An assist to the reader (Matthew, you misquoted me or Gary in one of your
prior posts--I tried to send you an email about it, but your address
bounced): I'm quoted in >>, Gary in >.

Gary McNees wrote:

>>Gary, I've asked a simple question:

> And I have given a scriptural answer. You take a verse and make a
> doctrine which contradicts hundreds of Scriptures.
> Do YOU believe that God is LOVE? Do you believe that God desires
> ALL to be saved? Do you believe that God does NOT desire the
> death of the wicked? I don't think that you do. Not if you
> are a Calvinist.

I do not see Scripture in your responses to me, until today--at least not
in a discussion of this particular passage in Proverbs.

I'm afraid that you've mischaracterized my beliefs. I take God at his
word when he says he does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked. I
also take him at his word when he says that a leopard can change his spots
if a wicked person can cease his wickedness.

> You quote: Proverbs 21:4 An high look, and a proud heart, and the
> plowing of the wicked, is sin.
>
> But YOU and I are wicked. Romans 7:18 For I know that in me (that is,
> in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but
> how to perform what is good I do not find.

I have never said that you and I are not wicked, Gary. We certainly agree
on the point. Moreover, I don't recall having elevated the regenerate
above the unregenerate. I may have edited this out of one post I was
writing, but consider the fact that if the regenerate are this bad, how
can we expect the unregenerate to be better? If we are being conformed to
the image of Christ, and we struggle with sin as we do, how is it possible
to conceive that one who is not being so conformed would be better?

Paul writes in Romans seven and Galatians five that he is not free to do
as he pleases. His will is to do good--but he cannot find the means to
perform it. This you just quoted. Now in Galatians five, he says that
the flesh and spirit war, _so that we cannot do what we want to do_.

We may argue (I may have made this point already, too) that the
unregenerate are actually "more free" in a sense than the regenerate,
because this conflict between flesh and spirit does not trouble them.


> And to top it off: Isaiah 64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and
> all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a
> leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

The reason that our righteousness is as filthy rags is because our work is
sin. The plowing of the wicked is sin; but plowing is not sin. Why,
then, is he judged