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Call it what you like. We have choice and we can choose. We can choose to hear and receive the gospel and we can choose to not hear it. You can even choose to not believe what I am saying in this post.
T8….your wrong you will chose exactly what (INFLUENCE YOU THE MOST) There is no such thing as (FREE MORAL AGENCY) NOR (FREE WILL). Everyone has choices, but those choices are whats already in you, and where does it say you can Chose to hear or receive the gospel if you want to on your own, those who chose to hear the Gospel are Drawn to it BY GOD HIMSELF< it has nothing to do with your so-called free will, if it were your "free Will" choice them congratulations you saved yourself and you didn't need God at all. I quoted to you where it Show GOD creates in us the works, are you disagreeing with scripture them.
Quote (Gene Balthrop @ July 17 2008,07:29) Everyone has choices, but those choices are whats already in you, and where does it say you can Chose to hear or receive the gospel if you want to on your own
Matt 11:13-15
13 For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. 14 And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. 15 He who has ears , let him hear.
NIVNotice: “if you are willing to accept it”
Luke 14:34-15:1
34 “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35 It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.
“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
NIV
Acts 7:56-58
56 “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”57 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58 dragged him out of the city and began to stone him.
NIVThey covered their ears b/c they did not want to hear the truth. That was a choice.
2 Tim 4:3-4
3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
NIV“itching ears want to hear” People listen to what they want to listen to.
“They will turn their ears away from the truth”
again, this is a choice. Does God will this choice in them???
Quote (Shania @ July 16 2008,14:30) Quote (Gene Balthrop @ July 17 2008,06:06) Shania….What beliefs are you talking about? Free will, or something else? love and peace to you and yours……..gene
I just started reading the link of free will.I see what you mean about how man is always influenced. I agree on that.
There are only two choices: life and death. These are based on the only two forces: light and darkness. Good and evil. YHWH and the devil.
This is where we differ:
man has the choice to side with either of those two forces. They both pull and they both influence, but man has the choice. That is why it says, “choose life”
Deut 30:19-20
19 This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life , so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life
NIV2 Kings 18:32
Choose life and not death!
NIVI know that these are from the OT, and you may not apply the OT to your life in the way that I do, but:
2 Tim 3:15-16
16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
NIV[This is a NT scripture written about the OT scriptures {b/c that is all they had at the time}]
Eph 5:8-18
8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9(for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord. 11 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. 13 But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, 14 for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said:
“Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”15 Be very careful, then, how you live — not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is.
NIVIf God was going to will in us to make choices for Him, then we would not be told these things:
“Live as children of light”
“Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them”
“Be very careful, then, how you live”
“Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is.”
Why would we be responsible for understanding YHWH's will if He was going to work it in us anyway? If we could not make any choices on our own, why are we told to be careful how we lived? Wouldn't the choices be inevitable?
ShaniaGood post! Good points!
For these reasons 5 point Calvinism is not a balanced scriptural teaching IMO.
If God does it all and we have no responsibility to yield our wills in submission to him, then where are those who are walking as he walked. It seems men here have been supposedly under his grace for years yet still walk as carnal men.
Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Phil 2:12
Surely there is nothing we can add to the sacrifice Yeshua gave on the cross.
Yet we must work with God through the Spirit in working out our salvation and identify with the cross by taking up our cross and denying ourselves and following him.
This is a willing choice that we make freely. God does not make it nor does he do it for us.
The scriptures are full of passages like the ones you have quoted that require our cooporation together with God.
Choose you this day whom you will serve whether it be the flesh which leads to death or the Spirit which leads to life.
WJ
Quote (t8 @ July 16 2008,15:17) Call it what you like. We have choice and we can choose. We can choose to hear and receive the gospel and we can choose to not hear it. You can even choose to not believe what I am saying in this post.
Amen t8Quote (Gene Balthrop @ July 16 2008,15:00) T8….a man will only do whats in him
If that is correct and men have a will to choose, then the will is in them.Jesus said “Not my will but yours”. He was perfect, we are not complete yet. But we can successfully say the same thing and do it to.
Men have the flesh to contend with, but there are limiting factors that stop us from letting the flesh completely take over. There is the law, there is the Spirit, there is the conscience.
If a man gets extremely angry, angry enough to kill, most of the time he won't kill. So why didn't the flesh get all its way? Maybe fear of punishment? Maybe the conscience stopped him.
Even a man without God has forces of God to contend with.
We are not complete slaves to the flesh in that we do compromise our desires for different reasons.
A man hears the gospel and is cut to the heart. Even if conscience is playing its part, then a man can change.
So to conclude, a man will only do what is in him and his will is in him. So he will make choices everyday. Even choices that he wishes he didn't have to make.
Think about it. Lets say I want to steal something. My will is to take something that is not mine, but now I am wrestling with not only my conscience, but the law and then I weigh it all up and choose.
Jesus didn't want to hang on a cross, that was his will, but his will also knew of the glory that waited couldn't be compared to the suffering he would endure as the suffering was only for a time.
All men have a conscience, and some have the written law, while others still have the Spirit of God.
The will is pushed and pulled by many things, but it is us (ourselves) that decide which force is going to prevail.
Like boats on the water with multiple wind directions, in the end we decide which wind to catch. Paul teaches about the flesh and the Spirit. He says that you can be lead by the Spirit and in doing so, you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh. Even though the flesh is still there pulling away at our wills and trying to get us to do what it wants.
WJ-
“Surely there is nothing we can add to the sacrifice Yeshua gave on the cross.
Yet we must work with God through the Spirit in working out our salvation and identify with the cross by taking up our cross and denying ourselves and following him.”
Thanks, bro.
By the way, what is IMO?
Quote (Shania @ July 16 2008,17:28) WJ- “Surely there is nothing we can add to the sacrifice Yeshua gave on the cross.
Yet we must work with God through the Spirit in working out our salvation and identify with the cross by taking up our cross and denying ourselves and following him.”
Thanks, bro.
By the way, what is IMO?
ShaniaIMO = In my opinion!
Blessings!
WJ
Quote (Shania @ July 16 2008,17:29) And why do wierd faces come up when I don't put them there? Oh, the mysteries:;):
ShaniaThe face that apeared is because if you type three question marks like so…
you will get the face with the question look.If you type a colon and ) you will get a smiley face.
Blessings
Hi Sis Shania, IMO is 'In My Opinion'
Please don't be confused with the myth of 'free will'. We do have our own will and we can choose some thing which has been caused to you by God or our old sinful nature. yes you can choose out of these programmed things in you. A child can not choose some thing which is not taught him. many things have been told here to disprove this 'free will', but nobody wants to change because it has already been feeded in them by certain strong doctrines in them, again no free will here. I hope we will leave this subject here and come back to the topic 'Repentance'
Thanks and blessings
AdamQuote (gollamudi @ July 17 2008,09:41) I hope we will leave this subject here and come back to the topic 'Repentance'
Repentance: yes, we really have to 😉T8….all your examples are Not examples of (FREE WILLS) but of driven will and if a person wants to rob a bank bad enough he will rob the bank, but if another person has greater influences in him that goes against he will not rob the bank, what ever is the greatest influence wins. But all is the result of causality. A bad tree (CANNOT produce good fruit, neither (CAN) a good tree produce bad fruit. A person cannot produce what not there, you cant get good from an evil tree the tree must be made good in order to be good, It cant do it on its own, nor can a man change by his own so-called free will.
IMO……….gene
Hi GB,
So all men will eventually produce good fruit if all are to be saved?
Fine theory but little current evidence exists.Quote (Nick Hassan @ July 17 2008,10:22) Hi GB,
So all men will eventually produce good fruit if all are to be saved?
Fine theory but little current evidence exists.
He doesn't believe all will be saved. The “fear mongers” have their part in the lake of fire….T8…..scripture says “its not within a man to direct his steps.” So if it's not there then how can he possible make the right choices on his own, it must be given to him to be able to. Thats where GOD'S GRACE comes in. It put within that mind the right choices, God's Spirit is like a guidance system for us to know the right way to go. We don't chose that on our own, it has to be given to us by GOD.
IMO……….gene
Nick……… you lack understanding of the power of God and knowledge of His WILL and don't believe that God does (ALL) things after the COUNCIL of HIS WILL, Do you. And if God said He isn't willing ANY PARISH, then there is a good Chance none wILL Parish either. I gave you scriptures before where every mans work will be tried by fire and if he has built with Gold , Silver or precious stone he shall recieve a reward, but if he bulids with straw, hay or stubble he will suffer loss, BUT HE SHALL BE SAVED What part of that you don't understand. I believe you understand that completely but you just refuse to believe it because it doesn't fit you fear doctrines.
IMO……..gene
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