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To: Gamecock

““For God so loved THE WORLD” does not say For God so loved everyone in the world, now does it?”

In the broader context of John, the “World” is the unsaved, darkened masses - those who are not God’s people. That’s who God loved... the “World” that hated Him and didn’t recognize him. To artificially break the “World” as John uses it, into two camps, the loved and the unloved, is to miss the entire shocking point.

+++++++++++++++++

“And those who do will be saved. Those who don’t, well, we know how that will turn out.”

No argument from me.

++++++++++++++++

“All men or all men whom He chooses?”

It’s hard to miss this: “ALL PEOPLE EVERYWHERE”

+++++++++++++++++

“If He want all men to be saved, why dis he harden the heart of Pharaoh? “

According to Romans 1, God hardens or “give over” those who have gone so far in sin that they are set in their course. They have had their chance. Their fate, by their own choice, has been sealed in this world. The are, “dead men walking”. God hardens them in their sin to us them as an example to others of His judgment on wickedness.

Show me in the Bible where God turns a righteous man to sin and hardens his heart! And why shouldn’t God do something like that - to show the extent of His sovereignty!?!? Guess what... it isn’t there.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“If you hold that he wants all to be saved and yet he hardens hearts and creates some to be vessels of wrath, well, you have fractured Scripture. “

Following Paul’s reasoning in Romans, here’s a salient question for you... can a goat become a sheep?

If they can then your theology in fractured.


43 posted on 06/13/2011 8:45:08 PM PDT by PetroniusMaximus
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To: PetroniusMaximus

According to Romans 1, God hardens or “give over” those who have gone so far in sin that they are set in their course. They have had their chance. Their fate, by their own choice, has been sealed in this world. The are, “dead men walking”. God hardens them in their sin to us them as an example to others of His judgment on wickedness.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

We are only called to preach His Word...but God alone chooses whom He will save. I know this makes you angry but you have to understand that God runs the show...not us. I could not even WANT to know Him in and of myself, He had to supply that to. The first scripture God revealed to me when I was saved in 1985 was:

John 15:16
Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.

It took me another 20 years to understand this.
Knowing and accepting that God alone is in control is the hardest and the most comforting truth He has taught me thus far. Our sin nature wants so much to believe that somehow we have some part in our salvation, but alas, we do not...lest any man should boast.


48 posted on 06/13/2011 9:53:34 PM PDT by astratt7 (obama,muslim,politics)
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To: PetroniusMaximus

“Show me in the Bible where God turns a righteous man to sin and hardens his heart! And why shouldn’t God do something like that - to show the extent of His sovereignty!?!? Guess what... it isn’t there.”

I’d really like to meet some of these righteous people you speak of.

Friend, I used to believe just as you believe. But then God taught me the glorious truth of His grace and it literally changed my life.

I may be wrong, but I bet your understanding of Calvinism is little more than a caricature. Despite a sound theological education from a top institution, for many years I argued against a system I did not understand. I relied on what I had been taught and my own logic and understanding. I shudder when I think of it because it was a flippant and dangerous approach to a matter of such eternal consequence.

I would point you to Romans 3:10-18.

10As it is written, There is NONE righteous, no, not one:

11There is NONE that understandeth, there is NONE that seeketh after God.

12They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is NONE that doeth good, NO, NOT ONE.

13Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:

14Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:

15Their feet are swift to shed blood:

16Destruction and misery are in their ways:

17And the way of peace have they not known:

18There is no fear of God before their eyes.

That’s the Apostle Paul’s Divinely-inspired description of the spiritual state of mankind. We’re dead in trespasses and sin. Unregenerate men do not seek after God and they certainly are not righteous. The Bible says even our righteousness, our very best, is as filthy rags in the eyes of the Lord. If God didn’t chose some, no one would be saved and the glory of His grace would never be demonstrated.

God will never harden a righteous man because that would go against His character. Only those born again are truly righteous. Once you are His, He has promised you are His forever. You will persevere in the faith. Christ said: “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” (John 6:37)

It’s important to understand that believers aren’t righteous on their own accord. There is no amount of work they can do to attain any measure of righteousness, let alone the righteousness required by God. A believer, a true child of God, has Christ’s perfect righteousness imputed to him. Thought the believer is a vile guilty sinner, he will stand in the court of heaven innocent and blameless because he is clothed in the Master’s perfect robes of righteousness.

A final point about the hardening of hearts. As Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

I don’t believe God takes a righteous heart that might one day come to Him and turn it to stone. All He has to do is remove His restraining grace, His hedge of protection, and allow what’s already in that deceitful wicked heart to manifest.


50 posted on 06/13/2011 10:30:37 PM PDT by .45 Long Colt
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To: PetroniusMaximus

***It’s hard to miss this: “ALL PEOPLE EVERYWHERE”***

All people, not all persons. If Jesus dies for all persons he failed miserably.


56 posted on 06/14/2011 4:33:39 AM PDT by Gamecock (It's not eat drink and be merry because tommow we die, but rather because yesterday we were dead.)
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