BLUE-DUNCAN: "According to what you are saying God is making an offer He knows is not valid to some since by foreknowledge or whatever, he knows that only certain ones will believe and therefore they are the ones to whom the offer is directed. The offer is useless to those God knows will not believe."
That paragraph is Scripturally and logically coherent. And you don't have an answer for it. A prudent man would then seek to reconcile his understanding of the Bible with these true statements.
"For the promise is made unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the LORD our God shall call." -- Acts 2:39 "I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine." -- John 17:9 "Even to morrow the LORD will shew who are his, and who is holy; and will cause him to come near unto him: even him whom he hath chosen will he cause to come near unto him." -- Numbers 16:5
You have no answers for these verses.
To say that what BD says is "scripturally and logically coherent" is simply false. When I first read it, I thought to say God is making an offer that he knows is not valid, is so circular in its reasoning I had to read it three times to figure out what the point might be. "He knows that only certain ones will believe" - Okay, true. He is not bound by a time dimension, he knew all things before there were "things", that is what foreknowledge means, I think he even knows the "what ifs". But, "therefore they are the ones to whom the offer is directed" is straight out of Calvinism's playbook. God offers eternal life to 'whosoever believes'. The fact that he know who they are ahead of time, doesn't negate that it is still an open offer. What really is puzzling, is to say the offer is "useless to those God knows will not believe." Useless to whom? Will a condemned man be able to say to God, "You never really meant the offer to be for me! I didn't have a chance!". The offer becomes of no effect to one who dies in unbelief, but the offer was still completely valid. What do you think God is, a con artist?
Sorry, but just because y'all think the statement is true based on some scriptures that can be read different ways, does not make your way "true" and MrR's "false". He doesn't need twisting of the hundreds of scriptures he posts that you do of the few you think should or can only be read one way.
The most important issue of all is what must we do to have eternal life? Jesus answered, "Believe on him whom he has sent." That sure sounds like a pretty valid answer for an open offer.