How did God overcome your will? in the Calvinist worldview, your entire life has been predestined before the beginning of time. Meaning your entire life was Gods will. if you would’ve never loved him, that would have also been Gods will.
@@philipbenjamin4720 how did I say anything arrogant? I simply explained the Calvinist worldview. Also, can you answer my question? How did God overcome his will? In the Calvinist worldview, every step you take has been predestined by God before you were born.
Folks, please let's be loving in our comments. The original comment was expressing thankfulness to God. That's never a bad thing even if it misunderstands God's work in us. We can disagree and debate but we're all God's children.
You whom God the Trinity predestion prior to the foundation of the earth to be adopted by and into Christ, knew you in His earthly timing and sovereign, life in which again he has given through His grace to all those he has caused to believe and prior to all his creation. Again in Christ Jesus... Our Lord and Savior.
@philipbenjamin4720 Firstly, we were chosen because we were msde in the inage of the Son. The idea that we are morally superior is never stated in the bible. Many times we are told to look to the wisdom of God's creations in certain respects because God created them for certain purposes and they fulfill them. It is our CALLING, not our nature, that is greater.
@@philipbenjamin4720Secondly, human free will is never truly free. We are either subjuagted to the will if the devil or the will of God. There is no in between. If there were an in-between, then we could argue this idea of free will, where we make our own choices independent of supernatural influence, but this has never existed. The redemption is the ability to submit our will to God. We dont inherently HAVE freedom. It is given to us. It is a form of idolatry to think that before God we have some kind of freedom when the Spirit expressly SAYS we have freedom through Christ.
I have conversed with my Father about this multiple times (in love of course). He is a Southern Baptist who is seeped in free-will thinking, and he always brings up points to counter maneuver against me. Each time we converse about why I now hold to reformed theology as a continuationist, and have for forsaken the Southern Baptist community along with cessationism, I always say “Do you think you determine your salvation ultimately? Or does God? Do you think you raised yourself from spiritual death? did lazarus raise himself after thinking whether to obey? Do you think that you decided to love Jesus first?” And his response is always an astounding, “No.” Yet, he uses his will to ignore truth and believe in a lie that he chose God first in his life. Pray for my father please! That he would experience Greater Glory… Greater Joy! 🚨🔥
😢 so sad that I find among these people the attitude of being so caught up with religious labels while ignoring what the Word really says. I also had similar conversations with fellow youth in SBC churches (having also grown up in one) who always go back to the labelling of Southern baptist and even the labelling of calvinist instead of focusing on what the Word actually says.
Luke 10:13-16( Woe to unrepentant cities) sharing from my Bible in Christ and it's routine from daily Bible listening or reading in Christ. Luke 10:13-16( Woe to unrepentant cities) "13 " Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you have been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 15 And you, Capernaum,will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades. 16 The one(😊❤) who hears(😊❤) you(😊❤) hears(😊❤) me(😊1st❤) , and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me(😊1st❤) rejects him(God our Father😊100%❤ in heaven) who sent(😊❤) me(😊1st❤) ." " ( Luke 10:13-16 ESV Study Bible) Romans 8:1😊❤-39😊❤ in Christ😊❤.
Here's what CSLewis said about it : If the happiness of a creature lies in self-surrender, no one can make that surrender but himself (though many can help him to make it) and he may refuse. I would pay any price to be able to say truthfully “All will be saved.” But my reason retorts, “Without their will, or with it?” If I say “Without their will” I at once perceive a contra- diction; how can the supreme voluntary act of self-surrender be involuntary? If I say “With their will,” my reason replies “How if they will not give in?”... The doors of Hell are locked on the inside. From The Problem of Pain
@@johnjamesthomson1 I earnestly encourage you to let the Bible, not a human philosopher and his novel describe to you the will of man and how God applies salvation with it. Biblically, salvation hinges on new birth which is spiritual in nature and can only be applied by the Holy Spirit, and just as physical birth is involuntary so is spiritual birth, with the faith that it produces being an inevitable yet willful result because new birth changes our will without our cooperation or permission being involved at all. It is 100% a miracle of grace. Be humbly grateful and give God all the credit for what he moved your will to do, and pray desperately for the helpless who cannot make their will incline to God but totally depend on him to lovingly do it for them. 2 Timothy 2:24-26 24) A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people. 25) Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people’s hearts, and they will learn the truth. 26) Then they will come to their senses and escape from the devil’s trap. For they have been held captive by him to do whatever he wants. 2 Corinthians 4:3-7 3) If the Good News we preach is hidden behind a veil, it is hidden only from people who are perishing. 4) Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God. 5) You see, we don’t go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6) For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. 7) We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.
I would disagree about where the root of our happiness stands. When Jesus memtions happiness it is accompanied not by our surrender, but by our obedience. They are very closely related, brothers even, but obedience requires only a will to do this or that, not a will free to choose. If you get what I'm saying. As a creation, my role is to fulfill my Creator's purpose for me, not to submit myself to my Creator. This same thing goes for a child and larent relationship, according to scripture. Are there additional experiences and deeply personal things that affect me differentmy from what my parent would have for me? Certainly. But with God, the purpose is beholden, not apart from taking our own will and experience into account, by even with it. We could learn everhthing there is to know on earth and that which is past, and, even still, we could be no more and no less than who we are. To wit, our calling is not to submit, but to obey from the heart, which only requires a will, not a free will. Additionally, our experiences and our understanding are separate enough for our understanding to, potentially, have no effect at all on how we view things and what we choose. So our free will is always subject to US.
@phieble I see you are coming from a place of love, and you are admirably applying the 2 Timothy verses you quoted. So thank you. Where in the Bible do you read that grace is irresistible or faith inevitable? That CSLewis quote is not from a novel, and he is described by John Piper as "my friend, my mentor". As for the Veil before our eyes, God is incommensurably greater than Satan and can lift it for all to have the chance to grasp the Cross.
@@johnjamesthomson1 I'm aware that John Piper thinks very highly of CS Lewis, but he has publicly disagreed with him on some points within Ask Pastor John episodes, and even if he didn't, we can do an easy research and find some things that CS believed that are not very fitting of him as a biblical scholar being someone you get your theological positions from. For instance, I've read somewgere that he believed that true Christians could lose their salvation and that he didn't take Genesis as a literal historical narrative. He's not what I intended to mainly address though. John 6 is where Jesus says that no one can come to him unless the Father gives and draws them and all whom the Father gives and draws to Jesus will come because it is the Father's will for him to not lose even one whom the Father has given him, and that giving of people to Jesus precedes and causes faith rather than being a result of faith because then the Father wouldn't need to give anyone since they would've decided on their own to come. Of course, God can remove the blinding power of Satan so that people will come to Jesus in faith when they hear the Gospel and that's the only thing that ensures that many will, but for many others, God does not and that is why they don't come, because otherwise you would have to argue that those who do have faith do not possess it as a gift but because they are inherently smarter, more pious, or for some reason care more about their soul even while in the same spiritually dead state as those who don't have such attributes. That would make room for boasting and self-reliance which grace is said to cancel out, therefore repentance and faith must be all God's doing within us, as 2 Timothy 2:24-26 and 2 Corinthians 4:3-7 among other passages assert This position is more biblical and practically hopeful than anything proposed by free will because my security is completely in God and my satisfaction is sure to be full for all eternity because I will never look to anything in myself, even repentance and faith, that I can commend thus taking some of my gratitude and praise, even if slightly, away from God for my being in Heaven. I'm not interested in my entry into Heaven being a group project, but rather in acknowledging the truth that I was totally spiritually dead and helpless from birth, yet God chose me before birth when aroused by nothing in me, and in his time he brought me to himself by changing my will by his overwhelming beauty and love that I could resist in the death and resurrection of his only begotten Son, and he promises to keep me and bring me to eternal bliss with him in Heaven when he could've chosen from the beginning to reject me and have me live out my life in vain since I'm just as wicked as those who will perish. There's not a more special and secure love than this, but it has to be exclusive and totally undeserved to be appreciated as such.
Luke 10:13-16( Woe to unrepentant cities) sharing from my Bible in Christ and it's routine from daily Bible listening or reading in Christ. Luke 10:13-16( Woe to unrepentant cities) "13 " Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you have been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 15 And you, Capernaum,will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades. 16 The one(😊❤) who hears(😊❤) you(😊❤) hears(😊❤) me(😊1st❤) , and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me(😊1st❤) rejects him(God our Father😊100%❤ in heaven) who sent(😊❤) me(😊1st❤) ." " ( Luke 10:13-16 ESV Study Bible) Romans 8:1😊❤-39😊❤ in Christ😊❤.
Exodus 29:10-14 "10 " Then you shall bring the bull before the tent of meeting. Aaron(😊❤) and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the bull. 11 Then you shall kill the bull before the LORD(😊❤) at the entrance of the tent of meeting, 12 and shall take part of the blood of the bull and put it on the horns of the altar with your finger, and the rest of the blood you shall pour out at the base of the altar. 13 And you shall take all the fat that covers the entrails, and the long lobe of the liver, and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them, and turn them on the altar. 14 But the flesh of the bull and its skin and it dung you shall burn with fire outside the camp; it is a sin offering."( Exodus 29:10-14 ESV Study Bible) and Romans 8:28😊❤ in Christ😊❤.
Luke 10:13-16( Woe to unrepentant cities) sharing from my Bible in Christ and it's routine from daily Bible listening or reading in Christ. Luke 10:13-16( Woe to unrepentant cities) "13 " Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you have been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 15 And you, Capernaum,will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades. 16 The one(😊❤) who hears(😊❤) you(😊❤) hears(😊❤) me(😊1st❤) , and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me(😊1st❤) rejects him(God our Father😊100%❤ in heaven) who sent(😊❤) me(😊1st❤) ." " ( Luke 10:13-16 ESV Study Bible)
Luke 10:13-16( Woe to unrepentant cities) sharing from my Bible in Christ and it's routine from daily Bible listening or reading in Christ. Luke 10:13-16( Woe to unrepentant cities) "13 " Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you have been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 15 And you, Capernaum,will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades. 16 The one(😊❤) who hears(😊❤) you(😊❤) hears(😊❤) me(😊1st❤) , and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me(😊1st❤) rejects him(God our Father😊100%❤ in heaven) who sent(😊❤) me(😊1st❤) ." " ( Luke 10:13-16 ESV Study Bible) Romans 8:1😊❤-39😊❤ in Christ😊❤.
"Free to do what we most desire, but not free to create desires for God" is the definition of "free will" that I've come closest to accenting to, but even that is faulty because the will is what desire is or what forms desires, so if you can't use your will freely to decide what to desire and what bot to then it cannot be free and if you could freely choose your own desires for everything but what you absolutely must desire or else you perish then that will is utterly useless, which the Bible says concerning the heart. Also, we are actually not even free to do what we most desire because God is actively restraining our sinful desires daily so that we do not do all that we would do, and under that our wills are captive to Satan to do what he wants us to do and we're blind to that dominating influence until we're saved, which like everything else is predetermined by God whether it will or won't happen. A spiritually dead person does not have an independent evil desire that is not first Satan's desire for them, and since they cannot overpower Satan's influence in their heart then all they can will is Satan's will as their master up to the point that God restrains it, which is why some hear the Gospel and repent and trust in Jesus but others who hear that same Gospel and may even be smarter or more pious CANNOT. Biblically our wills are caged in on all sides and the only sense in which it is free is that we are always consciously desiring even with ignorance of being influenced or concerned that we are and by whom. We have "care-free" will but not a will that is in any way purely free, and being care-free about our will as if we are self-made and the ultimate decider of our destiny is detrimental.
@@Mim39034 May God bless you and use these words to your benefit... ❤🙏 Firstly, you sound truly concerned about God's word and you desire to please him and it grieves you and scares you when you are unable to do it all the time and you fail. These signs are crucial along with embracing the essential truths of the Gospel given in John and his epistle 1 John. Another apostle, Paul, speaks of this grief over his sin in Romans 7 when he says "I don't understand myself. When I want to do good evil is always present. What I want to do I don't, and what I don't want to do, I do... yet I love God's law with all my heart but there's another law within me that is against my mind..." Basically, Paul is acknowledging that he is a new creature, but the old nature is still in him fighting against what he has become, and since he is sometimes overpowered that means his will is not free like he wants it to be so that he will only do righteousness and never sin again. All true Christians feel this and the more holy God makes you through his word, the more it will grieve you, yet you will be encouraged because God will also work in you to desire and do what pleases him. All your life's sins have already been punished in Christ and covered by his blood and all the good works God wants you to do have already been appointed, so just ask God for the wisdom and strength from the power of the Holy Spirit to lead you to fulfill them every day! In Philippians 2:12-13, Paul tells us to work hard not to be saved but to show the results that we are saved, which means that we fight against the craving of our flesh to show that we love God, yet it is God working in us to enable us to obey that command. These are the essential questions: Are you growing to see sin as God sees it and to hate it and fight it not perfectly but progressively, and do you feel love for God and others in your heart and truly desire to obey him not because you're trying to get something from him or prevent something bad from happening to you on earth, but because you want to be with him and enjoy him forever and you're trusting in Jesus alone to make that happen? When you don't feel love for God or his love for you, does that grieve you and drive you to read his word and beg him to strengthen your faith and draw you closer to him rather than giving up and turning back to idolatry? If you answer yes, then your words and actions in life will reflect it, and you will persevere through all the suffering God allows to make you strong and more compassionate toward others until he brings you home with all your saint siblings. You can also pray that God himself will empower you by the Holy Spirit as he makes his home in your heart so that you experience the width, length, height, and depth of his love, though it is too great for human understanding and words. - *Ephesians 3:14-21) I pray this over you and my other brothers and sisters very often because I believe God wants us to be assured that we are his children and he is Abba Father to us. So along with everything else, when doubts come ask him to outpour his love in your heart and call out to him "Abba Father," trusting him to affirm that reality to you as you strive in dependence on him to live according to his will.
@@Mim39034Dear child of God, sometimes a season of testing can run long. I know as I am currently going through one. Day in and day out, I am tested, rising up in the morning, laying down to go to sleep. Attacked by the devil, attacked by coworkers, attacked by family. But when i am weak, the LORD is strong. I praise God because i can comfort you with the same comfort i have been cpndorted with. The enemy reminds me of past failures and even recent ones daily, and, for a time, i listened to them and they caused my anxiety. But we know the end of these things. The Lord is very gracious. Just meditate on the answer of God to sin and you will find that your answer has never left your heart because he is faithful always.
It’s a contradiction. You can’t hold somebody accountable for their beliefs, while at the same time saying that God is the deciding factor for somebody’s beliefs.
Biblically, it is not a contradiction. God's predestination is not the basis of the judgment, nor is he the one being judged since he as God owns all, created all, and can do whatever he pleases with all. We are accountable for our sin and lack of faith because we consciously, willingly, and preferably sin and don't even use our working human faculties to plead for mercy and the faith that we need knowing that eternity is on the line. For instance, if you know the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden then you know that when Eve was being tempted God was not actively involved in the situation puppeteering either the serpent, Adam, or Eve. They all did what they wanted to do knowing the consequences, knowing who God was, and having experienced his goodness, yet they chose to sin and at no time did Eve or Adam consult with God during the temptation and they should have. It doesn't matter that the Fall was God's plan, however, because God has the right to author history, to have allowed the temptation and fall to happen, and he had redemption in mind from the start. We never have the right, nor God-honoring intentions in knowingly, willfully, and preferably disobeying God, and when we do sin we don't truly want forgiveness and salvation even while we know we should. It would be one thing if we were familiar with God's law and his sovereignty over the human condition and faith and with that knowledge we decided to beg God everyday for life to change our heart so we can believe since we can't do it ourselves, along with also reading the Bible and asking God to help it make sense to us, but then we die and God rejects all those requests and we go to Hell. God wouldn't be unjust to ignore our prayers of desperation for help, but one may at least pity our souls and have some questions concering the sincerity of God's compassion which he alone could answer. But many won't even use their knowledge, time, and faculties to beg God to give understanding and faith so they can be with him and not go to Hell, and they'd rather just complain in vain, and that's inexcusable. Having knowledge, working conscious faculties, and time concerning God and knowing that we don't want him then refusing to even ask for help to want him with eternity at stake makes our sin and unrepentance inexcusable. When a criminal at sentencing, if the judge is just it doesn't even matter why the criminal did what they did and didn't do what they didn't do, but all that must be addressed is the crime and the victims and unless the criminal can say they were not conscious, they did not desire what they did, and they truly had no other knowledge of they should do, then their defense makes no difference. Same with God. If one fears the concept of God's total sovereignty over their life, then it makes sense to beg him to let it be on their behalf not to complain that it's even a thing and let their whole life be in vain on their way to perishing forever. If one has a problem with all that then they could try to create their own universe once they've figured out how to overpower God, take themselves out of his narrative and acquire all of his attributes and superior wisdom with which they can create their own world, or they can answer plausibly why it matters anyway for God to reject them from being with him in Heaven when they don't want to obey him and be there after all. Not only is God just in sending sinners who don't repent to Hell, but he's giving them what they want and he us not obliged to change what they want nor do they want him to. I didn't love God until he made me love him, so now I can't stop loving him and I don't want to because of who he is, so it doesn't make sense for me to criticize his love that I don't deserve and couldn't choose before yet I depend on it, simply because he will not extend that love to everybody. The existence of Hell doesn't not make God's exclusivity of the undeserving inhabitants ofHeaven any less Heaven.
@@phieblein the Calvinist worldview, God predestined some to hell and some to Heaven before the beginning of time. How then, if God predestined certain people to hell, are those people held accountable for going to hell? That’s why it’s a contradiction, because the two things, logically, biblically, etc. cannot exist together. They are contradicting ideals. Also, how can we blame people for not having the faith, or going to hell, when they didn’t even decide that? God did. I don’t see how that worldview is glorifying to God either.
@@coletownsend3229 They knew they should have faith, they perceived they didn't have it, and knowing that God is just and they are a sinner and deserve hell they didn't even use their working faculties, time, and knowledge to plead for mercy, therefore God sending them to Hell for their real sin, which he must do, is actually what they want. God can't be unjust for not choosing to have mercy on some when no one deserves it and many don't want it. God is glorified in predestination because he gets all the credit for who ends up lovingly saved, and he is appreciated more and loved more by us with the utmost humility when we see how we were only saved because we were chosen and our wills were changed since we couldn't do it ourselves, meanwhile people whom God did not choose are really, eternally suffering for their sins when we should and could be too if God had rejected us. Salvation is marriage, and as the groom God has the right to choose who his bride will be and reject all others, and since no one deserves to be his bride and we are truly loved and satisfied as his bride, we have no valid criticism for God choosing to withhold his marital love, which is exclusive just like human marriage, from those who he willed not to have it. No one can point their finger at God and condemn him as unjust for withholding the faith he commanded when they didn't want it, didn't ask for it when they knew they needed it, and God did not owe it to them, yet their sins outside of faith were very real and willful and they would've had it no other way.
@@coletownsend3229Because if there was no judgment, there would be widespread depression. All of heaven and earth is a display for God to do things that please God. That is the way human beings act, and that is the way God acts. Difference is, God likes doing profitable and right things, and we, as humans, choose to use our free time to do God knows what. God is free to do as he pleases. It will only hurt you to try to hold God to a standard you have created by the words he himself told you. The thing that concerns us is, "What can be done with our actions and thoughts toward God and each other?"
In order to believe that you chose Jesus of your own free will upon hearing the gospel, you must believe that you are a better person in some way than one who did not believe, and that Jesus saves you because you were enough of a special person to believe when another didn't. Whether you think you were more humble, more righteous, or more spiritually sensitive, you have to answer the question of why you believe and another didn't, and if it was ultimately because of your choice and not God's choice, you must then believe the difference is within you, and you cannot get around that. And if you believe because you are in some way superior to other people, you would have something to boast about, but there will be no boasting before God.
This argument makes God a complete lunatic for constantly and repeatedly pleading with people to seek him to receive the gift of salvation. We make a he simply covers the difference. We look up, and he heals. You talk about "being special" and boasting... let's not lie and pretend many calvinists don't feel a weird subtle sense of superiority for being "the chosen ones" since it's entirely God's choice... yet he punishes unbelievers for not making a choice outside of their control.. but oh wait, this is where we dare not question the mysteries of God's plan. WAKE UP! God has no favourites, it's black and white in the Bible. You egregiously undermine the nature of his loving character by arguing a doctrine that implies God creates humans for destruction... (wasn't he the one not willing that any should perish?) I remember listening to these calvinist teachings being utterly broken by the thought of not being an elect... talk about Bad News! It's nothing like the joys of the REAL gospel of free, universal salvation. Faith is confident hope. And hope is NOT "a work" it's simply a heart posture. One that God commands us to take in order to receive his free gift. And he has given us a will to do so. Period.
@@laxi8305 I say with love and compassion as my intention that you seem to be mistaken about the offer of salvation to all vs the drawing of souls unto salvation that applies only to those God has chosen and given to Jesus before the creation of the world, and they are commanded not to be boastful about being chosen because nothing in them had anything to do with it, PLUS we are to share the Gospel with all and pray earnestly, knowing that people can only be saved if God extends to them the gifts of repentance and faith when they hear the Gospel because if he doesn't they will continue to be prevented by Satan according to 2 Timothy 2:24-26 and 2 Corinthians 4:3-7 The verse that "God is not willing that any should perish..." is often taken out of context because the matter at hand is ignored as well as Peter's specificity in his audience of Christians. The matter at hand in that chapter was the question of why Jesus had delayed his second coming and the final judgment so long if he is truly going to return, and Peter's answer is that God is being patient on their - Christians'- behalf because he is not willing that any of them will perish, meaning it is not God's will that any of his elect should perish. It makes no sense for Jesus to delay his coming in the hopes that nobody throughout the entire world will perish when he already knows that many will perish since they were not given to him by the Father, yet all who were given to him by the Father will come according to John 6. Therefore, Peter's overall point is that the only reason Jesus has not returned yet is because he still has to save all those who the Father gave him and none that the Father did not give him can come, so there's no need to delay his second coming on their behalf. Predestination is taught in John 6 and John 10 as well as several other places, yet it is not to be our main concern as much as spresding the gospel and praying that God will save whom he wills while being humble and grateful that he saves any since all of us deserve eternal wrath. Proverbs 16:4 - The LORD has made everything for his own purposes, even the wicked for a day of disaster. Romans 9:18-24 18) So you see, God chooses to show mercy to some, and he chooses to harden the hearts of others so they refuse to listen. 19) Well then, you might say, “Why does God blame people for not responding? Haven’t they simply done what he makes them do?” 20) No, don’t say that. Who are you, a mere human being, to argue with God? Should the thing that was created say to the one who created it, “Why have you made me like this?” 21) When a potter makes jars out of clay, doesn’t he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make one jar for decoration and another to throw garbage into? 22) In the same way, even though God has the right to show his anger and his power, he is very patient with those on whom his anger falls, who are destined for destruction. 23) He does this to make the riches of his glory shine even brighter on those to whom he shows mercy, who were prepared in advance for glory. 24) And we are among those whom he selected, both from the Jews and from the Gentiles.
This is my understanding of how this works… We (Adam and Eve) were created free. As free as you can get. They used their freedom to sin against God. We then became slaves and were at that point completely incapable, further having to be set free from that by Gods grace, through Christ alone. I always see Israel’s story in Egypt as a wonderful picture of what the Lord does for His people in this life in regards to our salvation and so on.
I think a problem I have with the garden of eden is that, how could they be so free and not choose the Almighty? It would seem as though their will was simply untainted, but not free. They did not desire only sin continually, but that only amounts to how much they knew about sin. They had not reached full destruction.
@@xavierthomas5835 I have read this over several times my friend, and forgive me for my simple mind 😂, but could you simplify this or reword it somehow for me? I want to understand and see your position.
@@bradleyjish Haha, my bad man, I mean to say that I believe that Adam and Eve were inherently already unable to choose God. Before they were enslaved to sin, they were enslaved to their self, which is basically the same thing.
Luke 10:13-16( Woe to unrepentant cities) sharing from my Bible in Christ and it's routine from daily Bible listening or reading in Christ. Luke 10:13-16( Woe to unrepentant cities) "13 " Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you have been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 15 And you, Capernaum,will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades. 16 The one(😊❤) who hears(😊❤) you(😊❤) hears(😊❤) me(😊1st❤) , and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me(😊1st❤) rejects him(God our Father😊100%❤ in heaven) who sent(😊❤) me(😊1st❤) ." " ( Luke 10:13-16 ESV Study Bible)
By God's grace, all my days I will follow and love and serve Adonai who is loving, good, just, slow to anger and who sacrificed Himself for us, who gives everyone the power to come to Him, provided we accept it. But hell is a sweater place than an eternity spent with a god who had the power to save all souls but didn't for his own sake. How is that loving? That is not the Saviour I know, and the very idea is a disgrace to Jesus Christ's name.
@@johnjamesthomson1 I would lovingly question your salvation if you know you deserve Hell and truly believe what it is biblically like, yet you would call it a sweeter place than being with God who owns all and has a right to all, who has chosen to love some Hell-deserving, willfully evil people over others when it would be understandable if he loved none and damned all. Hell is not sweet compared to ANY CONCEIVABLE alternative with God and if you think so, you may not truly love God. You don't get to define his live nor structure his justice, and why should you appreciate and enjoy his love less because you have it don't deserve it yet others who also don't deserve will not receive it? How can you who've never seen Heaven nor felt its weight or the weight of Hell say right now that Heaven might not be worth it if God sovereignty keeps people out of it who didn't even want to go nor deserved to go, and yet Heaven will be perfection and Hell will be justice? Please be careful that the one you worship is the God of the Bible and not one of your preference that you've heard about or made up. The God of Romans 9 and John 6 is the only true God and we have no right as creatures to critique or condemn him for doing as he pleases.
Thank you for the gentleness of your response. I believe Paul himself wished to be cut off from Christ (and thus hellbound) for the sake of the salvation of others (Romans 9.3), so it's not that bold a statement. But clearly I said "hell is sweeter than..." because I do not believe that God is like that. I would have to be mad to unironically call hell "sweet" and actually desire it. It was only a comparison to show how infinitely worse than hell a god who created some specifically to not give them the ability to come to him would be. That sounds more like Satan. You say God loves some (the elect) and not others, but John 3.16 says God loved the World. We are called to love our neighbours whoever they are, elect or none elect, which would be strange if He didn't love all including the non elect. 1 Timothy 2.4 says God wants all to be saved, meaning he wants all all to be covered by the Cross, which is the greatest of loves. The God I know and love is the God of the Bible, who predestined those he foreknew to be conformed to Christ (Romans 8.29). Be blessed.
True free will? I would argue no. First if you can control all of the atoms that make up all of the nerves in someone's brain, which God can, you can basically design that brain to react a certain way to anything. So that covers the nature part of nature versus nurture regarding behavior. More importantly though, if you also control the entire universe outside of that person and can subject them to any experiences you want, knowing ahead of time which experiences will lead to them reacting in what ways, which God can do because he controls everything and knows all possible futures, you get to pick which future in which they react whatever way. Without ever actually affecting their so-called free will, you can basically design amaze with only one route that their brain has to go through. It looks like a maze to them, but you control its design so you can make them go any direction you want. By controlling the experiences someone is subjected to throughout their life, you cause them to react to certain ways. If I design your brain to react with Behavior X if subjected to Experience Y, and I control the universe and ensure that you are subjected to Experience Y, the fact that it was your brain performing that last step of actually going through with Behavior X might make it seem like it was you choosing it, but I set the whole machine in motion and knew where it would end and could have picked a different future in which it ended in a different way, but I picked this one. I picked for you. If I can limit the options you have available to choose from, and I can push you towards one or the other by making things happen to you that would cause you to want one or the other, and I know which one will make you want which, I'm basically choosing for you which one you'll end up "wanting". It just might not seem like it to you.
THANK YOU, i've often thought this same thing. Even IF we limit this discussion to only the subjective experiences that formulate our reasoning from the outside, humans are grains of sand tossed by the wind of a storm. We go whichever way we are pushed. The illusion of freedom itself is the grace of God, for, here on earth, there remains a place to reach to God. Beyond this plane, there is no choice, only the Judgment.
What Calvinists are hiding, what they are not telling you, is that on Reformed Theology the sovereign Calvinist potter God mercilessly and unjustly discriminates against the nonchosen non-elect goat people by denying them, by refusing to give them a “new heart”, and a “new will” under the Calvinist doctrine of “sovereign grace” in the “miracle of regeneration”! On Reformed Theology, prior to Creation, the sovereign Calvinist potter God monergistically chooses, Decrees and predestines, only the few elect Calvinist lambs, those who are and those who *ARE NOT* going to Heaven or Hell by fatalistically deciding who he is, and who he *IS NOT* going to override their “Totally Depraved” and “Invincibly Ignorant” “desires, natures and will” by fatalistically forcing them to have a “new heart”, and a “new will” and then “passing over” those who he is going to deny a “new heart”, and a “new will” by *NOT* giving them “belief”, “faith” and “regeneration”! So, by definition, on Reformed Theology’s Calvinism, “free-will”, “Total Depravity”, “desires”, “natures”, and “will”, has no meaning whatsoever since it is only the altered and manipulated “free-will” of those the sovereign Calvinist potter God has “chosen”, “Decreed” and “predestined” to be “elect”, to be forcibly and fatalistically given a “new heart”, and a “new will” that will be saved; and the rest are going to be “passed over”!
Actually through the will of humans who repeatedly reject the truth for a lie, eventually forsaking the fountain of living water for a broken cistern these families acquire generational curses upon themselves from the courtroom of Heaven. Therefore, bringing upon themselves by their own ignorance a judgement and decree from God for not pursuing Him as their treasure. Therefore, they are predisposed to disbelief and doubt and lack of faith making them entirely unable to save themselves from their own work of disobedience and unbelief by receiving the curse of sin in their lives by committing transgressions and iniquities. Therefore, making the only path of salvation a total work of Yahweh Father, a Miracle of God, by the Holy Spirit breath of life, and the work on the cross of Christ Jesus. Making the entire process of salvation from regeneration, justification and glorification, only by the power of God, not by man!
Well, what? Is God obligated to save us? He could just let us all justly perish in hell and He would still be God and still perfectly righteous. It always is a fitting rebuke from Romans 9: WHO ARE YOU, O MAN...? We should be thankful that God has chosen to save some instead of throwing us all into Hell. That is such an entitled attitude without humility before Him at all, considering that He IS God and we are NOT. The attitude of God's beloved ones are not mockery and hatred towards His sovereignty but instead humility and a plea for mercy and faith and hope in the God who saves.
@@animaticToshiue --- YOU >>> “Well, what? Is God obligated to save us?” ME >>> No, but HE is obligated to keep HIS promises; and HE promised to Save those who exercise their GOD given gift of libertarian free-will to believe in and have faith on HIM and Him.
Nothing but an outrageous doctrine and people have twisted themselves into pretzels to champion it. Calvinism makes God a complete lunatic for constantly and repeatedly pleading with people to seek him to receive the gift of salvation, if indeed the choice has ultimately already been made. Here's the deal: We make a step towards God and he simply covers the difference. We look up, and he heals. let's not lie and pretend many calvinists don't feel a weird subtle sense of superiority for being "the chosen ones" since it's entirely God's choice... yet he punishes unbelievers for not making a choice outside of their control.. but oh wait, this is where we dare not question the mysteries of God's plan. WAKE UP! God has no favourites, it's black and white in the Bible. You egregiously undermine the nature of his loving character by arguing a doctrine that implies God creates humans for destruction... (wasn't he the one not willing that any should perish?) I remember listening to these calvinist teachings being utterly broken by the thought of not being an elect... talk about Bad News! It's nothing like the joys of the REAL gospel of free, universal salvation. Faith is confident hope. And hope is NOT "a work" it's simply a heart posture. One that God commands us to take in order to receive his free gift. And he has given us a will to do so. Period.
God knew before the world existed that there would be people going to hell and yet He created these people. So it is people going to hell by creation. You have to deal with this fact.
This sounds like a license to continue in sin because we are covered by grace just because we believe. A lesson on blasphemy needs to be shared. My blatantly flaming homosexual friend swears he is allowed to go to heaven in death, but still seeks to be a drag queen. I don't know how to approach him. His family believes since his mental health is so bad, God will have grace on his wretched soul. They believe that God created him this way, so he will not be held accountable. I just hate this!
I’m reading a book called, “The Secrets to Generational Curses: by Alexander Pagani.” In the book Pagani clarifies that there are such things as epigenetic modifications. In otherwords, due to certain behaviors (sins/transgressions/iniquities) that are repeated, generational curses are placed on families for forsaking the knowledge of the truth, and they are judged by the courtroom of Heaven. Therefore, some individuals may be born underneath a curse from Heavens courtroom meaning some individuals may be born inclined to a reprobate mind/homosexuality, and in order to be healed must need a “New Birth” that is only done by Yahweh Father’s Decree from Heaven through the power of Holy Spirit working in the life of the sinner committing abomination and desecration of their temple by repentance and receiving Jesus Christ as their treasure in all of life. You see your friend has likely either been born predisposed to this abomination by sins of their guardians AND/OR they are willfully in sin against Yahweh and have opened doors for demonic strongholds to be taken allowing a snowball effect of sin. Either way, they are not getting away with sin, and are being Judge by Heaven as we speak. You should indeed pray for grace, and confront this individual with the harsh reality they are under a curse of an abomination of iniquity which is the most severe form of sin.
Romans 6 is always a good admonition to those who would think wrongly that this is a license to sin. Those who have been made new in Christ has been given new desires for God and for righteousness, how can a regenerated person still desire sin for real? As Paul said, "How can we who died to sin still live in it?"
@animaticToshiue I agree! But folks are trying to convince me otherwise by saying the person in question is not mentally sane. I am 66 years old and remember when gay people were put away in mental institutions. Personally I believe if they are mentally clear enough to drive, hold a job, handle money wisely and generally live every other aspect of life somewhat "normally", then they are "well enough" to understand what they are doing.
I feel like I’ve been struggling with this exact problem, John said that we are free to choose evil, but we are not free to choose good. I’m not sure if we are even free to choose evil. We are subject to our own nature, and the circumstances and events that happen to us. If you understand what determinism is, you’ll have a hard time believing that free will is a thing. I’m pretty sure it isn’t, everything plays itself out based upon previous circumstances and factors. This feels like not only an issue for Christianity but humans in general, how do we justify morality or laws if humans aren’t responsible for their actions? Maybe you have to redefine how we apply responsibility to human beings?
@nathanp1011 I have been struggling with the free will concept for a while now. Pre-destination comes to mind. And if God already knows everything that will happen, are we simply living out a script? He knows everytjing..EVERYTHING. And King Solomon said himself that there is nothing new under the sun and that all is vanity. I'm not Theologian, and to be honest, I don't think I want to be!
If you are not elected, despair, because it will not do you any good to seek Him. Calvinism is beautiful for those who are being privileged by God's sovereign grace.
This is wicked. Piper has been spouting this too long, and he’s trusted as a teacher. He twists the truth and says the Bible doesn’t teach self-determination, when that’s all it teaches time and time again. What does God say to Cain? Go read it. Piper is the one bringing in “worldly philosophies,” namely compatibilism, a philosophy created by men who recognized determinism is incompatible with moral culpability of men. They “made” it compatible by changing the definition of free will. Instead of free choice, it’s doing what you are programmed to want to do… no different than hard determinism. This is foolishness, and it’s misleading so many young Christians who trust this man.
I’m thankful God overcame my will. If he hadn’t I never would have loved him.
How did God overcome your will? in the Calvinist worldview, your entire life has been predestined before the beginning of time. Meaning your entire life was Gods will. if you would’ve never loved him, that would have also been Gods will.
@@philipbenjamin4720 how did I say anything arrogant? I simply explained the Calvinist worldview. Also, can you answer my question? How did God overcome his will? In the Calvinist worldview, every step you take has been predestined by God before you were born.
Folks, please let's be loving in our comments. The original comment was expressing thankfulness to God. That's never a bad thing even if it misunderstands God's work in us. We can disagree and debate but we're all God's children.
You whom God the Trinity predestion prior to the foundation of the earth to be adopted by and into Christ, knew you in His earthly timing and sovereign, life in which again he has given through His grace to all those he has caused to believe and prior to all his creation. Again in Christ Jesus... Our Lord and Savior.
He simply loved us as the Trinity always loved themselves.
we thank the Lord for the miracle of His sovereign grace!
‘Free to do what we most desire but not free to create desires for God.’
@philipbenjamin4720 Firstly, we were chosen because we were msde in the inage of the Son. The idea that we are morally superior is never stated in the bible. Many times we are told to look to the wisdom of God's creations in certain respects because God created them for certain purposes and they fulfill them. It is our CALLING, not our nature, that is greater.
@@philipbenjamin4720Secondly, human free will is never truly free. We are either subjuagted to the will if the devil or the will of God. There is no in between. If there were an in-between, then we could argue this idea of free will, where we make our own choices independent of supernatural influence, but this has never existed. The redemption is the ability to submit our will to God. We dont inherently HAVE freedom. It is given to us. It is a form of idolatry to think that before God we have some kind of freedom when the Spirit expressly SAYS we have freedom through Christ.
I have conversed with my Father about this multiple times (in love of course).
He is a Southern Baptist who is seeped in free-will thinking, and he always brings up points to counter maneuver against me.
Each time we converse about why I now hold to reformed theology as a continuationist, and have for forsaken the Southern Baptist community along with cessationism, I always say “Do you think you determine your salvation ultimately? Or does God? Do you think you raised yourself from spiritual death? did lazarus raise himself after thinking whether to obey? Do you think that you decided to love Jesus first?”
And his response is always an astounding, “No.”
Yet, he uses his will to ignore truth and believe in a lie that he chose God first in his life.
Pray for my father please! That he would experience Greater Glory… Greater Joy! 🚨🔥
😢 so sad that I find among these people the attitude of being so caught up with religious labels while ignoring what the Word really says. I also had similar conversations with fellow youth in SBC churches (having also grown up in one) who always go back to the labelling of Southern baptist and even the labelling of calvinist instead of focusing on what the Word actually says.
I've surrendered my will so much that I feel like God's slave. It's a good gift from Him, I'm grateful ❤
Wow, thank you Ps John
Genesis 1:1😊❤---> John 14:6😊❤----> Revelation 22:21😊❤ in Christ 😊❤ too.
Luke 10:13-16( Woe to unrepentant cities) sharing from my Bible in Christ and it's routine from daily Bible listening or reading in Christ.
Luke 10:13-16( Woe to unrepentant cities)
"13 " Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you have been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you.
15 And you, Capernaum,will you be exalted to heaven?
You shall be brought down to Hades.
16 The one(😊❤)
who hears(😊❤)
you(😊❤)
hears(😊❤)
me(😊1st❤)
, and
the one who
rejects you
rejects me, and
the one who rejects me(😊1st❤) rejects him(God our Father😊100%❤ in heaven) who sent(😊❤) me(😊1st❤)
." " ( Luke 10:13-16 ESV Study Bible)
Romans 8:1😊❤-39😊❤ in Christ😊❤.
Here's what CSLewis said about it :
If the happiness of a creature lies in self-surrender, no one can make that surrender but himself (though many can help him to make it) and he may refuse. I would pay any price to be able to say truthfully “All will be saved.” But my reason retorts, “Without their will, or with it?” If I say “Without their will” I at once perceive a contra- diction; how can the supreme voluntary act of self-surrender be involuntary? If I say “With their will,” my reason replies “How if they will not give in?”...
The doors of Hell are locked on the inside.
From The Problem of Pain
@@johnjamesthomson1
I earnestly encourage you to let the Bible, not a human philosopher and his novel describe to you the will of man and how God applies salvation with it. Biblically, salvation hinges on new birth which is spiritual in nature and can only be applied by the Holy Spirit, and just as physical birth is involuntary so is spiritual birth, with the faith that it produces being an inevitable yet willful result because new birth changes our will without our cooperation or permission being involved at all. It is 100% a miracle of grace. Be humbly grateful and give God all the credit for what he moved your will to do, and pray desperately for the helpless who cannot make their will incline to God but totally depend on him to lovingly do it for them.
2 Timothy 2:24-26
24) A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people. 25) Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people’s hearts, and they will learn the truth. 26) Then they will come to their senses and escape from the devil’s trap. For they have been held captive by him to do whatever he wants.
2 Corinthians 4:3-7
3) If the Good News we preach is hidden behind a veil, it is hidden only from people who are perishing. 4) Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God. 5) You see, we don’t go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6) For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. 7) We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.
I would disagree about where the root of our happiness stands. When Jesus memtions happiness it is accompanied not by our surrender, but by our obedience. They are very closely related, brothers even, but obedience requires only a will to do this or that, not a will free to choose. If you get what I'm saying. As a creation, my role is to fulfill my Creator's purpose for me, not to submit myself to my Creator. This same thing goes for a child and larent relationship, according to scripture. Are there additional experiences and deeply personal things that affect me differentmy from what my parent would have for me? Certainly. But with God, the purpose is beholden, not apart from taking our own will and experience into account, by even with it. We could learn everhthing there is to know on earth and that which is past, and, even still, we could be no more and no less than who we are.
To wit, our calling is not to submit, but to obey from the heart, which only requires a will, not a free will. Additionally, our experiences and our understanding are separate enough for our understanding to, potentially, have no effect at all on how we view things and what we choose. So our free will is always subject to US.
@phieble I see you are coming from a place of love, and you are admirably applying the 2 Timothy verses you quoted. So thank you.
Where in the Bible do you read that grace is irresistible or faith inevitable?
That CSLewis quote is not from a novel, and he is described by John Piper as "my friend, my mentor".
As for the Veil before our eyes, God is incommensurably greater than Satan and can lift it for all to have the chance to grasp the Cross.
@@johnjamesthomson1
I'm aware that John Piper thinks very highly of CS Lewis, but he has publicly disagreed with him on some points within Ask Pastor John episodes, and even if he didn't, we can do an easy research and find some things that CS believed that are not very fitting of him as a biblical scholar being someone you get your theological positions from. For instance, I've read somewgere that he believed that true Christians could lose their salvation and that he didn't take Genesis as a literal historical narrative. He's not what I intended to mainly address though.
John 6 is where Jesus says that no one can come to him unless the Father gives and draws them and all whom the Father gives and draws to Jesus will come because it is the Father's will for him to not lose even one whom the Father has given him, and that giving of people to Jesus precedes and causes faith rather than being a result of faith because then the Father wouldn't need to give anyone since they would've decided on their own to come.
Of course, God can remove the blinding power of Satan so that people will come to Jesus in faith when they hear the Gospel and that's the only thing that ensures that many will, but for many others, God does not and that is why they don't come, because otherwise you would have to argue that those who do have faith do not possess it as a gift but because they are inherently smarter, more pious, or for some reason care more about their soul even while in the same spiritually dead state as those who don't have such attributes. That would make room for boasting and self-reliance which grace is said to cancel out, therefore repentance and faith must be all God's doing within us, as 2 Timothy 2:24-26 and 2 Corinthians 4:3-7 among other passages assert
This position is more biblical and practically hopeful than anything proposed by free will because my security is completely in God and my satisfaction is sure to be full for all eternity because I will never look to anything in myself, even repentance and faith, that I can commend thus taking some of my gratitude and praise, even if slightly, away from God for my being in Heaven. I'm not interested in my entry into Heaven being a group project, but rather in acknowledging the truth that I was totally spiritually dead and helpless from birth, yet God chose me before birth when aroused by nothing in me, and in his time he brought me to himself by changing my will by his overwhelming beauty and love that I could resist in the death and resurrection of his only begotten Son, and he promises to keep me and bring me to eternal bliss with him in Heaven when he could've chosen from the beginning to reject me and have me live out my life in vain since I'm just as wicked as those who will perish. There's not a more special and secure love than this, but it has to be exclusive and totally undeserved to be appreciated as such.
@@phiebleAmen
God bless you so much
Joshua onced declared to Israel, "choose for yourselves to this day whom you will serve..." But actually he was just joking, there's no freewill. 😂
Exercise ur free I’ll not to troll😂😂😂
@@lorenzolionheart1910 😂😂😂 I don't have the free will to stop either. I am predestined to troll! 😂😂😂
Death and destruction in Florida last night, God help
Praying
@@xavierthomas5835 thank you for praying God bless you
@@NormanChester882 it is only right that I do so.
@@xavierthomas5835 I have been praying also, it seems like the right thing to do
I put my faith in God(😊100%❤ ) of the Bible and trust in Jesus😊1st❤ by the power of the good Holy Spirit😊❤our helper😊❤ in Christ😊❤
Luke 10:13-16( Woe to unrepentant cities) sharing from my Bible in Christ and it's routine from daily Bible listening or reading in Christ.
Luke 10:13-16( Woe to unrepentant cities)
"13 " Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you have been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you.
15 And you, Capernaum,will you be exalted to heaven?
You shall be brought down to Hades.
16 The one(😊❤)
who hears(😊❤)
you(😊❤)
hears(😊❤)
me(😊1st❤)
, and
the one who
rejects you
rejects me, and
the one who rejects me(😊1st❤) rejects him(God our Father😊100%❤ in heaven) who sent(😊❤) me(😊1st❤)
." " ( Luke 10:13-16 ESV Study Bible)
Romans 8:1😊❤-39😊❤ in Christ😊❤.
John 14:6😊❤ and Romans 8:28😊❤.
Exodus 29:10-14
"10 " Then you shall bring the bull before the tent of meeting. Aaron(😊❤) and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the bull.
11 Then you shall kill the bull before the LORD(😊❤) at the entrance of the tent of meeting,
12 and shall take part of the blood of the bull and put it on the horns of the altar with your finger, and the rest of the blood you shall pour out at the base of the altar.
13 And you shall take all the fat that covers the entrails, and the long lobe of the liver, and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them, and turn them on the altar.
14 But the flesh of the bull and its skin and it dung you shall burn with fire outside the camp; it is a sin offering."( Exodus 29:10-14 ESV Study Bible) and Romans 8:28😊❤ in Christ😊❤.
Luke 10:13-16( Woe to unrepentant cities) sharing from my Bible in Christ and it's routine from daily Bible listening or reading in Christ.
Luke 10:13-16( Woe to unrepentant cities)
"13 " Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you have been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you.
15 And you, Capernaum,will you be exalted to heaven?
You shall be brought down to Hades.
16 The one(😊❤)
who hears(😊❤)
you(😊❤)
hears(😊❤)
me(😊1st❤)
, and
the one who
rejects you
rejects me, and
the one who rejects me(😊1st❤) rejects him(God our Father😊100%❤ in heaven) who sent(😊❤) me(😊1st❤)
." " ( Luke 10:13-16 ESV Study Bible)
Luke 10:13-16( Woe to unrepentant cities) sharing from my Bible in Christ and it's routine from daily Bible listening or reading in Christ.
Luke 10:13-16( Woe to unrepentant cities)
"13 " Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you have been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you.
15 And you, Capernaum,will you be exalted to heaven?
You shall be brought down to Hades.
16 The one(😊❤)
who hears(😊❤)
you(😊❤)
hears(😊❤)
me(😊1st❤)
, and
the one who
rejects you
rejects me, and
the one who rejects me(😊1st❤) rejects him(God our Father😊100%❤ in heaven) who sent(😊❤) me(😊1st❤)
." " ( Luke 10:13-16 ESV Study Bible)
Romans 8:1😊❤-39😊❤ in Christ😊❤.
"Free to do what we most desire, but not free to create desires for God" is the definition of "free will" that I've come closest to accenting to, but even that is faulty because the will is what desire is or what forms desires, so if you can't use your will freely to decide what to desire and what bot to then it cannot be free and if you could freely choose your own desires for everything but what you absolutely must desire or else you perish then that will is utterly useless, which the Bible says concerning the heart.
Also, we are actually not even free to do what we most desire because God is actively restraining our sinful desires daily so that we do not do all that we would do, and under that our wills are captive to Satan to do what he wants us to do and we're blind to that dominating influence until we're saved, which like everything else is predetermined by God whether it will or won't happen. A spiritually dead person does not have an independent evil desire that is not first Satan's desire for them, and since they cannot overpower Satan's influence in their heart then all they can will is Satan's will as their master up to the point that God restrains it, which is why some hear the Gospel and repent and trust in Jesus but others who hear that same Gospel and may even be smarter or more pious CANNOT.
Biblically our wills are caged in on all sides and the only sense in which it is free is that we are always consciously desiring even with ignorance of being influenced or concerned that we are and by whom. We have "care-free" will but not a will that is in any way purely free, and being care-free about our will as if we are self-made and the ultimate decider of our destiny is detrimental.
@@Mim39034 May God bless you and use these words to your benefit... ❤🙏
Firstly, you sound truly concerned about God's word and you desire to please him and it grieves you and scares you when you are unable to do it all the time and you fail. These signs are crucial along with embracing the essential truths of the Gospel given in John and his epistle 1 John. Another apostle, Paul, speaks of this grief over his sin in Romans 7 when he says "I don't understand myself. When I want to do good evil is always present. What I want to do I don't, and what I don't want to do, I do... yet I love God's law with all my heart but there's another law within me that is against my mind..." Basically, Paul is acknowledging that he is a new creature, but the old nature is still in him fighting against what he has become, and since he is sometimes overpowered that means his will is not free like he wants it to be so that he will only do righteousness and never sin again.
All true Christians feel this and the more holy God makes you through his word, the more it will grieve you, yet you will be encouraged because God will also work in you to desire and do what pleases him. All your life's sins have already been punished in Christ and covered by his blood and all the good works God wants you to do have already been appointed, so just ask God for the wisdom and strength from the power of the Holy Spirit to lead you to fulfill them every day!
In Philippians 2:12-13, Paul tells us to work hard not to be saved but to show the results that we are saved, which means that we fight against the craving of our flesh to show that we love God, yet it is God working in us to enable us to obey that command.
These are the essential questions: Are you growing to see sin as God sees it and to hate it and fight it not perfectly but progressively, and do you feel love for God and others in your heart and truly desire to obey him not because you're trying to get something from him or prevent something bad from happening to you on earth, but because you want to be with him and enjoy him forever and you're trusting in Jesus alone to make that happen? When you don't feel love for God or his love for you, does that grieve you and drive you to read his word and beg him to strengthen your faith and draw you closer to him rather than giving up and turning back to idolatry? If you answer yes, then your words and actions in life will reflect it, and you will persevere through all the suffering God allows to make you strong and more compassionate toward others until he brings you home with all your saint siblings.
You can also pray that God himself will empower you by the Holy Spirit as he makes his home in your heart so that you experience the width, length, height, and depth of his love, though it is too great for human understanding and words. - *Ephesians 3:14-21)
I pray this over you and my other brothers and sisters very often because I believe God wants us to be assured that we are his children and he is Abba Father to us. So along with everything else, when doubts come ask him to outpour his love in your heart and call out to him "Abba Father," trusting him to affirm that reality to you as you strive in dependence on him to live according to his will.
@@Mim39034Dear child of God, sometimes a season of testing can run long. I know as I am currently going through one. Day in and day out, I am tested, rising up in the morning, laying down to go to sleep. Attacked by the devil, attacked by coworkers, attacked by family. But when i am weak, the LORD is strong. I praise God because i can comfort you with the same comfort i have been cpndorted with. The enemy reminds me of past failures and even recent ones daily, and, for a time, i listened to them and they caused my anxiety. But we know the end of these things. The Lord is very gracious. Just meditate on the answer of God to sin and you will find that your answer has never left your heart because he is faithful always.
I would also highly recommend listening to APJ 238 “Where’s the Arminian John Piper?”
It’s a contradiction. You can’t hold somebody accountable for their beliefs, while at the same time saying that God is the deciding factor for somebody’s beliefs.
Biblically, it is not a contradiction.
God's predestination is not the basis of the judgment, nor is he the one being judged since he as God owns all, created all, and can do whatever he pleases with all.
We are accountable for our sin and lack of faith because we consciously, willingly, and preferably sin and don't even use our working human faculties to plead for mercy and the faith that we need knowing that eternity is on the line. For instance, if you know the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden then you know that when Eve was being tempted God was not actively involved in the situation puppeteering either the serpent, Adam, or Eve. They all did what they wanted to do knowing the consequences, knowing who God was, and having experienced his goodness, yet they chose to sin and at no time did Eve or Adam consult with God during the temptation and they should have. It doesn't matter that the Fall was God's plan, however, because God has the right to author history, to have allowed the temptation and fall to happen, and he had redemption in mind from the start. We never have the right, nor God-honoring intentions in knowingly, willfully, and preferably disobeying God, and when we do sin we don't truly want forgiveness and salvation even while we know we should.
It would be one thing if we were familiar with God's law and his sovereignty over the human condition and faith and with that knowledge we decided to beg God everyday for life to change our heart so we can believe since we can't do it ourselves, along with also reading the Bible and asking God to help it make sense to us, but then we die and God rejects all those requests and we go to Hell.
God wouldn't be unjust to ignore our prayers of desperation for help, but one may at least pity our souls and have some questions concering the sincerity of God's compassion which he alone could answer.
But many won't even use their knowledge, time, and faculties to beg God to give understanding and faith so they can be with him and not go to Hell, and they'd rather just complain in vain, and that's inexcusable. Having knowledge, working conscious faculties, and time concerning God and knowing that we don't want him then refusing to even ask for help to want him with eternity at stake makes our sin and unrepentance inexcusable. When a criminal at sentencing, if the judge is just it doesn't even matter why the criminal did what they did and didn't do what they didn't do, but all that must be addressed is the crime and the victims and unless the criminal can say they were not conscious, they did not desire what they did, and they truly had no other knowledge of they should do, then their defense makes no difference. Same with God.
If one fears the concept of God's total sovereignty over their life, then it makes sense to beg him to let it be on their behalf not to complain that it's even a thing and let their whole life be in vain on their way to perishing forever.
If one has a problem with all that then they could try to create their own universe once they've figured out how to overpower God, take themselves out of his narrative and acquire all of his attributes and superior wisdom with which they can create their own world, or they can answer plausibly why it matters anyway for God to reject them from being with him in Heaven when they don't want to obey him and be there after all. Not only is God just in sending sinners who don't repent to Hell, but he's giving them what they want and he us not obliged to change what they want nor do they want him to. I didn't love God until he made me love him, so now I can't stop loving him and I don't want to because of who he is, so it doesn't make sense for me to criticize his love that I don't deserve and couldn't choose before yet I depend on it, simply because he will not extend that love to everybody. The existence of Hell doesn't not make God's exclusivity of the undeserving inhabitants ofHeaven any less Heaven.
@@phieblein the Calvinist worldview, God predestined some to hell and some to Heaven before the beginning of time. How then, if God predestined certain people to hell, are those people held accountable for going to hell? That’s why it’s a contradiction, because the two things, logically, biblically, etc. cannot exist together. They are contradicting ideals. Also, how can we blame people for not having the faith, or going to hell, when they didn’t even decide that? God did. I don’t see how that worldview is glorifying to God either.
@@coletownsend3229
They knew they should have faith, they perceived they didn't have it, and knowing that God is just and they are a sinner and deserve hell they didn't even use their working faculties, time, and knowledge to plead for mercy, therefore God sending them to Hell for their real sin, which he must do, is actually what they want. God can't be unjust for not choosing to have mercy on some when no one deserves it and many don't want it.
God is glorified in predestination because he gets all the credit for who ends up lovingly saved, and he is appreciated more and loved more by us with the utmost humility when we see how we were only saved because we were chosen and our wills were changed since we couldn't do it ourselves, meanwhile people whom God did not choose are really, eternally suffering for their sins when we should and could be too if God had rejected us. Salvation is marriage, and as the groom God has the right to choose who his bride will be and reject all others, and since no one deserves to be his bride and we are truly loved and satisfied as his bride, we have no valid criticism for God choosing to withhold his marital love, which is exclusive just like human marriage, from those who he willed not to have it.
No one can point their finger at God and condemn him as unjust for withholding the faith he commanded when they didn't want it, didn't ask for it when they knew they needed it, and God did not owe it to them, yet their sins outside of faith were very real and willful and they would've had it no other way.
@@phieblevery well said
@@coletownsend3229Because if there was no judgment, there would be widespread depression. All of heaven and earth is a display for God to do things that please God. That is the way human beings act, and that is the way God acts. Difference is, God likes doing profitable and right things, and we, as humans, choose to use our free time to do God knows what. God is free to do as he pleases. It will only hurt you to try to hold God to a standard you have created by the words he himself told you. The thing that concerns us is, "What can be done with our actions and thoughts toward God and each other?"
In order to believe that you chose Jesus of your own free will upon hearing the gospel, you must believe that you are a better person in some way than one who did not believe, and that Jesus saves you because you were enough of a special person to believe when another didn't. Whether you think you were more humble, more righteous, or more spiritually sensitive, you have to answer the question of why you believe and another didn't, and if it was ultimately because of your choice and not God's choice, you must then believe the difference is within you, and you cannot get around that. And if you believe because you are in some way superior to other people, you would have something to boast about, but there will be no boasting before God.
This argument makes God a complete lunatic for constantly and repeatedly pleading with people to seek him to receive the gift of salvation. We make a he simply covers the difference. We look up, and he heals. You talk about "being special" and boasting... let's not lie and pretend many calvinists don't feel a weird subtle sense of superiority for being "the chosen ones" since it's entirely God's choice... yet he punishes unbelievers for not making a choice outside of their control.. but oh wait, this is where we dare not question the mysteries of God's plan. WAKE UP! God has no favourites, it's black and white in the Bible. You egregiously undermine the nature of his loving character by arguing a doctrine that implies God creates humans for destruction... (wasn't he the one not willing that any should perish?)
I remember listening to these calvinist teachings being utterly broken by the thought of not being an elect... talk about Bad News! It's nothing like the joys of the REAL gospel of free, universal salvation. Faith is confident hope. And hope is NOT "a work" it's simply a heart posture. One that God commands us to take in order to receive his free gift. And he has given us a will to do so. Period.
@@laxi8305
I say with love and compassion as my intention that you seem to be mistaken about the offer of salvation to all vs the drawing of souls unto salvation that applies only to those God has chosen and given to Jesus before the creation of the world, and they are commanded not to be boastful about being chosen because nothing in them had anything to do with it, PLUS we are to share the Gospel with all and pray earnestly, knowing that people can only be saved if God extends to them the gifts of repentance and faith when they hear the Gospel because if he doesn't they will continue to be prevented by Satan according to 2 Timothy 2:24-26 and 2 Corinthians 4:3-7
The verse that "God is not willing that any should perish..." is often taken out of context because the matter at hand is ignored as well as Peter's specificity in his audience of Christians. The matter at hand in that chapter was the question of why Jesus had delayed his second coming and the final judgment so long if he is truly going to return, and Peter's answer is that God is being patient on their - Christians'- behalf because he is not willing that any of them will perish, meaning it is not God's will that any of his elect should perish. It makes no sense for Jesus to delay his coming in the hopes that nobody throughout the entire world will perish when he already knows that many will perish since they were not given to him by the Father, yet all who were given to him by the Father will come according to John 6.
Therefore, Peter's overall point is that the only reason Jesus has not returned yet is because he still has to save all those who the Father gave him and none that the Father did not give him can come, so there's no need to delay his second coming on their behalf. Predestination is taught in John 6 and John 10 as well as several other places, yet it is not to be our main concern as much as spresding the gospel and praying that God will save whom he wills while being humble and grateful that he saves any since all of us deserve eternal wrath.
Proverbs 16:4 - The LORD has made everything for his own purposes, even the wicked for a day of disaster.
Romans 9:18-24
18) So you see, God chooses to show mercy to some, and he chooses to harden the hearts of others so they refuse to listen. 19) Well then, you might say, “Why does God blame people for not responding? Haven’t they simply done what he makes them do?” 20) No, don’t say that. Who are you, a mere human being, to argue with God? Should the thing that was created say to the one who created it, “Why have you made me like this?” 21) When a potter makes jars out of clay, doesn’t he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make one jar for decoration and another to throw garbage into? 22) In the same way, even though God has the right to show his anger and his power, he is very patient with those on whom his anger falls, who are destined for destruction. 23) He does this to make the riches of his glory shine even brighter on those to whom he shows mercy, who were prepared in advance for glory. 24) And we are among those whom he selected, both from the Jews and from the Gentiles.
This is my understanding of how this works…
We (Adam and Eve) were created free. As free as you can get.
They used their freedom to sin against God. We then became slaves and were at that point completely incapable, further having to be set free from that by Gods grace, through Christ alone.
I always see Israel’s story in Egypt as a wonderful picture of what the Lord does for His people in this life in regards to our salvation and so on.
I think a problem I have with the garden of eden is that, how could they be so free and not choose the Almighty? It would seem as though their will was simply untainted, but not free. They did not desire only sin continually, but that only amounts to how much they knew about sin. They had not reached full destruction.
@@xavierthomas5835 I have read this over several times my friend, and forgive me for my simple mind 😂, but could you simplify this or reword it somehow for me? I want to understand and see your position.
@@bradleyjish Haha, my bad man, I mean to say that I believe that Adam and Eve were inherently already unable to choose God. Before they were enslaved to sin, they were enslaved to their self, which is basically the same thing.
@@xavierthomas5835 I see what you’re saying now…thank you !
@@bradleyjish you're welcome.
Jesus is my King( Jesus😊1st❤) of kings and Lord( Jesus😊1st❤) of lords ( from Revelation 19:16b ) too in Christ😊❤
Luke 10:13-16( Woe to unrepentant cities) sharing from my Bible in Christ and it's routine from daily Bible listening or reading in Christ.
Luke 10:13-16( Woe to unrepentant cities)
"13 " Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you have been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you.
15 And you, Capernaum,will you be exalted to heaven?
You shall be brought down to Hades.
16 The one(😊❤)
who hears(😊❤)
you(😊❤)
hears(😊❤)
me(😊1st❤)
, and
the one who
rejects you
rejects me, and
the one who rejects me(😊1st❤) rejects him(God our Father😊100%❤ in heaven) who sent(😊❤) me(😊1st❤)
." " ( Luke 10:13-16 ESV Study Bible)
By God's grace, all my days I will follow and love and serve Adonai who is loving, good, just, slow to anger and who sacrificed Himself for us, who gives everyone the power to come to Him, provided we accept it. But hell is a sweater place than an eternity spent with a god who had the power to save all souls but didn't for his own sake. How is that loving? That is not the Saviour I know, and the very idea is a disgrace to Jesus Christ's name.
@@johnjamesthomson1
I would lovingly question your salvation if you know you deserve Hell and truly believe what it is biblically like, yet you would call it a sweeter place than being with God who owns all and has a right to all, who has chosen to love some Hell-deserving, willfully evil people over others when it would be understandable if he loved none and damned all. Hell is not sweet compared to ANY CONCEIVABLE alternative with God and if you think so, you may not truly love God. You don't get to define his live nor structure his justice, and why should you appreciate and enjoy his love less because you have it don't deserve it yet others who also don't deserve will not receive it?
How can you who've never seen Heaven nor felt its weight or the weight of Hell say right now that Heaven might not be worth it if God sovereignty keeps people out of it who didn't even want to go nor deserved to go, and yet Heaven will be perfection and Hell will be justice? Please be careful that the one you worship is the God of the Bible and not one of your preference that you've heard about or made up. The God of Romans 9 and John 6 is the only true God and we have no right as creatures to critique or condemn him for doing as he pleases.
Thank you for the gentleness of your response.
I believe Paul himself wished to be cut off from Christ (and thus hellbound) for the sake of the salvation of others (Romans 9.3), so it's not that bold a statement. But clearly I said "hell is sweeter than..." because I do not believe that God is like that. I would have to be mad to unironically call hell "sweet" and actually desire it. It was only a comparison to show how infinitely worse than hell a god who created some specifically to not give them the ability to come to him would be. That sounds more like Satan.
You say God loves some (the elect) and not others, but John 3.16 says God loved the World. We are called to love our neighbours whoever they are, elect or none elect, which would be strange if He didn't love all including the non elect. 1 Timothy 2.4 says God wants all to be saved, meaning he wants all all to be covered by the Cross, which is the greatest of loves.
The God I know and love is the God of the Bible, who predestined those he foreknew to be conformed to Christ (Romans 8.29).
Be blessed.
😁 My prayers today must have triggered satan because his offspring showed up just before
✝️🙏🏽❤️ #JESUSCHRISTREIGNS
True free will? I would argue no. First if you can control all of the atoms that make up all of the nerves in someone's brain, which God can, you can basically design that brain to react a certain way to anything. So that covers the nature part of nature versus nurture regarding behavior. More importantly though, if you also control the entire universe outside of that person and can subject them to any experiences you want, knowing ahead of time which experiences will lead to them reacting in what ways, which God can do because he controls everything and knows all possible futures, you get to pick which future in which they react whatever way. Without ever actually affecting their so-called free will, you can basically design amaze with only one route that their brain has to go through. It looks like a maze to them, but you control its design so you can make them go any direction you want. By controlling the experiences someone is subjected to throughout their life, you cause them to react to certain ways. If I design your brain to react with Behavior X if subjected to Experience Y, and I control the universe and ensure that you are subjected to Experience Y, the fact that it was your brain performing that last step of actually going through with Behavior X might make it seem like it was you choosing it, but I set the whole machine in motion and knew where it would end and could have picked a different future in which it ended in a different way, but I picked this one. I picked for you. If I can limit the options you have available to choose from, and I can push you towards one or the other by making things happen to you that would cause you to want one or the other, and I know which one will make you want which, I'm basically choosing for you which one you'll end up "wanting". It just might not seem like it to you.
THANK YOU, i've often thought this same thing. Even IF we limit this discussion to only the subjective experiences that formulate our reasoning from the outside, humans are grains of sand tossed by the wind of a storm. We go whichever way we are pushed. The illusion of freedom itself is the grace of God, for, here on earth, there remains a place to reach to God. Beyond this plane, there is no choice, only the Judgment.
Free will does exist, but it is limited and fallible.
What Calvinists are hiding, what they are not telling you, is that on Reformed Theology the sovereign Calvinist potter God mercilessly and unjustly discriminates against the nonchosen non-elect goat people by denying them, by refusing to give them a “new heart”, and a “new will” under the Calvinist doctrine of “sovereign grace” in the “miracle of regeneration”!
On Reformed Theology, prior to Creation, the sovereign Calvinist potter God monergistically chooses, Decrees and predestines, only the few elect Calvinist lambs, those who are and those who *ARE NOT* going to Heaven or Hell by fatalistically deciding who he is, and who he *IS NOT* going to override their “Totally Depraved” and “Invincibly Ignorant” “desires, natures and will” by fatalistically forcing them to have a “new heart”, and a “new will” and then “passing over” those who he is going to deny a “new heart”, and a “new will” by *NOT* giving them “belief”, “faith” and “regeneration”!
So, by definition, on Reformed Theology’s Calvinism, “free-will”, “Total Depravity”, “desires”, “natures”, and “will”, has no meaning whatsoever since it is only the altered and manipulated “free-will” of those the sovereign Calvinist potter God has “chosen”, “Decreed” and “predestined” to be “elect”, to be forcibly and fatalistically given a “new heart”, and a “new will” that will be saved; and the rest are going to be “passed over”!
Actually through the will of humans who repeatedly reject the truth for a lie, eventually forsaking the fountain of living water for a broken cistern these families acquire generational curses upon themselves from the courtroom of Heaven. Therefore, bringing upon themselves by their own ignorance a judgement and decree from God for not pursuing Him as their treasure. Therefore, they are predisposed to disbelief and doubt and lack of faith making them entirely unable to save themselves from their own work of disobedience and unbelief by receiving the curse of sin in their lives by committing transgressions and iniquities.
Therefore, making the only path of salvation a total work of Yahweh Father, a Miracle of God, by the Holy Spirit breath of life, and the work on the cross of Christ Jesus.
Making the entire process of salvation from regeneration, justification and glorification, only by the power of God, not by man!
Well, what? Is God obligated to save us?
He could just let us all justly perish in hell and He would still be God and still perfectly righteous.
It always is a fitting rebuke from Romans 9: WHO ARE YOU, O MAN...?
We should be thankful that God has chosen to save some instead of throwing us all into Hell. That is such an entitled attitude without humility before Him at all, considering that He IS God and we are NOT.
The attitude of God's beloved ones are not mockery and hatred towards His sovereignty but instead humility and a plea for mercy and faith and hope in the God who saves.
How is God unjust by doing what He wills with His own creation?
@@EYTSIRHC1 --- A distinction without a difference.
@@animaticToshiue --- YOU >>> “Well, what? Is God obligated to save us?”
ME >>> No, but HE is obligated to keep HIS promises; and HE promised to Save those who exercise their GOD given gift of libertarian free-will to believe in and have faith on HIM and Him.
Nothing but an outrageous doctrine and people have twisted themselves into pretzels to champion it. Calvinism makes God a complete lunatic for constantly and repeatedly pleading with people to seek him to receive the gift of salvation, if indeed the choice has ultimately already been made. Here's the deal: We make a step towards God and he simply covers the difference. We look up, and he heals. let's not lie and pretend many calvinists don't feel a weird subtle sense of superiority for being "the chosen ones" since it's entirely God's choice... yet he punishes unbelievers for not making a choice outside of their control.. but oh wait, this is where we dare not question the mysteries of God's plan. WAKE UP! God has no favourites, it's black and white in the Bible. You egregiously undermine the nature of his loving character by arguing a doctrine that implies God creates humans for destruction... (wasn't he the one not willing that any should perish?)
I remember listening to these calvinist teachings being utterly broken by the thought of not being an elect... talk about Bad News! It's nothing like the joys of the REAL gospel of free, universal salvation. Faith is confident hope. And hope is NOT "a work" it's simply a heart posture. One that God commands us to take in order to receive his free gift. And he has given us a will to do so. Period.
God knew before the world existed that there would be people going to hell and yet He created these people. So it is people going to hell by creation. You have to deal with this fact.
This sounds like a license to continue in sin because we are covered by grace just because we believe. A lesson on blasphemy needs to be shared. My blatantly flaming homosexual friend swears he is allowed to go to heaven in death, but still seeks to be a drag queen. I don't know how to approach him. His family believes since his mental health is so bad, God will have grace on his wretched soul. They believe that God created him this way, so he will not be held accountable. I just hate this!
I’m reading a book called, “The Secrets to Generational Curses: by Alexander Pagani.”
In the book Pagani clarifies that there are such things as epigenetic modifications. In otherwords, due to certain behaviors (sins/transgressions/iniquities) that are repeated, generational curses are placed on families for forsaking the knowledge of the truth, and they are judged by the courtroom of Heaven. Therefore, some individuals may be born underneath a curse from Heavens courtroom meaning some individuals may be born inclined to a reprobate mind/homosexuality, and in order to be healed must need a “New Birth” that is only done by Yahweh Father’s Decree from Heaven through the power of Holy Spirit working in the life of the sinner committing abomination and desecration of their temple by repentance and receiving Jesus Christ as their treasure in all of life.
You see your friend has likely either been born predisposed to this abomination by sins of their guardians AND/OR they are willfully in sin against Yahweh and have opened doors for demonic strongholds to be taken allowing a snowball effect of sin.
Either way, they are not getting away with sin, and are being Judge by Heaven as we speak.
You should indeed pray for grace, and confront this individual with the harsh reality they are under a curse of an abomination of iniquity which is the most severe form of sin.
Romans 6 is always a good admonition to those who would think wrongly that this is a license to sin. Those who have been made new in Christ has been given new desires for God and for righteousness, how can a regenerated person still desire sin for real?
As Paul said, "How can we who died to sin still live in it?"
@animaticToshiue I agree! But folks are trying to convince me otherwise by saying the person in question is not mentally sane. I am 66 years old and remember when gay people were put away in mental institutions. Personally I believe if they are mentally clear enough to drive, hold a job, handle money wisely and generally live every other aspect of life somewhat "normally", then they are "well enough" to understand what they are doing.
I feel like I’ve been struggling with this exact problem, John said that we are free to choose evil, but we are not free to choose good. I’m not sure if we are even free to choose evil. We are subject to our own nature, and the circumstances and events that happen to us. If you understand what determinism is, you’ll have a hard time believing that free will is a thing. I’m pretty sure it isn’t, everything plays itself out based upon previous circumstances and factors. This feels like not only an issue for Christianity but humans in general, how do we justify morality or laws if humans aren’t responsible for their actions? Maybe you have to redefine how we apply responsibility to human beings?
@nathanp1011 I have been struggling with the free will concept for a while now. Pre-destination comes to mind. And if God already knows everything that will happen, are we simply living out a script? He knows everytjing..EVERYTHING. And King Solomon said himself that there is nothing new under the sun and that all is vanity. I'm not Theologian, and to be honest, I don't think I want to be!
free will is an illusion
I believe in free will and it being Biblical, part of why I can't believe in Calvinism.
Jesus lives! ♥️ and is Yahweh God 🙏🏻 Christ ✝️ and King 👑
If you are not elected, despair, because it will not do you any good to seek Him. Calvinism is beautiful for those who are being privileged by God's sovereign grace.
This is a blinded statement
This is wicked. Piper has been spouting this too long, and he’s trusted as a teacher.
He twists the truth and says the Bible doesn’t teach self-determination, when that’s all it teaches time and time again. What does God say to Cain? Go read it.
Piper is the one bringing in “worldly philosophies,” namely compatibilism, a philosophy created by men who recognized determinism is incompatible with moral culpability of men. They “made” it compatible by changing the definition of free will. Instead of free choice, it’s doing what you are programmed to want to do… no different than hard determinism.
This is foolishness, and it’s misleading so many young Christians who trust this man.
Calvinism is a filthy stench.
I don't accept it either, but it would be better to explain your reasoning with gentleness instead of calling names
Well I guess no one else is as righteous as you since you came to God on your own terms.