Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!psuvax1!psuvm!SUVM!GATLING From: GATLING@SUVM (Keith E Gatling) Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia Subject: The Lamb's Book of Life - KEG Message-ID: Date: 9 Feb 90 16:32:57 GMT Sender: Practical Christian Life Reply-To: Practical Christian Life Lines: 31 Approved: NETNEWS@PSUVM Gateway Okay, I'm confused now. In a posting which I accidentally deleted, someone replied to PDB's question about killing someone two minutes before they would've ac- cepted Jesus by saying something to the effect of that was a dumb question based on a false hypothesis, since if a person's name was written in the Lamb's book of life, they could not be lost (was that a long sentence or what?). I remind you, that since I lost the or- iginal posting, there may be some error in what I wrote. I'm sure this isn't what the author meant, but what I read seemed to say to me that since God has already decided who will be saved and who will be lost, there is no point in our going out and trying to spread the good news to the whole world. Or to borrow a line from "Jesus Christ Superstar", "everything is fixed, and we can't change it." This would seem to say to me that it is useless trying to convince people who don't believe as we do to believe otherwise, because if God really wants them to be among the saved, he'll take care of it himself. It also seems to say that I shouldn't even worry about myself, since God has it all taken care of and wrapped up anyway. If I am to be saved, nothing I can do will "unsave" me, and if I am to be lost, nothing I can do will change my status to "saved." Could you please explain how it is possible to reconcile the idea that there is already a list of saved and lost, about which we can do nothing, with the premise that we are supposed go out there and save as many souls as possible? keg