My words to Abigail were
"Commands, like verbs in the Bible are written and addressed to those who *CAN* obey."

Who *CAN* obey being the operative word here.

That really answers your question on Faith.

Grace and the Holy Spirit gives the Believer that ability to believe, - and overcome the iniquity which holds us in bondage, till freed by God.

Before grace and the Holy Spirit - NO Faith in Christ. Natural state.

After grace and the Holy Spirit we become the new man in Christ.

Note the point made in Hebrews 11:3
"Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."

Eph 2:1 "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins"

"Quickened" here means made alive.
"Dead" here does not mean half alive.

Jesus said quote
18 "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you." (John 15.) How can you hate HIM???
Yet once upon a time in our lives that is where we all stood.

We are led like lambs to the slaughter.
Because HE took before us this path.

I would take HIS place on that cross.
But HE took it for me.
And I know I am unworthy of His cross.
So I take up my cross and deny self, that I may walk the path trod of my Master.

So walking on an alien planet of hate, I try to follow a very narrow path home, by the map of the Bible. My vehicle is sinful flesh which is fast disintegrating. I struggle every day with sin in the human condition, both of those I view in the world around me and my own sorry estate. In fact I am totally depraved and my only hope is Jesus. He promised to save me from all this.

And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.(1John5)

My position, ref the quote you posted below, is that I believe that Scripture teaches a Sovereign God over all, - including all things spiritual and election unto salvation.

Also that the natural person is Totally Depraved, (dead in sin) and requires the Grace of God and the Holy Spirit to direct and bring them onto the road to heaven.

As to your statement above "licence for immorality"

Those whom God elects and converts by grace and the Holy Spirit, do struggle with iniquity, but the divine input enables and edify's the Christian to fight against these evil influences.

Sanctification, a work in progress, helps us to overcome these dark pressures inherent within the sinner, although we are by no means ever perfect.

Thus the struggle is tribulation, but the Lord provides gifts of grace, faith and perseverance in His own, to enable us to overcome IN Christ.

Yet you condemn my theology as being full of pride.

Truly you have an extraordinary character.

You have presented yourself as an Arminian/Semi-Pelagian in your position. In previous ecclesiastical history the Reformed Church has declared these to be heretical positions. EG Councils in the 5th century and after God's Reformation in the 16th century, Arminianism was declared heresy at the Synod of Dordt.

I cannot therefore support you.

_____________________________

Cheryl

Yes I am a Calvinist. But why all the slander just because I differ in polemics with you? I tried below to simply respond politely to your position.

As to your question re my, "public school or still at school" - My school days are long ago as was my time at theological college.

No my name or moniker has never been "Peter"
But I have been debating with you for at least a couple of years now, perhaps three if you've been here that long. So keep guessing.

If that is your last post to me, it's up to you, but don't you think that comes from discord rather than from discourse?

"The European Commission president José Manuel Barroso praised the role Christianity played in promoting European unification and called on all religions to support the values at the centre of European life. Speaking at the Third **European Ecumenical Assembly** meeting in Sibiu, Romania, he said: "A union that is reduced to its economic and geographic dimensions alone would lack unity."

http://www.religiousintelligence.co.uk/news/?NewsID=972

What did I do to deserve this from the humble street preacher????

Why I had the audacity to disagree with him, and his fellow conspiracy theorists.

________________________

Cheryl

Well at least your consistent Cheryl.

Your a died in the wool conspiracy theorist and not in the least hypocritical enough to deny it.

But I trust in almighty and omnipotent Sovereign God to be worried over the sin soaked human flesh, whether at government level or peasant.

God, and Christ, have brought His Elect through the most horrific of trials and tribulations during this creations chronology. We expect the suffering to be apart of our life as strangers and aliens of this iniquitous planet and it's nations.

But that doesn't mean we have to conspire to view the governments and bureaucracies of this evil satanic world to be any the more sin-soaked than you, me or dear old Norman.

"For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ" 1Thes 5.

"Among whom also we all had...... and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others" Eph 2.

1] *GIVEN* to believe.
2] *GIVEN* to suffer.

Thus Faith is a gift of God GIVEN to the Elect of God.

Not a human attribute.
Not the cooperation of sinners
Not make your mind up time as the Arminians and popish believe.
Not salvation by works as all to many actually believe.

Nope!
The gift *GIVEN* by divine hands alone.

2] The other "gift" GIVEN is to suffer.
Both are included here in the same verse.

Do we debate the giving of suffering in the same way as believing? No!
Curious because Paul appears to represent them here in the same way.

If we did debate them in the same way then the free will crowd - arminian type - synergist lot, would be teaching that the mortal "chose" to suffer.

Not all Israel is of Israel.

God's Elect are Baptised as predestinated by God Himself.

Institutes
Book IV
"Baptism is the initiatory sign by which we are admitted to the fellowship of the Church, that being ingrafted into Christ we may be accounted children of God."

It would appear from your affiliations that you are a "conspiracy theorist" like poor lost Cheryl the Arminian.

When you talked about your country England - I told you I wasn't English (or any) but that I'm Christian.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist either - because I'm a true Christian. World powers nor sinful transgressors at any level of society, neither surprise me nor scare me, because of the gift of Faith.

The human condition is Totally Depraved and as Job pointed out is vile too. The politician, the Bishop, the labourer, the candle stick maker or the street preacher is in that same human condition.

Thats not a theory of conspiring sinners; - Thats what the Scriptures teach of reprobation, sin, iniquity and the struggle of strangers here on earth for the sake of Christ.

I belong to a suffering church because I belong to Christ, who suffered and died for unworthy mortals.

But then there is many who come to church
but
never
come to Christ.

Recently we read of the murder of an eleven year old boy in Liverpool. He was shot in a nation which claims to have worked for decades to free our society entirely from guns.

Daily Abortion murders?

Sexual deviancy accepted? And taught in our schools whilst the Scripture's are seen as irrelevant and an affront to freedom.

More and more I observe the confirmation of the Calvinist teaching that the human condition is Totally Depraved.

What a great pity some in the church are blind to this Truth.

For **Christians**

Hear the word of God....

1Peter 2:13 "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man FOR THE LORD'S SAKE: whether it be to the king, as supreme;
14 Or unto governors, as unto them that are SENT BY HIM for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.
15 For SO IS THE WILL OF GOD, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men:
16 As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.
17 Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king."

= For those who really can! - TRUST in the Lord.

Pr 28:26 "He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered

28 When the wicked rise, men hide themselves: but when they perish, the righteous increase"

Psalm 28:5 "Because they (the wicked) regard not the works of the LORD, nor the operation of his hands, he shall destroy them, and not build them up.

7 The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him."

"MR: Isn't foreknowledge the basis of election? Didn't God choose us because he looked down into the future and foresaw that we would believe in him?

"MR: Dr. Packer, what exactly do people mean by unconditional election?

It is a phrase which folk use to express this thought: that because we sinners are helpless, God has to take all the steps that are necessary in order to bring us to faith and fellowship with himself and finally to eternal life. Unconditional election is the name for the choice God makes to do that in any particular case, and it has to be unconditional because if God waited for man to merit it, he would wait forever."

The great thing about being one of the Elect in the Reformed Church, JD, Is that God delivers His Biblical promise of UNconditional Election, Irrisistible Grace, Limited Atonement and Perseverance, - EVEN to the Totally Depraved.

Therefore we don't have to worry about any corrupting influences from cults, popish arminian doctrines (like yours) and trying to get to heaven by our own works.