You Choose, God Changes (Part 1)

Is the church today doing everything it can to provide women a firm foundation of truth in Christ Jesus? Well, it's true there's no shortage of candy-coated Bible studies, potluck fellowships available to ladies.

But beyond Sunday morning, are Christian women being properly equipped to stand against the same deceptions that even enticed Eve in the garden? In an attempt to address the need for trustworthy, biblical resources for women, No Compromise Radio is happy to introduce Equipping Eve, a ladies-only radio show that seeks to equip women with fruits of truth in an age that's ripe with deception.

My name is Mike Abendroth and I'm pleased to introduce your host Erin Benzinger, a friend of No Compromise Radio and a woman who wants to see other women equipped with a love for and a knowledge of the truth of God's Word.

Women Equipped with the Truth of God's Word

Ladies and welcome to Equipping Eve. I'm your host Erin Benzinger and as always, this is the show that seeks to equip you with fruits of truth from God's Word so that we can stand strong and firm on that truth in an age of deception.

We are surrounded by bad teaching, false teaching, slightly incorrect teaching that just barely twists the scriptures enough to sound good, but when we examine it against the true scriptures, we realize it's actually teaching something erroneous, something against God's Word.

But yet we are surrounded by teachings like this coming, especially as women, from many women Bible teachers out there, but coming from the pulpits as well, and that is why we are to test all things against scripture.

God's Word, ladies, is the only objective truth that is available to us. And that is not to diminish it. It's not saying, ugh, all we have is this Bible, I wish we had more. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

We have the Bible. We have 66 books of God's inspired, inerrant, infallible Word. That's more than enough. Okay, you don't need the warm fuzzies. You don't need the warm, tingly feeling in your brain or up your arm.

I don't know, you might be having a heart attack if it's going up or down your arm. You don't need a liver shiver in order to know something is true. You need to compare it to scripture to find if it is true.

And if someone is claiming that they are hearing from God outside of His Word, you need to run, because God has spoken. He has given us His Word. He has not given us blank pages to write down the book of Aaron, the book of Veronica at the back of your Bible for the special revelations that you think He is giving you.

No, He's given you Genesis to Revelation, love it, embrace it, read it, study it, learn it, devour it. Okay? Okay. How is everybody? How is everyone doing? It's been kind of a long week here for me, but God has been so faithful this week.

And in the midst of trying times, which we all go through, regardless of what those look like, God always demonstrates Himself to be faithful. He demonstrates Himself to be sovereign. He reminds us of our need to trust in Him 500%.

And He is so good to show us these things, isn't He? And that's why it is a wonderful day to talk about God and to talk about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I love Him. And I know you ladies love Him, too, and seek and desire to serve Him well.

And that is why we get into the Scriptures. That is why we do what we do here at Equipping Eve, so that we can be better equipped to serve our Savior. We did not deserve to be saved, and yet He saved us anyway, if you have been saved.

And because we've been purchased by the blood of a perfect lamb, we should seek to serve Him with all of our lives. And that is why Equipping Eve exists to equip us. So to do that, we have to dig into His Word, that objective truth that we just talked about.

But, you know, before we do that, we always like to have a little fun here at Equipping Eve, because we're all about being fun and relevant, right? Anyway, you ladies know how much I love to shop at the Christian store.

Air quotes, Christian store. So I can't shop at the Christian store while I'm recording this, so I decided to go to the Family Christian Store website, because as I record this, it's still the holiday season, so we're still looking at all those fun Christmas ads.

So right there on the front of the Family Christian Store page, as I look at it, right this moment as I record this, you can purchase Joyful Pillows with Christmas Chair. So that's something that every Christian household needs, is a big red pillow that says, Christmas Begins with Christ, or a sparkly silver one that says, Believe.

I don't know what you're supposed to believe in, but just believe, it'll be fantastic, I'm sure. There's another one that says, It All Began with a Family. Another one says, Sleep in Heavenly Peace. I don't know why people buy these things.

Shopping at the Christian store is always so much fun. You know what else is fun? Church signs. You know the ones I'm talking about. The church signs. Maybe you attend a church with a church sign, maybe you attended one as a child.

I used to like church signs as a kid, you know, you always like to see the little witty things that they put on the church signs. Well I saw a couple of church signs, so for the past couple of weeks that I wrote down, I did not want to miss these.

One of them, as I said, this is still the Christmas season as I record this, so one of them says that, Wise men still seek Him. And we see this a lot, you know, we see this phrase a lot this time of year, and Christians love to say that.

Wise men still seek Him, meaning, you know, if you're wise, you will seek after Christ. Is that true? Is that true? Wise by what definition? Wisdom from where? Wise men of the world, they don't seek after God.

No one seeks after God, no, not one. The only ones who possess true wisdom are those who have been saved by Christ and who have received wisdom from above, correct? So then we would only seek God if we are enabled to seek Him by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Huh, interesting, but doesn't that phrase, wise men still seek Him, then denote a little bit of that Arminian free will thinking. And so another church sign that I saw that really, really stimulated my thinking on this topic was, came from the digital sign of a large, it's the local campus of a large megachurch.

And it stands tall and proud alongside the freeway, and as I drove home one night, I saw flashing on the sign, the quote, you make the choice, God makes the change. You make the choice, God makes the change.

Interesting, huh? So it's all up to me. It's all on me. I have to make the choice before God can do anything, before God will do anything. That's unfortunate, because it's all on me. I mean, it's unfortunate in that God's hands are tied until I make a choice.

And then it's unfortunate in the sense that if I allegedly make this alleged choice and God then renders the change, because I've now enabled God by making my choice, presumably to choose to follow after Him, now I get the glory, right?

Because it all started with my choice, not God's work, not God's choice. So what do we do with this? Is this true? Who gets the power and the glory in this phrase, you make the choice, God makes the change?

If you can do the choosing, why can't you do the changing? If you have the power, if all the power rests in your choosing, why are you suddenly rendered powerless to do the changing? And why is God rendered powerless until you do the choosing?

It's not logical. And so here we have a perfect example of the illogical nature of this type of thinking that says that we choose God and then therefore ultimately saying that we choose salvation. It gives us the glory, it gives us the power.

It's a problem. And I know we've discussed this topic or similar topics before at Equipping Eve, but I think it's an important conversation to have again. Can man choose God? Will man choose God? You turn in your Bibles, ladies, to Romans 3, a very familiar passage, I'm sure, to most if not all of you.

Romans 3 verse 10, the Apostle Paul writes, as it is written, there is none righteous, no, not even one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. And if one is not seeking God, then wise men, by the world's definition of wisdom, do not still seek him.

And if there is none who seeks for God, then how can there be anyone who would choose God? If we don't seek him, we wouldn't even choose him, would we? Continuing on, Romans 3, 12, all have turned aside, together they have become useless.

There is none who does good. There's not even one. Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.

Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. In other words, men, all men, are by nature depraved and by nature opposed to God.

Therefore, no man has the ability of his own power to seek after or choose God. How can you? There's no fear of God before their eyes. There's none righteous, not even one. There is none who seeks for God.

So how can you do the choosing so that God can do the changing? Could it be, instead, that God has to do the choosing and the changing? Consider for a moment, ladies, 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30. Paul writes,.

But by his doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.

Right there, in that one verse, you have now completely contradicted what this megachurch claims. You make the choice. God makes the change. No, no, no. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30 says that God makes the choice and God makes the change.

By his doing, you are in Christ Jesus, which means he chose you and he saved you to be in Christ Jesus. And then he executes the change. Christ Jesus became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, so that, verse 31, just as it is written, Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.

You can't boast in your choice of God, because you didn't make it. And that is throughout the scriptures. In the Gospel of John, chapter 5, verse 40, Jesus says you are unwilling to come to me so that you may have life.

Man is unwilling. Sinful man, unregenerate man, is unwilling. When we go on to chapter 6, which is where I'd like to settle for a few moments here, ladies. John, chapter 6. When we look at Jesus' words in verse 35 and following, he says, Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life.

He who comes to me will not hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me, and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will certainly not cast out.

For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. This is the will of him who sent me, that of all that he has given me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.

For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I myself will raise him up on the last day. Verse 41. Therefore the Jews were grumbling about him, because he said, I am the bread that came down out of heaven.

They were saying, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, I have come down out of heaven? Jesus answered and said to them, do not grumble among yourselves.

No one, verse 44, can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught of God, everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.

Go back to that verse 44, John 6, verse 44. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. No one can. It goes back to Romans 3. No one seeks after God. Not even one. Why? Look at Romans 3.

That describes why. Because of our unregenerate nature. We hate God. There is no little tiny modicum of goodness in you that says, hey, maybe God's kind of cool and I'll choose to follow him instead. No.

It's not there. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. The great pastor Charles Spurgeon spoke on this verse, John 6, verse 44, in a sermon that he titled, Human Inability. Spurgeon says, man's inability lies deep in his nature.

Through the fall and through our own sin, the nature of man has become so debased and depraved and corrupt that it is impossible for him to come to Christ without the assistance of God the Holy Spirit.

Now, in trying to exhibit how the nature of man thus renders him unable to come to Christ, you must allow me just to take this figure. You see a sheep, how willingly it feeds upon the herbage. You never knew a sheep sighed after carrion.

It could not live on lion's food. Now bring me a wolf and you ask me whether a wolf cannot eat grass, whether it cannot be just as docile and as domesticated as the sheep. I answer no, because its nature is contrary thereunto.

Now the reason why man cannot come to Christ, says Spurgeon, is not because he cannot come so far as his body or his mere power of mind is concerned, but because his nature is so corrupt that he has neither the will nor the power to come to Christ unless drawn by the Spirit.

Spurgeon goes on and attempts to demonstrate where the inability of man lies. So we see that it lies in his nature and then Spurgeon brings out three points of how man's nature is unable on its own, by its own unregenerate self, to come to Christ.

He says first, this inability lies in the obstinacy of the human will, says Spurgeon. Oh, saith the Arminian, men may be saved if they will. We reply, my dear sir, we all believe that, but it is just the if they will, that is the difficulty.

We assert that no man will come to Christ unless he be drawn. Nay, we do not assert it, but Christ himself declares it. Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life. And that's John 540 that we looked at a moment ago.

As long as that ye will not come stands on record in Holy Scripture, we shall not be brought to believe in any doctrine of the freedom of the human will. It is strange, says Spurgeon, how people, when talking about free will, talk of things which they do not at all understand.

Now says one, I believe men can be saved if they will. My dear sir, that's not the question at all. The question is, are men ever found naturally willing to submit to the humbling terms of the gospel of Christ?

We declare upon scriptural authority that the human will is so desperately set on mischief, so depraved and so inclined to everything that is evil, and so disinclined to everything that is good, that without the powerful, supernatural, irresistible influence of the Holy Spirit, no human will ever be constrained towards Christ.

And we just saw that in Romans 3, didn't we ladies? You see it in Jeremiah 17, 9, the heart is wicked and desperately sick. Who can understand it? Scripture affirms over and over again that the human will is inclined to be opposed to Christ.

No human will, apart from the power of the Holy Spirit, will ever, ever be favorable toward Christ. Says Spurgeon, the universal confession of all true believers is this, I know that unless Jesus Christ had sought me when a stranger wandering from the fold of God, I would to this very hour have been wandering far from him at a distance from him and loving that distance well.

With common consent, all believers affirm the truth that men will not come to Christ till the Father who has sent Christ doth draw them. He goes on, he says, not only is the will obstinate, but the understanding is darkened.

Of that, we have abundant scriptural proof, he says. And ladies, let's just pause for a moment. What is some of that scriptural proof that we have that the understanding of men, apart from the Holy Spirit, is darkened?

Well, a common, obvious example would be Romans 1, verse 18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth of unrighteousness because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them.

For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, wise men still seek him, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible men and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.

Their foolish heart was darkened. Turn over to 1 Corinthians 2. 1 Corinthians 2, and while you're turning there, ladies, just a reminder that I typically am reading out of the New American Standard Version.

That's my favorite version. I would also affirm the ESV as being a very reliable, helpful translation, but just to help you out, I am typically reading from the NASV unless I tell you otherwise. So 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14.

But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one.

For who has known the mind of the Lord that he will instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. But the natural man, his understanding is darkened. Flip over one more book, ladies, to 2 Corinthians 4.

We'll start in verse 1. Therefore, since we have this ministry, writes Paul, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth, committing ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, so that they may not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bondservants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, Light shall shine out of darkness, is the one who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

God is the one who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But the natural man, the unregenerate man, his understanding is darkened. So if we return to Spurgeon and his sermon on human inability, he says that part of man's inability is that the understanding is darkened.

Man is by nature blind within, he says. The cross of Christ, so laden with glories and glittering with attractions, never attracts him because he is blind and cannot see its beauties. We just saw that in scripture, didn't we?

Talk to him of the wonders of the creation, show to him the many colored arch that spans the sky, let him behold the glories of a landscape. He is well able to see all these things, but talk to him of the wonders of the covenant of grace.

Speak to him of the security of the believer in Christ, tell him of the beauties of the person of the Redeemer. He is quite deaf to all your description. You are as one that playeth a goodly tune, it is true, but he regards not, he is deaf, he has no comprehension.

Or to return to the verse which we so specially marked in our reading, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.

And inasmuch as he is a natural man, it is not in his power to discern the things of God, says Spurgeon. The third reason that Charles Spurgeon gives for man's inability to choose God in spite of what the megachurch may tell you, you make the choice, God makes the change.

Spurgeon says, further, conscience has been overpowered by the fall. I believe there is no more egregious mistake made by divines than when they tell people that conscience is the vice-regent of God within the soul, and that it is one of those powers which retains its ancient dignity and stands erect amidst the fall of its compeers.

My brethren, when man fell in the garden, manhood fell entirely. There was not one single pillar in the temple of manhood that stood erect. It is true, conscience was not destroyed. The pillar was not shattered, it fell, and it fell in one piece.

And there it lies, a lawn, the mightiest remnant of God's once perfect work in man. But that conscience is fallen, I am sure. Look at men. Who among them is the possessor of a good conscience toward God, but the regenerated man?

Do you imagine that if men's consciences always spoke loudly and clearly to them, they would live in the daily commission of acts which are as opposed to the right as darkness to light? No, beloved, conscience can tell me that I am a sinner, but conscience cannot make me feel that I am one.

Conscience may tell me that such and such a thing is wrong, but how wrong it is, conscience itself does not know. Did any man's conscience, unenlightened by the Spirit, ever tell him that his sins deserved damnation?

Or if conscience did do that, did it ever lead any man to feel an abhorrence of sin as sin? In fact, did conscience ever bring a man to such a self-renunciation that he did totally abhor himself and all his works and come to Christ?

No. Conscience, although it is not dead, is ruined, its power is impaired, it hath not that clearness of eye and that strength of hand and that thunder of voice which it had before the fall, but hath ceased to a great degree to exert its supremacy in the town of Mansoul.

Then beloved, it becomes necessary for this very reason, because conscience is depraved, that the Holy Spirit should step in to show us our need of a Savior and draw us to the Lord Jesus Christ. Still says one, as the Virgin goes on, as far as you have hitherto gone, it appears to me that you consider that the reason why men do not come to Christ is that they will not, rather that they cannot.

True, most true, I believe the greatest reason of man's inability is the obstinacy of his will. That once overcome, I think the great stone is rolled away from the sepulcher and the hardest part of the battle is already won.

But allow me to go a little further. My text does not say no man will come. It says no man can come. There is in man, says Spurgeon, not only unwillingness to be saved, but there is a spiritual powerlessness to come to Christ.

And this I will prove to every Christian at any rate. If the sinner has strength to come to Christ, I should like to know how we are to understand those continual descriptions of the sinner's state which we meet within God's holy word.

A sinner is said to be dead in trespasses and sins. Will you affirm that death implies nothing more than the absence of a will? Surely a corpse is quite as unable as unwilling. Or again, do not all men see that there is a distinction between will and power?

Make a man willing and he shall be made powerful. For when God gives the will, he does not tantalize man by giving him to wish for that which he is unable to do. Nevertheless, he makes such a division between the will and the power that it shall be seen that both things are quite distinct gifts of the Lord.

And Spurgeon's sermon goes on. It's wonderful. I've highlighted a lot of passages, but I've already read too much to you. Ladies, I encourage you to go look up the sermon on human inability by Charles Spurgeon and we will link to it at the blog.

He goes on and he talks about the fact that by saying that man can be willing by some mustering of his own strength, we're degrading the Holy Spirit. Why do we even need the Holy Spirit? And it comes back to this very simple, but very, very wrong church sign.

You do the choosing. You make the choice. God makes the change. Really? Why? Why does it start with you? It doesn't. Scripture does not teach that it starts with you. Scripture teaches that it starts with God.

God chose you from before the foundation of the world. God is the one who regenerates you and brings you to repentance and brings you to faith in his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2, we know it well, ladies, for by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not as a result of works so that no one may boast, not as a result of your choice, your work of choice, so that you can boast about your choice, no, a gift of God. Verse 10, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

You don't make the choice unless God enables you to make the choice. And then that is only because he chose you long before you were even born. Consider ladies, Romans 9, verse 19, you will say to me then, why does he still find fault for who resists his will?

On the contrary, who are you, oh man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, why did you make me like this? Will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?

What if God, although willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And he did so to make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory.

Even us whom he also called not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles. Prepared beforehand, God makes the choice and God makes the change. The father must draw, else you cannot come. And if the father must draw, then the father is the one who is choosing, who has chosen.

If we go back a few chapters, if you're still in Romans 9, ladies, go back to Romans 3 and consider again what the Apostle Paul wrote in that chapter. The Old Testament scriptures that he was quoting in that chapter, as he said, that no man seeks after God.

No man is righteous, not even one. He describes the depraved state of man, therefore, verifying the inability of man to choose God. His nature does not allow him to choose God. We have free will according to our nature and our nature without the power of the Holy Spirit and the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit.

Our nature is opposed to God and it is free to choose sin. It is free to choose only according to its nature. And when you are saved, you are given a new nature. By God's power and by God's grace, you choose the things of God.

Turn back to Romans 3 then. And I want you to consider some words from another great preacher, Martin Lloyd-Jones. He writes, it is important, therefore, for us to realize something of the implications of this statement, this doctrine, for it means that if you and I can claim as Christian people that we are seeking God, there is only one explanation for it, and that is that God has first sought us.

Man in sin, under sin, does not seek God. There is none that seeketh after God. There is nothing so unscriptural as to say that the natural man is seeking for God. But wise men still seek him, no. Not wise men who are wise by the world's standards, no.

Lloyd-Jones continues, there is nothing so unscriptural as to say that the natural man is seeking for God and that his trouble is that nobody has ever given him the gospel that he has been waiting for and expecting to hear.

This is a blank contradiction of the scriptural declaration that there is none that seeketh after God. Man by nature is a God-hater. He is at enmity with God. He is dead in trespasses and sins. Show me a man who can say honestly that he is seeking after God, and I will show you a man who has been quickened by God's Spirit, whom God has sought.

We love him. Why? Because he first loved us. Left to ourselves, we would never seek him. We would remain permanently at enmity with him. You can see now that these quotations, which the apostle brings together here in this great catena of evidence, are all of tremendous significance and importance.

Never rush over them. Look at them, examine them, give them their full content, and see the inevitable deductions that must be drawn from them. Man only seeks after God when he has been given the wisdom of God from above by the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, man can only seek after God if he is quickened by God. Therefore, you don't make the choice so that God can effect the change. God makes the choice, and God makes the change, and that is why God gets all the glory, every single bit of it.

God Makes the Choice and the Change

Okay, ladies, we may continue this topic on the next show. So until next time, get in your Bibles, get on your knees, and get equipped. Thanks for listening.

You've been listening to Equipping Eve, a No Compromise radio production. If you'd like to get a hold of Erin, you can reach her at equippingeve at gmail .com, or you can check out one of her two websites, donotbesurprised .com or equippingeve .org.

Thanks for listening.