Defending Calvinism: Perseverance of the Saints
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Join us for the newest episode of Apologia Radio in which we continue our series on Calvinism/the Doctrines of Grace. This week we finish up with TULIP and talk through "Perseverance of the Saints." Tell Someone!
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- I would say if the authorities didn't want us involved in the public square, they ought not to have crucified
- 02:58
- Jesus in the public square. Use humanistic principles. It's the same idea. I would say that. Same answer.
- 03:03
- I would say what's the problem with stardust bumping into stardust? In the cosmic picture? None. There's no problem.
- 03:10
- Oh, right. In the cosmic picture, it won't matter. No, Mr.
- 03:16
- President, you are not protecting reproductive freedom. You are authorizing the destruction of freedom for one million little human beings every year.
- 03:35
- I'm sorry, my friends, but I am tired of seeing Jesus presented as a weak beggar.
- 03:44
- He is a powerful savior, and the gospel is not a suggestion, it is a command.
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- God damn it. Reverend Moller, don't you sympathize with that?
- 04:00
- I sympathize with every single human heart wishing to know the one true and living God, but I believe there's only one way that that can happen through Jesus Christ, and the gospel is about repenting of sin, not celebrating it.
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- Right now, you're on the threshold of an amazing adventure. We will explore the spiritual abyss.
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- You have not experienced this before. You're going to love it.
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- In him, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.
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- In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with a promised
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- Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.
- 05:09
- What's up? That's beautiful. Amen. That's Ephesians chapter 1, y 'all. Everybody, welcome back. This is the
- 05:14
- Gospel Heard Around the World, Apologia Radio. That's Luke DeBear. What up? What's up? I'm Jeff DeCommon, the
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- Ninja, and that's Zachary Conover, Director of Communications with End Abortion Now. We're so glad you joined us.
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- So I'm grateful to God for all of you. Wanted to ask everyone just quickly, we're live right now today, pray.
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- Pray for Dr. James White, one of our fellow elders at Apologia Church.
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- Pray for him. He has been on an insane debate tour and teaching tour through numerous states over the last month or so, month and a half, debated
- 07:18
- Catholic Answers Best, Trent Horn on Sola Scriptura and Purgatory. He's done a number of different debates over the last couple of weeks, one on the atonement, and tonight he is debating in Houston against Leighton Flowers, the provisionist
- 07:35
- Leighton Flowers, who actually lost the last debate badly.
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- And the reason why I would say it like that is because I think Leighton Flowers' system is inconsistent, detracts from the glory of God and the glory of God's grace, and I think it is wholly unbiblical when it comes to the nature of man.
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- And so his position needs to be thrown into the dustbin of Christian history.
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- And so Romans chapter... Is that Romans 9? What's that? Romans 9. Good way to put it. Yeah, so go watch the
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- Romans 9 debate, and this is in no way an attempt to be arrogant. We care about what the Scriptures say.
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- Love Leighton as a brother. I think that his system is doing damage to the gospel of grace in terms of how gracious is
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- God's grace, and so I think his system needs to be exposed for the unbiblical thing that it is.
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- And so Romans chapter 9, his system I think was shown to be inconsistent, not exegetically based and very much man -centered, and so Romans 9,
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- I think there's no question Leighton Flowers lost that debate badly, and he needed to lose it badly because we care about what the
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- Scriptures say. And tonight they're talking about John 644, and I think the question is,
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- John 644, does it teach unconditional election? I think I have that right. Oh, man. I'll go check that.
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- Yeah, I think that's the title. So anyway, let's see here. So what is it...
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- James sent the link to us for tonight. We can announce to everybody where to go on YouTube to go watch it. What's the name of the church?
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- I'm thinking again. It's... Something Lutheran. Is it First Lutheran? Yeah, you're right. The title's, Does John 644
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- Teach Unconditional Election? Yeah, it's First Lutheran Houston. Okay, so if you go to YouTube after this and...
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- That's the channel too. Yeah, look up the channel, First Lutheran Houston, you'll see they have the stream up and ready to go, so you can go on there, click on it, ring the bell or whatever, so when it goes live,
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- I think it's going live in a couple hours, two hours? Six PM our time, so almost four hours.
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- Four hours from now. Okay, so just be there, check that out, I think it's an important debate and it really is... The reason I mention it is because it really has a lot to do with what we're talking about today.
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- We've been doing a series... Sorry, three hours. Three hours. We've been doing a series defending Calvinism over the course of a couple of months.
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- It's been sporadic just because of things that come up, we need to talk about those instead.
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- And so defending Calvinism today, we're actually on the last part of this discussion where we fill out the details of what is
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- Calvinism, what are the doctrines of grace, are they biblical? And so if you're just getting into this discussion, I just want to encourage you to go back and listen at the start of this series, this
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- Rated Discussion series. Of course, we have sermons on this and there's tons and tons of great works over the centuries defending this from a biblical perspective, but today we are moving our way through that Tulip, Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the
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- Saints. We started the discussion with the sovereignty of God because in reality, that's where you really need to start.
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- That was already assumed in the background of all of that discussion. But if you're just getting into this discussion, we want you to understand that the purpose of this discussion, why even have it, is not to bring unnecessary division within the body of Christ.
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- It's not to just simply firm up your commitments to your clique or your crew or your team or your group.
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- It's not even to get you to join our club sort of a thing. It really is, from our perspective, an attempt to defend the glory of God's grace and the true graciousness of grace.
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- How gracious is God's grace? That's the key issue. And so for us, the meaningfulness of this discussion is centered right around that it makes so much of God and Christ and, of course, the work of the
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- Holy Spirit, the triune God of Scripture. It makes so much of God and His work in salvation and so much less of man.
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- And of course, we believe that it's because it comes just right out of the
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- Scriptures. And that's why we're doing this. I have so many men and women that I respect who are not reformed completely in their thinking, they're not
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- Calvinistic, that I love and I cherish, and I know they're brothers and sisters and we're grateful for them. And we know that this is technically an in -house debate to some degree, and I would say to some degree because there's some people who are full -blown
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- Arminian that go the other direction that I would say, well, you've now abandoned the faith in terms of how you're trying to attain salvation.
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- But generally speaking, this is an in -house debate, and that means that we're all brothers and sisters, but it's an in -house debate that has such dramatic consequences on our understanding of the gospel.
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- And then from that point, how do you preach the gospel? And this would be a good point just to bring up in terms of consequences, the consequences.
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- So I've seen a lot of discussions lately, and we've dealt with this before, talking about, well,
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- Calvinists can't preach the gospel, and I'm like, what do you mean can't preach the gospel? Like we believe
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- God uses his church and the means of the gospel to bring his elect to himself. I'm a Calvinist, and I also preach the gospel.
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- But they don't mean that. What they're saying is that they can't preach the gospel like us, and what they mean by that is these
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- Calvinists can't go out into the world and say, hey, Jesus loves you. Jesus died for you.
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- And so they don't even preach the gospel like us. And I'm thinking to myself, that's an important discussion to have, because I don't see any of the apostles preaching the gospel like that in the
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- Holy Scriptures. And so I think - Or even Jesus. Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? It's the challenge.
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- It's like Calvinists can't preach the gospel, and we walk up to somebody and say, hey, Jesus loves you, and he died for you.
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- And I want to say, wait a second, I think it's in reverse. You have a proclamation of the gospel and a means of getting it out there that doesn't sound anything like Jesus or the apostles, because you show me in the
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- New Testament where the apostles went into the world preaching the gospel like that.
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- They didn't walk up to random bystanders and say, hey, Jesus loves you, man. God loves you, bro.
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- Jesus died for you, and won't you let him into your heart? Won't you give him a chance? And listen, that shows how much tradition has overwhelmed the evangelical church in the
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- West, because we think, not because the Bible, but we think because of our tradition and our systems of evangelism that that's how you preach the gospel, and these
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- Calvinists over here can't preach it like us. It's like, no, the Calvinists basically want to follow the scriptures on how we preach the gospel like the apostles by proclaiming what
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- Christ did and who he was, and then commanding men everywhere to repent and to believe the gospel.
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- It's this general call of repentance and faith in Jesus. Here's who Jesus is. This is what
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- Jesus did. He lived. He died. He rose again from the dead. He's ascended. He's seated. And the call was repent.
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- God's going to come back and judge. Repent and believe the gospel. It was never this, hey, man, God loves you, bro.
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- He loves you so much. Jesus died for you, man. It's like, well, that gets to the heart of the matter here, which surrounds the whole issue of the issue of TULIP.
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- These are all biblically definitional things in terms of God's grace, man's nature, what the atonement accomplishes, who it was for, and how
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- God brings about this salvation. So that's what we're doing today. That's a huge lead in, but I'll be honest,
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- Perseverance of the Saints, I think it's one of the most overwhelming ones. It's like you almost don't even need to really do a lot of preparation for this because it's like, well, let's just get the list of scriptures out and let's just plod through them.
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- All right, so everybody, we are going to get into the discussion today, Perseverance of the Saints. So we started the discussion, of course, with the sovereignty of God, because that is really where you need to.
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- That's where Paul puts this discussion, okay? And so you remember at the beginning of the episode today that I read to you from Ephesians chapter one.
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- Ephesians is just filled with so much testimony to the grace of God in salvation and the power of God's grace, the plan of God in salvation.
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- But in Ephesians chapter one, there, starting in verse 11, you have that we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.
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- He works all things according to the counsel of his will.
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- It's a very different view of God than is popular today in particular systems of open theism, even in systems like Molinism.
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- This is a perspective of God that Paul clearly has, that the prophets and apostles all have, about God's total sovereignty over all things.
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- And it's interesting when he refers to the inheritance that we have and the being predestined.
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- It's because of the one who works all things after the counsel of his will. And then it gets to this really incredible promise that I confess
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- I have to regularly wrangle my heart to get back to. And that is that the promise is you are sealed with the promised
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- Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.
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- There's the purpose of it, to the praise of his glory. So sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, it's a guarantee.
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- It's a guarantee. And when I mentioned wrangle my own heart back to it, we're creatures.
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- We have small brains and not a lot of strength some days.
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- And if you're like me and you are very aware of your past sins and what
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- God has delivered you from, you've probably had, even as a firm believer and a joyful believer, moments where you remember and you reflect on just how much
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- God has saved you from and how awful you've been. And you look at a promise like this and that's like, it's water for your soul.
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- It brings you back to life again. Because in the end, it reminds us as God's people that this is
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- God's plan of salvation. It's nothing that I did. I didn't acquire this. It wasn't me clamoring for God and trying to pull a ladder to God.
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- This is something God did. It was according to his will. He does according to his will in the heavens above and in the earth below.
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- And here you have, he works all things according to the counsel of his will. This is his plan. He predestined, he gives the inheritance, he gives the
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- Holy Spirit. Here's where this guarantee is from. You have this inheritance, this possession.
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- You are going to acquire it. And why is that? Because you're going to continue to be faithful because you're going to just get, you're going to give it all you've got.
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- You're going to be the one that has the strength and the spiritual understanding. You're going to have all the investment you need. Now the answer is this
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- God, he did this. He predestined you to adoption as sons. He's the one that's done this.
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- It's according to the counsel of his will. He's the one accomplishing it. It's the Holy Spirit within you guarantee of this, this future inheritance and possession of it.
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- And so when you talk about perseverance of the saints, what's amazing, and then
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- I'll kick it to you guys here, is that generally speaking, the evangelical
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- West has been so influenced by the Reformation in terms of even just like a smattering of Sola Scriptura, even if it's not a really very rigorous understanding of it, like that's
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- God's word. We need to believe that book. Those are his words. Everything's going to come from that book. Well, you can thank a
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- Calvinist for that, and the spirit of the Reformation that gave us that. So praise the Lord for that. But the general consensus
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- I think that you would get out of the, you know, at least strong evangelical today is that, no,
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- I cannot lose my salvation. God has saved me. Jesus died for me, and he's going to keep me to the end.
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- It just might be called eternal security. Eternal security. So people will say that. They'll say, I believe in eternal security, that once saved, always saved.
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- And we would say to that, yeah, we believe that once you're saved, you're always saved. We would definitely challenge some of the understanding that people have today about once saved, always saved.
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- Like a lot of IFB people, Independent Fundamentalist Separated Baptists, will say like once saved, always saved, meaning
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- I can go door knocking, and after 30 seconds of talking to a guy, scaring the hell out of him, literally, he prayed a prayer with me.
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- And as long as he prayed that prayer, and it doesn't matter what happens to him after that, like if he never desires worship, never desires to read the
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- Word, never pursues holiness, doesn't matter, he prayed that prayer, like he's saved, once saved, always saved. We'd say, well, that's not exactly how this works.
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- And they'll count that as winning souls. Winning souls. And so what we would say is, yeah, we believe in eternal security.
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- We believe that once you're saved, you're always saved because we believe in the perseverance of the saints.
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- And that is to say that if God has saved somebody, if He's chosen to save them, Christ has died for their sins and atoned for their sins, and the
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- Holy Spirit has regenerated them and brought them to life and He indwells them, you will persevere until the end because it is
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- God who is working in you. It is God's work from the beginning. It's His work throughout it.
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- It's His work to the end. It's all to the praise of His glorious grace. This is God's work. So will you be saved forever if you have true saving faith in Jesus?
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- No question, because it is Jesus who says that He gives His sheep eternal life and nothing can snatch them out of His hand.
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- And so that's perseverance of the saints, is that God is going to cause you to persevere. You will pursue
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- God. You will pursue holiness. You will be sanctified because you are a new creature.
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- You are a new creation in Jesus. You have been bought with a price. You belong to God. You're indwelled by the
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- Holy Spirit of God. So salvation is not merely sort of God comes and punches a ticket or God and you sort of high -five one time on earth here and be like,
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- I'll catch you later. It's a much bigger, more beautiful thing than that. Salvation is real salvation.
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- He really saves His elect. And so perseverance of the saints, God will keep those He saves.
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- Go ahead. I love how you connected regeneration to that with the verse from Ephesians too, because we talked last week about irresistible grace, the effectual calling based on the
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- Spirit. If there's one thing that's unfortunate about the letter in the acrostic, perseverance,
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- I think we would more desire to call it preservation of the saints.
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- Perseverance, like you said, implies that God began this and now it's up to you. Whereas we would say, no, what we're emphasizing here when we talk about preservation of the saints is
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- God's power, His grace to finish the work that He started in us. So that doesn't mean that even after the
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- Spirit has regenerated someone that they won't fall into sin, like even serious sin in some cases, but it does mean that no true believer can have a final or a total fall from grace.
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- Like the apostle Peter is a great example of that. He messes up in a glorious way, abandoning even his
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- Lord, and then he's the one that is restored, strengthened, confirmed, and established once again to minister to the
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- Church of Jesus Christ in a dramatic fashion. So the core question at the bottom of this, bringing it right in your kitchen really, how do
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- I know that I will remain a Christian until the end? That's really the question that we're answering with this.
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- How do I know that God's unfailing love for me will never change and that I'm forever secure in His grasp?
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- That's really what we're talking about when it comes to preservation of the saints is God's power to save us,
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- God's power to finish what He started in us, and that effectual power that the Spirit has now worked in the hearts of God's people, that will overcome the power of sin and death.
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- Sin and death won't have the final say, right? The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it.
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- So the one who started the good work will finish it, and He will keep us to the end. Pete Yeah, that's great.
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- I'm glad you brought up that point. I think, and that goes back again to just starting with the S, right? God's sovereignty.
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- And so that's an excellent point, the way you worded that. I like to use definite redemption sometimes as another way to word that.
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- Like you were saying, Jeff, the majority of the church affirms this point.
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- They'll reject the other four. Jeff I'm a one point. I accept perseverance of the saints, yeah.
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- Pete And I think this is the one point where if someone truly holds to the ability to lose your salvation, then you start going,
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- Houston, we have a problem. Like those are the people that start to really veer away from orthodoxy at that point.
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- You can almost get the other ones, be wrong on the other ones, but you really get this one wrong. You're probably off on some other cult at that point almost.
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- And there are people that maybe grew up thinking you could lose your salvation, they really don't understand it. And they're just regurgitating what they thought.
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- But people I think that really, truly hold to that and argue for that position, you're treading.
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- You're dancing on the line of orthodoxy at that point. Jeff Yeah, biblical orthodoxy. And here's the thing, when you talk about TULIP, we have tried to make the argument that it's a biblical line of thought, that all of these biblical categories are connected.
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- If you disconnect these points that relate to the atonement, the nature of man, the grace of God and salvation, if you disconnect the points, your system doesn't make any sense, because they all sort of hang together, because they're all part of the biblical flow of thought in soteriology.
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- Soteriology is the doctrine of salvation. Soteriology having to do with salvation. And so the argument is being made that the reason this has been such a blessing to the church is because when during the time of the
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- Reformation, the issue of the graciousness of God's grace is front and center, and it was that way with Rome and where Rome fell into apostasy.
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- I agree with Sproul when he talked about Rome as a Christian communion.
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- When they declared war on or rejected the doctrine of justification by faith, they ceased being a legitimate
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- Christian church, no matter how orthodox they are everywhere else. And so, of course, during the
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- Reformation, this topic was the hot topic. How is a person reconciled to God? How does a person have peace with God?
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- What is the true nature of man before he's saved? And then, of course, you get into the controversy with the followers of Jacob Arminius, and there was a lot of time and study and work thrown into what happened in the remonstrance, the protest, that general protest.
- 30:30
- And so if you don't know the history, if I'm talking over right now, because you're like, I don't understand any of this stuff, just know that this discussion of the grace of God and salvation is an important one.
- 30:39
- I believe what took place during the time of the Reformation was a blessing to the church because it brought so much light out of the scriptures into all of these other areas where we diminish the glory of God and salvation.
- 30:51
- We make much of man, we make less of God, and that is not only unbiblical and wrong to do in terms of the glory of God and what's at stake, but it's also, practically speaking and in our circumstances, so destructive.
- 31:05
- Because I'm speaking from a pastoral perspective here, not just my own personal perspective of wrestling with my own sin, wrestling with my own deficiencies and my own weaknesses over the many years of being a
- 31:17
- Christian, but pastorally speaking, if you take this whole story of redemption and salvation and you put it into the hands of the sinner and say, well really, in essence, this is kind of also you.
- 31:31
- It's about your own cooperation. It's about what you've done, and it's about you participating in it.
- 31:38
- Yeah, Jesus did all these things, but in the end, it's really the ball's in your court, my friend. And so if you do that,
- 31:45
- I can just tell you as pastorally, that doesn't heal people. It doesn't bring a person out of a pit.
- 31:51
- And I'm not saying you share these truths because I really want to pull a person out of a pit. I'm saying, practically speaking,
- 31:57
- I've seen the Word of God in its clarity, sufficiency, and simplicity heal people from depression and misery and fear over the future and anxiety and bless people with the joy of God's salvation.
- 32:12
- And I think man -centered systems, practically speaking, destroy all that. So I'm saying this has theological implications, and it has practical implications for your life here and for the life of the church.
- 32:24
- And so don't rob God of his glory. Assurance in particular. That's what I mean, yeah. I was going to say, Rome's such a great example too, because obviously in Roman Catholicism, you earn your way, right?
- 32:35
- So that's your role in salvation, is you got to earn that. But you also got mortal sins, and you can just as easily not earn your way to salvation and be damned forever because of those sins.
- 32:49
- Yeah, sacramental system. They are constantly in this hamster wheel of the sacramental system. You don't know that you have peace with God.
- 32:56
- I mean, you can go from peace with God to rebellion and war with God between 10 and 1030 a .m.
- 33:02
- You don't know that you have peace with him. You've got, of course, added into there the doctrine of purgatory, which apparently modern -day
- 33:10
- Roman Catholics aren't really exactly sure about how that works. Listen to the Trent Horn debate with James White.
- 33:15
- It's a stunning difference between old -school Catholics and the new modern
- 33:21
- Roman Catholic apologists in terms of purgatory and things like that. But in the end, yeah, it's a system that's just this constant rotation of peace with God, no peace with God.
- 33:30
- He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me. He loves me not. And so much of that, they'll acknowledge that God has grace.
- 33:36
- Jesus died for sinners. But the ball is in your court. I mean, it really has to do with your cooperation, your obedience, not the work of God in salvation, in saving his elect.
- 33:48
- And so this has so many implications. But let's get to, let's just, I mean,
- 33:53
- I think, unless you wanted to say something. Would I be able, I'd like to set up a little question. I don't want to get too far in the weeds with it before we jump to the verses.
- 34:01
- But I want to set this up by saying, there are true believers. There are those who are regenerate.
- 34:08
- And then the Bible speaks of false professors. So these are people that have the outward appearance of godliness and religion.
- 34:15
- But inwardly, their hearts are far from God. You know, they went out from us because they were not actually of us, right?
- 34:23
- They weren't true believers. They weren't regenerate blood -bought believers. And that was evidenced in the end by their works, right?
- 34:30
- By their life. So I think the question I have here is, and hopefully this will help people that are thinking through this, when we talk about perseverance of the saints, you're talking about people never being lost, right?
- 34:40
- Like God always holding on to them. So what do we do with that in light of the conditional statements that we see in Scripture about, if ye obey, or if you obey my commandments, then you're my disciples, or the warning passages, for example, in Hebrews 6 that talk about, you know, people seemingly, oh, when
- 34:57
- I read that, it seems like people fall away. I know there's a way to understand that passage, but I'm just curious, how do we help people think through, how do you understand, well, are you saying then that this warning, it's no big deal for me as a believer,
- 35:11
- I shouldn't take it seriously because God knows I'll never be lost? Yeah. So there are definitely warning passages really all throughout.
- 35:19
- And, you know, you can look at warning passages from Hebrews. You can look at warning passages or passages that really illustrate that there is such a thing as a false profession of faith.
- 35:30
- There is a living faith, there is a dead faith, like in James chapter 2. There's warnings against those things. There's warnings against people who would profess to believe, but then have no works.
- 35:41
- Like, that's legitimate. Like, we're not saying like, oh, you just say you believe, you're fine, you're good. No, it's true saving faith that saves.
- 35:46
- And so there are clear warning passages that are given generally out in different contexts.
- 35:54
- So like the book of Hebrews, you've got warning passages coming that are coming in a specific context of people who have the temptation to go back to temple, back to sacrifices, back to that old priesthood, all that stuff.
- 36:05
- There's warnings there. Like, you do that, you're trampling Christ underfoot, all that stuff. There's specific warnings there.
- 36:10
- And like I said, just take those two examples. James 2, you have pretty much a very serious warning there against people who have a said faith, a profession of faith, but they don't have a living faith.
- 36:22
- And they think that that profession of faith is going to save them. No. James is like, no, living faith is a real faith that produces works.
- 36:30
- And here's my examples. Father Abraham demonstrates this this way. And so what we would say is that when it comes to this issue, we take the warning passages seriously, but the warning passages always have a context to them, like in the context of Hebrews.
- 36:47
- But there's always this assumption clearly throughout Scripture and even contained within the warning passages that you're talking about people who truly don't believe.
- 36:58
- They have a said faith, a fake faith, and the warning is there. You go back.
- 37:03
- You abandon Christ. Here are the consequences. And like Zach brings up, it's one of the best examples you could possibly give because it is so clear and sharp.
- 37:14
- They went out from us in order to show they were never really of us.
- 37:21
- They can't get around that. Right? That's not saying, that's not an affirmation. Ah, this person was really saved.
- 37:27
- They really know God. They were dwelt with the Holy Spirit of God, and they got lost. They couldn't hack it. They weren't obedient enough.
- 37:33
- What they fell, whatever the case may be, is they went out to show it. They were never really of us.
- 37:39
- Or when Jesus says, many people will come to me on the day and say, Lord, Lord, didn't we cast out demons in your name?
- 37:44
- Didn't we do this in your name? And people have tried to use that passage to say like, oh, see, they lost their salvation.
- 37:50
- It literally says, depart from me. I never, never knew you.
- 37:58
- Never. There was never a relationship between Jesus and these people that he says depart.
- 38:03
- There's no relationship. He's not lying to them. He's not faking saying, oh, we really were, but I didn't know you.
- 38:09
- No, he says, depart from me. I never knew you. Never. There's never a relationship there. He's not saying depart from me to people who he actually knew, because the people that he knows are the people that he foreknows.
- 38:21
- He chooses to enter into intimate relationship with Romans chapter eight. Those whom he foreknew he predestined.
- 38:29
- And so this whole, this whole discussion, again, rests every time firmly on God himself and his sovereignty and his courses, providence and history to save his elect.
- 38:42
- And we take the warning passages seriously in scripture. And I have to, I have to just say this bluntly.
- 38:48
- I give warning passages as often as I give warning. I give warnings as a pastor as often as I can from the pulpit at Apology at Church.
- 38:59
- I warn people, I think fairly regularly that, you know, that there's people in this room that think that they're
- 39:07
- Christians and you don't truly believe in Christ. You love the Christian context. You love the
- 39:13
- Christian culture. You feel safe here. You love this. I mean, seriously, being a part of a body of Christ, a faithful body of Christ is awesome.
- 39:20
- You have people that love you, will serve you, they'll like jump when you have pain or you need something.
- 39:26
- People have like, we have like meal trains happening 24 hours a day at Apology at Church. Like someone's hurting. Just from the babies.
- 39:32
- You got five, you got five weeks of meals. You're going to have families delivering your meals for five weeks. Someone's car's broken down.
- 39:38
- Who can fix cars in our church? Let's get them on that. How can we get your car taped for your rent? It's nice to be in a
- 39:44
- Christian community. It's wonderful. But sometimes, maybe people like the Christian community, not because they really believe in Jesus, but because they love this loving place.
- 39:56
- And I've seen it. I have seen apostasy. Pastor Luke and I have been pastoring
- 40:01
- Apology at Church since the very beginning. I planted the church. I ordained Pastor Luke as the next feller elder.
- 40:09
- And he's been there since day one. We've been doing this from the very, very start. We can tell you stories, horrible stories that break my heart and break our hearts of people who are with us.
- 40:21
- And then they finally, after a while, you can't be a part of a body of Christ that is consistently preaching
- 40:27
- God's Word, just testifying to God's holiness, testifying to the authority of God, calling people to repentance, calling people to holiness.
- 40:35
- You can't fake it in a church like that for very long. So we usually see, we've seen, this is just sort of, well,
- 40:44
- I'm not saying this is how long it takes. I'm saying that in my experience, generally, at a faithful church, someone may love the community, profess the faith, look outwardly like a believer for,
- 40:55
- I'd say, about two to three years is what I've seen. About two to three years is about how long it takes.
- 41:02
- So I can think of people like, for example, a guy that was with us from the very beginning. It took about two to three years.
- 41:07
- He came out of a homosexual lifestyle. He actually had HIV as a result of it. He looked all on the outside like he was a believer, and after about two or three years, he started to not come to church, started to disappear.
- 41:22
- Then he came to us one day saying he needed to talk, and he looked like his soul was gone. He looked like he was literally the walking dead, and he told us that he loved his sin with other men more than he loved
- 41:33
- Jesus, and he never really trusted in Jesus, never really did believe in Jesus, and he wanted to go back to his homosexual lifestyle, and it just took a little while.
- 41:42
- And we had other people. I could think of a female that was with us for two or three years, looked very much like a believer on the outside, and then she's abandoned
- 41:50
- Christ, and today she lives as a man, and yeah, that's the truth. I can repeat that story where people have been among us, professed the faith, and eventually you go, oh, he would never really love us, and it was obvious.
- 42:05
- And most of the time, I can tell you, when I've had conversations with these people, they've said as much. I never really believed this.
- 42:12
- I never really believed in Christ. I had a guy tell me once he was caught for some sexual sin and just practicing sexual sin, and so we brought him together to talk to him, call him to repentance and hopefully help him, and he just told us bluntly.
- 42:27
- He said that he loved having sex with girls more than he loved Jesus, and he loved pornography more than he loved
- 42:34
- Jesus. He just said it bluntly, which I appreciated the honesty. I mean, that's helpful to hear that instead of the fake, you know, oh,
- 42:40
- I'm struggling with my faith, you know, when you're really not. You just, you really want to leave. So you would say that warning people, warning in particular the people, the gathered assembly, is twofold in its effect.
- 42:54
- For the believers, it's the means that God uses to help them persevere, because the true believers will.
- 43:00
- Yeah. But for those that don't know Christ, that aren't regenerate, it acts as judgment and condemnation upon them, ultimately.
- 43:07
- Yeah. And the regular call to follow Paul's lead, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith.
- 43:15
- That needs to come out. What's a warning, right? That's a warning to people to say, hey, look, don't just recognize this fallen world.
- 43:21
- You might like these stories. You might like the idea of a Savior, but have you repented and turned to him as your
- 43:29
- Savior and Lord? Or are you just in love with the Christian context, the Christian culture, the
- 43:34
- Christian community? You just love this stuff because it's nice. There's some dark places in this world and there's some rough people.
- 43:41
- And so when you go from like the rough people, the dark place to like this, you know, Christian community where there's love and there's sacrifice and there's service and there's hospitality and there's giving and graciousness, you go,
- 43:53
- I like this better than I like the rough area. Things that aren't common in clown world. But it doesn't mean that you believe in Jesus.
- 43:59
- You just love, you just like his people. They're nice. They're great. Christians aren't perfect people, but Christians are the best people in the world.
- 44:09
- And it wasn't, I didn't make that up. That was Tozer that said that. And I remember that from the first time
- 44:15
- I heard it because it's really helped me too to remember those two important things. The best people, not perfect people.
- 44:22
- So anyway, I figured what we do for the last part here is as we've explained some of these things, let's just start plotting through a bunch of texts.
- 44:29
- Yeah, for sure. Let's just plot. Let's do it. Yeah, I was just gonna say before I lose this thought was just that's why
- 44:34
- Jesus gave the parable of soils in Matthew 13. Like, yeah, there's different levels of growth.
- 44:41
- And, you know, because people that want to deny perseverance of those things are like, well, look, these people, you know, lost their soil.
- 44:47
- You're like, no, read it again. No, wasn't good soil. Yeah. So that's a perfect, then
- 44:53
- I'm thankful to Jesus for giving that parable. Thank you for those parables, Jesus. They're really helpful here. Because then it explains the, you know, the complaints against this position.
- 45:02
- Right. And it's exactly, and I went through the parables myself in one of our sermon series,
- 45:08
- I think it was on Matthew. There's good soil. And in order to get good soil, it takes some preparation ahead of time.
- 45:17
- You gotta work that ground. And so that's something that God does. And that seed gets in there. And then it gets in, bears fruit, some 30, 60, 100 fold.
- 45:25
- And then sometimes it looks like it is real. And then it gets scorched. And sometimes it gets snatched away.
- 45:31
- Choked out by the cares of the world. Only one of them actually gets into good soil and bears fruit. But also let's just notice,
- 45:37
- I think it's important that the one that gets in good soil grows up and bears fruit.
- 45:44
- That's the expectation of real salvation in good soil is that it actually grows up and it actually bears fruit.
- 45:51
- And that is the description of the person who's truly in Christ, the person who's truly saved.
- 45:57
- So, you know, honestly, this one could go for days.
- 46:03
- Yeah, there's a lot. There's so many, but we wanted to at least give you like some big chunks and anchors to set in.
- 46:10
- And of course, we couldn't help but start with where the debate's going to be landing tonight between Dr. White and Professor Flowers.
- 46:17
- And that's John chapter six. We've already done it a bunch in this series because it's the words of the Lord Jesus. I think we all need to listen to.
- 46:24
- Here's what Jesus says in John 6, 35. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger.
- 46:30
- And whoever believes in me shall never thirst. Okay, stop. Is that true? That's what
- 46:36
- I want to ask myself when I read something like that. Do I believe what Jesus said there? Jesus says the person who comes to him will not hunger.
- 46:44
- And whoever believes in him will never thirst. All right. So let's say somebody comes to Jesus. They believe in Jesus.
- 46:51
- They really do. And then they end up being hungry and thirsty. Is Jesus a liar? Yeah, he'd be a liar because the promise there is that they will not hunger, will never thirst for those who truly believe, for those who believe in him.
- 47:05
- Okay, so that's where the anchor is. Perseverance of the saints is right there. I'm never going to hunger. I'm never going to thirst because Jesus says if I come to him, if I believe in him,
- 47:13
- I never will. And God cannot lie. So I'm saying that like when you deny perseverance of the saints, when you deny that God keeps those whom he saves, you are in some sense starting to strike away and chip away at the incarnation itself.
- 47:29
- Because you're saying, no, they can be hungry and they can thirst. And I'm saying, no,
- 47:35
- God cannot lie. This is a promise. This is a promise from God himself. He says this. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.
- 47:45
- He's talking to people who've seen him. They look like believers. They don't believe. And he answers their unbelief.
- 47:51
- He says, all that the father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes to me,
- 47:57
- I will never, I will never, I will never cast out. Okay, never hunger, never thirst, cast it out.
- 48:09
- Where, where do we get the idea that though you can truly come to Jesus, believe in him, and that will actually be cast out hungry and thirsty?
- 48:19
- Where do we get that idea? It's not from the words of Jesus. Because I'm going to say, I want to believe what he says.
- 48:26
- I want to, I want to take it seriously. I don't want to deny his word. I don't want to detract from it.
- 48:32
- And so when Jesus says, come to me, never hungry, never thirsty. I'll never cast you out.
- 48:38
- I want to believe that. And when you, when you go, well, I affirm that, but that but is a very big but, right?
- 48:49
- It is because it is destructive to everything Jesus says here. I didn't mean for that to come out like that. I didn't mean for that to come out like that, but it did.
- 48:58
- So here we go. He then says, all that the father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out for I've come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
- 49:08
- And this is the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me but raise it up on the last day.
- 49:16
- There are a people given to Jesus by the father that he says he will lose.
- 49:22
- None of them, he will raise them up. And this is what's important here. I said, we already said this a bunch of times.
- 49:28
- From the very beginning, we started a series talking about the sovereign, all that he pleases. Well, look, here's what he says.
- 49:33
- For this is the will of my father that everyone who looks on the son and believes in him should have eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day.
- 49:47
- Eternal life. Is eternal life yours to lose? I guess that would be the question. It's a forever life, right?
- 49:55
- Forever life. It is the father's will. He loses none. It's eternal life.
- 50:01
- I will raise you up. There's just, I, look, there's no way out of that.
- 50:06
- And that's, you know, why are you a Calvinist, Pastor Jeff? Well, for a number of reasons, but I really want to believe
- 50:12
- John 6. That's, that's it. I mean, my first, you guys have heard me say a bunch of times, my first Bible reading was in the gospel of John over and over and over and over and over.
- 50:25
- And I think that was a real blessing in my experience because I already believed all this stuff before I even knew about what
- 50:30
- Calvinism or Arminianism or provisionism or whatever is. And I just said, that's my savior.
- 50:37
- And he says, that's what he's going to do. I believe that. And I've always had that anchor since the beginning of my faith in Jesus is that this is what
- 50:43
- God is going to do for me. So, and John, that's John 6.
- 50:48
- Did you want to? I was just going to say, there's, there's no way out of that chapter without dancing a theological jig, you know, and tonight in the debate, there's going to be a lot of ballroom dancing going on.
- 51:00
- I'm going to say that ballroom dancing. There's going to be a lot of dancing. Um, now you, uh,
- 51:06
- I mean, going to the old Testament here, speaking of the new covenant, um, Jeremiah 32 verse 40,
- 51:12
- I will make with them an everlasting covenant that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts that they may not turn from me.
- 51:22
- So the power of the new covenant is such that God's spirit is going to take up residence within the hearts of his people. To what end?
- 51:29
- Well, the fear of him is going to be put in their hearts, true believers, that they may not turn away. So God's going to ensure that that's going to happen.
- 51:38
- Promise of the new covenant. I also liked the one you brought up in Ephesians as a great one being sealed by the
- 51:44
- Holy Spirit. Yeah. For what? For the inheritance that we have, which Peter also tells us in first Peter chapter one, blessed to be the
- 51:52
- God and father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, according to his great mercy, mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
- 52:01
- So this is the resurrection power of the spirit that's alive in every believer to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you who by God's power, whose power?
- 52:14
- God's power. Are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
- 52:20
- I like how some English translations translate that appropriately as reserved in heaven for you.
- 52:26
- Yeah. I like it. We like those reservations. I got a reservation. Yeah. I'm supposed to be here. I got a reservation.
- 52:32
- You got my name down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got a reservation. In the Lamb's book of life. That's right. No less. Hey, I'm here for my reservation.
- 52:38
- Oh yeah, your name's down here. We got your reservation. Come on in. Yeah. Kept in heaven for you, reserved in heaven for you.
- 52:46
- Yeah. That's powerful. And John chapter 10, we've already done some of John 10 in the course of this discussion in this series, talking about the atonement itself,
- 52:54
- Christ laying his life down for his sheep. But just notice some of the things that Jesus says here about his sheep.
- 53:00
- He talks about him being the good shepherd, and he says this in John 10, 14, he says, I'm the good shepherd.
- 53:05
- I know my own, and my own know me. All right, so that's specificity.
- 53:11
- That's not some general idea, some nebulous, you know, group of people. That's very specific. I know who are mine, and they know me.
- 53:18
- By the way, this is John 10. That is right after John 6, right? It's behind it. And in John 6,
- 53:24
- Jesus says, the Father has given me a people. So now he says here, I know who my sheep are, and they know who I am.
- 53:29
- And then he says this. He says, just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep.
- 53:36
- And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.
- 53:43
- Not, I hope they will. Maybe they will. They will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.
- 53:50
- For this reason, the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.
- 53:58
- I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father. And then, of course, it goes down into John 10, 22.
- 54:06
- And this is where it gets beautiful, I think. Is when Jesus is then confronting their unbelief in verse 24, the
- 54:15
- Jews gathered around him and said to him, how long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.
- 54:21
- I love this answer. Jesus answered them, I told you. Right? Tell us if you're the Messiah. I did.
- 54:27
- And he says, and you do not believe. Father's name, bear witness about me. But you, this is powerful, do not believe, because you are not among my sheep.
- 54:37
- He already said, I know who my sheep are, and they know me. I will bring them. And then here he says, you don't believe because you're not.
- 54:45
- You're not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
- 54:54
- I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
- 55:01
- My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the
- 55:07
- Father's hand. I and the Father are one. I believe that. I believe that.
- 55:14
- Where's the Bible teach perseverance of the saints? Well, right there. There's two places. They're very powerful places, and I think places that make this relationship with Jesus so unbelievably beautiful and powerful.
- 55:28
- And I'll just confess, that's the anchor of my life and my soul right there. Life is hard.
- 55:34
- Life is horrible. This world is sinful and rotten at times, and there's my anchors. I hang there a lot.
- 55:39
- That's where God has brought me to a great place of peace and joy in my life is I know that this is his work.
- 55:45
- It's his doing. It's because of his love. It's because of his grace. It's because of his mercy. And I'm only gonna hang in there to the end because he's done this, and he promises he's going to complete it.
- 55:56
- I have a reservation. I got a reservation for me. I'm gonna start using that. You got resis.
- 56:01
- I mean, I love the passage about the sheep and hearing his voice, and obviously, Jesus is a good shepherd.
- 56:07
- And if you really dig into the historical meaning of what Christ was saying, it was like the shepherds literally lived with the sheep.
- 56:15
- They were literally the door into the sheepfold, and the sheep knew the shepherd's voice.
- 56:22
- And so if there was another lamb that wandered into the fold that wasn't of that shepherd's, wasn't one of the shepherd's flock, they wouldn't recognize his voice, and they're not gonna follow him.
- 56:38
- If there's a goat or whatever, they don't know his voice. I love that. If you really dig into that, just the picture that that gives us of God's work and salvation.
- 56:49
- It goes back to the seal that you read in Ephesians, the seal of redemption. There's a reason there's a seal on them.
- 56:56
- It's a seal of ownership. Yeah, that's right. And Romans 11 talks about the grace of God and the gospel, saying the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
- 57:07
- Romans 11 29. It can't be taken away. Yeah. That's what irrevocable means. The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.
- 57:15
- Irrevocable can't be taken away. Yeah. I mean, if we have a few minutes, there's a couple more if we want to read.
- 57:21
- Yeah, we got a few minutes. Let's do it. I mean, let's do a couple. Philippians 1 6. I'll throw one out.
- 57:26
- Go ahead. And I'm sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
- 57:34
- 2 Timothy 1 12. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.
- 57:46
- Jude 1 24. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy.
- 57:57
- 1 Thessalonians 5 23. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our
- 58:06
- Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful. He will surely do it. Do we do
- 58:12
- Ephesians 4 30 yet? No. Okay. Ephesians 4 30. And do not grieve, speaking to the people of God, do not grieve the
- 58:18
- Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
- 58:25
- 1 Timothy 1. One that everybody is familiar with, Romans 8 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
- 58:31
- Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
- 58:37
- For your sake we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
- 58:45
- For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our
- 58:58
- Lord. Are we done? Are we done? I think we're done. No, we're not done. We can keep going, but yeah. That verse is like the one where it's like, just in case you were wondering if there was anything -
- 59:08
- That could separate you. It's like, he's like, what things could people say could separate? He's like, not this, not this, not this, not this, not this.
- 59:15
- Yeah. What have I heard my pastoral ministry? But what about this pastor? What about this pastor? He's like, okay, it's not death.
- 59:21
- It's not this, because he's writing, nothing can, nothing. I think it just speaks to like the glory of Jesus's intercession for his people too.
- 59:28
- Like we hear in the book of Hebrews, he's able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him because he always lives to make intercession for him.
- 59:36
- How certain is your salvation? Jesus would have to die again, and he's not going to do that.
- 59:41
- And he's never going to fail to intercede for you before the Father. Everything that he did on the cross is going to be true for you now and throughout eternity, come whatever circumstances in your life.
- 59:52
- And what you just said was essentially an explication of the thought of Hebrews 7 .25. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
- 01:00:08
- That's the promise. You have an atonement. It's a perfect atonement, able to save to the uttermost.
- 01:00:14
- He always lives to make intercession for us. He intercedes with his work before the
- 01:00:20
- Father for the people of God. This is why it can't be something that actually fails, because it's a plan of the
- 01:00:26
- Father accomplished by the Son, applied by the Holy Spirit of God. This is the work of the triune
- 01:00:31
- God of Scripture. In the end, and you brought this up the last discussion, and this is an important element because we're talking about what is biblical and Christian orthodoxy here, what is most consistent, is that when we talk about the doctrines of grace, you're talking about the consistent perspective of how the triune
- 01:00:48
- God saves. Because you could have people that deny certain elements of it, where you have the
- 01:00:55
- Father wanting to save, Jesus trying to save, and the
- 01:01:00
- Holy Spirit failing to save, right? And so you've got this disconnected work, and this is the whole point you were making, the disconnected work there between the persons of the
- 01:01:11
- Trinity is, in some sense, somebody could say, well yeah, like the Father wanted to save them, Jesus died for them, but they ended up being lost, because they didn't cooperate in some way.
- 01:01:20
- Impossible. Right, exactly. Trinitarian heresy. It doesn't work that way. And so that's the point, is that the doctrines of grace guard against Trinitarian error in God's glorious plan of redemption, because it's just a consistent story.
- 01:01:34
- The Father gave a people to Jesus. He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. Jesus comes, sacrifices his life, gives his life and death and resurrection for the people of God.
- 01:01:45
- He accomplishes that redemption. It's a finished sacrifice. The Holy Spirit of God comes, regenerates, indwells
- 01:01:51
- God's people, and he keeps them till the end. It's this perfect unity in the
- 01:01:57
- Trinity, and it's not conjured up some way, it's just, but that's what the text says.
- 01:02:03
- That's what God says he's doing there. But why do we get tripped up? Why all these other systems? And in the end,
- 01:02:09
- I think it's because we have traditions that fly against the face of the text, and they're cherished traditions, maybe.
- 01:02:19
- Like, well, I don't like to preach the gospel like that. I like to walk up to a random stranger in the street and say, hey man, Jesus loves you, man.
- 01:02:25
- He died for your sins. Won't you let him into your heart? That's how I've always preached the gospel. I can't do that anymore.
- 01:02:31
- It's like, maybe you should examine the methodology that you've adopted for evangelism.
- 01:02:37
- You took the wrong course. Throw it away. And I'm not saying take the course of apologia, like we've created this mess.
- 01:02:45
- I'm saying - Just read Acts. Just read Acts. Read how they preach the gospel. They didn't preach it like that. They would proclaim the work of Jesus.
- 01:02:52
- Here's who he was. Here's what Jesus did. He died. He rose again. And then there was the call. Repent and believe.
- 01:02:59
- Come to Christ for the forgiveness of sins. The call goes out generally to turn from sin to believe in Jesus.
- 01:03:05
- But you don't ever see the apostles walking up to a random person and saying, oh, God loves you all so much.
- 01:03:10
- And Jesus loves you and died for your sins, everybody. Don't you want to just - Everyone just - Every eye.
- 01:03:16
- Every eye closed. Every head bowed. I see that hand in the back. Okay, everyone. Yeah, I see that. Everyone, I want you to pray this prayer.
- 01:03:22
- You don't see it. It's not in the Bible. And you may love it. And I will confess, I loved it.
- 01:03:29
- And I was always looking. Every time it was every head bowed, every eye closed. I was looking around to see who needs to get saved.
- 01:03:35
- Oh, who saw her raise her hand last week? Who needs to get saved? She's always raising her hand. But this is honestly the crazy thing to me.
- 01:03:43
- I know we're joking here a little bit. But everywhere the apostles went, there was a public disturbance.
- 01:03:52
- A riot, a mob formed, people taking oaths and vows to kill Paul before the day's out, not to eat again before they take his life.
- 01:04:02
- When has the gospel of Jesus loves you, won't you let him into your heart, resulted in a riot, or a mob, or a public disturbance?
- 01:04:11
- Generally doesn't. Never heard any example of that happening? No. And no, not one.
- 01:04:18
- Yeah, if the gospel is going out, this is the work of Christ. He commands all men everywhere to repent.
- 01:04:25
- That's the kind of gospel. Jesus is king over Caesar. That's right. That's the gospel that leads to insurrection.
- 01:04:32
- Trouble. Yeah. Trouble for sure. I think we got a bunch of super chats. Do we really? Okay, let's get to them.
- 01:04:38
- Let me turn... Okay. All right.
- 01:04:44
- So thank you everybody for listening today. Let's get through our super chats today. We are gonna do more on this. We told you that we are also going to do a particular show where we go through chestnut arguments against the
- 01:04:59
- Reformed faith and Calvinism, arguments against the doctrines of grace. We do want to do that as well, but we wanted to at least present the positive case from the scriptures here.
- 01:05:07
- Judoka. Hey, Judoka. I know what that means. 512. Greetings, brothers.
- 01:05:13
- Could you please explain to me John 3 .16 from a Calvinist and limited atonement point of view? I always get tripped up there.
- 01:05:20
- Thank you for that, Judoka. It has to do with a judo practitioner. So first of all,
- 01:05:28
- John 3 .16. I want to encourage you to look on YouTube because Pastor James has done some fine, fine work here just explaining to everybody.
- 01:05:37
- Here's what the text says. We've received this in such a traditional context and used it in such a traditional context.
- 01:05:45
- Oftentimes, we miss what the text is actually even saying. This is a promise to believers, right? For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only begotten son so that every believing one, whosoever believes, every believing one would have eternal life.
- 01:06:00
- But people say, well, the world. He so loves the world. Yes, the world is what was promised to the
- 01:06:06
- Messiah. Jews, Gentiles, people from every tribe, tongue, people, and language.
- 01:06:12
- They were all coming. That was the promise that all of the nations who stream up to the mountain of God and so the world does not mean every single person who's ever lived.
- 01:06:21
- The text there is making a promise about what God said he was going to do with the Messiah's kingdom. It was going to be not just Jews, but Gentiles.
- 01:06:28
- Also, the world, all the nations, tribes. Read Daniel 7 .13 -14.
- 01:06:34
- Just because the word world is used doesn't mean it refers to every single individual.
- 01:06:40
- Like, for example, in John's gospel where they say, look, the whole world is following him.
- 01:06:47
- Was every single person in the entire world following Jesus at that moment? So, it can be in a general sense.
- 01:06:54
- However, the text is just a promise to God's people. Every believing one will have eternal life.
- 01:07:00
- Every believing one will have eternal life. That's what the text says. And so, I hope that answers it.
- 01:07:06
- I would encourage, pick up the Potter's Freedom. Potter's Freedom, Dr. James White, his response to Norm Geisler's Chosen but Free.
- 01:07:13
- Get into some of the background of that text just to help you to say, this is actually a solid promise to believers.
- 01:07:22
- I guess Wally West answered. Thank you,
- 01:07:27
- Wally West. Thank you, Wally West, also for the Super Chat. Jordan Travis. My friend struggles with security about his faith and knowing he has saved your videos have sincerely deepened my understanding and faith.
- 01:07:38
- So, thank you. Thank you, Jordan. I'm so grateful to God that that's true. Kelly Wilson. Thank you for the Super Chat. No comment.
- 01:07:44
- Thanks, Kelly. Bless you. Thank you very much. All right, everyone. If you would also pray for the work of End Abortion Now right now, go to endabortionnow .com.
- 01:07:57
- Get your church signed up to go save lives. It is happening still across the country in every state.
- 01:08:02
- We need to work together as a church to abolish this. We have stuff happening in states across the country right now.
- 01:08:08
- We need your help with. We need your hands and your feet. We need your prayers. And we also need you to help to give towards the work of End Abortion Now so we can pull all of this off.
- 01:08:17
- We are working on Alabama right now as the next stop for us as a church to minister there.
- 01:08:23
- And so be in prayer for that. But I want to thank you guys all so much for your giving. Also, I just wanted to point everybody.
- 01:08:29
- I think it's important. Go to Bonson U and get your free account with Bonson U at apologiestudios .com.
- 01:08:38
- There's just a treasure chest there with Dr. Greg Bonson with all of his old sermons, his lectures, his debates, everything.
- 01:08:47
- It's going to bless your life. Go sign up for Bonson U. It is free at apologiestudios .com.
- 01:08:52
- And if you are interested in self -defense or hiking or being a woodsman or you just like blades, please go to amtagblades .com
- 01:09:03
- and get one of Bill Rapier's blades. We got our battle axe right here. If you want to chop your way through life.
- 01:09:09
- I saw a reel of him do it, like working it actually on a tree. And I'm like, okay,
- 01:09:14
- I'm glad I'm not the tree. Like I'm, I, it scares me to death to do the things he was doing this. Cause I'm like,
- 01:09:19
- I'm going to lose a hand. But you can go to amtagblades .com, put apology in the coupon code and get 5 % off.
- 01:09:27
- And he matches that and gives 5 % to end abortion now, which is pretty awesome. And of course, please, if you're homeschooling, go to heritagedefense .org.
- 01:09:36
- Please sign up. Please, please, please. For the sake of your children. It's not that much at all. It's very reasonable.
- 01:09:42
- Make sure you're protected. If CPS ever comes to your door again, apology in the coupon code. Or any government officials.
- 01:09:48
- Or any, any government. Anyone that's like, I'm from the government. I'm here to help. I'm here to help. You just speed dial and put them on with your attorney.
- 01:09:56
- And it's, it's an insane, insanely low, low, low, ridiculous low price to have a nice, somebody on speed dial that can defend you and your rights and defend your family.
- 01:10:09
- Make sure you guys do that. Thank you guys for listening today to Apologia Radio. We'll be back next week with more.
- 01:10:15
- That's Luke the Bear. He's out. I'm Jeff. They call me the Ninja. And that's Zachary Conover. We'll catch you next week. Catch us at the after show.