Arminians v Calvinists and the Synod of Dort

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Ephesians.
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And while we stand to give honor and reverence to the Word of God, we're going to read Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 through 10.
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The title of today's message is, Armenians versus Calvinists, the Synod of Dort.
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And we're going to begin in Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 through 10.
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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
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Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.
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In love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Christ Jesus, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved.
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In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of His will according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your Word.
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And Lord, as we discuss today a subject which is not only controversial in the church, it's volatile and leads often to disagreement and sometimes even division.
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I pray Lord that you would, by your mighty hand of grace, give us a sense of unity in our study today.
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That our desire would be to know what your Word says and to stand in the truth of that Word and on the truth of that Word as we stand together as the body of Christ here at Sovereign Grace.
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I pray Lord that you would keep me from error, as I know that I am a fallible man and capable of preaching error and I do not want to do that.
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And Father, I know that I am not worthy to stand and be your mouthpiece, but Lord this is that to which you have called me.
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And I pray then Lord that it would not be me, but your Spirit who speaks to hearts today.
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And Lord God, that we would see that theology matters, truth matters, and while truth may cut our traditions down to the very root, they may punch our emotions right in the gut.
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And Lord God, may it be that we be willing to submit ourselves to what saith the Scripture and what saith you through your Word.
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We pray it all in Jesus' name, Amen.
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Welcome back to our continued study of the Protestant Reformation.
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As most of you know, this is the 500th year, marking the day on October 30, 1517 that Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the castle church door there in Wittenberg, Germany, and sparking what would become the inferno of the Protestant Reformation.
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We have looked over the last few weeks at many events that happened in conjunction with that historic event.
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We've seen the life and legacy of Martin Luther in Germany.
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We've looked at the theological influence of John Calvin in Geneva.
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We've seen the reforms which were made by Ulrich Zwingli in Zurich.
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And last week we discussed the spread of the Anabaptists, those who were believing that not only should the church reform her view of salvation, but her view of baptism.
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And we looked at how some of those men who were Anabaptists were Orthodox in their teaching and some were very, very radical and unbiblical in their teaching.
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And we talked about the disparity, or rather the divide there between those who were right and those who were very wrong.
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Well, in the weeks to come, we're going to be moving into a study of a very important historical document which came to life in the mid-1600s.
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It is known as the First London Baptist Confession of Faith.
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It was written in 1644.
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It was revised slightly with some corrections made and some scriptural additions added and republished in 1666.
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I'm sorry, yes, 1646 rather.
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From 1644 to 1646.
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And we're going to be examining that document because that document brought together seven congregations in England that were very much like our own.
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Churches which believed in the theology of the reformers, but they maintained that baptism was only for those who professed faith in Jesus Christ.
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They were not Anabaptists.
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They actually repudiated Anabaptists because of their radical behavior, but they identified themselves merely as Baptists.
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And they had a huge influence that would make its way around the world.
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And we see that even today.
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The modern Baptist church, the Southern Baptist Convention, are all children of that movement which happened in England in the 1600s.
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But before we go into that study, that's giving you a preview of the weeks to come.
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Before we make a departure into that study, I want to spend one more week in the history of the Reformation.
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And I want to discuss the theological dispute which came out of the Reformation which happened in Switzerland.
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If you've been Reformed for any length of time, if you consider yourselves Reformed, I imagine if you're a member of this church, you've at least considered it because it's how we identify the church.
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But if you've been Reformed for any length of time, you have heard the terms Calvinism and Arminianism.
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Sometimes people say Arminianism, but Armenia is a land, it's a place.
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Arminianism is with an I, so just keep that in mind.
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It's not Arminian, it's Arminian, and there is a difference.
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And I was talking to Adam this morning just mentioning I was going to tell this story.
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When Adam first came to this church, he actually called some local churches and asked them if they were Calvinist or Arminian.
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And it was funny, the story that he tells, and I'm telling it for him of course, he called one church, it's not too far from here, he says, are you a Calvinist or Arminian? And the person said, well, we don't know what Arminian means, but we know we're not Calvinist.
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That was enough.
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And that's the way it usually goes.
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People know just enough to know I ain't that, or what have you.
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And even to this very day, there is a strong debate that exists between those who would identify themselves in the camp of Calvin, and those who would identify themselves in the camp of Arminius.
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But you may not know that this debate began, and how this debate began rather, and what the heart of the conflict was.
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You may just have heard, well, some people are Arminians, and some people are Calvinists, and you might not know what that means.
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Well I hope to show today what it does mean.
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In my heart, and the reason for this, is because there was actually a synod of Reformed churches that gathered in a place called Dorchek, the shortened version of that is Dort, it's easier to say Dort than Dorchek.
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And there was a synod that convened to address these issues.
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And the reason for the synod was because theology matters.
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And in the 1600s, there was a divide happening in the Reformed churches, as to whether or not you stood on the side of the Reformers, or whether you stood on the side of the Arminians, who were called the Remonstrants, or the Protestors.
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By the way, that's what Remonstrant is, it means to make a focused protest.
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But they already were a group called the Protestors, they were called the Protestants, and they were protesting the Catholic church.
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So the Remonstrants were protesting the Protestants, the Reformers.
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And they were followers of a man named Jacobus Arminius.
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And I want to show you today that Calvinism in the 1600s did win the day, as well it should.
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And I will show from Scripture that it is in keeping with what the Bible does teach.
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And those who continue today to hold the Arminian view, while we would not say that they are heretics, we would certainly say that they hold to an unbiblical view of God, and an unbiblical view of salvation.
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Theirs would be what we would call heterodoxy, not heresy.
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It's not damnable, but it is incorrect.
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And so that is the view that we're going to be discussing today.
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And I want to give a disclaimer.
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I don't often do this.
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Two things.
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One, you need to pay attention today.
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Now I hope you always pay attention.
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But I've been where you are, and there are times when you kind of let your mind wander.
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Today ain't the day.
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Stay with me.
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This is important.
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But the second thing is today we're going to touch on things that are very controversial and sometimes difficult to understand.
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Things like free will, sovereignty, predestination, election, and eternal security.
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Those things, I want to encourage you, you need to know what the Bible says about those things.
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Because those things are important.
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But to do that, you've got to hang with me.
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You've got to pay attention.
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There's some serious business today.
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It's always serious today.
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Very serious.
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Are you ready? Okay.
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All right.
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Before we start with Arminius, I want to go back a thousand years.
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Arminius lived in the latter part of the 1500s, the early part of the 1600s.
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But a thousand years prior to Arminius, there was a man by the name of Aurelius Augustine.
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But I will, for Richard's sake, call him Augustine.
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Because Richard and I have a little ongoing tease as to how to properly say the name.
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Aurelius Augustine was the Bishop of Hippo, which is in Africa.
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How many of you have heard of St.
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Augustine? How many of you knew it was more than a city? Okay, that's important because it is.
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I know it's a city just south of us.
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But St.
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Augustine lived in the 5th century.
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And Augustine was seen by the Reformers as the premier theologian of his day.
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And Augustine's writings played a major influence in how the Reformers understood what the Bible said.
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B.B.
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Warfield said this.
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B.B.
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Warfield was a Princeton teacher.
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He says, it is Augustine who is responsible for giving us the Reformation.
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I'll say that again.
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B.B.
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Warfield said it is Augustine who gave us the Reformation.
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And the reason for that is because Augustine and his teachings had such a huge influence on Calvin and Luther and even Zwingli.
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In fact, Calvin quoted Augustine more than he quoted anyone else outside of Scripture.
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And the reason why I'm bringing up Augustine is because a thousand years before Calvin, Augustine addressed the same issues that Calvin would later address.
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And Augustine had a person who was opposed to him in the same way that Calvin would later have a person opposed to him.
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Augustine's opposer was a man by the name of Pelagius.
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Now some of you may have heard this name and some of you may just be...
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Okay, I don't want to confuse anybody.
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Just stay with me because this is important.
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Because Augustine believed this.
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This is huge, this is very important.
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Augustine believed that man's will had been corrupted by the fall.
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That his ability to choose to do good had been corrupted by Adam's sin.
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Now here's the thing to consider.
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Augustine didn't make that up.
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That is clearly what is taught in the Bible.
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The Bible says, Through one man sin entered the world and death spread to all men because all sinned.
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And the Bible says that that one man brings death to every man.
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In Adam all die.
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The Bible says.
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And that's not just physical death.
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But the death that Adam brings is a spiritual death.
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This is why the apostle Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2.
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And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked.
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You all know that, right? You come into this world D.O.A.
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Dead on arrival.
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Not physically, but spiritually.
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Nobody is born spiritually alive.
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The only one that we could ever think maybe was born regenerate was possibly John the Baptist.
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There could be a small argument made that he was regenerated in the womb.
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Is it possible? I believe it's possible.
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I don't know.
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But I'll say this.
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The vast majority, if not all, are born absolutely dead in sin.
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And they grow dead in sin.
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And that deadness in sin makes us unable.
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According to Augustine, who was taking this from the apostle Paul.
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Makes us unable to motivate ourselves towards God.
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Because we have a spiritual deadness.
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That makes us lack the desire to motivate ourselves towards God.
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Jesus said this.
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In John chapter 6.
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Jesus said to his listeners.
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No one can come to me.
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Unless the Father who sent me draws him.
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And I will raise him up on the last day.
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Jesus talked a little further in the same chapter, in the same context.
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He said, this is why I told you.
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No one can come to me.
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Unless it be granted to him by my Father.
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So Jesus was telling us something about the heart of man.
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About the nature of man.
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That the nature of man is corrupted to the point.
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That he cannot come to Christ in faith.
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Until God himself does an act of grace in the heart of that person.
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That was the point of Augustine.
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So Augustine had a prayer.
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And this was the prayer of Augustine.
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It's a simple, short prayer.
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He said, Lord, command what you will.
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And give the ability to do what you command.
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That was the short prayer of Augustine.
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Lord, command what you will.
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And give me the ability to perform what you command.
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That was Augustine's two-fold theology.
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God can command anything he wants.
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But for me to fulfill his command.
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I have to have grace.
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Grace is necessary.
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Along comes Pelagius.
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And Pelagius had a different view of the will of man.
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See, Augustine was basically saying the will of man is corrupt.
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You've heard a lot about free will, right? You've heard people talk about free will.
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You know the Bible never uses the term free will.
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Except in one instance or one circumstance.
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And that is to address offering.
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It talks about the free will offering.
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But it never talks about the will as being absolutely free.
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You know what the Bible does say? He who commits sin is a slave to sin.
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The Bible says we're slaves, not free.
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So the freedom of the will, Augustine was saying, it's not free, it's corrupt.
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It's in bondage to sin.
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Pelagius came along and said, no.
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I don't know if he stood like this.
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But he said, no.
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Pelagius said, if God gives a command, you must be able to fulfill it.
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If God gives you the responsibility, you must have the ability.
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And so Pelagius taught that grace was unnecessary for obedience.
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That you have the capacity in yourself to be obedient to God without the necessity of grace.
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Because God wouldn't command it if you couldn't do it.
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Now as logical as that may sound, that's not biblical.
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The Bible commands a lot of things that you can't do.
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But you can with grace.
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The Bible says, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
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The Bible says, love your neighbors as yourself.
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And it says, love the God, your Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
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Is everybody able to do that perfectly? No.
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And whatever love you do have for God, whatever love you do have for neighbors, is an act of grace in your heart.
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See, that was Augustine's point.
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Augustine was saying, anything good I have is grace.
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Anything bad I have is me, but any good I have is grace.
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Pelagius said, no, I have the capacity for good and bad.
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You know, honestly, if you think about it, that's the majority rule today.
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It's Pelagianism.
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You go down to Walmart and you ask somebody, are they dependent on grace to do good towards God? No.
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I can do good towards God.
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I can make a free will choice to do good.
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I can make a free will choice to believe or not.
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I can make a free will choice to do or not.
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And I have the capacity in and of myself to do or not.
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And Augustine, he said, no.
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Any good I do, any good I have is grace alone.
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Augustine won the day.
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Absolutely won the day.
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I mean, it wasn't even a debate.
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When you open the Bible, this is not a question.
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You can have a philosophical, worldly argument.
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But when you open, I remember one time years ago, this issue was an issue at this church for a while.
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I remember walking out on the sidewalk right there, and there was this guy just chomping at the bit over free will.
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And I said, you know what the problem with your conversation is? You're not holding a Bible.
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Everything you're saying is coming out of the heart of man, out of which is wickedness.
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But none of it is scriptural.
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You're not coming at this from the scripture.
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You're coming at this from your own sense of pride.
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Because it don't take five seconds to show from the Bible that man's will is absolutely corrupt.
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There is none who does good, not even one.
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There is none who seeks after God.
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All have turned aside.
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All have gone his own way.
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The venom of asps is under their lips.
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The Apostle Paul is not mincing words on this at all.
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Neither does Peter, neither does Jesus.
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Jesus had a man come up to him one time and say, Good teacher, what must I do to be saved? And Jesus said, Why would you call me good? There's one good, and it's God alone.
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Jesus wasn't denying his own goodness, but he was saying, You don't know that I'm God.
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You think I'm a man.
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Why would you call any man good? There is no man good.
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No, not one.
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This is serious, folks.
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It really is.
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As I said, this conversation has been going on for a long time because men will not give up their pride.
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Anyhow, Pelagius lost.
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He was considered a heretic.
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In fact, he's now referred to as the arch-heretic Pelagius because he was teaching a false view of God and grace.
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But out of Pelagianism arose something called semi-Pelagianism.
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Semi-Pelagian, you know semi meaning not quite, you know, right there.
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Semi-Pelagianism teaches this.
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Yes, grace is necessary, but it's not enough.
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You have to add to grace.
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And how many of you ever heard a preacher stand on a pulpit or stand on a chancel and say, You know, God's done 95%, but you've got to do your 5% or God's done 99%, but you've got to do your 1.
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You've got to stand up.
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You've got to walk forward.
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You've got to sign this card.
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You know who I'm talking about.
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That's semi-Pelagianism.
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It's God does His part, but you've got to do your part.
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That overtook the church, even though it was condemned.
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Semi-Pelagianism was condemned in 529.
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Not Pelagianism, that had been condemned before.
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But semi-Pelagianism was condemned in the Council of Orange in 529.
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And here, I want to read from Canon 8.
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This is from Canon 8.
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This was written in 529.
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If anyone maintains that some are able to come to the grace of baptism by mercy, but others through free will, which has manifestly been corrupted in all those who have been born after the transgression of the first man, that is Adam, it is proof that he has no place in the true faith.
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Let me read it again.
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If anyone maintains that some are able to come to the grace of baptism by mercy, but others through free will, which has manifestly been corrupted in all those who have been born after the transgression of the first man, it is proof that he has no place in the true faith.
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You know what they're saying? If you believe that you came to salvation by an act of your free will, you are not even in the faith.
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I didn't say that, they said that.
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But they were condemning a very specific teaching called semi-Pelagianism.
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Now, the Council of Orange goes on to say this.
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The sin of the first man has so impaired and weakened free will that no one thereafter can either love God as he ought or believe in God or do good for God's sake unless the grace of divine mercy has preceded him.
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It says you can't love God, you can't do his will, you can't even come to him in faith unless his grace precedes every one of those things.
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Grace precedes faith.
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It must, or faith would not exist.
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So that's the heart of Augustinian theology.
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And it's the heart of biblical theology.
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Augustine was no slouch.
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He wasn't perfect and he certainly wasn't right about everything, but this is so clear in Scripture that it went through the councils and everything and was affirmed every time.
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Salvation is completely an act of God.
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You are the recipient, not an actor on the stage.
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In fact, I want to introduce you to a word.
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Two words.
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Some of you who come on Wednesday night have heard this.
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Some of you Bible students have heard this too.
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Monergism and synergism are really the heart of the issue.
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The term ergos in Greek means work.
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You know an ergonomic keyboard or an ergonomic handle is meant to make work easier.
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So that's where the term ergos comes from.
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Mono is the prefix which indicates one.
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Syn, S-Y-N, not syn like false or trespasses, but syn, S-Y-N, is something working together.
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Like we talk about synergism, we talk about synergy is a big word that's used in a lot of companies now.
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Monergism is the view that salvation is the work of one only, and that is God.
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Synergism is the view that salvation is the work of God plus you, together, working.
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That's the two views.
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Really, if you go back to Augustine, that's the two views.
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It's monergism and synergism.
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That's it.
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You can't have both, and you can't have a hybrid.
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It's either God or God plus you.
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You understand? And monergism was the teaching of Augustine, and I believe the teaching of the Bible.
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Synergism was the teaching of Pelagius and the semi-Pelagians, and it is unbiblical.
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Now I want to fast forward a thousand years, because all that happened in the 5th century.
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Now we fast forward a thousand years, and while many people held Augustine in high esteem, his teachings on the will had been clouded, and the false sacramental system of Rome had come in and replaced that view of the sufficiency of grace, and salvation was added to with all of the indulgences and relics and potpourri, and the mass had added to salvation and created a system of synergistic salvation.
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And the reformers, who were influenced by Augustine, realized this major problem, which had infiltrated the theology of Rome, and the reformers believed they were going back to the true faith.
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They didn't believe they were departing the church.
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That's something important to remember.
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Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli didn't feel like they were departing the church.
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They felt like Rome had departed.
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You see, Rome was the one who had gone away from monarchism.
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Rome was the one who added potpourri and relics and indulgences and the mass.
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Rome had done all that, and they said, No, we're not going away.
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They went away.
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They felt like they were holding the faith of the church fathers, and they were.
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And one thing people don't realize is that the great debate of the Reformation was over the subject of the will.
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People often think the Reformation was focused on indulgences.
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Indulgences played a part.
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Potpourri played a part.
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The mass played a part.
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But if you read the writings of the reformers and their opposition to Rome, you will see that the subject of the will of man was one of the most important subjects of the Reformation.
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In fact, if you read Martin Luther, and this is interesting, because everybody who believes in predestination, they say, Oh, you're a Calvinist.
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Luther wrote more about predestination and election than Calvin did.
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In fact, if you go and read The Bondage of the Will, The Bondage of the Will is Martin Luther's argument with Aurelius, no, not Aurelius Augustine, Desiderius Erasmus.
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He debated Erasmus, who was a humanist scholar, on the subject of the bondage of the will.
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Erasmus took the position of semi-Pelagianism, that man has the capacity by his free will to do good toward God.
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Luther took the biblical position that man is in bondage to sin, which is why it's called The Bondage of the Will.
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If you've never read it, I will say this, it ain't the easiest read in the world, but if you can chomp through it, it's good reading, because you will see that Luther stood firmly on the fact that man's will has been corrupted by sin and thus is unable to do good toward God outside an act of grace of God.
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And this was the real issue of the Reformation, I believe, because here's the thing you need to realize.
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Rome didn't deny that grace was necessary.
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Even to this very day.
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By the way, I want to say this.
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If you say to a Roman Catholic, well you believe in salvation by works, they'll say, no we don't, we believe in salvation by grace.
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But they won't say by grace alone.
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And they certainly won't say by faith alone.
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Because you've got to do your part, man.
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Grace is necessary, but it ain't sufficient.
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See, I go to any church today and preach that grace is necessary.
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I can go to a Methodist church, I can go to a Baptist church, I can go to a Lutheran church, I can go to any church and preach that grace is necessary, and I'll get, preach it, brother.
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But if I say grace is sufficient, that's where the wall comes up.
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And that was the issue of the Reformation.
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Not whether it was necessary, but whether grace has the capacity to regenerate and bring to faith and sanctify and persevere to the end the believer and all of it is grace.
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They would say, no.
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You've got to do your part.
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Now, I'm going to keep going.
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Don't leave, because this is important.
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But I'm going to speed up a little.
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Because I've said we're going to talk about Arminianism and Calvinism, we haven't even talked about Arminianism at all.
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But I told you all this story about Pelagius and Augustine, because a thousand years later, on the scene comes John Calvin.
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And John Calvin teaches salvation by grace alone.
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And he teaches that because salvation is by grace alone, that God, in His own counsel, of His own will, chooses to whom He will give His grace.
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And thus, God is the one who decides.
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That's the part that people don't like.
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And yet, it is so clearly biblical, to the point of undeniably biblical, that it was the teaching of the church, the Reformed church.
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And yet, there was a man named Jacobus Arminius, sometimes called James Arminius, the Latinized version.
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And Arminius comes on the scene after Calvin is dead.
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Keep that in mind.
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Because you'll hear people talk about the debate between Arminian and Calvin.
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There was no debate between Arminian, Arminius, and Calvin, because Calvin was dead.
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Arminius came on the scene and was actually a student of Theodor Beza.
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Theodor Beza was the successor of Calvin in his school, and the teacher.
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So, Jacobus Arminius comes on as a student of Theodor Beza.
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And Arminius believed that salvation, of course, was not predicated on the sovereign election of God, but was predicated on the choice of the man, the individual.
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And Arminius was controversial in this.
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He was questioning much of what had been taught, and he was even questioning the things that he said that he believed in his own ordination.
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Instead of teaching God's sovereignty and election, Arminius taught that God elects based on His foresight of man's willingness to receive grace.
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This turned the Bible's teaching on man's will on its head, making man's decision the arbiter of salvation, not God's.
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Arminius held to a synergistic, semi-Pelagian view of the nature of man.
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And he believed man had the ability in himself to choose God.
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And that was not just the denial of Calvinism, it was the denial of Augustinianism, and I would argue it was the denial of Biblical Christianity.
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Arminius passed away in 1609, but he didn't pass away into obscurity.
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He passed away having given birth, not physically, of course, but having given birth in his ideas to many followers.
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And his followers created the controversy.
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His followers published his teachings in what became known as the Remonstrance, or the protest against the Reformed Church.
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They outlined five objections to Reformed theology.
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How many of you have ever heard the five points of Calvinism? Have you ever heard that phrase? How many of you have heard TULIP? Okay, you need to understand this.
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If you've heard anything about the five points of Calvinism or the TULIP, you need to understand one thing.
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Calvin didn't write that.
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Calvin never knew that TULIPS were going to be somehow associated with his name forever.
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Calvin did not distill his theology into five quotes.
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But his detractors, the Remonstrance, or the Arminians, did.
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They had five points of opposition to come against the teachings of the Reformed Church.
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And they brought their five points of opposition and began to publish these five points, out of which, and there's a long history that goes with this, but out of which a synod was convened.
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The synod was convened for the purpose of giving the Remonstrance, or the Arminians, an opportunity to make their case.
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In 1618, the synod of Dorcek was convened.
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The spokesman of the Arminians was Simon Episcopalius.
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And he insisted that when he was given the floor to speak, that he would have the opportunity to come in and refute the teachings of the Reformed Church, particularly on the doctrine of reprobation, which deals with predestination.
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He wanted to come in and give a refutation of reprobation.
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And the leaders of the synod said, No, you come and you provide a biblical defense of your position.
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You're the one challenging.
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You're the one saying that the recognized teaching of the Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Confession, which at this point were Reformed documents that were held in high esteem, and every Reformed minister had affirmed the Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Confession.
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You're the ones coming and saying that those are wrong.
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You bring biblical support for your position.
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They wouldn't do it.
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They would not defend their position.
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They only wanted to attack the Reformed position.
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Now I just want to take a note and say this.
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I have that same problem.
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A lot of people want to come to me and argue about my view of predestination, which I believe is the biblical view.
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I say, Okay, give me your position.
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Show me from Scripture where you're coming from.
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No, I want to argue about, No, don't.
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No, you show me from the Bible where is the foundation for your position.
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And that's what they said to the Arminians.
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They wouldn't do it.
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They would not provide a biblical position.
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All they wanted to do was attack the recognized position.
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As I said earlier, they brought five positions.
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Here are their five statements.
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And I know we're gone over time a little bit, but I'm going to ask for another few minutes.
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Don't go to sleep on me now.
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We've got just a couple more minutes.
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I don't want to take this into another week.
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The five positions of the remonstrance or the five positions of the Arminians were these.
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Number one, human ability.
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They believed man has the ability by his own free will to choose or not choose to cooperate with God's free gift of grace.
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So their belief was that the human has his own free will to choose or not choose to cooperate with God's free gift of grace.
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Number two, conditional election.
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They believed that God chooses based on how man's free will decides.
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That God doesn't choose until you choose.
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Number three, universal atonement.
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The death of Christ was a potential atonement that was not effective until a person believes.
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Number four, resistible grace.
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They believed God's grace can ultimately be resisted and rejected and ultimately thwarted.
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And five, was falling from grace.
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They believed a person can come to faith, be legitimately and genuinely saved, and yet later reject faith and fall away and be ultimately and utterly lost.
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Now it's important to note Arminius himself didn't teach that.
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Arminius did not teach that man could fall away from the faith.
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He said he didn't know if someone could fall away from the faith.
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And in his own writings, in his own words, he said he was not willing to come down on one side or the other.
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Well the synod responded to those five points.
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And the reason why we today have five points of Calvinism is because they responded to each one of the five points of the remonstrance.
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The five arguments of the Arminians were responded to point by point by the synod.
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And the writings of the synod would later become known as the doctrines of grace.
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If you've ever heard the phrase the doctrines of grace, that's where that term comes out of.
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Westminster Seminary in California says this, It says, The five canons of the synod of Dort are the crown jewel of Reformed theology.
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Scott Clark says this, Quote, The canons of Dort represent a remarkable consensus of conviction among the Reformed churches on essential doctrines.
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Indeed the very Reformation was at stake.
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If God's favor is conditioned upon anything in us, then we are lost because we are dead in sin.
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If the gospel is reconfigured to include our obedience, then it is no longer the gospel.
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If atonement is merely hypothetical, if the elect can fall away, then grace is no longer grace.
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End quote.
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So again, these issues are not small issues.
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These are very important issues.
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And if you look at the canons of Dort, and I recommend it, go home, Google it.
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Canons of Dort, you'll see that they're actually several, several pages long.
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But later, the canons of Dort, actually I believe it was in the early 1900s, so several hundred years later, the canons of Dort were simplified into what we now know as the five points of Calvinism.
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T-U-L-I-P stands for total depravity.
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Total depravity is this.
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Man is born spiritually dead in sin and thereby unable to make any positive move toward God apart from an act of grace.
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Remember that was taught not only by Calvin, but by Augustine, and if you go back to the Apostle Paul.
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The U, unconditional election.
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Because man is dead in sin, God's choice of certain men must be based upon his own will and not some foreseen merit in the person.
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Read Romans 9 this week.
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Oh, please read Romans 9 this week.
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Read it twice.
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Read it thrice.
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Read it whatever the four would be.
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Twice, thrice, and four.
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Read Romans 9.
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The Apostle Paul says that God chose Jacob and not Esau before they were even born to demonstrate that his purpose in election would stand.
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As it is written, Jacob, I have loved.
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Esau, I have hated.
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And you know what? I have people say sometimes, well that doesn't mean that God hated him.
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It means that he loved him less.
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Okay.
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I'll ask that same person, does God love everybody the same? And they say, yeah.
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Can't have it both ways.
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Can't have it both ways.
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Unconditional election is in the Bible.
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And I tell you, read Romans 8, read Romans 9, read Ephesians 1, 2.
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People bring me one verse and say, well what does this verse mean? I say, well here's three chapters.
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Tell me what these mean.
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There's about three verses in the Bible that people always bring.
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We call it the big three.
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That address the issue and seemingly coming from an Arminian perspective.
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They're easy to understand.
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They're not that hard to refute.
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But I always say, well what do you think about these chapters? Some people never even read them.
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I heard a pastor went through Romans 9, 10, and 11 in one week.
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Talk about missing some things.
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Okay, I'm moving on.
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Total depravity.
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Unconditional election.
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Number three, limited atonement.
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Limited atonement says this, Jesus did not die to cover the sins of all men indiscriminately, but rather he died for his people.
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And his atonement is a real atonement, not a potential one.
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I gotta tell you, even if I was Arminian, I'd believe that.
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Because if you believe that Jesus died for all men indiscriminately, but that his atonement doesn't really apply until acted upon, then he didn't make an atonement.
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Not a real one.
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He made a potential one.
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And I gotta tell you, if I stood for anything in Calvinism, it'd be that.
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Jesus' atonement is not potential.
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Jesus' atonement is actual.
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It saved.
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It did not make men savable.
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It saved those for whom it was made.
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Jesus said, my sheep, hear my voice.
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I know them, and they follow me, and I lay down my life for the sheep.
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Sorry.
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That's the word of God.
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I'd say I can believe in limited atonement and be an Arminian.
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Because that is the truth.
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Irresistible grace.
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Irresistible grace says this, when God chooses to regenerate a soul, that person will by necessity respond in repentance and faith as befits their new nature.
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Basically says this, when God saves you, and he opens your heart to believe, you will believe.
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The same way Lazarus was dead in that tomb, and Jesus said, Lazarus come forth, and he got up and walked out.
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When you're sitting there dead in your trespasses and sins, and God opens your heart to believe, guess what you do? You believe.
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The Bible says God opened Lydia's heart, and what did she do? She believed what was being preached by the Apostle Paul.
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That's irresistible grace.
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It's also known as effectual calling.
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Finally, the perseverance of the saints.
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This is the one that gets me with Baptists.
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Because every Baptist I know, believes that you can't lose your salvation.
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Well, I believe that too, but for a different reason.
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See, most Baptists believe in eternal security, because it's part of the tradition that they have had, but they don't really know why.
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They can quote a couple of verses, you know, I'm in Jesus' hand, he's in the hand of the Father, and no one can snatch me out of his hand.
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They usually know a few verses, but I tell you this, you know why I believe in eternal security? Because if God, from the foundation of the world, predetermined that I was going to be saved, he can't lose.
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And he says, I will lose none of those for whom I came.
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Jesus said that.
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Jesus said, all the Father gives me, will come to me, that's irresistible grace.
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And the one who comes to me, I will in no way cast out.
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That's eternal security.
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The Apostle Paul says this, for whom he foreknew, he also did predestine to be conformed to the image of his Son.
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And those whom he predestined, he called.
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And those whom he called, he justified.
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And those whom he justified, he glorified.
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That's what we call the golden chain of redemption.
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And guess what, folks? If you've been justified, you will be glorified.
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There is nowhere in the Bible, you cannot show me one instance in the Bible where a man goes from justified to unjustified.
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That's my argument for eternal security.
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It's not just based on one or two verses.
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It's based on the whole of theology, which says that God, who began a good work in me, will complete it in the day of Jesus Christ.
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Alright, I'm going to close now.
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I've only got a page and a half left.
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I'm going to draw to a close.
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One of the saddest realities in the modern church is that even though Augustine won in the 5th century, and even though Calvinism won in the 17th century, the modern church is overwhelmingly overrun by synergistic, semi-Pelagian, false views of God.
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Not because it's founded in Scripture, but because that view is common to the natural man who assume that all things come from their ability to do good or not.
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Arminianism is the theology of the natural man.
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And the Bible says the natural man cannot understand the things of God.
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And many, even when they're confronted with the Scripture on this subject, will not see it because it so opposes their heartfelt tradition of self-sufficiency.
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However, praise the Lord, there has been a revival.
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Reformed theology is growing today in greater numbers than you all can even imagine.
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I want to share with you this.
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In 2009, Time Magazine ran an article, 10 Ideas That Are Changing the World.
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Time Magazine is not a biblical publication, just so you know.
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Time Magazine ran an article, 10 Ideas Changing the World.
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Number 3 on the list, Calvinism.
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The New Calvinism was what it was called.
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In that article, Al Mohler, the president of Southern Seminary himself, Reformed, says, The moment someone begins to define God's being or actions biblically, that person is drawn to the conclusions that are traditionally classified as Calvinist.
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Colin Hanson, author of Young, Restless, and Reformed says this, A lot of young people grew up in a culture of brokenness, divorce, drugs, or sexual temptation.
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They had plenty of friends.
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What they need is a God.
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And you see the Scripture, when you go to the Scripture, and you see what the Scripture says, it does not present to you a bent-wrist, weak-backed, feminine Jesus.
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It presents to you the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings, at whose name every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess.
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Wherever you may be on this subject this morning, maybe you're firmly rooted in Reformed theology, maybe you're teetering between Synergism and Monergism, or perhaps you came here today as an Arminian, I challenge you this, Seek the God of the Bible.
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He will confront your every tradition.
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He will assault your every emotion.
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He will challenge your every assumption.
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But in the end, you will not be disappointed.
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For the God of the Bible is beautiful in His holiness.
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He is powerful in His righteousness.
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He is terrible in His justice.
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And He is powerful in His sovereign grace.
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If you don't know God, go to the Word, and there you'll find Him.
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Father in Heaven, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the truth.
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And I thank You for the opportunity to look at a historical moment that has had such an impact and continues to have an impact to this day.
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I pray that the words that I've said have been understood rightly, that they have not gone in one ear and out the other, and that they would challenge us to go to the Word to find who and how You truly are.
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And I pray all this in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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Let's stand.