Do you see, do you see, all the people sinking down,

Don’t you care, don’t you care, are you gonna let them drown,

How can you be so numb, not to care if they come,

You close your eyes and pretend the job’s done.

Oh Bless me Lord, bless me Lord, you know it’s all I ever hear,

No one aches, no one hurts, no one even sheds one tear,

But He cries, He weeps, He bleeds, and He cares for your needs,

And you just lay back and keep soaking it in, oh, can’t you see it’s such sin?

Cause He brings people to your door,

And you turn them away, as you smile and say,

God bless you, be at peace, and all Heaven just weeps,

Cause Jesus came to your door, you’ve left Him out on the streets.

Open up, open up, and give yourself away,

You’ve seen the need, you hear the cry, so how can you delay,

God’s calling and you’re the one, but like Jonah you run,

He’s told you to speak, but you keep holding it in,

Oh, can’t you see it’s such sin?

The world is sleeping in the dark,

That the church can’t fight, cause it’s asleep in the light,

How can you be so dead, when you’ve been so well fed,

Jesus rose from the grave, and you, you can’t even get out of bed,

Oh, Jesus rose from the dead, come on, get out of your bed.

How can you be so numb, not to care if they come,

You close your eyes and pretend the job’s done,

You close your eyes and pretend the job’s done,

Don’t close your eyes, don’t pretend the job’s done.

Come away, come away, come away with Me, My love,

Come away, from this mess, come away with Me, My love.

________________

Listen to Keith Green perform this song at Estes Park.

The first blog post here at The Battle Cry was called The Great Privilege. Guess what? We’ll say it again – sharing the gospel, the Good News is THE greatest privilege ever given by God in Heaven to His children on Earth!

“How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” – Rom 10:14-15

Face it. God doesn’t need us, He has chosen to use us as  ‘means’ by which He saves His people. Yes, the Bible says that “He who wins souls is wise.” Proverbs 11:30, but do we do the “winning”, or does God win souls for His Kingdom through us? Sure, Agrippa told Paul that he was almost persuaded to be a Christian (Acts 26), but who does the actual persuading, the messenger or the one who opens hearts and minds to receive the message, the Holy Spirit of God (Acts 16)?

As often as we bumble and stumble with Hi gospel message, God has never changed His plan! You don’t have to have a special ‘gift’ of evangelism, although there are some who are so gifted; all you need to be able to do is explain a few basic truths you should already know to whomever you are ‘sent’.

1. Man is alienated from God because of sin, and we all stand guilty before a Holy and Just God (Rom 3:23). There are serious consequences as a result of sin (Rom 6:23a)

2. God has provided an answer to the ‘sin’ problem through the sacrifice of His own Son in the sinner’s place (Rom 6:23b, Rom 5:8).

3. It is the responsibility of everyone who would be saved from their sin to acknowledge that sin, repent (turn from sin and toward God), and believe the good news (Mark 1:15).

4. There is a cost associated with becoming a genuine follower of Christ. A person who doesn’t want to count the cost might not be ready for the gift of salvation (Luke 18:18-23).

Evangelism is not a ‘canned’ method, it is knowing and experiencing in one’s own life the above truths and sharing them with others. The scripture references provided are not the only passages that can be used to present the message, nor are the particular ‘words’ presented above the words you must use. The truths presented are what you need to communicate so that the hearer understands them.

I encourage you to just think about these truths and ‘how’ you share the gospel today. Do you present the ‘gospel of addition’ that people just need to add Jesus to their lives to solve all their ‘life’ problems? Or do you take the conversation to the the only truths that can actually save a person from an eternity in Hell?

And remember, sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ is STILL the great privilege!

From Romans, Chapter 1:

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

If we define ‘atheism’ is the belief that there is no God, or god, the above passage from Romans 1 seems to indicate that no one is ‘born’ an atheist. We all have some knowledge of God in our hearts. For the one who claims to be an atheist, there seems do be a downhill slide, or descent, from a conscious knowledge of God with significant recognizable ‘marks’.

I will leave all that to you who are reading this…something to think about today and something to remember when encountering someone who claims to be an atheist. Knowing from whence he/she has fallen should help in our approach to bringing truth to darkened hearts.

“It is totally beyond our control to “be saved”.  . . . . Yes, our race is a fallen race, and praise be to God, He provided that perfect restitution, that perfect reconciliation, that perfect restoration of relationship, IF we will only decide to accept it.“

The above statements were part of the same comment in another group of forums I sometimes visit, where interesting spiritual questions are posed for discussion. The forum thread where these appeared was about the ‘nature’ of fallen man.

That combination of statements poses an unavoidable question. The first says that is totally beyond our control to be saved. the second says that we ultimately are saved IF, and only IF, we make the right decision.

There is truth in both statements. We have no ability to control our salvation, and we must choose Christ. But doesn’t the IF, mean that we are ultimately in control?

In another forum thread at the same discussion venue, someone commented that God doesn’t actually save anyone, but that we save ourselves by our decision for Christ.

Please understand that this is just a question, regardless of what I might or might not personally believe. I have had to ask the question myself, believe me.

from R.C. Sproul

Continued from Part Five

Applications

After discussing these five positive signs, Edwards turns his attention to the application section of his treatise, following the normal structure of his sermons. In Section III he notes the practical inferences he draws from his study.The first inference is that the recent extraordinary influences were from the Spirit of God. These influences are judged both by rules and by facts. He points to the facts that correspond to the rules of Scripture—namely, that the positive signs of true awakening he set forth earlier in his treatise are indeed widely evident. They are public and also not confined to remote areas. He cites his own eyewitness experience of the phenomena. He cites his personal awareness of multitudes who have been awakened. “Some have been in great distress from a foreboding of their sin and misery. Others have been overcome with a sweet sense of the greatness, wonderfulness, and excellency of divine things.” He points both to the sober signs of awakening as well as delusions and irregularities that attended them and calls for the promotion of the recent working of the Spirit of God. Regarding the aforementioned irregularities and delusions, he says, “If they wait to see a work of God without difficulties and stumbling blocks, it will be like a fool waiting at the riverside to have the water all run by. A work of God without stumbling blocks is never to be expected.”To focus on the difficulties that attend genuine revival is to miss the manifold blessings that are poured out by it. It would have meant, for Edwards, missing the visitation of God to New England.Finally, Edwards turns his attention not to the critics of the Great Awakening, but to its friends. He calls the friends of the work to self-diligence. He provides an exhortation to them to avoid the errors and misconduct that characteristically accompany revival. He warns of those who will oppose them and counsels them to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. He especially warns against the danger of pride, saying:

Pride is the worst viper in the heart. It is the first sin that ever entered into the universe. It lies lowest of all in the foundation of the whole building of sin. Of all lusts, it is the most secret, deceitful, and unsearchable in its ways of working. It is ready to mix with everything. Nothing is so hateful to God, contrary to the spirit of the Gospel, or of so dangerous consequence. There is no one sin that does so much to let the devil into the hearts of the saints and expose them to his delusions.

He cites the errors of those who suppose that in their imaginations and impressions they have received direct messages from heaven.Claims to special divine revelations are not so much a sign of super-spirituality as they are of evangelical or pietistic megalomania. The days of prophets and apostles, genuine agents of revelation, are past. Such claims today are spurious and exceedingly dangerous. To cloak one’s desires, hunches, or opinions in such claims is to make use of a godless form of persuasion. What does one say to the person who claims, “The Lord told me to do this”? To use such devices is to place oneself above criticism by bathing one’s opinions in divine sanction.The extraordinary gifts of the Apostolic Age are not required today. It is the ordinary influence of the grace of God that should capture our attention. Edwards says:

The greatest privilege of the prophets and apostles was not their being inspired and working miracles, but their eminent holiness… . The extraordinary gifts are worthless without the ordinary sanctifying influences.

Edwards declared that he neither expected nor desired the restoration of the miraculous gifts in the church. He said:

For my part, I had rather enjoy the sweet influences of the Spirit. I had rather show Christ’s spiritual divine beauty, infinite grace, and dying love. I had rather draw forth the holy exercises of faith, divine love, sweet complacence, and humble joy in God. I had rather experience all this for one quarter of an hour than to have prophetical visions and revelations the whole year.

Edwards gives great caution to those who are preoccupied with the extraordinary. The danger is that such a quest becomes a substitute for diligent learning of the things of God. Such learning requires discipline and labor. To function as teachers, preachers, and Christian leaders we must advance to maturity as Christians. In this enterprise there is no substitute for diligent instruction. The judgment of discernment, both for what comprises sound doctrine and sound behavior, comes from being diligent students of the Word of God. Edwards had little use for the ripping of the Spirit away from the Word. Again, the testimony of the saints and the axiom with which Edwards began his treatise is that of subjecting experience to the Scripture. In the Scripture we meet the wisdom of God, which is able to judge all things. He writes:

The longer I live, the less I wonder that God keeps it as his right to try the hearts of the children of men. Also I wonder less that God directs that this business should be let alone till harvest. I adore the wisdom of God! In His goodness to me and my fellow creatures, He has not committed this great business into our hands.

This practical warning is directed against those who make harsh and precipitous judgments against other Christians. We do not have the capacity to judge the souls of men. That is the prerogative of God. Though not eschewing the proper procedures for necessary church discipline or the need to speak out against error, Edwards is careful to guard the boundaries established by God. Our discernment is always limited. Even those who oppose a true work of God must be dealt with without raging anger. We are to exercise such rebuke with gentleness and prudence.The work of the Holy Spirit is always a work among sinners. What is true for others is likewise true for ourselves. Though He leads us to holiness, it is a leading out of corruption. That corruption remains, at least in part, until our glorification at His hands. To demand from others what the Spirit Himself patiently endures is to exalt ourselves above God.The practice of godliness is a practice that is to be informed by Scripture and tempered by the work of the Holy Spirit within us. If we have been awakened, that awakening should bring with it an acute awareness that in many respects we are still aslumber.The church in our day can profit mightily from a close scrutiny of the insight provided for us by Edwards’s careful evaluation of the distinguishing marks of a true revival. He gives us a road map to follow lest we twist and turn into the detours of destruction.My hope is that the republishing of this work by the Puritan divine will effect a rekindling of zeal for authentic revival and reformation in our day.*****Excerpted from R.C. Sproul’s Introduction to The Spirit of Revival, edited by Archie Parrish.

There is an old joke that goes like this:

Three baseball umpires are having a bite to eat and a beer after the game was over. This is what they say to each other. The first one says, “There are balls and strikes. I call them the way they are.” The second one says, “There are balls and strikes. I call them the way I see them.” And the third one says, “There are balls and strikes and they are nothing until I call them.”

That old joke has been said to accurately perceptions of knowing what is true throughout human history when it is divided into pre-modern, modern, and postmodern categories.

The pre-modern category (“I call them the way they are.”) refers to the period of time in human history prior to the 17th century ‘enlightenment’; a period when the existence of God, and absolute truth was ‘out there’ and man could know what was true by studying God’s truth, as found in scripture. It can also refer today to those who believe in God (or a god), in some form or another, in all religions, including Christians.

The modern era (“I call them the way I see them.”) is said to have begun about 1600 or 1650 up until  recent past. Modernism, sometimes called rationalism or secular humanism—rejected the need for the existence of God and said it is possible for human beings to know truly by the use of our reason.

Postmodernism (“They are nothing until I call them.”) is a passionate reaction against confidence and reason. Fundamentally, postmodernism is saying that if there is no God up there, let’s be real about what that means – we mortals are alone here in this world. It is only us, and we are finite. For the Christian, finiteness is not a problem because of the existence of God and His revelation. However, for the postmodernist, being finite is an enormous problem. If there is nothing transcendent, nothing above us—neither God nor anything else—that understands everything, pure objective truth is not available to us. And that’s a hurdle over which no one can jump.

What we have in our postmodern environment is a culture in which ‘my’ truth is mine, and ‘yours’ is yours. If there is a larger truth anywhere, it’s based on a consensus of like minded individuals think it is. If more people believe in ‘A’ than ‘B’, then ‘A’ might be true, but we cannot know for sure. 

So What? Is it even important to understand ‘how’ truth has been perceived throughout history? Apparently it is, since there is an entire branch of philosophy dedicated to the subject – epistemology.

Epistemology (from Greek ἐπιστήμη – episteme-, “knowledge, science” + λόγος, “logos”) or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge It addresses the questions:

• What is knowledge?
• How is knowledge acquired?
• What do people know?
• How do we know what we know?

What does that mean in terms of sharing our Christian faith (and truth claims) with postmodern non-believers, and even believers? Think about it. If two people perceive truth in totally different terms, they will forever talk past each other…….wouldn’t they?

Food for thought.

This engaging question has prompted many discussions and debates over God’s sovereignty and man’s free will. In answering the question, I am aware of the stricter judgment that awaits me if I mishandle the word of God (Jas. 3:1). My passion is to always honor and glorify God and never misrepresent His character. Scripture reveals that our sovereign Lord not only chose to save certain sinners, but He also ordained the means by which He will convert them. God established His eternal decree to save His people when they hear and believe His Word (Rom. 10:13-17). It is for this reason the Lord of the Harvest commissioned His church to proclaim His Gospel. Every Christian has been given the awesome responsibility and highest privilege to call people to repent and trust Jesus Christ alone for salvation.

God Promises Success in Evangelism

As an evangelist, I have come to love the doctrine of election. There is a sense of relief knowing, that when I evangelize, the eternal destinies of souls are not dependent upon my persuasive ability to convert them. God guarantees success whenever His elect hear His Gospel. Jesus promised, “All that the Father gives me shall come to me” (John 6:37, 65). Not some, not most, but all. This sovereign act of God will eventually result in the conversion of those He has given to the Son. This occurred when Paul proclaimed the Gospel to the Gentiles in Antioch – “as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48). The elect will come to Jesus as Christians proclaim the voice of the Good Shepherd. He promised that when His sheep hear His voice, they will follow Him (John 10:27).  Whenever Christians sow the imperishable seed of God’s living Word, He promises to bring forth life when the seeds fall on fertile soil (1 Cor. 3:7; 1 Pet. 1:23). Success in evangelism is therefore guaranteed by God’s sovereign decree. What an encouragement it is to know that God causes those whom He has chosen to come to Him (Psalm 65:4). Man can never thwart God’s predetermined plan and purpose.

Doctrine of Election

Election, as defined in Scripture, tells us that God, in eternity past, before all things were created, chose specific individuals to be saved by His unmerited grace. He chose them according to the sovereign good pleasure of His own will. Paul wrote, “God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth” (2 Thes. 2:13). In another epistle Paul said, “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4). The Father chose His elect to be justified and totally glorified (Rom. 8:29-30). In a general sense God desires all men to be saved  (1 Tim. 2:4). However, He decreed to save only some, and then He wrote their names in the Lamb’s Book of Life (Rev. 17:8).

If the choice were left up to man, no one would choose God. Paul makes this clear without exception, “There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God” (Rom. 3:11; Ps. 14:2-3). Clearly, rebellious sinners could never choose Christ on their own free will; they choose Christ because He first chose them (John 15:16). Why does God choose some and pass over others? His purpose is hidden in the secret counsel of His will (Eph. 1:11). God’s purpose has been established, and He will accomplish it all for His good pleasure (Isa. 46:10).

Man’s Inability to Choose God

Scripture presents a clear contrast between God who is able to save and man who is unable. Man’s inability is due to the corruption of his nature and his rebellion and hatred of God (Heb. 7:25; Rom. 8:7; Eph. 2:1-7). God includes everyone in His invitations, but sinners exclude themselves because of their enslavement to sin. Their bondage to sin keeps them from coming to God. The Bible teaches that we are all born spiritually dead with a sin nature that corrupts our senses and limits our “free will.” Opponents of divine election deny this and teach that man has the free will to choose God and come to Him for salvation. However, Scripture proves this is humanly impossible. We cannot know God (Mat. 11:27); we cannot please God (Rom. 8:8); we cannot see the light of the Gospel (2 Cor. 4:4); we cannot understand spiritual truths (1 Cor. 2:14); we cannot hear the Words of Christ (John 8:43); and we cannot come to Jesus (John 6:44).

The unregenerate man lives in the lusts of his flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and are by nature children of wrath (Eph. 2:3). Only when God causes the spiritually dead to come alive in Christ can they see, hear, know and understand the Gospel, and thus, come to Jesus in faith (Col. 2:13). No one can become a child of God by their own will or by the will of their flesh (John 1:13). There is nothing man can do on his own to be adopted into God’s family. Only by God’s will can anyone be brought forth through the word of truth (Jas 1:18). “So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy” (Rom. 9:16). Sovereign election underscores not only the inability of man but also the freedom of God to save sinners according to His own purpose and grace (Titus 3:5; 2 Tim. 1:9). Those who are not recipients of His grace will remain in bondage to sin, captive to their own fleshly desires and hostile towards God (Rom. 8:7).

A Doctrine Hotly Contested

Although divine election is clearly presented throughout Scripture, it remains one of the most hotly debated doctrines in church history. Christians who reject the biblical doctrine of election do so for one of the following reasons: 1) pride – they believe man has the free will to release himself  from the bondage and power of sin, and then come to Jesus; 2) man-centered evangelism – they enjoy taking credit for persuading people to “accept” Jesus; 3) fear – they refuse to accept that their loved ones may not belong to the elect; and 4) a distorted view of God – they say God is unjust by choosing to save some while passing over others. Paul anticipated these objections when he wrote, “Who are you, O man, who answers back to God…Does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use, and another for common use?” (Rom. 9:19-23). Is man so prideful that, as a depraved sinner, he has a  better plan than an infinitely holy and eternally righteous God? Scripture soundly rebukes this foolish idea! “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts'” (Isa. 55:8-9). Those who deny election are usurping God of His absolute control over His creation and the right to choose His own family. They wittingly or unwittingly rob God of His glory, which is a dangerous position to take.

God does not treat everyone the same, but He does treat everyone justly. Some receive justice, which they deserve, and some receive mercy, which they don’t deserve (Rom. 9:15). Election does not mean that God chose some for heaven and some for hell. Every passage of the Bible that reveals divine election deals with it in the context of salvation, not damnation. Nowhere is anyone elected for hell. The only support for such a view is human logic, not Scripture. Clearly, all of us deserve the eternal fires of hell as the just punishment for our sin. People end up in hell because they rebelled against their Holy God and Creator. It is not man’s love for God that is the motivating factor behind anyone being saved but God’s amazing, unfathomable love for fallen man (Rom. 5:8; 1 John 3:1). We must never forget that God is glorified both when His righteous justice is executed on sinners as well as when His mercy is graciously bestowed on the elect. “Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? For Thou alone art holy…for Thy righteous acts have been revealed” (Rev. 15:4).

Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility

God is sovereign, but He made man responsible for his actions. To some, this appears to be a paradox. The two subjects are often set in opposition to each other rather than harmonized together. Both are true and both are found in the Word of God. We see that all men are held responsible for what they believe. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life…He who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:16, 18). Yet we also hear Jesus saying, “You do not believe because you are not my sheep” (John 10:26).

The harmony of these two subjects are hidden somewhere in the infinite mind of God. They stretch man’s ability to comprehend the perfect purpose of God (Ecc. 11:5). This is good, since it gives us a greater desire to know Him and, in turn, it causes us to dig deeper into His Word.  We must praise God for who He is and honor Him for His sovereign grace.   

Motivations to Proclaim the Gospel

We must be diligent in proclaiming the Gospel because God is pleased to save those who believe it as His Spirit works in their hearts. The faithful Christian knows that God is in control and He moves us to do the work He has prepared for us. We evangelize because we are sent by God to reconcile the world to Himself through Christ. What a royal privilege it is to represent the King of kings as His ambassadors to a lost and dying world. Like Paul, we must “endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory” (2 Tim. 2:10). It is true we do not know who the chosen ones are, but we do know this: “Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom. 10:13). We also know that people will believe the Gospel as the Spirit of Truth reveals it’s glory and illuminates the Word to them. 

The answer to “why evangelize?” is very simple – obedience! God has commissioned His saints to call the lost sheep to the Shepherd. No longer thundering from the mountain or from the burning bush, He uses Christians to accomplish His task of getting His Word to the elect. In closing, let us be motivated with this encouraging thought: Divine election is like a net cast into the sea – it does not drive the fish away, but draws them in. This should inspire us all to cast out the Gospel net more faithfully for God’s glory!

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The above article is from the Proclaiming the Gospel Web site. If you have read it and are currently having doubts about sovereign grace doctrine and evangelism, we hope this has addressed some of those doubts.

By John Hendryx

Many persons may reason that if the will is voluntarily choosing something and not coerced, then it is free. Well, we all make voluntary choices but there is still another sense in which the will is not free. When we speak of freedom of the will we need to ask, freedom relative to what? Historically speaking, Biblical scholars have understood a “free will” to be one which has in its power the moral ability to choose good or evil. So when we ask whether man has a free will, we are asking if his will is free (or in bondage) relative to sin and evil. In this respect, of course, the will is not free because through man’s innate wickedness, due to the fall, he is of necessity driven to what is evil, that is, unable to do any redemptive good (Rom 8:7). The natural man’s many good works, even though in accord with God’s commands, are not well pleasing to God when weighed against His ultimate criteria and standard of perfection. The love of God and His law is never the unbelievers’ deepest animating motive and principle, so it does not earn him the right to redemptive blessings from a holy God. And if a choice to do evil is made out of necessity (since the love of God is never the unbeliever’s motive), then it is not free, because it cannot choose otherwise. Apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, the natural person of uncircumcised heart is stiffnecked (of necessity) and will refuse to obey the commandments of the law and the gospel. And if the natural man chooses to sin of necessity, there is no sense in which he is free that ultimately matters to God. All choices we make are ethical ones, since, in them, we either glorify God or we do not, and God holds us accountable for these choices. And because God holds us accountable for every choice and thought, the ethical nature of each choice is of primary concern in determining whether the will is free or not.

Bad behavior itself, however, is really only a symptom of a much greater core concern. The natural man chooses/wills only what that inner principle desires most. But if the acts of his will are not determined by his internal nature, but rather are choices unconstrained by our nature and desires, as libertarians claim, then in what sense can it be said that those decisions are the results of a decision of the person himself? So any idea of a neutral will is absurd since our will is always driven by its moral nature which direct our desires (either we love God in our choice or we do not). Jesus said, “a good tree bears good fruit and a bad tree bad fruit.” Thus, he is saying that it is the nature of the tree determines the kind of fruit it produces. Only by “making the tree good”, Jesus says, will the fruit be good. In other words, unless Jesus redeems us from the bondage to sin (Rom 6; 2 Tim 2:25), we have no hope in the world to make any right (redemptive) choice, including believing the gospel (see John 6:65). Again, in what sense are we in bondage (slaves) to sin if not by our affections or wills? Our affections and desires drive the choices we make binding our will over to certain choices. Jesus said to Nicodemus,

“…men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light …” John 3:19-20

According to this, and many other passages, people exercise their will, of necessity, according to what they love and hate. The reason anyone does not come into the light is because he hates it and his affection is exclusively set on something else. The natural man, without the grace of the Holy Spirit to open his blind eyes and turn his heart of stone to a heart of flesh, loves darkness and hates the light. His will is then exercised within the constraints of the affections, desires and passions of his nature. In Romans chapter 6 when it says we are slaves to sin, in what sense is the natural man a “slave to sin” if not by the will and affections? This is a legitimate question.

The subject of whether or not man has a free will is a more easily understandable than most Christians imagine. The fact is, it can easily be proven from Scripture, that man has no free will (to choose good or evil), and while many already hold to this idea inconsistently, all true Christians really do embrace this idea without consciously knowing it. Ask most evangelicals, whether man has a free will, however, and most will automatically answer, “yes of course”, without showing scriptural evidence, but many other beliefs they already confess flatly contradict this assertion. Let me attempt to show you where this inconsistency exists. Here are two simple questions to ask anyone which will remove all false presuppositions and prove, once for all, that the natural man has no free will:

1. Do you believe that the Holy Spirit plays any role in the sinner coming to faith in Christ? (Because the Bible affirms this, all true evangelicals will answer ‘yes’) 

2. Do you believe that, apart from any supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, the sinner, by nature, has the will, ability, affection and desire to come to Christ?
(Because the Bible denies this all true evangelicals will answer ‘no’)

Thus you have, in two simple questions, completely disarmed any and all argument against the free will of man. Here is plain proof that all Christians, without exception, believe that no man is found NATURALLY willing to submit to the humbling terms of the gospel of Christ. The natural man, apart from the Holy Spirit, has no desire and affection for Christ and thus no free will to believe the gospel or do any redemptive good, because, of necessity, due to a corruption of his/her nature, fallen man is in bondage to sin. If the Holy Spirit is necessary to make us love God, then it follows that we had no ability to love him before the arrival of the Holy Spirit. It also means that the Holy Spirit is not given because we chose to love God. We chose to love God because the Spirit is given. Grace, not a virtue in man, takes the initiative. When we say a person is in bondage it simply means they have no freedom to choose otherwise, left to themselves. Through the centuries, Augustine (Anti-Pelagian Writings), Luther (Bondage of the Will), Calvin (Bondage and Liberation of the Will), Edwards (Freedom of the Will), etc… discussed the free will controversy in terms of sin (bondage) and holiness (freedom). And why did these Reformers all discuss the issue this way? Because this is how the Bible defines bondage and freedom. Using a word picture, when God redeems Israel from Egypt the idea is in their deliverance from bondage to slavery which God had accomplished for His people in the exodus (Exod 6:6). Christ now likewise redeems his people, the true Passover Lamb sacrificed for us so that God, seeing the blood on our doorpost, so to speak, passes over our sins, But now, instead of being delivered from physical slavery in Egypt Christ sets us free from the bondage of our wills to sin, enabling us to believe. He died for the reign of sin that once mastered us. So when Reformed Christians now and through history discuss whether or not we have a free will, they are usually pointing to the fact that man’s will and affections are broken and, due to fallen nature, “will not come into the light” (John 3:20). The libertarian, on the other hand, asserts that we have the innate ability to choose otherwise, that is, contrary to who we are by nature. But Augustine, finding more support in the Bible, asserted that prior to the Fall, (1) man was able to sin or not sin. (2) But after the Fall, unregenerate man is not able not to sin. (3) Fallen, but regenerated man is able to sin or not sin, and (4) Glorified man is not able to sin.

The Scripture describes fallen man as those who are hostile to God (Rom 8:7; Col 1:21) are in bondage to sin (Gal 4:3; 6:17, 20), and taken captive by Satan to do his will (2 Tim 2:25), until the Son sets them free (John 8:36). Why would the Son need to set them free from sin unless they were not free, i.e. slaves to sin? When we speak of man having no free will we are not saying man’s will is not self-determined, because it is. But self-determination is not the same thing as free will, because, we can only choose what we desire most, and that which we desire is in bondage to who we are by nature. As fallen creatures, then, we will only choose according to our corrupt nature, and cannot choose otherwise, so the outcome of our choice is determined. The natural man will always choose reject Christ due to the effects of sin on his affections. John Calvin said there is a great “difference there is between necessity and coercion. For we do not say that man is dragged unwillingly into sinning, but that because his will is corrupt he is held captive under the yoke of sin and therefore of necessity [will exercise his] will in an evil way. For where there is bondage, there is necessity. But it makes a great difference whether the bondage is voluntary or coerced. We locate the necessity to sin precisely in corruption of the will, from which follows that it is self-determined. (John Calvin, BLW pp 70)

Indeed, God sovereignly directs our wills to a particular outcome that is certain, but there is no Scriptural evidence that says this goes against what we want most at that moment. Rather, the Scripture simply says that the will is evil by a corruption of nature, but only becomes good by the grace of Jesus Christ applied by the Holy Spirit. It is not because of natural strength that we believe. We do not, in our unregenerate state, convert ourselves. By our own efforts, apart from the Holy Spirit, we cannot achieve this for Jesus says ‘apart from Me you can do nothing.’ The Scripture further testifies that “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3) and the natural man does not understand the things of the Spirit, because they are spiritually appraised. They are foolishness to him (1 Cor 2:14) and he acts only as he is acted upon, in accordance to the measure of grace he has received. While the preaching of the gospel is necessary to cast forth the seed of the gospel, it will not fall onto good soil unless the Spirit plows up the fallow ground and germinates the seed (so to speak). The soil is not good by nature but is made good by grace.

But people still tend to confuse coercion with necessity. Recently I heard Ron Rhodes interviewed on a local radio station and he said God did not create us as robots … and this is correct, and then he said, God gave us free choice [between good and evil]… which is right when applied to Adam (since his will was not yet corrupted or in bondage)… But when we say Adam was free we do not mean that he was free from the eternal decrees of God, but we mean free, as the Bible defines freedom (free from bondage to a sin nature). but then Rhodes commits a fatal error is when he said that “our will is free just like Adams'” …which is nonsense. Our will is corrupted and in bondage till Christ sets us free. What Rhodes means to say, I believe, is that we are not robots, which is true … but this is not how the Scripture defines the will which is not free … so it is wrong to teach that man has a free will. It destroys the very gospel we preach.
The unregenerate or natural man, who is by nature hostile to God, loves sin, and thus, apart from the grace of regeneration, will not seek God on God’s terms (1 Cor 2:14, Rom 8:7). He will invariably use his boasted “free will” to flee from, and suppress the truth of God (Rom 1:18). The regenerate (those the Spirit has quickened), on the other hand, are granted a renewed sense or disposition which has new understanding, desires and holy affections for God. As such, our natural hostility to God (John 3:19, 20) is disarmed and so we freely exercise our will to trust in Jesus, who now holds our supreme affection over all other idols.

The Scripture gives clear witness to the concept that our nature drives what kind of choices we make:

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. But there are some of you who do not believe … And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” ( John 6:63-65)
[note: “the phrase “come to Me” is a synonym for “faith” or “believe” so no one can believe unless God grants it and verse 37 says “all that the Father gives me will come to me” so we have a syllogism which say none will believe unless God grants it but all to whom God grants it will believe. ]

“Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. “[note: a person produces fruit in accord with his nature] (Matt 7:16-18)

” Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad. You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. ” (Matt 12:33- 35)

“Can the Ethiopian change his skin Or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do good Who are accustomed to doing evil.” (Jeremiah 13:23)

“But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and know them, and they follow Me.” (John 10:26-27)

34Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin…”If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do the things Abraham did. As it is, you are determined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. 41You are doing the things your own father does…44You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! 46Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? 47He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.” John 8:34-47

In other words, water does not rise above its source. Apart from the work of the Spirit, we cannot lift a finger toward our own salvation. It is about as likely as your ability to create a world.
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Arminian theology defines and affirms freewill as an inalienable power to do otherwise [ that moral decisions are strictly uncaused, independent of all our desires], whereas the biblical position (The texts of which were quoted above) defines and affirms freewill as a voluntary or uncoerced decision [according to our greatest desire]. On the latter definition, freedom and determinism are consistent (compatibilism). Reformed theology denies freewill in the Arminian sense. There are several specific respects in which Reformed theology denies freewill. It denies that (i) an agent is free to thwart the divine decree; that (ii) the unregenerate are free to believe the Gospel; that (iii) the regenerate are free to commit apostasy, or that (iv) the glorified are free to sin. The Arminian version attacks the Reformed version on ethical grounds whereas the Reformed version attacks the Arminian version on exegetical and philosophical grounds. – Adapted from Steve Hays
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Note: Some theologians speak of freedom of the will in relation to God’s absolute sovereignty (i.e. whether we are free from God’s control), which is, of course, absurd since any existence of chance in the universe would mean that God could somehow be taken by surprise by some choice we make. Foisting such ignorance on God is unscriptural to say the very least. Eph 1:11 clearly states that God has predetermined all things after the counsel of his will. But human choices in the is never spoken of in the Bible in terms of slavery or freedom from God…. and this is why we do not use the term “free will” in this way when we speak of it. God clearly controls all things and directs our wills how He pleases, but in so directing our wills are still voluntary (not coerced), that is, not against what we desire. This falls under the question of meticulous providence, not freedom and bondage of the will. For it would be absurd to speak of the sinners will as being on bondage to God. The only place where this is spoken of in the Text is Romans 6 which says that we were set free from our slavery to sin and made slaves to righteousness. But here our slavery to righteousness is actually how the Bible defines freedom.

Although the below referenced article is about foreign missionaries (outsiders) being deported from Morocco, it makes a huge case for the importance and necessity of ‘indigenous’ ministry – from within a society/people group/demographic segment of society.

Forced Deportations in Morocco Worry Native Christians

Damaris Kremida

May 25, 2010

ISTANBUL (CDN) — In a second wave of deportations from Morocco, officials of the majority-Muslim country have expelled 26 foreign Christians in the last 10 days without due process.

Following the expulsion of more than 40 foreign Christians in March, the deportations were apparently the result of Muslim hardliners pressuring the nation’s royalty to show Islamic solidarity.

The latest deportations bring the number of Christians who have had to leave Morocco to about 105 since early March. Christians and expert observers are calling this a calculated effort to purge the historically moderate country, known for its progressive policies, of all Christian elements – both foreign and national.

“I don’t see the end,” said Salim Sefiane, a Moroccan living abroad. “I see this as a ‘cleansing’ of Christians out of Morocco, and then I see this turning against the Moroccan church, which is already underground, and then persecution of Moroccan Christians, which is already taking place in recent days.”

At least two Moroccan Christians have been beaten in the last 10 days, sources told Compass, and police have brought other Moroccan Christians to police stations daily for psychologically “heavy” interrogations.

Authorities are enquiring about the activities of foreign and local Christians.

Copyright 2010 Compass Direct News. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The remainder of the article can be read here. 

Given the spread of incidents such as these, is it a stretch to consider the possibility of such things in our country? We say we deplore such things, and rarely consider they might happen here in the good old U.S.A. Yet Jesus did promise such things would happen to his followers, didn’t he?

Food for serious thought. . .