what was wrong with your secession thread? isn't all this anti-american screed in your other thread?
by the way, God created us with freewill to choose Him or not, in order to give that choice value. why are you trying to undermine the will of God? enforcement does not create committed disciples. love does. one must love God and Christ, not be threatened to artificially bow to a state that purports to represent the truth of His will for each of us. as it says in isaiah 55:8-9, His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are higher than our ways, His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.
modesty and humility is useful when considering the awesomeness of God. the God understood is the God unknown.
Free will? He gave this thing called free will to Adam and Eve. They chose to become rebels in GOD'S Kingdom. Their sin has now been passed on to every human being (this is known as the doctrine of Original Sin: see Psalm 51:5).
As Martin Luther said:
[SIZE=+1]Sect. IX. - T[/SIZE]HIS,[SIZE=-0] [/SIZE][SIZE=+1]therefore, is also essentially necessary and wholesome for Christians to know:
That God foreknows nothing by contingency, but that He foresees, purposes, and does all things according to His immutable, eternal, and infallible will. By this thunderbolt, "Free-will" is thrown prostrate, and utterly dashed to pieces. Those, therefore, who would assert "Free-will," must either deny this thunderbolt, or pretend not to see it, or push it from them. But, however, before I establish this point by any arguments of my own, and by the authority of Scripture, ...'Bondage of the Will'
http://www.covenanter.org/Luther/Bondage/bowsover.htm
Now, we have limited free will. We have the will to chose what color shirt to wear, what kind of breakfast to eat...ect.. We do not have 'free will' to chose God. Why? Because our spirits are dead and we do not have the power to chose.
Read John 6:44 in the Greek. It reads "No one has the Power to come to me"
The word 'can' is from the Greek word "Dunamai" which means Power/Authority. It is the root word from where we get dynamite.
So we don't have the power to come to Christ unless the Father "Helkuo" DRAGS us to Him.
If you understand this like the reformers did, then you understand this:
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1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. [/FONT]
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4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, --Eph. 2
Written to the Ephesian Christians, the Holy Spirit via Paul, tells us that GOD "made us alive". He did it, not us. You did not make yourself 'born again'.
So the whole "It's like throwing a life line to a drowning man" illustration is completely wrong. Because we were DEAD in our sins.
YOU CAN'T THROW A LIFE LINE TO A DEAD MAN AND HAVE HIM GRAB THE LINE!!! He's Dead! A dead man can not play football, eat ice cream, or perform brain surgery. He's dead!
So the Father has to "Helkuo" Drag you to His Son. He Makes you alive, and you have to Become born again.
Free will? You do not have free will to chose GOD. Hence:
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Total Depravity (Total Inability)
Total Depravity is probably the most misunderstood tenet of Calvinism. When Calvinists speak of humans as "totally depraved," they are making an extensive, rather than an intensive statement. The effect of the fall upon man is that sin has extended to every part of his personality -- his thinking, his emotions, and his will. Not necessarily that he is
intensely sinful, but that sin has
extended to his entire being.
The unregenerate (unsaved) man is dead in his sins (Romans 5:12). Without the power of the Holy Spirit, the natural man is blind and deaf to the message of the gospel (Mark 4:11f). This is why Total Depravity has also been called "Total Inability." The man without a knowledge of God will never come to this knowledge without God's making him alive through Christ (Ephesians 2:1-5).
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Unconditional Election
Unconditional Election is the doctrine which states that God chose those whom he was pleased to bring to a knowledge of himself, not based upon any merit shown by the object of his grace and not based upon his looking forward to discover who would "accept" the offer of the gospel. God has elected, based solely upon the counsel of his own will, some for glory and others for damnation (Romans 9:15,21). He has done this act before the foundations of the world (Ephesians 1:4-8).
This doctrine does not rule out, however, man's responsibility to believe in the redeeming work of God the Son (John 3:16-18). Scripture presents a tension between God's sovereignty in salvation, and man's responsibility to believe which it does not try to resolve. Both are true -- to deny man's responsibility is to affirm an unbiblical hyper-calvinism; to deny God's sovereignty is to affirm an unbiblical Arminianism.
The elect are saved unto good works (Ephesians 2:10). Thus, though good works will never bridge the gulf between man and God that was formed in the Fall, good works are a result of God's saving grace. This is what Peter means when he admonishes the Christian reader to make his "calling" and "election" sure (2 Peter 1:10). Bearing the fruit of good works is an indication that God has sown seeds of grace in fertile soil.
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Limited Atonement (Particular Redemption)
Limited Atonement is a doctrine offered in answer to the question, "for whose sins did Christ atone?" The Bible teaches that Christ died for those whom God gave him to save (John 17:9). Christ died, indeed, for many people, but not all (Matthew 26:28). Specifically, Christ died for the invisible Church -- the sum total of all those who would ever rightly bear the name "Christian" (Ephesians 5:25).
This doctrine often finds many objections, mostly from those who think that Limited Atonement does damage to evangelism. We have already seen that Christ will not lose any that the father has given to him (John 6:37). Christ's death was not a death of potential atonement for all people. Believing that Jesus' death was a potential, symbolic atonement for anyone who might possibly, in the future, accept him trivializes Christ's act of atonement. Christ died to atone for specific sins of specific sinners. Christ died to make holy the church. He did not atone for all men, because obviously all men are not saved. Evangelism is actually lifted up in this doctrine, for the evangelist may tell his congregation that Christ died for sinners, and that he will not lose any of those for whom he died!
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Irresistible Grace
The result of God's Irresistible Grace is the certain response by the elect to the inward call of the Holy Spirit, when the outward call is given by the evangelist or minister of the Word of God. Christ, himself, teaches that all whom God has elected will come to a knowledge of him (John 6:37). Men come to Christ in salvation when the Father calls them (John 6:44), and the very Spirit of God leads God's beloved to repentance (Romans 8:14). What a comfort it is to know that the gospel of Christ will penetrate our hard, sinful hearts and wondrously save us through the gracious inward call of the Holy Spirit (I Peter 5:10)!
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Perseverance of the Saints
Perseverance of the Saints is a doctrine which states that the saints (those whom God has saved) will remain in God's hand until they are glorified and brought to abide with him in heaven. Romans 8:28-39 makes it clear that when a person truly has been regenerated by God, he will remain in God's stead. The work of sanctification which God has brought about in his elect will continue until it reaches its fulfillment in eternal life (Phil. 1:6). Christ assures the elect that he will not lose them and that they will be glorified at the "last day" (John 6:39). The Calvinist stands upon the Word of God and trusts in Christ's promise that he will perfectly fulfill the will of the Father in saving all the elect.
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still holds true.
