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To: vladimir998; Dr. Eckleburg; the_conscience; blue-duncan; HarleyD; RnMomof7; Alex Murphy

“First, show me a verse that says everything has to be in the Bible.”

I’ve shown you verses that directly contradict your assertion that men seek God. That is more to the point.

“Look at the VERY NAME of John Piper’s website: http://www.desiringgod.org/";

What does that have to do with anything?

“Then look up Deuteronomy 4:29-31; 1 Chronicles 28:9; Psalms 63:1-2; 84:3; Proverbs 8:17; Song of Songs 3:1-4; Isaiah 26:9; Isaiah 55:6; Matthew 7:7; Acts 17:26-28.”

Let’s look together...and I type this without having looked first...

“27And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you. 28And there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. 29 But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.” - Dt 4

So we find that those who belong to God will be disciplined if they go astray, yet He will bring them back. Hardly the same as teaching that all men seek God!

“9”And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.” - 1 Chron 28

So we find that the king chosen to be in the lineage of Jesus is promised that if he seeks, he will find. Hardly the same as teaching that all men seek God!

“A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.
1O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” - Psalms 63

So we see that David, a man after God’s own heart, a man anointed at God’s direction, hungered for God...as do those born again. Hardly the same as teaching that all men seek God!

“2My soul longs, yes, faints
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God.” - Psalms 84:2

Those who follow God hunger for him. Hardly the same as teaching that all men seek God!

“I [wisdom] love those who love me,
and those who seek me diligently find me.” - Prov 8

So wisdom can be found by those who seek her. Hardly the same as teaching that all men seek God!

I could go on, but why bother...you are 0-5 so far! Those given a new heart WILL hunger and thirst for God. Those who are born again WILL desire God. But while we are rebels, we need God but do not seek Him. What part of “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God” do you not understand?

This isn’t subtle. This isn’t a hidden teaching. It is explicit.

“Thus, grace builds on our nature.”

We have the same intelligence, etc after conversion as before. But God replaces a heart of stone with a heart of flesh. As Martin Luther put it, “That is why faith alone makes someone just and fulfills the law; faith it is that brings the Holy Spirit through the merits of Christ. The Spirit, in turn, renders the heart glad and free, as the law demands. Then good works proceed from faith itself.”

“And if you had no desire for happiness, no desire at all to know or love or serve God in you you could not have responded to God’s call because He does not force Himself on people.”

When men are confronted by God, they can reject him - as they rejected Jesus Himself - or they can believe He is who He claims. When the serpent was lifted up, they could look or turn away.

But we do not seek God. We do not deserve his grace. We have no good within us. We need the new birth, a new heart, with God law written on it, and only God can give that to us. The debate between Calvinists and Free Will types seems to be whether we are given a new heart when we believe, or we are given a new heart and then believe. That may be an oversimplification, since I’m not a learned theologian...but this Free Will Baptist would never claim we seek God out, or do good in advance to prepare us for salvation.

And as wrong as it is to suggest we are all seeking God, it is even more wrong to suggest that the institutions of unsaved men can or will advance the will of God by their design! God’s will shall prevail, but not because unsaved men or governments or states seek to advance it!


79 posted on 01/01/2010 7:42:19 PM PST by Mr Rogers (I loathe the ground he slithers on!)
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To: Mr Rogers

You asked - after denying they exist - for verses that show we seek God.

I posted them.

You were wrong.


81 posted on 01/01/2010 7:45:07 PM PST by vladimir998 (Part of the Vast Catholic Conspiracy (hat tip to Kells))
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