“The Bible’s purpose is not so much to show you how to live a good life. The Bible’s purpose is to show you how God’s grace breaks into your life against your will and saves you from the sin and brokenness otherwise you would never be able to overcome… religion is ‘if you obey, then you will be accepted’. But the Gospel is, ‘if you are absolutely accepted, and sure you’re accepted, only then will you ever begin to obey’. Those are two utterly different things. Every page of the Bible shows the difference.” ~Timothy Keller
APOSTLES’ CREED
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:
Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into hell.
The third day He arose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.
Amen.
"I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less than God wishes—that every particle of spray that dashes against the steamboat has its orbit as well as the sun in the heavens—that the chaff from the hand of the winnower is steered as the stars in their courses. The creeping of an aphid over the rosebud is as much fixed as the march of the devastating pestilence—the fall of sear leaves from a poplar is as fully ordained as the tumbling of an avalanche."
(Charles Spurgeon, ‘God's Providence’, sermon on Ezekiel 1:15-19, 1908.)
NEWTON SNACKS
(from Letters of John Newton)
"People will be lovers of SELF" 2 Timothy 3:2
The passions of discontent, pride, and envy--exert
themselves in each of us. We are fallen into a state
of gross idolatry--and SELF is the idol we worship!
The principle of SELF is deep-rooted in every heart,
and is the spring of every action--until grace infuses
a new principle, and SELF, like Dagon, falls before
the Lord Almighty!
DAILY VITAMIN
"Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!"
~Psalm 46:10
Visitor Comment: Words need to have meaning or all argument becomes nonsense. Either salvation is open to all or it is not. Either it is predestined who goes to heaven or it’s an individual’s choice to choose salvation through Christ. You can not have it both ways and be thinking logically and rationally. The bottom line, the predestination doctrine eliminates the role of an individual’s free will.
Response: Hi and thanks for your comment. However, the Bible does not teach anywhere that natural man has a free will … but rather that his will is in bondage to sin (2 Timothy 2:26; Rom 6:17, 20; 1 Cor 2:14). and since I agree with you that words do mean something, last time I looked, that which is in bondage is not free. Ask yourself, in light of clear biblical teaching, can a person believe the gospel apart form the work of the Holy Spirit? If not, then you agree that, left to himself, man is morally powerless to come to Christ. (i.e. has no free will.) He can make voluntary choices but he sins by necessity. No one coerces him since he voluntarily chooses to sin and yet he cannot do otheriwise until Christ set him free – so until we are joined to Christ by the Spirit we will ALWAYS reject the gospel. And this is exactly what Jesus teaches when he tells us that no one can believe the gospel unless God grants it (John 6:65).
Secondly, it is important to consider that God demands that you obey the ten commandments perfectly? Have you? No, none of us have. That is why we need a Savior … who Himself was without sin having obeyed all God’s commands. He does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. In the same way the command to believe the gospel cannot be obeyed apart from the Holy Spirit. HIs salvation includes delivering us from the bondage of the will. The Holy Spirit gives us a new heart, opens our blind eyes and unplugs our deaf ears … without which we would never come to saving faith on our own. The scripture says no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ apart form the Holy Spirit. If someone owes a debt they cannot repay (like us) then the inability to repay the debt does not alleviate us of the responsibility to do so. The point is that you appear to have a lot of unbiblical assumptions in your statement. Back up what you say with Scripture, not just your unaided logic and then we have a place to start.
Please consider this question:. If many of us hear the gospel and some people end up believing and others do not, what makes these people to differ? Are some more natually inclined to the gospel? Are some more wise? No, it is Jesus that makes people to differ. Salvation is by the grace of Jesus Christ alone. If we believe the gospel then it is by grace we have believed. Only a new heart can love and trust Jesus. Faith does not come from an unregenerate heart. We did not come up with faith ourselves. Otherwise we could boast and thank ourself for not being like other men who did not make such a good choice. Our choice is real but requires regenerating grace or we would all perish.
James White presents an apologist’s viewpoint on the present state of our culture and our approach to it, as well as what the primary content of our prayers for Obama should be:
“We are people that know politics is important, but not ultimate. We know that politics has its place, an urgent and important place where, in the City of Man, decisions are made that can make the difference between life and death, injustice and justice, mercy and no mercy, commonweal or common disaster.
But we also know that there is in this world at its very best only a hint of the kingdom that is to come, where God’s reign is supreme.
No government will ever be able to say, ‘Every tear has been wiped away.’ No government will ever be able to say, ‘The blind have received sight and the deaf have received hearing and the lame now walk.’…That power is God’s alone.”
“In regeneration, man is neither worker nor coworker; he is merely wrought upon; and the only Worker in this matter is God. And, for this very reason, because God is the sole Worker in regeneration, it must be thoroughly understood that His work does not begin only with regeneration.
No; while the sinner is still dead in trespasses and sins, before the work of God has begun in him, he is already chosen and ordained, justified and sanctified, adopted as God’s child and glorified. This is what filled St. Paul with such ecstasy of joy when he said: “For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate; and whom He did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified” (Romans 8:29-30). And this is not the recital of what took place in the regenerate, but the glad summing up of the things which God accomplished for us before we existed. Hence our election, foreordination, justification, and glorification precede the new birth. It is true that, in the hour of love when regeneration was to be effected in us, the things accomplished outside of our consciousness were to be revealed to the consciousness of faith; but so far as God was concerned all things were ready and prepared. The dead sinner whom God regenerates is to the divine consciousness a beloved, elect, justified, and adopted child already. God quickens only His dear children.”
- Abraham Kuyper | HT: Bororean
“…the doctrine of monergistic regeneration–or as it was phrased by the older theologians, of ‘irresistible grace’ or ‘effectual calling’–is the hinge of the Calvinistic soteriology, and lies much more deeply embedded in the system than the doctrine of predestination itself which is popularly looked upon as its hallmark.
There is accordingly nothing against which Calvinism sets its face with more firmness than every form and degree of autosoterism. Above everything else, it is determined that God, in his Son Jesus Christ, acting through the Holy Spirit whom he has sent, shall be recognized as our veritable Saviour.
To it sinful man stands in need not of inducements or assistance to save himself, bit of actual saving; and Jesus Christ has come not to advise, or urge, or induce, or aid him to save himself, but to save him. This is the root of the Calvinistic soteriology.
He who knows that it is God who has chosen him and not he who has chosen God, and that he owes his entire salvation in all its processes and in every one of its stages to this choice of God, would be an ingrate indeed if he gave not the glory of salvation solely to the inexplicable elective love of God.”
B. B. Warfield, “Calvinism” in The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield volume 5: Calvin and Calvinism, p. 359-60
sheepfodder