amongst so many claiming to be the ultimate restoration of true Christianity.

David has not even bothered to represent what the founder was really like...not unlike the Mormon with their little Joe Smith and assasinating sidekick Brigham Young or the Jehovah Witness god Russell. (Either Dr. Thomas's living dead gurl does not realize these things or he is misrepresenting this as well as so many other things.)

Please do not be like David avoiding the historical fact on record about this fraud. He made many false predictions which never manifested, and so this wolf too clearly fits within the Biblical parameters of just another false prophet/teacher misleading well meaning though duped people. The plain and simple fact is that false prophets not only prognosticate falsely, but as well, they teach falsehoods to acquire an audience...to obtain gain for themselves and/or their own empire making misadventures.

They are all greedy hypocritical liars.

If only Dr. John Thomas had been born a century later, he could be grouped in with the Harold Camping types now in the world. (Like Harold, who also doesn't lay claim to being a prophet, the bad Dr. Thomas still forged on, and through his own deceived deceiving heart, pondered his path into divining prognosticated untrue predictions anyway.)

In the Bible the number one outward visible sign of all false prophets and teachers is the greed for their own beneficial gain, which is idolatry.

This founding dead doctor clearly qualifies as a false prophet and a false teacher.


When your words were first read well over a month ago, they seemed...how can it be put but oxymoronic, as though you somehow conceive there is a good bad as well as bad-bad. The lesser of two evils is still evil.


Do you rilly think God is yardsticking everyone?
He sees and knows everything you do. Is there actually a differing means of comparison God uses to judge all men?

I mean, if it were our deeds compared with Jesus and the Law, many of whom have never heard anything about God of Judeo-Christianity, what kind of justice is that?

Jesus made it clear that we all are justified or condemned by whatever word coming from our own mouths, and Paul said it is our own conscience that condemns or excuses us.

So, is it really how far you are on whatever path you take?

If you think our deeds are the way all shall be Judged by Christ Jesus, then why did He say that it would be our words? Why did Paul say that our own conscience is the measure?

Abraham decieved even kings, yet God still honored His covenant between them. Abe's nephew Lot is proclaimed righteous as well, though he sojourned in Sodom, and the effects of it's degredation can be seen through His own actions...but God saved him from eternal fire that fell there...and what about the incest he committed with both his daughters: righteous Lot? Isaac was a mocker yet God kept covenant with him. Jacob was a swindler and a cheat and God stood by him, too. King David was an adulterer and murderer yet is known as a man after God's own heart...

Need i go on mentioning Solomon and or Peter denying Jesus and others whom God did not cast away because of deeds against Him?

You are your own yardstick if it is your words and your conscience...and in this we all fall short as well. (see James 3 talking of the tongue as a world of iniquity setting ablaze the course of hell).

I worship Jesus and pray to Jesus, and also to His Father and my Father, and i sin...
...but i wonder if you have the whole idea about what sin really is altogether wrong.

Is it that we are bad because we do something wrong, or is it because of something else?

There is no place in the Bible saying Jesus cannot forgive or deliver us from daily sins...if daily sins is the case.

Jesus died nearly 2000 years ago though dependently trusting in(to) and relying (up)on Him cleanses us from an evil conscience here and now. Paul reveals that sin does not have dominion over any who remain in Him, so why the need to confess what does not exist in God's eyes?

If you are in Christ and cleansed from an evil conscience, and in this case sin has no dominion over you, who can charge you with any thought, deed, or even word????? t This cleansed conscience does not fear being cut off from God, or have to make up words contrary to what God reveals in the Bible, such as what you lied about concerning Jesus finished work::"He did not die to remove the sins we do daily...if he did we would not have to keep asking Father to forgive us. A person who has many sins may be better than a person who has few sins.

So you will be asked: Were the Scribes and Pharisees better off than the prostitutes, tax collectors, and publicans...and who will love God more, the one forgiven for only a few sins, or the one who receives forgiveness for many?


It seems the bigger problem is the failure to recognize that when Jesus died, His life was given as a ransom for not only our sin and natural failings by our weakness...the human condition.

Ransom, a substitute for the death demand laid on Adam's children because nothing good is the final result of anything coming about from sin flawed humanity: us.

Ransom for many; but not all.

He redeemed the whole of all that exists in the world back to Himself.
First He gave this dominion to Adam.
Adam abdicated all this to the devil in the garden by obeying him instead of God.
Jesus purchased it all back to Himself, yet retained human dominion in potentia...because God came here as a human to purchase back what was rightfully His to be under human dominion. Now it is just this way because of what God did through Jesus Christ, giving up both biological and age-abiding life through the blood of Jesus Christ being both God and human.

We can experience a portion of this dominion in the here and now (with persecution), when we remain willingly abdicating our own intents and bents to be Jesus' slave and do His bidding.

That word "slave" just mentioned is something most all religious people claiming to supposedly be "Christian" seem to ignore or avoid.

The greek has over three words for servant or "to serve", yet there are about 130 instances in the B'rit Hadasha (aka N.T.) where this word is mistranslated into the English rendered in relation to serving...but the Bible says slave, not serve. It's not like " you can do this if you will serve me", but rather, "If you are going to be My slave, you must do My bidding even if you are not willing to."

If one is not Jesus' slave, then they are slaves to sin...yet i hear so many talk about freedom....freedom to have their best life now, and God wants to fulfill your dreams and other rubbish.

You tell me of a master says to a slave, "Listen, i am here to do whatever you need to be self-fulfilled and shall serve your every whim," and i would be the first to call you a bald faced liar...like i have them.

Look what Paul says in Romans 6:
[indent][color="#0000ff"]For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will also be part of his resurrection; knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him; knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no more has dominion over him! For the death that he died, he died to sin one time; but the life that he lives, he lives to God. Thus consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Therefore don’t let sin be master in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. Neither present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin will not have dominion over you. For you are not under law, but under grace.

This tells us some basic things:
1) If you are dead you do not sin.
2) if any sin has dominion over us, we are slaves sold under the law and do not partake in God's grace via reckoning yourself dead in Jesus Christ.
3) Participating in His death, sin has no dominion over us, and so, we become alive to God in Christ Jesus, and can share in the love gifts (aka:grace) from and of God.

This does not happen by rulekeeping. Keeping rules only says you are the one who is trying to make yourself right with God...and that never works.

Jesus said that if anyone will be His slave, they will take up their cross and follow HIm.

This is the great exchange. You give up everything that is your life, and as a sacrafice living holy and acceptable to God in following Christ Jesus, and for this your own life and nature is substituted with the life and nature of God. As you mature in this, you will grow more and more dependent upon God ultimately to rely on Him alone.



SO, i'm thinking again about your idea of a better bad than a bad bad. He who has broken just one of God's Laws is guilty of them all.

Facts are, whether it's a better-bad than horribly-bad, they both "miss the bullseye" completely, which is the primary definitions of the main greek word used for "sin". By God's standard (Torah), in His eyes, the only prize for missing this mark is hell to pay.

...and do not believe David or anyone else that says hell is only symbolic. If this were the case, then so is all the good promised to those who love Him.
(i already experience foretastes of the good promised...and nothing of this is symbolic.)

Someone further along on the path though not there yet is still not reaching the destination...and do you think you will change anything while incorpreal, really?



You say our condition is not good at present. God surveying everything he made said it is all very good.

Now, is it our condition that is bad, or is it whom we enslave ourselves to?

Where does the Bible say that God judges us by how far we have come compared with what we were yesterday?

You say Jesus died to give all who believe in Him life.

What do you mean by "believe in"?
What i am saying is that in this 21st century that could be thought to be something as remiss as agreeing in your mind that something could be thought of as fact by you. Yet, scripturally it is the concept of swearing your total allegiance to Jesus: and offering up all that is part of you and all your possessions, depending upon Him alone and submitting to Him becoming a slave of His for His Kingdom?

This is what i do not get about those who claim they tried Christianity or were Christians.

According to Jesus own words, no man can pluck anyone out of His or His Father's hands that are His. So, there is no such thing as trying out Christianity; and if anyone is really become a willing slave of Jesus, the very last decision they make alone for themselves is to give our own will/determinations/intentions/volition--as in everything we possess, do, and have or will become...it is all given over to Jesus.

Once becoming a true Christian, we do not call the shots like once was done; but rather live the sacraficed life.



Because of the above thoughts relative to your comments, i really wonder if you even know what the Evangelon/Gospel really consists of. So, i will ask you to now explain God's plan of salvation to me as though i were a pagan heathen and ignorant of who God actually is...though i am aware He exists.









...and finally, answer this if you will:
It's regarding the fact that Jesus is God and not really like you say at all.

When somebody does wrong against you, should they go talk to somebody else to make things right with you?

Don't they need to get matters straightened out with you and not somebody else?

Can they just pick out an interested third party, ask them for your forgiveness, and then that third party forgives them for wronging you?

Is this should even be done?

This is not the way anyone in this whole wide world does things.

Can that third party without notice automatically forgive them for wrongs done to you, and not even tell you that they have forgiven them for every wrong that other person has committed against you?

Jesus proved that when somebody comes to him for wholeness, that he can also forgive every sin a person makes against God by the example provided of healing a paralyzed man in Mark 2.

If Jesus is not God, what gives Him the right to forgive any sins that were never offences against Him in the first place, much less all of a man's sins before he even took the sins of the world upon Himself at the cross?


Sincerely,

Timmy


p.s. I may have missed some details or have some incomplete sentences so come back at me if you do not get what has been written above, and that quite swiftly.