Session 7: Objections to Calvinism

And now our last speaker for the conference,

Pastor Mark Grimaldi, he's going to be handling the topic, Objections to Calvinism.

Pastor Grimaldi is the pastor at Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Merrick. He graduated from the Reformed Baptist Pastoral Training Institute in Worcester, Mass.

And he has been married to his wife, Julianne, for 16 years, and they have eight children. Pastor Mark, come and speak to us.

It is good to be here with you. It's been a great encouragement to sit under the teaching and the preaching of the men who have worked this conference today and yesterday.

And I feel like I'm on information overload right now, to some degree, from absorbing all that. But really, it was just a blessing to my soul, very encouraging, and I thought these men did a great job, just well -rounded in addressing these issues.

I'm going to ask you to turn with me to Romans chapter 9. Romans chapter 9. The good thing about Romans 9, you always hear that phrase, the good thing about it, right?

It's Scripture. Of course it's a good thing. It's God -breathed. Is that when you're dealing with objections, the

Apostle Paul is anticipating objections in this text to some of the things that he's going to say.

Remember, in Romans chapter 8, he just spoke about basically that we have nothing to be concerned about as far as our salvation being complete, everything is secure, at the right hand of God and Christ, very encouraging for whom

God foreknew He would conform to the image of Christ, those we love, those we predestine.

So all that wonderful knowledge, that teaching on the doctrines of grace that we see in Romans 8.

And then you get to Romans 9, and Paul knows that the big question is going to be that if God does preserve His people like that, if He is faithful like that, then what happened to Israel?

Why is Israel in shambles? Why are there so many who don't believe among the Israelites? And so Romans 9 addresses some of that, and when he addresses that, he knows that there are certain objections that would immediately come from our human nature, and he deals with those objections pretty strongly in this text.

So I want to read that as a preface to what we'll be looking at this afternoon. Notice verse 1,

I am speaking the truth in Christ, I am not lying. My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.

They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.

To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever.

Amen. But it is not as though the Word of God has failed. That's the question. Well, what happened with Israel?

It's not as though the Word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. And not all are children of Abraham, because they are his offspring.

But through Isaac shall your offspring be named. This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.

For this is what the promise said about this time, next year, I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.

And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather

Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls, she was told, the older will serve the younger.

As it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. What shall we say then?

See, here's one of the objections. Is there injustice on God's part? By no means, for he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom

I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.

For the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. Then another objection.

You will say to me then, why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will? But who are you, old man, to answer back to God?

Will what is molded say to its molder, why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?

In order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom he has called, not from the

Jews only, but also from the Gentiles. Let's stop there for the time being. Let's just pray for a moment.

Father, we do give you thanks for your glorious word. We give you thanks for the wonderful truths that we have heard proclaimed to us this weekend.

We pray, Lord, that these things would drive us to all the more give you praise and worship and seeing what you have done and seeing,

Lord, that even as mankind thinks that we're in control, that ultimately, Lord, this is your story.

This is about your glory. This is your creation and you have ordained to do with it as you please.

And we thank you, Father, that you have included us in that glorious plan by redeeming a people for yourself in Christ.

And we pray now that you give us grace to look into your word now and to think about some of the objections that would come against the teachings that we have gone over this weekend.

We ask for the blessing of your Holy Spirit. We ask that you forgive us for our sins and meet with us.

We pray in Christ's name. Amen. To say that the five points of Calvinism make up a pill that is easy to swallow would be dishonest and offensive, especially for those who are caught in the throes of wrestling through the teachings.

I agree with our brother Eli, who said earlier that we need to be careful and gracious when seeking to present these truths, not to beat people over the head with the

Calvinistic club, but to graciously show them these truths. I can remember when

I first began to wrestle with these doctrines well over 20 years ago now, and I was filled with great fear and anguish, pleading with God to enable me to embrace the truth as a comfort, whatever it might be.

I knew that he had to be a good God, that had to be a given in the mathematical equation. And I knew that all of his truth must be good and proper, no matter how difficult it may be to grasp.

The truth should not add shackles, but rather it should set us free, according to what the Lord Jesus Christ said.

And over time, the very doctrines that taunted my soul with questions about the goodness of God became the pillow upon which

I have now rested my head and soul for so many years. But needless to say, it was a transition, moving from one extreme, if you can imagine and remember before you were saved.

Pre -salvation, I lived, at least in a practical sense, even though I made some type of verbal profession of acknowledging

God, I didn't live that way and I didn't believe in truth. I really thought that in a practical sense, at least, that man was in control and was the ultimate maker of his own destiny.

And yeah, God may exist and he's out there, but he's just so far away. And we're really the ones that are running this ship here.

So to go from there to being convinced at the other extreme, post -salvation, that God ordains every single thing that comes to pass, even down to the minutest details, you can imagine, as you know, that that's a profound wake up call, to say the least.

To go from one extreme to the other. Thus far, you've heard sermons on all five of the points throughout the course of this conference.

And so it is my task now this afternoon to address some of the objections to Calvinism, which are commonly brought about by those who reject these teachings.

To be sure, there are legitimate, reasonable and biblical arguments which proponents of Calvinism must graciously deal with.

There are valid questions that must be answered while seeking to firm up the positive assertions that are made by the five points.

My aim, therefore, is to address some of what I believe to be some of the prominent objections to Calvinism.

I can't possibly address every one, but we do have a rectangular table meeting afterwards where you can ask those kinds of questions or put them in.

And so we can do that. It's impossible to address everything, but I will address what I believe to be some of the key objections that are put forth.

And I want to group these objections into three main categories, the ones that I will address. First, I want to address two key biblical objections to Calvinism.

Now, when I say biblical, I mean those that would be taken from Scripture and could seem to contradict the very teachings of Calvinism that have been put before you this weekend.

Secondly, I want to address one key philosophical objection to Calvinism.

And then thirdly, I want to address two key practical objections to Calvinism.

Now, there's going to be some overlap amongst those categories, but that's where we're heading at this point.

So concerning the matter then of biblical objections to Calvinism, I want to hone in especially on the various texts of Scripture, which would seem to emphasize the fact that man has a free will, including all of the choice passages where we're commanded to believe.

Believe the gospel. God commands everyone to repent. The commands to all people could seem to be contradictory to what we've been going over about Calvinism, which shows that God is the one who gives the grace to, who saves, who brings everyone into his kingdom.

Why are we commanding people then, or why are there commands for people to believe if God is the one who has to create that faith within us?

And then the second biblical objection that I want to address is what we call the all texts. You have to address that seeming to indicate that God's true design is for all people, as in every single individual, to be saved and that Christ died for the whole world.

And our brother Eli, I believe it was earlier, had mentioned some of those texts where it talks about Christ dying not only for our sins, but for the whole world, for all the nations, for every person.

You hear that kind of language with the alls and the every type language. So we'll address that as well. First, then, what then do we do with the passages of Scripture which seem to indicate that man has the natural ability to choose

Christ of his own will? In fact, why does God command all men to repent and believe the gospel?

Acts chapter 17, verse 30. And we're called as preachers, those who preach and even those who go out and evangelize, to say that God commands you to repent.

We're called to do that. Why would God do that, knowing the doctrines we've just gone over?

And why are people held accountable for rejecting the gospel when it is beyond their power to choose

Christ and to believe the gospel? So I'm going to address that second part of the question first and then work back to those choose texts as well.

First, let me begin by stating that the apostle Paul himself addresses this matter here in Romans 9, particularly in verse 19.

In this context, while addressing the fact that God has not preserved all of ethnic Israel, when you look at Romans 8, 28 and all those texts, those wonderful, beautiful texts about the security we have in Christ and say, what happened to Israel?

We see in Romans 9 that Paul addresses the fact that God has not preserved all of ethnic

Israel, but he instructs the Romans that not all ethnic Israel are part of the true

Israel of God, to whom God had made all of his eternal promises throughout the old covenant and especially through Abraham.

God never had in mind all ethnic Israel. He spoke of Israel in that covenant with his people when he was dealing with the eternal promises, even though he did have physical promises and locational promises that were for all ethnic

Israel in the same covenant. There is a spiritual

Israel, those who share the same faith as Abraham and not those who are merely physically descended from Abraham, who are the true

Israel of God. It's those who are justified by faith. They have the same faith and not just physically descended from Abraham.

Indeed, a remnant among ethnic Israel is part of the broader universal spiritual

Israel of God, which includes all who are joined to Christ by faith from every nation.

And to explain this reality, Paul first gives the examples of Jacob and Esau here in chapter nine.

Remember, both of them were physically descendants of Abraham, right? Both Jacob and Esau came from the loins, ultimately, of Abraham.

And Paul shows how God loved and chose the one, that is

Jacob, and hated and rejected the other. And just when you want to interpret that as loved less, go back and see where Paul is quoting from the

Old Testament and see how God spoke about Edom against Esau and ask, see the language he uses there about condemning them and bringing destruction doesn't mean hate.

I don't know how else hate can be defined when you look at what God says about the judgment he bring upon them. And he says here that even before either one of these children were born, before they were born, before they committed any act of good or evil, so that God's purposes, and this is important in this text, his preordained plans according to election might stand, he chose the one and not the other.

So that his purposes in election might stand, he chose the one and not the other.

Nothing about he saw something better in Jacob. He saw something that Jacob might at some point come to his senses on his own at some point and he saw down the tunnels of time.

No, it's according to God's purposes in election, his own design, will that he had desired to to save the one and not the other.

We're not doing an altar call here. I don't know if we are. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. He's fine. I'm joking.

I'm just kidding. He's cute. Following this,

Paul then turns to the example of Pharaoh and he shows how

God had intentionally hardened the heart of Pharaoh so that he might show forth his power and glory through Pharaoh's ultimate demise.

So he raises Pharaoh up and you see that. And how many times when I went back and read Exodus, I was amazed to see how many times

God says in advance to Moses, he's not going to let you go. Because I'm not going to let him let you go because I'm going to glorify my name and bring destruction upon him and the gods of the

Egyptians. And I'm going to harden his heart. Right. And they didn't they didn't get that. But he kept saying it in advance. And so Paul concludes, then, therefore, verse 18,

God has mercy on whom he wills and whom he wills, he hardens. And then it's immediately following this point that Paul addresses the very question that we're dealing with at the moment and which many continue to pose today in verse 19, because naturally, when you hear that truth about what

God does, ordaining the one and not the other before they even did wrong or before they were born, you would you can see logically how you would ask this question.

And so Paul says, how can God still find fault? For who has resisted his will?

How can God hold accountable a people whom he hardens and who are incapable of turning to him of their own free will since he chooses not to extend mercy to them?

Right. Isn't that the objections we hear today? Paul is speaking in the sense he knows that that's the natural question that we would ask.

But then versus 20 and 21, Paul answers that question in a sobering way.

But it's it's right and proper. And he says in verses 20 and 21, but indeed, old man, who are you to reply against God?

I mean, right there, we can just say, man, let's close in prayer. And who are you to reply against God?

Will the thing formed say to him who formed it? Why have you made me like this? Does not the potter have power over the clay from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?

And so what's Paul's point here? We really have no right to question the creator concerning what he does with his creation.

And he has every right to reach into the fallen mass of mankind. The whole lump is fallen.

That's the whole idea of extending mercy in this context to reach into a fallen lump and to extend mercy to some while hardening and bringing judgment upon others.

He has that right. That's his prerogative as the creator to extend mercy or not to extend mercy in accordance with his will.

None deserve the mercy whatsoever, but some receive it freely and justly in accordance with God's desire.

But then notice verses 22 and 24 as well, Paul adds to this and even in a sense entertains the question, he says, who are we to question

God anyway? But then he kind of opens up the door a little bit and says this. What if God, wanting to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels, remember that idea of vessels in that context, formed clay vessels of wrath prepared for destruction and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels again prepared by the potter of mercy, which he had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom he called not of the

Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. You see, all in all, God, having created all things for his glory, reveals to us that his ultimate design for this creation is to glorify himself.

That's the ultimate reason why we exist. This is for his glory. And he glorifies himself by revealing his own nature and being and exhibiting his glorious attributes before his creatures, spiritual and physical, angelic and human alike.

He reveals himself to those whom he's created in great ways. He shows forth his characteristics and that's how

God is glorified. So he comes back to realizing that God had no reason to create this creation because he was lacking in some sense.

He wasn't up there in the Trinity having a conversation with a cup of coffee and saying, you know, this is kind of getting boring eternally.

We need to do something to kind of have fun. No, no, this is a holy and good desire of God as he creates this creation.

The motive for creating is to glorify himself. And he's already perfect and has everything within himself.

And so he wants others that are created by him to experience and witness his glory, his attributes and who he is.

And that's how God is glorified. And so he is glorified. We see here in Romans in showing his mercy and grace legally in Christ toward vessels of mercy.

While revealing his justice, power and righteousness in bringing judgment upon vessels of wrath.

Now, that might not be something that's comfortable to the taste buds, but that's a reality. God wants to reveal his righteousness.

God wants to show that as a people are against him and turn against him and rebel against him and hate him and go against his will and think they're getting away with it, that he is a just and righteous

God. And he's going to show that by bringing judgment upon those rebels. But he's also amazingly going to show this grace by taking amongst that that naturally condemned lump of clay, pulling some out, sending his son to be ashamed and die for them so that he can redeem them and set them up as kings, as it were, along with his son.

To this end, it's also important then to recognize, and this gets back to the question about the freedom of the will.

It's important to recognize and why we command people to repent and to believe, why we give that command, whether or not they have the ability of themselves to do that in accomplishing

God's will. And this just came out in, I think this was Brother Micah, somebody, one of you had mentioned this.

In fact, a lot of the messages you heard, they stole my notes. Just in case you're wondering about that, that's the kind of men we're dealing with here integrity wise.

And I was really ashamed to see that, Eli, I never even met this guy and he stole my notes, too. I mean,

I have at least some decency to know me. In accomplishing his will,

God has also ordained various means of obtaining these ends and the means equally bring him as much as the ends do.

And so he ordains means and his means of extending mercy and grace to vessels of mercy is through the preaching of the gospel.

That's his ordained means. He calls his sheep through the proclamation of the gospel by men and women, by human beings, which the

Holy Spirit brings to the hearts of God's elect with power. And those who reject the gospel are still responsible for doing so because they reject it willfully and intentionally.

They reject it of their own will. God doesn't put a button inside of them and say, you know what? These people would naturally want to believe.

So I'm going to turn their heart in the sense where I'm going to actively try to change something in them to bend their will in this direction.

He doesn't have to do that. As we talked about, as we learned from total depravity with Brother Anthony Novino, if you weren't here yesterday to hear those two messages, please listen to them.

They were very well done. Both of the first two messages were done well. Also, it's it's not in them to to be able to to come to God.

Right. Because of their depraved nature. And but they reject it willfully and intentionally.

Is it the case that God hardens individuals and chooses not to regenerate them unto receiving the gospel?

Yes, that's the case. But at the same time, they willfully reject it and want nothing to do with it.

God chooses not to overcome their willful rejection, but they are still guilty of that nonetheless.

And those who do receive the gospel, God has overcome, as Pastor Rich did a fine job in talking about irresistible grace,

God has overcome by the power of his spirit so that they would be awakened to and receive the gospel gladly, not dragged, kicking and screaming.

But they desire they're made willing in the day of his power. In other words, God acts unto the salvation of the elect, but he leaves the non -elect to themselves, not choosing to act, which leads to their own willful condemnation.

The door to hell, as it were, is closed from the inside. It's what their desire is.

When God hardens and brother Jim Capple stole this from me yesterday.

When God hardens, he removes his power of restraint over the sinner's heart, leaving them to do what they would do naturally because of their fallen condition.

But God is constantly restraining this entire world. And if he left his restraint off, if he removed his intentional restraint, we'd all be eating each other alive and raping one another.

We do all the worst things imaginable that you see out there. We'd all do it. But he removes his restraint and leaves people to their condition.

And that's exactly what happened with Pharaoh, which is why in Exodus we're told both that God hardened

Pharaoh's heart, but we're also told that Pharaoh hardened his own heart in those texts as well. God didn't push

Pharaoh to act wickedly. He simply removed all restraint and gave

Pharaoh over to the power of his own wicked, deceptive nature. And so we are called to preach the gospel to all with sincerity, presenting

Christ as more than willing and able to save all sinners. The sufficiency of his sacrifice is there for all.

It's sufficient. If God wanted, Christ's sacrifice could pay for the sins of this whole world. If he wanted to do it, it could be done.

And yet only the elect will efficiently receive of the benefits of his sacrifice, leading them to salvation in accordance with God's elective purposes.

Man is called to believe because everyone whom God saves will and must believe. And everyone whom

God does not save does not believe because of their own unwillingness to believe. Calling one to believe and having the power to believe are two different things.

I think Brother Bruce Bennett stole that from me, if I remember right. It's two different things. The command is still valid and we still have the responsibility just as we do to keep

God's commands. Whether or not we're able to do that because of our own sin nature is not the issue, but the command is still legitimate to believe.

And so we do that. Secondly, you know, what about all the all passages? What of those texts that speak of Christ dying for all nations or for the whole world?

That kind of language. How are we to understand them within a Calvinistic context? Now, there are different all passages and some have to do with, as Brother Eli said, the word all.

I mean, they speak the way we spoke, the way we speak today as well. And they use language like when he said everyone is going out to John the

Baptist, the disciples, you know, turn the whole world upside down. I mean, they use that kind of language in the ways that we do in a general sense, not meaning every individual.

And so that's that's important. But there's also something else to recall, to remember as well. How are we to understand these all passages within a

Calvinistic context? Well, first, we have to understand them within a Judaistic historical context.

The entire world. Think about this. Think about this for a moment. See, we're up here in the rafters, the infrastructure of the church we've been building on the foundation for 2000 years.

We're all the way up in the rafters here somewhere. We don't realize what how intense it was, how dramatic it was with what was taking place when the foundation of the church was being laid.

What an amazing point in history for us. It's easy to just take it for granted. But for them, it was a big deal. Remember, for literally thousands of years,

God was dealing only with the nation of Israel. The entire world was closed off to the blessings and privileges which

Israel had enjoyed. The old covenant was with Israel alone. And so following the coming of Christ, the kingdom of God is now expanded to the whole world.

Every nation was to be welcomed in with the dividing wall, which once separated

Israel from all other nations for thousands of years, having been torn down not only physically, as we see in AD 70, but spiritually, more importantly, in Christ.

This was by far not an easy reality for anyone to grasp, and especially the first century

Jew. One only needs to look at how hard it was for Peter to come to grips with this reality, to get a taste and appreciation for the magnitude of the transition was taking place.

Isn't there a part of you looking at Peter and say, Peter, how can you still not get it? You had the blanket come down in his vision three times.

You're still struggling, arguing with God. And oh, Lord, I never ate anything unclean. And you go into the

Gentile and then later on at some point he is he's he's eating with the Gentiles.

But when some of the Jews come in, he's he pulls back and Paul rebukes Peter publicly. It was a very huge transition to bring

Jew and Gentile together. And if one of the key apostles is having trouble, what does that say for the rest of the apostles and the average

Christian Jew in that day? It's difficult for us to appreciate this some 2000 years later after the foundation has been well established and we're up in the rafters.

But needless to say, this expansion of the kingdom of God was a very big deal to Jew and Gentile alike, and it certainly came with many bumps and bruises in the church.

See how much time is given to dealing with the issue of circumcision to get an appreciation. How long did it take them to get the point across that the

Gentiles don't have to be circumcised to be part of the Jewish community to join together to serve

Christ? How long did that take? How much scripture was written to deal with that from the apostle

Paul and others? Also, one of the major purposes of the sign gifts was to bring together the show that God is bringing together

Jew and Gentile. Peter's had to see that Cornelius and then they had the gift of the spirit. He said, how can I forbid baptism to these

Gentiles? And so when we hear of Christ dying for the whole world or for all people or for everyone or for all nations, we're not meant to think of the scriptures as referencing every single individual in the world.

Rather, the emphasis is to be placed on the fact that this glorious gospel is not limited to the sphere of the little strip of Israel anymore.

It's not limited to the old covenant people of God. The biblically consistent emphasis is on a people from every nation and not on every person in every nation.

Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice, and he specifically says to some of the religious leaders, you're not of my fold, which is why you don't hear me.

But his sheep are from all over the world, and so that is a major reason why you see some of those old texts about the whole world.

It's to emphasize this is not just for the Jews and here in Jerusalem. It's for the whole world.

He's died for the whole world. And we could say that in a sense today, although people can misunderstand that because we're not in that early context.

But in that time, that was a big deal that there were people speaking all kinds of other languages who were all kinds of foreign gods up to that point who are now welcomed into the kingdom of God.

They couldn't even eat together, the Jews with the Gentiles up to that point. And so that's where your emphasis on a lot of those old texts is should be placed.

Furthermore, this concept of all also includes classes of people in accordance with God's desire to save all types of people, not just the poor and lower classes.

There were some people and Paul addresses this with Timothy says, look, I want you, Timothy, as you as you are there laying hands on people and working with people in Ephesus and those regions.

I want you to understand that you need to have them pray for all people, not just the poor. You need to pray for those kings.

You need to pray for those governors. See, they were they were neglecting that prayer, thinking this is not for them, this gospel. It's only for the lower classes.

And he says, no, he says that God, that Jesus Christ, right, died for all people and that God is is looking to save all people as a desire for all types of people.

He's talking about in that context in Timothy, which is often misunderstood. And people think it is literally every single individual when he's talking about types.

And so it's important to consider the context of those all passages. Well, let me quickly move on because I'm running out of time quickly here to one key philosophical objection to Calvinism, one key philosophical objection.

How can we believe that God is a just God if he only chooses some to be saved from their sins?

Isn't that unfair? This would be the philosophical. How can that be fair? Why should you be saved and God chooses you and not this individual over here?

How is that fair? Now, we've already addressed this a bit when considering man's lack of ability to choose to believe.

But I want to add a few more comments here. Once again, Paul actually addresses this very objection in Romans nine when dealing with the matter of God's having chosen to love

Jacob and hate Esau before either was born or had done right or wrong. Knowing our natural response,

Paul adds in verse 14, what shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God?

Certainly not. And again, Paul goes on to state that God is very right to do whatever he wishes to show mercy or not to show mercy to whomever he wishes, because he is the potter over the entire lump of fallen clay.

What we have to recognize again, friends, is that God is not obligated to show mercy to anyone.

We're not dealing with a righteous lump of clay where God simply wants to damn people to hell for the sake of damning people to hell.

Now, I don't believe that God has any desire in him, innate desire to say, you know what?

I'd like to create a creation because I'd like to, in part, to see people burn. God doesn't delight in the death of the wicked.

He doesn't rejoice in the expression of his wrath even. He's glorified in it, he's revealed in it, but he doesn't get joy in people burning forever and ever.

We're dealing with a completely fallen, utterly depraved, lost and ungodly batch of clay, which by right universally deserves hell.

But God reaches in through the incarnation, crucifixion and death of his son and rescues some to bring glory to himself in the manifestation of his grace.

And to this end, God's ultimate design for this entire creation is to glorify himself by holding up on display both his grace and his wrath.

He's revealing both his wrath on those whom he does not save and his grace on those whom he does save.

You see, what ultimately delivered me from any fear of God being unrighteous or unjust in the ordering of every aspect of the salvation of man was when

I came to understand more deeply the doctrine of man's total depravity. I think that's the linchpin for me as well.

I think Brother Anthony had said that and I agree with him. That is the linchpin, because while we can say that we're all depraved, we don't know the extent of that depravity as far as to the extent of how it affects our abilities or not.

Are we dead or are we apart a lot? We don't get that, just how depraved we are. When you come to see some of the inner trenches of wickedness in your own heart and that there is nothing naturally good, godly or lovable in you, and then you consider that God loves you, has sent his son to die for you and has made you a new creation and all of that in the light of his impeccable holiness, upon which angels cannot even gaze, you begin to question not why

God saves some, but why God saves anyone. And even more so, why has God saved me?

See, that was the place that God took me in my own walk. He, as I prayed that prayer,

I didn't realize he was going to say, OK, you want to get a comfort from the doctrines of election and see the truth and get comfort from them?

First, let me take you on a tour into your own heart to see some of the wickedness that's naturally there.

And that helped me to appreciate his grace. And when you consider that God loved you at your worst and called you effectually when you cursed and hated him in your heart, the power of the reality of God's unchanging and unfathomable love overwhelms your soul.

And you take comfort in the doctrine of election. And you are jealous for God to be glorified 100 percent in accordance with his divine will.

What an amazing transformation. But he brings you there. He brings you to understand that, to see that truth. And you say,

Lord, you should be glorified exactly as you want to do that. Let it be the case.

You deserve it. And your heart is elated by the fact that every tributary of history and action on the part of every living creature is ultimately spilling into the river of God's perfect glory.

That even though wicked ultimately serve his purposes and will be used to bring him glory, it says in the

Psalm 76, if I could find that text real quick, have it here. This text just struck me with that, what it says here,

Psalm 76, verse 10, surely the wrath of man shall praise you.

The remnant of wrath you will put on like a belt. God will use the wrath of man to bring him praise.

See, when God brings you to that point of understanding your own heart, your own depravity, the necessity of his grace and the extent that he's gone to open your eyes, you want

God to take what is his to the fullest. It's just so right and proper and just.

And you begin to see that it's all about him and not us. What a difficult place to come to, isn't it? I'm not the center of this universe.

I'm just a created being that has existed for that long. And God is eternal.

The pot or clay relationship starts to make perfect sense and actually becomes desirable. Let me just read real quickly, go back to Romans nine again.

Sometimes I think we we leave this text out of it. I didn't read it intentionally at the beginning, but verse twenty nine.

And as Isaiah predicted, if the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.

If God had had not chosen an offspring, if he not set apart a remnant among wicked

Israel and among the people of God today, if he didn't have an elect and he said, you know what, if the

Armenian teaching were true and he said, it's in your hands, we would have all been Sodom and Gomorrah. That's the direction we would have gone to naturally, nobody would have chosen

Christ. End of story. We would have been destroyed with Sodom and Gomorrah and we would have become that evil in that sense.

Fair is God sending everyone to hell, but God transcends fair by giving grace and mercy to some.

Finally, the practical applications very quickly. First, the two practical objections to Calvinism.

If God is sovereign, and by the way, let me just say, because I don't have time to address, to go back and address the reality of evil, because you asked the question, well, why does evil exist?

Did God ordain evil? Those kinds of questions, I have a book that I wrote about three years ago that addressed those questions.

It's not too long, but if I have twenty five copies here that I'm going to put back by Jerry and if you want a copy of this, if you if you assure

Jerry that you're going to read the book, you have to read it, you can have it free. If you're just going to throw it on your shelf, you need to pay five bucks for it.

All right, because because that's what it costs me. So free, if you're going to guarantee you're going to read it, five bucks comes to me through Jerry.

Jerry, I'll split some of that with you, even though I paid the five bucks, but they'll be back there.

Twenty five copies. So up for grabs. Practical objection, very quickly, if God is sovereign in the way that has been taught throughout this conference, literally over all things, not relinquishing an iota of his sovereignty to man in any sense whatsoever.

If God ordains all things that come to pass, all things, even a sparrow that falls to the ground or a hair that falls off.

So I got to ask one day, Lord, what happened here? I know you're sovereign, even a hair that falls from the head.

But this was I was quite young when this happened. Then aren't we all just puppets on strings which

God pulls and tugs along right according to his will? And if when I sin, it's really isn't it really

God then who's moving me to sin because he's ordained it? Hasn't God ordained my sin? Hasn't he pulled my strings in that direction?

Well, let me state a few scriptural facts before answering these questions. First, we know that the scriptures clearly teach that God ordains all things in accordance with his will.

That is to say that everything that happens happens within the context of God's preordained will and nothing that happens happens outside of his will.

We've established that. And then secondly, the scriptures teach that man is entirely accountable for his actions.

We sin because we really and actually want the sin and God doesn't make a sin. We do the very things that we actually want to do.

In accordance with our own desires. And both of those facts are absolutely true and biblical. And I think we can testify to that.

Brother Rich, can we can look back in our past before we were saved? Did we want to do what we did or did we feel like compelled somehow outside of ourselves?

We wanted to do it. Now, while we may not be able to get a full grasp of how both of these realities are always true, at the same time, it can be helpful to consider this.

Even the utterly wicked and defiled things of this world, which God hates and despises and which contradict his revealed will and character,

God ordains to use for the accomplishing of his decreed will. And God and Brother Jim St.

Emman, because he stole my notes yesterday and he didn't went over the same thing. And God utilizes them, not in support of them, nor with any attachment of guilt to himself in the utilizing of them.

He is light and in him is no darkness at all. God cannot sin. He's not evil.

He's not the author of evil. But rather, he ordains their use unto the service of his glorious purposes.

For example, Jim, when Joseph's brothers wickedly sold

Joseph into slavery, they had sinned against a very clear, revealed will of God. God hated that sin that they committed.

He wasn't there chipping them on, even though they were bringing about his will. He hated it. And it was never his moral will that such an act should ever be committed.

However, God ordained to use that very evil, giving them over to and allowing them to follow after the natural desires of their fallen hearts, ordained that so as to bring

Joseph to Egypt, where he would later be raised up to be the deliverer of his people. And we see this again with the

Lord Jesus Christ, don't we? The religious leaders, Judas Iscariot and the Romans, did no favor to God when they wickedly turned their backs on justice and crucified his son.

They clearly violated God's moral will. They sinned against God and God hated their acts.

He was angry with them for what they did to his son in that respect. And yet, of course, we know that God delivered his son over to his enemies and had ordained to use them as the very means of crucifying his son, ordaining everything that they would do for the crucifying of his son so that he would win salvation for his people.

And so God ordained even the violation of his moral will by men to gloriously fulfill his preordained purposes.

And in this sense, God is further glorified. Listen closer to this. God is further glorified yet again by revealing the glory of his great wisdom and his power to even use everything that opposes him to accomplish the fullness of his will.

Doesn't he show the glory of his wisdom and power to ordain and use even the evil that comes from our hearts to ordain that very process of everything that we do to use that to bring glory to his name?

And nothing slips beneath the cracks with God. Everything serves as preordained purposes in these ways.

And as brother Jim said, it's not God at the last moment saying, hey, you know, when they're going to do this, let me quickly shape it this way, put a bumper in place to make this happen.

It's preordained that he would do that very thing and using those very acts.

And so we are not mere puppets on strings. We act and do all the things that we desire to do and are accountable for all that we do because of this.

Does God cause us to commit sin? No, we do that of our own free will. Does God ordain their coming to pass?

Yes, he ordains all things. And so God is sovereign and man is accountable. Lastly, what about evangelism?

Practical from a practical standpoint. Why do we bother to evangelize if we believe that God will only save his elect?

He will most certainly save all of his sheep, right? And this is where brother Mike has stole some of my thunder when he used the example of the ship with Paul.

But why push ourselves, especially to go to remote and dangerous regions of the earth with the gospel?

If God is ordained, who we will save? Well, first, because we're commanded to do so. Second, because, again,

God ordains the means of bringing about the salvation of his elect just as much as he ordained the actual salvation of his elect.

God doesn't think in pragmatics because everything from God's standpoint is easy.

Right. He doesn't have to think about what's the easiest way we would do it this way. Whatever way God chooses is going to happen.

He'll part the Red Sea if he needs to, to bring glory to his name. And his chosen means is not to speak directly to people from heaven or to use angels, but to use preachers and evangelists and human instrumentality.

He could have used other means, but he is glorified by the use of human vehicles for gathering in of his elect.

And the reality is that Calvinism is a great motivation for missions when properly understood.

Because if I know that God has a certain people from all over the world and I know that he is sovereign over all things and that his sheep will hear his voice, then

I can make the sacrifice and take every risk knowing for certain that his people will hear his voice, that they will come at the call of the gospel.

And I can wait six, seven years with William Carey before I even find one convert, because I understand that God is sovereign and I can endure and persevere no matter how bleak things may seem, knowing that in due time the harvest will come since the

Lord of the earth will give the increase true. Calvinism has launched some of the greatest missionary enterprises with the likes of men like William Carey, Adonai Judson, John Payton, and you can go on and on.

If it's left in our hands, brethren, then we have no assurance that a single soul will ever come to faith.

What kind of ministry is that? No assurance that as I'm preaching, that there's a purpose in all these things.

It's in my hands. I'm the one that determines what happens, how well I convey that you can see why people come up with gimmicks and other ways of getting people to say this prayer and that kind of theology where that comes from.

If I believe it's in my hands, I got to look for something to do something because it's in my hands and I'm failing. But if it's in God's hands,

I can faithfully preach the word of God, unadulterated as it stands, the pure gospel and know that God will save his people in his time according to his will.

And I can be faithful to him in that respect. Well, brethren, my time is long over.

Let me just close. Then we'll close with a word of prayer. But let me just say, sadly, at times people who who disagree with these doctrines and I'm not saying all utilize unbiblical means of trying to reach the loss because they fail to understand that the truth, the true nature of regeneration and the work of the

Holy Spirit in bringing about that that regeneration and all who ought to be saved. And so they create other methods.

And they in doing that, they actually contradict the gospel and they wind up formulating these churches full of goats who are not converted because they're not preaching true gospel and they're looking to bring about confessions and so on.

Let's pray. Father, we do give you thanks for your precious word.

We thank you for these precious teachings and doctrines that we've gone over this weekend. Lord, we know again that they're they're not easy to swallow, especially at first as you wrestle through these things.

They can be very difficult to understand. But Lord, as we see and understand the truth, especially as we understand our own natural depravity in our own hearts and we see your grace and love and patience toward us and see how good you are.

We come to to appreciate, Lord, these teachings, to rely upon them, to rest upon them, even in the completing of our own salvation.

Not that we're to be lazy, as Brother Micah said, but even compelling us all the more to serve you diligently because we're confident that you began a good work will complete what you've begun in us.

Father, we ask that you would help us to embrace these truths and to treasure them, to teach them to others and to do all things for your glory.