Limited Atonement

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the Gospel of John.
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And we're going to be looking this morning at the 10th chapter, continuing in on our series of Reformed Theology.
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One of the most commonly held traditions among modern evangelicals is the belief that Jesus Christ's sacrifice was made on behalf of every person in the world.
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That He has, in fact, paid the price for everyone's sins.
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That He has provided atonement for the sins of every individual in the world.
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And most who hold to this tradition believe that they have a myriad of Scripture to support their view.
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In fact, it is such a part of evangelical culture, that it has become the hallmark of most people's evangelism.
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They walk up and the very first thing is, didn't you know Jesus died for you? In a very presumptuous statement.
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As a result, when the term limited atonement is mentioned, it is often met with an immediate negative response.
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Limited atonement is the L in the acrostic tulip, which we have been studying in our series of Reformed Theology.
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We have looked at this.
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We know this is the outline of what we call the doctrines of grace.
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We have looked at total depravity and unconditional election.
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And I freely admit, if you have not been here for those sermons today, will make little sense to you.
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Because you really needed those as a foundation.
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So if you haven't heard them, I encourage you to go back into our archives.
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We have them on the website.
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And listen to them.
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Because if you don't understand the depraved nature of man, if you don't have a biblical anthropology, and if you don't understand unconditional election, if you don't have a biblical view of God's sovereignty, then you are not going to understand today's sermon as good as you could if you did understand those things.
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So that's my little precursory statement.
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It just is what it is.
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And I wanted to make sure, if you haven't heard those messages, it is your prerogative and your responsibility.
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Go listen to them.
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We make everything available for that very purpose.
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Because it is impossible to explain all of these things in one day.
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It just wouldn't work.
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However, they all do depend upon one another.
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And they all depend upon the Scriptures.
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And I freely admit that this one has been vilified more than any other doctrine in Reformed theology.
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The doctrine of limited atonement is vilified far and away more than any other doctrine.
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In fact, there are even those who call themselves four-pointers.
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And what four-pointer means, if you ever hear that term, is it means they believe in total depravity and unconditional election, irresistible grace and perseverance of the saints, but they cannot accept limited atonement.
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They believe this doctrine is the one that's just too hard.
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However, of all of the doctrines of grace, I find this one to be the most logical, the most sensible and, dare I say it, the most biblical of them all.
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And I will demonstrate this morning that the problem that most people have is not with limited atonement.
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But the problem most people have is with unconditional election, what I preached about last week.
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So we will be looking at various scriptures this morning, many of which are used to deny this teaching, but I will demonstrate how they are in error in their understanding.
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But we're going to begin with an affirmation from the Word of Christ.
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We are going to begin from the lips of the Savior Himself on the subject of limited atonement in John chapter 10.
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So stand with me.
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I'm going to read verses 7 through 15.
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Beginning in verse 7, it says these words.
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So Jesus again said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
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All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.
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I am the door.
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If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.
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The thief comes only to steal and to kill and destroy.
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I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
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I am the good shepherd.
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The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
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He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.
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He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
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I am the good shepherd.
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I know my own, and my own know me.
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Just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep.
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May God add His blessing to the reading of His Word.
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Let us pray together.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the very Word of Christ, which we have read this morning.
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I pray, Lord, that we will be cognizant of its reality and its truth.
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That we will have our minds open to the truth, not to be slaves to our presuppositions and submissive to our presuppositions.
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But God, let us have minds which are open to be molded by the Scripture.
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And I pray that You would keep me from error.
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And I pray that You would open the people's hearts to the truth.
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And that through everything that is said and done today, that You, O Lord, would be glorified.
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In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
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This morning is one of those times, and it may eventually happen, but it hasn't happened yet.
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This morning is one of those times where I really wish I had a dry erase board up here with me.
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As most of you know, I have a teacher's heart, and teachers tend to like to illustrate what they say.
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And I don't like making PowerPoint presentations.
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I like to write it.
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So eventually you may see one of those things up here.
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But I didn't bring one this morning.
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So I'm going to ask you to paint a picture in your mind.
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Can everybody do that? Can you follow me? It's not hard.
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What I want you to imagine.
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I want you to imagine a window.
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Big square window.
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OK, that window is going to have another window inside of it.
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So you've got a square.
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And inside of that you have another smaller square, which takes up a portion of the larger square.
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Everyone have that in their mind? And with the silence that will let me know that yes, you do.
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Hopefully we have a larger, larger window.
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The large window represents every person in the world.
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That is the scope of that larger window.
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The smaller window, which is inside that window, represents only those who are believers in Christ.
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They're part of the larger window, but they're a smaller part of that window.
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Sociologists will tell you that approximately a third or less of the world would fit into that window.
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But you have to remember, if you are being honest, that when they say a third of the world is Christian, sociologists are lumping everyone, whoever says Jesus Christ in any form in that window.
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That means in that window would be Roman Catholicism, in that window would be Protestantism, in that window would be liberal Christianity, in that window would be Mormonism, in that window would be Jehovah's Witnesses, in that window would just be a plethora of different forms of Christianity.
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If you want to call it Christianity, it's not biblical Christianity.
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But yet, if you wanted to say it was a third, that's what you'd have to say.
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I would say the window would be quite a bit smaller than a third.
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But still, everyone understands.
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We have a big window which represents the world, the majority of which does not believe in Jesus Christ.
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You have the smaller window which are believers in Jesus Christ.
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And here is the question which theologians have wrestled with in regard to that illustration.
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For whom does Christ's death atone for? And may I even go as far as to say for whom was the death of Christ made? Was it made for the whole window? Or was it made for believers only? Does the atonement of Christ expand to every single person in the world? Or is His atonement limited to believers only? Is it the large window? Or is it the smaller window? Well, today, my purpose in the message is to demonstrate from the Bible that the answer is clearly that though Christ's death is sufficient to save anyone in the large window, Christ's death had a purpose.
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And the purpose of Christ's death was to save those in the smaller window.
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He died for believers.
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And His death was made specifically for believers.
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It is not that Christ's death could not save anyone else, but rather that He died for the purpose of saving believers.
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Now, the reason why that is important because I imagine most of you are going, well, yeah, duh.
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He died for believers, and we're believers, and He died for us.
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Here is where that becomes an issue.
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What I am saying, so that we are clear, is not only did Christ die for believers, I am saying Christ died for the believers only.
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Christ died for the elect.
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I'm saying His death was not a universal atonement.
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His death was a particular atonement made for a particular people.
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That's so that we are not unclear.
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I want to make sure I say it that way.
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In our verse today which we read, Christ tells us who He died for.
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In fact, He tells us twice in a very short span of words.
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He says in one verse that the Good Shepherd, and He identifies Himself twice as the Good Shepherd, He says, I am the Good Shepherd, I am the Good Shepherd, and He says the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.
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Very specifically, I lay down my life for a specific group.
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I lay down my life for my followers, my people, my sheep.
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And later on He says again, I lay down my life for the sheep.
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So according to Jesus and according to His words, for whom did He die? Well, in this passage it is very specific.
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He says He laid down His life for the sheep.
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But if you go further down the passage, you will see something very interesting looking in John 10.
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Go down to verse 25.
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Because He is speaking now to people who are not His sheep.
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He is speaking now to people who do not believe in Him.
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And He says this in verse 25, Jesus answered them, I told you and you do not believe.
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So He identifies them as unbelievers.
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The works that I do in My Father's name bear witness about Me, but you do not believe because you are not part of My flock.
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My sheep hear My voice.
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I know them and they follow Me.
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I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of My hand.
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You see how important those words are? He is identifying a sect of people as His sheep.
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He is saying they are the recipients of eternal life.
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They are the ones who will receive the benefits of His sacrifice.
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They are His people.
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And note back, looking back up in the passage, He says, you do not believe in Me because you are not My sheep.
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Modern evangelical theology would say, you are not His sheep because you do not believe.
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However, Jesus reverses that and He says, you do not believe because you are not My sheep.
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Isn't that an interesting paradigm shift? Most people say, well, you do not believe in Jesus, thus you are not His sheep.
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And Jesus says, no, no, no, you are not My sheep.
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That is why you do not believe.
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Interesting paradigm shift.
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It goes back to the issue of election.
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And remember what I said, most people's problem is not with atonement, limited atonement or anything.
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Most people's problem is with election.
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Jesus said that there are those who are not His sheep.
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Likewise, He lays down His life for the sheep and they are the ones who receive eternal life.
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Deductive reasoning demonstrates that the intention of Christ's sacrifice was for believers, not that it could not atone for anyone else, but that that wasn't its purpose.
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Christ's sacrifice was not a general atonement.
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Christ's sacrifice was a particular atonement made for a particular people.
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His people.
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Just like in the Old Testament, when the high priest took the animal, slayed the animal, went into the Holy of Holies, and he laid that blood on the mercy seat, he did that not for all people indiscriminately, but for God's people.
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So too, when Christ went to the cross, was nailed to the cross, was lifted up in the air, when He suffocated and died on the cross, and He gave up the ghost, at that moment, He said, It is finished.
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It has been paid in full for every person, past, present and future, who would ever believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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That is whom that death was made for.
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It seems so obvious.
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It seems so simple.
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However, as obvious as this doctrine is from Christ's words, it remains a point of serious and severe theological debate.
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Some of this debate comes from certain passages of Scripture, which we will look at in a moment.
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However, I find, and I've talked to so many people about this, I have spent up to three and four in the morning discussing this at certain people's homes.
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And I find that the reason that most people debate this is not because of fidelity to Scripture.
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I find that most people debate this because they have not logically considered the implications of their position.
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So this morning, we're going to look at that for a moment.
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You see, if you ask most people, whom did Christ die for? Christ died in His atonement.
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Every person in the world receives the atonement of Christ.
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Every person in the world receives the benefit of the atonement of Christ.
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He died for everyone indiscriminately, OK? Had this conversation with a man at Lifeway.
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He challenged me on the subject of Reformed theology against my will.
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When I say challenged me, I really didn't want to talk to him.
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But he challenged me on it because he saw me reading a book on the subject.
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And I was dressed in my typical pastor wear, which is jeans and a T-shirt.
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So I certainly didn't look like a pastor at the moment.
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And so, you know, he challenged me on it and he said, you know, I don't like that limited atonement because I believe Jesus died for everybody.
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And I said, OK, why is there hell? I said, your problem is not with limited atonement.
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It's with unconditional election.
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I said, you also believe in limited atonement because you believe in some way some people are not receiving the benefit of the atonement of Christ because they're in hell.
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Everybody believes in limited atonement.
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It's not even an option if you believe in hell.
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The only people who do not believe in limited atonement are the universalists.
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It really is.
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It's not even up for discussion at that point.
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If you believe in hell, you believe in some way Christ's death, the atoning properties of Christ's death.
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If you wanted to break it up into different qualities of what his death did.
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But the actual propitiatory sacrifice of Christ was not applied to those people if they're in hell.
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It doesn't even seem like it's that big of an argument at that point.
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It seems so obvious.
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The Bible makes it so clear that the majority of the world will end up in hell.
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Yes, the Bible makes that clear.
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It's sad, but it's true.
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The Bible makes it clear the majority of the world went up in hell.
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And if you believe in hell, then you must believe in some form of limited atonement because you believe that Christ's sacrifice has not covered the sins of the people who are there.
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In fact, if you believe that Christ's sacrifice does pay for their sins, and yet they do go to hell, then you believe God is unjust because you believe God will accept a payment on behalf of someone and then yet still punish them, even though he has accepted a payment for them.
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If God has accepted a payment for someone and yet still punishes them, he is unjust.
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And as such, the entirety of the holiness of God is called into question.
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For what is God if he is not just? Will not the judge of the universe do right? You cannot have universal atonement and people going to hell.
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It would not be just.
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It does not work.
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Thus, everyone who believes in hell believes in some form of limited atonement.
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That is without without controversy.
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That is true.
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Now, the position that is often used to rebut what I just said.
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And, you know, I often debate myself in these sermons.
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I'll tell you what the other side saying, then I'll respond.
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This is just you.
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You hired an apologist pastor.
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Maybe next time you'll get Billy Graham.
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But this time you didn't.
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Because this is what I have been called to do is give an answer.
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This is part of my mission as a pastor is to be an apologist.
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And the position that is often held against limited atonement is this.
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Here's the here's what says and stick with me.
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Christ's death doesn't save anyone.
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It only makes salvation potential for everyone.
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That is a huge argument that's going about being bantered about.
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Well, Christ's death didn't really save anyone.
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It just made salvation potential.
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It's still up to you to accept it.
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Sounds very common.
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Sounds like a common argument and sounds like it would make a lot of sense.
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However, I find this argument to be the most repugnant of arguments because it demonstrates a very low view of the work of Christ and a very low view of the nature of God.
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How? Well, the fact is, with God, nothing is potential.
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Here again, with God, nothing is potential.
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Let me explain.
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If you are omniscient, you know everything.
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God is omniscient.
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Thus, God knows everything.
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You know, A is B and B is C and A is C.
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You understand that little deductive reasoning.
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If you're omniscient, you know everything.
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God is omniscient.
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Thus, God knows everything.
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So to him, nothing is potential.
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He already is certain of everything.
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He learns nothing.
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You ever thought about that with God? God has never learned anything.
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Interesting thought there.
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To him, the end is already set.
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In fact, he states that he declares the end from the beginning.
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Isaiah chapter 46 and verse 10.
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No matter what perspective, no matter what perspective of predestination you hold to, those who believe the Bible should not argue that God knows without exception every person.
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Wait, let me back that up.
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I'm saying it wrong.
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No matter what position of predestination you hold to.
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If you believe the Bible, then you have to believe that God knows the end from the beginning because the Bible is so clear on that.
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That is simply a fact from Scripture.
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Only a person who subscribes to open theism.
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Open theism is a new teaching, relatively new teaching, which basically says God doesn't really know what's going to happen.
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God is sort of like us, just a lot smarter.
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He I mean, I'm being somewhat somewhat crass and explaining their position.
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But basically, God doesn't absolutely know the future.
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God is in flux, sort of as we are in flux.
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And he's learning as things happen, what's going to happen.
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He's just smart enough to determine what is likely to happen.
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However, God is not God is not absolutely know the future.
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That is a very, very heretical view held by very few in the Christian community.
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But there are those out there who call themselves open theists.
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So unless you're one of those, which you shouldn't be, but unless you're one of those, then you do believe God knows what's going to happen.
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Absolutely.
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Because God is sovereign.
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You know that God knows absolutely because God is omniscient.
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So if a person believes the Bible, they believe that God knows everything without exception.
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And that includes who will be saved.
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God knows for certain who will be in heaven and who will be in hell.
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As such, is there any potential that that's going to change? Well, the answer is no.
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So this whole idea that Christ died potentially for a group of people, that's hogwash.
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Because it's not looking at it from God's perspective.
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It's looking at it from our perspective.
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Salvation is not a potential thing with God.
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Neither then would be the atonement of Christ.
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The atonement of Christ is not potential.
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The atonement of Christ is actual.
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It did not make salvation possible.
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It actually saved the people it was made for.
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Amen.
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I'll say that that's the truth.
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Christ's death didn't die potentially for a group of people.
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He died specifically on purpose for his people.
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Wasn't potential.
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It was actual.
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And it actually saved those for whom he died.
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Now, with all that being said, all that laid out there in front of you, that's the reform position.
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That's the answers to the major objections which come from what I hear most often.
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Now, let's actually look to some scripture and answer some questions.
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Because what may be in your mind and what comes up in a lot of people's mind and say, OK, Pastor, if what you're saying is true, then what about all those verses that say Jesus died for all? Or that Jesus died for the world? And those verses like that, what are we to do with those? Are we to simply say we'll just throw those away? Absolutely not.
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Obviously, the entire Bible must be considered, especially when addressing a subject like this.
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But what you must do in the very beginning is you must come to an understanding that typically the word world specifically and the word all are always to be qualified by a context.
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For instance, if you very quickly, you're in John.
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Turn over to Mark.
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Mark chapter one.
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Go to verse four.
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It's talking about John the Baptist.
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John chapter one or assuming Mark chapter one, verse four, speaking of John the Baptist.
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It said John appeared baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
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And all will stop there.
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Just make sure you understand that's the word used pass in the Greek or Pontos, depending on the use in the sentence.
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And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins right now.
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Answer this question.
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Does all in that sentence mean every single person individually in Judea and Jerusalem were going out and being baptized by John? The answer has to be no.
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It cannot mean every single person individually was going out and being baptized by John.
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It has to mean all without distinction, not all without exception.
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All in this sentence means people of every type does not mean every individual was going.
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And you say, now, wait a minute.
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I've never heard all used like that.
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Yes, you have.
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Every time you turn on the news, Rami and Ryan were out at the landing yesterday and all Jacksonville turned out to see them.
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Well, I weren't there.
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You get it.
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I mean, does that make sense for you when it says in all Judea, you see the word all typically.
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And this is in the standard lexical sources.
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You look up the word pass and you will find there a statement that will say all typically is all without distinction, not all without exception.
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And it's very, very important that you understand when you see the word all that all must be interpreted according to context.
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So likewise, too, with the word world.
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In fact, some scholars have said that the word world and I am not a linguist, but I have studied with some fine linguists and one scholar has identified 11 different uses of the word world in only the writings of John.
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Eleven different ways the word world is used just in John.
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In fact, John 12, 19.
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So the Pharisees said to one another, you see that you are gaining nothing.
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Look, the world has gone after him.
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What are the Pharisees saying? Are they saying every single person in the world has gone after Jesus? No, a whole lot of Chinese people at that point never even heard of him.
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I mean, seriously, you have to identify who is he talking about? He's talking about a large group of people and he identifies them as the world.
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John 17, 9, my favorite verse to demonstrate this.
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John 17, 9.
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Jesus is speaking.
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He says, I am praying for them.
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I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me out of the world, for they are yours.
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Talking to God.
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He's talking to God about his people.
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He says, I'm praying for my people, not for the world.
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So Jesus makes a distinction between his people and the world.
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It's funny.
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People say world always means everybody individually, every individual in the world.
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No, it doesn't.
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I just demonstrated that to you twice and we could go on and on and on.
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It's simple.
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It's linguistics.
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It's context.
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Context will always determine what words mean and how they are used in a sentence, how they fit together.
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Context will always determine that.
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And the passages that people use to describe Jesus's death for the whole world are often passages like John 1, 29.
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I heard a pastor preach against reformed theology one time and he used John 1, 29.
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He says the next day, John saw Jesus coming to him and he said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
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And he says right there, that's proof positive.
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Everything those reformed theology guys say is bunk because here it says he takes away the sin of the world.
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However, we have to immediately qualify the statement as it is used by John.
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If Jesus took away the sin of the world, everybody in the world would be saved.
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So we know everybody's not saved because Jesus spent a very large amount of his ministry preaching on a place called hell.
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So because hell exists, we look back at the statement where John says he takes away the sin of the world and we ask ourselves, what is John saying here? Here is a relatively short interpretation of John's words.
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Jesus came into the human race.
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He came into this created order.
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He came to humanity to take away sin.
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And in the future, sin will be totally removed from this world and there will be a new heaven and a new earth.
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There is your interpretation based on sound reasoning and theology and on the text.
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Jesus does take away the sin of the world.
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In the end, when he comes and judges, there will be no more sin in this world.
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There you go, that argumentative, does that deny reformed theology? No, it agrees.
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However, when you are basing your theology on tradition and not on the text, it is very easy to come up with interpretations which you think are the hallmark of your movement.
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And yet really all they are is your desperate attempt to deny the clear, logical statement of Scripture.
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Now, another one that is obvious, John 3.16.
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Man, I tell you, first of all, I really need a whole sermon to do John 3.16, to do it justice, just to describe the errors that people make on it.
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Not just to explain the text, but to explain how many people misuse the text.
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John 3.16 is the whole Bible in one sentence.
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OK, slow down.
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I'll tell you one place people automatically miss John 3.16, right off the bat.
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A very famous preacher did this.
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He said, For God so loved the world.
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And you see that word, so, it means he loved the world so much.
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He loved them so much that he did, you know, send his son and he went into this long spiel.
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But he really focused on that word, so.
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God loved the world so much.
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In the original language, what the text actually says, In this way God loved the world, that he sent his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him will not perish but have eternal life.
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Actually, what it says is, In this way God loved the world, that he sent his only Son, that pas hapistuon, all the believing ones will not perish but will have eternal life.
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Who are all the believing ones? Well, they're the elect.
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Who are the elect? They're the ones for whom Christ died.
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How much did God love the world? In this way is how he loved the world, is that he sent his son to die for his people.
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So that's breaking it down linguistically.
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But yeah, that doesn't sound like something you want to put on a billboard and stick up at a football game, does it? You see? Again, this runs roughshod against people's traditions and it makes people feel uncomfortable.
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But beloved, it's just the text.
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If somebody uses John 3, 16 to argue against limited atonement, my response is that John 3, 16 tells us that the atonement is limited because it says that those who believe will not perish.
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And then it goes on in the in the sentences following to say, but those who do not believe will perish.
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As such, who was the atonement made for? Those who believe.
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The one most argumentative passage, the one that I think most people have the most difficulty with.
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And I it took me a while to understand this one.
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But when it finally the light came on, I don't know if you guys had those light bulb moments with God.
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But when this light bulb came on, it never it was like, man, how did I miss it? And that's 1 John 2, 2.
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Go over 1 John 2, 2.
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1 John 2, 2 is the keynote verse for those who want to deny limited atonement, because in it, it says he speaking of Christ is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world right there.
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Pastor, everything you said is wrong because I'm reading a verse which says everything you said is wrong.
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All right.
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Listen up, because seriously, this is only difficult, only difficult if you tear it out of its context.
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I promise you.
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John uses the word world a multitude of ways.
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I've already demonstrated that, but mostly this is how John uses the word world.
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I'm going to tell you how he uses it most often.
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Most often, John uses the word world to differentiate between Jews and Gentiles and to say the world is both.
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The world is Jews and Gentiles, because you remember Jews were his people.
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John was not a Gentile like Paul.
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Well, Paul was a Jew.
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I'm sorry.
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John was not a Gentile like others.
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John was a Jew.
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Paul was a Jew.
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These men were Jews.
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And why did Paul spend so much time at the beginning of Romans dealing with the Jews and the Gentiles and how both of them were under sin? It's because there was this big divide between the Jewish people and the rest of the world.
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It was a big divide between the Jewish people and how and seriously, the really seriously religious views, if they went out into another another area that wasn't that wasn't Israel, they went out when they came back in.
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I mean, they like they brush the dirt off their feet.
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They clean themselves because they believe that they've been made unclean by going out in these other places.
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There was this real strong belief that it was sort of an us against them.
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And there's a lot of that in the Old Testament that we see.
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And there was a lot of tradition that was held over during the time of Christ.
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And it was very much an us against them sectarian mentality that John carried into the ministry that he had in Christ in something that he had to get across to the other Jewish people was that Christ has not died for the Jews only.
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He has died for believers everywhere.
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OK, this is something he had to put out now.
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You say, well, how can you prove that's what that means? How do you how do I know you're not just making an interpretation? One word in that sentence proves my point.
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The word propitiation, because the word world has multiple interpretations.
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And I've just told you the one that I believe it is.
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I think the world he's talking about is the non-Jews.
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He didn't die just for the Jews, but for the non-Jews as well.
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How do I how do I know that's correct? Well, the word propitiation, even though the world world has up to 11 different meanings, the word propitiation only has one propitiation means to satisfy the wrath of God on behalf of sin.
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He has satisfied the wrath of God on behalf of sin for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the world.
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If that means what the non-reform say it means.
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Then God is unjust to send anyone to hell, because if Christ has satisfied the wrath of God on behalf of every single person and even one of those people goes to hell, then God is unjust.
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So if you got a sentence where one of the words that you're having trouble interpreting has up to 11 different meanings, but the other one only has one meaning and you're trying to make your determination, you should probably start with the one that only has one meaning.
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And then allow it to develop a context in which you interpret the other word.
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Propitiation is a very strong word, does not have multiple meanings.
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It means a complete satisfaction of the wrath of God.
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And propitiation is too strong a word to mean something potential.
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That's another thing.
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It's not potential.
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Propitiation either is or it's not.
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Within the context, John is saying that this turning away of wrath is not just for any Gentile or anyone else who believes this propitiation knows no ethnic, racial or cultural bound.
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It has been made for people from every tribe, from every tongue and from every nation.
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That is for whom the propitiation has been made for people from all around the world.
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This is why if you turn over to Revelations, you will see where the Bible says the lamb was slain for people from every tribe, tongue and nation.
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And it's very specific.
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There are people.
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This is why we send out missionaries, because we believe that Jesus died for people.
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Even in the back darkest regions of Africa, there are people for whom Christ died and we're going looking for.
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Who will receive the word of Christ? Those for whom he died, who will proclaim faith in him, those for whom he died.
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Now, today has been about teaching and defending the biblical doctrine of limited atonement.
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The opposite view of what I have proposed here can only be described as universal atonement.
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That's the only other option.
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Do you have limited atonement or universal atonement? And the atonement of Jesus for all people universally is unbiblical and unjust if people go to hell.
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However, it is still the majority view.
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But I want you to think, as I bring this sermon to a conclusion, what it would mean if Christ's death was a universal atonement.
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I want you to think on this.
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I really want you to chew on this.
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I'm bringing this to conclusions.
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I really want you to tune in.
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Remember what this would mean if Christ's death was a universal atonement.
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That would mean that hell is full of people for whom Christ died.
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And that means, by extension, Christ failed.
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Hell is full of people whose sins were paid for on the cross.
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The lake of fire burns forever with fire and brimstone with the eternally damned people for whom Christ fully atoned.
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That would mean his atonement is not good enough.
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In my opinion, if there's any doctrine out there that makes no sense at all and would actually be blasphemous, it's the doctrine of universal atonement.
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To have someone's sin paid for, yet they still be punished for all eternity would not only make no sense, it would make God forever unjust because he is punishing people for something that has already been forgiven.
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The only answer to the question of the extent of the atonement that makes sense is that Jesus died and paid the full penalty for the sins of all who would ever believe so that his atonement is an actual atonement and not a potential one that can be simply disregarded.
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And here's the beautiful result of it.
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The beautiful result for you who are believers is that if Jesus actually paid in full the penalty for your sins, you are not going to hell because that would be double jeopardy.
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It would be unjust.
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And beloved, you are not.
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How do I know, Pastor? How can I know if Jesus died for me? If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved for that is whom Christ died for.
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If you are a believer, Christ died for you.
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That's limited atonement, beloved, and it is a beautiful doctrine.
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Let's pray.
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Father, we thank you that our salvation is not based on something that we have done.
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Our salvation is based in the work of Christ alone, that he has provided for us a propitiation and not just for us only, but for every believing person in the world.
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And Father, I pray now that the words that I preach will be met not with hypocrisy, but with hostility, but God with openness, that people would actually look to the scripture and look to what has been said, the reality of what has been said, the logic, the pure truth that's coming out of the word and know that you would not be unjust and that people who go to hell go there because of sin.
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Someone may say, Father, well, they only go because they don't believe.
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But Father, your word tells us that lack of faith is the highest of all sins.
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So it is still sin that sends them there.
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But I thank you, Lord, for the salvation that comes from believing in Christ.
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I pray, Lord, that if there's someone here today who has never heard of Christ, who's never heard the gospel, that they have heard today that there is salvation and only one who is Christ.
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And I pray that you would open their heart to believe.
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I pray you use this, Lord, as the means to glorify yourself.
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In Jesus name we pray and for his sake, Amen.