If we all have a choice, what made you make the right choice? Do you agree that, when we started, we were all in the same condition, and we all had the same tools, the same chance for salvation? So if all else is equal, what made you accept and your neighbor reject? How did you get to that point?
How can you not say it is something in you - that you are better? You may be modest, but your modesty doesn't change the facts. You did what you were supposed to, the person who goes to hell didn't. What makes you better?
adrbabes9697: Read what you have written: I saw, he didn't. I saw, she didn't. I accepted, he didn't. And yet you still say it makes you no better. Can you not see the absurdity of this? Are you going to say doing God's will does not make you better? If it is something in you that made you make the right choice, then you must be better. There is no other option no matter how you argue it.
And no, being chosen does not make you better. It's just the opposite. The glory of it goes totally to God. I did nothing. It's a work of God. Let me ask you this: Are you better than Adolph Hitler?
1Co 4:7 For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?
Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
heaveniscallingrsvp: "i wisely did" - More of the same. So it was your wisdom that saved you? "that's just it !! i don't personally believe i'm worth/any better than my neighbor :):)" Again, I'm not talking about what you personally believe. I'm talking about Godly facts, black and white. Did you have to do something in order to be saved? Did God make you do that thing? If not, then it must have been you. You did something to be saved, the unbeliever did not. There is a difference between you and him. What is it?
Because I CAN tell you the difference between me and him: God. Nothing but God. Nothing in myself, nothing from any man or any flesh. All God. Can you say that? Can you give all the glory of salvation to God? Or will you continue to say a man must save himself by "accepting" it? Because I'm sure you tell your neighbor he must accept Jesus to be saved. Am I wrong?
PhillipJohn: And I find that those who oppose election are the greatest examples of it.
Rom 11:5 Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
Rom 11:6 And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.
Rom 11:7 What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded
Rom 11:8 (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day.
You are right, no believer would say he was better than anyone else. But every time you say you did something that someone else didn't do, you are saying exactly that. You can't get away from that point.
Php 3:3 For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.
That's not multiple choice. Is God the spark of your salvation or was the spark of yourself?
1Jn 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
It has to be one or the other. Do you point to a moment when you walked down the aisle at church? When you said the words, "I accept?" God told Jeremiah:
Jer 1:5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
The truth is evident:
Eph 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
Eph 1:4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
Eph 1:5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
Eph 1:6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
It's distressing to see such resistance to God's sovereign grace and the election. It's such a beautiful thing. God would have been perfectly just and remained perfectly innocent if he would have sent us all to hell and saved none. That is what is required under His law. I deserve to burn in the fire forever. I deserve it. I earned it. God is blameless.
Arminians (since you seem to like to call us Calvanists) will often say that election is unfair. Very true. The fair thing would have been for us all to burn forever. The Law would have been fulfilled and there would have been peace in Heaven.
But God loved his creation which he created in His own image, and would not let the race of man die. Even if only a hundred people end up being saved, God will have shown mercy to the upmost.
We all know the majority of people will go to hell. There's no escaping that. But if you love God and you trust God and you know that God is infinitely more wise and knowing than we are, then why won't you trust God deciding who is saved and who isn't? Would he choose maliciously or unfairly? Would you rather leave such an important thing up to randomness? Or even worse, in the hands of sinful human beings?
I praise God daily that he did not leave my salvation up to me and I give him all the glory as it is written in the bible.
Psa 115:1 Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake.
"We all know the majority of people will go to hell. There's no escaping that. But if you love God and you trust God and you know that God is infinitely more wise and knowing than we are, then why won't you trust God deciding who is saved and who isn't? Would he choose maliciously or unfairly? Would you rather leave such an important thing up to randomness? Or even worse, in the hands of sinful human beings?
I praise God daily that he did not leave my salvation up to me and I give him all the glory as it is written in the bible.
Psa 115:1 Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake."
Ryan in case you was wondering the doctrines of Grace are not of faith, imagine you that I would swallow that.
It is such as this reformation theology is void of faith, man's opinion's do not produce bible faith.
Ryan we are still waiting for you and James to expound on the law of faith.
Oh yea the law of sowing and reaping also!1
While you are at it tell the lord how Mary give birth to him, as she could do nothing in her spiritual state.
Oh I forgot to say the lord gave me that today, I mean the example of Mary becoming pregnant while in spiritual death.
For those that are hungry here is a truth from the word of God, any teaching from the word of God should be able to be proved out as examples in the word.
I am still waiting for the examples of those that where unable to respond to God because of spiritual death.
I know of plenty that did respond to the lord in spiritual death though. Examples that is.
