Featured VESSELS OF WRATH

In the Scriptures, death always means the cessation of the viability of the physical body. The exception is the lake of fire which is titled the second death.

When in John 3 it says “shall never perish” it is also speaking of the ceasing of physical vitality, for believers do “pass” from this existence into the next. We believers have eternal life and death is but a shaded valley.

Therefore, your question is very valuable. For, imo, some do take the mention of perish and death as the second death, but folks do not perish in the second death, for it is eternal.

 

The Lord is certainly “long suffering toward the elect” but also long suffering that all elect come to belief.

Look at the Revelation and see why God spoke as he did in answering this very question.

9And when the Lamb opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony they had upheld. 10And they cried out in a loud voice, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You avenge our blood and judge those who dwell upon the earth?”11Then each of them was given a white robe and told to rest a little while longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers, were killed, just as they had been killed.
​

 

...you're the proof of that...

 

No reformed person teaches men are not fully responsible for their sins.

 

1 pet3
18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
now2 pet3;
14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.

15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;

16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.

18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

Are you trying to lead us away with the error of the wicked SBG?

 

sbw, those bolded words perfectly express your idea of salvation.
It is precisely why you cannot understand grace.

 

Finally you admit your true position that salvation is up to man, not God.

 

What are you talking about?

 

I am not sure.

wherefore, I give you to understand that no one, in the Spirit of God speaking, saith Jesus is anathema, and no one is able to say Jesus is Lord, except in the Holy Spirit.
and this he said of the Spirit, which those believing in him were about to receive; for not yet was the Holy Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
that in the name of Jesus every knee may bow -- of heavenlies, and earthlies, and what are under the earth -- and every tongue may confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

I wonder if Nebuchadnezzar will say Jesus is Lord?

I was in the museum of natural history in Chicago one day and there was a mummy of someone who had died thousands of years age. Odds are that person never heard the gospel.

for even as in Adam all die, so also in the Christ all shall be made alive, and each in his proper order, a first-fruit Christ, afterwards those who are the Christ's, in his presence, then -- the end,

and as it is laid up to men once to die, and after this -- judgment,

the last enemy is done away -- death;

and the sea did give up those dead in it, and the death and the hades did give up the dead in them, and they were judged, each one according to their works; and the death and the hades were cast to the lake of the fire -- this is the second death;

 

Yes I added that by edit.

 

The first passage has nothing to do with people getting saved after they die.
Both passages speak about God being long suffering with the wicked.

 

He waited 120 years while the ark was being built....He endured the wicked.
You really do not get it do you?

 

Correct

No person who is dead in sin can repent BEFORE God makes them alive. By grace they are saved.
Repentance happens after faith is given. How is it that you cannot grasp Ephesians 2:1-9? Nobody is making this up. It is very well documented in God's word. Why do you insist on dead men having to act, apart from the Spirit of God, before God can act? What you insist upon is a really poor understanding of what God does, that replaces God with man.