Since I wrote and posted this on a Saturday, and we've been busy, I'll remind folks:
Pray for rain, please.
Raleigh, NC has 90 days left, as does Atlanta. Durham, NC has less than 70. The people are in terrible need in these places. Rain making systems are coming this way right now. Please pray the Lord over the weather that he will be merciful and give extended time to these systems where they are most needed. Thank Him for what He is now providing. Do not let us be ungrateful.
Whether or not it rains is already written in God's perfect plan. Praying or not...won't make a difference. Its God's perfect choice to keep the rain from these areas.
ReplyDeleteJust a friendly reminder.
Thus says "anonymous." Since we affirm that God's decrees include items suspended on things like the intercession of His people, this is obviously false.
ReplyDeleteWhether you pray, or not, makes no difference. You're just a puppet, dancing to the strings of the grand puppet master.
ReplyDeleteIf you pray, that was God's plan.
If you don't pray, that was God's plan.
Meaningless.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI suppose your claim is mostly autobiographical.
Unless you believe God is a puppet on your strings, or will be surprised by your prayers, you cannot believe that your own prayers "make a difference."
In contrast, we pray like Elijah, and God freely decides whether to give rain or withhold it, in accordance with his perfect plan, which includes our requests and his gracious response.
Known unto God are all his works from when exactly? Hmm?
God is not wondering whether enough people are going to pray to force him to bring rain.
-Turretinfan
Actually, anonymous, even the little comments you are making that Christians disagree with are part of God's plan. You can only type what He's already planned out, so people that argue with you, are arguing with God's predestined plan.
ReplyDeleteCrazy.
Classic confusion: "Actually, anonymous, even the little comments you are making that Christians disagree with are part of God's plan. You can only type what He's already planned out, so people that argue with you, are arguing with God's predestined plan. Crazy."
ReplyDeleteSaying that we're arguing with the "plan" is about as dumb as saying that Kate in Taming of the Shrew is arguing with William Shakespeare.
But people who have antipathy towards sovereignty are often blind to their own classification errors.
-Turretinfan
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it lovely how nullifidians who have all the courage to post as "anonymous," will play the fatalist when it comes to drought that can threaten human life.
ReplyDeleteAnd why bother helping the people in these afflicted places? You know, survival of the fittest and all that. If they can get out, sobeit, but we'll be darned if we'll help them. God forbid we pray for rain. No God, so why bother? And if there is a God, praying is futile if He's already decreed it. Nevermind that we have to present a straw man of that belief to say that. No need in concerning oneself with truth if there's not a God, right? While they're at it, they can side with the State of Florida and the environmentalists who have openly sided with the invertebrates over who should get the water in Lake Lanier. That's evolutionary ethics for you - fish and mussels over people.
As a resident of Cary (outside of Raleigh), I am seeing these effects daily. Thank you all for your prayers and well-wishes. Rain or not, the Lord's work will be done, and in that we rejoice :-)
ReplyDeleteAs for the fatalists, how is that you came to know Christ? Did you stumble upon Him? Command Him to save you? Were you genetically predisposed to become a Christian?
I would like to believe you prayed to God for the salvation of your soul. If you came by your salvation some other way, I would like to know of it...
Keep up the good work, Tribaloggers.
I became a Christian as a young child, raised up in a Christian home. I now realize that this wasn't a real choice by me, but simply God's plan.
ReplyDeleteCan I do something to alter God's plan?
Did Elijah praying for rain alter God's plan? Or was Elijah praying simply a part of God's plan?
Whether or not we pray for rain, we simply are acting out God's plan. If I "choose" not to pray for rain, that is because God has ordained I would not pray for rain.
We have no 'real choice' in things, although we appear to have the illusion of Free Will.
So, pray away, but it won't change the weather. That is set in stone...just as the fact of whether or not God's people will pray is already set in stone.
Why would Christ command us to pray? Why would Paul command us to pray?
ReplyDeleteI'm not an open theist; I agree that God has a plan, which makes it altogether perfect. I realize that there is nothing we can do to change that plan. Prayer has been corrupted in our society (i.e. pray that Grandpa lives through the night, instead of praying that God's will be done in Grandpa), but I don't believe that is the prayer being talked about in this discussion.
We can pray for deliverance, strenth, holiness, forgiveness and even rain...whether He provides these things is His choice. But, in praying and letting Him know the condition of our heart (which should always be desiring to carry out His will on Earth), we rejoice and believe when we see the evidence of His will being done. Praying brings those things to the forefront of our consciousness, so when we see them being worked out in front of us (either to our desires or not), we see God's hand at work.
Praying for rain and holding your belief hostage until it comes is wrong...but that isn't what this author is going for. If rain comes, he will rejoice. If rain does not come, hopefully he will rejoice and press on as well.
I imagine you're a Hyper-Calvinist as well?
More like a nullifidian masquerading as a Christian - and one with a staggeringly facile conception of the doctrines of decrees and providence.
ReplyDeleteWe affirm, as I pointed out already, that while the decree is immutable, it is also inclusive of responses to the acts of people. These responses are written into the decree. Since the decree is not disclosed and we are told pray, any violation of the command is thereby a sin - and if God withholds rain because of sin, then who is to blame? The person who failed to pray.
"Anonymous," as so many opponents of Calvinism, has forgotten the difference between the means and the ends. Both are decreed by God.
But if he wants to contribute to others not receiving a basic human need, well, that just goes to show what sort of morality the nullifidian really possesses. That's Darwinist ethics for you.
gene says:
ReplyDelete"blah blah blah"
Gene, can you utter a prayer without God causing it to happen?
So what if prayer is the means to make it rain? Its still happening because God has planned it to happen...and if your prayers have an affect, its because God planned that too.
Just like the comments I'm typing now...which God planned I would type.
I can do nothing besides what God has planned. Same with the rain.
Gene, can you utter a prayer without God causing it to happen?
ReplyDeleteAccording to Calvinism, yes, since a decree/plan is not a means. You've conflated certainty with causality. This a pretty basic category error on your part.
Poor anonymous.
He's forgotten the difference between ends and means.
A plan does nothing in itself. It requires a means. Calvinism includes a conception of secondary causality, whereby the plan unfolds not according to God's absolute power "causing" all things, as if God is the only agent involved, but where most items fall out according to providence, by their natures, free, contingently, etc.
It takes so much courage to post under the moniker of "anonymous," and to lie in the process.
Gene,
ReplyDeleteYou can "cause" a prayer to happen outside of God's will? Under what power are you accomplishing this? If God hasn't willed for you to pray, can you still do it?
I already said it doesn't matter if God uses you as the means...God is still dictating the means, not you.
If "God's absolute power" is not causing things to happen, what is? You are accomplishing things with power outside of God's will?
Amazing.
How did I "lie?" How is posting anonymously lying?
Did God not will for me to post as 'anonymous?' Am I doing something that God didn't will?
Amazing.
This is a text book case of blame-shifting. Anonymous is responsible for obeying God's commandments. When he sins he wants to say that God "willed" it. Adam and Eve didn't get by with that excuse, and neither will anonymous. His duty is clear. Does God "will" that you not steal? that you not lie? that you not murder? His Word says He does. Anonymous doesn't care about God's revealed will, he just wants to know God's secret will. Anonymous should be concerned with what has been revealed, and stop trying to look above his head. Yet, he wants to blame his sin on God's "will".
ReplyDeleteAmazing.
Twinkie,
ReplyDeleteWhat are you mumbling about?
What sin are you talking about?
Nice diversionary tactic!
Is it a sin for me not to pray for rain?
Can I pray for rain outside of God's plan? Can I do anything outside of God's plan?
I don't get what you're going on and on about, who is trying to justify sinning?
Cream Filling Indeed!
OK, so you assert this about praying for rain, but you wouldn't assert it when you sin?
ReplyDeleteStrange.
More cream filling, I guess...
Gene M. Bridges has been challenged to a chat room "double cross-ex" format debate:
ReplyDeletehttp://socrates58.blogspot.com/2007/10/chat-room-debate-challenge-to.html
That's great Dave, nothing on TV tonight?
ReplyDeleteNope; the World Series starts tomorrow . . .
ReplyDeleteWhy treat these Anonymii as if they're serious? Clearly they don't even read the Bible. And Mr. blah-blah must be, what, 13 years old?
ReplyDeleteYou have to be pretty dim not to get that anyone who believes in an all-knowing, all-powerful, everywhere-present Deity, from any religion, deals with these questions. But maybe they're done now, and have gone back to playing Halo.