giving someone a choice does not make them Gods people. we do have a free will but our free will does not even consider choosing god. if i went up to someone and gave them a choice between following god and doing what they want, unless god said "Follow Me", the man would choose to do what he wanted every time.
If God didn't create you, you couldn't follow Him, so that is hardly the point; so you are not Totally depraved because God provides the grace needed for us all to have the choice. You falsely accused me of saying because a person has a choice therefore they are saved. Where do you come up with that? Where did I say giving someone the choice makes them God's people? They still have to choose. God gave us all God-consciousness and provided us all with sufficient grace to consider choosing God. Understand why Total depravity is an attempt at sinful supernatural communications with Satanic forces, because it is idolatry. You ought not to say "I am created by God therefore I am Totally depraved" any more than "we are Totally depraved because God has to supply us with sufficient grace." You're made in God's image, God supplies grace to all, and you are not Totally deprave. Don't believe your god who tells you that you are Totally depraved. He uses this to instill pride in you to lower your conscience by making you think you were irresistibly selected over others who were born for Hell. What love is this?
Exodus 34:14 For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
Do you realize that you just contradicted yourself. how can god not be jealousy and yet be a jealous god?
You're petty self is just looking for something to cling onto because you are a Calvinist intead of dealing with the problem of your faith. I understand the message--for he is a God who is passionate about his relationship with us who are saved. He is by no means Jealous in the selfish sense. Try to understand.
we are born into sin and therefore deserve to be thrown into hell. the fact we are born into sin was not gods fault. it was ours. so why should god save us? the fact that he chooses any of us is an act of unmeasurable mercy not evil. its not as though we have a claim on Salvation. if a rich man passes ten beggers and gives 2 of them money and none to the others is that evil? no, he did not have to give any money to anyone, and none of them were entitled to it. its the same with Salvation. we are not entitled to it and god does not owe it to us.
Your evil god of Calvinism says just because you are born into sin, which is not your own fault, that you belong in Hell, making your god Satan who accuses falsely. It's not your fault you are born into sin. You had no control over your being born into sin. That sin squarely rests on Adam and Eve. God provides a way out of this predicament because He is a just, righteous, merciful and loving. Quite unlike the god of Calvinism. Satan says it is our fault, falsely accusing, for being born into sin. Do you accuse a baby for coming out of her mother's womb? That's demented. There is no mercy or grace in sending people to Hell without recourse and irresistibly imposing salvation on others. That's the behavior of an evil tyrant, the god of Calvinism. God doesn't treat man like beggars, but people are made in God's image. Satan says we are beggars. God says He is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Pet. 3.9). This contradicts your story of God being like a passerby giving to 2 beggars but not the others. God of the Bible is not like that. He provides sufficient grace for all. That is true love, a love you do not know. We all have a claim to salvation whosoever is willing, for God would not want any to perish so does all He can. Your god is evil and unwilling or more likely impotent to be able to do so. Therefore, God of the Bible trumps your god. Try to appreciate these solemn words.
if saving grace is provided by god then then how is it our choice? god gives to who he wishes. we need what god has before we can reach salvation. therefore salvation is not based on us choosing god, because we are not capable of choosing god before he has first chosen to give to us.
God gives to everyone sufficient grace to be able to believe in Him. How is it not a choice if God died for everyone? Otherwise everyone would be saved. If your god can save everyone then he should, but in Christianity God doesn't save everyone because most people refuse His saving grace. This is called unlimited atonement, conditional election and resistible grace. Who does God desire to give His uncreated life to? To those who come to the cross as helpless sinners, which you have never been willing to do because you refuse to repent and believe in Christ to be regenerated. That makes me very sad for you. You're not a robot; God doesn't have to give you salvation before you can choose to believe in Him to be saved. God has already given us what He has, which is free will. An we have sufficient enabling grace to obtain repentance and faith in Him to be saved. Stop accusing God that He has not and only done so irresistibly to some. What I hear from you is continual repetition that you never gave your life to Christ genuinely, but only merely assumed regeneration. That's a selfish salvation. God wants those who receive Him genuinely. Satan's ploy is to make a person think he is saved when he is clearly not. God says He never knew you even though you may say to Him, Lord, Lord, didn't you worship Him in His name?
spiritually, he is a corpse. we are dead in our SPIRITUALLY dead in our sin. this is a fact fact that you cannot deny.
Spiritually, you are not a corpse: a corpose can neither deny or accept God. When you go to Hell, you will still not be a corpse spiritually. Spiritually, you are dead to God, that is, lost communication, but you are still made in God's image to receive what He did for you on the cross. You don't have to be forced into it as Calvinism alleges or preteritioned over. Just know you don't have a conscience by your choice to see the pride that fills your flesh in believing that some are selected irresistibly and others passed over irresistibly. At least try to understand why Christians recognize why this is evil. You are not Totally depraved, unable to understand why this is evil. You can repent of Calvinism. In fact, some of the major deliverance stories in Chritendom are those of Calvinists who repented of Calvinism and gave their lives to Christ. It's a beautiful thing.
you don't have to call it calvinism for it to be the same doctrine. up until the Reformation, Calvinism wasn't a term that was used. and if you don't want to use Calvin as an example, by the way he was a leader in the reformation, we can also use Luther who was, as well as Calvin, strongly influenced by Augustine. Augustinian beliefs are the same as Calvinist beliefs, and they have influenced so many of our church fathers.
Whatever name you want to use doesn't matter. All 5 points of TULIP are heretical. Christians don't consider TULIP the reformation as Calvinists do. We consider the Reformation to be "justification by faith" even though Luther himself was confused and contradicted himself because he believed in resistible grace, unlimited atonement and conditional election even though these contradict his belief in Total depravity. Men who contradict themselves are problematic. You have simply tried to latch yourself onto justification by faith and added a false teaching. Christians can see through this. Calvin was the leader of Geneva, called the protestant pope and he was a murderous ******* to say the least. The Church fathers didn't accept Calvinism ideas, and just as the Roman Church is religious Rome, you can consider Calvinism also out of religious Rome (e.g. amillennialism, infant batismal regeneration, popery), for Calvinism came out of Augustine and Augustine was Roman Catholic.
where in the world did you find that information
It was already explained. Alas, I am repeating myself. Hitler, like the god of Calvinism, says the Jews belong in the gas chambers (e.g. like Hell) from birth. And the Aryan race are selected from birth without their choice in the matter either. Why shut your mind down to the obvious comparison already explained before?
Rosenberg – one of the principal architects of Nazi ideological creed – argued for a new "religion of the blood," based on the supposed innate promptings of the Nordic soul to defend its "noble" character against racial and cultural degeneration. Under Rosenberg, the theories of Arthur de Gobineau, Georges Vacher de Lapouge, Blavatsky, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Madison Grant, and those of
Hitler ("the exact opposite of the Aryan is the Jew") all culminated in Nazi Germany's race policies and the "Aryanization" decrees of the 1920s, 1930s, and early 1940s. In its "apalling medical model", the annihilation of the "racially inferior" Untermenschen was sanctified as the excision of a diseased organ in an otherwise healthy body.
the Brethren lead a revival? the founders of the Brethren included the founders of Mormonism and Jehovah's Witness. is that a good revival?
The founder of the Brethren movement did not include the founders of Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnessess. How silly. The latter believe in salvation by works and not once-saved-always-saved justification by faith. If your allegation were true you could prove it. What marks the Brethren movement is they did not want to be called anything but Christians unlike denominations. They represent the Philadelphia church period.
We have had a great movement in the Church which surpasses the Reformation of justification by faith. And thus Philadelphia has given us that which the Reformation failed to give. We thank God, for the matter of the church is solved through the early Brethren movement. The position of God’s children is almost entirely restored. Nevertheless, the fame of the Brethren movement falls far behind that of the Reformation. For the Reformation broke upon the world with the aid of sword and gun, whereas the Brethren movement depended purely on the preaching of the word of God.
Rev. 3.8 “I know thy works . . . , that thou hast a little power”—One passage in the Scriptures may be associated with this verse: “Who hath despised the day of small things?” (Zech. 4.10) You should not despise the day of small things, that is, the day of the rebuilding of the temple. After the seventy years of captivity the remnant of the Jews returned to Jerusalem in weakness and in groups. They rebuilt the holy temple, thus serving as a type of the Brethren movement. Many of the older Jews who had seen the old temple wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of the house of God being laid. For how could the glory of this temple be compared with the glory of the temple of Solomon? But God spoke through the prophet Zechariah, saying that they ought not despise the day of small things. Comparatively speaking, the testimony of the church in the world is like a day of small things.
What we see in Philadelphia is love, what we see in Philadelphia is the brethren. But here everything has become common. If God’s people do not stand stedfastly in the position of Philadelphia, they will change. Yet they will never change by returning to Sardis; instead, they will become Laodicea. That which comes out of Rome (Thyatira) is Protestantism (Sardis), that which comes out of Protestantism is the brethren (Philadelphia). And that which comes out of the brethren becomes the laity (Laodicea).
One day when the brethren fail to stand firm on the ground of the brethren, they fall from
adelphos (brethren) to
laos (laity or people). In Sardis, authority is in the hand of the pastors. In Philadelphia, authority falls on the brethren. Now, though, in Laodicea it is neither with the brethren nor with the pastors but with the laity. This means the opinion of the majority (e.g. wiki). In the people, you meet Laodicea; in the Lord’s will, you see Philadelphia.
No he doesn't, that is not an offer it is a command. a command which our free will does not follow.
A command is an offer you can refuse. He is clearly saying in order to be saved you must believe. You're reaching. What soldier doesn't have the right to refuse his commander?
what pride is there in this doctrine? Calvinism acknowledges that we are sinful and wicked and can do nothing to save ourselves. what pride is there in that? and we are not unwilling to look to christ and believe in him. quite the opposite. if god has chosen someone then they will believe in jesus and repent of there sins. this is not something we can do ourselves because, as you commented before, god is the provider of all things including faith repentance and Salvation. Calvinist look to god for those things rather than try to conjure them up within ourselves.
By professing you are Totally depraved (an idol) you are effectively unwilling and open yourself to possession, passive control. The pride is not in acknowledging oneself sinful, but in the idolatry of Total depravity which says you can't receive what Jesus did for you unless God forces you into it and thus, you pride yourself over others because you presume and assume you were irresistibly selected even though you didn't have to repent and believe in Christ to be regenerated. Because you did not come genuinely and merely assumed, this is how you keep yourself eternally separated from God. God chooses someone not to cause them to believe but in His infinite foreknowledge He could foresee that persons's choice to truly believe. So God choses this person: called conditional election. By being given the choice this is not something you are doing yourself as though it is a work (remember the Bible always contrasts faith and works, where Calvinists mingle them), for God has given you sufficient and enabling grace to believe by faith. You don't have to be forced into it like Calvinism teaches, nor do billions have to be past over and denied sufficient grace. Calvinists look to themselves in their own assumption instead of relying on God, for self says "I am saved, I didn't have to repent." That's Calvinism. May God shine light on your heart to see how evil it is to irresistibly impose salvation on some and deny others opportunity to be saved. Don't believe Satan who says you belong in Hell from birth. Don't trust your own assumption you are saved when you did not genuinely come to the cross repentantly to believe unto regeneration. It would be great tragedy to all your life think you are saved, and then at Great White Throne God say to you He never knew you. That is the destination for most Calvinists.
you said yourself that god is the provider of all things. we are saved by Grace, which comes from god, through faith, which also comes from god.
Yes, but not in the way you think. Any person can obtain these things, but never are they forced on the individual or denied others the opportunity to have. Hitler forces. Calvinim murdered in Geneva. God is not like your gods. God wants a relationship synergistically, not with Calvinist robots "stacking the deck." He has no use for you.
Psalms 11:5 The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.
sounds to me like he doesn't love everyone.
Try to understand how you are twisting things from the Calvinist perspective. God loves His perfect creation. He loves every soul He created. But He also hates sin. He hates how Adam and Eve sinned and violent people who followed. These two emotions are not contradictory seen in this light. But there is a problem in the way Calvinists view things because the god of Calvinism hates the person from birth and places them in Hell for all eternity even though they had no recourse or opportunity for salvation.
Your god hates himself, because your god allows them to be born into sin and does nothing to help them. You hate yourself too because you think you are Totally depraved. God of the Bible is quite different. He provides us all sufficient grace, for Jesus died on the cross for all and pleads with all. Your god doesn't have the love to do this. And God doesn't force people to be saved, if you could call that salvation. Christians know we were deplorably sinners but never in coming to Christ did we think we were Totally depraved, otherwise we couldn't have been able to obtain the gift of faith.
the church is the bride of christ. christ will not return to save a faithless church. if one is truly saved then he will never be without faith.
Try not to legalize the text. Think of one being faithless as backsliding. Christians backslide. And a believer can't ultimately be faithless, because God is faithful. He is able to keep us even when we are faltering. Whereas the god of Calvinism requires you perservere (not preseration of the saints) because it was never your choice, so all you can do is work for it in hopes you will be saved. That's a sad way to live.
It's better to be a Christian to be know you are once-saved-always-saved: preservation of the saints, not perseverance of the saints. The latter connote self-keeping rather than God-keeping. We perservere unto rewards, not in keeping salvation. How similar Calvinism is to the Roman system.
Augustine was a heretic? are you serious. Augustine was probably one of the greatest theologians in the first millennium of the church!
Augustine was never born-again. He was a theologian that spoke many truths, but at the end of the day he was never born-again, because like you and Calvin,
he refused to repent and believe in Christ to be regenerated. He worshiped an idol of Total depravity for the purposes of sinful supernatural communications with Satanic forces. People may laugh this is possible, but the angels have been around billions of years. That's why he believed in amillennialism instead of chiliasm (premillennialism) and why he believed in infant baptismal regeneration (also without the choice), just like Calvin did. You totally understestimate the wiles of the Devil. Christ is not reigning with a rod of iron today. The nations are still deceived (see Revelation 20.3). And anabaptists (credobaptists) were right. Calvin and Augustine were wrong. Just as wrong as are their teachings of thinking God sends people to Hell without recourse and forces salvation on others. It's all evil all the way down to the bone and center of your spirit which has not been regeneated with God's life. Still in your inner man resides the evil spirit not the Holy Spirit. It's easy to see even though you are oblivious.
you will not seek the Lord unless God, the provider of all things give you the ability.
God provides sufficient grace to everyone; He does not force salvation as you suppose for a selfish salvation, nor does He deny someone sufficient grace. Let it go. Let go of the control you have on yourself in a selfish salvation and allow the Lord to bring you to die on the cross with Him in co-death. Amen.
ffice
