Good point, and food (pun?) for thought. I think of Matt. 22:1-14.<br><br>Jesus, in the parable of the wedding supper, makes it very clear what when the invitation was made to the first group, the meal (salvation) was there, ready and waiting. Had they responded, which for all appearances they could have, they would have had the meal. This does not make salvation a human effort. After all, the meal was prepared and offered by no volition of their own, nor did they seek it out. They themselves were sought out, invited to accept. But they did have a choice, and they rejected.<br><br>This might cause some to ask, why would God go to all that trouble if He knew He would be rejected? Lewis, again the The Problem of Pain, said some excellent things in regards to Abraham from which we can draw application:<br><br>"'If God is omniscient He must have known what Abraham would do, without any experiment; why, then, this needless tourture?' But as St. Augustine points out, whatever God knew, Abraham at any rate did not know that his obedience could endure such a command until the event taught him: and the obedience which he did not know that he would choose, he cannot be said to have choses. The reality of Abraham's obedience was the act itself; and what God knew in knowing that Abraham 'would obey' was Abraham's actual obedience on the mountain top at that moment. To say that God 'need not have tried the experiment' is to say that because God knows, the thing known by God need not exist."<br><br>For the "non-elect" to truly be said to have rejected the gospel, they must have been given the chance to accept it (as scripture says all will), and it follows that this chance must have been a real chance- not a fake invitation to a non-existant meal.

(Latin phrase goes here.)