Christianity and the End Times

Faith writes:No those are your words not mine. Not "regardless of reality," more like "regardless of human opinion." The Bible is accurate about reality, and if fallen minds come up with something that contradicts it we know the contradiction is wrong and seek to reconcile it. It's not "reality" we are dealing with in that case, just false opinion. The Bible guides us to the truth but only if we reject what contradicts it.

You know NOTHING.

No you are an unreliable hearer.; Ears to hear but cannot hear.

You could learn something that is unfamiliar to you that millions of others know, but you insist on knowing only what your spiritual blindness and deafness llimit you to knowing.

Phat writes:You guys may deny it but you want for folks to have to do it themselves and would laugh at a God Who helped you.

Faith writes:It's supernatural. God speaks to us through it more often than He speaks to us in any other way. Since many read it who don't have such experiences, though believers do all the time, it has to be that having the Holy Spirit is necessary to hearing from God in this way, meaning you have to be born again.

But since this is a traditional orthodox pastor describing such things, and believers know what he is talking about, those who don't believe really ought to consider that maybe there is a spiritual state that makes such experiences possible instead of just dismissing it all.

Faith writes:Nobody is "hearing voices," that is not how God communicates through His word.

You are the one making up stuff when you keep insisting Christian belief comes from aq "need" to believe. An awful lot of us were very resistant at first to what we now believe, came "kicking and screaming" as I think C.S. Lewis described himself, were drawn against our will.

You can't speak for any of us and it's very rude of you to think you can.

Faith writes:Did you read my quote? J. B Phillips described the "uncanny" experience of the Bible's speaking to his "condition" as he worked on translating it. A lot of this sense of the living God in His living word is "happening" to read passages and verses that directly apply to one's state of mind or current situation in your life, verses that just "happen" to be what you "happen" to be reading that describe what you are going through in life. Happens a lot to me and to many Christians as well as to the translator Phillips, an Anglican priest who as he says thinks of such experiences as something fundamentalists talk about but that he wouldn't expect to have himself. Sometimes I pray to understand something and within days I just "happen" to be reading something that answers my questions. Have I also mentioned that I've had the experience of being very concerned about something and a breeze from a window blows the pages of the Bible that happens to be lying open on the table to a particular page on which my eye just happens to fall on the exact verse that speaks to my concern. I think I may have mentioned that once.So there are typical ways God speaks to us through His word.

No, I did not forget that, but I'm describing how many of us BECAME Christians whereas you are talking about having grown up in the church, and a church that apparently teaches very iffy, "liberal" doctrine at that. You obviously never experienced the supernatural reality of the faith, were never born again, it remained a purely mental experience. You cannot tell us how we got persuaded by imposing on us your judgment that it is all a delusion. You should consider that you are the one with the wrong judgment.

Faith writes:I think that "imaginary pulpit speak" is recognizable to Christian believers as describing their own personal experiences.

You really really really want it to be imaginary, though, don't you?

To the point that you'll call millions of people insane who say they've experienced it personally rather than consider that maybe YOU get it all wrong.

Faith writes:That's from God's point of view. From our point of view we are responsible for the decisions we make and there is nothing stopping you from taking seriously the steps you must take to eternal life.

Tangle writes:Tangle says of course he wants eternal life so I'm saying he has the responsibility to seek it if that is so, and that means he has the responsibility to find out that salvation is by faith alone and to seek that faith.

If we really want to be born again although we can't do it ourselves we can seek it from God, we can read the scripture to understand what it means, we can pray God would give it to us. "Whoever comes unto Me I will not turn away." Anyone who really does that in sincerity won't be turned down. That's scriptural.

Faith writes:No, you're talking what is called "hyperCalvinism," not true Calvinism. If you really want eternal life you can seek it and find it.

Faith writes:Predestination doesn't affect your personal responsibility.

Faith writes:But back to my own point, you seem not have thought at all about the fact that since we know absolutely nothing about who is predestined for what, the concept couldn't possibly affect anything in anybody's life let alone society at large, with the exception of believers who can find it reassuring in relation to our own salvation.

Faith writes:Tangle has no interest in any of this. If you really think he read me to say it is impossible for him to be saved rather than that his own behavior prevents it, then you can clarify for him.

Faith writes:This is why I wish we could just not talk aboujt Calvinism, it is too hard to explain it.