John Piper

It sounds like you are saying that God is sovereign, but only within the rules of the calvinism doctrine. God is sovereign and He can include man's will as He pleases. God draws us to Himself and applies His grace to whoever decides to call on Him for salvation.

God is sovereign and is not limited by the doctrines or scripture interpretations of men.

 

All of this is true. God does not grant salvation to any who will not call on him. Nor does he refuse to save any who do call on him.

This is true as well.

No. God does give man a choice. All sinners choose to reject God until they are regenerated. Then they choose to accept God. God saves no one against their will.

 

"Calvinist doctrine" has nothing to do with it. We're going by scripture!
An unregenerate heart can make no choice for their own spiritual good, because they are spiritually dead! Dead cannot choose anything! Until their heart is quickened they can only choose what is in keeping with their unregenerate state.
Chapter 2, Ephesians describes how the spiritually dead are made alive.

 

Joh 1:12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
Joh 1:13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

These verses make it perfectly clear... and all of John... that those who receive HIm, who believe in His name... were born not because of what race they belong to, or nation, nor because of what any man would do, or even because they themselves *will*it.... but they are born of God.

When you read John 3:16, be sure to read it in the context of being born again. For that matter, when you read all of John, read it in its context. Certainly God sent His Son to save the whole world, but the whole world loved the darkness rather than the light. That points us right back to the context of having to be born again. We are born not because of our will, thank God!, but of God.

 

Did any of you guys ever consider that maybe they decided not to broadcast radio anymore because they have the right to do so, and maybe they want to spend their money elsewhere? Maybe it has nothing to do with the rediculous arguments about calvinism. If some of you would spend half of the time investing in the lives of people as you do arguing about a man-made 5-point system, maybe you'd do something for the kingdom. I'm not saying I'm not reformed...but lets use some Biblical language here...no need to accept a flower as your Savior...it was Jesus who died for you.

 

By the way...my response was only to some, I realize that not all are arguing in the ways I described.

 

When you see the ignorance and the ignorant statements made by some in the some of the early posts in this thread, you see why I voted in another thread to let the convention split over the issue. I'm independent, so it doesn't really affect me personally, but it does some of my friends and family.

I know personally that in many fundamental churches, Calvinism is cast as the Devil's Doctrine in one breath, and Spurgeon and Bunyan is praised in the next breath. Baptist people in general are so ignorant on theology that it ought to bring us to shame.

These people that log on and start shooting off their mouths about how evil Calvinists are and don't even know the difference between election and justification should have the decency to aplogize when they are confronted with the facts.