Evanescent Grace

Alpha & Omega Ministries

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

Comments are disabled.

00:33

And greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line, another road trip Dividing Line, and everybody knows where I am now, so I can go ahead and say it.

00:41

I'm well, I'm actually not there, but I'm teaching in Conway, Arkansas, starting tomorrow morning 8 a .m.

00:47

at Grace Bible Theological Seminary. So I'm obviously within driving distance of Conway, Arkansas today. And so here we are.

00:55

Was just down there spending some time with some of the folks at the seminary and discovered because as soon as somebody said something, so what are you preaching on tonight?

01:07

I was like what? And I was supposed to preach tonight and that did not register.

01:18

And you know how sometimes you find out you forgot something and then you start thinking and you start going, oh yeah, it comes back.

01:31

Sort of slowly. And yeah, so I'm a bad man.

01:37

I'm starting off on the wrong foot. But they understood and gave me absolution and indulgence.

01:48

How's that? So anyway, we start teaching tomorrow morning, teaching apologetics and really looking forward to it.

01:56

We're gonna have not quite as many people in the classroom because there are already people snowed in.

02:02

There is a major winter storm ripping through Missouri and places like that.

02:09

That's one of the reasons I actually got here early because I have no interest whatsoever in learning to pull a fifth wheel in snow and ice.

02:19

Not, no, no, thank you. The day we picked this thing up, it was like 115, 116 degrees and all my trips up until this one were fighting heat.

02:34

Now, not so much. And so I've been watching the thermometer today.

02:41

I installed a little weather system on this unit and when I got up this morning, it was 55 degrees and it has consistently dropped all day long and we're down to,

02:55

I think that says 39. The light's not on bright enough for you to see it, but it's just the whole day and I think eventually it's gonna get down to the teens by Thursday night, something like that.

03:09

So the big question is ice and we'll see what happens with all that and just go from there.

03:18

It will not be the first time this has happened, honestly, and it is February and so it's still the dead of winter.

03:26

So there you go. So here we are and I should have had

03:32

Zoom up here. Why do I have Zoom up here? There we go. And so I am going to, we're gonna jump into the scriptures if you would.

03:42

I'm gonna be responding to a little something on Twitter, but I want to do so by starting off looking at what the scriptures say and hopefully edifying folks with that.

03:56

So with that, let's look at but I'm not hearing you, but hopefully the text is up.

04:22

I got you. It looks good. Okay, the text is up. Okay, because for some reason I'm still seeing me on one of the screens.

04:29

So, and we don't need to see me. In general, we would never need to see me. In fact, it would be better if we didn't, but anyway, that's life.

04:39

Matthew chapter 13. Matthew chapter 13, the ministry of our

04:45

Lord. And out of the house and was sitting by the sea and large crowds gathered to him.

04:54

So we got into a boat and sat down and the whole crowd was standing on the beach. And he spoke many things to them in parables saying behold the sower went out to sow and as he sowed some seeds fell beside the road and the birds came and ate them up.

05:09

Others fell on the rocky places where they did not have much soil and immediately sprang up because they had no depth of soil.

05:15

When the sun had risen, they were scorched because they had no root. They withered away. Others fell among the thorns and the thorns came up and choked them out.

05:24

And others found the good soil and yield the crop some a hundredfold some 60 and some 30.

05:30

Let him who has ears let him hear. So this is a parable that is very, very well known to everybody.

05:40

And hopefully most people are aware of the fact that even though this is called the parable of the sower, the reality is this is not so much about the sower at all.

05:56

There's no emphasis at all on the sower in this parable.

06:01

This is the parable of the soils. That's a far, far more accurate way of expressing this.

06:08

This is the parable of the soils. And thankfully in Matthew chapter 13, we have

06:16

Jesus's own interpretation of the parable of the soils because this is where beginning continuing on verse 10.

06:26

And the disciples came and said to him, why do you speak to them in parables? Jesus answered them, to you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the king of heaven, but to them it has not been granted.

06:35

For whoever has to him more shall be given and he will have an abundance, but whoever does not have even what he has shall be taken away from him.

06:42

Therefore I speak to them in parables because while seeing they do not hear, while hearing and while hearing they do not try it again, because while seeing they do not see and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.

06:55

In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled which says they will keep on hearing but will not understand.

07:01

You will keep on seeing but will not perceive. For the heart of this people has become dull, for their ears they scarcely hear, with their ears they scarcely hear.

07:08

They've closed their eyes, otherwise they would see with their eyes, see with their ears, understand with their heart, and in return I would heal them. But blessed are your eyes because they see and your ears because they hear.

07:16

So this is a judgment section explaining the reason for the parables.

07:23

For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see and did not see it and hear what you hear and did not hear it.

07:30

But then we have the explanation of the parable of the soils. Hear then the parable of the sower.

07:36

When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart.

07:44

This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road. The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.

08:02

And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word and the worry of the world, the deceitfulness of wealth, chokes the word and becomes unfruitful.

08:11

And the one on whom seed was sown in the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and brings forth some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.

08:21

And he goes on to do other parables. So what do we have here then?

08:28

Well, as Jesus himself explains it, you have the sower going out to sow, and when he sows some seeds, the seeds fall on different kinds of ground.

08:42

So some seeds fall beside the road, and this would be where a path would be, for example, and hence it hasn't even been plowed.

08:52

So the topsoil is hard, and the birds just come along, eat it up, and there's no growth, nothing.

09:00

And we all understand how that works. We've all, we've all, well,

09:08

I haven't for a very, very long time, a very long time. But I seem to recall a period in time when

09:17

Rich tried to do summer grass and winter grass and all this stuff, and you'd look over, and there'd be all these birds on the lawn, because they're getting free food, man.

09:35

It's like McDonald's just opened up, just throwing french fries out the window. And so birds know when we're doing stuff like that, and the ground in Phoenix is like cement most of the time anyways.

09:50

So the sower, the people today would understand the sower is going along, he's got this bag of seed, and he's doing this number, okay?

09:57

And seeds are going to go all over the place. And so you have the stuff that's eaten up quickly, and then you have the rocky soil, and the rocky soil gives immediate response.

10:23

There is immediate germination, probably because the rocks in the soil keep it warmer, so it, you have faster growth.

10:30

But when the sun had risen, they were scorched because they had no root. So you know, in my rock lawn, you'll get weeds.

10:43

It's amazing that anything can grow in that, but in some of these weeds, the ones that come up really easy, they have these, their roots just go out underneath the rocks, they don't go down at all, they go out.

10:59

And so they're really easy to pull up, because they're going out to try to find any kind of moisture at all in the desert.

11:06

The ones that go down are the ones that are hard to get out. You try to pull on them, they break, and they're going to regrow anyways, and it's a pain.

11:15

But, so you have some response, but when the sun rises, they're scorched because they had no root, they withered away.

11:28

And others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. And so you have competition for the resources of the soil, and for moisture, and nutrients.

11:43

There's competition, and the thorns choke out the seeds. They are more aggressive.

11:50

That's the very nature of what they are. And then others fell on the good soil.

11:56

But, and they yield a crop. But there's even different levels of good soil, from 30 to 60 to 100 fold.

12:06

And so some soil is really, really good, and other soil isn't.

12:13

So as Jesus explains these things, we we come to understand that he really is giving this parable for the benefit of the disciples.

12:25

And what the parable does, is it, and everybody, especially, well, it doesn't matter what period the church is in, but especially these days, we need to hear what this parable is telling us.

12:44

We sow the seed, and there are many, we're standing out on a sidewalk, we're outside a university, so many different contexts, and you preach the word, and you proclaim the word, and so many are completely indifferent.

13:07

You raise issues concerning their eternity, their eternal soul, and they don't care.

13:17

There is, there's absolutely positively no sign of spiritual interest whatsoever.

13:26

And we see it a lot. That's not an uncommon thing to see at all.

13:32

The seed goes out, it's immediately taken away, that's it. But it's important to look at the soils, the bad soils, the rocky soil and the thorny soil, because there is a reaction to the seed.

13:50

The seed puts forth what looks like life, and I think it's important to point out, only those that go into the good soil produce fruit, and there is a consistency.

14:04

You don't just automatically make a connection between Matthew 13 and John 15, because you have to look at the context, what the intention was, and things like that, but there is a consistency in Jesus's horticultural examples here.

14:22

And that is, you only truly have life when there is fruit brought forth.

14:31

And some people bring forth more fruit than others, some 30, some 60, some 100 fold.

14:39

But those are the real believers, and some believers, the

14:49

Lord works in their lives, and they they are the people who really are the backbone of your church, they're there all the time, they're, they persevere.

15:03

Ministers will understand, they're not the ones that are constantly sucking your time dry, because they don't want to be, they want to be fed, they want to leave you alone to do the feeding, in essence.

15:20

And it was said to me a long time ago, and it's perfectly true, the people who take up the most of your time are very frequently the people that are not a member of your church.

15:30

And you've just got to have the maturity to tell people that have not made the commitment, they're not a member of your church, you're not a part of my flock.

15:42

So I will direct you to meaningful resources, but so anyway, these other two kinds of soils, though, have a period of time where they look like they're going to be very promising.

16:05

And especially in our day, you know, I've said many times, you look at John chapter 6, you look at the men who rode across the lake to find

16:15

Jesus. And in my sermons on John 6, I will frequently say, man, in our day and age, if you found people that would row across the lake to hear

16:25

Jesus speak, as soon as they walk into your church, you're going to make them deacons. I mean, wow, this is somebody seeking after Jesus.

16:33

We so want to see evidences of spiritual life that we will sometimes think that we're seeing it in places where we're actually not seeing it.

16:49

And so with these two types of soil, you have a description of people who burn out, literally, and people who are choked out by the cares and the seeds of the world.

17:12

And sometimes it can be both. I mean, there can be rocky and thorny soil at the same time, I suppose. But the point is that what's being communicated to the disciples is that they are going to encounter people and at first there is a period of time when you don't know whether you're looking at a plant that is going to be a hundredfold, sixtyfold, thirtyfold, the thorns are going to kill it or the sun's going to scorch it and it's going to die.

17:47

You can't necessarily know. And so you need to be patient.

17:56

You need to be patient. You need to be unlike pretty much anything in the internet.

18:05

You need to take the long -term view of things. And that's not easy for a lot of us to do.

18:13

You know, if your church is struggling and you're just you're just desperate to see something positive and you see somebody come in, it's so easy to just glom onto that person and then you end up getting crushed.

18:32

And when you see apostasy, when you see what we're calling a deconstruction, whatever that is, when you see these things, it can absolutely debilitate you.

18:48

I thought this was going to be someone who was going to be so helpful to us and oh we needed we needed that and now they're going off into the world and and seem to have all the signs and that's why there's a description of fruit and what fruit is and you can only detect fruit over periods of time.

19:12

That's just the only way. You can't do it any other way. And so lack of depth of a root, quick growth, but no perseverance.

19:31

So when persecution comes, the heat of the sun comes, there's no depth in that growth to survive.

19:40

That's what true growth looks like. That's what what a what a true seed does is it gets that that rootage and can therefore survive.

19:52

And then you have the forces of the world, riches and all the distractions of the world that choke out what looked like promising life, but never bears fruit, never bears fruit.

20:10

Now why is all this important? Well just on a pastoral level, young pastors seeking to do what's what's right in regularly proclaiming the word of God, you want to see results from what you're doing.

20:27

And so the danger is to not listen to what Jesus said and to experience deep disappointment because you haven't listened to what

20:41

Jesus said. You need to recognize that when you're in the ministry for any period of time at all, you're gonna start that list in the back of your mind of the apostates, the people that fell away, people that were choked out by the sun, were choked out by the thorns, and there's going to be a bunch of them that you're just going to have to admit, didn't see that one coming, got past me,

21:19

I didn't have the discernment to catch that one. You try to learn from that, but you can't let it destroy the calling of God upon your life.

21:32

You have to remain faithful. And that's where the problem is.

21:39

So many people in the church, and it's a problem that the fellowship itself actually creates because it is a part of God's intention that we are to see the others.

21:53

I often say when we're doing Lord's Supper, when you see these people coming forward to receive the bread and the wine, these are people saying, this is my only hope.

22:01

I am placing all my hope in Christ. He is my Lord and Savior. And so when you've seen somebody doing that, you're encouraged.

22:09

You're not alone. That's a good thing. But obviously the downside is when you see somebody that's been doing that longer than you, and they leave.

22:25

They may leave for false teachings or false doctrines, or they just may be choked out by the world.

22:30

And I just don't believe this anymore. I'm going to go do my thing. And this parable helps to warn us against losing balance at this point.

22:43

We need to be balanced. We need to recognize this is going to happen. The apostles needed to understand that.

22:49

Every minister of the gospel needs to understand that there are going to be people who are going to look like they have true saving faith, and they don't.

23:01

They don't. So this is a biblical teaching. And obviously this is just simply laying out for us a general reality.

23:14

It's not telling us you can't sit there and look at the seed and know what it's going to do.

23:21

And you can't tell what the soil is going to be necessarily beforehand. There's stuff buried down there that your sight can't get to that.

23:31

Nor is this meant to be an entire explication of the role of the Holy Spirit, and therefore this means people can lose their salvation.

23:38

It's not meant to be any of those things. A parable has one primary point, and so much of the false teaching of the history of the church has been when people decide that the point of the parable wasn't really what they wanted, and so let's go beyond that.

23:56

Let's get into something else. By the way, just in passing, I don't know,

24:03

Rich, I don't know if you saw this. Did you see what Sean McCraney's doing? No?

24:10

Okay. I can actually see Rich. This is sort of weird because, you know, normally

24:15

I'm looking over there and seeing Rich. But the nice thing about this is I can ignore Rich because I can look up here, and that way if he's doing stuff,

24:23

I can just, you know, if I need to see him. Only for so long. Sean McCraney has started a website called cult .love,

24:39

I think, and it's, oh, what is it? C -O -L -T. Something about ultimate libertarian something.

24:47

I don't know. But you pay him money monthly to become a part of his cult, and he'll train you, and then for like 5 ,000 bucks, you can become your own cult leader.

25:05

I mean, there's literally, go on Facebook. Aaron was talking about it.

25:11

Jason was talking about it. And it's just like, why don't you just hang a sign around your neck that says, you all said

25:20

I was a cult leader. Here I am. I'm, wow. If y 'all don't know who

25:28

Sean McCraney is, look him up on our website. He and I did a dialogue once up there in Utah.

25:35

It's one of those surreal experiences that I look back on in life.

25:41

It was interesting. Anyway, okay, so Matthew 13, parable, one point.

25:49

The point is important. Now, why have I gone through all of this?

25:56

Excuse me. I've gone through all of this because on Twitter, a fellow commented on something that I said.

26:18

I did a thread this morning. A lot of people liked it. A lot of people found it very helpful.

26:25

Rich is nodding, so I guess he probably saw it. I don't know.

26:35

I just started thinking about how often God's people have, they've been in situations where judgment comes upon the land in which they live.

26:50

So Israel, fulfillment of Deuteronomy 28, 29, judgment comes upon the land, and the people suffer.

27:00

Even the godly suffer. I was thinking of examples of that, and the example that I thought of was in the days of Elijah.

27:07

Elijah, drought. God tells Elijah, go, I'm not going to send rain on the land.

27:14

That's a blessing. He sends Elijah off, I think it was by the brook

27:22

Kidron, and then it dries up, and he sends him off someplace else. So he's taking care of Elijah, but Elijah's not out explaining to everybody why this is, and he's not out telling the people, this is when it's going to be over.

27:38

So you've got years, and the righteous and the unrighteous are both suffering.

27:45

The crops begin to fail, your livestock. Drought is a horrible thing.

27:54

It's a real judgment from God, and eventually

28:02

God sends rain, and this is a part of the whole ministry of Elijah, and then you know, all that takes place as a part of that, but the righteous suffered, and they lost stuff, and I just made the application, you know.

28:23

If we went through three years of hard difficulty, how many

28:30

American evangelicals would deconstruct, would decide that God didn't love them, because they define

28:42

God's love in light of his blessings upon them, and if God loves me, then he'll bless me, and so he'll give me stuff, and if I start losing my stuff, that means

28:54

God doesn't love me anymore, and there's the issue. And so I laid out this thread, and a guy named

29:07

Gino A. at Rising Disciples wrote back to me, and he says, good points, but in Calvinism, the elect will stand, and the non -elect won't come to the

29:23

Lord in the first place. The problem is, with evanescent grace, and so many

29:28

Calvinists departing from the faith over centuries, one can never know they're of the elect until the very end, right?

29:35

Now, when I read this, I concluded that this was a trolling comment.

29:45

This was not someone with a serious question. Now, why did I do that?

29:53

I don't claim to be able to read hearts through Twitter, and it's a dangerous thing for anyone to think that you can, but it was the phrase evanescent grace.

30:11

Now, evanescent is not a common term that we use in our language today.

30:17

It requires most people to, you know, look it up. Evanescent is something that passes away.

30:28

It's like a vapor. It's brief, and then it disappears. So it's not really there.

30:35

You might try to put your hand on it, but it's like the mist. It goes away. And I forget when it was.

30:44

I'm not sure that it was in the descriptions. I'm not sure I could even find it, but it was in the big studio, so it was sometime last year.

30:56

We touched on a quote from John Calvin where he talks about evanescent grace, the reason being this is one of the new quotes that the anti -Calvinists, and man, there are a lot of anti -Calvinists.

31:14

There really are. There are entire anti -Calvinistic seminaries, and professors, and schools, and there are a few things that rile people up more than asserting that God is sovereign in the matter of salvation.

31:34

And so when I saw evanescent grace, and I read, you know, one can never know they're elected until the very end, right?

31:44

I concluded that Geno A was trolling my comment to change the topic.

31:52

This was not, I wasn't inviting people to have a debate about perseverance of the saints or something along the lines.

31:59

This was really sort of meant to be an encouragement to people and just open up the scriptures.

32:08

And so my response was brief and to the point. I said, I am sorry you're so intent upon misrepresentation and ignorance.

32:18

Oh, you're mean. Or I might just be discerning and not have a real interest in investing my time.

32:32

Very quickly it became clear that this had been an intentional trolling act on Geno A's part, because the response, wouldn't it be better,

32:43

Mr. White, to help me and others understand how I'm misrepresenting things out of ignorance instead of merely insulting me with a cold brush off?

32:53

You are known and admired by very many people, yet that's the approach you take? Again, this is a setup, okay?

33:00

This is how the left works, to be honest with you.

33:05

I'm not sure if he's leftist, but there are many people who will borrow the political approach.

33:13

This is a complete setup. Oh, I'm just innocent little old me, and I just need to have an explanation given to me.

33:25

Notice I went into a southern drawl there. Um, my response was straightforward.

33:32

Correct, I am under no obligation to correct every cyber repetitive canard on Twitter. You are accountable for your words, spoken or written, and the sources you rely upon.

33:43

Did you catch that? I have refuted the canard you stated numerous times patiently in the past.

33:50

So, I'm simply saying you're drawing from sources.

33:57

I know what those sources are, and I'm under no obligation to refute every canard, especially when

34:05

I have patiently dealt with these things in the past. So, that's right.

34:11

I, you, you may think I have some responsibility, and if that's the case, we all need to be staying up all night.

34:21

We never need to be, we need to be scrolling through Facebook and Twitter and correcting everything that we find.

34:27

There are a few people like that. I feel for them, uh, but I'm not one of them, and you can't come up with any.

34:34

You're not in my church. I'm not accountable for your soul. So, his response was,

34:42

Mr. White, with due respect, you are either very arrogant. It's always what it is. If you, if you do not do what the the bleeding hearts want, you're just arrogant, or you just really come across in that way.

34:54

Either way, it's a serious reproach to your testimony as a Christ follower. I'm guessing you'll block me now.

35:00

That's what he wanted. That, that's, that, that's what this whole thing was about. Well, I didn't see that one.

35:07

I had other things to do today, sorry. Um, rather important things, really, and so it was hours and hours later, um, that I popped back into Twitter really quickly, right before I jumped in the truck and head down the seminary, and one of the tweets,

35:29

I was just scrolling through, it happened to be the one, you know how it works, you refresh the screen, and the random

35:37

Twitter gods put whatever they put there. I, I, the algorithms seem really hokey to me, but anyway, um, here's what

35:50

I see. Uh, here, this was five hours ago now. Calvin's teaching on evanescent grace was that God gives this false, insufficient, non -salvific grace so that he might condemn to a greater degree those graced in this manner.

36:08

Believe, now he's, now see, he's, what happened was somebody else picked up on the commentary, and so he's talking to somebody else, not to me.

36:17

Believe that and other diabolical, quote, reform doctrines, if you will, please, let's drop this.

36:27

So, to me, it's like, oh, please explain to me why

36:33

I'm not understanding this, and, and you're a big meanie if you don't, and then a few hours later to somebody else, that's a bunch of diabolical reform doctrines, and this is what evanescent grace was, and I knew it all the time, and I was trolling you the whole time, and so I said, ha, just popped in for a second, and what do

37:00

I find? Clear evidence that my initial conclusion as to your intentions and motivations was spot on.

37:07

Wow, just wow, and when he gets caught, what's his response? He posts this, uh, this meme, and the self -righteous attitude you appear to exude has clearly proven to be very real,

37:19

Mr. White, so I'm like, he gets caught, he didn't get what he wanted, and so he just makes the same statement at the end.

37:28

Anyways, it's just like, okay, this is why, this is what people do, and this is why most of the time it's just like, scroll by, or, or just say, yeah,

37:40

I, I know what you're up to, you're, you're, you're trolling me, I know you're trolling me, um, but it does give us the opportunity, um, in the midst of that to once again revisit that very important subject, and so, um, let's look at the

38:01

Institutes, and let's think together about what it is

38:06

Calvin said, so that when you get hit with one of the synergistic trolls, um, you will be prepared and ready, hopefully, to remember, uh, what it is we're looking at here.

38:19

This is in, uh, book three, the mode of obtaining the grace of Christ, the benefits resulting from it, chapter two of faith, the definition of it, and its properties, section number 10, uh, so that's a, that's a lot, uh, so this is, uh, book three, chapter two, section 10.

38:39

If you, at least you can find stuff fairly easily in the Institutes. Picking it up, uh, it's actually in section 11, but I'm starting in section 10.

38:50

Context is always sort of important and useful, um, but as this shadow or image of faith is of no moment, so does unworthy of the name.

38:59

How far it differs from true faith will shortly be explained at length. So, he's talking about the fact that there are people who have a false faith, like Jesus taught in the parable that we just looked at.

39:14

Has Jesus never defined how long it takes for the sun to scorch something, how long it takes for the thorns to, to choke something out?

39:25

It can be fast, but as I, I think about two apostate men that I've known, uh, one

39:37

I knew really, really well because he was part of the church that I was in and then became a pastor of, and then one that I didn't know all that well, but he was better known outside of things.

39:53

So, I think of these two men, uh, that was a period of time, that was a period of time before the, the, the, the weeds did their thing.

40:09

Uh, here, however, we may just indicate it in passing. Simon Magus is said to have believed, though he soon after gave proof of his unbelief.

40:17

In regard to the faith attributed to him, we do not understand with some that he merely pretended to believe, which had no existence in his heart.

40:25

We rather think that overcome by the majesty of the gospel, he yielded some kind of ascent and so far acknowledged

40:32

Christ to be the author of life and salvation as willingly to assume his name. In like manner, in the gospel of Luke, those in whom the seed of the word is choked before it brings forth fruit, or in whom from having no depth of earth, it soon withereth away, are said to believe for a time.

40:48

Such, we doubt not, eagerly receive the word with the kind of relish, and have some feeling of its divine power, so as not only to impose upon men by a false semblance of faith, but even to impose upon themselves.

41:01

They imagine that the reverence which they give to the world is genuine piety, because they have no idea of any impiety but that which consists in open and avowed contempt.

41:12

But whatever that ascent may be, it by no means penetrates to the heart, so as to have a fixed seat there.

41:21

Although it sometimes seems to have planted its roots, these have no life in them. The human heart, and this is where there's so much, this is where the synergists get off the boat.

41:35

The human heart has so many recesses for vanity, so many lurking places for falsehood, is so shrouded by fraud and hypocrisy that it often deceives itself.

41:53

That is an excellent sentence. Jeremiah would be sitting back going, that's what

42:03

I was trying to tell you. Let those who glory in such semblances of faith know that in this respect they are not a wit superior to devils.

42:15

The one class indeed is inferior to them in as much as they are able without emotion to hear and understand things, the knowledge of which makes devils tremble.

42:23

The other class equals them in this, that whatever be the impression made upon them, it only results in terror and consternation.

42:34

I am aware, Calvin says, it seems unaccountable somehow faith is attributed to the reprobate, seeing that it is declared by Paul to be one of the fruits of election.

42:44

And yet the difficulty is easily resolved. For though none are enlightened into faith and truly feel the efficacy of the gospel with the exception of those who are foreordained to salvation, yet experience shows that the reprobate are sometimes affected in a way so similar to the elect that even in their own judgment there is no difference between them.

43:08

Hence it is not strange that by the apostle a taste of heavenly gifts and by Christ himself a temporary faith is ascribed to them.

43:17

So I'm not sure if he's specifically when he talks about taste of heavenly gifts talking about Hebrews 6 there, but it makes sense.

43:24

And by Christ himself a temporary faith is ascribed to them. He's talking about the parable that we just finished looking at in Matthew chapter 13.

43:33

Not that they truly perceive the power of spiritual grace and the sure light of faith, but the

43:39

Lord, the better to convict them and leave them without excuse instills into their minds such a sense of his goodness as can be felt without the spirit of adoption.

43:49

Should it be objected that believers have no stronger testimony to assure them of their adoption,

43:55

I answer that though there is a great resemblance and affinity between the elect of God and those who are impressed for a time with a fading faith, yet the elect alone have that full assurance which is extolled by Paul by which they are enabled to cry

44:13

Abba Father. Now I stopped just for a moment. This part they ignore. I would imagine many of them just didn't look it up, don't care.

44:22

This is sort of becoming, you know, the internet by its very nature helps to create bad forms of argumentation that encourage a contextual stuff.

44:44

Because let's say, let's even say that the first person who came up with this stuff acknowledged what

44:50

Calvin actually said and gave the reference and had read it himself and all the rest of the stuff. What happens on the internet is you've got cut and paste and you have to go back and look at it

45:01

You might find on a blog someplace a nice long article that fairly engaged the subject, but if you want to share it on Twitter, you got to make that a whole lot shorter and so you cut and paste.

45:19

And the cut part, you got to cut something out and that ends up being the context.

45:25

So please note what Calvin has just said. He has said, now should it be objected that believers have no stronger testimony to assure them of their adoption?

45:39

That is this whole argument. This whole argument being used by Synergists, this evanescent grace, we'll get to that terminology here in a moment, but this evanescent grace argument is that Calvinists can never know.

45:56

Now this can only be used by certain Synergists because the vast majority of Synergists themselves decry the idea of particular, of not only particular redemption, but of having assurance of faith, of the perseverance of the saints.

46:17

So most of the time when this argument is being used, it's being used by people who think it's being used by the anti -lordship folks.

46:31

I've got my ticket punched concept of allegedly faith alone, but it's not enduring faith, it's not persevering faith, it's as long as faith existed for a moment, then it becomes saving faith.

46:48

And so it can only be used by certain classes of Synergists. The rest, it just wouldn't be a relevant issue because they don't believe in this assurance of faith that Calvin believes in.

47:04

He says, so yet the elect alone have that full assurance, which is extolled by Paul, and by which they're enabled to cry,

47:18

Abba, Father. Therefore, as God regenerates the elect only forever by incorruptible seed, as the seed of life once sown in their hearts never perishes, so he effectually seals in them the grace of his adoption that it may be sure and steadfast.

47:42

But in this there is nothing to prevent an inferior operation of the spirit from taking its course in the reprobate.

47:51

Meanwhile, so it's inferior, it's not, it can't be the very, it can't be regeneration, it can't be a new nature.

48:02

And this is where modern reformed theologians differ from Augustine.

48:08

You need to realize that in Augustine's view, as strongly as he believed in predestination and election, in Augustine's view, what he did is he had the idea that you could be temporarily regenerate by baptism, but only the elect were then given the gift of perseverance.

48:34

And so of a certainty, the non -elect, even though regenerated, would fall away.

48:43

Okay, so that's a major difference. What Calvin is saying is very different from that.

48:51

And so this inferior operation of the spirit is not taking and applying the work of Christ in regenerating people, they're united with Christ, things like that.

49:06

Meanwhile, believers are taught to examine themselves carefully and humbly, lest carnal security creep in and take the place of assurance of faith.

49:16

Very true. It's just amazing to me how many people just don't even want to read those passages of They will not allow for the balance that must exist in these issues.

49:28

They just won't do it. We may add that the reprobate never have any other than the confused sense of grace, laying hold of the shadow rather than the substance, because the spirit properly seals the forgiveness of sins in the elect only applying it by special faith to their use.

49:45

I just comment, and I am keeping my eye on the clock here. I just comment that when

49:53

I, again, the Institute's description

49:59

I've used so many times, I know you've all heard it before, we have new people who tune in. The ink smudges, which

50:08

I'm reading it out of Lagos, and therefore it's not smudgeable at all. But the point is, it's still so relevant.

50:17

I can't write like this man wrote, and I am thankful, even when

50:23

I disagree with him, I'm still so thankful that the Lord shone such a bright light at this point in time, and we still are able to look at this.

50:33

And so, we may add that the reprobate never have any other than the confused sense of grace, laying hold of the shadow rather than the substance, because the spirit properly seals the forgiveness of sins in the elect alone, applying it by special faith to their use.

50:48

And so, when I talk to people who do leave the faith, and I ask them, how can you exchange the imputed righteousness of Christ for the endless treadmill of penances of Rome, and things like that, this crosses my mind.

51:15

There was a confusion in their mind beforehand of what it really means to be forgiven of sin, and the cost of that, and the glory of the standing that's been given to you by faith in the imputed righteousness of Christ.

51:31

That's really descriptive of what I've experienced in talking to those who prove themselves to be reprobate.

51:40

Still, it is correctly said that the reprobate believe God to be propitious to them, inasmuch as they accept the gift of reconciliation, though confusedly and without due discernment, not that they are partakers of the same faith or regeneration with the children of God, but because under a covering of hypocrisy, they seem to have a principle of faith in common with them.

52:03

Nor do I even deny that God illumines their minds to this extent, that they recognize his grace, but that conviction he distinguishes from the peculiar testimony which he gives to his elect in this respect, that the reprobate never attain to the full result or to fruition.

52:31

When he shows himself propitious to them, it is not as if he had truly rescued them from death and taken them under his protection.

52:40

He only gives them a manifestation of his present mercy. This is again,

52:46

Hebrews 6, my understanding of what Hebrews 6 is about as well. In the elect alone, he implants the living root of faith so that they persevere even to the end.

52:58

Thus, we dispose of the objection that if God truly displays his grace, it must endure forever.

53:05

There is nothing inconsistent, here it is, it's the last sentence of the paragraph, there is nothing inconsistent in this with the fact of his enlightening sum with a present sense of grace, which afterwards proves evanescent, fleeting, not having real existence.

53:34

I think it would be good to quickly do the context that comes afterwards, at least a bit of it.

53:41

Although faith is a knowledge of the divine favor towards us and a full persuasion of its truth, it is not strange.

53:52

Oh, okay. It is not strange, I was wondering if Rich was sending me something, because I've got

53:58

Rich covered up by, I can't look at Rich and read this at the same time, so there you go, it was a signal thing.

54:05

It is not strange the sense of the divine love, which though akin to faith differs much from it, vanishes in those who are temporarily impressed.

54:14

The will of God is, I confess, immutable, and his truth is always consistent with itself, but I deny the reprobate ever advanced so far as to penetrate to that secret revelation which

54:24

God reserves for the elect only. I therefore deny that they either understand his will, considered as immutable, or steadily embrace his truth inasmuch as they rest satisfied with an evanescent impression, repeating the same term.

54:38

Just as a tree not planted deeply enough may take root, but will in process of time wither away, though it may for several years not only put forth leaves and flowers, but produce fruit.

54:48

In short, as by the revolt of the first man, the image of God could be effaced from his mind and soul, so there is nothing strange in his shedding some rays of grace on the reprobate and afterwards allowing these to be extinguished.

55:00

There is nothing to prevent his giving some a slight knowledge of his gospel and imbuing others thoroughly.

55:06

Meanwhile, we must remember that however feeble and slender the faith the elect may be, yet as the spirit of God is to them a sure earnest and seal of their adoption, the impression once engraven can never be effaced from their hearts, whereas the light which glimmers in the reprobate is afterwards quenched.

55:23

I should point out, the church history professor in me wants to remind you that Calvin was addressing a sacral context, a sacral society.

55:37

Everybody was a part of the church and therefore his addressing this issue has a little different context than we would address today, but there's what

55:52

Calvin said. Hi Rich, I see you again. Hi, how are you? How are you doing? Just being rich.

56:02

Here's the application. We've only got a few minutes. Here is the application.

56:10

The argument that's being made is that if God judges people in such a way as to allow for thorny ground to choke out seed, to allow seeds to germinate in the rocky soil that are not going to be able to survive.

56:34

If God would judge Israel by sending false prophets and putting false spirits in the mouths so as to bring them to judgment.

56:43

There are many times God did all of these things and the fact is the synergist has such a high view of the alleged value of man and free will of man that he simply doesn't believe that God would ever do anything like that.

57:01

He doesn't believe that God would do those things. That's what really concerns me when I see evangelicals that struggle with God's judgment in the

57:11

Old Testament. God's judgment passages and trying to find ways to redefine these things as if God would never do that kind of stuff.

57:22

God has the right to take any one of us out at any moment under his wrath.

57:29

Any sinner, God can, God brings his judgment to bear against sinful people every single day.

57:41

It's called death. Every single day. That's a reality that we close our eyes from.

57:50

We don't want to know how many hundreds of thousands of people die each day around the world.

57:57

We don't want to think about that type of thing but the fact of matter is

58:02

God takes people out of this world every single day and you're either going to have the righteousness of Christ and hence have peace with God or you're going to stand before a holy

58:16

God with nothing but tatters. That's the reality and God has the right to judge people, to judge them in such a fashion that they are exposed to great light and yet they, outside of having their heart changed, all the light in the world will not avail because of the depravity of man.

58:48

And that's where people don't like this because they want to think that we are good enough, that if we just had enough plight, if we just had the right arguments but it takes the supernatural work of God to change the heart.

59:03

That's the reality. And if God judges someone so as to increase their guiltiness before him, didn't he do that to Pharaoh?

59:21

Didn't he harden Pharaoh's heart so as to bring judgment upon the people of Egypt? Did you believe that happened?

59:30

I sometimes really want to ask do you really believe that happened because it just doesn't seem that people will want to sit back and go wow

59:36

God really did that. God really wanted to demonstrate his power and his might and God has the right to do that.

59:48

So when someone throws you the evanescent grace thing, write down where it is in the institutes, read it for yourself, and recognize what the fundamental assumptions under the argument are.

01:00:04

They are saying God has no right to do what his words specifically says is the reality that every generation of Christians faces.

01:00:14

God is sovereign over all these people that spring up in the church because sometimes they've caused real problems.

01:00:21

He's sovereign over all of it. His word warned us just believe all the word and remain faithful.

01:00:27

All right there you go that was that was that was all all one just out of one one tweet but we got to spend some time in the scriptures and spend some time and Calvin and make some application hopefully that's useful to you.

01:00:43

Now real quickly because we're out of time we're actually past our time but no one cares because no one's going to turn off the switch you know.

01:00:50

We're going to try to do a dividing line tomorrow after I get done teaching.

01:01:00

Now there's not going to be much of me left by then. I'm going to sit there and go which most most people think

01:01:06

I do most of the time. Anyways but we're going to try to do a dividing line from there's this beautiful place there.

01:01:17

It's right outside where the main classroom is. Classroom's really nice but right outside there's this neat two -story library thing.

01:01:27

I mean it's it's really what you'd expect in a seminary. It's really nice you know we're called the strip mall seminary but it's really nice.

01:01:34

We're going to try to do a dividing line from there. I'm not sure who if I'm going to be able to grab Owen Strand.

01:01:40

Probably be able to grab Jeffrey Johnson. Maybe Jeff Moore who is not with the distance but that's just a just a joke that only of you that listen to Christian music back in the 90s would get.

01:01:54

And he he's no no Rich is Rich is doing face planning. When he introduced himself to me today that was his joke.

01:02:02

Okay so don't don't get on me about it. And maybe some of the students from the class will have a live audience.

01:02:10

Who knows but I'm going to try to pack up what I've got here and take it with me and get it set up and we're going to try.

01:02:20

There obviously could be technical things that would get in the way but we're going to try to do a program tomorrow from from the seminary and hopefully that will be really really interesting and you'll enjoy it and we'll throw it out on the app once we have an idea.

01:02:36

But you have to keep an eye open for that because we may have maybe a situation where we're just not going to know when it's going to be until like 15 minutes beforehand or something like that.

01:02:45

So we'll just we'll just do our best and and go from there. So there you go. All right so thanks for watching the program today.

01:02:52

Hopefully it was useful to you. Lord willing we'll see you tomorrow. If not just pray for the the class this weekend that the