I do not see it as inconsistent that God would draw ALL men, even knowing that some will never respond, no matter what.
It is not in vain that He draws them. When they stand before Him, they will have NO excuse.
God is merciful to the just and the unjust, He sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
In some respect ALL men are being drawn to Him by His mercy and grace even by the simple fact that He has not struck them dead for their sin as they stand.
Scripture says that God desires ALL men to come to a saving knowledge of Himself.
2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
I'm going with the plain and simple reading of the verse. All means all.
If He wants all men to come to know Him, He will give everyone a chance, even if it's just one.
So the options are that HE either gives everyone a chance but not all respond. Or He picks and chooses, which simply cannot fit with His desire that all men be saved, because if His will is irresistible, then all men WOULD be saved because who can thwart His will?
And we know that all men aren't saved.
God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. I just cannot reconcile that with a God who would say all that and then choose to send some people to hell, or not ever give them the chance.
See post #104 and #63
If He wants all men to come to know Him, He will give everyone a chance, even if it's just one.
Herein lies the rub. Are you confident that everyone will receive a chance to be saved? Even those who are, perhaps, on some island somewhere? How can they believe when they have not heard? I know for a fact that there are people, even in American cities, who are so ignorant of Christianity that they do not even know that Christ claims to be God, and so wicked and God-hating, as I once was, that they didn't care to learn it. Have they received a "chance?" What is their chance? It certainly is not the flash of illumination that most of us can report to when hearing the Gospel for the first time. There is no "kicking of the pricks," there is only indifference or worse. So, then, are you confident that everyone has actually gotten a "chance?"
God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. I just cannot reconcile that with a God who would say all that and then choose to send some people to hell, or not ever give them the chance.
But consider this. If God is required to give them a "chance," isn't this the same thing as saying that God is required to show them mercy? Or, at least, the "mercy" of giving them a chance? Yet, read Romans 9. Is Paul's argument that God is required to "show mercy" on everyone, or is it that He will "show mercy on whom He will show mercy"?
And why do we assume that God takes pleasure in the death of the wicked if He will cast them into hell? You yourself must deal with this question, since, if God knows already that you will not believe, why does He allow you to be born? But what does the scripture say?
"But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? (Rom 9:20-24)
Pro_16:4 The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.
What if God allows the birth of the wicked, and creates them for Himself, and raises them up for His own purpose, in order to serve a greater purpose? That though these will be punished, yes, and will commit much evil in their lives, yes, but out of this darkness God will bring a greater light? If God will bring a greater good out of this, in not only creating the wicked but in using them to fulfill His purpose, what is wrong with that?
The question of course comes to whether they deserve it. But by definition they all do deserve it, because they are of this world, and sin with this world, and will die with this world. And though God could have put an end to our race when Adam fell, so that no sinners would have been born thereafter, yet He chose to allow all of these things to fill up the number of His elect. Mankind exists then not to have God to please their purposes, but for God's purpose and Kingdom alone.