Personally, I don't understand those who say we have no free will. Mankind down through the centuries has proven that not to be true.
Of course, we have free will. We have the freedom to choose what color socks to wear, to shave or not, to brush our teeth or just gargle or leave the teeth rotting, to have kids or not to have kids, to live in a house or under a bridge, to rob the guy next door or to work hard for ourselves, to abandon our spouses or to be faithful till death, to be religious or irreligious, and all those decisions and choices we make in accordance with our nature and natural inclinations. Please note: nature and natural.
But we can't do anything else that is not within our nature, just like a cockroach can't bite like a rattler, or a rattler purr like a kitten, or a kitten roar like a lion, or a lion fly like an eagle, or an eagle dive into the sea like a kingfisher, or a dolphin do what dolphins are unable to do.
We have the choice to make (as Joshua said in Joshua 24:15 "Choose you this day whom ye will serve----as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."
Which was spoken to everyone, right ? an exhortation that was also meant for idol-worshipping, child-sacrificing tribes around Israel, right ? They too are to choose to serve the LORD, whom they have never known, the LORD who never professed to know them.
That was a conscious and free choice--
By whom. Joshua ?
just as it was my choice when I chose to accept the Lord as my Saviour nearly 47 years ago.
Okay. So, no glory at all to the Holy Spirit whom Christ sent to convict the world ? All yours ? You didn't need no God to prick your heart ?
Others choose not to serve or accept Him. Lucifer had a free will when he chose to rebell against God and desire to be equal to Him as stated in Isaiah 14.
Well, the fact is that only Adam, Eve, and Lucifer had TRUE free will, and they blew it.
Look what happened.
Lucifer can NEVER be redeemed. How can you redeem a spirit with no blood thru the blood of the Savior who put on human flesh ? A spirit has no blood, and there is nothing in Scripture specifying how a fallen angel is to be redeemed.
Adam and Eve were thrown out of the garden, where once God cared for all their needs, and "in Adam, all die" which is to say, all his descendants are spiritually dead, because Adam certainly didn't die physically at that point.
We are not robots, wind-up toys, or puppets on strings destined to do as we're made to do, to say what we're made to say, to walk as we're made to walk.
Right. We are ungrateful, disloyal, ingrates who accuse God of turning us into robots instead of thanking Him for His decision to save many through the death and bleeding of His own only begotten Son, that's what we are.
God through His foreknowledge knew who would and who would not accept Him and chose through that foreknowledge who He would and would not save.
The word "foreknowledge" I see in Scripture, the phrase "knew who would and would not accept Him and chose through that foreknowledge who He would and would not save" I am trying hard to find. Can you please point me to the right direction on where to look ?
The "elect" are simply those who are saved--NOt those that God elected to save over others that He rejected.
Scripture certainly disagrees with you.
Romans 9:14-23
What shall we say then ? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid .
For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy , and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion .
So then it is not of him that willeth , nor of him that runneth , but of God that sheweth mercy .
For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up , that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth .
Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault ? For who hath resisted his will?
Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God ? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known , endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
. Our job is not to sit around debating free-will (etc). As Christians our job is to proclaim the Gospel to the lost and disciple the saved. If we prayerfully do that then we are doing what we are suppose to be doing. Christians who spend all of their time debating Calvinism, freewill, etc, are wasting their time. Don't misunderstand me, there is nothing wrong with studying and debating these issues. However when we begin to be so consumed with these issues that we are not obeying Scripture, there is a serious problem.
