It is interesting when we get into a discussion about when the rapture will occur. We see the pride emerging when our knowledge of the Bible and our dedication to Christ is called into question simply because we disagree on this matter.
Those who attack character because of a disagreement on the gray areas, are more interested in shaming their opponent than they are in learning or coming to common ground on an issue.
There are many things we can disagree on in the Scriptures that are not salvation issues. Prideful people assign loss of salvation to anyone who does not think as they do.
Be wary of those who move from the subject matter to character assassination or demeaning about our level of Bible knowledge because of a disagreement.
I do not take these people seriously, even choosing to dismiss their argument, knowing that someone who must demean someone in order to win, probably doesn't know as much as they claim.
Proverbs 23:9
"Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, For he will despise the wisdom of your words."
I have lived my entire life around people who were more interested in winning than discussing, they must win at all cost, even the cost of diminishing truth.
Also, keep in mind when someone moves to character assassination and mocking they are attempting to divert our attention from how little they really know, hoping we will not notice they do not have a good argument or they would just state that and refrain from the other.
How many times must we continue to repeat the same thing over and over again to Christians who assert that one can lose what they did not earn, can change back into the old creation they never made of themselves?
Those who have gone back were never born again, its just that simple.
All those who have been changed into a new creation by Christ cannot go back and be the old creation again. God gave them what they wanted, that was to be born again and to continue. Everyone who is born again does endure to the end, they can do nothing else.
Ephesians 1:13-14
13 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also [b]believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is given as a pledge (promise) of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory."
God never breaks His promise and He never lets go of His children. When they sin He disciplines them.
Hebrews 12:5-7 "…5 And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, or lose heart when He rebukes you. 6 For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and He chastises everyone He receives as a son.” 7 Endure suffering as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?"
When God changes them they stay changed, when they have eternal life it begins at salvation and lasts forever.
Romans 10:13
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
John 3:35-36 "…35 The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in His hands. 36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever rejects the Son will not see life. Instead, the wrath of God remains on him.”"
Whoever believes on Jesus Christ HAS (right now) eternal life.
Isaiah 17 seems as though it's about to be fulfilled soon.
Prophecy about Damascus
17: 1-3 The oracle concerning Damascus.
“Behold, Damascus is about to be removed from being a city
And will become a fallen ruin.
2 “The cities of Aroer are forsaken;
They will be for flocks to lie down in,
And there will be no one to frighten them.
3 “The fortified city will disappear from Ephraim,
And sovereignty from Damascus
And the remnant of Aram;
They will be like the glory of the sons of Israel,”
Declares the Lord of hosts."
6 more days until the 70th anniversary of the nation of Israel!!!!
Isaiah 66:7-9
"7"Before she travailed, she brought forth; Before her pain came, she gave birth to a boy.
8"Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Can a land be born in one day? Can a nation be brought forth all at once? As soon as Zion travailed, she also brought forth her sons. 9"Shall I bring to the point of birth and not give delivery?" says the LORD. "Or shall I who gives delivery shut the womb?" says your God."
In the time of Sodom and Gomorrah the people were prosperous, they didn't fall because of poverty, they fell because they had placed their trust in wealth and pleasure, leaving no room for God.
Does this sound very familiar? It does to me! So many people have counted themselves as superior because of their wealth or their intellect, they have depended on their outer appearances of accomplishment while their soul dries up on the inside.
Great knowledge does not make a man more spiritual or wiser, often the knowledge is based on personal bias rather than truth, therefore rendering it useless and even foolish.
Those who love to pretend they are intellectual through twisted Scripture and high minded ideas will be led astray into arrogance and self righteousness. The more they flaunt their false intellectualism and twisted wisdom, the more foolish they appear to those who are led by the Holy Spirit. We see a lot of this today, rather than trusting the Bible they twist it to add their own ideas to it, appearing wise they become fools.
These people resist the truth willfully in favor of their elevated status.
Job 21:14
"They say to God, 'Depart from us! We do not even desire the knowledge of Your ways."
Those who are willfully ignorant, arrogantly refusing to listen to God's wisdom, do not want to know truth, they know it but have chosen to deny it.
Those who are willfully ignorant think they are wise. When they are rebuked by the Word of God they rage against those who shared it, while continuing to speak their ignorance. The raging is evidence that they know the truth and hate that someone exposed their lack of wisdom.
One man said to me that a man was not a liar just because he told one lie. The truth is just the opposite, a man cannot tell a lie unless they were already a liar in their heart.
"Light refused increases ignorance." Adrian Rogers
Matthew 13:15
FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL, WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR, AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES, OTHERWISE THEY WOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES, HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN, AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.'"
Romans 1:28
"And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,"
Psalm 106:35 "35 But were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works."
The nation of Israel mingled with the ungodly nations, that affected everything they do and say. Just as the believers today mingle with ungodly people simply because they are family or because they love to mix with their friends from the neighborhood or work place. It is one thing to spend some time with these people, becoming a witness to them, it is quite another to remain best friends with those who have rejected Christ or who claim to be Christians and reject the Bible as their standard.
Romans 1 clearly shows that when we reject God long enough, at some point He turns us over to our own passions, pleasures and destruction.
Something to think about!
Failures in life should not devastate us, they can be and should be growing experiences. We learn from our failures, unless we refuse to admit them.
There are those who look down their noses at others for failures as though they themselves had none. Everyone has failures, the difference between a wise man and a fool is that the wise man admits the failure, moving on toward corrections and personal growth. The fool pretends they have no failures while remaining emotional and spiritual infants merely to maintain a superficial appearance of personal perfection.
Those who cannot confess sin or admit failure cannot grow in maturity or spiritually.
What does the Bible say about
Failure
2 Corinthians 12:9-10
"But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
Romans 5:3-5
"3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
The question is; "do we want to grow in holiness, becoming spiritually mature believers? Or are we content to be arrogant, superficially minded?
When we do not grow we regress, there is no such thing as stagnation, there is only going forward to backward.
