No, its not what is being spoken.. You are putting your own spin on it based on your preconceived ideas

Ahhh, so you know my positions better than me... Hmmmm, Intresting... Build a straw man and tear it down.. Like I said, Stick to what you believe cause its obvious you dont have a clue what I believe

Who is pushing doctrine?.. not me.

No cult here.. all I espouse is doing the basics of the scripture which make very plain sense.  Love the Lord your god with all your heart and all your mind and love your neighbor as oneself.  Take care of the poor and widows and store up treasures in heaven instead of treasures on earth.

Anything beyond the above is really counter productive if you dwell on it very long.. which is a tactic used by Satan quite often.

The arguement of free will in relation to God's election is nothing more then mental gymnastics because neither will get you to heaven.

11 Problems with Libertarian Free Will
 

(1)   According to libertarians, the power of contrary choice means that it is always within the ability of the human will to believe or reject the gospel. But if we have the natural capacity to believe or reject the gospel freely (in the libertarian sense) why is there the need for the Holy Spirit in salvation at all, especially when the gospel is preached?  If you ask a libertarian whether he could come to faith in Christ apart from any work of the Spirit, like all Christians, they must answer ‘no’. In other words, even to a libertarian, it is not “within the [natural moral] ability of the human will to believe or reject the gospel.” There is still the necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit, who is the sine qua non of the affections being set free from sin’s bondage.  Therefore, they are forced to admit that the possibility of the natural will exercising faith would be inconsistent with basic Christianity, since we all know that the natural man is hostile to God and will not willingly submit to the humbling terms of the gospel. We all agree then, that left to himself, man has no libertarian free will to choose any redemptive good, since his affections are entirely in bondage to sin (until Christ sets him free) and cannot choose otherwise. So it ends up that libertarians must believe that, in his natural state (which is most of the time), man’s will is only free in the compatibilist sense, since, apart from the Spirit, he can only choose according to the desires (love of darkness) of his fallen nature. Unless, of course, they can offer another explanation of why one cannot believe apart from the Holy Spirit. 

Furthermore, Christians all affirm that one must first hear the gospel in order to believe since general revelation is not enough to engender saving faith (Romans 10:13-15). But if it is always within the libertarian ability of the human will to believe, as they claim, then again, what purpose is there for the Holy Spirit while hearing? Doesn’t this reveal that they actually do believe we normally exercise choice according to the corruption of nature? [We must note, as an aside, that the Epistle to the Romans testifies that even those who have not heard the gospel know enough from general revelation to condemn them because “what is known about God is evident within them” and they “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom 1:18-20).]  By all accounts, then, no true Christian believes that a person has libertarian free will to believe the gospel apart to any work of the Holy Spirit. 

But, having deduced that libertarian free will must still be true, libertarians believe they resolve this problem by inventing a logical scheme (nowhere found in the gospels) where God grants something to all who hear the gospel called prevenient grace, which temporarily removes the sin nature by allegedly placing sinners in a pre-fall-like state where they have libertarian freedom to either chose or reject Christ, a choice undetermined by any desires or nature. Because the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to the libertarian, is never sufficient in itself. To grace we must add choice.  While we heartily agree with libertarians in the necessity of preaching for salvation so that the Holy Spirit can germinate the “seed” of the gospel, yet to dogmatize the belief that once having heard that one is forevermore wandering the earth in a semi-regenerate state with a libertarian free will is wild speculation at best. For a biblical example that pronounces the differences among us, consider when Paul was preaching the gospel to Lydia and “the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul” (Acts 16:14).  A libertarian would argue this passage placed Lydia in a pre-fall-like state where she had libertarian freedom to believe or reject Jesus.  But the passage plainly says that God opened her heart to respond, not so that she would hopefully respond. There is not one instance in Scripture when such language is used (where God acts) when people actually refused (see 2 Chronicles 30:11-12; John 6:37; 65). Rather, when God calls a person or opens a heart to respond, the matter is always settled biblically.  Galatians 1:15 asserts that Paul was set apart and called by grace before birth. Can such a call be thwarted? Jesus call to Paul on the Damascus road was certain, not merely a possibility. When a person hears a preacher call for their repentance they can certainly resist that call. But if God gives an inner call no one resists (Acts 2:39; 1 Corinthians 1:23-24; Rom 8:30) nor does he want to. The biblical evidence for certainty in calling, then, is clearly on the side of the compatibilist in all cases the Bible reveals God’s intent. 

If we had libertarian freedom all the time when hearing the gospel then we could theoretically believe the gospel apart from the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit.  Yet I have not yet found one libertarian willing to admit this, for to do so would fall into the heresy of Pelagianism. In the end, we must note, that Scripture defines freedom, not as libertarians do, but as the freedom from the bondage to sin, since we are slaves of sin until the Son sets us free (John 8; Rom 6). Biblical freedom is the freedom to do what is pleasing to God (John 8:34-36; Rom 6:15-23; 2 Cor 3:17) and this freedom from sin is granted in the redemptive work of Christ. Yet the Scripture nowhere says anything about the freedom to choose contrary or apart from our desires altogether.  We either desire Christ or we despise him, and if we choose Him, this is the result of sovereign grace giving us a heart of flesh, not a result of nature itself (John 1:13; Rom 9:16). The real difference between the two views, then, is not really the nature of the will for we all can agree that apart from the Holy Spirit, the will acts according to the affections of its fallen nature in a compatibilist sense. The real difference rather is the nature of God’s grace in salvation (what it does for us). This brings us to the next criticism...

How many times are you gonna post this??? Can you discuss or only copy and paste?

I think you are grossly distorting Dreams comments.

Dennis -

Absolutely not.  Our lives tell us that that is just not so.  I have never understood the robot analogy, frankly.  My comments go strictly toward what I believe the Scriptures reveal with regard to God's work in salvation.

I do believe that man, apart from the work of God's Spirit, cannot respond to His grace.  I believe our hearts are at enmity with Him and that something must be done in order for the heart to change, enabling us to cry out in response.  It's really that simple.  But I don't see a robot analogy at all.  When the Bible says that we are saved by God's grace, I guess I just see that in a bit of a different light than some on this board.

Does that help? 

Steve

Oh, yes, of course it's Romans, thanks for the correction, Dream.

No, I'm sorry, I'm not going there again, Dream.  A responsible response from you that I'm looking for is not to tell me to go study, and furthermore simply to respond with questions.   

You need to declare why that scripture does not say what it does, make your point, state your declarations about Pharoah as you believe, and I will be glad then to answer further any questions you have. 

It is a continuing insulting thread of your behavior here to condescendingly tell others to go study, and to ask them to respond to your own questions characterizing your own beliefs.  No one needs to be led by the nose in this fashion here, and as for me, it will not go anywhere. 

Placing questions as you have here does not change the meaning of this passage.  Tell the readers here in a responsible fashion your belief as to why this passage means something different to you and why, so that some semblance of reciprocity in discussion can occur.

And yes, I agree, let's discuss this part of the passage, when you start, we will move on.