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"According to the good pleasure of His will" (Eph. 1.5) the Father "himself is righteous, and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus" (Rom. 3.26). Only those who have "received him...[and] believe on his name" become the sons of God (John 1.12-13). Jesus is offering Himself in John 6 not to an elect but to the entire unbelieving multitude, showing the gospel is for all. Pleading with you Jesus says, "My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.... I am the bread of life" (vv. 32,35). The offer is to everyone, but the partaking is willingly from the heart. God pleading with Israel and mankind to repent are nonsensical if there are those from whom He withholds the grace to repent and the faith to believe.

A Calvinist should be very leery the bolt of lightening he received (irresistibly) that caused him to worship without any prior repentance and faith, actually had "beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven" (Luke 10.18). There is no purpose in trying to believe, because in Calvinism a person is unable and would only lead him to the delusion of thinking he is saved through the flesh which turns people off of Christ by misrepresenting Him. Instead, he just accepts any old flashing light as though from God on High as "Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light" (2 Cor. 11.14).

Why do some Calvinist like James White say, "May God grant us grace to hear and obey His Word" (p. 132, Debating Calvinism)? How can He grant grace to those He has from eternity predestined to eternal torment? Why pray for that since it will do no good? Why pray to God to grant us when his god has already decided? His praying will not alter the reprobate that received preterition and those who are to be irresistibly selected. Why be a doubletalker, putting on a mocking charade,unless you don't have a conscience to see your doublespeak? And why preach the gospel, giving a false hope? If this is evil for us to behave this way, to dangle a thread in front of someone but never allowing them to reach it, then why not the god of Calvinism?

Think how evil it is to worship a god whose heart is "according to God's good pleasure...the just punishment of the wicked" (p. 138, James White). How could it give God pleasure to have to damn people to Hell? This makes us sad, why not God?

What is the point of, "Choose ...

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As the soul has its senses, so too has the spirit. The spirit is intimately related to the soul and yet is wholly unlike it. The soul possesses various senses; but a spiritual man is able to detect another set of senses—lodged in the innermost part of his being—which is radically dissimilar from his set of soulical senses. There in that innermost recess he can rejoice, grieve, anticipate, love, fear, approve, condemn, decide, discern. These motions are sensed in the spirit and are quite distinct from those expressed by the soul through the body.

We can learn about the sensing of the spirit and its many-sided character from the following verses:

“The spirit indeed is willing” Matt. 26.41
“Perceiving in his spirit” Mark 2.8
“He sighed deeply in his spirit” Mark 8.12
“My spirit rejoices in God my Savior” Luke 1.47
“The true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” John 4.23
“He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled” John 11.33
“When Jesus had thus spoken, he was troubled in spirit” John 13.21
“His spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols” Acts 17.16
“He had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit” Acts 18.25
‘Paul purposed in the spirit” Acts 19.21 ASV
“I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem” Acts 20.22 ASV
“(Be) fervent in spirit” Rom. 12.11 ASV
“For what person knows a man’s thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him” 1 Cor. 2.11
“I will sing with the spirit” 1 Cor. 14.15
“If you bless with the spirit” 1 Cor. 14.16
“I had no rest in my spirit” 2 Cor. 2.13 Darby
“We have the same spirit of faith” 2 Cor. 4.13
“A spirit of wisdom and of revelation” Eph.1.17
“Your love in spirit” Col. 1.8 literal

From these many passages we can see readily that the spirit clearly senses and that such sensing is manifold. The Bible is not telling us here how our heart senses but rather how our spirit does. And it would appear that the sensing of the spirit is as inclusive as that of the soul. The spirit like the soul has its thoughts, feelings, and desires. But how we must learn to distinguish the spiritual from the soulical! We shall come to appreciate this difference if we are matured through the ...

Broadly speaking, a Christian who has not yet experienced the baptism in the Holy Spirit is rather vague about the reality of the spiritual realm. He is like the servant of Elisha whose eyes were closed to that sphere. He may receive instructions from the Bible, yet his understanding is confined to the mind because he still lacks revelation in his spirit. But upon experiencing the baptism his intuition becomes acutely sensitive and he discovers in his spirit a spiritual world opening before him. By the experience of the baptism in the Holy Spirit he not only touches the supernatural power of God but contacts God’s Person as well.

Now it is just there that spiritual warfare begins. This is the period when the power of darkness disguises himself as an angel of light and even attempts to counterfeit the Person and the work of the Holy Spirit. It is also the moment when the intuition is made aware of the existence of a spiritual domain and of the reality of Satan and his evil spirits. The Apostles were taught in the Scriptures by the Lord after Calvary; but they were made conscious of the real existence of a spiritual realm following Pentecost. Spirit-baptism marks the starting point of spiritual warfare.

Once a believer has contacted the Person of God via the baptism in the Holy Spirit, he then has his own spirit released. He now senses the reality of the things and beings in the spiritual domain. With such knowledge (and let us call to mind that the knowledge of a spiritual man does not accrue to him all at once; some of it may, and usually does, come through many trials), he encounters Satan. Only those who are spiritual perceive the reality of the spiritual foe and hence engage in battle (Eph. 6.12). Such warfare is not fought with arms of the flesh (2 Cor. 10.4). Because the conflict is spiritual so must the weapons. It is a struggle between the spirit of man and that of the enemy—an engagement of spirit with spirit.

Before he arrives at such a juncture in his spiritual walk, the child of God neither understands, nor can he engage in, the battle of the spirits. Only after his inner man has been strengthened by the Holy Spirit does he know how to wrestle with the adversary in his spirit. As he spiritually advances he begins to discover the reality of Satan and his kingdom and then it is that he is given to understand how to resist and attack the foe with his spirit.

The reasons for such conflict ...