Sermons On Sovereignty CHS

True, as God regenerates the sinner at salvation, and that person is now enabled by the Spirit to receive jesus thru faith!

Its all part of the salvation process, as God grants a lost sinner a new herat and mind concerning Jesus and His lost state, and that person now calls upon the Lord with that faith given unto Him to believe unto salvation...

 

DHK

Most of your errors begin here with your denial of the fall. You say it took place,yes. but you deny the biblical testimony of the lasting effects of it.
The biblical Adam died that day ....you adam was only wounded and suffered no effects whatsoever. Of course this is wrong so you will repeat your errors

 

The rivalry between Calvinism and Arminianism is so bitter and compartmentalized that the truth cannot be objectively discerned.

The truth is that the lost man does have the ability to believe whatever he chooses to believe. The lost man can trust in anything he wants to trust in. However, whatever he does not love, like or trust, he will not commit himself unto and that is the issue of inability not the will, nor the ability to believe.

He simply does not love the light but hates the light (Jn. 3:19-20). His mindset is "against God" because of a state of "enmity". What a person is at war with and hates, CANNOT at one and the same time be the object of trust and love.

His HEART is the problem, not his will, not his ability to believe. God must GIVE him a NEW HEART or that heart will continue to hate what God loves and loves what God hates and thus will continue in a state of war rather than a state of trust.

"No man can come to me" is the consequence in John 6:44 of the fact that no man "will come to me" in John 5:40. His total inability is due to his HEART which he cannot change because it is rooted in self-satisfaction.

Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day. - Deut. 29:4

Notice the cause and effect order in this verse. A heart must be first given IN ORDER TO perceive, see and hear.

 

That is the reason why answered DHK, as God grants the faith to them he choses to also have regenerated, as its not their faith first, then the new heart happens!

 

You sound like a Calvinist Biblicist.
"A heart must be given him." When and how?
Thus the unregenerated man goes out into the forest, having never heard the Word of God preached to him, knowing nothing about Christ and his saving work on the Cross, in fact knowing nothing of Christianity whatsoever.
But because "he is one of the elect chosen before the foundation of the world," God mysteriously, mystically, magically, manifests himself to him via the power of the Holy Spirit and PRESTO! he is regenerated, so that now he can be granted the faith to be saved or acquire salvation, which according to some, may even be a few months later. Quite an amazing feat, and IMO, a fairy tale.

 

IMO, that is a heresy. Salvation is NOT a PROCESS. It is an event!
I can remember the time, date, and circumstances of my wedding, the time I married my bride.
How much more important is it that one be able to point to a time in their life when they became a part of the bride of Christ. It was a one time event. It is not a process.
Regeneration and salvation happen simultaneously.
Therefore both the gospel and faith must precede both.

 

That is not my position. I believe that giving of a new heart is made effectual through God empowering the gospel as His creative Word as stated by Paul in 2 Cor. 4:6 and 1 Thes. 1:5; Ephe. 2:1,5,10. Hence, regeneration and conversion are simletaneous actions in regard to time but in regard to cause and effect conversion is the completed action of regeneration. God does the turning but what God turns is turning.

 

Thanks for the clarification.

 

You are welcome.

 

DHK,

Ezekiel did not share your errant view DHK...he did not say it was a "fairy tale"

In fact christians believe this describes regeneration....

5 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.

26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.

27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

This is far from a fairy tale. This is indeed whay happens everytime God saves a sinner.
The sinner does not save himself as you claim...God gives a new heart..it is supernatural.

 

DHK

You finally state the Calvinist position here....I am not sure you understand what you wrote...but you are agreeing with the Cal now:thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

I have always held to that position. The typical Calvinist does not.
However, if my above position is correct, then both the gospel and faith of a necessity must precede regeneration which is not the Calvinist position.

 

The fairy tale is the way I described it in the post where I used "fairy tale."
If regeneration and salvation happen simultaneously that "fairy tale" will never happen.
However, there are some Calvinists that justify that "fairy tale" theological position using Cornelius as an example.

In Acts 10 Cornelius is called a devout man which simply means religious and is translated that way in other places. He is not a full proselyte to the Jewish religion, in that he has not been circumcised. He stands in the outer court listening to what he can and therefore has some light about Jehovah. He desires to know more about the true way of salvation and therefore prays to the true God, Jehovah, that He would send him more light. God answers his prayer in a vision and at the same time gives Peter a vision about unclean animals.
The men sent from Cornelius arrive. Peter goes with them. The gospel is preached. Cornelius is saved. But his salvation is quite a number of days after the Lord first appeared in a vision to him.

Some of your Calvinist friends believe that Cornelius was regenerated sometime around the time that God spoke to him, or when he prayed to the Lord, or perhaps well before that since he was a "devout" man. He remains "regenerated" for a very long time, until finally Peter comes and brings the gospel that he might believe and be saved.
Regeneration comes first. It doesn't matter how long the gap is. It is not simultaneous, as long as it is first. For in regeneration one is given faith, the Calvinist says. That is what happened with Cornelius. And so the fairy tale continues........

If regeneration and salvation are simultaneous, that Calvinistic interpretation cannot be correct.

 

When the sinner becomes justified before that father is indeed a one time real time event, as that moment is when the sinners is cleansed, given a new creation in Christ, indwelt and sealed with/by the Holy spirit, bu tthe salvation is a real process, as pointed out to us by paul in Romans 8!

 

In the Prodvidence of God, all of these things happen, and when God grants the new heart and repentence unto eternal life, then jesus is received immendiatly thru faith, so to us its like everything is happening at same time!

 

The gospel does come first to the sinner EXTERNALLY by external instrumental means, but it is the Holy Spirit that takes it from the EXTERIOR of man to the INTERIOR of man as neither the sinner or any other exterior human being can bring it from the exterior to the interior spirit of man but the Holy Spirit. This transaction from the external to the internal is by CREATIVE WORD of command that makes the gospel come in "power and in the Spirit and in much assurance" transforming the internal heart of man into a believing heart. Thus giving a new heart and new spirit to man (Ezek. 36:26) as the LOGICAL cause of obedient faith (Ezek. 36;27) as one simeltaneous action.


LOGICAL CAUSE:

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.

LOGICAL CONSEQUENCE

27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

Notice it is placing the Spirit "within you" LOGICALLY FIRST that will "cause you" LOGICALLY SECOND to respond in obedience.

However, the creative action is one simeltaneous event that produces a believing heart rather than just a heart void of faith, as that was the condition of the heart being replaced.

 

DHK

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I have always said they happen at the same time, even before you thought of it. your saying salvation as in ezk 36 is a fairy tale is opposite of what ezk 36 declares..

I will answer for what I post. "some calvinists" could mean anyone, you include many in there that deny being a Cal.
I will answer for myself.

they are

 

I think you are reading too much into the passage and too much into the imagery that is in this OT passage.

As you said, the gospel must come first. But then what?
I had to be convinced, first on an intellectual level that the gospel was true. This is true with every person. Why should they believe the gospel over Islam, Hinduism, or whatever their own religion teaches them? It is true because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christ verified his claims through his resurrection. That is intellectual.
Second it must become a heart belief.
Faith is confidence in the Word of another (Rom.4:19-21)
--"being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform" vs.21). That is faith. Abraham was confident that what God had promised God would do.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
Only after one puts his faith in this glorious message of the gospel can his heart be transformed. Then God will give him a new heart. It must be in that order.

Everywhere in the Bible it is in that order. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. It isn't: I will give you a new heart and then you can have the faith to be saved. It isn't so.

[FONT=&quot]1 Peter 1:23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.[/FONT]

 

That is human philosophy. Man must believe in the gospel before he can be regenerated. That belief may take a long time. It may take convincing. It may take sitting under preaching for more than a year. It may take the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and he may resist that conviction over and over again. I have seen that. But someday he will SUBMIT to that conviction and believe in his HEART on the Lord Jesus Christ, and be saved. That is what the Bible teaches.

[FONT=&quot]Romans 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.[/FONT]

 

DHK

NOT! He is in agreement with SOME Cals, but definitively not all that have held to Sovereign Grace; many Reformed/Old Schoolers have held to regeneration occurring long before conversion:

http://www.baptistboard.com/showthread.php?p=1855435#post1855435

...such as John the Baptist filled with the Spirit from his mother's womb, Abraham prior to Gen 15:6, David made to hope while on his mother's breast, Isaac born after the Spirit by the time of his weaning, Paul separated from his mother's womb to preach Christ among the Gentiles, and other scripture that indicates a heart circumcised long before conversion.