Remonstrance (Part 2)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.�

In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the

Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Some of the lyric malfeasance that I�ve seen over the years or heard over the years, I remember when

I was just 12 or 13 and one of my buddies, we were playing cards and Carly Simon was on, you know, �You�re

So Vain ,� and he goes, �No.� He goes, �The name of the song is Ursula Vain.� And I�m like, �That doesn�t make any sense,

Ursula Vain.� I just got a text, Santa Cruz, California, firefighters hurt.

Fire sprang up in Santa Cruz Mountains and now they are prompting evacuation orders.

Good news is we don�t have to evacuate. The fire there, just so dramatic.

You know, we have friends there in wine country and all that, and it�s just been, Napa, just amazing to watch, you know, what�s going on there and how people are just running for their lives.

If you had to put everything in a bag, you had a half an hour.

You asked me, oh, half an hour? Half an hour. Half an hour is easier than like, you know, yeah, half an hour.

What would I save? I don�t know. I hadn�t really thought about it. Half an hour is a long time, man.

I could save a lot in half an hour. You know what I probably would do, Steve? I would say to myself, �Mike, if you panic, you�re not going to make a good decision.�

And I�m not trying to say how godly I am or anything like that. I�d probably just stop for a second and say, �Lord, help me.

I don�t want to make a rash decision.� And then I would take a deep breath. I�d look at Kim and I�d say, �Let�s just go room to room and just see if there�s anything in here that�s just of critical nature.

And mainly, let�s get to the kitchen and get as much water and food as we can. And ammo.�

I�ll tell you what I wouldn�t say. Here would be the last thing I would ever say.

�Hey, honey, what do you say you grab that side of the big screen and I�ll grab this side ?� Right? I mean, that�s just like, well, that�s going up in flames.

Sorry. Well, catch our listeners up to what we were doing last time as we were looking at Article 1 and 2.

Okay. So, we�re looking at the five articles of remonstrance. And Article 1 was, well, because we�re leading up to how they contrast with the five points of Calvinism.

But Article 1 dealt with the fact that God has determined to save people in Christ through the

Holy, through the grace of the Holy Ghost. But again, when you get down to some of the details, basically it doesn�t tell us how this gets done.

It doesn�t talk about the sovereignty of God and salvation because what they haven�t talked about yet is the free will of man, which they believe to be key.

So Article 2, that Jesus acquired by his death on the cross redemption and forgiveness of sins for all men, for every man.

Yet that no one actually enjoys the forgiveness of sins except for the believer. And then they

John 3 .16 it as we turned it into a verb, right? That's like when they say you got 89 in it or something like that.

Well, what's happening is many of you who are listening understand or know or have heard of the five points of Calvinism, and maybe you're a five -pointer or a four, or sometimes people like to say 4 .75

or something like that. In the pike position with three -and -a -half twists. And you might think that John Calvin came up with those five points, and while you can see the theology of those five points in Calvin's writings, they weren't put together until after his death.

Matter of fact, it was as a response to the followers of Arminius. Arminius dies, and his followers come up with these five, they weren't called points, but these five articles of Arminius' faith, a faith that's more man -centered than would be found in the previous century with Calvin.

And so that was Article I and Article II we looked at last week on Tuesday. So if you missed last week's show,

I guess you could pause, right? I would say the good news, though, you know, is that now, right at this moment,

I think both Calvin and Arminius would agree with the five points of Calvinism. They're both consistent in their faith.

Would you think Arminius made it to heaven? I don't know. You know, it's hard to say.

How about, do you think anybody, oh, I was going to ask that. Well, I mean, I know Arminians will be in heaven, and I don't know about Arminius personally.

You know what? I have not read very much of him. I hadn't read much of Luther until the last year, and I've been reading a lot of Luther, and I have to tell you,

I've loved it. I wonder why the Baptists aren't having some kind of 500th, or why they didn't have a 500th anniversary of Arminius, you know, thing.

I don't know. Probably the same reason the Baptists didn't have a 500th anniversary for the radical Reformers and the Baptist crazy people taking extra wives and speaking in tongues.

Why not? I think the Mormons celebrated that one. Yeah, probably.

They stole it. So Article I, Article II have been summarized by Pastor Steve. Now here comes

Article III for the remonstrance, that man has not saving grace of himself, so far so good, nor of the energy of his free will, inasmuch as he in the state of apostasy and sin can of and by himself neither think, will nor do anything that is truly good, such as having faith eminently is, but that it is needful that he be born again of God in Christ through his

Holy Spirit, and renewed in understanding, inclination, sorry, or will, and all his powers, in order that he may rightly understand, think, will, and effect what is truly good according to the word of Christ, John 15, 5, without me ye can do nothing, and according to other passages of Scripture also.

Well, I mean, you know, that almost sounds like total depravity.

I mean, it's close, right? Man can't save himself. Yeah, it's 98 percent depraved.

Yeah, how can that happen? What are we doing? I don't know. I thought this was going to be a better show. Well, but that it is needful that he be born again, we agree on that, through his

Holy Spirit, renewed in his understanding, inclination, or will, and all his powers, yeah, I mean, it looks pretty good, right?

Without me, you can do nothing. Not a little something, but nothing. So that's actually,

Article 3 is actually pretty good. That man has not saving grace of himself.

That's pretty amazing, right? It's contradictory, though, to me,

Steve, to say, all right, the ones that God will save, Article 2 with a little reference to Article 1, are the ones that place their faith in him.

And that's true, but that doesn't account for anything. Well, because this kind of says they don't have the ability to do that.

I know, I know. So, and I'm sure if we were listening to them, or if they were explaining this, there would be a little more wiggle room in here than I think there is.

Well, I will go on record and say this, out of all the articles so far, That's the best one. That's the best one.

Yeah. All right. Now, here we go, to make it more man -centered. To the danger zone.

Uh -huh. Here goes the effectual call denial, irresistible grace denial, is going to be my, that's going to be my...

Your prediction? Uh -huh. Okay. Your forecast? Article 4. Okay. I hope it's better than Nebraska football this year.

Oh, man. Sad. I mean, Nebraska football is almost as bad as UCLA football. I don't know their record,

UCLA. They're horrific. I mean, their defense would make Chick Hearn proud because he'd be saying, oh, ole, it's

Matador defense, you know, so. Chick Hearn was the basketball announcer for the Lakers for many years, and he had great little slogans.

Matador defense. I love that one. I loved when the game was... And Steve will know these.

We're just taking a little interlude here on the radio. When the game was wrapped up and the Lakers were sure to win, even though there were three minutes left,

Chick Hearn would say... This game's in the refrigerator. The lights are out. The Jell -O's jiggling, the eggs are cooling.

And the butter's getting hard. All right. Let's try another one. Steve doesn't know this is going to be...

He just walked in today not knowing this. The Chick Hearn quiz. When someone like A .C. Green pump faked a shot and the other guy jumped up and then

A .C. jumped into him to draw the foul and go to the free throw line, Chick Hearn said... He said

A .C. Green's never done that in his life. He said he put him in the popcorn machine.

Yeah, put him in the popcorn machine. That's exactly right. A .C. Green, the offensive whiz of the L .A.

Lakers. Come on. A .C. Green for years said that, and I think he still says, he's a

Christian. And before he was married, he was telling people about his purity and how that's important but difficult on the road.

And I think he lived in a hotel by the Forum for years. Wow. He didn't have a house over in Inglewood or anyplace else.

He lived by the Forum in a hotel. I wonder what would have happened to A .C. Green. I don't know. Be worthwhile looking it up.

Who's a better rebounder, A .C. Green or Kurt Rambis? I don't know.

I mean, they both, that was their role, right? Rebound and run, and play some defense.

But they were both very good. I mean, you know, maybe A .C., I don't know. If A .C.

Green wore Rambis' glasses, would he have had a bigger fan base? Probably. Yeah, all right.

I mean, the funny thing about Rambis is he didn't even need the glasses. They were just a prop. That's not true.

Article 4 of the Remonstrance, that this grace of God is the beginning, continuance, and accomplishment of a good, even to this extent, that the unregenerate man himself, without that pervenient or assisting, awakening, following, and cooperative grace, can neither think will nor do good nor withstand any temptations to evil, so that all good deeds or movements that can be conceived must be ascribed to the grace of God in Christ.

But as respects the mode of operation of this grace, it is not irresistible inasmuch as it is written concerning many that they have resisted the

Holy Ghost, Acts 7, and elsewhere in many places. And elsewhere, asterisk.

I really, you know, I knew this was going to be a problem. The whole idea of assisting grace, you know, that somehow

God just sort of, you know, the Holy Spirit gives you that nudge. He gives you a little shove.

You know, you're inclined the right way, but God just needs to help you a little bit. That's wrong.

Do you think, Steve, that if you could boil down Arminianism and Calvinism to, you know, maybe one issue—of course, we'd have to probably go back to, you know, total depravity—but this whole idea of prevenient grace, that there's this special grace given to people, and then if they act upon it, then

God reacts to their action? Yeah. Well, I mean, the biggest problem there is that man goes first, right?

And the problem with that is, man is in his natural state, dead in his sins and trespasses, and a dead person doesn't respond to anything, right?

He has to be—the Scripture says this over and over again—born again, made alive, you know, brought to life.

I mean, you can go through Ephesians 2, you can go through 1

Peter 1, you can go through John 3, again and again and again we see

God, whether it be in the person of the Holy Spirit or the

Father or Jesus Himself, God always goes first in salvation, always.

Steve, if we were to look at the person of Judas, Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed

Jesus as that little awful, horrible, terrible refrain is often used of him in the

New Testament, the one who betrayed Jesus, is salvation of the other apostles and disciples found because of something in them?

They cooperated, they didn't resist, and then the reason why Judas ultimately isn't in heaven is because he didn't cooperate and he could resist the grace of God, Judas resisted the grace of God.

No, I think it's very clear that the, you know, if we're going to talk about resisting, the disciples were pretty good resistors on their own too, right?

I mean, each one of them, even right to the end, you know, they all just kind of fall apart when

Jesus gets arrested and He gets crucified. It's not like they were like, okay, we're just going to—Jesus has been arrested, let's just hold a prayer vigil and we'll get all the believers together, you know, and all our friends and we'll just pray, and we'll just pray

Him out of jail. They weren't like that at all. They just kind of scattered, and, you know, Peter goes on and denies them three times, and so,

I mean, were they strong, were they, you know, kind of spiritual he -men?

No. And they were as shocked as anybody when, you know, it's revealed that Judas is the betrayer.

They had no idea. Well, what I don't like, Steve, is when they say here, it is not irresistible, inasmuch as it is written concerning many that they have resisted the

Holy Ghost. Well, and then they do, you know, they John 3 .16 it, when you have to axe something.

In other words, when your proof text is a narrative passage of Scripture, that's what you have is a description of somebody doing something, and that is your prescription.

Well, you know, Stephen is preaching, and now they foment and are enraged, and they grind their teeth at him, and therefore, you can resist the effectual grace of God.

No. No. I mean… Steve, you could… By the way, I hate to correct you, but if they did use Acts 13 .48,

as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. Something like that, you know.

Well, and I would say, as long as it's found in other passages, I think it's very clear, and Acts 13 .48

is taught throughout Scripture. This idea that God effectually is going to draw people and that people can resist, well, okay, show me in Ephesians 1 and 2 where that's true.

In Ephesians 1, you know, it says that God, before the foundations of the world, chose some, you know, that Jesus died for those, the

Holy Spirit seals them. And then in Ephesians 2, it describes those same people being dead in their sins and trespasses, but God made them alive together in Christ.

So how is it that dead people would choose apart from the sovereign, irresistible grace of God?

Well, to ask the question is to answer it. They would always choose not to, is what they would always choose.

And I mean, this whole idea of prevenient grace, I heard a man, you know, preaching what he claimed was the gospel one night and, you know, just describing, and this was just earlier this year, just describing

Jesus in heaven, wringing his hands, hoping people will believe. And, you know,

I'm tempted to paraphrase Bono here, you know, that's not the God I believe in, mister. I mean, that's not the

God of the Bible. He's not wringing his hands ever, hoping that something is going to happen.

He has a decree and he brings about that decree. He effectuates that decree in time.

Theologians have put categories on the call of God to help us think rightly, since these guys aren't.

And the way we would describe it is, echoing pretty much Reformation history, the general call is evangelism.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And we give that general call indiscriminately and to everyone that we can.

We preach the gospel. And I don't use Mark 16, 15 for that because I don't think it's in the passage, but still we're to preach to everybody.

What? You think Mark 16 ends at verse 8? Come on. Then there's another kind of call, and it's what we would deem the effectual call.

And that is the call when the Holy Spirit, as you alluded to earlier, makes people alive through preaching, right?

You preach one sermon on a Sunday morning. You're preaching John 15, John 12,

John 13, and unbelievers are there, two unbelievers, and one hears the message, the same message, and believes.

The other person hears that exact same message and doesn't believe. Why does one believe and not the other?

The answer can't be found in the person, because then they would receive the praise and the glory, and 1

Corinthians 1 says it is by His doing that we are Christians.

And the effectual call is through the preaching of the gospel, the Spirit of God at His pleasure awakens and alivens—awakens and, not alivens, effectuates livelihood.

Wow, you have a way with words. They make alive. He makes alive. Well, and, you know, also what can't be the reason why one person hears and believes and the other one hears and does not believe?

It can't be the, let's say, I'll put it this way, the anointing -ness of the sermon.

You know, it's not the effect of the sermon per se.

It is the fact that the gospel is preached, the Word of God is preached, and the Holy Spirit uses that.

And He's not obliged, by the way, John 3 would tell us this, right?

I think it's John 3, 5. He moves where He wills. He does what He wants, right? And nobody is—He's not obliged to save anyone or to cause anyone to be born again.

Amen, John 3, 8. Oh, there you go. Okay. Yeah, but it's been—I preached that passage before.

That was a long time ago for you. It's been a while. Like five years, I would say. Five years!

It feels like it. Now, you have preached here, Sunday morning, Sunday nights, 1

Peter, 2 Peter. Yeah. What else? Well, not 2 Peter, but 1 and 2 Timothy. Really?

Yeah. Wow. 1 Peter. Okay. I'm trying to think. I mean, I have a full list at home, you know.

Well, you're blazing the trail, because I talked to Linton, a young man at our church, and Linton was at a church in Mendon yesterday preaching, and I said, what'd you preach?

And he said, I've been preaching through the Book of Colossians at the different churches I go to on pulpit supply, so I could preach through all of Colossians and know what that sequential preaching's like.

Oh, nice. I said, way to go. That's pretty smart. Uh -huh. He's a smart guy. You know, what do you do if you're pulpit supply?

And, you know, normally you would go there. I would go there to a church, and you bring kind of your best, right, something that your wife has said.

I bring my worst. And I'm not saying there's a Scripture that's bad. I'm just saying some

Scriptures are easier to preach than others. Some seem to me to be more, as Montoya would say, ugular, jugular.

That's impressive. I'm glad he's doing that. But, you know what, sometimes I think you get the best results from...best

results. Things go the best when you think, oh, this is a hard passage to preach or whatever. And so,

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I think I tend to put more thought into how am

I possibly going to make a sermon out of this, right? And so, the more you pour into that, sometimes the better it goes.

Fascinating how the Spirit of God works through preaching and how sometimes we think we have it all wired. The homiletics doesn't really come together.

A few weeks ago, I got my sermon done on Wednesday, and when

I preached it on Sunday, I mean, it was biblical and everything, but I just didn't really...I'm

going to use this word on purpose, Steve. I didn't really sense, you know, this kind of great command or anything like that of the sermon when

I was preaching it. Well, this last week, I had my sermon ready, and then

I changed it on Thursday. I had it ready on Wednesday. I changed it on Thursday. Friday, I'm like, what am I going to do?

Saturday morning, I thought, the way I've got it work, I just cannot do this. There's too much stuff.

It's too complicated. I need to make things simpler, and I can't get all these other points.

And so, Saturday night at about 9 p .m., I just changed it into what it was on Sunday morning, and homiletically, in terms of how

I felt, and I know that's only subjective. It means nothing. But I felt like there was much more solemnity and power and everything else in my execution when

I was at the last minute saying, God, you're going to have to help me. I know what you mean. Well, I was just looking as you were talking because I thought, you know, when was the one time where I thought, oh, this is going to be a disaster?

And it turned out to be really, I thought it was a really good message. And it was at the end of John 10, where Jesus goes away across the

Jordan, because the end of John 10 doesn't really flow, you have to, you can't continue from the previous section because it's, the previous section is such a high point.

And this would be just like, you know, okay, now that I've really preached a great part of it, now

I want to tell you about this, and it would just be like a footnote. And then you can't attach it to the next chapter, because it's the death of Lazarus and all that.

And so I just thought, well, what do I do? And I actually preached the life of John the Baptist, which is what this is alluding to here.

You know, these people that Jesus goes and preaches to, and they were people who had heard

John the Baptist before, and so I, you know, and many believed in him there. And so I preached this thing about John the

Baptist, and I said, I'm always leery about preaching about other people other than Jesus, and then

I just thought about it, and I go, you know what? John the Baptist, his whole life, his whole purpose was just to point to Jesus.

So if I preach John the Baptist to you today, it's because he's always pointing to Jesus, and this is the effect of his life, is that many people believed.

So amen. I'm glad for that little sermon right there. I preached John the Baptist because he pointed to Jesus.

And if you point to John, he's pointing someplace else. He's going, no, look at Jesus. You mean he didn't run into the end zone at the end of the

Jerusalem courts there and took his fist and then beat his chest like, you know. No, he did not.

He did not do that. He didn't fall down on the football and give it CPR either. Mike Avendross, Steve Cooley, No Compromise Radio, info at nocompromiseradio .com.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Avendross is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

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