how can I be judged for failing to repent If I have no choice?
it comes from God, amen, but I still have to make a choice
the Pharisees saw Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead, they made a choice to still reject him.
as Jesus said, they were unwilling. Willing means choice.
I'm unsure of what the problem is. Apparently, you are of the Elect. You are the result of the Lord's Holy Work! If you are of the Elect, why is it so hard to imagine that the Lord might make people who were made for destruction?
Romans 9:18-24 RSV - "So then he has mercy upon whomever he wills, and he hardens the heart of whomever he wills. 19 You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" 20 But who are you, a man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me thus?" 21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for beauty and another for menial use? 22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath made for destruction, 23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory, 24 even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?"
So relax! You are made for Righteousness, and the Lord is bringing you home. And like Scripture says on occasions, "What is it to you" that God does what He does and how He does? It shouldn't matter to anyone if the Lord creates certain people for Holy Destruction. He is the One that is in control. The Lord is the one who knows, fully, what he is doing. Just because we do not understand His Word in how it fits with our own personal agenda, is not the Lord's problem.
It should pain you that God Himself called for those of the Seven Nations to be totally killed and wiped off the face of the earth . . . man, woman, child, animal, and everything else except for the fruit trees that gave fruit. Does it bother you that the Lord created them for their destruction?
Deuteronomy 7:1-2 NKJV -
"When the LORD your God brings you into the land which you go to possess, and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, "and when the LORD your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them [and] utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them."
How about the fact that God predicted that He would cause Israel to cook, hide, and consume their own children? Did they have a choice?
Deuteronomy 28:53-57 NIV - "Because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you. 54 Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, 55 and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities. 56 The most gentle and sensitive woman among you--so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot--will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter 57 the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For in her dire need she intends to eat them secretly because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of your cities."
But they couldn't obey! Why? Because not only is Israel under the Curse of Adam and Eve, which naturally issues confusion and an inability to be Righteous, but they were placed under an additional sleep so that they absolutely could not obey! It is astounding, but this is what the Lord has done. We cannot deny it. It is the Scriptures.
Isaiah 29:10 NIV -
"The LORD has brought over you a deep sleep: He has sealed your eyes (the prophets); he has covered your heads (the seers)."
Paul confirms this but adds the body is Israel to those who were obviously placed into this additional sleep (lest we forget how the Benjamites gang-raped a woman until she died. Imagine that . . . that is some serious "sleep" that the Lord placed them into.
Romans 11:8-11 KJV - 8 (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day. 9 And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them: 10 Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway. 11 I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but [rather] through their fall salvation [is come] unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.
And as the text clearly states, the Lord put them into this Sleep for a Holy Purpose, and that is to fulfill His Holy Plan right before all of our eyes. God placed them into this sleep so that the Gentiles would be brought "in" to the Plan of God. This caused the Blessed Jews to become Jealous.
Again . . . don't judge me. Judge the obvious Scriptures. And by the way, I can offer story after story after story. The entire Bible is filled with the Lord being in control of people, places, things, and all events. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy! :)
