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Pastimes : Prophecy -- HYPE or HOPE? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: alan w who wrote (3882)	10/19/2006 12:09:07 AM
From: alan w	Respond to of 5569

Now I'm talking to myself, but.....this is the last for a while: The Cramped Gate and Narrow Way HOW earnestly did we once exhort sinners to leave the broad way which leads to destruction, for the narrow path that leads to life! (Matt.7:13,14). But, thank God, we learned the great truth that we are in Christ and share His life. How then could we be on a road that leads to life? I learned, moreover, that the entrance into life was wide, not cramped. It was entered by grace, not by striving (Luke 13:24). The narrow way was not the evangel but the law. That leads to life, for those who keep it, but, alas, of the few who find it, none observe it. The precept given for life is for death (Rom.7:10). The word "strait" is no longer understood, hence it is translated cramped in the CONCORDANT VERSION. In its other forms it means groan, distress. We westerners do not know what a narrow road is. I lived on a narrow street. It was just wide enough so three automobiles could drive abreast. In the East a street is not narrow if a single automobile can squeeze through. It is wide, extra wide. It is narrow if pedestrians must go in single file. The word cramped means still more. It is so narrow that it makes one groan to squeeze through. That is the normal experience of one under the law of Moses. But the freedom we have in Christ is like the flight of a bird in the air. Not cramped, but spacious. Full of life, not leading to life. Not groaning, but singing! The figure of the two ways was used by our Lord in proclaiming the evangel of the kingdom, before His rejection by Israel, with the cross out of sight, long before Paul was given his evangel for the nations, which is in force today. Yet even in that economy the gospel was not cramped. In the tabernacle the entrance was very wide indeed. Our Lord's words were immediately preceded by the basic law of the kingdom. "All, then, whatever you may be wanting that men should be doing to you, thus you, also, be doing to them, for this is the law and the prophets." This law is the cramped gate and narrow way. Who can fulfill it?

To: alan w who wrote (3882)	11/8/2006 5:18:36 AM
From: MSB	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5569

Alan, It is my desire to choose my words carefully, trying not to convey a confrontational attitude. If I fail in my attempt, please forgive me. Following is one paragraph from a piece dealing with what I sense the writer believes is God's ultimate plan. The usual way is to view the goal in the darkness of the way. We go back to passages which deal with judgments and allow them to throw their dark shadows across the consummation. We should believe that God will justify all mankind (Rom.5:18), and view the previous judgments in the light of this final achievement. We bring up passages which tell of death, to darken God's declaration that it will be abolished. We should believe that God will make death inoperative at the last, and view the previous passages in this glorious light. We turn to texts which prove that unbelievers will be lost or destroyed, and, with these passages, dim the great declaration that God wills the salvation of all. We should illumine them with the later and higher revelation. We find God's enemies in the fiery lake at what seems to be the close of revelation, and misuse this fact to deny God's declaration that all will be reconciled (Col.1:20). We should not take one to destroy the other, but believe both, for reconciliation follows estrangement, and it alone accords with God's final goal. With all due respect, I believe the writer is in error, unless he has been privileged with some spiritual interpretive knowledge which I fail to recognize. He quotes Romans 5:18 and says, "We should believe God will justify all mankind, etc." Yes, and no. While it is true all men have been justified by the blood of Jesus Christ, it is conditional upon the individual to accept the Grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord by confessing Christ as Lord, asking for forgiveness with a contrite spirit and an honest desire to repent of one's sins, and ask Jesus to come into their life and be their Lord and Saviour. You'll also note in the following verse (5:19) it says, "so by the obedience of one shall MANY (not ALL) be made righteous. Regarding Col. 1:20. Paul isn't speaking to all men in this passage, those who both have and have not accepted Christ as Lord and Saviour. Paul is speaking specifically only to those who have accepted Christ as Lord and Saviour. And Paul is comforting those who have accepted by relating what God has done for those who believe by the work of Jesus at the cross. To suggest that all men will ultimately be saved stands in direct disagreement with the words of Jesus when He says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father except by me." To suggest that even after the second death in the lake of fire there is a way to be redeemed unto God not only calls into question the need for Christ to be crucified for all the sins of mankind, but also suggests one can live a life without any care for what is to come after death, expecting God will still redeem them unto himself. I believe 2nd Peter 3:9 is quite explicit as to what God's hope is for mankind in addition to 1st Thessalonians 5:9. Again, both scriptures suggest the onus is on mankind to accept God's gift of salvation to mankind. Otherwise, I suspect there will be a whole lot of people standing on a trap-door on the Judgement day. Blessed be God, Mike