In Reply to: Re: dark side of calvinism posted by Farmer on April 19, 2010 at 12:51:07:
Farmer:
We all (TFers) know that Berg taught Eternal Security (Once Saved Always Saved), and that it was used as "an occasion to the flesh" at every opportunity that he and his teachers found.
On NewDayNews, there was a raging debate that was OSAS's opposite; pro-Universalism.
Disagreement with UA got me banned there for a while, because I indicated that I believed that "bad doctrine sticks to a dirty heart", or that if certain sins were in your life, the matching doctrines of demons would certainly find you and attach to your life, with all of the persuasion necessary.
I attribute the adherence to UR mostly to the deceived individuals' post-cult loss of self-importance, bitterness, disillusionment, and an abandonment of any possibility of ever finding a way to reall serve the Lord, not to actual revelation of "truth".
The same is true of OSAS.
Calvin basically ruled Switzerland in the early 1500s for a while, and had thousands of people killed who opposed him; politically and religiously. Calvinism, among its other horrors, objectifies and even demonizes all but his "elect" as "vessels fit for destruction".
It also at once bestowed the "white man's burden" on the "sanctified elect", whose prosperity under militarized imperialism "proved" to them, under Calvin's teaching, that they WERE the elect found in Scripture. The non-elect heathen were easily justified as unsavable, and therefore could be treated basically as animals, or worse.
Two things stand out to me as glaringly obvious, since, after leaving TF in '74, by reading the Bible itself over 200 times by now, and as well as reading church history, especially with a view to the specific history of doctrinal developments since the first century within all of the denominations (and where "much study is a weariness of the felsh", believe me!).
Calvinism's twists and terms can easily be descibed; it is a doctrine of ultra-predestination; period.
And, Scripture reveals the opposite, a "candidacy" of the elect--when a certain NUMBER of Gentiles have been saved (and ONLY God knows that number), then the "last days" will REALLY come.
Pharaoh hardened HIS OWN heart nine times--God hardened it the tenth--and we all know 2 Thess 2--BECAUSE the people spoken of will have "had pleasure in unrighteousness" God will send them a strong delusion that they might be damned (and there's still a "might" in there!).
God's not unwilling that ANY should be saved. Free will IS REAL. It was real for Satan and his angels, and for Adam and Eve--the POSSIBILITY of choice gave free will its reality before God--the opposite would have produced beings who were automatons-therefore NOT created in the image of the triune God.
And it is real for each of us.
July 3, 1974, the day before Independence Day, the VERY FIRST thing God revealed to me, after the verse about the "terror of the Lord" came, along with a TERRIFYING, and yet pure and clean presence of God's Spirit, was a series of verses throughout the New Testament absolutely disproving "Once Saved Always Saved" were ministered to my by God's Spirit ALONE.
As Paul said, "I was not taught by man". I*'ll share them another time--this is my testimony--I will NOT enter into a "Scriptural Ping Pong" here with anyone--that usually generates heat with no light. You will never convince me of OSAS.
But, then, Mt 5:28 came, and the blatant
adultery of the cult was revealed to me as what my heart was being tempted to follow, then the ACTUAL fear of God came undeniably to my heart and my mind with absolute clarity, and that, really made an impression on me.
Then God led me back through the entire New Testament, and the verses I needed to understand, but had gradually blinded to by believing in Berg's doctrine, were revealed one by one. I left the very next day; Independence Day 1974.
But rebuttal of OSAS had to come frist, or I would have never left, or would have stayed in 20-30 years like others; instead of only 2 1/2 years.
OT2