and very plainly as God's election taking precedence over creatures prior to their sin ( in this verse, prior to them being born..):

Romans 9:10-13 And not only that , but Rebecca having conceived by one, Isaac our father, the children indeed being not yet born, or having done anything good or worthless (that the purpose of God according to election might abide, not of works, but of him that calls), it was said to her, The greater shall serve the less: according as it is written, I have loved Jacob, and I have hated Esau.

If, as non-creating speech/anti-Christ through the free willers claim, God is not His Word and lied about being Incarnated, living, dying and being resurrected specifically as His Word and as a result of God supposedly having lied about that, then God must "use language" as a supposed other 'x' He supposedly created for the purpose of communicating will-neutrally (i.e. as supposedly not being creating speech and thus bringing into being what He Said as He spoke it) with it, then sin can be the effect that produces the cause of God's judgment and anti-Christ through free willers has a point. In order for that to work as a doctrine, God can't be His Word or Creating Speech.

But God IS His Word AND Creating Speech as is testified by the Scriptures themselves AS those Scriptures.

It is plain that if all one has ever heard is non-creating speech/anti-Christ then as they read the Scriptures and if God does not Speak to them, they can only be deceived that the free will of man is the only logical possibility given the whole of Scripture.

All God has to do is plaster the ears of those souls and they will never hear Him even though He is always Speaking through the Scriptures. That plastering is exactly what we find in those who dis-believe in Jesus Christ and/or make up a false Christ to "believe in" "with their own will" AND while supposedly maintaining for themselves the supposed power that all of total reality has to be will-neutral with respect to them. They believe it as best honesty and no joke or insincerity. The worst effects of that delusion are seen in the crowd who follows Todd Bentley and that kind of liar. They can quote Scripture all day.

Isaiah 44:18 They have no knowledge, and understand not; for he hath plastered their eyes, that they may not see; and their hearts, that they may not understand.

To those in Christ God Says:

Luke 8:10 And he said, To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest in parables, in order that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.

yet anti-Christ constantly pretends that everybody can see and everybody can hear with no limitations. Yet God's election stands. Those who cannot hear and cannot see stay in sin and then sin more and more because they have no other speech or spirit than sin itself. Thus God plainly chose for them whether or not they would sin and did not at all place them in a will-neutral environment in which they were supposed to work out "what sin is" in over to "not do it". Those people are always seen to be asking about "the problem of evil" as if they were diligently searching for how to not be evil --for themselves.

and again:

Romans 9:15-26 For he says to Moses, I will shew mercy to whom I will shew mercy, and I will feel compassion for whom I will feel compassion. So then it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shews mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, For this very thing I have raised thee up from amongst men , that I might thus shew in thee my power, and so that my name should be declared in all the earth. So then, to whom he will he shews mercy, and whom he will he hardens. Thou wilt say to me then, Why does he yet find fault? for who resists his purpose? Aye, but thou, O man, who art *thou* that answerest again to God? Shall the thing formed say to him that has formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Or has not the potter authority over the clay, out of the same lump to make one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour? And if God, minded to shew his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted for destruction; and that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he had before prepared for glory, us, whom he has also called, not only from amongst the Jews, but also from amongst the nations? As he says also in Hosea, I will call not-my-people My people; and the-not-beloved Beloved. And it shall be, in the place where it was said to them, *Ye* are not my people, there shall they be called Sons of the living God.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen

One the outside of the door is written "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely." (Revelation 22:17)

On the inside of the door, once you're through, you will read in Ephesians 1: "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved."

The metaphor I use, internally, to describe this is my DVR player, which has the Cubs-Brewer game on it. I already know how the game ends, in the sixth inning the Cubs hand those pathetic Brewers their hats. Christians believe God is eternal, the Alpha and the Omega. Therefore, he is not constrained by time, and knows the end and the beginning. God calls himself the "I AM", he is present in all points in time, and in all places.

We, the players, Cubs and Brewers, sit in the dugout and chew and spit and go to bat and pitch and catch and run around the bases. For us, these are not foregone conclusions. Baseball is the one game not run on the clock, but it can be called on account of darkness or rain, but eventually the game gets played. It does have an ending, and the recording occupies a finite amount of space on my DVR.

We, too, will have an ending, as we had a beginning. We must live our lives, striving however imperfectly, to live in the light of eternity. Eternity is not a great long stretch of time, but every point along the line.

Privately, I believe Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. I believe that God will judge mankind. I believe the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was the ultimate payment to all sin, past, present and future. Therefore, it is not our sins which will send us to hell: were it my own righteousness which might save me, I would be surely damned. As everyone here will attest, I am not a good man, I am a forgiven man.

Of course, there's a rational flaw in all this: if all have been forgiven, how then will anyone go to hell? It troubles me, too. I cop out by saying "God who forgave all men their sins through the sacrifice of his son, for reasons known only to himself, will also judge mankind, and it is not my problem. My problem is myself and my continuing lapses into sin, which can only be described dishonesty and disloyalty and failure to follow the path."

So there you have it. I suppose Timmy would call me a weak-tea liberal theologian, but I'm not. I wish I was so wonderful and good and free of sin, so I could go around condemning other people and preaching here and there. My Dad was an ordained minister. I couldn't do that. I know who I am, a vastly imperfect person, and nobody's good example.

--

I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine

...dipsydoodle is out of the question?

“I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”

“I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”

just order the Great Dane size.

I blame it all on the Internet