God is never, never, never obligated to be merciful to sinners. That is the point we must stress if we are to grasp the full measure of God's grace.Chosen by God (26)
we live in what may be the most anti-intellectual period in the history of Western civilization. "Burning Hearts Are Not Nourished by Empty Heads", Christianity Today (Sep 3 1982)
For a work to be considered good it must not only conform outwardly to the law of God, but it must be motivated inwardly by a sincere love for GodChosen by God, 107
Here, then, is the real problem of our negligence. We fail in our duty to study God's Word not so much because it is difficult to understand, not so much because it is dull and boring, but because it is work. Our problem is not a lack of intelligence or a lack of passion. Our problem is that we are lazy. Knowing Scripture (Page 20)
The universe is no democracy. It is a monarchy. God himself has appointed his beloved Son as the preeminent King. Jesus does not rule by referendum, but by divine right. In the future every knee will bow before him, either willingly or unwillingly. Those who refuse to do so will have their knees broken with a rod of iron.
If a person who is still in the flesh, who is not yet reborn by the power of the Holy Spirit, can incline or dispose himself to Christ, what good is rebirth? This is the fatal flaw of non-Reformed views.Chosen by God (55)
Death reminds us that we are creatures. Yet as fearsome as death is, it is nothing compared with meeting a holy God. When we encounter him, the totality of our creatureliness breaks upon us and shatters the myth that we have believed about ourselves, the myth that we are demigods, junior-grade deities who will try to live forever.
My theonomic friends are wont to drive us to one of two choices, "Autonomy or theonomy!" And of course they are precisely right. We will either have man's law, or God's law and only a fool would choose man over God. The question then rightly understood isn't whether we ought to have law as God would have us have it. The question instead is what law would God wish us to have... be careful not to heed those critics who have precious little understanding of theonomy...
God does not always act with justice. Sometimes he acts with mercy. Mercy is not justice, but it also is not injustice. Injustice violates righteousness. Mercy manifests kindness and grace and does no violence to righteousness. We may see nonjustice in God, which is mercy, but we never see injustice in God.
Augustine's view is frequently said to be that God saved people who are unwilling to be saved, or that his grace operates against their wills, forcing them to choose and bringing them into the kingdom "kicking and screaming against their will." This is a gross distortion of Augustine's view. The grace of God operates on the heart in such a way as to make the formerly unwilling sinner willing. The redeemed person chooses Christ because he wants to choose Christ. The person now wills Christ because God has created a new spirit within the person. Willing to Believe (Pages 65-66)
"Here am I." Isaiah could still speak in terms of "I". He still had an identity. He still had a personality. Far from God seeking to destroy the "self", as many distortions of Christianity would claim, God redeems the self. He heals the self so that it may be useful and fulfilled in the missions to which the person is called. The Holiness of God (End of Chapter 2)
The semi-Pelagian doctrine of free will prevalent in the evangelical world today is a pagan view that denies the captivity of the human heart to sin. It underestimates the stranglehold that sin has upon us. None of us wants to see things as bad as they really are. http://www.bible-researcher.com/sproul1.html
None of us wants to see things as bad as they really are. The biblical doctrine of human corruption is grim. We don't hear the Apostle Paul say, "You know, it's sad that we have such a thing as sin in the world; nobody's perfect. But be of good cheer. We're basically good." Do you see that even a cursory reading of Scripture denies this? http://www.bible-researcher.com/sproul1.html
As sinners we are adept at searing out consciences. We are masters of rationalization by which we mute the accusing sound of the inner voice. Mystery of the Holy Spirit (108)
A good conscience is one trained by the Holy Spirit through the Word of God. When we understand God's truth clearly and are convicted by it firmly, then the governor of conscience begins to
rule us into righteousness. Mystery of the Holy Spirit (109)