One or the Other!

Dear Fellow Travelers,
Today, I want to take a brief detour from our study of Hebrews 10, in order to clarify something that some seem to fail to understand and that “something” is this: From the Garden of Eden until the return of Jesus, there have been and will continue to be only two kinds of people—the redeemed and the rest.
Contrary to popular opinion, not everyone belongs to the family of God, i.e. not eve-ryone is redeemed, far from it. Thankfully, it is not my job to judge who is in His family and who is not, but this is for certain: some belong to another family, namely, the family of Adam. The truth is this: all of us are physically born into Adam’s family and, thus, have his seed in our loins; however, as the result of Jesus’ vicarious death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, some of us die and are born again into the family of God—altogether His doing—and now have His seed in our loins, which makes us His children!
Furthermore, belonging to His family is by invitation only—His invitation, not an altar call, even an intense one—and believers, in spite of their desires, do not cause Him to adjust His list of invitees. He prepared His list of invitees before the foundation of the world, and He did so without our influence. Obviously, this tells us much about the manipulative schemes of evangelical evangelism! If anyone could have talked God into adding some of His friends to the list, Paul could; however, even he could not get it done (read Romans 9:1-5). Oh, yes, I know what you are thinking (quoting!): “Whoever will may come” and “Whoever believes in Him might have eternal life”! Unfortunately, you are placing the emphasis on the “whoever” and not on the “will” and the “believe”.
You see, when we were in Adam’s family, we were dead to God and, consequently, it was impossible for us to “will” (desire) to come to Him, just as it was impossible for us to believe in Him. Dead is dead, and dead neither wills nor believes, especially in that to which it is dead! So, we can say that “whoever wills may come”; in fact, we can say that “whoever wills WILL come, no doubt about it; however, we must quickly add that only those who are on God’s Invitation List can “will” to come. Of course, we must also quickly add that even those cannot come, until He moves them from death to life! At this point, they do have a choice, but only ONE choice—to live in Christ as a member of God’s redeemed family, with all of its benefits and privileges (and they are many).
You (whomever you are!) are either one of God’s elect or you are not, and there is nothing you can do about that—period. Strangely, if you are not, you have no desire to do anything about it, anyway! If you are, I can almost promise you that this “perspective” has stirred your emotions.