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Here is the link to this week's Sabbath School Lesson Study and Discussion Material: Click Here
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Re: Lesson #4 - Atonement and the Divine Initiative
[Re: Rosangela]
#103821
10/19/08 09:32 PM
10/19/08 09:32 PM
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Active Member 2012
14500+ Member
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Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 14,795
Lawrence, Kansas
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That's a good point. God spared Satan and his angels so that the veracity of Satan's claims could be seen. Had He not done so, it would have simply looked like Satan's accusations were correct. One can just imagine him saying, "If one do you look for me, and I'm not here, you'll know why" (God killed me). So God was constrained to allow things to play out. God could have destroyed Satan and his sympathizers as easily as one can cast a pebble to the earth; but He did not do this. Rebellion was not to be overcome by force. Compelling power is found only under Satan's government. The Lord's principles are not of this order. His authority rests upon goodness, mercy, and love; and the presentation of these principles is the means to be used. God's government is moral, and truth and love are to be the prevailing power.
It was God's purpose to place things on an eternal basis of security, and in the councils of heaven it was decided that time must be given for Satan to develop the principles which were the foundation of his system of government. He had claimed that these were superior to God's principles. Time was given for the working of Satan's principles, that they might be seen by the heavenly universe. (DA 759)
Those who wait for the Bridegroom's coming are to say to the people, "Behold your God." The last rays of merciful light, the last message of mercy to be given to the world, is a revelation of His character of love.
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Re: Lesson #4 - Atonement and the Divine Initiative
[Re: Tom]
#103846
10/20/08 03:56 PM
10/20/08 03:56 PM
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SDA Charter Member Active Member 2019
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Posts: 22,256
Southwest USA
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God foresaw the fall of men and angels and chose to create them anyhow.
DA 22 The plan for our redemption was not an afterthought, a plan formulated after the fall of Adam. It was a revelation of "the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal." Romans 16:25, R. V. It was an unfolding of the principles that from eternal ages have been the foundation of God's throne. From the beginning, God and Christ knew of the apostasy of Satan, and of the fall of man through the deceptive power of the apostate. God did not ordain that sin should exist, but He foresaw its existence, and made provision to meet the terrible emergency. So great was His love for the world, that He covenanted to give His only-begotten Son, "that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16.
ST 4-25-92 The purpose and plan of grace existed from all eternity. Before the foundation of the world it was according to the determinate counsel of God that man should be created, endowed with power to do the divine will. But the defection of man, with all its consequences, was not hidden from the Omnipotent, and yet it did not deter him from carrying out his eternal purpose; for the Lord would establish his throne in righteousness. God knows the end from the beginning; "known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." Therefore redemption was not an afterthought--a plan formulated after the fall of Adam--but an eternal purpose to be wrought out for the blessing not only of this atom of a world but for the good of all the worlds which God has created.
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Re: Lesson #4 - Atonement and the Divine Initiative
[Re: Mountain Man]
#103854
10/20/08 11:04 PM
10/20/08 11:04 PM
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Active Member 2012
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Lawrence, Kansas
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God saw the *possibility* of sin. Sin was not a certainty. Remember that Christ risked all. For our redemption, heaven itself was imperiled. At the foot of the cross, remembering that for one sinner Christ would have laid down His life, you may estimate the value of a soul.(COL 196) Our conceptions of the future should allow the possibility of: a.The risk of Christ being lost. b.Heaven being imperiled. Do they?
Those who wait for the Bridegroom's coming are to say to the people, "Behold your God." The last rays of merciful light, the last message of mercy to be given to the world, is a revelation of His character of love.
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