Have you ever been criticized by others for being Calvinists?

[cygnusx1]

I know people over here in Switzerland who call Calvinists "disciples of satan" - a very sad thing indeed.
And they call themselves Christians. Being myself a Reformed Baptist is often very uncomfortable. Most Christians here are Arminians with a dispensational eschatology.

That is one of the saddest things I ever read!

I am very glad that I found this forum and especially this thread. Thank God!



TULIP

That's cheered me up 5solas!!

 

[cajunhillbilly]

How can somone be agaisnt the grace of God?

 

[cygnusx1]

How can somone be agaisnt the grace of God?

Because they think grace is just a wishy washy kindness , then the Calvinist comes along and says it is By the Power of Grace through election that we are saved.

 

[blessedbe]

Hell is entirely our fault if we end up there. Heaven is entirely the result of God's grace alone. Both are true. God predistines the saved. The lost are lost because God leaves them in their sins. Entirely our fault.

God is Sovereign, man is responsible!

Both of these are soo true, and I think that people who are arminian don't get it when we Calvinists say this, because we are talking about the "big picture" here. Of course it's our fault, from the fall onward we were/are nothing but lovers of the flesh...but when arminians say it's our fault, they are talking individually, as if we could actually resist the Grace of God. The only way I can explain any person ignoring the gospel is to understand that God has not granted them the faith to believe yet, if ever. My sister-in-law is in this predicament right now. I pray every day that she become saved, but i know that if she does, it will be God's doing, because she IS searching right now, trying to find the "meaning" in her life. We have discussed christianity many times, and I am doing my best to show Christ to her...but it is ultimately up to God.

 

[LynneClomina]

here's a little tale...

adam and eve were on a boat, what a beautiful boat it was!
then they jumped overboard. the fall was really a jump, y'know.

so they are swimming in the water, having babies in the water, and all the generations that followed were in the water because of what their ancestors adam and eve did.

and their entire lives spent working really hard to stay afloat and not drown.

then comes Christ, and He offers us a life-saver. tricky thing is, it's an underwater life-saver, and you have to allow yourself to drown and no longer work to stay afloat so that you can be saved by the life-saver of Jesus.

BUT, without goggles, you would never know the lifesaver was there!

so God gives us goggles of grace, so that we may see that there is salvation! and we can see the goodness of God! and it becomes the greatest desire in our heart, to get right with God and have relationship with Him.... and so we dive.

we want to dive!, we have to dive!, it is our entire purpose to dive!, and so we dive!!!!!

we dive so deep that there is no returning to the surface, and we die - to ourselves.