Calvinism Sermon: Total Depravity (Part 2 in series)

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Calvinism Sermon: Unconditional Election (Part 3 in series)

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You can open your Bibles to John, Gospel according to John, chapter 6, verse 35,

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John 6, 35. Hear now the words of the living and true

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God. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life.

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Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

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But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe, all that the

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Father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes to me

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I will never cast out, for I've come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of Him who sent me.

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And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me but raise it up on the last day.

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For this is the will of my Father that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise

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Him up on the last day. So the Jews grumbled about Him because He said,

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I am the bread that came down from heaven. They said, is not this

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Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does now He say, I have come down from heaven?

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Jesus answered them, do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the

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Father who sent me draws Him, and I will raise

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Him up on the last day. Thus far is the reading of God's holy word. Let's pray. Father, I pray that You would move mightily among us.

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God, that You'd cause us as we study these things to be in awe of You, Lord, to worship

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You. God, I pray that this would not be a mere intellectual exercise where we rehearse,

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Lord, the things that identify our club or our clique. I pray, God, that this would be a study that transforms us.

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Even if these are truths, God, that we know, that we've embraced, that we profess to believe, I pray that You, God, would wreck us.

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Lord, display how glorious Your grace truly is. Show us,

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God, apart from Christ, who we truly are. God, I pray that You would magnify

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Christ through this study. I pray, God, that this study would cause

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Your people to have a greater devotion to You and Your gospel, that it would spur us on to love and good deeds and,

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God, missions, risky, dangerous, sacrificial missions for the glory of Jesus.

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I pray that You increase our hope in the proclamation of the gospel through this study, and,

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God, I pray that people would leave here and leave this study forgetting me and who the message came from and remembering

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You and Your truth. I pray, God, with all my heart that You would speak through, Lord, a minister who has no earthly right preaching these things and myself.

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I pray, God, that You would cause me to decrease, Christ, to increase, and I pray that this study increases,

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Lord, worship of You. In Jesus' name, amen.

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So praise God, doctrines of grace. As I said last week, it might seem like kind of a dangerous exercise to do a study on doctrines of grace.

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As a matter of fact, it can seem like the kind of study that divides churches.

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One local pastor, a man whom I respect greatly, actually said when he did this study once a year at his church that it was time to clear out the parking lot, so let's study the doctrines of grace.

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This is a controversial subject, no question about that. It's a subject that has divided professing believers in this particular nation for a long period of time.

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Although early on in the history of this particular nation, it was the dominant view of the

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Christian church. So if you were in the colonies early on in the United States of America, you'd be hard pressed to find

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Arminian churches on the corner. Calvinism, Reformed theology was a dominant theology of this particular nation.

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As a matter of fact, if you want to know who to thank for America in particular in terms of our governmental system and all the rest, you might want to thank

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God for Geneva because that's really where it came from. If you look over the last couple of hundred years, some of the greatest missionary efforts in the history of the

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Christian church came from Reformed people, Calvinists.

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This is an important issue, despite the fact that there are thousands of Facebook groups on social media that hash out these issues all the time and create great divides and insults, despite the fact that telling you these things and you embracing these truths runs the risk of creating lots and lots of cage -stage

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Calvinists. Cage -stage Calvinists is when you see the truths of the

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Reformed faith and you see really the depravity of man, the glory of God in the gospel, His power to save sinners, really the power of the atonement and its exclusive nature in terms of God actually saving sinners.

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When you see that, oftentimes it creates the desire to go out and to win the world with these truths, and oftentimes we do it neglecting grace and mercy, and so sometimes we have cage -stage

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Calvinists, people that see these truths and we would like to lock them up into a cage for at least the first six months until they take a deep breath and they finally see really how these things work out in our lives.

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It's important. Here's what's at stake. Listen closely because I mean this. This is not just something polemical.

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This is not merely something to get people motivated. This is really the truth. What is at stake with the doctrines of grace?

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Here's what's at stake. The gospel is at stake. The good news of Jesus Christ, the heart of the gospel is the grace of God in salvation.

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Let me say that again. The heart of the gospel is the grace of God in salvation. If you distort the nature of God's grace, if you speak about God's grace in a way that's contrary to the scriptures, you destroy people, real lives, people's souls, their eternal destinies.

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As a matter of fact, if you have a distorted view of grace, it will not just disrupt a biblical view of justification, how a person is reconciled to God, but if you disrupt biblical grace, it actually impacts your walk with Jesus, your praxis, how you actually communicate to God.

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One of the things I was discussing last night at man camp was something that's vitally important to get.

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It has to do with the grace of God. How do you relate to God on a daily basis as a

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Christian? How do you see the grace of God in the gospel? Oftentimes as Christians, we say that we believe the grace of God.

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We believe that justification is by God's grace, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone, but we begin to actually walk with God in such a way as to deny the grace of God.

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What I mean by that is we actually walk with God and have an experience with God where we say with our lips, it's all of God's grace, it's through faith in Jesus Christ only because of His work, but we actually walk with God in such a way as to testify that somehow our relationship with God is dependent upon our obedience, our own personal righteousness in some way.

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How many of you guys have experienced that as a Christian, you're being sanctified, God is showing you your sin, He's showing you your heart,

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He's showing you what's really there, and your response to God actually challenging you and convicting you is to actually take it as judgment and condemnation.

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You feel like God is far off, like He's far from you. You know that God says that He saves you by His grace, that the work of Christ is enough to purchase you and to reconcile you to God, enough to actually make you holy and blameless before Him.

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You know that with your mind and in your heart, but you walk with God. You commune with God in such a way as to say that my intimacy with God is based somehow on my performance.

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And so you go in and out, sort of waves in your relationship with God where you think that you're doing well walking with God and all of a sudden you sin, and you're aware of your sin, and so all of a sudden

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God seems so far away, like God is not pleased with you, He doesn't love you any longer, He's angry with you, He has wrath for you.

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As Christians, we often distort the grace of God like that. We can check the box, the theological exam, we could pass 100%, we can do it.

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We can write a book, we can write an essay on the grace of God and salvation and justification through faith, but practically we distort the grace of God in our daily communion with God, acting somehow like our relationship with God is based upon our own performance, when in reality what the

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Scriptures testify to is that your relationship with God and my relationship with God is not based upon your performance, not in the past, not now, not ever.

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It's based solely on the work of Jesus Christ, and the way that you receive that is faith, not by works in any way.

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But then it goes deeper, it starts to move down a level and you start asking questions, well, how come I believe and He doesn't?

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How come I believe and She doesn't? How come I'm in a place where I've repented of my sin and daily repent of my sin and cling to Christ?

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How come I'm in a place where I actually despise my own self? I despise my own behavior, my life.

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How come I'm there and He's not and She's not? How come I believe and they don't? And in reality, the answer is a single word, grace.

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Grace. What separates you and me from any other fallen human being is not somehow your power, your will, your exertion, not somehow your environment and upbringing, although those things are blessings and means of God's grace.

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If you have Christian parents who gave you the gospel and you love Jesus now because you raised in a Christian home, that is the love and grace of God poured out in your life.

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But what separates any of us from those who do not trust in Jesus Christ and submit to Him is the grace of God.

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And so the gospel is at stake because make no mistake about it. The gospel is at stake. Make no mistake about it.

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What separates man -made religion from true religion, what separates the world's descriptions of how a person is made right with God and what the

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Bible says about how a person is made right with God is expressed in these truths that we call the doctrines of grace.

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It's vitally important to get. You see, all the religions of the world, man -made religions, they are ultimately synergistic.

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Here's some words you want to get down. Synergism versus monergism. Roman Catholicism is synergistic.

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Mormonism is synergistic. The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, synergistic.

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Islam, synergistic. What's that mean? It means God is my co -pilot. It means that God, He does what

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He can do and I have to do what I can do to somehow cooperate with God in a synergistic fashion to ultimately accomplish salvation in some way.

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Synergism. But you see, when you read the scriptures and you see the display of God's power and His love and mercy and grace for sinners, you see that the scriptures testify to a monergistic view of salvation.

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You recognize that word, right? Monotheistic. One God. Monergism. One force is at work.

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One power. God is the one who accomplishes salvation. And the distinction between man -made religion and the truth of God is seen here in the distinction between synergism and monergism.

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Is it fallen, sinful human beings that cooperate with God? God does everything

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He can to save sinners. And yet, Jesus can die for their sins and God can try to bring about salvation.

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But He can fail unless He has the cooperation of a fallen, sinful human being to meet somewhere in the middle and to cooperate in such a way as to accomplish salvation.

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You see, the Bible tells a different story, and it's what the doctrines of grace are really all about. The Bible tells the story of a holy

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God who is a consuming fire. God who is just, who is righteous.

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God Himself, who before the world began, loved you if you're in Christ.

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He chose before the foundation of the world. He predestined you to adoption as sons.

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He by His grace chose to take people who are rebels and hate Him and bring them to His Son.

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The Scriptures testify that our names are written in the Lamb's book of life before what? The foundation of the world.

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That Jesus Christ was the Lamb slain before what? The foundation of the world.

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The Bible speaks to a much greater grace, a much more amazing grace.

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It's God who is holy and sinners who hate Him. God chooses by His grace to take people who are unworthy of His love, who don't want

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His love, who are helpless, who are sinners, who are the rebels. He chooses to love them.

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And you might ask the question, why? Why would He love me?

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It's not something I deserve. I've run the other direction. It's not ultimately fair that God has chose me.

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And the answer to that is, you're right. It's not fair. It's called grace.

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Fair would be for God to have determined to give you what you want, and that is not God. God before the world began chose to have a particular people in Jesus Christ that He would display the riches of His glory in and His grace.

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And Jesus condescends to chase down those rebel sinners, to live the life as their representative that they couldn't live, to die on a cross, a, listen, perfect once for all atonement that accomplishes salvation, watch, not merely makes it possible, not merely making men and women savable, but Jesus dies on a cross in such a way that you can say as a

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Christian, listen closely, it's vitally important to get this, Jesus died for me. He took my sins upon that cross.

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He exhausted the wrath of a holy God in Himself on that cross.

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This is the story of the Scriptures. And it goes further, that the Father decrees salvation, the

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Son brings about that redemption and the Holy Spirit of God brings that gospel to life in the heart and mind of a sinful rebel.

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God in His power takes a dead person and raises them from the dead. You see, listen, if we don't get this right, we destroy grace.

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If we destroy grace, we destroy the gospel. If we have, listen, a view of God and salvation and the atonement of Jesus Christ, one more thing, we destroy missions.

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What's one of the main challenges you hear against the Calvinistic or Reform view of grace and salvation?

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What's one of the main challenges? Well, here it is, ready? If God is sovereign, why, what, evangelize?

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If God is sovereign, why evangelize? If God has chosen to save, know who

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He's going to save, why evangelize? And oftentimes, that's given as a powerful sort of argument against the

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Reform faith. If He's sovereign, then why evangelize? Really, when you think through the implications, it should really be the other way.

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If God is not sovereign, why evangelize? Because you see, here's the question.

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If God has done everything that He can to bring about salvation, if Jesus has brought about a redemption that makes people completely savable and if the

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Holy Spirit of God can try to apply in people's lives and they can, through their own free will, resist an almighty

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God, then the question is, why evangelize? God has already done everything that He can.

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It's not up to Him. It's not up to you. It's up to a rebel sinner that can thwart an almighty

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God. You see, this is one of the reasons that it was the Reform faith that launched some of the greatest missionary movements in the history of the church.

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You see, the gospel is at stake here because if we have an unbiblical view of our condition, if we have an unbiblical view of our condition, then it robs

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God of His glory. Because what we ultimately say, it's expressed perfectly in a conversation that I had with someone recently.

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They visited Apologia Church, and they said, well, I just can't understand why you're Reformed, you're Calvinist.

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I watch your stuff online, I see your evangelism, and I just can't understand how you could buy into that idea of a sovereign

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God and the grace of God in that way. And so, as we started to talk and started to think about the condition of human beings before Christ, He starts to express, well, no,

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I think that, yeah, they're sinners, but they can still, with being sinners, cooperate with God to accomplish salvation.

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I said, let me ask you a question. Do you believe that the Bible says that we are dead in our sins and trespasses?

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He says, yes. I said, do you believe Jesus when He says that no man can come to Him, no man is able to come to Him?

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He said, yes. I said, do you believe the Bible when it says there is no God seeker, no one seeks for God?

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He said, yes. I said, okay, what's the difference then between you and the person next to you who rejects

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Jesus? And you know what He said? Me. My choices, my will, what

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I did. Do you see? If we believe that the grace of God, well,

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I should say it this way, if we believe that our condition is such that we can ultimately, in our own power, through our own effort, accomplish salvation, then ultimately the glory doesn't go to God, it goes to us.

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Because what separates me from the person who is in hell is not ultimately God and His power.

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What made me different than them is that I did something. It was a work somehow in me.

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It was something in me different than them. And so glory is shared there between God and me.

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You see, the Bible speak to the grace of God and the power of God in such a different way. And listen,

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I'm going to just say this final thing on this point. Brothers and sisters, I'll just be transparent about it. I think one of the main reasons people resist the doctrines of grace is because it makes men and women, people, children.

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It makes mankind so utterly desperate and broken and unworthy.

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It makes God so big and so powerful and so mighty and me so small.

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And the truth is, I don't think many of us like that. You see, it puts us before the cross completely helpless.

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It shows really our complete desire to rebel against God.

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It shows us as the unworthy people that we are. It makes us so very small and God so very big.

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And here's the point, rebels don't like that. We're already at war with God. We don't like the idea of Him being the sovereign.

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And I think that's one of the greatest reasons for the resistance to the doctrines of grace. If we disrupt grace, we destroy the atonement.

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If we disrupt grace, we destroy the power of God in missions. And here's the key thing, and I want to be very, very humble as I suggest this, if you're visiting today and you've never studied this, never understood these things before, you've never really tried to understand these truths and test yourself, here's the main thing we come against as we study these things, these truths, tradition, our own traditions.

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Now, here's the thing, as solid evangelicals and Protestants, what we oftentimes love to say is,

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I don't have any traditions. I believe the Bible, right? So what makes me different from everybody else is

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I believe the Word of God. I just believe the Word of God. It's just in the Bible. That's where my belief system is.

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I don't need any confessions or traditions. I just believe the Bible. It's just me, my Bible, and Jesus, right?

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We often think of it in that way. I don't have any traditions, and it was, I think, a powerful moment for me, a statement made by Dr.

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White when he said that those who say that they have no traditions are the ones who are plagued with the most of them, because here's why.

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If you think that you don't have any traditions, then that means that you're not on the lookout for them.

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It means that you're not testing yourself. It means that you're not actually taking what you've learned and actually filtering it through the

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Word of God to ask the question, but does it really say that? Am I getting my beliefs truly from the

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Word of God, drawing out of the text of Scripture what it actually says, or am I believing something because I was taught it?

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Am I believing something because, hey, that was the culture of my church? Am I believing something because it's been part of my entire identity?

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We have traditions. We do. All of us do. If you say that you don't, you probably have the most.

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Have you ever done that? Have you ever actually tested yourself and questioned whether what you believe is actually found in the

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Scriptures? Because we all have traditions. Now, here's the thing. Ready? Listen. Traditions can be good.

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We're not saying that traditions are all bad. You can have traditions that are ultimately based upon the Scriptures that are very good traditions, but here's what we need to do with our traditions.

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We need to have our traditions off to the side, keeping the

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Scriptures as the ultimate authority, the only infallible rule of faith, and our traditions have to essentially act as guardrails and point to what that ultimate authority says.

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Have you tested yourself? Here's some things. Well, here's a common tradition that's directly related to this.

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But we have free will. We have free will. You see here,

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God gives men and women a free will. And here's what

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God will never do. God will never violate your free will. Have you ever heard that? God will never violate your free will.

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God, here's a popular way of putting it, God is not a divine rapist.

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He's not a divine rapist. He's not the kind of God that will come into an image bearer's life and do things to them against their, quote, free will.

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Now, I want to say just briefly to that as we begin this study, what a deplorable and low view of God.

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What an awful thing to think that the way the Bible puts it, it puts it in a different way.

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It says this, we are dead in our sins and trespasses by nature, children of wrath. We are rebel, hostile, ungodly, enemies of God, haters of God.

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Those are direct quotations. And what does it say? That God, though we were dead in our sins and trespasses, but God made us alive together with Him.

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The idea that we can distort what the Scriptures say about salvation in terms of God raising dead people to life and turn that into divine rape is a deplorable and low view of God.

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You see, the Scriptures say something about our wills that we need to begin to question the tradition of free will.

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Again, this is an issue of synergism versus monergism. Is it God and us working together to bring about salvation?

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Or is it God, an almighty God, through His force and power, bringing about salvation in the lives of people who are undeserving?

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There was a famous moment in the history of the church where this issue is front and center.

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There's a famous book that had to do with the will of man. Can anyone tell me what that book was?

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You have to say it nice and loud if you know it. The Bondage of the Will. You see, there was a

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Roman Catholic by the name of Erasmus and there was the famous reformer

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Martin Luther. Martin Luther said that this was his most important work, the Bondage of the

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Will. What he ultimately would testify to and speak to was that Rome had essentially abandoned the

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Scriptural view of the nature of man and the will of man, and that Rome had abandoned the historic view of the fallen nature of man and the will of man.

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You see, Luther wasn't saying, hey, let's try something new now, a novel idea that's in this

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German monk. Let's see if we can get this off the ground. He was saying, no, the church has already fought these fights,

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Augustine versus Pelagius. We've already had semi -Pelagianism, the idea that yes, we're sinners, but our wills ultimately are free, and we can cooperate or not cooperate with God.

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We can resist God even if he wants to save us. You see, Luther was saying, no, that's not what the

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Scriptures say. That's not what the church has believed, and we've had these fights before, and so Erasmus versus Luther, Bondage of the

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Will. The testimony from the

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Scriptures is clear. We're going to go into it in a minute here, so get your Bibles ready, about the nature of mankind.

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Our wills ultimately are enslaved. Let me give you one verse to think about just for a moment here, just for a moment.

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Jesus says in John chapter 8, something that is devastating, devastating, and something that brings about so much hope.

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Jesus says, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin, and I have to ask this question to us in light of our traditions.

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We say, well, man is free. We have a free will. Well, what does Jesus say?

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Jesus actually says, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. Let me ask you a question. Who's that about?

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You, me, everybody. Now, I have to ask this question. If Jesus says, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin, where did we ever get the idea that we're free?

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Jesus teaches that our wills are ultimately in bondage, and isn't it interesting when Jesus says that to them, when he talks about them before him, what's their response?

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They can't see it. What do they say? They say, we've never been enslaved to anybody. Don't you love it?

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These are Jews, I remind you, Jews who have never been enslaved to anybody,

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Egypt, something about a Red Sea, and a pharaoh, and plagues ringing a bell, guys.

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How about Babylon? No? No? How about when they're talking, they're under the boot of Rome, right?

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We've never been enslaved to anybody, right? And Jesus says, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin, but then here's the glory of the gospel, and this is ultimately

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Calvinism 101. Whoever commits sin is a slave of sin, but if the son sets you free, you shall be free indeed.

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That's the grace of God in the gospel. That's the true and biblical view of our condition before God.

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We're slaves. Here's the point. Do we have wills? Yes. Are you robots?

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No. Are you making choices? Yes. Are they your choices?

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You bet. Let me ask you a question. When you sin, is someone putting a gun to your head?

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No. When you sin, isn't it your desire? Isn't it something that you wanted?

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And so we're making choices. People are making choices all the time, but our wills are enslaved to our own sinful nature.

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This is a vitally important issue to get, and we have to get our view of mankind and our sin and our wills from the scriptures.

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So you guys ready? Yes? Got your Bibles ready? Good. Okay. So we're going to go through a number of verses today.

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Now here's what I would like to do. I would like us to test our traditions by the

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Word of God and ask the question, is our view consistent with the scriptures?

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Is this what all of scripture testifies to? Because you see, what we don't want to do is have a view of scripture that comes from a single verse here or there that's just proof texted.

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We have to ask the question, what is God's consistent testimony to a particular subject as we search the scriptures?

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Remember the context for a moment now, when we think about the doctrines of grace, the five points of Calvinism, what's the first one?

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Total depravity or total inability. The next one in response to the

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Arminians was unconditional election, and the next one was limited atonement or definite redemption.

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The next one was irresistible grace, and the final one was perseverance of the saints.

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We're going to do all those together and go through questions and answers. But here's the point. The challenge at the time was in this context.

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Yes, we're fallen. Yes, people are sinners. No question.

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But we don't think that people are so fallen that they can't cooperate with God in some way to bring about salvation.

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They thought in these terms, yes, man is sinful, but he is sick.

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You see, the Reformers were saying, no, no, no, not sick, dead. And what can a dead man do?

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Nothing. And the protest essentially was saying, no, no, we think he has a free will that can ultimately cooperate with God to bring about salvation.

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And the Reformers were saying to the Arminians, guys, you're going back to Rome.

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That's the way of Rome. As a matter of fact, one side note I'll say here, and this is very important. Again, if you checked out, come back for a second.

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This is important. Many modern American evangelicals agree more with Rome than with the

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Reformers. And of course, I believe with many in the early church and with the scriptures. But oftentimes when you'll hear modern evangelicals talk about this particular issue as to the nature of men and women and what our abilities are, they side with Erasmus, the

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Roman Catholic. Consider that, total depravity.

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What do we not mean by total depravity? We do not mean that people are as bad as they could possibly be.

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That's why we actually choose to change the wording a bit to say total inability, not totally depraved in the sense that everyone is as bad as they could possibly be.

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As a matter of fact, what we often talk about is the glory of God and the fact that He restrains people from their evil.

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I gave you a good example. I want to keep saying those examples to you so you remember them. Last week

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I talked to you about Joseph and his brothers. You know the story? Dad, guys, I had this dream.

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All this stuff's bowing down to me, right? And they're like, oh yeah? All this stuff bowing down to you?

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How many were there? Oh, that just happens to be one, two, three, four. Okay, that's us, right? And we're going to bow down to you now?

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Oh, right? And they hate Joseph. And dad's like, Joseph, check out this. This is awesome.

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This coat I made in many colors. Here, my favorite son. And they're like, they hate his guts. They're off doing their thing.

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Dad says, go help them. And they see him coming in the distance to help. And they say, oh look, here comes the dreamer.

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What's up, dreamer? Right? And like he comes, and so what do they do? They grab him and they throw him into a pit.

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But before they throw him in the pit, what's the first thing they do? Take that stupid coat off. They rip the coat off, throw him into a pit, no water in it, and then they proceed to eat a meal around the pit, right?

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And their idea is, let's kill him. That was their desire.

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Let's kill our brother. And then finally, some sanity. One of the brothers says, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

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He's our brother, our own blood, we can't kill him. And so what do they do? They proceed now to sell him into slavery and he goes off into Potiphar's house.

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And then he goes from Potiphar's house to a dungeon. Then from a dungeon to essentially second in command over all of Egypt, rescues all of Egypt and the surrounding peoples, and his brothers end up like 20 years later having to come to Egypt to get rescue and to be able to eat food.

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And who do they see before them in Egypt? Joseph their brother. And what's he say to them? He says, you didn't send me here,

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God did. And the amazing thing is, from a human perspective, you're like, Joseph, you're telling tales out of the schoolyard.

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I did it. This is me. I hated you. I tore that coat off your back. I threw you in the pit.

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I sold you to those merchants going by. Yes, I did. I sent you to Egypt.

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Joseph says, you didn't send me here. God did. And here's why. To preserve for you a remnant.

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The amazing thing is in that story, there's so much of the providence of God there, the sovereignty of God, right? But watch this.

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They were going to kill him. That was the desire of their heart. He must die.

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And all of a sudden, some sanity. All of a sudden, no, we can't kill our brother. Let's sell him into slavery.

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You see, their will, their desire was to kill their brother, but God restrained their evil.

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He held them back from doing what was in their heart to do. When we talk about the condition of fallen human beings, we're saying that human beings are totally in themselves, unable to come to God in themselves.

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Total inability. Let's look at some scripture together. There's a really, by the way, a great verse list online.

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I'm going to try to post later for you guys to review together and to maybe take some of these scriptures and memorize them.

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I'll put up my social media later so you can have it for yourselves, but I'm going to read some of these verses from this list.

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It's fantastic. This one will sound familiar to all of us. It's part of our catechism, Ecclesiastes 729, see this alone

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I found that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.

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Romans 5, 7 through 8, for one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die.

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But God shows his love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

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When? While we were still sinners. Are all people sinners?

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Are there any exceptions to people in this area of fallen humanity?

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Psalm 143 verse 2, enter not into judgment with your servants for, listen, no one living is righteous before you.

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No one living is righteous before God. That guts all human religion.

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Romans 11, 32, for God has consigned all to disobedience that he may have mercy on all.

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Romans 3, 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Second Chronicles 6, 36, there is no one who does not sin.

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There is no one who does not sin. Isaiah 53, 6, all we like sheep have gone astray.

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We have turned every one to his own way. Are people good?

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Fundamentally, what's within us? We often hear that, right? People talk about, people say, oh, they're bad, but not so bad.

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I was listening to a debate just on the way actually to man camp. I was listening to a debate between atheist

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Dan Barker. We've had him on the radio program before and argued a bit with him. Douglas Wilson, they debated over the issue of God and government.

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One of the things Dan Barker, this famous atheist who believes that we're all stardust and there's no ultimate ought or morality said, he said that I think most people are in a spectrum.

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They're not really, really bad or really, really good. They're somewhere in the middle. He says, I find myself more there.

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I'm not really a great person. I'm not really a bad, bad person. I'm kind of in the middle.

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And the interesting thing is I think most people, many people think that way, don't they? They say, well,

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I'm not that bad, but I'm also not the best person, right? I'm just kind of in the middle.

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I do my best halfway good. Well, here's what Mark 7, 21 through 23 says.

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For from within, out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.

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Listen, all these evil things come from within and they defile a person.

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Psalm 5 verse 9, for there is no truth in their mouth. Their inmost self is destruction.

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Their throat is an open grave. They flatter with their tongue. How about our hearts and our minds?

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Are they free? Are we sick or are we totally depraved in the sense that we're talking about?

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Jeremiah 17, 9, we use this often with Latter -day Saints when we try to reach them and talk to them about not trusting their heart, not trusting in their own experience.

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Listen to this. Jeremiah 17, 9, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.

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Who can know it? The heart is deceitful above all things. Ecclesiastes 9 verse 3, also the hearts of the children of man are full of evil and madness is in their hearts while they live and after that they go to the dead.

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Ephesians 4, 17 through 18. Listen closely to this one. You must no longer walk as the

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Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart.

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Here's one. Jeremiah 10, 7 through 8 and verse 14.

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Among all the wise ones of the nations and in all their kingdoms, there is none like you.

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They are both stupid and foolish. Every man is stupid and without knowledge.

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Matthew 15, 19, for out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual morality, theft, false witness, slander.

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Now, let's talk about the will of man. What is the nature of our will?

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Verse we've already talked about, John 8, chapter 8, verse 34. Jesus answered them, truly, truly,

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I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 2 Peter 2, verse 19.

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They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.

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Where did we ever get the idea that our wills are free?

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The Bible teaches that our wills are enslaved, that we are enslaved to our sin. Galatians 4, 8 through 9, more about our slavery.

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Formally, when you did not know God, listen, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.

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So, those three texts alone speak to our slavery to sin. Now, brothers and sisters, listen to this.

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I want to be really humble when I talk about this issue because I have to confess something. I didn't come into this experience of God's grace with a background of church and being raised in a solid church and knowing the gospel, and I didn't have that.

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So, to be honest with you, when I heard the gospel and I started going to church, like I'm learning like, oh, Jesus is God, right? I remember the day

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I asked my pastor that. I'm like 16 years old. I saw it in the text. I'm reading the Bible.

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I'm like, I think that Jesus is God. Like, I'm reading John and it's like, yeah, he's God. So, I remember the day that I'm in church before church starts, a little

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Bible Baptist church in Waldorf, Maryland, right? Let me tell you how much I knew about Christianity at this time.

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When my friend said, hey, join us for church this Sunday, I was like, I've never been to church. Yeah, I'd love to go. He said, so you go back here and this road and it's

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Bible Baptist church. So, I go driving on a Sunday to go to this church and I see this massive church, like in the middle of the woods.

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I mean, it's ginormous. And I'm like, this must be it. So, I pull up and like no one's in the parking lot and I walk up to the door and I bang on this huge door, beautiful door.

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I'm like, da -dunk, da -dunk, da -dunk. Door opens and a nun is standing there.

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She's like, hello? And I said, hi, is this Bible Baptist church?

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She goes, uh, no, I think you're looking for the church down the road.

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So, I show up to church and so this is what I know. I know nothing. And I remember the day before church, I say to my pastor,

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Pastor Main, his last name is Main. So, we're talking and I said, and so like, and so Jesus is

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God. Wait, I go, right? He goes, yes.

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I go, okay. Like, I don't know. And so, my first thing I read was the book of John.

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I'm reading John over and over and over. And I was essentially a Calvinist. I can't, you can't miss it in John.

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Coming down from heaven, not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me that all that he has given to me, I lose nothing. John 10, the reason you can't hear me is because you're not of my sheep.

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My sheep hear my voice and they come and follow me. I was there. But then I started walking with Jesus in a context of modern evangelicalism in America and I started adopting things like free will.

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I started picking it up, thinking, well, I guess that's the answer. We have a free will. We have all these things that we have to sort of believe as Christians, right?

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And then I remember as I really dedicated myself to understanding these things, I started coming face to face with statements like this.

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You're enslaved. I started asking myself the question, how can I say that our wills are free if Jesus says we're enslaved and Peter says we're enslaved and Paul says we're enslaved?

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How can we, how can we say that people have a free will? Here's another text, 2

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Timothy 2, 25 through 26. This is a big one. It talks about, this is important, that the

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Lord's servant must be patient when wronged, able to teach, in humility correcting those who oppose themselves, watch, if God perhaps may grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth.

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But look what it says. It says, and that they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.

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Two points I'll make on this. Listen, number one, it says that we have been captured by the devil to do his will.

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And it says, listen, that God grants repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.

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Now think about it for a moment with me. Do you believe in Jesus? Have you repented?

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What does that text say about that experience? Who gave you that?

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God granted you repentance leading to knowledge of truth. Now think about this. Are there people in hell right now?

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Sorry, I should say in the future. Will there be people in hell in the future? Yes.

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Will there be a final judgment? Yes. Did they repent? No, but you did.

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Hell, God granted you repentance. If there are people in hell, they are in hell because of their own sin, because they love their sin, because they ultimately rebel against God.

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And what separates them from you is a God who granted you repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.

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And again, if you say, but God, that's not fair. My answer is, you're getting it. It's the grace of God.

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And if you say something like, that seems like an astonishing kind of love, that seems like a grace that is untouchable and incomprehensible.

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I would say, I think you're starting to get it. I think you're starting to really understand just how gracious is

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God's grace. Let's talk about our affections or our desires. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 3, we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, listen, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

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This is a big one. Do you know how it works in modern Christian culture? Do you know how it works?

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People often say, oh, but they're all children of God, right? He's a child of God. She's a child of God.

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We're all children of God. Oftentimes, that's just sort of like the MO, right? We say, well, we're all children of God.

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But you know what the Bible says is that we are all children of wrath. And it says in John chapter 1 that those who are children of God are those who have received

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Him. Those are the children of God. If we're children at all, before Christ, we're children of wrath, dead in our sins and trespasses, according to Ephesians 2.

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Here's another one from Proverbs 21 .10, the soul of the wicked desires evil.

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What are our passions? What are our desires? It says that we lived in the passions of our flesh in Ephesians 2, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, by nature children of wrath.

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And it says in Proverbs 21 .10 that the soul of the wicked desires evil. Here's one that you might be more familiar with,

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John chapter 3, verse 19. And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their works were evil.

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Now, stop and think for a moment, please. It's easy, and I think I could catch myself in this.

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To read the text of God's Word and to be thinking constantly about abstract theological ideas and maybe other people.

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Like, I know I have a neighbor like that, right? I went to school with a guy like that.

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I think I know a person I saw on the news that is perfectly descriptive of that.

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But I think we're not fully understanding the glory of the grace of God until you understand that when

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Jesus says, light came into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil,

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He's talking about you, you and me. Before God opened my eyes to His love and grace and salvation,

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I loved my sin. It's what I wanted. I knew in my heart of hearts, this isn't right.

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This is going to hurt somebody. I shouldn't live like this because I'm image of God. But the truth is, when I did what

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I did, I did it because I loved it. Why did I not want to come to Jesus in my life?

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Why did I resist God and go my own way? Because the truth is, I loved my sin. And Jesus says it, people hate the light because they love the darkness.

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John 8, 44, Jesus says, you are of your father, the devil. And listen, watch, your will is to do your father's desires.

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Testimony to the fallen nature of humanity. In his case, speaking to those who are warring against him in John 8.

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How about this? Is it possible for people to change themselves? Can we say people are fallen and sinful and they can, through their own strength and power, change themselves?

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Here's what the text of Scripture says, Jeremiah 13, 23, can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?

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Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil. Is it possible for the

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Ethiopian to change his skin? Can he do it through his own will and power? The answer is no.

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And the answer is, well, then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil. You can't do it. You can't change your heart, yourself, from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh.

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That's only an act of God. How about this one? More familiar to all of us,

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Matthew 7, 18. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruits, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruits.

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What's the problem with bad fruit? Is it the fruit? Is that how we handle bad fruit?

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You see a tree with bad fruit, you run up to it with a bucket, you pull off all the bad fruit, throw it into the bucket and say, win, right?

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Hashtag winning. I beat it, right? What's the problem? Give it time. What's going to happen after a little bit of time and sun and water is more bad fruits popping up?

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And you'll say, well, I don't get it. I just pulled the bad fruit off. Because the problem is not the fruit, it's in the root.

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And until you deal with the root, if that root isn't transformed and changed in some way, you're always going to have bad fruit.

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And Jesus says that a healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.

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Here's the thing. With people who are fallen, who are rebels against God that don't know God, they can't transform themselves in a way where they can actually come to God and love

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God and desire holy things. What does God do? He doesn't just staple good fruit to bad trees.

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What does He do? He takes someone like you and me who are so broken, so disharmonious with all that God is and desires for us, and what does

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He do? He turns you into good trees. He doesn't take people who are a bunch of goats and all of a sudden try to start making them act like sheep.

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What does He do? He turns you into sheep. He changes your nature. He changes you from within.

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Matthew 12, 34 -35, how can you speak good when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

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The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.

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Here's a big one, Romans 8 -7. If you want a verse that will perfectly express total inability, here it is.

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Romans 8 -7, for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law.

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Indeed, it cannot. Here's what it says, you are either in the spirit in Christ, redeemed, or you are in the flesh and you are fallen.

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And what does it say about those who are in the flesh? What does it say? It says that we are hostile to God.

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Where did we ever get the idea that our wills are free? It says that we cannot submit to God's law, that we have no ability to submit to God's law while we are fallen, while we are in Adam, while we are in the flesh.

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We cannot, no ability. It says those who are in the flesh, in Romans 8, listen, cannot please

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God. Question, is repentance and faith in Jesus Christ something that is pleasing to God?

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Does it please God for His people to believe in Him and trust Him? It says that those who are in the flesh cannot please

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God, can't do it. So there has to be a fundamental change of our nature.

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Here we go. In terms of our being born in sin, Psalm 51, 5, behold,

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I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. We are born sinners. How about our reaction to God as fallen people?

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Ready? John 3, 20, for everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his works should be exposed.

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So if we are fallen, if we're sinners, if we do wicked things, do we come to the light?

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If we're fallen and sinners, do we come to the light? Jesus says, no, or our works would be exposed.

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It says in Romans 8, 7, 8 again, the mind that's set on the flesh is hostile to God. Colossians 1, 21, and you who once were alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds.

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Let's talk about our relationship with God as fallen people before Christ saves us.

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Psalm 58, 3, the wicked are estranged from the womb, from the womb, original sin.

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That's where we come from. Do people seek God? Popular in our culture, isn't it?

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What do we call them? Seeker -sensitive churches. Oftentimes we build church in such a way as to do church and worship for the unbelievers who are visiting, but we should think about that as Christians.

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What's this for? What is this about? Who is this for? This is for the glory of God.

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What is Sunday worship on the Lord's day together corporately? What's it for?

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Is it for the unbeliever or is it for the believer, for the glory of God?

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When we say things like, well, this guy is a seeker or she's a seeker, or we need to build our church in such a way as to be seeker -sensitive, what does the

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Bible say about seeking God? Psalm 10 .4,

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in the pride of his face, the wicked does not seek him. All his thoughts are, there is no

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God, there is no God, there is no God. John 3 .20,

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for everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his work should be exposed. Romans 3 .10

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through 12, there is no God seeker.

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No one seeks for God. Now watch, I told you, it's really, really important not to allow these things to be just abstract things, to be things that you think about in terms of just theological categories, and we have our

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T's crossed and our I's dotted, and we think about, okay, I know how this works. Okay, watch.

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If it says no one seeks for God, you have to ask yourself a question.

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Am I seeking God? And as a Christian, are you?

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And the answer is, yeah, yeah, I'm seeking God. But the

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Bible says there is no one who seeks for God. So what are you doing? If there is none who seeks for God, and you love

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Jesus Christ, He's glorious to you, your desire, your great desire is to know

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Him more every single day. You see yourself as a broken person. You know your failures.

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You don't want to fail anymore. You're sick of your sin, and you want to cling to Christ. You're like, I want Jesus. I want

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Jesus. I want more of Him in my life. All of a sudden, now you have to think, wait a minute, what's the context of all this?

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The Bible says there is no one who seeks for God, and yet you are. How come you're seeking

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God when the Bible says no one does? Answer, God was seeking you.

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God sought you and brought you to Himself. You see, one of the majestic things about the gospel and the grace of God in the gospel is

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He takes people like you and me who wouldn't seek Him, who are hostile to Him, and He actually chooses to love you and to bring you to Himself.

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And now you have people who are non -God seeking that can do nothing but seek God now. Think about your manner of speech.

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Some of you guys know you were not raised in a Christian home. You came to Christ later on in life. How did you used to talk about God?

01:00:55

Did you used to say the things that you say now about God? Did you used to say things like, Jesus is the most important thing?

01:01:03

Did you used to say things like, I just want to obey God? I just want to know God. Like, it was interesting.

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I mean, at man camp, you know, one of the things you hear is, I just want to know God. You hear what you would have heard if you were with us last night?

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You would have heard a bunch of men saying things like, I just want to obey Him. I just want to be better at obeying

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Him. I just want to spend more time in His Word. I'm so bothered by the fact that I prioritize things in my life above God.

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What a bunch of weirdos. Now, think about it. The context of all of life and human beings is that we are sinners, rebels, hostile to God, children of wrath.

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That's our condition, non -God seeking. And now, all of a sudden, you get into a place where we're saying, I just want to submit to Jesus.

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I want to worship Him. I want to know Him. I want to grow in my intimacy with Him daily. How come people do that?

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It's nothing in you. It's God who took a bad tree and made it good.

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God who took the heart of a rebel and He changed it. No one seeks for God.

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Where did we ever get the idea that our wills are free when the Bible clearly says, no one seeks for God?

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How about this? 1 Corinthians 2 .14. Listen, the natural person does not accept the things of the

01:02:25

Spirit of God, for they are folly to him. And he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

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I'm going to read that again. If you want to have one of those life verses for Calvinism that you tuck away into your heart, that's a good one.

01:02:39

1 Corinthians 2 .14, the natural person, the fallen person, the person who doesn't know

01:02:45

Jesus, watch, does not accept the things of the

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Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, foolishness to him.

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And he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. You ever experienced unbelievers railing against God?

01:03:04

Railing against your faith? The popular movement of the new atheism that's really kind of dying out now, thankfully.

01:03:15

Railing against God, oh, Christianity is just foolish. You believe a man rose from the dead?

01:03:22

You believe God spoke and the universe came into existence? You're foolish. You're morons.

01:03:29

Oh, that's interesting. The Bible says that you would say that. It says that you would think that and that you would say that, that these things are not accepted by the natural person.

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They don't understand them. They think they're foolishness. They're not able, not able to understand.

01:03:47

Where did we ever get the idea that our wills are free when the Bible says we're not able to understand them apart from God?

01:03:55

2 Corinthians 4, 3 through 4. Listen, our gospel is veiled to those who are perishing.

01:04:02

In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.

01:04:17

Here is final steps here. Do people choose

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God on their own? Is there something within them? John 1, 12 through 13.

01:04:32

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

01:04:38

Listen, here it is. Who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, listen, nor of the will of man but of God.

01:04:52

John 6, 44 and 65. No one can come to me unless the

01:04:58

Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up. I often point this out because it's devastating in terms of how we think about the tradition of free will.

01:05:08

John 6, 44, follow me here. No man can come to me.

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No one is able to come to me, it literally says. No one is able to come to me.

01:05:21

Where did we ever get the idea that our wills are free? When Jesus says no one is able, they don't have the ability to come to me.

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But then it says, unless the Father who sent me draws him.

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Now, if you ask somebody that has Arminian sympathies or they are

01:05:40

Arminian in their belief about the will of man, if you ask them, do you believe that Jesus says no man can come to me?

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Do you believe that no man is actually able to come to God? They'll say, of course. You see, they're sinful, they're fallen.

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They have to be drawn by the Father. Well, let's unpack that. It says that no man is able to come to me.

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What happened to free will? Not even able. Unless the Father who sent me draws him, now watch, here it is, the death blow to any kind of Arminian perspective.

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No man can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

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Jesus says that he raises up the one the Father draws, the one that couldn't come.

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Again, no ability unless the Father draws. What does the Father do when he draws? There's a raising up.

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It says that, listen, Jesus raises up everyone the Father draws for salvation.

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It's a powerful text. Romans 9, 16, so that it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.

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Here are my favorites. Are you ready? Quick ones. Acts 16, 14, who gives faith and repentance?

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One who heard us was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God.

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Watch, the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.

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I love it. 1 Corinthians 3, 6, Paul says, I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

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Acts 11, 18, when they heard these things, they fell silent and they glorified

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God saying, watch, then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.

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Philippians 1, 29, it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should believe in Him.

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It has been gifted to you, gifted to you to believe in Christ. Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that, the grace and the faith, is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, lest any man should boast.

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Powerful truth. Some of you guys, I got to see it happen in front of my eyes. Some of you,

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I watched you in your old life, not knowing Jesus.

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I gave you a message of salvation. I just told you the story. There's nothing spectacular about me, nothing special about me.

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I told you about Jesus. I told you about your sin. I told you about the holiness of God. I told you about the work of Jesus on the cross.

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And then all of a sudden, something happened, and you went from going one direction, into darkness, into self -destruction, to all of a sudden now, wanting to submit your life to Jesus Christ.

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And the Bible says, it is God who opens the eyes. He gives sight to blind people. He gives hearing to deaf people.

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Did you know, by the way, when you see the miracles of Jesus in our New Testament, did you know that those miracles were pointing to the greater reality?

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When he gives sight to a blind person, that person died and lost their vision again.

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When he gives sight to a blind person, it means that he can give sight to people who cannot see.

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He gives hearing to those who can't hear God. And a great example of the power of Jesus in salvation is with Lazarus.

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He's dead for days. Jesus goes to the tomb. They all know that he's dead, and they say that it's going to stink in there.

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Jesus does what? He says, Lazarus, come forth. Let me ask you a question. Did Lazarus, in that moment, have to cooperate with Jesus?

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Did he have some will where Jesus could have said, Lazarus, come forth. And Lazarus goes, but my free will.

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No, Lazarus is dead, stinking dead. And here the Lord of glory, the creator of all things, actually the creator of Lazarus, he says,

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Lazarus, into a dead man's tomb, come forth. And Lazarus comes to life and comes out towards Jesus.

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That is a display of the power of Christ in salvation. He speaks into a dead person's life, spiritually dead, hostile to God, not able to come to God.

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He speaks life into you and you come to life. And all of a sudden you go from a place where you love your sin and you despise

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Jesus and the things of God to a place where you see Jesus and you want nothing else but Jesus.

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Now, from your perspective and my perspective, all you know is that you were in your sin and you were opposed to Christ.

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And all of a sudden someone gave you the gospel or you read it and now all of a sudden you hate your sin and all you want is

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Jesus and all of the things that you desired before, all of the drug addiction, the lust, the hatred, the envy, the strife, the bitterness, the gossip, the slandering, all of that now doesn't taste so good.

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Now all of a sudden you have a new nature. All of a sudden you're different. All of a sudden the mud doesn't feel good anymore.

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The amazing thing about pigs and pigsties is they're cool.

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Pigsties are nasty, stinking, disgusting, ugly places, slop, and pigs aren't like, ew.

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Pigs are fine because that's their nature. They're cool with the mud. They're cool with the slop.

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They're cool. I'm a pig and they taste delicious, but a pig is a filthy animal and they love it.

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You take a sheep and put a sheep into a pigsty, you give it the slop, you put it around the mud and the other pigs, the sheep is not comfortable.

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It's gonna look out of place because by nature that's just not its thing. You give the sheep green pastures and rivers, streams of smooth and easy water.

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That's their environment. That's what they love because by nature that's what they like.

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Now watch, final word on this in terms of our nature. Watch, our wills, our will, the choices that we make operates on the basis of our nature.

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If our nature is fallen, then our will is fallen and our choices are fallen.

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Change the nature, change the will, change the choices.

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How come you and I believe in Jesus? Did you do it as a fallen person? No, we would say there was no ability to believe in Jesus, no desire to come to Jesus, but God changed you fundamentally so that you saw

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Jesus now and you loved him. Great way to put this.

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I have borrowed it for years. It's fantastic. Old pastor said it. The situation in terms of our nature, according to the scriptures is more like this.

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If you had a room and in that room you had a pile of meat and a pile of carrots and you put a vulture into that room, pile of meat, pile of carrots.

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Put a vulture into the room and you go to the vulture and you're like, hey bro, carrots are good for you.

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Great for your vision, right? Carrots are good for you. Fantastic thing to put into your body.

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And you try to convince the vulture to, you know, get towards the carrots and you even nudge him over to the carrots. What's gonna happen when you leave the room and shut the door?

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If you were to look inside, what will the vulture, listen, freely choose with those options?

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What? The meat. Why? Was it through coercion?

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No, by nature as a vulture, it says I'll take the meat because watch the will operates on the basis of the nature.

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Now change the scenario. Now put a bunny rabbit into the room.

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Put it before the pile of meat, the pile of carrots. Leave the room, look inside. What will the bunny freely choose?

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Carrots. Unless it's some really weird bunny, right? But it's gonna choose the carrots because watch, the nature determines the activity of the will.

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Now watch, put God before a rebel sinner. Put God before a fallen person who is by nature a child of wrath, hostile in their mind, opposed to God.

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Put God before a sinner. What's the reaction each and every time between that sinner and God as their fallen nature pushes that will?

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What is it to be in opposition to God? To rebel against God? That's our nature.

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The will is not free, it's enslaved. The choices that we make as fallen people are choices that are being made out of a fallen disposition in nature before God.

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You might say, so what's the hope then? What's the hope? This is big.

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The hope is a mighty God who has the ability to reach into the heart of a person that's opposed to him and take that heart of stone and put a heart of flesh in.

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To take a person who is hostile to him and to raise them to newness of life so that when they see

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Jesus now and they hear that gospel, it's precious to them and all they want is Jesus. And by the way, that's your hope and my hope in the proclamation of the gospel is that we have a

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God that is so mighty. Watch, we proclaim this gospel. We proclaim the gospel to people who are hostile to God.

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Repent and believe the gospel. Repent and believe the gospel. This is who Jesus is. This is what he did for sinners. Repent and believe the gospel.

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Repent and believe the gospel. All of a sudden, someone goes, hey, whoa, yeah,

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I want him. I want to believe in him. I want to trust in Jesus.

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That person was changed not because you were convincing you were mighty or somehow something in them all of a sudden decided to change their spots.

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They saw Jesus and fell in love with him and you did too because God granted you faith and repentance.

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You did not choose him but he chose you by his grace.

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Now watch, here's the so what of it all. We're gonna have weeks on this and we'll expand more and answer questions and answer challenges.

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Here's the so what of it all. If you heard all of this and all of a sudden you were writing down verses going, I'm getting armed to the teeth for Facebook, baby, then you're not doing it right.

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You should have heard in all of this the full description of you before Jesus Christ.

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And you should see in all of this story of God's power and salvation and our true condition and our need for his grace and power.

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You should have seen in all of that the power and love of God. Do you know that you're loved by God?

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If you believe in Jesus Christ, if you have faith like a mustard seed, then God loved you and chose you before the world began.

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How can you walk as a Christian with indifference towards the love of God? How can you walk with God in such a way as you could say something like, he doesn't love me.

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How could you walk with God and not be in awe of his amazing grace?

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That song, by the way, we've destroyed it. We killed it. It doesn't even mean anything anymore. What do you sing when you sing it?

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Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a what? And we just sing it like it's nothing. We sing it like, amazing grace that saved a wretch like me.

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Are you really thinking that you're a wretch? That you're unworthy?

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That you're foul in the sight of God? That you are, listen, before Jesus saved you, an enemy of God, not his friends.

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That God, when he looked through time, didn't see you and me and see people who were desirable in terms of our affections for him.

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He didn't look through time and see you looking around for God. He looked through time. If he did that, it would have seen a graveyard of dead people.

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When he chose to set his love on you, he did it, listen, knowing all about you when he did it.

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He knew your past. He knew your present. He knows your future. And there was nothing in you that would have caused

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God's desire for you in terms of your own righteousness and your own goodness before God.

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He chose to love you. And he chose to keep you for all eternity.

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And if you say this, I don't feel that way. I don't feel loved by God. I feel like God is far away from me.

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Like he's this absentee landlord half the time. Here's my question. Do you love

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Jesus? Do you trust him? Even if it's this much, do you?

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Then you were loved by God before the foundation of the world. He chose before the world began to bring you to himself and he will see it through to the end.

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If you want to know what Calvinism is, that's what it is. But more than Calvinism, it's the truth of the gospel.

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That's what it is. This study has to cause us to revisit grace again.

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You have to. You can't say, I know those truths, I'm good. These are the truths that should circle around you and surround you and be within you your whole life.

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You are saved by grace. And it's a grace that's bigger than you cooperating with God.

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It's God in his power taking you and bringing you to himself forever.

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Grace, that's what it's about. Let's pray. Father, bless what was sent out.

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Please bless it. And I pray, God, if there's anyone in this room that doesn't know you, I pray,

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Lord, that this, we pray for the means of your grace and the proclamation of the gospel.

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You said that you know your sheep and that they know you and they come. So, Lord, would you bring about that salvation for your glory today?

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If there's people in this room, Lord, that have never understood their own sinfulness before you and never understood the grace in Jesus Christ, would you even now,

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God, grant them eyes to see and even now break their hearts over their sin and cause them to cling to Jesus?

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Please, God, we pray, God, for this massive revival that would bring glory to you.

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God, even now in this room, would you bring about salvation? God, for those in this room who have walked with you for years even and,

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Lord, have just, they have followed their own lies about you.

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They've embraced a view of grace walking with you that is contrary to what you've said.

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It's contrary to everything you are. God, even now, God, reignite in their lives joy of their salvation.

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We love you because you first loved us. God, increase our love for you. Increase our trust in you.