Calvinism is an incorrect understanding of soteriology

[SGO]

Which were born,

not of blood,

nor of the will of the flesh,

nor of the will of man,

but of God.

John 1:13

[BrotherTony]

Yes, that is true, and nobody is disputing this ...man can't save himself by his own will ..but, he can submit to the Holy Spirits convicting his soul and come to Christ.  Repeating verses over and over don't change the FACT that a person must make a conscious decision to follow Christ. 

[Jerry]

You are a broken record, endlessly repeating yourself.

We cannot WILL ourselves to be born again. That is a work of the Holy Spirit enacted the moment we RECEIVE the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. In case you missed it, this is the verse right before the one you ripped out of context and attempt to give a false/twisted meaning:

John 1:12
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

Maybe one day God might sovereignly elect you to salvation, then you might actually understand all the passages you twist and give a heretical meaning.

[SGO]

I never wanted to come to Christ but He gently pursued me.

When I finally realized I was going to stand in front of God and give an account of the things I had done,

I WILLINGLY told Jesus that I needed Him.

However, that was His work to make me willing.

 

The bible says,

There is NONE that seeketh after God.

Romans 3:11

 

They are all gone aside, they are ALL TOGETHER BECOME FILTHY:

there is NONE that doeth good, no NOT ONE.

Psalm 14:3

 

What? One day you decided to call upon the Lord out of the thoughts of your own heart?

 

The heart is deceitful above all things,

and desperately wicked:

who can know it?

Jeremiah 17:9

 

No, we are all filthy.

He is the One that lead us to repent.

It is HIS WORK IN US that leads us to repentance.

 

For it is God

which WORKETH IN YOU

both TO WILL

and TO DO

of his good pleasure.

Philippians 2:13

 

Or despiseth thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering;

not knowing that the goodness of God

LEADETH THEE

to repentance?

Romans 2:4

 

It's a mystery to me why He chose me.

Perhaps I will be able to glorify Him some how.

Thanks and praise be to God!

 

Edited April 17 by SGO

[robmac68]

3 hours ago, SGO said:

It's a mystery to me why He chose me.

Perhaps I will be able to glorify Him some how.

2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

There, mystery solved.  Now go on about your business.  Oh, by the way, you can glorify Him now in how you live your life. 

3 hours ago, SGO said:

No, we are all filthy.

He is the One that lead us to repent.

It is HIS WORK IN US that leads us to repentance.

 

For it is God

which WORKETH IN YOU

both TO WILL

and TO DO

of his good pleasure.

Philippians 2:13

Who is this talking about?  A lost person being "chosen" to be saved and being led to repentance?  Verse 12 sounds like Paul is talking about saved individuals.  If we are saved, yes, we have God Himself dwelling in us.  

[robmac68]

3 hours ago, SGO said:

What? One day you decided to call upon the Lord out of the thoughts of your own heart?

 

The heart is deceitful above all things,

and desperately wicked:

who can know it?

Jeremiah 17:9

Is this all hearts or just the unsaved?  

Deut. 30:10  If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, and if thou turn unto the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul.

Sounds like a choice.  Is this heart deceitful?  

3 hours ago, SGO said:

I WILLINGLY told Jesus that I needed Him.

However, that was His work to make me willing.

Umm, I don't believe it was His work to "make" you willing.  That would kind of go against free will, wouldn't it?  It would have been Him that pricked your conscience and burdened your heart, but you could have still rejected Him.  

[robmac68]

4 hours ago, SGO said:

They are all gone aside, they are ALL TOGETHER BECOME FILTHY:

there is NONE that doeth good, no NOT ONE.

Psalm 14:3

Who is this NONE?  Is this all lost people?  Is this just the lost of David's day or all the lost of all times?  Who is David talking about?  Do lost people ever do good? 

Was Mother Teresa a saved individual?  I hope she was, but her faith was more in a religion, a work, a man (pope).  She questioned God's existence.  "Mother Teresa was afflicted with feelings of abandonment by God from the very start of her work among the homeless children and dying persons in Calcutta's slums. From all available evidence, this experience persisted until her death five decades later, except for a brief interlude in 1958." (google quote).  If she wasn't saved, was she doing "good"?  I believe even God would look to her work among the homeless children and dying as "good".

[BrotherTony]

6 hours ago, SGO said:

I never wanted to come to Christ but He gently pursued me.

When I finally realized I was going to stand in front of God and give an account of the things I had done,

I WILLINGLY told Jesus that I needed Him.

However, that was His work to make me willing.

God pursues ALL of mankind and then COMMANDS them to repent. He draws all men unto himself, just as the Bible says. But, man can resist that call to repentance. That's personal accountability. If he had to MAKE you willing, you weren't willing at all. 

6 hours ago, SGO said:

 

The bible says,

There is NONE that seeketh after God.

Romans 3:11

 

They are all gone aside, they are ALL TOGETHER BECOME FILTHY:

there is NONE that doeth good, no NOT ONE.

Psalm 14:3

I think you just answered yourself here... quotation of a Psalm by the Apostle Paul. So? Again, in no way whatsoever does this support your pet doctrine of Calvinism. 

6 hours ago, SGO said:

 

What? One day you decided to call upon the Lord out of the thoughts of your own heart?

 

The heart is deceitful above all things,

and desperately wicked:

who can know it?

Nobody has stated this anywhere. This is a typical Calvinist straw man being thrown up. Y'all need to be getting some new lines.

6 hours ago, SGO said:

Jeremiah 17:9

 

No, we are all filthy.

He is the One that lead us to repent.

It is HIS WORK IN US that leads us to repentance.

Exactly! LEADS US, not MAKES US!

6 hours ago, SGO said:

 

For it is God

which WORKETH IN YOU

both TO WILL

and TO DO

of his good pleasure.

Philippians 2:13

 

Or despiseth thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering;

not knowing that the goodness of God

LEADETH THEE

to repentance?

Romans 2:4

 

It's a mystery to me why He chose me.

Ooopppss! There is that "God chose me, but didn't choose you" mentality. 

6 hours ago, SGO said:

Perhaps I will be able to glorify Him some how.

Thanks and praise be to God!

 

We all would love to glorify God for all that He has done for us. 

[Napsterdad]

Once again, I’m a simple man and there are just some very simple hurdles I cannot get over to carry me into a Calvinist mindset.

Throughout the Bible following God and salvation are given as choices, not a foregone conclusion already settled by God; and I’m not even touching on all the “whosoever” verses that infer choice.

Genesis 3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

From the very beginning Adam and Eve were given a choice. They did not have to eat that fruit. Unfortunately man has been making poor choices ever since.

Deuteronomy 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:

Joshua 24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

Joshua 24:22 And Joshua said unto the people, Ye are witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen you the LORD, to serve him. And they said, We are witnesses.

YE have chosen??? Huh. Not God has chosen? That’s odd if it’s all predetermined.

1 Kings 18:21 And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.

Here is a choice between two opinions. Elijah asks them to choose.

Psalms 119:30 I have chosen the way of truth: thy judgments have I laid before me.

David chose the way of truth. Interesting.

Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. 6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

Trust in the Lord, or lean on our own understanding. If we trust in the Lord He will direct our paths. That is a choice we must make.

Matthew 7:13-14 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Why did Jesus mention a choice of two gates if it was already predetermined which gate each person would take?

Matthew 16:24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

IF???? How could Jesus possibly say IF if our salvation status is predetermined.

Why would God’s word make so many references to our choosing to follow Him if it is all predetermined? Is God deceiving us? I can’t, and won’t, believe that; so I must believe that we do indeed have a choice. We can choose the straight gate of salvation, or the wide gate of destruction. Sounds pretty simple to me.

My oldest son is 33 years old. For a good part of his life (since he was five until he went in the Navy at 17) he had gone to solid Bible believing churches and been fed sound doctrine there and at home. Early on he professed to be saved, but it was not true. It wasn’t long into his Navy life that he came home and told us what we already surmised: he was not saved.

Since that time, he went to college and graduated Summa Cum Laude with a degree in chemistry. Obviously, being in the sciences, he was inundated with all the evolutionary arguments and led away from any possibility of a creation account. That along with his philosophy courses and a period of time when he deliberately read nothing but books that spoke against there being a god (Dawkins, Nietzsche, and others), has made him someone who on the surface seems an Atheist. But is he, or is he just kicking against the pricks?

For one, he knows the Bible better than many Christians I know. He also knows the Quran quite well and has these two, along with other spiritual books, prominent on his reference shelf at home (right among his science books). He has a strong Christian ethic and behaviors. I often refer to him as the best unsaved Christian you could ever meet. Train up a child in the way he should go… His ex-wife went off the deep end and left him 1 ½ years ago and for a short period of time he went to his counselor's 7^th Day Adventist church hoping to find peace and comfort. He could not continue with that because he knows the Bible too well and couldn’t buy what they were selling. He has rejected offers to come to our church. My personal belief is because he knows he’ll be brought closer to God than he is ready for.

I say all this first in the hopes that many here will pray for my son, Jacob. That he will choose Christ and get saved.

Secondly, to show that God has been calling my son and he has been rejecting that call. Jacob is obviously searching to fill a spiritual hole within himself, but has been choosing to spiritually go the way of the world. I do not believe he is predestined for hell or for heaven. I believe God is calling him. The CHOICE is his. Please pray with me that he makes the right choice before it is too late.

[Jerry]

15 hours ago, robmac68 said:

Umm, I don't believe it was His work to "make" you willing.  That would kind of go against free will, wouldn't it?  It would have been Him that pricked your conscience and burdened your heart, but you could have still rejected Him.  

Yes, and we see that exact result in those listening to Stephen's message, to some people during the time of Jesus' ministry - the fact that some people can clearly reject the Lord also means some can receive Him. If we are too dead to respond positively (ie. of you still equate physical death with spiritual death), then we are too dead to reject Him too.

[Jerry]

15 hours ago, robmac68 said:

Was Mother Teresa a saved individual?  I hope she was, but her faith was more in a religion, a work, a man (pope).

Nope, she was a lost child of the Catholic Church, trusting in her works to get her to Heaven. She rejected much Scriptural truth, and made people happy/comfortable dying in their own false religions. AND no lost person can ever do "GOOD WORKS" in God's eyes. All her righteousnesses are as filthy rags (see Isaiah 64:6) compared to the pure, sinless blood of Jesus which was shed on the cross to redeem us from our sins.

[Pastor Matt]

Calvinists: God is a jealous God. In fact he is so jealous that he creates some people to be predestined to worship other gods. 

[BrotherTony]

23 hours ago, Pastor Matt said:

Calvinists: God is a jealous God. In fact he is so jealous that he creates some people to be predestined to worship other gods. 

I've NEVER been able to understand how people could fall for the tripe that is Calvinism.

[Jerry]

23 hours ago, Pastor Matt said:

Calvinists: God is a jealous God. In fact he is so jealous that he creates some people to be predestined to worship other gods. 

Wow, good thing I don’t believe in the Calvinistic god!