Islam

[gibby]

Originally Posted by Gary52

Puzzling... Are you saying that God excludes people from this book of life?

Those that reject the Jesus Christ as Savior are not written in the book of life. Revelation 20:15

Sounds like you have an advantage... Is that fair?

God wishes that all would come to Him but He foreknew that not all would or will choose Him. 2 Peter 3:9

The Words of God, not men.

[GloryB]

Originally Posted by Gary52

Puzzling... Are you saying that God excludes people from this book of life?

Sounds like you have an advantage... Is that fair?

Gary,
I'll let streetsinger answer for himself since he is so good at explaining these things.

My own opinion is that NO....not everyone is written in the Lamb's Book of Life. The only names on it are the people who have accepted Him as the Lord and Savior of their life, therefore receiving eternal life.

All Christians have an advantage. The main one being....they aren't going to hell. They will remain with God for eternity because their name is written in the above mentioned Book of Life.

God didn't pick and chose who was going to be in the Book of Life. But from His unique perspective of knowing the history of the world from the beginning to the end before we were in it.....I think He knew who was going to choose Him and who wasn't. He said He had this knowledge before the foundations of the earth.

From that point, some people do think that God did the choosing. If this were true then God then I don't know why God made the others, but either way of looking at it, if a person has accepted Jesus as their Savior, they are IN the Lamb's Book of Life, they have salvation and will live eternally with Him.

[Gary52]

Originally Posted by gibby

God wishes that all would come to Him but He foreknew that not all would or will choose Him. 2 Peter 3:9

If God foreknew some would not choose Him, then why create them in the first place if He knew they would just end up in hell?

Better never to have been born!

Seems cruel to me!

[GloryB]

Originally Posted by Gary52

If God foreknew some would not choose Him, then why create them in the first place if He knew they would just end up in hell?

Better never to have been born!

Seems cruel to me!

An easy answer would be to go into the story of creation. On day six God created the seeds of mankind that were within Adam. Until the fall of Adam...everyone was safe.

I think it's much more complicated than that and certainly a much bigger picture....but this is the way God chose to explain it so everyone could understand it.

Many times in the Bible God says His ways are higher than our ways and if He told us all things we couldn't understand it anyway. Many things will remain a mystery until He shares that knowledge when He takes us into heaven. It's not that He doesn't want to tell us, it is that we are incapable of understanding. Kind of like explaining a computer to someone in the dark ages.

This is where our trust and faith comes in.

[canny]

GloryB can ya give me the whatsits, where to read about this Book, I am a little sceptical about it myself , but I need to see where it is written.

[gibby]

Originally Posted by Gary52

If God foreknew some would not choose Him, then why create them in the first place if He knew they would just end up in hell?

Better never to have been born!

Seems cruel to me!

Amen what Glory said. Look at it this way:

What kind of loving relationship would God have with mankind if He created nothing but robot-creatures that loved Him and were auto-saved? Kind of takes the free-will thing out of the equation and is not true love. Let's say you gave the woman you love a pill that made her love you back. Is that true love? God gave us free will which means free will to choose or reject Him. When we do choose Him, that is a true, loving relationship. If we choose to reject Him, God respects that decision and won't push Himself on us. Kind of like that old saying, "If you love something, set if free...if it does not come back, it was not meant to be."

One of the mysteries of God is that He knew already in advance who would choose Him and who would reject Him. Then, it goes back to Isaiah 55:8-9.

How can the clay say to the potter... (Isaiah 45:9)

[GloryB]

Originally Posted by canny

GloryB can ya give me the whatsits, where to read about this Book, I am a little sceptical about it myself , but I need to see where it is written.

What book are you referring to?

[GloryB]

I'm with you Gibby....I think the whole point was "The Choice". The example you gave is quite perfect considering we are His Bride. The story seems to be clear but it is told in different angles and levels and types of and shadows and .....well, God's ways are higher than our ability to understand how this whole thing was planned 'before the foundation of the world'.

I think this is what makes me love God. He's just "more than" we even know at this time.

[canny]

Originally Posted by GloryB

What book are you referring to?

ooooooooo that was too long ago,,, I have no idea now where my brains were then.....


I have been thinking tho '

The quran seems to be written by Muhammed told to him ,by the same God as ours.. all about Abraham and Moses ,,, and I know Jesus is in there (as a prophet tho I believe)... but it was written about 500 years later I think.

I just forgot where I was going with that.... oh yea,,, its just that we are not so different I dun think, up to a point of course

the segregations that happen with religions can I believe instigate a divide which need not be there.... I am gonna rephrase that,,, which need not have been there..

Just pondering...

[eddybear]

Originally Posted by canny

The quran seems to be written by Muhammed told to him ,by the same God as ours....

Muhammed wrote the Qu'ran, and he claimed God told him what to write. But given what the Qu'ran says, including:

its denial of the deity of Jesus,
its denial of his death on the cross,
its denial of his resurrection,
its denial of the Virgin Birth.......need I go on?

This doesn't sound like whoever told him that was our God!

True, there are points of agreement, for example about Abraham. And it could be useful to build on those points of agreement in dialogue with Muslims. But given what they believe - or perhaps more importantly don't believe - about Jesus, a divide between the Christian and Muslim faiths is inevitable. It is to be hoped that, despite disagreeing on our faiths, we could all still get along, indeed as Christians we are to love everyone, regardless of creed. But the 2 faiths can never merge, the differences are too enormous.