Why did you choose right and they chose wrong? What made you special to know you were waiting on the "right" Lord and then chose the right one, or were you just lucky?
It's not a question of choosing God, it's a question of trusting in God, that hear will hear you, surrendering to God's will. I don't know the people you are reffering to, but maybe they didn't. I don't know who they are.
My question to you stands.
What made you special waiting on the Lord?
What about others who have waited on the Lord and ended up following J. Jones or Smith or Russel.
Why did you choose right and they chose wrong? What made you special to know you were waiting on the "right" Lord and then chose the right one, or were you just lucky?
I trusted God and God revealed himself to me, it's a supernatural revelation, I can't describe it, it's a spiritual awareness. If your born again you would know the what that moment is like. I can't say that happens with everyone, the same experience, people experience their moment in different ways, but Jesus is revealed to them. I never at at time have I said I am special, you say that. I am not special in any way.
What do you mean? I was lying on an army bed, reading a book and minding my own business when a guy came up to me and shared the gospel with me. The trust came after I was saved.
Well it's not for me to question your salvation, I have an open mind to how God can save a person and he may very well do it that way. So I don't disbelieve you.
Nothing special about me. I the most undeserved sinner was saved by God. It was His grace that saved me, not because I was special and new I had to choose to believe in Him.
Why do you keep saying that word special, do you think I am special, because I put my trust in God and cried out to him?
So tell me, if God saves an atheist in the next minute how does that happen? Or do you think atheists just put their trust in God and then decide to believe in Him.
When did they make such a decision? Did it happen overnight?
Go read my testimony, I was an atheist, wasn't you, before?
No. But free willers seem to think so.
Don't you make a choice from your natural fallen free will? Are you not the one choosing by knowledge and trust. I am sure the JJ and Koresh crowd did the same.
Trust in God is when you empty yourself of all pride, faith in oneself and any knowledge and rely totally on God. Do you disagree with that?
You seem to be against a person trusting in God when you are unsaved, you seem to suggest it's prideful, but okay to trust when you are saved.
Do you tell a unsaved person don't trust in God for your salvation that's prideful, pride is a sin, so what you are saying effectively when a person doesn't believe in God, you must not trust him for your salvation, that is sinful to trust in God. That is what you are saying. You actually believe that?
Have you always been a calvinist, or did you first come to believe in the simple gospel that I believe in. How did you come to learn about calvinism, who convinced you, did you work it out all on your own? Or did looking at the internet, reading various scriptures that all seem sewn together give you a completely new picture of God's salvation? I wonder, was OSAS the first thing you believed and the rest of Tulip followed. Did you have some difficulty swallowing the T, total depravity? That must be a hard one, I bet lots of calvinist struggle at first with that one, like swallowing a camel I would have thought. Yet I say, I trusted in God, something the size of a nat and you choke on the very idea of it.
Did you choose to get revelation from God, or did God choose to reveal Jesus Christ to you as Lord and savior.
I chose to trust God and God chose to reveal Jesus Christ to me, so both. I have to say I was amazed it happened, I wasn't expecting it, well not an answer that quickly, which was instantly.
When God revealed Jesus Christ to you as Lord and savior, did you then use your human will to decide to trust Him, or did your love and trust flow from the revelation you received?
The moment Jesus was revealed to me, I knew him, trust is automatic, you can't unknow something can you?
Did you even have to decide to believe, or did your spirit cry out to Him?
I asked, I realised I could never know him any other way. I just asked and in an instant it was revealed to me. You can claim God forced me to, he made me. Yet why have me waste a whole year of searching for him, why not do it right away, was he saying humble yourself lee, you want to know me, then trust me, don't think you can know me through your own knowledge, you can't figure me out, unless I agree. I figure that is how it worked.
What I did read is that you think Calvinism is false.
Yes I do, if I didn't think that, I would not be here.
God does not choose, but you choose. Is that correct?
God does not elect, you elect yourself. Is that correct?
God chooses, of course he does, you understand that, I understand that. The question is on what basis does God reveal himself to an unbeliever.
You say God chooses and he does, look at Paul, he had no trust in Jesus, he was persecuting Jesus's followers, God is sovereign. Yet my testimony shows that is not how Jesus was revealed to me or many others and also the bible shows, that you can open the door to Jesus, so scripture fits with man's ability to trust in Jesus for salvation.
Calvinism doesn't teach that, in fact the patchment of scripture that calvinists huddle together paints a very different picture of man's ability and God's word is very powerful is it not? The problem you have is, there are loads of scripture that clearly contradicts your beliefs. You see this scripture, like the one I posted and you choose to ignore it.
God is sovereign you believe that, I mean that is what you calvinists bang on about, well who are you to tell God how he can reveal himself to people?
You don't get to tell God how he reveals himself to someone, if he chooses Mary to be the mother of his son, he is sovereign and if he wishes to reveal himself in whatever way he wishes to someone, he can, whether it be through a conversion like Paul or through someone trusting him.
The scriptures are clear and they don't fit calvinism ideology, or peoples experience and you also have many other issues arising like the justice in creating people and sending them to eternal damnation for just being made the way they are with no ability to be anything else.
It's like God creating a blind man and saying you are blind, why didn't you see, I am going damn you to hell for that.
No doubt your answer is God is sovereign and yes it's true God is sovereign, but he is not unjust. How you can believe such a thing, seems like you are swallowing a lot more than a camel, but the entire animal kingdom, all in one go.
