There was a day when the Lord Jesus Christ was asked by a lawyer the question of what is the great commandment in the law, and He responded and answered in Matthew chapter 22.
“Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.” (Matthew 22:36-38)
This greatest commandment spoken of by Jesus was also quoted from the great Shema – the “creed of the Jewish people” given to them by God through Moses.
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-6)
Why is to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” the greatest commandment? Because our love for the Lord Jesus Christ will keep us in personal crisis of obedience.
A Personal Crisis of Obedience
In life we become faced with our own personal crisis of obedience. Scripture clearly tells us that we are commanded to love God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and with all our strength. God, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, said specifically in Matthew 22:37 that we should love the Lord with all our mind. The Greek word used there for mind refers to understanding or deep thought. That means that we should deeply think about what the Lord Jesus Christ did and said, in order to bring us to a love of Him with all our being.
When we love the Lord Jesus Christ with all our being we have a wall of the fortress that will enable us to withstand the crisis of obedience.
Loving the Lord with all our heart, soul and mind is the greatest commandment because it will enable us to obey God.
To love the Lord with all our heart, soul and mind puts the personality of God as a factor to the commandments of God.
We can see God’s personality reflected in Exodus chapter 19 as God commands His people.
“Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:” (Exodus 19:5)
When we love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, we go through the transformation of seeing the commandments of God as not just cold, hard words on tables of stone, but we now see the commandments as the voice of God whom we love with all our heart, soul, and mind. That transformation makes the difference during our personal crisis of obedience.
Joseph’s Personal Crisis of Obedience
Let’s look at how this loving God fully transformation made the difference in Joseph’s personal crisis of obedience in Genesis chapter 39.
“And it came to pass after these things, that his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said, Lie with me. But he refused, and said unto his master’s wife, Behold, my master wotteth not what is with me in the house, and he hath committed all that he hath to my hand; There is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:7-9)
This was Joseph’s personal crisis of obedience! Joseph was in the prime of his youth, a young, unmarried, red blooded man with sex hormones racing through his blood. And here was a beautiful Madame. She looked good, she smelled good, she was seductive and there she was everyday alone with Joseph presenting herself to Joseph like fruit on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “pleasant to the eyes…and to be desired.” And Joseph was far from the eyes of anyone and that bed was so secluded.
It was the perfect storm and Joseph was in a daily personal crisis of obedience.
How was Joseph able to resist that perfect storm temptation? What made the difference for Joseph? It was the last words of Genesis 39:9b, “…how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?”
Beyond just wronging his master, which it would have been, beyond just failing in his responsibility to be trusted, which it would have been, Joseph’s actions would be a personal offense to the God that he loved with all his heart, soul, and mind. Loving God with all his heart, soul and mind made the difference for Joseph that kept Joseph from sinning in his personal crisis of obedience.
Personal Crisis of Obedience: Three Principles
Principle #1: Loving the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength makes the difference in our personal crisis of obedience.
Loving the Lord with all the heart and soul and mind is the wall that keeps us in obedience to God.
Why does loving the Lord make us obey God? Psalms chapter 5 gives us the answer.
“But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee.” (Psalms 5:11)
Principle #2: We trust who we love.
“The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe.” (Proverbs 29:25)
If we trust God we will love God. But, if we don’t trust God then we won’t love God. If we see God make statements to others that are not really true and that cannot really be trusted, then we will not trust God in the statements He makes to us. If we do not trust God then we will not love God.
Principle #3: Trusting God keeps us from sinning against God.
The greatest ability of our enemy, Satan, is described in the second letter to the Thessalonians.
“And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” (2 Thessalonians 2:10)
The devil has a tremendous ability to deceive, to trick, and to make a person absolutely convinced about something that is a lie. This verse tells us Satan’s deceptive plan.
Satan’s goal with his deception is to make people turn away from receiving a love of the truth so they will not be saved.
This verse also tells us that God wants to give people a special gift – it is called the love of the truth and when people receive that gift called the love of the truth then they will be saved. Finally, this verse tells us that Satan is using all of his deceivableness of unrighteousness to turn people away from the the love of the truth and to keep them from being saved.
Satan Turns People from the Love of the Truth
How is Satan turning people away from receiving the love of the truth from God? Satan is deceiving people as to who God is! Satan makes people believe that God is a really bad person who needs to be avoided, a really bad person who needs to be run from, a really bad person to hate, and a really bad person to never love with all your heart, soul, and mind. Satan makes people think that God’s statements cannot be trusted. Satan defames God and when he gets us to believe something that is defaming about God then we don’t love God with all our mind and the wall is broken down and this sets us up to disobey God.
Let’s see where this has made the difference. In Matthew 25, there is an account of a really good man who gave to his servants different amounts of money called “talents.” This really good man asked them to use the talents to make money. In this parable the good master represents God and the different servants represent the different people who obey and do not obey God. The first two men went out and made good profits with the money they were given, and they were really happy to present to their master what they gained for him.
But, the last man did not obey his master, and he had a personal crisis of obedience and he failed. We can see why in Matthew chapter 25.
“Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.
His lord answered and said unto him, ‘Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury.
Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’” (Matthew 25:24-30)
Satan got this person to believe a lie that God was not who He was.
Satan got this servant to believe that the master (God) was a hard man and he reaped where he had not sown. It was not true, but Satan convinced the person to believe that his master was not trustworthy and not to be loved. And this person believed that lie and so this person said about his master, “Yuck, I don’t like a person like that, and I certainly don’t love him with all my heart, soul, and mind.” Thus, in his personal crisis of obedience he failed to obey because he had come to the conclusions of, “I don’t love him, I don’t trust Him, and I won’t obey him.”
Why? Because he believed the lie about his master, and he did not trust him, he did not obey him, and he was cast into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Satan won. Satan won what? He was successful in deceiving that person to believe a lie about the master and he blocked him from loving and trusting him. He was successful in getting this person to not choose God which eventuated in this person being cast into hell.
Let’s look at Eve’s personal crisis of obedience in the Garden of Eden.
“For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” (Genesis 3:5-6)
Eve started off with the protective wall of admiration and love for God. Eve loved the Lord with all her heart, soul, and mind. She admired God. Seeing that love, Satan was not going to be able to get Eve to sin unless he eroded her love and trust in God. Satan knew he had to do that with a lie about God, a defamation of God, and that is what verse 5 of Genesis chapter 3 reveals.
“For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5)
Essentially, Satan was saying, “Eve, God knows that you will be much better off if you eat that fruit. You cannot trust God’s words to you. God is a person who has lied to you. God is holding you down, and keeping you in darkness. You don’t love a person who lies, and you don’t love a person who holds you down, and keeps you in darkness.”
Satan got Eve to believe a lie that God misled and lied to her.
Once Eve believed that lie, once Eve believed that defamation about God… Eve did not love God first anymore. Eve did not trust God anymore. Eve then disobeyed God and failed in her personal crisis of obedience.
Satan had succeeded with his great deceivableness in getting Eve to believe a lie that defamed the character of God. Satan got Eve to believe that God misleads and lies. When she believed that lie that defamed God’s character she lost her love for God, lost her trust in God, and ultimately she disobeyed God.
Satan has the same goal for us; to break down our wall of admiration and love for God so that we will fail in our personal crisis of obedience. The end of that goal is to get us to believe a lie that defames the character of God. Satan’s goal and will for us is to get us to believe that God misleads and is a liar.
Today there are many lies that have affected the lost and even Christians. The Devil has succeeded greatly with one lie in particular that has swept through the church. Satan has gotten many in churches today to no longer believe God when He says “whosoever;” meaning anyone can be saved.
Satan Got People to Not Believe God About “Whosover”
Let’s look at the words of the Lord Jesus Christ about “whosoever”, meaning who can be saved or how a person is saved:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
“And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” (Revelation 22:17b)
“Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 10:32)
“Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4:14)
“And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Acts 2:21)
“…God our Savior who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:3b-4)
God is saying here that whosoever will may come, whosoever will can be saved. These are promises that the Lord Jesus Christ made. We have seen that the Bible says that God desires all to come to Him for salvation and that He wants no one to perish. God has said that salvation and not perishing is all up to man’s choice to repent and believe or not. Titus 2:11 “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,”
“The Lord is…not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)
“I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:3)
God does not want anyone to be lost and separated from Him for eternity. God did not make hell for man. God said that hell was prepared for the devil and his fallen angels, not for man. God warned all men about the horrors of hell so that all men repent and believe and not go to hell.
Matthew 25:41 – “Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:”
Luke 16:23a – “And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments…”
Mark 9:43b-44a – “…hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not…”
2 Thessalonians 1:8 – “In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
We know what all these verses are saying on the surface. They are saying that the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God, so loved every person in the world and that He wants every person in the world (or the whosoever’s) to be saved. God’s will, His desire and want, is that no one perish into eternal hell, fire and damnation. That’s why the Lord Jesus Christ is warning everyone about hell and that it is a place of fire and torment and non-stop suffering. He says that ultimately each person alone is responsible for going to hell. How? By their refusal to repent as He said, “Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:3b, 5b)
The Lord Jesus Christ is pleading and begging everyone to come to Him and be saved. Just look at His plea in Matthew 23:37, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered…ye would not. He is implying that the only reason people do not come to Him is because each person wills not to.
We all have a choice like Joshua and Israel:
Joshua told Israel that they had a choice to choose the LORD and serve Him. They chose the LORD.
“And Joshua said unto the people, Ye are witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen you the LORD, to serve him. And they said, We are witnesses.” (Joshua 24:22)
Everyone has a choice as well…to believe God and “whosoever will”…or to believe a fatalistic lie about God.
God Died for Every Person on Earth
The Lord Jesus Christ is telling everyone that the choice is 100% up to them. What do they have to do? All they have to do is come to Him for Life, all they have to do is receive Him for Life, all they have to do is believe in Him for Life. It is 100% up to everyone to determine their own ultimate destiny of heaven or hell and all they have to do is call on His name.
The issue is not that God has to be fair to let everyone into heaven. Why? Because all have sinned and all deserve hell and no one deserves heaven! The real issue is that in these verses He has said that:
He wants everyone to be saved and enter heaven.
He has commanded everyone to be saved.
He wants no one to perish.
He has done everything possible for every person to be saved and come to heaven.
There is only one reason that any person is not saved, and does not come to heaven. What is it? It is because that person has willfully chosen on his own to refuse. People will be sent to hell because they refused on their own accord not to obey His command to be saved.
And if that is the accurate picture then we admire Him, and we love Him with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and we trust Him because:
He is not misleading.
He is the truth teller (and we know God is not a man that should like – Numbers 23:19).
He has been 100% transparent and there are no other truths or reasons for a person to not be saved and enter heaven, other than what He said plainly, in that it is a matter of each person’s choice to obey or disobey the gospel.
Because we have seen Him and we understand with our minds that He is telling the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about who can be saved and go to heaven, we are then drawn in to admire Him, love Him, and trust Him. And that admiration and love and trust is the wall that keeps us in our crisis of obedience to Him.
What if God Misled and Lied?
Consider this, what about if what God has said is not really accurate? What about if He has misled? What about if God said that the door was wide open for anyone to come to be saved, but that was misleading and not really true because He knew that the only ones who could come through the door of salvation are those who are on a “secret list” called the “Unconditionally Elected.”
What if God misled or lied about the door being open to anyone? Would this understanding with your mind cause your love and admiration for Him to be eroded? Would your trust, love and admiration for the Lord Jesus Christ continue if you found Him to be a liar?
What about even though He said that there was no limit as to who could be saved and receive the atonement…that that was misleading and not really true. What about if He knew all along as He was saying atonement was unlimited that the reality is that there is “Limited Atonement” only for those on that “secret list” of the “Unconditionally Elected?” What if God misled or lied about the atonement being unlimited? Would your love and admiration for Him be eroded?
What if God said that the list of who gets into heaven is determined only by each person’s decision to obey the Gospel, but that that was misleading and not really true because in reality God alone just put a “secret list” together of the “Unconditionally Elected” to receive the “Limited Atonement” with no consideration of whether or not a person decided to come to Him or not?
What if God misled or lied over the only one responsible for the going to hell or heaven was the individual sinner? Would your love and admiration for Him be as strong?
What about if God said, whosoever will, but that was misleading and not really true because He knew that who is saved is not ultimately determined by what He said, but is determined by a special group of the “whosoever” which are the “whosoever is on the secret list” of the “Unconditionally Elected?” What if that is the case? What if God misled or lied over salvation being available to whosoever wills? Would your love and admiration for Him be eroded?
What about if the Lord Jesus Christ was pleading and weeping over all Jerusalem because they rejected His salvation, but He was misleading and not being truthful because His tears were
disingenuous because He really knew that they could not come to Him unless they were on the secret list of the “Unconditionally Elected.”
What if God misled or lied over His sadness about the decision of each lost person who ends in hell? Why would He weep over the decision of the lost to disobey, when the lost could not decide to obey unless they are on the secret list? Would your love and admiration for Him be as strong?
What about if God has a limited secret injection called “Irresistible Grace?” What about if He said that going to heaven was all up to the individual, and that all a person had to do was to repent and obey the gospel, but that was misleading and not really true because He knew that everyone is so “Totally Depraved” that the only way anyone can come to the Lord Jesus to be saved is if they get that limited secret injection of “Irresistible Grace.”
What if a person was a puppet controlled by God with the puppet string of “Irresistible Grace?” What if a saved person did not have any free will at all, but was a puppet? What if God misled or lied over the sinner’s independent ability to repent and be saved? Would your love and admiration for Him be as strong?
What about if God said that man alone is responsible for going to heaven or hell, but that was misleading and not really true because He knew all along that only God controls who gets that limited amount of the secret injection called “Irresistible Grace.” What if God misled or lied over who is responsible for a destiny of heaven or hell? Would your love and admiration for Him be as strong?
What about if God only gives that limited injection to those who are on His “secret list”? What about if the Lord Jesus Christ said, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish,” but He misled and did not really tell the truth because He really knew that unless they get that limited secret injection of “Irresistible Grace” that they will all perish? What if God misled or lied about how getting into heaven was all about a person’s individual repentance? Would your love and admiration for Him be as strong?
What if God misled and lied about all those things? Would your love and admiration for Him be as strong?
What if your mother, father, and family members were in hell now and in torment? What if, similar to how Abraham talked to a rich man in hell, you could talk with them? What if they said to you that from the words of the Lord Jesus Christ they understood that they were personally and ultimately responsible for being in hell because they could have been saved by receiving Him, but they chose to reject him? What if you told your parents and family that for the eternity of their sufferings that they should remember that they were misled and lied to because in reality they could not accept the invitation? Because they were “Totally Depraved,” and they could not have been saved because their name was not on the “secret list” of the “Unconditionally Elected.”
Furthermore, there was never any atonement available to them, because there was a “Limited Atonement,” and ultimately they were excluded from the start and because their name was not on the “secret list,” and they were not injected with the limited supply of the “Irresistible Grace” that they needed to be enabled to be saved. If you had to tell your family in hell that they had been misled and lied to about being able to be saved and be in heaven, would your love and admiration for the Lord Jesus Christ be as strong?
If all that was true (which it is not), could you admire, love, and trust a person like that? A person who misleads, and lies, and invites people to be saved when He knows that they can’t be saved? When you give the deep thought for your understanding to grasp those misleadings and lies, can you really love a person like that with all your mind?
That is the great deception that is sweeping through the church today and it is eroding in the people of God their admiration, love, and trust of God.
Whether you call it Fatalism (which it is) or Calvinism, it is to be repudiated. Why? Because it defames the character of our God by calling Him a misleader and a liar. If we believe that God misleads and lies over the issue of who can be saved, and how they are saved, then our admiration, love, and trust in God has been eroded.
Defamation of God has always been the work of Satan, and trying to get people to believe that God is a misleader and a liar. Once the Devil has succeeded to get us to believe this lie about God (as he did with Eve) then He has succeeded in breaking down our wall of love and trust of God. Next he’ll set us up to fail in our personal crisis of obedience.
There was a time when the disciples of the Lord were so excited to show the Lord the great buildings of the Temple. They had taken decades to construct them, and they were so beautiful. The disciples wanted to show the Lord the buildings so they could admire them together.
Matthew 24:1-4 “And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, ‘See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.’ And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, ‘Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?’ And Jesus answered and said unto them, ‘Take heed that no man deceive you.’”
The Lord rained on the disciple’s parade by telling them that all the buildings would be totally destroyed and not one stone would be left on another. In shock, the disciples understood that He was talking to them about the end, so they came to Him privately with two questions:
When would these things happen, and how can they know the sign when He is coming? The Lord seemed to give them a frustrating answer that left them saying, “Why can’t He ever give us a straight answer?” But, He did answer it when He said, “Take heed that no man deceive you.” He warned them that Satan with all his deceivableness of unrighteousness would in the last days come with such a strong deception that it will threaten you.
Satan’s deception will come to you like a great light that goes on inside you, and you will be so happy to have discovered this “new truth” in the Scriptures, but it will be a deception. This false truth will deceive man, and will sweep through the church. It will be a deception that will erode the love for God, because it will defame His character and make people turn away from God.
If some do or don’t speak in tongues, or if some do or don’t roll on the floor and laugh hysterically, that practice does not in any way defame the character of God. If some do and some don’t believe you should worship on Saturday or Sunday, that does not in any way defame the character of God. But, to believe the fatalistic doctrines behind the “secret list” of the “Unconditionally Elected” and the “secret injection” of “Irresistible Grace,” “Limited Atonement,” and the “Total Depravity” of mankind, in the face of all that the Lord Jesus Christ has said, that is to believe that He has misled and lied. That is why those fatalistic doctrines must be thrown down in order to maintain our admiration and love to the one who is described as:
Isaiah 53:9b – “…neither was any deceit in his mouth.”
John 8:45a – “tell you the truth…”
John 16:7 – “tell you the truth…”
We may not understand every verse in the Bible about election and predestination, but we are sharp enough to understand that when any new doctrine erodes our admiration, love and trust in God that it has to be rejected. All throughout the Bible we are commanded to love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind, and to put our trust in Him.
In order for us to trust a person we must never see that person misleading or lying to anyone. If we see a person that we love misleading or lying to another, we may still love him (though not as much), but we will not trust him because we will naturally be suspicious that he might mislead or lie to us.
God Has promised That He Will Never Mislead or Lie
Numbers 23:19a – “God is not a man, that he should lie;”
Isaiah 53:9a – “Neither was any deceit in his mouth”
John 8:45a – “I tell you the truth…”
As we have seen, the Lord Jesus Christ as God stated the following:
- If anyone repents, they will not perish.
- If anyone believeson Him, he will have eternal life and not perish.
- If anyone calls on the name of the Lord, he will be saved.
- If anyone obeys the gospel, he will have eternal life.
If these promises have a hidden clause of “provided that the person is on the secret list of the “Unconditional Elect” and that the person then gets the secret injection of “Irresistible Grace”—then these promises cannot be trusted by anyone who wants to be saved.
But, these promises of God can be trusted because they have no hidden clauses and the Bible says that if anyone trusts the Lord Jesus Christ, they will be saved and blessed.
“Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.” (Psalm 2:12)
We need to see the Lord Jesus Christ as God, a Savior who would never mislead or lie to anyone, and we need to see Him clearly offering salvation freely to everyone, and that eternal judgment is based on a person refusing that salvation. Therefore, because they would make God’s statements not trustworthy, we reject these false doctrines of: Total Depravity of Man, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, and Irresistible Grace.
What About Judas?
Consider the decision that Judas made to betray the Lord. Let’s say that Fatalistic Calvinism is correct and that Judas was predestined and foreordained before the foundation of the world to make his decision to betray the Lord. Because of fatalism let’s say that Judas had no free will to make his decision, but that he was predestined to betray the Lord.
This makes no sense as we can see that the Lord Jesus Christ called Judas, his friend.
“And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master; and kissed him. And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus, and took him.” (Matthew 26:49-50)
But, the same night in which He called Judas his friend, the Lord said that because of the judgment of the eternal suffering that Judas would have in hell, that it would have been better for Judas to not have been born.
“The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born.” (Matthew 26:24)
Speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ the Bible explains in:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made.” John 1:1-3
Question: Who controlled that Judas was born?
Answer: The Lord Jesus Christ
Question: Who made the ultimate decision to commit the crime that had such a horrible judgment that it would have been better for Judas (whom the Lord called his friend) not to have been born?
Fatalism Answer: The Lord made the ultimate decision for Judas to commit the crime that had such a horrible judgment that it would have been better for Judas not to have been born.
Free Will Answer: Judas made the ultimate decision to commit the crime and he bore all the responsibility for his decision because he did not have to make that decision. Therefore, Judas was ultimately responsible for what he received, and the horrible judgment that was so bad that it would have been better for Judas not to have been born.
If the fatalism answer is correct, then the Lord is to be blamed and defamed since He caused Judas to be born, called him his friend, and made the ultimate decision for his friend to commit the crime that caused him to receive the judgment of such eternal suffering that it would have better for him to not have been born.
How can Jesus be a friend to Judas if He caused Judas to be born and then forced Judas to do a crime with the penalty so bad that it would have been better for Judas to not have been born?
This fatalistic picture portrays God as a very bad person who causes his friends to be both born and make decisions that cause them to receive such horrible eternal judgments that make it better to not have been born. What kind of a righteous God is that? What kind of a friend is that?
God is not the Person that is painted by Fatalistic Calvinism who defames His free will, saving gospel message. If Fatalistic Calvinism had this message why don’t they have a Calvinist Road or Fatalist Road tract? Could you honestly give the fatalism gospel tract invitation to a lost person?