I am reminded of the Free will doctrine whenever I see a child with a teddy bear, man you are never gunna get that bear away from them, if you try to take it away from them they clutch it all the closer to their bosom.
ECT andyc and totton talk freewill
- Thread starter andyc
- Start date
T... I gotta run, but I still don't understand, from your perspective, how God can desire everyone to be saved, but only those who are regenerated can believe, yet he only regenerates those who are not wicked, and some who are wicked but separated from their mothers womb. I don't think I'm the only one confused here
The answer is "whom He foreknew He also predestined...." if God desired all to be saved then be sure all would be saved. But the church is predestined and chosen to be the instrument of men's salvation...God will judge the world by how they deal with His people.
God has CONSIGNED all men under sin, those who are to be saved and those who will not be. It was God who placed Cain in the womb along with the seed of the woman Abel. Cain heard the gospel through Abel and hated him for it.
Your alternative is that Abel was just lucky and Cain not so much.
Perhaps they were identical to look at, almost like twins, indistinguishable as to their outer looks, but God sees the heart.
I enjoyed the debate
My mistake. I thought this thread was about the rock group "Lynyrd Skynyrd's" song, "Freebird." Instead, it's just 2 "Back to Pentecost....Puhrays Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawd/Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesus" nutty "Charismatics," discussing "spiritual" matters, after perhaps falling backwards, from a shot from "The Holy Ghost Bartender."
Do I hear an "Amen, saints?"
untrue.
My little children loved me with a pure heart. Not all children do but mine did.
Then with what will, men follow Christ when He calls them if it is not their will to do so.
You are not yet as free as Paul became.
The law is good and is spiritual.
When Paul did good then he gloried in it, because his flesh was still not submitted to God.
If you have never known that experience as a Christian then you have some way to go yet.
It was not without Christ calling, that men decide to follow Him.
The groom always waits for a free will answer from His chosen, and further than that the Groom gives her space of time to reconsider her decision.
Then you do not know of the above nor that even after marriage the bride has many more sacrifices to make before she will bear His children.
This one zap you speak of is just a false hope of the flesh to stave off crucifixion and further submission.
Ask David and Solomon.
LA
andyc
New member
Ok you seem to have shifted your stance from the last time I discussed this with you. It appears that you have now since subscribed to TULIP, and are now more in line with the reformers teaching. Your view of free will is now making sense to me.
Man has no free will because he has become depraved through the fall.
I'm a little gutted to be honest, because this view is fatalistic and therefore a real faith killer.
Are you saying that;
1) There are, Good people?
2) There are wicked people?
Therefore, God ONLY chooses, the good people to save?
Romans 3:10 states; " As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:"
How do you explain this verse?
unrepentant wicked, In other words I am not a Universalist. But I do affirm that Cain was of the evil one just as Judas was. God knew Judas would not be saved when psalm 69 was written [i.e. He always knew] just as He knew Paul would be a preacher of the gospel in his mother's womb...and He knew what YOU would be.
He sowed the field with wheat, the enemy sowed it with tares...God knows who is who.
I've ALWAYS been in the Reformer's camp at least from early days, I do not subscribe to TULIP. I have serious problems with double predestination and therefore Limited Atonement.
Total Depravity is a misnomer, they ought to think of a better description. The doctrine is that man is totally helpless in the matter of salvation...that I most surely believe.
Of COURSE it is not a faith killer, faith is a spiritual gift and the natural man receiveth not the things of God.
We receive faith when God gives it. The bible fact is borne out because nobody believes until they hear the gospel. There were no Christian Redskins until the Europeans arrived.
andyc
New member
You must accept limited atonement, because you understand that foreknowledge sees the limitation. The elect are determined through foreknowledge, and because man has no ability to choose salvation, election comes unconditionally because faith is gifted.
I don't think you're realizing that you are actually accepting the five points of Calvin. It seems to me that there is still a glimmer of light shining through where your conscience is struggling to accept that God predestines people to hell.
The fatalism side of things is where faith becomes "que sera sera", where God is viewed as sovereign to the point that he does as he pleases, and that he has not bound himself to his word.
When things happen that can't be explained, or when prayers seem unanswered, the response is "God is sovereign". That is a gross misinterpretation of the sovereignty of God, and a terrible faith killer.
The word of God is paramount, but if God waivers in this area, we're not going to be able to grab hold of the promises with the proper determination.
You have always said that, I always answer the same way, Predestiny and Election is to the body of Christ....the church is a city set on a hill.
We do not know who will be saved until the judgement. WE are saved for that is necessary to belonging to the church, but it does not preclude others from being saved.
But the unrepentant wicked will not be saved, the seed of the serpent, those who Christ said were children of the devil. God knows who they are.
God HAS bound Himself to His word...it is YOU who are in denial of it.
Who He foreknew He also predestined...He also chose...He also called
whose names are written in the Lamb's book slain from before the foundation of the world. You say their names were not written, they are a fuzzy, grey, unknown people.
You constantly deny God's word to which He is bound, God sowed wheat, the enemy sowed tares.
andyc
New member
Ok, T, I can't really figure out your beliefs in this area systematically. Because you are always so flowery explaining it, the conclusion I come to is that you have some kind of concoction of a belief system that is a mixture of your own feelings about the nature of God, and the reformers teaching. Your hatred of free will doesn't seem to be from a theological perspective. It's personal. Hence the aggression and obsession against it, but when challenged there's nothing but flowery gobbledygook that makes no theological sense, but sounds reasonable and acceptable to you alone. Everyone else just scratches their head in bewilderment. Not a big deal. Personally I think you are heavily influenced by the reformers teaching, but conscience gnaws away at you accepting it fully.
I can live with it
I say again you are in denial of God's word which says faith is the gift of God, you are also in denial of history which demonstrates for everyone to see that nobody ever found the true God apart from the gospel...that shows you where the power unto salvation is. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
You are also in denial of your own personal experience which shows that neither you or any other person bar One has ever been able to exercise freewill over sin or over death.
Freewill is a deception, that is why I am against it. It is the means by which Satan draws people into considering sin as an option....God forbids it, He does not grant freewill, He warns that it will result in death [dead men have no freewill] but satan by denying the consequences assures man he has freewill to sin.
From freewill doctrine, the idea that man can of himself decide or choose to become a Christian comes about that the unsaved, unregerated sinners are in the church.
The freewill preacher told them, all they had to do was decide, pray a quick prayer, come to the front etc and they are saved.....but no work of grace was ever done in them, they remain unregenerate, but they "believe, they believe, they believe"
"while men slept the enemy sowed tares among the wheat" and they are there.
Do you know what tares do in the wheat field? they muck around with the roots of the wheat, they suck the goodness out of the soil.
This is a state which is not only so in the church but prevalent....that is why the church is in such a mess.
All written in plain old English.
You are also in denial of your own personal experience which shows that neither you or any other person bar One has ever been able to exercise freewill over sin or over death.
Freewill is a deception, that is why I am against it. It is the means by which Satan draws people into considering sin as an option....God forbids it, He does not grant freewill, He warns that it will result in death [dead men have no freewill] but satan by denying the consequences assures man he has freewill to sin.
From freewill doctrine, the idea that man can of himself decide or choose to become a Christian comes about that the unsaved, unregerated sinners are in the church.
The freewill preacher told them, all they had to do was decide, pray a quick prayer, come to the front etc and they are saved.....but no work of grace was ever done in them, they remain unregenerate, but they "believe, they believe, they believe"
"while men slept the enemy sowed tares among the wheat" and they are there.
Do you know what tares do in the wheat field? they muck around with the roots of the wheat, they suck the goodness out of the soil.
This is a state which is not only so in the church but prevalent....that is why the church is in such a mess.
All written in plain old English.
andyc
New member
Who does the hearing?
Able to or willing to?
This is not seen in scripture. You are the one blaming freewill.
You'll have to come up with scriptural examples in order to make a case for it.
"If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you WILL be saved. This is the requirement. God provides the word (seed), but it must be mixed with faith in those who hear it. This is scripture.
The devil is the author of false doctrine, and everything that appeals to the flesh. This has nothing to do with free will.
The devil is the author of freewill doctrine...OK I think we have stated both of us our cases. Time to put it to bed
ttruscott
Well-known member
In this parable the wheat are the sons of God, so it is speaking about church, God places us in His church. The tares are the children of the evil one.
Where are they?
In the church.
You see it in the ministry of Christ how that all men spoke well of Him and wondered at the words of grace that fell from His lips...but the Lord rebuffed them.
We see in Paul's ministry how that as soon as he left town others came preaching what? what were they preaching? a gospel of works, the holiness crowd, the same crowd who followed the Lord around...they came from Jerusalem the heart of the church.
That is where the devil operates....he works by spreading a false or a greatly weakened gospel which gets weaker and weaker [by the expansion of the falseness of it] until it becomes ineffectual.
This is what happened with the Reformation. After the first generation of doctors came the freewill/works brigade....Arminius.
Where are they?
In the church.
You see it in the ministry of Christ how that all men spoke well of Him and wondered at the words of grace that fell from His lips...but the Lord rebuffed them.
We see in Paul's ministry how that as soon as he left town others came preaching what? what were they preaching? a gospel of works, the holiness crowd, the same crowd who followed the Lord around...they came from Jerusalem the heart of the church.
That is where the devil operates....he works by spreading a false or a greatly weakened gospel which gets weaker and weaker [by the expansion of the falseness of it] until it becomes ineffectual.
This is what happened with the Reformation. After the first generation of doctors came the freewill/works brigade....Arminius.
But my dear freewill is the essence of doublemindedness, whether for salvation or for any of God's blessing...it is will/I won't I it is a debate within the soul and mind.
To receive from the Lord you have to key into HIS perfect will...God's will not our own "freewill"
But it is the preaching of freewill, come to the front to be healed, to be blest, to be saved whatever, make a decision, YOU choose, it is all man.
Now I am not saying nobody gets saved or healed or blest but a GREAT MANY of those who come to the front and do everything they are told to do receive nothing. This is exactly what has brought the Pentecostal/charismatic movement into such disrepute.
See when it was just salvation who knew? if somebody got saved or not, they came to the front, they prayed the prayer so then [according to freewillery] they must have got saved...but no work of grace was done in their heart, they remained unregenerate.
But now they are in the church...it is a disaster, they are the ones who are ambitious for leadership, they find their way to the top places, still unsaved.
But when it comes to miracle ministry it falls flat on it's face because it becomes plain at once that the person who came forward and was prayed for did not get healed.
This is when the preacher starts jumping up and down and screaming for people to have the faith.
In the pre-modern era there was no calling for decisions, no choosing Christ.
The gospel was preached and the Holy Ghost was allowed to do the work in who He pleased this takes the whole things out of man's control.
The gospel was preached and the Holy Ghost was allowed to do the work in who He pleased this takes the whole things out of man's control.