Helping Lead a John Piper Fan to Christ
Re: Cindee Martin Morgan, an unsaved Calvinist
http://www.youtube.com/user/cindeemorgan
Piper: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GazlhAyVXPA
Quote:
Originally Posted by cindeemorgan
I appreciate your e-mail. It is clear, by your words, that you do not understand what Calvinism is. If you did, you could not define it as "sadistic" or evil. I pray, for your sake, that you are more careful to not ignore what most Scripture supports: A God in complete control of His Creation, not held captive to our wills. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD."
"The Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will (2 Timothy 2:24-26)."
Notice that the Lord has to "grant" them repentance so that they "may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him..."
Salvation is a gift from the Lord...."not by works, so that no one can boast." Eph. 2:9 Only Christ can "grant" it. We can not name it and claim it. Our choice to serve Him is a response to His grace that is irresistible. He has a plan and a purpose that WILL prevail, in spite of man's sinful choices. All God has to work with is our sin---and His righteousness. We have no righteousness of our own. Apart from Him we are not capable of making a good decision. Praise God we are not in charge of anything, let alone our eternal destiny. I will say it once again, we have no righteousness of our own. Any choice we were to make would be evil unless the Lord opened our spiritual eyes and enabled us to choose Him. Saul (Paul) was killing believers. God blinded his physical eyes and opened his spiritual eyes. He did not ask Saul's permission. He does not have to; He is God! This story is a beautiful picture of God's grace and mercy. Saul was held captive by the devil to do his will. Christ opened his eyes and set him free. Once the Lord does this you RUN to the Cross. The work is His doing and His alone. Therefore all glory belongs to Him.
God bless you,
Cindee Martin Morgan
In that video Piper said free-will doesn't work for him, so he leaves it out and trusts just two things he said: 1) God's sovereignty and 2) we are dead in trespasses. "Willingly offered" is found in such passages as "the people willingly offered themselves" (Judges 5.2); "willingly offered a freewill offering unto the Lord" (Ezra 3.5); and the offer of salvation to Nicodemus, "whosoever believeth" (John 3.16). How much more clearly does the Bible need to say it to convince you? Your stubborn heart shows another reading of Scripture that reads into God's word that which is not there. Piper said he trusts he accepts God's word in the middle between God's sovereignty and our being dead in trespasses, but how is that when he denies the offer of salvation to our free-will? Therefore, Piper is not accepting the middle at all!
The question for me is, is his view of God's sovereignty really sovereignty as God has it? And is his view of our dead in trespasses really what he considers dead in trespasses?
Since God pleads with us, if we are dead in trespasses by being Totally depraved, then no matter how much God pleads with us, we will never be saved and makes God vain and a liar. Pleading and making people do something are incompatible. If God irresistibly gives salvation to some and denies sufficient grace to others to have the opportunity for salvation, then His pleading is pretentious, because salvation was irresistibly imposed anyway and others denied the enabling grace. Either way, it makes no sense for a righteous God to act that way, because if we acted like that we would be considered evil. A contradiction is a contradiction and remains inexplicable, just like the contradictory decretive will and revealed will are unreconcilable in your system of belief. It is evil to say you want to save all, but not provide sufficient grace for all to be saved, thus decreeing not everyone to be saved. Your god is powerless to provide sufficient grace for all and that is what makes him evil.
If free-will is true such problems go away, but Piper doesn't accept free will, and therefore, I believe he is not born-again, because he clearly admits he is unwilling to repent and believe in Christ to be regenerated.
Don't argue with Christians about this, but give your life to Christ and thus abide in these verses. "The Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will (2 Timothy 2:24-26)." May you come to the knowledge of truth by coming to God with an honest heart and God will grant you repentance.
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. God's sovereignty doesn't man evil sovereignty. Don't take this verse and assume into that God irresistibly imposes salvation on some and denies others sufficient grace, for that would not be saving to the uttermost. Do you see how your god fails to compare to God of the Bible?
Your being dead in sins doesn't mean you can't accept Christ, but it refers to your present unwillingness to come to Christ even though God has provided you with more than sufficient grace.
Your mistaken assumption is to assume because we have free will that God is somehow captive to them. How can this be if God is the one who provided the full measure of our wills and the options available to our wills?
It is clear you don't understand that OSAS Arminian position where God saves the most and damns the least, that which your god is unwilling or unable to do. Your conscience has not been quickened by the Holy Spirit to realize why it is wrong for your god to be sadistic in sending people to Hell without recourse or irresistibly imposing salvation.
God grants repentance, but repentance is not such that it is irresistibly imposed on some and denied others the opportunity to receive. What love is this? That's how Satan and Hitler and the protestant pope of Geneva behaved. Everyone may repent, for God has provided sufficient grace to all, but that not all receive only shows their willfulness not to be saved God's way. Can you sense how you pride yourself in a stance you by merely assuming regeneration rather than having repented and believed on Christ to be regenerated? Feel the ugliness inside you with that pompous attitude which turns people off of Christ by you misrepresenting Him.
Salvation is not by works, so you can't claim it by assuming it, but you have to believe by faith and truly repent instead of assuming you can't. Such assuming itself a work; and assuming regeneration without prior repentance and faith.
Does God offer us salvation when He says "come unto me" (Matt. 11.28) because we have free-will: "whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely" (Rev. 22.17)? "He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him" (Heb. 7.25). Are faith and works contrasted as opposites? "By grace are ye saved, through faith;...not of works" (Eph. 2.8-9); "But to him that worketh not, but believeth..." (Rom. 4.5). Christ repeatedly gave such invitations as "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11.28), and "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink" (John 7.37).
You can repent and believe on Christ. I have, so can you. God gives you this ability and provides the wooing of the Holy Spirit to bring you to repentance if you were willing.
Just as you can help an old lady across the street you can receive what Jesus did for you on the cross. If you continue to assume you cannot then there is no way for God to save you, because you refuse to repent and believe in Him to be regenerated. Sense the evil and pride of assuming you are selected without having had repented and believed in Christ. Sense how that is a selfish salvation.
Paul's eyes were blinded, but when God showed Himself, he certainly could have continued to refuse God if that was what he wanted. God never forced him into it.
When Lazarus was resurrected, Jesus did not resurrect a man who rejected Christ but a man who had received the Messiah. Even an unsaved man will be resurrected but will be for Hell.
If there is something I haven't understood, why can't you show it? Therefore, there is something amiss in your heart. Who can know how deceitful the heart is?
Piper's main issue was how could Lucifer fall away from God? Therefore, he assumes God made him that way, but that would make God the author of sin? That is what a true Calvinist ultimately believes, but is it right? No, it is not right. Put it this way. If God created only 5 angels, they probably could all spend an eternity with God, but God wanted more angels than that. Consequently, they didn't get along and dissented with each other to the point of some rejecting God. The same is true of man. Just like Calvinists reject the God of the Bible by inserting and replacing willfulness with Total depravity and sufficient grace with passing over people and condition salvation with irresistibly imposed salvation.
So the fact that Lucifer was a beautiful angel and fell, should be no excuse for Piper to reject the free-will God has afforded him and not repent and believe in Christ to be regenerated. When Piper speaks, you can sense the evil spirit in his spirit. The Bible warns us not to root up the tares in Christendom, but we should at least speak the truth about their mistaken assumptions and their unsalvation.
Pray on this.
