Featured Preparing a Truthful, Calvinistic Sermon (by a Calvinist)

The Lord said:
God makes the rain to fall upon the just and the unjust.
He causes the sun to shine upon the just and the unjust alike. He is fair in his dealings with man. Everyone is different. I chose to trust him. He chose to reject him, for matters that he only can tell you.

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

 

You are dodging the question. I never said that man's knowledge forced him to do something. I repeat my post in which I ask if God's omniscience, His foreknowledge, constrains what man does?

Earlier you said:

If God knows what I will post then I have no choice in the matter though I may think I do!

 

You really have not answered WHY and it is because you cannot and be consistent with your Arminian doctrine.

 

No. This is a fallacy of Calvinism to think that it does. God in his sovereignty has given man a free will and in his omniscience knows what man will do. Man is not constrained simply because God knows ahead of time what man will do.

You always have choice. You simply can't outsmart God. He knows the choice you will make. He commands you to pray for example. The truth still holds: "Prayer changes things." But the Calvinist says, How, if God knows ahead of time what the outcome will be? "
Because the prayer is for our benefit and for his glory. It is because He has commanded us to prayer and He desires our fellowship in prayer, although He does not need it.

God's omniscience and foreknowledge never constrain what man will do, or his choice to do it.

 

I don't have to answer why. Each man has to answer for himself why he does what he does. I am not answerable for other men.

 

DHK,

From the Synod of Dort

Article 1: God’s Right to Condemn All People

Since all people have sinned in Adam and have come under the sentence of the curse and eternal death, God would have done no one an injustice if it had been his will to leave the entire *human race in sin and under the curse, and to condemn them on account of their sin. As the apostle says: “The whole world is liable to the condemnation of God” (Rom. 3:19), “All have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23), and “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).

Where are you in disagreement with this?

 

And this...

Article 5: The Sources of Unbelief and of Faith

The cause or blame for this unbelief, as well as for all other sins, is not at all in God, but in humanity. Faith in Jesus Christ, however, and salvation through him is a free gift of God. As Scripture says, “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is a gift of God” (Eph. 2:8). Likewise: “It has been freely given to you to believe in Christ” (Phil. 1:29).

Where do you find disagreement here?

 

And this...

Article 6: God’s Eternal Decree

The fact that some receive from God the gift of faith within time, and that others do not, stems from his eternal decree. For “all his works are known to God from eternity” (Acts 15:18; Eph. 1:11). In accordance with this decree God graciously softens the hearts, however hard, of the elect and inclines them to believe, but by a just judgment God leaves in their wickedness and hardness of heart those who have not been chosen. And in this especially is disclosed to us God’s act—unfathomable, and as merciful as it is just—of distinguishing between people equally lost. This is the well-known decree of election and reprobation revealed in God’s Word. The wicked, impure, and unstable distort this decree to their own ruin, but it provides holy and godly souls with comfort beyond words.

And here?

 

And here...

Article 7: Election

Election is God’s unchangeable purpose by which he did the following:

Before the foundation of the world, by sheer grace, according to the free good pleasure of his will, God chose in Christ to salvation a definite number of particular people out of the entire human race, which had fallen by its own fault from its original innocence into sin and ruin. Those chosen were neither better nor more deserving than the others, but lay with them in the common misery. God did this in Christ, whom he also appointed from eternity to be the mediator, the head of all those chosen, and the foundation of their salvation.

And so God decreed to give to Christ those chosen for salvation, and to call and draw them effectively into Christ’s fellowship through the Word and Spirit. In other words, God decreed to grant them true faith in Christ, to justify them, to sanctify them, and finally, after powerfully preserving them in the fellowship of the Son, to glorify them.

God did all this in order to demonstrate his mercy, to the praise of the riches of God’s glorious grace.

As Scripture says, “God chose us in Christ, before the foundation of the world, so that we should be holy and blameless before him with love; he predestined us whom he adopted as his children through Jesus Christ, in himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, by which he freely made us pleasing to himself in his beloved” (Eph. 1:4-6). And elsewhere, “Those whom he predestined, he also called; and those whom he called, he also justified; and those whom he justified, he also glorified” (Rom. 8:30).

Here?

 

I think otherwise but we will have to agree to disagree.

There was a time in my life as a Christian when I thought the Doctrine of Sovereign Election was abhorrent. In time I came to believe that it was a precious doctrine because it magnifies the Grace of God.

 

And one last post...

Article 8: The Earnest Call of the Gospel

Nevertheless, all who are called through the gospel are called earnestly. For urgently and most genuinely God makes known in the Word what is pleasing to him: that those who are called should come to God. God also earnestly promises rest for their souls and eternal life to all who do come and believe.

Article 9: Human Responsibility for Rejecting the Gospel

The fact that many who are called through the ministry of the gospel do not come and are not brought to conversion must not be blamed on the gospel, nor on Christ, who is offered through the gospel, nor on God, who calls them through the gospel and even bestows various gifts on them, but on the people themselves who are called. Some in self-assurance do not even entertain the Word of life; others do entertain it but do not take it to heart, and for that reason, after the fleeting joy of a temporary faith, they relapse; others choke the seed of the Word with the thorns of life’s cares and with the pleasures of the world and bring forth no fruits. This our Savior teaches in the parable of the sower (Matt. 13).

Article 10: Conversion as the Work of God

The fact that others who are called through the ministry of the gospel do come and are brought to conversion must not be *credited to human effort, as though one distinguishes oneself by free choice from others who are furnished with equal or sufficient grace for faith and conversion (as the proud heresy of Pelagius maintains). No, it must be credited to God: just as from eternity God chose his own in Christ, so within time God effectively calls them, grants them faith and repentance, and, having rescued them from the dominion of darkness, brings them into the kingdom of his Son, in order that they may declare the wonderful deeds of the One who called them out of darkness into this marvelous light, and may boast not in themselves, but in the Lord, as apostolic words frequently testify in Scripture.

Article 11: The Holy Spirit’s Work in Conversion

Moreover, when God carries out this good pleasure in the elect, or works true conversion in them, God not only sees to it that the gospel is proclaimed to them outwardly, and enlightens their minds powerfully by the Holy Spirit so that they may rightly understand and discern the things of the Spirit of God, but, by the effective operation of the same regenerating Spirit, God also penetrates into the inmost being, opens the closed heart, softens the hard heart, and circumcises the heart that is uncircumcised. God infuses new qualities into the will, making the dead will alive, the evil one good, the unwilling one willing, and the stubborn one compliant. God activates and strengthens the will so that, like a good tree, it may be enabled to produce the fruits of good deeds.

Article 12: Regeneration a Supernatural Work

And this is the regeneration, the new creation, the raising from the dead, and the making alive so clearly proclaimed in the Scriptures, which God works in us without our help. But this certainly does not happen only by outward teaching, by moral persuasion, or by such a way of working that, after God’s work is done, it remains in human power whether or not to be reborn or converted. Rather, it is an entirely supernatural work, one that is at the same time most powerful and most pleasing, a marvelous, hidden, and inexpressible work, which is not less than or inferior in power to that of creation or of raising the dead, as Scripture (inspired by the author of this work) teaches. As a result, all those in whose hearts God works in this marvelous way are certainly, unfailingly, and effectively reborn and do actually believe. And then the will, now renewed, is not only activated and motivated by God, but in being activated by God is also itself active. For this reason, people t*hemselves, by that grace which they have received, are also rightly said to believe and to repent.


You would do yourself a favor by opening up your bible and comparing these to it and see where you find them wrong...

 

Brother,

I pray that I didn't help in this thread's demise...raying: :saint:

 

Good links:thumbsup:

Article 10: Conversion as the Work of God

These men must have read DHK's testimony:laugh:

No, it must be credited to God: just as from eternity God chose his own in Christ, so within time God effectively calls them, grants them faith and repentance, and, having rescued them from the dominion of darkness, brings them into the kingdom of his Son, in order that they may declare the wonderful deeds of the One who called them out of darkness into this marvelous light, and may boast not in themselves, but in the Lord, as apostolic words frequently testify in Scripture.

Article 11: The Holy Spirit’s Work in Conversion

Moreover, when God carries out this good pleasure in the elect, or works true conversion in them, God not only sees to it that the gospel is proclaimed to them outwardly, and enlightens their minds powerfully by the Holy Spirit so that they may rightly understand and discern the things of the Spirit of God,

but, by the effective operation of the same regenerating Spirit, God also penetrates into the inmost being, opens the closed heart, softens the hard heart, and circumcises the heart that is uncircumcised. God infuses new qualities into the will, making the dead will alive, the evil one good, the unwilling one willing, and the stubborn one compliant. God activates and strengthens the will so that, like a good tree, it may be enabled to produce the fruits of good deeds.

 

steaver

you would have to know what it was to be able to identify it:laugh:

yes because compared to the caricature you guys offer....you have a hard time with truth.

so you think Christian saved himself:laugh:

sure...the Spirit draws the elect to salvation

there is not an Arminian verse in the bible.

Scripture

:thumbs:

 

Salvation is the free gift of God, not faith. Even in Phil.1:29 Paul is addressing Christians not unbelievers. Never in Scriptures does it teach that faith is given to unregenerate or unsaved.
Calvinism or Reformed teaches that at Regeneration faith is given in order that the individual may be saved. Depending on the gap between the two, there is the possibility of a bunch of "unregenerate monkeys" running around who are not yet saved. It is a ludicrous position.

 

Since faith is not a gift of God, and man has faith to believe of his own volition then he is not kept in bondage by God's decree. God so loved the world--all the world--that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him shall be saved.
God never decreed that a certain percentage would go to hell. He said according to his will: "he that believeth not on the name of the Son of God shall not see life."
The fact that God knows that information before the foundation of the world, does not cause man to choose as he does. God gives him that freedom.

 

His choice was based on his foreknowledge of how man would react to the gospel.

 

Though not entirely wrong I find that such creeds are based on man's theology which has bias in it and therefore is not totally scriptural.