Any thoughts on this?

[Michael37]

2 hours ago, Stan Murff said:

I hear so many preachers say our future sins are already forgiven and that our conduct in this life can never stop us from going to heaven after we get saved.

Is this true or is it not true?
I've seen some of these preachers provided bible verses claiming their point is true.

But so far I haven't seen any bible verses saying this is not true.  If it's not true doesn't that mean people could get saved and in the end not go to heaven?

• Gene Roddenberry – television producer and creator of Star Trek. Raised Southern Baptist, denounced his former faith and became a secular humanist.^[10]

[phoneman-777]

2 hours ago, The_Patriot21 said:

The last supper.

They ate the Last Supper on Thursday evening after sunset, and because sunset marks when a day ends and the next begins, that means the Friday Passover had already gotten underway before they even got to the Upper Room, and it was well into the night when they left for Gethsemane afterward --- which means there was no booze, yeast, old bread, or any other fermentation products to be found anywhere, per the Law of Moses which commanded them to get rid of it all before Passover.

2 hours ago, The_Patriot21 said:

It's likely he had wine at the marriage feast where he turned water to wine. Even if he didn't, he certainly wouldn't enable people to sin, it would be against his nature.

Certainly, He wouldn't have Solomon tell us to not even look at booze, then come in Person and turn water into gallons of booze.

The "saved the best for last" argument can just as easily apply to "fresh vs. stale" grape juice, and not necessarily "black label vs. rotgut" as is popularly believed.

2 hours ago, The_Patriot21 said:

The apostle Paul also prescribed wine to Timothy to help treat an ailing stomach.

We should remember that grape juice has all the medicinal properties that fermented wine is touted to have, without any of the booze.

[com7fy8]

11 hours ago, Stan Murff said:

I go to a non denomination church that has teachings similar to some of the popular tv preachers out there such as Joel Osteen.

While I have listened to Joel, at times I have been able to think of even two or three scriptures for each thing he has said . . . though he might not quote or reference those scriptures.

But he seems able to keep attention too much to how God loves you and is there for you . . . too much about God being about you and making your life better.

But, yes God does dearly love each of us and He does make our lives better and better, and can use personal losses to make way for much better than we lost . . . as Joel does emphasize.

I could give you scriptures for things he says. And there are times his wording is a match with parts of verses I know are in the Bible, though he does not give the verse references.

He is not a prophet, to my knowledge. So, he can't be a false prophet, I would say, if he does not claim to be a prophet. Also, tv preachers can develop so that ones criticizing them for something two to twenty years ago could be out of date.

But I am concerned with how he seems overly interested in using your faith to get your own self blessed.

About that idea that all sins even in the future are forgiven > this can help to trick you into being mainly concerned about your own self.

Instead, in our prayer we need to deny ourselves and first be about pleasing our Father. And in our lives first be attentive to submitting to Jesus so we do what He desires.

And He coordinates us according to all He has going on.

And so, if our attention so belongs to Jesus first, we are not going to be so concerned about things going our way, and what we can get away with >

"and you will find rest for your souls." (in Matthew 11:28-30)

In Christ's perfectly satisfying rest, we won't depend on booze buzzes and smoking and pleasures and excitement in order to have peace and satisfaction or relief from work.

Instead of relying on booze or excitememts for relief and escape, we can rest in the Lord, get rejuvenated, and enjoy loving and sharing with our families, instead 

When you get home, possibly you would do well to first check on your wife and see however she needs attention and support and sharing. And enjoy discovering how you can relate with her > if Jesus is personally interested in all there is about her . . . I would feel that she is much more interesting than a booze buzz or other not really personal stuff.

So, trust God and enjoy discovering.

[The_Patriot21]

43 minutes ago, phoneman-777 said:

They ate the Last Supper on Thursday evening after sunset, and because sunset marks when a day ends and the next begins, that means the Friday Passover had already gotten underway before they even got to the Upper Room, and it was well into the night when they left for Gethsemane afterward --- which means there was no booze, yeast, old bread, or any other fermentation products to be found anywhere, per the Law of Moses which commanded them to get rid of it all before Passover.

Certainly, He wouldn't have Solomon tell us to not even look at booze, then come in Person and turn water into gallons of booze.

The "saved the best for last" argument can just as easily apply to "fresh vs. stale" grape juice, and not necessarily "black label vs. rotgut" as is popularly believed.

We should remember that grape juice has all the medicinal properties that fermented wine is touted to have, without any of the booze.

But yet, the Greek word used in each case is the one for actual fermented wine.

And where did He have Solomon tell us not to even look at booze? 

[AnOrangeCat]

5 hours ago, Stan Murff said:

But so far I haven't seen any bible verses saying this is not true.  If it's not true doesn't that mean people could get saved and in the end not go to heaven?

I'm referring you back to the verses I quoted in my earlier post and actually posting the warning verse this time.

Hebrews 10:26-29: "If we deliberately go on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no further sacrifice for sins remains, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume all adversaries. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think one deserves to be punished who has trampled on the Son of God, profaned the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and insulted the Spirit of grace?"

There's some different camps of thought on this but neither gives a very good forecast for your salvation. The once saved always saved crowd takes the position that a person doesn't lose their salvation but that those who continue in sin never truly gave their hearts to Jesus in the first place.

Meanwhile the camp that says you can lose your salvation is pretty self explanatory. Reinforcing the verse from Hebrews, at the end of Luke 9 Jesus had a bunch of people aiming for discipleship and they wanted to do things like see their friends and family. He concluded by saying that those who looked back were unfit for the kingdom of Heaven.

[Justin Adams]

31 minutes ago, AnOrangeCat said:

I'm referring you back to the verses I quoted in my earlier post and actually posting the warning verse this time.

Hebrews 10:26-29: "If we deliberately go on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no further sacrifice for sins remains, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume all adversaries. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think one deserves to be punished who has trampled on the Son of God, profaned the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and insulted the Spirit of grace?"

There's some different camps of thought on this but neither gives a very good forecast for your salvation. The once saved always saved crowd takes the position that a person doesn't lose their salvation but that those who continue in sin never truly gave their hearts to Jesus in the first place.

Meanwhile the camp that says you can lose your salvation is pretty self explanatory. Reinforcing the verse from Hebrews, at the end of Luke 9 Jesus had a bunch of people aiming for discipleship and they wanted to do things like see their friends and family. He concluded by saying that those who looked back were unfit for the kingdom of Heaven.

The definite article is before 'sin'. He is saying THE SIN I have been talking about - ie going back to the Judaiser bunch.

[Justin Adams]

2 hours ago, phoneman-777 said:

They ate the Last Supper on Thursday

Wednesday Nisan 14. Sorry but most everyone gets this wrong along with all the dispensational nonsense. So very few know scripture well. 

All gone astray, and WHEN that great elevator in the sky does not come for them, then maybe a great falling away of the poorly taught and wrongly learned.

[BK1110]

This thread seems to be devolving and steering away from what I think are the key points to address.

1. What is sin exactly?

Based on the original poster's words, I am deeply concerned that there is a lack of taking the issue of sin seriously. Many preachers and Christians are guilty of this. The watered down Gospel we hear is often "we all know that we've all messed up, we've all done things that weren't the best, but there's good news! Jesus died to forgive all our sins!" While that is all true, this does not go far enough. Sin is a rebellion against God's character and commands and created order. It is essentially calling God a fool. It is pridefully saying we know better than God Almighty Himself. Understand this; God hates sin with such a furious passion that he declared it must be punished. It MUST be.

He did not pretend there was no sin, or that it was not a big deal. He did not forgive sin; he forgave US from OUR sins. But he still required payment in blood for them. Jesus bled for our sins. He was tortured and mutilated and executed for them.

Sin is not defined as "something that hurts someone else." It is an act of rebellion against God. So the phrase we often here "I'm not hurting anyone, what's the big deal?" shows a lack of understanding about what sin is. All sin is an act against God's law. Rape is primarily a sin against God, who designed sex as a loving union between a husband and wife to image the future marriage between Jesus and the Church; Murder is primarily a sin against God, who created that victim as a beloved image bearer of Himself, and who alone has authority to decide when a person lives and dies; drunkenness is primarily a sin against God, who commands us to always be vigilant, always be self-controlled, always sober-minded. By the world's standard, the first two things are grave sins. The third is no big deal. But all are big deals to God. We do not get to pick and choose.

2. Do you agree that the Bible demands repentance from sins?

"Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out," -- Acts 3:19

Please note that repentance is prescribed for the purpose of having your sins blotted out. It says "repent." Why? "THAT your sins may be blotted out." The clear indication here then is that one who does NOT repent will NOT have their sins blotted out. If sins could be blotted out without repentance, there would be no need for repentance, and the Bible would be commanding us to do something meaningless and foolish.

Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” -- Luke 3:8-9

John the Baptist is addressing people who were not repentant. Why? They were saying that because they were Israelites, descendants of Abraham, that they were God's people, period, end of story, they can live how they like. John makes it clear that they were not nearly as special as they thought. He tells them that EVERY tree that does not bear good fruit is destroyed.

3. So what is repentance exactly?

In short, a real change of mind and heart. So many conflate repentance with apologizing. But it is not just saying "I'm sorry," it is actually being sorry, and resolving to change your ways. True saving faith in the work of Jesus, which must be founded on a real brokenness about your sinful state, will naturally and always lead to real repentance, which will naturally and always lead to a changed external lifestyle.

This ties in with the first point about sin. One who desires not to turn from known sin shows that they do not really think they are sinful in the first place. They may agree that the Bible says they are wrong, in the same way a teenager might say "my dad told me I have to be home by 8 PM every night or I will be punished," and yet thinks that the rule is stupid and he shouldn't have to follow it.

But true repentance happens when the teenager stays out too late and encounters a violent gang, and sees then and realizes that it was GOOD and RIGHT that his father placed the rule on him. The teenager not only recognizes that the rule exists, but he affirms that it is a good rule and that he was wrong for breaking it. In tears in his hospital bed, bandaged up from his wounds the gang members gave him, he realizes that his father was right all along, and that he was a fool for doubting his father's wisdom and good intentions in making that rule, and resolves that he will do all he can to not break that rule again in the future.

So to sum up, the Bible clearly declares that drunkenness is a sin. The question is; will you listen to God, or to yourself? The Bible says that those who have truly been saved and truly repented will, when confronted with clear Biblical teaching that some action or attitude is not in keeping with God's will and law, renounce and fight against that action or attitude, because they abhor sin and love God.

"My experience is that people who go about their Christian lives with a casual inattention to the fight of faith—who are not “diligent to confirm [their] calling and election” (2 Pet. 1:10), who do not “strive for . . . the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14), who do not give thought to Jesus’s statement that “the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Mark 13:13), or to Jesus’s words “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Rev. 2:10)—such careless people, I have found, are mistaken not mainly in their view of saving faith but in their view of eternal security.

They have the superficial and unbiblical notion that “once saved, always saved” means that there is no earnest warfare in salvation. For them, conversion to Christ is like a vaccination against the damning effects of sin. They got the vaccination, so now they can breathe in the virus of sin year after year and feel secure against hell. They can break out with sinful sores all over, and never see them as the prelude to hell. They got the vaccination.

But that is not what the Bible teaches about eternal security. ... how naïve and unbiblical it is to think that conversion is like a vaccination. Conversion is like a terminally ill cancer patient being introduced to an amazing physician who has the only cure in the world. His cure is not a vaccination. It is a lifelong treatment of moment-by-moment protection from the guilt and power of the cancer of sin, in fellowship with the doctor. The protection is not chemo. It is not radiation. It is a satisfying friendship with the doctor. The doctor is the medicine." -- John Piper

[Stewardofthemystery]

20 hours ago, Stan Murff said:

If it's true that all our sins past present and future are already forgiven, and we will still go to heaven regardless of our actions, then why does it even matter?

That is false doctrine.  Jesus Christ came to forgive us of our past sins, and to “make us free”from the bondage of sin, so that we do not keep on sinning in the future.

If someone is truly born again of the Holy Spirit they will not continue to sin.  Also if someone is truly under Grace Sin SHALL NOT have dominion over them.

If you have been “made” righteous by your Maker you will also walk in Righteousness.

Be not deceived, sinners SHALL NOT inherit the Kingdom of God!

[luigi]

Everyone will choose either to live for their flesh, or to live for their spirit. The former leads to death, while the latter to life.

Romans 8:13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

If we then continue to live for our flesh when we are aware of the truth, there is then no other sacrifice for our sinning (choosing an alternate path).