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One of the Highest Insults
About sixteen years ago, I heard a young man from Hoxton (Association Baptist) Academy make the following remarks: “I now offer you Christ, and Christ stands with open arms ready to receive you. Yea, he begs, and prays, and beseeches you all to come unto him and have life; and yet some of you will not come. Nay, it is as if God the Father came and fell upon his knees before you, begging and beseeching you to receive Christ, and come and be reconciled to him; and yet you will not come.” In this way he proceeded for a considerable length of time; and this he called “preaching the gospel to every creature.” From a professed Arminian such remarks might be expected; but for…
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An Example Of Parents Explaining The Gospel To Their Child
The Setting: It is morning and the family is busy preparing for work and school. Though the hour is running late, the father insists on reading a portion from the Bible before leaving the house: FATHER: Come, my dear, bring me the Bible. CHILD: Father, it is now nine o'clock, and if I stop while you read and pray I shall get scolded, for I ought to have been at school before now. FATHER: True, child, you ought to have been at school by this time; but I have been detained this morning, and I am not willing you should go before I have read part of God's word, and taken up a little time in prayer and thanksgiving to the God of all our…
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A Classic Misrepresentation of High-Calvinism
Here is a classic misrepresentation of High-Calvinism, and the misleading assertion that Fuller was the hero who rescued the Particular Baptists from ‘Hyperism’: “Fuller’s pastorate at Soham, which lasted until 1782 when he moved to pastor the Baptist church in Kettering, Northamptonshire, was a decisive period for the shaping of his theological outlook. It was during his time there that he decisively rejected High Calvinism (i.e., an emphasis on the sovereignty of God in salvation to an extent which denied the free offer of the gospel and seriously hampered effective evangelism. Fuller said that his predecessor ‘had little or nothing to say to the unconverted.’).”[1] First, denying the free-offer is not an extreme emphasis on the sovereignty of God in salvation, it is a consistent…
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Duty-Faith and the Free-Offer
Duty-Faith and the Free-Offer are two of the most pernicious heresies infiltrating churches today. Preachers that demand sinners exercise faith, as the initiating cause of the new birth, are appealing to the flesh, wherein dwelleth no good thing. Subsequently, false converts are mass produced through manipulative devices in getting people to 'make a decision for Christ'. The scriptural concept of faith is this—the sinner believes because he has been born again; he is not born again because he believes. Hence, faith is a gift to the saint, not a duty of the sinner. In addition, preachers that 'offer' the gospel (as if it lies in the sinner to accept or reject it) contradict the central message of sovereign grace. The sinful heart must be made…
