Scipture clearly teaches that the natural (unregenerate) man can comprehend scriptural truth (the gospel), that's why Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the whole world so the unregenerate (natural man) can be saved. That's why He pleads with you to hear His voice. "They that hear shall live" (John 5.25). "Every one who seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life" (John 6.40). "Believing ye may have life" (John 20.31). "Believe...and thou shalt be saved" (Acts 16.31). "Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel'" (Mark 1.15). "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out" (Acts 3.19). If you are Totally unable then why would God plead with you to hear, come, see and believe? The natural man can remain in his flesh or receive the atoning sacrifice. God has given sufficient grace to us all to be able to respond to the wooing of His Spirit. You wouldn't want to place your faith in a god who doesn't.Originally Posted by rlhuckle
The man who wants to remain in his natural man will not hear the gospel, will not listen and not come before Christ to be regenerated. We see the sufficiency of God's grace all throughout Scripture (something your god can never have). "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Pet. 3.9). This sounds like sufficient grace to us all and is why He pleads with us all, because we have the choice to be saved by grace through faith. "Who would have [desires] all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2.4).
Understand your double mindedness for you assumed and still do that you were irresistibly selected. That's no way to come to Christ. You say this is not your choice to make, yet this is your action: your very choice to assume you are the Aryan race, but that's not how one is saved. That's how evil men try to save themselves. To be saved, you will need to come to the cross as a helpless sinner to be regenerated, something as yet you are unwilling to do. The fear rises up in you when you think of the proposition of letting go, repenting and placing your trust in Jesus to be regenerated. Fear is restricting you, causing you to cling your natural self. "Ye will not come to me, that ye may have life" (John 5.40). Don't you know love casteth out all fear? So let go and place your trust in Him. He's holding the door open for you. All ye that are willing to enter may have life.
God's choice is not arbitrary and meaningless. His reasons are solid. Election is conditional: "If ye be willing and obedient" (Is. 1.19). Free will is not truly free without this choice afforded to us all. God predestinates by foreknowing our willingness and obedience. "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate (Rom. 8.29)...elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father" (1 Pet. 1.2).
The Holy Spirit tells me in no uncertain terms intuitively and by the word of God specifically, you have never given your life to Christ. You don't know if you are saved or not, not really, since it was never your choice. But that is just an assumption on your part. Where does the Bible ask us to assume we are irresistibly selected and that we had no choice? God is pleading with you as the "Savior of all men, specially those who believe" (1 Tim. 4.10) since those who respond to His being "Savior of all men" shall by saved by grace through faith.
God is relational. He enjoys our response. We are not just a bunch of pawns on a chessboard He moves around arbitrarily. Just as God has free will, He enjoys relating to us with free will, especially to receive His saving grace so that He can bring us into His fold and enjoy eternity with. This is not something your god can do or would want to do.So, you are the god who saves yourself by causing your own regeneration, eh? Good luck[sic] with that... I'm glad my posts are being honored in this way. They will speak to a whole new audience and God will use them to convict, edify or harden as He sees fit. Thank you very much.
Calvinists lack across the board a personableness with people because they are just reflecting their irate sovereign evil Hitler-type god who sends the Jews to the gas chambers just because they are born Jews and irresistibly imposes salvation on the Aryan race. Calvinism is a religion of racists! Hitler could not achieved what he did without the teachings of Calvinism he was brought up with. Think how evil it is to send a child to Hell just because he or she is born into sin, given no grace whatsoever to even have the opportunity to be saved. What love is that? It's psychopathic. You need to be locked up, and you will be in the Lake of Fire for rejecting the love of the One True God. It is you who wants to be eternally separated from your Creator.
God hardens your heart further because the first active instance of hardening was you hardening your own heart feven though God had supplied you with more than ample grace, abundance of conviction, and the enablement to respond to His universal atonement."I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh" (John 6.51).
Alas, for Calvinists it is all a charade. For them God is not pleading with anyone but just telling everyone this is irresistibly how it's going to be to make you eat or not eat. How absurd! How demonic!
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