just wondering

[pmal]

God does not always get what He wants. His perfect will is different from his permissive will. Man has a say in things.

Ok, so let's use the example of Job. God tells Satan he can do anything to Job he wants but not take his life and Satan, along with the rest of the world, can't kill Job. So, God, if he decides to, can limit man and get exactly what He wants. Therefore, if God wants Petra to be at the top, He can and will do what it takes to get them there.

[brent]

Doesn't apply. Stop using Job's dedication to God being tested as something that relates to the changing tastes of people who buy music. People engineer and produce music that is liked by consumers. Faith and trust in God is not something that is engineered, sold or purchased. You guys wrest the scriptures.

God doesn't make people buy CDs anymore than he keeps people from stealing MP3s on the web. He doesnt make CCM artists succeed by forcing us to buy their products. (And they are only successful and around as long as their products are sold. No big artist exists within a bubble via money falling from Heaven.) Man has free will to choose. Supply follows demand. If a generation grows out of something and into something else, that is the choice of the people, it is not God taking his hand off of someone. You can't have the one half of the truth without the other.

God does not get every soul. There is a hell, and it will be full of people who decided not to accept Christ. So, there are things God does not get that he wishes he could. Why? God did not rig the race.

[Boray]

Petra probably is at the top already (or close), if you measure it by God's values and not by the world's values.

[adpetrafan]

Honestly, I still have no idea where you are coming from Brent but it is clear you don't think God is "big enough" to bless something man might do, or to give him ideas, or to help creativity flourish, etc.

You are wrong.

God has a plan!

Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.”

End of discussion - for me.

[brent]

You guys still don't get it. Boray does. There is a difference between commercial success and God's success. God does not drive commercial success by making people like something enough to buy it. We are not made to do anything. We have personal preferences. This is very different than God blessing something like Petra. Petra, like any other band from any other generation, resonates with people in a specific time frame. Sure, God blessed them. But it took the people liking Petra to make them a commercial success. It took them honoring God in all they do to be a success in God's eyes. A blessing may be in the form of commercial failure. Blessing is not always success in the marketplace. God does not make man do anything. He wills things, he asks for things, he requires some things, but we are not made to be successes and failures, to spend money or not. I am not wrong.

[brent]

Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.”

End of discussion - for me.

I don't believe in replacement theology. We Christians are not the physical Israel of the OT. We cannot claim all of the promises, blessings, curses or punishments of Israel, nor do I want to. This verse does not apply to us. How many poor, hungry, diseased, spiritually beaten down Christians do you know? That verse will not sell in foreign third world countries.

Everything has a season. EVERYTHING. Petra was in a season of time that will never re-occur. They were the right people, in the right place, at the right time. Now it is time for younger people to be the right people, in the right place, at the right time. The people change. The Will of God and His Gospel does not.

[rexreed]

If a child were to ask you why it rains and you tell them because God made it rain then you really did not answer the question correctly. Try and apply that thought with the question in this thread and that is my problem with exe and preacherman's long winded answers.

I do not understand this. Preacher wrote (among many other things that also convey the multiple facets of the answer):

"If God wanted Petra to be a huge thing right now he could make that happen."

There is nothing incorrect or unclear about this statement.

There have also been comments about the music, the message, the use of scripture, etc. The original question has been answered over and over.

If you don't see the answers, then you are not reading them.

I give up... wait let me try one more time.

Let's say I go tp the doctor because my big toe hurts. Doc can say your toe hurts because God wants it too or he can explain an ingrown toenail to me. If he does the former then he isn't doing his job, even if it is true. That is not an explanation. Just like when some one asks about Petra touring now compared toother rock bands that do not. Simply stating that God has a plan is not really an answer. Maybe try explaining the music industry and consumer trends- if you believe that God has a plan then you can also say he is manipulating music trends too.

[zman7720000]

You guys are making God out to be an old impotent armchair quarterback!

[rexreed]

Don't you mean omnipotent armchair quarterback?

[zman7720000]

Don't you mean omnipotent armchair quarterback?

LOL, Good one

[Preacherman777]

You guys are still on the micromanagement kick, which is an argument I have not been making. Again, I have never said that Petra or anyone else who may not be as big today as they were in the 80's are in that spot because the Lord took his hand off them. That is a strawman as they say. The entire problem you guys are having with your argument is that it's just not Biblical. Man does have free will in certain things, but only in those areas and to those extents to which God has granted it. Does man have a free will regarding his salvation? The Bible is pretty clear that he does, but why? Because God has given that to him and even then he can't do it without God's help. This is basic theology. If you don't like the example of Job, for evidence of God being in charge, then I will offer you Jonah. God wanted Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach repentance, Jonah didn't think they deserved it, so he resisted God and ran away. What did God do? Did he sit on his hands feeling all bad that Jonah wouldn't play along? No, he hemmed Jonah in by arranging circumstances in such a way that he would get what he wanted out of Jonah. You think God can't do as much today?

1 Sam. 2:6-7 The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and rich; He brings low, He also exalts.

Isaiah 46:9-11 For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, "My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure"; calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of My purpose from a far country. Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, surely I will do it.

Proverbs 20:24 A man's steps are directed by the LORD. How then can anyone understand his own way?

Proverbs 16:9 In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.

Bottom line, God does get everything he wants unless he himself has set up a circumstance where there is a choice in the matter. Sometimes he allows for evil and corruption and we often don't understand why, but that doesn't mean it's beyond his control. Why did Jesus heal a blind man, a cripple or a leper? Because natural circumstances are never beyond God's control and that right there testified to the authority of Christ. A God who is not sovereign is no God at all.

Finally, I want to say that this is not off topic. The question was why is Petra still around and the discussion regarding that question led to this discussion which has many times referred back to Petra and why they are still around even though no longer the big deal they once were. Perhaps you don't like the discussion because your case is weak, so you'd like to see it go away. Whether or not God is sovereign in the affairs of men is certainly a worth while topic of discussion, which most definitely relates to the question that was asked.

[executioner]

This is what I think; God isn't measuring Petra's success on how many CD's are but or how many people are at their shows, He measures their success in 2 ways 1. After becoming saved living their individual lives as God sees fit. 2. Bringing as many as people to the Gospel or at least planting the seed of Faith through their ministry.

As a Christian for me those 2 things are the most important items Petra is successful at doing and I believe will as always do, but as a human that has fault in his life I think its important to have the success of sales in tha market.
On another note at anytime God can bring Petra back to being very successful market wise and there is nothing the market or the music business can do to stand in His Way. If God says it it will be done.

[Mountain Man]

You guys are missing the point. It's not about God micromanaging the affairs of men, though there are those who believe he does, that's not what I'm talking about. The Bible is abundantly clear that God is not hands off when it comes to the affairs of men. He is sovereign over everything, he makes nations rise and fall for his purposes and man is not free to act against God's sovereign will. Whatever free will we have, we have because God grants it to us and he does so to the extent that it does not conflict with his plans and purposes. If God wanted Petra to be a huge thing right now he could make that happen. There is nothing in the power of men that could prevent it. This isn't about salvation or anything like that. Man is free to choose about that sort of thing, this is about God's plans for the world he created. Do you think Petra was a big thing in the 80's and early 90's by accident or just because of the Market? Do you really think God had nothing to do with that? If that's what you are saying, then that is what I am saying is completely not in keeping with the what the Bible teaches. Not that God needed Petra or that no one else could have served that purpose, but that God in his sovereign will (for whatever reason) raised them up for given purpose at a given time.

Again, it depends on your concept of God. God is sovereign, certainly, but he also has great respect for the freewill of men. There wouldn't be a hell otherwise.

That said, my belief is that Petra was successful because they made good music that was marketable and not because God ordained that they would be successful. To say that God was responsible for Petra's success is to say that God either overrode the freewill of millions of people and made them prefer a specific kind of music, or he somehow inspired Bob Hartman to write music that would be marketable. I don't see any scriptural basis for supposing that either one is true (and the latter can lead to some unfortunate implications if you try and speculate why Petra's music is no longer marketable). It's like the guy who says, "Lord willing, I'll be back. Oh, I'm back. I guess the Lord willed it." It requires a pretty serious disconnect from scripture to believe such a thing.

To put it another way, while God used Petra's success, I do not believe he caused it.

[Boray]

To put it another way, while God used Petra's success, I do not believe he caused it.

Because of man's free will and because Christians try to find out what God wants for them and (hopefully) tries to follow that, I think God influences Christians to an extent but not so much people who believe there is no God or choose not to follow him. So I think that God probably have put Petra together and influenced them to do what they do, or put a will in them to do this so to say, a calling. And I think he has put a will in us (the Petra fans) to don't put garbage in our (computer) brains but to think of what we eat musically. But music is a matter of taste, culture, age, etc etc. Everyone can't like a certain group or music style. If you don't like a CD you simply won't buy it. However, I think God can speak to you through music. So he probably can open someones heart for a song or whatever. It all depends on so many things.

[executioner]

To put it another way, while God used Petra's success, I do not believe he caused it.

Because of man's free will and because Christians try to find out what God wants for them and (hopefully) tries to follow that, I think God influences Christians to an extent but not so much people who believe there is no God or choose not to follow him. So I think that God probably have put Petra together and influenced them to do what they do, or put a will in them to do this so to say, a calling. And I think he has put a will in us (the Petra fans) to don't put garbage in our (computer) brains but to think of what we eat musically. But music is a matter of taste, culture, age, etc etc. Everyone can't like a certain group or music style. If you don't like a CD you simply won't buy it. However, I think God can speak to you through music. So he probably can open someones heart for a song or whatever. It all depends on so many things.

Correct, and along the same lines He gives us the will and rights to do what we want, but it all comes back to where God has COMPLETE control over everything(including CCM) and its up to us Christians to have the faith that He does. Too be honest I see some here in this post lacking the faith that God has provided for us.