2. Could Pharaoh Have Repented?

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Hidden In Him

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And Pharaoh sent, and called for Moses and Aaron, and said unto them, I have sinned this time: the LORD is righteous, and I and my people are wicked. (Exod 9:27)

I think we're reading it differently. I see these words as empty, and simply a move to try and cause the judgments of God to cease rather than expressing genuine repentance. If not, Pharaoh had a pretty bad case of schizophrenia to be telling them how much he was sinning one minute and then send his army after them to kill them all the next. Doesn't make much sense to me. Has no consistency.
 

Hidden In Him

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I like your - "But Pharaoh always had freewill, and had he been a better man he would never have been chosen for this job to begin with "
Same with Judas?

Possibly, yes. Nearly everything the Lord does points to something prophetically, and Judas was chosen not just for the role he would play in betraying Christ but for what he would represent prophetically: The betrayal of believers in Christ - His spiritual body - during the end-times, when many betray one another and deliver one another up in order to save their own lives.
But I have to watch that, because that takes me all the way to Satan!!
"Someone" was destined to be the Accuser. the Tempter , the Liar. Someone had to be the Tool to trip up sharpen Gods people...

So I have to watch myself, because one does think...If God "placed the Serpent in the tree" to do his job...how then can he be judged for doing what his job is!! That gets me thinking too deeply..yikes!!

LoL. Nothing escapes the foreknowledge of God, so none of it was by accident IMO. I honestly think He gives people the rope they need to hang themselves. As the scripture says, "Let him who is evil be evil still." In His wisdom He has a way of bringing people out to display what it is in their hearts, and Satan was no different really.
 
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VictoryinJesus

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I just told you that this is a reference to the whole creation (v 22). Not unbelievers.

Would the ‘whole creation’ not include all? Unbelievers are under the bondage of corruption. Psalm 102:19-20
[19] For he hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary; from heaven did the Lord behold the earth; [20] To hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose those that are appointed to death;

“the prisoner;” ...no (s)...to loose those appointed to death. How many are appointed to death?

John 11:33-35
[33] When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, [34] And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. [35] Jesus wept.

John 11:38
[38] Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.

Romans 8:21-22
[21] Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. [22] For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

The ‘whole creation’ groans not just the creature itself but the WHOLE creation under a curse...shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption INTO the glorious liberty of the children of God. The ‘whole creation’ not just a select part of it.
 
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VictoryinJesus

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The only question it raises is whether Lucifer/Satan can take the form of a man, or possess a man. And the answer is obvious.

Yes but it seems specific and you know it. “Is this the man...” Isaiah 14:17-18
[17] That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners? [18] All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house.
 
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aspen

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I think the Bible was just reporting what happened.
 

charity

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Could Pharaoh have repented?

God looks on the heart of man, He knew that Pharoah would not repent, though opportunity was given him.

Yes, God has foreknowledge, He knows who will believe and who will not believe in advance of them doing so, and so can pre-destine them accordingly.

In Christ Jesus
Chris
 
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brakelite

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Hey Grace, did God orchestrate his crusifiction?
He didn't have to orchestrate it. Prophecy informs us that God knew how it would all play out, all Jesus had to do, which for Him was a struggle because it meant true separation from His Father, was to submit or surrender to His fate. Not all the armies of the earth could have killed Jesus if He had not offered up His own life, willingly laying it down. But what transpired in Israel at that time was a natural reaction to the holiness and the love that Christ displayed and lived, and His claim to deity as the Son of God. It is a human trait to hate righteousness and destroy all who by their example would lay bare our pretentious self-righteousness.
Add to human nature the demonic influence upon the people, particularly the leaders, taking full advantage of their blind greedy willingness to strive for power, and the adulation of men above the things of God and you have a recipe for disaster, which will be repeated in these last days as the devil "with great wrath makes war with the remnant of the seed of the woman".
 
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brakelite

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1 million plus in the wilderness visibly witnessing literal miracles of God, oceans parted food falling from the sky, rocks yielded water, serpents biting, yet none had the power to believe. Many still on this forum-insist that man has the power to believe. If that had been the case I believe the parting of the sea would’ve been enough.
God is all sovereign.
Believe what?
 
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brakelite

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1 Peter 3:19 "By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
1 Peter 3:20 "Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
I think you need to read this passage again, including the previous verses. Just for context.
 

101G

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I think you need to read this passage again, including the previous verses. Just for context.
did that already,
Ephesians 4:7 "But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
Ephesians 4:8 "Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.
Ephesians 4:9 "(Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?

why did he desend?, let's check the record.

Psalms 68:18 "Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the LORD God might dwell among them.

Titus 3:3 "For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.
Titus 3:4 "But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,
Titus 3:5 "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost".

His Mercy? .... Romans 9:14 "What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.
Romans 9:15 "For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
Romans 9:16 "So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

he's the God of the Living and the "DEAD", and you nor I have anything to say about it.

yes, we suggest you read that preveious verse, 1 Peter 3:18 "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.

PICJAG.
 
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brakelite

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Read it again....
1 Peter 3:18 ¶ For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
19 By which also
By what also? The Spirit.

he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

What prison? Isa 42:7 To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house. The prison house of sin...not hell. There is no second chance for anyone once dead. And why should those in the days of Noah be given another chance? Why not those in the days of Abraham...or Moses...or Genghis Khan?
20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
When was this preaching done? In the days of Noah. To whom was this preaching directed? To those who lived in the days of Noah.

So summary. Christ, through the preaching of the gospel through Noah (a preacher of righteousness) by His Spirit preached to the antediluvians that except they repent, they shall all perish.
 

farouk

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Romans 8:20-23
[20] For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, [21] Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. [22] For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. [23] And not only they , but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit , the redemption of our body.

Maybe the weakness is in assuming God fails, He who had a plan from and “they knew they were naked” and “For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,”
I think it's good to concentrate on what Scripture itself says about repentance (e.g., Romans 2 contains Paul's great treatise on the subject, as regards the New Testament age). Sometimes speculating on what people might or would have done or not done in another dispensation can lead to circular reasoning.

(2c...)
 

VictoryinJesus

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I think it's good to concentrate on what Scripture itself says about repentance (e.g., Romans 2 contains Paul's great treatise on the subject, as regards the New Testament age). Sometimes speculating on what people might or would have done or not done in another dispensation can lead to circular reasoning.

(2c...)

It’s not like I haven’t given Judas and Pharaoh thought...especially Judas. ‘Circular’ not sure what you mean by that but isn’t it an over-all-message of who God is ...to the just And the unjust. Thought I had experienced some of these things ‘vessels of dishonor’ hellbent on destruction and what they have taught: mercy, forgiveness, weakness, brokenness, patience, long-suffering...endurance and faith. Wasn’t Pharaoh this to those he broke in trying to keep them enslaved?...whom God said to set free. How God said He raised Pharaoh to show His mercy to the ends of the earth. What does “destruction” have to do with mercy? Ask those pulled of God out of the destruction. What I’ve experienced though is nothing compared to some. So let’s speak of Hitler. Obviously Hitler read God’s word and took away a flesh interpretation and Hitler was destruction. It is revealed by the weapon, yeah? I know you like the verse how God chooses from the furnace of affliction. Assuming Hitler took this literal and heated a furnace for the unclean and dirty Jews to go in to to burn off their filth. Why a furnace? Was Hitler as Pharaoh or Judas...vessels of “dishonor” and built for destruction and to waste. Paul said he was one of those until the Lord showed (revealed) His mercy in the Son. So I’ll ask you this (could give you verses) when a man who watches his family burned literally in a fire...extinguished...all his children, his wife, and then himself starved, held captive, burned in terrible pain ... is asked as a child of God to judge Hitler who is on his face at his feet begging for mercy and the Man says “Father, forgive him. He knew not what he was doing.” ...who is the vessel of honour? We say “No way”. Anything is possible with God. Who is the vessel of mercy “chosen out of affliction”? Who glorifies Jesus Christ in not only speaking faith and mercy but in demonstrating it? That may sound stupid but there are those who have forgiven like that man who watched the unthinkable done to his family and friends. Why the prophets and those God said the world didn’t deserve to know among them...why does God allow such cruel treatment as like with His Son...if not for the sake of revealing THE POWER of mercy? Maybe He has a plan for vessels of mercy...in what they do. And for vessels of destruction...in what they do. We can’t forget how the dogs compassed Him about, parted His raiment, cried out, “crucify HIM!” Yet He said “Father, forgive them.” “Forgive them for they know not what they do.”—Which is the power of God toward us; who didn’t deserve mercy except for His love and good purposes.