What Is Calvinism? Is It True?

The Good Shepherd in John 10

He would open the Word of God to the Gospel according to John chapter 10. John chapter 10, starting in verse 1. Hear now the words of the living and the true God. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber.

But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him, the gatekeeper opens, the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.

A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers. This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

So Jesus again said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who come before me are thieves and robbers. But the sheep did not listen to them. I'm the door. If anyone enters by me, he'll be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees.

And the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he's a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I'm the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. Just as the father knows me and I know the father, and I lay down my life for the sheep.

And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason, the father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.

No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I've received from my father. There was again a division among the Jews because of these words.

Many of them said, he has a demon and is insane. Why listen to him? Others said, these are not the words of one who was oppressed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind? At that time, the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem.

It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, how long will you keep us in suspense? If you're the Messiah, tell us plainly.

Jesus answered them, I told you. And you do not believe. The works that I do in my father's name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hands. My father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand.

I and the father are one. Thus far as the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's pray. Father, we come into your presence praising you first and foremost in this moment for our salvation, that you love us, that you've called us your own.

You promise that you'll never lose us, that you will never, ever, ever allow anyone to snatch us out of your hands. Lord Jesus, we give you praise for you're the good shepherd. You know your sheep, and we know you.

You laid your life down for us. We thank you that you are the good shepherd who keeps us and guards us. Lord, we love you, and we thank you so much for our salvation. Thank you for this truth. I ask God today as we come to your word to unpack grace, that you would, Lord, work through the inadequacy and the failings of the preacher, and that you would speak to your people through your word, by your spirit, that you would challenge us, encourage us, draw praise from this study.

That's our hope, Father. I pray that you would teach the spirit of God, your people, and that you would, Lord, allow this study of your power and your sovereignty and your grace in salvation, allow it to motivate us to go get those other sheep.

We pray you would put your gospel on our lips, and that it would come out of us with the power of your spirit. You'd use this church in the desert to expand the kingdom of the Messiah. In Jesus' name, amen.

Why John 10 and John 6 Explain the Doctrines of Grace

So John chapter 10, one of my very favorite sections of scripture, I've mentioned probably several times during this study, that this is one of my anchors in scripture, the place that I go to for hope, for healing, for my soul.

And if you wanna know what we're really talking about when we're talking about the doctrines of grace, and why would you do a study like this, it's John 10. It's John 10. I've said before that John 6 and John 10 really are the explanation of the doctrines of grace.

It's the real foundation for the doctrines of grace. You can't get away from the sovereignty of God in salvation, the graciousness of God in salvation, and the sheer power of God in the redemption of God's people.

You can't get away from it in John 6 and John 10. Why do a study like this? We've finished now the five points plus one. We've added sovereignty to that as the start of it all, because it really does need to be there.

It's assumed in the five points themselves, but we did that, the five points. We talked about sovereignty as well. And now we're doing a summary, summarizing. What does the Bible teach about God's grace in salvation?

Why do this? We have it done. Dr. White has written books on this. If you haven't read the Potter's Freedom, you should read that as soon as possible. Dr. White has done debates on this subject. We had a series years ago on this.

So why in the world would you do it again? Are you just firming up your commitments on Calvinism? Are you guys just trying to show everyone this is a Calvinist church, we're a reformed church? Why do it?

Is it to cause conflict between Christians? The answer is no. We're doing this study because we believe, especially with so many new people as part of our body, that understanding the gospel of God's grace is essential.

Being able to defend the gospel of God's grace is essential. If we're gonna pass the gospel on to our children and on to the next generation in any meaningful way, we need to know what the Bible teaches about our condition, the God that we worship, his power to save.

If we're gonna have boldness in missions, and if we're gonna do missions God's way, if we're gonna avoid manipulating people as is so often done these days, we need to understand God's power and salvation, his ability to bring dead people to life and to save them because of the truth, the message of the truth.

We have to be able to defend the gospel. The history of the church is riddled with moments of error, decay, heresy, and it's also riddled with moments of the power of God to preserve his church and sanctify his church.

He gets his church around the truth. They proclaim the truth, and that's where you see transformation taking place. But the key issue there is truth. We need to know what it is. We need to understand the gospel itself.

We live in a day, of course, where there is so much decay and erosion of the influence of the Christian worldview in the West, at the very top and all the way down, and you also have so much erosion in terms of religious erosion.

You have historic organizations that once had a faithful commitment to the gospel, to God's truth and salvation, who have now abandoned that truth, who embrace all manner of wicked and evil things in terms of gender confusion, sexual confusion.

Doctrine is pushed aside as not necessary for Christian unity. And so why do this study? Well, this study is necessary if we're gonna understand how to defend the gospel of grace. And then here's the other issue, and I want you to hear me on this.

This cannot just be about the head. You've heard Pastor James many times over the years talk about cage-stage Calvinists, right? And that's where you finally understand sort of your traditions. You finally realize your traditions, and you're like, wait, the text doesn't actually say that.

And so the traditions start to fall off, and you see what the text says, and it's on every page. God is sovereign. His grace is effective and powerful and sufficient. Look what Jesus did for me. Oh my goodness.

So you go out and you try to take heads, right? Cage-stage Calvinists. That's where Pastor James says you should take that person, maybe the first six months or year, put them in a cage so they don't hurt themselves or anybody else, right?

But here's the deal.

Listen, yes, this is theological. Yes, this is deep. Yes, this is heady. But if it stays there, you haven't been listening, and you don't understand it. I think that happens in the life of a person who finally understands their own unworthiness, the power of God and salvation, the meaning of the cross, the glory of God's grace.

It begins to actually change your heart and your minds. These truths should bring you hope in your darkest moments. If they don't, you haven't understood it. These truths should bring more Christian unity.

If they don't, you haven't understood it. These truths should truly meet you in your most painful moments. If they don't, you haven't understood it. If it remains in your head only, and it just becomes an exercise of Christian theological gymnastics, then this has been wasted time.

Because what we should see through this study is our complete depravity and brokenness before God. The fact that we have nothing to offer God, that God is the one who saves, and he saves perfectly. The fact that God can save perfectly and cause you to persevere.

The fact that God preserves his people. That's what we should understand, we should be seeing, and we should be changed by. These truths are truths that are worthy of your life. And what I mean is I do believe when we talk about the doctrines of grace, and what we're talking about when we talk about the five points of Calvinism, we're talking about truths that protect the biblical gospel, they protect our understanding of the biblical God.

And these are truths that you should let goods and kindred go your mortal life also for truths like these, because it protects and defends the gospel. The question has been from the very beginning, do you remember I asked it from the start?

How gracious is God's grace? How gracious is God's grace? That's important because you have to understand that when we go out into the world to proclaim the message of Jesus as Messiah, the call to repentance and faith, to believe in him, understand this, we are gonna come into conflict with many organizations, many movements that use our language.

They speak Christianese, they sound just like us. They do. And they'll talk about things like grace. They'll say, oh, no, no, grace is absolutely necessary. It is, you can't do this on your own. You so need God's grace.

Absolutely essential part of our religious tradition, you need the grace of God. However, grace is not sufficient in their system. Grace isn't sufficient. When you talk to Mormons, they will even quote, by grace are you saved.

They'll say things like Christians, they'll sound like Christians, by grace are you saved? And then they'll say, after all you can do. There's an acknowledgement because you can't get away from it in scripture that God is a sovereign, he's the one that graciously saves people.

So they'll say, oh yes, we have to have that part, that component in our story as well, but it's not enough. It's not enough. There's something you must do. There's something you have to participate in and cooperate with God.

You and God are working together to make this thing take place, whether it's through your own deeds of righteousness or some form of cooperation. Grace is necessary, but it is certainly not sufficient.

Grace is not sufficient in Rome. Rome teaches a perverse, false gospel. I love Roman Catholics and I want them to know Jesus, but Rome has officially defined themselves away from biblical faith. And they'll say, when you talk to them, no, grace is absolutely necessary.

You need the grace of God. It is simply not enough. It's not sufficient. God's grace isn't powerful enough to save his people. When you talk to Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses, they will always say God is gracious.

And I have suggested, listen, very important, in the book of Galatians, that letter of the apostle Paul where he starts immediately, immediately with, I am amazed that you're so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ.

That's the issue for Paul. The grace of Christ to another gospel, which is really not another. It's not another. Early on in the history of the church, the inspired apostle writes a letter to a church and the issue is grace being blurred, distorted, done away with to the degree that at the end of the letter, he actually says that Christ is of no benefit to you.

Whosoever of you attempts to be justified by law, you've fallen from grace. For Paul, at the beginning of the letter and the end of the letter, the issue is the grace of God and salvation. Probably one of the first letters written by the apostle Paul.

And the issue is the defense of the biblical gospel of grace. That's the issue. You distort grace, you lose the gospel. You distort grace and you have something that Paul calls anathema, eternally condemned, a curse by God.

This issue is essential. Christian unity is vital. It is so vital. We have members of our church body, they're Presbyterians. We don't see eye to eye on everything. People come to our church and they're members of our body and they're like, I'm not with you on the eschatology.

And that's okay.

Give us time. But you see, here's the deal. There's Christian unity over the essential unifying issues. And the gospel is one of those issues. You distort the gospel, you don't know Christ. If you have a false gospel, it is a gospel that cannot save.

And for Paul in the first century addressing the Galatian heresy, he's addressing an issue that is actually distorting grace. And here's the deal. You heard me say it before, please hear me on this. Do we really believe that the Galatian heretics wouldn't have acknowledged that God was graciously bringing people into his covenants?

Of course, they knew the God of Israel was the God of grace. They knew that they were sinners and they knew that grace was necessary. If you would have went to any of the Galatian heretics, I am fully confident they would have affirmed that you need the grace of God to be saved.

But it wasn't enough. There was this addendum, this thing that must be added. You must also do this one thing. Just keep the Jewish circumcision. Just come on, keep that circumcision. Just this thing.

Paul says this,.

I hope these people who are bothering you preaching this false gospel, I hope they go all the way with a knife. I hope they emasculate themselves and cut themselves off. That's how serious Paul was about this false gospel.

And he says, here's the deal. Christ has become of no benefit to you.

None.

And what was the issue? It was a theological idea. That's the key issue.

It's just a proposition. It's an idea that disrupts the grace of God in the gospel. And Paul says this, look, I preach that. May God send me to hell forever. So how gracious is God's grace? How important is this?

It's vital. You see, this is not new. Understand this.

This is so key.

We're not gonna do a big historic history of the church lesson here. Although Pastor James could do that for days. The church has had to fight against errors on the condition of men and women in the fall.

We've had to fight against errors in terms of those distorting grace in history of the church. This is stuff that's happened over and over again. We've had to fight against Pelagianism as the church. We've had to fight against semi-Pelagianism.

We see in the history of the church, there are mixed bags. You see some church fathers and respected pastors saying some amazing things that are so powerful and consistent with the gospel. If you see that same church father doing an absolute terrifying face plant in other areas of their theology, thank God we don't have as an ultimate authority uninspired infallible men.

We have the word of the living God. And in history of the church, we've had to fight against error after error after error, whether it's on the nature of God, the person of Christ, or the nature of man in the fall.

And the amazing thing is that as history has gone on, God has sanctified his church. He's got us sharper in his word. We didn't discover with the five points of Calvinism, please hear me on this, novelty.

Oh, this is new. Isn't this an interesting way to do this? Let's try something new here. No, the Reformation itself down to the Synod of Dort was not a discovery of new stuff that had been missed. It was actually going back to the ancient record of the church.

It was going back to historical moments of the church. The Reformers were doing that. They were even pointing to Rome and saying, you're neither biblical nor are you historic. You disagree with this church father that you're supposed to agree with.

Their argument wasn't, this is new. And with the Synod of Dort, it was a moment where there was a conflict. The followers of a man named Jacob Arminius gave a remonstrance of protest with their points of disagreement.

And after a lot of time together with a lot of people getting around the word of God, they offered a response that was sharp and clear and powerful defending the grace of God and salvation. Please hear me from beginning to end.

What was the issue? We wanna follow a man named John Calvin, the five points of Calvinism have ultimately nothing to do with a man named John Calvin. The five points of Calvinism are about John six, John 10, Ephesians one, Romans nine.

We could go on and on. It's about actually very easily systematizing and explaining the grace of God and salvation from beginning to end.

What do I believe about this?

Do I believe that if you are someone who has repented and trusted in Christ, but not a Calvinist, you're not a Christian?

No.

But do I believe that these are truths that you should die for? Yes. Because they protect and preserve the gospel. Praise God. God saves us from our sin and our theological errors.

Amen? Yes.

This is a very important study. And if you're a member of our church body, you need to know how committed we are to defending the grace of God and salvation. Here's the most important aspect. God gets all the glory for salvation.

And we ought to be zealous to preserve the glory of God in salvation. To cast away our boasting, our righteousnesses, our power, our cooperation to any degree. We will be before the throne of a powerful and holy God who will receive all the glory and salvation.

And that's what we should be jealous for and zealous for. We started this study talking about the sovereignty of God and salvation. So here's what I wanted to do. I thought, okay, we need to do a summary.

We need to do a summary message where we sort of go through these points quickly and concisely and sort of say, and here's why. Here's the belief and here's why. Here's the belief and here's why. But I also wanted to talk about some of the dangers in denying some of these doctrines.

Now, mind you, we could spend a whole new series on each point in terms of the dangers of denial. If you deny this biblical truth, what are the implications? Where do the dangers start to flow? And so what I wanted to do today as quickly as I can is basically give us the point, give us the references, some of the references, and then talk about what I think are some dangers if you deny these things.

So let's go right to it, and I'll try to go as quickly as possible today. Sovereignty of God. The sovereignty of God is the foundation as we study this. The sovereignty of God, that he rules, he reigns, he controls everything.

The Sovereignty of God and Christian Peace

What are the dangers of denying what we've taught about the sovereignty of God, the complete sovereignty of God? Well, here's a danger. Practically speaking, please hear me on this. This is so essential, especially for, well, let me just get to it.

Jesus anchors our peace in the sovereignty of God. Let's be honest, many Christians really struggle knowing the truth of God, but not actually being able to walk with it and understand it. You have a life of anxiety behind you, a life currently where you're constantly anxious, you're constantly afraid, you constantly have warring thoughts.

You're always fighting with what might be the case and what if this happens? And what about what I did this time? And you're warring, you have constant warring thoughts, and you're always anxious. How do you do away with that?

What Jesus actually talks about, do not be anxious, with reference to, here at the sovereignty of God. How does the incarnate one address our struggle with anxiousness? He addresses it with the sovereignty of God.

God is sovereign. Give you an example. Jesus says, do not be anxious. And then he tells you, here's the challenge. He says, can you change the color of your hair.

Through your worry?

Are you that kind of sovereign?

No.

Can you add an hour to your life by being worried? And the answer is no. And the question would be, well, why not? Because, well, because he's the sovereign. He controls when I live and when I die, when I breathe and the heart beats themselves.

He's the full sovereign. So Jesus, the incarnate one, when he's dealing with our issue of anxiousness as believers, he says, do not be anxious. There's the command, by the way. Do not be anxious. Not a request.

It's a command of Jesus. Do not be anxious. And then he says, here's why. You see, the birds don't fall from branches apart from your father's knowledge. Just the little bird falling off the branch, dead to the ground, is all under the control of a sovereign God.

The hairs on your head, they're numbered. The days of your lives, they are numbered. God's in control of them. And you're of more value than the sparrows. God is sovereign. So when you deny what the Bible teaches about the sovereignty of God, you are robbing yourself and others of the truth that Jesus says brings you peace and robs you of your anxiousness.

This is not merely theological heady. It is very intimate and personal. It is very much practical. If you lose the sovereignty of God, I don't know what your hope is. I was a minister, the head chaplain at a hospital for years, and I'll tell you, listen, please hear me out as I mean this sincerely because they weren't the only ones being changed in front of me.

I was being changed in that whole process.

I'll be honest.

I don't know how you minister in the context of the most brokenness at a hospital without being a Calvinist. I don't know how you do it.

I gotta be honest.

I saw and I heard things in that hospital that could drive a person mad. I would walk away, the first couple of months, I would walk away from the hospital at nighttime after ministering to like five patients for hours that day doing group setting and counseling.

I would minister and I would walk away and I would sit in my car and I would just cry. I would cry over the things that I heard. I could not believe the things that I was listening to. And you can ask Pastor Luke and those who were involved for the first couple of months or so being at the hospital, sometimes I'd go to Sunday and they would see me, the leader should be there, they'd see me just crying.

We'd have a meeting as leaders and I would just burst out in tears because I'm filtering and thinking through all of the brokenness and horrible things that I've heard that entire week. And I have to be honest with you.

You lose the sovereignty of God and the goodness of God and his control over all things. I don't know how you could minister in a context like a hospital in this fallen world. This matters and it matters a lot.

You lose the sovereignty of God and you lose so much practically. But also I wanna encourage you to understand that if you lose the sovereignty of God, that biblical truth, the total sovereignty of God, it leads to false perspectives of God, right?

Well, things like, well, God looks through time and he sees who will believe in him based on his viewing of time and he figures things out along the way. God's learning things now. Apparently the all-knowing God is learning new things or you have errors that get far worse where you've got things like open theism and ideas where God doesn't even know the future.

He doesn't even know it.

Things could change and God wasn't even aware of it. People think that this solves the problem in scripture, those tensions of the sovereignty of God. So they create new systems that actually give you a false God.

It's a God who's not even worthy of worship. Popular things today, systems that people just believe, they think that they're protecting somehow God's reputation by making him not understand the future, know the future or have any control of the future.

I don't know how you worship a God like that, I wouldn't. So if you deny what the Bible teaches about the sovereignty of God, there are consequences. Here's some verses from scripture. Psalm 115 .3, our God is in the heavens.

He does all that he pleases. Proverbs 16 .9, the heart of man plans his way but the Lord establishes his steps. Job 42 .2, I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. How's that for power and missions? He's that kind of God. If God wants this accomplished, nothing can thwart him. No power on earth or elsewhere can stop the purpose and plan of God.

He's that kind of sovereign. Isaiah 46 .9 -10, remember the former things of old for I am God and there is no other. I am God and there's none like me. Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done saying my counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purposes.

You see that serves to bring peace when we have a dead body here. You know it's coming, right? As a church, that if we have this building for a long period of time, we're gonna have dead bodies right here before this pulpit, maybe yours.

That's a thought. I was recently in Florida and I really actually love the old way Christians used to do church and land where you'd have the church building where everyone built that church, they worshiped in that church, it was multi-generational and then you had the graves of those who actually brought all that about.

So you're coming to church with all the dead bodies of the saints who were before you who actually built the foundation of that church maybe literally and figuratively in terms of the theological foundation.

You come to church with a constant reminder of death and resurrection, right? There's a reminder. We always try to hide death, don't we? We do really well in America to hide death. I was in Florida and I went to Dr. R .C. Sproul's St. Andrew's and I was really excited to see that his grave was right there at the church.

All the land is there for the bodies of all those saints who built that church and Dr. Sproul, his grave was right there. I think it's important to think about those things, to be reminded of death and remind ourselves that before this pulpit, there will be dead bodies.

Again, maybe yours. Maybe seem like a morbid thought but you need to think about it and you need to think about in those moments when we're struggling with grief and pain and we're really facing down the worst this world has to offer, how are you gonna handle it?

Who is God?

Did this surprise God? If one of our children goes out of a windshield and dies dead on the streets, how are you gonna manage that? Did God not see it coming? Is he sovereign even over that? When we have an unexpected death that hits us all in the morning out of nowhere and it's somebody who's close to us, how will you face that?

Will you face it with an understanding of a God who has no ability to do anything about it, didn't see it coming, was maybe surprised by it as much as you are? Or will you actually come to grips with the scriptures teach about the sovereignty of God that his counsel stands and that he accomplishes all of his purpose?

That's the sovereign God who rules over this universe. There is no other. Proverbs 19 .21, many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it's the purpose of the Lord that will stand.

Catch that?

Woo, that is so great.

That is awesome and I am so thankful for that because there's times in the past where I had all kinds of plans and I thought this is the thing that will accomplish the most of God's purposes and I'm so glad that he took it down and he crushed it.

At the time, I was like, why'd you do that? And now I look back and I go, thank you for doing that, that you didn't let it happen. I like your story so much better. It's way better than I would have planned and devised it.

It is so powerful. I am just a creature with a very small brain that barely works half the time. I can't see 24 hours in front of myself.

And did you think about this?

This is kind of crazy, ready? This is a deep theological thought, okay? God's all-knowing, amen, yes?

Yeah?

You ever think about that deeply? He's all-knowing? What would that entail? Well, you and I, I'll give you an example. If I wrote on a blackboard one plus one equals,.

Ready?

One plus one equals, what are you doing right now? You're thinking of the answer, right? So you're like thinking back to when you learned that and maybe not thinking about that far, but you're like, okay, one plus one equals two.

All the homeschool moms are like, I got this. Been doing it all week, right? One plus one equals two. Your mind and my mind works on limited knowledge and we have to access information. We have to sort of put the things together.

One plus one equals two. And you can make it more complicated. You could say 562 times 10 ,792. You can make the numbers larger and then you have to start really computing and figuring out, okay, how do I put that together?

Watch, you could have the knowledge of how to work out the computation to put it all together to go, okay, here's the answer. And you may get the answer right,.

But what did you have to do?

You had to actually think step-by-step, working through to get to the final answer. Have you ever stopped to think that an all-knowing God never has to actually process information? Does that blow your mind?

Because it blows mine. He doesn't have to think like you.

Do you understand that?

That God from all eternity, that in itself you can't comprehend as a creature. From all eternity, God has known everything and he's never had to think about it. He's never had to go, now what was I gonna do?

Oh yeah, got it.

That God at all times knows everything. And God's decree itself is something that God has understood and known and planned from all eternity. So this is crazy, I know we're getting deep here, okay? Forever ago, forever ago, there was never a time ever, and that's weird in itself, there was never a time ever where God didn't know you.