Bible Truth #350 - Isaiah 29:15-16

Isaiah 29:15-16

15  Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the LORD, who do their work in darkness and think, "Who sees us? Who will know?"

16  You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, "He did not make me"? Can the pot say of the potter, "He knows nothing”?

This is the passage the Apostle Paul was quoting when he wrote, in his letter to the Romans, “Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?” (Romans 9:20)

But God saying through Isaiah that these people, those who think they are hiding their plans from the LORD, these people are turning things upside down - or they’ve got it backwards. In today’s vernacular that is the same as saying, “You’ve got the cart before the horse.” And that is what some Arminians have actually told me - that those who accept God’s Word regarding His sovereignty in Election, have it backwards.

Even though God tells us over and over that man is Totally Depraved and not only unwilling, but unable to do the first thing toward his own salvation, those who believe in decisional salvation nevertheless insist that a lost man can do all that God says he can’t.

The Arminian claims a lost man can:

- have a thought toward spiritual matters that is good, yet in Genesis 6:5 God says he can’t

- do a good thing (spiritually), yet in Jeremiah 13:23 God says he can’t.

- believe in Jesus and enter through the narrow door, yet in Luke 13:24 Jesus said he is unable.

- make a decision for salvation, yet in John 1:13 God says he can’t.

- choose to love Christ, yet in John 3:20 Jesus said he hates the Light.

- choose to come to Christ, yet in John 3:20 Jesus said he won’t come.

- understand Scripture without the Lord opening his mind, yet in Luke 24:45 God says he can’t.

- choose to believe without God working in him, yet in John 6:29 Jesus said it is God’s work, not man’s.

- reject God’s drawing, yet in John 6:44 Jesus said he can’t.

- understand God’s word, yet in John 8:43 Jesus said he can’t.

- choose Jesus and then God chooses him, yet in John 15:16 Jesus said we didn’t.

- reject a Divine appointment to believe, yet in Acts 13:48 God says he can’t.

- seek God and understand Him, yet in Romans 3:10-12 God says he can’t.

- please God in a number of ways, yet in Romans 8:8 God says he can’t.

- choose not to sin, yet in Romans 14:23 God says everything he does is sin.

- can understand the message of the cross, yet in 1 Corinthians 1:18 God says he can’t.

- accept something from the Holy Spirit, yet in 1 Corinthians 2:14 God says he can’t.
- choose to believe on his own but God said in 1 Corinthians 15:2 that it is in vain.
- see the Light of the Gospel of the Glory of Jesus Christ, yet in 2 Corinthians 4:4 God says he can’t.
- exercise his free will accepting Christ, yet in Ephesians 1:11 God says he can’t.

- believe in Jesus completely of his own volition, yet in Philippians 1:29 God says he can’t.

- come out of the dominion of darkness on his own, yet in Colossians 1:13 God says he can’t.

- believe in something that is hidden from him, yet in Colossians 1:26 God says he can’t.
- have faith, yet in 2 Thessalonians 3:2 God says he doesn’t.

- be saved by something he does, i.e. believe in Jesus, yet in 2 Timothy 1:9 God says he can’t.

- repent unto salvation without God giving it to him, yet in 2 Timothy 2:25 God says he can’t.

- acknowledge the Truth, yet in 2 Timothy 3:7 God says he can’t.

There are many more but suffice it to say that I have given enough examples to credibly, and with sincerity ask, “Who has put the cart before the horse?”