How important is free will to you?

Pastor Larry, the divinely inspired author indicates the ability to hear is implied. Your inability to understand that implication indicates the closure of your mind to that truth!

 

Revelation 3:20 is God speaking to the backslidden individual members of the church. Notice He 'Knocks' at the hearts door. He does not intimidate or manipulate them because they are united to Him through faith already. If He ministers in this way to those who are falling away from Him, we would be foolish to think that He manipulates and intimidates sinners so they enter the faith that He is allegedly handing out to certain sinners.

What makes one sinner reject Christ and another one to received Christ? This Biblical answer has been offered different times only to be cast aside like an 'old, oil rag.'

The parable of the sower points out that only one group receives the Gospel in sincerity. [Matt. 13:3-8] There was nothing wrong with the Sower of the seed, which is the Gospel. Nothing was wrong with the seed, because the Word of God is perfect. And lastly, there is nothing wrong with the seed and it was so potent that the evil one came and took it from the hearts of the hearers. [vs. 4]

What is wrong in this parable? The soil was all different. The soil is depictive of the response of the hearts and lives of those who heard the Gospel. Notice every soul heard the Gospel, at least as far as the sower could sow his seed. No one was missed or overlooked or 'passed by.' In that all heard the Gospel, the Sower, Jesus Christ, has delivered His soul, if you will, by His sovereign and Divine prerogative. All the responsibility now belongs to the human sinner after he or she hears the Word of truth.

The sowers refer to those who witness or preach the Gospel, but the greatest Sower of the seed is the Godhead. At the Great White Throne Judgment sinners will be without excuse. No one will be able to say these things. "Lord you never offered me the Gospel! Lord you never seriously called me to faith! Lord, you never loved me! You only loved Your favorites."

If you do not accept 'free will' as being viable you will never acknowledge the true meaning of the Parable of the Sower. Those who are more from an Arminian perspective will immediately recognize this fact.

 

Where?? Show me from the text ...

Of course, you can't do it, which you have adequately demonstrated over time. Your system demands this ability to hear, but we are told in other places that such hearing (meaning hearing with accepting understanding) is impossible for the unbeliever (John 8:43; John 6; 1 Cor 2:14; Eph 2; Eph 4; etc.). This is the simple truth of Scripture. I understand your implication. I reject it because the text does. You have tried to force the text into your system, instead of adjusting your system to fit the text. That is no way to do theology. As for me, I will stay with what the text says.

 

And you have continually done this.

YOu are right that there is nothing wrong with the sower or the seed. Man rejects freely and absolutely until God's opens his mind for sure and certain acceptance.

I don't see anything here I DOn't believe. I would only add that man is responsible whether or not he has heard the truth. Rom 1 makes it clear that all men know of God and have rejected him. All the responsibility belongs to the sinner. HE is not excused. That is what Calvinism believes.

We do accept "free will" as being viable. We define it the way that Scripture does. YOU are the one who denies this.

 

Where?? Show me from the text ...

Of course, you can't do it, which you have adequately demonstrated over time. Your system demands this ability to hear, but we are told in other places that such hearing (meaning hearing with accepting understanding) is impossible for the unbeliever (John 8:43; John 6; 1 Cor 2:14; Eph 2; Eph 4; etc.). This is the simple truth of Scripture. I understand your implication. I reject it because the text does. You have tried to force the text into your system, instead of adjusting your system to fit the text. That is no way to do theology. As for me, I will stay with what the text says. </font>[/QUOTE]Then you will remain in the wrong!

 

Amen Pastor Larry.

God Bless.
Bro. Dallas

 

We are saying that it is a sinner's response to the Gospel that determines his destiny. The sinners heart determines whether or not he will accept Christ into his soul, [Matt. 13:3-8] Just as there are different kinds of soil for the seed of the Gospel, so too there are different responses in the soul/heart to the preaching of the Gospel.

And if this is true and it is, then we need not blame God for autocratically sending men and women to their respective destination of Heaven and Hell. This is the meaning behind, in and through the teaching of the Parable of the Sower. Jesus has cast the seed to everyone through the preaching and witnessing to His holy Gospel.

 

Matt. 13.9

Why stop short, if you continue in your reading the Lord opens the parable and explains the meaning and your questioning is dealt with.

[emphasis mine]

Why do you brethren not see the simplicity of these things? Read from vs. 18 to 23 and see the meaning our Lord put on His words.

God Bless.
Bro. Dallas Eaton

 

Where, in what you posted is Grace?

 

This thread is about 'free-will' and its importance to you.

Read Matt. 13.18-23 and tell me where you find man and his free-will. Grace abounds in all of Scripture.

BTW, Yelsew, have you ever seen a forest? A tree?

Bro. Dallas

 

Forest? Tree? What are they?

 

Matt 13:18-23 is the explanation of the different ways the message of God is received by mankind. To some the seed does nothing because of the condition of the heart the seed cannot germinate, to others the seed germinates but quickly fails to grow, to still others the seed takes root but is crowded out by the cares of the world, but to some the seed finds furtile ground and grows producing seed an hundred-fold.

You will notice that to the sower of the seed it doesn't matter that some falls on hard ground, some on rocky, some in weedy, because that which falls on good ground produces the desired result.

What your Calvinism doctrine of election says is that the sower sows seed only in furtile ground, and not letting seed hit hard, rocky, or weedy ground, thus excluding them from the possibility of producing. Biblically speaking the doctrine of election and the parable of the sower are incompatible.

Having been a farmer for part of my life, I can tell you that there are significant differences among the good grounds. Seed that falls on some good ground produces significantly less than the same seed falling on other good ground. And there are differences in the crop quality as well as quantity.

The sower in the illustration is the Holy Spirit, the Seed is the Word of God, and the ground of all types is mankind. The sower does not discriminate about where the seed falls so long as it is in the field where the crop is to be grown. And the fields are white unto harvest, and so few worker there are to do the harvesting.

 

I am wrong because I stay with the text? I am wrong because I refuse to believe things that you can't show from Scripture??? I will gladly be wrong then.

 

I don't think, at face value, that we disagree. The problem is that you are inconsistent with the nature of man, whose heart is deceitful above all things, darkened because of understanding, unable to come to God, and unable to please God in any way. You believe that kind of heart will respond. The Scriptures teach otherwise. The Scripture teach that until the Spirit of God regenerates, that heart will not respond. Man is not saved apart from his response. That is a straw man that you continue to repeat.

You are the only one blaming God here. We don't need to blame God. God is not at fault in the sending of someone to hell. They go to hell of their own free choice. They are doing exactly what they want to do.

 

Have you ever declared a forest to be a forest? or declared to a tree that it was a tree? Were these not the same before you saw them? Or was it your seeing them that made them a forest, or was it your walking up to a tree and gazing upon it that made it a tree?

Whether you walk into the forest and declare a tree a tree or not, it always was and forever remains a tree.

Christ plainly taught the meaning of this parable, as he did the parable of the wheat and the tares. And I agree with you that the sower is not to discriminate as to where the seed is cast; but you continually forget that in your work as a farmer, you did not withold from your labors simply because you did not know the end of the harvest, nor to what degree you would profit. These things were and remain in the hands of our Sovereign Lord and yet you continued in your work.

Did it require that you bring forth on your land a bountiful harvest each year? Is this what made you a farmer? Or did the fact that you entered into labor and expected the Lord of the harvest to Bless your work and continued through good and bad harvests? Did you in times of difficulty begin to declare Johnson Grass a stalk of Corn, even though there was no evidence of fruit in that, only the appearance from a distance?

Just some thoughts if it is you and I who declare to a tree that makes it a tree then it could not have been a tree before we saw it; but if it is God that made the tree, then it has eternally been and will have always been a tree, we cannot change it.

God Bless.
Bro. Dallas

 

Yelsew the Farmer,

I'm not making fun and am only glad that you told us that there are different kinds of ground that will bring forth some kind of new life from the ground. A superficial faith that is not real will only appear as alive for a brief time and then will die on the vine. How many pastors have taken people into the church and then after a time, they are missing from the congregation. A genuine belief and trust in Christ coming from the human heart will reveal perpetual life and in the end eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's why we read in I John that 'they went out from us because they were not all of us.'

Faith has to get further down than the head. When faith comes from the soul/heart then it will endure the trials and struggles of life.

Your horticultural background brought to us fresh insight. Thanks!

 

If the heart of man is such that it will not respond, why does God continue to sew the seeds of his word into the heart of mankind? Could it be that HE knows the heart CAN and DOES respond?

 

I have no doubt that there are those who enter the church - that never were converted in the first place. They were dry lifeless ground at the start - and life never "spring up" there never was a time when the "dead came to life", when the spiritually dead - were born again and brought to life.

But in Luke 8:4-14 we see two cases where the dead DID come to life and then died back again. The problem was not "the life was fake and they failed to maintain falsehood long enough". Rather the life "was good and they failed to maintain that good state". Failure was not failure to "recieve the word with rejoicing and Believe" (For with the heart man believes) and thus come to life - it was that the life was eventually choked out.

Not unlike the Matt 18 of forgiveness revoked. Forgiveness was reall - was really received - but was later revoked.

In Christ,

Bob