Donald wrote:
Yea, let’s demean and defame him now that he is not here to defend himself......I pray the only one any of us will answer to (JESUS) is who he abides with today......even the word tells us how to address our brethren; not how to belittle their lives after they are gone

MS wrote:
To awatcher from Mo.
BG was an ecumenical pied piper who stood for nothing and will be remembered by many of us as Mr. Facing Both Ways.
His eternal abode is none of our business, nor should it be speculated on.

"“Jesus called his followers to surrender their lives, their pride, their earthly security and, at times, their possessions—right down to the shirts on their backs. He never, however, called them to surrender the truth. That they are charged with guarding, even if it costs them their lives”

Excerpt From: “Theistic Evolution.”

Did Billy Graham do this? Did he guard the truth with his life? The clear answer to any unprejudiced mind is that he sold out on it and compromised it to the hurt of the true gospel and true churches and to the end of erecting a false gospel and building up the false churches.

Hence why God says for instance:

Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

What you’re saying is the opposite viz. that associating with the enemies of the gospel does not make you an enemy. Really?

Lurker wrote:
Nice commentary from R C Sproul. However, he failed to point to the bible and say this is God's gospel. You didn't point out the gospel either but had no problem saying BG preached a false gospel.

And then he repeats himself by saying, “If anyone preaches any other gospel than that one which you have received from God Himself, even an angel from heaven, let him be anathema.” That apostolic ‘anathema’ fills the church in our age because we hear so frequently messages that claim to be the gospel that have nothing to do with the gospel because we continue impenitently to mess with the gospel of God.

And God will not hold us guiltless when we seek to improve on His gospel. There is only one gospel. It’s God’s gospel, and it is our duty to believe it and to proclaim it in a pure and unvarnished fidelity to it.

R C Sproul

And, in a sense, that statement was a recapitulation of the entire history of the church because in every generation, there are those who are simply not satisfied with God’s gospel, and they would prefer to give us another gospel. Paul referred to those Galatians who were endeavoring to do just that as being foolish and bewitched, that they would so soon be removed from that gospel that they had heard from the apostle Paul to what Paul says is another gospel. And then, as if the Holy Spirit superintending his comments at that point, corrects himself by saying that there is not another gospel.

And then he warns us that if anyone preaches any other gospel that you have received from God, let him be anathema, ‘anathema,’ ‘damned,’ ‘cursed.’___

When Paul speaks about the gospel of God, he could be referring here simply to that message, which is about God or concerning God, that being as it is written here, in the genitive, I think that a better translation or interpretation would be this: that when he says that he is set apart for the gospel of God, what he is declaring is that this gospel belongs to God. It’s God’s gospel. God has initiated this message.

He has composed this message. He has called the apostle and their followers to proclaim this message. But in the first place, he is telling us whose gospel, whose message, this is. And if it indeed is understood that the gospel is God’s invention, by His composition, and that which He owns by Himself, the first thing we need to understand, therefore, is that whatever else we do with this gospel, we must never, ever, ever, ever, ever mess with it, ..... We simply must never mess with this gospel because it’s His gospel. He owns it. We respond to it, but we don’t ever mess with it....

Christopher000 wrote:
So, I'll go ahead and say this to give everyone some fuel for a freakout factor: Billy Grahm was most certainly with error. The one thing that gives me hope though is that everything I've researched, e.g., audio clips, bios, interviews, and everything else from his own mouth, is ancient, so I hope The Spirit moved him as life went on. His views matched those of Joseph Arminius...did that buy him a ticket downstairs? Regardless of what anyone perceives his fate was, he was used by God in many ways, and I have met many who are born again Christians today, after being introduced to the knowledge of a saving faith at a Billy Graham crusade, and/or through the ministry's many outreach programs. God can, and does use anyone and anything for His own purposes.

perception wrote:
.....Beware the warning for your kids at Genesis 17:14, no sign and seal - no Covenant with God.

If that's what the covenant produces, you and all your children are welcome to it!

Gen 17.14 just shows that the Abrahamic covenant was a legal covenant, the observance of which was enforced under such punishment!!!

Baptize is a verb and requires an action upon the subject IOW you are going to do something with the subject (person), NOT the water which is the object!

Now let's take baptize to mean dip, immerse. You take the person and you dip or immerse them in water.

Let's ignore the biblical meaning and let's go for your made up meaning and see how that fits. We are going to take the person and pour or sprinkle THEM in the water!

It AIN'T what you do with the water! IT IS what you do with the person to be baptized!

Maybe you should try the second. If you do, let me know, I'd love to be there!

And the grand result of the whole discussion is, if possible, still more wonderful. ******Beginning with the position that baptize means immerse******, he ends by maintaining that immersion is not baptism. This surpasses the jugglers. Here is the word baptize meaning immerse, or, if you prefer it, intuspose; now a few passes of logical and philological sleight of hand, and behold ! immersion, or intusposition, is not baptism at all. If you feel inclined to say the force of absurdity could no further go, be not too fast, for Dr. Dale, apparently fascinated by his fancies, has in his most recent production practiced an utter reductio ad absurdum upon his own theory.

I would add that his failure is sealed when he can find nothing in the term that even intimates sprinkling!!

________________________________

But its us Baptists who apparently are bent on changing the meaning of the word!

Ha!

He did do the Presbys a huge favour by giving that unthinking crowd 4 volumes of cut and paste material!

“In the primitive times those that were baptised were entirely immersed in water” Thesaurus Disput 1661

“The Jews, apostles and primitive church used immersion” Universal Lexicon Hoffman 1698

“Baptisma, originally designated immersion in water to make clean” Stockii Clavis 1725

“Baptisma properly and from its origin it denotes a washing which is performed by immersion” Lexicon of NT 1728 P Mintert

“The Jews dipped themselves entirely under the water, and this is the most simple notion of the word baptize” Biblical Dictionary 1729 Calmet

“The usual way of performing the ceremony was by immersion” Encyclopaedia Britannica Art Baptism 1853

“Baptize in water, immersing” – NT Grammar, Winer 1860

“It is however, indisputable that in the primitive church the ordinary mode of baptism was by immersion” Chamber’s Encyclopaedia Art Baptism 1860

“Baptizo, to dip in or under water” Greek Dictionary 1861 Liddell and Scott

“We cannot deny that the first institution of baptism consisted in immersion and not sprinkling” Sys Theo 1615 Keckerman, German Presby

“Formerly, the candidate was entirely immersed in rivers and .....great lakes full of water ...” 1625 Wm Bucanus, Swiss Presby

“Baptize is generally found used for plunging and a total immersion” 1634 Spanheim German Presby

“Baptism is an institution of the New Testament Church commanded by Christ, in which believers, by being immersed in water, testify their communion with the church” 1635 Stapfer Swiss Presby

“Baptism is immersion, and was administered in ancient times according to the force and meaning of the word. Now it is only rhantism or sprinkling” 1644 Salmasius French Presby

“We do not deny that the word baptism bears the sense of immersion, or that, in the first examples of persons baptized they went into the water and were immersed” 1664 Hoornbeck Dutch Presby

“It cannot be denied that the original signification of the word baptizo is to plunge, to dip” 1677 Witsius Dutch Presby

“The act of baptizing is the immersion of believers in water. This expresses the force of the word” Vitringa Dutch Presby

"The Greek Church, as well as the schismatics in the East, retained the custom of immersing the whole body; but the western church adopted, in the thirteenth century, the mode of baptism by sprinkling, which has been continued by the Protestants, Baptists only excepted."

No one is said to be chosen to salvation or damnation, but intead chosen to the adoption, which is defined in Romans 8 as the redemption of our body.