ACCORDING TO THE FREE-WILL SCHEME

ACCORDING TO THE FREE-WILL SCHEME, the Lord intends good, but He must 
wait like a lackey on His own creature to know what his intention is; 
God willeth good, and would do it, but He cannot because He has an 
unwilling man who will not have God’s good thing carried into effect. 
What do ye, sirs, but drag the Eternal from His throne and lift up into 
it that fallen creature, man; for man, according to that theory, nods 
and his nod is destiny. You must have a destiny somewhere; it must 
either be as God wills or as man wills. If it be as God wills, then 
Jehovah sits sovereign upon His throne of glory, and all hosts obey Him, 
and the world is safe; if not God, then you put man there to say, “I 
will” or “I will not; if I will it, I will enter heaven; if I will it, I 
will despise the grace of God; if I will it, I will conquer the Holy 
Spirit, for I am stronger than God, stronger than omnipotence; if I will 
it, I will make the blood of Christ of no effect, for I am mightier than 
the blood, mightier than the blood of the Son of God himself; though God 
make His purpose, yet will I laugh at His purpose; it shall be my 
purpose that shall make His purpose stand or fall.” Why, sirs, if this 
is not atheism, it is idolatry; it is putting man where God should be; 
and I shrink with solemn awe and horror from that doctrine which makes 
the grandest of God’s works – the salvation of man – to be dependent 
upon the will of His creature whether it shall be accomplished or not. 
Glory I can and must in my text in its fullest sense. “IT IS NOT OF HIM 
THAT WILLETH, NOR OF HIM THAT RUNNETH, BUT OF GOD THAT SHOWETH MERCY” 
(Romans 9:16). C. H. Spurgeon
Luke writes concerning the Bereans “These were more noble than those in 
Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, 
and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. 
Therefore many of them believed; also of honourable women which were 
Greeks, and of men, not a few. (Ac 17:11-12) They received the word with 
a ready mind then searched the scriptures daily. It says, “Therefore, 
many of them believed.” So search the scriptures daily to see if these 
things I preach are so. It may be that God will give you faith to 
believe as he did the Bereans.
Clay Curtis.

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