You don't have to make me believe anything, Jere. I can read as well as you can. You like to endure. You work to enhance Christ's work on the cross, and you feel we are appointed to God's wrath. Those sealed during the trib. are messianic Jews. There isn't a lot we do agree on. And one Pastor has never been able to sway me. 100 will though. I prefer grace over works, I prefer to make Christ 100% responsible for my next location. Any thing less frustrates God.
You work and pray it's good enough. I work and dance because I know He was good enough.
Happily we have been able to forge a friendship, aside from doctrinal differences. And that is scriptural. Personal convictions should not hamper harmony among Christians. If you believe one thing for Christ's sake and I another, then both are righteous in God's eyes. It is the heart, not the mind that determines our status of children of God. It is faith, not knowledge that is counted righteous.
Remember that Peter wasn't Paul and Paul wasn't Peter and they didn't always agree on doctrine. And yet neither were false prophets or teachers. They were both righteous in God's eyes because of their faith in Christ.
That is impossible. These are called the elect by Jesus Christ. See the definition of the elect in the New Testament Scriptures, Irish Ram. The elect are not the Jews but the born again believers who include born again Jews which endure unto the end.
False teachers abound in the modern churches of America, Irish Ram. You have misunderstood grace. It is understandable because Grace has been taught as a license to sin in the modern churches. It is what John in Revelation defined as the Laeodicean Church. See Revelation 3:14. Which is why I have no part of it other than to warn those still inside.
If I understand anything I understand these two things, "unmerited favor", and "gift".
You
judge grace as a license to sin. That is not scriptural.
Here is Paul to tell us why in Romans 6:1-2
“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?”
The idea that a person could “trust in Jesus Christ” for salvation and then go on living just as he/she lived before, is absolutely foreign to the Bible Jere.
Believers in Christ are:
new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17).
the Holy Spirit changes us from producing the acts of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21) to producing the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).
The Christian
life is changed because the Christian is changed. If there is an area that requires endurance to avoid falling back into, God is strongest in the areas we are weakest, so rely on
Him, not self.
If grace is a license to sin, how odd that God is so fond of it. He prefers it over filthy rags of self righteousness that come from works unto salvation.
Not sure what you are referring to as impossible, but if it is the differences Peter and Paul had, it is indeed possible. Peter addressed the Jew. Paul addressed the Gentile. Circumcise or not? Turns out neither are important. But the passage below shows what is:
Eph.2:11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
Col.2:13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. 16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.
Be careful about labeling/judging people who don't follow your "ministry". You'd end up sending some of God's very best to hell, because most of His very best preach the rapture, and have brought untold thousands to Christ. Hagee is a generational preacher, a blessing God has bestowed on His family. Odd that God would continue the blessing of one of
your proclaimed false prophets, like Hagee, or Van Impe, or Prince........ Either you are wrong or God is blessing the wrong people.
As for the elect, The words elect, election, and elected are from the Greek eklektos (picked out, selected, or chosen) and ekloge (a picking out, or selection).
The elect are
those chosen by God. Election is God's act of choosing. Christ Himself is one of the elect.
Here are a few examples of who the elect are according to context. As you can see they do not all refer to Christ's church:
Paul speaks of the "elect angels" (1 Timothy 5:21).
Peter, quoting Isaiah 28:16, refers to Christ as a "chief cornerstone, elect, precious" (1 Peter 2:6).
Christ is the "Elect One" (Isaiah 42:1), and members of His body-the church-are elected in Him.
The nation of Israel is God's elect (Isaiah 45:4; 65:9,22).
You are a big fan of Charles Spurgeon. I'll leave you in his hands:
It strikes me that the tokens of union are much more prominent than the tokens of division. But what are they? First there is a union in judgment upon all vital matters. I converse with a spiritual man, and no matter what he calls himself, when we talk of sin, pardon, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and such like themes, we are agreed. We speak of our blessed Lord. My friend says that Jesus is fair and lovely: so say I. He says that he has nothing else to trust to but the precious blood; nor have I anything beside. I tell him that I find myself a poor, weak creature; he laments the same. I live in his house a little while: we pray together at the family altar, you could not tell which it was that prayed, Calvinist or Armenian, we pray so exactly alike; and when we open the hymn-book, very likely if he happens to be a Wesleyan he chooses to sing, "Jesus, lover of my soul." I will sing it, and then next morning he will sing with me, "Rock of ages, cleft for me." If the Spirit of God be in us, we are all agreed upon great points. Let me say that among true saints the points of union even in matters of judgment are ninety-nine, and the points of difference are only as one. (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 12, p. 5-6)
"Our Father." That then, includes those of God's children who differ from us in their doctrine. Ah! There are some that differ from us as wide as the poles; but yet they are God's children. Come, Mr. Bigot, do not kneel down, and say, "My Father," but "Our Father." "If you please, I cannot put in Mr. So-and-So, for I think he is a heretic."
Put him in, sir; God has put him in, and you must put him in too, and say, "Our Father." Is it not remarkable how very much alike all God's people are upon their knees? Some time ago at a prayer-meeting I called upon two brothers in Christ to pray one after another, the one a Wesleyan and the other a strong Calvinist, and the Wesleyan prayed the most Calvinistic prayer of the two, I do believe - at least, I could not tell which was which. I listened to see if I could not discern some peculiarity even in their phraseology; but there was none. "Saints in prayer appear as one." (The New Park Street Pulpit, Vol. IV, p. 390, Sept. 12, 1858, bold added)
God Bless hon.
