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To: Dutchboy88
Second, if you have reached for a thread of salvation, it may have indeed passed you by. OR it may be that God has elected you and implanted faith and you are coming to the end of yourself. Dependence upon your "decision", your efforts, your holiness. You may be beginning to see just how reliant we are upon Him to hold us. Time will tell you whether you are being brought into His family or excluded.

Having been excluded and passed by your words offer me no comfort.

Recall, the difference between Jacob and Esau. Esau He hated and even when Esau sought repentance "with tears", he was excluded..

Call me Esau my tears are of no avail, since the beginning I have been doomed, God has not sought me and has left me blind and lame in my search for him.

So, third, you cannot tell that you have not been "selected". You may wish to whine like, "poor little me, I didn't get chosen, and pity will make this doctrine wrong." But, this is more of your pride speaking, not true recognition that, in you dwells no good thing. We will not feel sorry for you. When this becomes, "Praise God, for there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus!", as Paul says, you are seeing that all righteousness, all holiness, all goodness, all faith is a gift implanted, not by your synergistic choosing..

Agreed "in me dwells no good thing" do not feel for me, my fate is sealed, my choosing is nothing but the gasps of a dying man. My pride has long passed, when I saw the blood of Christ flow passed me just out of my reach, shed for the elect but not for the damned.

So, misery, despair, rejection are all good thoughts...as long as they point toward your sin and your inability to do what it is that Jesus required as He taught the Law. When (or if) you reach the end of your rope and say, "How then can any man be saved?" as the disciples did, hopefully the light will dawn, "Good question...what is impossible with man is possible with God." to accomplish. But even that recognition is controlled by God. Man cannot even control what it is he comes to recognize.

My inability to do what it is that Jesus required goes without question, How then can any man be saved only by God's selection, if only I were among those he loves, those given to Christ as his own and not among the rejected who are beyond his reach.

So again my heart is filled with
Misery

Despair

Rejection

Hopelessness are my fate. But, the answer is...that is just the way it is.
78 posted on 05/12/2010 3:03:58 PM PDT by WhatsItAllAbout
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To: WhatsItAllAbout
Take no notice of the failed high school student council who never amounted to anything and want to have some relevance, or else the successful who suddenly get a conscience and try to explain their disgusting behaviours away. Let us examine Scripture instead of listening to heresy. Paul is very much on the extended hand of God to all men, regardless of those who use his words to champion predetermination.

1 Timothy 2: 1 1 First of all, then, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, 2 for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity. 3 This is good and pleasing to God our savior, 4 who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.

Everyone. Every human being, not some fictitious elect.

1 Timothy 4: 10 For this we toil and struggle, 4 because we have set our hope on the living God, who is the savior of all, especially of those who believe.

All that is required is belief here, according to Paul.

Titus 2: 11 2 For the grace of God has appeared, saving all

The grace of God saves all. This is not Reformed belief. They lean on misinterpretations of Paul and snippets of the OT. Let us now turn to:

Ezekial 18: 23 Do I indeed derive any pleasure from the death of the wicked? says the Lord GOD. Do I not rather rejoice when he turns from his evil way that he may live? 24 And if the virtuous man turns from the path of virtue to do evil, the same kind of abominable things that the wicked man does, can he do this and still live? None of his virtuous deeds shall be remembered, because he has broken faith and committed sin; because of this, he shall die. 25 You say, "The LORD'S way is not fair!" Hear now, house of Israel: Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair? 26 When a virtuous man turns away from virtue to commit iniquity, and dies, it is because of the iniquity he committed that he must die. 27 But if a wicked man, turning from the wickedness he has committed, does what is right and just, he shall preserve his life; 28 since he has turned away from all the sins which he committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die. 29 And yet the house of Israel says, "The LORD'S way is not fair!" Is it my way that is not fair, house of Israel, or rather, is it not that your ways are not fair? 30 Therefore I will judge you, house of Israel, each one according to his ways, says the Lord GOD. Turn and be converted from all your crimes, that they may be no cause of guilt for you. 31 Cast away from you all the crimes you have committed, and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Why should you die, O house of Israel? 32 For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies, says the Lord GOD. Return and live!

No predetermination here. Every man is exhorted to turn himself from evil and return to God. The Reformed do not use Ezekial 18 in their doctrines.

2 Peter 3: 1 1 This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you; through them by way of reminder I am trying to stir up your sincere disposition, 2 to recall the words previously spoken by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and savior through your apostles. 3 Know this first of all, that in the last days scoffers 2 will come (to) scoff, living according to their own desires 4 and saying, "Where is the promise of his coming? 3 From the time when our ancestors fell asleep, everything has remained as it was from the beginning of creation." 5 They deliberately ignore the fact that the heavens existed of old and earth was formed out of water and through water 4 by the word of God; 6 through these the world that then existed was destroyed, deluged with water. 5 7 The present heavens and earth have been reserved by the same word for fire, kept for the day of judgment and of destruction of the godless. 8 6 7 But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day. 9 The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard "delay," but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

The Lord wishes that all should come to repentance ie salvation. Hmm, nothing on Reformed doctrine here.

And, because the Reformed disdain Jesus, I will complete my argument with the words of Our Lord and Saviour.

John 3: 14 And just as Moses lifted up 5 the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 6 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life." 16 For God so loved the world that he gave 7 his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn 8 the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

That the world might be saved through him. Believe in Jesus, believe in God, and believe in His word.

79 posted on 05/12/2010 4:54:34 PM PDT by MarkBsnr ( I would not believe in the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so.)
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To: WhatsItAllAbout; fish hawk; Dr. Eckleburg; wmfights; HarleyD; Marysecretary; metmom; RnMomof7; ...
It is a curious matter that you seem to be applying some kind of sarcasm to accomplish what? Don't want to read minds or supply thoughts, so what is your point of this post? You seem to be harping on the fact you are lost. But, the discussion was about the merits of the arguments not specifically your lostness.

For example, I write "it MAY have indeed passed you by. OR it MAY be that God has elected you and implanted faith and you are coming to the end of yourself.

But, you write,

"Having been excluded and passed by your words offer me no comfort."

I was not attempting to comfort you, but call attention to the truth with which we all must deal. If you are in God's crosshairs, you cannot yet know that you are excluded. Here again you claim to be determining your destiny.

You write, "Call me Esau my tears are of no avail, since the beginning I have been doomed, God has not sought me and has left me blind and lame in my search for him."

Okay, Esau.

You write,

"Misery

Despair

Rejection

Hopelessness are my fate.

But, my point was that not even you (in all of this peculiar whining) are really in charge of your "fate". Your destiny is in the hands of the One who made you and He will bring you to Himself, or perhaps leave you in a state of self-pity. We don't yet know. Neither sarcasm or cynicism will change this biblical truth.

80 posted on 05/12/2010 5:18:28 PM PDT by Dutchboy88
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To: WhatsItAllAbout; Dutchboy88
Your homepage says -- "God’s command to those who are his"

Who decides who are "his?"

82 posted on 05/12/2010 11:37:02 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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