Total Depravity or Free Will in this tract?

[evangelist6589]

http://www.fellowshiptractleague.org/tract_html/english/114/page_flip/114.html

I have 500 of this tract. I prefer the Way of the Master "Are you a good person?" instead as it teaches total depravity, but the tract above which teaches free will which according to Arminian theology means "Sin does not control man’s will. He is sick and near-sighted, but still able to obey, believe and repent. He does not continually sin, for his nature is not completely evil." So you ask why do I still give out the tract? For one its FREE while WOTM's are expensive. Also am I not promoting arminian theology? My answer is that the tract proclaims the gospel. It hits on hell, the cross, faith, and repentance. So although not a perfect tract, it still hits hard on the most popular religion in america which is humanism. How do I know the tract promotes Free Will and not total depravity? The answer is obvious in the first paragraph by declaring that man can be good, which goes against total depravity and various verses in Ezekiel stating that the heart is "desperately wicked" or "beyond cure" (NIV). Other verses also state that man cannot be good, nor desire to be good.

So if I made more money I would buy 500 of the Way of the Master tract, but since I don't have the money the tract above still does the job and will leave any Humanist with a feeling of conviction for his/her sins....

 

[salzer mtn]

Go buy three tracts and pass all three to each individual. One tract is a free will tracts that say's he has a choice, the second tract is a Cal tract that say's that God makes the choice, and the third is a PB tract that say's he might never know if he is saved or not. :thumbs:

 

[PreachTony]

I have 500 of this tract. I prefer the Way of the Master "Are you a good person?" instead as it teaches total depravity, but the tract above which teaches free will which according to Arminian theology means "Sin does not control man’s will. He is sick and near-sighted, but still able to obey, believe and repent. He does not continually sin, for his nature is not completely evil." So you ask why do I still give out the tract? For one its FREE while WOTM's are expensive. Also am I not promoting arminian theology? My answer is that the tract proclaims the gospel. It hits on hell, the cross, faith, and repentance. So although not a perfect tract, it still hits hard on the most popular religion in america which is humanism. How do I know the tract promotes Free Will and not total depravity? The answer is obvious in the first paragraph by declaring that man can be good, which goes against total depravity and various verses in Ezekiel stating that the heart is "desperately wicked" or "beyond cure" (NIV). Other verses also state that man cannot be good, nor desire to be good.

Two things:

1. I'm curious how you can say that a tract promotes the gospel when it is clear you disagree with it. I would never hand out a Catholic flyer, even if they "hit the high points" of the doctrines I believe to be biblically founded. If you believe man is incapable of turning to God without God enforcing a change in that man to begin with, then why would you hand out flyers that support the opposite position?

2. The last part of the paragraph quoted above, you make the point that man is incapable of doing good on his own. So were Enoch and Job the first examples of God's Elect? If man has no choice but to do evil, and these men did good, and conceivably the Elect will do good, then man is nothing more than a puppet and God is the puppet-master and there is no need for atonement, as man is incapable of seeking repentance for his sins.

So if I made more money I would buy 500 of the Way of the Master tract, but since I don't have the money the tract above still does the job and will leave any Humanist with a feeling of conviction for his/her sins....

Forgive my bluntness here, evan, but who are you to say what tract convicts a humanist of their sins? The Bible clearly states that the only way a person will believe is if they HEAR and the only way they will HEAR is if THEY (preachers) are SENT...and it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save souls. It doesn't say anything about it pleasing God through the handing out of tracts to save souls.

 

[Crabtownboy]

Unconditional Election and Total Depravity are Gnostic Teachings.

http://www.discerningtheworld.com/2...on-and-total-depravity-are-gnostic-teachings/

 

[salzer mtn]

Salvation is either by chance or on purpose. If by chance Christ death and his shed blood really didn't save anyone. If by chance Christ was just a roll model to paturn or life after but not a real savior. I had rather be a puppet of God than God be a puppet of man.

 

[PreachTony]

Salvation is either by chance or on purpose. If by chance Christ death and his shed blood really didn't save anyone. If by chance Christ was just a roll model to paturn or life after but not a real savior. I had rather be a puppet of God than God be a puppet of man.

salzer - If salvation is, to use your terms, "on purpose" and yet God only gives it to some through His irresistible grace, then conversely God must also willing condemn many more to Hell, since His word says that the gate of damnation sees many more than the gets of righteousness.

If it is "by chance," as you put it, then man has to choose at the time God makes the offer to him. I don't really understand why people think it cheapens the sacrifice for someone to turn away Christ. Christ is offering himself to that person and they turn Him away. The alternative is that man has no free will and thus cannot come to God unless God 'regenerates' that person first. If man has no free will at all, then how is man accountable for sins he could not help but commit?

In fact, if man's is incapable to doing anything for himself, saving God does it first, then does that not make God culpable for the hatred, confusion, and strife in the world? And yet we know that God is not the author of confusion. Instead He is the author and finisher of our faith.

It seems to me that, without man having free will, our faith has no point. If God has already decided who is in and who is out, then why commission people to preach? Why send out the disciples? Why create ordinances that we are to follow in His memory? Frankly, why does the world continue at all?

 

[Jordan Kurecki]

I submitted my Gospel Tract text to a publishing and printing company a few weeks ago. it should be ready within a month or so.

I'm sure you'll like it.

 

[Jordan Kurecki]

Unconditional Election and Total Depravity are Gnostic Teachings.

http://www.discerningtheworld.com/2...on-and-total-depravity-are-gnostic-teachings/

Good link.

 

[salzer mtn]

salzer - If salvation is, to use your terms, "on purpose" and yet God only gives it to some through His irresistible grace, then conversely God must also willing condemn many more to Hell, since His word says that the gate of damnation sees many more than the gets of righteousness.

If it is "by chance," as you put it, then man has to choose at the time God makes the offer to him. I don't really understand why people think it cheapens the sacrifice for someone to turn away Christ. Christ is offering himself to that person and they turn Him away. The alternative is that man has no free will and thus cannot come to God unless God 'regenerates' that person first. If man has no free will at all, then how is man accountable for sins he could not help but commit?

In fact, if man's is incapable to doing anything for himself, saving God does it first, then does that not make God culpable for the hatred, confusion, and strife in the world? And yet we know that God is not the author of confusion. Instead He is the author and finisher of our faith.

It seems to me that, without man having free will, our faith has no point. If God has already decided who is in and who is out, then why commission people to preach? Why send out the disciples? Why create ordinances that we are to follow in His memory? Frankly, why does the world continue at all?

God didn't just condemn man without a reason. Man was condemned through Adam. Adam was innocent and was in paradise but chose to sin. By this fall Adam being our federal head, all the future human race was condemned to hell. When Adam was in the garden before the fall he did not have a sin nature as we do today, but he still chose to sin. So do you think man is going to rise above what is written of him in scripture to choose God ? Scripture say's Man drinketh iniquity like water, in other words man has a great thirst to sin. David said, every man at his best state is altogether vanity. So what must our worst state be like. All or righteousness is as a filth rag. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it ? These are but a few scripture that tells me man is in a depraved state and unless God chooses him he will never choose God. Does this make God unjust ? No. Do you pick and choose things in your life ? So does not God have the right to do as he wills with his own without having to answer to man ? As long as you see man as not so bad as all that you will never understand grace to the elect. As one free will preacher said one time describing a wicked individual, Well he's done some bad things, but deep down he has a good heart. When any person is truly awakened to his condition and see's his wicked heart as God sees him, he will flee from the wrath to come as a man would run out of his burning house.

 

[Van]

Hi Evangelist. I read the tract and did not see any mention of free will, or that people actually do good. They may think they do good, but as the tract says the Bible says they do not.

Like many tracts it does not present the full gospel, note the lack of reference to our work as ambassadors of Christ after Christ saves us, it skips that and goes, like Easy Believism, right to the benefits package.

I would not use the tract.

I also read the second tract, and it does not skip the "obey" part, saying near the end, "Then read the Bible daily and obey what you read. (See John 14:21). Your obedience to God is the proof of your love. Have faith in God, He will never fail you."

 

[evangelist6589]

Two things:



1. I'm curious how you can say that a tract promotes the gospel when it is clear you disagree with it. I would never hand out a Catholic flyer, even if they "hit the high points" of the doctrines I believe to be biblically founded. If you believe man is incapable of turning to God without God enforcing a change in that man to begin with, then why would you hand out flyers that support the opposite position?



2. The last part of the paragraph quoted above, you make the point that man is incapable of doing good on his own. So were Enoch and Job the first examples of God's Elect? If man has no choice but to do evil, and these men did good, and conceivably the Elect will do good, then man is nothing more than a puppet and God is the puppet-master and there is no need for atonement, as man is incapable of seeking repentance for his sins.







Forgive my bluntness here, evan, but who are you to say what tract convicts a humanist of their sins? The Bible clearly states that the only way a person will believe is if they HEAR and the only way they will HEAR is if THEY (preachers) are SENT...and it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save souls. It doesn't say anything about it pleasing God through the handing out of tracts to save souls.

The essentials of the faith are in Arminian theology and that tract. God uses many ways to convict souls and you simply can't preach nor spend time to the thousands you encounter weekly but you can pass out tracts that need to be loaded with scripture. Also the printing press did not exist in the 1st century.

 

[evangelist6589]

I submitted my Gospel Tract text to a publishing and printing company a few weeks ago. it should be ready within a month or so.



I'm sure you'll like it.

Let me see it. Send me some copies thanks..

 

[evangelist6589]

Hi Evangelist. I read the tract and did not see any mention of free will, or that people actually do good. They may think they do good, but as the tract says the Bible says they do not.

Like many tracts it does not present the full gospel, note the lack of reference to our work as ambassadors of Christ after Christ saves us, it skips that and goes, like Easy Believism, right to the benefits package.

I would not use the tract.

I also read the second tract, and it does not skip the "obey" part, saying near the end, "Then read the Bible daily and obey what you read. (See John 14:21). Your obedience to God is the proof of your love. Have faith in God, He will never fail you."

Well it says that man is good in the opening and then it says they are not good enough. Total depravity states man is not good period! The tract is not perfect but certainly better than others. No tract nor gospel presentation is perfect but GOD draws the elect to salvation despite our imperfections

 

[Van]

But it makes very clear that we think of ourselves as good, but all supposed righteousness is as filthy rags. It quotes several verses that teach the goodness we see in our own lives does not merit heaven. No, the actual flaw in the track is that it presents "easy believism." Folks hearing this abbreviated gospel might end up like the second soil (Matthew 13) rejoicing at first in their supposed salvation, yet falling away when the hardships of Christian living demand faith so deeply rooted, we would sacrifice for Christ.

 

[evangelist6589]

But it makes very clear that we think of ourselves as good, but all supposed righteousness is as filthy rags. It quotes several verses that teach the goodness we see in our own lives does not merit heaven. No, the actual flaw in the track is that it presents "easy believism." Folks hearing this abbreviated gospel might end up like the second soil (Matthew 13) rejoicing at first in their supposed salvation, yet falling away when the hardships of Christian living demand faith so deeply rooted, we would sacrifice for Christ.

Repentance is mentioned however only briefly. It does a better job than the Bridge tract that is so popular in IFB churches. I would agree with you that John MacArthur, and tracts by Way of the Master do a better job. No argument from me Van.

However as MacArthur said in the Gospel according to Jesus God can use not complete presentations to draw the elect to salvation. Since this tract does touch on repentance I will pass it out. I do not like to pass out the Bridge tract as I believe it a weak gospel presentation.

I am thrusting in God here to draw the elect. But bo question Van I have better and more complete tracts.

 

[evangelist6589]

Just found a tract buried in my car that I was given. It's terrible. It says Jesus loves me and pray this prayer to be saved. Sin is not addressed nor is hell mentioned. Terrible and weak gospel tract.

 

[JamesL]

Unconditional Election and Total Depravity are Gnostic Teachings.

http://www.discerningtheworld.com/2...on-and-total-depravity-are-gnostic-teachings/

Good link.

No, it's an absolutely horrible link. This bogus crap was posted a couple of months ago, and I challenged it then, too. It comes from Jim Moran

The early church's emphasis on free will was IN A PARTICULAR CONTEXT, which was to refute the Gnostic notion that matter (and therefore human flesh) is INHERENTLY evil.

Can't help it, they'd say. Eat, drink, be merry. True salvation is an escape from this physical realm into the spirit world, they'd say. So what you do in your flesh doesn't matter. The more you sin, the more God's grace abounds.

With all flesh being inherently evil, God could not have become flesh, they'd say. The Demiurge, a lesser god, is the one who created the earth - and Christ only "seemed" to come in the flesh, and only seemed to rise bodily.

This was where their warped notion of inherently evil flesh took them - denying that Christ came in the flesh, and denying the bodily resurrection of Christ and believers. And denying that salvation is redemption from corruption - preferring to go mystic and rely on secret "knowledge" to exalt themselves.

THAT was Gnosticism, and that ain't what Augustine taught.

I'm not an Augustinian or Calvinist, as I believe both men were nothing but philosophers. But this charge from Moran is nothing but a cheap straw man. He's a moron and a deceiver.

If he actually read any of the early Fathers in context, he might learn that the Western church (Augustine, Calvin, etc) used "nature" to mean inclination or bent, While the Eastern church used nature to mean substance.

And if the moron read anything in context, and actually researched church history, he might find that Augustine was heavily influenced by Tertullian - the father of Western Christianity, and a very ardent defender of the faith against Gnosticism.

This kind of crap ticks me off.

 

[PreachTony]

Just found a tract buried in my car that I was given. It's terrible. It says Jesus loves me and pray this prayer to be saved. Sin is not addressed nor is hell mentioned. Terrible and weak gospel tract.

So does that mean it's okay for a tract to tell someone to pray a prayer and be saved, so long as the tract mentions sin and Hell?

(***and yeah, I'm ignoring for the moment the fact that a tract telling someone what prayer to pray to be saved is so horrifyingly unbiblical...)

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

No, it's an absolutely horrible link. This bogus crap was posted a couple of months ago, and I challenged it then, too. It comes from Jim Moran

The early church's emphasis on free will was IN A PARTICULAR CONTEXT, which was to refute the Gnostic notion that matter (and therefore human flesh) is INHERENTLY evil.

Can't help it, they'd say. Eat, drink, be merry. True salvation is an escape from this physical realm into the spirit world, they'd say. So what you do in your flesh doesn't matter. The more you sin, the more God's grace abounds.

With all flesh being inherently evil, God could not have become flesh, they'd say. The Demiurge, a lesser god, is the one who created the earth - and Christ only "seemed" to come in the flesh, and only seemed to rise bodily.

This was where their warped notion of inherently evil flesh took them - denying that Christ came in the flesh, and denying the bodily resurrection of Christ and believers. And denying that salvation is redemption from corruption - preferring to go mystic and rely on secret "knowledge" to exalt themselves.

THAT was Gnosticism, and that ain't what Augustine taught.

I'm not an Augustinian or Calvinist, as I believe both men were nothing but philosophers. But this charge from Moran is nothing but a cheap straw man. He's a moron and a deceiver.

If he actually read any of the early Fathers in context, he might learn that the Western church (Augustine, Calvin, etc) used "nature" to mean inclination or bent, While the Eastern church used nature to mean substance.

And if the moron read anything in context, and actually researched church history, he might find that Augustine was heavily influenced by Tertullian - the father of Western Christianity, and a very ardent defender of the faith against Gnosticism.

This kind of crap ticks me off.

James..... 1st, calm down. These people are a dime a dozen. Now....thanks for exposing the bunk. :thumbsup:

 

[JamesL]

(***and yeah, I'm ignoring for the moment the fact that a tract telling someone what prayer to pray to be saved is so horrifyingly unbiblical...)

Telling someone to pray a prayer to be saved is not only horrifyingly unbiblical, it is anti-scriptural, anti-gospel, and anti-Christ.

It's the worst, most cancerous plague to have ever infiltrated the church, because it seems so right that we must contrive some act of penance, or that we must otherwise play an active part in our redemption.

Its sickening to hear so many Calvinists say that salvation is purely a work of God from start to finish, then speak right out of the other side of their mouth with "if you say this prayer"

Its just downright evil