Hi patman,
One of your proofs that open theism was incorrect was made by examining scripture's use of how God has books. Basically saying if there are books written about us, the future must be settled. My answer was "these books are changing." You answered back "Only to us."
Where did you get that answer? Why did you arrive at it?
Hopefully, by the grace of God, I shall attempt to share again whatever He would have me share. To requote myself
Would there be a need for the concept of books to let us know that God knows all things? Could the concept of the books be used as part of the tools He uses to fashion us as we would not desire to be blotted out of the Book of Life?
Okay. I did not want to share this as incredulous as it will sound when you read it, but I guess there was a reason for me to have this memory of it.
My folks claimed that I had almost died when I was little. I don't recall it. I do recall several other dire situations, but I don't recall almost dying. Anyway.. I am more inclined to believe that what I am sharing with you is just another prophetic dream and not really a memory of me being with the Lord when I almost died.
The memory has me being with the Lord. I loved being there! Then my mother and others appeared, begging for me to return. Then I saw the Lord sitting at a stand holding a book to show me what I was to do if I went back. I was seeing a continual sin I would commit in my adulthood as I was just a tot seeing this. I was grieved by this, but before I could decide not to go back, my mother and the others were screaming in anguish for me to return. The Lord was next to me when I was looking up in tears, crying as I said weakly, "I do not want to be seperated from you." Jesus replied,"I'll see what I can do."
Remember the dream Paul had about the man pleading for him to come to Macedonia? Naturally, the man did not know of the dream. I took this as the role of the Holy Ghost is to show us things to come. I'm thinking it was just one of the many prophetic dreams I had in growing up, but it did puzzle me as to why the book, and here we are talking about the books. Was I almost a goner? Would that book be discontinued if I stayed? Or was this being shown for my benefit? Not that it did any good in detering me when I had reached adulthood, but He has delivered me and is keeping me from it! So what I had just shared... does it not raise questions from both sides of the issue? Does this show what God would have to deal with, to this bloke, if I went back into the sinful elements of the world in bringing me Home? It's obvious to me. Did knowing the future deter me from my sin? Nope. Like a memory coming forth at a time too late to remind me not to. So the memory had no power any more than my will did, thus Jesus came to the rescue.
So then you would say.. He changed the books. I could say yes... but at that point in time, I really believed I had a choice to stay or go back, but yet, what was written? Constantly changing according to my view? What if He did not show me all of what was written in the books? Like I was going to be sent back? Like Him coming to my rescue afterwards?
So was the prophetic dream.. the Heavenly encounter of the books written of what I would do.. one of the tools used to fashion me in Him to confess my need for Him in the future? Was the concept of the books for my benefit?
More? I had a dream about being in the garage. I got up on a ladder to look at something on a plank of wood running across two support beams in the garage. I saw one of those traps my brother had stored up there, and I noticed a baby raccoon in it. I reached in to get it, and I thought I got a hold of it, but it slipped through my fingers and fell off to the other side to the floor. My dad was there as I went to catch the baby raccoon, but as I reached for it, it turned into a cat and it scurried away. Within the next few days, a cat got adopted into the family, and the tail was the resemblance of a raccoon tail. Once again, the Holy Spirit in me was showing me things to come. Was that written?
So many prophetic dreams are coming together.. now more than ever as all the ones since a tot through high school to now are coming true as the recent ones are coming true faster. Is this just for me to know and to warn me to be ready for the rapture like the signs of the fig tree and as a woman in labour pangs or is death coming at this stage in my life?
Why the stage? When I moved here in Pennsylvania in the summer before the fifth grade, the very first night, I dreamt that I went out to the mailbox to see if the post office was that quick in forwarding my family's mail. There was none as I turned to see my two new neighbors walking across their property from their house across a lot that was their yard which could fit another home, as they walked into the back yard of our home. I thought maybe somebody from my family was in the backyard, but it was not so as I saw them continuing in their walk past the opened backdoor of our garage which I could see because the garage door was opened. Then I saw the two walk around the side of the garage to the front and just when I thought they would go to the front door to knock, they went into the garage to knock at the door that led to the kitchen. Then the very next morning, it happened exactly like that! I asked the Lord what was the purpose of that dream. It was so dramatically the same. Was it a voice? Or was it a thought? "The stage is set. The players are in place. The die is cast." If I ever had any doubt about where I was to be, that was proof enough for me. There is more to this story but to spare the people I love the humiliation and not to reopen old wounds, I'll pass on that neccessity of the prophetic dream which was meant solely for my benefit in knwoing.
But I shall stop there. Typing this, I cannot see how anyone else would believe this. I am going through this and yet...
So let us go to Judas.
Jesus was predestined to die if man was to be come sinful. But Judas was not predestined to be the betrayer, he just ended up being the one who brought it about. Judas did that so the scriptures would be fulfilled... that is that Jesus would die for our sins.
If settled theology is true, there are millions and millions of Judas'es running around, just waiting on their time to come, with no hope.
John 17: 10And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. 11And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. 12While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.
John 6: 64 64But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.
There are no more Judas'es running around for it prophesied of that one. There is another son of perdition that is to come about in the great tribulation. From one point of view.. kind of unfair that the lot falls to someone having to fulfill that prophecy, but from God's point of view, this is Him redeeming those that want to be with Him out of this sinful world as those that care not to have anything to do with God because they prefer the darkness rather than come to the Light lest their deeds be reproved. So He can place all the bad guys where they need to be and all those that would seek Him where they need to be because He knows those that are seeking Him as in Macedonia and those that were not at the time, as in Asia and Mysia. Salvation is to all, but why not to them? Bcause He knew they would reject Him so as it is written.. do not cast pearls before swine, He led the believers to those that seek Him. From God's point of view, He knows those that are His and He calls them by name because He knows those that seek Him just as it is the Lord that brings us out of the womb.
Isaiah 44:24 Thus saith the LORD, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself;
Isaiah 49: Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.
And as the Lord set the stage for this fallen world that was inevitably to come about, so has He set the characters in place. The instructions as the die is cast.
Deuteronomy 4:29 But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
Psalm 27: 8 When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek.
It is not for us to judge God and say that is unloving when we do not have the mind of God to understand His ways. Remember what Jesus said?
John 16: 12I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. 13Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
I thank the Lord that I believe in Him, and that I love Him too. I trust Him to keep me from falling and to present me faultless, because I prefer the Light than the darkness. I want to be with God, and He knows that. God being God, He shall bring it about through Jesus Christ the Lord with what He has to work with in this world and in this time... to His glory in bringing me to Himself... through His Son.
John 6: 44 44No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
Thus I see no will of man, but a revelation of Jesus Christ made possible by the Father for all those that seek Him.
John 1: 11He came unto his own, and his own received him not. 12But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: 13Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
