Episode 127: All of Grace Roundtable (Part 1)

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Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. This is my beloved son, with whom

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I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas?

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You see that one in Pechote, Mexico? Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

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The church is not a democracy. It's a monarchy. Christ is king. You can be

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Christian without a local church. You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible -believing church, and spend your life serving

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Jesus in a local, visible congregation. Well, it's hot. I don't know why it surprises us, but every year, summer comes, and in Arkansas, it is sweltering.

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I have no idea when, actually, this episode will air, but I do know it's being recorded during the hot part of the summer.

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I think that you will find this episode and then the next, whenever that one airs, it's gonna be divided into two parts.

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I think you'll find it encouraging and edifying. What I've done is, with permission, I've pulled the audio from an episode

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I recorded on the Classic Cast with my friends Cole Dixon and Danny Thursby, and in this episode, which

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I've divided now into two episodes, it was long, it was like an hour and 43 minutes, so you'll probably have like a 45 -minute episode and maybe one close to an hour, but in this episode, we talk about All of Grace by Charles Spurgeon, the first six chapters, and that gets us into discussions on evangelism and Calvinism, and actually, this was recorded in October of 2022, and so it was right in the midst of a very challenging church time for us at Providence Baptist Church.

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You'll still hear the church referred to as Perryville Second Baptist, but we changed the name in 2023, and so just for those, maybe some of you might be new listening, but I think you'll find this edifying, and I hope that you find it helpful as you think through these theological truths and as you seek to apply them to your life and to your mind and to your heart and to your church life.

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So again, just to mention these other brothers, Danny Thursby and Cole Dixon, I'm grateful for the providence of God and bringing them in my life and their friendships, and so you're gonna have two episodes of this, so I hope that you enjoy it, and without further rambling, here we go.

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So here we are, we got Alan Cuatro Nelson back in the laboratory, and he brought

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Gunner with him too. Gunner's in the background giving us some support because we need it. Give me signals.

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Like baseball. Yeah, point to the time, like the deacon in the back when it's time to get out of sermon.

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I don't have any deacons. Well, that solves that issue. Alan Nelson, known as Cuatro to those dearest to you, you are a prolific author now.

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How many books do you have to write in order to be considered prolific? I don't know, brother. I don't know if I'm considered prolific.

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Well, all that to bring up, coming out with your third book,

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A Change of Heart, what is that book gonna be about? This book is about the doctrine of regeneration, obviously from a

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Reformed Baptist perspective, but laying out the understanding of what regeneration is.

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And then it's really a two -part book. So one, walking through what regeneration is and dealing with monergistic regeneration.

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And then similar to the book we'll talk about today, All of Grace from Spurgeon, but salvation is all of grace.

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And then the second half is talking about why does it matter? Okay, so what? There's monergism, there's synergism, does it really matter if we get this right?

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And my contention, of course, is it does matter. So some people have asked me, well, what's different about this book compared to From Death to Life?

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My first book, How Salvation Works. And I would say that From Death to Life is really just laying out a broader ordos salutis for the lay person.

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And A Change of Heart is more in -depth, specifically about the doctrine of regeneration.

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Can you call Danny? I think he's confused. Did we say six?

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We didn't say six, did we? No. He thinks six.

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Oh. He'll be here soon. Sorry to mess you up.

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Well, cool. What personally in your own life, what were some things that you're seeing, maybe where you're at in our area?

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What's going on in just the context we're in? What were some personal things that kind of served as catalysts for you to write this book?

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I was called to ministry, I would say in 2006, summer of 2006.

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So that's almost 17 years now. So I've been trying to teach people the

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Bible. And I'm not saying in all those 17 years, I was mature and all that, but I've been in the game as it were for 17 years.

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And what I've learned in those 17 years is the Bible's definition of what a

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Christian is. And our definition around here of what, and not just around here,

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I've been in Kentucky, I've traveled around and preached in different states. The definition of a lot of people in our country of what a

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Christian is, the majority, the vast majority of people in our country define a Christian differently than how the

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Bible does. And how the Bible defines a Christian is, Jesus says to Nicodemus in John 3, 3, you must be born again.

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And without the new birth, there's no Christianity. And the new birth absolutely transforms who we are.

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So the first part of the book, kind of lays out like this, the necessity of regeneration.

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Why do we need to be born again? And the sovereignty of regeneration, that is

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God is the one who brings about a regeneration. You can't do it. You don't want it and you can't do it.

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And then the totality of regeneration. So regeneration as depravity is total, regeneration is total too.

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Touches everything, doesn't make us perfect, but every part that was broken by the fall, as far as internally, regeneration touches.

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Our thoughts, our will, our affections. And then finally, the longevity of regeneration.

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And that's an important truth to remember is like, when you're born again, that's where we differ from our

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Presbyterian brothers and sisters. They wouldn't say you're unborn again.

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But what we say is, it's only those born again who are in the new covenant. And once you enter the new covenant, you can't get out of it because you've been born again.

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God's law is written on your heart. Your sins have been forgiven and you know God. And so that's how the first part of the book.

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And we do a little bit of historical survey, you know, but the catalyst, I guess that's kind of back to your question.

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The catalyst of the book is just looking around and seeing an anemic Christianity in our day.

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And a lot of even people who are pastors and leaders in churches and evangelicalism and the

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Southern Baptist Convention and all those things, I don't really want to touch this. You know, like everybody know like, you know, that man that's living with his girlfriend and you know what, they don't want to say he's not a

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Christian. You know, oh, he's backslidden or something like that. And you're like, and look,

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I know there's a thousand scenarios we could talk about. But the reality is those who are

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Christians, true Christians have been given a new heart. Yeah.

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And because they've been given a new heart, they have new life. It says

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Ephesians chapter four, the old man, the new man, new life, new creation language.

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Okay. So you mentioned earlier, there are clearly, I mean, clearly differences between a pastor's practice of ministry, whether he believe a monergistic regeneration or a synergistic salvation.

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You're exactly right. What would that look like? What are some differences? Like, say

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I'm somebody who doesn't know the lingo. I hear what you just said. And I don't know how to spot a pastor who knows or believes in monergism or synergism based off of his language.

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Could you help me out? What are some things that I should listen for or practices that I should consider in the worship service that that pastor is kind of leading over?

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Yeah. I don't want to, I don't want to paint monergism as everybody who holds the monergism is the good guys.

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And, you know. Oh, come on, man, please. I love the good guy, bad guy movie. Because there are some,

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I would say, probably some extreme views where you say hyper -Calvinism, you know, where they would be technically monergistic, you know, but their practices aren't, you know.

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So when I say monergism, I want people to be clear. We must give a real genuine gospel call as we proclaim the gospel to people.

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Like, you must choose Christ. You must repent. You must believe the gospel.

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You know, only those people. You scared me. I was thinking you were meaning 6 a .m.

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Like, what in the world? So we haven't started yet. We're just basically hanging out and recording it.

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He's just kind of getting into his book. That's a really sweet hoodie, man. You in the blood gang or something now?

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We can't post that. That's a concern. Hey, we need to get another one of those for this spot right here in that spot.

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Another one of what? That microphone. The microphone stand. I'm sure, you know, we have a fourth one of these, right?

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Really? It's in that box. I'm sure it'll fit on that.

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Well, not that stand, no. Sorry to detract, but apologies, guys.

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No worries, dude. Could have slept another 20 minutes. You could have. But instead, he got here earlier to advertise his big new book,

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A Change of Heart. So he's answering the question, how to spot a synergistic pastor versus a monergistic pastor.

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Well, first of all, if I see a hoodie like Danny's wearing. Synergistic. Monergism right there.

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Oh, okay. Nothing but the blood, baby. But what I was saying, Danny, is I just want to be clear.

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Monergism, these words come from two Greek words. The word for energy and the word for work.

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And then the word for alone or with. You know, mono, alone, sin, with. So like synagogue.

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Yeah. And assembly together. Yeah. Do you work? Yeah, that's right. Do you work?

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Yeah, symphony, symphony. Anyways, go on. So do you work with God or do you work alone?

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Or does God work alone in bringing about the new birth? And so I was just trying to say that, you know, in monergism,

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I think you can get a bad rap. You say, well, you know, then we just, you know, God just strikes people with a grace bolt of lightning or whatever.

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Well, there's some truth. Completely passive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. That's good. That we implore people to repent.

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We point them to the gospel. We plead with them. We Paul says.

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We implore you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God. And so if you're if you're if I maintain that the gospel.

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Is not preached or I should put it this way. Evangelism is not done without.

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A response without an offer of response. You know, you technically you can proclaim the gospel without saying, you know.

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This is without saying you need to repent and believe it. You know, the gospel technically is

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Christ and what Christ has done. You haven't really been faithful in the proclamation of that gospel unless you also include you need to repent and believe the gospel.

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Yeah. So I've kind of hammered on my camp for a minute, but you know that the synergistic side that was so so a monergistic pastor is going to faithfully proclaim the gospel.

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He's going to depend on God. He's going to, you know, offer real and meaningful opportunity for response.

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By the way, I'm in my mind. I'm kind of thinking outside the church, but like inside the church. I'm not saying like you have a you have an invitation at the end or whatever, like the invitation is to repent and believe the gospel, you know.

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But but too often now you have some good synergist. OK, but too often with the synergism, a mindset is you have to do something to create some sort of environment where these people are going to be.

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They wouldn't use this language emotionally manipulated so that they will make a decision.

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You know, and actually, I would say this. If you really hold the synergism, then most most pastors aren't doing enough, right?

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Because there's so much more you could do, you know, to try to talk people into cooperating with being they're being lazy.

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Yeah, I'm good. That's what Finney did, you know. He came up with a whole liturgy almost.

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Yeah. This is how you do it because he saw it and he's like, you know, this is how you do it. Like that's why he was so influential.

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We have a Russian friend talking about the altar call that they had in all their churches. Yeah, I would maintain a lot of what happened.

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And I know there are people disagree, but a lot of what happened in the second great awakening, especially by the end of it,

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I would say wasn't really wasn't actually revival. I'd agree with you on that.

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So you could say then, based off of your answer, if you go to a church and you see an altar call, you got a pastor up there, head bowed, eyes closed, raise your hand if you want to do these things.

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This is your verse. Music in the background. I see that hand. Yeah, yeah. Now is the time. No, no more waiting.

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I've heard of people actually, and I've actually been in service, that actually try to get to come up for anything like,

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OK, they won't come up for salvation. Well, if you had a sinful thought this week, come to the altar.

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You know, like you're just trying to get people to come up there. You know, I'm having flashbacks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A fellowship of Christian athletes in high school.

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If you've never been on this football field and this may be the only time you ever touch the field, son, just come on down.

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And and then what do they do? They count all those kids as salvations.

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Decisions for Christ. Yeah, yeah. When it's a broad, it's such a broad. Oh, that many people got saved is like, well, no, but that many people made decisions in some way or another for Christ.

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But they turn around and report it. Hey, we had a thousand kids make a decision for Christ. Right, right, right.

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But that's why they term it that way. So that's that's so that any little any little thing can be, you know, reported or a quote decision for Christ.

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And it's hard. It's hard to be in our camp because sometimes we want to watch this and we want to be careful and guard against this.

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But but you can be accused of just being so judgmental and cold. But the reality is you just seen this happen time and time again.

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The social media, 500 kids got saved. OK, you're waiting on it. Well, 500 kids got saved in this area.

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We're fixing to turn over the whole town, you know, revival. Yeah, it doesn't happen, you know.

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And you're like, no, with the doctrine of regeneration, you're not you're not now in the, you know, a fruit chicken, you know, person that's just really hard on people.

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But the reality is, if you're born again, there's fruit. There's something the key. That's right. You and by the way, here's the fruit.

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You love Christ. You love his church. You love the Bible. You hate sin.

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You're not perfect. And I told our church or not, we're talking about the doctrine of repentance, you know, and and there are times that people can be born again and they can still, you know, they can be rescued from a rough lifestyle and they can still be doing things that are sinful that they didn't even realize.

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You know, for example, maybe the way they're dressing, you know, like provocatively or something like that, and they just hadn't realized it yet.

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So the church comes alongside them with grace and love and patience says, hey, you know, the

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Bible says this. But when they hear that, like, yes, we oh, we just want to please the

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Lord. That's what we want to do instead of most of the time when you when you address someone who profess to be a Christian, like, hey, you know, you know, you can't be living with your boyfriend, you know, like you're judgmental.

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You can't you know, that's that's not the right someone that wants to obey the king. Yeah. So we don't get in.

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But just to be clear, we don't get into the kingdom through obedience. You know, like you just how you obey the king and you get in.

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I don't know. We get into the kingdom by what Jesus tells Nicodemus, you must be born again.

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Yeah, that regeneration changes us. It really changes us. Yeah. Man, you're getting me fired up as usual.

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Every time I'm around you, you get me fired up, brother. Uh, why don't you come to church in Perryville?

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You know what? I'm actively recruiting now. If D2 keeps sizing me up on the jujitsu map,

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I'm going to be coming out to your church. He's on his last straw as one of my pastors.

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There's a good thing there's six of them. We have some deacon openings. How do I apply? How do

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I apply? Let's make this typical. You're that chicken. You'll change church memberships before.

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I don't want to tear my ACL, man. I didn't know it was that bad. I don't want to tear my

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ACL, man. Can you lead worship by any chance? I can.

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That means no. Gunner starts getting like all alpha male in the room.

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Leading worship is mine. Gunner, I do have to say Gunner. Gunner does a great job.

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One more question. You've really already answered it in a sense, but specifically with your book.

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On a few paragraphs, why should I read your book? Because you like me? End? Let's say

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I hate him. Well, that's a long list. You can get on that. Here's the thing that I think about this book that I hope is helpful.

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This book tries to combine. There's not just a ton of books out there solely on the doctrine of regeneration.

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It's kind of incorporated in other books on the Ordo Salutis, which is fine. But what

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I hope that this book accomplishes that other books don't is the whole thing is on the doctrine of regeneration and then really how that doctrine ties into so much more.

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The second half of the book is about the scriptures. I know it's kind of silly, but I'm not just about scripture.

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If you don't believe this doctrine rightly, well, you don't rightly believe the scriptures.

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If you don't believe this doctrine rightly, you're not going to understand church membership rightly. If you don't believe this doctrine rightly, you're going to go awry on the ordinances.

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And if you don't believe this doctrine rightly, you're going to mess up evangelism. I think those who understand this doctrine rightly are the best evangelists.

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So read the book because I spent so long writing it.

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Read the book because I think it handles regeneration faithfully, and then it shows how getting this doctrine matters right practically.

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That's good. And the book's out, right? Yeah, I was going to say, when is it released? We've got to talk to Jeff Player.

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But the goal is, of course, the goal about a month ago was maybe

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March, but here we are almost in March. I'm actually telling people the first part of April because just in case.

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We're still waiting on a couple of endorsements. So when it comes out, where can people get it? Free Grace Press.

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Oh, awesome. Yeah, freegracepress .com. We'll put links to your book in our bio for this book here.

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There's links already out on the Free Grace Press. So you can actually look it up. Is it for pre -sale?

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I don't know that we're doing pre -sale yet. I'm not sure. I don't think so. So we'll include that link too.

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It's just kind of like a forthcoming announcement. Yeah, I think it's forthcoming. It's got some endorsements on it.

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Right. Well, that's what's up. Again, Quatro, thank you for being on here.

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I don't know why you keep coming on. So early in the morning. Why so early? I hadn't figured it out either, but I like you guys.

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It's a good, well, we get to tell our wives, hey, honey, I have a serious podcast I'm going to do.

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It's an engagement that I've been scheduled for. But the truth is, it's really just a big hangout where we hang out and talk theology together.

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And you've just spilled the secret. Now if they listen. Good thing they don't listen. So here we are starting a new book.

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Two things to show you how much we like you. Asking you to be on so many times. Number two,

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I got up early to make so much French press from Zotero Coffee, Conway, which apparently

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Danny's not wanting to drink any of. Fixed him some too. But you know you shine with coffee in your system, right?

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You remember that talk. But well, this has caffeine in it.

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But there's something about coffee, a little extra juice. That's what you said.

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We'll see. And then number three, third reason we, third way we show how much we like you, is this is the episode that's kicking off all of grace.

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So you're on the kickoff episode. You're up there with the ranks of Dr. Bush who helped us kick off Pilgrim's Progress.

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Speaking of Free Grace Press, this series that we're doing on all of grace is sponsored by Free Grace Press.

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They've been good enough and kind enough to donate us these books that you can find.

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Look just like this. Find them on freegracepress .com by C .H.

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Spurgeon, of course, edited by Stephen McCaskill. And we also have a book giveaway that we're going to be doing.

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So if you want a free all of grace book, pretty simple on how you can win it.

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Follow our page. So many of you already have. So many that are already listening. Let me be clear.

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Follow our page. You can share our social media pages, which you just simply find it at classic cast or the classic cast on Twitter and Instagram.

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And then thirdly, just leave us a review of your favorite episode. And we will ship you a free copy of all of grace.

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Really short book. About 110 pages. And so far,

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I'm enjoying it. D2, what's your thoughts? What do you got to add? Take away. Yeah, when we're picking books for this thing, for our consistent listeners, they know this, but we pick variety.

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And so this is definitely a devotional or evangelistic work.

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It's basically Spurgeon put in a short work about the gospel.

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And Spurgeon is an evangelistic preacher. I mean, that's really all he did was evangelize, preach

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Christ in his preaching ministry. And that's what this book is.

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It's a short, you know, in the introduction or the or chapter one, rather, what he's what he's writing is he's saying, look, hey, this is this is for you.

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This is a small work dependent upon the Lord that some may read and come to faith.

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That that's the that's the sole purpose in which he in which he wrote it. It's been really good for me.

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It's been a long time since I've read a book like this, just a simple book on the gospel.

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With the aim, you could tell he's not aiming to impress anyone. He's not aiming to, you know,

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I mean, he's just got one objective. He's just like, well, maybe if maybe if somebody is not preach, not converted, maybe somebody is not going to come hear me preach or go hear a preacher preach.

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But maybe they'll pick up this book and read it. And the Lord may use it to bring them to Christ. And so evangelistic is a gospel call, basically on every page in one form or another.

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Just talking about the grace of God, the grace of the gospel and calling sinners to it.

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And that's good. Preaching the good news, man. It's been good for my soul. I mean, I read the scriptures regularly, but this has been a while since I've just read a book, like just a devotional book on the goodness of the gospel.

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And that's that's what this is. Easy read. I haven't met anybody who doesn't like to read

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Spurgeon yet. And so he's pretty popular. If you had a

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Saturday to yourself where you had nothing planned, you could read this book in a day. Oh, sure.

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Oh, easy, easy. Yeah. So even in Arkansan. Yeah, even Arkansan.

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They may only understand half of it because they're from Arkansas. But I'm glad not very many of our listeners are from Arkansas.

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I'm from Louisiana, so I can do about half that book in a day. So, yeah, Trinity can do half the book in a day.

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He's like Jim Carrey off of Dumb and Dumber. If, if.

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Let me say something that let me say something that we can learn from on this. And I'm talking about the reform camp because we're we're really we're really strong.

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I'm talking about those who are evangelistic. We're really, really strong. On, you know, repent, repent, repent and amen.

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And we ought to be strong on that. But what Spurgeon does in this book is he shows a shepherd's heart.

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You know, there are times I've had this conversation real recently, but there are times, you know, the difference between a baseball bat and a scalpel, you know, and sometimes you're going in there just swinging, you know, but but sometimes you need that that pastoral care and precision.

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And you hear the tenderness of Spurgeon as he's pleading, you know, through this and walking through this with with folks.

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And I just think it's it's something that we can learn from. Well, you know, Spurgeon was very evangelistic.

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And look, you know, Cole, you and I, we've street preached together. We have, you know, and some guys in our church, we street preach and I love it and I endorse it.

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And we ought to be doing these things. I think churches ought to be doing these things. But but we need to remember, we need to remember a love for Christ and a love for sinners.

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And so you just you just see that here in Spurgeon. He's just a great man. He wasn't a perfect pastor, of course.

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You know, there's a lot of stuff about his life that you would tell guys, don't do that. You know, you wait until Saturday to put your sermon together.

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Don't do that. You know, Spurgeon, he can do that, right? But if he were here today, he would say, don't do that.

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But but but there's a lot from his life, a lot from his life that we need to learn from.

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And this this this book is a good example. Yeah, two things that I'll say, piggybacking off of what both of you guys said, and then we can hop in.

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Number one, Danny, you mentioned how we like to shift gears in what we read.

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And tell me about it. We go from Bovink to Bunyan, Rutherford to Spurgeon.

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So we're going to like high level theology. Do you want to know the theology reform dogmatics, technical as technical can be?

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Bovink, start it off. And then boom, an allegory of John Bunyan on Pilgrim's Progress.

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And then we go to Lex Rex, which let's be honest, the further we got into Lex Rex, the harder it was to do it.

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Yeah. It's a tough book to read, which is why if we didn't have a podcast on it,

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I wouldn't have read it. I wouldn't have read it. In fact, I tried to read it, got two chapters in. I was like, I'm going to wait on this.

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So then you have this one is like, how could you not finish it? How could you not finish in two days?

32:09

Kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Second thing I'll do to piggyback is, Quatro, you're exactly right.

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We have two hands with our theology. Number one, precision. Number two, accessibility.

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We want the theology that we know to be accessible. And a lot of times I'll point the finger at myself. A lot of times

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I get so focused on precision, precision, precision. I don't really care about accessibility. Maybe I lose my mind and try to focus on a debate or Twitter world or whatever it may be, where I just forget, man, this needs to be simply understood.

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Grace. Let's talk about grace, the theology of grace, the doctrines of grace, and these things. And the truth is the need for grace, as we're going to be talking about today, is simple to understand.

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Yeah. The reception of grace, simple to understand. What grace is, simple to understand.

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And it's clear that Spurgeon wanted to present grace in such a simple way for the sake of sinners to be saved by grace and for the glory of God who gives grace.

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And it was convicting to me because even in our street preaching times, it's easy for me to forget how

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I need to be, of course, razor sharp on what

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I'm preaching, the precision of it, but also what you mentioned earlier. I need to be deep in love for the sinner who is hearing this and calling them to believe these things.

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Please believe them. It's like the Apostle Paul. We plead with you, be reconciled to God.

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You know, I beseech you, be reconciled to God. And it was convicting to me as I'm reading these things, just to see

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Spurgeon is trying to move every intellectual obstacle out of the way. Look, here it is.

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Just receive it. Here's my goal of this book. Believe these things. So I'm looking forward to diving into this simple book.

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Do y 'all think he would have been criticized in our day?

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For sure. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. He was criticized in his day.

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Right, right, right. I'm talking about he was criticized in his day by, you know, obviously the

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Armenians, you know, but he was criticized in his day by some Calvinist. This is what

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I mean. The question is salvation. Yeah, this is what I mean. Because of his preaching or his books like this.

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And his evangelistic heart. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's the thing, like, that's where I'm trying to draw the balance earlier, is like, we're unapologetically monergist.

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But in my opinion, a true monergist. Go ahead and hit me with like a.

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Hey, we're studying it. With just a taste. A true, a true monergist is.

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There we go. One who believes in a well -meant offer of the gospel. Is the well, is the well dry now to take the last bit?

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A true monergist is. One who, one who believes in free offer of the gospel. Yeah, well, yeah, the well -meant like, you know, look, you really can be saved.

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If you will cast yourself. Yeah, yeah. Upon Christ. I was listening or I was reading by a little book by Joel Beakey, by the way, is really good on the doctrine.

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By the way, Joel Beakey, he's good to bring up. Not to stir your thunder. No, go ahead.

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But he has taken heat over preaching like this. Yeah. I mean, real heat in his life and ministry.

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There's your answer. Is it an accusation of leaning too heavily on grace or something? Or like, what are they? What specifically?

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Well, he, he comes from a hyper Calvinist tradition. OK. And they don't think that you should offer the gospel to anybody.

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It's not. Is that what Spurgeon kind of ran into in his day as well? Well, it's kind of like that's the ditch that the reformed tradition sometimes finds itself in or some in the reformed tradition find themselves in.

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Um, Spurgeon's main thing was, was the beginnings of liberalism.

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That that was the main, the downgrade controversy was his main thing. He never,

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I mean, yeah, he got criticism for well -meant offer preaching, but that wasn't the thing that I think.

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I don't think he minded that too much. But there's. I'm going to preach. I'm just going to preach. There's a, there's a reason that today in almost every conservative tradition of Christianity that Spurgeon is liked.

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Right. You know what I mean? It's like you can get the most. Methodist, landmark Baptist, reformed

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Baptist. Free will Baptist. I mean, yeah. You know, totally anti -Calvinist people. Presbyterians love

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Spurgeon. Yeah. And yeah. So yeah, the answer, the answer

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I think is unquestionably. Yes. Now you were, were you about to say about Joel Beagy?

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Oh yeah. I was reading his book on the doctrine of assurance. And you know, one thing he's saying is like.

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Sinners don't, don't hate the doctrine of election. The doctrine of election is the sinner's friend. Without the doctrine of election, no one gets saved.

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Yeah. Amen. And so the doctrine of election means that there is, there is a way to God.

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Yeah. And, and that the scriptures, there's never one time in the scriptures that someone genuinely comes to Christ or comes to God and God says no, no, you know?

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And so obviously we know if someone does come to God, it's, it's as the book says, all of grace.

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But the reality is Spurgeon, Spurgeon really believed in putting that to people in such a way that, you know, you're not cold toward them.

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You're not saying to them, well, I hope you're elect, you know, really, really,

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I would even, I would go, I would say the doctrine of election is really for the church, you know?

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Um, and so, but, but the point is he was, uh, he was showing them and especially which chapters that we, it might be like chapter two or.

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We don't have to go in order. Okay. But the, but the point is he says, uh, he talks about that God justifies the ungodly, you know, and he starts talking to him.

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That's the main theme of the first, first few chapters. Yeah. You thought that Christianity was for the good, you know, you thought it was for like good people.

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Like, no, Christ died for the ungodly, you know, and taking, taking that message to people.

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So anyway, I was kind of going off track there, but yeah, I think, I think there is no, yeah, there's no off track on this podcast.

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Spurgeon would be, I think, I think his, his evangelistic heart, his idea of the well -meant offer, all those things.

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I think he would be finding himself under criticism from the experts in the reform world.

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Oh yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And that's what, I think that's what Danny's question was all about. Do you think you'd be criticizing our day you met in specifically in our circle?

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Yeah. Of course, everybody out of our circle and various camps are going to criticize him for different things, but in our circle too.

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And I don't look at this soft preacher, you know, look at it, look at this soft preacher.

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Mega church pastor. Yeah. Mega church pastors, soft preacher. He's not going to preach the hard things. Yeah. Yeah.

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Yeah. Yeah. I would caution us, you know, and I, cause I'm in this camp, I'm in this camp.

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Yeah. We have a small church. Yeah. You know. Oh, you don't have a mega church out in Perryville? No, no, we sure don't.

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Just cause he's a minor, just a pastor. And so, well, what I'm saying is you can pat yourself on the back and be like, we got a small church cause

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I'm preaching the gospel, you know? Yeah. And there can be some element of truth to that.

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However, there don't, don't put that feather in your cap, you know? And Spurgeon, Spurgeon sure wouldn't commend you for that.

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Like preach and plead and see God work. And, and so we have to kind of have that balance that yes, preaching the truth.

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Sometimes you're going to be small. Fear not little flock. That's what Jesus says. Right. Fear not little flocks.

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Father, it's a good pleasure to give you the kingdom. But do not despise the day of small things.

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Yeah. So, but on the other, on the other hand of that, I'm saying, the pushback

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I'm given is we need to have a, an evangelistic heart, a heart for sinners.

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You know, our, our first allegiance, our priority is Christ. Yeah. But, but with a priority for Christ, we have a love, we have a true love for sinners.

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Yeah, man. Go ahead, D2. Um, I don't want to just derail you.

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I was just going to say, well, I think this is a great place to jump in just to illustrate what we're talking about. He opens chapter two.

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He says, I heard a story. I think it came from the North country. I don't know what the

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North country is, but Canada. Yeah.

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The, the great white North in Canada, probably Scotland, Scotland, or maybe

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Ireland. Cause isn't Ireland up there somewhere? Yeah, I believe so. A minister called upon a poor woman intended to give her help.

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For he knew that she was very poor with his money in hand. He knocked at her, he knocked at the door, but she did not answer.

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He concluded she was not at home and went his way. A little after he met her at the church and told her that he had remembered her need.

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I called at your house and knocked several times. And I suppose you were not at home for,

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I had no answer. At what hour did you call, sir? It was about noon. Oh dear.

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She said, I heard you, sir. And I'm so sorry. I did not answer, but I thought it was the man calling for the rent.

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Many poor women know what this meant. Now it is my desire to be heard.

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And therefore I want to say that I'm not calling for the rent. Indeed. It is not the object of this book to ask anything of you, but to tell you that salvation is all of grace, which means free gratis for nothing.

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Boom. That's the first thing that I underlined in this book. It, um, he's, he's like,

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I'm, I'm writing to you, not calling for the rent. First, first, he's writing this whole book.

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Like he's writing it to the individual reading it. Uh, I, I, uh,

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I love the nature of what you wrote it. And so he's writing to you. He's writing to the reader. He's not just writing a book that will be read, but it's very personal.

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Uh, and he just starts out saying after what in modern days, chapter one is really just an introduction or not, not acknowledgements, but, um, like a, like a preface chapter two really is chapter one, uh, what a modern book would be.

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And it's like a page and a half. And, uh, this really gets down.

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This really gets down to it is what is, you know, what am I trying to achieve in this book?

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It was like, look, grace is free. I'm knocking on your door here. Asking nothing of you. There's, there's nothing of requests.

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There's nothing you can give. There's nothing, uh, you know, I'm not here asking for the rent, but I'm here as a minister to give.

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Yeah. He says this on the next page, piggybacking with what you, the quote you just read, do not refuse the

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Lord Jesus who knocks at your door. For he knocks with a hand, which was nailed to the tree for such as you are.

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Wow. Because we get to revelation three and in our reform camp, we like to say, oh, but he's writing a letter to the church.

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It's to the church. Behold, I stand at the door. Knock is not an altar cause to the church. You're right. At the same time, when we are preaching this gospel, calling sinners to believe, we let them know, like, look,

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I'm not trying to figure out this whole, are you elect or dah, dah, dah, this and that kind of thing.

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I'm preaching the gospel, calling you to believe, telling you about the grace found in our

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Lord Jesus Christ. And this is what Spurgeon does, which is maybe one thing that would get him some flack, even from our circle of the guys who do nothing but read theology books all day.

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Do not refuse the Lord Jesus who knocks at your door. We've seen that abuse so much, and it's been abused.

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It has been abused. It has been abused, you know, and you come across as Jesus is this meek, you know, beggar in the rain that just needs to come in, letting me in to have some bread and, and, and, you know, you can, you can really be on his team and make him glad or whatever.

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And it's, and so it's been misused and all of us in here would agree like, Hey, no, that's not how we preach.

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But at the same time, Spurgeon brings us a helpful corrective. Cause if we're not careful, you're not careful.

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We will go in that other ditch where we come across as cold hearted. You know, like,

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I don't really care if you repent. You just need to know you need to repent. You know, and you're like,

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Oh, wait a second. You read this and you're like, dude, Spurgeon, he cares.

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Yes. You know, because the person who hates Calvinism here's through the grapevine that Spurgeon is a

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Calvinist, but they're skeptical as they're starting to read this book. Oh, here's this man is cold hearted. You realize no

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Spurgeon just wants you to know that grace is free. Yeah. And that you're called to repent and believe, you know, he's not trying to tell you grace is particular though.

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It is. That's an attribute of grace. He's trying to point out the essence of grace, which is the, the freeness of it.

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How there is no work to be done. There is no thing to be accomplished. It's a gift.

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Yes. It's a gift. It's a, um, it's aid to the poor woman who can't pay her rent.

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Um, do you, to use the illustration? Well, the, well, the, and the thing is too, you know, to add onto the illustration,

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I was just thinking about this, the, the, the man coming to collect his rent is coming.

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Oh man. You know, that, that, that is Christ. He is coming. But the point is he's giving you opportunity now that he's paid it, but you've got to trust him.

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We need to follow. I'll tell you this story real, real quick. All the names, but there was a, there's a situation.

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We have a brother coming from our, to our church from, from, he drives a pretty good ways to get there. And he was running into a, he w he was on an errand and he went past his church a little closer to his home.

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So he's just like, well, I wonder what this church is about. So he called him and the pastor there turns out has some connection with our church, uh, from, from years ago.

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And so he says to the man, um, you know, are you closer?

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Are you more closely aligned with John MacArthur or Charles Stanley? You know, the man thinks about it, the pastor.

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And he says, well, Charles Stanley, you know, so it comes out real quick that this brother that comes to our church as a

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Calvinist and this other pastor, he's not, you know, but, but they have an amicable discussion and everything, but the pastor ends up telling him.

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Oh, and then he says, we drive a little ways. We go to church in Perryville and the pastor was like, oh, you go to Perryville second

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Baptist, don't you? You know? Like, and he was like, yeah, it was like, you know, they didn't even, but he just knew cause we kind of have that reputation.

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But then this guy told him, he, he, he told him a story. He's like, I just don't understand not doing evangelism.

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You know, he's like, I was in a, you know, I w I went on this mission trip and I saw all these Muslims come to Christ.

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You know, I was like, wait a second. In your mind, you just can't get over this.

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False stereotype of calories, right? That they are not evangelistic.

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And like we ought to be don't. In fact, I would say this, don't tell me you're a

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Calvinist if you're not evangelistic. Amen. At the end of Matthew 11,

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I preached on this a few weeks ago. So it's on my heart. At the end of Matthew 11, Jesus says, he, he thanks

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God essentially for his election because he says, I thank you that you've hidden this from the wise of the world, but you've revealed it to little children.

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You're like, yeah. Okay. Now what are you going to say, Jesus? Then he says, come to me. Yeah. All who are weary and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest.

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Take my yoke upon you. Right. I mean like this is the heart of our Lord. So yeah, if you're a

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Calvinist, you're evangelistic. And I would, but I would argue too, you're not evangelistic as a mere duty.

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Cause that's like, well, why do you do it? It's our duty. It is our duty, but it's not a mere right.

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Do it right. It's commanded of us, but we don't only do it because it's commanded of us.

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We do it in joyful, obedient, but also cause we, we love sin. Like we want to say like, we're going to praise

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God for his judgment, you know, and God's going to do it right. We're going to praise God for his judging the nations.

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But while we are on this earth, it is our desire to see people liberated from their bondage to sin.

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Yeah. That's not, that's not the task that the Lord has given his church for this time.

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We're not, we're not to judge the nations now. Right. Today's the day of salvation.

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We've been given the ministry of reconciliation and this Christ is reconciled. If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house.

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The church is what God's doing. This, this is his work. If we really believe what

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Ephesians says, we are the poimos, the masterpiece of God. How are you going to respond?