The Living and True God

John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

2 Cor 11:4 For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.

1 Th 1:9 For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God;

These verses testify to us that there is a living and true God. There are also other Scriptures that tell us that there are no gods beside our God. All others are idols of the mind or idols of clay, stone, or wood. It is those mental idols that I wish to discuss today. Arminianism in what ever form it takes, from rank Catholicism to vibrant evangelicalism to dead legalism is nothing but idolatry in its most deceitful form. It would come to us as wolves in sheep's clothing and would offer itself up as the gospel when in fact it is opposite and contradictory of the gospel of sovereign grace (which by the way is the only Gospel there is). Their God is not our God because He doesn’t elect anybody that doesn’t elect him first, their Christ is not our Christ because He does not actually save anyone, He just makes salvation possible for those who will choose to be saved, and their Holy Spirit is not our Holy Spirit because He doesn’t sovereignly bestow salvation upon those whom the Father chose before the foundation of the world. I often use this illustration when trying to explain the difference in the two systems; A man comes up to another man and says I just saw a zebra. The first man says you did. What did it look like? The second man says why it was almost as big as a house and was gray all over and had a very long nose called a trunk. The first man says why you didn’t see an a zebra, you saw an elephant. Every child hearing this description would know immediately that the man was describing an elephant but calling it a zebra. An Arminian describes God in his terms and the child of God who knows the truth says you are not describing God but an idol of your mind. Look in the Word of God and see and if the Holy Spirit sees fit to reveal and quicken then you can turn to the Living God and forsake your Arminian idol.