Seeking a Homeland for here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come

Oprah or Glenn Beck can opine about the greatness of "free will" and we all understand the "wonderful" truth that they are talking about.  After all free will is what America is all about - becoming successful by our own choices (basis of capitalism).  We think we can change, because we can choose.  Certainly, this idea has an element of truth, we are definitely responsible for our choices and our choices definitely affect the outcome of our life's successes and failures. However, to apply "free will" as a universal axiom for choice flies in the face of the Bible. For me, the reprobate, damned, self-loving, God-hating, unchanging sinner (that's what we are described as by Scripture) to say that I have any part in the choice of Heaven or Hell misses the point entirely.  The whole of Scripture screams at me the ignorant one "if you did have a choice YOU WOULD CHOOSE HELL!"

By the way the same is true for losing your salvation/"P"erseverance of the Saints.  John MacArthur likes to say, "If I could lose my salvation I would have a long time ago."  Word and word.

The point is this - if the onus (to any degree 100% or .0001 %)  is on you to make the decision you will choose pleasures of sin over Sin-Conqueror.  Perhaps the clearest passage of this truth is the following: (one of my favorites).

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sin which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God (perhaps the greatest conjunction in all of Scripture), being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:1–10 ESV)

The arguments for "free will" are ideologically grounded in two things - 1.)  a lessening of humanity's total depravity and 2.) a sense of entitlement of choice (the second rises from the first).  There is a reason why TULIP begins with T (total depravity) it's the basis by which all Calvinistic soteriology is based upon. Put quite simply dead men don't resurrect themselves. Listen to John Piper's words on the subject - particularly at the end where he says, "Free will explains nothing."