Quote (Thor123422 @ Mar 14 2018 11:12am)
Because understanding something isn't the same thing as being convinced of it.
How timely, now we can discuss Stephen Hawkings. I know that he didn't believe that there was a God, despite all his intelligence. Not even that could save him.
Now imagine that he has an able body, gets up from the wheelchair and two seconds later he meets his maker. Now he knows that God almighty is well and truly real.
He had a full 76 years to make up his mind, do not make the same mistake he did. That is also The Bible's warning given unto us. The message is that if you hear his voice today then do not harden your hearts like they did at Meribah. They put God to the test for forty years and so he declared that they shall never enter his rest. Hebrews quotes that as a warning to us as well.
Psalm 95 - NIV
6 Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
7 for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.
Today, if only you would hear his voice,8 “
Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,
as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors tested me;
they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
10 For forty years I was angry with that generation;
I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
11
So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘
They shall never enter my rest.’"
Hebrews 4:1-3 & Hebrews 4:6-8
Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. 2 For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed. 3 Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said,
“So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’”6 Therefore since it still remains for some to enter that rest, and since those who formerly had the good news proclaimed to them did not go in because of their disobedience, 7 God again set a certain day, calling it “Today.” This he did when a long time later he spoke through David, as in the passage already quoted:
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.”