(April 23, 2015 at 8:13 am)Rhondazvous Wrote:(April 23, 2015 at 12:19 am)Godschild Wrote: The verses I was interested in are the ones you say that God and satan play the same role.
As far as the tree of Life what makes you think the needed to eat from it, scripture nowhere indicates they had such a need. Why would God tell them they would die from disobedience if they were able to die, makes no sense what you purpose. Could be the Tree of Life had excellent tasting fruit, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil did according to Eve.
GC
God
1 And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.
2 Samuel 24:1 KJV
Satan
1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.
1 Chronicles 21:1 KJV
Both God and Satan blind the minds of unbelievers
John 12:39-40
39 For this reason they could not believe, because, as Isaiah says elsewhere:
40 “He has blinded their eyes
and hardened their hearts,
so they can neither see with their eyes,
nor understand with their hearts,
nor turn—and I would heal them.”[b]
Now the question is, who is "He?" Jesus:
Mark 4:10-13
And when He was alone, they that were about Him with the twelve asked of Him the parable. And He said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God, but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables.
“That seeing they may see, and not perceived: and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted and their sins should be forgiven them. And He said unto them, Know ye not this parable? And how then will you know all parables?”
No matter wheat the Church tells us is the reason Jesus spoke in parables, the man tells us right here it was because he did not want the people to understand and be converted "by any means."
at the same time the Bible tells us that satan blings the people's minds.
2 corinthians 4:4
In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
As I said it makes no sense to put a Tree of Life in the garden if they already had life. No argument there. I have already shown you the passage Where God tells them they are free to eat any fruit except that of the Tree of Knowledge. If you refuse to believe what God himself said and you call yourself a child of God? For shame.
2 Samuel 24:1-9 and 1 Chronicles 21:1-6, you are making the same mistake many do, you use a couple of verses to support your belief instead of looking for the truth in the entirety of the story or lesson.
First of all neither God nor Satan can cause man to sin, Satan is allowed to tempt man when God says He can and God says of himself I never tempt mankind. Also you need to understand that just because the two verses seem to say each tempted David only Satan did so. The Hebrew writers do not always distinguish between primary and secondary causes, when God allowed Satan to tempt someone, as he did with David the writer would say God did it.
So, you see Satan was the one who did the tempting, God was the one who was going to punish Israel through David's sin, and taking the census was not in sinful, it was the pride David had in himself and his army. If you had bothered to read the story in it's entirety you would have noticed the census was for finding out how strong David could make his army and show off to the nations around Israel. Why was God going to punish Israel, the pride they had in themselves and taking credit for what God had done for them. Now to find out this bit of news you would need to read several chapters in two different books, and that's on you to do to find the truth, instead of using two little verses out of the story told in two different books, written by two different authors. Some times what we do is not sinful, it is our motive that are sinful.
John 12:39-40 This is about unbelievers, special unbelievers, those who rejected Christ even though they were presented with evidence, God did not intentionally keep them from himself, He was confirming what was in their hearts by hardening them because they had spent a life time of rejecting Him. This also happened during Isaiah's time that's why the reference to Isaiah's verses. Again you have made the mistake of looking only for your truth and not God's.
Mark 4:10 Again you pull out a verse to try and prove what's not even there. If you had backed up one verse you would have read this, "anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand." Jesus asked all there to listen and understand, what He was teaching was extremely important. Jesus then told them they were the ones interested enough to want to understand the parable, He told them He spoken in parables so the ones who had already hardened there hearts against them would not be able to understand, even though He warned them to listen and learn. These same people had the chance to join the others and find out what the parable meant, yet they went on their marry way.
2 Corinthians 4:4 Again you reach for a single verse to try and prove something that's not there, you should really learn to read the entirety of the story and try to understand it, you know this could be a few verses God is point to you, to take serious. You should have read the previous verse, verse 3, it says this,"If the Good News we preach is hidden behind a veil, it is hidden only from those who are perishing. Why did Paul say they were perishing should be your question. Because they had already rejected the Good News ie. hardened their hearts, and became easy prey for Satan.
Please try to read all the relevant material surrounding verses you want to use to prove what you want to believe and look for the truth they are telling all of us.
GC
God loves those who believe and those who do not and the same goes for me, you have no choice in this matter. That puts the matter of total free will to rest.