Sovereignty of God and Mans Responsibility

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle
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Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.
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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.
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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her king.
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Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome back to No Compromise Radio ministry.
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When I think about it, Pastor Steve, I think R .C. Sproul follows us and then
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John MacArthur follows us. Wow, we have a big following. I wonder if they've put us as friends on their
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Facebook. John MacArthur and Facebook, it just doesn't seem right. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's not right.
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Maybe we should do a whole show and then just send it to John to see what he thinks. Considering he handwrites out his sermons,
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I don't really think he's a Facebook kind of guy. I do think R .C. Sproul has a Facebook, though. Yeah, well, he might have a
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Facebook. I don't know if he actually - Put together by Ligonier Ministries. Yeah, thank you, yeah. By the way, if you go to their Twitter, I think they have tweeted our email address.
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Really? I was glad for that. That's very nice. So what we're gonna do today is we are going to play a game.
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And here's the game. I'm gonna ask Steve true or false questions and then he can tell me if it's true or false and why.
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Now, I gave him some notes ahead of time, but you can't see those notes on the radio so you can just assume that he's, he just has memorized all this material.
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Well, he didn't actually let me look at the notes. Well, that's true. We just sat down and said, let her rip.
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Steve is going to be filling in for me this summer for quite a few shows, and so it will be interesting to hear Pastor Steve when there's no foil.
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Millions of shows. Well, I'll have to be my own foil. In fact, my wife and I were talking about that. Maybe I'll just interview myself.
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Foiled again. Yeah. Today we're going to have a quiz, a test. So you're gonna take this test at home.
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When I was younger and listened to the Bible Answer Man, he would ask a— somebody would call and ask a question, and then I would try to answer it.
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I'd quick turn down my radio and I would try to answer it and see if I could get some of the answers. And now
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I don't do that because the Bible Answer Man tends to be Arminian, begs for money, and is charismatic, and doesn't have the right view of the end times, but besides that—
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It's a good show. God bless him. But now we're gonna do that here in our studio today, live, in beautiful downtown
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Burbank, and you're gonna hear Steve discuss these issues, and I'll give him the large topic.
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Here's the large topic. The sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. God is sovereign.
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True. That's it. You've won the prize. A Way Down book with Gwen Chamblin.
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Woohoo! You know, there's an In -N -Out bumper sticker right here. See that,
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Steve? Oh, that's very nice. I'm gonna put that right there. Makes me feel like we are in Burbank. I'm gonna put it right next to the holy water, holy soil, and olive oil.
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If your shows start to bomb next week, just take a little dab of that olive oil and rub it on your forehead, and do the top to the bottom to the left to the right.
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Then the show will be anointed. A couple of Avamarillas and you'll be alright. Very nice. Yes, okay. Let me ask you some questions.
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Okay. True or false? And you feel free to then ad -lib after that. Okay. What is ad -lib short for?
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Ad -liberation. Ad infinitum liberal person.
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Before I ask you the first question, this is an important topic. Why would you think it's an important topic? Because it's in the
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Bible and automatically makes it an important topic. Well, plus, you know, it's something I think people struggle with because if you ask most
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Christians, they will say that they have, that they believe that God is sovereign. It's when you get down to the details, you find out that their
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God isn't really so sovereign. Most of people that say God's sovereign, and they really mean it, and they really believe it, also think that man has free will.
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Yeah, and ultimately they would say free will trumps God's sovereignty. Now you're listening and you're going, oh,
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I don't believe that, but I think if we push far enough, you might. We like it when you listen and you don't agree with us.
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We like that and we have many illustrations of people who have repented after the illustration.
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Listen to what Calvin said. Ignorance of providence, our sovereignty, is the ultimate of all miseries.
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The highest blessedness lies in the knowledge of it. The highest blessedness, yes.
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We want to bless you. We want you to wrap your mind around, as you are able to, sovereignty of man, the sovereignty of God, and the responsibility of man, man's duty.
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And I've even picked that for a reason. It's not sovereignty of God and free will of man, it's the sovereignty of God and man's duty or responsibility.
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Is it true, Steve, that God hates sin?
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That's my first true or false question. Absolutely true that he hates sin. His eyes are too pure to even abide evil.
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Okay, good. And so we want to establish that non -negotiable first, that God is holy and that he hates sin.
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Why would we want to establish that fact first? Well, I mean, it's the basis for everything that he does.
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Apart from his holiness, this world, the Gospel, the Bible, everything would be different. Thank you.
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Yeah, I mean, his holiness is, I think, arguably his central attribute.
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Good. And how does it relate to the eventuality when it comes to theology,
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Steve? Let me rephrase that. Why is it going to be important to remember God is holy when we begin to discuss who's sovereign over sin?
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Because I think we have to, once we understand how much God hates it, how much he's separated from it, then eventually we'll see that the need,
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A, for the Gospel, B, our sinfulness prohibits us, it stops us from really choosing
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God of our own free will. It has to be God's free will. He's the only one with a free, unfettered will.
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Good. When it comes to the Bible, we are quickly going to have to say to ourselves, you know,
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God is so sovereign, he's even sovereign over the death of Jesus, the worst sin that's ever been committed.
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God has caused that, God has allowed that, God has ordained that, God has decreed that. We must remember, if you have an issue with sovereignty of God and the will of man and the duty of man or responsibility of man, you cannot let go of the mooring that says
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God is holy. See, and you even said something that I just really don't like, sorry, but you said
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God allowed that. People go into that language, you know, why did 9 -11 happen? Well, God allowed it.
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You know, why did somebody die? Well, God allowed it. Why did somebody get sick? God allowed it. God allowed it, as if he was some kind of passive bystander, and we just don't, we don't see that language anywhere in the
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Bible, nowhere. Yeah, well, you know, it's my show and that's okay. And God allowed you to say that?
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Yeah, God allowed me to say that. I don't know, I think some of the nuance of Steve, it might not always be decreed, but certainly in Acts chapter 2 and 4, it's a more direct language, and I agree with you.
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For the most part, let's get rid of the allowed language. I think a long time ago I said that God never says allowed, and then
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I think Phil Johnson wrote me and said he did say allowed. But you are right in this for sure, that that kind of language somehow is used to get
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God off the hook so he's not responsible. Exactly, exactly. We don't mean that. If that's what people mean by allowed, we don't, and that's why
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I put the long train of decreed and determined and decided after that. God allowed this disaster, that calamity.
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Well, the Bible says that he brings calamity. Let's talk about man's responsibility.
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We know God is sovereign, his sovereignty rules over all, Psalm 103. We know God's holy, but is man in fact really responsible?
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How would you prove that from the Bible? Well, I would just go to the passages that say, for example, where God has to—or
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God—where man has to repent. It implies, it does not apply ability, but it does imply responsibility.
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It actually states it. I mean, if you have to do something, then you are responsible to do it. I mean, that's just the reality of it.
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God is going to judge everyone, and he's going to judge them not based on their ability, but on their responsibility.
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Good, and will the people be in hell, eventually the lake of fire? Are they in hell now, or will they be in hell later based on God's sovereign decree, or based on their own deeds?
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Yes. There you go, we see we're getting ahead of ourselves. All right, let's say it this way. How about this? Here's true and false.
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I said it was going to be true and false, now let's get back to it. Okay. Sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man are never reconciled in the
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Bible, but just assumed. I think that's right. I mean, the one place they are reconciled, in other words, the one place where these two things do come together, that is
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God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, is in the mind, the infinite mind of God.
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He understands how these two things work together for us, it's just stated in the Bible that both are true, and we have to grapple with it.
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I love that answer. We have a difficult time with this concept because we are finite creatures, our minds are fallen, they've been affected by the fall,
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God is infinite and perfect and holy, and we just can't wrap our minds around some of the mysteries of the universe.
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Who wrote the Bible? God, through men, the deity of Christ, the humanity of Christ.
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So it's the same thing here. They are reconciled in the mind of God, but in our minds, they can never be reconciled, and so you have to be mature enough to just let both of them lie.
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Don't you think it's caused a lot of problems when people try to tie those two doctrines together when they're not able to be tied?
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Absolutely. I mean, when you do things like you say, well, you know, God is too much of a gentleman to force himself, in other words, he's not really sovereign, too much of a gentleman to force himself upon someone, so he leaves it up to your free will.
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Well, then what you've done is you've rationalized something that the Bible never says. The Bible never says that man has a free will to choose
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God. It never says that. And it never says that God's too much of a gentleman to force himself upon you.
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It's true. Listen to Acts chapter 2. Men of Israel, listen to these words. Jesus the
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Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which
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God performed through him in your midst, just as you yourselves know. This man delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, there is divine sovereignty, here comes human responsibility, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death.
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No explanation. Both side -by -side in the same verse, even. Yep, it was
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God's plan, but men carried it out. They are responsible, but it was no, it didn't come out as a surprise to God, it was always part of his decree.
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And you know, when we talk about, this is the kind of language that we see when we talk about, does man have a free will?
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You know, and I would just ask people, A, I always ask for a verse that teaches that, but B, I mean, when we look at the examples, even in the book of Acts, talking about Lydia, what does it say?
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One who hurt us was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods who was a worshiper of God.
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Listen, the Lord appealed to her and she responded. No, it doesn't say that, it says, the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.
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We see this kind of language over and over again, the sovereignty of God, and then the responsibility of man in responding to the sovereign call, as it were.
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Good, how about this verse, when Abraham was going to try to pawn Sarah, his wife, off on the king, so Sarah would be the buffer for Abraham's safety, then
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God said to him in the dream, Genesis 20, yes, I know, he didn't say to Abraham, but Abimelech, the king,
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I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this. He didn't sleep with her, and I also kept you from sinning against me, therefore
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I did not let you touch her. So it was his responsibility, he didn't do it, and God said, no,
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I was the one doing that. So they're just taught side by side, and why try to put these two truths together in a way that seems to somehow make sense?
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I think people go crazy when they do that. Yeah, well, and it's also the source of many, you know, bad doctrines, even as I was saying earlier, if we go through church history, what happens when people try to really step outside the black and white of Scripture and sort of apply their own wisdom to it, their own brainpower, then that's where we run into theological trouble.
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Spurgeon said of this, Steve, it's not in the notes, but he said, I never try to reconcile friends.
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These two doctrines do not need to be reconciled. Man is responsible, God is sovereign. If I had to pick one, which one would you pick?
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Well, I like the divine sovereignty, of course. I mean, isn't it good to know that God's in charge?
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I've said this on many occasions. You don't pray to God because you think he's unable to help you, that he's some kind of a gentleman who's too nice to really involve himself in your affairs.
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We don't have a cosmic watchmaker for a God who is completely indifferent. We have a
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God who cares and is able and is willing to intervene in the affairs of man.
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Brilliant. Mike Abendroth and Steve Cooley here, No Compromise Radio. I'm gonna finally get really to the quiz now.
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It's been 13 minutes and 44 seconds. True. This is, these six questions, these six statements come from John Reisinger, R -E -I -S -I -N -G -E -R, and it's under the title of God's Part and Man's Part in Salvation.
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And I'm gonna give you these, true or false, and then you can make comments. God's part and man's part in salvation.
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True or false number one. This is all underneath the desire to discover what the
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Bible teaches about the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. One, man must repent and believe in order to be saved.
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True. The Bible says it and no one's going to do it for you. When you are commanded to repent and believe,
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God just doesn't kind of assume that. He can't do it for you or he doesn't do it for you.
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There's no indication that he ever repents and believes for you. And what we see is people responding with repentance and faith to the gospel message and that that's
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God's method. Seems to me that pretty much teaches that God holds man responsible for his sin and for repenting and for believing on the
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Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. Exactly. Why do people go to hell? Because they didn't repent and believe, you know, and because ultimately
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God didn't enable them to repent and believe. That's right. Well exegetically, according to scriptures, the focus is on they went to hell because they didn't believe.
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Theologically we know that they were reprobate and that they weren't chosen, and if they weren't actively chosen to salvation, they were actively chosen for perdition, 1
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Peter 2, 8, and Romans 9, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. So so far so good, Steve. True or false number two.
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Everyone who repents and believes, I can't even read, everyone who repents and believes in order to be saved is saved without exception.
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True. If you repent and believe, you go to heaven, yeah? Yeah, that's absolutely true. I mean, there's no, you know, the question is, well then people say, well then that's why
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I lead people in the sinner's prayer, for example, because I want them to repent and believe, so I tell them what to say so that they repent and believe.
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Well, it's never a matter of simply what comes out of your mouth. What does it say even in Romans 10?
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Romans 10? Yes. You know, it says, if you believe with all your heart that God raised him from the dead, you know, you do have to confess with your mouth, but you have to believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.
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So it's not just a matter of what we say, it's a matter of our conviction of what we truly believe. Okay, great.
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So so far, man is responsible, they must repent and believe, second of all, if they do repent and believe, they will be saved.
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Number three, true and false, by the way, listening audience, how are you doing? I'm doing very well, thank you.
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Good. Repentance and faith are not vicarious, but are the free acts of men.
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That is to say, Steve, in case you can't quite figure out what vicarious means. But you call me vicar in the morning.
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I almost already answered this question, because I said God does not believe for you, and that would be vicarious, that would be a substitutionary belief.
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You know, God says, well, I know you don't believe, so I'll believe on your behalf. He doesn't do that.
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Christ took our sins on the cross, that is vicarious, that's a vicarious substitution.
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But nowhere in Scripture does it ever say that God or, you know, God in the person of Jesus will vicariously believe and repent for us.
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Good, so we are not hyper -Calvinist, we believe that man is responsible, that if man responds to the gospel, he will be saved.
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We believe that God doesn't repent for you, believe for you, somehow, you know, renounce sin in your place, and we're leading up to the big one now.
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We've got three left, and we've laid the ground work, and now comes the scissor pinch right here.
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Ow. Pincer movements. Ow. How do they say pincer movements in England again? Pincer.
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I don't know. I don't know, I think they say football. I don't know what they say. Number four, true or false,
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No Compromise fans, man, because of his sinful nature, is totally unable to repent and believe.
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True or false? That is true. Man's responsible, man must do it, if man does it, he's saved, but he can't do it.
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So aren't we starting to lean towards, we're gonna need a sovereign God if anybody's gonna get saved.
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Well, I mean, you know, just to biblically kind of back that up a little bit, we've got Ephesians 2 that says, you know, before salvation, what were we?
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We're dead in our sins and trespasses. Second Timothy 2 talks about being trapped and snared, you know, in sin, and really dependent upon God to set us free.
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Well, you know, Steve, it's like the man who's sick, and you just go deliver him the antidote, and he's got to reach over there and pick up that antidote and gulp it down, and he'll be saved.
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Right, and he would if he could just move. He's dead, you know, and I'll take it even a step further.
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If you could take the antidote and pour it in his gullet, as you like to say, if you could put it in his mouth and force it down his throat, it would still not matter because a dead person cannot respond.
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Cannot. Absolutely incapable. This whole idea that God has done his part, and you know,
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Jesus has got his arms open this big, you know, in the sign of the cross, and he wants you to now take the next step, and somehow implying that you can take the next step on your own, without the
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Spirit of God's help, because you're less than spiritually dead, we believe that is totally false and an inadequate view of the fall and sin.
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Man, because of his sinful nature, can't repent and believe. No, you don't need a spiritual wheelchair, as it were.
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You don't need spiritual crutches. You need to be born again. You need to be brought to spiritual life.
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Okay, good. Number five. Number five. The new birth, or regeneration, is
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God giving us the spiritual life that enables us to do what we must do, but cannot do because of our bondage.
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In other words, regeneration is when God makes you born again, and then with that new nature, you can repent and believe, because now you have the nature of a person who would repent and believe.
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True. True. I mean, it's, again, we're back to Ephesians 2, where we were dead in our sins and trespasses, but God made us alive together with Christ, and you know, it's by grace we have been saved.
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And ultimately, what are we gonna say then? That grace is somehow the first step that we took, you know, the reaching out to take the antidote?
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No. Grace is the work of God entirely. Which comes first, regeneration or faith?
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Well, you can't have faith without being regenerated, and you know, it's pretty hard to be regenerated and not have faith, so I'd say they're pretty much simultaneous.
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You had to pick one, though. If I had to pick one, I'd say regeneration. All right, good.
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How about this? This is not on the test, but in my notes I have this, so I asked the crowd instead of asking
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Steve. The throngs of the people out there listening. Have you ever met a
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Christian who said, I have come to Jesus without the power of the Holy Spirit? I've met people who thought they were
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Christians who said that. I've met people who thought they were the Holy Spirit. All right, and then now finally, number six.
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We have lots to say about all this, but I want to get everything together on one show. We've got a couple minutes left. Final true and false question, number six.
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Faith and repentance are the evidences of, and not the cause of, regeneration. Absolutely true.
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Because what happens, you know, regeneration, think about a person who's spiritually dead, cannot respond to the things of God.
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They receive spiritual life and all the things that before were absolutely meaningless to them now take on a deeper meaning.
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So they have faith. They have a desire to repent. They have a transformation.
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They are no longer that rotting corpse that they were. They're alive and they act like they're alive.
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There's a—when God changes people, he really changes them. Good, and so we would say,
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Steve, wouldn't we, that faith and repentance are fruits of salvation and not the cause of salvation.
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That's right. Most evangelicalism, because you tell people to repent and believe, they think, well, that's the causal force is my repentance and my belief.
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That's the foundational reason why I'm saved. And you're not saved, even technically, by faith alone.
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You are technically saved by Christ's perfect work as the God -man at Calvary, his whole life, his death, his resurrection, and then through believing in what he has done.
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I mean, some of the language we use, you know, frequently, like, you know, I came to faith. Oh, did you really now?
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You know, how did that work, you know, exactly? You know, how did you come to faith?
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Well, I was a rotting corpse and God brought me to life, and then I came to faith. Well, I'd go for that. You know, Steve, we help people when they do their baptismal testimonies to try to talk about God as the active one in salvation, since he is, and talk about yourself passively.
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Here's how God saved me. This is what God did, versus, you know, I did this and I did that.
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Steve, how about this regarding faith and repentance as an evidence and not a cause of regeneration? John 10 26.
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It's absolutely wild. But you do not believe because you are not of my sheep.
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Yeah, I mean, Jesus talking to this group of Jews, and he says, listen, here's why you don't believe in me.
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It's because you're not part of my flock. You weren't part of the chosen ones. You aren't part of those who will be redeemed.
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So these things just bounce off you because, he doesn't say it, but another way of saying it, you're spiritually dead.
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That is an amazing truth. Well, if you're a Christian today, you're a Christian because of God's sovereignty, and you're a
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Christian because God even granted you the faith and repentance. And we are thankful today that you're listening.
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Steve, anything in the last 10 seconds? Yeah, Jesus also said, you know, my sheep hear my voice. So it is a result of regeneration that we are enabled to hear the words of Christ and respond to them.
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As Steve Skouli says, preach it. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
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