So now your saying those who don’t believe the same things you do are not saved?
No, NOTHING I said implied such a thing.
I simply repeated what JESUS said about those who
believe
MAN decides who are "
His sheep" (synergists)
and those who believe a Sovereign and Autonomous
GOD decides who are "
His Sheep" before the world
even began... based ONLY on His Good Pleasure and
NOT on anything those men would do (monergists).
I hope I have communicated clearly enough for you
to understand... please ask for clarification if you are
still confused about the Gospel Jesus taught about
God (not man) deciding who were "
His sheep".
“"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7 NASB
Now all we need do is determine
WHO that verse applies to:
Does it apply to the saved "
wheat/sheep" sown by God and
destined to eternal life? Or does it include unsaved "
tares/goats"
sown by Satan and
destined to the
SAME FIRE as Satan and
all the "
children of Satan" [Mat 25:41]
You cannot just ASSUME that a verse applies to
BOTH the
saved wheat and unsaved tares. You must understand the
CONTEXT of a verse before you can hope to understand the
MEANING of that verse.
Jesus said this in the very same chapter just before mentioning “the broad way”. He didn’t say anything about who chooses His sheep. Your quoting Him out of context.
No, I was not quoting Jesus out of context.
I simply applied RELATED SCRIPTURES to the one addressed.
There is NO QUESTION that Jesus came to save "
His sheep"
and those who are NOT "
His sheep" were
NEVER MEANT to
be saved... Listen to the Words of Christ:
Joh 10:26
But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep,
as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them,
and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they
shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is
able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
The Biblical FACT is that some men were
NEVER MEANT
to be saved (see the verses above and below). I know
that MOST men like to pretend that
THEY can choose to
become saved - and God is OBLIGATED to save them, but
the Bible teaches the opposite... it says
GOD who decides
who are "
His sheep" (before the foundation of the world).
Some men were
NEVER MEANT to be saved because they
were not "
elected" to be part of "
His sheep"... as Jesus
clearly said in John 10 (above)
Mar 4:11
And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery
of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these
things are done in parables: That seeing they may see, and not
perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand;
lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins
should be forgiven them.
How much clearer can Jesus be? Some men were
NEVER MEANT
to "
see" or "
hear" or "
understand" or "
be converted" or have
their "
sins forgiven". These are not MY words... they are the
Words of Christ. Some men were
NEVER MEANT to be saved
because God never elected them to be part of "
His sheep".
See your theology would have this all backwards. According to your theology it must be given before we are capable of asking, then we are able to seek and find but the door has been opened before creation, long before we ever knocked.
First, it is not MY theology, it is the Gospel.
The Gospel
BEGINS with the fact that Adam sinned and,
as a result,
ALL MEN are born
DEAD in sin and slaves in
Satan's Kingdom of Babylon. As such,
ALL MEN are destined
to eternal torment. However, God wanted a people for Himself
and He "
elected" who He would save (before the foundation of
the world and based ONLY on His Good Pleasure and NOT on
anything that man would do in his life). And God provided
a Savior for THOSE PEOPLE ("
His sheep") and ONLY those
people. Everyone else must pay for their own sins since
they are NOT "
His sheep" and were
NEVER MEANT to
be saved.
Now, I am very aware that unsaved tares do not LIKE the
Gospel and they change the proclamation of of the finished
work of Christ into a "free offer" of salvation to all men.
However, as we have already seen in Mark 4:11-12 and
John 10::26 the Lord Jesus Christ said that some men
were
NEVER MEANT to be saved... so
WHERE is this
"free offer" to them?
Of course there is NO "free offer" to people who JESUS said
are not "
His sheep" and those who are
NEVER MEANT to be
"
converted" or have their "
sins forgiven".
So there is a dilemma for those who want a "gospel" where
MAN chooses who is saved. At best they (and you) must
admit that
SOME MEN were
NEVER MEANT to be saved...
(because Jesus said so), and pretend that
OTHER MEN have
the ability to make themselves "
His sheep". As I indicated,
this is the
BROAD WAY that leads Christians to destruction...
and
MANY Christians find it...
MOST Christians preach it.
This was all foretold by Jesus... this is all PART of the Gospel.
In fact, it is interesting that when Jesus taught [John 6] that
NO MAN can come to Him unless the Father first "draws" them
and
ALL MEN the Father draws "
shall come" to Him, and He would
lose
NONE of "
His sheep"... when His disciples realized that Jesus
was preaching salvation be "election" immediately
MANY of them
immediately abandoned Him. [Jphn 6:65-66]
Now, why in the world would anyone abandon the Son of God?
And the answer is obvious. They (like most today) did not WANT
a Gospel where God is Sovereign and they must depend on God electing them before creating the world. They wanted a gospel
(the Broad Way) where they could decide when/where/how they become saved and God is
OBLIGATED to see their good work
and save them.
So... the notion that MAN gets to decides whether he is part of
"
His sheep" has been around since the time of Christ. In fact,
a major PART of the Gospel is that unsaved "
tares" would
infiltrate the church and the "
leaven" of their false doctrines
would corrupt the churches and eventually the entire Christian
"
Kingdom of Heaven" [Mata 13 in 8 verses]
And so... I realize that nothing I say can get you to change
from a synergistic gospel to a monergistic Gospel but at least
we can agree (based on the SCRIPTURES I provided) that Jesus
taught that some men are NOT "
His sheep" and
NEVER MEANT
to be saved... and some men were
NEVER MEANT to "see" or
"hear" or "be converted" or have their "sins forgiven".
At least we can agree that JESUS (not me) taught those things.\
in Mark 4 and John 10.
Jim
