Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Tue, 15 Dec 1992 16:22:12 EST
From:         BENSON@POKVMCR3.VNET.IBM.COM
Subject:      Re: Calvinism

 Ian Williams <iwilliam@AU.ORACLE.COM> states:
 > A dead man cant blow his nose, but I sure was blowing my nose
 > before I was born again..A dead man cant do a low of things!

I believe you are mixing the physical and spiritual.  I never said
that you were dead physically.  Therefore, you can blow your nose.
I am saying you were dead spiritually so you can't choose God.

 > Building doctrines on one or two pasages is the quickest way of
 > foundering your spiritual ships on the rocks of deception.

Ok, here are some other scriptures.  This list is not comprehensive
but these are a few passages that I have stuck in my Bible.  Please
read the context of each one.  I don't wish to type in long sections
here.

 1. Gal. 1:15 - "But when God, who set me apart from birth and called
                 me by His grace, ..."

 2. Eph. 1:4,5 - "For he chose us in Him before the creation of the
                  world..."

 3. Col. 2:13-15 - "When you were dead in your sins and in the
                    uncircumcision of you sinful nature, God made you
                    alive with Christ..."

 4. Rom. 3:10-18 - "As it is written: 'There is no one righteous,
                    not even one; there is no one who understands,
                    no one who seeks God...'"

 5. Rom. 8:33 - "Who will bring any charge against those whom God
                 has chosen?  It is God who justifies."

 6. Rom. 9:16 - "It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or
                 effort, but on God's mercy."

 7. Rom. 9:18 - "Therefore God has mercy on whom He wants to have
                 mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden."

 8. Rom. 9:23-24 - "What if He did this to make the riches of His
                    glory known to the objects of His mercy, whom
                    He prepared in advance for glory - even us,
                    whom He also called..."

And the last one I want to mention I will include a longer quote...

 9. Eph. 2:1-10 - "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions
                   and sins, in which you used to live when you
                   followed the ways of this world and of the ruler
                   of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now
                   at work in those who are disobedient.  All of us
                   also lived among them at one time, gratifying the
                   cravings of our sinful nature and following its
                   desires and thoughts.  Like the rest, we were by
                   nature objects of wrath.  But because of His great
                   love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us
                   alive with Christ even when we were dead in
                   transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved.
                   ..."

I really love verse 4 in the King James version.  It starts out
"But God,..."  Those two simple words are the story of all of our
lives!

Ian, I am not trying to convince you that you ought to believe the
way I believe.  1 Pet. 3:15 says "Alway be prepared to give an answer
to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you
have."  There are many scriptures that one may use that would seemingly
contradict these that I don't have answers for... yet.  But one day
God will make all of this known to us.

For now, I choose (uh oh! bad choice of words! :)) to believe that
it is God who regenerates us and gives us the faith to choose Him.

Do you think that God regenerates all and then some choose not to
believe?  Or does God regenerate only some and then they can choose
whether or not to believe?

Mike Benson
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia