One of the miseries of having a “free will – obstructable grace” Arminian mentality is that with such a mentality, one tends to focus on himself or herself to get out of trouble. This “free will – obstructable grace” Arminian mentality does not limit itself to a theoretical belief as to how one is saved. This “free will – obstructable grace” mentality extends to affect how one faces daily troubles. This “free will – obstructable grace” Arminian mentality tends to focus on the free will that one has, because he or she knows that he or she can obstruct any grace, and he or she often depends on free will to make the right decisions to get out of daily troubles.
One of the joys of having a “irresistible grace” Calvinist mentality is that with such mentality, one tends to focus on God to get out of trouble. This “irresistible grace” Calvinist mentality also does not limit itself to a theoretical belief as to how one is saved. This “irresistible grace” Calvinist mentality extends to affect how one faces daily troubles. This “irresistible grace” Calvinist mentality tends to focus on irresistible grace that God gives and depends on God and His grace to deliver him or her out of daily troubles.
“The righteous cry and the LORD hears, And delivers them out of all their troubles. The LORD is near to the brokenhearted, And saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous; But the LORD delivers him out of them all.” Psalm 34: 17-19 (emphasis added).
Article 13 of The Belgic Confession states it this way:
“This doctrine gives us unspeakable comfort
since it teaches us
that nothing can happen to us by chance
but only by the arrangement of our gracious
heavenly Father.
He watches over us with fatherly care,
keeping all creatures under his control,
so that not one of the hairs on our heads
(for they are all numbered)
nor even a little bird
can fall to the ground
without the will of our Father.
In this thought we rest,
knowing that he holds in check
the devils and all our enemies,
who cannot hurt us
without his permission and will.”
Jesus described the teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees as leaven and strongly warned His followers to beware of it. See Matthew 16: 12-13. Leaven is “yeast, the substance that causes dough to ferment and rise.” In the Bible, “leaven usually symbolizes corruption.” “It was strictly forbidden in any sacrifices to God. Also, every Jewish household had to be purged of leaven in preparation for the Feast of Unleavened Bread.” Quoted from the Concordance under the word “leaven” in my New American Standard Bible.
Twice in Scripture, we are warned that even a little leaven can affect the whole. “A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough.” Galatians 5: 9. See also I Corinthians 5: 6. You know the concern was not about cooking, but rather the concern was about the effect of false teaching.
In other words, even just a little false teaching can corrupt the surrounding good teaching so that taken together the whole teaching is bad. For example, we know that the Word of God is true and good, but we also know that false teachers can give false teaching that can corrupt their entire message even if part of the message contains quotes from Scripture or good common sense.
Many false teachers will quote from Scripture, but just because they do so does not make their whole message true and good. In fact, just the opposite occurs, even a little false teaching corrupts the whole surrounding teaching.
We are called to “purity in doctrine”. Titus 2: 7. Scripture warns us against tolerating even a little false teaching. Such false teaching can corrupt the whole surrounding “good” teaching. We may think that tolerating Arminianism can be kept to a theory as to how we are saved. However, the Leaven of Arminianism speads to affect how we deal with our daily activities. In conclusion, once we try to secure our eternal salvation by “free will”, we will tend to also try to secure our “daily troubles” salvation by “free will”.
Reformed Doctrine Daily Devotions 