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may illuminate your spiritual understanding
which transcends all human ability.
 Calvinism, also known as Reformed Theology, is a serious erroneous interpretation of Scripture that has captivated millions of nominal Christians. Calvinists teach that God will be glorified by bringing billions of people into the world for no other purpose than having them burn in hell for eternity. In my opinion, that is as close to heresy as you can get! To deny that Christ’s death makes salvation available for "whosoever will" is nothing less than ‘another gospel’ as it deviates radically from the fundamental teachings of Scripture.
In all honesty, I believe the teachings of Calvinism is a heretical theology that distorts the attributes and character of God, undermines the gospel of salvation and grace, and has created grievous chaos and division in the church. However, I think we should be cautious about consigning those who adhere to Calvinist doctrine to eternal damnation. Despite their many teachings contrary to Scripture, a person can be born again under their ministry because they firmly believe and teach the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. If you think I am beginning to sound like an apologist for Calvinism, be assured I am not. I abhor their theological heresies: their denial of the possibility of falling away from the faith and their dangerous assertions of eternal security, also known as "Once Saved Always Saved," legitimizing sin. I cannot see this debate being resolved soon – if ever – during our temporary journey on this earth. Calvinism asserts that man is completely unable to repent and believe the Gospel of his own accord, and must, therefore, be regenerated first without faith by a sovereign act of God and only then will he be given the gift of faith to believe. I do NOT believe a lost person must be “born again” BEFORE he can repent and believe. I do NOT believe the Bible teaches that man is dead in his trespasses and sins to the extent that an unbeliever is totally incapable of responding to the conviction of the Holy Spirit. I do NOT believe the Bible ANYWHERE teaches that God’s call to salvation is an irresistible call of selective regeneration that the lost person is compelled to respond to contrary to their own volition. I do NOT believe in unconditional eternal security – I DO NOT believe it is impossible to depart from the faith and forfeit your salvation. In Acts 17:30 God commands all men everywhere to repent so they can be forgiven and saved, but according to Calvinists, man does not have free will to choose, and the only way they can repent is if God irresistibly overpowers their will and gives them the ability to do so. Yet He holds those who fail to repent accountable by sending them to the Lake of Fire even though He has arbitrarily chosen them to be lost, and they have no choice [free-will] to either believe or not to believe. Why would God have given ‘all men everywhere’ the command to repent if it is impossible to obey, and He has already elected which ones are going to spend eternity with Him and which ones are assigned to eternal damnation? There is not one verse in the Bible that says prior to or after becoming believers, we are incapable of choosing our actions and making spiritual choices. Deuteronomy 30:19: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore, choose life, that you and your offspring may live..” Did only Old Testament believers have the ability to make choices? There is no biblical evidence that God cancels our ability to make decisions of our own. To deny we have free will means all choices are made for us by God – including the choice to sin. Calvinists always counter those of us who believe in free-will with the question, “Did the Apostle Paul have a choice when he met the Lord on the road to Damascus?” Paul had no choice in Jesus appearing before him, but he most certainly did have a choice to obey or not. Acts 26:19 gives us unequivocal proof of his choice. “Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.” Apostle Paul makes it clear he could have chosen to disobey the vision of Jesus but instead he chose to obey. When Jesus said in John 15:16, "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you . . . " He was referring to his choosing of his twelve disciples, NOT election, and predestination! Disciples (followers, students, learners) in Jesus' day usually chose the particular rabbi, or teacher, whom they wanted to follow. That is what this verse is referring to, and any diligent study of the text will make that crystal clear. Do not let anyone deceive you. Jesus calls ALL, and it is His desire that not ANY should perish. God does not "choose" or appoint some to salvation and others to hell. It is up to each of us to choose whom we will serve and where we will spend eternity. It is our choice to stay in the faith or depart from it. We have free will and that free will remains intact - yes, even after we accept Christ. The fundamental conflict I have with Calvinism is not sovereignty but God’s character. Calvinism distorts the very nature and character of God and misrepresents His divine attributes and His goodness, destroying His righteous judgment and mercy. Their distortion of God’s character is so unyielding it sounds more like the Quran than the Bible. The Quran also refers to Allah as the most beneficent, merciful, and compassionate, while he passionately hates the infidels (non-Muslims, non-elect) and encourages killing and shedding the blood of men if they refuse to convert. If God’s mercy is only for some people and not for others, if His offer of salvation is only available for a few and not for all, if He predestines some to eternal life and some to eternal damnation and they have no choice in the matter, how can Jesus’ words “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” be trusted? The parable of the wedding feast in Matthew chapter 22 strongly refutes Calvinistic doctrine that asserts God’s grace is ‘irresistible’ and that man has no free will to refuse, resist or reject His invitation. Yet, in the parable, those who the king initially chose to invite to the wedding refused to come. They were invited in and they declined and willingly rejected the king’s gracious invitation. Christ concludes the parable with the sad fact that “many are invited, but few are chosen.” In other words, many people hear the call of God, but only a few heed it. This defies Calvinism’s theology that man plays no part in their salvation. The main reason for this gross misrepresentation is because they deny God’s universal agape love for all humanity and His offer of divine grace and forgiveness to ‘whosoever will’ hear and respond to the gospel of salvation which is forever entrenched in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son, that WHOSOEVER believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” [John 5:39-40] God predestined that whosoever will accept His free gift and then abide in Christ, remain steadfast in the faith, and endure to the end will be "chosen" and "elected" to be admitted to the wedding supper of the Lamb. Why would anyone desire to be in the presence of a God who chooses to extend mercy to some sinners, for no apparent reason, yet deny His mercy to others, for no apparent reason, and allow them to remain in their condemned condition? According to Calvinistic doctrine, God damns them forever in the Lake of Fire for not believing the gospel, yet they cannot believe unless He regenerates them and gives them the faith to believe--and yet He refuses to do so? These are characteristics that are inconsistent with God’s goodness. This is not the "God" of the Bible as revealed in Jesus Christ. The Lord despises injustice and partiality [Leviticus 19:5] Many Calvinists will claim that “God has a right to dispose of His creatures in any way He chooses.” But that is not in debate. I am not accusing God; I am accusing a certain belief about God—with being either morally ambiguous or making Him indistinguishable from Satan. I do, however, have some good news! God can, and does, save individuals who hear the gospel preached by a Calvinist preacher. But you also need to understand, God can save someone listening to John Piper, John Arthur or Joseph Prince as well IF they present a gospel message along with the rest of what they preach. Fortunately for the lost, God can and does use inept presentations of the gospel to touch lost men’s hearts and bring them to repentance and reconciliation. And we cannot deny that many have come to faith and brought forth fruit in keeping with their repentance as a result of Calvinist preachers who teach you must repent, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and forsake your sins. Scripture warns us that in the end times God will send a Strong Delusion; This deception is directed not only at those of the world that are lost in their sins, but specifically at false teachers within the Church and those who accept them, and believe their ungodly teachings. God is sending this strong delusion to all lukewarm, undecided, and disobedient Christians who do not love the truth. [Rev. 3:16; 2 Thess. 1:8; 2 Thess. 2:10-11] Those who have no love for the truth, will believe the smoke and mirror doctrines that are being taught today. Sound doctrine has value for godly living; false doctrine leads to ungodly living. Sound doctrine originates with God; unsound doctrine originates with someone or something created by God and can lead to heresy. It is our sacred responsibility to examine every doctrine to determine if it is true or false. It is of utmost importance that we examine the fruit of all those who claim to represent Jesus. Do not be indifferent to the voice of God. Read God’s Word for yourself with an open mind and pray that He would show you His truth as He meant it to be. Listen when God speaks to you and obey without hesitation. Turn away from lying prophets, preachers and teachers that are within many of the corrupt churches today. Hold no man or woman up as being worthy of your worship. Faith in anything or anyone other than Christ is a delusion that will cause you to be finally and eternally lost. God has not predestined you to eternal life without having any free choice in the matter, neither has he predestined you to eternal destruction without any possibility of being saved. The choice is yours whether you will accept God’s path or reject it; it is also your choice to either stay on God’s path or take a detour. By Lynette Hughes
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 IS GOD’S LOVE UNCONDITIONAL?
It’s misleading to call God’s love unconditional. From the very beginning, when God created Adam and Eve, there were conditions to remain in His favor. In Genesis 2:16-17 God told them “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” The relationship that existed between God and Adam and Eve had a condition placed upon it, and, of course, we all know how that worked out. All the promises of God have conditions attached, and in this sense, it’s misleading to call God’s love "unconditional." God's divine forgiveness is NOT unconditional; our salvation is conditional on repentance and faith in Christ Jesus. The first command of Jesus recorded in Mark's gospel is "repent and believe". Those are conditions. That is, we must humble ourselves before God in prayer, acknowledge we are a sinner in need of a Savior and believe in His Son, Jesus Christ, with a faith that obeys His commandments. If we do not meet the conditions to repent and believe, He does not forgive, and without forgiveness there is no salvation. Try as you might, you will not find the phrase "unconditional love" in Scripture, nor will you find the concept of “unconditional love” within the writings of the Church Fathers, nor will you find any other Christian author who used that term before the 20th century. Of the more than 800 instances of "love" in the Bible, none states or even implies that God's love is unconditional. God’s love is conditional on our keeping Jesus' commandments. Jesus said "IF you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love." Unconditional means ‘without conditions or limits.’ God's love is not 'unconditional' in any sense. The term unconditional love is a humanistic psychological term and not found in the Bible. For love to be unconditional it would require there be no moral judgement or expectation of something in return. Unconditional love is the acceptance of a person without him or her meeting any conditions, but this is quite contrary to the revealed Word of God, yet this is the greatest popular myth coming from the pulpits of Christian preachers and teachers today. It’s true that salvation is offered without conditions in the sense it is offered freely, and not based on our human merit or worth, but on God’s undeserved goodness and mercy. But His divine forgiveness is NOT unconditional: Scripture makes it crystal clear that salvation is conditioned on faith and obedience. Hebrews 5:9 says that Jesus "became the author of eternal salvation to all who OBEY him." No matter what Bible translation you use, you’ll discover that God’s love is conditional, but we have to be aware that the enemy will work hard to redefine and misrepresent God’s love. Many today are diluting God’s Word for the sake of loving others, mistakenly thinking they’re reflecting the love of God. Ironically, far from ‘unconditional love’ being a Biblical term it was actually coined in 1934 by Erich Fromm, a psychoanalyst. Fromm was an atheist who rejected all forms of authoritarian government including God's, taught an unbiblical self-love, and argued strenuously against Christian faith. When this false love gospel made its debut in America in the 1960’s with the LSD-using hippies and flower children, it was condemned by preachers everywhere, and rightly so. The "Unconditional Love Gospel" perverts God's Word by twisting scripture to suit an agenda. Pastors and teachers who propound this gospel of false love notice that people like them much more when they don’t talk about God’s law, sin, guilt and repentance. So, they remove these topics from their sermons and fixate on the idea that ‘God is love’ to the exclusion of His other attributes. This not only improves their popularity but generates substantial financial gain. Prominent preachers and teachers have introduced the false doctrine of unconditional love into contemporary Christianity. The love that’s being preached today sounds to me like the over-indulgence of a doting grandparent instead of the vigorous concern of a Father for the best interests of His children. They’ve exaggerated the sentiment that "God is love" until His love has become an ooey, gooey, sickeningly sweet cliché. This corrupted doctrine ignores the other attributes of God's character, gives us a false view of God's temporary mercy towards the unrepentant, and takes away the fear of God's wrath. Biblical love demands that we preach the truth– what people need to hear, rather than what they want to hear. Most people today have no desire to hear the truth, because they DON'T love the truth. When you tell them the truth, they become angry, defensive and argumentative because it doesn’t fit their preconceived ideas and opinions; often, it doesn’t fit their lifestyle. This is really no different than what happened in the Book of Acts when Jesus’ disciples preached the truth. Mobs of angry people wanted to tear them to pieces, and many were beaten and martyred. But genuine love compels us to preach and teach the truth of God’s word even when it endangers our lives. Liberal churches are preaching love without truth which is blind sentimentality empty of real love. All the love in the world means nothing if you don’t have the truth. Love without truth is a distorted view of love that leaves us in denial about our own sins; it’s self-serving and hypocritical. Conservative churches are preaching truth without love: Truth without love is harsh, judgmental and self-righteous. (An example is Westboro Baptist Church who shoves hate filled signs in the faces of unbelievers.) Truth and love are inseparable! Romans 6:23 NIV says “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” God loves people unconditionally in the sense He has provided a remedy for our breaking His righteous laws. But unless we repent and trust in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we cannot be reconciled to God and receive the gift of eternal life. God does not offer forgiveness and eternal life apart from faith and repentance. That’s called a condition. To say that God loves us with an unconditional love creates false ideas about forgiveness. If God were to love unconditionally, He would be compelled to forgive unconditionally. Unconditional love would require that God forgive the criminal, the pervert, the degenerate, and the reprobate without need for repentance, otherwise His love would not be unconditional. This false teaching of God’s ‘unconditional’ love leaves a person believing that even if they live an unrepentant, willful, sinful lifestyle after being saved God will forgive them. After all, isn't His love unconditional? But Scripture plainly tells us without repentance there is no forgiveness. Repentance is a condition we must meet in order to receive forgiveness for our sins. And Jesus says that sins against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. Whatever happened to God’s unconditional love? If God's love were unconditional then why did he destroy the people of Noah's day in a global flood? If God’s love were unconditional then why did He need His Son Jesus to die on the cross; it would have been unnecessary. The Bible teaches us that “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.” Why would anyone fear God if His love is unconditional? If God loved us unconditionally, there would be no reason for anyone to fear God. Sadly, our generation doesn’t know or comprehend the things that anger God. We have been force-fed the doctrines of unconditional love and self-esteem for so long that most people don't really view themselves as sinner’s worthy of divine wrath. God’s love, agape love, is to pay attention to someone’s need and do something to meet that need. God’s agape love is the kind of love that dies on behalf of those who have no legal right to exist, but God’s love is not corrupted human sentimentality that enables us in our sins and overlooks our transgressions. If God's love were unconditional, then everybody would be saved, since they would not have to meet any conditions. We would end up with universalism. But Jesus said: “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him…” (John 14:23). Jesus clearly says if you love Him and keep His commandments, God will reciprocate that love. God’s acceptance and approval - His love - is conditional. We must love and obey His Son to become a recipient of His love. "Let no one deceive you with empty words....the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience" (Eph. 5:5, 6) We are not justified by God's love. We are justified by faith. John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” When scripture says that "God so loved the WORLD," it is speaking of the universal love of God for the world of humanity whom He created in His image. The Greek word transliterated as "world" does not mean that God loves those who refuse to repent and obey Him, for every person who fails to do so will be thrown into the Lake of Fire. God’s love for the sinful, fallen, rebellious world of mankind is not the same as His love for those who repent and receive Christ and follow His commands. John 3:36 NKJV says, “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” Jesus says if we don’t believe, if we resist the conviction of the Holy spirit and reject His free gift of eternal life, we will be cast into the Lake of Fire; the place of everlasting destruction for those who do not obey the gospel. [2 Thess. 1:8-9] What happened to God’s unconditional love? The fact that at a point in time past God demonstrated His love by giving us a Savior, does not imply that God loves unrepentant wicked sinners. God loves and forgives everyone who follows His command to REPENT AND BELIEVE in Christ for salvation. The fullest expression of God’s love is revealed to us through sending His only Son so that ‘whosoever’ believes in Him will not die but will have everlasting life. The amazing and magnificent love of God is not diminished in any way by rejecting the fallacy that it’s unconditional. By Lynette Hughes  PREDESTINATION: DID JESUS CHOOSE WHO WOULD BE SAVED?
Calvinists use John 15:16 in an attempt to prove Jesus predestines people to be saved; however, this Scripture is not talking about who receives eternal life. Jesus is specifically speaking to the 12 apostles who were chosen for a specific task and purpose. He says “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.” Jesus is reminding them that He chose them out of the wider mass of His followers for the specific task of learning from Him so that they could do the things He did. To understand the Bible and avoid misinterpretations, we must study biblical passages within their proper context. Jesus is not speaking to us in 2025 as being one of the 12 chosen apostles, but He is speaking of the 12 disciples He chose to follow Him in service (Luke 12:13-16). He is not talking about who is appointed to receive eternal life, but who He chose for the purpose of preaching the gospel to the world. This speaks nothing of a predestination to either life or death. This is confirmed in Mark 3:13-14: “Now Jesus went up the mountain and called for those he wanted, and they came to him. He appointed twelve so that they would be with him and he could send them to preach.” God chose these 12 disciples to be eyewitnesses of the life and ministry of Christ Jesus. They were chosen to witness the glory and greatness of His resurrection, so that they could convince the Jews that He was their Messiah and share with Gentiles that His salvation was available to all. God bases His election on His foreknowledge of those who freely choose Him. Jesus died for the sins of all mankind, and “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4; Titus 2:11; 2 Peter 3:9). God is not schizophrenic. He does not will for some to be saved and others not to be saved. How could God genuinely desire that all men be saved, if He does not give them an opportunity to be saved? God gives all men the opportunity to be saved, but He allows each person to decide for themselves whether to accept His offer or not. Let me rephrase that: We are ALL called by the gospel to be saved, and when a person (“whosoever believes”) answers the call of the gospel, then that is when that person is chosen by God to become one of God's elect (Matthew 20:16). Those who accept His offer of salvation are those who are “predestined" in the sense that God foreknows from eternity who will choose to accept His grace and who will reject His grace and be lost. God reaches out to us FIRST but we can ALSO clearly see that if, in our hard heartedness, we reject the offer of salvation extended to us then we will not be CHOSEN. Those who “walk worthy of the Lord’ and faithfully “endure to the end” are the ELECT of God who will be saved. -By Lynette Hughes  Martin Luther (1483-1546) was a German theologian and a major leader of the Protestant Reformation. Luther had bouts of disabling depression and anger and had to suspend his pastoral ministry for long periods of time. He also struggled with intrusive, unwanted “blasphemous” thoughts and images that left him confused and disturbed and was tormented by urges to use vulgarities and curse God and Jesus. He readily admitted he had periods when he hated God. If we look at Luther's prayer life, we will see that it was extremely demonic, at least at certain times of his life. He is recorded as saying that he could not pray without cursing. He would be considered verbally abusive today; someone in dire need of deliverance.
The following quote by Luther is well document in Protestant-approved sources: “Christ committed adultery first of all with the woman at the well about whom St. John tells us. Was not everybody about Him saying, "Whatever has he been doing with her?" Secondly, with Mary Magdalene and thirdly with the woman taken in adultery whom he dismissed so lightly. Thus, even Christ who was so righteous must have been guilty of fornication before He died.” [recorded in what historians refer to as his “Table Talks.”] It is difficult to fathom why these blasphemous statements fail to change the opinion of the man. He has been praised by enthusiastically by both Catholics, Protestants, and Reformers, and his defenders relegate his comments to ‘hyperbole. Luther was a man who was so arrogantly convinced of his rightness that anyone who disagreed with him was either stupid fools, grossly ignorant or wretchedly evil. For further confirmation of Luther’s dark side, one has only to read some of the shockingly evil things he advocated in a work entitled “The Jews and their Lies” in which he urged that synagogues and Jewish schools should be burned to the ground, Jewish people run out of their homes, their prayer books and Talmudic writings burned and the rabbis forbidden to preach or teach on penalty of death. The following are a few excerpts from Luther’s writings: "What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? ... I shall give you my sincere advice:" "First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. For whatever we tolerated in the past unknowingly and I myself was unaware of it will be pardoned by God. But if we, now that we are informed, were to protect and shield such a house for the Jews, existing right before our very nose, in which they lie about, blaspheme, curse, vilify, and defame Christ and us (as was heard above), it would be the same as if we were doing all this and even worse ourselves, as we very well know." "Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead, they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies. This will bring home to them that they are not masters in our country, as they boast, but that they are living in exile and in captivity, as they incessantly wail and lament about us before God." Luther told Christians to “set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn. The Nazis executed his plan on the night of Kristallnacht, also called the “Night of Broken Glass,” when they torched synagogues and destroyed Jewish homes, schools and businesses. Undoubtedly Hitler’s virulent hatred of Jews and his desire to annihilate them was satanically inspired by Martin Luther who Hitler himself called one of history’s greatest reformers in his autobiography, Mein Kampf. Undoubtedly his praise was due to the fact that Luther’s theological writings so resembled his own racial antisemitism and political policies. It cannot be denied that God mightily used Martin Luther as the catalyst for the denunciation of papal authority and the Protestant Reformation. His vitriol was of equal vehemence towards his theological enemies, including the pope and the Catholic church, as it was towards the Jews with words that are unfit to write. Sadly, the Protestant churches that came out of the reformation were daughters of the Great Whore of Babylon, the Roman Catholic Church, called the ‘mother of harlots’ because she was the first to commit spiritual adultery by corrupting the simplicity of the New Testament Christianity. Since the Mother of Harlots is a church, then her daughters are also churches. These daughters were inspired by the writings of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Henry VIII to break away from Catholicism and establish Protestant denominations retaining much of their mother’s paganized traditions of men. While Luther was an opponent of many of the false doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, he initiated and promoted a false doctrine of his own of such significant proportion that it persists to this very day. He taught that we can receive forgiveness simply by belief in Jesus without obedience or works of any kind. This doctrine was not part of Christian belief for the first 1,500 years of Christianity. Luther erroneously came to the conclusion that we are saved by faith ALONE, rather than saved by an OBEDIENT faith. Luther added the word “alone” to Romans 3:28 which at the time caused an outcry among theologians. Many passages of Scripture say we are saved by faith, but no passage says we are saved by faith ALONE. How can anyone believe in salvation by faith alone when the only occurrence of ‘faith alone’ in the Bible is James 2:24 and it says that salvation is NOT by faith alone. The Holy Spirit says PLAINLY that Jesus saves those who obey: "And having been made perfect he became unto all THEM THAT OBEY HIM the author of eternal salvation" (Hebrews 5:9). At the end of his life, Luther advocated for murder and mass expulsion of Jews from the empire and condoned polygamy based on Old Testament practices. He died of a stroke at the age of 62. -By Lynette Hughes |
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