God issues a universal call to salvation
Ezekiel 33:11
I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.
1 Timothy 2:3-4
God our Savior...wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord...is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
But there is a qualifier
John 6:40 - For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life.
Mark 1:15 - The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe the gospel.
Acts 16:31 - Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.
And a problem.
Because of my sin nature, I am incapable of believing
Romans 8:6-7
The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.
1 Corinthians 2:14
The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
So God send the Holy Spirit to illuminate the truth of the Gospel, to convict us of sin, to convince us we are hopelessly lost and incapable of saving ourselves, and to show us our Saviour
1 Corinthians 12:3 - ...no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit.
John 6:44 - No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him...
A dead man is incapable of getting out of the grave and making himself alive; we are born again by the power of the Holy Spirit
John 5:24, 1 John 3:14, 23
I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
Some hear but refuse to believe and are condemned (The lost are lost because they choose to be lost)
Ezekiel 3:27 - Whoever will listen let him listen, and whoever will refuse let him refuse…
John 5:40 - ...you refuse to come to me to have life.
John 12:37 - Even after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him.
2 Thessalonians 2:10 - They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.
Therefore God will “give them over” to their sin and unbelief
Isaiah 6:9-10
Go, and say to this people: “Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.
Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”
Romans 1:28, Acts 7:42
John 12:39
For this reason they could not believe because...He has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn-and I would heal them.
2 Thessalonians 2:11-12
For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.
False prophets and shepherds will then come to lead them into even greater sin (but not sent by God: Jeremiah 8:9-12, Jeremiah 23, Ezekiel 34, Romans 1:32, 2 Timothy 4:3-4)
"Turning over"/Preterition is NOT "Double Predestination"
https://www.gotquestions.org/preterition.html
Jesus Saves - He didn't come to make us savable, or show us how to save ourselves by the "free will" choice we make to save ourselves
Romans 9:16 - It does not...depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy.
Jesus Saves - but God demands we make a decision to give our life to Him, but it is not that decision that saves us.
"To decide for Jesus" based on an intellectual affirmation of the truth of the Gospel is not to be saved.
"To decide for Jesus" based on emotional manipulation or a psychological experience is not to be saved.
"To decide for Jesus" to avoid the hell is not to be saved.
"To decide for Jesus" to find peace, joy, healing or to fix my problems is not to be saved.
The answer to the question "What must I do to be saved?" is not decide, but "Repent and believe
in the Lord Jesus..." Mark 1:15, Acts 2:38, 3:19, 16:31
https://www.gotquestions.org/repent-and-believe-the-gospel.html
C.H. Spurgeon, “Fickle Followers”
https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/fickle-followers/#flipbook/
I frequently hear persons exhorted to give their hearts to Christ, which is a very proper exhortation. But that is not the Gospel! Salvation comes from something that Christ gives you, not something that you give to Christ! The giving of your heart to Christ follows after the receiving from Christ of eternal life by faith. It is easy to work our friends up so that they say, ‘We will give our hearts to Christ,’ but they may never do it, after all.
We cannot come to Christ unless Christ comes to us and gives us a broken heart and a contrite spirit! If there is no repentance, depend upon it that that faith which we think we have is not the faith that will save us! Give me Faith with tears in her eyes—I know her to be the true child of God.
The faith that makes me feel my ruin, confess my sin and lay hold of eternal life because otherwise my merits will bring me to eternal death—this is the faith which saves!
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Preachers and Preaching
A sinner does not “decide” for Christ; the sinner “flies” to Christ in utter helplessness and despair saying – “Foul, I to the fountain fly, Wash me, Saviour, or I die.” No man truly comes to Christ unless he flies to Him as his only refuge and hope, his only way of escape from the accusations of conscience and the condemnation of God's holy law. Nothing else is satisfactory. If a man says that having thought about the matter and having considered all sides he has on the whole decided for Christ, and if he has done so without any emotion or feeling, I cannot regard him as a man who has been regenerated. The convicted sinner no more “decides” for Christ than the poor drowning man “decides” to take hold of that rope that is thrown to him and suddenly provides him with the only means of escape. The term is entirely inappropriate.
“Romans – The Perseverance Of The Saints”
There has been so much emphasis upon decision, receiving, yielding, being wiling, and giving ourselves that salvation is regarded almost exclusively in terms of our activity…Many are in trouble simply because they do not realize the truth concerning the new birth…(that) it is the work of God through the Spirit.
We do not give birth to ourselves, we are not reborn because we believe.
We believe because we are reborn.
Jim Ehrhard The Dangers of the Invitation System
We must be patient to allow the Holy Spirit to work conviction in the heart. That may happen in a few moments, a few hours, days, or even years. To be biblically evangelistic, we must be certain that what we do leads men to faith, not just to decisions.
A.W. Tozer
Salvation is from our side a choice; from the divine side it is a seizing upon, an apprehending, a conquest by the Most High God. Our “accepting” and “willing” are reactions rather than actions. The right of determination must always remain with God.
Mark Dever The Gospel and Personal Evangelism
The Christian call to evangelism is not simply a call to persuade people to make decisions, but rather to proclaim to them the good news of salvation in Christ, to call them to repentance, and to give God the glory for regeneration and conversion.