Augusta Christian questions cont…
Cont…
7. Romans 8:29 says, “For these God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be firstborn among many brothers.”
Ephesians 1:5 says, “He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ—in accordance with His pleasure and will.”
***How can there be free will if the above verses are true?
- The answer is Yes. : ) NOTE: The worst thing we can do is grab a single verse without its context. Pay attention to the rest of those passages.
Things we CANNOT deny: God is sovereign. God knows everything, right? Is it surprising to God who receives Jesus and who doesn’t? No. Did you wake up one day and DECIDE to follow Jesus and surrender to Him on your own? No. God wooed you into knowing Him. John 6:44. Ephesians 2:8-9. (God is the ONE who even GIVES us the faith to believe the Gospel of Jesus and be saved!)
Knowing that God is above and outside of everything and is SO sovereign and holy, yet He loves YOU and sent Jesus for YOU, should send you to your knees in humility before Him…No matter how you want to interpret this passage (the content of which is SO God-sized and rests in Him alone to know, Romans 11:33-36), you cannot deny that GOD is the one who initiates, works, and completes salvation! You must also see that NO MATTER WHAT, the Gospel is not changed by how you interpret or misinterpret Scripture. Your DESPERATE need for Jesus Christ to forgive you and to be Lord of your soul still remains just as it does with all of mankind everywhere.
8. How is it that God allows some people (like students at this school) to be put in a Christian environment and others (like dying children in Africa) to be born into the situation they are born in—how is it fair when the opportunity for salvation is not equal for both people?
Acts 17:24-27 gives us the basis for why we live where we live as opposed to others, etc. It is His sovereignty and we need to be awakened to His strategic purpose in having us where He has us.
Let’s get a couple of things straight. There are more Christians per capita in Africa than there are in the United States. The church of Jesus Christ is growing faster in China (where people die for sharing Jesus with people) than nearly if not any other place in the world. Who are you to say what is fair? You know what’s fair? Hell is fair. The most mind-blowing thing is that we HAVE the Gospel – we have heard it so many times that it makes some of us sick – yet we do not want to do anything about it. We do not want to give up EVERYTHING so that the world who has never heard the name of Jesus can hear and be saved. That’s not fair. Where we are born does not change the perfect plan of God’s redemption through Jesus or the URGENCY of the Great Commission. Understand that you live here and you are blessed. Surrender and GO. Psalm 67:1-2. Romans 10.
9. If God’s will is going to happen no matter what, why do people always pray “if it’s Your will”? Why does God allow horrible things to happen to people, especially to those who follow and obey Him?
Good question. That’s actually two questions. : )
- I think it is good to have the posture and heart in prayer that we want what God wants in the end more than anything. Isaiah 55:8. If that is, in fact, what we actually want! Again, Jesus knows our HEART. …Matthew 7:7-11. I do believe that there is an absence these days of praying “big” prayers to God. Sometimes we just pray, “God, let your will be done,” instead of praying in faith as God’s children for Him to hear our cries and move. 1 John 5:14-15. We should want His glory above all else, but we should PRAY – it changes things! Sometimes God’s will aligns with our prayer of faith in an unexplainable way! James 5:17-18.
- The world is fallen. It is just for us to face hardship, see pain, experience disaster and death. Luke 13:1-5. Jesus said that the real question we should ask, knowing the state of this sin-cursed, broken world, is why not me? Why am I still here? He said REPENT or perish. This is obviously not popular at all, but it is all true. Jesus said it. PRAISE GOD FOR HIS GRACE AND HOPE IN JESUS CHRST! The world is fallen and broken, and only through Jesus will it all be redeemed and made new.
10. Did angels have free will? If so, then how did Satan fall?
Yes, angels have free will, and they do fall (Luke 10:18) but they are not extended grace through the Gospel like we are (which, again, should HUMBLE us before God). When they sin, they fall and are cursed forever, i.e. Satan and a third of the angels falling, or Galatians 1:8, etc. 1 Peter 1:10-12 says that angels LONG to look into these things and see the love of God through Jesus Christ. It “wows” them.
