Irresistible Grace

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the 6th chapter of the Gospel of John.
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John chapter 6.
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Well, over the past few weeks, we have been examining what are called the doctrines of grace.
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You'll remember that they can be remembered by the acrostic TULIP, T-U-L-I-P.
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As I said, each one stands for a different doctrine.
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Each one will be receiving a sermon on its own.
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We have looked at the first one, which is the doctrine of total depravity.
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Mankind is born into the bondage of sin and cannot be freed from that bond until God extends to him the grace of a changed heart.
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We looked in week 2 at unconditional election, that God from eternity has immutably decided to draw certain people unto himself, not by any merit which was in them, but according to the counsel of his will.
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The third, limited atonement, Jesus Christ died a perpetuatory death on the cross to ensure the salvation of those whom God chose, the elect.
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This is what the Bible teaches in the language which the Bible uses.
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Now, all of those are obviously controversial teachings, ones that have led to no small amount of debate.
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Yet, as we have demonstrated, they are founded not in the philosophical reasonings of men, but they are found in the pages of Scripture.
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Both the Old and the New Testaments demonstrate God's election and his choice of individuals to be part of his family.
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And in certain places of Scripture it is so obvious it is undeniable.
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Now, today we move on to the I in TULIP, and the I stands for irresistible grace.
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What we will see is that the first three, T, U, and L, all dealt with the what of salvation, and today the I is going to deal with the how.
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We are going to move from what it is, total depravity, unconditional election, and limited atonement.
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Today we are going to look at the how of salvation.
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How does God take his people who are sinful people, who are rejecting of him, and how does he bring those people whom he has chosen, his elect, into an active role in his kingdom? How, indeed, is the question.
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The answer is by his irresistible grace.
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So, let us stand, read the text this morning.
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We are going to begin with John 6 and 37.
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John chapter 6 and verse 37, one of my favorite verses of Scripture, says this, All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.
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Father God, I thank you for the clarity of your word.
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I thank you for Christ's message which is found in this text.
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I thank you that as we study today, that we will see that Reformed Theology is not just the philosophical teachings of men, but it is founded in the very teaching of Christ himself, your Son and our Savior.
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I pray that you will keep me honest with the text, that you will keep me from error, and that you will keep me only in the truth.
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And I pray that you will open the people's hearts to understand the truth.
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And Lord God, that through it all, you would be glorified, for this is the chief end of man and our goal.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.
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One of the most difficult aspects of Reformed Theology is the TULIP itself.
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Because any time something is set in stone, any time something is given an acronym, specifically one like the TULIP, it lends itself to great misunderstandings.
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And that's what I tend to find for most people when I begin to discuss Reformed Theology, is if the subject goes around to talking about the five doctrines called the Doctrines of Grace, typically they might know what the T, the U, the L, the I, the P stand for, but they have no real understanding of the meanings behind those doctrines.
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In fact, I find often that they're very askew.
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And in an attempt to remain or to maintain the TULIP, I think that we've lost some of the clarity in Reformed Theology, which is part of the reason why I did this series.
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Part of the reason why I wanted to do this teaching is because I had people ask me all the time, well, what about that limited atonement? I don't really get it.
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What about irresistible grace? I don't really get that.
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I don't understand.
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And I think sometimes it's simply the language that is used in the acrostic that can be confusing.
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And part of my entire reasoning for this series has been to clear up some of the misunderstandings and to show the errors and understanding that a lot of people do have.
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But I want to say this, too.
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It's not always their fault.
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It's not always just that they lack reasoning skills.
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Sometimes their understanding is somewhat justified, their misunderstanding, especially with things like limited atonement.
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I mentioned last week the word limited atonement.
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Nobody wants to limit the work of Christ.
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And when you hear the word limited atonement, sometimes you automatically think negatively because you think in terms of limitation on what you can do.
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It's not a limit of what Christ can do.
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Limited atonement simply speaks of the scope of what he did.
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The scope of what he did was for believers.
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Likewise, when we come to the word irresistible grace, many people hear the term irresistible grace and they immediately begin to argue with it because they assume what that means is that God's grace is irresistible in the sense that no one can resist it.
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And they go to the Bible and they say, wait a minute, in Acts chapter seven, verse 51, Stephen is chastising the Jews.
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And he says, you stiff necked people, you uncircumcised in the heart and ears, you are always resisting the Holy Spirit as your fathers did.
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So do you.
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And they use that and they say, see here, God's grace can be resisted because the text here, Stephen, is is chiding the the Jews for having resisted God's grace.
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So what are you saying when you say God's grace is irresistible? And while I would go ahead and say many of them read that verse entirely out of context because it doesn't even address the issue at hand, they run to it confidently because we say irresistible and they say, well, here's a place where it's resisted.
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So they automatically think that that's the answer to the dilemma.
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So because of that, what I prefer to use as far as language, when we talk about the irresistible grace of God, I choose to use a little bit different language.
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I choose to use the term effectual call of God.
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And that may be a word you want to write down, put it in your notes, because that term, rather than simply saying that God's grace is irresistible, that term, which can be confusing, I think the term effectual call is that it's saying that when God calls a person to salvation, when God sets his heart upon a person and opens that person's heart to believe, the natural response of that person is to respond to the gospel positively.
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His call causes an intended effect.
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Thus, we call it the effectual call.
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Now, you say, OK, you can say that all the time.
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Does the Bible teach an effectual call of God? Well, if you want to go through a few verses with me or just listen, I'll read them to you.
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But I want you to hear these verses and I want you to think about what they're saying.
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First Corinthians chapter one and verses twenty two through twenty four.
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First Corinthians one, twenty two through twenty four.
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For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom.
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But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles.
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But to those who are called both from the Jews and from the Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
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What does the text say to those who are called? Well, what is that? It's the effectual call of God.
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Jude one, one, Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James to those who are called beloved in God and God, the father and kept for Christ Jesus.
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Who's he addressing his letter to? He's addressing his letter to those who are called of God.
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Acts chapter two and verse thirty nine, for the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off.
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Everyone whom the Lord, our God, calls to himself.
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Again, the word call is used of a very specific group.
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These people whom God has called.
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Second Peter chapter one, verse ten.
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Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and your election certain.
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For if you practice these qualities, you will never fail again or never fall.
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Think of that.
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Peter is telling his hearers.
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One of the things we're supposed to do as believers is we're supposed to make our calling certain, make our calling sure.
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Well, how do we do that? We do that by exercising the faith that came with the call.
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We do that by exercising the belief that came as a result of having been called by God.
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And of course, the passage of passages in regard to this subject is Romans 8, 28, which we studied a few weeks ago.
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It says, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.
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That's the part that people often forget.
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And I see a lot of people, people put stuff on Facebook and people put stuff on the Internet.
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You know, all things work together for good.
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And then they stop.
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As if that's what the verse says, that is not what the verse says.
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The verse says that God causes all things to work together for good for those who love him, comma, for those who are called according to his purpose.
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The ones who have been called by God, God causes all things to work good for them.
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Beloved, all things do not work out for good for everybody, because for the majority of the world, all things work out together to the end of hell.
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And that ain't good.
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So you have to find in this verse reason and reason.
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And the reason in this verse is that all things work good for those who have been called by God.
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That's because in the end, no matter what you face in this life, all things are going to work out for your salvation and your ultimate being with God forever.
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So all things will eventually work out for good.
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Makes sense.
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So we see over and over and over the term the called or called is used to speak of those for whom God has chosen his elect, those who have been called by God.
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Now, some may at this moment in your mind, you may object and you may say, now, wait a minute.
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I've always thought that everyone is called by God.
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Now, I want to just remind you of a text that we looked at a few weeks ago, because I think this this text sort of says it all.
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The Bible says in Romans chapter eight, where we just were, it says, for whom he foreknew, he also predestined and whom he predestined, he what? Called, he called those who had been predestined.
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In fact, the Bible goes on to say it talks about the fact that those who he predestined, he called those who called, he justified those who justified, he glorified.
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The calling is part of the process of salvation.
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Others might argue and say, wait a minute, the Bible says many are called, but few are chosen.
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And we do have to understand that what that verse is talking about is it's talking about the difference between the outward call of the gospel and the inward call of God.
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For instance, if I stand up here and I say, Jesus Christ died for sins of the believers.
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If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved.
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If I make that gospel appeal, that is what we call an evangelical call or a call of the gospel.
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Right.
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If everybody in here hears that and understands it, you've all heard the call, the general call.
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However, that is not the call that I'm referring to.
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The call that I'm referring to is wherein God opens your heart to hear and receive that by the power of his grace.
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That is what we call the effectual call, the call that causes the effect.
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Many people have heard the gospel and reject it.
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I mean, how many of you have been in church with people where you've heard people hearing the gospel? You've heard people hearing the pastor preach the gospel and he's preaching a message straight from God's word about sin and salvation.
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And the people just sit there and it's like they have coverings over their ears.
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It's like the child, you know, the mother yelling for the child to come back in the house.
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And he's I can't hear you.
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I can't.
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You know, it's like that they sit there as if they can't hear.
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And I've always asked the question to my Arminian brethren, my friends who reject reformed teachings.
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I say you heard the same gospel and you received it.
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They heard the gospel and they rejected it.
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What is the difference? What's the difference in you? Were you better than them? Were you smarter than them? Were you more spiritually sensitive to them? Did you bring about your spiritual resurrection? No.
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The difference is the call of God.
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The difference is the fact that he opened your heart.
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And that's not to say he will never open their heart, but their heart remains closed.
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It remains hardened.
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The question is not why doesn't a person receive the gospel? First, the question has always been, why does someone receive the gospel? The reason why a person receives the gospel is because God opens their heart to receive it.
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We would not receive it on our own.
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The Bible says that the spiritual things cannot be understood by the natural mind.
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Cannot be received by the natural mind.
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In fact, it says will just cannot that the law of God cannot be received by somebody who's in the flesh.
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Heart has to be changed.
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God has to do the changing.
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And you could listen to me all day, give my explanation of it.
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But what we're going to do today, just so that you understand that again, this teaching is not Keith Sposky's teaching.
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This teaching is not Martin Luther's teaching.
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It's not John Calvin's teaching.
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It's not St.
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Augustine's teaching.
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It's not R.C.
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Sproul's teaching.
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It's not John MacArthur's teaching, even though all those men that I just named would agree with what I'm saying.
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I want you to know this is the teaching of Jesus Christ.
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So in your Bible, you're in John six, or at least it's where we started.
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We're actually going to go through John six today.
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I'm going to give you an exposition.
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I've got to go quickly.
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But I want to show you in John six, Jesus is teaching on this subject so that if there be any doubt.
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You'll doubt the words of Christ and not the words of Keith.
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Start back at verse twenty two and let's get some context.
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Starting at verse twenty two, this is the day after the feeding of the five thousand.
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So we're all familiar with that story.
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On the next day, the crowd remained on the other side of the sea, saw that there had been only one boat there.
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By the way, this is also after Jesus walked on the water.
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This is how he made it to the other side, to Capernaum, where they're going.
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And they're looking around, they're seeing that Jesus is gone.
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They don't know how he left.
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OK, there was only one boat that left.
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He wasn't in it.
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Now he's gone.
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You know, there's a little question about how he made that little trip.
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But on the next day, the crowd remained on the other side of the sea, saw that there had been only one boat there and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone.
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Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks.
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That's talking about the feeding of the five thousand.
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So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum seeking Jesus.
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They went after him.
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They're following after him.
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And wouldn't you if the day before you had been fed five loaves, two fish, you'd been fed, you know, many thousands of people.
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And you saw this happen.
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Wouldn't you want to be on the heels of this guy? Wouldn't you want to find out what he's about and continue on with him? I mean, the very nature of the beast is, yeah, we want to go find out what's up.
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Well, that's the situation.
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Well, when they found him on the other side of the sea, verse 25, they said, Rabbi, when did you come here? And Jesus is fantastic at not answering questions, by the way.
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I mean, think about Nicodemus.
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Remember, Nicodemus came to him, asked him a question.
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Jesus never.
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He totally bypassed, goes on to what he wants to talk about.
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He answers the question, but not the way they answer.
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Because they said, Rabbi, when did you come here? Jesus answered, truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.
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What is he saying? He said, the reason why you're following after me is not because you really believe in me.
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It's because I fed you.
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I satisfied this fleshly lust that you have for food and you like that.
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So you're going to keep on coming.
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This is why he goes on to say in verse 27, do not labor for food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you for on him, God the Father has set his seal.
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All right.
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So Jesus is saying, you're coming after me to get this bread because I fed you yesterday.
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You're coming after me, but you don't need to come for the physical bread.
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You need to understand God has given a spiritual bread.
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He'll go on to talk about his body and blood being that spiritual bread.
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Verse 28, then they said to him, what must we do to be doing the works of God? Jesus said, this is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent little important.
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If you understand the construction of the Greek there, Jesus actually says your belief is the work of God.
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This is the work of God that you believe.
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An interesting little side note, not really part of the passage is something to consider.
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Verse 30, so they said to him, then what sign do you do that we may believe in you? Pretty pregnant question, if you think about it, because he just fed 5000 people with five loaves and two fish.
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What sign do you do? You see, they're still they're still wanting that that sign.
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What work do you perform? Verse 31, our fathers ate the man in the wilderness as it is written.
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He gave them bread from heaven to eat.
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You see, they're appealing back to the Old Testament.
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Hey, they ate every day.
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Remember the Old Testament, they got manna enough every day.
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You fed us for one day.
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Hey, we're here again.
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All right.
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Then Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you bread from heaven, but my father gives you true bread from heaven.
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For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
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And they said, sir, give us this bread always.
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Sounds a lot like the woman at the well.
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If you remember, remember, he said, I'm the living water.
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And she said, sir, give me this water.
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The same situation here.
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Jesus is referring to himself as the bread from heaven.
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He's referring to himself as the spiritual sustenance that gives life.
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And they're saying, well, give it to us.
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Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life.
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Whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
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But I said to you and oh, this is such a such a proclamation onto their guilt.
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But I said to you that you have seen me and yet you do not believe.
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Oh, consider the pregnancy of that passage, how important that is.
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He said, you have seen me and yet you don't believe, beloved.
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They got into boats to follow him.
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They came to him seeking answers.
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They came to him desiring to know what he has to say.
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And Jesus just proclaimed to the group, yet in all that you really don't believe.
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How powerful a statement and how powerful a conviction to their conscience.
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You still remain in your unbelief.
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You got to imagine some of them.
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Hey, we believe we came over.
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We followed after you.
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We want some more bread.
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No, you want to remember we talked a few weeks ago about everybody wants the blessings of God.
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Nobody wants the being of God.
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Everybody wants that which only God can provide sustenance, sustaining power, peace, mercy, joy.
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Everybody wants what God can provide.
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Only God can provide.
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But nobody wants God himself.
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That's Jesus's point.
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He's saying you're here, but you're not really here.
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You're here physically because you want a physical blessing, but you are not here spiritually.
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And you do not want the spiritual bread that comes from heaven.
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And here is the verse, verse 37.
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All that the father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.
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What did he just say? Verses 36 and 37.
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He said, you came to me, but you're not really believers.
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But all that the father gives me will come to me and those I won't cast out.
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So what's he saying? He's saying that there are some who are going to come who are true and genuine believers.
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But what will precede their coming? The father will give them to the son, all that the father gives me will come to me.
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And that giving of the father will precede the coming to the son.
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And he said it goes on in verse 38, for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
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And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.
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For this is the will of my father, that everyone who looks on the son and believes in him should have eternal life.
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And I will raise him up on the last day.
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You see what he's just done? He's called them out as unbelievers.
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He said, you've come to me, but yet you really don't believe.
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However, the father is giving me some who will come to me, who will believe.
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I will never cast them out and I will raise them up on the last day.
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There are believers coming and you ain't it, because God has promised me there are believers coming.
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He is going to give me followers and those followers will come and those followers will stay and those followers will never be put out.
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And I will raise them up on the last day.
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You see, he's really challenging them.
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And I might add, I think he's challenging the Church of America, because how many people come to church every Sunday? Morning, wanting a blessing from God, but do not want the being of God.
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They come as these people in John 6, wanting the loaves, wanting the fish, but not wanting Jesus.
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How do we know who they are? That when Jesus, the real Jesus, is preached, they turn their head away and they walk away angry.
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And you'll see at the end of this passage, it says, and many of them stopped following Jesus at the end of John 6.
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It says that many of them went away and stopped following him.
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That is because when Jesus is truly preached, you find out very quickly who really loves Christ and who really loves the blessings of God.
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But I digress.
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Let's go back to the text.
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John 6, 41.
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So the Jews grumbled about him.
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They're upset.
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Why are they grumbling? They're grumbling because he just called them a group of unbelievers.
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I mean, he just he just called them out.
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I mean, he just he just stood up and said, you're coming to me, but you're not really believing in me.
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They grumbled and they said about him because he said, I'm the bread that comes down from heaven.
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They're angry at him because he said, I'm the one who actually provides spiritual sustenance.
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Verse 32, they said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say I came down from heaven? You see, they begin that that that discussion of his pedigree.
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Wait a minute.
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I know, Mary, I know, Joseph, you're saying you came down from heaven.
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I know when you were born.
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I saw you growing up.
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You played with my kids, blah, blah, blah.
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You know, this is what Jesus said, you know, a prophet is not without honor, except where? In his own hometown.
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It's my life verse, by the way, that grew up among most of you.
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I always tease about that verse.
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But the reality is true.
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People are searching.
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We know who you are.
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Jesus answered them, do not grumble among yourselves.
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Verse 44, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him.
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And I will raise him up on the last day.
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Now, how does that even fit into the sentence? Well, it fits into the sentence because here he's got a group of Jewish people who are grumbling about who he says he is.
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They're grumbling about who and what he's just said about them.
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He said, you don't believe in me that I am the bread of heaven.
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And they're grumbling.
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They're saying, no, we don't.
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We really don't believe you're the bread of heaven.
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We just believe you're the you're the you're the son of Mary and Joseph.
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We know where you're from.
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We know where you grew up.
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We don't really think this about you.
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And Jesus simply says, well, no, there's no one can come.
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Unless God draws them.
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None of you will have a changed heart until God draws you.
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Here's the key to this.
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No one will have a changed heart unless God draws you.
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And here's the here's the thing, beloved.
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I've heard this argument time after time after time.
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People will say, well, God draws everybody.
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Well, if he does, then there is no hell, because it says right here, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him him.
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And I will raise him up on the last day.
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Now, that's gender neutral in the sense that it's not referring to man and woman.
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What it is referring, though, is to a specific individual.
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It says Jesus is no one can come.
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No one individual can come unless the father draws him individual.
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And I will raise him up on the last day.
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So if if God draws everyone, then guess what? Everyone is raised up because it's not a different him in the first part than it is in the second part.
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The one who is drawn will be raised up linguistically, it's a necessity.
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So unless you want to argue that Jesus said there's some who are drawn and others who are raised up, which totally runs roughshod over the actual text.
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Then you have no foundation for saying God draws everybody, because that's not what the text says.
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It says no one can come unless he is drawn and the one who's drawn will be raised up.
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And later on, he'll say it again in a different way.
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And you'll see that it's very clear.
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And he goes on in verse forty five.
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It is written in the prophets and they shall be taught by God.
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Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.
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Jesus is saying, everyone who has heard from the Father, who has been taught by the Father, whose heart has been opened by the Father, they're the ones who are going to come.
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Not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God.
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He has seen the Father talking of Himself.
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Verse 47, Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.
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I am the bread of life.
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Your fathers ate the man in the wilderness and they died.
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This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that the one may eat of it and not die.
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I am the living bread that came down from heaven.
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If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.
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And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.
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Remember what Jesus is saying here.
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Don't let it confuse you, because this is where the Catholics start going off into the transubstantiation stuff.
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And they start thinking about the fact that, oh wait, when He says My flesh is real bread and My blood is real drink, they start thinking, oh well, that means that when we have communion, the bread becomes flesh and the drink becomes blood.
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That is an absolute misreading of this text.
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This text is not talking about physical flesh and physical blood.
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This is Jesus referring to the spiritual the same way in John chapter 4, He talked about Him being living water.
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I am the living water.
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So too, He's saying My flesh is food.
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My blood is drink.
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Verse 52, Then the Jews disputed among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? See, they don't even understand.
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And it's one of the other proofs that the Catholics really missed the boat, because the same problem they're having is the same problems the Catholics still have today.
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They're thinking too physically.
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They're thinking too much that this bread and wine, body and blood is a physical thing.
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And for Jesus, it's not.
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So Jesus said, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.
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He's speaking spiritually at this point.
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He said, Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
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My flesh is true food.
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My blood is true drink, spiritually, in the sense that it's speaking here.
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Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.
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As the Living Father sent Me, and I because of the Father, so whoever feeds on Me, he also will have life because of Me.
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This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the Father's ate and died.
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Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.
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Jesus said these things in the synagogue as He taught at Capernaum.
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Now, listen to the response.
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Verse 60.
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When many of His disciples heard this, these are people who've been following Him.
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These are people that got into a boat and crossed a sea to see Him.
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These are people that He just a moment ago said you really aren't believers, but yet they're there listening.
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This is their response.
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Jesus just taught something very difficult.
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Number one, He taught they weren't believers.
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Number two, He taught the only people who are going to be believers are the people God calls to Himself.
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And number three, He taught the believers will actually feed spiritually off of Him.
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Verse 60.
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When many of His disciples heard it, they said this is a hard saying.
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Who can listen to it? But Jesus, knowing in Himself that His disciples were grumbling about this, said to them in question, Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life.
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The flesh is no help at all.
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The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
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But there are some of you who do not believe.
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For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray Him.
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By the way, that verse right there tells you that Jesus is omniscient.
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There's a question sometimes about His omniscience.
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Well, the text says He knew from the beginning who would believe, who wouldn't, who would betray Him, and who wouldn't.
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It's right there in the text.
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And He said in verse 65, This is why I told you, no one can come to Me unless it is granted to him by My Father.
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Jesus is looking at a group of people.
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He is preaching to them the reality of who He is, the hard reality of who He is, that only in Him is eternal life.
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If you reject Him, you reject eternal sustenance, because that's what He is.
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He is real food to the soul and real drink to the spirit.
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And if you reject that, you have rejected the...
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It's like a person in a desert who is dying of thirst, who is handed a canteen and hands it back.
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You have rejected the only way.
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And Jesus says, but here's the reality.
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Everyone will reject it.
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No one will come unless God does a work of grace in their heart first.
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Unless God grants it to them, they will not come because they do not want His person.
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Though they want His blessing, they want the food, they want 5,000 fed with five loaves and two fish, but they do not want His person.
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They don't want His law.
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They don't want His righteousness.
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They don't want His holiness.
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In fact, the very nature of man is to be repelled by the holiness of God.
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Isaiah, probably one of the most holy men in all of the Old Testament, when faced with the holiness of God, covered himself.
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He covered his mouth and he said, Woe is me! Probably one of the most righteous men in all of Scripture, when faced with the holiness of God, was repelled.
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So too, we are repelled at the presence of a holy God.
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We are repelled at the presence of a holy Christ.
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And yet, why do we come? If we are repelled by the holiness of God, if we are repelled by His righteousness, why do we come? Because we have been given by the Father to be a bride to the Son.
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If you are a believer, if you are a believer, you are a gift from God the Father to God the Son.
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You are the bride who has been chosen by the Father as a bride to the Son.
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You know, we don't do that anymore.
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We don't have arranged marriages, fixed marriages.
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Used to, the Father would go and choose a bride for His Son, and He would go and He would win her to a dowry, and He would purchase her hand in marriage, and He would bring the woman back to the man, and the man would accept her hand in marriage.
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And the Father then has arranged this to ensure that the daughter is taken care of, and that the son has a wife.
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And that's how it was done.
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And even though today many people say, oh, that's a terrible, horrible thing.
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That's the example Jesus uses.
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Not in this text, but throughout the Bible, what is the church called? The Bride of Christ.
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The one who was chosen by the Father to be given to the Son as a bride.
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You are that gift.
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All the Father gives the Son will come to the Son, and they make up His bride.
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And no one will come unless God draws them.
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No one will come unless God grants them.
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That is irresistible grace, beloved.
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The irresistible grace is that if the Father calls, you will come.
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And no one will come unless the Father calls.
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Makes sense.
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It's simple.
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People say, oh, these doctrines were created by the Reformers in the 16th century.
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Nobody before the Reformers ever heard of these things.
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Beloved, I want to read you something from St.
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Augustine and his work entitled, The Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints.
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St.
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Augustine is circa 4th century, by the way.
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Quite a few years before the Reformers.
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Listen to this very important statement.
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God elected believers, but He chose them that they might be so, not because they were already so.
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Neither are we called because we believed, but that we may believe.
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And by that calling, which is without repentance, it is effected and carried through that we should believe.
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You see, Augustine is connecting two very important truths.
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God chooses us before the foundation of the world.
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The Bible teaches that.
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That our names were written in the Lamb's Book of Life from the foundation of the world.
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However, we're not born as Christians.
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We're not born as believers.
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We're born in the same spiritual state as anyone else.
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We're born as unbelieving, unregenerate, and we go through our lives as sinful people until that moment which God calls us to salvation.
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After hearing the Gospel, we believe, and at that moment, we experience what is called regeneration.
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Our heart is changed, and we, by that regeneration, respond in faith.
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That's the how of salvation.
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The text of the Bible, Ephesians 1, says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.
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Acts 13.48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the Word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.
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One of the most important passages in the Bible, it says, As many as were appointed to eternal life believed.
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The appointment to eternal life came by God, and as a result, they believed.
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John 17.9 Jesus is talking in His prayer.
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He says, I'm praying for them.
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Talking about His believers.
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I am not praying for the world.
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I am praying for those whom you have given Me out of the world, for they are yours.
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So the question becomes, and I want to beg your attention for just another moment, because this is a hard subject.
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Because the question comes from this, well, then why evangelize? And this is where we'll come to our conclusion.
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If it is true that God has chosen from the foundation of the world, and if it is true that God must open the heart to believe the Gospel, and that it is a work of God, salvation is a work of God from beginning to end, why do we evangelize? Beloved, turn to 2 Timothy.
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This is the verse we read at the beginning of the service.
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I want to look at it as we close.
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I want you to see this.
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This is so important.
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2 Timothy 2, verse 23.
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And just to show you there is consistency in the text of what I have been saying so far.
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I want to show you the consistency.
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2 Timothy 2, verse 23.
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The Apostle Paul says, Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies.
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You know they breed quarrels.
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And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.
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The Apostle Paul is simply talking to Timothy.
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Timothy is a preacher, and he is telling him how to deal with quarrels in the church.
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He says, don't get caught up in these foolish, ignorant quarrels, these controversies.
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Don't let that be the crux of your ministry.
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Get through them.
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Get over them.
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Don't focus on them.
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Correct people with gentleness.
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And here is the key.
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God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape the snare of the devil after being captured.
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And they may be captured to do His will.
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Beloved, if you ever ask me, if God has already chosen, why do we evangelize? The answer is this.
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Number one, the reason why we evangelize is because we are commanded to.
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God commanded us to do it.
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And so, we don't really have to know the answer as to the why.
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But, if you want to know the why, here is the why.
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It is very simple.
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God commanded us to evangelize all people, because first, we don't know who He has chosen.
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We don't know who the elect are.
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As Charles Spurgeon said, we can't just go around and lift up people's shirt tail and see who has an E tattooed on their back.
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Nobody has an E for elect tattooed on them.
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We can't just go around looking to see who is going to positively respond to the gospel.
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We don't know who God has chosen.
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But here is what this verse tells us.
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It says, we evangelize everyone.
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We treat everyone with gentleness.
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And we treat everyone, and we correct them with the gospel.
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Because at any moment in the proclamation of the gospel, God may grant them repentance.
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That is why I share the gospel with everyone that I do.
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That is why I am not afraid to share the gospel with people.
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Because I know that it is not my proclamation of the gospel that will save their soul.
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It is not my Jesus salesmanship that will save their soul.
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The only thing that will save their soul is when God opens their heart to believe.
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And all I can do is present them with the truth of the gospel.
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This is why people say, well, we have to soften the gospel because it may offend them.
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No, beloved.
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We tell the truth.
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And God will open their heart to believe or He will not.
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But if we fail to proclaim the truth and they have not proclaimed the gospel, then that is our sin and our disgrace.
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We preach the gospel.
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And we seek that God open hearts and grant repentance.
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That is why we evangelize.
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God's grace is resisted by all.
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So when I say irresistible grace, know that I am not saying that God's grace goes to everyone and no one can resist it.
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What I am saying is God's grace is resisted by all.
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What we call irresistible grace is that special calling of God, wherein He opens a person's heart and they believe.
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And they do believe.
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It isn't as if God did the believing for them.
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They believe.
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But they believe because God immutably, unchangeably and irresistibly gave their heart new life.
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That's why they believed.
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So if you are here today and you're a believer, you need to thank God because He gave you new life.
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And if you're here today and you're not a believer, I will call you to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
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The Bible says that salvation comes through repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And I will tell you this, I will pray the Lord open your heart for without His call, you will remain lost.
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I pray that no one who hears the sound of my voice will reject His call.
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I pray He open your heart not to.
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Let's pray.
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Father, we thank You for the Word.
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We thank You for the words of Christ which are so compelling.
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They're so convicting.
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And yet so clear.
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And Lord, I've heard pastors try to reinterpret these texts to try to fit into their traditional paradigm.
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But Lord, when we simply look at the text as it is, You teach very clearly that all that You give to the Son will come.
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And those who come will never be cast out.
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And Lord, as we look forward to next week, when we look forward to the perseverance of the saints, and we understand what that means when it says no one will be cast out who comes.
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We thank You in advance for the wonderful grace of perseverance which You give to all believers.
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We pray now, Lord, that if there is one here who is not a believer, Lord, that You have used this message to touch their heart and to open it.
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We trust You with them, Lord, knowing that if salvation were up to us, we would fail every time.
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But Lord God, the Word says salvation is of the Lord.
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So we trust You, we bless You, we keep Your Word at the center of our theology.
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We pray that You would move on us to trust in You even more.
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To put aside our traditions, to seek to understand the text, and to know that Your Word is the light unto our feet and the lamp unto our path.
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In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
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Beloved, let's stand and we'll sing.
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And if you have a need, please come.