I'm not sure where to begin. I may miss something.
1) Free-will is what Arminius and Pelagius promoted. It states that God offers salvation to all, but the individual is responsible to pick God's offer from all the other options being offered. The only sin God cannot forgive is the sin of unbelief. God gives humans the freedom of their own will to believe or not believe. You can change your mind or act in such a way that leads to hell, even if you claim to be a Christian.
2) Mennonite's get their name from the Anabaptist reformer, Menno Simons a German monk, who questioned Luther, Zwingli and Calvin in regard to infant baptism and in regard to the merger of church and state (Menno called for the church and state to be independent of each other). Amish and Hutterites are spurs that came out of Mennonites. They felt the Mennonite's were becoming too liberal.
3) Would it have helped me to grow up in a Reformed Baptist church in relation to how I processed my grief? I think it would have reduced the self-centered guilt, but the deep grief would have remained. (Interestingly, the historical roots of my present church follow a very similar route to Mennonites. Both fled Germany and ended up in the Ukraine where they eventually fled the Tzar to the United States.)
Ultimately we cannot change the past. God ordained my path exactly as it has progressed. I have been given my path for the glory of God and to comfort those with the comfort by which God has comforted me.
4) The error is in teaching that my actions can somehow thwart the will of God. It produces a subtle pride in my own actions and my efforts to make sure God is not hindered and is well pleased in me. It's man-centered.
The truth is that God is entirely Sovereign and his will is always accomplished. If God desired my friend to be adopted, then he would have done so. And, frankly, only God knows what relationship he had with God. I hope that somehow, by God's gracious favor, my friend was redeemed. But, only God and my friend know. I must be content in God's sovereign choice, knowing God is not obligated to save even one sinner.
In the end, God is good all the time and all the time God is good.
Thanks for that!
I have a hat that says the last line, 'God is good all the time', and the full saying is a popular one among friends in a ministry I support. (On retreat, we'll often hear one person yell the first part, God is good, and then hear another voice answer with the second part, then the 1st person says the third part and the 2nd person answers back with the last. From diff areas of the woods, you might hear it yelled out, lol. Sort of a tradition!
In reading, I think I agree with PART of point-1, but not all, and def not the last sentence.
I do believe the sin of unbelief, in the sense of deliberate, ultimate rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ and His substitutionary atoning sacrifice of Himself for our sins, cant be forgiven.
I do believe there is more of Gods grace, goodness mercy and love, than we will ever know, but no, should we sin more that grace might abound? God forbid. (But I never really met anyone that says that we should, lol).
Anyway, I wasnt really asking about how you might have assessed the grief differently if you were in the different church or set of beliefs, I was more wondering if you thought it would have had a different influence on your friends faith, or lack of it.
I agree with you, that we're not responsible for another person getting saved, like you said, one plants, another waters, God gives the increase. So we have the 'Whos to thank/Whos to blame' thing, but, as you said, the Lord is sovereign over all the affairs of men. Maybe we can influence things, though?
But I know I had alot of religion/religious types in my family, its just the way it was for most of their generation, you went to church on Sunday, you raised the kids in all the traditional religious works stuff, baptism, communion, confirmation, etc, and you lived a decent life as best as you could.
But through the 60s and 70s alot changed, and formalized, liturgical church stuff was just...stuffy, and the times were ripe for all kinds of crazy things to explode.
Along with that was the Jesus People Movement, where the first guitars and other instruments began being used in a new contemporary style worship, leading to alot of what you see today in non-denom churches, and alot of mainline ones too, and the youth really brought new life to things that had grown pretty stale and the 'generation gap' was a big problem. Much of that was overcome through the years, praise the Lord. (But may be creeping back in, sadly, I hope not).
So, Im just wondering if certain doctrines and practices are a sort of 'turn-off' to some ppl, where they might otherwise at least consider the message of salvation.
But of course, as I write this Im sounding to myself very '70's-ish-American' and its now near 2018, and the gospel is going out thru electronic devices and there are places where ppl are getting saved that most ppl didnt even know existed 50 years ago. So much has changed, but the Lord is still on His throne, and He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.
God bless you, brother.
