God KNEW I would cry to Him.
I have heard it said that the free grace doctrines take away any need or urgency of evangelism, but if we know the darkness that we have walked in, the bondage to things that are not God [but you say we had freewill] then we will know there are BILLIONS who are our brothers an sisters, who have a stake in the same kingdom as ourselves...but at present they walk in darkness, lonely, afraid, in sorrow. They are waiting to hear the Master's voice just as we waited, locked up in their own selves, yearning to be set free.
Let's go get them.
One lavished upon in the Beloved
Who [that's me] He foreknew He also predestined, chose, called etc so it can only mean that He knew before ever star began to twinkle in the sky.
For God to foreknow and predestine not only me but ALL who are called into fellowship with His dear Son requires omniscience. Such a doctrine is entirely INcompatible with the open view theology, even our glorification which is still future was preplanned.
What good news. this is a message to run with.
One lavished upon in the Beloved
For those (plural, Body of Christ) whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son…and these (plural, Body of Christ) whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.
God foreknew the corporate Body of Christ before any member came into existence just as He foreknew the corporate nation of Israel (Rom. 11:2) before any member came into existence. He predetermined that this Body would be conformed into the image of His Son, called into service, justified and glorified.
God KNEW you would cry out to him sometime during your lifetime as He became intimately acquainted with your heart.
Both the earthly nation of Israel, and the Body of Christ, were/are comprised of individual persons.
Omnipotent God saves those persons He foreknew, who proved to be a small remnant callled of the nation of Israel (Romans 11:5-7), and the truly regenerate out of the visible churches (Matthew 7:21-23; 20:23; 22:14) , according to His choosing to redeem them in Christ before the foundation of the world. (Ephesians 1:3-11)
The argument that God deals only corporately with sinners, rather than according to His will to save individual sinners, is preposterous and silly. It is a lame atttempt to deny personal Election, pure and simple. (In fact, it is a gnostic (false) gospel.)
Trying to sell the notion that a corporate body of any kind is something other than a union of individual persons of like mind, race, will, goals, etc. is to dehumanize the definition of the word "corporate."
Hint: Look up the word "corporeal" to understand what "corporate" really means.
Nang
"The immutable God never learned anything and never changed his mind. He knew everything from eternity."
" The difference between faith and saving faith are the propositions believed."
Gordon H. Clark
"If a man be lost, God must not have the blame for it; but if a man be saved, God must have the glory of it."
Charles Spurgeon
Well, are you now saying "who He did NOT foreknow He also predestined"? Surely our lives are so individually planned, our call comes personally, our conforming process to the image of His Son is so individual to each of us and we understand that we will not all attain the same glory...although we will all attain to glory.
Freewill salvation is a chance deal.
One lavished upon in the Beloved
But it seems to niggle at you that God foreknew and preplanned for YOU personally to be brought into the kingdom of His dear Son.
One lavished upon in the Beloved
Because it shows that you were born again "not by the will of man [freewill] nor by the will of the flesh but by the will of God."
One lavished upon in the Beloved
How 'bout we try seeing it as God predestined mankind to be as He is? Sin and man's failure, notwithstanding because He provided a way of reconciliation from the beginning__i.e., His beginning.
Might we also see this as the reason why Jesus never said, 'go get people saved' but, rather "go and make disciples"?
Try reading you Bible with that perspective and see how it reads anew.
What if we turn the truth into lie does it matter? isn't a lie just as good as the truth? you need words to make the lie same as you need words to make the truth and basically all words mean the same thing..don't they? why is it so important to establish the truth? why does the devil work so darn hard to get a lie accepted.
This is the christian battleground, it is here that the battle of life is fought out...now if you are saved you will not lose your salvation, the devil knows that but he still has prizes worth fighting for.
He can make us ineffectual in our ministry, he can make us unjoyful he can rob us of victory.
These are all prizes well worth his fighting for...as you look around you might ask if he is being successful on a very large scale.
The difference between the lie that we chose God and the truth that He chose us is as different as black is to white and as far apart as the east is to the west.
One of these positions puts man in the driving position and the other puts God in the driving position. If you was the devil who would you rather was in the driving position?
The statement of Jesus is perfectly straightforward and clear "You have not chosen Me but I have chosen you and ordained you that you should bear much fruit"...this is what is at stake, not salvation but fruit.
No epistle ever begins with "thanks be unto God who has given us freewill by which we have been enabled to make a decision to accept Jesus Christ" it simply is not the language of the bible...always "God chose us and redeemed us by His own good will"
Man has already chosen, he chose in the garden when he was surrounded by everything that was beautiful to the sight and good for food...in other word when he was in prosperity, this was [and is and always has been] God's good will for man while on this earth. Man chose to rebel and reject God's will....that is what it has always been about. Man chose poverty over abundance, sin over righteousness, bondage over freedom, death over life.
That is man's present condition while he is unsaved. He is poor, he is a sinner, he is sick and dying [he is in fact already dead while he walks] and he is in bondage. He has no hope whatever.
The only hope there is is that God will have mercy and grant life and pardon and liberty once more...YOU are saying man can decide this for himself, I say that is the talk of a rebel.
One lavished upon in the Beloved
Never, never will I say God had anything to do with man's sin, other than to forewarn the man and this He faithfully did.
He foreSAW that man would sin, what He did in wisdom and foreknowledge was to predestine man's salvation
Yes but YOU say that salvation IS man's work. It is because of our believing, our accepting and our obedience [you say] if we don't do our part neither can God do His part.
It is a completely different frame of mind when we are dealing with men's souls to think "If I preach faithfully God is going to come and make good my lack...I cain't save this person, I can't induce him to salvation. only God can come and zap the butte off him and breathe on him and make him COME ALIVE with the life of the Holy Ghost."
But all your preaching is wheedling, cajoling, persauding, scaring the crap out of him in order to make the MAN decide to be saved. Your preaching is manward, the freegrace way is GODward in expectancy that God will send the Holy Ghost down from heaven and confirm the word preached and make it good.
There is so much more to this debate...for as a man or woman starts out in this thing so he will carry on throughout his christian life.
One will walk upright and steady the other will stagger and stumble along. One is the joyful, triumphant way the other of struggling and oft defeats...the way of the heavy yoke.
One lavished upon in the Beloved
How 'bout we try seeing it as God predestined mankind to be as He is? Sin and man's failure, notwithstanding because He provided a way of reconciliation from the beginning__i.e., His beginning.
Might we also see this as the reason why Jesus never said, 'go get people saved' but, rather "go and make disciples"?
Try reading you Bible with that perspective and see how it reads anew.
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