Featured Truth, lies, and video tape :-)

We are just seeing an extension of the traditional Modus Aperandi used of demonize the "heretics."
Though the man does much and teaches much that can be strongly disagreed with, just look at the awful personal attacks Baptists have written about Kenneth Copeland.

 

If someone is being silly, sometimes I will respond in kind and similar silly things. Sometimes I feel that it's the only way to respond to stupid. So, if somebody says that 9/11 is an inside job, I'll respond "You caught me. I masterminded the entire thing." Now does anyone believe me? Is it a lie if I know no one will believe me and it's done rhetorically. I would say no, but I understand others are more prickly about the issue.

Now on to the specific people you mentioned. First, I'm sorry but John Calvin did a lot of evil things and if one reads a book, or even his books one can realize that.

The others I'm not sure of because you give no examples but I will assume that it has to do with taking the words of well-known people out of context in order to make them look worse. This will happen. At best, one can put the words in context by printing the entire quote. And sometimes people really believe in the "false" narrative. They don't believe the "false" narrative is a lie. They believe it is the truth. So, calling them a liar isn't really going to help because they don't believe they are lying.

If someone says that John Calvin was a saint who was never involved in killing anyone, will my calling them a liar help? Will it matter a hill of beans to them what I call them? I can give them the book to read.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00652MB8Q/ref=docs-os-doi_0

But I can't force them to read it. The only thing one can do is say that what they said is untrue.

 

No. That’s the path the Catholic Church took long ago that allowed them to arrive at the decision to kill people they considered heretics as a means of stopping them from infecting others with what they considered to be heresy.

 

Or Joel Olstean.

 

My principle is that “it is never right to do wrong.”

No matter the motivation or even purpose, wrong is wrong.

There was a thread not long ago addressing this when it came to police tactical use of a lie.

The bottom line is if I cannot trust the enforcers of law (executive), the makers of law (legislative), the determinators of applicability of law (judicial), then how is the law not become void?

The Lord Jesus Christ met this problem of liers head on and gave the motivation behind the manifestation:

“If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. 43Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.44You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.46Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? 47Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”​

I consider the most devastating lie that which is preached by many. That preaching that states that out of human will one may accept or reject salvation.

Not a single human has not lied. Who is that human’s father?

Yet, preachers are so enamored with the lie that humans have free will they would spread the false narratives and even invent and construct some non-Biblical grace to support that lie.

“It is never right to do wrong.”

 

L.E. and military is different than normal Christian daily life. It's obvious you are dealing with separate moral rules. Both agencies use deadly force. Look at the battle plans God gave Gideon and Joshua. Both were 100% based in lies and deception.

"Free will" is a lie? That's pretty far reaching accusation to accuse all non cal preachers of being liars and the children of the father of lies. And y'all wonder why noncals don't like you.

 

Neither Joshua nor Gideon lied. Neither did the armies.

God took the already deceived and merely confirmed their deception.

And yes, “free will” is a lie. One is either bound in sin and all choices encaged to that which is fallen or that person is a believer - a new creation in which the will of that nature wars against the fallen will until death ceases the struggle and need to daily set aside the fallen.

There is no free will salvation. For the will of man is as corrupt as any other attribute of the old creation.

You do realize that prevenient/preceding grace is a human contrivance with absolutely no Scripture support that was invented to side step the original teaching that sin corrupted completely?

This really has nothing to do with “non cal” but that routed in conservative Biblical Therapy.

Unless the very core of a person is Scripturally changed, there is no lasting consequences to behavioral modification techniques attempted. A dog returns to their vomit applies to all dogs. It is their nature.

How does the dog not return to the vomit? By the dog becoming something other than a dog - a new creation.

 

This kind of post assumes the worst and only works to demonize those with whom he disagrees with. It certainly is not seasoned with grace, does not promote charity, and really only works to poke a finger in the eyes of his opponents.

 

El

Their armies operated out of deception, Pure deception. Do we need an Old Testament lesson? A lie does not have to be oral to be a lie. Rahab is listed in the hall of Faith for the lie she told.
You make the assumption Calvinism is true. You can not prove it to be true. If you could, there would be no debate. Your assertion that all non Calvinists are defector liars spreading lies is very telling of you.
And again I point out that it is no surprise that non Cals don't like you.

 

Actually, it lays out most certainly the reasoned demarcation of the two schools of thought.

Those that embrace the view that humankind is the self determiner, and that which embraces the view that forces of both internal and external oblige a non-neutral position in every decision.

When Scriptures teach that the heart (will) of man is desperately wicked, that it is darkened, that it cannot perceive, that it cannot attain, and then some teach that it can, they in effect lie.

If a therapist using cognitive reality therapy is not bringing the matter of therapy into focusing upon the truth, a truth that only the Scriptures and work of the Holy Spirit bring resolve, the work has very little success.

Certainly, one can offer sugar sweet donuts to resolve immediately pressing issues, but the temporary is never life changing.

You find the post objectionable, too blunt, uncompromisingly confrontational, and would rather offer something more ear tickling to the readers.

But the discerning readers don’t need feathers, they desire truth.

You attacked the way truth was communicated, but it was never-the-less truth.

 

But was it lies? I think it was more a case of honest mistakes.

 

There is a story of a Christian fishing family in the Netherlands who were involved in smuggling Jews to safe locations. They were preparing to smuggle a Jewish family out of the Netherlands, when they were approached by Nazi soldiers as they were preparing leave the pier in their boat. They had Jews hiding under tarps and nets and other equipment in the bottom of their boat. The Nazis asked them if they were alone in the boat and they said they were. They were asked three times total as the Nazis did a visual inspection and each time they lied and said they were the only people on the boat.

So should they have told the truth and given up the Jews, to the Nazis knowing that not only would the Jews be killed, but their fishing business would be shut down and every member of the family sent to a concentration camp? Or were they right to deceive the Nazis?

 

Why is it all disputes with some becomes an argument about Calvinism?

The originator of the quote was Dr. Bob Jones Sr. As far from a Calvinist as a Methodist evangelist can be. “It is never right to do wrong in order to get a chance to do right.”

Proverbs 12: Deceit is in the heart of those who devise evil, but those who plan peace have joy.

The Lord did not deceive, but used the deceit and superstition the folks already harbored to use against them.



Did not Paul remind the Thessalonians:

3For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, 4but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. 5For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness. 6Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. 7But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. 8So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.
​

What was a single elemental problem prior to the children of Israel being persecuted? They were as Paul declared of all:

28And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.​

I have little care who “likes” me or not.

What IS true, is that there has been abysmal success rates when one engages in behavior modification techniques that avoid the issue that a core change must take place to oblige lasting change.

This is NOT a cal or non-cal issue.

It is the truth.

There is no freedom of the will or capacity of the human will to make major change.

To get past this, folks have invented a grace that is never named and much less occurs in Scriptures. It is a lie to appease what is not palatable to those who desire to puff up the human decision making into a that which has the capacity to choose righteousness.

That some on the BB are so enamored with such a lie, and push back against the truth is unfortunate. However, it does not diminish that the lie remains a lie.

It really has nothing to do with Calvinism, for even the third point of the remonstrance states:

1. "That man has not saving grace of himself, nor of the energy of his free will," and unaided by the Holy Spirit, no person is able to respond to God's will;

​

Therefore, there is no “freedom of the will.”

 

One can try to justify their graceless words but it doesn't make it so.

 

Yes, exactly. There is another case where Elisha deceived a king that God had blinded. The king thought Elisha was taking him to see Elisha, but was being led into a trap by Elisha.

 

Perhaps you can demonstrate by rewording the post to be more ear appealing without it loosing the veracity of the statements.