You aren't hearing me. What causes the one who responds positively to respond positively? The ones who respond negatively do so because they are natural man and the natural man always responds negatively? What happens that some respond positively?
Can We Really Exercise Free Will?
- Thread starter LifelongLearner
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But they stopped their ears, correct?
That means if they listen they most likely will be saved.
So a choice was made.
Luke traveled with Paul and learned from Paul. So Luke is writing this in Acts after learning what Paul has taught as Regeneration. So Luke has first hand knowledge and he is saying choices can be made one way or another after the heart has been cut from hearing the Gospel preached.
2 Peter 3 v 15-16 ~ Consider also that our Lord’s patience brings salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom God gave him. He writes this way in all his letters, speaking in them about such matters. Some parts of his letters are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.
According to you:
A "faith generator" pre-installed before you were ever born. But only if you happened to win the cosmic salvation lottery.
To revel in the spoils of war?
Admittedly, there are slim pickings among your crew
What you describe is a partial spiritual birth, enough to understand enough to make a decision. Decide yes, and the birth is fully completed. Decide no, and you are spiritually partial-birth aborted and go back to being spiritually dead. That's not scriptural, and certainly isn't the reformed view.
So going back to where this particular discussion started, no, you don't agree with "some" reformed doctrine.
Perhaps those who do not believe that regeneration must come first, are those who have never know a time in life without God.
However, I can testify that I sat in church for well over a year hearing message after message before actually placing my trust in God.
I believed that there was a God. However, I did not believe that He wanted anything to do with me. I thought that I was beyond hope! How could a righteous God accept me, the terrible sinner that I was?
Just as I was thinking this, I heard the words “Is there anyone's whose sins are so bad that they cannot be forgiven - if the axe-head floats”?
That simple question shook me to the core! I cannot express the feeling of joy that came over me that day!
No one will ever be able to tell me that God did not regenerate me in an instant, [beginning my life as a Christian]!
However, I can testify that I sat in church for well over a year hearing message after message before actually placing my trust in God.
I believed that there was a God. However, I did not believe that He wanted anything to do with me. I thought that I was beyond hope! How could a righteous God accept me, the terrible sinner that I was?
Just as I was thinking this, I heard the words “Is there anyone's whose sins are so bad that they cannot be forgiven - if the axe-head floats”?
That simple question shook me to the core! I cannot express the feeling of joy that came over me that day!
No one will ever be able to tell me that God did not regenerate me in an instant, [beginning my life as a Christian]!
Correct, they weren't stone - so they therefore had already become saved, from which, they had received their hearts of flesh before being cut.
[Eze 11:19-20 KJV]
19 And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:
20 That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
[Heb 10:16-18 KJV]
16 This [is] the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;
17 And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.
18 Now where remission of these [is, there is] no more offering for sin.
You're still not paying attention. I know why those who stopped their ears did so. They were natural men. They always stop their ears and suppress the truth.
Now let's talk about those who respond positively. What changed. If the natural man always responds negatively, what happened that someone would respond positively?
Take pride in the fact that you handed the victory to me on a silver platter. Maybe you should get some credit for that?
Now that you have confirmed my correct assessment of your position, I can tell you that my position is precisely contrary to yours. As you well know by now.
So I see no need to plough more furrows on the matter.
The free will belief is that the man of flesh who serves the law of sin which brings forth fruit unto death will,
despite Jesus saying it is impossible, bring forth the good fruit of faith unto life by choosing to believe what
he cannot understand and to which he is opposed as a God hater under the power and influence of the devil.
They manage to mangle the Scriptures quite badly in preference to their vain self-exalting opinion.
