And this, you understand, is down by the river. And I live there.
Posted on 01/15/2004 8:31:40 AM PST by jboot
And this, you understand, is down by the river. And I live there.
In my best dried, Hell-Fire and Damnation Calvinistic speech:
I do not see "laughed Jesus" in the scriptures. :O)
I know some would disagree with me but frankly, coming from both sides of the fence I think the discussion of works is a lot about semantics than anything. Consider Jonah inside the fish. Calvinists would say God Sovereign Will brought Jonah to a state of repentance by creating the appropriate circumstances. Armenians would say that Jonah repented after God bought His Sovereign Will to bear. (Jonah was inside that nasty fish for three days before finally giving up.) I favor the Calvinistic version but in either case the effects are the same.
Just don’t tell me you have to work for your salvation.
I left a Calvinist church because it appears that the fruit of Calvinism is liberalism. The logic of Calvinist doctrine is: I elected, I'm secure; therefore I'll just relax.
Personally, I would look for a church's fruit over Calvinist doctrine. Fruit is the evidence of Christ's love.
The operative word there is "created", for indeed Adam was created with a free will, and he exercised that free will to rebell against God. Since then, all have been born slaves to sin. Haven't you studied Romans?
Romans 3:
5But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust who inflicts wrath? (I speak as a man.) 6Certainly not! For then how will God judge the world?
7For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? 8And why not say, "Let us do evil that good may come"?--as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say. Their condemnation is just.
(1) 9 What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. 10As it is written:
"There is none righteous, no, not one;
11There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God.
12They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one."
13"Their throat is an open tomb;
With their tongues they have practiced deceit";
"The poison of asps is under their lips";
14"Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness."
15"Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16Destruction and misery are in their ways;
17And the way of peace they have not known."
18"There is no fear of God before their eyes."
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What does, There is none who seeks after God, mean?
It is indeed unfortunate that the number of faithful Reformed churches is small, but to reach the conclusion that Calvinsm leads to liberalism is a non-sequitur.
Within "Calvindom", you have the big, overall apostate denominations (PCUSA, CRCNA, RCA), you have churches where the central dogma becomes earthly conquest, with little emphasis on sin, misery, and suffering for the sake of the Gospel (North, Demar, and Rushdoony's other followers and offshoots, popular in some Presbyerian circles), and you have small, insular ethnic communities that are orthodox but tend to grow through procreation and don't actively seek outsiders. We ought not leave out the Reformed Baptists, many of which are faithful (though wrong on the covenent, imho). Taken as a whole, the number of faithful Calvinistic churches is quite small; truly, God's people are a "remnant chosen by grace" and Christianity is not conquering the world, though God has His people in every tribe and nation.
Having said all that, is there such a thing as a faithful free-will church - faithful to the Scriptures, that is?
Deut. 4:29 But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find Him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
The elect do this.
Matthew 7:7, 8 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
The elect do this.
II Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is LONGSUFFERING to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that ALL should come to repentence.
Amen. The elect persevere.
Longsuffering means He is willing to wait as long as it takes for us to repent and come back to Him. And this may suprise you, but the word all in greek and english means...ALL! If He is willing that all come to repentance, does He contradict himself?
He will turn His own according to His timing, according to His purposes, and for His glory. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but His justice is nonetheless glorified therein. God desires that His people turn to Him, and every one of them will.
One more question. Do you worry about your children? What if one of them is not "chosen", or "sought" after by God? Can you not lead them to the Lord, and insure that they have eternal life with our heavenly father.
Trust the God who gave you these children. Worrying about man having less control than God betrays an attitude of knowing better than God rather than complete trust. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."
Sorry. One more thing. When Jesus tells us to go unto all the world and preach the Gospel... Why? if he has already decided who he will save?
Ironically, this is precisely what gave hope to two of America and England's greatest evangelists - Whitefield and Edwards: Knowing that the fields were ripe for harvest, that the elect were out there, waiting to hear the word. Is it not much far better to trust in God than in the fickle will of man, who "is like a vapor" (Ps. 144)?
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