BAPTIST FLOWER CHILDREN-TULIPS

 

167 PATTIES PLACE

 

Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.   (2 Timothy  2:15)

TULIP BAPTISTS are really PHILOSOPHERS disguised as Bible believers. They pretend to know and understand God's UNWRITTEN DECREES, devoting their time trying to prove their assumptions by antiquity, certain "hard to be understood" passages (2 Pet. 3:16), and a CIRCULAR SYSTEM OF REASONING.

They love to glory in their unproductivity and small number,  forgetting that Christ ORDAINED the ELECT to bring forth FRUIT (John 15:16).  If they have traits of laziness, unconcern, or COLDNESS, God must have decreed it to be so; after all, doesn't God work in us to will and to do of his good pleasure?

Fishing for men does not attract them as much as it does other groups; they do now and then get one from someone else's aquarium. To avoid certain holes in their theology they invent private theological terms like "effectual calling" and avoid certain Scriptures by saying "ALL," “WORLD,“ and "EVERY" do not mean "ALL," "WORLD," and "EVERY."

In this respect, the TULIP CULT is like the Jehovah Witness Cult who say that Hell, eternal, forever, and fire do not really mean Hell, eternal, forever, and fire to prove their doctrine. They are also alike in that they both try to EXPLAIN the SIMPLE by the COMPLEX instead of explaining the COMPLEX by the SIMPLE. The TULIP doctrine appeals mostly to INTELLECTUALS who like to play with THEOLOGICAL TOYS, reducing the Living Word to a TEXTBOOK.

The FIVE points of Calvinism (TULlP) are: (1.) Total Depravity (2.) Unconditional Election (3.) Limited Atonement (4.) Irresistable Grace (5.) Perseverance of the Saints. As the terms stand, a Bible believer should be a ZERO POINT Calvinist. It is a disgrace to be identified with Calvin, who allowed a man to be burned for his religious beliefs, and other Calvinistic religious TYRANTS such as Luther, Augustine, and the Puritans.

If one denies the points of Calvinism (TULIP), the poor deluded TULIP accuses him of not believing in a sovereign God, or of not giving "God the praise" like the religious Pharisees of John 9:24, or of taking the credit for one's own salvation, or of being an Arminian. The poor flower child does not realize that he has fashioned a smaller God.

Our God is so powerful and wise that he is able to LIMIT himself and his Christ, decree that we have a FREE WILL, and still accomplish His will and purpose regardless of the choice that you, I, or the devil makes. TULIPS limit the Holy One of Israel by teaching that He CANNOT save certain individuals who have not been predestined by Him to salvation.

We do not believe that our Lord's hand is shortened that it cannot save! God does do what He wants to do, but we do not need a TULIP to tell us what He wants to do. His thoughts and ways are even so much higher than a TULIP's thoughts and ways. To say that man has a free will (a gift from God), is not to say that man can arbitrarily choose to be saved. Man cannot choose until God gives him a choice. He cannot choose until he is first exposed to the Gospel and is convicted by God's Spirit, for "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

The word of faith is nigh the unsaved man's mouth, and in the unsaved man's heart, and that is the Word of faith, which we preach; that if he shalt confess with his mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in his heart that God hath raised him from the dead, the unsaved man shalt (Sovereign Decree) be saved (Rom. 10:8-10). The parallel passage in the Old Testament says, "the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart. I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;  I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore CHOOSE life . . ." (Deut. 30:14, 15, 19).

By TOTAL DEPRAVITY, the TULIP flower child means TOTAL INABILITY. He will declare that a DEAD MAN cannot accept Christ, for dead men cannot do anything; we are supposed to ignore the fact that DEAD MEN REJECT CHRIST and that DEAD MEN (and live ones) SIN WILLFULLY (Heb. 10:26). Being dead in trespasses and sins, does not say total inability.

By UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION, the TULIP means that nothing foreseen by God conditioned our election. Oh? According to 1 Pet. 1:2; 2Thess. 2:13 and Eph. 1:4, our Election is conditioned on (1.) God's foreknowledge (2.) Sanctification of the Spirit 3. Our obedience (4.) The sprinkling of Jesus' Blood (5.) Belief of the truth (6.)Our being "IN CHRIST."

By LIMITED ATONEMENT and IRRESISTABLE GRACE, the TULIP means that Christ died for only a portion of the world and that those who were died for must be knocked in the head like Paul to get saved.

It does little good to show TULIPS that God would have all men to be saved (I Tim. 2:4); or that Christ tasted death for every man (Heb. 2:9) or that God is the Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe (I Tim. 4:10) or that Christ would have gathered the souls of Jerusalem if they would have let him (Matt. 23:37); or that some men do always resist the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:51); or that God GAVE REPENTANCE and FORGIVENESS to Israel even if all Israel didn't get saved (Acts 5:31); or that the Lord even BOUGHT the false teachers of 2 Pet. 2:1.

The TULIP MAGICIAN will reach into his "CHANGE THE DICTIONARY HAT" and pull out a "WORD SHUFFLE" that would make a J.W.  blush; or he will “SAW" Jesus' DEITY/HUMANITY in half; or he will get an "Answer a Question with a Question" from out of his sleeve, or he will do the "Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?" trick.. (Think what Tulips could do with  John the Baptist being filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb).

By Perseveres of the Saints, the TULIPS mean a saved person cannot lose their salvation. We agree with that but the term is unfortunate in that it is God that PERSEVERES not the elect.

We anticipate that this article will bring cries of misrepresentation because of some variations among TULIPS, but when you throw a rock up a dark alley and you hear a howl, you know that you hit something.

In conclusion, remember that Spurgeon, who moderately believed some of these things, was led to say of John Gill (a TULIP favorite), "The system of theology with which many identify his name has CHILLED many churches to their very soul  . . . '  (God's Sovereignity in Relation to Free Will,  p. 61, by Samuel Fisk, Loizeaux Brothers- Neptune, N.J.)