"psalms109:31" wrote:
"Man's flesh is evil, and the scripture teaches that. It does not say that your whole being is corrupt only your flesh. "
Doesn't it? Was Jeremiah writing about the fleshy organ that pumps blood round the body when he wrote in Jeremiah 17.9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?" Had the Ephesian Christians died bodily and been raised bodily, for Paul to write to them in Ephesians 2.1 "And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins"?
"psalms109:31" wrote:
"Do not let men give you an excuse that you cannot enter because you are depraved."
I agree. The bible teaches that we are all sinners, and none of us deserves to enter. But, praise God! "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." (1 Timothy 1.15) Jesus Himself gives the balance between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, when He says in John 6.37: "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out." No one who ends up in hell will be able to say, "Well, I so much wanted to repent, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and be saved, but You didn't elect me; it's not my fault!"
"psalms109:31" wrote:
"The Holy Spirit is right at the door of your heart through the words of Jesus asking to open the door and let Him come in."
The idea of God (whether Father, Son or Holy Spirit) standing outside the door of the unsaved sinner's heart, meekly awaiting permission to enter, just doesn't seem to me to agree with the conversion accounts we have in Scripture. There, we read of Lydia "whose heart the Lord opened". We read of Saul/Paul, who, far from asking Jesus into his heart, was breathing out threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord" when God broke into his life in that remarkable way on the road to Damascus. Certainly in Revelation 3.20, Jesus says, " "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me." But is that about unbelievers? No, for look at the context. The words are not addressed to unsaved sinners, but to backslidden believers in the church at Laodicea!
"psalms109:31" wrote:
"God will cut the very elect out for unbelief."
"Elect" simply means "chosen". The idea of God choosing someone for salvation, then "cutting them out" seems incongruous in the extreme. Have you a scripture reference to back up the idea?
"psalms109:31" wrote:
"If you do not endure to the end you will perish elect or not."
Certainly if someone says to themselves, "I'm elect; nothing can harm me now, so I'll live as I please!" something is dreadfully wrong! The person has either been poorly taught, or they were never saved in the first place. However, if someone is truly amongst God's elect, and not just fooling themselves, they will not perish.
"psalms109:31" wrote:
"When you hear the words of Jesus you are being elected,"
Not according to the bible. There, in Ephesians 1.3-6, we read: "3 ¶ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved. "
What a glorious Saviour! What an amazing and undeserved salvation!