When GOD chooses you, no one can take you away from GOD.

Faith | God-inspired

[jesus4life]

GOD knows who GOD chooses.

[.45 Long Colt]

It’s not either/or.

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” (2 Timothy 3:16)

[Dutchboy88]

"Judas was always gone.

John 17:11-13

11 Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me,[a] that they may be one as We are. 12 While I was with them in the world,[b] I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept;[c] and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves."

Excellent exegesis. This is how the Scriptures need to be used. Full picture, complete unfolding, reading the whole story. Thank you for this.

[xone]

Well, shucks, this was too easy as it was a sermon text a couple months ago.

that the Scripture might be fulfilled

Pretty good hint.

[CrosscutSaw]

Amen! Salvation is totally of the Lord.

[Cvengr]

I believe both of you believe in the Word, in Christ and in the epistles.

While it may be tempting to argue against one another based upon denominational doctrines, we all are brothers in Christ.

God Bless.

[Dutchboy88]

"Pretty good hint."

LOL. Of course. Just saying...good job.

[Salvation]

I would like to see more posts like yours.

God bless you!

[johngrace]

Oh Daddy!
Oh Daddy! My Father will always forgive me.

Why I sinned an broke the picket fence but Daddy will always forgive myself.

So I sinned again I broke the window Daddy will always forgive me.

I sinned and busted the pipes. Water is everywhere but Daddy will always forgive.

I do not have to humble myself Daddy will do it for me.

I have tears in me eyes Daddy does it all!

Why I am not responsible for myself. Daddy does it all by himself.

Oh Daddy declared me a spoiled brat.

I played with Matches. The Couch burned then caused the drapes to burn. Now No house anymore.

I have not seen my Daddy in a few weeks.

Why the last time he had a gun. He shot three bullets into my car.

I am three states away from Daddy.

He does everything I do not understand.

Oh Daddy! Oh Daddy!

I guess I am eternally separated

He did say “ I never want to see you again.”

Yet he still was running toward me with the Gun to get close to me.

I did not want to look like swiss cheese

Oh Dadddyyyyyy!!!

But Daddy I have tears in me eyes you do it all.

Daddy caught up with me!

I am now on a shelf being sold as Swiss Cheeseeeeee!

Oh!!! Daddy!

You do it All!

Echo!

Tears in me eyes!

Oh Daddddyyyyyyyyy

Don’t ya luv me anymore you do it all!!!

The above Swiss cheese was last seen on a ham sandwhich which was totally eaten.

The Parable of the no salt Swiss Cheeseeeeeee.........

[crghill]

Amen!

[lupie]

Jesus chose Judas Iscariot, and the devil took him away from the Lord.

So then, the LORD wasn't quite powerful, sovereign enough to stop the devil? By your thinking then, we can't call him King of Kings nor LORD of Lords because he can't quite stop his foes. The only way Christ CAN be KING of kings and LORD of Lords is that Judas never belonged to Him in the first place, which someone has already shown. Christ Jesus, our Lord God, is either over all, or at the least has an equal.

[lupie]

Is there some reason you do not like the words of Jesus?

Is there some reason that you made that statement? Where is your proof that .45 Long Colt does not like the words of Jesus? I fail to see even any hint of that. I really fail to see why you say that - can you explain, using his words?

[aruanan]

The cross had not yet come. Jesus’ exposition of the Law astounded the listeners as impossible...and it is. It was intended to crush self-effort. No amount of self-developed righteousness will meet these requirements. And, just as the rich young ruler gave up when told the true weight of the Law, there is no hope for man...unless God chooses the man (your original point). Notice Matt. 19:26.

Ha ha. Talk about being doctrinally subverted! If "God chooses the man" as Calvin and Zwingli had it, there is no basis for any hope at all.

[aruanan]

Clearly, protestantism IS NOT Christianity. It is “paulianity” ... a bizarre and false religion indeed. It invents for itself a false “gospel” (a truly satanic deception) of complete irresponsibility from St. Paul’s letters, and prefers its own invention to the Gospel of Jesus Christ Himself.

No, it's not Paulianity; it's theological determinism in general and Calvinism in particular.

[aruanan]

So then, the LORD wasn't quite powerful, sovereign enough to stop the devil? By your thinking then, we can't call him King of Kings nor LORD of Lords because he can't quite stop his foes. The only way Christ CAN be KING of kings and LORD of Lords is that Judas never belonged to Him in the first place, which someone has already shown. Christ Jesus, our Lord God, is either over all, or at the least has an equal.

"The devil and wicked men are so held in on every side with the hand of God, that they cannot conceive, or contrive, or execute any mischief, any farther than God himself doth not permit only, but command. Nor are they only held in fetters, but compelled also, as with a bridle, to perform obedience to those commands." (Calv. Inst., b. 1, c. 17, s. 11.)

"when God makes angels or men sin, he does not sin himself, because he does not break any law. For God is under no law, and therefore cannot sin." (Zwingli, Serm. on Providence, c. 5, 6.)

Beware theological determinism. You'll wind up saying completely nutty things like the above.

[aruanan]

While it may be tempting to argue against one another based upon denominational doctrines, we all are brothers in Christ.

Well, as Richard Weaver put it, ideas have consequences. And, I think, Calvin's doctrines or ideas have had some pretty grave consequences. I believe a good case could be made that modern empiricism, if not directly arising from Calvin’s theological determinism, was shaped and heavily abetted by it. From declaring that the motion of every atom in existence and every action taken by every man was the inevitable, non-contingent outworking of God’s will (though Luther said as much in On the Bondage of the Will), man’s appearance of will being at most an epiphenomenon and at worst an illusion, it was only a short jump to dumping God altogether and keeping a universe whose every phenomenon was the unavoidable product of previous phenomena and the unalterable cause of successive phenomena. Accordingly, man’s perception of himself as having significance, purpose, and will to effect change makes him as much the ghost in the machine now as he was formerly in the Calvinistic scheme only the outworking of God’s will decided before creation began.

In Calvinism, man is only an effect of God’s preexisting cause and completely unable to affect (or even effect) an outcome. In materialism, man is only an effect of preexisting material causes. In both he is truly nothing. In both he still feels as though he IS something. In both, there is no intrinsic value, only assigned value. In materialism, the value exists only to the degree that man assigns it to himself; the world is thus filled with all sorts of competing values decided, ultimately, by the exercise of power, either by philosophical dominance or by the kind exercised from the barrel of a gun. And none of this is due to any inherent individual freedom but to the outworking of a dialectic. In Calvinism, an all powerful God has decided that all men will be sinners and that a few may be saints, though none of that is contingent upon anything at all in man’s nature (or really, in a deterministic universe, whether material or theological, has any meaning at all).

And in Calvinism it isn't the death of Jesus that provides the basis of forgiveness for sin because a person's choice for salvation by God is not based on anything that would happen in the creation, because that would be contingent and we're told that it was decided solely through the counsel of his own will before the creation of anything--everything that he foresaw happening happened only because he had willed it to happen. So the incarnation and death of Jesus, people's faith in Jesus, and man's sin, bear no causal relationship between each other, because they all have the same cause: the secret counsel of God before the beginning of anything. That is, there’s an ultimate point to the universe, but man is not it, and he is arbitrarily assigned to salvation or suffering and will be rewarded or punished for a state of being he didn’t cause and is unable to alter.

In naturalism, he can at least, for a while, have the appearance of seeming to exert his will over himself and nature, even though the nature of the system ultimately undermines even this as he comes to realize that he is nothing more than a complex biological machine that is subject, at every level of organization, to dissolution by the physical forces of his environment without and by chemical or hormonal derangement within. That is, there is no ultimate point to the universe and, though he is part of it, his demise ultimately won’t make any difference to himself or to others because he and they are just brackets placed in an unbroken flow of existence, the “events” contained within those brackets called for a time this or that phenomenon or this or that being. Maybe the bracket marking off the beginning of what seems to be an individual consciousness will be far enough before the one marking off the end of it so that the events within can be called a human life. Maybe not.

At any rate, it isn’t any worse than Calvin’s and Zwingli’s view of man’s place in the universe as I quoted in a post above and do so again here:

“The devil and wicked men are so held in on every side with the hand of God, that they cannot conceive, or contrive, or execute any mischief, any farther than God himself doth not permit only, but command. Nor are they only held in fetters, but compelled also, as with a bridle, to perform obedience to those commands.” (Calv. Inst., b. 1, c. 17, s. 11.)

“...when God makes angels or men sin, he does not sin himself, because he does not break any law. For God is under no law, and therefore cannot sin.” (Zwingli, Sermon on Providence c. 5, 6.)

In materialism, man is without God and without hope. In Calvin’s theological determinism, man is still without hope other than in Calvin's version of a god that is an exigent, logic-chopping, moral pervert, strangely, though not surprisingly, made pretty much in the image of Calvin himself.

[jesus4life]

Who says GOD didn’t choose judas for that!!

Please read:

JOHN 6:70

[Dutchboy88]

"If "God chooses the man" as Calvin and Zwingli had it, there is no basis for any hope at all."

Well, if you consider God's selection of men to be no hope, I suppose you are right. But, those of use who are very thankful that the God of all mercies is the One choosing don't quite agree.

Even Jesus told his disciples:

John 15:16, "You did not choose Me but I chose you,..."

And, dozens of passages confirm that before we existed, it was just this situation:

Rom. 9:10ff, "And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; for though the twins were not yet born, and had not done anything good or bad, IN ORDER THAT GOD's PURPOSE ACCORDING TO HIS CHOICE MIGHT STAND, not because of works, but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, 'The older will serve the younger.' Just as it is written, 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.'"

Acts 13:48, "And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed."

Eph. 1:3ff, "Blessd be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just AS HE CHOSE US IN HIM BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD, that we should be holy and blameless before Him."

I Pet. 1:1ff, "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are CHOSEN ACCORDING TO THE FOREKNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, that you may obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood."

I could go on, and on, and on. Certainly sounds as though some found hope in God's choosing.

[Cvengr]

Lupie,... there are different roles in the different persons of the Godhead. One God, three persons.

God the Father elects those who will be saved.

Jesus Christ presents to all humans the perfect example of our relationship to God the Father. Just because we choose something doesn’t mean He chose it. He has volition also, known as His Sovereignty.