The story is told of a group of theologians who were discussing predestination and free will. Things became so heated that the group broke up into
two opposing factions.
But one man, not knowing which to join, stood for a moment trying to decide. At last he joined the predestination group.
“Who sent you here?” they asked.
“No one sent me,” he replied. “I considered the facts and decided on my own.”
“Free Will!” they exclaimed. “You can't join us! You belong with the other group!”
So he followed their orders and went to the other clique.
There someone asked, “When did you decide to join us?”
The young man replied, “Well, I didn't really decide--I was sent here.”
“Sent here!” they shouted. “You can't join us unless you have decided by your own free will.” 1

The issue of free will versus predestination has been a contentious debate for a long time and is likely to remain so. Most of the arguments on the
issue I've read, heard or participated in generally devolve either into an exercise as to which side can rattle off the most Bible scriptures to bolster
their arguments or become too convoluted to follow. What I hope to do here is to clearly present the case for free will in a simple manner. I also
use many scriptures, each time to use in relation to a particular concept. While I do address some specific Calvinist arguments for predestination I
am not going address all of them. Neither am I going to use every point ever used in favor of free will.

WHAT IS PREDESTINATION?
Predestination is doctrine which teaches that God predetermined who would go to heaven and who would spend eternity in hell. Furthermore, it
teaches that each person has absolutely no choice in accepting or rejecting salvation through Christ. Every move you make and everything that
happens to you, good or bad, was predetermined by God. If you reject Christ you never had a chance to believe.

Those who espouse predestination claim that if we have the free will to accept God's salvation then we have earned our way into heaven. Therefore
we're not saved by grace but by our own merit-- we caused our own salvation, not God.

Belief in predestination is often generally referred to as Calvinism or Reformed Theology.

  • "God preordained, for his own glory and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any
    merit of their own, to eternal salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their sin, to eternal damnation". John Calvin (1509-
    1564)

  • "We proved above that something not subject to free choice is nevertheless voluntarily done." John Calvin 2

  • God “saves whom he wills of his mere good pleasure” John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, III:xxi, 1.

  • Regarding the lost: “it was his good pleasure to doom to destruction.” John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, III:xxi,7.

  • “…by his eternal providence they were before their birth doomed to eternal destruction.” John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian
    Religion, III:xxi,7.

  • "All are not created on equal terms, but some are predestined to eternal life, others to eternal damnation…” John Calvin, Institutes of
    the Christian Religion, III:xxi, 5

  • Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) - the leader of the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland, and founder of the Swiss Reformed Churches.
    Zwingli viewed God as the cause of all human sin. A Reformed Theology website said,"Zwingli's understanding of predestination as
    indistinguishable from providence, logically inclines him to the conclusion that God is the cause of human sin."

  • “All things that happen in all the world at any time and in all history—whether inorganic matter, vegetation, animal, man or angels
    (both good and evil ones-- come to pass because God ordained them, Even sin- the fall of the devil from heaven, the fall of Adam,
    and every evil thought, word, and deed in all of history.” Edwin Palmer, The Five Points of Calvinism, 1999

  • "God desired for man to fall into sin, God created sin." R.C. Sproul, Jr., Almighty Over All

  • "I believe that nothing happens apart from divine determination and decree. We shall never be able to escape from the doctrine of
    divine predestination - the doctrine that God has foreordained certain people unto eternal life". Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)

John Calvin's view of predestination is very much like Mohammed's view, see Islam & Calvinism.

WHAT IS FREE WILL?
Free will teaches that when presented with the facts of God's plan for salvation that everyone has a choice to make, to either accept or reject God's
gift of salvation. God desires that everyone accept His gift. What was predestined was God's plan for salvation through Jesus for those who accept
it. Therefore if you accept that Jesus died for your sins and you have made Him Lord of your life then you are a part of the predetermined plan.

  • 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. Jesus Christ 3

  • The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish,
    but everyone to come to repentance. Apostle Peter 4

  • For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. Apostle Paul 5

  • This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved. Apostle Paul 1 Timothy 2:3-4

Free will acknowledges that God is active in our lives and that He does intervene and cause certain things to happen as evidenced by the
prophecies in the scriptures. Other things that happen to us are a result of choices we make. While yet other events happen because of sin that is in
the world, we can't control the events. We can control how we react to them. Free will teaches that because God is sovereign and active in our
lives He can use any event for our benefit, even those events He does not directly cause to occur.

WHAT IS ELECTION?
J. Vernon McGee said this about election:

The word predestination comes from the Greek proorisos, and it literally means "to define, to mark out, to set apart." … predestination has to
do with God's purpose with those He chooses… I cannot repeat often enough that election is God's choosing us in Christ.6

John Wesley points out regarding those ordained to eternal life in Acts 13:

    ...and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. Acts 13:48

    Luke does not say foreordained. He is not speaking of what was done from eternity, but of what was then done, through the preaching of
    the Gospel. He is describing that ordination, and that only, which was at the very time of hearing it. During this sermon those believed, says
    the apostle, to whom God then gave power to believe. It is as if he had said, “They believed, whose hearts the Lord opened;” as he
    expresses it in a clearly parallel place, speaking of the same kind of ordination, Acts 16:14, etc. It is observable, the original word is not
    once used in Scripture to express eternal predestination of any kind. The sum is, all those and those only, who were now ordained, now
    believed. Not that God rejected the rest: it was his will that they also should have been saved: but they thrust salvation from them. Nor were
    they who then believed constrained to believe. But grace was then first copiously offered them. And they did not thrust it away, so that a
    great multitude even of Gentiles were converted. In a word, the expression properly implies, a present operation of Divine grace working
    faith in the hearers. 7

Another commentary 8 has this to say:

    Election is the pre-designed destiny of every one who believes in Christ. Predestination means that the believer has a part in this "pre-
    designed" plan of God. Election is the word that sums up that plan. It describes the "status" of the believer who, not only possesses an
    eternal destiny, but now "in time" has a functional responsibility to represent the "light" viewpoint of God to the world of darkness in which he
    lives.

    Election is the present possession of every person who has trusted in Christ as savior. Colossians 3:12, "as the elect of God" (Romans 1:6-7)

    One is elected based on God's grace. There is no personal merit or works involved at all. Grace provides our destiny. All man needs to do
    is accept it by personal trust in Jesus as the Messiah-Savior. Ephesians 2:8-9; 2 Corinthians 8:9.

    The basis for election is the election of Christ.

  • He is the elect of God: Isaiah 42:1; 1 Peter 2:4, 6.
  • His election was established from eternity past. Acts 4:28; 2:23;1 Peter 1:20; Revelation 13:8.
  • The believer is made a partner with Christ and actually shares His destiny, which is His election. 1 Corinthians 1:9; Romans 8:17
  • This is accomplished through union with Christ. i.e. being identified into the "one" body of Christ through the baptism of the Holy Spirit (1
    Corinthians 12:13) and is represented by the term "in Him" Ephesians 1:4. 1 Peter 5:10, "called you to His eternal glory IN CHRIST."

    The "standard of THE ELECTION" refers to God's plan for saving those who trust in the Messiah. That is why it is called "an election of
    GRACE," (Romans 11:5).

    The difference between "called" and "elect"

  • Called: The word group, klätos (kaleö, kläsis) describes our election with emphasis on the believer's function and responsibility here on
    earth. It also is used to indicate the "invitation" aspect of God's plan of salvation. "many are called (as in all) but few are chosen," Matthew
    22:14

  • Elect: The word group, eklektos (eklegomai) describes our election with emphasis on the believer's position in union with Christ, the
    STATUS of election. Sometimes this word is translated as "chosen." We are "chosen" by God to be part of His plan because we accept His
    invitation through faith.

    Both words are used together at: Revelation 17:14; 2 Pet. 1:10; Mat. 22:14

How does God choose and still allow free will?

    But the LORD said to Gideon, "There are still too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will sift them for you there. If I
    say, 'This one shall go with you,' he shall go; but if I say, 'This one shall not go with you,' he shall not go." So Gideon took the men
    down to the water. There the LORD told him, "Separate those who lap the water with their tongues like a dog from those who
    kneel down to drink." Three hundred men lapped with their hands to their mouths. All the rest got down on their knees to drink.
    Judges 7:4-6

J. Vernon McGee called this, “one of the finest lessons concerning divine election and man's free will.” McGee went further on to say, “This is the
way they work together. God said to Gideon, "I am going to choose the men that I want to go with you, but the way I will do it is to let them make
the choice. Bring them down to the water, and the ones who lap water like a dog, just going through and throwing it into their mouths, are the ones
I have chosen. You can put aside those men who get down on all fours and take their time drinking. I don't want them." 9

WHO ARE THE ELECT?
D. L. Moody used to put it very simply: “The elect are the 'whosoever wills'; the non-elect are the 'whosoever won'ts."

IS THERE A MIDDLE GROUND?
Imagine you are on a high beam and are holding in each hand one of two ends of a rope on a pulley to keep you upright. One end of the rope is
predestination and the other end of the rope is free will. If you lean on one end or the other end too much, you're going to fall over.

This illustration suggests that there needs to be a certain amount of openness in the debate. However, I've been told emphatically by a friend I'll call
Fred, who is a bi-vocational Reformed Theology pastor, that there is no middle ground.

Loraine Boettner, author of The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination claims “there is no consistent middle ground between Calvinism and
Atheism.”

DOES IT MATTER?

There are two reasons as I see it that it matters:

    a) It may be demotivating for us to reach the lost if we believe everything is predetermined. If salvation is already decided there is no real
    point in being proactive in the faith or urgency in preaching the Gospel. If your neighbor is unsaved Reformed Theology tells you that they
    will come to know Jesus or spend eternity in hell whether you tell them about God's plan for salvation or not.

    b) Calvinists believe that if you don't believe in predestination it is because the Holy Spirit has chosen not to reveal the truth of predestination
    to you. The Holy Spirit reveals the truth of predestination to real believers so you must not be a real believer if you believe in free will.

Why do Calvinists even bother to debate the issue? After all, if they are correct then those believing in Calvinism and those believing in free will
were predestined to have those beliefs. Yet there seem to be more books and more web sites arguing the case for predestination than there are in
favor of free will. Many Calvinist sites verge on the militant, dismissing any argument for free will out of hand. All Calvinist websites I've come
across call freewill dangerous to true faith. If, as Loraine Boettner says, “there are no valid arguments for free will” then why devote so much
time to arguing the case for predestination?

Again, does it matter? It shouldn't, it shouldn't be anything more than a difference in opinion. However, many prominent modern day Calvinists
claim that Calvinism “is the Gospel” the implication being that if you reject Calvinism you also reject the Gospel, therefore you are not saved.
According to Calvinism the good news of the Gospel is not good news for everyone… The Reformed Theology Gospel is essentially:

    God only loves and saves those whom He chooses to love and save. Everyone else God specifically created to spend in hell, for
    eternal torment and damnation even though they never had the chance or option to accept God's gift of salvation. This is “God's
    good pleasure.” God demonstrates His Glory when he predestines certain people to destruction.

In case you think I'm exaggerating then read from John Calvin's Institutes of Christian Religion:

  • God “saves whom he wills of his mere good pleasure” III:xxi,1

  • “Those, therefore, whom God passes by he reprobates, and that for no other cause but because he is pleased to exclude them from
    the inheritance which he predestines to his children…” III:xxiii,1

  • Regarding the lost “it was his good pleasure to doom to destruction…” III:xxi,7

  • “But if all whom the Lord predestined to death are naturally liable to sentence of death, of what injustice, pray, do they
    complain…because by his eternal providence they were before their birth doomed to perpetual destruction… what will they be able
    to mutter against their defense?” III:xxiii,3

  • “Now since the arrangement of all things is in the hand of God…He arranges… that individuals are born, who are doomed from
    the womb to certain death, and are to glorify him by their destruction…”III:xxiii,4

  • “…by his eternal providence they were before their birth doomed to eternal destruction” III:xxi,7

This is in contrast with the Gospel I know. The Gospel means the good news, which is that God created us to have a personal relationship with
Him and cares about us all:

  • 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 3:16-17

  • I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then
    for the Gentile. Romans 1:16

EARLY JEWISH THOUGHT
Jewish philosophy stresses that free will is a product of the intrinsic human soul and is closely linked with the concept of reward and punishment,
based on the Torah itself:

  • I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse: therefore choose life Deuteronomy 30:19

It is further understood that in order for Man to have true free choice, he must not only have inner free will, but also an environment in which a
choice between obedience and disobedience exists. God thus created the world such that both good and evil can operate freely.10

EARLY CHRISTIAN FATHERS
Calvinists claim that their position is proven by early church leaders and usually point to Augustine who lived from 354 to 430 AD. That does go a
long way back. What do even earlier church leaders say about free will? Let's look at a few. Some of these men were discipled directly by one or
two of the original twelve apostles or by men they taught and mentored.

Ignatius of Antioch- Died between 98 and 110 AD. Ignatius was likely a disciple of both Apostles Peter and John and was martyred (Ignatius
was condemned to fight wild beasts in the Coliseum) in Rome. Seven of his letters have survived to this day; he is generally considered to be one of
the Apostolic Fathers (the earliest authoritative group of the Church Fathers):

  • If any one is truly religious, he is a man of God; but if he is irreligious, he is a man of the devil, made such, not by nature, but by his
    own choice.11

Polycarp- c. 69 AD-c. 155 AD. Martyred by being burned at the stake in his 87th year. Polycarp had been a disciple of John (there is debate as
whether this John was the son of Zebedee, or John the Presbyter (Lake 1912)).12 I list Polycarp here not for any particular quote but because he
was a teacher of Irenaeus, whom I do quote:

  • But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in
    Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on earth] a very long time,
    and, when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom... 13

Irenaeus- (ca. 130-202) - Irenaeus, who was also a martyr, was taught by Polycarp and his writings were formative in the early development of
Christian theology. About 180 AD Irenaeus wrote Against Heresies Book IV, against ideas that would later become aspects of Calvinist and
Reformed Theology in its denial of the free will as you can see in the following summaries:

  • Men are Possessed of Free Will, and Endowed with the Faculty of Making a Choice. It is Not True, Therefore, that Some are by
    Nature Good, and Others Bad.14

  • Man is Endowed with the Faculty of Distinguishing Good and Evil; So That, Without Compulsion, He Has the Power, by His Own
    Will and Choice, to Perform God's Commandments, by Doing Which He Avoids the Evils Prepared for the Rebellious. 15

Justin Martyr- c. 100/114AD – c. 162/168 AD. He was another early Christian apologist (defender) of the faith and was martyred by
beheading. His works represent the earliest surviving Christian apologies of notable size.

  • Man acts by his own free will and not by fate.16

  • We have learned from the prophets, and we hold it to be true, that punishments, chastisements, and rewards are rendered
    according to the merit of each man's actions. Otherwise, if all things happen by fate, then nothing is in our own power. For if it be
    predestined that one man be good and another man evil, then the first is not deserving of praise or the other to be blamed. Unless
    humans have the power of avoiding evil and choosing good by free choice, they are not accountable for their actions-whatever
    they may be.... For neither would a man be worthy of reward or praise if he did not of himself choose the good, but was merely
    created for that end. Likewise, if a man were evil, he would not deserve punishment, since he was not evil of himself, being unable
    to do anything else than what he was made for. 17

  • But that you may not have a pretext for saying that Christ must have been crucified, and that those who transgressed must have
    been among your nation, and that the matter could not have been otherwise, I said briefly by anticipation, that God, wishing men
    and angels to follow His will, resolved to create them free to do righteousness; possessing reason, that they may know by whom
    they are created, and through whom they, not existing formerly, do now exist; and with a law that they should be judged by Him, if
    they do anything contrary to right reason: and of ourselves we, men and angels, shall be convicted of having acted sinfully, unless
    we repent beforehand. But if the word of God foretells that some angels and men shall be certainly punished, it did so because it
    foreknew that they would be unchangeably [wicked], but not because God had created them so. 18

Clement of Alexandria (190 AD)

  • A man by himself working and toiling at freedom from sinful desires achieves nothing. But if he plainly shows himself to be very
    eager and earnest about this, he attains it by the addition of the power of God. God works together with willing souls. But if the
    person abandons his eagerness, the spirit from God is also restrained. To save the unwilling is the act of one using compulsion; but
    to save the willing, that of one showing grace. 19

  • Neither praise nor condemnation, neither rewards nor punishments, are right if the soul does not have the power of choice and
    avoidance, if evil is involuntary. 20

Archelaus (250-300 AD)

  • All the creatures that God made, He made very good. And He gave to every individual the sense of free will, by which standard He
    also instituted the law of judgment.... And certainly whoever will, may keep the commandments. Whoever despises them and turns
    aside to what is contrary to them, shall yet without doubt have to face this law of judgment.... There can be no doubt that every
    individual, in using his own proper power of will, may shape his course in whatever direction he pleases. 21

Methodius (260-315 AD)

  • Those [pagans] who decide that man does not have free will, but say that he is governed by the unavoidable necessities of fate, are
    guilty of impiety toward God Himself, making Him out to be the cause and author of human evils.22

Calvinist Loraine Boettner acknowledges that the early church fathers did not ascribe to the doctrine of predestination. On page 365 of The
Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, Boettner wrote of the early Christian fathers, "It may occasion some surprise to discover that the
doctrine of Predestination was not made a matter of special study until near the end of the fourth century....They of course taught that
salvation was through Christ; yet they assumed that man had full power to accept or reject the gospel. Some of their writings contain
passages in which the sovereignty of God is recognized; yet along side of those are others which teach the absolute freedom of the human
will. Since they could not reconcile the two they would have denied the doctrine of Predestination... They taught a kind of synergism in
which there was a co-operation between grace and free will..."

Boettner went on to say "This cardinal truth of Christianity was first clearly seen by Augustine..." In other words the early church fathers, men
who studied under the original Apostles and Disciples, did not understand the truth of Christianity. No, the world had to wait over 300 years for
this revelation!

What we see is that Calvinists would rather put their trust in doctrine developed hundreds of years after Jesus, the Apostles and the early church
fathers, by a man who was not there. It should be clear to an honest broker that the closer one gets to the original the more likely one is to get
accurate doctrine from those who were there. The reverse is true, the farther away you get from those who were there the more likely that errors
are to develop in evolving doctrine, especially when generating new doctrine.

So you have 300-plus year jump between the original Apostles and their students until Augustine revealed “the truth”, then you had another 1,100
years until John Calvin came along to drive the point home. Rather than being the first to clearly see the truth of Christianity, Augustine, then others
like John Calvin, did irreparable harm making Christianity unclear.

THE PROBLEM WITH PREDESTINATION
According to Reformed Theology when someone, lets call her Molly, accepted Christ it wasn't really because of her faith made of her own free
will, but because God created her specifically to accept Christ, without a choice.

Now suppose her grown son dies without accepting Christ. Reformed Theology tells us that God created her son specifically to spend eternity
separated from God, in hell.

Therefore all the years of prayer, anguish and hope that Molly's son would accept Christ was a waste of time. Her son was doomed in the womb
and was created to be eternal kindling wood, a never-ending Duralog.

It's one thing to have a loved one that rejects God because of his own choice, but another to think that person never had a chance because God
never allowed them a chance.

To follow predestination to its logical conclusion we should not feel any sense of grief or sadness when an unsaved friend or relative dies and goes
to spend eternity in hell. Rather we should rejoice because the person is going to hell, just as God intended.

In the beginning… it was very good
We see in the first chapter of Genesis that God created everything and everything He created was good.

    God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. Genesis 1:31

What did God create that was not good? Nothing! Yet Calvinists created sin and causes people to sin.

We're also told that “God created man in His image”. The Bible tells us God created man, male and female, and God blessed them (Genesis 1:28).
Nowhere in the Genesis account does it tell us that God created some specifically for damnation.

Sin, Rebellion and Evil

God did not create the world to destroy part of it. That is something we brought on ourselves.

    For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:17

Sin: Everything God created was good so how did sin enter the world? Apostles Paul and John tell us that sin entered the world through Adam
and that God did not create sin.

    Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because
    all sinned.
    Romans 5:12

    …But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who abides in Him sins; no one
    who sins has seen Him or knows Him… the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The
    Son of God appeared for this purpose, that He might destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born of God practices sin,
    because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God… 1 John 3:5-9

God did not cause Adam to disobey Him; otherwise man wouldn't have been created in God's image. The Bible tells us that God hates sin and that
sin can't enter heaven. Solomon wrote:

    This only have I found: God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes. Ecclesiastes 7:29

Reformed Theology says “God created us therefore whatever He does is just, whether we like it or not.” Yes, that is true, however, I don't accept
that definition of just nor do I believe that God is that capricious or arbitrary. God sets the standard for us and His attributes are knowable.

A just parent cannot force his child to eat a cupcake and then slap the tar out of him for eating it. It's a different case when the parent says, “Don't
eat the cup cake”, then if the child thinks about it and says to himself, “Dad really didn't mean he'd punish me if I did eat it” or “I don't care what
Dad says, I make my own decisions and I am eating the cupcake anyway” then the resulting punishment is just.

Having free will means bad things are going to happen as a result of living in a fallen world. When a loved one gets sick, or dies in a traffic accident,
or loses their job, or just gets a cold many tend to say it's God's will. It is certainly a convenient and uncomplicated explanation. If one means its
God's will because He didn't prevent is different than saying God caused it to happen. Looking back at the pulley analogy we can lean on that one
possibility too much because many calamities are a consequence of living in a sinful fallen world of our own making. Otherwise one would have to
conclude that God causes every rape, every murder, and every starving child. Nevertheless we can rely on God because He can use any incident
for His glory. In the same way, regardless of what befalls us, God expects us to react a certain way:

...Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ... Philippians 1:27

Rebellion: Did God create Lucifer/Satan, specifically to rebel and take a third of the angels with him? Because God is sovereign, He could have
prevented the possibility of the rebellion from ever happening. That He didn't prevent it doesn't mean He caused it to happen.

Evil: Did God create evil?

    And the LORD God commanded the man, “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 of it you will surely die." Genesis 2:16-17

    And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Genesis 3:22

    You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; Psalm 5:4

    The LORD loves righteousness and justice Psalms 33:5

I have been told by my Reformed Theology friends that since God causes all things that it is presumptuous for us to call anything evil. They tell me
that since we cannot know God's mind and God causes all things as part of His sovereign plan then nothing is really evil but rather there is no
difference between good and evil.

    Woe to those who call evil good and good evil Isaiah 5:20

Josh McDowell had the following to say about creation, evil, and God's love for us:

    The Scriptures make it plain that God did not create the world in the state in which it is now, but evil came as a result of the selfishness of
    man. The Bible says that God is a God of love and He desired to create a person and eventually a race that would love Him. But genuine
    love cannot exist unless freely given -- through free choice God allows us to accept His love or to reject it.

    This choice made the possibility of evil a reality. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they did not choose something God created, but, by
    their choice, they brought evil into the world. God is neither evil nor did He create evil. Man brought evil upon himself by selfishly choosing
    his own way apart from God's way. 25

GOD LOVES US
God created us out of love for a purpose. The purpose is God wants a relationship with us. A relationship cannot be one-sided where the
interaction of one side is all controlled by the other side. Imagine creating a sock-puppet with button-eyes and carrying on both sides of a
conversation with it. How satisfying is it for you as a creator to make up both sides of the dialog?

    If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the LORD your God will keep his covenant of love with you,
    as he swore to your forefathers. Deuteronomy 7:12

    ...the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. John 16:27

    Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 John 4:8

    This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 1 John 4:10

God created man for fellowship, not to keep us in a fishbowl as a pet, in a cell as a prisoner, or preprogrammed to be obedient robots. If God did
there would be no relationship.

God, from the beginning, had a plan to redeem mankind and built into that plan were choices and consequences for man. God desires fellowship
with all mankind, not just certain people. Yet God knows that not all people are going to reciprocate because of the freedoms He gave us.

WE ANGER GOD
We know that God cares for us because He created us. We also know He loves us because the Bible says God gave His Son for our salvation.
There is another emotion that shows that man was created with free will. That emotion is anger. The Old Testament says that God was angry with
many people, even His own chosen people, the Israelites. Some He punished, some He relented at the pleading of people like Moses and others. If
God preordained everything then why would He be angry if people and nations did exactly what they were programmed to do? God is sovereign
and almighty therefore no one could oppose Him or disobey Him unless they were given free will.

In Genesis 1, God said everything He created was good. In chapter 6 God flooded the earth.

    Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever... The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth,
    and his heart was filled with pain. Genesis 6:3;6

Sometime later after Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt they rebelled several times, even breaking the first and second commandments by
creating and worshiping a golden calf:

    "I have seen these people," the LORD said to Moses, "and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger
    may burn against them and that I may destroy them…" Exodus 32:9-10

    …For forty years I was angry with that generation; I said, "They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known
    my ways."
    Psalms 95:10

    …When God heard them, he was very angry; he rejected Israel completely. Psalms 78:59

    …they provoked the LORD to anger by their wicked deeds… Psalms 106:29

    That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, 'Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.'
    Hebrews 3:10

    And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? And to whom did
    God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because
    of their unbelief. Hebrews 3:17-19

Several writers in Psalms wrote about God's anger:

    How long, O LORD? Will you be angry forever? Psalms 79:5

    Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger through all generations? Psalms 85:5

Throughout 2 Kings we're told the Lord was angry with the northern nation of Israel and removed them entirely leaving only the southern nation
Judah. Later Judah too would fall away.

    ...Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away... Isaiah 12:1

Later His anger against Israel subsided:

The LORD said to me, "Faithless Israel is more righteous than unfaithful Judah. Go, proclaim this message toward the north: "'Return, faithless
Israel,' declares the LORD, 'I will frown on you no longer, for I am merciful,' declares the LORD, 'I will not be angry forever. Jeremiah 3:11-12

The prophets wrote about God's anger, punishment, and reconciliation:

    The LORD is angry with all nations... Isaiah 34:2

    When he is angry, the earth trembles; the nations cannot endure his wrath. Jeremiah 10:10

    The LORD was very angry with your forefathers Zechariah 1:2

    Then the angel of the LORD said, "LORD Almighty, how long will you withhold mercy from Jerusalem and from the towns of
    Judah, which you have been angry with these seventy years?" Zechariah 1:12

    They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the LORD Almighty had sent by his
    Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the LORD Almighty was very angry. Zechariah 7:12

We have seen that we cause God to be angry with us. God did not create us to tick Him off. Let's follow Reformed Theology logic: we are not as
great as God and we cannot make Him do anything. Therefore, if God becomes angry with us it is because He created us to anger Him.

GOD'S GIFT, FAITH, EXCUSES, REPENTANCE AND RESPONSIBILITY

Gift: The Bible calls salvation a gift. A gift without acceptance is not a gift. If you force a gift on the receiver it is no longer a gift.

In business law to have a legally binding contract or a legal transaction you have to have an offer and an acceptance. Another element to have a
legally binding transaction you must also have consideration, that is, something of value or a price has to be given. In the case of our salvation Jesus
paid the price.

    But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the
    gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! --Romans 5:15