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Discussion Forum : Scriptures and Doctrine : Is the problem "unwillingness" or "inability" ?

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CofG
Member



Joined: 2017/2/12
Posts: 964
Cambodia

 Re:

Daniel, At the time the Gospel is presented, God calls in an effectual way, the heart is changed, made new, spiritual sight and understanding is given for the first time, the eyes of the heart are enlightened to see the glory of God in Jesus and like Isaiah’s experience, to then see their own sin, to desire Jesus as savior, acknowledge Him as King and to value Him as the treasure of their heart. It’s a work wrought by God. Repentance and faith are granted by God in this grace filled miracle.

I suggest you consider the thief on the cross who sees with his natural eyes and understanding Jesus on the cross as a criminal and in an instant, he suddenly sees Him with new eyes as a savior and King. How’d he do that?

Like the disciples, it wasn’t flesh and blood who revealed the truth of Jesus
to him, it was the Father. One minute he sees a criminal, next he “sees” the Christ and the Kingdom. Jesus, said, unless one is born again from above he cannot see the Kingdom ( his King ).


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Robert

 2018/12/19 10:08Profile
TrueWitness
Member



Joined: 2006/8/10
Posts: 661


 Re:

Thank you Robert. I would just suggest that God's drawing the sinner to Himself prior to him believing and repenting is not "regeneration". It is a work of grace and of the Holy Spirit making the Word of God come alive to the person and they have revelation of their sin, their need for salvation, who Christ is and His being the necessary solution to their need, etc. This is God granting the sinner repentance and faith. That does not mean that God repents or believes for them but rather gives them the ability to do so at that point after the Spirit presses and reveals the truth of the gospel to them. Paul is very clear that faith is never a work, certainly not anything we do meritoriously. It is a simple responding to and receiving the gift of God offered to us through Jesus as we surrender ourselves to Him as Lord.

The word regeneration does not appear in the Bible as far as I know but the term "born again" does in John 3. A person cannot be said to be "saved" without experiencing regeneration or being "born again". We are saved by grace through (by means of) faith. The ability to believe is a gift from God after His Spirit works on the sinner's heart in manifold ways described previously. God gives the sinner who is moved upon by His Spirit the ability to repent and believe but God does not "pull the trigger" for him. He must do it out of humble submission and not from being strong armed or otherwise having his will "conquered". Martin Luther is most known for starting the Reformation with his recovering the truth of salvation by faith. I think he would roll over in his grave to hear his followers come to the position that personal faith has no bearing on becoming born again (regeneration). And I have never heard anywhere or at any time anyone boast that they saved themselves because they responded positively to the gospel by God's grace.

I do agree with Paul Washer and others who object to "easy believeism" where people hear a shallow presentation of the gospel that pulls at people's emotions and self-interest (go to heaven, avoid hell). I think there are scores of people who said the "sinner's prayer" in such a presentation which did not allow the Spirit to do a thorough work on the heart and they did not truly believe and weren't born again. Mental assent to certain salient facts about Jesus is not true faith.

 2018/12/19 10:55Profile
CofG
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Joined: 2017/2/12
Posts: 964
Cambodia

 Re:

Thanks Daniel.


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Robert

 2018/12/19 11:07Profile
Gloryandgrace
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Joined: 2017/7/14
Posts: 1165
Snoqualmie, WA

 Re:


Hi Vern you intermingle a lot of truth about the believer in Jesus with a re-invented universalism.

It allows you to deny it while building your foundation upon it. It's slick and tricky but not gospel.

In short as much as I agree with the truth about Jesus being our new life, that life is not 'automatic' since the death of Christ. That life is by way of regeneration/conversion. There is a place an time where the unbeliever becomes a believer.

Unless I mis-understand you, you are asserting we are all 'in Christ' Hitler is in Christ, Manson is in Christ, Murderers and destroyers of mankind are all in Christ...they just didn't follow the rules very well.

Your teachings make Jesus the minister of sin, and his Church is not differentiated from the world.
Jesus and all the Apostles teach that we were once sinners at birth now saints, once darkness, now light, one enemies, now friends, once alienated, now brought close. This happens in our life time as an event, a work of God.

If I was in Christ actually...then by change of mind became Christian where is the new birth? Where is regeneration? Where is my conversion? Is all that done away...and why are all those 'in Christ' folks going to the lake of fire? It's sounds like being 'in Christ' and being damned are the same thing.

Savannah is right, Vern take this to another thread.


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Marvin

 2018/12/19 12:09Profile
Gloryandgrace
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Joined: 2017/7/14
Posts: 1165
Snoqualmie, WA

 Re:

Robert: you said...Add. Mak, I want to add for the conversation that I’m a firm believer in charismatic gifts and do not adhere to “traditional church” ecclesiology preferring house churches and the ministry of the saints and would be disowned by Calvinist, conservative Presbyterians and Baptists and most reformed believers I’m not coming at this from a system of theology. I take Scripture literally no matter where it divides me from others.

Oh how you are sing the same song as me. I'm the same brother. I have been booted from every reformed site but one online and the charismatics/pentacostals have a fit about my 'reformed' theology. Most folks know this about me already but I wanted to let you know there are two of us out there.

This is the ONLY site that has allowed me to be what I am openly without banning me.


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Marvin

 2018/12/19 14:08Profile
Gloryandgrace
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Joined: 2017/7/14
Posts: 1165
Snoqualmie, WA

 Re:


Hi Witness Titus 3:5He saved us not by works of righteousness which we had done, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration, and by the renewing of the Holy Ghost,

If you peruse the others translations, almost all of them equate 'regeneration' with being Born-again...new birth.

It is interesting to note that what God did to 'save us' required 3 word pictures to explain it. Washing...new birth...renewing...equating to what God did when he made us new creations in Christ.


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Marvin

 2018/12/19 14:24Profile
TrueWitness
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Joined: 2006/8/10
Posts: 661


 Re:

Titus 3:5 is absolutely true. It does not give a full account of how regeneration occurs but I cannot find anyone being saved in the New Testament who did not hear the word of God and respond by humbling themselves and believing the word first. And we know that believing is not a work of righteousness that we do. It is simply accepting the truth of God's word for ourselves and submitting and surrendering to Him.

The Philippian jailer asked Paul "What must I do to be saved?" For him to ask about "being saved" meant he must have heard or overheard Paul's gospel message. Notice Paul (and Silas) answer: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” He didn't say, "There's nothing you can do because any response to my preaching would be considered a work and not a gift. You just have to hope you're one of the predestined elect and if so God will save (regenerate) you so you can believe. Notice Paul's words are "believe ... and you will be saved" not "be saved and you will believe".

This whole argument about regeneration preceding faith is inferred (not explicitly stated) from a METAPHOR found in Ephesians 2 where sinners are said to be dead in trespasses and sins. In Romans 6 we (as Christians) are said to be DEAD to sin yet of course that doesn't mean we can't sin. It means the relationship we had of being slaves of sin has been broken by Christ. We no longer have that relationship to sin hence we are dead to sin. Sinners are dead to God because they have no relationship with Him (don't seek Him, listen to Him or obey Him). In the same way we find in the story of the prodigal son where after coming back and being reconciled to his father, the father rejoices that though his son was dead (during the time of being prodigal), he is now alive. Dead means there is no relationship. The Holy Spirit can powerfully give ability to dead sinners upon hearing the gospel to believe and thereby be saved (regenerated).

-Daniel

 2018/12/19 15:14Profile
CofG
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Joined: 2017/2/12
Posts: 964
Cambodia

 Re:

Daniel,

the argument for regeneration preceding faith isn't inferred. If it were an inference or supported merely by some sort of implication, I wouldn't make it at all. That to me is not the basis for any matter of God. That doesn't make me right or those who share my views right, it only means you shouldn't dismiss the Scriptures we focus on so lightly.

The basis of the argument begins with Scriptures that make statements about the limitations of the "natural man" to discern or understand spiritual matters and other Scriptures that you point out that speak of man's spiritual deadness. Next, are the Scriptures in John 3, John 6, John 8 and John 10, and John 17 explaining why some believe and some do not. It is clear I think that only those who are the sheep of God, the born again, who actually believe. Check out 1 John 5 and make sure you use the right Greek tenses to see that those who are believing "have been born again".

I know where you are coming from. From experience and from some Scriptures, the description is that we repent and believe and thus assume that is when we are then born again because that is when we are filled with the Holy Spirit. Being born again, however is more than receiving the Holy Spirit. It includes receiving a new heart and new spirit that are able to do certain things that were not possible to do before....... primarily to understand spiritual things and to obey God in the way God desires.

God commands people to repent and believe. It isn't a suggestion certainly and it is more than an invitation or offer. It is a command. If man's heart is unwilling and does not desire to obey God in worshipping God prior to the preaching of the Gospel because of a heart problem, then he is likewise unable to obey God because he hates God when it comes to obeying the command to repent and believe or at least that is the argument.

I just ask you to consider whether you are just assuming man is able to believe because God asked him to and the man did believe so therefore, believing comes first. What is going on in the heart is what is at issue. Not what he does in response to the heart. We all agree men repent and believe. The question being asked is what takes place in the heart that frees him to repent and believe. What is the root cause of men repenting and believing.

There are 3 choices. Men can believe without God's help. Men can only believe if God gives them the help and he gives the aid to all but only enough aid for the heart to be morally neutral. Or, finally, God must change the heart for men to believe because men's hearts desire the darkness and evil by nature and God solves that problem by giving a kind of heart ( a new creation) that desires God instead of hating God and He only does that for some ( billions perhaps but not all).

At the root of this for me is a kind of salvation that isn't just about wanting to avoid hell and trusting Jesus to bail them out, but one which involves a man or woman
seeing Jesus as a Savior, King and treasure in such a way that causes them to desire Him above all things. Only a life changing transformation of a heart that was self worshipping and God hating could accomplish that as I read Scripture.




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Robert

 2018/12/19 15:55Profile
Gloryandgrace
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Joined: 2017/7/14
Posts: 1165
Snoqualmie, WA

 Re:


Hi Witness: A couple of things.

Youre right about regeneration not being 'mapped out'. Because as Jesus explained it...
Jn 3:7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

The invisible working of God for regeneration/newbirth/born-again remains invisible to us. Jesus didn't elaborate on where and how the Spirit births a man into Jesus.

Second; the preaching of the gospel does not contain an element of 'guessing if I'm the elect'. I don't know of anyone ever who has stated to unbelievers "now if you know you are elect go ahead and pray to receive Jesus". No one does this. Why? Because the secret things of God belong to God, we don't preach the secret things of God, nor do we preach as if an unbeliever should 'know who's names are written in the Lambs book of Life".
What do we preach? Exactly as Paul stated in Act's 16 that you quoted.
Why? Because we trust God to do his part, which is regeneration/newbirth and we deliver the message that God has come into the world to save sinners.

As Gospel ministers our domain is the mind/will/emotion of a man. God's domain is transcendent, he is able to make alive what was dead...namely the spirit of man.
So, while I don't consider 'dead in sin' a metaphor, it is only one of many texts that require the working of God for man to become a new creation in Christ.


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Marvin

 2018/12/19 16:20Profile
BranchinVINE
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Joined: 2016/6/15
Posts: 1268
Australia

 Re:

Robert,

You wrote:
“………and He only does that for some ( billions perhaps but not all).”


Paul urges us to pray for ALL men to be saved.

1 Tim. 2:1-6 (YLT) –
I exhort, then, first of all, there be made supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings, for ((((( all men ))))):
2 for kings, and all who are in authority, that a quiet and peaceable life we may lead in all piety and gravity,
3 for this [is] right and acceptable before God our Saviour,
4 ((((( who doth will all men to be saved, and to come to the full knowledge of the truth )))));
5 for one [is] God, one also [is] mediator of God and of men, the man Christ Jesus,


Are you heeding this scripture and praying for ALL men to be saved?

Are you praying for God's will to be done?

Is God able to answer our prayers and give grace to ALL to believe and repent?


Blessings


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Jade

 2018/12/19 20:20Profile





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