M____ wrote:
Mike Thanks for all the information and knowledge.  I do not hold to any religion except the bible.  I myself, before I came to your website, saw in God’s word how tithing was something that we don’t “have” to do among other things.  I myself am opposed to much of what I have learned in my seven short years in Christ in orthodox Christianity.  God through you has opened my eyes to much.  I can be in strong delusion about some of the info that you have sent me.  I just cannot wrap my head around God telling us not to sin and then He causes us to sin; then He holds us responsible, then He punishes us without us having any part in it (I have read your scriptures on that).  It just seems like He is working against Himself.  It seems like God does not know what He wants to do.  I am going to study more on “eternal hell”.  I think that your stance on it is truth, but need to study it more before I become dogmatic about it.  If you want Mike, I would like to get “just only the scriptures” that you use to disprove “eternal fire”; I would like to go through them (please take no offense) without any comments in between.  My mind just processes the Word better that way. Truly, thanks for everything, M____

Hi M____,
I can easily understand where you are coming from. I myself struggled for two whole years as I refused to see that God “creates evil” and that even my faith in His words is a gift from Him. It is completely natural to want to be in control of at least our own will. But we are not in control of anything.
And that brings me to the reason I am answering this e- mail. Since we are not in control of anything, we are not responsible for anything [ but don’t think that we are not accountable for our actions]. It is an incredible truth that the word ‘responsibility’ is not to be found in the entirety of God’s Word. God had decided that Christ would be crucified for Adam’s sins in Adam, himself for all the sins of all the rest of all of mankind. When was that decision made?

Rev 13:8  And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Christ was “slain from the foundation of the world” because God knew in advance exactly what a “marred vessel of clay” would do.

Rom 8:20  For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected [ the same] in hope,

Adam and all who are in Him and that are all living are made in the hands of the almighty Potter “subject to vanity;” not even capable of controlling his desire to overdo playing video games. “Not willingly…” No, ‘Do you want to be created this way?’ involved. No “free- will” is involved.
I was watching Mother Angelica on the Catholic network. A man from New Jersey called in and told Mother Angelica that he had read that God knows us before we are born, while we are in our mother’s womb. His question was ‘If that is so, then why pray?’ Mother Angelica told the man from New Jersey that we had to pray because we have free- will. She never even considered the man’s point. The real answer to the man’s question is that God knows before we are ever born; that He has already determined that we will have to cry out to Him to deliver us from our sinful ways, just as He knew that Adam would need a savior before He ever created Adam in His marred and sinful flesh.

Jer 18:4  And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make [ it].
Psa 51:5  Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Where we read that “God made man”  the Hebrew is in the imperfect tense and should read ‘God is making man’. That is why we are told in the New Testament:

Rom 8:29  For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate [ to be] conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

God is not “a vessel of corruptible clay and dust… marred in the Potter’s hand… shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin,” as He formed Adam. Adam is being “conformed to the image of His Son… who was slain from the foundation of the world.”
This clay vessel we call flesh is but an ugly scaffolding, a necessary evil which will be taken down and done away with when the temple of God is finally finished and we are “conformed to the image of His Son.” It is all of God and man is merely being held accountable for what God causes him to do in this flesh. You and I think there is no difference between being ‘responsible’ for and being ‘accountable’ for the deeds done in our flesh, but to God it is the difference between life and death:

Rom 6:23  For the wages of sin [ is] death; but the gift of God [ is] eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

If mankind really had free- will, it would seem that at least one man out of all the billions who have lived on this earth would simply choose not to sin. But we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. If we were ‘responsible’ for our sins, then we would all be dead. But God made the whole earth, and He alone is responsible for what He has created. What God created was a sinning machine of which He has every intention of keeping. He will “make it again another vessel, as seems good to the potter to make it.” Free will has nothing to do with our caused wills which God knows before we are even born:

Rom 9:11  (For [ the children] being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works [ of free will], but of him that calleth;)
Rom 9:12  It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.
Rom 9:13  As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
Rom 9:16  So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

“God’s mercy” means that we are “counted worthy to suffer for His name’s sake.” “If we suffer with Him we shall also reign with Him.”

Act 5:41  And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.
Rom 8:17  And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint- heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
2Ti 2:12 If we suffer, we shall also reign with him : if we deny him, he also will deny us:

I hope I have said something that will help you to realize that we are not responsible for anything. It is God who is working all things after the counsel of His own will, and we are but accountable for what He knew we would do “while we were in our mother’s wombs having done neither good nor evil.”
Mike