What's the difference between Fred and Frank?

This is another set up thread, like can God make a rock too heavy for Him to lift. If Fred has never heard the Gospel, how could he be hardened against it? By the way, you say that is a normal young man. Where does he live? You would have to live under a rock like the GEICO commerical not to hear the Gospel. Therefore, he probably has heard the Gospel. The distinction you make between the two is immaterial. One does not care, and the other actively dislikes the message. The end result is the same. It is called lost. Why one has grown hardened, and the other has not, what difference does it make? They are both in the same state.

Also, your senerio falls short, because you do not know what the future holds for these two young men. If God called them to salvation, that is, elected them, then they will come to salvation. The fallacy of your thread rests on two points. One is you do not know God's will, and two, you take a snapshot at one instant in time. The subject or the result is not nearly as simple as you paint the picture.

No, not according to Calvinism were they both born totally depraved. According to the Bible Romans 3:10. (that is in the NT). As usual, you take verses out of context to fit your neat little theory. They will not cease becoming hardened unless God intervenes, not the individual waking up one morning and saying, "Gee, I think I will become uncalloused today."

Taking the story further, it seems very odd to me that you believe we can choose to be saved on our own divine power, yet once saved, we cannot choose to become lost. No doubt God appreciates those who choose to follow His calling, as the Lord must tire of regenerating people all day long.

 

You are stopping here because you have nothing further to argue, especially the last paragraph. The problem with your threads is that you set up unreal events. Maybe you should sell your ideas to the SyFy channel.

 

Exactly the one I am speaking to. It takes a miracle to turn to the Lord. You are dismissing me because I refuse to follow your baiting logic. Those you accept your set ups at face value fall right into your planned arguments. You are very simple to see through.

 

What does that have to do with anything? This is about you and your posts.

No one said otherwise, and no one who believed otherwise would be on this board.

There are plenty people who have not heard to Gospel. They are lost just like the one who is rebelling. They are not two catagories.

Why don't you pick out a different subject one out of every 25 threads?

You never did answer the question as to how you have the ability to choose salvation but not to lose it?

 

John 21:17
The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.

1 John 2:
Warnings Against Denying the Son
18 Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.

20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. 21 I do not write to you because you do not know the truth[Some manuscripts and you know all things], but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. 22 Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

24 As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is what he promised us—eternal life.

26 I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. 27 As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.

John 15:The Vine and the Branches
1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[The Greek for he prunes also means he cleans.] so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.4Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.5“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.6If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.

Titus 1:9
He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.

Hebrews 3:
12 See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. 14 We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.

 

I saw your post, but I still feel quite happy with what I have written, and if that doesn't convince you, then I don't suppose writing another post is going to do any better. You seem to be rather settled in your opinion. However, I'll have another look and see if I can add anything that might be helpful. It may take a day or two though.

If any of them open three different threads on almost exactly the same subject, as you have done, I certainly will.

Steve

 

All of which are a quote by the Lord or Paul of one single passage found in Isa. 6:9. Go read it and tell me it doesn't tell Isaiah to make the heart of the people hard and their ear dull. So when the Lord and Paul uses it they are making a clear point that those who are hardened are hardened by the preaching of the Gospel, 2Cor. 2:15-16 It is true that men harden their hearts against the Lord but it is also true that all of us will do exactly that if God doesn't intervene and cause His word to reach our heart. Your use of the passage as a prooftext of some being hardened and others not is not only a wrong application of the passage but completely misssing the point of the passage.

When God seeks them they will respond because He doesn't seek that which He cannot attain. If He does He is no more than a man.

What twisted logic caused you to come up with this? In your system the power isn't in the Gospel it is in the preacher's ability to persuade. You can't simply preach the Gospel and let it do its work you must make it effectual by your persuasive powers. In our system the Gospel is never powerless. It always accomplishes the end for which God sends it, it is a savor of life or a savor of death. It is the preacher who is powerless not the Gospel.

The appeal in no way implies ability. I can call an insane man to be sane but he cannot do it. I can plead with all those folks in the graveyard to come up out of their graves but they cannot do it. God's commandments are an injunction to do what is right but they in no way give us ability or even imply that we have the ability to keep them.

John 16:8-14 is pretty clear what the work of the Spirit is. Find out what that means and you have the power of the Gospel.

Nonsense! We never try to keep anyone out who wants in. Our system doesn't keep anyone out who wants in. You seem to want to twist our system so that you can reject it.

 

The passage is dealing with what has happened,not with what might have happened.

that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.

The gospel is going worldwide,it says until the fullness of the gentiles be come in.This takes thousands of years.Only the elect remnant was saved at that time. It is the elect remnant as opposed to the unbelieving apostates.Truth is,those Jews who were hardened were the apostate reprobates who have died in unbelief as covenant breakers and are in hell now.The verses you ignore teach it, thats why Paul quotes them...I only listed those from Isa.....there are more.

 

Do you mean like the poster of Post #3 who said in response to iconoclast quoting psalm 110...

And the same poster in Post #5 in response to iconoclast elaborating on psalm 110...

Or perhaps that same poster in Post #15

and

Or perhaps that same poster in Post #22:

And then a little more...

I find it ironic you spend so much time talking about people who are blind, stubborn and prideful.

peace to youraying:

 

You've got to forgive Iconoclast, he sees Calvinism behind every verse in the bible. :laugh:

 

Except that you have that exactly backward, you could be correct. Calvinists see God behind every verse of the Bible, not man... Seeing God behind every verse of the Bible is what brings us to the theology popularly called Calvinism.

What do you see behind every verse of the Bible?

 

Well, it depends on which verse. In some verses I see the creation; some present the glory of God. Now, in some verses in the epistles, I see God offering to man salvation found in the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. I also see God not desiring that any man be lost, but that all come to repentance.

I even see Jesus call all men to come to Him: