[Bill]

Thanks for the advice. I'm glad to see that I can get advice from people who have thought through this theology and are KJV believers. I'm already familiar with Michael Horton, A. W. Pink, and R. C. Sproul. It seems to me that since God is outside of time, an event, such as predestination, that is in our past would be in God's present at the time of salvation. Trying to understand this is as mind-boggling as learning relativity physics. I remember that after a Physics class in relativity I almost had trouble walking from my desk to the classroom door because my brain was so overwhelmed with the subject. Another aspect of this is that because our salvation is not of works, not of anything a person could boast about, it is thought that God must choose people for no discernable reason. I think this is not right because there are qualities of receptiveness to God, such as having a "broken heart and contrite spirit, trembling at God's word" that are not works or achievements that anyone could take credit for (brag about) but are different in different people and determine who will trust Jesus and who won't.