POINSETTIA vs.TULIP

I was snooping around online today and ran across this site and I was wondering what anyone else thinks of it. I mean, obviously they got too cute with a flower acrostic but this so precisely says what I have wanted to say in a relatively concise manner.





Here is the first page. It is the page that caught my attention this afternoon.

Here is the second page. I would love if anyone who is a Calvinist would tell me what they think of this chart. Specifically, do you think the Calvinist position is well represented in these bullet points?


Thanks!

Cain You Believe This?

Time to vent a bit more...

I read the story of Cain and Abel today and I am appalled at the way God deceived Cain.

Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, “I have gotten a manchild with the help of the LORD.” Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain a tiller of the ground. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the LORD of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” Cain told Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Gen. 4

OK that second sentence was a bit harsh but if I am understanding the TULIP approach to Bible interpretation it really isn't.

According to the Calvinists all of Adam's descendants have a total inability to do what is right. They insist that there is no part of man since the fall that can respond positively to God.

"Let it stand, therefore, as an indubitable truth, which no engines can shake, that the mind of man is so entirely alienated from the righteousness of God, that he cannot conceive, desire, or design anything but what is wicked, distorted, foul, impure and iniquitous; that his heart is so thoroughly envenomed by sin, that it can breathe out nothing but corruption and rottenness; that if some men occasionally make a show of goodness, their mind is ever interwoven with hypocrisy and deceit, their soul inwardly bound with fetters of wickedness."
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, translated by Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans), reprinted 1983, vol. I, p. 291.

The Calvinist says that man cannot respond to God without God first reaching into his soul and regenerating him. Just to make clear that I am not misreading this here is the most vocal of the Calvinist preachers, John Piper: So in the order of causation we have: 1) new birth, 2) faith in Jesus, and 3) the doing of God’s commandments without a sense of burdensomeness...

Man is unable to respond to any command or unction unless God give him said ability. See where I'm going with Cain?

Cain was peeved because his offering was not accepted and his brothers was accepted so he was having a pouting session when God came to him..."Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you," No problem yet but if God properly understood the doctrines of grace He never would have finished this confrontation with "but you must master it.”

Oh No! God doesn't remember that Mankind including Cain is unable to respond until God regenerates Him.

Please understand I am using folly to demonstrate a point. God forgets nothing. God knows His plans and mans limitations. It is precisely because He knows these things that I cannot accept what the Calvinist superimposes on scripture.

God told Cain that he must master the sin that crouching at the door. He laid that responsibility directly at Cain's feet implying that Cain could master that sin. Calvin, Piper, Sproul and the rest of the calvinist camp insist he,as a man totally depraved, could not have mastered it.

So is God telling Cain to do something he is inherently unable to do? If so what does that say about God? 

What I believe: The fall gave man a sin nature but the fall did not remove the image of God from mankind. We are able to see truth when God's Word illumines our hearts and minds. In this case God's word came in first person and Cain had to choose to obey or rebel. In our situation the Word of God comes through the Scriptures that are read or preached. (Acts 8, Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch is an example of this.) Once this illumination comes we have a choice we can either reject God and continue to rebel (like Cain) or we can submit to God in repentance and belief and then He does the work of regeneration.