An honest question about free will.

Amen!!

God Bless.
Bro. Dallas

[ October 31, 2002, 06:25 PM: Message edited by: Frogman ]

 

Amen, and amen!

Ken
A Spurgeonite

 

Amen and amen and amen.

 

Then why do you keep preaching to them to do what they cannot do... Just watching out for your own salvation. God told you to do it.....

If God is going to fix them anyway, why does he want you ragging on them to do something that they cannot do....

Amen, amen, amen, amen.

 

If that is true, then not one human being could decide to believe in God. Grace is not what saves, belief (faith) is what saves!

"For by Grace are ye saved through faith..." You can substitute any number of terms describing conditions for the word Grace, and be just as saved through faith. Faith is a condition of human choice, or decision making! Virtually every human that chooses to believe in God the Son, thus having faith, is saved!

Grace is the attribute of God that tempers his other attributes, especially his Justice. If he removes his grace from us, He's gonna Love meting out his Justice, pouring out his wrath upon sinful man. You had better hope that you were not too corrupt and incapable to choose to believe in Him. He's been there, unchanging, from before the creation, waiting for you to choose him. He knows about our corruption, that is why he made the way for us to come to Him through His only begotten son Jesus. And the only method is by human choice. So you are simply, misguidedly wrong!

[ October 31, 2002, 11:17 PM: Message edited by: Yelsew ]

 

Dead in sin. Dead means sprerated. How can a man who is seperated from god by sin

Upon hearing the gospel, and being enabled to believe by the power of God unto salvation {The Gospel}. Enabled to believe, not irresistibly taken over.

The believer is then placed in Christ and indwelt with the Holy Spirit. Take upon your self the mind of Christ.

He cannot generate saving faith, it is produced by submission to the holy Spirit.

There, see; we made it through without God having to irresistibly take over our mind. Now we can truely bless God. We still have our own minds..

No!!!!! You fellows cannot imagine a God that is loving enough to allow man to resist his will. Yet every sin committed is evidence of same. Go figure...

We are never the better when we resist, yet God does allow it. Without predestinating, needing, or causing us to sin. Should not the truth that we always loose when we are not submissive, we always pay a heavy consequence. Is that not enough to quench you fellows thrist for the fires of hell without adding to the fire untruths like God never loved you anyway; he only loved us...

[ October 31, 2002, 11:33 PM: Message edited by: Chappie ]

 

humans only have an ability to choose against God, and to choose sin. This is because the fall not only seperated us from God, but depraved our will, rendering it capable of only choosing wrong.

The only method {of salvation} is by grace through faith, in Christ, does this mean the person of Christ alone? No, it means resting in the works Christ has done as mediator to reconcile us to God. Any measure of works of man brought into the equation leads one into the way of thinking Christs perfect live and sacrifice were somehow deficient, now it is up to the sinful creature He came to redeem to add personal works to that He has completed and thereby receive what He has 'authored and finished.'

This cannot stand, it has nothing to stand on.

Grace is unmerited favor. Something completely unmerited, if not, then it is not a gift, but a "payment" for personal righteousness. By redeeming us, means we are bought out of the market where we are in bondage to sin; if we are bought with a price you are suggesting the price Christ paid was not sufficient, but that God adds to it the added measure of man's work (being faith) and thus salvation is complete. This makes Christ the author, but man the finisher of our faith.

God Bless.
Bro. Dallas

 

humans only have an ability to choose against God, and to choose sin. This is because the fall not only seperated us from God, but depraved our will, rendering it capable of only choosing wrong.

The only method {of salvation} is by grace through faith, in Christ, does this mean the person of Christ alone? No, it means resting in the works Christ has done as mediator to reconcile us to God. Any measure of works of man brought into the equation leads one into the way of thinking Christs perfect live and sacrifice were somehow deficient, now it is up to the sinful creature He came to redeem to add personal works to that He has completed and thereby receive what He has 'authored and finished.'

This cannot stand, it has nothing to stand on.

Grace is unmerited favor. Something completely unmerited, if not, then it is not a gift, but a "payment" for personal righteousness. By redeeming us, means we are bought out of the market where we are in bondage to sin; if we are bought with a price you are suggesting the price Christ paid was not sufficient, but that God adds to it the added measure of man's work (being faith) and thus salvation is complete. This makes Christ the author, but man the finisher of our faith.

God Bless.
Bro. Dallas</font>[/QUOTE]Excellant post Bro. Dallas. And to think that god did it all without the help of individual salvational election, individual predestination, or irresistible grace. Aint God good....

 

We are made in the image of God, but a sinner is nowhere likened to the image of God.

God is light and in him is no darkness at all.

We can no longer say that of Adam nor of his race; don't forget, it was by free-will that Adam, a man created innocent fell, no we have inherited a depraved will. This will cannot hope to choose God unless God acts upon that will to regenerate it.

God Bless.
Bro. Dallas

[ October 31, 2002, 11:42 PM: Message edited by: Frogman ]

 

God don't make you believe! He gave you free will!

Believing is a choice of human free will. You can will to believe in whatever you choose!

You can believe:
There is no God
That God is a frog
That God is love
That God is a respector of man, and thereby chooses his favorites among them.
That God is impressed by the works man does.
That God obeys the will of Man
OR
You can believe:
There is a God
That God is Spirit
That God is no respector of man, and that he has no favorites.
That God is not influenced by the will of man, but only by mans choices.
That God is not impressed by man's works.

Believing is not a work! It is not something one does to earn compensation or merit! It is the only thing man can do that makes an impression upon God.

 

or you can believe that God is not impressionable, except by the works of His only begotten Son.

God is eternal, what prompted Him to create anything, to decree anything, to redeem anyone?

HIS WILL

To believe anything but reduces God and exalts man.

As long as man fell by his free-will, before that will was corrupted, he is going to continue to fall by that will until and unless that will is acted upon and regenerated by God.

We are not talking about a possession of mine:

"Behold, all souls are mine;" Ez. 18.4

We are talking about that which already belongs to God.

God Bless.
Bro. Dallas

 

JOHN 1:13, Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (so much for the will of a lost sinner)

 

That is NOT biblical at all..that is a heresy!

No where in scripture does it say the Holy Spirit has to regenerate people in order for them to believe. you're not regenerated UNTIL you are saved. The Holy Spirit does NOT come upon unsaved man.. he comes when the man has accepted Christ. (eph 1:13)

The Bible makes it perfectly clear that man has life because he believes; he does not believe because he has life.

But as many as RECEIVED HIM to them gave he power to become the sons of God, Even to them that BELEIVE on his name. jn.1:12

But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God; and that BELIEVEING ye might have life through his name. jn. 20:31

For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation to EVERYONE that BELIEVETH, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Rom 1:16

For ye are children of God BY FAITH in Christ Jesus gal 3:26

Jesus Christ Said that the Holy Spirit would reprove the WORLD of sin and of righteousness, and of judgemnet (jn.16:8)

He didn't say the Holy Spirit would regenerate folks before they could be saved..but that the Holy spirit would reprove the WORLD of sin. to a Bible believer that is perfectly clear.

Consider this.

by the pool of bethesda there "lay a great mutitude of impotent folk of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water"

this pictures the condition of a lost sinner: Impotent(rom 5;6) Blind (2 cor 4:4) Halt(Eph 2:12) withered ( isa 1:6)

YET:

"When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?"

Was the man with Total depravity saved by irresitable grace because of Gods unconditional election and Christs limited atonement? The man had to freely accept or reject Christ's offer: "Wilt thou be made whole"

 

If elect in the Bible means what you say it does how come there are Jews in hell right now? They are after all God's "Elect"

Isa 45:4 For Jacob my servants sake, and ISRAEL MINE ELECT I have called thee by thy name.

For thou art an holy people
unto the LORD thy God, and
the LORD hath chosen thee
to be a peculiar people unto
himself, above all the nations
that are upon the earth.

Ps 135:4
For the LORD hath chosen
Jacob unto himself, and
Israel for his peculiar
treasure.

So tell us why are there Jews in hell when they are God's elect people that he has chosen??

Why did they reject Jesus if Irresitable grace is true??

Come on now..lets be consistant!

[ November 01, 2002, 08:00 AM: Message edited by: shilo ]

 

What a blessing a straight forward answer to Shilo's question would be...

[ November 01, 2002, 10:15 AM: Message edited by: Chappie ]

 

It seemed too obvious, to me, and I had answered him before on this very issue. Election means to be chosen. It does not always mean to be chosen for salvation.

For example, here's one thing the Jews were chosen for...

 

Posted on p. 1:

NO!!! The Triune God saves!!! He does this most particularly through the work of Jesus. When He saves, it is by His grace. Belief (faith) does not save - it is merely the "empty hand of a beggar" that receives the gift.

When Jesus states "Your faith has saved you" in the NT - it is in reference to healing, not salvation, BTW. So don't start throwing out those verses.

"By GRACE ARE YOU SAVED, THROUGH FAITH, and THAT NOT OF YOURSELVES, it is the GIFT OF GOD, NOT OF WORKS, LEST ANYONE SHOULD BOAST." - Eph. 2:8-9

By His Grace Alone,
Rev. G