Tag: Forbidden Fruits of Freewill

freewill vs. Sovereignty of God

God’s Sovereign Will

Lee Anne Ferguson

 

Many Bible verses are used to try to support the false freewill doctrine, but by rightly dividing the word of truth they all end up confirming God’s sovereignty that much more. Take 2Peter3:9 for instance.  It says, “The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” At first glance, this seems to indicate that there are some in hell that God wanted to save but couldn’t. Yet, when read in context, it shows exactly who Peter was writing to…. the “Elect”….”to them that have obtained like precious faith.“ (1Pet.1:2, 2 Pet.1:1).

The key to understanding many of these verses is to know the difference between God’s preceptive will of command and God’s decretive will of purpose. We can resist His precepts and commands by not obeying Him. Yet, even with this resistance, God must allow it, so we’re not really resisting sovereignly and absolutely——only indirectly. God’s will of purpose is what actually happens because it’s what God has ordained and decreed and it cannot be resisted or changed.     

According to Gods perceptive will of command, He naturally desires that all of His creatures obey His precepts for they are good and holy. His commands also show us how holy and good God is and how He is worthy to be worshipped. So anytime we go against His perfect precepts and commands, we are sinning against Him.  As God, He desires and deserves all of our worship and praise, because it’s all of creations duty to worship the Creator. This is why it’s right for God to command all to repent, believe and obey the gospel of Jesus Christ, even though He knows all will not do this.

According to God’s decretive will of purpose, He foreknew what would happen when people would be left to themselves.  He foreknew that without His saving mercy, they’d refuse to keep His commands and reject Christ and the offer of salvation (Jn.12:39-40). This is why He could infallibly decree that they would not inherit salvation. He didn’t make them wicked and didn’t cause them to sin by leaving them to themselves. Neither does He predestine people to hell in the same sense that He predestines people to heaven, that would be “equal ultimacy,” which is a  heresy. He just foreknows that those He leaves to themselves will end up in hell due to the natural consequences of sin. He takes “no pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezek.18:23, 32; 33:11). And He does no harm to the creature by leaving them in the condition in which He originally made them—-upright (Eccl. 7:29), so that they are without excuse. And this is one way He makes His power known and one way He reveals how bad sin is. But He does all of this sinlessly and is justified in all that He does (Rom.1:20, 24, 28; 9:22).

God foreknows all things because He foreordains all things (Rom.11:36, Rev.4:11). He not only ordains the ends, but the means as to what will happen and how it will happen. Human actions are one of the means that God uses to accomplish His will. Our actions do not direct God’s will, but His will directs our actions. He doesn’t infuse evil into the wicked, He only directs the evil that was already in their hearts. For example, God prophesied to Moses that He would harden Pharaoh’s heart for His purpose of being glorified in the deliverance of Israel (Ex.4:21). This is why God could infallibly declare to Moses that Pharaoh would refuse to listen, because He was going to leave Pharaoh to his own sinful, fallen will (Ex.7:13, 22; 8:15; 9:12). And note: God could NOT have infallibly declared Pharaoh’s destiny if Pharaoh could have, by his own “free” will, repented and changed his own heart and mind (Rom.9:17).

God foreknew His people in a special way, for He elected them to be holy and blameless before time began (Eph.1:4). He also knows those who aren’t His elect, but only in a general way because He created them. “The Lord hath made all things for Himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil” (Prov.16:4, Rom.9:17).  Hell and the wicked exist to reveal how terrible sin is.  Those who end up there are paying their own sin debt, which is impossible—-to show that sin is an eternal offense with eternal consequences. Hell also exists to show how incredibly merciful God is and how much Jesus suffered on behalf of His people in order to save them. 

So naturally, its God’s perceptive will of command that all repent, believe and BE SAVED (2Pet.3:9), because it’s our reasonable duty to our Maker. Yet, His decretive will of purpose chooses (for reasons unknown to us) not to exert His power TO SAVE all people. It’s as if God reserves His special, irresistible love only for those He’s elected to be in His own family. And He obviously set things up this way to show that it had nothing to do with us, but that “Salvation is of the Lord” (Jonah 2:9). 

Contact Lee Anne @ gospel4life@live.com

 

Cultic beliefs, Cultic Beliefs, Newspaper Articles

A False Gospel—called the “Water Gospel”

Lee Anne Ferguson

Many are believing what’s called Baptismal Regeneration, or the “water gospel,” (basically a “watered-down gospel”) where baptism is added as a requirement for salvation. But we must “try the spirits” behind this doctrine, as we’re commanded to do in 1John 4:1. And two signs of deceiving spirits are when “contradicting and blaspheming” of God’s word occur (Acts 13:45). For example, one may say it’s not our works that save us, but then turn around later and contradict themselves by saying faith and baptism are works we do to be saved.

I found another example recently in a “House to House” pamphlet (vol. 18) sent out by a local church. It claims the thief on the cross was saved without being baptized because he was still under the Mosaic Dispensation. Yet, their website contradicts this by claiming Jesus told Nicodemus (who was ironically also under the Mosaic Dispensation) that he must be born again by being water baptized (John 3:5). So we must ask, “Why the double standard?” Besides, baptism isn’t even mentioned here, which is embarrassingly ironic, for they claim to be “silent where Scripture is silent.” The context here and 1John 5:6-8, even make it obvious that Jesus was explaining the difference between natural and spiritual birth.

Scripture also reveals that saving faith is the means God uses to bring His sheep home. Even Mark 16:16 doesn’t say, “he who isn’t baptized will be damned,” but it does say, “he that doesn’t BELIEVE shall be damned.” Also in 1 Pet.3:20-21 Noah’s family was “saved by water” only in the sense that it was a figure of the true (Jesus Christ), for it symbolized His death, burial and resurrection, just as baptism does today. The water itself didn’t save, or else those outside the ark would’ve been saved. As Peter even says here, baptism itself can’t put away the filth of the flesh, for a symbol can’t purge a guilty conscience, it’s only an outward testimony of what’s already occurred inwardly. Baptism is a figure of the true, whereas faith is the substance (Heb.9:9, 14, 26; 11:1, 7).

Yet, promoting baptism as a requirement for salvation turns the one who “administers” the “requirement” into a human mediator, which is blasphemy. There’s only one mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus (1Tim.2:5). Only He can administer what’s necessary for our salvation (saving faith), for He obtained it and all other spiritual blessings that accompany salvation (repentance, obedience, etc.), so that those who are His don’t try to add their own works to the sufficiency of His sacrifice (Rom.8:32, Eph.1:3, 4:8, Phil.4:19).

Still, many go to great lengths to exalt man and his works, such as twisting Acts 2:38 to mean we’re baptized “in order to get,” remission of sins, rather than baptized “because” believers sins have already been remitted by the shedding of Jesus’ blood (Heb.9:22). Common sense even tells us that one doesn’t take medicine FOR a headache “in order to get” a headache. One takes medicine FOR a headache “because” they’ve already got one!

 Matt.3:11 uses the same Greek word in connection with baptism, as Acts 2:38. And clearly it can’t mean “in order to get” repentance, for John told the Pharisees they had to first “produce fruits worthy of repentance” like the Ethiopian, Saul, Cornelius, his family and thousands of others did in Acts, AFTER God had purified their hearts by faith (Acts 15:8-9), BEFORE they were baptized. Yet, if these verses meant baptism “obtains” remission of sins and repentance, then one would have to confess, no one needed that more than the Pharisees, yet John refused to baptize them! To be consistent with the “water gospel,” one would also have to confess that the Israelites were baptized “in order to get” Moses to be their leader, rather than “because” he’d already led them out of Egypt, for the same Greek preposition is used in conjunction with baptism in 1 Cor.10:2.

There are many more infallible, biblical proofs that Baptismal Regeneration is a false gospel, but may have to be covered in upcoming articles. Until then, just remember friend, Jesus didn’t shed His blood in vain. True believers don’t feel they have to make His blood effectual by doing something, for they simply trust that His blood atonement is effectual for those it was intended for, based on the effectual working of HIS power, not theirs (2Cor.4:7, Eph.3:7; Heb.13:12, 20, 21).

Sis Lee Anne—-readers with questions or comments are free to contact me at gospel4life@live.com

freewill vs. Sovereignty of God, Newspaper Articles

God’s Sovereignty

Lee Anne Ferguson

Many think that if they’re seeking what only God can provide, they must be seeking God. But Jesus told a multitude that they were only seeking Him for His earthly benefits, not for the heavenly miracles that proved His Deity.  In other words, they weren’t really seeking God. And Jesus explained why by saying, “No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him” (John 6:26, 44, 66).

 Jesus’ words were so offensive, many walked away.  Because like today, many admit God is sovereign over nations and temporal life, but they can’t handle the fact that God is sovereign over all things, including eternal life.  They’d rather make up a god they’re more comfortable with, because “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked,” which is why “it’s not in man that walketh to direct his own steps” (Jer.10:23, 17:9).

So why does God command us to seek Him and proclaim the gospel? Since only God changes hearts and draws sinners to Jesus to be saved, why should we take action at all?  Obviously, the answer is simple. He commands us to.  For He already knows that although some won’t obey in spirit and truth, some will.  Just as God commanded light to shine out of darkness (Gen.1), everything didn’t become light, but what God ordained to be light, obeyed His command. That’s why there’s a universal call of the gospel but not a universal redemption, “for many be called, but few chosen” (Matt.20:16, Acts 13:48).

Although fallen humanity has the “light of conscience” and the “light of creation” to prompt them to an outward performance of God’s commands, they can’t seek Jesus from a pure heart unless God commands the “light of the gospel” to shine into their hearts.  A mere outward response isn’t the deciding factor, God is. In fact, God’s sovereignty in salvation is so obvious that Jesus recaps this point in John 6:65 by saying “No man can come unto Me, except it were given unto him of the Father.”

Yet many are believing what’s called “decisional regeneration,” where trust is placed in a “decision for Christ” rather than Holy Spirit regeneration, where the Spirit bears witness with our spirit, that we’re His (Tit.3:5, Rom.8:16). For believers “have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us” (2Cor.4:3-7), because those who receive God’s free gift aren’t those with more “willpower” but those whom God has given the power to become His (John 1:12, 13).  “For it is not of man who wills or runs, but of God who shows mercy” (Rom.9:16). 

“For who maketh thee to differ from another” (1Cor.4:7)? Are Christians different because they’re better than others?  Are they able to receive, repent, believe and obey the gospel due to having more common grace of character, conviction, morality, or ability to choose the things of God? Absolutely not! Or else they wouldn’t need a Savior and could do without God’s sovereign saving grace.

So dear friend, although many turn away from such a sovereign God, you don’t have to become a statistic. And you don’t have to try to be better than others.  Just cry out to God for mercy, confessing your desperate need of a Savior.  He never turns away those who are truly brokenhearted over sin (Ps.51:17), for He sent Jesus to seek and save an endless multitude of people who are poor in spirit.  So be encouraged, no one is closer to God’s free grace than when they finally realize the poverty of their own sinfulness and powerlessness compared to God’s sovereign, majestic holiness.

Sis Lee Anne—-Readers with questions or comments are free to contact me at gospel4life@live.com