Free Will

Free will is the voluntary decision of your actions. Man's freedom of choice is not constrained from our point of view by the fact that God in His omniscience knows how we will use our freedom. Chaucer was fond of reminding audiences that a conflict arises between the concepts of God as an omniscient and just being and of free will as a function of man's soul. It appears unjust for God to permit individuals to fall into mortal sin when He could prevent them from going to Hell.

The Calvinist errors along these lines invariably took Christian freedom out of its theology for its followers and replaced it with a self-righteous arrogance that supplanted free-will. For the Puritans, open minded liberality and free thinking was not part of our nature created in God's image but an evil sent by the devil. Since God has spoken in His Word, they no longer needed to think for themselves nor need the prophetic word to teach us. Even though God had created all of us in His likeness, reason was suspect and faith in God became a delusionary faith in a concept against freedom of choice and against the confidence that God had been sufficient in giving them a mind to make their own decisions. Because the Bible is complete in its current form, God no longer needs to speak to us. This is the essence of what is meant by puritan ignorance. This has quenched the spirit as few other false doctrines have done and a hard mold to break.

God creates people with free will. He does so because our existence has an infinite worth by being created in His image. The notion that free will supplants free grace is plain stupid. Because God is love and He wills for us to choose the good, His choosing us for eternal life depends then, upon our choice to choose His nature rather than a deceitful one. God did not create evil, evil was chosen out of the free will against His nature.

William James wrote: "our first act of freedom, if we are free, ought in all inward propriety to be to affirm that we are free." Emerson: "Nor can he blink the free will. To hazard the contradiction, - freedom is necessary. If you please to plant yourself on the side of Fate, and say, Fate is all; then we say a part of fate is the freedom of man."

The essence of hyper-Calvinism is that if God is sovereign and knows the beginning and end and we are predestinated to eternal life, that means that we do not have the free will to choose God, the choice has already been made in eternity. The truth is far from that however. God gives us free will in that He allows mankind the choice to proclaim Him sovereign in our individual lives or not. The doctrines of pre-destination and election are true only if it affirms the foreknowledge of God and does not negate the Christian freedom that Jesus died to give us. We are not bound by the law if we "choose" to walk in the spirit. We have free will, the angels have free will, satan and the demons chose their way because they were also created with free will.

All glory and honor belongs to God yet though our creation, He has given us dominion over the earth. God doesn't make us do anything, He reveals to us His will and gives us the freedom to decide for ourselves. God in is His foreknowledge knows who are being saved but through His wisdom gave us a plan of salvation to make that choice ourselves in our time frame. To think that God is the only one with free will means that God is the author of sin, confusion and disobedience because we do not have any choice in the matter and it was God's sovereign will that is being done without any power from us. Calvinists, because they believe that they are among the chosen elect are in effect not just the reflection of that glory but the glory itself. They think because of our position in Christ, we have need of nothing. There is no longer any responsibility to live holy because we are already holy in our very selves, we do not present our bodies as a sacrifice because "it is finished" means that we can now present nothing, we don't have the power. They are already righteous in every sense and even when they sin without repentance, there is no process of sanctification; we do not have the power or freedom to work out our salvation in fear and trembling; no race to run to win the prize; because Christ died, we don't have to. They have already arrived, the race is over, they are in the heavenly calling simply from the fact of believing it so. Under this logic, Jesus did not die for the whole world and willing that none should perish but rather only for the elect. They think that because we are His workmanship that we no longer have any more work to do but the fact is that faith without works is dead being by itself. They call persons who believe in free will heretics, misinformed, infantile and stupid because we choose not to believe in the determinist doctrine of men, not that we have a choice mind you but because we are not part of the chosen elect. To see people like this making inroads into the five-fold is very alarming.

This part is the most important. The issue is not predestination against free will, that is a brick wall. Get this one thing. The issue is predestination and God's sovereignty without man's free will to choose to serve God against predestination and God's sovereignty with man's free will that He has given us to choose whom we will serve. To deny the essence of our free will is to deny affirmative Christian action and the Great Commission itself. This is a grievous error, one that needs to be extricated and denounced. It is not just a difference of opinion with agree to disagree. It has a crippling effect on the power of Christian praxis, intercession and our witness to the world.

We need no discussions on irresistible grace, it's a waste of time, we need to move on with the truth, not study heresies. In the book of James, we are told to persevere, I looked up perseverance in the dictionary for a class of mine on James. Not too tough, I thought, the first dictionary gave the answer you might suspect concerning persistence despite obstacles but the next one made it more difficult. In it, there was the theological concept of the perseverance of the saints and suddenly the whole topic changed into a stupid doctrinal question. Well, I am not the type of person that runs from a controversy or sweep it under the rug, I must seek the Lord, confront the problem and see what I can do to find a solution. In this case, the Calvinistic issue of the denial of man's free will reared its ugly head again but this time, it was the doctrine of unconditional election to prove that those that are called will persevere to the end no matter what. A false doctrine again holding its adherents in place without the action allowed for us to step out in faith. My Lord told us that "many are called, but few are chosen" and elsewhere that "he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved," Calvinism turns both of those statements around just to prove their points against our free will. Everything they teach is under the cloud of this false doctrine and if it disagrees with the word of God, Calvinism will prevail.

Eternal security questions aside, the Calvinists refer to perseverance in the positional sense but James, the writer of Hebrews and Paul all refer to perseverance in the practical sense. Don't you know that your salvation can be neglected? Inotherwords, if we just wait on God to do His work in us, we might just do nothing, rather God is waiting on us to do our work in Him. We must step out in faith. I tried over and over to make this point clear and Calvinism came back at me every time to try to deceive you. I tried to share with you what the lord would have me do in the community just as Calvinism slaps me in the face again to dissuade me. Paul admonishes us to be steadfast and unmovable not just in our position in Christ but in the work of the Lord (I Cor. 15:58).

It is the positional aspect of Calvinism that is in question here. Any action that we do is questioned, any practical holiness or stepping out or doing anything outside of that positional relationship is considered of the flesh. Good works are of the flesh? That is not what the Bible teaches. Who are we to believe, Calvinism or the word of God? What should be discussed is not the personalities involved but the controversy that spawns the division. I did not create the division. Who am I to question the word of God? We should stay in context with the word of God and wash ourselves clean of heresy. I never did bring up the word heresy until now except to admit that I am considered a heretic by Calvinists. Let's call it rightly then. I will continue to confront heresy and false teaching. The victors will be to the overcomers, not to those who tolerate division and heresy, nor to those who ignore it.

We are the restorers of the breach. To allow division and the doctrines of demons to continue in the body is to admit to being part of the problem, not the solution. To suggest that our positional authority is sufficient without taking the action necessary to take authority is to do nothing but neglect our salvation, to rest in ourselves rather than in God, to allow those that would deceive us the sufficient ground to overtake us. And most importantly, we must not allow heresy to be given equal footing in the vine out of love for those that spread them. This is also not a question of love or humility or restoring those under the error. Have any one of you been to a Jehovah's Witness meeting? I have and they love each other. They have a profound wisdom to share of the kingdom of God and the witness of His people. It is not an issue of loving them, we can still love them, it is an issue of exposing false doctrine and purging the cancerous heretical infections out of the Christian Church. Confronting them just gives them the ammunition to say that we are prejudiced and lacking in love and they go on defending their position, so we just denounce them and go where the spirit leads us. Loves warns of a fire in our midst, it does not embrace the fire, it does not mince words or flatter it, it does not beat around the bush, it stomps on it and puts it out. JW's are false prophets, oh, I'm sorry, was that too harsh? That does not mean we burn heretics at the stake like Calvin did but we do expose the heresy and separate ourselves from what is false to protect the flock. Except for the nature of Christ and the teachings of their founders, the Mormons teach exactly the same views of election and denial of free will that the Calvinists do. Oh, but they live such righteous lives without the temptations we have. Sure they do, the devil already has them where they want them. Oh, I'm sorry, did I cause offense? Should we except them out of love for the brethren because they say that they are the chosen saints? You know they have so many nice things to say outside of the nature of Christ heresies, should we overlook them out of love? Or should we expose what is false to protect those of us that could be misled by them? You answer that question for yourself.

Jesus should be leading us and we should be bearing witness with each other. It is false doctrine and the pretense of spiritual authority that comes against those that believe God has given mankind free choice. To be able to allow Jesus to lead us, we must be willing to follow, that means that we must have the will and resolve to follow. Do we want to be in God's will or not? The choice is ours to make. We do not have to wait on God, He is already here, He is waiting on us to be joined in His truth. Half truth is that we have our being in Him, that is a wonderous thought, the other half is that we live and move in Him. Acts 17:28.

Finally, truth should be spoken in love. You have my heart. This is not easy but done in the heat of battle for my love for you and for each other. It's not really about me. Babylon is such a nice place. We eat real well there, we are rich, we have all we need. So now we are to get out, hit the dusty trail, leave all of our baggage behind, be stoned, reviled and called heretics. Why would we do that? That is not man's wisdom. We are to go into the realm of the spiritual and work on the restoration of God's temple made without hands just for the sake of doing what He expects of us? Not without difficulty, not without the traditions of men and the doctrines of demons telling us that it is filthy rags and the work will be burned up. Just have faith knowing that God's grace is sufficient for you to do your task. So let the scoffers come, it only makes our patience and endurance stronger. If we are the chosen, then act like it. We know that the race is not done, there is more work to do and those that think it is already finished will be outside throwing stones at us as well as each other. That is tragic, those are God's people left behind that have tasted of God's goodness grace, salvation and mercy. That is real tragic but we must still move on. Drink the new wine, that old stuff will just get you dizzy.

But first you must make that choice. The choice is given to God's people.

De 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.

Jeremiah 21:8 And unto this people thou shalt say, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I set before you the way of life, and the way of death.


[45, 74, 147, 259, discussions on the A/P Panel]



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