"A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit." Matthew 7:18
“The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks." Luke 6:45
The Arminian affirms total human moral inability and utter helplessness of the natural man in spiritual matters and the absolute necessity for supernatural prevenient grace. Furthermore, he posits that all individuals receive prevenient grace from God, which enables them to choose whether or not to believe in Christ. However, this notion implies that the person who chooses to believe is wiser, smarter, and more humble than the one who rejects Christ. This would mean it cannot be attributed solely to grace since both received grace.
The foreknowledge of God has been a topic of controversy throughout history. This is due to the fact that many people are ignorant of the meaning and Scriptural scope of the term. Therefore, it is easy for preachers and teachers to deceive their audience with false interpretations of this subject. The only safeguard against this is to be established in the faith through prayerful, diligent study of the Word of God.
The Westminster Confession offers a comprehensive analysis of the human will, providing one of the most insightful explanations to date. It takes great pains to depict the human will in its four-fold state: 1) before the fall, 2) after the fall, 3) after regeneration, and 4) in glory. Prior to describing the will in each state, the Confession highlights a crucial aspect of man's will that remains consistent across all four states.
Some irrational Materialist Beliefs:
Life appears to be designed, but it's not.
Justice, beauty, and truth seem to demand a non-material explanation, but in fact, they don't.
The existence of consciousness and subjective experience may appear to require a non-physical explanation, but it actually doesn't.
DNA may look like it contains information, but it doesn't.
The laws of logic may appear immaterial, universal, and invariant, but they are not.
If God has made you, a great sinner, the object of his mercy, you may be assured of:
My dad told me recently that when he was a kid, he had a cousin Jack who came from a very religious family. One day, he and Jack went to catch a movie in town. His cousin had just turned 12, but the theater offered one dime off to anyone 11 and under, so he lied and told the box office that he was eleven. When his parents took him and my dad home, Jack boasted to his parents that he had saved a dime by pretending he was eleven.
As a sinner, drawing near to God who is perfectly holy and without sin may seem impossible. And it is, if we trust in our own righteousness. In our own (de)merit, we can no more approach God than we can approach the sun without being burned. However, the Scriptures teach that through faith in Jesus Christ, sinners can be made right with God and have access to Him. This faith is a gift from God, and it is through this faith that sinners are justified and reconciled to God.
by Obadiah Sedgwick
Paul and Silas (on their journey) make a stop in Philippi, a chief city in Macedonia, ver. 12. They had a special calling for it, ver. 9. Being there, the next Sabbath, they devoted themselves to praying and preaching, ver. 13. And each of these activities was crowned with a blessed outcome.
By the former, Lydia was converted, ver. 14, 15. By the latter, the devil was exorcised from a damsel, ver. 16, 18. The word of God and prayer are the great power of God to change the heart and conquer Satan.
