Posted on 12/16/2004 1:23:28 PM PST by Gamecock
Well, that is ultimately what you believe, whether you want to admit it or not.
You're simply wrong. Whether you want to believe it or not.
We can do this all night. I choose not to.
You may have the last word, in which you will also be wrong.
Condos are a good thing.
But it's the matter of our awareness of God's hand in our lives that we dispute.
I have no doubt you are a righteous, repentant Christian. I believe, however, that was God's decision and not your own. And He decided this from before the foundation of the world according to His good purpose, and has nothing to do with anything you've done in your life to earn His grace.
Anyone who possesses the Trinitarian faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is a repentant saint who has received God's grace, and thus is aware of his fallen nature and his need for the Savior. By the grace of God alone.
No one is excluded. If a man repents and believes, he is saved. But it's not his doing; it's God's.
If I'm lost in a strange town, and suddenly I receive an inheritance of $15,000, I'm able to buy a car with the money and drive home. But I didn't earn the money; I didn't print the money; and I didn't find the money under a rock. I received the money as a gift which permitted me a way home.
All men who find their way home have been given an inheritance, whether they mistakenly think they earned the money themselves, or not.
It is horrifying. God says explictly that:
Matthew 6:22,23 The lamp of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body will be light: but if thine eye be wicked, thy whole body will be dark. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great the darkness!
Job 38:15 And from the wicked their light is withholden, and the uplifted arm is broken.
Proverbs 4:19 The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.
You seem to be under the impression that God only does what makes Him HAPPY. God is Love and yet demonstrates His Wrath to us--not to the wicked but ON the wicked in front of us. And yet all hear the very same gospel of power that births those who are elected by God to be birthed. There is no discrimination in the Speaking of the true gospel. It is Spoken to all--not "offered" to all. The benefit of the non-elect in hearing God as power is that they get the stamina to burn in hell forever without being consumed.
God has given some ears to hear and others He has withheld those ears. Heaven and hell were never meant to be the home of identical creatures in two different places. Heaven is for the new creation/elect in Jesus Christ and hell is for the non-elect.
Merely boohooing over a party not present (the non-elect) as if you have more compassion than God on their behalf is simply a worship of your own heart and its presumption of present emotional skill set against God in sin. Sin always does the same as much as it can: pretend all those who hear the gospel, God as His Word, are the non-elect and that they should in solidarity to each other define God in such a way as to make God a monster for being Him, then go to God-as-holy-information, (not God as His Word as He truly is...) and interpret/'understand' their way toward what they want to feel.
Proverbs 4:24-27 Put away from thee perverseness of mouth, and corrupt lips put far from thee. Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be well-ordered. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left; remove thy foot from evil.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
Excellent writing.
They showed me no mercy. 8~)
Amen. Ninety-nine percent of us Calvinists echo those words. The one percent caught on early.
Prove to me you do not believe that it was your will to choose Christ, while it was the will of some neighbors to reject him.
I understand. I've lived here for 10 years. I'm a native Virginia and my ancestors came thru Richmond in the late 1600s.
I'm still a "newcomer" to some folks.
Were they smarter than the rest?
You have a funny way with last words. That's your choice.
It wasn't funny the first time.
Well, I guess. If you can't defend your position, fine.
Well, I am off to go eat.
Wasn't s'posed to be.
It's been explained numerous times. You know that.
You also know you're distorting the position.
Most of us had to muddle through years of dubious doctrine until God let us in on the truth that fallen man cannot choose righteousness.
IMO He's trying to get your attention, too.
Luke 1:39-42 And Mary, rising up in those days, went into the hill country with haste, to a city of Judah, and entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elizabeth. And it came to pass, as Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and cried out with a loud voice and said, Blessed art *thou* amongst women, and blessed the fruit of thy womb.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, amen
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