NEWS BULLETIN

 I was in a meeting, a purely secular meeting, which often gives a glimpse of the mindset of the unbeliever and that's what happened. The moderator of the group tossed out a thought question and wanted us to shout out our answers which were to be, "Off the top of our heads." 

The question was, "Name what you consider to be your best quality." There were several who answered, one person said, "Teachable," another said, "Dependable," but one lady's answer caught my attention when she said, "Non-judgmental." Then she explained, "I  don't care what your religion is and I don't care what your politics are." That didn't strike me as being commendable, but she considered it to be an applause-magnet.Then a day later, I saw a T-shirt proudly carrying the words, "News Bulletin--Nobody cares." 

But the lady's assessment that her best quality was her I-don't-care-what-your-religion-is-attitude struck me as something that could be said about many Christians who are submarine silent about their faith and so blase` about the Great Commission that while giving a nod to God every Sunday, they really and truly don't care that those they know, their firm and fast friends for years, are on their way to an eternal hell that, like Las Vegas, will never sleep. 

But "I don't care" wasn't the attitude of Christ who said to the citizens of Jerusalem, "How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling."It wasn't the attitude of Christ when He spoke by a Samaritan well, to crowds on hills, by a lake, or in the Temple. 

It wasn't the attitude of God the Father when He so loved the world that He sent His Son into the world.

And how about Paul who wrote of his concern: "I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh." Paul traveled deep and wide, a a life-long trek the size of the American Confederacy because he cared. Even under house arrest as the end drew near, he cared: "Now Paul stayed two full years in his own rented lodging and welcomed all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching things about the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness, unhindered." 

We see Paul's concern for the lost in his sharing of his prayer request: "Praying at the same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the word, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been imprisoned; that I may make it clear in the way that I ought to proclaim it."

A missionary friend of mine, one whose mission was to the Jewish people said that he dreamed one night about their lost estate and woke up crying. He was the opposite of the lady in that meeting who was indulging in a bit of brag-a-mony when she essentially said, "I don't care whether you go to hell or not."

May her tribe decrease.   

WHY I'M NOT A CALVINIST PART IX

 Now...he [God] arranges all things by his sovereign counsel, in such a way that individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify him by their destruction. So wrote John Calvin. 

As we finish our look at Calvinism, let's put the microscope on what the system doesn't tell the unbeliever and let's use John 3:16 as the Calvinist believes it to be. 

In so doing, we're seeking to answer the question, "How would the honest Calvinist quote the most famous verse in the Bible?"

Let's start with the way John wrote the verse: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

 But according to Pastor Dru Freeman's excellent analysis of Calvinism in his treatise "Lordship Salvation," here's what's secretly happening in the mind of the Calvinist as he witnesses to the unbeliever using John 3:16. What's in his mind and remains unsaid is in parentheses:

"For God so (conditionally) loved the world (but really only some of those in it, whom He chose in eternity past), that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever (the Holy Spirit makes alive because they were selected) believes (but if you are not chosen you can’t really believe) in Him, will not perish (because you were already chosen to be saved from eternity past) but have eternal life (which you will only know with certainty if you persevere to the end)." 

Is the above Calvinist understanding of John 3:16 good news? No it's not; as one author writes, using an athletic metaphor, "Instead of the gospel being good news for the world, it becomes good news for the few people God picked for His team and becomes absolutely horrible news for everyone else in history." 

Historian Will Durant wrote: "We shall always find it hard to love the man, John Calvin who darkened the human soul with the most absurd and blasphemous conception of God in all the long and honored history of nonsense.”

Conclusion: Calvinism is indeed the TERRIBLE TULIP.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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WHY I'M NOT A CALVINIST PART VIII

 Now...he [God] arranges all things by his sovereign counsel, in such a way that individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify him by their destruction. So wrote John Calvin.

Here are some of those verses that would lead us to think that every person has a free will, one in which man is free to make moral choices.

- “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life” (Deut. 30:19)

- “Choose this day whom ye will serve” (Josh. 30:19)

- “Repent…unless you repent you shall perish” (Mt. 4:17; Lk. 13:3) [Repent=change your mind]

- For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

- “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31)

- “Repent ("change your mind") and be baptized” (Acts 2:38)
 
- “Come unto Me” (Mt. 11:28)

- "God desires that none perish but that all come to repentance (a change of mind." (II Peter 3:9; 1 Tim 2:4)

- “And the Spirit and the bride say, 'Come'” (Rev. 22:17).

- "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who have been sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.) Matt. 23:37)

The believer is Bible- bound to get out there and spread the good news, not only to people with whom he has cultivated a relationship (often called friendship evangelism) but to scatter the seed to those he's just met or hardly known (cf. Paul in the synagogues and the rough and tumble forums of the ancient world with strangers abounding all around; cf. Philip hopping a ride in the chariot of a stranger; cf. God's sending Peter to Cornelius)

 It's at this point that the Calvinist faces a dilemma. Whether he's in a church preaching evangelistically  to a group of people or speaking man to man to an unbeliever, he has no idea as to whether, according to the system he's imposed on the Bible, God chose that person to be saved in eternity past or whether that person is one whom God chose to torture in hell for all eternity. As the Calvinist witnesses to someone, he doesn't believe that the listener is free to change his mind. 

So what is the Calvinist to do? Is he to be truthful about his position and inform the unbeliever of his ignorance of the man's election to heaven or hell?

Some Calvinists say "Preach like he has a choice but believe like a Calvinist." This means  calling all people to faith as if everyone has the ability to choose, but by doing so, they're being deceptive with  their listener(s). They're leading people to think they have a choice when in reality, according to the Calvinist, the choice has already been made for them before they were born. If Calvinists are correct in their understanding of the Bible, then the Bible is deceptive since there are all those "choose" texts.

In other words, Calvinists teach that the Bible deceives its readers into thinking they're the ones who have to make a choice, and that anyone can be saved if he chooses to believe, when in reality the Calvinist believes that God only regenerates and gives the faith to a mere  5% to 10% of the world's population and God has already decided who's in and who's out.

In essence, this is the deception of saying one thing but believing the opposite and simultaneously hiding the opposite. 

What's important is what the Calvinist does not say.

WHY I'M NOT A CALVINIST PART VII

 Now...he [God] arranges all things by his sovereign counsel, in such a way that individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify him by their destruction. So wrote John Calvin. 

To adopt the Calvinist position as reflected above, means that certain things will be stolen from you, a robbery that you can see upon a moment's reflection.

One of the first things Calvinism will rob you of is your view of people because, going by Calvin's quote, God creates disposable people, people, who, from the womb, have no hope. These become throw-away people. Why care about them? 

Calvinism will take the love of God from you because Calvinism must hold that God does not love the world; He hates it. If Calvinism is true, it means that if a person you love is among the non-elect, then God did not love her, not only that, but also He never had any intention of loving her. She was nothing to Him. In fact, according to Calvinism, He will be glorified by in her eternal torture in hell.

God hates the lost, the unbeliever? What does that sound like? Listen to these two statements:

Qur’an 3:32
Say: Obey Allah and the messenger. But if they turn away, Lo! Allah loveth not the disbelievers (in His guidance).

Qur’an 3:57
“As to those who believe and work righteousness, Allah will pay them [in full] their reward; but Allah loveth not those who do wrong.”

Some Calvinists will answer by saying, "You should be more grateful for your own salvation!" But that's like saying,  "As long as my heavenly mansion is secure, as long as my life is all planned out and taken care of by God, who cares about anyone else!" 

But how can a believer live that way? How can he even think that such a viewpoint is all right? 

We have a text that speaks to the point of God's love for the world instead of just a very minute group of special people whom He arbitrarily chose in eternity past. 

It's the incident when the disciples, having been rejected by the people of a Samaritan village, asked Jesus, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”Jesus rebuked them and said, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” 

If God hates the unbeliever, then what did Christ mean when He said about rebellious Jerusalem: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who have been sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her young under her wings, and you were unwilling!"

If a person believes that there are disposable people in the eyes of God i.e. people created by God without hope from the womb; if a person believes that God hates the world and has no intention of loving it; if a person has concern for only his own salvation and no one else's, then how does he keep from doing what one lady did when she realized what Calvinism would rob her of? 

She said, "I got into my car to head home, and it was then that I started to weep uncontrollably. I had to stop at the end of the street for about 10 minutes because I was shaking and crying and my contact lenses were getting all fogged up." 

She thereafter rejected Calvinism.