Featured The Holy Bible and The Unsaved

Don't hold back, tell me what you REALLY think.

You have to admit that if GOD really wanted every single person saved, then they would be, so on some level God must at least ALLOW some to be lost. If the 'wide' and 'narrow' road stuff is true, then the reality is that MOST are lost (whatever the reason).

I agree, God COULD do a lot of things. We could all be raptured out of the world at the moment of our salvation and God could have Angels spread the gospel if he wanted. Of course, we know that God has chosen NOT to handle things that way. I guess we just have to decide whether we trust that God knows more than we do and His plan is better than ours. I am ok with that.

So apparently God has placed us in a field full of young wheat and tares that we have no hope of telling the difference. However, that doesn't mean that there is no difference between a young wheat and a young tare. A tare will never grow into a wheat and a wheat will never grow into a tare. As young sprouts, people like us just have a hard time telling them apart. So we are called to shine the Light of Christ on the field and water it with his love. The wheat will respond by growing into mature wheat and the tares will respond by growing into mature tares. Eventually, it is easy to tell them apart because Wheat and Tares look nothing alike when they are fully grown.

So we preach the Gospel to all knowing that, as Jesus warned us, the fields are full of both Wheat and Tares. However it is not our job to worry about the tares. We will never turn them into wheat, and they will not stop us from shining His light on the Wheat. Eventually God will send his angels to do the harvesting and deal with the tares himself. Those whose hard hearts rejected God will be twice condemned. First because they did reject God and sin. Second because they heard the same gospel preached as the saved, but refused to listen.

The danger of "Free Will" is three fold:

• First there is the danger of guilt that the eternal destiny of another rests on your ability to persuade ... who was damned because YOU failed to adequately communicate the Gospel?
• Second there is the danger of pride ... God chose you because he knew that you would accept, or you are somehow better than the lost because YOU chose to believe and they did not.
• Third is the danger of your uncertain fate ... if you chose to believe, could you loose that belief and with it your salvation?

In contrast, Monergism states that salvation is 100% of God from first to last, so:

• First your efforts are guaranteed to be effective. God will use any tool of HIS choosing to accomplish HIS purpose ... the 'elect' are guaranteed to respond, so your efforts cannot fail.
• Second there is absolutely no intrinsic difference between the saved and the lost ... both are totally incapable of choosing God. It is God who chose you for reasons that have nothing to do with you and everything to do with God. The only reasonable response is humility and gratitude ... we have nothing to be proud about.
• Third is the certainty of our destiny. If it was never about me and always about God's choosing, then nothing I do will change God's mind. God already loved me at my worst for His sake, not because of anything I did. God doesn't change.

 

Where most people who reject Reformed Theology only have one fundamental error ... an unwillingness to look at a verse in its larger Biblical contest.

I know of no Calvinist who thinks that God has failed at anything. However, that verse on "God willing that none should perish" actually comes from a very interesting paragraph that is too seldom quoted in its entirety:

2 Peter 3:8-9 NASB

But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.​

Notice that Peter is speaking to the saints ("beloved") and the Lord is patient TOWARDS YOU (the saints) not wishing any (of the "beloved") to perish but to [have time to] come to repentance. Peter was never talking about everybody in the world, he was talking to the "beloved" ... that's the Church ... bride of Christ ... the Elect ... His sheep. Kinda puts a different spin on that verse, don't it.

"Free Will" is one of the most ill-defined terms that I have ever encountered. Everyone seems to have their own personal meaning. Let's assume that you mean FREE WILL is the ability of a person to choose either "good" or "evil", to obey God or to follow their sin nature. Given that definition, would it surprise you to learn that GOD has no Free Will? God cannot choose to do "evil". God cannot sin. Either action is to act contrary to God's own nature and God can do anything except cease to be God ... who he is.

Some verses on "Free Will"

[Rom 6:6, 16-20 NASB] 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; ... 16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
[Rom 16:18 NASB] 18 For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.
[Gal 4:8 NASB] 8 However at that time, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods.
[Eph 6:6 NASB] 6 not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.

I didn't find a lot of verses on the ability to freely choose between God and Sin. It seems that perhaps no man can serve two masters.

If you are really going to attempt to understand Reformed Theology, I suggest you start with Total Depravity (aka Total Inability) (found in Romans 1-3) rather than Irresistible Grace (found more in John 6:44 than Acts 7)

 

For you to ask this question shows you do not have a working undertstanding of the discussion at hand.
Hyper calvinists go beyond biblical teaching...I oppose them , specifically their false ideas.
Are you a new christian?
Take some time and read up on this topic...you really have no grasp on it.
there are many here who can help you...pollard is giving good responses to you....read them carefully...because your statements are off center.

 

Saved-By-Grace,

You make such sweeping pronouncements only to be proven badly mistaken each time.

Good...you want to attempt to go to the bible, but here once again you fail big time by butchering the verse in question by not being accurate,so right from the start you are going to be chewed up by anyone who responds...

 

Could you show what John 3:16.....actually says?
Hint...use an interlinear or some such ....then comment.

 

Look up the words boulemai, and thelo in the passage....try reading it in context....
You might find that Peter is saying every single person spoken of...is going to be saved...

 

You answered your own question here.

 

I am not familiar with these terms.

I was speaking more about Baptists whose Theology leans more Dispensational.

Keep reading, lol, I am quite confident it will change again (and I don't mean back to an Arminian view).

Its pretty much a given "Only the Elect will be saved." That doesn't mean we do not see men "saved" prior to the Mystery of the Gospel being revealed in this Age. The key to understanding this is not to equate being justified in an Old Testament setting with being Eternally Redeemed through the Work of Christ. No-one was eternally redeemed until Christ died in their stead, so, we see the grace of God not exacting the penalty for sin at the time of death in regards to the Old Testament Saint. They died not having received the promises God gave in the Old Testament. They did not receive the Promised Spirit, eternal remission of sins, or eternal union with God through the Reconciliation Christ came to bring about between Man and Himself.

And I think we can still see God extending that grace. I think most think that if they convey the Gospel to a person, their work is done, however, their "work" isn't what saves, it is the convicting Ministry of the Holy Ghost Who makes the natural mind understand. One can preach the Gospel to men but that doesn't mean the Holy Spirit is ministering in their hearts. Secondly, God provides revelation to men through an internal witness, seen in Romans 2 in regards to Gentiles who had not received the Covenant or the Word of God yet performed the works of the Law written on their hearts. We are told they will be judged by their response to that internal witness.

He cares enough to give you His Word so you will know and understand His will for Man.


God bless.

 

They are doing what their "free will" allows them to do, as God is not causing them to reject Christ directly!

 

The desire and will of God is not the same thing...

 

That either He meant the death of jesus to save some, or to save all!