April 18, 2022 Show with Bill Sasser on “Grace”

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century Gospel Minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the Church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27, verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is

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Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 18th day of April 2022.

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And I'm absolutely thrilled to have back on the program a returning guest, a very dear friend, and a very generous supporter of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Bill Sasser, who is pastor of Grace Church at Franklin, Tennessee.

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And he is going to be addressing a very important theme today, grace, what is it, why do we need it, what does it do, and why do men reject this free, precious gift?

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And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Bill Sasser. Thank you so much,

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Chris, and it is, of course, a pleasure and an honor to have been invited and to be here today.

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Oh, it's a joy to have you, and I still think very fondly about my visits with you and your lovely wife,

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Lynn, especially the most recent time. I spent a few days in your lovely home as I was traveling from Pennsylvania to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and you and your lovely bride also took a long piece of time out of your schedules to drive me from Tennessee, Franklin, Tennessee, to the

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Muscle Shoals, Alabama area, Florence, to be more specific, where my hotel was.

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And it was such a joy. Every moment of that time was a joy sharing fellowship with both of you.

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Well, the feeling was mutual. We had a great time, always have a good time being with you, and we are thankful for you, thankful for this radio broadcast, for all the work that you do, all the people you have on to try to give these perspectives, these biblical perspectives of the word of God, of scripture, the fact that you take it seriously means everything to us, and Lynn and I just always have a blast, and we had a great time.

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She, of course, lived all of her life in Texas. At the time, she was just a couple of months old, but she was born in Alabama, very close to the area where we were, and some of her relatives still live there.

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So we had a great time, and we were able to tune in a little bit over our television, the conference that you were going to at that time, and heard a couple of men speak on that, tried to get others on there and just couldn't, but had a great time with you, and you're invited back anytime you can come.

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Well, that's definitely good to know. Tell our listeners about Grace Church at Franklin.

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Well, I have been the only pastor that Grace Church has had, but I've been here 51 years.

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Seems unthinkable. I came from way down, and I mean extreme, southwest

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Georgia, about 30 miles from the Florida border and about 35 miles from Alabama.

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I lived in Albany, Georgia until we moved here. Lynn came to Georgia to visit her dad, who had settled in Albany, Georgia.

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He was a radio man, built radio stations, and also did some radio work, as I call him, disc jockey

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DJ. He worked, he sold time, and he had his own programs.

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But anyway, she came there to visit him, and in the good providence of God, we met, eventually we married, and we have one son.

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We moved here. I came up here, actually, as a fellow that some of your listeners might remember from way back in the 60s and the 70s.

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His name was Norbert Ward. Norbert was an engineer with Columbia Records, but he was a grace believer.

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He was a believer in the grace of God, and he came from the primitive Baptist side of things and came to understand the utilitarianism,

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I think that's the term we use today, of the gospel, that the gospel should be preached to all, not to just the elect, because as Spurgeon said, you go out and mock them,

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I'll preach to them. So we don't know who they are. We moved here. I met

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Norbert Ward, actually, at a Bible conference in Arkansas. About a year or so later, he called me, and to make a long story short, we moved to Tennessee after much prayer, and we lived in the same house that we're living in now.

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We've been in this house now for about 51 years. So we were up here in 71 and had a small, actually met in a motel room in Nashville and then in a bank building, and then finally we secured a building.

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Then about 2006, we moved into a brand -new building.

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So we've been here 51 years, have a wonderful group of people, very faithful group of people, had a television ministry for about 20 years on the

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Fox network. Went off of that simply because television is very expensive, and we have the kind of television that we did not go on and try to sell books and sell tapes and sell things.

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I'm one who, I mean, every tub has to sit on its own bottom. But I think it's wrong to say, you know,

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God gave you a message and you can have it for $25. I just think that's wrong.

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I think if the Lord is a sovereign God, and we do believe in a sovereign God, then he's big enough to put you on television or radio or whatever without you begging for money.

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So we never asked for a dime in 20 years. Had a 20 -year television ministry, and of course, since that time, we went off of television in order to save money to build this new building, which, as I say, we have been in since 2006, and we don't owe anything on the building.

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It's been paid for. We have no debt all of these years. We're thankful for that.

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And so I guess the long and short story of it, Lynn and I were young people, young when we moved here, and we've been here now almost 52 years, faithful group of people, good, strong congregation, have wonderful worship services.

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The Lord has really blessed us. He's sustained us. I had a traveling ministry for about 25 years, traveled all over the place, spoke in Bible conferences.

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I think that probably where I met you up in Pennsylvania many years ago. Yes. S. Lewis Johnson was the speaker that year, and I was the speaker, spoke on the decrees of God, the views of the atonement,

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I think was actually my subject perspective of the atonement. So here it is now, 51 years later, and we're still in good health and happiness, and the

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Lord has continued to bless us, and we're just as strong now and excited now about preaching and teaching the word of God.

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By the way, Chris, you probably know this, but I say this for the sake of your listeners.

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We are on YouTube. We are on Ustream, and we are also on Sermon, Audio, Video now, because the

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Sermon, Audio now has video. Very good. You can watch it as well as listen to it.

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So we have that. We have a pretty extensive CD ministry. People from all over the country order the teachings and the

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CDs and so on. So that's kind of the short story of it. Our son is married, of course.

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He has three kids, lives about 25 miles out of town, and they're in good health.

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So we're just so thankful to the Lord for all that he's done for us here throughout his 51 years of ministry here in Franklin.

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Franklin is located, of course, just south of Nashville, about 15 minutes, 20 minutes south of Nashville, at 4052

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Arno Road in Franklin, and about a mile off of I -65 south goes from Nashville to Birmingham.

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Yes, 51 years is a real long time, much longer than most pastors remain in one place.

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In fact, I'm almost certain that 51 years is longer than any pastor

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I know who has remained in one church. In fact, it's even longer than a pastor who is world -renowned, especially to Reformed people and Sovereign Grace -believing

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Christians, Walt Chantry. He was the pastor at Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, where I am a member.

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He was there for 40 years, and I thought that was a long time. Wow, that is a long time.

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About 11 years shorter than you, and you're still going. Yes, still going.

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Again, we think this is the way I view things. If we're still here, and I don't mean just here in Franklin, if you and I are still in this world, it is because the

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Lord has a purpose for it. He has something for us to do.

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Certainly, we would believe that when he's through doing what he's going to do with us, why should we remain here any longer?

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He takes us on to be with him. We feel that we have other things to do, other messages to preach, other people to witness to and talk to.

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In fact, today, Lynn and I have been talking and talking prayerfully about a friend of ours who has some very, very serious problems.

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She had a tremendous opportunity to witness to him. He was in our services this past Sunday.

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But I think he was offended by some of the things that she said. We sing.

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We still get up and sing at the beginning of the service. We just feel that the

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Lord leaves us here because he leaves us in this world as long as he has purpose to things to accomplish.

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When that's through, then I think he takes us. Obviously, we still have something else to do.

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Amen. By the way, I just got an email from Ted in Moundsville, Alabama, who said that John MacArthur, who is still going strong, has been the pastor of Grace Community Church in California for 53 years.

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No kidding. Sun Valley, California, Grace Community Church.

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Well, years ago, I'm going to say it's been 15 to 20 years ago, we had some folks come to Grace Church at Franklin, and they said that John MacArthur had sent them there.

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Oh, wow. That was a surprise to us, but we were elated about that.

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There are some differences. Of course, doctrinally, who doesn't find those things? But they're minor. They're not the major things that we feel that Christians should stand upon and fellowship.

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Yes, and I would have also some disagreements, especially in regard to eschatology and other things, but those are not the things that dominate

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Dr. MacArthur's sermons and books. And speaking of somebody visiting your church, you should be having a visitor in the not -so -distant future.

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My former pastor, or should I say one of my former pastors, who you met and who enjoyed with me a wonderful dinner with you there in Tennessee after I arrived at the

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Nashville airport, and my former pastor, Mark Romaldi, picked me up, and we met at a restaurant where you were so kind to treat us both to dinner.

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He contacted me and said that someone that he knows, I think it may be a member of the church where he pastors,

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Sovereign Grace Church in Greenbrier, Tennessee. Somebody is moving to the

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Franklin area, and he is referring that individual to Grace Church at Franklin. Well, we'd love to have him.

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We really would, and I enjoyed meeting him as well. He seemed like a fine, fine young man, and he seemed like he's a dedicated man, a pastor.

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I do know we were talking about his family. You remember he has a big family.

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Yes, nine children. Nine children. So he's a dedicated man.

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I enjoyed meeting him, and I certainly appreciate him recommending Grace Church to anybody that's coming to our area.

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Of course, that invitation is extended to any of your listeners. We'd be glad to have them come and visit.

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We're easily located. You go down I -65, and you get off at Exit 65.

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Exit 65, head east. That would put you on Highway 96. You just head east about one mile, almost exactly one mile.

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Turn to the right on Arno Road. As soon as you turn right, you'll see the church, only about 300 yards, 400 yards down the road on the left.

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Beautiful building. Looks like a Church of England building to me. It has one of those high 40, 50 -foot ceilings.

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And you have the most beautiful pulpit I've ever seen, with staircases on either side going up to the—

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It is beautiful, and it does remind me of the pulpits in Europe. The whole idea, the symbolism behind that is the exaltation of the word of God, not the exaltation of the message, but the exaltation of God's word.

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It was beautifully designed by our architect. We have a lot of folks that want to have weddings there because of the way that church is designed, our church building.

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And a beautiful neighborhood as well. If anybody wants more information, go to gracechurchatfranklin .org.

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That's gracechurchat, actually the word at, A -T, not the symbol at. gracechurchatfranklin .org,

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and Franklin is spelled F -R -A -N -K -L -I -N, and I hope to remember to repeat that.

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Well, we have as a topic today one of the most important subjects known to mankind and especially known to the

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Church, and that is the subject of grace, a subject so important that you named your church after this aspect of the

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Christian faith with no other words attached other than church, Grace Church at Franklin.

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Grace is a word that has been misused, redefined, twisted, and bantied about by not only those in the

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Christian faith who rightly use the word, but it has been used and misused and abused by the

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Church of Rome, by world religions and cults, and we have to get to the root as to what true grace is because it is such a common word.

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There is hardly any religion, true or false, that doesn't have some concept of grace, and of course we who are

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Christians, and even more specifically those of us who believe in the doctrines of sovereign grace,

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I believe have the most genuine and biblical understanding of this very vital topic, a topic where eternity hinges.

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The removal of the word alone from grace, sola gratia, as the

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Latin phrase is, one of the watchwords or battle cries or pillars of the

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Protestant Reformation. You remove the sola or the alone, and it becomes meaningless.

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It becomes a false grace and a false gospel. So if you could, please define for us the word grace, especially in the realm of how we view this term and this concept as sovereign grace believing

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Christians. Well, I find that a lot of times illustrations and even humorous illustrations kind of cement things in people's minds, and I think grace,

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I think you're exactly right. I think grace is something that everybody talks about, but few really define.

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Sometime back I did a study on the word gratuity.

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It came in the 1500s from gratuity, a

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French term, and also from the medieval Latin. As you've already mentioned, gratuitas, which means freely given, and I found out that the word gratuity, when you eat a meal and you leave something for the waiter or the waitress, has the same root meaning from the term that we use, grace.

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I told a friend of mine, we went out to eat, and after eating, I said, I'll tell you what, I said,

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I'll get the tip and you get the gratuity. And he said, well, what do you mean? What's the difference?

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And I said, well, a tip is something like, in the world of stocks, buy low, sell high.

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But I said, a gratuity means you have to leave them some money. Well, that was a humorous way of introducing to him this idea of the word grace.

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This English word grace is found some 170 times or more in the

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Authorized King James Version. Probably most familiar is the

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Ephesians 2, 8 through 10 passage. For by grace are you saved, or literally have you been saved.

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Through faith, not out of yourselves, it is the gift of God. It is not of works, lest any man should boast.

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And I have found in my study that that word is used in various and sundry ways in the

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New Testament. I'm going to expose you to a little bit of that from a brother that's an elder in our assembly,

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Dr. Nelson Foster. He's a retired medical doctor. You may remember meeting him.

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But we read that Noah and his family were spared when everyone else was destroyed.

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Now, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Paul the

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Apostle introduced many of his epistles with the phrase, grace, mercy, and peace to you, or grace be to you.

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You just mentioned John MacArthur. I think that's the name of his program, Grace to You. And we're called by grace, we're saved by grace, we're kept by grace.

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It's the grace of God that works in the saints of God to do the will of God. We're here today by the grace of God that Paul said in Titus 3, 6, being justified by grace, we're made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

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Well, the books of the Bible, the 66 books of the Bible, close with the benediction and the blessing, the grace of our

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Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, amen, Revelation 22, 21. So we ask the question, what is grace and what are its constituents?

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I suppose you've heard, Chris, about the fellow whose name was John Maddox.

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He had a newborn daughter who was being born, and he always liked to name his children with biblical names.

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And of course, as you know, and probably many of your listeners know, the term used in the

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New Testament, generally translated with the word grace, is the word that we generally pronounce, chorus.

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And he was going to name his daughter, and a friend said, I wouldn't do that. And he said, why?

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He said, well, your last name is Maddox. You name her Chorus, it'll be Chorus Maddox. So I think he changed his mind about that.

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Dr. Foster, as I said, he was an elder in our assembly here in Franklin. This is what he said, and I'm going to quote him.

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He said this recently to a men's group. And when I get too long -winded here, you interrupt me. But he said, one of my favorite doctrines in Scripture is the doctrine of grace.

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I think that even though grace is so important, we've named our church after it, not many really know what the word means.

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The quick and dirty definition of G -R -A -C -E is God's riches at Christ's expense or, quote, receiving what we do not deserve.

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But the Greek word translated grace means a good deal more than that.

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Webster's dictionary lists 11 different definitions for the word grace.

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You can see why there's considerable confusion when the word is used. If we carefully read,

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Dr. Foster says, if we carefully read Scripture and try to apply only one definition to the word grace, we will be mightily confused.

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We don't need to go into exhaustive Scripture generally, but we should at least know the basic definitions of our topic.

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Well, then, Dr. Foster went on, and he gave three definitions of grace. You're going to recognize these easily, and then

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I'll have something to say about them. He said grace is an attitude, an attitude in the heart of God that shows undeserved favor to hell -deserving sinners, that is, unmerited favor.

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This definition is almost identical to what he's called sovereign election.

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By the way, I believe that the reason we have to use the term sovereign is because we really don't understand grace.

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I think all grace is sovereign grace, but we have to use that adjective because we're afraid that our hearers don't understand really what we're saying.

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Right, in the same way that we have to do further explanations on what Christian means.

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That's right. That's exactly right. So he gives three little definitions.

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One is that it's the spiritual power that flows from God into a sinner and affects a genuine change in that sinner.

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It is an attitude in the heart of God that shows undeserved favor. And he says it is a response in terms of gratitude, worship, and service that flows out of those who receive grace and back to God.

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This grace affects true worship. Of course, we know, Chris, that in the 16th century and beyond,

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Rome and the reformers fought over the true meaning of grace. And fortunately, both of them narrowed its meaning to an emphasis on only one of those three definitions.

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Again, a spiritual power that flows from God to a sinner and affects a genuine change and equips him for the task.

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Second, an attitude in the heart of God that shows undeserved favor to sinners, unmerited favor, and a response in terms of gratitude, worship, and service that flows out of those who are recipients of grace.

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Now, obviously, I think Dr. Foster is correct when he says that there is a good deal of confusion concerning grace in general, as you've already hinted, and that there are multiple ways of understanding grace as it's employed by the writer of the scripture.

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But I think that grace may be understood, basically, rudimentarily, as undeserved favor, or as a power that flows from the

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Almighty to the sinner that affects the sinner in a radical number of ways. And I tend to see these definitions that he gave more as the fruit of grace rather than the essence of grace.

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It's kind of like sin and sins, plural. One is the cause and the other is the effect.

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And what I think we're interested in on this radio broadcast are the constituents of grace.

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That is, what is the essence of grace? What is it without which there would be no grace?

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What makes grace great? So, as I've already indicated, we've got several words from the

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Hebrew and the Greek, translated grace, or conveying to us the concept or the doctrine of the

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Bible's teaching. You have that word charos from the Greek, and then in the Hebrew you have the word hesed, usually translated loving -kindness.

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And I wrote down a scripture here. If his children forsake my law, the

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Lord said to Moses, David, and those children of the old covenant, and walk not in my judgments, if they break my statutes and don't keep my commandments,

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I'll visit their transgression with the rod, I'll visit their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless, my loving -kindness will

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I not take from him, or suffer my faithfulness to fail. Now, that term is probably, in my opinion, the closest definition, or the definition of that word hesed is probably, could be translated grace.

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The Greek term, translated some 130 times, I researched that in preparation for this, but what exactly is grace?

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I mean, using the word grace can be similar to using, as we say in the South, a thingamajig.

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Do you know what a thingamajig is? Well, it's something like a whatchamacallit, and we don't know what it is.

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We use the term, but we don't know what it is, and people tend to make grace mean whatever they want it to mean, rather than what the

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Scripture says. Yes, many people have the same vocabulary, but we use a different dictionary.

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That's right, that's a good way to put it. The Church of Rome uses grace, but we disagree on what they mean by it.

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The Mormons use the term grace, the Jehovah's Witnesses use the term grace, Muslims, and we could go on and on.

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And we're going to be returning with more of this discussion with Pastor Bill Sasser after our first break.

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If you have a question, send it to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

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USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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Let's say you are in a church that has a different definition for grace than the one that my guest and I embrace, and you don't want to draw attention to your identity, or perhaps you are considering leaving such a church or religion and it makes you even more compelled to remain anonymous, or whatever the reason is that is personal and private and you want to remain anonymous, we will grant your request.

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But please, if it's just a general theological, doctrinal, and biblical question, please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

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And please don't go away, we will be right back with Bill Sasser right after these messages from our sponsors.

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This is Pastor Bill Sasser of Grace Church at Franklin here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

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Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially.

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Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. And of course the end of which we strive is the glory of God.

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If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

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Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.

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Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org.

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This is Pastor Bill Sasser wishing you all the richest blessings of our

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Welcome back. If you just tuned us in, our guest today is Pastor Bill Sasser, a very dear friend of mine and also very generous financial supporter of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio along with his lovely wife

41:00

Lynn Sasser and the saints at Grace Church at Franklin, Tennessee. And we are addressing the theme, grace.

41:08

What is it? Why do we need it? What does it do? And why do men reject this free precious gift?

41:15

If you have a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

41:23

Before we went to the break, you were explaining one of the ways to define grace.

41:33

Well, I'm going to give you five constituents when we get to it that I think form the basis of our understanding of grace.

41:40

As I was saying, grace is like the term

41:46

God. God can mean Aristotle's unmoved mover, can mean the impersonal force of Star Wars, can be the highest form of creation.

41:59

I believe if we gathered leaders from the so -called major religions of the world,

42:05

Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Pantheism, Christians, whatever, and we just used the term

42:14

God, each person, of course, would define in his or her mind what

42:19

God is to them. But when we say Jesus or Jesus Christ or Jesus the

42:25

Messiah, then we've reduced it to the least common denominator. We've destroyed all the ideas and the concepts and the definitions of the major religions concerning God.

42:37

And it's the same way about grace. I mean, where I live, Chris, we have thousands of groups who call themselves various and sundry names.

42:48

And many of them, though they believe and teach, they say, grace, there's one particular group that I'm thinking about.

42:58

They say there are five necessary things one must do to be reconciled to God.

43:03

And then you can be saved one day and lost the next day. But they frequently speak of grace.

43:10

You pointed that out at the beginning of this broadcast. To that particular group, grace is an aid to one's salvation.

43:20

And then other people speak of grace in one breath, and then in the next breath they say God has done all he can do, and it's up to you.

43:29

And if you ask them if they're saved by grace, they will without fail. Answer in the affirmative.

43:35

So there are multitudes of people who have all kinds of strange ideas, nevertheless confess that they're saved by grace.

43:42

So I can give you what I call the five constituents of grace that form the foundation of it.

43:49

And we can talk about that momentarily. Oh, yeah. So, well, let's just begin then.

43:57

What I did, I formed an acrostic from our English word grace.

44:04

That is, I'm going to allow each letter to stand for one of the foundation stones, and the whole of them together should give us a good idea of the grace of God.

44:18

And I do think that the grace of God is something that is bigger than a dictionary definition.

44:29

In other words, grace is larger, really, than our descriptive ability.

44:35

It's larger than we can say. We can't define what it is, and yet we can know something,

44:43

I believe, of the foundation of it and the essence of it. So I think grace begins with the goodness of God.

44:51

In other words, the G in grace, I would make that to stand for God's goodness.

44:59

In other words, grace has its beginning in the goodness of God, the goodness of the

45:06

God of Abraham and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the Scripture tells us that His glory is bound up in His goodness.

45:15

You probably remember when Moses said to the Lord, show me your glory.

45:20

I think that's in Exodus chapter 33. And in answer to that question,

45:27

Moses said, show me your glory. The Lord's response to that was, I will make all my goodness pass before you.

45:36

I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom

45:44

I will show mercy. So I'm sure some in our audience have wondered, when Adam sinned against God, and the

45:51

Lord said, in the day that you eat of this forbidden tree, you will die. And they say, well, you lived for several hundred years.

45:59

What's the answer to that? Well, the answer to that is, if it were not for the goodness of God, Adam would have been consigned to hell.

46:09

We know that he tried to cover up his nakedness with the fig leaves, which is a picture of works.

46:16

But it was the Lord who shed the first blood by killing the animals and clothing them with coats of skin.

46:25

So David tells us what the Lord saw when he looked upon man. He looked down upon the children of men.

46:32

I'll quote from Psalm 14 by Paul in Romans chapter 3. See if there were any that did understand, any that did seek

46:41

God. He said, no, they've all gone aside. They've become filthy. There's nothing to do with good. Romans 3 expands that same theme.

46:49

So this is a tremendous indictment. This is a charge against man, not from an earthly judge, but from the holy judge of the earth, and the one before whom even the angels covered themselves.

47:02

So what did the sovereign Lord determine to do in the light of this damning revelation?

47:10

He said, I'll show my goodness to them. I'll be merciful to them. I'll be gracious to them. I'll make all my goodness pass before them.

47:18

The Bible tells us in Romans 2, 4, that it's the goodness of God that leads men to repent.

47:26

So I believe the grace of the God of Scripture begins with his goodness.

47:32

The foundation of the grace of the God of the Bible is his wonderful, marvelous, indescribable goodness.

47:38

And it's because of the goodness of the Lord that any of us are spared. And I think that mercy is just goodness expressed.

47:47

So a G in grace stands for goodness. Then the

47:53

R in grace would stand for God's righteousness. That would be the second constituent of grace.

47:59

I pictured it like this. Goodness says, look, I'll embrace the sinner. But before goodness can embrace the sinner, the righteousness of God stands up and says, not so fast.

48:12

Many people misunderstand the goodness of the Lord just as many misunderstand freedom.

48:19

There's a difference, Chris, in something that's free and something that's free for nothing. And there's nothing free for nothing.

48:26

Somebody somewhere has to pay for it. And so when they announce it on the television, it says all of this, and you'll get a second one absolutely free.

48:36

It reminds me of the old carnival barkers, one thin dime, one -tenth of a dollar stuff.

48:42

So salvation is free, but it's not free for nothing. We don't believe in cheap grace.

48:48

We shouldn't preach and teach it as though it is. So God says, no, my righteousness against the sinner must be satisfied before I can show my goodness, before I will show my goodness to the sinner.

49:03

And I asked our people once, I said, what would you think of a judge who pardoned criminals as an example and an illustration of his goodness?

49:12

He said, you know, I know this man is guilty. I know he's guilty of raping children and murdering people, but I'm a good man, and I think

49:20

I'll accomplish far more by being good to this man than by sentencing him to be hung by the neck until he's dead.

49:27

Besides, it'll save you taxpayers a lot of money. I can see the pulse of people quickening.

49:33

I can see them getting upset because they know that that would be a travesty of justice. So the principle found in Scripture is it's not right to spare a guilty person, and it's not right to punish an innocent person.

49:49

So to put it another way, a righteous God cannot have an unrighteous people any more than a judge can be thought good when he pardons criminals.

49:59

So the Lord made that clear to Moses. I quoted earlier from Exodus 33, when in Exodus 34, the

50:07

Lord came down to Moses and he said, I'm a merciful God and I keep mercy for thousands, and I forgive iniquity, and I forgive transgression, and I forgive sin, but I will by no means clear the guilty.

50:21

So the kind of God we're dealing with here is a God who will not show his goodness, which is the foundation of his grace, apart from his righteousness being satisfied.

50:34

I could say a lot more about that, but I won't. The Lord showed his righteousness in the death of his son.

50:44

He imputed our sins to his son, and he punished us in the death of his son.

50:49

He spared not his own son, but he personally delivered him up for us all in order that he might show us goodness.

50:57

So the third constituent of grace is the G -R -A.

51:03

That is God's atonement. That's the third constituent of grace, the goodness of God.

51:09

This is the first foundational stone. I want to show my goodness. R, I will not show my goodness apart from my righteousness being satisfied.

51:20

And then the way his righteousness is satisfied is through the atonement, which is the third constituent of God.

51:28

In fact, let's pick up on the atonement when we return from our midway break because I don't want to interrupt you in the midst of explaining and describing and exegeting and exalting the atonement.

51:42

So we will pick right up on the atonement, the A in the acronym GRACE, when we return.

51:48

Please keep in mind, folks, that this is the longer than normal break in the middle of the show when Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

51:55

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show because they are required by the

52:02

FCC to localize this show and all of their programs geographically to Lake City, Florida.

52:09

They do so with their own public service announcements and other local things that they air during this midway break.

52:17

We simultaneously air our globally heard commercials. So please use this time wisely.

52:25

Write down as much of the information as you possibly can, provided by as many of our advertisers as you possibly can, so that you can more frequently and successfully respond to our advertisers.

52:37

And we would obviously love it if, as often as possible, you can purchase the products, you can use the services, you could support the parachurch ministries financially, and you could visit the churches that advertise on our program.

52:54

But when you cannot do any of those things, one thing that you can do, if you love this show, is to reply to our advertisers to thank them for sponsoring

53:05

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. That is, if indeed you do love the show and are grateful that there are very generous and benevolent churches and individuals and businesses out there that think so highly of this program that they share some of the money that God has blessed them with with Iron Sharpens Iron Radio to keep us alive and going, including

53:30

Grace Church at Franklin in Franklin, Tennessee, one of the most generous churches out there supporting what we do.

53:39

So at least thank our advertisers for supporting us financially, but also write down your questions for Bill Sasser and send them to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

53:49

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and country of residence.

53:55

Don't go away. We'll be right back. O hail the power of Jesus' name.

54:06

This is Pastor Bill Sasser, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

54:12

Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially.

54:21

Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our

54:33

Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, the end for which we strive is the glory of God.

54:40

If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

54:53

Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.

55:03

Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org That's gracechurchatfranklin .org

55:11

This is Pastor Bill Sasser wishing you all the richest blessings of our sovereign

55:17

Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ today and always.

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I'm Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

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I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,

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It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God, like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim

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Christ Jesus the King and His doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island, and beyond.

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I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have.

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For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net

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That's hopereformedli .net Or call 631 -696 -5711

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That's 631 -696 -5711 Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, New York, that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

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When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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Hi, this is John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona. Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnzen and the

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I'm pleased to do so and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting

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I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris, if you would. All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com

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where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com. I've been a biblical family counselor since the early 2000s.

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A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

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01:09:33

Before we return to our fascinating discussion on grace with Pastor Bill Sasser of Grace Church at Franklin in Franklin, Tennessee we just have a couple of announcements to make.

01:09:46

If you love this show please go to ironsharpensironradio .com click support then click click to donate now.

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One of the main reasons that I launched this program was to be a friend a helping hand a platform and a voice for the biblically faithful local pastor and his church.

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Also folks if you are not a member of a Christ -honoring biblically faithful doctrinally solid theologically sound church such as the

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Grace Church at Franklin in Franklin, Tennessee if you are not a member of such a church no matter where on the planet

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Earth you live I have extensive lists of churches spanning the globe and I may be able to help you find a church sometimes even within minutes from your own house as I have done many times with listeners in our audience.

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So if you're in that category you don't know where there is a biblically faithful church near you or you have friends family and loved ones in that predicament no matter where in the world you or they live send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:12:22

chrisarnson at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question for Pastor Bill Sasser on Grace and that email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:12:35

give us your first name at least city and state and country of residence and now Pastor Bill right before the break you are entering into one of the most controversial aspects of Grace that has divided

01:12:48

Christians for centuries and as to our understanding of it and that is the

01:12:55

Atonement. If you could pick up where you left off on the A and your acronym for Grace which is standing for the

01:13:03

Atonement. I certainly will and I hate to be long winded but what

01:13:09

I was saying was I made an acrostic out of our English word Grace and the

01:13:14

G stands for goodness so the grace of God is built upon the goodness of God and then the

01:13:20

R in Grace is the righteousness of God which means that he does not show his goodness his mercy at the expense of righteousness and this is the whole reason why he sent his son into the world and then the third aspect of Grace is the

01:13:37

Atonement that is the means by which we are reconciled to God.

01:13:43

Your listeners might know I always try to be as simple as I can

01:13:49

I think sometimes we make the mistake of trying to go into making it too complex as complex enough as it is without us muddying the water but I think the

01:14:02

Atonement the word Atonement is literally not found in the

01:14:07

New Testament it is quoted in translated as Atonement in Romans but the word there is

01:14:15

Reconciliation probably everyone knows this but our English word Atonement is made up of two words and a suffix the first two letters are at the next three letters are one and then you have the suffix meant so at one but man is separated from God and by the death of Christ in the

01:14:40

Atonement he reconciled us he brought us back enabling

01:14:45

God to satisfy his righteousness and to show his goodness so the

01:14:52

C in the word Grace is Covenant and I think that's the third constituent or the fourth constituent of Grace and that is the goodness of God can't be shown at the expense of righteousness so it's necessary for the righteousness of the

01:15:10

Lord to first be satisfied that's done by means of the Atonement and then there is this element of Covenant and that is the

01:15:21

God as one of my friends used to say billions and billions and billions of years ago what he means is before time the

01:15:30

Lord determined that he would save men and women sinners he knew that we would fall and so the

01:15:43

Father chose a number which no man can number and the considering man as a sinner and superlapsarianism means that God determined just arbitrarily that he would save certain numbers and he would damn certain numbers a lot of the old old old writers were superlapsarians but it's interesting to note that over 96 % of all the historical grace confessions of faith by churches were written from the inferlapsarian view that is the view that God looked at man as fallen and determined to have mercy to have pity upon him and so the question arises well why and the reason the answer to that is because the old scholars saw that could stand for a number of things but I have in order to balance this thing of grace

01:18:11

I have made it to represent or stand for not the elect but everyone that is thirsty so I think that the grace of God has been shown as far as I know there's no one ever in the history of the world has ever sought the

01:18:30

Lord sought the grace of God that has been refused of course I do believe that the

01:18:36

Lord works effectively by his spirit I believe that faith is a gift of God but I also believe that those who call upon the name of the

01:18:45

Lord can be saved will be saved so that's kind of the constituents of grace

01:18:51

Chris if that helps any goodness righteousness atonement covenant and everyone who is thirsty now to go beyond that I think if we want to for example 1st

01:19:06

Corinthians chapter 2 you had you had said at the beginning of this what is grace but I think grace is the goodness of God shown at the expense of God's son to the center who believes in Jesus as Messiah that would be the way that I would define that the grace of God includes all of the blessings that we get from God justification which

01:19:37

I look at as a legal standing with God sanctification which as you know the word

01:19:43

Hagia which is translated holy and saint those who are separated from God through faith in the

01:19:50

Lord Jesus Christ are counted as righteousness in Christ so all of these blessings all the way from justification to glorification are included in the grace of God so the grace of God is the beginning of our salvation it is the thing that sustains our salvation and it is the finisher of our salvation so in Christ he is the author and he is the finisher of our faith it is the goodness of God shown to us at the expense of the

01:20:21

Lord Jesus Christ who rendered perfect righteousness to the law of righteousness he did not lead and he gives that righteousness he imputes that righteousness to every sinner who comes to him through faith to me that is the essence of the grace of God well at the beginning of the program you said why do we need it well we need it because we are lost without it we have to face

01:20:47

God we have to face the kingdom of God eternity and we are lost without it if I may say this again you interrupt me

01:20:55

I am thinking now of a passage in first Corinthians chapter 2 that divides people into two categories all people are divided into two categories

01:21:06

I am going to read these verses to you Paul says to the Corinthian church first Corinthians 2 beginning of verse 12 we have received that not the spirit of the world but the spirit of God those are things that are freely given to us of God which things we speak not in the words which man's wisdom teaches but what the

01:21:32

Holy Spirit teaches comparing spiritual things with spiritual but the natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God they have fishness under him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned neither can he in these verses

01:21:49

Paul speaks of two kinds of people he speaks of the psychic man that is the word translated natural that is the word the sensual man that is the life that men have in common with beasts he refers to the sensuous nature which is subject to appetite and passions of fallen unreconciled men and then in verses 12 and 13 he speaks of the pneumatic man the spiritual man the spirit of God that man which is akin that has a spirit in him that regenerates his spirit that is akin to the nature of God one who is indwelt by the spirit of God led by the spirit of God walked in the spirit of God so we've got two different people here we've got the natural man and we've got the spiritual man so all of us by nature come into this world as natural men dead in trespasses and sin and the only one who the only way that we can be reconciled to God is by the grace of God and I say again the grace of God is that goodness of God shown to us through faith in the

01:23:02

Lord Jesus Christ on account of the righteousness of God being satisfied in our behalf

01:23:08

I mean those are the basic tenets of the gospel so really we don't have a gospel without grace and people who never have faith in the some kind of understanding of grace can never really have an appreciation of the gospel and the reason why not only do

01:23:27

Christians disagree over why do we need it but other religions both world religions and cults we disagree it's because we disagree over the nature of man and we disagree how desperately we need it is this grace required for one to be at peace with God for eternity even our brothers in Christ who deny the doctrine of total depravity they really believe that grace is a jump start an aid an assistance but they do not believe that it is something that gives credit to God 100 % that our salvation is 100 % due to his sacrifice as our substitute on Calvary's cross and that anything that we believe or say or do has nothing to do with why we have become saved these are evidences why we or when we are saved

01:24:43

I should say but they are not things that we do in order to achieve salvation so don't you think that having a flawed view of man and the extent of the sin that enslaves him it can be just as serious an error and even a heresy as to have a flawed understanding of God well

01:25:05

I agree 100 % in fact I have said for years and years and years and I'm talking not only from God's word but from my own experience that the most the issue the issue that is the key to really understanding grace at least in one spirit and mind and heart if not in the mind if in the heart and spirit is the situation that man is in by nature and whether or not

01:25:34

God has shown me my desperate situation in need in other words

01:25:39

I do believe that the doctrine of total depravity if I can if I ever am able to see in able to see my helplessness and hopelessness certainly

01:25:52

I would have a greater and higher more wonderful appreciation for the one who rescued me and the means by which

01:26:02

I was rescued so I think the whole issue and let me say this about total depravity again you have an educated audience out there so they're not saying anything new but all of the old writers did believe in what we call total depravity that is that when

01:26:19

Adam fell in the garden of Eden when he sinned that he died spiritually

01:26:25

I mentioned this earlier today that how did he continue to live and how did he die well

01:26:33

I believe that he died instantly when he partook of the physical forbidden fruit he died spiritually his spirit died and then death the principle of death sat into him and it took him hundreds of years before it destroyed his body in death but Adam himself died immediately because interestingly enough the word death if you ever do an etymological study of the word death it comes from a word that means to separate and if you've ever gone to a funeral and you go up and look at that body that's in the casket there's a body there but the person that lived in that body is not home they are gone they are separated from that body in the same way man is dead toward God total depravity does not mean absolute depravity it doesn't mean that we are as bad as we can be we can be worse and that what's going on in the world now can be worse but it does mean that every aspect of the human being has been infected and affected by sin the hand the soul the body all of it including the will and that's really the big issue the big issue of the various views about what happened in the garden

01:28:00

I often say that the entire Bible can be understood in what happened in the garden and what happened at the cross you can sum up the whole

01:28:09

Bible if you can tell about those two incidences so when man fell in the garden of Eden he died and only

01:28:17

God can give life in other words I think that faith repentance perseverance all of these things

01:28:25

I think these are the the effects of the grace of God not the cause of the grace of God we don't we don't summon the grace of God by our volition by our will but he frees us up in our will in our volition that we can actually believe on him choose him if you will as a result of his grace now when you said that we are not as bad as we could be wouldn't you agree that that has nothing to do with any amount of inner goodness it has to do with God's restraint absolutely yeah absolutely what

01:29:02

I'm saying is apart from the grace of God we can certainly be worse than that that's exactly right and of course that could gender a conversation about what men some men divide grace up into what they call common grace and efficacious grace and by that they mean that all men by nature all being creatures of God that there's a type of common grace and the reason they use this

01:29:29

Chris in most instances theologically they speak of common grace in order to excuse

01:29:38

God for damning men in other words every man has sufficient light from the creation of the world and from many other means to exercise positive volition to say

01:29:54

Lord if you're there if there's a God here I know you're is I want to know more about you that he will give you more light now that's usually why people emphasize what's called common grace and efficacious grace is the call of God the regenerating power of God just as when the

01:30:15

Lord Jesus Christ went to Lazarus he had been dead for three days by the way the

01:30:21

Jews believed that the spirit kind of hung around the body for three days so Jesus waited until the fourth day when he got there and there wasn't anything the

01:30:31

Lazarus could do I often make a little bit of fun of it a little sarcasm and say look Lazarus you're going to get out of there but going back now to what you said earlier about grace you said there's some people who take different slants on it let me say this

01:30:47

I think it's very clear if we go back and look at a character like Abraham okay

01:30:53

Abraham was his father was an idol maker we read that in the book of Judges so his father was a polytheistic believed in many gods so how did he become to know and believe in and trust the one true and living

01:31:12

God you can't say he made a decision you can't say it was something he did the

01:31:18

Lord went to Abraham and he revealed himself to Abraham just like Saul on the road to Damascus in fact a

01:31:30

Messianic minister who was one of the very rare Messianic ministers ministers out there who is a full -blown five -point

01:31:39

Calvinist when he was when he was talking about Saul on the road to Damascus being knocked down and so forth struck blind he said you never heard

01:31:52

Paul saying or singing I have decided to follow Jesus I know that's right

01:32:01

I mean he said he said who are you and he said I'm Jesus whom you persecute what would you have me to do and that is the response of a man who's been awakened to the fact of who he is where he is and who the

01:32:16

Lord Jesus Christ is what would you have me to do and I think you know the thing that I try to guard against we often over emphasize things and then when we do that we have an out -of -balance gospel

01:32:34

I'm not afraid of any of the doctrines taught in Scripture in other words the sinner responds to the gospel the

01:32:44

Bible says that the same Sun outside that hardens the clay melts the wax so Paul put it like this way he says the gospel is the savor an old

01:32:59

English word meaning to smell the aroma they savor of life unto life or death unto death so when a person hears the gospel is a dangerous thing to hear the gospel and not receive it is to be hard by it and to receive it of course is to be melted by it and be brought to faith in Christ in my own experience

01:33:23

I was in the music business I certainly was not looking for the Lord when I was a kid our parents went to worship went to church and I went to with them made a professional faith when

01:33:36

I was about 12 years old made another professional faith when I was about 19 or 20 years old and then

01:33:44

I came to understand to see I had my understanding opened to the fact that I was a sinner and that I was lost without the

01:33:53

Lord Jesus Christ and I began seeking the Lord calling on the Lord trying to sit under the

01:33:58

Word of God to hear about the Lord Jesus Christ and I came I was brought to faith in Christ so I can only talk out of my own experience and my experience is

01:34:10

I wasn't looking for the Lord I was I was like Abraham or some of the rest of them I wasn't looking for the

01:34:16

Lord but he called me and he brought me to a knowledge of himself so I want everybody out there that's listening to know that you should seek the

01:34:27

Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he's near it's not your will that can save you you're saved by his sovereign will and grace yet at the same time by nature we really don't have any interest in Christ that's right any interest in Christ and I I try to I try to help them

01:34:51

I try to talk to him I try to yes I agree with you 100 % and I want to make it also clear that I do believe that Joshua 24 15 is true but if it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the

01:35:10

Lord choose for yourselves today whom you will serve whether the gods which your father served which were beyond the

01:35:17

Euphrates River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living but as for me and my house we will serve the

01:35:25

Lord I do believe we make choices but only God can enable a dead sinner to savingly trust in him just as we read in Romans 8 8 they that are in the flesh cannot please

01:35:41

God and if pleasing God would include having saving faith in him and we're in the flesh we can't have that conjured up in and of ourselves you know we use expressions like the truth is you're dead or you're alive and Paul in addressing the the saints of God at Ephesus he said you were dead in trespasses and sins and then in the following verses he says this is how you lived you lived according to the course of this world you walked that way but God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in trespasses so the grace of God is the whole issue the whole foundation of our salvation we are saved by the grace of God we're not saved because we latch hold of something and then

01:36:39

God is obligated to do take the next step as I you take the first step and I said to a man what you can take the first step you can walk the whole way so you can't take any step right the

01:36:53

Lord is the one who must save us and he and I think he teaches us this by this teaching of grace yes and so therefore the key difference between those of us who believe in sovereign grace and everyone else outside that whether you are a

01:37:12

Roman Catholic or the majority of evangelical Protestants even or in false world religions and cults is we sovereign grace

01:37:22

Christians believe that man is born or even conceived spiritually dead whereas those outside of us either believe that he was born perfectly well and becomes corrupt by his own decisions or those less heretical would say that we are born very sick but they would really not acknowledge that we're born spiritually well that you know as you know

01:37:54

Pelagianism, Pelagius believed that each right each person had his own personal fall that the fall of Adam had nothing to do with his offspring nothing to do with his posterity and when we're born in the world he taught we are born virtually in the same state that Adam was in before he fell so that means not only that we can be saved anytime we want to but it also means that we can be lost we can be saved on Monday lost on Tuesday saved on Wednesday lost on Thursday now of course we in the

01:38:32

United States we take a lot of things for granted you know think about people that are in parts of the world who perhaps have never heard the gospel

01:38:40

I don't have the answer to all of those things but I believe that this this scheme this this theology that's part of Scripture of sovereign grace has far less questions to be answered than any other system that I've ever seen and heard of and I didn't know anything about Calvinism, Arminianism, Pelagianism, Sibelianism, any of those things when the

01:39:06

Lord began to deal with me I just knew I was a lost sinner and I couldn't save myself. Amen we have to go to our final break which will be a lot shorter if you have a question send it in now because we're rapidly running out of time

01:39:18

Chris Arnsett at gmail .com Chris Arnsett at gmail .com we'll be right back don't go away

01:39:31

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01:49:22

Welcome back, and Pastor Sasser, we do have a couple of questions

01:49:29

I should get to before we run out of time before we move on to some of the other points we want to make, and of course

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I am very eager to invite you back to finish this if we run out of time.

01:49:42

But we have an anonymous listener who says, I'm remaining anonymous because I am having disagreements with some pastors and Christian friends with whom

01:49:51

I am very close over some of the issues you have raised today. Some of them have told me that if you are a

01:50:02

Calvinist, you really have a deficient understanding of grace. They claim their grace is even more loving, merciful, and forgiving because God will overlook flaws in our understanding of the gospel, such as the understanding that the

01:50:23

Roman Catholic Church has, where works are required not only of individuals but also of Mary and the saints to add to the merit that Christ provided on the cross.

01:50:35

How do you respond to people such as this who say that their understanding of grace is a greater grace than you and I have?

01:50:44

I would just take simple Bible illustrations. For example, they would all agree that we are by nature the children of Adam, and the apple doesn't fall very far from the tree.

01:50:58

So I ask this question, did Adam seek the Lord, or did the Lord seek

01:51:03

Adam? Did Adam call on the Lord, or did the Lord call on Adam?

01:51:08

Did Adam make a promise that he would do better, or did the Lord make a promise that he would save him through the seed of the woman that was promised

01:51:15

Messiah? Did Adam draw the first blood, or did the Lord draw the first blood? So what

01:51:21

I'm saying is that always in the Scripture, it is

01:51:27

God who takes the initiative. It is never man. Abraham didn't take a step toward God.

01:51:35

Even Adam didn't take a step. He took a step and was trying to run away from God. The Apostle Paul certainly was trying to kill

01:51:44

Christians who thought he was serving God. So I say our only hope is the grace of God, and of course we underscore this term grace, sovereign grace.

01:51:55

Now I myself, Chris, and I don't want to throw a cog into anybody's wheel, but I have never associated myself.

01:52:06

I know what men mean by Calvinism. I know what they mean by Arminianism and Pelagianism and Arianism.

01:52:12

I know what they mean by that. Of course those terms are not in Scripture. So the term that I always use is

01:52:19

Biblicist. I want to be a Biblicist. What does the Bible say? The Bible at the same time says whosoever shall call upon the name of the

01:52:29

Lord shall be saved, but it goes on to say how can they call on a

01:52:34

God that they don't know? How can they call on a God? How can you come back from where you've never been?

01:52:42

And so it takes a revelation from God, however he may choose to do it.

01:52:47

We believe he does it through the word and the preaching of the gospel, but it takes a revelation from God for any man to seek the

01:52:54

Lord. Now we know that the Bible says that all of these brothers would agree we love him because he first loved us.

01:53:02

Well I just expand that and I say I sought him because he first sought me.

01:53:07

You never saw a bunch of sheep out looking for a lost shepherd. The shepherd seeks the lost sheep and we call on him because he first called us.

01:53:21

We believe him because he gave us faith and we praise him and we give him all the glory because he's the author, he's the sustainer, and he's the finisher of our faith.

01:53:31

Yes and just to clarify I know Pastor Sasser for many years and even though he does not like or use the label

01:53:40

Calvinist or Reformed, he certainly believes in that acronym known as TULIP and the doctrines for which it stands.

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Yeah I believe in the sovereign grace of God. In fact I think I'm more a sovereign grace than a lot of folks who say they're

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Calvinist. As far as as far as whosoever will it is mind -boggling to me how many evangelicals and independent fundamentalists who are not believers in sovereign grace how they seem to think that that term means anyone and everyone is capable.

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It doesn't say that whosoever will just means anybody who wants to. Well the question is who wants to?

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That's the issue. That's exactly right and actually the passage that is used in Romans chapter 10 let me if you tell me if you cut me off because I know we're running out of time.

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Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved goes on through the 17th verse right at the end he says how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?

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How shall they hear without a preacher? How shall their preachers get to be sent? And then it says so faith comes by hearing, hearing by the

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Word of God. Now see here's what I'm saying. When you study the context whosoever you go back up to verse 12 it means

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Jew or Gentile. When it says whosoever shall call that simply means to believe or to receive or to depend and on the name of the

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Lord that's on his authority. That's taken from the Prophet Joel, Joel chapter 2 verse 31 where he says that whoever calls on the name of the

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Lord, Joel uses a Hebrew word malat which means to be delivered shall be shall escape they should they shall be delivered.

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So I believe that the Lord must send his gospel, his word, his spirit, his light and he calls us we all believe

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Romans 8 28 all things work together for good to those who love the Lord to those who are the called and the word ecclesia the word from which we get the word church means the called out ones.

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So I believe that God calls sinners to faith and I believe that is the foundation of grace which is his goodness.

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His grace is built upon his goodness. We need it because we're lost and we'll never seek him if he doesn't call us.

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What does it do for us? It makes us new creatures, it gives us a purpose, it gives us hope in life and in death and men reject it because they're sinners and they want to be

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God over God. They want their will to be sovereign and God's will to be a volitional weak will who can do nothing with us the creatures that he has made.

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Yes the gospel call goes out to every single human no matter how pious or perverse they are whether they are a pastor or a prostitute but the only ones who will come which will include repentant prostitutes and murderers are those that God removes their hearts of stone and replaces them with hearts of flesh.

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The word of God must be accompanied by the spirit of God or it will not accomplish anything in a sinner.

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Yeah and to say that whosoever means anybody is able is ridiculous it's to me I've used this analogy before if I am standing in a crowd of people that are a mixture of Christians Orthodox Jews and Muslims and I say hey anybody who wants to come over my house for a pig roast you're more than welcome who are the ones that are gonna want to or the

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Orthodox Jews gonna come for a pig roast are the Muslims gonna come for a pig roast no so that's just my way of trying to dismantle whosoever as far as what they yeah important to that.

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Men cannot blame God for their judgment and their damnation themselves, their will, their volition.

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The Lord said to Adam in the Garden of Eden or rather not the Lord but the Lucifer the devil he said look

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God doesn't want you to be dependent I don't want you to be dependent

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I want you to be independent you'll never know what it is to be free to what life is all about unless you're independent of God so you will be as God determining for yourself what is good and what is evil rather than depending upon him so I agree with you.

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And we are out of time and I think that if you are willing haha if you if you would like to come back

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I would like to pick up where we left off because there are some very important aspects of what does grace do there is radical disagreement over that there are some who believe that all's grace does is give us a new clean slate after we come back to God after falling and we are back on the treadmill of works the others believe that grace does not transform a person and does not really make that person a new creature in Christ and therefore they will say that a person can live like Satan that his entire life and that person will still go to heaven because of grace so obviously there are radical different differences that we would reject and I'd like you to come back and we'll discuss a date right after the show if you could hold on when we go off the air so I could give a proper goodbye to you off the air but I want to thank everybody who listened today

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I want to especially thank those who took the time to write in and of course even more especially

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I want to thank pastor Bill Sasser for taking two hours of his time out of his busy schedule to be with us remember the church website is

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Grace Church at Franklin org Grace Church at Franklin org I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far far greater