Romans 8:26. We do not even know how to pray as we ought! The Spirit even intercedes through us

John 6:37. “All that the Father has given to Me will come to Me. And him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out.” And John 6:44. “No man can [is able to] come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me, draws him.” These are slam dunk verses. Useless trying to explain them away. You are incapable of coming to Christ on your own! If you have truly come to Christ it was because the Father found a way to draw you to Himself!

Still not convinced? Even David knew this principle: (Psalm 51:5) “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” As he confesses his present sin, he is brought back to the origin of it all. From his very birth he had been a sinner. He had inherited what was passed down to him from Adam and Eve.

Genesis 3 records the awful story of sin’s entrance. Though man was created “good” as was all else His hand made, man soon corrupted his way by yielding to the enemy. Soon after this we see animal sacrifice introduced, by Abel, to picture the great sacrifice that would have to be made for sin later. All after Genesis 3 were sinners. By Genesis 6 things have gotten so bad that destruction is promised. How bad is it now? Sin is everywhere around us. The world is corrupt. God’s judgment is again imminent. And in some places has already begun.

Adam and Eve, it could be said, had their free will. We see where it led them. Man, left alone to his own nature, freely chooses evil. Yet God has a people who will serve Him, and He has known them from the foundation of the world.

Noah “found grace” in the eyes of the Lord. That grace upon him caused him to come out from his world and follow Jehovah. The same with Abraham and the other patriarchs. Imperfect men indeed, but chosen of God, led of God.

We have taken many trails to look at this one question of depravity vs free will. Where have they led us? What can we say about it all? Does the Arminian or the Calvinistic system line up with the facts of Scripture? Is man, though fallen, still able to, on his own, seek for and find God? If this were theoretically true, does the Scripture show us a man like this, a man who on his own was able to be made right with God? Did “righteous” Job have it? Or did God have to show even him that it is only God Who can justify and be justified? Did any of the prophets, even holy Daniel, initiate prophecies from their own nature, or was it God’s message that first came to them? Did Jesus ever say that we could do anything, anything, without Him? Or did He say the opposite, “Without Me you can do nothing!” Was the famed Paul a man who was seeking after the salvation in Jesus, or did Jesus have to come to Him, and reveal Himself to the persecutor?

I think the Bible pattern is clear. I was born in sin. I continued in sin. My carnal nature even after Christ, wants to sin. Who shall save me from this body of death? Only Jesus. He has come to me and made me His own, because He wanted to. Not by the will of man, not by the will of the flesh, but born of God, with no help from me. I couldn’t do it. He knew it. So He did it. Enough said.

God’s choices or men’s? Election

“God sees the future. He sees who will make a decision for Him, and saves those people,” or,

“Before there was a world, He chose His disciples, the ones He would call out of this evil world, and then visited those chosen ones with His salvation, causing them to love Him and serve Him all their days.”

Left to ourselves, our carnal way of thinking, I know which one of these appeals to us, because we have a sense of “fairness” that may not be God’s sense of fairness. Since we do not want to depend on our own intellect in this matter, we must rely on the revelation he gave us through prophets and apostles. Agreed? Whatever they said, along with Jesus’ own testimony, we must say.

Personally, I never liked it when we chose up sides when I was in grade school. There was no doubt I was going to be among the last chosen, if chosen at all. The games we played demanded skills I didn’t have, and was not likely to acquire during the game.

Most of us shy away from this “choosing” doctrine because we are afraid we might not be one of the elect ourselves. But the doctrine is still there, and we may as well deal with it. He does what He wants and chooses whom He wants, for His own purposes. That’s what it says.

If you are expecting me to turn to Romans 9 as some sort of proof text in this matter, you are absolutely right. Why not go to the most difficult passage of all? Why not stop explaining it away, and making excuses for Paul’s radical statements?

Let’s start with verse 10. Rebekah is pregnant. Twins, you’ll recall. In those days, no way of knowing anything personal about either child, even their gender. And as in all days, no way of knowing their character or how they would be favored by God or man. No way.

Except one way. God knew. And God told her. The older shall serve the younger. That’s foreknowledge. But it is also something else, according to Paul. It is choice. And it is choice based on the purposes of God, not whether the boys had done anything good or bad. I’ve made a decision, says God. I’m not just telling the future. The older one will serve the younger one. That’s how it will be.