Just spouting off

I went to church on Sunday. The pastor was speaking about the reality of hell.

He was also making some inappropriate inductions based on a statistic. He said that when asked the question: "Did you receive Christ in this church?", 5% of the respondants said "yes". From this, he compared the growth of Islam to the growth of Christianity.

One simply cannot use that statistic in an argument about the source of the disparity between the growth of islam and the growth of Christianity in America. To make it stick, people would have to (a) live in the same place all the time and (b) never change the church they're currently in and (c) all people would have to be saved inside of a church!

The truth of the matter is that people do change churches when they're not pleased with the church they're currently in. I certainly did. People do move around. I have, a lot. And people are saved outside of churches! While I was saved inside of a church at an altar call, not everyone is.

That was Beef #1. Beef #2 has to do with my own beliefs about predestination and volitional will.

While the pastor was talking about hell, he made the statement that God doesn't want anyone to go to hell, and that people make the decision to go to hell all by themselves. By hell, I'm talking "ghenna" second-death hell. And I can respect that belief, and it falls within the pale of orthodoxy. But later on in the sermon, he brought up passage after passage that, in my mind, speaks about predestination! I don't know if this guy is subscribing to full-blown palagianism or semi-palagianism. Full blown = heresy, semi = orthodoxy.

Anyway, he busted out with Romans 8:28. But he didn't even touch on what comes immediately after: 8:29 and 8:30!

8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
8:30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

Jesus said: "You didn't choose me. I chose you." We're the Elect, the chosen ones of God.

In the final analysis, you can look at salvation in one of two ways:
(1) My salvation is dependant on my choices.
(2) My salvation is dependant upon the choices God makes.

I mean, later in that very book, you see the following:
14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not!
15 For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion."
16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.
17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth."
18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
19 You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?"
20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, "Why have you made me like this?"
21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
22 What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
23 and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory,
24 even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

So look at that. Romans 9:15-17 says that God does whatever he wants for his own reasons and for his own pleasure. 9:18 indicates that God can will to harden the heart of a man. We see this often in the old testament, and the reference here is for the pharoah.

But look at 9:19. He's speaking to the argument that pops into almost every mind: "Yo, what's up?! If God hardens a heart against him, how can he be angry about that? How can he condemn that person?"

Paul doesn't make excuses. He brings it up! You know what the biblical mindset it? What the mind of God is? Look at Romans 9:20-24. The potter makes "vessels of wrath prepared for destruction" from the same clay that he makes "vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory". And it's the potter's perrogative to make what he will.

As a Chrisitan, I'm no better than anyone else inherently. I didn't do anything to warrant the love and mercy of God. God doesn't owe me love and mercy. And he doesn't owe it to you either. But it is in his mercy that he has prepared some of us to be "vessels of mercy" foreordained for glory.

The whole subject is rather complex. Anyway, I thought it odd that the guy would go over so many passages that pointed to Augustine predestination, that pointed to God choosing us and not the other way around, and then to speak from a mindset that man can choose God.

And now let me speak to you. You're thinking: "But I have free will. If I wanted to choose God, I could. I can do anything I want." It's simply not true. I have free will too, but I can't do something that is not within my power. I may will to lift this car over my head, but I'm simply too wimpy for that. It's not within my power.

I think that 2 Cor 4:4 ties in closely with this:

2 But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
3 But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing,
4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

In other words, Satan is keeping some from really hearing the Gospel. From understanding and accepting the truth. Look at John 3:16-20

16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
17 God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.
18 "There is no judgment awaiting those who trust him. But those who do not trust him have already been judged for not believing in the only Son of God.
19 Their judgment is based on this fact: The light from heaven came into the world, but they loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.
20 They hate the light because they want to sin in the darkness. They stay away from the light for fear their sins will be exposed and they will be punished.
21 But those who do what is right come to the light gladly, so everyone can see that they are doing what God wants."

In my mind, this always evokes a picture of cockroaches skattering from a kitchen floor when a light is turned on to expose them.