Responding to Objections about Predestination

Sovereign Grace Family Church

2 views

May 14, 2020

00:00: Hi, good morning.
00:02: We are going to do something today that we started last week.
00:08: Last week I took two questions from you guys that I knew had come up and had become a point of conversation.
00:17: And they were on the questions, first, of the history and the translation of the Bible.
00:24: That's not the one we're going to focus on today.
00:26: We looked at that last week.
00:27: But the second question that we addressed last week was the question of predestination.
00:34: And after I was finished, I got to thinking, a few years ago, this issue was really at the forefront of a big controversy that had happened in our church.
00:49: And I kind of shared some of that with you guys last week.
00:51: And after that controversy, I took to teaching on the subject for quite a bit of time to simply try to help the church to arrive at a right understanding of these things and to help them to understand what I was teaching.
01:07: And I wrote quite a bit on the subject.
01:09: We had a conference on the subject.
01:10: I even would have, during the conference, which was in the evening, I would have daily times where people could come in and have lunch with me and ask questions.
01:19: So it was really an opportunity for people to learn.
01:24: And during the midst of that, I began to compile a list of questions that everybody asked.
01:33: And then I remembered that when I was starting to learn about these things and when I was beginning to mature in my understanding, these were the same questions that I asked.
01:43: And so it kind of has come to my mind.
01:47: I imagine these are some of the same questions that you guys have.
01:50: And so what I want to do today is I brought what I wrote.
01:54: And this is several pages.
01:56: And this is actually, I wrote this for part of a book.
01:59: So I'm just going to give you guys the answers to the most commonly asked questions about the doctrine of predestination.
02:08: Does that sound good? I mean, I know we've been going through Galatians and I certainly want to get back to that.
02:13: I already have my next lesson written.
02:14: But since that was the subject last week, I felt like it might be a good place to start.
02:23: Last week we looked at Ephesians chapter 1 and we noticed that Ephesians chapter 1 tells us that we have been predestined and that we have been chosen and we use those words.
02:33: We talked about what those words mean.
02:35: Today I want to look at another passage.
02:37: I'd like for you to turn to Romans chapter 8.
02:39: I was going to say, you come right to the end of 9 and 30.
02:42: What's that? I thought you were going to say 9.
02:45: No, no.
02:46: Romans 9 may come up.
02:49: Romans 8, 29 and 30? Romans 8, 28 through the end of the chapter.
02:55: But yeah, particularly 29 and 30.
02:57: Yeah.
03:00: All right.
03:00: Something on the board here in just a second.
03:02: Go ahead and open your Bibles and we're going to read.
03:20: This section is what is typically referred to as the golden chain of redemption.
03:27: The golden chain of redemption.
03:30: So we're going to begin reading at verse 28.
03:35: And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good.
03:42: For those who are called according to His purpose.
03:46: For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.
03:54: In order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.
03:58: And those whom He predestined, He also called.
04:02: And those whom He called, He also justified.
04:06: And those whom He justified, He also glorified.
04:11: What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all.
04:21: How will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.
04:32: Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died.
04:34: More than that, who was raised.
04:36: Who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
04:39: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, for your sake we are being killed all the day long.
04:51: We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
04:53: No! In all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
04:59: For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
05:16: Father, as I preach today, I pray first, I pray for forgiveness for my own sins.
05:23: I pray, Lord, that You would humble my heart, that I would not preach with arrogance or pride.
05:30: And I pray, Lord, that You would open the hearts of my hearers to hear what Your Word has to say, and that ultimately Your Holy Spirit would speak.
05:40: I pray, O God, for the truth to be proclaimed.
05:45: I pray that error would be removed, and I pray that You would keep me from it.
05:50: And I pray, Lord, for the things that are confusing today that may come into the minds of these men, that, O God, You would, by Your gracious mercy, give us clarity in our understanding.
06:05: And, Lord, help us to understand that movements of maturity take time, and that if it's something that is difficult, it often takes a little bit of time to get through.
06:17: And, Lord, I just pray for patience.
06:20: And I pray all this in Jesus' name.
06:23: Amen.
06:27: Romans 8.28 By far one of the most quoted verses, especially among Christians, but it's usually quoted like this.
06:38: All things work together for good.
06:41: And that's usually where people stop.
06:45: Most people, you know, something bad happens, and they'll try to placate themselves by saying, hey, everything works out.
06:52: All things work together for good.
06:55: That's not what the verse says.
06:57: The verse says, and in the Greek, I think it's actually even more intentional and specific.
07:05: What it actually says is God causes all things to work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.
07:19: So not only does it say the reason why things work together for good is because God is causing it to happen.
07:26: Think about the life of Joseph.
07:28: Joseph had a lot of bad in his life.
07:31: His brothers hated him.
07:31: They beat him.
07:32: They sold him into slavery.
07:33: When he went into slavery, he was in Potiphar's house.
07:37: And while he was there, he was accused of trying to sleep with his wife.
07:40: That wasn't true.
07:40: He got put into prison.
07:42: But yet at the same time, God used all that to bring him to be the second in command only to Pharaoh and all of Egypt.
07:47: And at the end of his life, he looked at his brothers who were terrified because they thought he was going to bring retribution against them.
07:53: Or he was going to bring retribution against them.
07:56: And he said, no.
07:57: What you meant for evil, God meant for good so that this day many people would be saved alive.
08:02: So he said, what you did was wrong, but God has used it for good because God had a plan and a purpose in what you did because His purpose is greater than your purpose and His goodness is greater than your evil.
08:17: And so we learn that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
08:27: All things don't work to good for everyone.
08:29: There are some people whose lives are never going to be good because they don't love God and they're not called according to His purpose.
08:35: They're going to go from hell in this world to a worse hell in the next.
08:40: So for them, I would say, all things don't work out for good.
08:43: All things work out for destruction.
08:46: So for the person who simply uses the blanket statement, all things work together for good, they're forgetting that that promise is not to everyone.
08:54: But that promise is made to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.
09:02: So the first word in this sentence, in this statement that we need to understand is the word called.
09:10: The word called.
09:11: In the Greek, there is a definite article that is typically not translated in English, but it is in the Greek and it actually says that all things work together for the called.
09:25: The called.
09:27: And why would it have the definite article? Because the called is a synonym for the elect.
09:37: We see the word elect come later.
09:39: We see the word elect come in verse 33.
09:42: Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? So the called are the elect.
09:49: So you could translate Romans 8.28, All things work together for the good of those who love God, for those who are the elect.
09:59: Because that's what it means to be the called.
10:02: The word elect means chosen.
10:06: Remember we looked at that word last week in the first chapter of Ephesians? That it says He chose us in Him when? Before the foundation of the world.
10:21: Before we had done anything good or bad.
10:23: Before we had made a choice ourselves, God had chosen us.
10:28: And so there is a sense in which God's choices are more powerful and are superseding our own choices.
10:37: God is the one who is sovereign, not man.
10:40: And so from this statement, Paul begins to give what is known as the golden chain of redemption.
10:49: He says all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.
10:54: And then he says this, For those whom He foreknew.
10:59: So we're going to start with that word.
11:02: For those whom He foreknew.
11:05: And by the way, I'm going to circle this part because this is not the golden chain.
11:08: The golden chain actually starts here.
11:09: This sets up the golden chain.
11:11: The very first word in the golden chain of redemption is the word foreknew.
11:16: For those He foreknew, He also did predestine to be conformed to the image of His Son.
11:25: And those whom He predestined, He what? It's in the sentence.
11:31: He called.
11:33: Those whom He predestined, He called.
11:36: Those whom He called, He justified.
11:42: Those whom He justified, He glorified.
11:47: Alright.
11:48: So we have here five specific verbs.
11:52: We need to understand who is doing the action.
11:56: And we need to understand the object of the verb.
12:00: So this takes a little bit of grammar to understand.
12:05: So, if I say He threw the ball, the verb is through.
12:11: Right? He is the subject.
12:13: He is the one throwing the ball.
12:15: And then the ball is the object.
12:18: It is the thing being thrown.
12:20: Understand? Simple grammar.
12:23: So if I say He predestined or He foreknew, He called, He justified, He glorified, the subject is God.
12:34: He is the one doing the action.
12:36: So, God foreknew.
12:41: God predestined.
12:43: God called.
12:44: God justified.
12:45: God glorified.
12:48: Who is the person that is in view? Who is the object? The called.
12:55: The person that He was just referring to.
12:57: This is what brings us back up to this statement.
13:00: All things work together for the good of those who love God, who are the called or the elect according to His purpose.
13:06: For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.
13:10: Who is it that He foreknew and predestined? The called.
13:13: It is the same context.
13:14: It is the same person.
13:15: He is referring to the same individual.
13:17: Whom He called, He justified.
13:18: Whom He justified, He glorified.
13:21: Those five things are all parts of our salvation.
13:27: Every one of those is an act of God.
13:31: God is the one who foreknows.
13:34: God is the one who predestines.
13:37: God is the one who calls.
13:40: God is the one who justifies.
13:42: God is the one who glorifies.
13:43: We are the ones who were foreknown.
13:46: We are the ones who were predestined.
13:48: We are the ones who were called.
13:50: He said, why are you stressing this so much? I am stressing this to make the point that this passage has nothing to do with what we do.
14:02: This passage is totally about what God has done.
14:07: Because the way this has been misinterpreted by many people is that God looked down the corridor of time, He saw what you were going to do, and based upon seeing what you were going to do, that was why He chose you.
14:25: Here's the problem with that.
14:28: One, it misunderstands the word for no, but it also misunderstands who is the subject of this golden chain of redemption.
14:39: Who's the subject? God.
14:41: It's not about you.
14:42: It's not about what you have done.
14:44: It's not about what you're going to do.
14:45: It's about what God did for you.
14:49: God foreknew you.
14:50: God predestined you.
14:52: God called you.
14:53: God is the subject.
14:55: You are the object.
14:57: You are the one being done to.
14:59: And it's not about what you have done or are going to do.
15:03: It is about what God has done for you.
15:06: I understand why I'm stressing this because of the misunderstanding.
15:10: Because I've heard so many preachers get up and say, God don't choose you until you first choose Him.
15:16: Baloney.
15:17: Hogwash.
15:18: That's garbage.
15:19: That's bad theology.
15:20: What did Jesus say? You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you.
15:29: And you love Me because I first loved you.
15:34: And Jesus said, no man can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.
15:41: And this is why I said to you, no one can come to Me unless it be granted to him by the Father.
15:46: And all that the Father gives Me will come to Me.
15:49: And the one who comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out.
15:53: So Jesus has made the point, and we ought to understand it, that salvation is of the Lord.
16:02: This was proclaimed by the prophets.
16:04: It continues to be proclaimed in the New Testament.
16:07: Salvation is not of the man.
16:09: Salvation is of the Lord.
16:12: We are the beneficiary.
16:14: He is the one who does the work.
16:18: The word for no is the first word in the golden chain of redemption.
16:23: And it is often the word that is most misunderstood.
16:25: Did somebody have their hand up? I don't want to miss...
16:27: I was going to say that we are the ones that sow the seed, but God waters it.
16:33: Yeah, God brings the increase.
16:34: That's a good point.
16:35: That's a good verse from 1 Corinthians.
16:36: Paul makes the point.
16:37: Yes, we play a part in the process.
16:39: We're going to talk about that in a little while.
16:40: We play a part in the process, but it's God who does the work.
16:43: God is the one.
16:44: It's just like you can't make a tree grow.
16:46: You can't do anything.
16:48: You can put a seed in the ground, but you can't...
16:50: You can talk to it.
16:52: You can water it, but you can't make it grow.
16:56: And it's amazing that you can put two seeds in the ground and one will grow and one won't.
17:01: You take two sick people, one gets medicine, the other gets the same medicine.
17:05: One lives and one dies.
17:07: Isn't it amazing? And it kind of reminds us of the fact that we're not in control.
17:14: We don't like that because we like to be in control.
17:17: We like to be the captains of our own destiny.
17:21: And one of the things, and it's a good reminder, is that God is the captain of our destiny.
17:28: God is the captain of the ship.
17:30: So, I want to get to my questions.
17:32: I haven't gotten there yet.
17:33: I want to explain this very quickly.
17:35: When we talk about the word foreknew, what does it mean to know someone? Intimacy, to be familiar with their habits.
17:45: Intimacy, to be familiar with their habits.
17:47: All that's true.
17:49: In the Bible, when it talks about God knowing an individual, it speaks of a relationship that is a saving relationship.
17:58: For instance, when Jesus in Matthew 7 has the false people come to Him and He says, those who say, Lord, Lord, but did not do what I say.
18:11: He says, depart from Me.
18:13: I never knew you.
18:16: Right? He didn't say I never met you because God knows everyone.
18:22: But in the sense of having a relationship, having an intimate, and that's the word you use, intimate relationship, a saving relationship, it was never formed.
18:33: I tell you this, the greatest fear of our lives should be to hear the words, depart from Me.
18:39: I never knew you.
18:42: I mean, that's a sermon by itself.
18:45: Just think, you stand before the God of the universe and He says, leave My presence.
18:50: We have never been in a relationship.
18:56: I mean, that's a lot.
18:59: But that's what it means.
19:00: In Amos 3, verse 2, God speaking to Israel, He says, you have I known of all the nations of the world.
19:09: What does it mean to know in that sense? It means to be in a redemptive relationship.
19:15: God had a relationship with Israel that was different from all of the other nations and how did He describe it? I know you.
19:23: I don't know the Babylonians.
19:24: I don't know the Assyrians.
19:26: I don't know the Hittites.
19:27: But I know you.
19:31: It's relationship, right? Go back to Adam and Eve.
19:35: Adam knew Eve and they bore a son.
19:39: Now that's a little bit more of a physical intimacy, but you understand the word know is being used there in the sense of a relationship.
19:47: So now, keeping that in mind, when it says, whom He foreknew, He also predestined.
19:58: It's not about God looking into the future, seeing what you have done and choosing you based upon that.
20:04: What it is saying is God chose before the foundation of the world to know you in an intimate sense.
20:13: He chose you.
20:15: Yes, the word foreknow can mean chose.
20:17: But go ahead.
20:18: So, our free will has nothing to do with those first five things.
20:24: Our free will is going to be one of the questions that I answer in just a minute.
20:28: At this point, I don't want to address it just because we're dealing with what God has done.
20:33: We do play a part, and I'm going to talk about our part in a minute.
20:36: We do have a will, and we're going to address that.
20:40: Yeah, but for now, I'd rather, let me get through these five and then I'll address the subject of the will.
20:46: Yes? You may address this too, but the most common, I'm sure you've heard it, that people sometimes mistake foreknow and predestine, get them mixed up.
20:56: When talking this.
20:57: Yeah.
20:58: They mix it.
20:59: Well, then the Holy Spirit through Paul got it mixed up when he wrote 829.
21:04: Yeah.
21:04: Two separate words for it.
21:05: Yes, and people will say, again, the reason why God chooses is because He knows what you're going to do.
21:12: That's not, my point in preaching today is to say that's not what it means.
21:16: If you are believing that the reason God chose you is because He saw something in you that made you worth choosing, think of it that way.
21:26: The reason God chose you was because He saw something in you that made you worth choosing.
21:33: No, I'm going to tell you, it wasn't me.
21:36: God didn't see anything in me worth choosing.
21:40: He saw something in a vile, wretched, sorry excuse for a human being.
21:47: And that's why He chose me.
21:49: And here's the thing that really, really sets it off.
21:53: When you look at the people God chose in the Bible, Jacob and Esau.
22:00: Jacob, I have loved.
22:01: Esau, I have hated.
22:03: And you look at Jacob and Esau and you tell me which one of them was the scoundrel.
22:07: It was Jacob.
22:09: He was the liar.
22:10: He was the scoundrel.
22:11: And yet God chose him.
22:12: Why? Because it was God's will to do so.
22:16: You say, well, I don't agree with that.
22:17: Guess what? You ain't God.
22:19: And God's not up for election and He doesn't care about your vote.
22:24: If there's anything you should learn from the book of Job, it is this.
22:29: God is not running for your approval.
22:34: God is not looking for your approval.
22:37: He wants your worship, but that is because you owe it to Him.
22:46: But God is not looking for you to approve His choices.
22:51: You got little kids? You make decisions your kids don't agree with? No, you can't have ice cream for breakfast.
22:59: I don't like that choice.
23:01: You ain't up for a vote.
23:02: This is my house.
23:03: This is the United States of Keith.
23:05: And this is not the Democratic Republic.
23:08: This is a Keithocracy.
23:10: And this is, you're not gonna have ice cream for breakfast because I am the sultan of my home.
23:20: I mean, that's just it, right? I don't ask my kids to vote on my decisions.
23:25: Neither does God ask me to vote on His decisions because His wisdom is so far above my wisdom.
23:32: His knowledge so infinitely greater than my knowledge.
23:35: Why would my insignificant opinion play a part in His eternal decree at all? You say, I don't like thinking of myself like that.
23:45: Okay.
23:47: Whom He foreknew, He predestined.
23:49: Whom He predestined, He called.
23:51: This is another important point.
23:53: The calling comes after the predestination.
23:57: So if anybody tells you God calls everyone, nope.
24:09: Because foreknowledge precedes predestination.
24:14: Predestination precedes calling.
24:17: So if God calls everyone, that means everyone's predestined.
24:20: If everyone's predestined, that means everyone's foreknown.
24:22: That means everybody's going to heaven.
24:23: And because the Bible clearly says everybody's not going to heaven, then you cannot say that everyone is called.
24:29: Yes? What about the many are called if you're chosen? That is using calling in a different context.
24:34: The word calling, there is what we call the general call, and then we have what's known as the specific or the inward call.
24:39: Sometimes known as the outward call and the inward call.
24:41: So like when I proclaim the Gospel, I make an outward call.
24:45: All who will believe on the Lord will be saved.
24:47: That's what the Bible says, and I can make that call.
24:49: But I know that only those who God changes their hearts will believe.
24:53: And so that's the inward call.
24:54: The inward call is the work of the Spirit.
24:56: The outward call is the work of the preacher.
24:59: So many are called by the preacher, but few are chosen.
25:02: That's the inward call.
25:03: That's the work of the Spirit.
25:05: Yeah, I'm glad that was helpful.
25:07: Yes, Mr.
25:07: Frank? Is it safe to say that if there's anything good in me, God put it there, and I had nothing to do with it, right? Yes, and I forget if it was Augustine who said, all of my sin is mine to own, and all of my goodness is God's.
25:28: He said it much more poetically.
25:30: Basically, it's like if it's sin, it's mine, but if it's goodness, it's God's.
25:35: And that's a good way of looking at ourselves.
25:39: So again, moving here, my two points that I always like to bring out is the word forenew is often misunderstood.
25:44: Forenew means to choose.
25:46: It means to know this one and not know that one.
25:48: It means to make a choice.
25:50: Foreknow means to choose or to forelove.
25:52: Another way of saying it.
25:53: Whom He foreknew, He predestined.
25:56: Whom He predestined, He called.
25:58: Whom He called, He justified.
26:00: Justified means to declare righteous.
26:02: It's what happens because of the work on the cross.
26:04: And then whom He justified, He glorified.
26:06: Glorified is something that we haven't experienced yet.
26:09: Glorification is what happens when we shed this sinful body and we are given a new body, when we are changed, when we are glorified.
26:16: The Bible says when we see Him as He is, we will be like He is.
26:19: Meaning we'll have a glorified body as Christ had when He came out of the tomb.
26:23: And glorification is something that we have to look forward to.
26:28: And you say, but in this sense, it's past tense.
26:30: How can God say those whom He justified, He glorified? Because in the eternal counsel of God, when God has decreed something, it is as certain as if it has already taken place.
26:43: So God can speak of my glorification in the past tense because in the mind of God, it's already a done deal.
26:50: In the mind of God, it cannot be changed.
26:53: This is why He goes on to say, who shall bring a charge against God's elect? Who can separate us from the love of God? Shall anything say? No, nothing, neither height nor depth.
27:02: Nothing can take this away because it's God who did it, not you.
27:07: This is one of the greatest passages on the doctrine of eternal security in all of the Bible.
27:13: A lot of people run to John and they want to talk about where Jesus said, if I have You in my hand, I am the Father's hand, I am the Father of one.
27:18: They use that for eternal security.
27:19: And that's a great verse.
27:20: But this is where I go because I ask the question, can a person be justified and not be glorified? Because it says, whom He justified, He glorified.
27:36: Can a person be justified and not be glorified? Because if you're saved and then lost again, you were justified and you lost it.
27:43: But that is not available.
27:45: That is not an option here.
27:46: Whom He foreknew, He predestined.
27:49: Whom He predestined, He called.
27:51: Whom He called, He justified.
27:53: Whom He justified, He glorified.
27:55: And the insinuation of it is this is absolutely a work of God.
28:01: It is not something that you do, which is why He follows it up with, you can't destroy it and neither can anyone else.
28:06: No one can take it from you.
28:08: Not even yourself? No, you can't.
28:11: You can't take...
28:16: I'll tell you, I had a professor, Professor Jerry Powers, he gave this illustration.
28:22: He said, when I hold my child's hand, and we're out in public, he said, whenever it gets to a situation where I'm going to be in a situation that's precarious, like I'm crossing a street, or I'm walking down a sidewalk, he said, I hold their hand tighter, not looser.
28:42: When my children are in distress, I don't let them go, I hold them tighter.
28:49: And so if God is holding on to us, we're not holding on to Him.
28:53: Our security is in Him, not in us.
28:57: My child don't hold on to me at all.
28:59: My daughter, Hope, is like, honestly, the squirrel, she will run.
29:04: So I have to hold her, I don't even hold her by the hand, I hold her by the wrist.
29:10: Because I know that she will run.
29:13: And I'm thankful that there are times where I can feel the hand of God on my arm.
29:18: Because He's the one who's keeping me, I'm not keeping Him.
29:21: So this is a good passage to understand.
29:25: There's so much more I could say, but based on that lesson, I now want to answer some questions about the doctrine of predestination.
29:32: These are all from this sheet.
29:35: First one, if God predestines, why do we evangelize? That's one very important question that I have gotten from tons of people.
29:50: In fact, I remember that.
29:51: I remember very specifically in my office one night, a lady had heard that I was a Calvinist.
29:56: She came down to my office after church and she wanted to sort of challenge me on it.
30:01: And her very first statement was, well, if what you're saying is true, then we don't need to tell people about Jesus.
30:07: God's going to say who He's going to save.
30:09: If what you're saying is true, we don't need to evangelize.
30:13: I said, well, that just goes to show you don't understand what I've said.
30:18: There is something called hyper-Calvinism.
30:21: If you've ever heard of primitive Baptists, sometimes known as the hard-shell Baptist movement, they were in a way hyper-Calvinists.
30:34: Because they would say because God has chosen, because God has predestined, we don't have to tell people about Jesus.
30:40: In fact, I had one come at me one time.
30:43: I was out sharing the Gospel.
30:45: I was handing out Gospel tracts at the fair.
30:47: We have a booth.
30:48: Every year, we spend ten days at the fair handing out thousands of Gospel tracts.
30:51: We believe in evangelism.
30:53: We're handing out Gospel literature.
30:54: We're having conversations.
30:55: And this guy walked up and he kind of sidled up to me.
30:58: And I always know when the conversation is good.
31:00: I know it.
31:02: It's like I have a spider sense for heresy.
31:06: It just comes up.
31:08: And he goes, so what are you doing? I'm building the ship.
31:15: No, I'm sharing the Gospel.
31:20: Well, I see here you're Sovereign of Grace, so that means you're Calvinistic.
31:25: Yes.
31:26: He said, well, then you shouldn't be sharing the Gospel because God's going to save who He's going to save.
31:31: I said, well, that just means you don't understand Calvinism.
31:33: And he said, well, no, I am.
31:34: I'm Calvinist and I know this.
31:36: God doesn't need your help.
31:37: He's going to save who He's going to save.
31:40: I said, well, you, sir, don't understand the Scriptures.
31:44: Well, I've been in church for a long time.
31:46: That's okay.
31:46: Ignorance knows no age limit.
31:50: And you're dangerously ignorant at this point because what you were saying is untrue.
31:55: If there was no other reason to evangelize, it would be this.
31:58: Jesus told us to.
32:00: I don't have to understand.
32:02: I really don't.
32:04: I do understand why I evangelize, but I don't have to understand because if the only thing I had was a command from my King, that's enough.
32:11: If the King tells me to stand on one foot and say the Pledge of Allegiance backwards, I tell you what, I'm going to get cracking because He is the King.
32:18: And if He tells me, go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature, here I come because He's the King.
32:25: He doesn't have to explain why.
32:27: He's in charge.
32:29: But, I do understand why and that does help me.
32:32: Brother, you had your hand up.
32:33: I don't want to miss you.
32:35: Romans 10, 17, so then faith comes by hearing and doing.
32:49: Yeah, and you kind of outran me because I was going to go there.
32:54: Yes, God does predestine, but He predestines the means as well as the end.
33:02: The end is heaven, but He predestines how we get to heaven.
33:07: And how do we get to heaven? By hearing and believing.
33:12: No one goes to heaven simply because they're elect.
33:17: They go to heaven because God has chosen them and therefore they will hear and believe the Gospel.
33:24: Let me give you the best example I know.
33:28: You like this example.
33:29: I know you've heard this.
33:30: And this is sometimes awkward to when I'm speaking in groups of men and women, but since you're all men, maybe not so awkward.
33:39: I have a child.
33:40: I have five children.
33:42: And the reason why I have five children, well, no, I'm not going to say.
33:46: No, but I have five children.
33:49: Two of them are adopted.
33:50: Three of them are natural born children.
33:52: And my three natural born children, I watched them be born.
33:58: Now, their birth was ordained by God.
34:05: I don't say that as a matter of opinion.
34:07: I say that as a matter of biblical fact.
34:09: Psalm 139 says that their days were fashioned before them, before there was even one of them, that God knew them in the womb, that God formed them in their mother's womb, and that it was the day that God chose to bring them into this world.
34:23: And God has a day chosen that He's going to take them out of this world.
34:27: And the same way He has with me and the same way He has with you.
34:29: Your birthday was no accident.
34:34: Your birthday was ordained by God.
34:38: But there were things that had to happen to bring about your birth.
34:50: Every time I come here, I have to edit something.
34:54: This is being recorded.
34:58: What has to happen for a child to be born? Two people have to have sex.
35:05: The only time that's ever not been the case was 2,000 years ago when Jesus was born of a virgin.
35:10: Every other person that has ever lived has come by the same way.
35:15: Two people had sex together, and as a result of that intercourse, a child was conceived, grew, and was birthed.
35:26: Can I say that the birth of the child was ordained by God? Yes.
35:32: Can I say that the birth of the child would have happened without the sex? No, because sex is the process that God uses to bring about the birth of the child.
35:46: Therefore, the child's birth was the end.
35:49: The means to the end was the sex.
35:52: And so therefore, God ordained not only the end, but the means to the end.
35:59: And what's interesting about this, I remember one night years ago, and this guy's a sweet man.
36:03: He's a good friend of mine.
36:04: He and I, we talked about this for hours because I made the point to him that there is not one rogue molecule in the entire universe because if there was one thing that was outside of the control of Almighty God, that could be the one thing that would destroy God's entire plan.
36:27: One horse with one horseshoe can cause the horse to fall.
36:33: One horse in battle can cause the battle to be lost.
36:38: One battle can cause the war to be lost.
36:42: One war can cause the nation to fall.
36:46: One horseshoe can cause the nation to fall.
36:51: You understand what I just said? And actually, you go further.
36:54: One nail in a horseshoe can cause the horseshoe to come off.
36:57: One horseshoe on a horse can cause the horse to fall.
36:59: One horse in battle can cause the battle to fall.
37:01: One battle in a war can cause a war to fall.
37:03: One war can cause a nation to fall.
37:04: One nail in the shoe of a horse can cause the whole nation to fall.
37:08: Is God sovereign over the horseshoe? He has to be.
37:12: Because He says, I'm in control of the rising and the falling of nations.
37:18: You see, when you get to this point, you start to understand how intimately interactive God is with all of history.
37:25: See, we think God intercedes and exits at certain points, but the Bible says He is upholding all things by the word of His power.
37:35: Always.
37:36: That the reason my heart is beating within my chest right now is at the command of Almighty God.
37:42: And were He to so choose to take that grace from me, I would drop dead right here, right now.
37:48: Because He is the one who is upholding me by the word of His power at every moment of every day.
37:56: God is sovereign.
37:58: That's the heart of all this.
38:01: And so, why do I evangelize? First, because He told me to.
38:05: But also because it is the ordained means of God whereby the elect are found.
38:12: What am I doing when I go to evangelize? I'm looking for the elect.
38:16: I'm saying, all who will come may come.
38:19: And the elect come.
38:22: And it's an amazing thing.
38:24: And it's like Charles Spurgeon said, I don't go around lifting up people's shirts and looking for an E on their backside to see if they have an E tattoo.
38:32: I don't look for that because nobody has that.
38:35: But what I do is I say, all who will believe may come.
38:38: And those who come, I can know that they have come at the ordination of Almighty God.
38:44: So why do I evangelize? Because Jesus told me to and that's His means for bringing His people to Himself.
38:50: Number two, if God predestines, does that mean I don't have a will? Okay man, I'm finally getting to your question.
38:59: Alright, so the question of human will and human freedom.
39:04: I want to make this as simple as I can.
39:07: Does every person have a will? Yes.
39:12: Is our will free? No.
39:17: And here's how we know.
39:18: Here's how we know.
39:21: The Bible says, he who sins is a slave to sin.
39:25: How do you define a man who is dead in sin? A slave, not free.
39:33: So if somebody says, does man have a free will? I say, no, man has an enslaved will.
39:38: And his will is enslaved to sin.
39:41: And if a person is enslaved, we don't call him free.
39:45: So the first time somebody wants to have this argument, I believe in free will.
39:49: I say, so you believe you can stop sinning.
39:53: I didn't say that.
39:54: If you had a free will, you should be able to stop sinning.
39:59: You don't have a free will because you're a slave to sin.
40:04: Right? That's the end of the argument at first.
40:07: But let me go further because some of the greatest literature in the past 500 years has been written on this subject.
40:13: One was written by Martin Luther, the man I often quote.
40:17: The man that was responsible in part for bringing about the Reformation.
40:20: He wrote a book called The Bondage of the Will.
40:23: Where he explained the deadness of man in sin.
40:27: And the way that God brings man out of that through the gift of regeneration.
40:32: And giving him the gift of new life.
40:35: And so The Bondage of the Will is a hugely important book.
40:39: The other book is called The Freedom of the Will.
40:42: It was written by Jonathan Edwards.
40:43: It was written in the 1800s.
40:45: And Edwards takes a more philosophical approach.
40:48: And he explains that we always do what we want to do at any given moment.
40:58: The question is not whether or not we're doing what we want.
41:02: The question is what causes us to want what we want.
41:06: So for instance, I don't want to go shopping with my wife.
41:11: Ever.
41:15: And baby, if you're listening, I love you.
41:19: But I don't like going shopping with her.
41:22: Going shopping with my wife is an excursion.
41:25: I go to Walmart, I go in, get what I want, I leave.
41:28: She's got to go every aisle and make sure she didn't miss anything.
41:33: And if it's clothes shopping, shoot me and put me down.
41:37: Because it's...
41:39: Okay, so I don't want to go clothes shopping ever.
41:42: But I go clothes shopping.
41:44: Why? Because my desire to please my wife is greater than my desire to not go clothes shopping.
41:52: So when she says, hey, you want to go clothes shopping with me? Part of me says, nah.
41:58: But I say, do you want me to go? Yes, I want you to go.
42:01: Well, my desire to please you is now greater than my desire to stay home.
42:06: And so that is a time in which you could say, I'm actually...
42:11: I'm still doing what I want to do.
42:13: It's the question of which is greater.
42:15: Is my desire to stay home greater than my desire to please my wife? Not this time.
42:20: Somebody puts a gun in your face and says, give me all your money or I'm going to shoot you.
42:23: You have a choice.
42:27: You can say, shoot me.
42:30: And he shoots you and takes your money anyway.
42:31: But you made the choice.
42:35: And so Edwards' point was simply to say this.
42:39: Every man does what he wants to do at any given moment based upon several factors.
42:44: And one of the greatest factors is his internal sense of desire.
42:48: Every man does what his desires are strongest at that moment.
42:51: So here's how it works out for salvation.
42:54: Prior to God changing our heart, we do not have a desire for righteousness.
42:59: We do not have a desire for the Scripture.
43:00: We do not have a desire for Christ.
43:02: So when we hear the Gospel, our response is no.
43:06: This is why Jesus said, no one can come to Me unless the Father draws him.
43:10: Because our natural impulse is no.
43:12: I don't want to come.
43:14: God changes our heart and that is how we are able to come.
43:19: He had his hand up.
43:19: Go ahead brother.
43:20: I know it was like 20 minutes ago, but you still remember what you wanted to ask? I don't know.
43:26: I read the introductory passage in the bondage of the will.
43:36: It's a lot.
43:37: Because it's a debate.
43:38: Where Martin Luther was coming from and his relationship with Erasmus and things like that.
43:44: It was pretty neat, but it was kind of sad though.
43:49: Yeah, Desiderius Erasmus was a brilliant man, but he was a Roman Catholic.
43:53: And they debated this subject.
43:54: The whole book, Bondage of the Will, is the debate between him and Erasmus.
43:58: Are you going to discuss how does God affect people's will? Yeah.
44:02: Do you want to refer to that Old Testament where people were going to go fight a war, but they didn't want to because they were afraid another country would...
44:11: Yeah, I don't remember that passage off the top of my head, but I know what you're talking about.
44:15: When I teach on will, I bring that passage up.
44:17: I teach an entire course on how the will operates.
44:22: And I'm having to bring that down to five minutes.
44:25: But yes, God does influence the will.
44:29: The Bible says God opens people's hearts to believe.
44:32: Amen? That's influencing the will.
44:34: The Bible says God hardens hearts.
44:36: Amen? That's influencing the will.
44:40: The Bible also says that there was a time in Israel's history where God called the men to go away to worship Him and to leave their land to go and worship Him.
44:50: And when they left their land, they would be leaving behind their women and their children.
44:55: And the concern was, well, if we leave behind our women and children, all these people who want our land are going to attack and they're going to take our women and our children and our land.
45:02: And God said, no, they will not covet your land when you are away worshiping Me.
45:07: How can God say they won't covet your land if God is not influencing their heart? You got the passage? This is a passage I always go to when I'm talking about, you know, God placing something on our hearts, stirring us up is Ezra 1.
45:21: 5 says, then rose up the heads of the fathers, houses of Judah and Benjamin and the priests and the Levites, everyone whose spirit God has stirred to go up to rebuild the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem.
45:33: I mean, it's talking about rebuilding, you know, Jerusalem and stuff.
45:36: But it's God stirring the heart, so God influencing the will.
45:39: Absolutely.
45:40: And that's the point.
45:41: Does God influence our heart? Absolutely.
45:44: And we need to understand that.
45:45: When I say that men always do what their desires are, I'm saying those desires have to come from somewhere.
45:52: And it's just like brother Frank said earlier, my bad desires come from me.
45:55: My good desires come from God in me.
45:58: Think about Philippians, right? It tells us, work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you both to will and to do His good pleasure.
46:10: Notice what it says.
46:11: It's God working in you to will and to do.
46:17: Meaning your will is influenced by God who is in you.
46:22: That's hugely important.
46:24: So, do men have a will? Yes.
46:26: Is it free? No.
46:27: It's always governed by desires.
46:30: And those desires are either from the flesh or from the spirit.
46:32: This is why Galatians tells us to walk by the spirit, not by the flesh.
46:37: Yes, sir.
46:37: So that scripture is God who works both in you to will and to do.
46:42: That's literally saying exactly what it says.
46:46: It's nothing of us if we have a desire to do good.
46:50: It's not something we do.
46:52: Yeah, it's God working in us.
46:54: That's literally what it is.
46:55: If I want to do something for God and I do it for God, I should thank God for giving me that desire.
47:01: It's like Saint Augustine said.
47:03: He said, God, command what you will and give us the desire to do what you command.
47:08: God, command what you want us to do and give us the will to do it.
47:14: Yes, sir.
47:15: What verse was that? Philippians 2, 12, and 13.
47:18: 2, 12, and 13.
47:19: Thank you.
47:21: Even like in whenever Moses was going to talk to Pharaoh about leaving Egypt, it says that God heard what Pharaoh was saying.
47:28: Yes, it does.
47:29: And Romans 9 clarifies that by saying God will have mercy on whom He wills, and on whom He wills He hardens.
47:37: Okay, next question.
47:39: We got through two.
47:40: I'll try to make these last few.
47:42: I think there's seven questions that I wrote.
47:45: And these were always the questions I would get.
47:46: The first question was always, well, why do we evangelize? The second question was, does that mean we don't have a free will? We've answered those.
47:52: The third question, doesn't predestination mean God is unfair? That's a good question.
47:59: That's a very common question.
48:01: And this is what we need to distinguish between.
48:05: I'm going to erase this now.
48:06: The difference between fair and just.
48:08: Thank you, Brian, BJ.
48:10: You just said exactly what I was going to say.
48:13: You want to teach? No.
48:14: I'm just kidding.
48:15: You're right.
48:16: Because he's got it.
48:17: The difference is the difference between fair and just.
48:24: People distinguish between fairness and justice, and they get them confused.
48:31: Let me say this.
48:34: Let's say on my way home today, I have five children.
48:38: Three of them are all children.
48:41: My older two are adults now.
48:43: But my three children, if I go home and I buy a candy bar on my way home, and I walk in to my children, and I say, okay, I bought this candy bar.
48:58: I'm going to give this candy bar to Hope, my oldest of the three younger ones.
49:06: The other two might cry out, Daddy, that's not fair.
49:11: You didn't bring one home for us.
49:16: And they would be right.
49:18: Because in our house, typically, if one person gets a treat, fair is that all of them would get a treat.
49:26: However, it would not be unjust if I were to give the gift to one and not the others, because none of them deserve it.
49:37: Justice deals with what is deserved.
49:43: So, for instance, if every one of you got what you deserved, what would you get? I want to tell you, don't ever forget that.
49:53: Don't ever forget that if you get what you deserved, it would be to go to hell.
50:00: Therefore, if you go to heaven, it will be because God gave you a gift of mercy, not because it was what was fair.
50:10: You see, we need to get out of our minds the concept of fairness, and we need to understand justice and mercy.
50:19: Justice is getting what we deserve.
50:22: Mercy is not getting what we deserve.
50:26: And if you don't go to hell, that is not fair.
50:30: It's mercy.
50:30: Mercy is holding back justice.
50:37: And the only reason God holds back justice from you is because He gave your justice to Christ.
50:44: He took the justice you deserve, and He gave it to Jesus.
50:47: If there's ever been anything that was unfair, it was Jesus having to take the penalty for having been the only good man to ever live.
50:57: He was the only sinless person.
50:59: Is it fair that He took your sins? It wasn't fair, it was mercy.
51:06: It was love.
51:07: It was grace.
51:08: It was a gift.
51:09: So when someone says God's not fair, I say fair is a place you go and ride rides and eat bad food.
51:16: Fair has nothing to do with the eternal counsel of Almighty God.
51:19: God deals in the realm of justice and mercy and grace.
51:24: And you are either an object of His justice, or you are an object of His mercy and grace.
51:31: But you will never be treated unfairly.
51:35: Ever.
51:36: Yes sir, somebody was going to ask something.
51:39: What she said kind of falls back on the first topic you talked about on why we evangelist.
51:47: Why we evangelist, yeah.
51:49: Yeah, because ultimately, I don't know who God's going to be merciful to.
51:53: So I proclaim to everybody, and I don't hold back.
51:56: I don't not proclaim to somebody, and somebody says, whoa, don't go talk to them, they're Muslims.
52:00: I've got to talk to the Muslims too, because there's elect Muslims.
52:03: There's some of them people that need to come out of their religion, and they will if they hear the Gospel.
52:08: Some of the greatest revivals in the world are happening in China, Korea, and in Middle Eastern countries where the Gospel is being proclaimed to people who have never heard it.
52:21: You know where the Gospel is not flourishing? Here.
52:25: Because it's been replaced with a pseudo-Gospel, a false Gospel that's all about prosperity and consumerism, and it's not about justice and mercy and grace.
52:35: Yes sir.
52:37: Do you think that the health, wealth, and prosperity Gospel is like very work centered, like a merit system, which is the opposite I believe.
52:53: Predestination supports the doctrine of grace, but I believe some of the prosperity Gospel teachers are almost semi-Pelagianistic.
53:03: Oh yeah, I think so too.
53:05: In fact, many of them would happily call themselves Pelagians.
53:09: Are you familiar with Charles Finney? I don't believe so.
53:13: Charles Finney was really the one who gave rise to the modern crusade movement, and the idea of having people come forward, and having people to come to the altar and pray, and a lot of those things were the result of Finney.
53:28: He got that from the Methodists.
53:29: The Methodists had something called a mourner's bench, which was a bench they set up in the front of the church, and at the end of the sermon people could come and cry on this mourner's bench, and Finney saw that and he said that's great, we need that, and he began to use it in his crusades, and people began to come forward at the end of the sermons, and that's not something that happened for hundreds of years.
53:47: That's something that's only been going on for the last 200 years.
53:51: The response to the Gospel has never been come forward.
53:55: The response to the Gospel has been repent and believe.
53:59: It's not about raising your hand, signing a card, or coming forward.
54:02: Go ahead.
54:05: Well that's true, because repentance is a product of your regeneration.
54:10: It's just like faith.
54:11: Ultimately your faith is the product of regeneration.
54:13: I'm going to be talking about that next Sunday, because faith and repentance go together, but they are both the product of being born again.
54:19: The work of God precedes any of our response.
54:24: Alright, so is God unfair? No, because God is just.
54:29: He's not unfair.
54:31: And somebody says, I can't believe you give a child a candy bar and not give the rest.
54:34: I don't do that.
54:35: I just said, I'm not God.
54:37: I would be fair to my children, because that would be rough.
54:42: But God is operating differently, because think of it like this.
54:47: Let's say you had 14 men on death row, and the governor chose to pardon one of them.
54:54: Well if he chooses to pardon one of the death row inmates, is he then obligated to pardon the rest? Not at all.
55:01: No one would say it was unfair that he pardoned one, and he didn't pardon them all.
55:07: Alright, so the next question on my list, and maybe you haven't thought about this, but this is one that I've heard, and I'll go through this one quickly.
55:19: If God isn't unfair, is He capricious and arbitrary? Now, let me explain those words.
55:29: Because I do have people ask me this, but they don't always ask it that way.
55:33: Capricious and arbitrary means does God simply roll the dice? Did God choose brother Mark, but He didn't choose brother Phil? Did God just roll the dice, and Mark got the snake eyes, and you got the, you know, whatever a bad roll is.
55:50: You got the bad roll.
55:53: You got the good one, you got snake eyes.
55:55: Whatever it is.
55:58: Did God just go around going, you, you, not you, not you, oh, definitely not you.
56:02: But, you know, is that the way God did it? That is capricious.
56:07: That's arbitrary.
56:08: That's somebody who spins a wheel, and it lands on a number, and they don't have any decision.
56:12: No.
56:13: God is an infinite, eternal, and hear this word, an absolute being.
56:24: Infinite, eternal, and absolute.
56:26: An infinite, eternal, and absolute God does not do anything that He has not chosen to do by the counsel of His own will.
56:38: Think about Ephesians 1.
56:41: Chosen from the foundation of the world.
56:43: Chosen according to what? According to the counsel of His will.
56:50: God made a choice of you in His own eternal counsel.
56:56: That's not capricious or arbitrary.
56:59: That's thoughtful and decisive.
57:03: It's the opposite of somebody who simply rolls the dice.
57:07: I don't know why God chose me, but I do know this.
57:10: It weren't because I deserved it.
57:12: And it weren't because I was good.
57:15: And it weren't because I was better than the person standing next to me.
57:18: It was because somehow, and for some reason in the eternal counsel of God, God chose to set His affection upon me.
57:26: And because of that, I should be eternally grateful.
57:29: God didn't roll the dice and it land on me.
57:32: God chose me.
57:34: I tell my children this all the time.
57:36: My two adopted children, I got them through foster care.
57:40: I say, you know what separates you from my other three children? People often say, oh, I bet you love your other three children more than your adopted children.
57:48: No, I don't.
57:49: I say the difference is I chose those two.
57:55: Those are mine not by birth, but by choice.
57:59: So when you think of predestination, don't think of it as God just simply this, this, this, not this, not this.
58:05: God chose you.
58:08: That's huge.
58:09: And it's not arbitrary and it's not capricious.
58:16: Yeah, He chooses often who we don't choose.
58:31: And that's the point, right? That was God's point, choosing David.
58:34: What did He say? I don't choose the one that everybody thinks.
58:37: When Samuel saw David's brothers, surely those are the ones who God will choose.
58:42: And no, He chose David.
58:44: God chose Jacob, not Esau.
58:49: God's choice is not our choice.
58:51: God sees what we don't see.
58:54: Alright, so He chose Israel of all the nations not because they were larger or more powerful or that they were more virtuous.
59:01: They were awful.
59:03: Israel was real bad.
59:05: Like a lot.
59:08: They made the golden calf.
59:09: Can you imagine? God leads you through two walls of water that are standing as a heap.
59:19: And you saw that.
59:21: Then He guides you by a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night.
59:27: He brings you to the foot of a mountain.
59:29: He calls your leader up onto that mountain and you can see the interaction between God and Moses from a distance as God is speaking to Moses from the top of the mountain and you say, you know what we need to do? We need to make Him mad.
59:50: We really need to seek to tick Him off.
59:54: That's just not the way.
59:55: But that's what they did.
59:57: You ever read that passage? I'm going to start preaching again, but that passage kills me every time I read it because Aaron took the golden earrings, he took all the gold, he made the golden calf, and he said this is the God who led you out of Egypt.
01:00:17: I mean, woodchipper for you.
01:00:19: That's what you woodchipper.
01:00:22: That's my new thing.
01:00:23: Woodchipper.
01:00:25: Because that's wrong.
01:00:27: Anyway, that's it.
01:00:30: A couple other quick questions.
01:00:32: If you believe in predestination, do you have to believe babies are going to hell? That's a big question people ask.
01:00:38: That is actually not something that's universally agreed upon by theologians.
01:00:41: I personally don't believe that babies go to hell.
01:00:43: Some do.
01:00:44: Don't really want to get into it, but it is one of the questions that I addressed.
01:00:46: I think that ultimately God's going to do what is right when it comes to infants.
01:00:52: What I call the infants and the ignorant.
01:00:54: The people who don't understand.
01:00:56: I do think God is gracious to them, but I don't necessarily have any proof other than the fact that in Genesis when God was speaking to Abraham, Abraham said, will not the judge of the universe do what is right? And the answer is yes.
01:01:09: God's always going to do what's right.
01:01:12: About the baby? When David says about his child, he can't come to me, I will go to him.
01:01:17: I would say that's anecdotal, but it's not a proof.
01:01:21: It's not a proof text.
01:01:22: I would say it gives hope to someone who's lost a child.
01:01:26: But then you get into the conversation of elect infants and things like that, which is a doctrine of covenantalism.
01:01:32: That's a little harder to dig into.
01:01:33: Certainly, David would have considered his child to be elect.
01:01:37: But yeah, I just happen to believe I find that's where I find that especially with that one.
01:01:45: Yeah, and me too.
01:01:47: I'm not discounting it.
01:01:48: You have to find a person to identify.
01:01:50: I don't have a passage I can point you to, but I will tell you this.
01:01:53: There are times in Scripture where we see babies under the same judgment as everyone else.
01:01:59: We see God calls Israel to go kill every man, woman, and child.
01:02:03: The Psalms say, Blessed is the one who smashes your children's head against a stone.
01:02:07: That's a tough passage.
01:02:09: I tell you what, read that Psalm next time you're having your Christmas dinner.
01:02:12: We're going to read from the Psalms.
01:02:14: Blessed is the one who takes your children and dashes their heads against the stone.
01:02:17: That's a tough passage.
01:02:20: Huh? Yeah, that's tough.
01:02:24: So when we're dealing with the subject of infants, it's tough.
01:02:27: Did infants die in the flood? So have they been the object of God's wrath? Yes, but are they an object of God's eternal wrath? That's where the harder question is.
01:02:39: I don't know the answer, but I will say this.
01:02:41: Whether you believe in predestination or not doesn't change how you think about that because here's the point.
01:02:46: I think predestination actually helps because I can say an infant who died in infancy was predestined to die in infancy.
01:02:52: Therefore, I can believe they're numbered among the elect because of that.
01:02:55: Versus someone who says God doesn't know what's going to happen or God didn't choose for that.
01:02:58: I've heard people say, oh, God didn't know that baby was going to die.
01:03:01: What? What God do you believe in? I just want to jump through it.
01:03:04: Don't talk.
01:03:06: You are demonstrating your lack of understanding.
01:03:09: Go ahead.
01:03:10: Yeah, Woodchipper for you.
01:03:11: It goes back to God's justice.
01:03:14: John MacArthur said that he's quoting someone but he said that God does not do things that are just, but he does something and it becomes just.
01:03:23: It's just because he does it.
01:03:25: That's right.
01:03:27: Alright, we're out of time.
01:03:29: Here's the last question and I'll give you this and I'll give you the answer very quickly.
01:03:33: What if a person comes to Christ and they're not predestined? That's a huge question I get all the time.
01:03:37: People say, what if somebody comes to Jesus but they're not predestined? If you believe that, you haven't listened to me.
01:03:45: Because what I have said the whole time is that if somebody comes to Jesus, it's because they're predestined.
01:03:51: And no one can come unless God grants it to them.
01:03:54: So if somebody comes, let me tell you this, John 6.37 answers the question.
01:03:59: Jesus said, the one who comes to me, I will not cast out.
01:04:05: So that's how I leave you today.
01:04:07: If you come to Christ, He's not going to deny you.
01:04:10: If you come to Christ in faith and repentance, He's not going to say, no, you're not elect.
01:04:14: But you will not come unless you are elect.
01:04:18: So understand this, if you have come to Christ, if you are saved, it is because God in His eternal decree was merciful and gracious to you.
01:04:25: You didn't deserve it, but He gave it to you as a gift.
01:04:28: Therefore, when you talk about salvation, it should be in these terms.
01:04:32: Salvation is completely, wholly, and utterly of the Lord.
01:04:37: Salvation is of God, not of me.
01:04:40: Alright, let's pray.
01:04:41: Father, thank You for our time to study.
01:04:43: I pray that hopefully, Lord, this has been helpful.
01:04:46: I hope the words that have been said have been fruitful and will encourage a deeper study.
01:04:50: And Lord, where there's confusion, I pray that You'll help guide to understanding.
01:04:54: In Jesus' name, Amen.