WILL TO SALVATION
CHAPTER 48
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Funny that I should put it that way, when there is no salvation in the will of man, but only in the grace of God by Christ Jesus. But I mean to relate the one as the other to a single truth.
The Lord said: "He who brings thanksgiving as his sacrifice honors Me; to him who orders his way aright I will show the salvation of God!"
Now why would the Lord say this, if by his will no man has a choice, or even a will to order his way, or his zeal to salvation? There are millions upon millions of persons that have a zeal to salvation. I know so, because your churches are filled with them.
But this does not mean that these will be saved, as in fact few of these will enter the kingdom of heaven. And why may that be? Is it in His election by which they are shut out, or by their own choosing?
Allow me to show you what may be found throughout the whole of the Scriptures, quote: "He who through faith is righteous shall live." For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth.
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.
So they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened." Unquote.
How obvious therefore that there is a will in man to choose right from wrong. "Their senseless minds were darkened". Therefore it is that they labor are in vain. They run in vain, because they did not think it fit to honor Him as God.
The muslims conceive to enter into salvation, and willingly give their life for it. Yet these do not enter since they worship a murderer for their redeemer. And why do they do so - worshipping one that stands condemned by God?
And who from these millions upon millions in the churches are there as the Lord said: "He that keeps My word is he that loves Me."? And so it is as the Lord said; "My people die for lack of knowledge."
Who will say they did not know God? And if so, why did you not honor Him as God? For this reason were these given over to futility, and not in His elect, and erased from the book of life. For here again, being "erased" means that all were originally in the book of life.
Then again as the Lord said: "You are already condemned because you would not believe." As then the election of God is a certain fact, so is the will of man, and as there are those born of the will of God, there are those born of the will of man.
How then, as one born in the earth will you complain that you were not of the earth? Are you upset because God did not make you as an angel, or as a lion, or as a hippo? If all God's creatures were angels, where would man be? Rejoice in that He gave you life and being, and be not envious of such as are born in heaven.
God made all things each for its purpose, man inclusive. Be therefore whatsoever the Lord made you to be. For all your jealousy, and your striving is in vain. And do not oppose Him, for that will only come to your own hurt.
Do not listen to them that draw you away from His precepts, for His wrath will surely follow. But resist them, be they man or demon, and call to God for His help against them, and He will hear you.
Did
not the Lord make you human? Where then is your human emotion, your human love
and care for other humans? How could you steal from others, or murder
those which have done you no harm?
If you are human, with a human love, look to the Lord and He will help you, for to look to him in your human love is to look to him in the way He made you.
For the generations were made good there was no evil in them, and pay no attention to those blabbermouth's that rob a man of his will as were he dead already. For I say to you that even in death, man retains his will and his mind to choose.
You were not in Paradise, but Adam was, and though by his fall you were born under a sentence, the Lord looks to each one his own deeds by which to reward them.
Be therefore yourself, your human you, your God given human nature. Resist those demons, which draw you to forget your human nature to ply by their pleasure to perform evil, and to deny God and strive against Him.
Both Solomon, and myself, we have told you that God made the generations of man good, without poison in them. And how then is it said: "There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God."? Because you have been led astray, you have forsaken the law of love. Wherefore don't listen any longer to these devils.
I know that you do not have any power to do good, nor is the grace of God anything to be taken, or earned, since it is given. And I know you are inclined to do evil, since you are under a sentence of it, nor is there power in you to overcome the evil.
But this is what the Lord said; "Resist the evil." For if you do this - the Lord will be your helper, He will lend His power to drive the wicked one from you, so that you may perform what is good.
What is it now that I have said? I have said that every journey begins with the first step! And; "To try for," as both Solomon and myself have said, "To try for wisdom is the right wisdom." Do not look for a reward, for no salvation is to be earned in any good deed, but act out of love.
Act in love because it is the righteous thing to do, and because it is your duty both to God and to man. If then there is love, and faith these will not leave you empty.
As then it is said: "For many are called, but few are chosen." you may reckon yourself among the few, for not many will take true love to the deed, nor faith to a working obedience. And let not yourself be deceived by such who say that Christ's redeeming work was intended to save the elect only.
For like John said when he saw Jesus: "Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world." This is what I am impressing upon you - to believe the word of God, and not the word of them that contradict His word.
I will tell you of my own experience. There were many things both
good and bad that happened to me. And not right away did I realize to what
end they were, but later on I came to see the hand of God in it, as He said;
"To work all things to the good of them that love Him." Some of these things can be riches, or poverty, or hurt, the loss of something, or any multitude of things you yourself can enumerate.
One of the most startling to me were the many occasions in which I wrote the words which I have left for you in these volumes. For the most I labored or fought with myself to place the right words, or how to place onto paper that which was in my mind.
Then sometime afterwards in reading them, I was amazed with myself in how I could have written such, seeing that knowledge was not in me. And so I beheld the hand of God, but more so in certain revelations, like the foundations of the earth, when I was yet young.
For I sat down one evening, and knew not what to write, yet my hand wrote, and wrote all evening, and what appeared on paper was not of my mind, but as to say by my hand.
Then the next day, - no one was astonished more than me to read what no man had understood, nor could have discovered though he lived into all eternities. And I knew it was of God by His Holy Spirit of wisdom within me.
And so there were many more occasions when I was astonished, when He granted into my mind (rather than on paper) the many revelations to His word. Many such of which I knew they were guarded secrets.
And how shall I forget that time when I was young, when I coined the word "Pololoid", when for a full three days the grandeur of His creation held me spellbound, with me desperately trying to come back to earth, back to normal.
What now shall I say of myself, that I looked for the Lord in my own will, my own choosing? Indeed I did, but there is more. I will say it was the Lord who called me, or if you so will - persuaded me to it.
For He withheld from me the needs to my living, and turned my labors against me, as to say He drove me into a corner. And in the anguish of my soul I turned back to Him whom I had known from my birth.
In other words, I called upon Him, I made a first step, I reached for His help. I did as it is said, I knocked, that the door might be opened unto me. For I knew that I could not do it of myself. And I refused my life, any life for that matter, as long as He might take back my spirit, that I might be no more.
And so I say it was the Lord who called me, Who granted me the love, the will, and the faith, who also taught me, for I had no man to any teacher for me. And as to the church wherein I was brought up, I do not remember of anything having learned there.
But I do remember at the age of 7, and of 12, a rock-firm faith in the Lord the Redeemer, and that the same was conveyed to me by my mother whose last words when she departed from this world were; "O how beautiful," and the expression on her face was of solemn peace.
I now know that the Lord created and destined me from before the world was made, for He revealed Himself to me that I might know Him..
And yes I also have a will to choose, it was not removed from me in any original sin, whereby I came to commit many sins against Him whom I love the most, more than my own life, or anything. For I was His making, born in His grace, that I might praise His Holy name, and glory in His compassion.
As I then look at the day by day business it all seems in my choosing, that of myself I looked for the Lord, attempting to do what is right, and failing, whereby I came to judge myself, how I could be so stupid. And accusing myself before the Lord, that I am no more than a filthy rag, unfit for His calling.
For while I aspire for that which my soul loves, I perform that which I hate. Often therefore did I look to the Lord, to the love of my soul for help, for His strength to overcome these powers of darkness.
While there is a will in me, and a desire, I have not the strength by myself to do what is righteous. That devil in his subtlety is very powerful and convincing, stripping a man of his will, soothing his mind as if there were no wrong in it, only to wake up and hate myself for my weakness.
Wherefore I cannot possibly survive, nor endure doing what is right lest the Lord be with me, to be my strength, and to drive that evil one from me. How often have I not said to these demons, to depart from me, and yet they return again and again.
And so it becomes a spiritual struggle, for the evil ones have clearly seen how I have received heavenly gifts towards salvation. And such persons are their primary targets luring to see at what opportune, or inopportune moment they can break in to take hold. Let your guard down and they will not waste a moment of it.
Yet as often as I stumble, I am not cast headlong, for it is the Lord who rebukes the evil ones for me. They love to come before the ambassadors of God accusing me of sin, hoping to obtain a condemnation of the Lord against me.
If I were to make the smallest error in God's Holy word, and pronounce the same, they will built that molehill into a mountain. For if they were able to draw even one of the sons of God into their hell with them, they would have a feast to last a thousand years.
It is very painful to them that my love is foremost for righteousness, that it is not heaven nor the salvation of my soul which motivates me, but a true love of the Truth, and for the Lord my God.
How before all else I adore all that is of God, and that it is with affection that I draw to Him. And not that such was of me, but in His grace did I receive that grandiose gift, and with it His love is returned unto Him.
The salvation of God begins with to look towards Him, and away from evil, and what each of these entail is the whole of the Scripture.
If there is the love of truth one ought certainly to read the Testaments of the sons of Jacob, and that which is written under the name of Hermas. These are words by which a man guides his daily life, the law of the Lord upon the heart of a man. As also it is written by one of them saying:
"The words
of truth and of deceit are written upon man's heart, and the Lord knows each of
them, and at no time can man's works be hid, for they are written on the heart
itself before the Lord.
LOVE AND HATE
It is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." And how often have I said; how I hate these people, or how they are a disgust unto me? Is it then the people that I hated or not rather the works of their hand? Or how should the Lord hate anything of what He has made?
If so He would not have made it. But the words are by expression to mean as Paul said; "In order that God's purpose of election might continue".
There is no way around it, you may argue against it, but count yourself among those of Esau, or dispute about it, but its to your own demise.
To love or to hate, or, to love and to hate. If there is love there will be hate, and the greater the love of righteousness the greater the hatred of unrighteous things will become.
If there is the love of God, that person will not dispute the election of God, nor the purpose thereto. And if there is the love of righteousness, that person will in no wise answer back to God that His word is unfair.
And if there is the love of Christ Jesus to keep the law in all of His precepts, that person will not deny to man his will, nor his choice as it was implanted him of God.
Love and hate. The Lord created you and me, the dog, and the ants, the grass, and the birds at your bird feeder, as well as the trees and the plants, corporate conglomerates, and beauty contests, as well as the farmer at his leisure, and the blacksmith with his tools, and all things.
Look at them, and know that if it were not for Him none of these would exist. And should He not have the right to do with them as it pleases Him?
Love and hate. Who gave the women her beauty, that feminine voice, and the seductive twinkle in her eyes, and who placed into man the desire for such comeliness? Who raised the hills, and ordained the mountains of the earth? Who made the lion for its pride, and the hyena for disgrace? So man was made, and a world for him to live upon.
Love and hate. When I am in my kingdom and all the fertile fields and those that work in it are mine, I will do as it pleases me. For do I not have the right to do with all that I own as it pleases me?
Do you not slaughter an ox according as you will, and distribute your wealth to whomsoever you see fit? Why then should you deny me my rights, or the Lord God His rights?
And just because I will exercise my pleasure, does that mean to you that I will act in an unjust manner? Or just because it is in my power to do with my subjects as I will that I will not act with justice and with mercy?
For as the Lord is like none else, so I am not like any of your preachers, nor like of your princes that ruled the earth.
Love and hate. What prince or what king is there that would give his life for you? You know of but One who gave His life for all the race of man. And will you deny Him His choice?
I have loved you, but I have hated your rulers, and therefore is it written how they shall be trampled upon. What is my love or my life but that it be for you, or why else have I come into a world not my own?
Love and hate. What is it to hate, if not anything done unrighteously? Or to love, but to act with all righteousness? What then are your aspirations, to live in eternal peace?
But why not rather aspire for what is just and righteous before God and man irrelevant of any reward to you? Do you always wish to be rewarded, and righteousness take second place to you?
Love and hate. If righteousness should take second place to me, why was I born, and to what end was my creation? Was not Paul ready to give his life for others - if only he could?
But he did so in the wisdom and the counsel of the Lord his God. And what more shall I say for love and hate if not that both may be increased in you.
Love and hate. You say you are born anew, but why then are you refusing the breast, to drink of the milk of life? For not such as profess, but that perform the word of the Lord shall be born anew.
BY GRACE, AND GRACE ALONE
It is for you who desire to live that I expound the way. "Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on the law shall live by it. But righteousness based on faith says, Do not say in your heart,
"Who will ascend into heaven?" (that is, to bring Christ down)" Or "Who will descend into the abyss?" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead)."
"To bring Christ down". Yet you will have Christ as your personal Savior, don't you? And from where did you get that ideal? From the hirelings no doubt who will not come to inherit the vineyard.
And so what have these to lose by poisoning you? These will come to drive you to accept Christ in your heart so that your pearls may come to them.
But the point I wished to make is in the words; - "Do not say in your heart". And what may that be, these words "to say in your heart"? That it is His obligation, Christ I mean, to save you? You are going to call on Him, and He better listen to you?
For that is your ideal, and your aspiration induced to you by these hirelings, by these foul preachers as I call them. You are selfish you know - looking out for number one, for what else should one be looking for - so you aspire.
Yes what else indeed. From which direction do you wish Christ to come unto you O man, from above, or from the abyss? And what makes you think that He has an interest in you? Are you of the elect which He received of the Father, or of those for whom He said, "I do not pray for them"?
What therefore may Paul and myself be attempting to impress upon you? It is this, do not conceive as if His grace is owed to you, but let it be grace, and grace indeed, Consider your own salvation second or none to His grace, and His grace will not fail you.
For so Paul continues: "But what does it say? The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach); because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."
"The word is near to you", so Paul said, and is he then speaking of that mixed potion to which your itchy ears were trained from those hirelings who portray themselves as if they were the incarnation of God? It is which "we" preach, so it reads.
Let therefore humility guide you, and fail not in love, for thus spoke the Spirit; "For man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved. The scripture says, "No one who believes in Him will be put to shame." No one therefore that acts out of love and in truth, and not by bringing down Christ.
BUT LABORERS ARE FEW
"But laborers are few". And how few indeed they have been. For if we look at the renowned ones of the past after the age of the apostles, and we enumerate Luther, Calvin, Augustine, Chrysostom, Justin, Theophilus, Mathetes, Uesebius or Jerome, just to name those of whom I have inserted part of their writings, and a great number others for at least the last sixteen centuries which one shall we justify, or count for a laborer?
Luther taught the milk of understanding but served the same along with poison. And drinking poisoned milk is guaranteed to bring one into his grave. And there are a great many before and after him, as well as this day and age that are well familiar with the milk of understanding. And why not, for that milk has been reiterated so vastly and so often, who could mistake it?
But if the milk be from the breast, or from a bottle, these will appear alike, yet only one of them is from the breast. This therefore is twofold, since hirelings feed from the bottle, and are prone to add to it, but the sons -- like myself -- we serve from the breast which is without poison.
What is from the bottle might very well be mixed with foreign matter, like poison, while that which sprouts forth from the breast is wholesome. In the words; "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree good fruit." The good of Luther, as one example, is merely stolen goods, while the bad of Calvin may rest in his ferocious animal.
Laborers and laborers therefore are not necessarily of the fold. In the vineyard of the Lord, He may have send sons to labor, but mostly hirelings. And hirelings are not as the sons, for while the sons are inheritors, the hirelings merely labor with no stake in the vineyard but their laborious reward.
And as for these it is written: "But they shall bear their shame, because of the abominations which they have committed. Yet I will appoint them to keep charge of the temple, to do all its service and all that is to be done in it."
Pouring over the last nineteen centuries who were sons and who were hirelings was the question on my mind to credit or discredit the record of the past. But then I came up on this dispute that is still going on to this day, the teaching of Calvin on Predestination verses the free will of man favored by others.
And since I hardly need to explain this for the world of Muslims, or for such others that hold a piece of stone for their god, I am directing my speech to the world of Protestants, and the roman catholics, if any of these will leave Mary for their idol, to look to her Son instead.
Augustine favored to polish the wood of the cross, Jerome thought to run it alone, while Calvin thought to save but a few of those for whom (by his illogic) the Lord gave His life and murder all others.
Luther on the other hand showed himself a complete barbarian, and for the many since that time who but the Lord knows the score? Yet for such as are renowned in their record, I have yet to see the likes of the first.
LUTHER and CALVIN.
It's no secret that Marten Luther was not only vulgar in speech, but deadly in his behavior in both word and deed. Yet along with these evil qualities, he was seen as the pillar in the reformation, and he spoke of the truth in some of his writings. I should thus relate him to what the Lord said in;
"They have sat themselves in Moses seat (or the seat of the gospel) hear therefore to what they say, but do not do according to their deeds."
Of John Calvin the same may be said. When Bucer wrote to blame Calvin for his extreme vehemence. Calvin replied: "My struggles are not greater against my vices, which are very great and numerous, than against my impatience; and my efforts are not wholly useless. I have not, however, been able yet to conquer that ferocious animal."
That ferocious animal as it turns out was the devil in his hold on Calvin, and while he held predestination so exclusive, he himself was exclusive to it. And to state but the best of the record; "The Compared brothers, with Calvin's approval, were tortured"
And
regarding Servitus, Calvin speaking; "I hope that
Servitus will be condemned to
death, but I should like him to be spared the worst part of the punishment,'
meaning the fire."
Like Luther and many others that served as preachers, Calvin according to his record, was a murderer. His accusations by his secretary against Servitus was nothing more than the likes of the Spanish inquisition.
And for all that he read of the Scriptures, the following from the book of Romans never made an impression on him, but then of course Calvin never had any love for God or man, nor did he know God or Christ.
"Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." No, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."
Or
from the testament of Gad; "Beware
of hatred my children, for it works lawlessness, even against the Lord Himself,
for it refuses to hear the words of His commandments concerning to love one's
neighbor and thus it is against God.
Nor did Calvin comprehend where Job said: "If I have rejoiced at the ruin of him that hated me, or exulted when evil overtook him. I have not let my mouth sin by asking for his life with a curse."
And now you wonder how a murderer or a devil can write such volumes on religion. But that is quite simple, -- it is borrowed goods, or duplication, or stolen goods as we might say, and no more than the milk in understanding.
Elihu, that fourth friend with Job, in the book of Job, chapters 32 to 37, also loved the scales of the dragon. For while the Lord forgave the three others their errors, Elihu was not forgiven. Yet go and see how pious he spoke, and so there are many like him, all around you if you have an eye to see.`
It is not just in the words they speak, but their actions inclusive. And as for both Calvin and Luther their writings reveal a human spirit, not that Spirit by which the Apostles, or Barnabas, or Clement, and still others wrote.
Certain
men of the past and of the present have blinded themselves in the Predestination
of God to the exclusion of all else. They have taken the milk and placed
it into bottles, and have written strange names upon it, such as total,
absolute, limited and unlimited, conditional and unconditional, and
irresistible, terms that were never in the vocabulary of the Lord.
And they called it "tulip", a depravation to the word of God, and they mixed the produce thereof with the milk, and so the milk became sour, no longer suitable for digestion.
These were excellent in their reasoning, and given an 'A' for contribution, taking all the Scriptural verbs and reasoning themselves into a frenzy for a heaven of their own, with the exclusion of all other men, friends or neighbors.
And why should these have any need of Christ, seeing how they have created their own salvation to the damnation of all else?
God spoke of David as a man after His own heart, a man as these have it - totally depraved by original sin, But seeing how themselves they have such excellent knowledge to dream up all this depravity in its thousand and one facets, these do not seem very depraved now do they? How silly then of the Lord God to choose David, and not rather those magnificent depraved wasps?
You blind guides, did not Solomon say, "Out of the heart are all the issues of life?". yet you say, "the heart, the source of all man's life, is dead." If then the heart is dead, how are the issues of life from it? Have you not therefore made Solomon out for a liar?
You hypocrites, vipers-brood, the Lord said; "Those born of God and those born of the will of man." If then the will of man is dead, how were they born?
You hypocrites, vipers-brood; The Lord said; "In the day that you eat thereof you will die." Yet you say that "man is dead already, that this is his nature". Are you not thereby judging Him who gave man life until the day of his consummation?
You hypocrites, vipers-brood, you speak of election, and with terms like conditional and unconditional, but how therein will you behold His election when He Himself spoke of his own; "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world". These therefore not being of this world, how are they elected from it?
You hypocrites, vipers-brood, the Lord said; "Ask and you will receive." yet you say that prayer for a change is a vague and ambiguous expression. And why then do 'you' pray you hypocrites?
And where you said that, "Christ is in heaven at God's right hand to pray for His people", why would He pray if as you say - it is ambiguous, and all things pre-ordained - there can be no change?.
You hypocrites, vipers-brood, the Lord said; "When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself." Yet you say; "There is no Christ apart from the elect." Have you not therefore condemned all men, and called Christ a liar?
You hypocrites, vipers-brood, the Lord said; "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." How then do you say to be disciples - when you expose your hatred to condemn all men - in saving only the elect?
You hypocrites vipers-brood, the Scripture says; "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit". Yet you say, "it was not the Holy Spirit whom they resisted but only the men that were send", wherefore by your sneaky underhanded way you have made the word of God of no effect.
You hypocrites, vipers-brood, you claim that ,"the salvation of the Lord is irresistible", Yet the Lord Himself said; "Behold, I come quickly: hold fast to that which you have, that no man take your crown". How then if He cautions men to hold fast, - is their path free?
If now you will answer me; "You were born in utter sin, and will you teach us?" So let it be written and so let it be done.
This is certain for all you hypocrites, vipers-brood, your sins are against the Holy Spirit, which will never be forgiven you. Nor is there any heaven for you, however much you consider yourselves to be religious.
And why now have I condemned these? Because these are never correctly established, there is no salvation for them, nor do these have a right to take the word of God upon their lips.
What
I now am going to say will not suit everyone, but if by any means it may bring
peace to the minds of men, and lead some to salvation, it shall have been
worthwhile.
Those hypocrites, beasts of damnation, like Billy Graham and the likes cry "to accept Christ in your heart", and the stupid ones that come forward acclaim "to have accepted Christ in their heart" But what did the Christ say? ??
"No man can come to Me, except the Father, which has sent Me, draw him." And "You did not choose Me but I choose you". Such passages are used of those in confirmation to the Predestination of God so proclaimed in His word.
John Calvin therefore taught rightly concerning the elect. But the Lord did not grant him understanding for again it is written: "He is the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world".
His election which no man is able to resist, and, the will that God implanted in man to choose for what is right or wrong, both are correct.
And, of the elect in the; "not for ours only", and the whole world in the; "sins for them", is also very correct. Nor are these contradictory, but perfect harmony in the endlessly greater wisdom of the Lord, the Creator of all.
And now let me reveal this to you in the hope of ending your dispute. You know how it is written; "That the Lord grants to each of His children knowledge, or insight into mysteries as He will". This mystery therefore He revealed to His apostles, and I know of some of their disciples who knew.
Additionally He revealed it to me, and from the martyrs of whom there are but brief records I know of at least some that knew, otherwise this has not been awarded to any other that I know of in all of these centuries though they be sons of the Lord.
For again the knowledge of such mysteries is not a condition of salvation, but none other than the elect could possibly receive them or hold them to heart. The Lord then does what He will with whomever He will in the luster of His wisdom. And where does that leave you as sons of the Lord, or men aspiring to salvation?
It is in this that from the start I came to say: "It is not given you to understand". For, - It is faith that is foremost, and second to that is obedience, which in turn comes by love. It is by these as I said, "Love" "Faith", and "Obedience", if in these you do not come to perfection, the mysteries of God will remain mysteries.
Why do you wish to comprehend God's mysteries when you do not believe upon His word in the first place? And who are you to have a greater knowledge when you relish to contradict His word?
You that judges God, will He reveal to you His mysteries or not rather His wrath? Where is your love unto faith? And if you have these and He does not reveal the greater things to you, will you turn back from Him?
In this frame-work you ought to maintain yourself; "Do not ask Me concerning those that perish but rejoice in this that your names are written in heaven". This my dear people, you protestants and you catholics, and anyone else wishing to honor the word of the Lord, - this is the word. For without His special gift as He gave to some, you cannot apprehend this divine counsel of the Lord.
And to all those wishing to be saved, not in honor with that main topic where Calvin is known for, let it not bother you, let it remain a mystery, but call on Him who is able to save, for He will open to all that knock.
His redemption was for all men, choose therefore, take a first step, and do not freeze thereafter. For where there is a contrite heart, a true reckoning, there help will be found, His help who shed His blood for your welfare.
Let not an apparent contradiction, which for its harmony can only be understood by such as God has given them, shut you out from salvation. You cannot profess salvation for all, and at the same time judge God for His right to ordain as He will.
Nor can you profess His right to elect, and also judge Him for His extreme generosity towards all men. If you love a man or a women will you adore the left arm, and not the right? Or will you marry her for the top half and not rather the whole?
How do you know that you are in the elect of God? For of those none have that love but that are drawn of God. But what if these do not endure, are they then still of the elect?
For this also is a condition of their salvation, to endure unto the end. If then these do not endure how is their election to be concluded? They would be as in shallow ground, and not of the elect.
And if you are not of the elect, is not God's salvation for all men? Why then should you despair, and not call on Him for His redeeming grace? For what man knows if the Lord has called him, lest he is called?
But do not take His grace lightly, and do not simply make a trial of it, to mock Him to His face.
For this also is a certain fact, that none but that are called of God shall enter into heaven, not now nor ever. No un-repented person shall ever enter into God's rest.
We all want leaders, and depend on them. And so there are sheep, and there are rams. If then you aspire to be a ram, think of that admirable quality of having your salvation as second to the love and affection for the Lord, and for His sheep.
Allow
me to quote something to you that is not found in the canons:
"Then the earth will be
glorified, receiving heavenly glory. What
was above will also be below, and He himself will be the Savior for every land,
and rest for those who toil, and a cloud shading the whole world from the
burning heat.
"The Savior for every land", and, "shading the whole world". Let therefore no one deceive you to rob you of "your" rest.
What now have I done? "Explain it to them in your wisdom, for you are their guides and their reward upon the whole earth." This is what I have done, and as such I have merely done my duty, an unworthy servant. My word nonetheless will remain a mystery to all but the wise.
Will to salvation.
A will to salvation, or destined to salvation. Book of Revelations; "Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested". But why the test when his fate was already secured in before ages?
Book of Revelations: "But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first". No love, then no predestination, but what if they return to their first love, how is - that which ever was - as never have been?
The woman Jezebel, "I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her immorality. Behold, I will throw her on a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her doings; and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches shall know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you as your works deserve."
To search mind and heart, - but why if the heart is dead, and the mind a void, and there is no choice in man?
There is no question that God can perform all that He will and overcome anyone. The Lord gave Jezebel a choice, a persuasive anchor, ill health or repentance, and a time factor, acting with compassion.
Not that the Lord could not in an instant overcome her, leaving her no way to repent, or look to God again. Nor that the Lord could not in an instant cause her to repent.
But He treated her as a human being, as a creature made in His likeness, respecting her will and her choice, and coerced upon her with illness to turn back from her sinful ways.
If then you say, but she had no will or no choice to turn back, will you accuse God of deceit, who said "I gave her time to repent"?
Do you think so little of God, that He would lie to any of his creatures, and not act with justice for all? Is it not rather compassion which He showed, or extreme generosity as I coined previously?
And do you not know that to speak evil of God is a sin against His Holy Spirit, for God is Spirit? And how that sin can never be forgiven?
He who has a right and is able in an instant to crush her, or convert her, gave her opportunity, and by it the means. For God is not like men in a kangaroo court where one is sentenced before he is heard.
As then man has a will, God is greater. Man has a choice but his power of choice is no match for his Creator. The Lord knows that nothing can resist His will, yet He wished to have his creature after his likeness to choose right from wrong.
And consequently to love truth and righteous dealing, since one has as much right to exist with peace and with dignity as the other. Therefore also came the law of love each one for his neighbor, and for the One that sustains all.
Reward and reward so I once said, whatsoever a man shall choose that also he shall receive. For such as do many good things in their life will find many good things of the Lord. And for such as have abused His ways will taste his wrath.
And such as have done cruel and inhumane things, these will receive much greater punishment. For such as have done no harm to others yet died for hunger or for thirst, will find mercy long before such as have corrupted the word of God.
Choose therefore what is acceptable before God, that your reward may be an acceptable one. Or choose for what is abominable, and your reward will be likewise. The statement wherein it says; "Twice children of hell," does not portray a single same punishment or hell for each and everyone thereof.
