"... must worship Him in ... truth."

On second thought sky, forget about the dinner invitation, i'm sure neither of us would enjoy it. This is truly a sorry thread! :tear:

 

I am not a Calvinist, so I agree with you. My problem with your post is not your objection to Calvinists. It is your lumping them in with Mormons and saying they are not saved. There is a huge difference between not understanding Gods love for us and how he gives that love, and having an completly different god.

If our salvation does not require us to be 100% correct in doctrine, then your entire thread is mute. Correct me if I am wrong about your OP but you were saying that Calvinists are unsaved because they do not worship in truth. Did I misunderstand your point in the OP.

This thread is not compairable with what Jesus did.

 

Ok, I think most people took the OP as saying that Calvinists were not saved. You did compair them to Mormons. That is like saying that anybody who believes in post trib are like Muslims. Kind of gets people worked up.

As for Gods love. I believe Gods love is an action. The action of dieing of the Cross. I believe that Jesus died for all men, and if we choose to place our trust in Him for salvation, His His reward will be substituted for our punishment.

I hope that does not make me like the Mormons, because I have already been one of those. :laugh: I did not like it the first time.

 

I agree.

Though Sky does it here toward the Cals
We see Rippon doing the same thing toward the Non-Cals (mainline Christianity) in another thread.

Should we all be equated with Catholics also because we believe Mary was the mother of Jesus?

A shallow and quick glance can see what one desires to see, but a deeper look reveals the imagination was incorrect.

 

We tend to think of the beginning of John 3.16 as meaning, "God loved the world so much that . . . " (I've even come across a bible version that translates it as, "This is how much God loved the world.") But I understand from those who know New Testament Greek that the word translated into English as "so" there actually means "thus" or "in this way." It's the same word that is used when Jesus is teaching His disciples to pray, and He says in Matthew 6.9: "In this manner, therefore, pray." With that in mind, John 3.16 means: "This is the way in which God loved the world: He gave His only begotten Son, in order that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Don't all Christians believe that?

Incidentally, I must put right another false impression I seem to have given, when I wrote:

But "Calvies" witness and preach the gospel, because they, like everyone else, have no knowledge of who the "all that the Father gives to Jesus" are, and anyway they seek as you do to fulfil the Great Comission. ​

I certainly didn't mean that "Calvies" have as their reason for preaching the gospel the fact that they don't know who the elect are. Rather, I was answering your earlier post in which you had said that Calvies want to keep God's love to themselves.

I gladly say "Amen" to your words, "Anyone God ever hated did something to deserve it!" Over and over again, the scriptures tell us that we are all sinners. We all deserve the wrath of God, not His mercy. "Elect" and "election" are bible words, so what do they mean? Colossians 3.12-13 gives an idea:

12 ¶ Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering;
13 bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.​

We know from the beginning of the epistle that those words are addressed to "the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colosse", in other words, to Christian believers. So I cannot say "Amen" that God loves the elect and non-elect.

Yes certainly, God saw everything that He had made, and it was very good. But then came the fall in the Garden of Eden. Romans 9.13-16 give an example of God hating:

13 As it is written, "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated."
14 ¶ What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not!
15 For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion."
16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.​

That wasn't because Jacob did good things and Esau evil, for in verse 11, Paul wrote:

11 (for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls).​

The gospel is surely, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved." I have heard plenty of modernist "theologians" say that all this talk of sin and needing to be saved is just picture-language. But don't all true Christians, Calvinist and non-Calvinist alike, believe those gracious words to the Philippian gaoler in Acts 16.31?

 

I know it happens. There is alot of pressure put on people to stay in "The Church". I know husbands whos wifes have divorced them for not staying in the church and vice versa.

My wifes parents disowned her, though later they just decided to treat us bad instead. My mother-in-law told us that since our children were not her eternal family she did not want anything to do with them. Again she latter just decided to not pay as much attention to them as her other grandchildren.

Would that be Mountain Side Church in Sandy, Utah. I have heard good things about this church. It is growing fast.

 

I am going to use that quote. :thumbs: