1689 2nd LBCF Chap 9 & 10

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Okay, this morning we're moving on to chapter 9 of the Confession, and as you can see from the slide, chapter 9 is of free will.

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This is an important chapter for a lot of reasons, but mostly because one of the things that is leveled against Calvinists, you know, those who hold to the doctrines of grace, is that we don't believe in free will.

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Our critics would say that we believe that God, if what we believe is true, that God made us like automatons or robots and we don't have any free will.

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And so it's important that we understand this chapter and what it says. Now notice what it's, and I'll put the scripture proofs right on up there.

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God has endued the will of man with that natural liberty and power of acting upon choice that is neither forced nor by any necessity of nature determined to do good or evil.

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Now obviously this is talking about when he created man. Man was created with a natural liberty, he's not forced, nor by any necessity is he determined whether to do good or to do evil.

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Okay. So that's, hold on just one second.

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All right. Again, the importance of this is we've looked at chapter 3 where we talked about the decree of God and how he decrees everything that will come to pass.

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That is clearly a teaching of scripture. This paragraph puts the balance on that understanding that even though God has decreed all things, that doesn't mean that we don't have free will.

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This is one of the tenets of scripture. It's one of those things that is very difficult to understand. And from a natural perspective, from a human perspective, we can't understand it.

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How can God decree all things and yet we have free will? Well it's because of what the Bible teaches and it's one of those,

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I think they call it an antimony. You know, it's an apparent contradiction, but it's really not. Okay.

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So the first paragraph is just saying, reaffirming the fact that when God created man, he had natural liberty, the power of acting upon his choice.

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So we do have free choice and Adam and Eve were not forced to do either good or evil.

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They had the choice to do whichever one they chose to do. Does that follow?

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Everybody make sense of that? And again, I just want to emphasize how important these paragraphs are because this is where we are characterized by our critics who want to say that it can't be true because we don't believe that man has free will.

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Paragraph two goes a little bit more specific. Man in his state of innocency had freedom and power to will and to do that which was good and well -pleasing to God, but yet was unstable so that he might fall from it.

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Okay. Obviously, this is a pretty simple paragraph. Man in a state of innocency, that's only

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Adam and Eve, okay. They had the freedom. They could, by their actions, please

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God. All right. They had that ability to do that.

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Now, of course, we understand by looking at the fall, which we looked at last week, we no longer have that, all right, and we'll get into that in just a few minutes, but they had the freedom and the power.

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Notice that they not only did they have the desire or the freedom to do that, but they had the ability to, all right.

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That's something that has been lost when they fell. Notice again, but was unstable.

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This is what makes the difference. Because Adam and Eve were not immutable, only

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God is immutable, they changed. They chose to do what was evil, and the scripture is very clear on that.

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Eve was deceived, but Adam walked into a sin with his eyes wide open, all right, and of course,

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Adam being the federal head, you know, it was, that's why it's called the sin of Adam, not the sin of Eve, all right.

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So that he might fall from it, which of course we understand that he did. So let's move to the next chapter, paragraph three.

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Now here, man by his fall into a state of sin has wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation.

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Notice what it's saying. After the fall, man has lost the ability to do good that would be pleasing to God.

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Not any good. I mean, even unregenerate man is capable of doing quote, good deeds, unquote, but none that are pleasing to God or will, or those that would be described as accompanying salvation.

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Our good works are only efficacious to us because we have been redeemed by Jesus Christ.

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Prior to our salvation, any quote, good deeds, unquote, that we do earn us nothing.

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All right, we know that salvation is by grace alone. And so a person who is not saved, they may do many benevolent and extraordinary things even, but if it's not accompanying salvation, it does not accrue them anything with God.

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Okay. So that's what was lost. Look at what it says.

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So as natural man being altogether averse from that good and dead in sin is not able by his own strength to convert himself or to prepare himself there unto.

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All right. Adam and Eve had the ability to choose to do well.

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And this, the analogy, I hate hypothetical cases. All right. But sometimes you have to use them even though they're, you know, because there's really no hypotheticals.

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What God has decreed has come to pass. And we know that that included the fall. But if Adam had remained in his state of innocency and continue to do good, he would have earned salvation.

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He would have earned eternal life. Okay. But obviously being mutable and not perfect, he chose to do evil.

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And that was then lost. We no longer have the ability to even choose

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God. And this is very abundantly clear. Notice the, you know, the verses Romans 5, 6,

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Romans 8, 7, and the other verses. Romans 8, 7 in particularly says where it says that, you know, the mindset on the flesh is hostile toward God.

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It doesn't please God. It's not even able to do so. There's not even an ability to. So somebody, when anyone is saved, notice how all of this falls right in line with, it's all very consistent.

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Anybody who is saved must have had a work of divine grace to them or they never would have chosen, you know, to repent and they never would have chosen

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Jesus Christ as their savior because they don't have the strength to convert himself or even to prepare himself for it.

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So think back on how you were saved. All right.

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If you think back at some point, your eyes were open and you started to see the truth of the gospel.

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That was the work of grace. It wasn't you being wise in your own eyes and saying, oh yes, this all makes perfect sense.

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I know I'm going to choose Christ. You never will according to the scripture. All right.

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All right. Questions? All right. We'll go to paragraph four.

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When God converts a sinner and translates him into the state of grace, he frees him from his natural bondage under sin and by his grace alone enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good.

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It so is that by reason of remaining corruptions, he does not perfectly nor only will that which is good but does also that which is evil.

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That's the struggle that we all have. All right. Now notice, when God converts a sinner, oh, and by the way, this is maybe

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I should even mention it here. One of the sticking points for those who are evangelical and truly converted,

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I mean, you know, we call them Arminians. They're not necessarily fully Arminian, but those who deny the doctrines of grace and whatnot, we're not saying that they're not saved.

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Okay. And that's an important distinction to make. We're talking about brothers and sisters in Christ. But they believe the order of salvation is different than what the scripture teaches.

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They believe that you exercise faith. All right. You repent and then you're born again.

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All right. What do we believe? Well, what the

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Bible teaches is that you are born again. You're regenerated and given the gift of faith, which enables you to repent.

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Now, all of this takes place in an instant. It's simultaneous. I mean, it's not like Tuesday I'm going to be born again and Thursday I'm going to repent.

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No, it happens. But the order is important because if you believe that you can exercise faith before you're born again, that's a good work that is coming from you.

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All right. You follow the difference? If I can choose God, that's good and I've done a good thing.

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Whereas the scripture says that I'm incapable of doing a good thing when it comes to pleasing God. That's why the

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Holy Spirit has to regenerate the heart. Regeneration means being born again, regenerate, born again or reborn.

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And then when you are born again, you are free from that natural bondage under sin.

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Remember, free will only affects your ability to choose

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God and to do any good works accompanying salvation. We don't lose the free will to make choices.

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We make free choices every day. I chose to wear this tie today.

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All right. It was my own free will that, you know, you may not like my tie, but that's too bad. I like it.

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I chose it. In fact, this was actually my second choice. The reason

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I didn't wear the first tie was it had a stain on it, so I threw it away. All right. But those were my free choices to do that.

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What I didn't have, if I was an unregenerate man and I woke up today, I don't have the free will to choose

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God because my will is in bondage to sin. Okay.

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It's the grace of God and regeneration that frees us to respond to the gospel message.

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All right. Yet, so by reason of his remaining corruptions, he does not perfectly nor only will that which is good, but also does that which is evil.

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Of course, Romans 7 is one of the scripture proofs up there, and you see several verses in Romans 7.

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That's where Paul explains to us of the conflict that he had. You know, he says, the very thing that I want to do, you know,

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I don't do. The thing that I don't want to do is of everything that I do. All right. That's a struggle that we're all going to be facing from now until either

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Christ comes or we die. And so being born again does not mean that you're made perfectly good in the transactional sense.

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You are given the righteousness of Christ, and in God's eyes, you are perfect. All right.

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In fact, that's a trick question I ask people sometimes. How many people think you have to be perfect to get into heaven?

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And of course, nobody raises their hands, you know. But the fact is, you do have to be perfect, but you're given the perfect righteousness of Christ.

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All right. That's positional righteousness. What this is talking about is the process of sanctification.

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Our job, once we are saved, is to become in reality, all right, what we are positionally.

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And that's the struggle we have. And that's what the Bible is filled with. I mean, anybody who denies that just is not reading the

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New Testament. I mean, we will constantly have that struggle, you know. In fact, what does

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Paul say at the very end of chapter seven? Oh, wretched man that I am. He's an apostle.

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And then he's talking about being a wretched man, you know. So, that's paragraph four.

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Questions on paragraph four. No? Okay. Let's look at paragraph five.

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This will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone in the state of glory only.

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That means there's good news and bad news. The bad news is, obviously, we're going to have to struggle for this whole life.

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But when we come to glory, our will is conformed to the will of Christ. And then we will no longer have that struggle of sin.

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Sin will be removed. That's our doctrine of free will.

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So, if anybody says, oh, you're a Calvinist, you don't believe in free will, take them right to this section.

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Paragraph nine, I mean, chapter nine of the Confession, explains exactly what the

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Scripture talks about on free will. Any questions on our doctrine of free will at all?

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All right. I'm going to pause just for a moment. And then I'm going to set up for the new chapter.

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Okay. We're moving now on to chapter 10 of the Confession, titled of effectual calling.

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I just want to point out to you again the logic and the cogency of the

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Confession. Each chapter is in its location for a specific reason.

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We've just talked about, you know, free will. We've talked about the fall of man.

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And now, the very next topic, obviously, would be effectual calling. How is one called?

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We've talked about that we've lost the will, the free will to choose God. So then, how do we come to Christ?

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And this chapter answers those questions from the Scripture. Paragraph one, and I'll put the

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Scripture references right on up there, says, Those whom God has predestined unto life, he is pleased in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call by his word and spirit, out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ, enlightening their minds, spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone and giving them a heart of flesh, renewing their wills and by his almighty power, determining them to that which is good and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ, yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace.

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Okay. Mouthful. However, so much important information is in there.

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Notice it starts off, God has predestined those who will come to him.

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This must be the case or no one would come.

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All right, just think about the logic and cogency of it. How can you say that someone has lost the will to come, has lost the will to do good, is incapable of doing any good, and yet at some point

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God saves them. Who are those whom God saves?

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Only those whom he has predestined. I mean, there's no other answer.

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If man is incapable of choosing God, then God has to do something. That means that God has to choose them.

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All right. He doesn't just randomly say, okay, you, you, you, you, you, you, you have been predestined.

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For what reason? We do not know. That's one of the secret things that belongs to God. But if you look at the scripture, the only thing that even makes common sense, and not that we go by common sense necessarily, but it makes perfect sense, but it's also exactly what the scripture teaches.

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And notice he is pleased in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call by his word and spirit.

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This is a direct contradiction of some Arminian doctrine, which says that God calls everybody equally, and then they have the ability to choose or not to choose.

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But if man is dead in his trespasses and sin, his will is in bondage and he's unable to do any good, that would mean that if that were the case, then no one would ever be saved because no one can come to him.

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No one seeks after him. That's the clear message of scripture. Paul in Romans chapter three quotes, you know, the old

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Testament. There is none who seeks him. There is none good, none righteous, not even one.

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Now that particular Psalm and Paul quotes in Romans three is what we would definitely call a universal negative.

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There are no exceptions. Sometimes the scripture, when it uses the terms none or all, it can be talking about a specific group of people.

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All right. We do that. You know, I could say I want everybody over to my house tonight. All right.

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I don't mean everybody in the world. You know, I mean, I'd be talking, well, at this point,

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I'd be talking to you, the select group of people. But the scripture, when it talks about who is capable of coming, it's a universal negative.

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No one, none. And it goes on and on to prove the point that there are no exceptions so that nobody can choose

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God. All right. And that's why it's important that we see that he is effectually called.

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And we find that to remember what crisis all that the father has given me will come to me.

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You know, there's, there's no once, once God puts his call upon you in his time, notice that it says that at his appointed and his accepted time, that person will come yet.

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Now here's another one of these mysteries of scripture. Notice what it says further down. They come most freely being made willing by his grace.

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So the call is effectual. We call this the doctrine of irresistible grace as well, effectual calling or irresistible grace.

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When God places his hand upon you, when he calls you, you will come, not because he forces you to come, but because your heart has been made willing by his irresistible grace.

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Does that make sense? Hard to understand, but it's exactly what the scripture teaches.

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And now notice how the confession uses all biblical terms, enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God and then taking away the heart of stone and giving them a heart of flesh.

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All right. There again, you see what the analogy that the scripture uses is that prior to your salvation, you have a heart of stone.

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All right. This is one of the things that makes it very frustrating to witness the gospel to friends and relatives.

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You know, when God has opened your eyes, you see it. You understand it. You know that you're a sinner.

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You know that God has called you. You know that he is the one who has saved you.

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And so you want to impart that to friends and relatives and you start sharing the gospel and they look at you like you have two heads, right?

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It's because their eyes have not been enlightened. All right. They still have that heart of stone.

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They're not going to receive the things of the Lord. I mean, just that's the frustrating part.

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I mean, there's no other way to put it, but it's expected because it's exactly what the scripture teaches.

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That's one of the things that we have to learn when it comes to sharing our faith is that we are asked to be faithful, not successful.

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You know, it's one of those. I mean, you want everybody that you love to come to Christ, and yet that's in God's providence and his province, not ours.

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All right. And so you'll be very frustrated if you think that every time you share the gospel, somebody is going to see it and then respond.

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It just doesn't happen that way. Okay. And why? Because they have to be predestined, has to be

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God's choice, and at his appointed time and his place.

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That's why you don't give up. You know, not like you just give the gospel once, but you persevere and, you know, then in God's time and in God's place.

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Okay. Okay. Let's go to chapter two of the confession. Still talking about effectual calling.

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This effectual call is of God's free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man, nor from any power or agency in the creature, being wholly passive, therein being dead in his sins and trespasses, until being quickened and renewed by the

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Holy Spirit. He is thereby enabled to answer this call and embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it, and that by no less power than that which raised up Christ from the dead.

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Okay. Very important paragraph. Notice God's free special grace alone.

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Notice the term special grace. That's an important concept.

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I think I even mentioned it before in one of the previous chapters when we were talking. God gives all men a measure of common grace.

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Okay. And he does that so that man does not become utterly depraved.

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We believe in the doctrine of total depravity. Remember, total depravity means that every aspect of our being has been affected by sin.

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But it doesn't mean that we are as bad as we possibly could be. All right. That would be utter depravity.

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All right. Why don't men who fail to choose God and don't understand the things of the

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Lord, why do they, by nature, do things that are good?

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Why is that? Because of God's common grace. God gives a measure of common grace even to nonbelievers so that they will behave in a way that is, can be just and fair and kind.

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There are a lot of non -safe people who are very kind people. Okay. But that kindness is coming from a heart of self, not from a heart that wants to please

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God. Okay. So what we're talking about in this chapter is

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God's special grace. His special grace is that which is irresistible.

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When God sets his affection upon you and at his appointed time, his appointed place, he regenerates your heart by that special irresistible grace.

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All right. And notice it's not from anything. God didn't choose us. He didn't look down and say,

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Oh, you know what? He's a nice guy. I think I'm going to call him into my kingdom.

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In fact, Paul says just the opposite. He chose the weak things, the foolish things, you know, the things that are not to come into the kingdom.

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So if you ever start to get proud that God chose you, just go to 1 Corinthians 1 and 2, and that'll kind of put you back out, put you right back where you belong.

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All right. So it's nothing foreseen in us. That's another fallacy that the

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Arminians say. Well, you know, yes, God chose us, but he looked down the corridor of time and he knew that I would choose him.

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That's why he called me. Well, that's begging the question, you know? I mean, the scripture clearly says that it was nothing that was seen in us.

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There is nothing good in man. And in fact, the Old Testament makes it clear. Who is man that I have need for him, says

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God. He doesn't need us. Okay. All right.

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And then, and of course, this is all necessary because we are dead in our sins and trespasses.

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And until the Holy Spirit quickens and renews the spirit, no one will respond to the gospel message.

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Notice also the very last phrase, and that by no less than the power which raised up Christ from the dead.

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It's the same power that raised Christ from the dead. It's the same power that's regenerating your hearts. Okay. Paragraph three.

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Elect infants dying in infancy are regenerated and saved by Christ through the spirit who works when, where, and how he pleases.

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So also are all elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the word.

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This is one of those controversial chapters as sections. Okay. This is one of the things that has been debated, even amongst reformed theologians for centuries.

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What happens to an infant who dies in infancy? The way the founders of our confession, the writers of our confession solved the issue was, they said that if the infant is elect, they are regenerated and saved by Christ through the spirit who works how and when he pleases.

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All right. Same thing for people who are mentally deficient.

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All right. It's the same principle that they use. So for infants and for people who are mentally deficient in one way or another.

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I accept this paragraph because you can't really refute it because if an infant is elect, he's going to be saved.

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The question is, who is, are infants elected? How many of them?

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Charles Spurgeon, for example, believed that all infants dying in infancy are ushered into heaven.

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That was his view. My particular position on this is this.

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I don't believe there's any definitive portions of scripture that will tell you whether they go to heaven or they don't go to heaven.

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There's many portions of scripture that are used to try to prove one way or another. None of them are compelling to me.

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All right. This has specific meaning for me. I'm not detached from this because Ginger and I lost a baby.

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Okay, she miscarried. And that was a child.

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That was a baby. Okay. Will I see that child in heaven? I don't know.

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I think this is one of those areas that the scripture is silent on. And whenever the scripture is silent,

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I always go back to Deuteronomy 29, 29, which says, The secret things belong to the

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Lord, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever. This is where your faith really meets the road.

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And the way Ginger and I handled it when she miscarried was, we know that God has promised that he will work all things together for the good of his believers.

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So we leave that child in the hands of God knowing that he will do what is right, what is merciful, what is compassionate.

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And we trust in that. And I believe this is where your faith really has to meet the road, especially on an emotional issue like this with a child.

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So my answer is, I don't know. And I leave that in the hands of God. And I'm content with that.

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And that's the way I minister to people. This was actually a question that was asked me on my ordination council.

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One of the men asked me, because I read the confession, I said, this is what our confession says, you know.

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And they were not confessional Reformed Baptists on my council. So he said, well, I don't care about that.

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He said, what I want to know is how are you going to counsel somebody in your congregation when they lose a child?

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And basically, I gave the answer that I just gave you. And I said, this is where your faith comes into play more than any other time,

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I think. And they accepted that, obviously, because I'm here, they didn't discharge me and say, get out.

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But, and I think there's other issues as well that come in. This one happens to be an emotional one.

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But there's other issues that the scripture is silent on. And if the scripture is silent, then we must too be silent and especially not go into idle speculation.

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Okay. And then paragraph four, when

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God converts a sinner, oops, wait a minute. Oh, I'm looking at,

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I'm looking at the wrong one here. Okay, I'm good up there. Others not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the word and may have some common operations of spirit, yet not being affectionately drawn by the

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Father, they neither will nor can truly come to Christ and therefore cannot be saved, much less can men that receive not the

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Christian religion be saved. Be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature and the law of religion, they do profess.

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All right. Notice what it's saying. Others not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the word, this is what we're talking about here are false professors.

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There are people who hear the gospel and from a common sense perspective, say, you know, that makes sense to me.

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And they maintain that they're saved. Yet if they are not truly one of the elect, all right, they never will truly come to Christ.

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Remember what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount in chapter seven of Matthew. He says, many will say to me in that day,

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Lord, Lord, did I not do miracles in your name? Did I not cast out demons in your name? Did I not do all of these things in your name?

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And what did he say? Depart from me. I never knew you. Yeah, they could be one.

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And because there are people who are truly deceived. All they have is that, that head knowledge.

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They understand. Look at the Pharisees. The Pharisees were meticulous in keeping the law because they believe that that's what that was required.

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Yet what did Christ say? They're like whitewashed tombs. They look good on the outside, but inside they're rottenness.

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And there are many people today who profess faith and then even fall away.

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Think of how many, how many celebrities at one point or another made a profession of faith.

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You know, I know there was a couple, a couple of musicians and they made profession of faith.

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Then they gave up Christianity and became Buddhists. You know, there was never a true profession of faith.

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All right. We even see that, and this is one of the things that we wrestle with, you know, and during, when we baptize somebody is that, you know, have they truly, have they truly been saved?

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And this is why we go through the interview process because we don't want to be baptizing people who are not truly saved.

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Okay. And that's the last paragraph. Any questions on either effectual calling or free will?

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Yes. Oh, I would say the likelihood is that there is somebody sitting here week after week who is not truly saved.

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Yeah. Sometimes pastors would love it if they had special glasses they could put and then there was the

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E, you know, the elect would be shown up when you put special glasses on, you know. But that's just not the case, you know.

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Yeah. But see, the scripture teaches that as well. You know, you hear it in some of the places, so -called brother, you know.

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We know there are those who profess faith, but, but are not. Okay. Any other questions?