Some professing Christians don't seem to care about this issue, even though it is the crux of Christianity, since we are talking about one's understanding of the gospel (God's one and only plan of salvation).  To get it wrong even if you are SURE you've got it right, is to spend eternity in Hell.

While some professing Christians are apathetic, others are ignorant - they don't clearly understand the Gospel well enough to share it accurately.  Their ignorance may be due to their being spiritually immature Christians but more likely their ignorance can be traced to bad teaching from false teachers and/or equally ignorant - if not unsaved - pastors and preachers.

Then we have the category of those who profess to be devout - and even learned - Christians who vehemently fight against the true Gospel.  One such example is Dave Hunt, head of the Berean Call ministry.  When it comes to the gospel, Mr. Hunt makes the same mistake that many professing Christians make.  He thinks he is more fair than God and so he sits in judgment on the Almighty (though he thinks he is judging Calvinism and the Calvinist) when he makes statements like this:

"Indeed, all of your erudition and careful exegesis using the original languages and grammatical rules is calculated to prove one thing: that God who "is love" does not love everyone, does not want everyone in heaven, has predestined to eternal suffering the unsaved who clearly number in the billions – and even takes pleasure in damning them. I do not believe that is the God of the Bible – and that is the major difference between our two positions." - from this article: http://www.conservativeonline.org/articles/misc/Dave_Hunt_Response.htm

Who Is Competent To Judge The Almighty?

The problem is the creature does not possess infinite knowledge nor infinite righteousness and so the creature cannot possibly understand why God would predestine some to heaven and create some for whom Christ did not die, hence they will be cast into hell.   God is allowed to do as He pleases with His creation whether we like it or not, whether we understand it or not, and whether we think its fair or nice or loving or not.  

But if we grasp the reality of His elective plan of salvation, and if we instead look at what He HAS done for a remnant of ungodly sinners, RATHER THAN looking at what He has chosen NOT to do for the rest, and if we truly are part of that remnant, AND if we truly understand what we as sinners deserve for our sins, then we will want to join with Paul in proclaiming:

2 Corinthians 9:15 - "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift."

We can only believe this "unfair to human minds" gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit, for no man can understand or believe this gospel except by the revelation of God.  And herein lies the "mystery" of the gospel and the OFFENSE of the gospel to the unsaved.  Our unregenerated minds CRAVE self-determination and LOATH being at the mercy of anyone, especially at the mercy of our CREATOR.

But who are we to question the wisdom of God or the prerogative of the Almighty?

Romans 9:20  "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? 21  Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? 22  What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: 23  And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, 24  Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?"

Answer:  Before they are regenerated, the elect are indistinguishable in their thoughts, words, and behavior from the non-elect. Their "nature" is that of goats (i.e. "the others" referred to in Ephesians), those who are truly eternally under the wrath of God.  Their lost unregenerated "nature" causes them to walk, talk and act like goats, even though they are lost sheep.  When the Holy Spirit regenerates them, the lost sheep become found sheep, and so their nature starts to resemble that of their Father - their heavenly Father - by adoption into His kingdom.  We see a picture of this transformation in Luke 15:24: "For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry."

Some church history

The modern free-will gospel was popularized by such men as John Wesley, founder of the Methodist church, along with Charles Finney, who popularized the "altar call" method of evangelism.   Wesley and the Methodists heavily promoted the idea of "prevenient grace" to try to make their gospel appear less like a works gospel and more like a grace gospel.  However, their gospel is still false, as it still depends on an act of man (the choice of the sinner) rather than on the sovereign choice of Almighty God. 

Building blocks for the false free-will gospel

Building block #1: prevenient grace

Prevenient grace is an invention of those trying to avoid looking like heretics and trying to avoid looking like they have a man-centered works gospel.  It basically says that man is not as spiritually dead as God says he is - but it does this by stealth... by inventing a phenomenon that fits their false doctrine... Saying that God has a kind of grace called prevenient grace that draws ALL people to God allowing them in their unsaved condition and of their "free-will" to accept (or choose) Christ.   This is biblical heresy because God says the sinner's lost condition is one in which the human will is in bondage to sin, not free to accept Christ, the true Christ and the true Gospel.  Also, this concept of prevenient grace ignores the fact that God says in scripture that He does the choosing.  It is interesting to note that the notion of prevenient grace was originally a Catholic invention, discussed in way back during the 1500s at the Council of Trent (chapter 5, session 6).

"The Synod furthermore declares, that in adults, the beginning of the said Justification is to be derived from the prevenient grace of God, through Jesus Christ, that is to say, from His vocation, whereby, without any merits existing on their parts, they are called; that so they, who by sins were alienated from God, may be disposed through His quickening and assisting grace, to convert themselves to their own justification, by freely assenting to and co-operating with that said grace."

So we see here how the free-will gospel is rooted in unbiblical Catholic theology.

Building block #2: The universal view of Christ's atonement

Here we will be discussing the idea of unlimited (or universal) atonement from the perspective of most Arminians and free-willers.  Rather than view Christ's death as a "ransom", a specific payment to God for the penalty owed by the sinner, the free-will gospel, by its nature, requires a different, unbiblical view of Christ's atonement.  That view is referred to by some of its adherents as the "governmental view" of the atonement which teaches that Christ's suffering was a substitute for the punishment sinners deserve, but that punishment was not equivalent to the exact penalty owed to God by those who sin against Him. Instead, it looks at the atonement as a demonstration of God's displeasure with sin through the suffering of His own sinless Son, Jesus Christ. Christ's suffering and death served as a substitute for the punishment humans might have received. Also, the governmental theory views the scope of Christ's atoning death as applying to everyone, even those who end up in Hell.  This teaching says that a person can "partake" of the merits of Christ's atonement by "exercising saving faith" or in other words, by "accepting Christ" as their Lord and Savior.

This view of the atonement was originally concocted by a man named Hugo Grotius in the early 1600s and is found in Arminianism, and in the theology of Charles Finney, Jonathan Edwards (the younger), and the Methodists.  Due to its appeal to those who wish man to be sovereign over his salvation, it has also found its way into most free-will denominations and congregations of our day and age.

In contrast, the biblical doctrine of limited atonement, states that Jesus Christ by his suffering and death on the cross, was punished in the place of sinners (as a divine scapegoat), and that suffering was sufficient in its scope and duration to satisfy divine justice, in that it paid the full penalty owed to God for all the sins of all the people whom Christ came to save.

Building block #3: The unpardonable sin

Since salvation in this free-will system depends on something the sinner does (i.e. exercising faith or accepting Christ), then salvation can be lost, should the sinner lose faith.  Not all free-willers understand how their theory of obtaining salvation is tied to the theory of losing salvation.  These folks also believe that salvation, though earned by Christ for all (as they see it), is forfeited by those who do not accept the gift, and this rejection of the gift is considered by these free-willers as the "unpardonable sin".  Where will these people be if it turns out that the unpardonable sin consists of believing that man has a free-will to accept Christ?

So how are people so easily deceived?

First of all, if people aren't saved, then they will like the free-will gospel far more than the real gospel, the gospel of ELECTION. Secondly, just as cults shield their followers from church history and from opposing views, so do the free-will preachers and teachers.  Often, IF these preachers present an opposing view, they will present it in a vastly oversimplified and distorted way, to make it look totally unbelievable and unacceptable to the average person.  Also, they will avoid bible verses like the plague if those verses contradict the free-will gospel and lend any credence to the true gospel.  However, in the case of the gospel, unless the Holy Spirit is drawing one of God's elect, it really does not matter what a false preacher says, since "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." [1 Cor 2:14].

Some final thoughts for the reader

Has God found YOU yet?  Has He chosen YOU to be counted among His elect people? If so, are you not greatly humbled by that fact, that a thrice-holy God would choose a sinner like you to be in fellowship with Him for all eternity?