Many have a faulty understanding of God’s great plan of the ages, you might call it. This is caused primarily because the fullness of that plan, the revelation of just what God is doing with human beings and this material universe He has created, is for the most part revealed through the writings of the prophets, chiefly Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. He fleshes out this plan through Jesus’ teachings in the gospel accounts and the letters of the apostles. One must pull it all together, connect the dots – so to speak – and it is not all that easily accomplished when the mind is already filled and persuaded with contrary teachings and beliefs.
One of the most difficult things any human will ever encounter is letting go of some belief that mind has accepted as unquestioningly true for years. That is WHY most Mormons live and die as Mormons, most Catholics live and die as Catholics, etc. You can fill in any denomination’s name and that holds true for that denomination, also. Few are the believers who actively question their beliefs and then bring themselves into full surrender to Jesus Christ and then pore over the scriptures – all of them, Old and New Testaments – in order to really “prove” what the Word of God teaches on any given matter.
Without a full and continuing surrender to Jesus Christ we will ever leave an opening for the deceiver Satan to move in and block our ability to see and understand the truth. Then again, when we set someone up as the final authority as to spiritual truth we prevent the Lord from opening our eyes in any area wherein that personality we trust so completely is wrong.
Actually there are three categories of people on this planet and there have always been these three categories: 1) the saved, 2) the lost, and 3) the UNCALLED! Technically, you might include the “uncalled” with the lost as they are not yet saved, but they are also not yet condemned to hell as the ONLY way to get to hell is to go around Mt. Calvary and the cross. You can’t get there any other way. One has to be confronted with the truth of the gospel and knowingly reject it in order to fall into the category of the lost. Most of humanity fits into the “uncalled” category. They are not saved, but neither are they irrevocably lost – not until they reject Jesus Christ. The idea that the age in which we live is the only time God will extend the offer of salvation that you either get saved now before Christ returns or you are forever lost and damned is a fallacy, a far-reaching error, and an error that pictures God as being grossly unfair. Do you think John the Baptist had a better shot at salvation and embracing the truth than Geronimo or some Aztec Indian warrior of many centuries past? Of course he did. Jesus was his first cousin. They grew up together. But when we get to the conclusion of God’s great salvation plan, Geronimo, the Aztec Indian warrior, and everyone else born human (as well as the unborn aborted) will have a a marvelous, unimpeded avenue to God and the truth. NO ONE will ever be able to shake their fist in the face of God and honestly argue, “I never had a chance to inherit eternal life. I never even knew it was a possibility for human beings.” Believe that for it is true.
2 Corinthians 6:2 is a quote from Isaiah 49:8 and should not contain the definite article “the” but rather the indefinite article “a”, and should have been translated “I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in A day of salvation……” The year 1776 A.D. or the year 800 A.D. would not have been an acceptable year to extend the call of salvation to the Olmec, Aztec or Inca Indian tribes. They had no Bibles or written languages to print such. They would have been at a grave disadvantage for accepting and walking in the truth. They had no knowledge of Adam and Eve, or Noah, or Isaiah, or Jeremiah. They had no idea WHO the Creator was or the offer of eternal life to those who would surrender their lives to Jesus Christ. Their call to salvation is yet future, actually more than a thousand years from this moment. “For the expectation of the creature (humanity) waits for the manifestation of the sons of God (after our Lord returns and brings forth His elect sons and daughters from the grave via a resurrection) For the creature (humanity as a whole) was made subject to vanity (a vain existence, having no relationship with their Creator) not willingly (they had no choice in the matter), but by reason of him who has subjected the same in hope (of also being resurrected and having eternal life offered to them also)., because the creature (mankind, humanity as a whole) also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption (via a resurrection) into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Se Romans 8:19-21). God help you to understand.
Christ’s Faithful Servant (Galatians 1:10-12)
Donald Wiley