Cheryl Schatz

Robin, on your third point you said: It sounds as if you’re saying that a prerequisite to being drawn by Jesus is to acknowledge God-exists-via-creation first, so how does that adequately explain that Jesus promised that “every individual” would, in fact, be drawn to HIM? No, that is not what I am saying. I am saying that in order for one to come to God that one must FIRST believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him. I did not say that in order to be drawn by Jesus one must first acknowledge these two things. Do you see the difference? You also said: The only condition, as you pointed out, was fulfilled – that is, Jesus was lifted up. Therefore, whether one acknowledges God-via-creation or not, all should still be drawn to Jesus HIMSELF. This would imply a direct knowledge about who Jesus is and what He did for us – and 100% of the world’s population does not get this info. No! I would imply a direct revelation of God who is Jesus. In order to come to God, one needs to believe 2 things about Him. That is what the Scripture says and I accept it without having to deny any part of what He said. And in order to come to Jesus one needs to believe God the Father and what He said about Jesus. One leads to another when each revelation is revealed and believed. But the revelation of Jesus is not the only way that people are drawn to Jesus. They are first drawn to Him as God!! It has to happen in this order, because God said so. The fact is that the majority of the people in the third world, and in our western civilization to not come to Jesus. They refuse the revelation that they have been given. And, those who are willing to hear can still hear the gospel preached even if they have never heard of Jesus before. Revelation 14:6 says that the gospel is proclaimed by an angel. Today there are many who have given a witness that they were in an area where they had no gospel, but they had visions and dreams of Jesus and have come to a true faith in Him. We may not understand this because we have the gospel so readily available here, but it appears that from the Scriptures God will send out messengers of one kind or another to those who will respond to Him in faith. I think we will be amazed in eternity at the ways that He was able to get the gospel into places where it seemed to be completely closed to the good news. The bottom line here seems to be, will we accept the testimony of the Father that He gave to Jesus to say? Will Jesus draw all men to Him? Whether you can or cannot understand how this will be done, I hope that all who read these words will say that the testimony of the Father and the testimony of Jesus is true. He WILL draw all men to Himself.