God's Foreordaination & Sovereignty Over the Actions of Men But Humans Are Still Held

The following is from "The Sovereignty of God" by A.W Pink, chapter 8: 'Free moral agency' is an expression of human invention and, as we have said before, to talk of the freedom of the natural man is to flatly repudiate his spiritual ruin. Nowhere does Scripture speak of the freedom or moral ability of the sinner, on the contrary, it insists on his moral and spiritual inability.

How can the sinner be held responsible to receive Christ, and be damned for rejecting Him, when God FOREORDAINED him TO condemnation?

Really, this question has been covered in what has been said under the other queries, but for the benefit of those who are exercised upon this point we give it a separate, though brief, examination. In considering the above difficulty the following points should be carefully weighed:

In the first place, no sinner, while he is in this world, knows for certain, nor can he know, that he is a "vessel of wrath fitted to destruction". This belongs to the hidden counsels of God, to which he has not access. God's secret will is no business of his; God's revealed will (in the Word) is the standard of human responsibility. And God's revealed will is plain. Each sinner is among those whom God now "commandeth to repent" (Acts 17:30). Each sinner who hears the Gospel is "commanded" to believe (1 John 3:23). And all who do truly repent and believe are saved. Therefore, is every sinner responsible to repent and believe.

In the second place, it is the duty of every sinner to search the Scriptures which "are able to make wise unto salvation" (2 Tim. 3:15). It is the sinner's "duty" because the Son of God has commanded him to search the Scriptures (John 5:39).