To Seek or Not To Seek? That Is The Question.

So Calvinists say that Romans 3:11: "There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God," means that men are "so dead" inside that no one can seek God unless God pre-chose them to be saved and causes them to want Him, seek Him, and believe in Him.  (They base much of their theology on this.)

And I say, "Really!?!  Because Psalm 14:2 says 'The Lord looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.'  If it's impossible for anyone to seek God, why would God look to see if there are any of us who do it?"  

Romans 3:11 is just about general human nature, how we are self-centered, self-focused.  It's not about it being "impossible" to seek God.  Nowhere does it say we can't seek God ... just that mankind, left to ourselves, generally doesn't desire to seek Him.  

This is why He has to reach out to us, to draw us to Him.  And He draws all men, according to John 12:32.  He draws us all to Him, through nature and the call on our hearts, letting us all know that He is real and that we need Him.  But we have to choose to respond or resist.  And it's because He draws us all, because He makes Himself real to all and available to all, that no one has an excuse for why they didn't seek Him and believe in Him.

Acts 17:27:  "God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us."

Romans 1:20, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”

You sure would have an excuse for not believing in Him if He created you to be an unbeliever and made it impossible for you to want Him, seek Him, or believe in Him!

So which is true?  We don't have an excuse or we do?  We can seek or we can't?

And let me ask this: If there is truly a question between the two about which is right - that we can seek or can't seek - which one fits best with the rest of the Bible and God's character?  

Which one fits with the idea of God loving the world (John 3:16)?  Would it be love to predestine most people to hell, giving them no chance to be saved?  Is it love to create most people just so that He can send them to eternal torment in hell because it brings Him some sort of sick glory (according to the Calvinist)?  If that's love, what does hate look like?  (And if we're supposed to reflect God to others and try to be like Him, what's that gonna look like - if He hated most people before He even made them just so He could send them to hell for His glory, never giving them a chance to be saved?) 

What about God's justice?  Can He really be considered a just God if commands all people to repent and believe in Him but then He prevents most people from repenting and believing in Him and then holds them accountable for not repenting/believing, punishing them eternally for the unbelief He predestined and caused?  Is it justice to predestine/cause people to sin, never giving them the chance to do anything different, but then to punish them for what they had no choice over, what He made them do?  If that's justice, I'd hate to see injustice!  And once again, what does that mean for us as Christians, if we are called to be like Him?  

How about Jesus's death on the cross for the sins of all men?  If God predestined most people to never repent, if He sent Jesus to die only for the elect, as the Calvinists say, how can He then say in the Bible that Jesus died for all sins, for all men?  And then if God really does love only the elect and really did send Jesus to die only for the elect but says in His Word that He loves all men and that Jesus died for all men ... then how in the world can you trust anything God says, if He says one thing but means another?  How can you trust a God who gets glory, as Calvinists say, for causing evil, sin, and putting people in hell?  How is Calvi-god any different from Satan then?  How is evil any different from good?  

Calvinism destroys the Gospel.

And there is no question ... Men can seek God.  

In fact, God says so.  

God expects us to seek Him.  

Because that's how we find Him.

And He wants to be found!

Isaiah 55:6:  "Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near."

Deuteronomy 4:29:  "But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him, if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul."

Jeremiah 29:13: "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart..."

Hebrews 11:6:  "... anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him."

1 Chronicles 22:19: "Now devote your heart and soul to seeking the Lord your God." 
            

Amos 5:4, 14: "Seek me and live ... Seek good, not evil."

            

Proverbs 8:17: "... those who seek me find me."

Joshua 24:15: "But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve ..."  

            

And yet the Calvinist uses Romans 3:11 to say that we can't seek God, that it's impossible unless God causes us to do it, that He decides who believes in Him and who doesn't, that Jesus died only for the few "chosen" people because He wouldn't waste His blood on those He predestined to reject Him, that the non-elected were created just so God could hate them and send them to hell because He gets some sort of glory for showing off His justice and His wrath against sin (never mind that Calvinism's god first predestined and caused those sins), and that the non-elect never had a chance to be saved because God made sure they had no ability to seek Him, to believe in Him, to choose Him.  All of which is in total opposition to what the rest of the Bible teaches!

John 3:16-17 (emphasis added in all verses): "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."

John 12:32: "But I, when I am lifted up, will draw all men to myself."

Acts 17:30: "In the past, God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent."  (Can we trust a God who commands all men to repent while making it impossible for most men to repent?  How can we trust any command He gives us if He might have preplanned us to do the opposite of what He said?  What a great excuse we would have for disobeying any command He gave us!)

Titus 2:11:  "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men."  

1 Timothy 2:3-6:  "This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.  For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for all men ..."  

1 Timothy 4:10:  "... that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe."  (He's made salvation available for all men, by dying for all men, but only those who willingly choose to believe in Him will acquire that salvation.  The choice is ours!)

Romans 5:18:  "Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men."  

Romans 10:13:  "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."  

How could Calvinists have gotten it so wrong, replacing what God clearly said with their own rambling, contradictory ideas of what God must have meant to say, directly opposing what God clearly said!?!    

God says "Seek Me!"  But Calvinists say we cannot seek Him.

God says "Believe in Me!  Choose Me!"  But Calvinists say we cannot believe in Him or choose Him unless we were predestined to, unless He causes us to.

God says it's our choice.  Calvinists say it's God choice, and we can't do anything about it.

And so I ask: Who are you gonna believe?

How very wicked it is of Calvinists to teach people that we can't do the very things God commands us to do to be saved: To seek Him, believe in Him, choose Him!

If God says that we must seek and believe to be saved, but Calvinists say "You can't seek or believe on your own, but God has to do it for you," then how can anyone truly be saved the Calvinist way!?!

How very brilliant of Satan to use God's Word against God and to use well-meaning Christians (or maybe I should say "Christians," in quotes) to spread a theology that teaches the opposite of what God says!

2 Corinthians 11:14-15:  "For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ.  And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.  It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness.  Their end will be what their actions deserve."

[Extra note:  Speaking of God's love and justice ... Calvinists use the pathetic example of 100 men on death row to demonstrate God's love and justice (their version of it).  They say that God shows His gracious love by choosing to set free 10 men who deserve death, while showing His justice (His wrath against sin) by choosing to let the other 90 guilty men stay on death row to pay the penalty for their sins.  This, they say, demonstrates both His love and justice.  

BUT ... the glaring problem here (which they will never acknowledge or admit to) is that, in Calvinism, God caused those men to be on death row in the first place.  He predestined the crimes they did and caused them to do it.  They had no choice about it.  

That's not love or justice!  

Is it grace or love to first cause men to be on death row and then to set them free?  Is that really what love, grace, or mercy looks like - causing people to sin and then "forgiving" them for "their" sin, never giving them a choice about anything they do in this big cosmic play?  Ridiculous!  Do love, grace, mercy, forgiveness, etc., have any meaning at all if we have no choice about anything we do, if He causes the sin He then has to "forgive," if He causes the problems He then has to "fix"?

And those 90 men left on death row are paying the penalty for the sins God (Calvinism's god) caused them to commit.  They're guilty because of what He created them to be and caused them to do.  But then He punishes them for it, as if they had a choice.  They're not paying the price for sins they chose to do, but for sins He caused them to do and predestined them to never repent of.  Where is the justice in that!?!  

And how tiny, tiny, tiny Calvi-god's love must be if he created the vast majority of people to go to hell and choose to save only a tiny few out of love!  

"Oh," the Calvinist says, "but God chose to show His wrath against sin, His justice, by putting people in hell for their sins.  He needed people to sin so that He could do this.  So He predestined people to be unbelievers so that He could put them in hell so that He could get worship for (and worship Himself for) how just He is.  He gets glory by showing off His justice this way, by first 'ordaining' and then punishing sin.  So it's a good thing.  A God-glorifying thing."  (Yes, they really do say this garbage!  Talk about calling evil good!)

And I say, "Really!?!  Because God Himself tells us how He chose to show off His justice ... and it's not by putting people in hell but by sending Jesus to the cross to pay for our sins."  

“God presented [Jesus] as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood.  He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished- he did it [sent Jesus to the cross for our sins] to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”  (Romans 3:25-26, emphasis added)

And furthermore, to incorporate the idea that God loves the world, all men, Calvinists will say that God has two different kinds of love: a "save your soul" kind for the elect and a "give you food and sunshine for 80 years until you die and go to hell for eternity" kind for the non-elect.  

Once again, "Really!?!  Which verse says that?  Because my Bible says that God shows His love this way:  'God demonstrates his love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.'  (Romans 5:8, emphasis added)  So unless only the elect are 'sinners,' Jesus died for all of us, just like He confirmed in verse after verse."

So the Bible says that God demonstrated His justice by sending Jesus to the die for our sins.  And it says that He demonstrated His love by sending Jesus to die for our sins.

But Calvinists say He demonstrates His justice by predestining most people to hell and demonstrates His love by predestining a tiny few people to heaven, sending Jesus to die only for them.

And so I wonder, who's right?  The Calvinist or God?

An if Calvinism is wrong, if it's full of lies that contradict the Bible, then who do you think is behind it?

"And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light."

And a few questions for those who politely tolerate Calvinism in their church or who embrace it without question or who sense the red-flags in Calvinist theology but don't take the time to examine it deeper: If Calvinism is truly a demon-inspired theology, if it's Satan twisting God's Word and flipping God's Word on its head, if Calvi-god really is Satan in disguise, then who is being glorified by it?  Who is being worshipped?  And how much responsibility will you bear, when you stand before God, for allowing it to spread in your church and in the body of Christ?]