Title: Love & Unity Among Calvinists and Arminians? 
Meta: When you find true Christians who are either Arminians or Calvinists, you will find that their prayers and hymns are the same in that they both proclaim a salvation because of Christ alone. No true Christian would get on their knees and say, "Lord, I thank you for doing your part... but I'm the one who really made the difference."
Tags: Arminians,Calvinism,Conference,Q&A,Charles Wesley,George Whitefield

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This says:

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"Two themes of the conference have been love and unity.

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On the one hand,

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I've heard about how we should be able and desire to love all true Christians.

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On the other,

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I've heard the comment here, quote:

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'Maybe 10% of Arminians are truly saved.'

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Question: Is that love?

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Is the Reformed applications of the teachings on love and unity

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limited to the Reformed family?

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Can you discuss love and unity between Arminians and Calvinists

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in light of the doctrinal differences,

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either being unto salvation or not unto salvation?"

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What I would say here,

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this statement of "maybe 10% of Arminians are truly saved",

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it's very likely you can say the same thing about Calvinists.

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The reason that this kind of statement was made

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is because we live in a day when the vast majority of professing evangelicals are Arminian.

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And there was a day,

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right here in New England,

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when the vast majority of professing evangelicals were Calvinists.

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And they were just as dead and just as lost as a vast number of professing Arminians and

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professing Christians in our day.

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It doesn't have anything to do with that.

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A person can be completely doctrinally sound and be lost.

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He could love doctrine.

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Alot of men,

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alot of pastors have loved to argue the points of Calvinism and so on,

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that are completely lost.

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So out fellowship is centered around whether men really love Christ,

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and love His truth and His word.

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Many times,

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the differences between a Calvinist and an Arminian are theoretical things.

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And I would say that if a man truly believes that His salvation is attributed to himself,

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then yes, he's not a Christian.

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And Arminianism,

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if it was really believe with the life,

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would mean that person wasn't a Christian.

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Let me give you an example.

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Charles Wesley, who was an Arminian,

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whenever he wrote his hymns,

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this is the kind of thing he said:

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"Long my imprisoned spirit lay,

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fast bound in sin and nature's night.

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Thine eye defused a quickening ray",

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a life-giving ray.

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"I woke, the dungeon flamed with light.

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My chains fell off,

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my heart was free.

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I rose, when forth and followed Thee."

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No Calvinist could have written that any better than that.

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You see, what that is,

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he's expressing there the realities of his heart.

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No true Christian would get on their knees and say:

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"Lord, I thank You for doing Your part,

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but I know you're trying to do Your part for everybody

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and I'm the one that really made the difference."

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Nobody would ever say that if they really know the Lord.

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I think Charles Hodge said it like this, he said:

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"We look at the hymns and the prayers of people to see where there hearts really are."

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Not when they're arguing

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and discussing theology and they get off into all these theoretical areas.

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Look at what they're saying in their prayers.

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Look at what they're saying in their praises and hymns to God.

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And that will all be the same,

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there'll be unity between them.

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And so what we look for is godly men.

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I remember a time years ago,

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when I was around a group of guys who were all solid in doctrine,

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and as cold as they could be.

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And I have known in my life,

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godly Arminians who were ten times further along with God than I was.

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And I remember writing in one of my notebooks:

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"Oh God, put me with men of a burning heart!

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Not cold, carnal, doctrinarians."

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This is not the dividing area,

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the dividing area has to do with truly knowing the Lord.

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Truly being regenerate.

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Somebody asked Whitefield:

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"Do you think you'll see Wesley in Heaven?"

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And he said something to the affect of,

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"Maybe not,

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he'll probably be so close to the throne

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that I won't be able to get near to him."

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That's the right attitude.

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And of course,

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Wesley preached at his funeral.