THE DOCTRINES OF GRACE: (10 of 12) OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINES

TWELVE 5 CHURCH

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

THE DOCTRINES OF GRACE: (11 of 12) DIFFICULTY PASSAGES

00:07

Lesson 10, objections to the doctrines. We've been talking about the historical context, we've been building up through it, we talked about each one of the the five points of Calvinism, building up to this point, and now we're dealing with some of the the responses of, well, is this really true?

00:26

And your interpretation, is that correct? And so for the next couple weeks we're gonna be dealing with those things, both theologically and philosophically.

00:35

So, A, you see there on page 73 in your books, the problem concerning the doctrines of grace and man's general understanding of his existence and relationship with a higher being.

00:52

There are objections because there's problems, right? There's thoughts, there's concerns, there's different ways of thinking, and you see there in number one, if God is sovereign over all of his creation, including man and soteriological truth, that means the study of salvation, which is what we've been talking about, how can this be reconciled with apparent contradictions with man's experiential knowledge of himself in relationship to his general understanding of God, justice, goodness, and other related things?

01:32

What does this mean? We have a tendency to presume to equate our infantile understanding of reality upon God, right?

01:51

We have a very small picture of reality, and a lot of times our reality is skewed.

01:59

It's skewed by sin, it's skewed by flesh, it's skewed by our worldview, skewed by our pea brain that is just not capable of comprehending some loftier truths, and then we equate that to God, and we compare

02:18

God to this, and this is a problem. It becomes a problem for us. B, foundational facts and flaws which predisposes man to error in properly understanding lofty and infinite truths about God.

02:36

This is exactly what we're talking about. Here's the issue. Number one there, man is finite,

02:42

God is infinite. I know we've been talking about this a lot, but it's good that we continue to repeat this over and over again to get it into our minds, because a lot of times because of our propensity towards idolatry and towards self, we begin to think that we are the decision makers.

03:02

We're the ones that find wisdom, we're the ones that define good and bad, everything we need can be found here in us, and you can only find darkness in there.

03:12

It's finite. God is infinite. You can see there Isaiah 55, for my thoughts, they're not your thoughts.

03:20

Neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts your thoughts.

03:34

You and I are not God. He is altogether separate. I love how the 1689

03:41

Baptist Confession puts it. If you look there, I'm just gonna pinpoint a few things in it, I'm not gonna read the whole thing, but it's talking about God, the living and true

03:49

God, whose substance is in and of himself, right? This is

03:55

God outside of creation, infinite in being and perfection, whose essence cannot be comprehended by any but himself.

04:06

You want to know who God is? You can understand God in the small anthropomorphic ways that he presents himself in Scripture, but even that doesn't scratch the surface of understanding the creator of the universe.

04:22

Down a few lines there, he talks about God who is immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, every way infinite, most holy, most wise, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will.

04:45

I find that the only time people have an issue with these doctrines that we've been teaching is when they have a low view of who

04:54

God is. It's the only time. Anytime someone sees the the magnificence of the creator, then they begin to say, well

05:05

I don't, I wouldn't have a problem with some of these doctrines. Now there's some exegetical concerns in the midst of all that, we're gonna talk about that I think next week, we'll have some theological, you know, hard passages to deal with, and I understand.

05:18

So we show love in the midst of that, but one of the things we must do is we must continue to preach and teach the magnificence of God the creator and the altogether separate nature of God, that he is altogether separate from the creation.

05:36

He is the creator. Page two. Man has fallen.

05:43

Not only are we just the creature, the creature alone, Adam and Eve, in their sinless state, still didn't scratch a surface as to the immensity of the creator, but now we, we, we're fallen.

05:57

First, first Corinthians 2 14, the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God.

06:03

Why? Because they're folly to them. They can't understand the things of the

06:08

Spirit, they're folly, and he's not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. You see, a lot of teaching in the church today is focused on man.

06:19

I have really good friends, some godly men that I love, that preach, and when you listen to their sermons, you're like, come on brother, just get away from the focus on man.

06:30

They don't need that. You're just having them look in a mirror more. Just stop. Point to God.

06:37

Let them see the beauty of Christ. Point them to the magnificence of the Creator, but, but much of preaching is focused on man.

06:45

Man is big, man is important, and, and, and they don't mean to make it sound like this, but in return what happens is in the minds of the followers,

06:54

God becomes smaller, and we become bigger. They would never say it that way.

07:03

No, no gospel preacher would ever affirm that in those words.

07:09

I don't think that most pastors are intentionally doing this. They, they just fundamentally misunderstand who

07:16

God is, and that's where the problems come in. We have consequences to this.

07:22

You can see a list of three consequences of the fall.

07:28

Corruption in man's mind, and we have, our minds are corrupted.

07:34

You see, Paul said that in Romans 8. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law.

07:40

Indeed, it cannot. The fall has corrupted our mind. It's corrupted man's will.

07:47

Jeremiah 13, 23. Can, can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leper his spots?

07:54

Then, then also you who are accustomed to do evil cannot do good, just like the leper cannot, the leopard cannot change his spots.

08:04

He doesn't have any say in his spots, but our will is corrupted. The corruption of man's emotions.

08:14

The whole of man is corrupted from the fall, right? In Luke 4, 28 and 29, when they, when they heard these things, all of the synagogue, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath.

08:27

When they heard what things? When they were hearing the truth from Christ. They were filled with wrath. Their emotions were distorted, and oftentimes emotions determine a person's theology.

08:39

You ever notice that? We have a, we have a propensity towards forming our, our theological structures and paradigms based on our emotions and how we think.

08:53

When theology is what should determine our emotions. Emotions are good. Pre -fallen man, his motions are completely distorted, but when we're made a new creation, we can have emotions that are fed by truth.

09:07

That's a good thing. I told you we're gonna fly through here. Let's look at section C. Two general categories of objections, and then we're gonna look at these categories.

09:17

And the first one is philosophical. It's based on man's impressions of self and the world as he sees it.

09:28

This is more often than not how theology is done. It's philosophical.

09:35

It's how we perceive reality. We perceive truth. But there's a second here, and it's theological.

09:44

There are well -meaning theological minds out there that disagree with these interpretations.

09:51

It's based on man's interpretation of God's Revelation, the Bible. And we will talk about those.

09:58

We will try and give them a fair shake. But these are the two categories of objections to these doctrines that we're gonna talk about.

10:07

So on the next page you'll see section D. Let's talk about philosophical objection number one.

10:13

Okay, and this one I think is probably the biggest, most predominant objection to these particular doctrines, and it's the problem of evil and suffering.

10:27

People struggle with this. They say, okay, I see what you're saying. It seems like the

10:33

Bible might be saying God's sovereign. I get it. But if that's true, now we got a whole nother problem, because that means we have an issue with evil and suffering.

10:43

And there's four predominant philosophical answers to this, and it's this.

10:52

How could God allow evil in his creation? You know, Lucifer was a perfect being created by God.

10:59

Why do bad things happen to good people? All these total misunderstandings. But these four predominant positions here, let's look at all four of these and lay the groundwork for understanding them.

11:12

The first one, A. God is all -powerful, but he is not good.

11:18

God is all -powerful, but he is not good. You'll see

11:25

I have some boxes underneath each one of these in your notes. I think I misplaced this box.

11:31

If you'll just take an arrow with your pen and go from A down to the second box, it says God is omnipotent, but has evil intentions.

11:41

So that's essentially what this first view would say, is God is all -powerful, he is omnipotent, but he is not good.

11:53

Otherwise, why do bad things happen to good people? Why does evil exist in the world?

12:00

Well, that's our answer to it. The second one is that God is good, but he is not all -powerful.

12:12

God is good, but he is not all -powerful. You see how all of a sudden we're trying to take human logic and philosophy and build a theology?

12:24

We have a dilemma in our minds that we think is a problem. It's an objection, and now all of a sudden we must answer it with a human logic, at least we perceive, answer.

12:38

Either God is all -powerful and he's not good, or he's good and not all -powerful. You see the dilemma here, right?

12:45

In order to make this one make sense, that God may be good, but he's not all -powerful, number

12:52

C is God is limited in knowing future events. God is limited, also known as, we've talked about it, open theism.

13:08

God has good intentions, but not the power to procure his desires.

13:17

And this is a fairly common perspective, that God has, have you ever heard the phrase, well

13:26

God is so sovereign and so powerful, he chose to limit himself.

13:34

You know, people trying to make it all work, they're just trying to do this workaround as best they can, but aka open theism, meaning that God does not know the future,

13:45

God does not know all things, God has to learn things in real time as we learn them.

13:52

Now what they'll say is, well God is still so much bigger than us, because God knows so much about his creation, and he's been around so long, that his predictions are pretty good, like he knows what's gonna happen for the most part, because he can predict well, and that's kind of an open theism position.

14:13

The problem is, is God has explicitly told us that that's not true about himself, so there's a problem there.

14:21

But the fourth one, D, there is no God. You see the logical progression of the whole thing, these philosophical objections here, is we have a dilemma, and so we try and answer that dilemma, and when all the pieces don't fall into place, and all of the foundation starts to crumble around us, you finally get to this last perspective.

14:43

This philosophical viewpoint raises more questions than it seeks to answer, though. When you finally get to the end of human philosophy, you have this issue of why does evolved humanity possess any goodness, or any morality, and conscience, and it just, it opens up this door of, if there is no

15:02

God, well, you've got a whole slew of massive problems. But anything to answer the question, is

15:15

God really that powerful? Is God really in control?

15:23

Next page, two. This is, this is a objection here.

15:31

It's statement of paradox. Statement of paradox.

15:37

You ever heard of a paradox? It's a seemingly self -contradictory statement,

15:43

I say seemingly, or proposition for that matter, that when investigated or explained, may prove to be well -founded and true.

15:52

We just don't know how it fits. So you have contradiction over on this side.

15:59

Contradiction is not anywhere in Scripture. Scripture never contradicts itself, because contradiction is two things that most certainly cannot go together.

16:09

They cannot go simultaneously together. Paradox is, well, we know these two things are going together, we just, we just don't quite fully comprehend how and the why.

16:21

We just know that it's true. That's paradox. And here's the thing, the

16:26

Bible does not attempt to explain the problem. This paradox in our minds of God is sovereign, man is responsible,

16:39

God chooses some, man is responsible to repent and believe. We have this, this tension that we are struggling with, is how is that even working?

16:51

If God ordains every single thing to be that has ever been, how are we not robots?

17:00

You see the problem, right? You see the dilemma, but it's a paradox. And here's the thing, it's not a problem for God.

17:10

This isn't a problem for God. However, the Bible does reveal aspects of God's nature that clarifies certain expressions of this problem, right?

17:23

When in doubt, fall back to what we do know, okay? Is Scripture true?

17:32

Is it clear? Yeah? If Scripture is true, then all of Scripture is true.

17:40

And so if something is said in Scripture that is clear, that is just black and white, there's no arguing it, nobody can get around it, everybody affirms that is a truth statement, that's what we go back to, okay?

17:56

And so we have a few things that we know from Scripture are true, you can see them here. God is omnipotent, unlimited power, you could say, and love.

18:11

Both are true. Those two things have to go hand -in -hand.

18:17

You can't have one without the other. God also possesses other attributes such as justice, wrath, etc.,

18:24

things like that. Justice and wrath, that attribute of God is just as beautiful as his love, because it's who he is.

18:33

You can't get around the truth that that's the fact. God created beings with free moral agency.

18:39

We are not robots. Scripture is really clear about our responsibility as human beings.

18:47

Can't get around it, can you? You can't become a hyper Calvinist and swing the pendulum and go, well

18:54

God's just gonna do whatever he's gonna do. If I turn around and spill this coffee on my shirt, God made me do it.

19:02

That's the logical conclusion seemingly in our pea brain, isn't it? That's how we perceive things, but this isn't true.

19:09

God has created us with free moral agents. God did not create sin, he's not the author of it.

19:19

Scripture is clear about that. Wait a second, if God created all things and sin exists,

19:29

God must have created sin? You see the problem? The scripture is clear.

19:36

Sin exists, God created everything, and God is not the author of sin. Okay, these are clear, these are things we go back to.

19:46

God's original creation and the present fallen state manifest all of God's attributes.

19:53

That is clear. We're gonna talk about that here in just a few moments, but you see a few passages jotted down here.

20:00

Ephesians 1 11, in him we have obtained an inheritance, we've been predestined to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.

20:10

God has chosen to generally withhold a satisfactory answer from his creatures to their curious philosophical contemplations concerning this subject.

20:25

If God did not give you the information, it means God didn't need you to have that information, and you don't need it either.

20:35

And if you say, well that's not enough for me to believe in him and believe his truth, well that's your problem, not his.

20:44

That's right, woe to man. Deuteronomy 29 29, the secret things belong to the Lord our

20:50

God. We don't like secret things, do we? The reason is, is we want to be

20:57

God. We don't want God keeping secrets from us. We're like, well God you haven't fully revealed yourself.

21:04

If you want me to believe the doctrines of grace, then you should have fully revealed it completely, exactly how all this paradox works for me.

21:12

It's quite arrogant, isn't it? The secret things belong to the Lord. The problem of evil and suffering is understanding in the fact that we now see all the attributes of God.

21:29

What do I mean by that? Had it not been for evil, you and I would have never truly seen the justice and wrath of God.

21:42

None of creation would have seen the justice and wrath of God if evil had not entered the world.

21:51

And I'm gonna go further. You say, well wouldn't that be nice if we didn't see the the justice and wrath of God?

21:58

Then we'd just experience his love. If you didn't see his justice and wrath, you wouldn't understand his love.

22:07

And if we know anything about Scripture, God is interested in one thing, and it ain't you.

22:14

He's interested in you, he loves you from the foundation of the world, but he's most interested in himself. He's the only one worthy of that.

22:23

And because of his love of himself, he loved you out of his love of himself.

22:31

He's the only one worthy of glory and honor and praise, and he created a people so that all of his attributes may be on display to his creation to see the magnificent glory of who he is in full.

22:48

Well actually, reference I think later on in the notes, Romans 9, where Paul says that essentially, he says, well what if God, choosing some vessels for dishonorable use, so that his love and his grace would be on display for those he chose for honorable use?

23:08

This is the God that we serve. Next page, E, philosophical objection number two, is the problem of divine justice.

23:24

Remember, we like to define the terms for God, not the other way around. So an objection, a philosophical objection to these doctrines is, well there's an issue of justice going on here.

23:38

You can see number two, how can God be just in choosing some to salvation while overlooking others?

23:45

It's the fairness objection, right? It's not fair. And if it's not fair,

23:52

God's not just. You know what we do?

23:57

We attest partiality to God. Number three, it actually tells us, doesn't reason tell us that partiality is wrong?

24:16

When we think, well, being partial, that's wrong. And if God is being partial, then he is unjust.

24:23

He must not be good. And if you're gonna say that he chooses some and doesn't choose others, well then now what you're saying is you're demeaning the very character of my

24:34

God that is always good according to my standard of good.

24:45

Look at a few of the passages here, Acts 1034. We see it here, so Peter opened his mouth and said, truly

24:52

I understand that God shows no partiality. This is a text they go to.

24:58

This is one of the objections. God shows no partiality. What's Peter talking about?

25:04

Well, doesn't God show partiality? Peter seems to be contradicting Paul now. Peter's saying

25:12

God is not partial to the Jews over the Greeks in the area of salvation.

25:18

We got to look at context, guys. The next verse there in Acts 10, actually we read from the

25:29

KJV first. I think the KJV is a better translation. Look at this one. You have it in your notes.

25:35

Then Peter opened his mouth and said, of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons.

25:46

Acts 1035, the next verse, he says, but in every nation, in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is accepted, acceptable to him.

26:03

What's Peter doing? Peter was assaulting the Jewish exclusivism that was going on while preaching to Cornelius.

26:12

Y 'all remember the situation there in Acts 10? He's preaching to Cornelius. Who is Cornelius? He's a

26:18

Gentile. The next verse, 36 in Acts 10.

26:24

As for the word that he sent to Israel, preach good news of peace through Jesus Christ.

26:31

He is Lord of the Jews. That's not what it says.

26:37

He says he is Lord of all. He's not come just for the

26:43

Jews. That's the context. So Peter's not saying that God doesn't show partiality.

26:50

The rest of Scripture actually shows us something very different. Turn the page in your notes.

26:56

There's further consideration here. Your reason tells us that partiality should be taught to our children.

27:03

Don't hang around bad kids. Evil company corrupts good morals, right? That's showing partiality.

27:11

Reason tells us that the evildoers, murderers, thieves, people like that should be punished for their crimes.

27:17

That's showing partiality. Showing partiality towards those who don't commit the crimes. Reason tells us that taller people are usually better basketball players than the short people like me.

27:31

Them tall guys are getting partiality, all right? Reason tells us that people with IQ, and by the way, here's an issue in your notes you might want to scratch out.

27:42

I think I meant to say 137. I wrote 37. I hope that there are no brain surgeons and scientists with an

27:50

IQ of 37 doing work on me, right? Okay, but there's partiality.

27:56

The Bible itself tells us that all sinners deserve death and hell, right? The soul who sins shall die.

28:04

That's discrimination against sinful people. Of course everyone happens to be sinful. If all deserve hell, why is

28:12

God unjust in showing mercy to some and not others? We laid the groundwork for this.

28:20

If you've not been with us throughout this whole study, maybe you're trying to put some pieces together now, but for those that have been with us, we've already covered the depravity of the human heart and the position of man in total depravity.

28:34

There in Romans chapter 9, Paul says, so then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

28:43

We, the clay, naturally want to tell the potter what to do, don't we? That's the problem with our objections to the doctrines.

28:52

We want to tell the potter how he should mold the clay. And Paul says, well what is molded say to its molder, why have you made me this way?

29:01

Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?

29:07

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.

29:28

So what I was saying earlier, we get to see his attributes on display. All of creation will be forced to see both his justice and wrath displayed justly, and his love and mercy displayed graciously, and everything in between.

29:52

So these objections, they're not really objections as we continue to get into them. Look at the next page.

29:58

The big issue. Fairness becomes the big issue to people, because their understanding is based upon this false assumption,

30:06

God owes man salvation. Fairness is not a biblical issue.

30:15

You get that right? I used to tell my kids, my older ones laugh all the time because they're like, man you you don't get on to the the other two like you got on to us.

30:24

Anytime they would say when they were little, well that's not fair. I'd get on to him, I'd say there's no such thing as fair. Fair doesn't exist, get rid of that word.

30:33

Fair is a facade. The Bible's not interested in fair, it's interested in justice.

30:45

Look at it down below. If equality is necessary for God to be just, right, when we think, well if he chooses one but not another, well he's got to give everybody he's got to give everybody a chance, right?

30:59

And he does, he gives everybody a chance. Some choose to reject it. But if equality is necessary for God to be just, then why do we in America enjoy such access to God's Word while hundreds of people groups have never heard the

31:12

Word of God or seen a Bible? It's not in the reality, is it?

31:21

You may object and say, but he left us to our own free will, and some choose to be in darkness.

31:28

But did you choose your parents? Did you choose the the place of your birth?

31:37

The Potter did. Potter chose all of that. We choose, we choose darkness because we were darkness, as all man is.

31:49

We sin because we're sinners, right? We come forth out of our mother's womb speaking lies.

31:55

We were conceived in sin, as David said, brought forth in iniquity. Darkness was our dominion and only resurrecting power can transfer us out of it, right?

32:07

As he delivers us from the domain of darkness into his glorious light. Salvation is deliverance, not decision, right?

32:16

He came to seek and save the lost, not to potentially save them. So the final answer you see right here, final answer to our question, does

32:25

God show partiality? Yes, he does, and praise

32:31

God that he does. Here's the thing, if God didn't show partiality, we would all be damned.

32:52

You realize that, right? There would be no soul that chooses God. Thank goodness for his partiality.

33:01

Yep. The Savior, in 1st Timothy 4 .10, for to this end, we toil and strive because we have our hope set on the living

33:11

God, who is the Savior of all people, especially those who believe partiality, right?

33:18

We see God's people in Galatians 6 .10. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, especially those who are of the household of faith.

33:26

Even we are to show partiality. You see a block there.

33:34

Is this your final answer? Is divine justice served when souls are cast into hell?

33:42

Is divine justice served when a person goes to hell, right?

33:50

Is justice and mercy served when some are retrieved from the just recompense of their own sinfulness through the blood of Christ?

33:58

You betcha, because God is just. These objections don't hold up.

34:08

Section F, philosophical problem number three, okay?

34:14

First, the problem of free will. We've talked about this in the past.

34:23

You like, you know I like to refer to it as free moral agency. There's no such thing as libertarian free will, but it's the problem of free will, which is how most people would come to the table thinking of this.

34:34

Number two, does man possess a capacity to do good or evil?

34:40

Y 'all have been through, those that have been through the class early on, y 'all know the answer to this. Does man possess the capacity to do evil?

34:50

Yes, but not to do good and evil. Adam and Eve had the capacity to choose good and to choose evil, but they lost it once they did evil.

34:58

And then they could only do evil, and every person that was born henceforth only did evil.

35:08

Philosophical problem number three, section three, concerning relative goodness.

35:14

The answer is yes. There's this question.

35:20

I see my neighbor doing good things. I see my lost family member doing some decently good things.

35:29

Man possesses a residue of God's image in his fallen soul, in his state.

35:35

He can therefore carry out acts of goodness towards his fellow man, such as being a good father, being a good husband, a good mother, a good son.

35:46

They can carry out externally good things. Relative goodness, the answer is yes.

35:54

But look at number four, concerning spiritual goodness. The answer is most certainly no.

36:05

Theologians would say man has the natural ability to do good, but does not have the moral ability.

36:15

Mark 10 18, and Jesus said to him, why do you call me good? No one is good. Romans 3, no one is good, not even one.

36:27

Number five, since the answer is no, concerning man's ability and his fallen state, to do anything that pleases

36:35

God in and of himself, man cannot be considered as one possessing true freedom.

36:45

All of this is building on itself, right? If total depravity is true, well then you cannot consider somebody having true freedom.

36:54

Remember, it's not that we can't come to Christ in our natural ability.

37:01

It's that we won't in our spiritual ability. God has not created walls saying those people on the other side, no matter how hard they try, they will not be able to get to me.

37:16

He's not physically restraining them from himself. They are already, because of their fallen state, by default spiritually unable to come to him.

37:28

They refuse to come to him. And so we have to see free will in these categories, right?

37:34

If you want to say free will, then yeah, okay, let's use the word free will. But let's define what free will is.

37:41

We're not saying that you can't physically come to church, but just coming to church does not mean you're gonna be spiritually awakened by this truth.

37:51

Number six, man is portrayed as in bondage. These are objections. They don't like this, right?

37:58

This is why open theism becomes very popular, right? But Galatians 4 .9 talks about us, whose slaves we want to be once more.

38:08

Slaves to this world, slaves to the evil one. Later on in Galatians, Christ has set us free and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

38:19

We were enslaved. And Hebrews 2 .15, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

38:29

Number seven, this helps us understand the words of Jesus more clearly in John 8 .36.

38:38

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed, right? Why would he have to set you free if you were already free?

38:49

He must set you free. We were opposed and oppressed. Number eight, there is however a freedom that man does possess.

39:01

It is the freedom to do as he pleases to do. Man is free to act freely according to his own nature.

39:10

His nature is causing him to, as Paul said Ephesians 2 .3,

39:16

live in the passions of their flesh as we once did. Number nine, man is not able to be saved by an act of his will outside of God's regenerative work.

39:29

I'm not gonna deal with that because we've talked quite a bit about regeneration and we're kind of running out of time.

39:36

Let's jump to section 10. Following regeneration, man comes to Christ by an act of his own will.

39:43

Here's where the paradox comes into play and where I think a lot of our brothers and sisters would struggle with this doctrine because they're like, but wait a

39:55

Christ? Didn't I run to the Savior? Well yeah,

40:02

God loved the world. He got so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

40:09

Those who believe, right? Acts 10 .43, to him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness.

40:19

Romans 9 .33 it is written, behold I'm laying in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense and whoever believes in him,

40:26

Christ, will not be put to shame. Jesus said in Matthew 11, he says, come to me all who labor and are heavy laden.

40:36

So here's kind of the summary of these philosophical objections is we've got that paradox there, right?

40:46

And I think John 6 .37 gives us this picture of this paradox here.

40:55

Sovereignty and responsibility. All that the Father gives me will come to me. Well that's a sovereign

41:02

God, right? The Father must give them to him and all that are given to him will come to him, right?

41:10

That's what he says. And then responsibility and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

41:16

What a beautiful passage. You read that passage you go, what? Like the

41:22

Father draws me here and then I have to come? Well there's the responsibility. It's not a problem is it?

41:30

It's not a problem because of regeneration. Regeneration gives you the power to come to Christ.

41:38

Gives you the ability to receive faith. I want to leave y 'all with some final words over the next couple minutes here.

41:45

You're in this chapter. Gee, a final word of warning.

41:52

I want to give warning because sometimes we can get all riled up with this stuff, okay?

41:58

And it starts to distort. If you think you're gonna take this 12 -week course and be an expert on the doctrines of grace, well now we we have a whole nother set of problems here.

42:08

Like you realize that this course has literally just walked over to the wall of the doctrines of grace and gone, scratch, and then walked away.

42:18

Y 'all realize that right? Like this doctrine is immensely deep. Like we're not covering deep things in here by any means.

42:26

One day we will. We have to start somewhere. But when we don't fully comprehend things we can get distorted.

42:33

And so I'd like this section in here of a final word of warning. Number one, we are entrusted with truth.

42:44

Truth is, truth is what we must base everything that we think and do upon.

42:54

In 1st Thessalonians 2 forward Paul writes, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak not to please man but to please

43:05

God who test our hearts. We are entrusted with this truth.

43:12

If you're entrusted with this truth, you better make sure that you're you're thinking properly about that truth and you're expressing that truth in a proper way, okay.

43:27

Number two, when we preach the gospel, now I have this question in here or this statement in here because of what

43:35

I mentioned near the beginning of this series. When you come, every doctrine comes with dangers, right?

43:43

Right, there's a ditch on both sides. And a lot of times when people come to this doctrine they will swing the pendulum and they'll go over into that ditch of like a hyper -Calvinist, okay.

43:53

Got a guard from that. And so it affects how we proclaim the gospel. But when we preach the gospel, and when

44:01

I say preach it's not just me preaching up here, Pastor Keith preaching up here, it's you proclaiming the gospel to your friends and your neighbors and your family members.

44:09

But we appeal to the mind, the will, and the emotions. A lot of our hyper -Calvinist friends will say,

44:17

I'm not so concerned about the emotions, the emotions will lead you astray. I'm not even really concerned about the will.

44:24

I'm only gonna focus on the pure raw data. I'm gonna give them the cold hard facts.

44:33

And just let, I'm basically gonna go in there like, it's not John Wayne, what's the other guy's name from those old

44:39

Western movies? Clint Eastwood. I'm gonna go in there like Clint Eastwood and I'm just gonna,

44:46

I'm gonna let God sort it out, right? Guns a -blazing with my truth. And that's how

44:52

I'm gonna win people over. A little different than how Paul said for us to be persuasive, right?

44:58

With the season our speech. We just want to give them the cold hard facts. We're like, it's the Holy Spirit that's gonna regenerate them.

45:05

I've just got to shoot them with truth and I'm gonna walk away, right? That's not how we're told to speak of this truth.

45:14

Number three, three human elements are absolutely necessary in the salvation of the soul, okay?

45:22

The content, okay? That's where, that's where we like to get it right, okay?

45:27

The gospel must be right. I said it the other day, your testimony is not the gospel, right?

45:35

A good story about church is not the gospel. Inviting people to church is not the gospel. Only the gospel is the gospel and it must be shared accurately, right?

45:46

So the gospel, it's the content, must be correct. The hearer must comprehend the message of the gospel.

45:55

Even if, even if that person isn't to be awakened, they should not be confused about what you just said about the gospel.

46:04

It's clear. They are able to comprehend it in words that they, they can comprehend.

46:10

People get on to us around here because we use big words on Sundays and they're like, man, I just don't know what these guys are saying.

46:16

And we're like, yeah, that's for the saints in here. We want everyone to grow up into mature manhood so we're not gonna use baby words, we're gonna use big boy words until everybody figures them out.

46:25

But when I'm out there talking to lost people, I'm not using those words. I'm not gonna walk up to my lost neighbor and be like, you know about propitiation?

46:34

He needs to comprehend what I'm saying, right? There's a, there's a practicality to it. And thirdly, the hearer must embrace wholeheartedly the gospel message and the

46:45

Christ of the gospel. And I want to be very, very clear about who the

46:53

Christ of the gospel is. It's who he said he was. And if you get that wrong, you, you cannot, somebody cannot be saved by hearing of the oneness

47:07

Pentecostal Jesus. That's not Jesus. That's not the

47:12

Jesus as he proclaimed. That's, that's the yard guy. That's not

47:17

Jesus. The Jesus that somebody says needs water to immerse you, to wash away your sins, that's not the

47:26

Jesus that is represented by himself, right? It has to be the right

47:32

Jesus that goes back to the right content. But they must embrace wholeheartedly. Now how can they embrace wholeheartedly?

47:38

Can you control that? No. The Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit can, can draw them.

47:45

And if he does, he's drawing them to the true Jesus. Number four, preaching and witnessing involves argument.

47:53

There's your mind. There's an argument involved. We don't like argument, right? You don't want to be argumentative.

48:01

That's not what I'm saying. But there is argument going on because a lost person is going to give you some level of pushback, right?

48:08

They're gonna be like, yeah, but what about this? And that can't be really true. There's, there is argument going on.

48:14

There's the mind. You must have persuasion. You must be persuasive, as Paul said, the will.

48:22

And there must be an urgency. There's emotions involved. There's an urgency.

48:30

It's a truth on fire, right? There's a passion. That's where, that's where we must be passionate about what we're saying.

48:41

What God says must be clearly proclaimed. We want to convince with an argument that appeals to the mind.

48:47

We want to rebuke with the persuasion that appeals to the will. And we want to exhort with an urgency that appeals to the emotions.

48:57

It's all encompassing. John 8 32, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

49:05

The sinner is to be admonished, to turn from their sins. Today is the day, right? Therefore, knowing the fear of the

49:11

Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope that it is known also to your conscience.

49:19

It must be pressed on the sinner that today is the day of salvation. In a favorable time,

49:25

I listen to you, and in a day of salvation, I have helped you. Behold, now is the favorable time.

49:30

Behold, now is the day of salvation. Okay, so what does, what does this look like?

49:37

When somebody comes to it, when you say, okay, well, I've, I've been persuasive. I told them the right gospel, and I did it in a persuasive way, and, and, and man, they're, they're acknowledging.

49:48

I want to, I want this. Like, I believe it. Like, I see it. What do we do? Look at the next page, number five.

49:56

I'm gonna tell you what it doesn't do. It does not involve leading them in a sinner's prayer or trying to get them to make a decision for Christ.

50:05

These are not biblical concepts, nor are there examples of any such practice.

50:13

That's jarring to a lot of y 'all, isn't it? Not to Miss Brenda. You believe these truths for a while, haven't you?

50:24

We feel like we have to seal the deal, but have you ever noticed you got really persuasive with that person, and they got, you got them at just the right emotional time for them to say whatever they need to say to try and, try and get this thing done, and you become like a, like an insurance salesman.

50:44

Let's sign on the dotted line. Let's get you to say the words, but let me tell you a little, a beautiful about these doctrines.

50:53

You don't have to seal the deal, because when the truth hits them, and it hits them where the

50:59

Holy Spirit awakens them, you will not be able to stop them from calling on the name of the

51:05

Lord. The violent take it by force, that's right. That you will not be able to stop a regenerated person who's been regenerated from calling on the name of the

51:17

Lord, and here's why, because you gave them the information they already needed. They don't need you to tell them what to pray.

51:26

They now know who the true Jesus is, and they know they've sinned against him, and they know they need his righteousness.

51:33

They may not be able to give you a doctrinal thesis on the matter at the moment, but they know enough to know,

51:41

I'm a sinner, I need you Jesus, and their life has changed, and so we don't have to lead them into some prayer.

51:48

We don't have to, we don't have to tie them into closing the deal. Sixth and lastly, we are to do the work

51:55

God gave us to do, and to leave the work of God to God alone. Leave the work of God.

52:03

I did this in time, 729. I felt like I was flying there.

52:09

Hopefully we covered enough. If you've got questions, I'd love to chat with you. We can talk, and hopefully

52:14

I can get to each and every one of you. Pastor Keith, I'm sure, will field whatever questions that you guys might have about this.

52:20

Next week we are going to be looking at section 11, which is theological objections and difficult passages.

52:28

So next week we'll be getting into the theological objections that we talked about tonight. We dealt with the philosophical, then we'll do the theological, but this week, please read the excerpts of the

52:39

Spurgeon sermons that you see there in your notes, in the appendix of your homework, and become prepared next week to talk through some of the difficult passages in Scripture that a lot of our brothers and sisters would use to denounce these particular doctrines, and we can learn from it, talk through it.

52:58

Sound fair? All right, let's pray. Lord, we thank you once again. We pray that you have been honored tonight.

53:06

Lord, we pray that you would continue to work in our hearts and minds. Father, I pray that that we would be a people of your word, that we'd be a people of your truth.

53:15

God, I pray that we would love Christ.

53:22

Lord, that he would be preeminent in our hearts and minds. Lord, I pray that it would lead us to unity, that it would lead us to fellowship, that it would lead us to walking and working in the good works that you prepared beforehand.

53:37

Lord, be with the lost that are in our sphere of influence, each and every one of us. I pray that we'd have boldness to declare your truth, knowing that the

53:46

Holy Spirit can and will awaken those that are yours. Lord, we pray that we would be evangelistic people, and we thank you for the opportunity to serve you.