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FREEDOM OF CHOICE
Those who have a high opinion of man and a low opinion of God find it necessary in their scheme of things to defend God by trying to make Him fit their ideas of fairness. They claim that God must give every individual a choice as to whether to be saved or not. Otherwise they think God is not fair. But the plain fact is that not every person has a choice. Not every person has heard the Gospel. There are tribes and nations in the world where the Gospel has not been preached: where Jesus has not been set forth as the Savior. Those born 600 years ago in this country did not have the opportunity to make a choice for Jesus for they never heard of Him, for instance. God gave three lights to humankind: conscience, nature and the Bible. Mankind has seared his conscience (1 Timothy 4:2). Paul makes it clear that only God's existence and power is made known by nature (Romans 1:20), but this only makes man without excuse and tells him nothing of the Savior. So how is it that all men have a choice whether to be saved or not when most people down throughout time have not even heard of the Lord Jesus? There is another problem with this theory of men having a free choice regarding salvation. This problem is the depravity of the human heart. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Because we humans when left to ourselves choose according to our hearts we will not choose Christ. In fact we cannot choose salvation for we cannot come to Christ on our own. Jesus said, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day,” (John 6:44). That verse is hated by the free choice crowd because it is obvious that God does not draw all men to Christ: that goes contrary to their high ideas of humankind and their theory of man's free choices. Here is what God thinks about humankind: “Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance...”(Isaiah 40:15). The water that drips off the outside of a bucket and the “small dust” on a set of scales are of no consequence. So God views humanity! In comparison with Him we all are as nothing! Only those who think more highly than they ought to think have a problem with God being the Potter and humanity being the clay. “Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?” (Romans 9:21). It is God who has done the choosing as to whom He will save. Sinners must fall upon their unworthy faces being totally dependent upon God for salvation. But human pride hardens them against God. Repent! |
