[Linux4christians] Wake Up -2

[Howard Coles Jr.]

On Thursday 12 June 2008 11:11:26 am Pastor David wrote:
> > I guess you won't be surprised when I say I respectfully disagree
> > with this characterization.  The conclusion doesn't follow from the
> > premise - we Calvinists embrace compatibilism which fully embraces
> > both divine sovereignty and human responsibility.  This is difficult
> > if not impossible for us to get our minds around in this life, I'll
> > agree, but it seems that the Bible affirms both divine sovereignty
> > AND human responsibility and freedom.
>
> Who teaches this stuff?
>
> I am sorry but compatibilism violates everything God has taught us
> about rational thought.  In logic one is taught that if one begins
> with an irrational assumption it matters not how perfect the logic
> that follows one is doomed to an irrational conclusion.
>
> Compatibilism is rationally impossible and the Bible does not teach it.
>
> Predestination is fatalism, plain and simple, and irrefutably so.  Words
> have meaning.
>
> > Example passages:  how about Isaiah 10:5-19, where God sends the
> > Assyrian King (probably Tiglath-Pileser IV, if you're interested in
> > particulars) as his instrument of judgment against faithless Israel
> > even though this is not what he intends, yet in the same passage hold
> > him fully culpable for his actions.
>
> He is a pagan, consumed by and lost in sin.  He has no intention
> to honor God any more than did the Pharoah (God further hardened
> Pharoah's heart - God did not cause his heart to initially be
> hardened).  God merely used him as His "mule" or "sword".

How do you know this?  Read below.
Did Pharoah ever have a chance to know God?

> This is clear here:
>
> "12 So it will be that when the Lord has completed all His work on
> Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, He will say, "I will punish the fruit
> of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the pomp of his
> haughtiness.""
>
> It is critical, to avoid heresy, that one's philosophy-theology
> never makes God the author of sin.  All rebellion against God
> is sin.
>
> > Or in Peter's sermon of Acts 2,
> > he affirms that evil and wicked men acted freely and with full
> > culpability in the greatest crime of history, the murder of Jesus,
> > and yet they did so according to God's predetermined plan.
>
> God's predetermined plan was not to cause those specific men
> to rebel, He loves them same as you and I.
>
> They chose to sin and He (Romans 8:28) turned their evil to good.
>
> God's predetermined plan was that Jesus would come, live without
> sin, be abused and murdered, would bear our sin on the cross,
> would be resurrected, would travel as an irrefutable witness of
> His resurrection and to explain post-Resurrection reality, then
> would then ascend back to Heaven and "send Another", the Holy
> Spirit.
>
> That evil rebellious men would fail to recognize The Christ and
> would act out of greed-for-power, selfishness, and the idolatry
> of tradition was surely predictable - God hardly had to be the
> author of sin to make that happen!

You are in those last paragraphs teaching what you said at the start was not 
teachable, and that God did not teach!  You're saying God knows in advance 
that they would not believe?  However, if you look at what I say about Judas 
Iscariot, your statement about choosing specific men has problems.  I believe 
God does choose specific men.  Such as God's Prophecy of Cyrus, named decades 
before he was even born.

God planed and predestined that Jesus die on the cross, in both time and 
space.  God arranged the time, and He arranged the space.  God not only knew 
but created the circumstances, and all that went with it.  Now, what this 
means is that God knew, intimately, every soul who would be involved, and 
would have had to set them, specifically, in that situation.  Yet, God holds 
those accountable who were a part of it.  In your thought it's either one or 
the other, so my question is which is it?  Are the men responsible for what 
they did, or not?  If God predestined it all to happen, and you say above 
that He did, they are not.  yet, God's word clearly says that God holds them 
accountable.  For example, Judas Iscariot.  Jesus said it would have been 
better for him to have a millstone put around his neck and tossed into the 
sea than for him to betray the Son of man, did He not?  Yet, at the same time 
did not Jesus Himself say that He chose all twelve, saying that one of them 
was a devil?  If Jesus determined who would betray Him, and its obvious He 
did, how can God, in your tradition, hold Judas accountable?

Also, look at Pharoah.  Didn't Moses tell Pharoah that God raised him up for 
one purpose, to destroy him?  Look at Esau.  Didn't God say, BEFORE Esau was 
even born, that He hated Esau?  You need to Read Romans 9 to understand God's 
full sovereignty.  The Bible teaches from one end to the other that God is in 
full control of Kings, Governments, Churches, and people, and yet at the same 
time we're told we are reponsible for what we choose.  How does it work 
exactly?  I have no idea.  I just know that there is this situation, like the 
Trinity, which I cannot fully and completely explain, but yet by faith I know 
its true.

-- 

See Ya'
Howard Coles Jr.
John 3:16!