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July 24, 2026
MURUNGI IGWETA, author & pastor of Trinity Baptist Church of Nairobi, Kenya, Africa, who will address:
“TULIP: The GLORY of SOVEREIGN GRACE”
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Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 24th day of July 2016.
I'm so thrilled to have a returning guest after eight years. He was last on this program in 2018, and I'm so thrilled to have him back on the program. And he is going to be discussing a brand new book of his.
I am speaking of Morungi Igweta, who joins us all the way from Nairobi, Kenya, Africa. He is the pastor of Trinity Baptist Church of Nairobi, and we are addressing his new book, Tulip, the Glory of Sovereign Grace.
It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Morungi Igweta.
Thank you so much, Chris. Thank you for inviting me to this program. Yeah, it's been a long time since I was here last, and I hope we're not going to wait for eight more years. Let's see how this interview goes.
I'm only kidding. Well, yes, but this is good afternoon from Nairobi, Kenya. It's 11 at night, so perhaps that might be one of the reasons why we haven't been able to connect that often.
Yes. Thank you so much. Well, tell us about the wonderful church you pastor in Nairobi, Trinity Baptist Church.
Yes, I've been a pastor here at Trinity Baptist Church since 2010. Trinity Baptist Church began in 1978 by God's grace, and the Lord has kept us as a confessional Reformed Baptist Church in the country.
And the Lord used a church in Wales called Alfred Place Baptist Church in mid-Wales. That's where Jeff Thomas used to be the pastor for 50 years.
Yes, and Jeff has been on my program many times.
Yes, and the Lord used that church to raise Kid Underhill and to send him. And from 1978, the Lord helped him to be one of the pastors here from the beginning as the founding pastor until 2015 when he retired to go back to England.
But what makes Trinity Baptist Church to continue to exist is the grace of God that we proclaim, the salvation of sinners by His grace, and adding sinners to repent and turn to the Lord. So we've continued to seek God's blessings as new people come in, hear the gospel, they are converted and are baptized, become part of the church, and the gospel has continued on that way.
And obviously, since we are discussing a book that you wrote called Tulip, obviously this is a Reformed Baptist Church.
Oh, it is. Trinity Baptist Church has always been a Reformed Baptist Church, subscribing to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, preaching the doctrines of grace without any fear of man or favor, and trusting the Lord to use the power of the gospel to call His elect to salvation.
And by the way, let's see how many years this was. It was five years ago. A listener in my audience in Nairobi contacted me looking for a church recommendation from me. She listens to this program and wanted to be directed to a solid church, and her name is Susan.
I don't know if a woman named Susan ever visited your congregation and stuck around and maybe even joined? Yes, I do remember Susan.
She became part of the church for a moment, for a short period. Then she became quite ill, so she had to change. Yes.
Oh, that's sad to hear. Well, I'm glad that she at least for a period was visiting with you, and I hope that one day she's able to return. Do you have any idea of her current health?
Last time I contacted her was last year, and then when I took my sabbatical, nine-month sabbatical, I wasn't able to connect with her. But now that you've reminded me of her, I hope to reach out again and see how she is faring.
Yeah, praise God. Well, if anybody listening, whether you live in or near Nairobi, perhaps you have family, friends, and loved ones there, or perhaps you're going to be vacationing there or near there, please look up the website for Trinity Baptist Church of Nairobi, Kenya, and that is trinity .or .ke, as in Edward.
Trinity .or .ke, and we will be repeating that information later on. Well, since it has been eight years since you've been a guest on Iron Trepans Iron Radio, I usually only ask my first-time guests to provide for my listeners a summary of their salvation testimony, which includes whatever religious upbringing they may have had and the kinds of providential circumstances our Sovereign Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to himself and saved them.
But since it's been so long since you've been on, I thought it would be a good idea, especially because of the topic of our discussion today, I thought it'd be a good idea for you to repeat a summary of your salvation testimony.
So if you would, please.
Thank you. It's always a privilege to talk about God's great miracle of resurrecting me when I was dead in my trespasses. Twenty-five years ago, he called me to himself by his grace. I was raised up in a Roman Catholic home.
Both my father and my mother were stone Catholics. Some of my siblings are still in a Roman Catholic church. But God, by his grace, helped me to open up a history book, a secular history book, and I got rid of the medieval history.
And that's when I discovered how the Roman Catholics had attacked Protestant Christians. And I was particularly disturbed by the St. Bartholomew massacre, that I thought, why would I be identifying myself with an organization that calls itself a church, which would kill so many other Christians?
And I decided to stop going to church at age 12, or thereabout. And I didn't go to church for a long time. Then one day, after eight years, I met up with a friend here in Nairobi who requested me to help him get a job.
And he said that to connect with him, I would need to go to his church. And after the service, I can find him at the church bulletin board, where he might be checking up whether there would be any job vacancies.
Those years, very few people had cell phones. So after two weeks, I visited that church, and as the Lord would have it in his providence, he had me hear the gospel. And that's when I was convicted of my sins.
I repented of my sins to the Lord Jesus Christ and pleaded for mercy and salvation. And the Lord, by his grace, turned my heart around and gave me peace with God and called me to himself that way. And that peace and joy that flooded my heart, after I called upon the name of Christ, made me so happy that I didn't have time to go look for my friend.
I wanted to go and tell others that the Lord had graciously saved me. So that's how, basically, the Lord drew me to himself, by his mercy, by his love, by his grace, by his Son, through his Spirit.
Amen. Hallelujah. And when did you realize that the Lord had placed a call to the pastoral ministry upon your life?
I would say that very soon after conversion, because that same day, I went back to my house where I had two other housemates, and I announced to them the good news of my salvation. And I remember I told them that I had become a Christian, but they didn't know what I was talking about, because they were like, why are you a Muslim?
They didn't know what I was talking about. But then they said, we know someone who says that he is saved, he owns a shop, go and look out for him, and perhaps he can help me to know what to do, because we don't know what to do with you.
So I went to this guy. I went to this brother, and he began giving me good books to read. And one of the books that he gave me to read was a book by Chuck Sweedle, Growing in the Christian Faith. And then a few weeks later, he gave me a book by John Oswald Smith.
And as I read that book, which was on missions, I was particularly convicted of the need to share the gospel. And he said, everyone has been called as a disciple of Christ to go and make Christ know. And you either go or you said something.
So that's when the Lord began developing that call to the gospel ministry. I realized that I needed to be a faithful herald of the gospel that had so powerfully saved me.
Now, how did you come to first discover and then eventually embrace the doctrines of sovereign grace, also known as Reformed theology? And as you have titled your book, The Tulip, how did you come to discover and embrace those teachings?
Oh, yeah. So just another piece of information about how God providentially led me was that I got married two and a half years later to my wife, Charity. And we moved to a town where we met up with a young man who had been trying to plant a church, but he had been fairly unsuccessful, humanly speaking.
And he urged us to join up with him, and I found it to be a faithful man. And so we worked together for a period, and the Lord began bringing people to us. But then he invited me to a pastor's conference where they would have messages for the men and then at the end of the messages, at the end of the conference, they would announce new pastors.
And guess what? Without any consultation with me, I'd been appointed to serve as the pastor of that church, which was quite a shocker. But the Lord would use that to help me grow in shepherding. And I decided for expository preaching came up because, you know, I would read the Bible systematically, and I wondered why did I not preach the Bible systematically, consecutively.
So I began preaching the Bible like that. But I didn't know anyone else who preached the Bible like that. Everyone, all the churches that I attended would always pick a bus here, pick a bus there, pick a bus there, but never really get hold of a book and preach the rules.
So I was looking for a man who does that. And one time I'd been invited to speak at a meeting where the Lord brought me into contact with a pastor who did a thorough exposition of John 4, the conversion of the Samaritan woman.
And he said that he would preach the gospel, but he would not make an altar call. He would not invite people forward to be saved. And this pastor, Pastor Michael Maura, he preached very well. And so I really respected and enjoyed his preaching.
And I didn't understand why he would not make the altar call, as I understood it to be, that you are inviting people to salvation. And he had not given me the reason why he would not do that. He only said that if I decided to make an altar call, then he would lead the meeting.
Now, I decided that, you know, you are preaching very well, that there should be people to respond to this gospel. So I made the altar call anyway, and he left the meeting. So the following day, he found me about to leave the town, and he saw me in a bus about to go.
And he said, young pastor, I have a word for you. Unless you humble yourself to the word of God, God will not use you. And he said that publicly, embarrassing me. And I was honestly very convicted. I was very convicted.
And that's what the Lord used to draw me back to this man. And I asked him, why did you tell me that? And he said, well, I reckon that you're a man who reads your Bible. Show me from the scriptures where the Lord Jesus Christ, in his preaching and teaching, where did he make an altar call?
Or any of his apostles, Peter or Paul or John, in their preaching, did they ever make an altar call? And I said, yes. So I quickly grabbed the Bible and went to Acts chapter two, where Peter preached.
And he said, read it aloud. And I read it aloud, and voila, there was nothing. Then he said, do you know of another passage? And I quickly jumped to Acts 16. And I thought that when Paul and Silas were in Philippi and preached to the Philippian jailer, they made an altar call.
So again, when I read verse 31, what shall I do to be saved? And the response was, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. It wasn't repeat this prayer after me. I was horrified. So I wondered, how could I have been so mistaken?
And that's what the Lord used to humble me and to help me see that I may have misled so many people with an imaginary text in my hand, but which was not written in the word of God. So we began reading the Bible together with this pastor and reading books together with him and listening to Martyn Lloyd-Jones tapes and Al Martyn's tapes.
And then Stuart Elliot's messages also were greatly instrumental in helping me understand the scriptures correctly. And as I read all these men, the Lord opened up my eyes to see that the doctrines of grace, as I know them, is the gospel.
Amen. Yes, people may call them reformed faith, but really, this is the word of God. This is what the Bible teaches. So I embraced them as things, every doctrine fell into place as the Spirit of God gave me the understanding over the years.
Hallelujah. Eventually, the Lord used Pastor Michael to invite me to Nairobi, the church that I'm pastoring now. He had become at the time one of the elders here, along with Keith Underhill. So I served as a pastoral intern from 2009 to 2010.
And then the church requested me to stay on as one of the elders, and I was set apart on July 2010.
Praise God. And by the way, I'm not even sure you are aware of this, but I had the privilege for the first time back in May of this year to interview Keith Underhill. I interviewed him on May 8, 2026, on his book, Planted by the Providence of God, 22 Biblical Foundations for Church Planting and Missionary Work.
So if anybody listening wants to look up that interview, just type in Underhill in the search engine of irontreppanzironradio .com, and you will find the link for that interview. And before I forget to ask you, I see that you have a t-shirt that has the book cover of your book on it.
And I was wondering, are those also available at Amazon as your book is?
We hope to get the t-shirts, the merchandise available for the book. But at the moment, those are not available yet. But the book is available both on Heedle as well as as a paperback.
Yes, well, I definitely want to get both of them and probably multiple copies of both of them, both the book and the shirts. So it's a great conversation starter, because I'm sure when people see that, most people don't even know what tulip means, and they don't even know what sovereign grace means.
At the back of the shirt, it's written, God saves sinners, not partially, not potentially, but powerfully and completely.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Well, now I know I've got to get that t-shirt. Well, the issue that many people may be wondering, they are saying to themselves, if they are indeed Calvinists already, Pastor Murongi, there are dozens and dozens of books on the tulip, the five points of Calvinism, already in print, some dating back centuries, some by modern contemporary authors who are brilliant exegetes and articulate speakers and prolific writers.
Why the need for another book on tulip?
I ask myself that question. But I would say two people have been used to God to encourage me to put these books together. One is a gospel minister who studied at the Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, not very far from where you are.
Yeah. And I have lots of respect for that seminary because that's where Geoff Thomas and Keith Underhill studied. That's right. And when he told me, when he mentioned that he studied there, I was very excited and thrilled to know that there is a Kenyan gospel minister who espouses doctrines of grace from a very large denomination covering the whole of East Africa.
And so I asked him, so do you proclaim the gospel of the sovereign grace? Oh, he said, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no way. Those doctrines, I learnt them in the seminary and they helped me acquire a very solid paper.
He said, I have a very heavy, heavy, heavy paper. He said like that. A very heavy paper referring to his MD. And he said, as soon as I got my paper, I left all those doctrines in America. And he said, those are doctrines for white people.
They are not applicable in Africa. I could not believe my ears because it's like, to me, that was a man who had been given a whole bucket of pearls, but he had scattered them and a part of them and did not see any use for them.
That's one man. And so I thought, no, these doctrines need to be articulated in Africa by an African man so that they would see that this is a Bible. These are not doctrines by the Dutch or the doctrines by Americans or they're not white man.
This is not a white man doctrine. That's one man. The other man is a person who has become very close to me over the last one year. He is a man called Crescent Osukoku. He's a teacher and he's a primary school teacher.
And he got hold of my preaching because I was preaching through these doctrines early in the year at Trinity Baptist Church. After I came back from my sabbatical at the beginning of the year, I preached through the five doctrines, six messages.
And every time, whenever I would finish preaching, it would be live streaming our service. And he lives about 500 kilometers away, right at the border of Kenya and Uganda, a town called Busia. And he would contact me and say, pastor, please, would you send me your notes?
I want to compare this, what you have said, with scripture. And he greatly appreciated that I was anchoring my message, my messages on specific texts and would do an exposition of that text before moving to the next.
And he said, why don't you put this together as a book? I would want to articulate these things, but I think you've already done a good job preaching this. I would like to have a book that I can give to my friends.
And he pushed me and encouraged me. And eventually the Lord has helped put together this book. My approach is basically to go back to the scriptures and I've gone into history. I've republished the Canons of Thoth of 1618 and 1619 to show that this is historical.
I've given a date of history to explain how these doctrines came about. So that's the background to the writing of this book. I don't know what you think, now you can judge whether I should have or shouldn't have.
Well, I'll be the judge of that when I get the book. I don't have it yet, but I trust that you very accurately have written about those precious truths of God. And I am looking forward not only to receiving the book with bated breath, but to continuing today's interview with you.
And if anybody has any questions about the five points of Calvinism, about Reformed theology in general, about specifically Reformed Baptist teaching, you may feel free to submit a question by email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com.
As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA, and only remain anonymous if your question is of a personal and private nature.
Let's say you are in a church that does not teach these truths of the TULIP, and perhaps the elders are even vehemently opposed to these teachings. They might even call them, as some do, the doctrine of demons.
And you have come to either believe in them, or perhaps you are just on a journey, and you're investigating, you're being a Berean about the subject, and you don't want to identify yourself publicly by name.
I understand that. But if you're just asking a general question, please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence. Don't go away. We're going to be right back after.
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I'm Simon O'Mahony, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Originally from Cork, Ireland, the Lord in his sovereign providence has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.
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We would love for you to visit and worship with us. You can find our details at trbccarlisle .org. That's t-r-b-c-carlisle .org. God willing, we'll see you soon.
Welcome back. If you just tuned us in, our guest today on Iron Sherpens Iron Radio is Morungi Agweta. He's an author, and he's the pastor of Trinity Baptist Church of Nairobi, Kenya, Africa, and we are discussing his new book, Tulip, the Glory of Sovereign Grace.
If you'd like to join us, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Give us your first name, at least, city and state of residence, and country of residence, and only remain anonymous if your question is a personal and private one.
And to start off, the TULIP, this is not an acronym that John Calvin developed himself. This is an acronym that some have said did not appear as an acronym until 1905, 341 years after John Calvin's death.
But the concepts of the TULIP were clearly taught in Calvin's institutes and in the canons of Dort. And this wasn't it—was it not a response to the remonstrance where Jacob Arminius was protesting to the teaching of the Reformed church?
Yes, that's true. The theological dispute between the remonstrance—let me just take a few steps back to give a bit of history. Jacob Arminius, who lived between 1560 and 1609, was a minister and a professor within the Dutch Reformed church, trained at leading Reformed centers, including Geneva, under the order of Beeser.
And he had known the Reformed position that had been taught in his church, and throughout his life he remained formally committed to the Belgic Confession and the Hindenburg Catechism, and he really did not seek separation from the Reformed churches.
But then he sustained this engagement with Scripture, and particularly Romans 7 and 9 led him to question certain prevailing Reformed formulations of predestination. And then he began raising questions, and eventually in 1610, 43 Dutch pastors and theologians issued the Five Articles of the Remonstrance, expressing their concerns regarding certain aspects of the Reformed teaching.
Yes, they affirmed their full commitment to the Scriptures, and to the authority of the Scriptures, but they set forth five principal positions, which are called the Articles, the Five Articles of the Remonstrance.
Number one, that election was conditioned upon foreseen faith, that the atonement of Christ was universal in its intent, and they also taught human ability apart from prevenient grace. Then they also taught resistible grace, and they were a bit uncertain and ambiguous regarding the perseverance of the saints.
So they did not initially deny total depravity, neither did they espouse a Pelagian view of human autonomy. Yet, as the church sat down to conceive this in 1618 and 1619, and eventually the canons of thought were formulated, and contrary to popular assumption, the so-called Five Points of Calvinism were not conceived as a comprehensive summary of Reformed theology.
Rather, they were intended to function as a doctrinal response to those particular eras of the day. And they emerged as the church's careful, pastoral, and confessional response to those specific challenges concerning the nature of grace, faith, atonement, perseverance, and so forth.
And as they engaged in those matters and produced what is called the canons of thought, they were seeking to be faithful to the scriptures. They were not too concerned about, you know, the politics of the day or all that.
It was engagement with the scriptures, wanting to remain true to the gospel. That's what prompted the canons of thought to be formulated in 1618 to 1619.
Well, let's go to that first letter in the acronym TULIP—total depravity. It is greatly hated, even by professing Christians, and it is widely and greatly misunderstood. And perhaps you should explain what it actually means to try to cut through the.
Misrepresentation and slander of it. Thank you. Yeah, the first letter, that is the total depravity, is the understanding that human beings, having fallen into the sin of Adam, the human condition before conversion is described as being dead in trespasses and sins, according to Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1.
So, this first point gives the spiritual diagnosis of human condition before conversion. Now, this doctrine of total depravity, it does not mean that every single human being is as sinful as they could possibly be.
It doesn't mean that everyone is equally depraved. It simply means that human beings, having fallen into sin, they have been affected by sin greatly, so that every human faculty has been tainted by sin.
So, we sin inwardly, and the Lord spoke about that, for example, in Mark 7, 21, or in Matthew 15, of how from the heart springs all kinds of evil. And you see depravity in children, for example. Early in their lives, you see them wanting more and more and complaining over the ease of the other.
And so, human beings are so affected by sin, from the point when they are conceived, David says that they were conceived in iniquity, and so they are enslaved by sin, that they cannot do anything else.
But sin, human beings don't choose righteousness naturally. Our propensity to sin is always there. So, the total depravity means that in the totality of our beings, God knows our inward thoughts, and He judges them all to be sinful, so that there is no faculty of our souls that has escaped the influence of our sin.
It means that all our senses, our world nature has been corrupted, having been affected by sin. From our moral and spiritual point of view, our hearts and our souls in their operations and powers are affected by sin, and all human beings lack original righteousness.
We depend on Christ to be righteous. So, the human intellect has been affected by sin, the human conscience has been affected by sin, the human will has been affected by sin, so that the will of human beings is not free as many people want us to believe.
It is not free. If you look at the will of man before the fall, and I go into the details of this in the book, where I describe the human will before the fall, I describe the human will after the fall, and before conversion, and after conversion, and I seek to explain that the one notion of free will is really a mirage.
Now, but if we take free will to refer to, you know, the natural liberty, as our confession says, or power to act on choices, then human beings are neither forced nor inherently powered by nature to do good or evil.
That's the way our confession frames it. God has endowed human will with the natural liberty and power to act on choices, but that's not really what free will is. Free will, as it is taught to be, the ability to choose righteousness, the ability to choose Christ, and so they would say, accept Jesus Christ, or, you know, choose life so that you can live.
The Bible does not see fallen human beings as having that conversion. We cannot choose life. We cannot choose Christ by our ability. We depend upon God to help us to choose Christ, but rather, it's not really that we choose Christ, it's that Christ, God, before the foundation of the world, chose us in Christ, that we should be holy and blameless before King Ephesians 1 verse 4.
So that's the understanding of total depravity, and you see when someone like, who was espoused Armenian theology, like Charles Wesley, uh, writes, and can it be that him, and can it be that I should gain?
He admits total depravity when he writes and sings, long my prison spirit lay fast about in sin and nature's night. Thine eye diffused a quickening ray, I woke the dungeon, lived with life. My chains fell off, my heart was free.
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee. Wow!
Tomer Hallelujah! That's called blessed inconsistency.
David It is blessed inconsistency indeed.
Tomer I think it was J .R. Packer who said in prayer, all men on their knees are Calvinists.
It is true, because on your knees in prayer, you all believe that God is sovereign, sovereign in providence, and sovereign in salvation. That's why we pray for the salvation of sinners. So the point I was making there was that we, unless God intervenes, there is no hope of any human being naturally choosing life, righteousness, or Christ.
So the will of man is not free, and you read Martin Luther's book, The Body to the Will, and you see his arguments there very, very clearly. And you would notice then that we depend upon God for salvation, because man is dead, man is a slave, man is blight.
There's no way the Ethiopian can, the Ethiopian has no power to change the color of his skin, nor the leopard his spots, as Jeremiah tells us in Jeremiah 13, verse 23. He says, neither can those whose nature is betrayed have that ability.
So man's will is a slave to a sinful nature, because we are limited by our nature, because of the total, because of the fallenness and the original sin of Adam, we are trapped in sin unless or until the Lord.
Intervenes to rescue us from that dajjal. Yes, so the misconception is that we are teaching, which we are not, that people don't make choices, that they don't have the ability to make any choices. And that's not true.
People make choices every day, even the worst of sinners among us, those on death row for being serial killers or something, they may choose what food they are going to eat that day. I don't even know if they have that kind of a choice on death row.
But my point is that people make choices. But in Romans 8, verse 8, we read, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. And if believing in Christ is pleasing to God, we obviously cannot do that in the flesh.
We cannot do that until we receive a new heart and are born again by the Holy Spirit. That's why regeneration precedes faith. It must precede.
True faith. Yes. As I already quoted from our confession, we have the freedom or the liberty or the power to act upon choice. We have that. But what we are saying is that every human being, having been born in Adam, is born with an ability to choose righteousness, to choose Christ, to choose eternal life, unless aided or until that person has been aided supernaturally by the Spirit of God, so that humanity in the state of innocence and freedom and power to will and to do what was good and well-pleasing to God, yet this condition was unstable so that humanity could fall from it before the fall.
And you see, the whole understanding of freedom there, Chris, is flawed. Because if we ask the question, is God the freest of beings? What would be the answer to that question? Of course. God is the freest of all beings.
Correct. But is God free to sin? No, he's not. He is bound by his nature. Precisely. That's the whole point of total depravity, that true freedom consists in the ability to choose righteousness and not evil, to choose right and not wrong, and that you can only choose righteousness and never wrong.
Because that is the freedom that God talks about, and that's a freedom that defines the nature of God. But we human beings, we tend to have the propensity to choose that which is not pleasing to God, even though it may be pleasing to other human beings.
Because the comparison here is not our preferences or the preferences of our friends or our relatives, but the preference of God,.
Isn't it? Yes. And the slander that is so frequently hurled against us—I've even had this said to me by highly educated pastors who should know better—that Calvinism teaches that there are some people who cannot come to Christ even if they wanted to.
That's the biggest fallacy of the statement, even if they wanted to. The issue is, who wants to? Because the unelect, those who are…and also even the elect before they are regenerate, they don't want to come to Christ.
They don't want to repent. They don't want to let go of their idols, which are their favorite sins. They don't want to humble themselves and recognize that they're sinners and that they need a perfect sacrifice to atone for their sins, to redeem them.
And so it's not that there are people who cannot come to Christ even if they want to, it's that none want to until they are given a new heart. And only the elect are given a new heart. Yeah. When God intervenes in the life of a sinner, He makes them willing in the day of His power.
Yes. Amen. And…go ahead, keep going.
When there is that willingness, when there is that desire to be saved and to be delivered from the wrath to come, it is because God has moved that person's heart to have that desire. No, you could have that desire simply whereby it's not of God, He's doing it critically, and that's not of God.
But really, the truth is, everyone who truly wants to be saved will be saved because the Lord says, you know, all that the Father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.
If you say it, if a sinner said, my will is bound to sin and it only desires to sin, so I cannot come even though you invite me to salvation, the Lord will continue to say, I will never cast you out. The Savior says, if you come, I will save you.
And if He comes, it is because the Father has given that person to Christ. And having come in humility, pleading for salvation from Christ, then it is because He has been divinely aided by the Spirit and has been effectually called to believe if He does believe.
No one can come to the Father except through Christ, but also no one can come to Christ.
Except the Father gives them to Christ. That's the very statement that Jesus made in John 6 that drove many of His followers away never to follow Him again, the very statement.
That you just made. That's right, in John chapter 6 verse 97. So the Lord is willing to save and He is able to save. When He says, oh that the Father gives me welcome, that word welcome shows that the willingness to come to Christ is because of the Father's initiative upon the sinner, so that whoever comes to Christ, Christ will never cast them out.
So anyone who is knocking at the gate of salvation and wondering if you are within the reach of Christ's saving grace, I urge you in the name of the Lord to continue calling upon Christ and you will be saved because He says if you call upon His name you will be saved.
It's not you might be saved, it's not you could possibly be saved, it is you will be saved. Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord is repeated over and over again in Scripture. You will be saved.
Yes, I have on occasion, even on this program, used the analogy. Let's just imagine I walk into a huge crowd of people. I happen to love pig roasts myself. I've only been to a few of them, but I love eating pork straight off of a pig that has been roasted in an open fire.
And I make this announcement to this huge crowd, anyone who wants to come to my home for my pig roast today, you may come. And in that crowd there may be Muslims who don't eat pork, there may be Orthodox Jews who don't eat pork, there may be vegetarians who don't eat pork, there may be people that just don't like pork or are squeamish about eating it off of a pig at a pig roast.
And they will not come, they don't want to. But there will be those that, wow, that sounds delicious to me, count me in, I'm coming. So it's the same thing with the declaration of the gospel. There are going to be those that do not want to come, and those that do want to come, and those that do want to come are those that have been given new hearts by God.
Amen. And we have to go to our midway break right now. If anybody wants to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.
Don't go away, we'll be right back.
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Mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Before I return to my guest, Morongi Agueta, on his book on the tulip, I have some important reminders to you. If you really love this show and you don't want it to go off the air, I'm urging you, please go to ironsharpensironradio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now.
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Send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put, I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address to send in a question to Pastor Morongi Igueta on the five points of Calvinism.
We are specifically addressing his book, which has just recently been published by Tulip Press, a new publisher in Africa, but it's available to everyone worldwide on Amazon, thank God. And this book is titled Tulip, the Glory of Sovereign Grace.
So our email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Let me give you the first name at least, city and state and country of residence. We have Heywood in St. Albans, New York. Heywood said, how do you explain to those who are not believers in Calvinism that, I'm sorry, how do you explain to people that do not believe in Calvinism why people are not constantly every day running around like madmen, stealing, murdering, and raping other people if total depravity is true?
That's a reasonable question. Can you answer that for Heywood?
Sure. Thank you so much, Heywood. Thank you for listening to this program from St. Albans, New York. That's a good question, fair question. As I had mentioned, total depravity is not to say that everyone is as sinful as he can possibly be or as wicked as they can possibly be.
Rather, it is to say that each faculty, each part of our being has been contained by sin and we are unable to do anything of spiritual good to earn our salvation. Yes, we may not be raping murderers. We may not be raping rapists, but we are rebellious before God.
We are unrighteous before God. And if God were to mark our iniquities, not one of us could stand. And if we were to stand before God without Christ and presented what we would regard as our righteous deeds, they would be regarded by God as filthy rags.
Therefore, total depravity is not to say that we are all equally wicked and that we are always wicked and that we are doing all the worst wickedness that there is, but that our very best of deeds, they are filthy rags before the Lord.
So, what we are explaining to sinners is that they are very, very sick, that they need a great physician who heals the sick. We are urging them to call upon the Lord so that they may be saved. We are telling them that the wages of sin is death because they are dead in their trespasses and enslaved in their sins and blinded by their sins.
They need Christ to open their eyes. They need Christ to destroy the shackles of slavery in their lives, needing to see their condition as is. And if we misdiagnose the totality of this depravity, then they may not see the need to flee to Christ, who is the only one able to save to the atoms and willing to save whoever will bring it in.
I would even argue, and I do argue from the book, that there is no other doctrine that has as much empirical evidence as total depravity. When you consider the old or the young, you would see them at various levels of committing sin.
And each sin is an upfront to God's holiness. We need to realize that the standard of holiness is God. Therefore, no one can stand. If God were to mark our iniquities, who would stand?
Now, having said what you said, and I agree with every single word that you said, even though total depravity does not mean everyone is at all times the worst sinner that they could possibly be, even though that is true, if it were not for the blessed restraint of a sovereign God upon humanity, would they not be doing exactly as Heywood described?
They would be revealing the absolute depths of their vile satanic depravity.
Correct. So one of the things that I've dealt with under that theme is common grace. And Chris, you've rightly described it, because when you talk about common grace, and this is an article that Ligonier Ministries published on their ligonier .org.
For your information, I also write for Table Talk by Ligonier. There is this quotation where they say, By common grace, God restrains sin, evil, misery, and wrath in this fallen world, while conferring general and redemptive blessings on all mankind, as distinguished from special or saving grace.
Common grace is a necessary aspect of the continuance of life in this fallen world. It restrains evil and confers goodness on mankind as a whole, reflecting God's attributes of goodness, mercy, and justice.
God confers common grace on mankind to encourage sinners to repent in Christ. I think we need to realize that all human beings at heart have the capacity and the propensity to commit the vilest and the most wicked of atrocities.
Why not for God's intervention in providence, or because common grace is part of God's providence, then this world would self-destruct. Of course, it can't self-destruct before the Lord ordains it, but we need to realize that it's God who is in absolute control, governing and preserving all these creatures and all their actions to do this for the will.
Tom Scott. Okay, let's move on to the U in TULIP, unconditional election. It has been said by some apologists, reformed apologists, that I know that while most non-Calvinists may say they are objecting most vociferously against the L in TULIP, limited atonement, they're actually, in the long run, really more in opposition to unconditional election.
And that's the idea that God chooses His elect before the foundation of the world, and that choice has nothing to do at all with anything good seen within us by God, has nothing to do with Him foreseeing that we would choose Him, it has nothing to do with our loveliness, but it just has to do with His love for His elect.
And if you could move on from there and further explain this glorious truth of unconditional election.
David. Thank you. The election, first of all, is of God. He did this before the foundation of the world. In Ephesians chapter 1 verse 4, it's quite clear that God chose His people before the foundation of the world.
It's not tied to any condition in man, because God decreed this before creation. And predestination is of God because it took place before the universe existed. It's the first act of grace God bestowed upon us, though we did not yet exist.
And He did that, not even for our purpose, but for Christ, because He chose us in Christ, for which end, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. If this sovereign election of God were prompted by anything done by man or to be done by man, then it would not be of grace.
And when we consider the question, what moved God to do this? The Bible is quite specific. It is His love. It is in love that He chose us in His Son. It is in love that the Lord predestined us for adoption of sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace.
So the only condition of our election is Christ, because He chose us in Christ. I don't know whether you're aware of this, Chris, but John Newton wrote in a letter to an inquirer where he says communion with God presupposes union with God.
By letter we are strangers, yes, enemies to God, but we are reconciled or brought near and become His children by faith in Christ. We can have no true knowledge of God, desire towards Him, obsession to Him, or gracious communications from Him, but in and through the Son of His love.
So we are chosen in Christ. We were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. I also need to point out that both the Armenian theology and the Reformed theology believe in election one way or another.
The Armenians explain it in a way that shows that it is conditional, but we show from the Scriptures that because the election or the choice of God happened before the foundation of the world, and because it is based upon God's unconditional love, therefore it is unconditional.
Because the Bible is quite clear that God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, He made us alive together with Christ in Ephesians 2.
So we discover that it is God's great love that has brought us to eternal degree, that we shall be His at all costs, even at.
The cost of His only Son. Yes, and then we have a good question that is very often the accusation by those who hate Calvinism. We have Cora, who is located in Flowood, Mississippi, and Cora says, how do you respond to those non-Calvinists who say that our God chooses His elect through an arbitrary decision, a random choice, made willy-nilly?
So how do you respond to that? So basically, accusing God of.
Making this choice in an evil way, with an evil intent, or apportioning some sin.
Or an injustice to God, isn't it? Yeah, well, that would be the end result of that. They wouldn't.
Obviously admit that. Right. But you see, I mean, I raise it that way, not because I'm imputing any evil motive on Cora, who was asked from Mississippi, but because that specific question asked that way in the Scriptures, in Romans 9, verse 14.
What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? And the answer is, by no means. By no means. God is not arbitrary. God is not unjust. God is not, you know, doing this without due consideration of His glorious holy purpose.
It goes on to say that God has a purpose of election, and that purpose of election must stand. It says that in verse 11, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of Him, God, who calls.
That's why God said the older will serve the younger, and Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated, Romans 9, verse 13. And when we come to the question of, is there injustice on God's part, it is explained this way, that election is based upon God's mercy, God's sovereign mercy.
For I will have mercy, God says, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I'll have compassion on whom I have compassion. That word, mercy, when that question is asked that way, it means that we are questioning whether God's mercy is mercy at all.
We are questioning whether God's mercy is valuable, or it is going to benefit anyone at all. But God is saying, I have mercy. And clearly, when God says that He is being merciful, how can we question that?
We should be more concerned about the wickedness of man, rather than on the mercy of God, because this is His prerogative. He says, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I'll have compassion on whom I have compassion.
And that is to say that it doesn't depend on you, it depends on God showcasing His goodness, not granting sinners what they deserve, which is His wrath, but instead giving them mercy and rescuing them from God's wrath, rescuing them from the punishment that they deserve for their sins.
Yes, and—. So it's not that God is arbitrary, it's that God has expressed His mercy.
And mercy isn't mercy unless the individual who is being shown mercy is a sinner, and is undeserving. Just as grace is unmerited favor, mercy implies that the person receiving it is undeserving. And the reason why it's not willy-nilly as far as God's choice on who He elects is because He chooses those whom He loves.
Am I not right? And it's not because we're lovable. He chose Jacob, but Jacob was a sinner too. He wasn't a perfect, righteous, holy man, Jacob. He was a sinner who deceived his brother, and so on.
That's right. I also mean to say that when God is saving you out of His mercy, no sin at the point of salvation objects. That's right. Everyone says, God, I don't want your mercy because you're being arbitrary.
Or, you know, we are relieved when we are saved from our sins. And when the Bible is quite clear on a matter like unconditional election, we need to be glad that God has shown His grace in that He has explained these things to us.
You know, He owes us no explanation, but He gives us this. We must receive His word with meekness, the implanted word which is able to save our souls.
Now we come to the letter of the tulip that is most openly hated, and even those who have—some of those who have come to embrace the other four points of Calvinism cannot bring themselves to adopting the L and the tulip, and they would be called Amaraldians.
They cannot embrace limited atonement, which is also called definite atonement, and it's also called particular redemption, and it's also called substitutionary atonement. And even though many Arminians in our day also use that phrase, substitutionary atonement, they really cannot logically, consistently believe in that.
But so as far as the limited aspect, this is a word that confuses many people. Even some five-point Calvinists don't use it anymore. They stick with definite atonement or particular redemption. But the limited means the number of people whom the atonement is intended and that have been redeemed, not the power.
The Arminian accuses us of having a God with limited power, but if you could pick up from there.
Yeah, you know, at the root of universal atonement is a failure to grasp the intent and the design of the atonement of Christ. Was it intended for everyone? Was it designed only for some or for all? And when you consider even the Old Testament types, you would see that the idea of, for example, the Noah's Ark, even though the invitation went out widely and even, you can say, universally, the size of the Ark shows that it was never intended for all.
It was only designed for the family of Noah and maybe some more, but really, it was only designed, it was not designed for everyone. If you look at the animal sacrifices of the Levitical priests, those sacrifices, no one ever offered a sheep or a lamb with a view that the whole nation of Israel will be atoned by that one lamb.
Aaron's atonement applied only to the person who confessed their sins, holding the lamb, the head of the lamb.
And certainly not the pagan nations surrounding them.
Precisely. The point is that, I mean, you look at the Passover, for example, God says quite clearly, I'll put a division between my people and your people in Exodus 8 -3. The Passover, therefore, makes a distinction between the two peoples, the Israelites and Egyptians.
And it brought deliverance to the Israelites, but became the occasion of great judgment to the Egyptians. So the atonement of Christ divines the world into two classes, those redeemed and those not redeemed.
And that's why the gospel is life to some and death to others, as Paul tells the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 2 .15 -15. But also the justice of God demands a limited atonement. You see, God will not punish sin twice and be just.
Christ cannot die for a sinner and then that sinner is punished in hell for the same sin. Can Christ die for a man and that man yet still go to hell? If Christ died for all people, then why is the hell not vacant?
Why are not all men saved if the sacrifice has the power? So, as you rightly put it, everyone, both Armenians and Calvinists, believe in the atonement being limited either in its power, its efficacy, or in its number.
You cannot believe both and be consistent, that is. You see, there are two things God will not do. He will not clear the guilt, neither will he punish where there is no sin or guilt. But God made him who knew no sin to be so that we in him might become the righteousness of God.
Therefore, the whole understanding of the atonement of Christ and its power and its efficacy show that, just like total depravity and unconditional election, even the irresistible grace and the perseverance of the saints, they stand or fall together.
Holding them together becomes consistent, they become consistent to each other. Although many might think that it's possible to be a four-pointer Calvinist, but I would say that that comes with a lot of inconsistency.
Yes. I have said if you pluck the petal for L off of the tulip, the whole flower dies.
That's right. That's right. Once you take one petal, it dies.
Yes. And we are going to our final break, and don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages.
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Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And of course, the end for which we strive is the glory of God. If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior.
Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin. Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org. This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our Sovereign Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ today and always.
I'm Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love, Hope Reform Baptist Church in Quorum, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jensen and Christopher McDowell.
It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God, like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Quorum, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim Christ Jesus the King and His doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island, and beyond.
I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have. For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net, that's hopereformedli .net, or call 631 -696 -5711, that's 631 -696 -5711.
Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Quorum, Long Island, New York, that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.
When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the NASB.
I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, president and professor of systematic and homiletical theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylors, South Carolina, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Chuck White of the First Trinity Lutheran Church in Tonawanda, New York, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
I'm Pastor Anthony Methenia of Christ Church in Radford, Virginia, and the NASB is my Bible.
Of choice. I'm Pastor Jesse Miller of Damascus Road Christian Church in Gardnerville, Nevada, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
I'm Pastor Bruce Bennett of Word of Truth Church in Farmerville, Long Island, New York, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Rodney Brown of Metro Bible Church in Southlake, Texas, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
I'm Pastor Jim Harrison of Red Mills Baptist Church in Mayapac Falls, New York, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
I'm Pastor Keith Allen of Linnbrook Baptist Church, a Christ-centered, gospel-driven church looking to spread the gospel in the southwest portion of Long Island, New York, and play our role in fulfilling the Great Commission, supporting and sending for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth.
We're delighted to be a part of Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio advertising family. At Linnbrook Baptist Church, we believe the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired Word of God, inherent in the original writings, complete as the revelation of God's will for salvation and the supreme and final authority in all matters to which they speak.
We believe in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This salvation is based upon the sovereign grace of God, was purchased by Christ on the cross, and is received through faith alone, apart from any human merit, works, or ritual.
Salvation in Christ also results in righteous living, good works, and appropriate respect and concern for all who bear God's image. If you live near Linnbrook, Long Island, or if you're just passing through on the Lord's Day, we'd love to have you come and join us in worship.
For details, visit Linnbrookbaptist .org. That's L-Y-N-Brookbaptist .org. This is Pastor Keith Allen of Linnbrook Baptist Church reminding you that by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. May the Lord bless you in the knowledge of Himself.
And don't forget, folks, this program is paid for in part by the law firm of Buttafuoco Associates. If you are the victim of a very serious personal injury or medical malpractice anywhere in the United States, please call my longtime very dear friend since 1991 and brother in Christ, Daniel P. Buttafuoco, attorney at law at 1 -800-NOW-HURT or visit Dan's website 1 -800-NOW-HURT .com.
Make sure you tell Dan Buttafuoco that you heard about his law firm, Buttafuoco Associates, from Chris Arnzen at Iron Trip and Zion Radio. I also want to remind all men in ministry leadership that you are invited to the next free biannual Iron Trip and Zion Radio Pastors Luncheon, and this will be held Thursday, October 1st. 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania.
The featured guest speaker is Dr. David A. Harrell, who is the author of a number of books, including the book from which his keynote address will come, Why America Hates Biblical Christianity. Everything is free of charge, and every man who attends will receive a heavy sack, and maybe two heavy sacks, of free brand-new books personally selected by me and donated by generous Christian publishers all over the United States and the United Kingdom.
So if you'd like to register, if you're a man in ministry leadership, for this free event, send me an email to chrisarnzen at gmail .com and put Pastors Luncheon in the subject line. Make sure you give me your full name, the full name of your church or parachurch ministry, and the number of men who will be joining you.
And I'd also like to remind everyone to continue praying for my dear friend for decades now, Dr. Thomas Nettles, one of the most brilliant historians in the body of Christ. He was recently diagnosed with cancer of the saliva glands, and he certainly needs your prayers.
Please pray for Dr. Tom Nettles. And we are now back with Morongi Egweta, and Morongi has written the book that we have been addressing, Tulip, the Glory of Sovereign Grace. And by the way, I failed to mention this earlier, one of my dearest friends since 1996, Dr. Conrad Mbewe, pastor of Kobwata Baptist Church of Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, and also the chancellor of African Christian University.
He wrote the book, and that means a lot because I have nothing but the highest discernment for Conrad Mbewe. I want to read two quotes by Charles Spurgeon on unlimited atonement, especially since he is a greatly loved figure.
Even those, many of those who claim to hate Calvinism, perhaps especially independent fundamentalist Baptists, claim to love Charles Spurgeon. And here's what Spurgeon had to say in the topic. If Christ on his cross intended to save every man, then he intended to save those who were lost before he died.
If the doctrine be true that he died for all men, then he died for some who were in hell before he came into this world. For doubtless there were even then myriads there who had been cast away because of their sins.
That seems to me a conception a thousand times more repulsive than any of those consequences which are said to be associated with the Calvinistic and Christian doctrine of special and particular redemption.
To think that my Savior died for men who were or are in hell seems a supposition too horrible for me to entertain. And then he also wrote, we are often told that we limit the atonement of Christ because we say that Christ has not made satisfaction for all men, or all men would be saved.
Now our reply to this is that, on the other hand, our opponents limit it. We do not. The Arminians say Christ died for all men. Ask them what they mean by it. Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of all men?
They say no, certainly not. We ask them the next question. Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of any man in particular? They say no. They are obliged to admit this if they are consistent. They say no, Christ has died so that any man may be saved, if, and then follow certain conditions of salvation.
We say then, we will just go back to the old statement, Christ did not die so as beyond a doubt to secure the salvation of anybody, did he? You must say no. You are obliged to say so if you believe that even a man has been pardoned, he may yet fall from grace and perish.
Now who is it that limits the death of Christ? Why you. We say Christ so died that he infallibly secured the salvation of a multitude that no man can number, who through Christ's death not only may be saved, but are saved, must be saved, and cannot by any possibility run the hazard of being anything but saved.
You are welcome to your atonement. You may keep it. We will never renounce ours for the sake of it. Those are two very powerful statements on limited atonement.
I've actually quoted some of them in the book.
And let's move on while we still have time to irresistible grace. And we'll have to be brief with the last two letters of the TULIP. People misunderstand this because they know that many people before they got saved, they were evangelized, they were presented with the gospel, and they walked away, they rejected it.
So it seems that people are resisting grace. But that's a misunderstanding of what irresistible means. Doesn't this mean ultimately that they will be drawn to Christ if they are of the elect? Yes, that's what it means, that.
All that the Father gives will come to Christ, and they come because God has granted it to them. We know that the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit, because they have fallen to him and he's not able to understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
That's total inability. But once God intervenes miraculously and powerfully in the life of a sinner by his Spirit, bringing eventual calling, then it means that all those impediments of total depravity will be overcome.
John Murray puts it this way, the constraints of the Father's grace in the hearts of men are non-committal. We, or perhaps may be construed as donations of the Father to the Son. God the Father draws men, places holy constraints upon them, calls them into the fellowship of his Son, and presents them to Christ as trophies of the redemption Christ himself has accomplished.
So, when we talk about irresistible grace, Spurgeon himself most fittingly says, a man is not saved against his will, but he is made willing by the operation of the Holy Ghost. A mighty grace which he does not wish to resist enters into the man, disowns him, makes a new creature of him, and he is saved.
The intervention of the Lord in bringing about irresistible grace, so that we can say that irresistible grace finds its focus in regeneration and effectual calling. It is regeneration that gives new life, and it is effectual calling that makes it possible for a sinner to respond appropriately by faith and repentance, faith in Christ and repentance of sin to God, into salvation.
So, the drawing of the Father, the giving of the Father, then granting, spoken of with respect to the Father, must be distinguished from this work of regeneration which belongs properly to the Holy Spirit, so that there is a divine order in the work of salvation.
And we honor the distinct operations of each person of the Trinity, the Father, in his love elected sinners into salvation and gave them to the Son. The Son in his grace accomplished this salvation by his perfect obedience of the law of God, thereby securing righteousness for his people, and by his death upon the cross where he declared it is finished.
Then the Holy Spirit applied that redemption purchased by Christ, bringing sinners to a new life, enabling them, through the Word, to believe in Christ, to trust in Christ, and to repent of their sins.
That is salvation by grace.
Amen. And we are out of time. We cannot cover Perseverance and Preservation of the Saints today, but I'm going to invite Moringa Yagueda back so we can cover that in an entire program. And I want to remind you of his website, which is trinity .or .ke, trinity .or .ke, that's Trinity Baptist Church of Nairobi, Kenya, Africa.
I want to thank you for being such a superb guest, Pastor Moringa. I want to thank everybody who listened. I hope you all have a safe, and happy, and healthy, and joyful, and Christ-honoring weekend and Lord's Day.
I want you all to always remember for the rest of your entire lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.