Dake Bible Discussion Board ⇒ GREAT understanding of Free Will

[branham1965]

You said it better than i ever could macca.

For without the law sin was dead.
For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.

For a child to sin that child must make a conscience decision to break the law of their conscience to do what they know is wrong.

Isaiah states about his own son thus:
Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.
For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, etc

Look at the v,14; talking of Jesus....
Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bare a son, and shall call his name
Immanuel.

We cannot conceive of the conception of Jesus to produce a sin effected human can we, who was the Father of Jesus?
God the Father of cause,,,and so it is with all human babies conceived on the Earth,,,,for God almighty is the Father of spirits.

All man does is reproduce his own likeness in the flesh; where the spirit is the likeness of God.

macca

[branham1965]

I hear what you are saying.

I do not believe that babies and little children go to hell.

To me that is immoral and unjust.

God is said to be perfect in Wisdom,Justice,Love and Power.

That idea goes against all 4 of those attributes.

It cannot be Justice.As Haz said babies and little children do not even know what day it is.

They are innocent.

I will say it again anyone that damns babies or children to hell fire is a sick .

I understand your thoughts here, but this is a statement to be very cautious about. Remember the flood during the time of Noah where everyone besides those righteous were damned and yes, that means all the babies, young children, and adults. We see from study who was left on the ark. This is a subject not well painted with a broad brush stroke.

The scripture has a decent amount of info about children and some were accountable at a very young age. If I am not mistaken the bible speaks of a 7 year old that became a king. To me I cannot even fathom that young of a person becoming a king. Now whether he had enough moral compass to be accountable might be questionable. If not, he certainly at some point did.

From the new testament (although specifically not stated) I tend to hold to there being an age of accountability for the young. I base that on the few statements Jesus made about the children. I certainly cannot prove that from Scripture so it is simply my perception.

[branham1965]

With all my respect to you luchnia

I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT JOB IN ANY WAY CAUSED ALL HELL TO BE LET LOOSE ON HIM.

I know that some fine people teach that.But i do not believe it.

I have no idea why he was tested in the way he was.I do not know.

I believe human beings were given free will.Angels were too.

But i do not believe in Calvinism in any way .

To think that the Creator predestined some people to eternal hell fire to me is not true.
I cannot believe in anything like that.

When you think about free will, a lot of things can come to mind. Is the will of man indeed free? I believe it is in certain areas, and some not so much. We certainly cannot will to be unborn and not exist. I mean we could will it as Job did, but it did not happen for Job and it doesn't happen for us.

We believe God desires us to love Him and that by our choice. Which we tend to believe is part of God's design by which we are created. Which to me the power of choice makes perfect sense otherwise we would be nothing more than robots or machines. However, there are times when my mind begs the question of why did God make me have to choose? This is the tough part.

There is the part of this that can seem a bit unfair. We were created with choice powers, yet it was not our choice to be created this way. We had no say in the matter. Did any of you choose how you would be created? So depending on how you take what is deemed "fair" that could cause some serious thoughts.

In a sense we are forced to choose three paths, the path of righteousness with Jesus, the path of unrighteousness being led by satan, or the middle or lukewarm road (spoken of in Revelation) which winds up the unrighteous path. From my understanding, two of these paths will end in eternal torments and one will end in eternal life with Christ. The narrow path as we know it can be the most difficult of choices because there are many conditions laid out by God for one to walk that path.

So essentially we can choose to walk the unrighteous broad path or the righteous narrow path. Forced? Maybe not, but when it comes down to it, it brings about some thoughts. I mean what man with a sane mind knowing forever torments or forever life would choose eternal torments? Evil or good, right? We could certainly consider this choice power a bit unfair if we were to ponder this more.

Free will has a sense of complexity to it. At my age and time in the Word and for the most part I understand the importance of faith when considering free will. It is that hope or confidence that guides me toward the end. I don't state that I completely understand, but I think having the choice to love was the only way God could create a being as complex as man is.

[macca]

The flood to destroy all living human, creature with breath in its nostrils, human mixtures with angels and animals....was needed to preserve the pure seed of the woman.
So don't blame God for destroying children.
God had to do the same in the promised land for the same reason, otherwise there would be NO Jesus and NO us.

[branham1965]

I agree with you macca.

The flood to destroy all living human, creature with breath in its nostrils, human mixtures with angels and animals....was needed to preserve the pure seed of the woman.
So don't blame God for destroying children.
God had to do the same in the promised land for the same reason, otherwise there would be NO Jesus and NO us.

[luchnia]

The flood to destroy all living human, creature with breath in its nostrils, human mixtures with angels and animals....was needed to preserve the pure seed of the woman.
So don't blame God for destroying children.
God had to do the same in the promised land for the same reason, otherwise there would be NO Jesus and NO us.

That was pretty much my point. Yet for me it is not blame, but truth that God did destroy all but what went on the ark to preserve the pure seed. The blame was on the seed of the evil one. The seed that was destroyed could not rise again as it was evil seed.

For us to make a statement that God did not destroy babies would be untrue, yet to say God was unjust in doing so would be untrue. There were several eruptions of such events where men, women, and children were destroyed.

Foreknowledge played its part in that as well. We have not really addressed that yet. When you think about foreknowledge, you can see the justness in God destroying a baby that is purely evil seed which could not contain eternal life by choice. He would have even been just to destroy those He foreknew would choose evil over eternal life, yet there is more to the story for us in this time frame.

[macca]

So, all children are hell bound unless they get bornagain?
Even the misscarried, aborted and killed with their mother?

[branham1965]

macca


That teaching is nothing but the unvarnished devil as Dad Hagin used to say.

So, all children are hell bound unless they get bornagain?
Even the misscarried, aborted and killed with their mother?

[luchnia]

Doesn't one have to choose depravity? An infant cannot choose anything as they have not developed anything that is capable of choosing in my opinion. Yet there are some fascinating scriptures that make you ponder certain things such as John the Baptist that had the Spirit in the womb. I wonder what he was like when he popped out

I don't agree with infants being depraved, except those born of the evil seed that God had to destroy. To me being born in sin does not make one a sinner. John is the perfect example of that. John was born in sin, yet had the Spirit in the womb which we know the Spirit did not sin.

Jesus had remarkable words for John. Some would say John, like others needed to repent and accept Jesus, yet the Scriptures do not record such an event happening with John, and yet he was born of man in the flesh. John simply does not fit the total depravity full of sin model at all. After all, Scripture shows us that Jesus did not come for the righteous, but the unrighteous.

[Ironman]

Both the Old and New Testaments indicate that God has a special relationship with children. In the book of Ezekiel, God was very upset with His people as they were sacrificing their children to idols. However, God calls them "My children":

Ezekiel 16:20-21, "Moreover, you took your sons and daughters whom you had borne to Me and sacrificed them to idols to be devoured. Were your harlotries so small a matter? You slaughtered My children and offered them up to idols by causing them to pass through the fire."

Babies and young children who die go the heaven through the grace and righteous judgment of God. The Bible is clear that those who are not fully capable of making moral choices are declared to be innocent, and, therefore, worthy of heaven. The Bible does not mention any kind of "age of accountability," but bases accountability on the basis of the ability to make moral choices.