How many battles will God allow us to quench the Spirit before we run out of time? God knows!
It's a matter of where we place our confidence, I think.
Please don't construe anything I write here to say that I don't believe in obedience to God. Of course I do! That is life!
Will God allow us to continue in rebellion to Him? I place my confidence in His promise.
Hebrews 12
6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
10 For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
Can we understand the Scriptures without your particular key to understanding everything in parables?
What did you say?
They think they can see, but what they see is the temporal fiction of the material world of men with all of its carnal attractions and deceptions.
Is this what you meant when you wrote,
Reading the whole Bible and talking to God can give us a greater picture than perhaps finally the full picture, a vision of God whole plan.
So that someone is just seeing
the temporal fiction of the material world of men with all of its carnal attractions and deceptions.
And who would that be?
Here's what I see.
I see these things plainly stated in this passage above. God disciplines His children. His disciplining is for our profit. That profit is the peaceable fruit of righteousness.
These are plainly stated affirmative passages, that I see absolutely no reason to disbelieve what they say.
We can see all sorts of parables and parallels and paint detailed tapestries of spiritual meanings, and I've see a very wide variety of that over the years, however, I'd raise some serious questions when those start running contrary to such plain teaching.
If I have to rely on my ability to attain to God's requirement, then no, I would not count myself "saved", in any eternal sense, I'd have to consider myself "at risk" until I was safely in my grave, and even then, I could never know, who is fully self-aware? Either we end up there are we don't, and it's a moot point.
This is something I find so incongruous. Those who so passionately teach this doctrine, that our salvation remains uncertain, they themselves express such certainty! Do they not believe their own teaching? But then for the most part I see this as "tying up heavy burdens for others".
But when I read in Scripture that God did something more in Christ, and when I read that what we receive we receive in Christ, and when I read that He has promised to bring us all the way through to salvation, and when I read that He means for me to know these things are true, I don't place my confidence in myself, I place it in Christ.
Much love!