"Joshua 24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD,
choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell:
but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."Do you honestly mean to tell me that you think Joshua was not a regenerated believer when he made that statement?
Of course Joshua served the Lord. That's what regenerated spirits want to do -- Unlike unregenerate spirits.
Do you honestly mean to tell me that you think Joshua was telling people to choose, but knowing full well that they were incapable of making a the choice?
Of course Calvinism forces such strained and abnormal readings of scriptures such as these.
In any case, free choice.. was the subject I was responding to and addressing in my post...but I noticed you removed the bold I placed on that part of the verse in your response...and then proceded to ignore my real point.
Do you honestly mean to tell me that you think Joshua was telling people to choose, but knowing full well that they were incapable of making a the choice?The question is not whether or not Men are capable of choosing God, but whether or not, in their natural, Fallen state, they ever want to.
Do you believe that Men, of their innate, Fallen natures, naturally possess God-pleasing Wants?
Of course Calvinism forces such strained and abnormal readings of scriptures such as these. In any case, free choice.. was the subject I was responding to and addressing in my post...but I noticed you removed the bold I placed on that part of the verse in your response...and then proceded to ignore my real point.
Okay, let's grant Man all the free will in the created universe.
I submit that you still cannot get around Absolute Predestination.
I'll refer you to a prior post of mine:
I do agree that God had forknowlege, but I do not believe that God chose to save who he wants and damns the rest. Forknowlege of events does not mean pre-destination.
It does, if God is in absolute control of the events, and those events pre-condition man's choices.
Matthew 11: 20 - 27 -- Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. "Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you." At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. "All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
- God foreknew Tyre and Sidon's free choice NOT TO REPENT in the case of His non-performance of such Miracles; AND
- God foreknew Tyre and Sidon's free choice TO REPENT in the case of His performance of such Miracles; AND
- God CHOSE not to perform these Miracles in Tyre and Sidon, a choice which had as its perfectly foreknown result the NON-Repentance of Tyre and Sidon, just as He foreknew.
True, or False?