Transcript for:
Exploring Calvinism's History and Theology

uh [Music] [Music] all of life is grace that we live we breathe we do what we do because god enables us to be that way and to live that way the major problem with a grace that operates prior to salvation it makes man the final determiner in his own salvation and so salvation is a matter of man and god working together so man has some ground whereby he can boast it would be right of god to destroy all of us for our sins and if he would have mercy on some he has the right to do that in god's good providence the plan of salvation was a tangible and effective plan of salvation god set out to accomplish the mission of redeeming his own augustine said that man today is born dead in trespasses and sin he needs to be resurrected that we are totally incapable of doing the reality is in scripture god goes after people he has sovereignly chosen he's chosen paul knocks him off the horse and says i've chosen you for this purpose get busy it's a sovereign god in operation not a lonely old man hoping people will follow him the greatest world mission enterprises have all been initiated in the past by men who believe these great doctrines that we've been talking about of the reform we believe that our salvation is by grace that even the faith that we have comes as a gift from god there is nothing that we can lay claim to nothing in which we can boast our salvation entirely comes from the lord god command what you will and give what you command in other words we are dependent upon the grace you give us to accomplish in us your own commands the most significant issue that any human being will ever face is the question how can i escape the judgment of god in order for the good news to be good it has to not just be abstract it has to have the capacity to affect a change in us the doctrine of calvinism has never been defeated because it is the true exposition of scripture hello my name is eric holmberg and i'll be your host for amazing grace the history and theology of calvinism what follows is a three-part presentation that asks and hopefully answers one of the most important questions the human mind can contemplate how exactly is a fallen fallible and finite human a sinner redeemed before an infinitely just and holy god how can a sinner be saved from the judgment of god by the grace of god through the sacrifice for sins that was offered upon the cross well i think the answer to that is really what makes christianity unique among world religions uh because with any other system of belief um you know systems that that understand that there's a fundamental problem with man what we would call sin uh there's also a a system of works by which the practitioner needs to either prove himself or redeem himself through his works his actions and christianity alone is is the one that that basically says you know there's nothing we can do about it we're we're too far gone and only god can can save us at that point the apostle paul probably laid it out best in ephesians when he stated that it's by grace through faith that we're saved and that um it's not by ourselves that it's it's christ who did it you know it's he paid the price so that no man should boast in the works that are done okay but how does that work how exactly does a person get saved you have to believe that jesus christ rose from the dead and i guess in other words that he crews he was crucified on the cross and rose again and paid the price for our sins and by acknowledging him as lord well jesus died for everyone's sins he paid the full price to redeem us from the judgment that awaits our disobedience which is hell he extends the hand of salvation to everyone and all we need to do is take it many don't but many do and those that do are saved you know to answer that i i like what our pastor teaches on that uh he says that you know salvation is like a legal declaration that god is the judge and he's the one that declares us righteous before him um satan is like the accusing attorney jesus is the defense attorney but not only does jesus defend us but he also posts the bail and and um pays the fine so we're we're like the the jury in that respect and we depending on who we choose will determine our eternal destiny the most significant issue that any human being will ever face is the question how can i escape the judgment of god if jesus taught anything he thought that each one of us will be brought before god in a final judgment and we will be exposed to his wrath and exposed to his judgment and that would be the supreme calamity from which to be delivered or to be rescued is which is what the bible means by being saved and so if it's true that we will have to face god and if it's true there is a judgment then the question how can i escape that judgment becomes the most important question i will ever have to deal with all of this raises another related question who gets the glory in this process of redeeming man from his sins and pardoning him from the judgment those sins deserve 100 god it's god and god alone who else but god he's jesus is the only way he's the only sacrifice for sins if we were to survey the over one billion people in the world who call themselves christians when we got down to the nitty-gritty of their beliefs concerning these two vital questions we'd likely find more than a little confusion and while most would probably answer the second question correctly that god alone gets the glory more often than not this response wouldn't be theologically consistent with the details of their first answer [Music] the righteousness of god is revealed from faith to faith as it is written the just shall live by faith by faith man lives and is made righteous not by what he does for himself be it adoration of relics singing of masses pilgrimages to rome purchase of pardon for his sins but by faith in what god has done for him already through his son dr martin if you leave the christian to live only by faith if you sweep away all good works all these glorious things you dismiss as mere crutches what will you put in that place christ man only needs jesus christ the debate concerning this vital issue is as old as christianity itself and in today's relativistic to each's own world many simply resolve the issue by either accepting the contradiction or just sweeping it under the proverbial rug but in the end neither option is acceptable the issues are far too critical to our understanding of the true nature of man grace and the god we're called to worship and serve with this in mind this presentation will attempt to illuminate if not resolve the issue while demonstrating just how amazing saving grace truly is [Music] we'll begin in part one of this presentation with the history of this controversy the struggle to understand god's sovereignty and grace in relation to man's responsibility and free will in part two we'll focus on the bible's testimony concerning these issues and in part three we'll explain how the gospel should be understood and presented in light of these biblical truths the hope here is that you the viewer will be inspired and better prepared to do your part in fulfilling the great commission at the end we'll also direct you to books and ministries which can further your understanding of the system of doctrine known as calvinism augustinianism or what the reverend john newton author of the classic christian hymn called the gospel of amazing grace may god use this video in some small way to inflame his church with the fire of worship and evangelism that was the great awakening [Music] as we now turn to the fascinating history that surrounds the mystery of grace focusing particularly on the controversies that arise whenever mystery is present we would do well to remember the philosopher george santiana's famous observation those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it by examining the past we may by god's grace avoid its mistakes and draw wisdom and encouragement from its victories also pay close attention to the way the controversies help both to define as well as provide a type of incarnational context to the theological issues that undergirded them that will go a long way in helping make the biblical analysis of part two more interesting comprehensible and [Music] memorable [Music] [Applause] now some may ask why begin with the historical survey of the debate instead of going right to the testimony of scripture well by neglecting the creeds councils and other vital facets of the church's rich 2000 year old history many christians have fallen into the trap of having to rediscover what the bible says consider for example the watchtower bible and track society better known as the jehovah's witnesses at one time or another most of us have answered our front door only to find two smiling conservatively dressed members of this group ready to either bear witness to jehovah or to engage in theological debate should the latter take place one quickly learns that the jesus they teach is a very different person from the one worshiped by true christians theirs is a man with no pretense of being god according to their organization's teachings jesus was the first being created by jehovah and that prior to his incarnation through mary he existed as the created being known as michael the archangel what many do not know is that 1700 years ago this doctrine with a few variations was called aryanism after its chief proponent arius as his rationalized version of jesus is not god theology began to spread like a cancer a group of more than 300 pastors elders and deacons came together in the city of nicaea to discuss his views the conclusion of that meeting or council was the condemnation of aries and his teaching thanks to the tireless labors of great defenders of biblical faith most notably athanasius within a generation the heresy was largely defeated and contained and so it remained for many centuries think about it if the leaders of the church in the late 1800s had brought down the whole weight of the word of god as taught by the men of nicaea and that were continually affirmed in subsequent councils the jehovah's witnesses may have faded from the scene as quickly as they came please note that we are not equating church councils as being equal in authority with the bible dr r.c sproul explains although tradition does not rule our interpretation it does guide it if upon reading a particular passage you have come up with an interpretation that has escaped the notice of every other christian for two thousand years or has been championed by universally recognized heretics chances are pretty good that you better abandon your interpretation why have so many in the modern church forsaken the treasures of wisdom and experience won by christians in centuries past some blame an overreaction to the errors of roman catholicism where the traditions and councils of the church were elevated to be virtually equivalent to the word of god unfortunately in reacting against the roman view many christians have allowed the pendulum to swing to the other extreme ignoring church history altogether they've thrown the baby out with the bathwater remembrance and forgetfulness is one of the primary themes throughout the scriptures when god's people forgive they stumble and fall when they remember they're able to set their focus on the things of god that's why in the psalms we're told that righteousness cannot be done in a land of forgetfulness when we don't know our past when we don't know the greatest lessons that the church has ever learned and the greatest works that have ever been written when some new heresy which is really just an old heresy comes along we're caught by surprise christians of all ages should be willing to learn from those who have gone before us the bible says that christ gives gifts to his church including teachers and those teachers are not just the elders and pastors of a local congregation but men who have throughout history been entrusted with great ability to understand the word of god and to teach that word it is the height of arrogance for us to close our ears to or ignore what god taught our fathers he has taught those who have gone before us we stand on their shoulders we ought to be willing to learn from them and so what councils have declared what teachers have made known the lessons that have stood the test of time we ought to be willing to consider those and weigh those not as final authority not as an equal authority with the word of god at all but to measure them in the light of what the word says i think that is simply the berean spirit that is humility that is what christ would require of his disciples of any generation and this is precisely what we'll attempt to do throughout this presentation examine church history in light of the testimony of scripture [Music] [Music] [Music] as jesus prophesied the early church suffered many trials and tribulations most of them at the hands of the pharisees and the romans however as time passed and the church grew the greatest trials were to come from within the church itself every so often a hereto could rise up savage wolves in the words of the apostle paul who would come from within the church and not spare the flock speaking perverse things in order to draw away disciples after themselves there is a cycle that commonly occurs with the introduction of false doctrines first a person or group of persons from within the christian community begin to challenge the already established teachings of the church this is important to understand heresies invariably arise in direct opposition to what is already being proclaimed throughout the body of believers second the heresy is presented and then spread through the use of books tracks and letters and verbal proclamation after the spurious teaching has gained enough followers and created sufficient controversy to warrant a response a council of senior leaders pastors teachers and deacons is then convened to search the scriptures to find out whether these things were so in acts 15 for example we see just such a council meeting convened in this case to settle the question of how much of the hebrew law a gentile believer had to obey and finally a statement would be drawn up showing how and why the new doctrine would pervert an essential part of the gospel this is how creeds and confessions were developed they were essentially a formal response to false or controversial teachings during the 5th century of the christian era a new controversy arose that shook the church it started when the premier theologian of the time aurelius augustine also known as saint augustine of hippo wrote a simple prayer that began to circulate throughout christendom lord give what thou commandest and command with thou wilt a british monk by the name of pelagius vehemently disagreed with the prayer he declared that god would never give a command unless man was capable of his own free will and ability to accomplish it he further maintained that man was not overcome by sin to the point where he could do nothing to satisfy god tracing his ideas back to their logical beginning pelagius went on to assert that no one was contaminated by the fall nor were they born in sin but a baby instead was tabula rosa latin for a blank sheet of paper and was therefore perfectly capable of obeying and pleasing god as this controversy between augustine and pelagius developed it became increasingly clear to everyone concerned that the debate was not centered around semantics or doctrinal hair splitting at issue were several principles at the core of the christian belief system doctrines concerning the fundamental nature of god man and the gospel as the controversy came into clear focus a simple all-important question began to emerge does man need god's grace in order to stand before him in righteousness pelagius responded with an emphatic no while god's help is always appreciated it's not absolutely necessary man can simply exercise his free will and choose not to sin augustine was just as insistent when he declared yes man is utterly dependent upon god's grace because he has been ruined by the sin of adam and can do absolutely nothing to redeem himself before the wrath of the infinite holy god the stakes here were huge as many christian scholars both then and later were quick to recognize one such scholar noted there has never perhaps been another crisis of equal importance in church history in which the opponents have expressed the principles at issue so clearly and abstractly the aryan dispute before the council of nicaea can alone compare with the pelagian controversy if you think about it augustine's prayer sounds innocent enough lord give with thou commandest and command with thou wilt what was augustine asking of god augustine was recognizing that all of life is grace that we live we breathe we do what we do because god enables us to be that way and to live that way so by acknowledging our utter dependence upon god he asks for the grace and then acknowledges you command whatever you will give the grace to do what you command you commanded us to worship lord grant us the ability to worship you commanded us to pray grant us the ability to pray you've commanded us to evangelize grant us the ability to evangelize and every real christian at his best moment would acknowledge the rightness of both of those requests because when we pray we're asking god to do for us what we can't do for ourselves god command what you will and give what you command in other words we are dependent upon the grace you give us to accomplish in us your own commands in essence augustine was simply asking god for help so why would this seemingly innocent prayer have caused such a backlash from pelagius i thought that this presented god in a bad light and he also thought that it was a an affront to human nature well pelagius was basically a moralist pelagius believed that man had not been so corrupted that he couldn't be perfected in this life and the prayer that god would have to grant something to us for us to perform what he required to him was blasphemous god had already done that we were not so dependent upon god as to need that kind of supernatural empowering grace what we needed is simply the act of our wills and the getting our lives together to pursue the things that god had really commanded us to do so pelagius did not see life as being a matter of grace and only grace for him christianity was basically moralism man could do it so why you don't need to pray for god to grant you that which you already have the ability to perform with the teachings of pelagius humanism and its doctrine of the natural ability of man came to the forefront of christian thought though it had been a dominant belief system within the greco-roman culture that had greatly influenced the world for many centuries now it sprang full form into the culture of the church pelagius as a humanist believed that each person was created like a new adam perfect untethered by the influence of a sinful nature and perfectly capable of obeying the commands of god of course many do choose to sin from time to time and so jesus atonement provided a real benefit to them understanding this man could then use his own intelligence and free will to choose forgiveness in christ without any necessary assistance from outside himself pelagius rejected the idea that there was any connection between adam and what the books called his posterity that means all the persons that have been born after him but that adam sinned for himself and for himself alone and that all of us are born with the same powers that adam had what pelagius denied was what the apostolic church labeled original sin original sin is the biblical teaching that states as a result of the fall in which adam died spiritually and ultimately physically all of those born after adam carry within themselves a corrupt nature and the guilt of adam's first sin and if you ignore or deny the doctrine of original sin the doctrine of the fall and the fallen nature of man as being in his unregenerate state dead in trespasses and sins if you deny that and see him as in the same state as adam was at his creation then you're going to produce and create an entire superstructure of theology which is all wrong and that's why i think the pelagian heresy was so important so what impact would pelagius's teaching have had upon the church if the leaders at that time had not spoken out against him listen again to dr kennedy if pelagius were right and man today is born in the same way that adam was created that is adam was created we believe immortal and sinless and if we were created in the same way today then we don't need christ we don't need a savior only sinners need a savior and according to pelagius sin was not inevitable in fact he believed in todd that there were many who never committed a single sin this of course led to the question do these men who never sin die pelagius answers sent him further away from the heart of orthodox christianity he asserted that death was a natural occurrence even to adam and that adam would have eventually died even if he had never sinned by combining the teaching that man has a will avoided the consequences of the fall and the denial of man's sin nature as dr kennedy already noted pelagius made salvation by grace through faith unnecessary as this controversy spread those called to shepherd the church of god which he purchased with his own blood convened a council to deal with it meeting in the northern african city of carthage in 412 a.d both sides were present to argue their case in the end the council overwhelmingly agreed with augustine according to the word of god man was conceived and brought forth in sin man's will was not in any way free according to the doctrine of pelagius but was instead in bondage to his sinful nature as a result of the fall given the opportunity to choose between good and evil god or the devil the unregenerate man would always and freely choose evil and the devil unless god himself intervened pelagius as well as anyone who followed his teaching were condemned as heretics the decision of this council reads in part whoever says that adam was created mortal and would even without sin have died by natural necessity let him be anathema the scripture says that the wages of sin is death death was promised as a result of disobedience and one of the chief evidences that we are all sinners and it is set forth all the way through scripture is that death is a common occurrence physical death which is an indication that we all are living in a corruptable state of spiritual death well when pelagius and celestias taught that men were mortal from the beginning and would have died whether they had sinned or not this seemed to remove the what was a biblical evidence for the veracity of god in placing the curse on a disobedient humanity if unfallen man had died anyway then that means that the threat of god for disobedience would have been basically nonsense to our modern pluralistic years declaring that somewhat should be anathema or accursed for holding a sincere doctrinal viewpoint sounds bizarre even unchristian again dr nettle's response well when these councils in some of these decisions with let him be anathema they're picking the phrase up from the biblical example in galatians 1 where paul talks about if anyone preach a gospel to you other than that which i've preached let him be anathema in other words let that person be cut off from the church but the real meaning is let that person be cut off from the possibility of salvation because paul understood this to be something that was a destruction of the gospel and so when the church uses that kind of language whether or not it's legitimate for a church council to do that is another question but what they're trying to say is that this is an issue that is so important that we feel that if a person believes this they actually are destroying an essential aspect of the gospel and so it is better for that person simply to be cut off from the church than to allow them to continue to teach and have the possibility of destroying souls in total three councils condemn pelagianism in all its forms six years after the council of carthage a general council of african churches reaffirmed the anathemas of 412 a.d unfortunately in the interval between these two councils the bishop of rome zosimus sided with pelagius in 412 he wrote a letter condemning the council at carthage for their anathema of pelagius of course understanding that they had the support of scripture the leaders of the carthaginian council disregarded the bishop and his letter philip schaff noted church historian observes this temporary favor of the bishop of rome towards the pelagian heresy is a significant pressage of the indulgence of later popes for pelagianizing tendencies it was these pelagianizing tendencies advocated by the bishop of rome that allowed for the later development of the works righteousness in the roman catholic belief system this can perhaps be best illustrated by the life and writings of cornelius otto janssen a leader of the post-reformation movement within roman catholicism most of his works were published and became popular after his death in 1640. like martin luther jansen believed that the church of rome had departed from the early church's position that all of life was by the grace of god and like augustine he taught that man's spirit was dead in sin and therefore needed to be regenerated what the bible called born again jansen understood that this experience was something that happened to man by god's grace and not something that a man made happen by his faith on behalf of the pope the jesuits launched a violent attack on the jansenist movement in 1713 pope clement xi issued a papal bull or formal condemnation against them denouncing 101 statements from their writings what's troubling is that many of these statements were direct quotations from the writings of augustine against pelagius [Music] how could this happen to a church that at one time sided with augustine against pelagius surely there was more than just one answer but philip schaff has given us one slice of the pie as the church continued into the middle ages and the bishop of rome became the so-called quote visible head of the church end quote these pelagianizing tendencies metastasized and like a cancer began to spread by the time we reached the reformation rome was teaching that man saved himself by cooperating with the grace of god a position known as semi-pelagianism then along came the mediating view of the semipelagians that said man is neither dead nor well in this life man is born sick now if man is born well as pelagius said all he needs is a little guidance a little moral guidance in his life to stay up on the path if man is sick then he needs the help of a physician and if he will cooperate with his physician then he and the physician can affect his cure adam excuse me augustine said that man today is born dead in trespasses and sin he needs to be resurrected that we are totally incapable of doing so the practical result is if you are a pelagian all you need is a teacher if you are semi-pelagian all you need is a little help from a physician if you are an augustinian as i am and most all of the historic orthodox church has been then you will realize that man needs to be resurrected from the dead and that salvation furthermore is entirely of grace semi-pelagianism is a modification of the doctrinal teaching of pelagius it is a synergistic rather than a monarchistic approach to redemption it basically teaches that man and god are cooperating together in order to accomplish redemption [Music] do [Music] on september 1st 1524 desiderius erasmus of rotterdam a roman catholic apologist published a work entitled diatribe concerning free will martin luther the german reformer responded with on the enslave will or the bondage of the will a masterful apologetic that referenced over 300 bible verses luther maintained the full augustinian position against the semi-pelagian position of erasmus it would be difficult to overstate the significance of this book luther considered it to be his most important work because it spoke to the issues that went to the very heart of what it meant to be a christian dr b b warfield the great princeton theologian called the bondage of the will the manifesto of the protestant reformation luther's book drew a line in the sand between the roman catholic view of justification and the reform view and the debate that followed became known as the monarchistic synergistic controversy when erasmus wrote his diatribe on free will he was writing this against martin luther the church had really knew that luther was making some inroads and so they wanted the greatest continental humanist to to take aim at luther erasmus hesitated for a long time but finally he found what he thought he could conscientiously focus on and that was luther's recapture of augustinian thought that we are absolutely and utterly dependent upon the sovereign working of god and that we have nothing to contribute to our own salvation and so in this book erasmus opted for a view of salvation that says that god offers us grace but we still have some elements of freedom within us within us by which we can either choose this grace or reject this grace and it is our choice that god rewards them with salvation erasmus's main thesis in his treatment of the will this diet tribe on the will is that man has the ability to initiate the relationship with god through faith in jesus christ he has the ability within himself to believe and through that faith in access all that goes with faith in justification and reconciliation with god dr askal explains the semi-pelagian view of synergism synergism comes from a compound word in greek together working together and it basically teaches that man and god cooperate in the initiation of faith that man does his part god does his part and so it's a cooperative work the prefix sin means with or together with at the same time it refers to two or more it's used in words like synchronized ergos is a greek word for work in theological terms as dr askal has already noted synergism refers to divine and human cooperation god and man work together to bring about the latter's conversion martin luther saw this as little more than a works based salvation dressed up in evening clothes luther believed the semi-pelagianism of erasmus denied original sin the full impact the fall had on man instead of being dead in his trespasses and sins man was according to erasmus only wounded and therefore could help himself by helping god luther understood that erasmus view made the grace of god a reward for our faith in other words man believes the gospel and as a result of his good work god gives him grace and no matter how you slice it in the end man deserves some of the credit or the glory for his salvation and so it was the glory of god that was at stake in this view of salvation according to luther against the synergistic view of erasmus luther believed that being born again or born from above was monergistic mono is the greek word meaning one or alone it's the prefix for words like monotheism the belief in one god monarchism then was the belief that regeneration or the new birth was to be understood as the work of god alone because man was dead in trespasses and sin it was god and only god who brought man back to life sending his spirit to revive regenerate and resurrect man from the hopeless condition of spiritual death it may be helpful at this point to briefly explain that the terms born again and what we deem as salvation or justification are not synonymous terms many modern day christians equate the two luther emphatically taught that fallen man does not have faith in order to be born again but that man is born again by the spirit and the word and as a result has faith luther rightly understood that when the bible describes the condition of man in sin it is a desperate condition man in sin is not just sick he is dead a sick man can help himself a little bit but a dead man needs a supernatural miraculous work of grace to bring him back to life luther recognized that and that's why in his bondage on the will he considered this to be the most important significant work that he did the most important book he ever wrote and it's also why in the conclusion of that book he thanks erasmus for writing against his view and commending the freedom of the will he says erasmus you of all my opponents have really seen the issue this is the hinge on which all else turns luther understood that it's not enough to advocate solafide faith alone but solafide also is dependent upon sola gratia grace alone and the faith which we exercise in jesus christ is itself a gift of god and it is produced in us by the work of the spirit after the death of martin luther the german church forged a statement of faith that outlined many of the distinctives of the lutheran church collected into what became known as the book of concord it became the standard statement of faith for all confessing lutheran churches among its articles was a clear affirmation of the monarchistic position on salvation man of himself or from his natural powers cannot contribute anything or help to his conversion and that conversion is not only in part but altogether an operation gift and present and work of the holy ghost alone who accomplishes and effects it by his virtue and power through the word in the understanding of the heart and will of man but the formula of concord set forth very clearly luther's historic view that uh it is only by the work of god's spirit and god's word that the human heart is changed and comes to faith in christ again the monarchistic view was affirmed very strongly in the book of concord in response to the challenge and growth of the reformation pope paul iii convened a council on the 13th of december 1545 in the city of trent in what is now northern italy meeting periodically over the next 18 years this council produced many doctrinal statements that were to serve as dogma official and supposedly infallible statements concerning faith and morality that were to bind the consciences of all true christians among them was an anathema or condemnation declared in the fifth canon of the sixth session if anyone says that after the sin of adam man's free will was lost and destroyed let him be anathema this acknowledgment of the semi-pelagian doctrine of free will went straight to the heart of the dispute between the roman church's teaching on salvation and that of the reformers as martin luther observed if any man doth a scribe ought of salvation even the very least to the free will of man he knoweth nothing of grace and he hath not learnt jesus christ a right charles spurgeon the great baptist preacher later echoed luther's statement when he declared he who in his soul believes that man does of his own free will turn to god cannot have been taught of god luther and the reformers knew that the issue of free will versus the bondage of the will went to the first principle of justification and if compromised it would not only put man in the code driver's seat concerning the vital issue of salvation it would give him some of the glory for having sense enough to get saved now this is important because if it's not true or if we argue against this we're actually robbing god of his glory which gives god more glory which recognizes the greatness of his work a helper who gives a little medicine to a sick man or a miracle worker who looks at a dead man and says live luther recognized the glory of god and salvation is much greater than just a medicine man who gives a little aid to someone who is sick but rather here's a miracle of grace i was dead i was lost i was without hope without helping the world and all of those bible verses that luther was familiar with to teach that he saw clearly and he took seriously and god came and saved me god did it it is his work so all praise goes to god it's not a question of praise me for trusting jesus and jesus for accepting my faith and saving me it's praise god for saving me because he quickened me he changed me he granted me faith and enabled me to trust his son all praise goes to him all glory goes to him no praise no glory belongs to anyone else at the heart of the reform faith is the phrase soledad gloria to god alone goes the glory and i know of no other system of thought that consistently honors god and gives the whole glory to god no glory to us then what we call reformed theology or historic calvinism that to me is the one that is most consistent with the biblical approach to honoring god [Music] many of history's greatest evangelists and preachers would agree among them was george whitefield the lightning rod of the great awakening a man used by god to bring tens perhaps hundreds of thousands of souls to christ it was whitfield who contended that the semi-pelagian doctrine of free will ultimately compromised both preaching and the invitation for people to believe in the lord jesus what did whitefield mean one of the great things about the good news that george woodfield grasped when he said that the armenian gospel is no gospel at all is that in order for the good news to be good it has to not just be abstract it has to have the capacity to enter into us to to affect a change in us if god made it possible for us to be saved and left us in our total depravity that's sort of hypothetical good news to use an analogy the semi-pelagian free will gospel is like taking a blind man to an art auction and then offering to purchase for him the painting he considers to be the most beautiful this of course would be absurd the blind man must first be given new eyes a feat he cannot accomplish by simply willing himself to see living as we do in an age that has been so influenced by humanism many christians today view the biblical augustinian lutheran calvinistic monarchistic position concerning salvation as strange unbelievable and wrong even heretical they would do well to consider what else and who else they would have to dismiss as also being an error history is filled with champions of the faith who considered the synergistic view of free will as being directly opposed to both god's sovereignty and the true gospel ironically many are revered by lots of modern-day semi-pelagians protestant and roman catholic alike among these defenders of the reformed view of free will and salvation are dr martin lloyd jones pastor of westminster chapel in london jonathan edwards another key leader of the great awakening john bunyan pastor and author of the classic work pilgrim's progress august top lady writer of the classic hymn rock of ages dr john owen arguably england's greatest non-conformist pastor and theologian william wilberforce english parliamentarian and champion of the abolition of slavery john a brodus namesake of broadman press j.p boyce founder of the southern baptist theological seminary bh carroll founder of southwestern theological seminary roger williams pastor and founder of the very first baptist church in america william carey the baptist minister known as the father of modern missions john fox author of fox's book of the martyrs the great anglican bishop j.c ryle a.w pink influential author and baptist minister dr francis schaefer author of the classic how shall we then live john newton writer of the classic hymn amazing grace matthew henry of the matthew henry commentary on the whole bible and charles spurgeon pastor of the metropolitan tabernacle in london and known as the prince of preachers and these are just a few other champions could be mentioned who currently serve the church today among them j.i packer d james kennedy r.c sprole albert mohler john mcarthur and john piper and then there are the great confessions of faith that have guided and illuminated the church for centuries each decisively monarchistic the waldensian creed the belgic confession the heidelberg catechism the 39 articles of the church of england the aforementioned book of concord the westminster confession of faith the baptist confession of 1689 we could go on and on the greatest eras of of of evangelism the greatest evangelistic movements culture changing evangelistic movements the greatest world mission enterprises have all been uh initiated in the past by men who believe these great doctrines that we've been talking about of the reformed faith unfortunately many in the church refused to heed these councils and the cycles of false teaching continued to revolve [Music] [Music] as the gap between rome and the reformers grew attempts were made consciously and unconsciously to find a compromise between the two positions the next cycle of false teaching this time growing up from within the ranks of the protestant movement involved a very sincere man by the name of james arminius arminius was born in ootwater in the netherlands he became a pastor of an amsterdam congregation and a professor at the university of leiden from 1603 until his death in 1609 during the course of his life arminius rejected many of the teachings of the reformation and returned to the semi-pelagian view of rome in 1610 one year after arminius's death his followers drafted five articles of faith based upon his teachings these five points of what came to be called arminianism stood in contradistinction to what the church of holland had been teaching since the reformation these five articles also called the remonstrance or protest were then presented to the reformed church the armenian party insisted that the church's statements of faith the belgian confession and the heidelberg catechism be adapted to conform to the five points of armenianism [Music] in november of 1618 a national synod or council was convened in the city of dort for the purpose of examining the views of the armenian party 84 members and 18 civil commissioners including 27 delegates from germany switzerland england and elsewhere were in attendance from the first day until the senate's closed in may of 1619 some 154 sessions were held the result was an overwhelming rejection of the five points of arminianism since the armenian attack had been so focused and severe the men who were part of the synod believed a mere rejection of the five points of arminianism would be insufficient to stem the tide of error they therefore responded to each of the five points in turn formulating what has come to be called the five points of calvinism what the senate of dart did was to reaffirm the confessional statement that already existed in the dutch reform church and they reaffirmed it in light of the particular objections that the ramon struntz had brought against it it's known today as the five points of calvinism but calvin didn't sit down one day and say i'm gonna write my theology in five points and then write out these five points but the reason they came out is five distinct points was because it was in response to the objections of the armenians or the the ramon struts dr j.i packer author of the classic work knowing god summarized the armenian position as put forth by the remonstrance number one man is never so completely corrupted by sin that he cannot savingly believe the gospel when it's put before him number two man is never so completely controlled by god that he cannot reject god's grace number three election is as a result of god looking down the quarters of time foreseeing that a sinner will accept christ therefore god elects those who first elect him number four christ's death did not ensure the salvation of anyone for it did not secure the gift of faith for the remonstrance there was no such gift what it did was rather to create a possibility of salvation for everyone if they would only choose to believe and number five it ultimately rests with the believers to keep themselves in a state of grace by keeping up their faith those who fail here fall away and are lost dr packer concludes armenianism made man's salvation depend ultimately on man himself saving faith being viewed throughout as man's own work in essence armenianism recaptured the synergistic position of semi-pelagianism and roman catholicism teaching that salvation is accomplished through the combined efforts of god who takes the initiative and man who must respond with man's response being the ultimate determining factor god has provided salvation for everyone but his provision becomes effective only for those who have their own free will choose to cooperate with him and accept his free offer of grace at the crucial point man's will plays a decisive role the catalyst or active ingredient thus man's good work and not god's determines who will be recipients of the gift of grace the synod of dord as we've seen responded to the five points of the armenian party with what is known today as the five points of calvinism we'll wait until the next section to examine each of these points in detail but in essence they are as follows number one total depravity in response to the armenian view of free will number two unconditional election in contradistinction to conditional election number three particular or what is commonly referred to as limited atonement in opposition to general or universal atonement number four irresistible grace in reply to resistable grace and number five perseverance of the saints in answer to the idea that a saved man could be unsaved in short the leaders at the synod of dort like luther calvin and augustine taught that salvation is accomplished by the almighty power of the triune god the father chooses or elects people to be saved the son redeems them through his cross and the holy spirit makes christ's death effective by bringing the elect to faith and repentance thereby causing them willingly to believe the gospel the entire process is the work of god and is by and through grace alone thus god's grace and not man's good work determines who will be saved the leaders assembled a door understood that the five points of armenianism were on shaky ground that if one point were proven wrong the entire system would collapse the armenians were ejected out of the church over 300 ministers were expelled as a result of their disagreement with the doctrinal teaching of the dutch church that teaching was reformational theology or calvinism as it is more popularly known the synod of dort taught that salvation from beginning to end was a work of god's grace alone they believed that adam's fall had ruined the whole race and plunged man into spiritual death that entangled his will in bondage to sin and satan to teach that man could save himself by an exercise of his will apart from the grace of god which is pelagianism or contribute to his own salvation by having men cooperate with the grace of god which is semi-pelagianism was heresy a giant step away from the reformation and back towards roman catholicism the reformers felt that if they acquiesced to the protests or the remonstrations of the armenians at that time that in a very real way they would have been putting their feet back on a path to rome now let me clarify that i don't think any of them believed that arminianism was or is today roman catholicism we're talking about putting your feet on a path that goes in a certain direction now the big difference between historic arminianism and roman catholicism is that arminianism does believe and affirms categorically the doctrine of justification by faith alone that is an orthodox armenian believes that the grounds for his justification for his salvation is not his own righteousness but the righteousness that has been won for him by the work of jesus christ however when you get down to the nitty-gritty and you push arminianism to its logical conclusion there is where you see the extreme danger of slipping into a works righteousness and if once you acknowledge free will which luther and all of the other reformers denied then you open the door for all of the various roman catholic heresies that came along as well as that one so did the reformers believe that man had a will one that's free to choose one thing over another without the necessary intrusion of some outside force again dr kennedy are total depravity and free will compatible yes and no as we said to an earlier question free will can mean one of two things if we're talking about the sense in which free will exists in every human being whether regenerate or unregenerate then we could say yes obviously they're compatible because unregenerate people do make choices that's the sense in which man is free to choose whatever he wants to choose all men are free to do that the unregenerate man makes choices every day what tie he'll wear whether to eat for dinner whatever it may be and but in the sense in which it the significant sense in which it's used in the bible which is man is free to do what he ought to do which is repent of his sins turn from his wickedness surrender his life to christ and follow him in godliness man unregenerate man is not free to do that the more he hears of it the more he dislikes it and he his will and heart and mind must be changed for him to do that the reformers believe that man did have a will and they believe that man's will is free to choose one thing over another without the necessary intrusion of some outside force what they objected to was the pelagian semi-pelagian and armenian view of free will they unequivocally held that as a result of the fall man's will was now in bondage to sin and death and has lost the ability apart from the outside influence of god's grace to choose the perfect good in relation to the spiritual realm rather than a god-centered will a will that desires to please and honor the lord as the prime of facial motivation for everything man says does and thinks the fallen will is ultimately grounded in self and while this self may and often does choose things that are relatively good and that can occasionally even outwardly approximate the moral perfection modeled by jesus in the consuming fire of god's perfect sight fallen man's most righteous deeds are as filthy rags corrupted by the leaven of a self-directed will in the end man is free to choose but can of necessity only choose from among the things that has fallen nature will of its own accord consider dying to self and living wholeheartedly for the true god is not something that would ever show up on fallen man's radar screen of options in spite of all the councils synods creeds and confessions created to deal with this issue most of the bible believing church today is armenian of course most are not consistent with respect to many aspects of their theology people pray for example as if god were truly sovereign and omnipotent leading the great baptist preacher charles spurgeon to famously declare you have heard a great many armenian sermons i dare say but you've never heard an armenian prayer for the saints in prayer appear as one in word and deed and mine an armenian on his knees would pray desperately like a calvinist with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek spurgeon then went on to explain that if an armenian were to pray in a way consistent with his free will theology you would sound something like this lord i thank thee that i am not like those poor presumptuous calvinists lord i was born with a glorious free will i was born with power by which i can turn to thee of myself i have improved my grace if everybody had done the same with their grace that i have they might all have been saved thou giveth grace to everybody some do not improve it but i do there are many who will go to hell as much bought with the blood of christ as i was they had as much of the holy ghost given to them they had as good a chance and were as much blessed as i am it was not thy grace that made us to differ i know it did a great deal still i turned the point i made use of what was given me and others did not this is the difference between me and them of course no true christian would ever dare to utter such nonsense blasphemy really to the lord but if you're an armenian you need to think through your presuppositions though you would never say it with your mouth isn't this where your theology ultimately leads the apostle paul declared that there is no room in the gospel for boasting arminianism at its root allows for it thankfully more and more bible-believing christians today are coming to understand the doctrines of sovereign free grace and are now making their boasts in the lord the doctrine of calvinism has never been defeated because you can't defeat the scripture calvin's teaching is the true teaching of christ paul as they are presented in the scripture thus it is impossible to defeat this teaching you might defeat hyper calvinism a perversion of calvinism but you cannot defeat calvin's theology because it is the true exposition of scripture [Music] if only some of our people all of our people could realize that in this psalm david is telling us in the o lord i trust in thy righteousness deliver me if only everybody could understand these words how much better they would understand god's righteousness and what dear brother is god's righteousness well exactly what scripture says father that it delivers and does not merely judge rather an interesting interpretation of scripture did you learn that in rome not that i recall father prior from your studies of the church fathers no your own to the best my knowledge is there is only one proper interpretation of scripture that which the church has established what is scripture where in the hands of common man for every pot boy and swineherd to read in his own language and interpret for himself what then then we might have more christian's father [Music] [Music] historically whenever a church council was convened it was for all intents and purposes a trial it's telling that even today some denominations still call the gathering of elders pastors and bishops the court of the lord jesus or synod another word for court if a court was called to try a new teaching each side in the controversy was allowed to present their arguments evidence and witnesses at the conclusion a verdict was then rendered and so it happened when the armenian party started teaching things contrary to the confessions and accepted doctrine of the dutch church the church was forced by the controversy that ensued to put these new teachings on trial the court or senate of dort was convened in november of 1618 to deal with the armenian challenge while the key points of disagreement were relatively simple they had many complex implications that went to the very heart of the gospel at its foundation was an ultimate question how does fallen man come to a saving knowledge of the lord jesus christ the armenian party's first point became known as partial depravity or the wounded man theory although man is fallen they insisted that his mind will and emotions were only wounded by the fall therefore the human will is free and still self-controlled having power to yield to the influence of the truth and the spirit or to resist them and perish the senate of dort responded to the contrary articulating what has come to be known as total depravity or the dead man theory simply stated in the fall men didn't just become spiritually sick he died as a result he is completely unable to do any ultimate good in the eyes of god including believing the gospel since the fall of adam every person is conceived and born by their very nature spiritually dead and a slave to sin though we still have a will and are free to choose what we want to choose we are not able to choose what is contrary to our nature in the end the will of fallen man can only embrace sin and its ultimate wages death but what total depravity means is that every faculty that we have is affected by the fall every faculty we have is predisposed to unholiness our mind our will our emotions our memory our conscience all of these things are affected and impacted and are predisposed toward corruption and evil it does not mean that man is as bad as he could be nor does it mean that every unregenerate man is equally bad there are obviously some people who are worse than others what it does mean is that the fall of adam an original sin does impact every part of man's being namely his mind his heart and his will so does the bible the word of god teach that man is partially or totally depraved spiritually wounded or spiritually dead any answer must take into full account the following sober assessments of man's inherent nature in our fallenness the bible describes us as darkened in our understanding and carnally minded at enmity with god and incapable of being subject to him haters of god and lovers of darkness dead in our transgressions and sins and by nature children of wrath without the life of god in our souls slaves to our sinful nature captive to a my will be done ethic and epistemology with hearts that are so twisted with our self-centeredness that out of them come evil thoughts vulgar deeds stealing murder unfaithfulness in marriage greed meanness deceit indecency envy insults pride and foolishness we have turned everyone to his own way that even the thoughts and imaginations of our hearts are evil continually from our youth [Music] a wise man once observed that the bible doesn't just contain theology or man's study of god it's also the lord's anthropology god's analysis of man and that analysis is well summed up by the apostle paul when he echoed the words of king david in the 14th psalm as it is written there is none righteous no not one there is none who understands there is none who seeks after god they have all turned aside they have together become unprofitable there is none who does good no not one their throat is an open tomb with their tongues they have practiced deceit the poison of asps is under their lips whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness their feet are swift to shed blood destruction and misery are in their ways and the way of peace they have not known there is no fear of god before their eyes we talk about free will a great deal but the fact is man's will is bound by his own sinfulness so there's only a certain range that he's going to be able to choose within he's not able to choose all the best things the highest things the most godly things because sin has bound his will the bottom line the calvinist saw that the remonstrance was giving fallen man more credit than he deserved and attributing an ability that simply not there and they understood that how one viewed the fall would be reflected in how one understood believed and preached the gospel i think most armenians mean by free will the power to initiate a relationship with god to take that first step it's even in one of the most popular hymns that it's used it's used in armenian churches if you'll take the first step toward the savior my friend you'll find his arms open wide well i've heard preachers say if you take the first step god will take all the rest so can fallen man who is spiritually dead take any steps can he cry out for help the person is dead in trespasses and sin i like to think of him not as a man who's fallen off the second floor with a slight concussion uh broken leg into fractured ribs but he can call for help but rather he's like one who's fallen off the series building in chicago and he's sprouted on the ground so he doesn't need a little help what he needs is life and only god can give that you see you know one of the things we must bring back into our approach to evangelism is to help the lost understand that they're walking corpses that they are dead in their sins and what brings that to light is the law i i know that we've moved away from the law a great deal in our modern church but the fact is it's the law as applied to a human life that reveals the fact that that life is dead in their transgressions and sins to help us further understand the implications of both of these positions consider the following lesson from two video series i did over the last 15 years in 1989 i produced an expose unquote secular rock music entitled hell's bells the dangers of rock and roll this series was seen by tens of thousands of people around the world and the holy spirit saw fit to use it as a tool to draw many thousands of people to christ in the last of the six parts of the series as we were dialing in on the challenge to repent and believe the gospel i used the following analogy that perfectly reflects the sick but still alive position of modern armenianism the biblical picture of man without god is much like this poor fellow right here he's in critical condition suffering from a sinful wicked heart that has separated him from god spiritually dead and unable to do even the least thing to help himself when his heart stops beating he'll be launched into an eternity without hope this person is in desperate need of help implicit in this analogy is a foundational principle of modern armenianism that fallen man though desperately sick is still alive and has the ability to choose christ if he so desires over the intervening decade before we produce the update or sequel my theology like so many others began to change i don't want to in any way sound patronizing to those who love god and his word and still believe that fallen men have the ability to choose god but as i became more familiar with the bible and the doctrines of grace as i began to better understand the nature of the god i served as well as the condition of man in his fallen state i gradually became a convinced calvinist and so when it came time to remake the important point about the deceptions of pop music the analogy took a significantly different slant the biblical picture of man without god is much like this poor fellow right here trapped in the coffin of his fallen nature and unable to do the least thing to help or redeem himself while physically alive and brimming with potential from a human perspective to an infinite and incomprehensibly holy god our sin our innate drive to live life on our own terms has cut us off from god and his eternal life to put it bluntly we are spiritually dead and only a heartbeat away from eternal judgment the only way out of this black hole is to be born again to have our sins blotted out through the sacrifice jesus made on the cross there are two analogies that the scriptures use for someone who is dead in their trespasses one is the analogy of the corpse the other is the analogy of progressive corruption in romans 1 for instance we see that someone who is dead in their trespasses can actually descend to deeper and deeper depths by giving themselves over to best deal or be steal impulses as a result we have to be careful to realize that just because a person is lost doesn't mean that they have descended to the depths of corruption that they could if just turned completely loose even for the non-believer even for the non-christian there are ranges of hardening there are variations in the condition of heart and so even a person who's not given to god can become progressively hardened and progressively more wicked based on what influences are operating in their lives an unrepented unregenerate child of the devil can never choose good as far as god is concerned total depravity does not mean that the person cannot do anything good as man counts good it does not mean he's as bad as he can be it simply means that he has been affected totally in his being as a result of the fall so he can never do anything good as far as god is concerned as a matter of fact the prophet isaiah in 64 6 says all our righteousness is his filthy rags in his sight so if our righteousness is a filth iraq then you know what everything else is from there pastor bowie said it well fallen man can never choose what is good in the eyes of god and yet the armenians were teaching the unregenerate man with help from god could choose the greatest good the gospel man in their view is the archetypal idiot savant retaining an isle of genius that is fundamentally untouched by the fall when presented with the choice between life and death he is no longer a slave to sin he is in fact free and possesses the ability to choose life it's important at this point to discuss the difference between the words may and can what grabbed me about total depravity as i was reading the scripture is that little word can can is a word of ability and may is a word of permission and i am a stickler for making that distinction now even with my children because i want them to get right theology it was because i confused those two words i didn't get right theology for a long time one of the passages that stands out very clearly in my mind that drove home to me the point that i could not choose good it's what jesus said in john chapter 6 verse 44 no man can come except he's joined by the father prior to that time it'll always seem to be that anybody can choose to come whenever they get ready but then i found that though man can incarnate the word of ability you see the bible makes it clear that every man woman and child should come to christ they have his permission in fact they're even commanded by god to repent and have faith in him the problem the dilemma really is that they're dead buried away in the coffin of sin there's no spiritual life in them they don't have the ability to see the kingdom of god to repent and have faith they simply can't do it every human being on earth has the freedom to believe in the gospel but they don't have the ability the fact is that sin has blinded their minds to the light of the gospel of jesus so let's apply this truth to the spiritual realm by asking the question given the opportunity to choose between good or evil obedience or rebellion god or satan eternal life with jesus or death in the pool of sin what will fallen man always choose if you said death to stay in the coffin of sin according to the bible you're correct until god the holy spirit changes the disposition of my soul i'll never have faith in christ i'll never embrace him i'll never decide for him in any redemptive way i'll never truly choose him because my my heart is still bound up in sin as a result of these and many other passages the men who sat for months at the synod of dort reaffirmed the biblical and historical teaching of total depravity in section 3 and 4 of the canons of dork all people are conceived in sin and are born children of wrath unfit for any saving good inclined to evil dead in their sins and slaves to sin and without the grace of the regenerating holy spirit they are neither willing nor able to return to god to reform their distorted nature or even to dispose themselves to such reform you may be saying well if that's true how then did i come to know the lord how is it that anyone is saved we will answer that question the same way jesus did with men this is impossible but with god all things are possible [Music] the armenian party agreed that man fell in the garden of eden they believed that this fall was not atoms alone but that it was carried down to all of his posterity by natural generation so what was the point of contention the armenian doesn't deny the sinfulness of man but what he does deny is the depth and the power of the sin in the life of the individual the armenians and the calvinists disagreed over the scope of the fall as it related to the will of man the armenian simply put believed that man's will was wounded by the fall and that he still had the ability to choose the good over evil in the spiritual realm the calvinist on the other hand held that since the fall the only thing unregenerate man could and would choose was inevitably corrupted by his will motivated by self and evil the next logical question then becomes if fallen man can only choose evil how could he ever choose the ultimate good the gospel of the lord jesus how can he ever be saved people are not in their natural state searching for god god's the one who seeks us out christ is the one who comes to seek and to save the lost before we deal with election in more depth we must address one of the most misunderstood teachings of the modern era what it means to be born again it's kind of a deep subject i don't really have all of the depths of my christianity figured out but the one thing that i do know that is god came and said to me that if i repented that that i would be saved and so that's what i did most modern evangelical christians have been taught that as a sinner repents of his sin and puts his faith in god he becomes born again this is what the armenian party was advocating and what the calvinists rejected how they asked can a dead man have faith the modern church teaches that you have to have faith for to be born again this is the exact opposite of what jesus said in john 3 as a matter of fact in response to the question how can a man be born again jesus did not say repent and believe he said it's like the wind and you don't know where it's going or where it's coming in other words he's saying that the new birth is something that you can program you can determine it happens and you experience it let's take a closer look at the armenian view by way of the following analogy [Music] so [Music] of course no one is interested if his target audience was simply sick and just needed some medicine writing out a prescription would make perfect sense but when the patient is dead it becomes absurd on the face of it i think one of the problems that evangelists perhaps have had is to see people not as being dead but as being sick you're sick in your sins and you need a little therapy or you need a little medicine and then you can get better but scripture teaches that we are dead and what we need is a spiritual resurrection god works this miracle on spiritually dead people who have neither the ability nor the desire to live for him this is what the bible numerous church councils and countless champions of the faith some of whom we listed in part one have taught that being born again is a monarchistic work the effort of god alone as a matter of fact in the new testament there are three figures used to designate the new life in christ they are birth creation and resurrection and in all of these three things the one thing that they have in common is the fact that the person or that which in the bible is passage you do nothing to be born you can do nothing to be resurrected if you're dead you can do nothing to be creative if you're not existing you see and so it all means that the initiative must come from god's side not man's side dr r.c sproul explains that arminians have unconverted sinners who are dead in trespasses and sin bringing themselves to life by choosing to be born again christ made it clear that dead people cannot choose anything that the flesh profits nothing and that a person must be born of the spirit before he can even see the kingdom of god let alone enter it man believes the gospel because he has been transformed by the spirit of god he is thus given the gift of faith in which he exercises that faith in believing what god has said about christ in the scripture he also responds in repentance and seeks forgiveness from god now the holy spirit doesn't come down and give life and take those dry bones and knit them together what's going to happen nothing they're dead which is what all of us are spiritually we're dead in our trespasses and said that that ought to be enough to settle the matter there is another misunderstanding many evangelicals have about being born again they view it and being justified or saved as being the same thing but in reality they are two different terms that depict two related but nonetheless distinct events being born again enables us to have faith in christ something we can never do while still dead in our trespasses and sins being born again is the first act if you will of god's grace it makes us new creatures in christ and as new creatures we are no longer haters of god we are no longer at enmity with god as the prophet ezekiel explained god removes our hearts of stone and replaces them with hearts of flesh and with the scales now removed from our eyes we see the holiness of god and the sinfulness of ourselves and as a result we repent and have faith in god and what he has done for us through the cross being born again must of necessity precede faith so the question remains how is a sinner born again so that he can have faith in christ because of what god has done before the foundation of the world he has elected an innumerable amount of people that will respond to the gospel they will be his followers they will become disciples of the lord jesus he guarantees it here we come to an area of doctrine which ultimately colors our entire understanding of salvation many if not most modern christians tend to either ignore or lightly skim over words like chosen predestination and election when they see them in their bibles the reason for this is simple the biblical doctrine of election is humanly speaking counterintuitive an offense to the natural human tendency to believe that we played a part in our own salvation but the bible declares this awesome truth of election often and without apology we need to come to terms with it for many are called but few are chosen and then he will send his angels and gather together his elect from the four winds from the farthest part of earth to the farthest part of heaven and shall god not avenge his own elect who cry out day and night to him though he bears along with them you did not choose me but i chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and when the gentiles heard this they were glad and glorified the word of the lord and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed what then israel has not obtained what it seeks but the elect have obtained it and the rest were blinded just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love having predestined us to adoption as sons by jesus christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will we could go on reading scripture after scripture declaring that we didn't find god instead he found and saved us as another example consider the fact that many of the new testament letters were specifically addressed to the elect also consider that the word most often translated church in the new testament is the greek word ecclesia meaning the called out ones the term comes from the same greek root eclectus the word we translate as the elect so the terms church and the elect are roughly synonymous the word beloved is another word that refers to the elect though the passages in which it appears are too numerous to mention let's look at just one but we are bound to give thanks always to god for you brethren beloved of the lord because god hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation another term god uses to refer to his elect children is sheep in john 10 26 jesus declared to the unbelieving jews but you do not believe because you are not my sheep note that jesus did not say because you did not believe you are not my sheep instead he declared the opposite they did not believe because they were not members of his flock the word because assigns the reason for their unbelief they simply were not his sheep or his elect his sheep will believe matthew henry who penned perhaps the most popular and enduring commentary on the bible explains the meaning of this passage ye speaking to a group of jews are not designed to be my followers ye are not of those that were given me by my father to be brought to grace and glory ye are not of the number of the elect and your unbelief if you persist in it will be certain evidence that you are not as stated earlier many today either ignore or deny the concept of election they see it as unfair or unjust how could a loving god they ask choose to give mercy and grace to some and then withhold it from others well before we dare to subject god and his word to the bar of human conceptions of fairness consider this nobody seems to have a problem that god called out israel and set them apart and set his love upon them and distinguish them and you can't argue that here's moses who's born under a death sentence who's born to a slave and here's the pharaoh who's born heir to the throne of the most most powerful kingdom the world has ever known now god didn't give moses everything he gave this baby pharaoh although eventually he did of course then pharaoh or then moses of course becomes is raised in pharaoh's court and then does god continue to treat them the same no god doesn't come in a bush to pharaoh and say hey pharaoh i'm going to be your god i'm going to take care of you and all your people and i'm going to give you my law and i'm going to place you in a land and i'm going to give you grace galore and through you the nations will be blessed though god did that first to abraham and then later on through moses and again nobody seems to have a problem with that but now in the new testament supposedly god can't set his covenantal love upon this person in a way that's distinct from how he does so with that person and therefore the difference has to be in the person uh but god explicitly says in the scripture several times i will have mercy on whom i will have mercy you know as much as we need to be doing theology and need to be doing an apologetic for the things that we believe we never need to lose the perspective that god's got and he can do what he wants to do and who are we to question his ways and his sovereign choices where do you get the standard where do you stand to get a standing by what you measure god by how you see he himself is the standard and he does what he please he's the only one he pleased the truth is that god is god and he can do whatever he wants his job description is to do whatever pleases him he that's that's how he makes decisions that's how he conducts himself according to his own good pleasure scripture says now that's good news to the believer but it's bad news to those who are rebelling against god given the theological climate of the time the armenian party had no choice but to deal with the doctrine of election as we've seen the remonstrance insisted that the individual's response to god's offer of salvation helped spark their spiritual resurrection their born-again experience but at the same time they acknowledge the clear biblical teaching that god chooses who will be saved and so they devised a way to supposedly reconcile the obvious tension between these two concepts according to the armenian party's formulation god looks down from the quarters of time and foresaw those who would choose him and then ratified their choice by electing them therefore election to the armenians was conditional based upon man's proper reaction quoting again from the articles of faith of the national association of free will baptists god determined from the beginning to save all who should comply with the conditions of salvation hence by faith in christ men become his elect this was according to the synod of dort pure pelagianism in their official denunciation of the remonstrance they wrote for this does away with all effective functioning of god's grace and our conversion and subjects the activity of almighty god to the will of man it is contrary to the apostles who teach that we believe by virtue of the effective working of god's mighty strength and that god fulfills the undeserved good will of this kindness and the work of faith in us with power and likewise that his divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness we believe that our salvation is by grace that even the faith that we have comes as a gift from god there is nothing that we can lay claim to nothing in which we can boast our salvation entirely comes from the lord dr j.i packer explains the armenians say i owe my election to my faith the calvinist says i owe my faith to my election people are either elect or non-elect before they are born there's nothing a person can do to get himself elected it's not like god has voted for you and the devil has voted against you and now you make your election by voting one way or the other the armenian position is not really election it's ratification in the end it's man's vote that decides the outcome and while the armenian may and likely will insist that the weight of god's elective power is infinitely greater than satan's that the ballot box has been radically stuffed in our favor there remains no way to get around the final bottom line that one man with the devil's help can frustrate the vote and the desires of almighty god most learned armenians would draw on numerous passages to buttress their doctrine but they claim their greatest proof text is found in romans chapter 8 verse 29 for whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren the word foreknew was understood by the armenians to mean that god knew or saw beforehand which sinners would believe and that he then predestined them to salvation based upon this knowledge notice however that the text does not say that god knew something about particular individuals that they would do this or that or that he saw their actions even though both statements are true rather it states that god knew the individuals themselves the word whom is the object of the verb and the object denotes persons not events or happenings but before the beginning of time the bible says whom he foreknew he predestined to be conformed into the image of his son the word for no does not mean foresee it means to for love in genesis 4 1 we're told that adam knew his wife and she conceived well if all he did was intellectually foresee eve she never would have conceived the point is he made her the object of his loving affections and she conceived and so in romans 8 it says whom he foreloved those whom he foreknew those he predestined whom he set his love upon those whom he chose according to the good pleasure of his will he determined that in time they would believe in the lord jesus christ you know romans 8 says those he foreknew he predestined to become sons of god and of course the standard armenian view is that to foreknow just means to foresee and just sort of know what's going to happen without really affecting it but the word really means to for love kind of in an apprehended sense that that god is actively uh drawing that person and actively turn towards that person uh not just for for knowing in a distant sense but in a relational sense addressing the elect nation of israel in amos 3 2 god declares you only have i known of all the families of the earth surely the lord had knowledge of and can see all the actions of every family on the earth but he knew or loved israel in a special way and set his heart upon them alone the armenian attempt to redefine the doctrine of election failed in contradistinction to the doctrine of conditional election the confessions of the dutch church taught what is called unconditional election they believe that god elected certain individuals in christ before the foundations of the world based upon christ's sacrifice his reason for selecting the ones he did was solely based upon his own goodwill and pleasure he loved them even though they were just as deserving of his wrath as those he did not love and those whom he elected to love through the power and regenerating work of the holy spirit he causes them to be born again whereby they willingly accept christ so what was the basis of god's electing one and not the other that's a fascinating question and i want to tell you the bible never answers it it answers it in the negative it tells you what are not the things that are the basis for your election if you go to first corinthians chapter one you will see that paul says you see your calling brethren now he's talking about calling in the theological sense where the holy spirit calls us unto christ for salvation he's not talking about a calling as a musician or a preacher or something like that you see your calling brethren how that not many mighty are called not many noble are called not many of the great people of this world are called we don't have the time to look at all the verses that illuminate this doctrine perhaps the passage that most directly addresses it is found in the ninth chapter of romans for this is the word of promise at this time i will come and sarah shall have a son and not only this but when rebecca also had conceived by one man even by our father isaac for the children not yet being born nor having done any good or evil that the purpose of god according to election might stand not of works but of him who called it was said to her the older shall serve the younger as it is written jacob i have loved but esau i have hated paul gives us as an illustration two real flesh and blood old testament figures jacob and his older brother esau and to remove all ambiguity concerning the mind-blowing implications of this passage paul throws diplomacy out the window and cuts right to the bottom line the reason for choosing one over the other is so that the purpose of god according to election might stand election in other words is of god by god and through god nowhere is man given even a scintilla of responsibility for his election nowhere does man have any room to boast paul concludes this passage by echoing a verse from malachi and in his mouth it becomes one of the most controversial statements in the entire bible jacob i have loved but esau i have hated charles spurgeon comments on this passage why did god love jacob and hate esau i can tell you why god loves jacob it's sovereign grace there was nothing in jacob that could make god love him there was everything about him that might have made god hate him as much as he did esau and a great deal more but it was because god is infinitely gracious that he loved jacob and because he is sovereign in his dispensation of his grace that he chose jacob as an object of that love but god has chosen the foolish things of the world the base things of the world the things that are nothing these are the things that god has chosen that no flesh may glorif glory in his sight so the only reason that we're told why anybody is chosen is because we are weak foolish and base and don't amount to anything modern-day commentators as well as the armenian remonstrance attempted to soften the blow of this passage by saying that god loved jacob more than he loved esau and therefore it really wasn't hate they argue that the word translated hate means unloved or less loved as if this really makes any difference again quoting charles spurgeon it's a terrible text and i will be honest with it if i can one man says the word hate doesn't mean hate it means love less jacob have i loved but esau have i loved less it may be so but i don't believe it is i like to take it and let it stand just as it is the fact is god loved jacob and he did not love esau he did choose jacob but he did not choose esau however one wants to understand the word hate whether literally or figuratively it's clear that whatever god had for jacob he did not have for esau and it's clear from the text that the love god had for jacob was not conditional but unconditional for neither jacob nor esau had yet been born nor done anything good or evil no one would say that a human being has to love everyone alike god does have a general love for all men he does love all men in the sense of sending sunshine and rain upon the wicked as well as upon the righteous but there are some people for whom he has had a special love and just as a man has a special love for his wife and his children god has the right to have a special love for those that are the objects of his affection pastor spurgeon continues why did god hate isa why does god hate any man i defy anyone to give any answer but this because that man deserves to be hated no reply but that can be true if god deals severely with any person it's because that person deserves all that he gets god owes salvation to no one god would be entirely just if he had condemned adam condemned the race immediately after the fall god would be just to send every single person to hell because what our sin deserves is the eternal wrath and cursing of god the senate of dort explained it this way god does not owe this grace to anyone for what could god owe to one who has nothing to give that can be paid back indeed what could god owe to one who has nothing of his own to give but sin and falsehood it would be right of god to destroy all of us for our sins and if he would have mercy on some he has the right to do that you know spurgeon uses an analogy of a man walking down the street and finding 10 beggars he's not obligated to give any of the beggars anything but if he chooses to give one of the beggars some money then what he's done is very gracious and no one could charge him with injustice and the reason is those beggars don't have any claims upon the man's money in the same way we have no claims upon god's goodness or god's favor and the fact that god saves anyone declares him to be an incredibly gracious and loving god as i've said before election puts nobody in hell and a vast multitude of people in heaven that wouldn't be there otherwise in heaven we have nothing to boast about in ourselves in hell we have no one to blame but ourselves both the holy spirit and paul knew that this teaching was going to be controversial and purposely set out to address the very natural human objections from the outset what shall we say then is there unrighteousness with god certainly not when i say that to people they say that's not fair this is exactly the objection that the apostle paul anticipated in the ninth chapter of romans when he talks about these the doctrine of election and the difference between jacob and esau jacob of i loved esau have i hated before they were ever born before they had done anything good or evil the question i have for those that disagree with the doctrine of unconditional election is this does your view of election provoke the same kind of antagonism that paul's does would you have ever included the objection that the apostle paul includes in romans chapter nine if election is based upon foreseen faith or based upon something in man then why in the world does paul anticipate this objection who would ever charge god with being unjust or unfair this last observation is a vital point there are many in view attempts to make the doctrine of election seem fair to the mind of man but the apostle paul takes the opposite tact rather than making it more palatable he continues to emphasize the absolute sovereignty of god by giving us another old testament example for he says to moses i will have mercy on whomever i will have mercy and i will have compassion on whomever i will have compassion so then it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs but of god who shows mercy for the scripture says to pharaoh for this very purpose i have raised you up that i may show my power in you and that my name may be declared in all the earth therefore he has mercy on whom he wills and whom he wills he hardens is paul saying that god actually hardens people's hearts that he makes them stonier than they already are well there's no getting around it six times in the exodus account we're told the lord hardened pharaoh's heart but it's important to understand how god accomplished this he didn't just arbitrarily hardened pharaoh's heart against his will three times it declares that pharaoh hardened his own heart what happened is that god sovereignly created situations where pharaoh was confronted with the decision as to whether to obey god or instead lean to his own will and understanding given his sinful nature and the fact that god didn't grant him the grace to overcome that nature pharaoh chose sin of his own accord and as sin always does it brought forth spiritual decay and death and so pharaoh's heart became harder with each successive act of rebellion god brought forth the test but it was pharaoh that failed them this same principle of withholding the gift of grace was reflected in jesus own earthly ministry many centuries later when asked by his disciples why he spoke to the people in parables the lord replied because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven but to them it has not been given in other words as with pharaoh there are people that god has chosen not to help believe and when confronted with the truth it is these people who are of their own accord will choose to harden their hearts and persecute the truth in fact in their case they opted to nail it to a cross jesus in matthew chapter 11 when he contemplates the fact that many of the people in the town where he did his main public ministry in caesarea had not believed or received the gospel he thanked god that that god had hidden the gospel from the wise and the prudent and had revealed it unto babes and then he went on to express his reason for that thanksgiving because it was good in your sight father so it was the father's choice as to who was to be a recipient of the gospel and who would be hard-hearted toward it logically this answer raises another question and paul anticipates it by asking you will say to me then why does he still find fault for who has resisted his will his answer is a stiff rebuked any man who would dare sit in judgment on god but indeed o man who are you to reply against god will the thing formed say to him who formed it why have you made me like this paul insists that as sinners we have no rights before god we have no claims on his mercy god could have elected everyone he could have elected no one the choice therefore was his and his alone students come to me all the time they ask me a myriad of theological questions and i've never had a student come to me and say to me marcy why does god save anybody that's the real question not why is there only one way why does he save me i can't imagine why he would save a a creation that is in manifest consistent impenetened rebellion against his glory and against his majesty and yet god's grace is so profound that he sends his son and that he god initiates a plan of salvation a red plan of redemption and it doesn't include the salvation of everybody i don't know why he doesn't save everybody i don't know why he saves anybody so those are both questions that i'd like to have to ask him because i can't answer them for him paul continues does not the potter have power over the clay from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor what if god wanting to show his wrath and to make his power known endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had prepared beforehand for glory even us whom he called not of the jews only but also of the gentiles john gill explains god is represented as the potter and men as clay in his hands and god appoints out of it persons to different uses and purposes for his own glory as he sees fit many people think they have trouble with election or predestination but as i said earlier their problem is really with the doctrine of man they don't understand or believe the doctrine of the fall of man they basically deny original sin because once you acknowledge that man is fallen and man is born in a sinful condition that his heart mind and will are against god then you will see that the election is essential if anybody is going to go to heaven the ninth chapter of romans as well as numerous other passages led the synod of door to reject the arminian doctrine of conditional election they labeled it heresy likened it to pelagianism and called it an error by which the dutch churches have for some time been disturbed [Music] election according to the synod of dort does not save anyone it simply marked those in christ whom god of his own free will chose to be the objects of his affection and mercy election is in christ who by his blood purchased everything that chose a need for salvation including regeneration and faith and this teaching became the next big issue of contention for the armenian party [Music] many christians are familiar with the acronym t-u-l-i-p tulip as shorthand for reformed or calvinistic theology and there can be no doubt that the most controversial and misunderstood of all the so-called five points of calvinism is found in the concept that is framed by the letter l limited atonement when used to explain the work of jesus on the cross many believers respond with indignation it's as if calvinists are somehow downgrading or limiting what the lord accomplished of calvary to be saved that's one of the reasons why it's important when we when we use the language to remind our armenian friends that both views in some sense limit the atonement we limit its intent they limit its power the calvinists believe that the atoning work of christ was limited only to the elect the cross purchased and guaranteed everything the elect center needs to be justified including regeneration or the new birth faith and repentance unto salvation the armenians on the other hand believe that jesus work on the cross was not designed to purchase a specific people for himself nor was it to secure salvation for any particular sinner the intention was to simply make salvation possible for any person who would of his or her own free will repent and believe you know we would expect that the idea of god choosing would be offensive to the rebellious human soul but even more so in our culture where free will and i'll have it my way is at almost an idolatrous level so it's not surprising to me that people are offended by the idea of god's sovereign choice in this generation dr lorraine bottner author of the book the reform doctrine of predestination explains that the armenian view of the atonement can be compared to a wide bridge that extends most of the way across a river in order to reach the other side the sinner must take the last and final step the calvinist on the other hand believed that the bridge while narrow did in fact extend all the way to the other shore the sinner does not and cannot take any steps regeneration is the rapture if you will of the sinner from one kingdom to the other and it's the work of christ alone the synod of dord asserted that the fundamental flaw of the armenian view of the atonement goes back to their defective view of the fall of man and to sin john owen in his classic work the death of death and the death of christ observe that the merit or atonement of christ was to the arminian an ointment in a box set out in the gospel to the view of all and those who will by their own strength lay hold on it and apply it to themselves would be healed of course if men were simply wounded by the fall this position would be reasonable however as we saw earlier man is not merely wounded he's dead and medicine to a dead man as the old adage goes is the supreme example of a day late and a dollar short man needs much more than medicine to resurrect his dead spirit he needs the holy spirit to bring him back to life this next point can get a little confusing so try and pay close attention as we distinguish between historic and modern armenianism to illustrate the historical armenian position as presented by the remonstrance consider this quote by dr j kenneth greider professor of theology at the nazarene theological seminary a school that is self-consciously arminium many armenians whose theology is not very precise say that christ paid the penalty for our sins yet such a view is foreign to arminianism which teaches instead that christ suffered for us armenians teach that what christ did he did for every person therefore what he did could not have been to pay the penalty since no one would then ever go into eternal punishment dr greiter is rightfully scolding his fellow armenians for being inconsistent in their understanding of the design and purpose of jesus work on calvary in summary dr greiter says number one most modern armenians do not know the teachings of historic armenianism as represented by the remonstrance number two historic armenianism believes that what jesus did he did for everyone equally and number three historic armenianism as expressed in the remonstrance does not teach that christ died or paid for anyone's sins he only suffered for them concerning the first point it's true that most armenians today don't understand historical arminianism very well and this does create some confusion as to precisely what the term means as for the second point does the bible teach that what jesus did he did equally for everyone armenians use as their proof texts passages that include the words all whole and world in relation to god's intentions in salvation interpreting it to mean every single person but does all mean all all the time the bible uses these universal terms but many people don't understand it's not merely the biblical use of terms like this but in all language in all of english language it is constantly done that people use universal terms when they don't mean a universal fact that they're talking about i mean we all say that all the time we say all when we don't mean all for example the bible says a decree went out from caesar augustus that all the world should be taxed no it didn't you're either going to have to realize that that is figurative language or you have to say the bible is an error how much were the people in the yucatan peninsula taxed how about the chinese how much taxes do they pay to caesar did a decree go out from caesar augustus that all the world should be taxed in actuality it never did it went out that all of the roman world should be taxed another example can be found in luke 2 10. we read that the angel who announced the birth of christ to the shepherds declared do not be afraid for behold i bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people should the word all be understood to mean every single person or was he speaking of all people in the sense of ethnicity if you believe the former then we must ask if the birth of christ brought good tidings of great joy to the pharisees how about to herod or pontius pilate did they find great joy in the birth of the messiah and what about colossians 1 5 and 6 paul declares that by 54 a.d the truth of the gospel had gone out into all the world did paul literally mean that the gospel had been carried to the americas or australia of course not geography wasn't what he was speaking about and the same is true for john 12 19. the pharisees therefore said among themselves you see that you are accomplishing nothing look the world has gone after him we all say all all the time when we don't mean it no we don't some people never say all they speak chinese you don't say all all of the time either when you meet it or you don't mean it there's some time that you sleep there's some time that you eat there's some time when you say other things you really don't say all all of the time do you and so therefore these people don't understand the figurative use of language and the there are over almost 600 different species of figures of speech found in the bible and they're found in most any large novel or even a big newspaper you'll find them they're everywhere no they're not they're not everywhere they're here and there and the other place we see we do that all the time that we don't even realize we're doing it now we don't do it all the time you see if you if i called you every time you used a universal word and you didn't mean it universally i would be half having to stop you all of the time no i wouldn't the fact is that we use this type of hyperbole well all the time newscasters refer to the whole city turning out to greet a world championship team when what they technically mean is a very large crowd we talk about the entire world being fixated upon the news of princess diana's death on and on it goes news london well if that's true for us might not the same principle apply when we find similar expressions used in scripture the simple fact is that most scholars would suggest that it's even more true that hyperbolic speech was very common within the hebrew culture this is not to say that the words all world and whole world in the bible can never be taken to mean every single person or thing in some cases they can but how we understand these words like virtually every other word in the bible is based upon the context when and to whom they were written and then compared to other scriptures the verse quoted most often to prove what jesus did he did for every single person is perhaps the most well-known and loved passage in the whole world john 3 16 states for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life in their universalistic interpretation of this verse there are many and fails to take into account when and to whom the lord was speaking they ignore the historical context that a young jewish rabbi was addressing a culture obsessed with race and ethnicity that while the occasional gentile might somehow find his way into the kingdom of god it was to the physical descendants of abraham that salvation really belonged we need to understand the jewish mindset was that a messiah was going to come and this was a messiah of and for the jews and it was never never dawned on a jewish mind that their messiah was going to pay for the sins of a roman i mean these people needed to be destroyed and demolished and thrown out not redeemed and saved and taken to heaven this was almost an unthinkable thing and so when john on several different occasions said that he is the propitiation not only for our sins but for the sins of the whole world he is talking about the amazing thing is that a messiah has come which is going to pay for the sins of people in israel and also for people in all other countries in the in the world the great baptist scholar john gill echoes this interpretation now in opposition to such a notion our lord addresses this jew nicodemus and it's as if he had said you nicodemus say that when the messiah comes only the israelites the peculiar favorites of god shall share in the blessings that come by and with the messiah and that the gentiles shall reap no advantage by him being hated of god and rejected of him but i tell you god has so loved the gentiles as well as the jews besides if the world always means every single person then the armenians have a problem when they get to verses like first john 2 15. if anyone loves the world the love of the father is not in him if consistent armenians should read this as saying if anyone loves every single person the love of the father is not in him but this interpretation would contradict the express admonition that we are to love everybody even our enemies phrases like all all men and whole world were used by the writers of the new testament to correct the jewish mindset that the messiah was coming to save them meaning the physical descendants of abraham alone the writers used these words to show that christ came to save all men without distinction of nationality or race that jesus died for jews and gentiles alike these words were not used to suggest that he died for every single person without exception [Music] so the next question would be are there any passages that would seem to limit the extent of the atonement to less than every single person and the answer to that question is an unqualified yes in isaiah 53 we read he shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied by his knowledge my righteous servant shall justify many for he shall bear their iniquities and again in verse 12 he poured out his soul unto death and he was numbered with the transgressors and he bore the sin of many notice that the word is not all but many no matter how one slices it the word many cannot mean every single person in a previous section we noted the words of jesus recorded in matthew 20 16. many are called but few are chosen twelve verses later jesus using the same language found in isaiah 53 states concerning the scope of his atoning work just as the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many here the messiah plainly states his ultimate mission to offer his life as a ransom as the price paid to deliver somebody from slavery death and imprisonment and is this ransom on behalf of everyone well jesus said that it's for the benefit of many revelation 5 9 reads and they sang a new song saying you are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals for you were slain and have redeemed us to god by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation you know what we often hear is that god redeemed every tribe tongue and nation but what it says in revelation 5 9 is that he redeemed out of every tribe and tongue and nation which emphasizes more his sovereign choice within the broader people group of the earth let's look at one last verse like this before we move on in john's gospel jesus declares i am the good shepherd the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep once again the messiah is referring to the atonement the pain of the ransom and he states that he does it on behalf of his sheep many of the jews who heard this teaching declared that jesus was mad and had a demon later they caught up with him and asked how long do you keep us in doubt if you are the christ tell us plainly jesus replies i told you and you do not believe the works that i do in my father's name they bear witness of me but you do not believe because you are not of my sheep j.p boyce founder of the southern baptist theological seminary the flagship school of the southern baptist convention notes number one the sheep here are those to whom he will give eternal life number two they are those for whom he lays down his life number three they are not all because he tells those who were rejecting him that they were not his sheep and number 4 the whole language used implies that the salvation of the sheep alone is the object for which his life is laid down and in john 10 jesus did not say i am the good shepherd and i laid down my life for the wolves goats and sheep he said i am the good shepherd and i lay down my life for the sheep that they might have life that when jesus was hanging upon the cross he was particularly dying for specific people all those whom the father had given to him were on his heart and he was laying down his life shedding his blood for them he was substituting himself for them his life for theirs paying for their sins this is what he meant when he talked about his sheep he said i lay down my life for my sheep and in the same chapter john 10 he turns to the pharisees he says you don't believe because you are not my sheep jesus specifically substituted himself for god's elect and those are the ones who will be saved by his death invariably the armenian will counter at this point with one of their favorite proof texts the lord is not slack concerning his promise as some count slackness but is longsuffering toward us not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance once again it all comes down to all does this passage mean that god longs for every person to be saved and therefore that jesus died for everyone so that at least his or her salvation is a possibility or does all hear refer to every person within a particular category of humanity peter is talking about the people to whom he's writing us what he's saying god is not willing that any of us should perish that's why he delays these things to make it absolutely certain that all of us come to repentance and receive the benefits of salvation well then you have to ask further who are the us and again if you look at the people to whom both first and second peter are addressed are whom the elect peter goes out of his way to to call the recipients of his letter the elect and so what he's saying is that god is not willing that any of his elect would perish rather than defeating colonism this is one of the strongest calvinistic passages that i think we can find anywhere in scripture there's a very similar passage of scripture to which the armenian also appeals for this is good and acceptable in the sight of god our savior who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth well what paul is doing in that passage is he is defending his ministry to the gentiles he said he appointed me as an apostle and a teacher to the gentiles i'm telling the truth i'm not lying and in justification of his ministry to the gentiles he's emphasizing that the ransom of christ is for all not just the jews but for the gentiles also another favorite passage often quoted by armenians is found in the second epistle of peter but there were also false prophets among the people even as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies even denying the lord who bought them and bring on themselves swift destruction focusing on the phrase even denying the lord who bought them many modern day arminians teach that christ's work on calvary purchased salvation for everyone even for those who end up in hell john owen would argue that this not only does not refer to jesus it does not refer to his act of purchasing redemption for the elect on the cross that that which is bought falls short of the purchase of redemption because nothing here about the blood of christ nothing here about the atonement nothing here about the purchase of redemption those are things that we add into the text it's important to note that the word for lord is not the common word used in relation to jesus curios it's the greek word despotes from which we get the english word despot its meaning is sovereign master creator or ruler and conveys the idea of owner the greek word for bot agorazo in connection with despotes implies the lord's de facto right of ownership as creator peter is not teaching a universal or general atonement in fact he's not teaching about the atonement of christ at all what he's saying is that these false teachers are denying the lord god their creator who made them and as the creator owns them [Music] if one maintains that jesus purchased salvation for every single person that what he did he did for every person equally then one would naturally expect that jesus would pray for everyone note again the great care and saving power jesus has toward those for whom he died therefore because christ continues forever as the unchangeable high priest he is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to god through him since he always lives to make intercession for them but does jesus pray for everyone in what is commonly referred to as the high priestly prayer in the 17th chapter of john the son of god intercedes before the father i pray for them those whom the father had given him i do not pray for the world but for those whom you have given me for they are yours jesus explicitly states that he does not pray for every single person rather only those whom the father had given him in fact we would do well to carefully consider a few of the preceding verses noting particularly the words we have set in bold jesus spoke these words lifted up his eyes to heaven and said father the hour has come glorify your son that your son also may glorify you as you have given him authority over all flesh that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him i have manifested your name to the men whom you have given me out of the world they were yours you gave them to me i pray for them i do not pray for the world but for those whom you have given me for they are yours [Music] let's now move to the third point that in the words of dr grider christ never paid the penalty for our sins because what christ did he did for every person therefore what he did could not have been to pay the penalty since no one would then ever go into eternal punishment from the position of the remonstrance what dr greider is saying here is correct unlike many modern day armenians he's being consistent with both his presuppositions and the meaning of words like ransom redemption and propitiation as they're used in the bible he understands that when payment is made ownership of that person or thing has been ransomed now belongs to the one who made the payment if jesus paid for the sins of every single person then everyone would belong to him and be in heaven with him and no one would be lost to hell and yet but for the ranked liberal with little or no respect for scripture the concept of universal salvation is not an option what's left then for those who reject universalism on the one hand and limited atonement on the other is to say that jesus sacrifice made redemption possible for people but did not pay the penalty for anyone's sins one of the difficulties with affirming a doctrine that says that christ's goal christ's intention christ's work really really did cover the sins of every human being that ever lived is that it makes god out to be an unjust judge if you borrow money from me and another gentleman comes along and and pays off that debt for you i can't then come after you and say hey you need to you need to pay that debt it's been paid in like manner if jesus died for all the sins of all all of all people then hell must be empty owen said this quoting the arminian view if christ died to pay for all of the sins of all of the people in the world which is what the armenians hold then why are not all of the people in the world saved to which they will respond well you see that's only because they don't accept christ by faith well now is not the rejection of christ and unbelief is that not also sin does not the bible speak of a wicked heart of unbelief does not the bible command us repeatedly to believe to repent and believe the gospel that's not a well wish it's a command that's an imperative therefore whatever god commands us to do if we don't do it that's a sin of omission it is a sin and if christ paid for all of the sins of all of the people of the world and unbelief is also a sin that he also paid for again i ask why are not all of the people in the world saved that has never been answered as a result of their belief in the universal application of the work of christ the remonstrance was forced to reshuffle the historic teaching of the church and embrace a governmental theory of the atonement the doctrine has two main points that we've looked at one that jesus did not pay for anyone's sins and two it's the sufferings of christ that are the focal point of the atonement not his death these two points may shock modern day armenians but please realize this is not our opinion of what the remonstrance arminians taught these are the words of one who holds consistently to that position again referencing the quote by dr greider armenianism teaches instead not that christ paid the penalty for our sins but that he suffered for us [Music] when modern-day arminians tell sinners christ paid for all of your sins in the words of c.h spurgeon they are uttering a dangerous lie spurgeon went on to explain what made it dangerous when justice once is satisfied it were injustice if it should ask for more he has punished christ why should he punish twice for one offense christ has died for all his people sins and if thou art in covenant thou art one of christ's people damn thou canst not be suffer for thy sins thou canst not until god can be unjust and demand two payments for one debt he cannot destroy the soul for whom jesus died understanding this remonstrance armenians insisted that christ never paid for anyone's sins modern armenians on the other hand have him pain for most sins but not every single one the armenian has the problem of christ only dying for some sins it doesn't really atone for all sins because the sin of unbelief can't really be incorporated there because if a person doesn't believe in the cross and in christ then they don't receive the benefit of the atonement [Music] modern day armenians though they rarely say it in such a matter of fact way teach that christ did 99 of the work in redemption but unless man adds his faith his small little fraction of effort conjured up from the moral residue still in him after the fall than the 99 that christ paid is of no effect no matter how you slice it the gospel as offered by our minions is not paid in full you know though very few would say it the implication of arminian theology is that jesus provided 99 of everything that we need in salvation but still that one percent is man's free will without man's free will without the exercise of man's will there is no salvation the reality is though that jesus provided everything that we need for salvation the calvinists maintain the reason anyone believes is because they have received all the benefits of the atonement jesus paid for every sin committed by those given to him by the father even the sin of unbelief understand calvinism as represented by the synod of dort is the most grace centered teaching on justification it offers sinners absolutely no room for boasting as the old calvinist hymn declares not the labors of my hands can fulfill thy law's demands could my zeal no respite know could my tears forever flow all for sin could not atone thou must save and thou alone the arminian teaches a works righteousness salvation even though he will teach that it is of grace nevertheless he believes there is something man contributes to redemption the calvinist on the other hand says man's righteousness is as filthy rags he has nothing to contribute in order that god would accept him as right therefore the righteousness must come from christ it is an alien righteousness it is the works of christ that saves us not the works of man in order to explain away this charge modern armenians develop the doctrine of prevenient grace this concept suggests that there is a grace that works before saving grace a sort of awakening or resuscitation of the dead sinner he is not at this point born again and spiritually alive but he has been made supernaturally aware of his state by the holy spirit and has been given sufficient light and power to repent and choose life if he so wills it or he can reject god's offer roll over and go back to a state of spiritual death the major problem with the idea of a prevenient grace or grace that operates prior to salvation that brings a person as it were up to the door of salvation and then it's up to him to go for take it from there the problem with that is that it makes man the final determiner in his own salvation and so salvation is a matter of man and god working together as opposed of salvation being all of grace and so man has some ground whereby he can boast or at least he can look at his fellow creatures and say there's something special about me that you don't have because i chose and you didn't so in the final analysis the reason why you're in the kingdom and your neighbor isn't is because you did the right thing and they did the wrong thing and that does give you something about which to boast now where that puts you in a precarious position is that if you really in your heart of hearts are trusting your right decision your right action as the reason why you are saved now you've come perilously close to the roman catholic view because you're now trusting in something you did in some kind of action that is at least bearing what the roman church calls congruous merit because it's on that basis that god accepts you because you did the right thing and your neighbor did the wrong thing so even though you protest that you're not trusting in your own righteousness and you're not trusting in your own works when we scratch under the surface so often what we find is that you really are trusting in your own words this was spurgeon's conclusion also he said the doctrine of justification itself as preached by an armenian is nothing but the doctrine of salvation by works and if justification comes by works said the apostle paul then christ has died in vain that armenianism fundamentally glorifies man and it does not challenge his autonomy at any point and anything that glorifies men as opposed to god is something we should not have anything to do with so what was the purpose and design of the atonement or to put it another way for whom did christ die the sufficiency of the total the value of the atonement is infinite but it was designed to affect the redemption of all of god's elect and no one else god is a god who elects for his purpose and he says sets a plan for his sheep he knows his sheep and he prepares salvation for his sheep and he sends christ to lay down his life for his sheep as stated at the beginning of this section every view limits the atonement in some fashion friends that both views in some sense limit the atonement we limit its intent they limit its power they teach that christ paid for most but not every sin of every single person it's therefore up to each individual to add their faith their little penny to the overall price of redemption as for the remonstrance arminians well they limited the gospel scope and power they taught that christ did not pay for the sins of anyone and the senate of dort rightly concluded that their teaching brought out of hell the pelagian error [Music] does god have the right and the ability to do what he wills well consider the words of the prophet isaiah remember this and show yourselves men recall to mind oh you transgressors remember the former things of old for i am god and there is no other i am god and there is none like me declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that are not yet done saying my counsel shall stand and i will do all my pleasure indeed i have spoken it i will also bring it to pass i have purposed it i will also do it the next question addressed by the synod of dort was how sinners who are dead in their trespasses and sins can come to a saving knowledge of the lord jesus since christ died and purchased salvation for those whom the father had given him was it inevitable that the elect would come to faith in christ the answer to this question went to the heart of the debate concerning the nature and the sovereign power of god the calvinist answered yes it was inevitable for who has resisted his will if god chose you in christ you will inevitably and inexorably come to faith the remonstrance on the other hand said no man's will is free from the ultimate effects of the fall and therefore he can accept or reject god's offer of grace to the calvinists this view reduced god to a concerned bystander and placed man in the ultimate position of sovereignty one of the things that i really find funny in our culture is this emphasis on god as a lonely old man who's up in heaven hoping that somebody turns to him jesus is somebody who's standing outside the door knocking hoping that somebody follows him the reality is in scripture god goes after people he has sovereignly chosen he's chosen paul knocks him off the horse and says i've chosen you for this purpose get busy it's a sovereign god in operation not a lonely old man hoping people will follow him the former slave trader turned preacher john newton author of the hymn amazing grace chided the remonstrance when he wrote we zealously contend for this point in our debates with the armenians and are ready to wonder that any should be hardy enough to dispute the creator's right to do what he wills again this teaching goes to the heart of the armenian's misunderstanding of the extent and depth of the fall if man were merely wounded and not dead then he's still conscious and has a choice of whether to take the medicine the calvinist on the other hand taught that when man fell he died spiritually and therefore is incapable by himself of even choosing much less taking the medicine of god's eternal life like a corpse and a morgue all he can do is await the autopsy he isn't going to be able to respond to the holy spirit's call to repentance and redemption unless the same spirit makes him alive the bible talks about the outward call which comes through our lips and our mouths as we proclaim the gospel and the inward call of the holy spirit the outward call as i was just telling people recently is always invariably ineffective and ineffectual it never works by itself it is only when the outward call of the gospel is accompanied by the inward call of the holy spirit that the heart is changed the mind is open the will is transformed and then the person says it is the voice of my beloved the very moment that god regenerated you and raised you from the dead spiritually gave you a new life changed your heart that split second you begin believing in the lord jesus christ loving him seeking to serve him and repenting of your sins but it is that initial act of god in irresistible grace that as we discussed in a previous section election in christ marks sinners to be recipients of the regenerating work of the holy spirit once the spirit regenerates the formerly dead sinner is now alive and comes to faith in christ as jesus famously stated in the third chapter of john truly truly i say to you that unless a man is born again he cannot see the kingdom of god here the lord clearly identifies this quickening and the resultant ability to see and understand god's kingdom as a spiritual rebirth as being literally born again nicodemus asked how can this be and jesus responded by first acknowledging the problem that which is born of the flesh is flesh and as the lord stated three chapters later the flesh profits nothing being somewhat of a rationalist nicodemus wondered aloud if it were left to man in his own flesh and ability how could he be born again jesus responded in both john 3 and 6 with the solution to this dilemma that which is born of the spirit is spirit it is the spirit that quickens the holy spirit has to first come and regenerate the person who is dead in their trespasses and sins before he or she can in the words of jesus see the kingdom of god let alone enter it [Music] but we will be saved only when god reaches into our hearts and changes them he is the seeker he is the one who is aggressive he is the one who reaches to us if it were up to our searching and up to our finding no one would ever be saved it is not that we can find god but it is that if we are saved it is that we will be found by god he will reach us by his spirit and turn us around he will arrest us and he will bring us to salvation by his own sovereign grace when the fact the bible teaches that the heart of man is at enmity with god that we hate god the more we know about him the more we'll hate him it our heart has to be changed the synod of dort in response to the armenian view said that the grace of god is irresistible that as a result of his mercy and regenerating power the elect will repent and believe in the son god the holy spirit knows those who are chosen by the father and given to the son and in due time he regenerates them and while later we'll look at the means by which god has appointed to affect this work of regeneration and the part man plays in these means the actual act of regeneration is monergistic the work of god alone nothing more nothing less and nothing else but it is that initial act of god in irresistible grace that takes you out of death into life and causes you to be a new creature in which act your passive because you're dead but the moment it happens you are not passive anymore think of it this way the idea of being born is a process that begins with conception and ends with the actual birth when you were conceived in your mother's womb prior to that time you did not exist and therefore you had no conscious thoughts you simply received biological life as a result of the union of your father and mother and so it is with being born again of the holy spirit as pastor walter bowie noted earlier in answer to nicodemus question jesus did not say repent and believe pastor john gill notes this grace of the spirit in regeneration like the wind is powerful and irresistible it carries all before it there is no withstanding it it throws down satan's strongholds demolishes the fortifications of sin the whole posse of hell and the corruptions of a man's heart are not a match for it when the spirit works who can let this understanding led john to write in the introduction to his gospel but as many as received him to them he gave the right to become children of god to those who believe in his name who were born not a blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of god i think john 6 is a wonderful passage that speaks of irresistible grace when jesus talks about all that the father gives to me will come to me no man can come to me unless the father draws him the word draw is a powerful word it was used of a dragnet when fishermen would go out into the sea cast their nets in they would draw the fish this is a powerful descriptor of the work of god's grace good point some have suggested that the phrase in john 6 44 no man may come to me unless the father draws him is a type of wooing but as dr haskell pointed out the word means to drag the same greek word is used in james 2 6. do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts to say instead don't let the rich oppress and woo you into the courts is of course absurd by rejecting irresistible grace the armenians made man and his will ultimately sovereign in an effort to satisfy man's humanistic standards of fairness god's glory and power were inevitably compromised implicitly he was reduced to a mere vice regent roaming the earth knocking on the doors of human hearts and hoping that people would see the wonder of his plan and accept jesus as their personal savior revelation 3 20 referring to christ standing at the door a knock is not a reference to an individual person christ knocking at the door trying to get in allowing him to redeem them the passage is really directed to the church the idea is that christ is calling the churches to follow him and not to fall into apostasy or idolatry as some of the churches in revelation had already been cited for he was arguing that it is he who is to lead the church it is he who is the head of the church but if the church does not yield to the leadership of the spirit in the direction of their church to follow the way of christ then he is one who stands outside knocking and yet a church who was ignoring him it's important to note that by irresistible grace the calvinists were in no way saying that people cannot resist the grace of god quite the contrary unless god made us alive not a single one of us would ever stop resisting it when we say irresistible grace we're not saying that sinners do not resist christ we're simply saying that all men who are sinners naturally are not responsive to the sweet overtures of god's love but we simply mean that those whom god has elected for whom christ died the holy spirit never fails to bring them to salvation that's accomplished by uh opening their mind to understand divine truth changing their affection so that they love that which they formerly hated and then releasing the the power of sin and their will that they may respond and surrender to the lord jesus christ this issue of saving grace was it resistable or irresistible at its core was a theological battle over who was sovereign god or man appealing to the word of god the senate of dort accused the remonstrance of rejecting the god who is and substituting instead one they had fashioned in their own image and to their own liking one that was ultimately subservient to the will of man and some element of chance as one noted reform scholar observed the debate was not between some law intermingled with a doctrine of chance miscalled freedom on the one hand and the doctrines of rigid calvinism on the other but simply between god and chance if an iota of chance is allowed into the universe then god's sovereignty is denied and god is not god [Music] so the grace that theologians from augustine the calvin were defending was truly amazing jesus went to a bloody cross they said in order to ransom the elect those whom the father had given him looking over the porticoes of solomon's temple the very symbol of salvation for god's elect children jesus declared my sheep hear my voice and i know them and they follow me and i give them eternal life and they shall never perish and no one shall snatch them out of my hand my father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand later at the last supper he affirmed this bold guarantee when he joyfully presented the eleven disciples to the father and declared while i was with them i kept them in thy name i have guarded them and none of them is lost but the son of perdition that the scripture might be fulfilled thereby affirming god's absolute sovereignty over everything including even the evil decisions of his enemies all this being true it becomes logically necessary to use the words of the holy spirit in the epistle to the hebrews that god and god alone is the author and finisher of our the elect's faith this truth was summed up well in the 17th chapter of the westminster confession of faith they whom god hath accepted in his beloved effectually called and sanctified by his spirit can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace but shall certainly persevere therein to the end and be eternally saved or to put it in the vernacular of today once you're truly saved that's it your eternal salvation is secure armenians shake their heads in disbelief at this teaching they look at the multitudes that profess faith in christ while at the same time embracing the very sins that nail jesus to a bloody cross this promise that once you're saved you're always saved seems for them to be a recipe for disaster an inducement to carnal living and compromise and as if to confirm their worst fears more than a few theologians and christian authors argue that lordship is an option for mature believers only a brass ring for those who want a quote better resurrection at the end of the day these same authors insist the gracious gift that is salvation could very well result in a person who remains a slave to sin their whole lives while professing to be blood bot redeemed sons and daughters of the living god good fruit then is incidental to the christian life and the grace of god does not necessarily produce any outward effect we'll come back to this point in a moment but for now it should be noted that concerning the doctrine of perseverance the armenian party again sided with the church of rome against the reformation the roman catholic church in fact had accused the protestant reformation with rank presumption on this very issue insisting that no man could be truly sure of his salvation if anyone saith that man is truly absolved from his sin and justified and that by his faith alone absolution and justification are affected let him be anathema i'm saved the logic goes because i asked jesus into my heart when i was ten and while i might not be living for him now i'm going to heaven because i prayed the prayer and walked an aisle let me simply lay it on the line for our modern armanian brethren this is not the reformed teaching of the perseverance of the saints and we stand with them in condemning this teaching as a doctrine of demons jesus made it clear that while the law is not the gospel the gospel is not lawless in the seventh chapter of matthew jesus warned not everyone who says to me lord lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven but he who does the will of my father in heaven many will say to me in that day lord lord have we not prophesied in your name cast out demons in your name and done many wonders in your name and then i will declare to them i never knew you depart from me you who practice lawlessness any teaching that suggests that the christian is free from the law o happy condition we may sin as we please and still have remission is a damnable lie and as much a perversion of god's word as the distortion breathed by the serpent in eden's garden reformed theology recognizes that people can hear the word and respond with joy but because there's no root of true regeneration in their heart they soon fall away it's not that they were saved and then became unsaved is that they were never truly saved at all and this is why jesus will say to them i never knew you depart from me you who practice lawlessness jesus is not saying i knew you but then because of your lawlessness i've become forgetful he said i never knew you number two individuals can react to the gospel with worldly sorrow which is in fact the only type of repentance the unregenerate heart can muster and this sorrow while it may look to both the person and those around him as authentic and truly life-giving in the end it only produces death number three people can experience a dimension of enlightenment as they hear the good word of god taste of the heavenly gift the powers of the world to come and partake of the blessings wrought by the holy spirit as they attend a church or live within a christian family community or culture and still go to hell when they die this passage in hebrews 6 is a popular verse for armenians looking to prove that the perseverance of the saints isn't true and that a christian really can lose their salvation there isn't time to look at all the reasons why this interpretation is wrong and why the true focus of this controversial passage is on outwardly christian but inwardly unconverted people living among and sharing the blessings of a christian family or community if you would like to study this in more detail allow me to recommend the commentaries of matthew henry john gill or matthew poole we'll leave this passage however by pointing out that the armenian interpretation leads to one inevitable profoundly unpleasant and yes unbiblical conclusion that there's no hope for the backslider if hebrews chapter 6 on the other hand is simply saying that a person who persistently and consistently resists grace cannot be brought to repentance then that provides for us the basis for great hope in fact hebrews chapter 6 is an incredible encouragement for us to take the benefits of covenant life seriously to not take them for granted to to watch the working of the holy spirit and see the good word of god and to taste the heavenly gift in such a way that the medicine of immortality brings us home to jesus the standard armenian interpretation of this passage doesn't wash if a christian can lose their salvation then someone who's backslidden even for a season has no hope of being restored because the writer of hebrews clearly says that the blood of jesus cannot be shed for them again and no armenian would hold that view they they urge their backslidden friends to come back to jesus and so clearly they don't really believe their interpretation of this passage perseverance of the saints is no license to sin it is a confidence an assurance as well as a call to a holy life which is why the author of hebrews writes in hebrews 12 14 that we are to pursue peace with all men and the holiness without which no one will see the lord we have to pursue holiness because without that pursuit without that holiness we will not be saved but that doesn't mean salvation is up to me god grants what he requires which is precisely what augustine prayed the christian life is a call to holiness growing in the fear and admonition of the lord this growth and sanctification is a necessary byproduct the evidence of a converted heart it is birthed and nurtured by the grace of god for we are his workmanship created in christ jesus for good works which god prepared beforehand that we should walk in them it was these good works that james referred to when he declared that the christians should be able to show or demonstrate his faith through his works and that any faith without these good works is dead we do not live holy lives to make ourselves acceptable to god or to gain his love but just as surely as light produces warmth the regenerating presence of the holy spirit in our hearts will inevitably result in an increase of holiness in our lives without that holiness no man should presume that he has been generally converted so does the bible teach that one who has truly believed can never lose his salvation both calvinists and modern-day armenians agree that justification is by grace and not works both agree that by definition grace means unconditional unmerited or unearned we do not merit the merit of christ we by grace through faith a faith that is not of ourselves but a gift from god are given the merit of christ if this is true if there are no conditions to grace how can you lose it unless you believe deep down that you have done something even the smallest thing to earn it if there were conditions then salvation would be earned and kept by obedience to those conditions salvation then would not be by grace but works in short god would owe you salvation because you did something to deserve earn or keep it and if you earned it it would stand to reason that you could unearn it there are numerous passages in the scriptures that support the perseverance of the saints the truth that god guarantees the eternal salvation of his elect we've already looked at john 17 verse 12 while i was with them in the world i kept them in your name those whom you gave me i have kept and none of them is lost except the son of perdition that the scripture might be fulfilled there's also philippians 1 verse 6 which states being confident of this very thing that he who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of jesus christ concerning this verse dr gordon clark has noted the work of salvation in the heart or soul was initiated by christ not the human person the text does not say that because christ began to work after the sinner had started the good work he christ would continue his efforts to the text says that christ began the good work he also will perfect or complete it continuing his work throughout the now regenerated sinner's life then there's this awesome promise found in the 10th chapter of john and i give them eternal life and they shall never perish neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand my father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand the speaker is jesus he declares that he's the one who gives his followers eternal life and that they shall never perish how long is never the issue of the perseverance of the saints emphasizes not what man does to keep his salvation but what christ has already accomplished paul addresses this with respect to the question of how many sins are forgiven through the atonement to the colossian church he declared and you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh he has made a life together with him having forgiven you all trespasses concerning this verse dr john gill notes forgiveness of sin is not done by peace meals or at different times or by diverse acts but is done at once and includes sin past present and to come and is universal reaches to all sin original and actual before and after conversion sins of thought word and action many people tend to think of their conversion as a moment when all their past sins were forgiven and washed away but their post-conversion sins are somehow different consciously or more often subconsciously there's a sense that they must somehow atone to god for these particular sins but while atonement man word may be necessary to restore relationships and preserve the integrity of human culture godward our post-conversion sins are washed away in the same way as those that preceded our relationship with christ through his sacrifice on the cross the simple fact is that when jesus made this sacrifice all of our sins lay in the future and so paul writing under the inspiration of god the holy spirit used the past tense having forgiven you if you truly have believed on the lord jesus you are one of those given to him by the father and when he suffered and died he paid for every single one of your sins past present and future throughout john's gospel jesus talks about those whom the father has given him none of those will be lost all of those come to him and all of those are preserved by him but our assurance of salvation never rests in what we do what we accomplish in our own faithfulness but entirely depends upon god upon the perfect propitiation of jesus christ the perfect sacrifice that he made and the mediation of our faithful high priest who intercedes for us and the work of his spirit uh in in our lives if you look at hebrews 6 we're told that we too have sure confidence and strong assurance and the reason for it isn't because of anything we do but because god interposed with an oath he made that oath for abraham and he makes that oath for us as well invariably there are those who will object to this based upon personal experience that someone they once knew to be a christian has fallen away from the faith no stuff happens okay well i i know a man who lived for you know for christ for 20 years okay he was he was at church every single time that the doors were open he ended up leaving his wife for another woman within the the next year he had completely given up the faith and just written it off as a phase that he had gone through about a year ago he was killed in a car accident so what you're telling me is that he's in heaven with the lord today because once saved always saved no we're not saying he's in heaven i didn't know the man and really nobody else but god truly does either none of us can ultimately know his heart either at the presumed point of his conversion or at the moment of his death it certainly doesn't look good for him and if he is in hell we only have to remember the verse we looked at earlier not everyone who says to me lord lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven but he who does the will of my father in heaven many will say to me in that day lord lord have we not prophesied in your name cast out demons in your name and done many wonders in your name and then i will declare to them i never knew you depart from me you who practice lawlessness it's possible for a person to go a long way and even convince those of us around that they are christians but the bottom line is what john says they went out from us because they were not of us again john teaches that those who truly fall away were never genuine believers to begin with now we need to be careful here if we see a professing christian committing a grievous sin we shouldn't begin by questioning their salvation we should love and pray for them and then do what jesus commanded us to do in matthew 18. go and tell him his fault between you and him alone if he hears you you have gained your brother but if he will not hear take with you one or two more that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established this is what the prophet nathan did after king david committed both adultery and murder if we had been among king david's advisors and had seen all that had gone on surrounding his relationship with uriah and bathsheba we might have been tempted to conclude that david was not a true believer we would have been wrong however as david later demonstrated through his repentance in conclusion i should mention that arminius himself was not fully convinced that a true believer could lose his salvation and advised that more study on this subject was needed however the vast majority of his followers would come to reject the perseverance of the saints and instead teach that a person could be saved and then lost born again and unborn again adopted and then divorced like with other issues we looked at the calvinists believed that the teaching of the remonstrance in this area was once again a direct result of their low view of the atonement because they held that christ's sacrifice by itself didn't satisfy the penalty for anyone's sins that it was left to the believer to do something to catalyze the process of forgiveness it then made perfect sense that the believer could make that process ineffectual as well and so not only our salvation but also the preservation of our salvation was ultimately dependent upon man the senate of dort emphatically disagreed for god who is rich in mercy according to the unchangeable purpose of election does not take his holy spirit from his own completely even when they fall grievously neither does he let them fall down so far that they forfeit the grace of adoption and the state of justification or commit the sin which leads to death the sin against the holy spirit and plunged themselves entirely forsaken by him into eternal ruin the canons of dork concluded by urging the armenians to repent of the false doctrines contained within their protest and instead embrace the biblical and historic teaching of the reformation it closes with a prayer for redemption and faithfulness to god may god's son jesus christ who sits at the right hand of god and gives gifts to men sanctify us in the truth lead to the truth those who air silence the mouths of those who lay false accusations against sound teaching and equip faithful ministers of his word with a spirit of wisdom and discretion that all they say may be to the glory of god and the building up of their hearers [Music] amen [Music] as we saw earlier the senator dort sat for six months after reviewing the written protests and hearing the arguments they declared the teaching of arminius and his followers out of accord with the bible and the confessions of the dutch church in fact they went so far as to label the remonstrance and their doctrines as a form of the pelagian heresy a label modern armenians reject as both unfair and unduly harsh but was it unfair first it needs to be understood that as the men who condemned the armenian remonstrance looked across the doctrinal divide they at times found themselves staring into the eyes of men whom they loved and with whom they had labored pastors professors students fathers and sons came down on opposite sides of the theological fence the final decision by the senate of dort was not made in haste nor were the calvinists filled with joy in seeing the arminians condemned for teaching error at best and heresy at worst repentance was their lofty goal but as martin luther had declared just a century earlier their thoughts were captive to the word of god when it came to the gospel family and friendships were laid aside second there's no getting around the fact that the armenian controversy marked the beginning of liberalism in the modern church the issue of how a sinner is justified as serious as that was was simply the symptom of a greater disease the disease of unbelief that bore itself out in the years following the synod of dort the doctrines of grace serve as a conserving factor for those central orthodox and evangelical doctrines that all true christians hold dear the doctrine of the deity of christ the doctrine of the necessity of salvation the doctrine of the necessity of the atonement the doctrine of justification by faith the inspiration of the scripture all of these things have a much more secure and solid foundation on the doctrines of grace dr philip schaff confirmed this observation when he wrote calvinism represented the consistent logical conservative orthodoxy armenianism an elastic progressive changing liberalism but the ultimate reason that the senate of dort labelled the remonstrance as being heretical was that they understood how the armenian view of free will opened a theological can of worms in regard to all kinds of foundational issues among them the doctrine of the inspiration and inerrancy of scripture arminianism has real implications for the doctrine of scripture how can god superintend men's words so carefully and so precisely as to ensure an inerrant scripture if god is a god who allows absolute freedom and allows sinners like the apostle paul or sinners like the apostle peter to make absolute choices if the armenian god is inspiring scripture we would expect it to be filled with some mistakes because that's the nature of freedom if on the other hand we have the sovereign god who exercises his good providence for the purpose of mercy upon his creatures then we can expect that there are times when he does not allow freedom in order for a particular task to be accomplished thus superintending every single word that the apostle peter writes though the apostle peter as we know is prone to sin the armenian says no you have to have free will that operates on its own and divine sovereignty respecting free will if that is so how can we be guaranteed that the persons who penned the bible did not at some time exert their free will apart from the sovereignty of god and put some mistakes in it and this is the common way that arminianism leads it leads to higher criticism it leads to a man-centered understanding of the bible and of inspiration and eventually you lose the doctrine of inerrancy armenians have a problem defending the inspiration and inerrancy of scripture because of the way it would require god to override the free will of man of course this is not to say that all arminians today are likely to compromise on the inerrancy and infallibility of scripture many thankfully do not what we are seeing however is that one consistently holds to the arminian doctrine of free will the foundation for believing that the bible is the infallible and inherent word of god will be ultimately compromised in fact in another moment of candor dr greiter acknowledges that while armenians should have confidence that the bible is inerrant on matters of faith and practice they should remain open to the possibility of errors relating to math history and geography once inerrancy is questioned all manner of other errors inevitably follow it's a plain fact of history that many of the leaders of the remonstrance among them conrad vorstias and simon episcopas ended up questioning and in the case of vorstius denying the deity of christ why because the bible they held in their hands was written by men who had a free will a will that was free from the full effects of the fall and the sovereignty of god and it doesn't stop here whenever the tenets of armenianism take root the cancer of humanism inevitably creeps into the church and into the culture she's called to disciple if man isn't completely fallen as the remonstrance argued then it logically follows that he's capable of ascertaining truth philosophical or scientific through his unaided reason thus began the so-called enlightenment culminating in david hume's skepticism on the one hand and the scientific naturalism of charles darwin on the other politically speaking armenianism also leaves the door open for statism the idea that man-made government independent of the word of god can help fashion some form of edenic paradise it's no secret that a rigorous calvinism in large part guided america's founding fathers and kept them from entrusting power to the state intentionally binding it with the checks and balances of our tricameral system of government one of the things that calvinism sees in the scriptures is a kind of representative checks and balances system where you have mixed government it's where the founding fathers really got the idea for the great experiment in freedom that we call american liberty it's really presbyterianism applied to the civil sphere in that sense calvinism is probably the most influential theological strain in all of constitutional history this has shaped america in peculiar ways because of the checks and balances and the separation of powers we have had a free economy because of that checks and balances and separation of powers we've been able to develop a system of the rule of law prosperity has been able to flourish side by side with freedom a very unique thing in the history of the world you know the truth is historically once men begin to move away from a sovereign god who sovereignly chooses once they move away from calvinism and the social institution that calvinism produces they move towards humanistic statism they move towards a reliance on other men other institutions and they move towards essentially what what one scholar called the messianic state that believed that the state will rescue them it's one of the great failings of the armenian system one of the things that calvinism does is it leans toward a republican style of of government in other words representative government where there are mixed powers checks and balances and so forth whereas armenianism is so individualistic it it leans much more to a to a sort of mass egalitarian democratic system that language sounds good to us as americans but in fact what it leads to is chaos absolute chaos every man for himself and when you have every man for himself chaos egalitarianism ultimately somebody's going to climb to the top and then what you've got is tyranny and finally there are many in view of free will as we've already seen makes man rather than god ultimately sovereign over the fundamental issue of salvation like the proverbial nose in the camel's tent man's supposed free will choice then begins to extend itself into other areas where god's will as revealed by his word is to reign supreme left unchecked this untrammeled free will has led to the insanity of our modern age a world where choice determines if an unborn child will live or die or whether a man will be allowed to marry another man few people noticed it amid the hoopla surrounding the kiss between britney spears and madonna at the 2003 mtv music video awards but their statement at the end of the performance revealed the true root of their rebellion in their minds god's word is no longer the supreme arbiter of right and wrong neither are they fallen creatures whose minds and wills have been warped by sin they are free to choose their own moralities a right that pelagianism and armenianism ultimately makes possible in the same eerie way the spirit behind the infamous halftime show at supra bowl 38 was missed amidst the furor surrounding the bearing of janet jackson's breast throughout her performance the audience was exhorted over and over to choose to be different to be whatever they wanted to be once again perverse behavior was merely a byproduct of a far more insidious idea that man is the master of his own fate and the arbiter of his own reality man's choice rather than god's is ultimately sovereign the only antidote to the sickness of our present evil age the gospel of the kingdom of god the proclamation that god is dread sovereign over everything in heaven and on earth that he is holy a consuming fire whose wrath will be revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of man that he has satisfied the demands of justice in the sufferings and death of his son on the cross that man is completely dead in his trespasses and sins and cannot lift a finger to help himself but that what is impossible for man is possible with god that he and he alone can make us alive again through christ understanding this it's time that we were about our father's business calling men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel but wait a minute you might ask why should we preach the gospel if the synod of dord is right and god and god alone is sovereign an election if he chooses certain individuals to be saved and sends his son to die for them and them alone and leaves others in their fallen state and if he guarantees that his elect will be irresistibly drawn to christ and can ever be lost then why bother evangelizing well we'll answer that question in our next and final section [Music] when will you understand that we must win brothers and sisters from the other side with love and not with force i tale the fruit of the gospel is not only righteousness it is love here is how i must use my freedom i must give myself to my neighbor as jesus christ in love gave himself to me i must do nothing in life that is not needful to my neighbor because through faith i have all that i need myself in this way and in this way only can i become a true son of gracious god [Music] there are two questions that often arise when discussing the reform view of man and salvation particularly from people who are used to viewing this subject from a humanistic or armenian perspective the first the most common is if all this is true then why bother evangelizing and related to this is the manner in which we are to present the gospel if man is spiritually dead and completely unable to choose life how are we to present god's good news the offer of eternal life through christ let's look at each of these issues in turn first why evangelize if god has an elect and there already predestined to come to christ why do we need to do anything to help make it happen well we evangelize because god's commanded us to if god is god and we are his creatures the fact that he says to do it is enough well first of all we should defend our life if for no other reason simply because christ said do it okay if there was no logic no rhyme no reason if we had nothing but the simple command go there foreign that's why we should demand device number one but then secondly a more comprehensive answer is that evangelism is the meaning by which god has purpose to bring his will to pass and so the god of the end is also the gospel to me and what are the means that god has ordained god is pleased to use human means to accomplish glorious divine and eternal ends and we have the incredible privilege of being co-laborers with christ in bringing to pass the greatest most glorious ends imaginable the redemption of all of god's elect god has intended to save men through the means of mortal human beings it's absolutely astounding that god would use a weak frail sinful human being to testify to the lord jesus christ this raises another question that needs to be addressed is god helpless without you or me to evangelize are his arms so short that he cannot save without our help god doesn't need me to round up the election but he gives me the unspeakable privilege of participating in this work of redemption i think it's a delight for us to be able to be engaged it's the same thing with prayer as a result of free will theology much of modern evangelism falsely assumes that god is helpless without us to proclaim the gospel though they would never say it this way the impression one gets is that without us god can do nothing scriptural however teaches the exact opposite jesus put the axe to the root to such humanistic thinking when he responded to the pharisees plea that he tell the crowd to stop praising him but he answered and said to them i tell you that if these should keep silent the stones would immediately cry out in the same way his cousin john the baptist rebuked a crowd for only trusting in their religious heritage for i say to you that god is able to raise up children to abraham from these stones it is our duty sir as christians to attempt the spreading of the gospel by speaking to these heathen nations mr carrick mr kelly calm yourself down if it pleases god to save the heathen he shall do it without your aid or mine fortunately william carey didn't listen to that church leader some friends helped him start the english baptist missionary society and under its auspices in 1793 he sailed for india and became the greatest and most versatile christian missionary sent out in modern times kerry was a calvinist evangelism is a responsibility and a privilege armenians sometimes think that if the church embraces calvinism evangelism will die however when you consider that many of the greatest preachers and evangelists in history were calvinists this fear can be seen as unwarranted in section 1 we gave a short list of these men if time were permit we could spend hours even days naming off others who would ever charge jonathan edwards or spurgeon or whitfield or j.c ryle or john piper or dr kennedy with being slothful in their responsibility to evangelize well no one at least no one in their right mind [Music] we look at the history of the united states we see that our greatest revivals the most impressive ones in our country's history were produced through the sovereignty of god by people who were committed to the doctrines of grace the first great awakening in the 1740s 1730s and 40s with jonathan edwards and george whitefield were remarkable outpourings of god's grace and they were outpourings of god's revival by people who proclaimed the doctrines of grace you know the standard knock on calvinism is that it undermines the reason for evangelism that if god has already chosen there's no reason to evangelize but the fact is the greatest evangelists in the history of the church have for the most part been calvinist george whitefield certainly one of the greatest evangelists in the whole history of the church and one of the founders of america really a calvinist who led a huge number of people to jesus and others have been as well so the reality is that a man's more likely to preach the gospel when he knows that god has already sovereignly chosen to make him a success at his efforts than he is if it's just based on human will the fact is not only does calvinism with its high view of god demand that we obey the lord and take the gospel to the four corners of the world it also guarantees our success in the enterprise because we know that he has ordained that his elect those that will believe will be saved through the foolishness of preaching we can have every confidence that as we obey the lord in both prayer and proclamation his word will not return void but it shall accomplish what he pleases and it shall prosper in the thing for which he sent it now on to the second question in light of these truths how and to whom should we present the gospel the answer to the second part of that question is really quite easy we're to be ready instant in season and out of season to present the gospel to everyone we meet or as jesus put it go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature at this point the armenian will often ask why every creature if god is only going to save his elect why waste your time sharing with people who've not been appointed unto salvation well quite simply god doesn't tell us who the elect are when people say why preach the gospel to every creature if only the elector going to respond there are two answers first of all it is part of the indictment against the lost that the gospels preach to them and they don't respond number one and number two part of the gospel is its leavening effect in the culture as a whole so even unsaved men are affected by the gospel that seeps into their lives a man once came to charles spurgeon and said if i believe like you mr spurgeon that god saved some and passed by others i'd give up preaching to this spurgeon replied god has called me to preach his word and if i knew that all the elect had a yellow stripe painted down their backs then i would give up preaching the gospel and go lift up shirt tails we don't know who the elect are and so instead strive to be all things to all men so that by all means some meaning the elect might be saved as we now look at the content of our message we would do well to consider what to avoid as we've already seen much of what passes for ministry today has been compromised by the leaven of humanism that often treats its audience as autonomous creatures that have every right to sit in judgment on both god and his word picking out what they like and throwing away the rest along with this has come a result-oriented approach to soul winning where people seem more concerned with how many walk down the aisle than with the content of the message if the number is not high enough then the messages change to make it more palatable so as to get the maximum number of people to make a decision you know surveys show that 82 of americans believe in god and believe themselves to be christians and yet we have less influence as christians in american culture today than any other time so the question has to come up what kind of gospel are we preaching what's wrong with what we're believing there have been studies that suggest that both numerically as well as by percent of the total population more people profess to believe in god and be born again than at any other time in us history and yet with all these numbers the church has less influence in our culture today than she's had in years past we need to ask ourselves what's wrong with this picture in part the answer may be that instead of seeking the elect by presenting food for the sheep the priests word of god which the holy spirit uses to convict the elect of their sins many are seeking the bottom line numbers and since numbers have often become the standard by which to judge a ministry's success and not wanting to offend and drive people away much of the modern church is no longer preaching the sinfulness of man or the bloody offense of the cross as a result the church is offering the wrong kind of food instead of food for sheep much a day's preaching in evangelism is food for goats and goats are now everywhere jesus told us that the gospel was an offense that the cross was an offense it offends our sensibilities how do you package that how do you market that how do you make an offense seeker sensitive well what you have to do is you have to take away the offense when you take away the offense you take away the gospel examining what he termed the superficiality of modern evangelism the renowned scholar and soul winner dr martin lloyd jones presented the solution evangelism must start with the holiness of god the sinfulness of man the demands of the law and the eternal consequences of evil of course the fear today is that if you're not positive and entertaining people will not come as pastor stephen lawson noted in his book made in our image step into the average church these days and you will likely see that the services are designed more to remove the fear of god than to promote it in the 16th century the heart of the reformation luther warned his contemporaries he said anytime the gospel is preached clearly and boldly it will produce conflict and people don't like conflict and so as a result they will change the gospel water it down or try to take away its offense when the evangelistic meeting is all designed to produce the effect of people of large numbers of people walking forward at the end of the meeting you tend to do things very differently than you do when you're pressing the gospel upon the hearts of men and urging them to respond in prayer to god a.w pink baptist minister and author of the classic book the sovereignty of god observed the nature of christ's salvation is woefully misrepresented by the present day evangelist he announces a savior from hell rather than a savior from sin and that is why so many are fatally deceived for there are multitudes who will wish to escape the lake of fire who have no desire to be delivered from their carnality and worldliness instead of preaching the law of preaching the law of god to convict men of sin and expose their guilt before a just and holy god many churches opt for a non-confrontational approach to both preaching and evangelism ray comfort explains the modern gospel says put on the lord jesus christ he gives you love joy peace fulfillment and lasting happiness the sinner responds and in an experimental fashion puts on the savior to see if the claims are true and what does he get the promised temptation tribulation and persecution peace and joy are fruits of the gospel they are not the tree and definitely not the root if we really love people then we need to tell them the truth and what is the truth that if they're outside of christ if they have not submitted to him as lord and savior then they're sinners in the hands of an angry god as jonathan edwards preached and perhaps the most famous sermon in american history the sentence of the law of god that eternal and immutable rule of righteousness that god has fixed between him and mankind is gone out against them and stands against them so that they are bound over to hell we tell people they don't need to repent because god loves them just the way they are and the only reason to come to jesus is to have greater peace or greater happiness or a better trip than they'll get from drugs that's not the gospel at all god is love but god is not promiscuous love promiscuity throws love around sentimentally without discretion or discernment god's not that way at all god's love has a purpose god's love has the purpose of redeeming us and changing us god does not love us just the way we are god loves us so that we can be what he wants us to be you know the standard evangelistic approach is to tell non-believers god loves you just the way you are well a wise non-believer is going to say well if god loves me the way i am why should i change we've got to get rid of that kind of humanistic nonsense the goodness of the gospel the good news becomes truly good only in direct relation to the bad news that it comes to address that all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god that we have violated god's righteous standards more times than we can number that the wages of our sin is death and that the holy anger of god abides against us in anticipation of the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of god when all those whose names are not written in the lamb's book of life will be cast into the lake of fire without understanding the depth of our sin and our offense against a thrice holy god the good news becomes the okay news just another 12 step program in our modern therapeutic culture martin luther understood this he explained that presenting a cure without explaining the disease was a trick and device of the arch enemy of man satan the god of all dissension stirs up daily new sex he has raised up a sect such as teach that men should not be terrified by the law but gently exhorted by the preaching of the grace of christ [Music] excuse me sir i have the cure for cancer for the stage for non-hodgkin's lymphoma uh that's great good luck with that sir sir it's for the stage for non-hopkins lymphoma yeah right what is that i have the cure for cancer for the stage for non-options lymphoma excuse me sir i have the cure for cancer it's for the stage four non-hodgkin's lymphoma i'm proud of you thank you in this test tube i have the cure for cancer i have the cure for cancer it's for the stage for non-hopkins lymphoma the the stage for non-hopkins lymphoma it's for the stage four non-hodgkin's lymphoma i don't have cancer thanks i don't have cancer so thanks very much but i wish you the best thank you and hopefully you'll find somebody that you can help thank you uh that that's great gotta get to another spot but it's for the stage for non-hopsins lymphoma mr goodman i'm afraid i have some bad news well how bad is it doc the test results have come back positive for cancer that's right i'm afraid it's the worst kind a stage for non-hopkins lymphoma i mean doc i mean look at me do i look like somebody who has cancer however well you feel on the outside the cancer is killing you from the inside no that's there's no way that i'm dying i mean look at me doc i'm dying you telling me i'm dying not necessarily the good news is that we have a complete cure one dose and the cancer will be completely gone you're telling me in that bow there's something that can heal me this one does i mean i don't know what to say i mean that's the best news i mean that is the best news that you could ever told me one of the most important and sadly often ignored keys to effective evangelizing is showing people that they're dead in trespasses and sins a walking corpse in desperate need of a resurrection and the primary means that god has appointed to bring men to an awareness of the sin and death that rages in their very being is through his law the ten commandments like a cat scan that can find the silent killer the cancer or the clogged artery the commandments reveal the true state of our souls so what the law of god does is it provides us with the guideline the plumb line the the the reality check that enables us to hold the line and to produce something that is genuinely and objectively good rather than just subjectively good we study the law of god because the law reveals to us not only the righteousness of god and his holiness but by contrast it stands as a mirror i look in the mirror of god's law and i realize my utter helplessness in and of myself much of the church today unlike the church of decades and centuries past has a definite problem with the law of god as found in the ten commandments many believe it to be antiquated harsh or part of the old testament and therefore of no use to new testament christians but as paul wrote to timothy we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully by way of an analogy the law of god is good in the same way that fire can be good fire if used lawfully can produce energy heat a home on a cold morning or cook a hot meal after a long day's work if used unlawfully fire can cause pain suffering and destruction on a grand scale and so it is with the ten commandments if one uses it as a tool for self-righteousness or to earn heaven he will eventually find that at the end of the law there is nothing but death the law of god was never intended to save the apostle paul explains for by the law is the knowledge of sin that as fallen creatures we would not have known sin except through the law he further observed that the law has the unique ability to magnify the horror of our transgressions so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful the law is also universal in its scope that every mouth may be stopped and the entire world may become guilty before god and pedagogical in its purpose and impact therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to christ that we might be justified by faith the law of the lord is perfect saying the psalmist converting the soul in commenting on this passage matthew henry notes that the law shows us our sinfulness and misery in our departures from god and the indispensable necessity of our return to him tragically the law of god today has largely fallen into disuse in our lawless relativistic do what is right in your own eyes culture less than one professing christian in a hundred can quote the ten commandments from memory and in perhaps one of the greatest ironies of our time christians rally by the thousands to support the posting of the ten commandments in a courthouse even while the law is missing from their hearts and pulpits it's for this very reason that renowned evangelist and author ray comfort calls the preaching of the law that brings the knowledge and conviction of sin hell's best kept secret it didn't always use to be this way saint augustine observed sin cannot be overcome without the grace of god so the law was given to convert the soul by anxiety about its guilt so that it might be ready to receive grace he continued the law was therefore given not to take away sin but to include all under sin so that by this humiliation they might know that their salvation was not in their own hands it was this same understanding that provoked john wycliffe the morning star of the reformation to cry out the highest service to which a man may obtain on earth is to preach the law of god martin luther echoed this conviction when he declared the first duty of a preacher of the gospel is through his revealing of the law and of sin and then explain thou art killed by the law that through christ thou mayest be quickened and restored to life quoting again dr martin lloyd jones the essence of evangelism is to start by preaching the law and it is because the law has not been preached that we have so much superficial evangelism charles spurgeon also spoke about the tragic implications of minimizing the preaching of the law by lowering the law you weaken its power in the hands of god as a convincer of sin it is the looking glass which shows us our spots and that is the most powerful thing though nothing but the gospel can wash them away lower the law and you dim the light by which man perceives his guilt this is a very serious loss to the sinner rather than again spurgeon then lays it on the line a sinner will never receive grace until he first trembles before a just and holy law john bunyan declared the man who does not know the nature of the law cannot know the nature of sin and he who does not know the nature of sin cannot know the nature of the savior the lightning rod of the great awakening george whitefield also gave primary emphasis to the law in affecting true conversions that is the reason we have so many mushroom converts because their stony heart is not plowed they have not got a conviction of the law they are stony ground hearers the baptist confession of 1689 explains that the ten commandment shows the need they sinners have of christ and the perfection of his obedience the westminster confession of faith states that the moral law is of use to unregenerate men to awaken their consciences to flee from the wrath to come and to drive them to christ john wesley the great armenian evangelist understood that true biblical evangelism did not start by offering grace but by expounding the law of god the first use of the law without question is to convince the world of sin by this is the sinner discovered to himself all his fig leaves are torn away and he sees that he is wretched and poor and miserable blind and naked the law flashes conviction on every side he feels himself a mere sinner he has nothing to pay his mouth is stopped and he stands guilty before god with this truth in mind wesley encouraged a friend to preach 90 percent law and 10 percent grace tragically much of today's church has forgotten the wisdom of these great men too often we have forsaken the law as the primary schoolmaster that drives rebellious sinners to christ we have exchanged our birthright for a massive cheap pottage embracing slick marketing techniques pizza blowouts and seeker friendly gimmicks in the hope of increasing the numbers that walk our isles and fill our seats if the church does not repent of her lawless man-centered gospel she will continue to reap false conversions she will find herself powerless and her pews filled with unrepentant sinners who will one day hear perhaps the most horrifying words that will ever be uttered by the lord of hosts i never knew you depart from me you who practice lawlessness [Music] that said this in no way means that we aren't to be winsome loving and sensitive in our presentation of the gospel being uncompromising and faithful to the law of god and the power of the cross is not a license for being insensitive or obnoxious you know the problem with the church today is that we're preaching a costless gospel right where jesus loves you just the way you are well we need to be teaching that they need christ here by preaching the law of god here let me show you what i mean hey you got a second yeah was was that girl your wife no she's not why well you know that when you look at a woman and it's not your wife and you've got lust in your eyes you're breaking god's seventh commandment excuse me you're you're an adulterer but jesus christ went to the cross to pay the price for your adultery if you repent of your sins and ask god's forgiveness he can make you a child of god what do you think i think you're an idiot now i had a feeling that he was just another vessel of dishonor in direct contradistinction to this unpleasant scenario the prophet isaiah painted a very different picture of how the gospel should appear how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news who proclaims peace who brings glad tidings of good things who proclaims salvation who says to zion your god reigns it was said of jesus the greatest evangelist who will ever live that the common people heard him gladly so how can we see our gospel shot feet be made truly beautiful how can we ensure that our ambassadorship is faithful to both god and his truth and yet is gracious and winsome at the same time so much so that the people we minister to can hear us gladly while not necessarily exhausting and in no particular order as far as importance let's close by considering nine important keys to biblical evangelism number one pray for and love the people to whom you bring the gospel as christians we really need to get involved in prayer prayer for the unsaved prayer for the lost it's not enough to just say thy will be done and just hope that god will somehow reach people who don't know him they won't even jesus prayed for people who didn't know him he said not just the disciples was he praying for but the people who would come to know him through through their word and i really believe we have the privilege we have the opportunity and the responsibility to fervently pray and intercede with god and that's love love basically is doing something it's taking action number two strive to reflect the nature and truth of god in your life and character sometimes the greatest evangelism happens when we are just living our lives just being christ-like building up a reputation of reflecting christ i think second corinthians 3 2 puts it best we are to be living epistles being known of by all men number three ask god for wisdom proverbs 11 30 says that the one who wins souls is wise well no doubt working with god to see people saved is a wise career choice the scripture speaks of benefits retirement benefits if you will concerning a better resurrection in hebrews 11 35 so doing evangelism and partnering with god to reach souls is just a wonderful way to go but hebrew is a notoriously ambiguous language and this verse can just as easily mean that it takes wisdom to win souls we're called to be as gentle as doves but as wise as serpents and nowhere is this more necessary than in the art of ambassadorship particularly when you find yourself amongst wolves knowing when to answer a fool according to his folly and when not to is just one example of our great need for wisdom number four as we've already seen present the law of god number five so the word of god most specifically the good news of the atonement the cross of calvary now the bible says that jesus was the word made flesh and jesus said that if he the word be lifted up he would draw all men unto himself now that carries within it the power and with the holy spirit's help to produce faith number six be a vessel of the holy ghost through both your life and your testimony whether i'm sharing the gospel in a preaching context or if i'm sharing my faith one-on-one i just find that god wants to use me sometimes feeling inadequate or frail this is really a good thing because the bible tells us that we're jars of clay we are frail vessels but we can be conduits of his presence and of his glory not only with our words but with our lives when people are watching us when no words are coming out of our mouth and people are marking us from a distance the glory of god the presence of god can flow through us to touch people's lives so that they can come to christ you know really satan is the one we struggle with second corinthians 4 4 says that he has actively blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel who is christ christ is the image of god and through that blinding there's no doubt about it that people don't have a testimony it's the word of our testimony and a changed life that actually shows people the impact of the gospel number seven move your audience into a place of doubt concerning the way they're living their lives help them to see the futility vanity and inconsistencies of their worldview by casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of god bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of christ to put it another way to get them to doubt the efficacy of the idolatrous belief system the babbling tower their flesh the world and the devil have created for them the spiritual weapons we use to accomplish this are both prayer and apologetics and when it comes to the latter being always ready as the apostle peter put it to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear there's just no substitute for being a well-read and thoughtful believer someone who according to hebrews 5 14 is mature used to the solid food of the word and through use and practice has trained their senses their judgment to discern both good and evil a brief aside here one of the controversies today among theologians and christian philosophers concerns which apologetical method is the most effective and faithful to scripture without getting into a lot of detail an argument can be made that when it comes to proverbs 26 verse 4 not answering a fool in his folly to avoid becoming like him the presuppositional method developed by gordon clark cornelius van till and others is perhaps the best way to go i mean do you see what i'm saying can you comprehend what we're doing i don't believe in god i mean that's your truth that's not my truth but but i'm i'm cool with that man you do what's real to you but you can't tell me there's this good and evil and there's there's no absolute truth it's your perspective i got my perspective too and there's a truth inside of me that i'm living by i'm doing what i need to do being true to me being true to me okay hey what are you doing dude dude what are you doing bro that's my stuff what are you doing no hey listen put it back dude those are my brand new shoes hey my mom got me there what are you what are you what are you doing yeah man i'll holler at you ladies see you dude you can't just come in here and take my stuff i can't you judging me man look i'm just doing what you said you know following my heart you got some nice stuff i need some nice stuff uh you are still cool with that right no i'm not cool man i gotta bounce so your key's still in the ignition my keys but when it comes to the flip side of proverbs 26 5 answering the fool according to his folly lest he be wise in his own eyes every apologetical method may have a role to play as we follow in his footsteps and practice incarnational christianity entering into the world of the unbeliever we relate to people on whatever level we can yes in our hearts we understand that their questions and doubts are ultimately expressions of their own sinfulness and rebellion but as we love people and connect with them as we pray for them and carry the living water of the gospel to them through the vessels of our lives and the words of our testimony and as we challenge them with the truth of god's word while looking for ways to engage them in a conversation about eternal things we become a conduit for the grace and the mercy of god we are never to trust in our evangelistic abilities or our apologetical skills we trust in the god above beyond and behind all these things closely related to this is our next point help your audience acknowledge the truth that god has already placed in their hearts but that they are desperately working to suppress in their unrighteousness again take great confidence in knowing that deep down and very possibly now gushing to the surface they know what you're saying is true in teaching on this truth to a christian audience i'll often use a jack-in-the-box as a visual aid picture jack as the truth the knowledge that jesus is lord and that we're not that we're all sinners in desperate need of a savior and that jesus is that savior in his fallenness and his sinful desire to be his own god to do what's right in his own eyes the unregenerate person squeezes jack down into the box of his heart and then sets out to do everything he can to forget the jacks down there but as we love and pray for them and faithfully do the work of an ambassador as we've discussed we meaning you in the holy spirit are turning the crank on their heart box waiting for the tumbler to click and for jack to pop out and lastly number nine clearly challenge your audience to repent and believe the gospel to be reconciled to god the bible tells us that no one is seeking god the lost or not seeking god god himself is seeking the lost and our part in evangelism is to tell people what god requires of them which primarily is to repent it's to change your mind about the good news of the gospel our job as christ's ambassadors is to strive to be faithful and to grow in all nine areas as much as we can what happens as a result of our ambassadorship however is up to god some of those you minister to may experience the mercy of god and regeneration repentance and salvation others may leave with seed planted for another day of watering and eventual harvest and there may be some who only experience god's anger who leave with hearts all the more hardened with the truth pushed and locked back down into their heart boxes waiting for the day when god will bring it forth and judge the secrets of men's hearts through jesus christ all three of these potential scenarios bring glory to god and are the righteous fruits of a successful ambassadorship it's been well said that the chief end of man is to glorify god and enjoy him forever glorifying and enjoying god is not just some greeting card piety however it carries with it a host of things we must both believe and do chief among them is to understand who he is and who we are in relation to him it's here where the truly amazing grace we've looked at in the previous two sections is so vitally important a close second however is to share the same passions and desires of our heavenly father and chief among them as regards the world of man is the salvation of his elect and the restoration of this world into its intended purpose for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son the great shepherd jesus humbled himself to redeem the lost sheep of his pasture can we be satisfied with anything less we close with this last thought for better or worse one characteristic of today's church or at least the one in america is the great interest in biblical prophecy and the events that will accompany the end of the age and the return of christ what's interesting about this is that scholars disagree as to which events are yet in the future and which ones have been fulfilled from the great tribulation to the gospel being preached in all the world it is by no means certain that these events weren't accomplished before the end of the first century there is one thing however that everyone agrees has yet to be fulfilled perhaps the clearest and most universally accepted scriptural tipping point for the consummation of our present age the apostle peter spoke very clearly about the eschaton the end of the world when the present cosmos will be transformed but the day of the lord will come as a thief in the night in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise and the elements will melt with fervent heat both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up he specifically addresses the mystery of this event's timing calling us to patient labor and reminding us that god's timetable is not the same as ours but beloved do not forget this one thing that with the lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day but then the holy spirit through peter gives us the rationale for all the waiting and patient toil the lord is not slack concerning his promise as some count slackness but is longsuffering toward us not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance and so we see that jesus is patiently waiting before he returns and breaks down the tent so to speak of the present cosmos and why is he waiting that none of us would perish but that all come to repentance and who is this all well it certainly can't mean all people scripture makes it abundantly clear that there are many who travel the wide path to destruction and end up in hell in addition if he's not willing that any should perish and yet many do we're left with a god who cannot accomplish his perfect will and this is certainly not the god of the bible [Music] no the all that jesus is waiting for that none that he's not willing to let perish are the sheep of his flock the elect that he died for and is committed to saving and so the ultimate tipping point of the eschaton is the day when the last lost sheep is ushered into his pasture understanding all this how should we then live peter tells us therefore what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness looking for and hastening the coming of the day of god and so we end the banquet of god's amazing grace laid before us not only has our great lord paid the ultimate price to redeem us and raise us from the dead and not only is he patiently waiting for our other brothers and sisters to be saved he has blessed us with the inexpressible privilege and honor of working with him in bringing those elect brethren into his kingdom let us long for our king's return let us hasten the day let us seek so that he might save the lost [Music] you