Frank,
You are entitled to believe whatever
you want. If you believe this young woman's visitation was for real, so be
it. But we are entitled to not believe it if we choose. Because you
used to biblical accounts to back up your reasons, I had to reply. We must
all be very careful in backing up our thoughts on what the scriptures say with
the scriptures. Otherwise we are simply taking man's word for it.
"Frank said it was in the bible. It must be true." "Carol said it
was in the bible. It must be true." Noooo. We must search the
scriptures for ourselves and allow the Holy Spirit to enlighten us with the
TRUTH of the Word of God.
Here is what you wrote:
Look at the parable of the 10 virgins for
example.
5 repented but it was too late.
Look at the Lazarus that went to
hell.
He pleaded and repented but it was too late.
I went through the translations on
biblegateway.com to see if any of the examples you mentioned stated they
repented. I did not find one. Here is what the scriptures
say:
Matthew
25:8
And the foolish said
unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone
out.
Matthew
25:11
Afterward came also
the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.
Are they
repenting? They are not even remorseful for being foolish. They're
DEMANDING.
Luke
16:24
And he cried and said, Father
Abraham, have mercy on me, and send
Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for
I am tormented in this flame.
The rich man is asking to be
alleviated of his distress by asking Abraham to dip the tip of his finger in
water to relieve him of his torment. He wants Abraham to take pity on him,
to show compassion to him, to be kind and humane to him by cooling his
tongue.
He is not
repenting. He is asking for
mercy.
I am even posting the
definitions between repentance and mercy so there is no confusion that both mean
the same thing. I copied the info from the on line dictionary.
Please overlook the underscores. I am not emphasizing them to make my
point. The underscores could not be deleted without deleting the words and
re-writing them.
Repentance: remorse or contrition for
one's past actions or sins. regret, guilt, grief, sorrow, remorse, contrition, compunction, penitence, self-reproach, sackcloth and ashes, sorriness
Mercy: act of being humane,
compassionate, be kind, Alleviation of distress; relief.
I only replied
because what you wrote about the 5 virgins and the rich man was not
correct. These scriptures are what made me doubt the young woman's
dream/vision of a visitation from Jesus was not true. If she had written
the pope asked for Mercy, for pity, I may have believed
it.
Shalom...
Carol
Garza