They Sold Their Souls

[basics]

Cyclops,

My salvation's experience is just as the Scriptures tell. And yes, as the ground did not contain everything good to eat as it was in the garden God then allowed them to eat meat as long as the blood was drained from it. These may be my words made easy to understand but they are no different from what Scripture says. Your argument lies in when they were cast out and when man was given meat to eat as if a vast amount of time separated it through the chapters it took to reveal that and I say that you are only using this to make my wording look unScriptural but it is not. I made a generalisation which is not untrue as meat did become a part of fallen man's diet. Now concerning my Christianity you can believe what you want, write about it what you want but in the end the One Judge will conclude what I am and that is the important fact.

[Cyclops]

Cyclops,

My salvation's experience is just as the Scriptures tell. And yes, as the ground did not contain everything good to eat as it was in the garden God then allowed them to eat meat as long as the blood was drained from it. These may be my words made easy to understand but they are no different from what Scripture says. Your argument lies in when they were cast out and when man was given meat to eat as if a vast amount of time separated it through the chapters it took to reveal that and I say that you are only using this to make my wording look unScriptural but it is not. I made a generalisation which is not untrue as meat did become a part of fallen man's diet. Now concerning my Christianity you can believe what you want, write about it what you want but in the end the One Judge will conclude what I am and that is the important fact.

Your posts base arguments on scripture that scripture doesn't support. This is a basic failure of comprehension. Nowhere does scripture say meat eating is a result of the fall.

As for your judge, if He requires knowledge of scripture I have bad news. I hope for a loving God that will embrace you.

[basics]

Cyclops,

Then why didn't Adam and Eve kill animals and eat them? Come on, so far you're not looking for any god because if you were you would know of God's love in these words, " For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him shall not perish but have everlasting life." And by the way, I have been embraced by Him.

[conon394]

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him shall not perish but have everlasting life

Kinda slow and erratic on that and preceded with a lot genocides and mass killings and rank favoritism.

[basics]

Kinda slow and erratic on that and preceded with a lot genocides and mass killings and rank favoritism.

conon394,

Now what could be worse than death? The answer is in what comes after death which the word " perish " emphasises to be much worse.

[Cyclops]

Cyclops,

Then why didn't Adam and Eve kill animals and eat them?

Your post is a non sequitur. Scripture says Adam and Eve were given herbs to eat, but does not say if they ate meat or not. The eating of meat was not permitted until after the Flood.

As to your baseless unscriptural statement meat eating was a sign of a fallen world, this is not supported by scripture. Abel offered the firstlings, and fat, of his flock, presumably by killing them. God seems to have like that. God also produced leather clothes for Adam and Eve, presumably (but not necessarily) by killing animals. God kills animals even when they are denied to humans, and loves the smell of cooked meat.

The reason for Gods allowing people and animals to eat meat is not really explained, perhaps it was part of a general apology for murdering everyone?. Indeed God only seems to repent of his mass murder after Noah sacrifices one each of all clean animals and birds...weird, in some places it says there were seven of each, in other two of each. One must a lie, probably the two, because there were animals left over to breed. In any case, it seems a nice smell changed God's mind about eating animals. If you read scripture that is. What does Anglicanism claim about this?

Come on, so far you're not looking for any god because if you were you would know of God's love in these words, " For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him shall not perish but have everlasting life."

This thread is about people selling their souls to Satan. Anyone looking for God in Scripture would do better to discuss it with someone who has a basic working knowledge of Scripture.

And by the way, I have been embraced by Him.

You sound very proud. Exalted even.

[conon394]

What does Anglicanism claim about this?

Would basics know Anglican church doctrine. He is born again?

---------------

Now what could be worse than death? The answer is in what comes after death which the word " perish " emphasises to be much worse.

Depends as far as I can tell via you it doesn't matter I am elect or not out of my hands. And one way or the other I am god's sock puppet... so the end seems equality poor.

[basics]

Cyclops,

What Anglicans think about sacrifices I cannot tell since I have never spoken to one about what he or she believes but I would imagine that sacrifices in the Bible were to them the same as us because all points to Jesus' sacrifice at the cross. Concerning Abel, that man with his siblings were fallen and it doesn't say that he sacrificed a lamb, rather he made it an offering. So, if he did actually sacrifice it and ate thereof then he did what wasn't done in the garden and so my saying that the fall brought about the eating of meat is quite correct.

Concerning selling their souls to the Devil originated when Eve believed the serpent and persuaded Adam to also taste the forbidden fruit thus bringing about the fall of not just mankind but all creation as well. It therefore brought into the story of how man might be saved from the curse of death through the promised sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ at the cross which covered all time.

The day God put me on my knees and saved me doesn't make me proud or even exalted, why? Because it is only since then that I discovered how deep in sin I was when once that thought never crossed my mind. So nearly everyday at some point I think to myself, why me Lord?

[Cyclops]

#humblebrag. Posts that constantly bang on about being saved and how others are damned reek of pride to me.

Eve did not buy or sell anything. God accept dead animals as a sacrifice without permitting people to eat it. There was no mention of sin in Eden. Death was possible in Eden (it was conditional on eating the fruit of the tree of life, and no fruit was required to be eaten) and God expelled us only when, as god themselves says, we "became like one of them".

Perhaps you are saved, but there is nothing in scripture that supports your words.

[basics]

Cyclops,

I really am sorry that the Scriptures offend you so much yet even that is written about because they say that the Gospel is an offence to unbelievers, why is that? Could that really be where pride lies, pride of man who will not accept that one day he will have to give an account to his Maker for all the sins he has committed? To know that I don't have to do that anymore is not pride, rather relief that Jesus Christ paid my debt to God for me knowing that I was not worthy of it.

Now concerning the garden which I see as a picture, a figure, of heaven there is no death there. That's why the fallen angels were cast out of heaven and why Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden so that death could take place and the need for a Saviour to begin.

Finally, the Gospel is the power of God that saved me just as it is written therein.

[fkizz]

The day God put me on my knees and saved me doesn't make me proud or even exalted, why? Because it is only since then that I discovered how deep in sin I was when once that thought never crossed my mind. So nearly everyday at some point I think to myself, why me Lord?

Why don't you focus more on this. It's the basic essence of what you need to say.

The method that works best for each person, let them work it out. You should focus on this.

[basics]

fkizz,

Can only answer what is asked as best as I can and do it so that God is at the centre and not me. Does that make sense?

[fkizz]

fkizz,

Can only answer what is asked as best as I can and do it so that God is at the centre and not me. Does that make sense?

Yes, but for people who didn't have such type of inner experience it will be just a story in their heads, or an analysed fragment of some theology paper.

The most relevant focus that others don't have is your hard to explain transformative experience. The best that can be done, given it will be explained to people who not only did not experience but already have a pre-mindset of closed mind, is to try to translate into their daily language with metaphors and the like the most possible.

With scripture for example, the problem would be that there are people who despite reading it, even memorized it, and had no reaction and it was like it was just another text/book. Many such cases. Same for attending mass in some cases, for some it's just a social event without any meaning other than convenience. This helps to explain why God's name is used to justify atrocities.

If you have such a transformative inner experience that ressonates strongly with the scripture, your best move is to try to "translate" what it felt like, and what meaning and impact it had in turning your life for the better.
Sceptics can acess scripture too, but they didn't have the same ressonance it had with you. Why? That is an interesting point to be explored.

[basics]

fkizz,

That's true for many that think they are Christian but are not, why? Because until any person is brought to a realisation of what Jesus Christ paid for them on that cross by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit into their beings their hearts cannot change. It is a moment that they will never forget being the start of a new life with Jesus Christ which they never had before.

Why God chose me I can only say is because Grace played its part for I never deserved to be saved. For forty years I sometimes went to church, never heard the Gospel, knew very little of the Bible and sinned more often than most I knew. I thought I was the whole cheese as it were until the day I walked into a little Baptist church and what that minister preached hit me fair and square right between the eyes wretching at my heart at the same time. I didn't run as I couldn't so I kept going back until the evening when God put me on my knees and changed my life.

Now when I look back I can see all the times when God has kept me safe so that He could deal with me in His own time that taking forty years of many scary experiences as well.

[fkizz]

fkizz,

Why God chose me I can only say is because Grace played its part for I never deserved to be saved. For forty years I sometimes went to church, never heard the Gospel, knew very little of the Bible and sinned more often than most I knew. I thought I was the whole cheese as it were until the day I walked into a little Baptist church and what that minister preached hit me fair and square right between the eyes wretching at my heart at the same time. I didn't run as I couldn't so I kept going back until the evening when God put me on my knees and changed my life.

Explaining the in-between of before/after of how was your inner psyche during the inner change process is what is most interesting. You had exposure to christianism for 40 years yet didn't convert, but one day you had a click and something difficult to explain happened.

Try to explain better how you felt, before and after. Others are like you, in the 40 years before you had your click.
Given it's very hard to explain the inner experience, metaphors and life practical benefits you got (people always need life benefits) are better for communication purposes.

[basics]

fkizz,

It's hard to explain in a short sentence or two the things that I did before I was converted because what I can see now is that God already had His hands on me guiding me to that point when He did put me on my knees to change my life completely. Around five or six I dodged death when I fell off the roof of a wash house when attempting to jump from it onto an air raid shelter's roof. I slipped and fell head first into the foundation of the shelter my head scraping it but my collar bone not so that I was in a sling for quite some time. My next escape was when I ran between cars going in one direction but into the path of a Wolesley going in the other direction. It's fender scraped my leg on that occasion. My next experience was when I was an apprentice electrical engineer and using a guillotine to cut insulation and because the fibre was thin cut the guard was off the machine. So, I stepped hard on the pedal to bring the cutter down and my hand slipped taking a slice out of one of my fingers.

The next escape came when I was driving my now dead father's works van going to visit my mother who was hospitalised then. My older brother was with me and as we powered up an incline there was this bang and looking to my right here was the rear wheel and break system rolling alongside. The van swerved violently mounting a pavement to hit a garden wall and the next thing I knew was that my brother had bounced off the metal dashboard fell backwards breaking his seat hitting me and then pinning me to the floor. The engine was racing and it seemed like ages before I could free myself to reach the ignition key.

My next escape was when as manager in a Toy Wholesaler run by two brothers and their father in Edinburgh, one of people working there and related by marriage to one of the brothers got up my goat. He was what you would call a Glasgow hardcase and he kept badgering me especially about what he would like to do to my wife. This built up for nearly a year and in the end I had made up my mind that I was going to have him even if it meant killing him. As it turned out we had to go up to Fort William for a funeral me determined to finish this thing once and for all. So after we made our goodbyes there I headed rather stupidly not home but straight to the factory with my wife on board to confront this guy. Arriving at the parking bay was one of my bosses having a smoke and he approached my car to ask me if I had heard about John Scott ny intended victim. Apparently he had got drunk and choked to death in the toilet and hearing this was like a huge weight being lifted from off my shoulders. God beat me to it.

After all this I got involved with a married woman who had three kids and my wife left me. So, to start all over with her I got a house from the council which no-one had occupied before and me at that time being a huge Napoleonic collector of model soldiers, some three thousand, and books decided to put them where her kids couldn't touch them. Therefore not having a ladder I had to balance on the bannister at the top of the stairs, lift the loft lid and just place them in, which I did. She wasn't with me much more than a year when we broke up so it was up to the loft to collect my books. As I was puling them out I felt one seemed strange and it was for it was a KJV Bible which didn't belong to me, didn't belong to her so where did it come from? I never did find that out but I kept it and still have it. Things then took a turn.

One of my old bosses had began his toy wholesaling in Inverness and having the franchise for a toy shop in Elgin offered me the chance to have it. So, I moved from Livingston to Elgin but found a place to stay at nearby Hopeman. I became friendly with the local garage owner and we spent many an evening blethering whilst eating fish and chips or what the local fishermen handed in to him. One day he asked me if I went to church me replying that I once did but not anymore. That was his opening for he then invited me to go along with him to his church. What church was my response and he said the Baptist church to which My reply was no as my family's history was in the Presbyterian system. He then said come to mine and that he would go with me to what i was used to and so I agreed.

Well that Sunday everything that preacher said hit me right between the eyes as though he was talking personally to me. When the service was over I pinned John agianst the church wall and accused him of telling the preacher about me, him protesting that he had dine no such thing and asking if I was going back that night for the evening service. I declined yet for some reason I couldn't stop wondering how the preacher knew so much about me so I did go back and never stopped going back until that night I was converted. That particular Sunday I had gone accompanied by John and two others to get my dinner at the local Chinese restaraunt in Elgin. When we reached my digs and John was starting off I shouted that his lights weren't on and the lassie with us stuck her head out of the window and shouted, " We have the greatest Light in the world." It struck home and I raced up to my room fell on my knees and started praying.

What happened next was that I felt a warm glow rise up in my body to the top of my head and surprisingly I slept like a baby that night usually having to take painkillers. The next day when I got into the shop my girl employee kept staring at me and when I asked what the problem was she said I was different in that I had never cursed once since I arrived. I haven't ever since. Dreams and visions then started happenong and so did my current wife then appear. I got another shop in Buckie under a franchise and as it happened I employed her to run it. But things were take take another turn when I found out that what had been aggreed with my former boss he had not adhered to and so we parted company with a great deal of animosity between us. My wife to be then told him that if that is how he dealt with his friend she didn't want to work for him and so she left and that's how we got into the laundry business.

As I wrote earlier about my escapes from death there was more to come and over and above some ten visits to the operating table where I had surgery for cancer to my bladder, surgery for hernias, surgery for a new heart valve, surgery for piles, removal of my Gall bladder, I have had two mini strokes. Many other things have happened and some of these I have witnessed to already in these threads but the one surety I have is that there is a God Who is in control of the destinies of man. In a small way I am witness to that and thankful that there is a Saviour Who changed my life.

[fkizz]

Basics, from what I gather, giving a good thought, was that life gave you no option but to consider mortality since very early.
The old "where we come from and where do we go" which is a philosophical musing for many, becomes pragmatic instinct for oneself. The brain is ready on conscious and unconscious level that other heads aren't.
People like to live as if they are going to be immortal. You had no such chance. This constant look over "the other shore" since little, repeteadly, sort of forced you to see things from a different angle that someone with a more sheltered life in regards to mortality would.

Certainly your "looking to the other shore" in all points of your growth and age had some impact with how you would perceive the 5 senses material world (given by reflex brain would want some type of reaction to things on the other reaction).
By contrast, a typical person likes to pretend the other shore doesn't exist, at an emotional level. Logically they do know that's the case, but emotionally it just doesn't click.

This gave you a totally different disposition when reading scripture than someone else. For someone else it would just be a story, or a law book of older times, or (another among many) tale of some charismatic figure.

[basics]

fkizz,

The truth is that I never gave my mortality an inch of thought such was my arrogance despite my mother's good intentions. The only remorse I ever felt was when my father died leaving a great hole in my life. Strangely I never felt that way when my poor mum died something that even today I am deeply ashamed of. If ever a mother deserved better of a son it was that poor lady yet I know now that one day I shall see her again when I too reach that other shore.

[fkizz]

fkizz,

The truth is that I never gave my mortality an inch of thought such was my arrogance despite my mother's good intentions. The only remorse I ever felt was when my father died leaving a great hole in my life. Strangely I never felt that way when my poor mum died something that even today I am deeply ashamed of. If ever a mother deserved better of a son it was that poor lady yet I know now that one day I shall see her again when I too reach that other shore.

Not needed to give in thought. What you describe as life experience puts your brain automatically thinking about mortality.
This may explain why the different reaction from a person for whom in their head mortality is just a philosophical homework essay.

First world countries are designed to be pleasure hugboxes where we pretend our final days don't exist.

[basics]

fkizz,

Funnily enough I when much younger thought of death as that which only the old got. The things that I have described were but fleeting events soon forgotten until my faith and old age brought them to the fore.