The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Election

I do think you have described perfectly the difference between true believers and all others; even those who claim to be so. The difference is that true believers bow before and accept as infallibly true, the self-revelation of God which He has graciously provided and preserves in His inspired written Word while all others rely upon and rest in their imaginations. (cf. Gen 6:5, 8:21; Deut 29:14-21; Ps 81:12; Jer 3:17; 7:24; 9:14; 11:8; 13:10; 16:12; 18:12; 23:17; et al) I realize that since you do not consider the Bible to be an absolute authority, it is not likely that you will bother to read those several passages. But I am confident that many others will. And, the Lord will impress His words upon their hearts with an indelible mark.

The fact is, that if you subscribe to this man-made, self-serving, man-exalting doctrine of "free-will", you of necessity deny the deity of God and make out of man an idol that transcends even God Himself. For not even the Almighty LORD God has a "free-will"; i.e., the ability to choose and do that which is contrary to His nature. How one can maintain that a man's estimation of God will be "significantly enlarged", when God is dethroned and man exalted is beyond my comprehension. As I have often done in the past, this view is akin to the story of the little Dutch boy who stood before the dike and desperately attempted to plug all the holes that appeared and keep back the impending waters. To envision God rushing around trying to come up with plan "B", "C", "D", ad infinitum as man changes his unfettered mind to do that which is contrary to His ultimate purpose is hardly, at least in my mind, a vision of "greatness". Neither golden calves, nor idols of wood, nor the vain imaginations of man can rival the true living God Who does all things according to His eternal counsel; when, where and how He has determined and for His own glory.

Paul's discourse to the Athenians at the Areopagus (Acts 17:17ff) is paradigmatic in that it isn't simply the Epicureans and Stoic philosophers who worship false gods; gods which are the product of man's imagination, but all men everywhere are guilty of doing likewise. The "gods" of men are but glorified clones of themselves which they are able to control for their own purposes. This is not the LORD God of the universe Who is exalted and dwells in ineffable holiness and is the divine Sovereign Who controls the very path of even the smallest particle of matter and Who has determined its end. I end here with a couple of marvelous quotes from two men who have been taken hold of by the sovereign God whom you would not have rule over you:

"They attribute to Free-will a very little indeed, yet they teach us that by that very little we can attain unto righteousness and grace. Nor do they solve that question, Why does God justify one and leave another? in any other way than by asserting the freedom of the will, and saying, Because the one endeavors and the other does not; and God regards the one for endeavoring, and despises the other for his not endeavoring; lest, if he did otherwise, he should appear to be unjust." - Martin Luther

"All men become like the objects of their worship. Our inward character is being silently moulded by our view of God and our conception of him. Christian character is the fruit of Christian worship; pagan character the fruit of pagan religion; semi-Christian character the fruit of a half-true understanding of God. The principle holds good for us all: we become like what we worship ­ for worse or for better. 'They that make them are like unto them' (Psa. 115:8)." — Maurice Roberts

In His Grace,