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  FREEDOM OF CHOICE
  by Major W. Ian Thomas
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Summary: The sermon emphasizes the importance of freedom of choice,
highlighting that God's grace is not limited by human ability and that
Jesus Christ is the propitiation for our sins.

Topics: "Free Will", "Repentance"
Scripture References: Deuteronomy 30:19, Joshua 24:15, John 3:16, Romans 10:13, 1 Timothy 2:6, Hebrews 2:9, 1 John 2:2

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DESCRIPTION
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Major W. Ian Thomas emphasizes the importance of not being deceived into
believing that God has limited the efficacy of Christ's blood or that
some are unable to repent due to being outside of God's redemptive
purpose. He clarifies that reluctance to repent lies with man, not with
God, and highlights the necessity of freedom of choice in obedience or
disobedience. Thomas challenges the notion that God arbitrarily
determines who can obey the Gospel, stressing that Christ's sacrifice is
for all and that God offers the ability to repent to every individual.

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CONTENT
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Never allow anyone to deceive you into believing that God has placed an
arbitrary limitation upon the efficacy of the blood of Christ, or that
there are those who cannot repent, even if they would, simply because
God has deliberately placed them outside the scope of His redemptive
purpose! This blasphemes the grace, the love and the integrity of God,
and makes Him morally responsible for the unbelief of the unbeliever,
for the impenitence of the impenitent, and saddles Him squarely with the
guilt of the guilty ­ as an aider and abettor of their sin.

Such is not the teaching of the Bible, for the Lord Jesus Christ made it
abundantly clear that the reluctance is on man's part, not on God's!

Without freedom of choice it is equally impossible to obey or to disobey
­ to be commended for the one or to be condemned for the other!

Some would have you believe that only those can obey the Gospel and
accept Christ as their Saviour, to whom God has given the ability to
obey as a purely arbitrary, mechanical act on His part, leaving no
option in the matter to any individual either way! On the basis of this
strange hypothesis, the fearful judgment of God is to fall upon those
who have remained in their rebellious state of unbelief, only because
they have been unable to exercise an ability to obey the Gospel, which
only God can give, and which He has refused to give them! Needless to
say, such an idea can only serve to bring the righteousness and judgment
of God into contempt and disrepute.

The revelation that God has given to us by His Holy Spirit through the
apostles is delightfully clear: "if any man sin, we have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And He is the propitiation
for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole
world" (I John 2:2); "Who gave himself a ransom for all" (I Timothy
2:6); "... that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man"
(Hebrews 2:9).

It is your inherent right to choose which is at the very heart of the
mystery, both of the mystery of godliness and of the mystery of
iniquity.

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Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/major-w-ian-thomas/freedom-of-choice/
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