All I'm preaching is that salvation is all of God. Even faith is His, gifted to man, and is by His power, Eph. 2:19 and is not determined by decision, nor made effective by decision. If so then salvation would be a reward, not a gift. Instead faith is the evidence of conversion, faith granted by God and is externally granted. That is not an invention of man brother JonShaff
Agreement is good...lol... as much as we can !
We do not have to fight to the death,lol
The preaching of the gospel is the normal "means" That God uses to save sinners and draw them to himself.
I would say it this way.....the word preached does not save unless the Spirit gives the sinner a new heart to "welcome" the word.
The indwelling Spirit allows the sinner to receive or welcome truth.
As a TV set allows us to receive those electronic signals and see an image on a screen, those signals are unseen by us unless we have a device plugged into a power source....
so a dead sinner...needs life itself...regeneration by the Spirit bring us to life, so then that same word we have heard about and resisted...we can now welcome it.
Regeneration is like putting the tv on{the Spirit does this}
.......the signal is like the word preached,,,
The indwelling Spirit is like the cable and the parts of the tv itself
that convert the signal into an understandable image and sound.
Human analogy is always flawed but this simply illustrates what takes place spiritually.
That is why in eph 4....new creation believers are being re-instructed....let him who stole, steal no more, but rather labor.....etc...putting away lying, speak truth...
There i would differ with you, the Elect will the be the one's who are born again, and Because of God giving people a choice, there are those who harden their hearts....
Hebrews 3
7 Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice,
8 Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
Now we are down to the nitty gritty. Some will be saved because they make a choice to not harden their hearts and others will not be saved because they make a choice to harden their hearts (or make no choice at all).
So, let's examine that thesis. You and your next door neighbor are both lost. You are invited to attend an evangelistic meeting at a local church. You both attend. You sit next to each other. You both hear the same message.
But you believe and are gloriously saved. Your neighbor does not and leaves lost.
So, what was it that made you choose to not harden your heart but made your neighbor do so?
Are you more spiritually minded than he?
Is there something about you that is smarter or otherwise better than he?
Why did you come to Christ but he didn't?
Why did you decide to come to Christ and he decided not to?
In what way are you better, smarter, more spiritually minded than he?
Whether it is innate or when the Word is Being heard...God gives the ability for People to Decide
Ephesians 2:1 i believe is misinterpreted as meaning "like preaching to a corpse." I believe because of Context and wording and recurring themes throughout scripture, it would be better understood as saying, "We were considered dead because of our Trespasses and Sin," Eluding to our our Future Plight had we not believed.
9 Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began
Only the elect will be born again, and the lost cannot soften their hearts unless God does the softening, or opening, Acts 16:14.
Proving those who were His and those who were not. It would be a great advantage to not look at these kind of passages as always an 'offer of salvation' brother! :)
Right, Which brings us back to the original statement i have, I don't believe in Total Inability. What are the characteristics of being dead?
Genesis 3 DOES NOT give an indication how what Total Inability Asserts.
Shall we walk through Genesis three and see what has resulted because of Sin?
You Shall Surely Die...Spiritually and Physically Right?
Where does it say they cannot receive the things of God, God called and Adam answered.
The Ground will be filled with thorns, Pain in childbearing, The woman would desire to rule over the man, Man would have to work from the sweat of his brow....WHERE IS TOTAL INABILITY? You EISEGETE the text when you say what you assert about Total Inability....Why didn't God say it here?
So when they do something ('decide') then God gives them a gift?
Brother, with all due respect, and it is due because you are a brother, you are wrecking havoc with the above Scripture. It is where we were THEN before salvation, dead, not some mere future plight as you say. Context rules - note 2:4 - 'we were as the rest (of mankind)'