Calvinism doesn’t work. I’ve tried.

No one knows if they are the elect unless they study books on Calvinism. Then everybody thinks they are.

I tried sharing the message of God’s irresistible grace, but it seems that some people are able to resist it. Calvin would suggest that God’s grace must not be given to those people.

They will be the recipients of God’s wrath. After all, someone has to take it since it was all according to God’s will.

I tried to encourage the preaching of the cross to dying souls in dangerous lands, but the young Calvinist reminded me that if they were truly part of the elect God would give them saving faith.

As for the rest, well, there are some people God just hates. Like Esau, right?

So after I put it all in God’s hands and considered how I could best impact the world for my Lord, I started to pray.

First, I prayed for worldwide healing, but realized God had already chosen how everyone would die. Second, I prayed for a vision for my country, but then remembered that God in his sovereignty had chosen each ruler throughout history and that my country was exactly where God wanted it to be.

Lastly, I prayed that God would alter his sovereign will for the salvation of my family members who were obviously not part of the elect. If he could find pleasure in supplying grace to those who were acting according to their total depravity and find mercy upon these sinners, then that would be an event most glorious.

Yet, it seemed that the predestined situation was hopeless.

And this is the system created by Calvin’s election. A system that is without hope to the predestined sinner, without grace to those who need it most, without personal responsibility to the saint, and without the preaching of the cross for salvation.

When I turned to God’s word I found all these things: hope for the sinner; grace to all men; personal responsibility to choose; and the necessity of the cross. God’s word forced me away from Calvinism.

It must not be in God’s sovereign will that I be a Calvinist.

I found election to be a Bible doctrine, but Calvinism was not.

Biblical election concerns God choosing Christ to die for the sins responsible to man’s account. God chose to create man. Man chose to reject God. God chose to die for man. It is now man’s responsibility to choose.