Featured Should we care about people going to Hell - (w/o regard to C vs A)

You'll have to explain that.

Your imagination is running wild, again.

If, in your imagination, you have something to do with the birth from above, whether it be you or others, it's YOU who is conforming to something other than the doctrines of Sovereign Grace.

13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Jn 1

SNIP

 

If you don't know what fatalism is, you might try looking it up in a dictionary.

Not at all. There are many people on this board as well as elsewhere who look at the writings of you and others and conclude, quite wrongly that Calvinists have no interest in the lost. Hyper-Calvinists, on the other hand.......

'For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe......because the foolishness of God is wiser than men......' 1 Corinthians 1:21, 25.

SNIP

 

Answer the questions honestly if you dare Martin.

Did you not read my prior posts? My objections are with and rooted in 'hyper- evangelism', not Calvinism.

'Saved', here, is an ongoing temporal affair throughout the believer's life, IF they continue in the faith. Believing the preaching of the gospel brings the 'heavenly born' into the abundant life of the kingdom of God, here on earth, not heaven above. Our home in heaven was secured for us from eternity and we're totally passive in that.

Lol, they 'snipped' me. You must be special Martin.

 

Yes we should care. I have no power to convert them, I cannot convince them through my words - that is a work of God in the heart of a man, but I desire the lost to be saved, and receive the same grace and mercy that God has blessed me with. Unfortunately I don't think that is emphasized enough, that only God has the power to draw men unto Christ. Therefore I think this has lead to a lot of well meaning believers cutting down the gospel piece by piece to make it more palatable to the hearer so as to get a "decision for Christ." This has created salesmen, not evangelists.
I can go out hand out tracts, preach the gospel (no matter how poor my oratory skills) and rest in the fact that I have gotten the gospel to a lost soul, now God does His work - As Tony Miano would say: this is evangelism with 100% success rate.

 

I already answered them; here is any answer again. God will save His elect but He uses Christians to do it. The elect will be saved, but they won't be saved without people sharing the Gospel with them (Romans 10:14-15). To suppose otherwise is the purest fatalism.

Are Matthew 28:18-10 and Mark 16:15-16 'hyper-evangelism'? 'He who believes ... will be saved.' The verse does not say, 'he who is elect,' or 'he who is justified from eternity.'

Saved means saved. You are inventing two classes of salvation in order to support your faulty, fatalistic theology.
No one is saved without repenting, believing and being born again. All these things come from God, but that does not alter the fact. One is elect from eternity, but salvation is a process.

 

No. you didn't. Not even close:

...do 'slacking soulwinners' result in MORE people going to hell? ...

...do diligent soulwinners result in MORE people going to heaven?

There is no 'synergism' of man and God working together to accomplish the birth from above:

13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Jn 1

This is a threefold denial of any involvement of the flesh. Martin Marprelate may just be bumptious enough to think he is helping God to populate heaven, but I've news for him, he's not.

Saved from what?

Stop cherry picking and include the rest of it. Israel did indeed hear::

14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
15 and how shall they preach, except they be sent? even as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that bring glad tidings of good things!
16 But they did not all hearken to the glad tidings. For Isaiah saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?
17 So belief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
18 But I say, Did they not hear? Yea, verily, Their sound went out into all the earth, And their words unto the ends of the world. Ro 10

No. Hyper-evangelism is placing the horrendous burden of man's eternal destiny on the backs of the flock. Is that what you preach Martin? Do you preach that slacking soulwinners result in MORE people going to hell? That diligent soulwinners result in MORE people going to heaven? If you do, you preach a horrendous lie. Not even those under the yoke of the law carried such a burden. Christ Himself placed no such heavy burden upon us:

28 Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Mt 11

No, my soteriology is consistent with that of the Primitive Baptists who in the mainstream prefer the teaching of John Gill - justified from eternity. Making a distinction between the eternal and temporal aspects of our salvation is attempting to untie the gordian knot of man's responsibility vs. God's sovereignty and regardless of your smears, it's not 'fatalism' to trust in the Lord in this matter.

You're supposed to be a Calvinist, right? Regeneration BEFORE belief, right? It certainly isn't obvious from you posts. You may even in fact be a hyper-evangelist.

 

...and @Martin Marprelate, this dialog is over until you answer the question(s).

 

I repeat, God will save all His elect, but they won't be saved without someone witnessing to them. I referenced Esther 4:14 earlier. Read and try to understand. God calls His people to witness. If they refuse to do so, God either forces them (e.g. Jonah) or He gets someone else to do it. But the fate of those who hide their talent in the ground and refuse to use it is not great.
To this very day there are people in many countries risking their lives to bring the Gospel to others. You live in a country where freedom of speech and freedom of religion is written into the constitution. Can you not be bothered to get up off your backside and give out a tract or a Testament? Shame on you!

You may be contemptuous and ignorant enough to suppose that God does not call His people to witness, but I've got news for you - He does.
Matthew 28:18-20. 'All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore and make disciples of every nation.......' Are you really lacking so much in understanding that you do not realise the meaning of 'therefore'? It is precisely because all authority in given to the Lord Jesus that we are to go. It is precisely because salvation belongs to our God that we can go out with confidence and witness to folk, knowing that our work will be rewarded as He brings His elect to salvation by the means that He Himself has determined.

What are you trying to prove? That men and women went out and preached the Gospel all over the world at huge cost to themselves? Yes! Absolutely right! Because people will not hear the Gospel without someone telling it to them. And if you are too useless and idle to lend a hand with it, God will use someone else.

Hyper-evangelism is a silly word that you have made up as a figleaf for your own hyper-Calvinism. No, my church never preaches that. Our people are willing and the burden is shared out (Psalms 110:3). But I will tell you this: I don't know how it is in America, but over here, churches that reach out to their neighbourhoods and support evangelism are growing, while other churches are falling off a cliff in terms of numbers. 'Those who honour Me I will honour,' says the Lord, and He does.

Amen! But the verse teaches that there is a yoke and there is a burden. If you find it hard and heavy, maybe the fault is in you.

Perhaps that is the reason that Gill's church did not grow as others did during the Great Awakening. It is not fatalism to trust the Lord, but is is fatalism to suppose that one can ignore the call of God to work for Him.

 

@Martin Marprelate and @kyredneck.

I have been reading with interest the dialogue you two have been having. I find it interesting you both hold similar views yet in seemingly small ways are opposed.

In the reading I see that Salvation is used as "eternally saved" by one and the other would teach (if I have read correctly), and I paraphrase, that only those whose names are recorded in the book of life in eternity past are redeemed as they live.

I see these views as the same with distinctions of flavor. I hope I have not done either of you a disservice by my putting your work in my words.

I too agree with the concept that God in the work of salvation has recorded all that He will give to the Savior, individuals by name. I also agree that during the life of that individual, that God prepares them for His service by using experiences, intellectual challenges, personality, and handicaps so when they come to a knowledge and believe they will serve.

I also assert that God prepares certain of the lost for His purpose. He presented to the prophets the actions of those He prepared. He showed historically that the prophets accurately recorded and transmitted the communication from God.

However, I am not a double predestinationist. God did not predestine folks to eternal torment, they are condemned already by their own rebellion.

 

Okay, nobody should use that word. I got it.

Can we use: pick, select, appoint, decided on, settle on, fixed upon or other synonyms?

I don't want you to think your being picked upon, but you were selected and appointed to decide and settle matters in which the posters may fix upon.