Cheryl Schatz

Mark,
You said:

Just a quick point to help you understand what i mean. I am not saying that those who are born again do not receive salvation and eternal life. Being born again is part of the process of salvation.

Mark, I think that you need to be completely forthright and admit that the Calvinist belief is that at the moment that one is “born again” that person is not saved. They are still unregenerate and still one of the reprobate until they believe. There is no “process” of salvation such that they are partly saved and partly regenerated and partly not a reprobate when they are “born again”. They are still fully unsaved at that point. The teaching is that being “born again” only makes them able to be saved by making them able to hear the gospel message.

One of the problems that I have with Calvinism is that its followers have a hard time actually admitting to the hard teaching of Calvinism to those who are not Calvinists. They system is complicated and this is why so many tell non-Calvinists to go and read chapters of Calvin’s work instead of taking them into the Scriptures and showing the person what Calvinism is clearly and distinctly from the Scripture. Why is that?

Now are far as how we pray, we ask God to do His work to save a person. A person has enough evidence of the Creator to seek for Him but many do not do that until God intervenes in a more direct way in their lives. We ask for Him to do that for our loved ones and those whom we desire to see saved.

But it is a complete mystery to me why Calvinists would even pray for someone’s salvation. After all they are taught that God has already picked out the elect from the foundation of the world so no prayer to God would ever change that. If the one you are praying for is one of the elect your prayer is unnecessary. If the one that you are praying for is not one of the elect, your prayer is useless. Do you ever think about this when you pray?