"Deciding For The Lord"

Bingo. And what is that lively hope in Jesus? It's called faith. It is the natural consequence of being regenerated. Your eyes are opened, your ears can hear, and you can understand. What else would you do except have faith in Jesus?

Regeneration and faith go together like bread and... well... something that goes with bread.

 

You just won't let this one go, will you? The context of that verse is clearly that God is not willing that any of His elect perish. And none of them will perish. But, of course, you already know that because I've told you this every time you cite this verse out of context. </font>[/QUOTE]It's not clear to me that the context is the elect. Her's another interpretation.

c. We understand God's willingness that none should perish not in the sense of a divine decree, but in the sense that it reflects His heart of love for the world (John 3:16), and His compassionate sorrow even in the righteous judgment of the wicked

i. It is the same thought as expressed in Ezekiel 33:11 - As I live, says the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.

 

Bingo. And what is that lively hope in Jesus? It's called faith. It is the natural consequence of being regenerated. Your eyes are opened, your ears can hear, and you can understand. What else would you do except have faith in Jesus?

Regeneration and faith go together like bread and... well... something that goes with bread. </font>[/QUOTE]But you have to have the bread" (of life) before God will have a place to spread his butter.

Ps 55:21 The words of his mouth were smoother than butter,

 

It called "being born again", Saved, Heaven bound because the seed fell on "Good Ground".

 

Then you need to look at it again. I don't see how the text could make it any more clear. One important factor is that this is his second letter. In the first letter, Peter addresses his audience clearly as "the elect". Now he calls them beloved, but he comes right out and says this is his second letter to the same people (the elect). Then he carefully points out to whom God is longsuffering -- TOWARD US, the elect. That qualifies the rest of the verse, and tells you to whom "all" and "any" refer.

 

Why would God "TRY" Abraham's faith before he would account him as "righteous" enough to be saved, and then no try our faith before saving us??

I should point out that Abraham did not have a "comforter" (Spirit) as a "helper", Abraham simply "believed" ON HIS OWN.


Heb 11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,

18 Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called:

19 Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.

God had not told Abraham he would raise Isaac back up, Abraham figured that out ON HIS OWN and believed it.

There was no Spirit enabling him, he was not accounted as righteous (regenerated) until "AFTER" his faith was demonstrated, and most of all a "CHOICE" was placed in front of him.

Now calvin comes along and says, OH, No, God has a different plan of salvation for you,

God won't try your faith before he'll save you, he'll regenerate you so you'll have the faith to believe and don't worry about having to make a "CHOICE", you don't have one, If you're predestine to Heaven, there's no way you can miss it, and if you're predestine to hell there's no way you can get to heaven, God lied when he said he wasn't willing for any to perish.

As I've said, Calvin doctrine is "Backward", but then so are all "False doctrine".

Isa 5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

 

This pretty well sums up the whole Calvinism thing.

Calvinism is one of the worst false doctrines to ever have infiltrated the Church. Thirty-five years ago Calvinism was not as well accepted in Baptist churches as it is now and it needs to be adamantly opposed.

 

Terry said "Calvinism is one of the worst false doctrines to ever have infiltrated the Church. Thirty-five years ago Calvinism was not as well accepted in Baptist churches as it is now and it needs to be adamantly opposed."

So go ahead and oppose it, and you'll oppose the great John Bunyan who spent over 12 years in prison refusing to compromise the faith; the prince of preachers Charles Spurgeon, the greatest bible expositor and one of the most prolific writers and the author of the first complete bible commentary by a baptist John Gill, the great systematic theologian J.L. Dagg, founders of the SBC like James P Boice (also one of the greatest systematic theologians), B.H. Carroll (of "Trail of Blood" fame), Roger Williams, founder of the first baptist church in America; the first American baptist missionaries such as Judson, Fuller, Mercer, all BAPTISTS. And the non-baptists - George Whitefield under whom tens of thousands were saved; Jonathan Edwards, the most prolific leader of the great awakening, possibly the greatest movement of God in history; not to mention the dozens of Presbyterian missionaries whose blood was shed and bodies eaten by cannibals in the pacific islands, all for the propigation of the gospel; go ahead and oppose the writer of almost any complete bible commentary you can name, and almost any preacher you can name that can preach on something besides salvation and the rapture and standards. Go ahead, oppose them.

 

Oh yeah, 1971. Those were the days.

 

There are many preachers that are wrong on some issues; in fact, most preachers are wrong on some points of doctrine. This does not mean that their ministry is of no account.

As far as Bunyan is concerned, I really enjoyed "Pilgrim's Progress," and I know he spent 12 years in jail at Bedford, I believe. This does not mean that he is infallible.

 

Terry, you said "Calvinism is one of the worst false doctrines to ever have infiltrated the Church."

Take it back and let's play nice.

 

God called Abram out of his country before Abraham decided anything.

God told Abraham that the covenant and promise were through Isaac. If God had allowed Abraham to kill him then the only possibility the elected and saved Abraham would accept was that God would raise him up also.

That isn't in the text and in fact is contrary to it. God had already selected Abraham and entered into covenant with him.

You make the errant assumption that Abraham was not saved already and was somehow just accidentally in Canaan at the time. God called him, covenanted with him, then tested him.

When will you stop making this false characterization? You've been corrected before. It isn't honest to ignore the corrections and continue to post non-sense like this as if you had never been told different.

Absolutely true.

Again you have been corrected before many times. Calling this dishonest by you is very mild.

No. You abuse scripture when you strip these words of their context. The word "us-ward" has a meaning and DEMANDS that this scripture be addressing the saved people Peter was writing to and not the unsaved.

As I have said before, you have it backwards. You make man the possessor of the good that ultimately separates them from the sinners who go to hell. Christ saved no one. He simply provided a way where you could cooperate with him to save yourself.

Using the drowning man analogy, you would have a Christ who saw a bunch of people in water drowning. He threw ropes out and called in the hopes that the good/smart ones would grab on and save themselves.

Agreed. Shame on those who elevate man and make God such a one as themselves by force fitting Him into their concept of what is "fair".

 

There are many preachers that are wrong on some issues; in fact, most preachers are wrong on some points of doctrine. This does not mean that their ministry is of no account.</font>[/QUOTE]If they were promoters of "one of the worst false doctrines" then their ministry is worse than no account.

Fortunately, calvinism is like Spurgeon said- simply the biblical gospel.

 

I would not say their ministry is a total waste, but I have not been impressed with them.

An absolute lie!

When I was first saved in 1969 I was persuaded to buy a package of books from "Sovereign Grace Publishers." There was supposed to be some 150 books in this package, most of which had not been printed at the time of purchase. I received approximately 40 books with my payment and never received the rest. The company declared bankruptcy. I do not feel that I was cheated intentially; I guess they were "predestined" to go out of business. But, from what I have read in the ones I have, they are pretty much useless. They do however make good firewood!

 

Scott,
Since it is quite obvious you do not understand the various elements of Calvinism, it is hard to imagine how you would know whether it is false doctrine or not.

 

To be quite frank, I don't think any of them really understand what they believe, if they did, we'd have another funeral for Calvin, know what I mean??

There's a lot of talk about the different Jesus the Mormon doctrine teach, but Calvin's doctrine describes a different God than the scripture describe, and what's that old saying about living in glass houses and throwing rocks???