Thanks for your reply, Mike,

In a previous email you said “God created us as sinning machines.” You can correct me if I am misrepresenting your position. I am going to paste a link to a video done by the same man where he argues that sin is a choice. If we are sinning machines and were created to be that way, it doesn’t seem logical that we could just up and choose to quit sinning. I know the guy in the video would come back at me with, “Yes, we can stop sinning with the help of the Holy Spirit” or something along those lines. But I would like to get your take. Is sin a choice? Or is it not a choice or something that is within our control? Watch the video and tell me your stance.

R____

Hi R____,

I listened to the video, and it is the same argument which is made by all who believe in the false doctrine of mankind being bestowed a will that is free from God’s influence. God did indeed give mankind a will, and you and I do indeed make liteally dozens or hundreds of choices every single day.

Those choices we make, though, are all the result of thoughts we have in our hearts and minds which are manifested in what we say and do. Who do the scriptures hold responsible for our thoughts and our actions? This is not something God is bashful about discussing with us. He is very clear in answering that question, and in doing so He makes it very clear that mankind has no power at all to do what he wants to do with his own free will independent of the will of God:

Pro 16:1  The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.

If our very thoughts are “from the Lord”, then what hope have we of controlling “the answer of the tongue” independent of God’s will? However, for those who still do not want to acknowledge the sovereignty of God in all things, the holy spirit inspired these words just a few verses later:

Pro 16:4  The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.
Pro 16:5  Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD: though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.
Pro 16:6  By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil.

If, as the man in the video believes, “sin is a choice”, how then can God say that He makes “even the wicked… for Himself… for the day of evil” which He has predestined for every man. If indeed “sin is a choice” how can God make this statement:

Psa 139:16  Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance; And in thy book they were all written, Even the days [“of evil” (Pro 16:4)] that were ordained for me, When as yet there was none of them. (ASV)

I could go on and on showing literally hundreds of verses which demonstrate that the choices we appear to make of our own free will are actually the work of God, for both good and evil. One of many Biblical stories which demonstrate this is the story of the plotting of Joseph’s ten brothers; first to kill him, which was through Judah’s influence, then changed to selling Joseph into Egypt.

It appeared to all Joseph’s brothers to be an act which they chose to do, and indeed Joseph himself accepts the fact that they “meant it for evil”, but look at what Joseph reveals to us to be the real reason why Joseph’s brothers sold him into Egypt as a slave. This is just as true of our evil deeds as it is of Joseph’s ten brothers:

Gen 45:4  And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
Gen 45:5  And now be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.
Gen 45:6  For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and there are yet five years, in which there shall be neither plowing nor harvest.
Gen 45:7  And God sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance.
Gen 45:8  So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

That is a huge revelation of the mind of Jesus Christ and His Father for all who are granted to receive it, but the beast, the man of sin, sits upon the throne of God in the hearts and minds of His people, and that beast we all are, that man of sin we all are, is loathe to relinquish his perceived control over that throne by acknowledging that all of his choices are all caused choices which only appear outwardly to be of his own free will.

Joseph repeats the truth of this doctrine in chapter 50 after the death of his father, Jacob:

Gen 50:14  And Joseph returned into Egypt, he, and his brethren, and all that went up with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father.
Gen 50:15  And when Joseph’s brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, It may be that Joseph will hate us, and will fully requite us all the evil which we did unto him.
Gen 50:16  And they sent a message unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying,
Gen 50:17  so shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the transgression of thy brethren, and their sin, for that they did unto thee evil. And now, we pray thee, forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him.
Gen 50:18  And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we are thy servants.
Gen 50:19  And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God?
Gen 50:20  And as for you, ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.

There it is, our choices appear to be of our own free will when in reality “God means [all of our evil deeds] for good”, which will, in the end, produce good in bringing all who are in Adam to Christ (1Co 15:22).

I have written an extensive paper on this false doctrine of mankind being given ‘free will’, and I simply cannot in this e-mail cover the hundreds of verses which are in that paper, but you can read it all at this link:

After The Counsel of His Own Will

That article covers this false doctrine in great depth and uses the scriptures to reveal that we have only the illusion of free will. Send that link to the man who made that video, and show him these verses in Romans 7, and ask him if Paul is lying when he tells us twice that when he sins “It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me.”

Rom 7:17  Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 
Rom 7:18  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19  For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20  Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 
Rom 7:21  I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
Rom 7:22  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
Rom 7:23  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
Rom 7:24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

When Paul says, “it is no more I that do it”, he is not denying that “sin dwells within [him].” Like Joseph with his brothers, Paul twice acknowledges that “sin dwells in [himself]” (vs 17 and 20). What Paul is denying is that he sins because sinning is a free choice. We all sin because we are “captives to the law of sin which is in [our] members.” If anyone wants to argue with that statement, then take it up with the holy spirit of Christ who inspired these words:

Rom 7:23  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 

All men who have ever lived have sinned, and if they lived long enough, they lusted after women in their hearts. We have no freedom to choose to avoid being sinners. We choose to sin and sell our Lord for thirty pieces of silver, but we do so for one reason, and it has nothing to do with us choosing to do so of our own will:

Act 4:26  The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ.
Act 4:27  For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together,
Act 4:28  For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.

That 28th verse is applicable to every sin that has ever been committed by any man at any time. Our God is sovereign whether we know it or do not know it, and it is He who is “working all things after the counsel of His own will.”

Eph 1:11  In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

Your brother in Christ,

Mike