Regeneration involves an essential change of character. It is a making the tree good in order that the fruit may be good. As a result of this change, the person passes from a state of unbelief to one of saving faith, not by any process of research or argument, but of inward experience. And as we had nothing to do with our physical birth, but received it as a sovereign gift of God, we likewise have nothing to do with our spiritual birth but receive it also as a sovereign gift. Each occurred without any exercise of our own power, and even without our consent being asked. We no more resist the latter than we resist the former. And as we go ahead and live our own natural lives after being born, so we go ahead and work out our own salvation after being regenerated.
The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination by Loraine Boettner
The Scriptures and Christian experience teach us that the very faith and repentance through which we are saved are themselves the gifts of God. "By grace have ye been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God," Ephesians 2:8. The Christians in Achaia had "believed through grace," Acts 18:27. A man is not saved because he believes in Christ; he believes in Christ because he is saved. Even the beginning of faith, the disposition to seek salvation, is itself a work of grace and the gift of God. Paul often says that we are saved "through" faith (that is, as the instrumental cause), but never once does he say that we are saved "on account of" faith (that is, as the meritorious cause). And to the same effect we may say that the redeemed shall be rewarded in proportion to their good works, but not on account of them. And in accordance with this, Augustine says that "The elect of God are chosen by Him to be His children, in order that they might be made to believe, not because He foresaw that they would believe." The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination by Loraine Boettner
"In the Epistle to the Ephesians Paul declares that prior to the quickening of the Spirit of God each individual soul lies dead in trespasses and sins. Now it will surely be admitted that to be dead, and to be dead in sin, is clear and positive evidence that there is neither aptitude nor power remaining for the performance of any spiritual action. If a man were dead, in a natural and physical sense, it would at once be readily granted that there is no further possibility of that man being able to perform any physical actions. A corpse cannot act in any way whatever, and that man would be reckoned to have taken leave of his senses who asserted that it could. If a man is dead spiritually, therefore, it is surely equally as evident that he is unable to perform any spiritual actions, and thus the doctrine of man's moral inability rests upon strong Scriptural evidence."
The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination by Loraine Boettner
Foreknowledge must not be confused with foreordination. Foreknowledge presupposes foreordination, but is not itself foreordination. The actions of free agents do not take place because they are foreseen, but they are foreseen because they are certain to take place. Hence Strong says, "Logically, though not chronologically, decree comes before foreknowledge. When I say, 'I know what I will do, it is evident that I have determined already, and that my knowledge does not precede determination, but follows it and is based upon it."
Since God's foreknowledge is complete, He knows the destiny of every person, not merely before the person has made his choice in this life, but from eternity. And since He knows their destiny before they are created, and then proceeds to create, it is plain that the saved and the lost alike fulfill His plan for them; for if He did not plan that any particular ones should be lost, He could at least refrain from creating them.
We conclude, then, that the Christian doctrine of the Foreknowledge of God proves also His Predestination. Since these events are foreknown, they are fixed and settled things; and nothing can have fixed and settled them except the good pleasure of God, the great first cause, freely and unchangeably foreordaining whatever comes to pass. The whole difficulty lies in the acts of free agents being certain; yet certainty is required for foreknowledge as well as for foreordination. The Arminian arguments, if valid, would disprove both foreknowledge and foreordination. And since they prove too much we conclude that they prove nothing at all.
The //Reformed Doctrine of Predestination// by Loraine Boettner
In eternity God foresaw that the creation of the world and the Institution of its laws would make certain its actual history even to the most insignificant details. But God decreed to create and to institute these laws. In so decreeing He necessarily decreed all that was to come. In fine, God foresaw the future events of the universe as certain, because He had decreed to create; but this determination to create involved also a determination of all the actual results of that creation; or, in other words, God decreed those results."
The //Reformed Doctrine of Predestination// by Loraine Boettner
Dr. Ben Carson Calls for 'Urgent Gathering' of Republicans Over Party Platform - Todd Starnes
“It’s good to have your belief system there and not to be afraid. America is ready for a revival. the people see what is happening to us as we have lost our faith – as we have thrown away our morals. We are spiraling downward.”
And Trump was complicit:
The Pandemic Excuse for a Corporatist Coup ⋆ Brownstone Institute
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-pandemic-excuse-for-a-corporatist-coup/
Back in 2005, I first came across a Bush administration scheme, an early draft of the above, that would have ended freedom as we know it. It was a scheme for combating the bird flu, which officials back then imagined would involve universal quarantines, business and event closures, travel restrictions, and more.
In other words, it is an industrial racket, very much akin to interwar-style fascism, a corporatist combination of big business and big government. Throw pharma into the mix and you see exactly what came to pass in 2020, which amounted to the largest transfer of wealth from small and medium-sized business plus the middle class to wealthy industrialists in the history of humanity.
A “You Are Here” Moment for the Pro-Life Movement - Breakpoint
https://breakpoint.org/a-you-are-here-moment-for-the-pro-life-movement/
As the RNC changes its stance on abortion, defenders of life must engage the small battles to win the war.
Watering down the Republican Party’s platform [of] commitment to life is not courageous. It is cowardice.
Your tax dollars going to subsidize the manufacture by giant corporations of vehicles that consumers don’t want to buy. It’s Robin Hood in reverse - taking from the poor and giving to the rich:
Biden Admin Announces $1.7 Billion to Modernize Auto Manufacturing Facilities
Eleven plants will receive grants to retrofit and produce electric vehicles.
Republicans Make Fiscal Irresponsibility Part of Their Official Platform | National Review
Ever since the party was taken over by Donald Trump, Republicans have backed away from speaking of debt reduction as an important goal.
In every act of the will there is a preference-the desiring one thing rather than another. Where there is no preference, but complete indifference, there is no volition. To will is to choose, and to choose is to decide between two or more alternatives. But there is something which influences the choice; something which determines the decision. Hence the will cannot be Sovereign because it is the servant of that something. The will cannot be both Sovereign and servant. It cannot be both cause and effect. The will is not causative, because, as we have said, something causes it to choose, therefore that something must be the causative agent. Choice itself is affected by certain considerations, is determined by various influences brought to bear upon the individual himself, hence, volition is the effect of these considerations and influences, and if the effect, it must be their servant; and if the will is their servant then it is not Sovereign, and if the will is not Sovereign, we certainly cannot predicate absolute "freedom" of it. Acts of the will cannot come to pass of themselves--to say they can, is to postulate an uncaused effect. Ex nihilo nihil fit-nothing cannot produce something.
The Sovereignty of God, by A. W. Pink
The Jewish Trump Vote
https://www.commentary.org/john-podhoretz/the-jewish-trump-vote/?utm_source=pocket_saves
The decline in support for Biden among Jews is real, and if that decline is dramatic, it could make the difference in the key(stone) state.
Is the Global Inflationary Depression Already Here?
https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/is-the-global-inflationary-depression-already-here-5676405
When you add it all up, you get a strange sense that nothing we are being told is real. According to official data, the dollar has lost about 23 cents in purchasing power over the past four years. Absolutely no one believes this. Depending on what you actually spend money on, the real answer is closer to 35 cents, 50 cents, or even 75 cents ... or more. We do not know what we cannot know.
We are left to speculate.
To say "sovereign grace" is really to utter a redundancy, for to be gracious at all toward the creature undeserving of it requires that God be sovereign in his distributive exhibition of it.
A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith by Dr. Robert L. Reymond
In and of himself the natural man has power to reject Christ; but in and of himself he has not the power to receive Christ. And why? Because he has a mind that is "enmity against" Him (Rom. 8:7); because he has a heart that hates Him (John 15:18). Man chooses that which is according to his nature, and therefore before he will ever choose or prefer that which is Divine and spiritual a new nature must be imparted to him; in other words, he must be born again.
The Sovereignty of God, by A. W. Pink
Owen Shroyer on X: "Here is the full Biden-Stephanopoulos interview. This might be even worse than the debate since this was supposed to be his recovery interview. He fails to answer the basic questions, says nothing of substance, and to the informed audience member, says things that are either inherently wrong or completely nonsensical. There is only one way to describe this Democrat campaign - Disaster.
In short, the new birth is a miracle, the result of the supernatural operation of God. It is radical, revolutionary, lasting.
Here then is the first thing, in time, which God does in His own elect. He lays hold of those who are spiritually dead and quickens them into newness of life. He takes up one who was shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin, and conforms him to the image of His Son. He seizes a captive of the Devil and makes him a member of the household of faith. He picks up a beggar and makes him joint-heir with Christ. He comes to one who is full of enmity against Him and gives him a new heart that is full of love for Him. He stoops to one who by nature is a rebel and works in him both to will and to do of His own good pleasure. By His irresistible power He transforms a sinner into a saint, an enemy into a friend, a slave of the Devil into a child of God.
The Sovereignty of God, by A. W. Pink