12. Jeff Rice | The Calvinism of Jesus | Open Air Theology Conference 2024

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March 1, 2024

Open Air Theology Conference 2024: Why Calvinism?

13. Open Air Theology Conference Q&A Panel

00:07: The text that I'm going to be jumping off from is John chapter three, verse 21,
00:14: John chapter three, verse 21. The subject that I have been given is the
00:20: Calvinism of Jesus, the Calvinism of Jesus. And my proposition is this.
00:27: This is what I aim to prove to you today, is that regeneration precedes faith.
00:35: Ladies and gentlemen, Calvinism is simple. First John chapter six, verse 16 tells us that God dwells in unapproachable light.
00:49: This, speaking of the tri -humanity of God. And if you want to ask me to explain to you or to show you how
00:55: Jesus is God, this text is where I would take you. That God dwells in unapproachable light.
01:05: Jesus tells us in John six, 14, six, that He is the way, the truth, the life, and that no one can come to the
01:13: Father except through Him. He is the way to the
01:19: Father. He is the truth. What you believe about Jesus matters.
01:25: And in Him is life. He is the only way to the
01:31: Father. Jesus also says in John six, 14, that no one can come to Him unless the
01:38: Father draws him. If God dwells in unapproachable light and we cannot get to the
01:44: Father outside of Jesus, but we cannot get to Jesus unless we're drawn by the Father, how do we get to God?
01:53: The answer is found in John six, 37. Jesus speaking all that the
02:00: Father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes to me,
02:07: I will never cast out. To our non -Calvinist friends who are in here today,
02:15: I want you to know that I came to Christ. I came to Christ.
02:23: Everyone who is in Christ has come to Jesus.
02:32: However, our coming to Jesus relies upon our being given to Jesus by the
02:37: Father. The Father has not given you to the Son. Ladies and gentlemen, you will not get to Jesus.
02:47: I also want to make mention that Calvinism doesn't teach that there are people who want to be in Christ, but cannot be in Christ.
02:58: Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Let's read this text that I want to leap from.
03:09: We'll read it and we'll come back to it later. John chapter three, verse 21.
03:17: But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God or by God, in the
03:30: Pentecostal translation. What is that work?
03:39: What is that work that has been carried out in or by God? What I aim to show today is that faith is the work carried out in or by God.
03:55: The faith that saves is not an experiential faith, meaning it's not a learned faith.
04:02: The faith that saves is a gift given to us by God. For someone to believe that they in and of themselves or with the help of the
04:12: Holy Spirit have the ability to conjure up this faith is wrong.
04:19: And it shows their lack of understanding concerning faith. Amen. Jesus in his conversation with Nicodemus disregards his first word as concerning the kingdom of God.
04:31: And he does so by pointing to him a greater birth, a birth from above.
04:41: And I plan to show this by asking three questions. First question, how is a person saved?
04:52: Second question, what is faith? Third question, what is regeneration?
05:02: How is a person saved? What is faith? And what is regeneration?
05:09: And as we transition, Calvinism stands or falls on three simple words.
05:19: Regeneration precedes faith. If that is untrue, then
05:28: Calvinism is false. And Calvinism falls on its sword. It's like the old
05:35: Japanese samurai warrior who knows that he's been defeated, pulls out his smaller sword and falls upon it.
05:48: Ladies and gentlemen, what I'm presenting to you today is false. Every one of us who has spoken is false on the sword.
06:00: First question, how is a person saved? A person is saved by the finished work of Jesus Christ.
06:11: And by that I'm speaking about his active and passive obedience. The active obedience of Jesus living the life that we could not live.
06:20: Him keeping the covenant. Him keeping the law as Raymond pointed out to us earlier.
06:27: That there is a covenant of works by which you and I are doomed. Because we could not keep it.
06:36: The active obedience of Christ by which we are saved is Him keeping that law.
06:42: Who in here grew up in public school like myself? Then you should understand what
06:48: I'm about to tell you. When your teacher was unable to come to school, whether she was sick or on vacation, they sent a teacher to teach in her place and that teacher was called a substitute.
07:04: That teacher taught in the place of your teacher. The passive obedience of Jesus Christ comes because you and I have broken
07:14: God's law. Every one of us are liars and thieves and adulterers. We're not obedient to our parents.
07:21: We see people with possession and we want it so bad we wish that they did not own them and we did.
07:29: We were not obedient to our parents needless to say and we do not love
07:35: God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our mind and with all of our strength.
07:42: The passive obedience is Christ taking our place.
07:49: His active obedience, He did love us. His Father with all of His heart, with all of His soul, with all of His mind, and with all of His strength in His neighbor and in Himself.
08:00: And because we could not, He had to become our substitute and in His passive obedience,
08:06: His sacrifice in our place. You and I deserve the full wrath of God as Jesus was on that cross, the mercy of God and the wrath of God met.
08:21: And the mercy that Jesus deserved because He kept the law comes to us.
08:30: And the wrath that we deserve for breaking that law fell on Him.
08:36: If a person is saved, they are saved because of what was done for them in Christ in God.
08:48: My dear brother Brayden was speaking to you earlier about the covenants. I too am speaking to you in covenant language.
08:59: I hold to what is called the covenant of redemption, the triune covenant that God made between the
09:06: Trinity. That God the Father purposed to save people. And in doing so,
09:13: He sends His Son, Jesus Christ, to accomplish that purpose through His life, death, burial and resurrection and ascension.
09:21: Thank you Lord. And the Holy Spirit applies the purpose through the message of Christ.
09:31: Ladies and gentlemen, salvation means to be saved and to be saved means to be rescued.
09:37: I want you to picture a house on fire.
09:46: I want you to imagine that there's people inside this house. And if they're not rescued, they're going to die by the flame.
09:56: I want you to imagine the first responders pull up.
10:03: Police officers, paramedics and firefighters. And the police officer gets on his,
10:13: I guess they still call it a bullhorn, I'm not sure. And he says to the people who are in the flame, attention, the first responders are out here.
10:28: Now we need you to exit the house and lie down on the ground. And we will put you in the ambulance and take you to receive medical aid.
10:39: So that the firefighters can put out the fire. Ladies and gentlemen,
10:45: I'm best friends with a firefighter. And let me tell you what breaking is. Salvation is the firefighter kicking in the door and removing you from the flame.
11:08: Salvation is God the Father sending God the Son as our
11:14: Savior. 1
11:21: John tells us that Jesus is our officiation. That Jesus is our payment for wrongdoing.
11:29: That's what it means in layman's terms. It's to appease something that you owe. It's a payment for wrongdoing.
11:36: Now my daughter's here, she hates when I give this analogy. But my daughter, a year or two ago, got a soccer ball in a net.
11:49: And if she was able to, if she had the ability, her leg power was strong enough to kick that soccer ball and miss the net and bust out my neighbor's window.
12:03: She would owe a debt that she could not pay. She just turned 13.
12:11: I won't be able to use this analogy when she gets a job. I don't know how much a window costs these days.
12:32: But it's a payment that she cannot pay. And so me being a daddy has to reach into my pocket and pull out the propitiation, the payment, for her wrongdoing.
12:47: We broke God's laws. God has paid our fine.
12:55: And He has paid our fine by sending Jesus Christ as payment for our wrongdoing.
13:06: Second question, what is faith? Hebrews chapter 11 verse 1 says this,
13:14: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
13:22: Faith is the act of trusting in what we know to be true. Every one of us uses the act of faith, the act of trusting in what we know to be true.
13:32: This is what I was talking about earlier about a learned faith. Imagine when you're learning to drive a car.
13:43: When you get into your vehicle, when you're driving your car, How do you know that when you hit the brakes, your vehicle is going to come to a complete stop?
13:53: Let me tell you how you know. Because you grew up being driven around.
13:59: And with your eyes, you saw that when your mom or dad, grandmother, step parents, whoever it was that raised you was coming to a red light, stop sign, or whatever it may be.
14:10: When they hit the brakes, the vehicle came to a stop. And so you know by learned faith, something that you've experienced, that when you're driving when you come to a red light, stop sign, or whatever it may be when he's in on the brakes, you're going to come to a complete stop.
14:31: Now there's many examples that I can give you about experienced faith. But the faith that it takes to be saved is not something we have experienced.
14:48: It's not something we've learned in order to have it. Saving faith is not logical.
14:59: It's logical to believe that there's a God. Creation declares the glory of God. In the same way that this building that we're in is evidence of the builder creation gives to us evidence that there is a
15:17: God. It's logical to believe that there is a God. However, it is not logical to believe that God entered into time, became flesh to accomplish the purpose of redemption, that is to save a people.
15:34: The faith that it takes to be saved is theological. It's believing in something we did not see, but know to be true.
15:44: In order to be saved, one must believe that God the Father sent to us
15:50: His Son. We must believe in the incarnation, life, death, burial, resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus Christ.
15:58: We must believe that the second person of the Trinity entered into time, the
16:03: Creator entered into creation, the infinite became finite. We must believe that He lived the life that you and I could not live, and in His death
16:13: He took the punishment that we deserve, that He was buried, and on the third day He rose again.
16:21: Then over 40 days later, He ascended into heaven to be with the Father, and He sits at the right hand of the throne, and He's ruling in rain, and He's putting all of His enemies under His feet.
16:30: And I know this because I was an enemy. You were an enemy here in Christ, and you, just like me, have been put to school.
16:45: You and I haven't experienced any of those things I just mentioned of what it takes to be saved.
16:55: Imagine with me, if you will, that resurrection was something that we experienced.
17:01: Out of those several things that I named, resurrection seemed to be the most plausible, because they all kind of like flow out of angels, right?
17:08: If we're honest. Imagine that. Imagine if one of our friends were to die, and he came and said, man,
17:15: I can't believe Bob died yesterday. I said, oh brother, he'll be back in two days.
17:51: If being saved by Jesus requires a response such as repentance and faith, we need to turn from logical thinking on our own to God, and we cannot respond in repentance and faith.
18:07: We cannot because that message is foolishness. Turn with me to 1
18:14: Corinthians chapter 1. We'll read verse 18 to verse 23.
18:33: For the word of God is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, speaking of those who are saved and are experiencing sanctification, it is the power of God.
19:02: For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning, and I will thwart.
19:12: Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age?
19:19: Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
19:24: For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom.
19:32: It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
19:43: For the Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach
19:50: Christ's crucible, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the
20:01: Gentiles. And speaking with atheists who are Darwinian evolutionists, we have to show them that their beliefs are non -scientific, not logical.
20:15: In order for something to be scientific, it would have to be proven by observation. They cannot go back billions of years to prove evolution, and you and I do not have a time machine to travel back to the first century to the time of Christ, nor do we have the ability to peek behind the curtain to see
20:32: Christ prior to his incarnation. We cannot prove by observation
20:38: Christianity. It's not logical. Christianity has to do with theology.
20:49: God's Word. Is this God's Word? Amen. That's where Christianity comes from.
21:07: On the theory of libertarian free will, if being saved by Jesus requires a response such as repentance and faith, meaning to turn from being dead in our sins to being in life, in Christ, then we cannot respond to repentance and faith.
21:25: Turn with me to Ephesians chapter 2. I'm going to read verses 1 through 5.
21:47: And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince and the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of nature.
22:16: But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
22:30: By grace you have been saved. Thank you,
22:36: Lord. Our deadness has to do with our following the spirit that is at work in the sons of disobedience, that is, the devil.
22:50: Jesus in John 8 makes a declaration, which I think is one of the clearest parts in scripture, pointing himself to be
22:58: God. At this time in John 8, they're celebrating what's called the
23:06: Feast of Booths. And I believe that as they're taking down what seem to be these large torches, these menorahs, right, that has this fire, they would light these huge candles that would light up most
23:22: Jerusalem. If you were able to fly over by plane at that time and see this, it would probably be the most beautiful thing you've ever seen.
23:34: And I believe that as they're taking down these torches, these menorahs, these huge lights, they would light these lights to remember the time in the wilderness as their fathers were following the bright cloud by day and the fire by night.
23:56: And it was a way to remember what happened in the past. Ladies and gentlemen, that cloud, that fire was a representation of God.
24:11: And as they're taking these lights down, after they had this glorious time together,
24:17: Jesus says in verse 12, I am the light of the world, that whoever follows me will not walk in darkness.
24:26: Ladies and gentlemen, it was told that as that cloud by day or that fire by night began to move, they would have to move with it.
24:32: What would happen at that time in the wilderness if that cloud by day or that fire by night was to move and you stood still?
24:42: You would be in darkness. Jesus proclaiming himself to be
24:48: God, saying I am the light of the world and whoever follows me will never walk in darkness.
24:58: Those that are following the devil are walking in darkness. In 2
25:08: Timothy chapter 2, Paul reveals to us how a person is made a light in Christ.
25:14: Paul tells us it is by God granting repentance. Listen, repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin.
25:25: If you do not repent, you cannot have faith. And if you say you have faith and have repentance, you are a liar. Repentance here leads to the knowledge of truth.
25:39: But you may ask, why does God need to grant repentance? The answer is because we were in the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.
25:51: We are following after the devil. We are in his trap. We need to be made a light.
26:01: Turn with me to 2 Timothy chapter 2. We are going to read verse 24 through 26.
26:12: Now in this, I want to give a little bit of context. He is speaking to a worker who is approved by God.
26:19: He is speaking to those that go out and they do the heavy lifting in evangelism.
26:28: He says, The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach patiently enduring evil.
26:40: Church, we got a lot to learn from this verse. Correcting his opponents with gentleness.
26:48: Oh Calvinist, we got a lot to learn. God may perhaps grant them repentance.
26:55: Grant them repentance. Grant them repentance. My broken record.
27:01: Grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of truth. And they may come to their own senses and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.
27:20: To be dead in sins is explained to us here. To be dead in sins is to be captured by the devil to do his will.
27:32: This means to be dead in sins and to be saved is to be made alive in Christ.
27:42: To be made alive in Christ. My kids do not clean their rooms unless I make them.
27:56: Do your kids? If you know something
28:02: I don't whether you're a non -Calvinist or a Calvinist please let me know because mine won't.
28:10: I'm talking especially to my daughters when I'm coming and I'm lifting the legs as high as I can to step over so she will not clean her room unless Daddy says clean your room.
28:22: If I just say it lightly she doesn't pay attention. I have to give her the Daddy eyes and lower the voice and grit the teeth.
28:30: Clean your room. What's your problem? I have to make her.
28:38: It's true. Now what we experience in our being rescued is our believing.
28:48: If I was to tell you my testimony and how I came to Christ it would be a whole bunch of what of what
28:55: I did. Right? X gang banging pimp. Just being honest.
29:09: 9 -11 happened. The planes flew into the tower. Someone said this is in the
29:15: Bible. I got kicked out of school at the age of 15 for gang violence.
29:23: I never did school work. Never in my life did homework. I struggled with dyslexia.
29:32: Couldn't read a wick. Picked up a Bible that day.
29:39: Read three or four skip ten words. Three or four words and skip ten. But every day
29:45: I picked up that Bible and started reading. Before too long I could read four and skip nine.
29:51: Read five and skip eight. I learned how to read by reading the
29:57: Bible. In 2005 I heard Ray Comfort preaching in the open air.
30:04: I saw myself naked before the Lord knowing that I needed to be clothed in righteousness.
30:11: And he only provided one garment. And it was Jesus Christ. So I repented and I believed.
30:20: I came to Christ. Third question.
30:28: What is regeneration? Regeneration is, listen, the baptism of the
30:41: Holy Spirit. John the Baptist spoke about this.
30:47: He said, I see you Pharisees and Sadducees coming down to the waters of Jordan. You brutal vipers.
30:53: Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come. Do not say, therefore, we have Abraham as our father. God is able to raise the children of Abraham from stones.
31:03: Ladies and gentlemen, you are the stones. Amen. That's Gentiles. He spoke about three baptisms there.
31:12: One of them was a baptism of the Holy Spirit. That's regeneration. Amen. Regeneration which takes place through the hearing of the gospel.
31:26: Romans chapter 10 verse 17 says this. So faith comes from hearing, comes from hearing.
31:33: Faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ, the gospel.
31:40: You cannot have faith and not know the gospel. You need to hear and to know the gospel in order to have faith.
31:50: So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. Galatians chapter 3 verse 2.
32:00: This is Paul asking a rhetorical question. He says, let me ask you only this. Did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing in faith?
32:11: How do we get the faith? By hearing the message of Christ. How do we get the Holy Spirit? By hearing in faith.
32:20: It's simple. Faith is given to us through hearing the message about Christ.
32:30: Someone proclaiming to you the gospel, the message of Jesus Christ and the
32:37: Holy Spirit applying to you the purpose. Remember God's purpose to save a people.
32:45: In time he sent his son to accomplish the purpose through his life, death, burial and resurrection.
32:51: When we preach this message the Holy Spirit applies the purpose.
32:59: The Holy Spirit is given to us not by works of the law but by hearing in faith.
33:05: The message of Jesus Christ must be preached in order for someone to have faith and faith comes, listen, before my
33:18: Calvinist friends I hope your non -Calvinist friends know that you believe that. Because what
33:25: I see on line doesn't reflect that. Since getting back into the ministry
33:37: I've noticed that when it comes to theology it is like driving down a one -way road highway.
33:47: It's snowing. There is no street lights. The lights on my car are no longer working.
33:54: It's a curvy road, and I'm doing my best to keep the vehicle on the road.
34:03: There's always two ditches that you can fall in with any theology of the
34:14: Christian faith. You're on the road, and if you gear from one side to the other, you are in heresy.
34:24: If not heresy, then orthodoxy. It's not orthodoxy.
34:38: In order to stay on the road of orthodoxy, we have to have things keeping us on the road, such as if you're going bowling, right?
34:48: If I take my children bowling, I want to bow with them because they have the little blow of things, and I can always knock my pins down.
34:55: There is no go -ter -balls. As we're studying these scriptures, we need something to keep us on the road, and that's why us who hold to orthodox
35:07: Christianity, we use the creeds and we use the confessions as we're studying.
35:14: I mentioned this yesterday during the Q &A. My foundation of understanding the Bible is covenant theology.
35:22: I gave you a little example about a cup, but let's say the phone. If I let my hands go, what happens to the phone?
35:31: It falls. Now if I let my hand go, what happens to the phone? It stays in its place.
35:39: Without a foundation upon which you read the Bible, you're going to go off into a ditch.
35:54: In order to have the Holy Spirit, one must respond in faith when they hear the gospel.
36:07: And as someone who does the work of an evangelist, I can tell you that most people walk away from the message that is preached without being given the gift of faith.
36:19: Turn with me to Ephesians 2 again. Look at verses 8 and 9.
36:35: For by grace you have been saved.
36:41: Rescued. For by grace you have been rescued. For by grace you have been saved through faith.
36:51: And this is not of your own doing. What's not of my own doing? What's the nearest thing to see to? Faith. Faith is not your own doing.
36:59: It is the gift of God. Not a result of works so that no one may boast. You get it by hearing.
37:13: Those two verses alone should take away any notion that we have that in and of ourselves we have the ability to believe.
37:21: We do respond, just not in faith. Turn with me to Titus chapter 3 so we can see this word regeneration.
37:42: Titus chapter 3, let's read verses 4 and 5. But when the goodness and loving -kindness of God our
37:55: Savior appeared, He saved us, not by works done in righteousness, law -keeping, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the
38:14: Holy Spirit. My dear friends, mercy is God not giving to us what we deserve and what we deserve is the wrath of God.
38:27: We broke God's law. We committed treason against the king.
38:33: We deserve punishment. If you think that you don't, maybe you haven't turned with me to John 3.
38:48: We'll just be here for a moment and we'll go somewhere else. But I promise we'll get to that verse.
38:57: And as we walk through this, I want to show how
39:03: Jesus will take the earthly to explain the heaven.
39:09: In verses 1 through 5, we're going to see natural birth versus spiritual birth.
39:17: The Old Covenant versus the New Covenant. The Old Covenant. The Old Covenant had an earthly kingdom people, the physical descendants of Abraham.
39:28: Entrance into the Old Covenant earthly people was by natural birth.
39:35: When a Jewish family had a child, that child entered into the
39:41: Old Covenant kingdom people. The New Covenant.
39:48: The New Covenant has a heavenly kingdom people, the spiritual descendants of Abraham, Galatians chapter 3.
39:58: Entrance into the New Covenant heavenly kingdom people is spiritual birth.
40:04: This baptism of the Holy Spirit. You must be born again.
40:12: Nicodemus entered the Old Covenant earthly kingdom people, the physical descendants of Abraham by natural birth.
40:21: You and I are to enter the New Covenant kingdom people by spiritual birth.
40:32: Let's read John chapter 3 verses 1 through 5.
40:39: There was a man of the Pharisees named
40:47: Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said,
40:53: Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God.
40:59: No one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. Jesus answered, truly, truly,
41:07: I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
41:16: This is with your eyes. You do not even know that God has a kingdom unless you're born again.
41:23: You have no clue. You're following the spirit that is at work and the sons of disobedience.
41:30: You're following the devil because you're trapped in his snare. You don't even know.
41:39: You can't see it unless you're born again. Nicodemus said to him, how can these things be?
41:47: How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?
41:57: Jesus answered, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.
42:15: Unless you're born again, you cannot see. Unless you're born again, you cannot enter.
42:20: And I would say that you and I enter this kingdom by faith.
42:26: We enter the kingdom by faith. The new birth, right?
42:33: By faith. And we're going to see how that works out. The water here in verse 5 is the same water in Titus chapter 3 verse 5.
42:45: And that is how we are saved. Titus 3 again, verses 4 through 5.
42:50: But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our
42:55: Savior appeared. When did God our Savior appear? 2 ,000 years ago.
43:04: Right? He appeared in the incarnation, lived the life that we could not live. Took upon himself the punishment that we deserve.
43:12: Was buried in the Rosicano on the third day. When he appeared, he saved us.
43:18: He rescued us. Not because of works done by us in righteousness, in law keeping, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration, the renewal of the
43:32: Holy Spirit. Mercy is
43:38: God not giving to us what we deserve. Third, Jesus in John here is pointing us to Ezekiel chapter 36.
43:52: This is why we see him be so harsh with Nicodemus. Him being a teacher of the law?
43:58: You don't know this? Turn with me to Ezekiel chapter 36.
44:09: What saddens me is to know that there's people who think that this is something future. But I don't know what they do with X2.
44:28: In Ezekiel chapter 36 verses 25 through 27, we will see what regeneration looks like.
44:37: Let's read Ezekiel 36, 25 through 27. God speaking,
44:42: I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness and from all your idols
44:53: I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit
44:59: I will put within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
45:08: I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
45:18: Ladies and gentlemen, I just read to you the biblical order of salvation, which consists of three inseparable things that work in unison.
45:32: And that is grace, faith and the Holy Spirit. Grace is
45:41: God given to us. What we don't deserve. And in verse 25, it's being made clean, forgiving us of our sins.
45:55: Look again at verse 25. I, the Lord says, I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean.
46:07: Clean from what? From all your uncleanness and from all your idols.
46:13: I will cleanse you. How does he do that?
46:20: Active and passive obedience. This is the kind of washing that David was speaking about in Psalm 51 verses 1 through 2.
46:36: He says, have mercy on me. He said, do not give me what
46:42: I deserve, O God. According to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sins.
46:57: He had just committed adultery, slept with a man's wife that deserves to be, a man that does that deserves to be stoned.
47:08: And then he gets her pregnant and has her husband murdered. Again, another punishment.
47:16: That's deserving of death. He says, God, do not give me what I deserve. What did he deserve?
47:21: Death. He deserved to die. Have mercy on me.
47:34: In verses 26 through 27 of Ezekiel, God reveals to us how we are given faith and the
47:43: Holy Spirit. Look at verse 26. We're just going to read a partial piece of this verse. Verse 26.
47:48: I will give you a new heart and a new spirit.
47:57: I will put it within you. So in his grace, we are forgiven through the active and passive obedience of Jesus Christ.
48:06: We're saved by grace. And also in this regeneration, he's going to give us a new heart and a new spirit.
48:19: The new heart here, I believe, is faith and the new spirit is the
48:25: Holy Spirit. Now, let's see how he does this. Let's finish reading verse 26.
48:30: I will remove your heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
48:42: I take the position that the heart of stone is self -righteousness, which operates in the manner of trying to please
48:56: God by our own merit. Now, since I was, through Ray Comfort's ministry, given the gift of faith,
49:09: I use his style of witnessing, which, if you know anything about church history, did not come from Ray Comfort.
49:17: The three uses of the law, the first use of the law is that we use the law as a mirror. We use the law to show people that they have sinned against God.
49:26: They committed treason against God. And we also use it to ourselves to see that I still need him.
49:38: And I've asked many of people, are you a good person? Yeah, I'm a good person.
49:46: And we use the law to show them that they're not. Us trusting in our own good works and not trusting in God.
49:53: Ladies and gentlemen, 90 % of the Christians that I meet would say they're a good person. They're not trusting in God.
50:01: They're trusting in their own good works. While the heart of flesh is faith. Romans chapter 5 verse 1 says this,
50:11: Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, how are we justified?
50:18: By faith. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
50:24: This is coming off the heels of chapter 4. Speaking about the faith of Abraham, how Abraham was justified by believing
50:31: God. You and I are justified by believing what God has done for us in Christ, just like Abraham.
50:39: In order for Christianity to be true, Christianity has to be owed. The same way that Abraham is saved is the same way that you and I are saved.
50:47: By grace, through faith in Jesus Christ. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
50:59: Lord Jesus Christ. This right here is telling us that there's a time you and I were at war with God.
51:06: It was us versus God. In the terms of peace is faith. And Christians are called to be
51:12: God's delegates. To go out, proclaim the gospel, and to tell people they are at war with God.
51:20: And the only way to have peace with this God is to have faith in Jesus Christ.
51:27: There is no other way. The Bible talks about Jesus being...
51:37: What he did in his life, death, burial, and resurrection was the righteous for the unrighteous. The law keeper for the law breakers.
51:46: The one who loved God a neighbor for the one who did not love God or a neighbor. And the only way to have peace with God by what
51:56: Jesus Christ has done is to be justified by faith. This is what
52:02: King David was asking for in Psalm 51 verse 10. He says, created me a clean heart.
52:09: Oh God renew a steadfast spirit within me. And what is given to us in faith?
52:20: The Holy Spirit. Look at verse 27. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my voice.
52:39: In his grace we are made clean. We are given a new heart of faith in the
52:50: Holy Spirit. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing in faith?
52:59: It's hearing in faith. If you have the Holy Spirit you have it by hearing in faith.
53:05: According to verse 27, the work of the Holy Spirit is to cause us to keep
53:13: God's commands. To love God, how? By believing in the name of the
53:19: Son, 1 John chapter 3 verse 23. And to love our neighbors as ourselves.
53:26: Question, what was the law of God written on in the New Covenant? Answer, according to Hebrews 8, it's the heart.
53:44: And as the hand of God was writing those 10 words, sorry,
53:52: I studied Judaism, the Jewish tradition for 3 years, the 10 commandments are called the 10 words.
53:58: He was writing those 10 words on that same hand, that same hand, the same hand, and you're born again.
54:11: God is writing on our heart those 10 words.
54:17: And the Holy Spirit that's in us causes us to obey. You do nothing.
54:24: When you screw up, that's you. When you're obedient, that's
54:30: God with you. Romans chapter 10 verses 9 through 10 shows us how the heart and belief are woven together.
54:40: Romans chapter 10 verses 9 through 10. Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is
54:47: Lord and believe in your heart, believe where? Is it in my mind?
54:54: And believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead.
55:01: That's not logical. You will be saved. For with the heart one believes.
55:07: For with the heart one believes and is justified. And with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
55:16: We have a ton of people who do not believe in the perseverance of the saints because of what they see with their eyes.
55:25: People who profess faith in Jesus Christ and live like the devil. And they live like the devil because that's who they're following.
55:36: Did you know that you can confess with your mouth and not believe in your heart?
55:44: It takes both. Many of people have prayed the prayer, walked an hour, shook their hand, signed a card, without truly believing something that's not logical, that God raised
56:00: Jesus from the dead. If you do not believe that God raised
56:08: Jesus from the dead, you are not saved.
56:17: Regeneration is the baptism from which grace, faith, and the
56:24: Holy Spirit is given to us. We enter the new covenant, the heavenly kingdom, spiritual descendants of Abraham, by the faith of Abraham, which is given to us in the washing of regeneration.
56:43: Now let's go back to John chapter 3 for our remaining time.
56:56: If this isn't clear to you, then this message can never be clear. Look at verse 6.
57:07: That which is born of the flesh is flesh,
57:14: O covenant kingdom people. That which is born of the Spirit is
57:19: Spirit, new covenant, heavenly kingdom people. Do not marvel that I say to you, you must be born again.
57:30: Meaning, your entrance into the old covenant, not good enough. The wind blows where it wishes.
57:37: So right here, the wind, so we have the flesh pointing to the earthly things. The wind also is pointing to earthly things.
57:44: The wind blows where it wishes. Jesus always uses the things that we are observant of to explain to us the heavenly.
57:53: The wind blows where it wishes. And you hear it sound, and you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.
57:59: Here's the heavenly, so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.
58:05: Nicodemus said to him, how can these things be? Now here's that rebuke I was talking about earlier. Jesus answered, are you a teacher of Israel?
58:15: Meaning, he should know the Bible. He should have the whole Bible memorized and also the 300 and something prophecies of the coming
58:23: Messiah. Are you a teacher of Israel? And yet you do not understand these things.
58:30: Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know.
58:35: Right here, he's letting them know that I'm speaking to you in an earthly way to explain to you the heavenly.
58:41: And we bear witness of what we have seen. But you do not receive our testimony.
58:50: If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
58:57: No one, so right here, he's speaking about him being God. Now, no one has ascended into heaven except for he who descended from heaven, the
59:11: Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the
59:17: Son of Man be lifted up. That whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
59:25: He's pointing to something earthly, what took place during the time of the wilderness. Where they grumbled about the food given to them by God.
59:35: Rumbling and speaking bad about God and Moses. God sends serpents, sends snakes, representative of the enemy, to come and bite them, to kill them.
59:47: They realize their faults. They call to Moses, they didn't call to God, they called to Moses and asked
59:54: Moses to pray for them. That God would get rid of these serpents. God promises to make a bronze serpent and to hang it on a pole.
01:00:06: Now whoever looks with your eyes, whoever sees this snake, this bronze snake on the pole, will be saved.
01:00:17: Their life will be spared, they'll be healed. He's going back to the earthly, just like that.
01:00:22: And if you will look to me on that cross, you too may have eternal life.
01:00:32: For God, this is right here, God here, Greek word theo, is pointing us to the
01:00:39: Father. So loved the world, cosmos, not oikomene, not just the small piece of land by the edge of the
01:00:47: Mediterranean Sea. So loved the world, for God so loved the world, all of earth, that He gave to us
01:00:55: His Son. That whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
01:01:01: Do you see the substitutionary atonement? For God did not send
01:01:10: His Son into the world to condemn the world. Because we're already condemned.
01:01:16: But in order that the world might be saved through Him.
01:01:23: You want to hear total depravity? Verse 18. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned.
01:01:30: But whoever does not believe is condemned already. They're following the serpent.
01:01:39: Because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment that light has come into the world.
01:01:47: And people love darkness rather than light. Because their works were evil.
01:01:57: They're trapped by the serpent. Their works were evil. But whoever does what is true comes to the light.
01:02:06: So that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
01:02:12: What is the work carried out in God? What work in this area have we been told to do?
01:02:20: Believe. Believe. Faith. You're believing.
01:02:27: You're looking to the Son. You're believing that God sent His Son is the work of God.
01:02:35: It is carried out in God or by God. It's our being justified, being made right with God.
01:02:44: Look at verse 36. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.
01:02:51: Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life. But the wrath of God remains upon him.
01:02:59: How are we to obey God? Answer, believing. We're told nothing else.
01:03:07: Believing. It's the work of God. Outside of the washing of regeneration we cannot be saved and that is the
01:03:16: Calvinism of Jesus. If the purpose of God isn't applied to us in the message preached about Christ, the
01:03:24: Holy Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit we cannot be saved. We cannot get to God because He dwells in unapproachable light.
01:03:33: In the same way that that door needs hinges in order to open and shut, you and I have to be given to the
01:03:41: Son by the Father. Our being given to the Son is the hinges upon which we are able to come to Jesus.
01:03:50: It's that simple. Regeneration precedes faith in the fact that faith is given to us.
01:03:58: In the washing of regeneration. Let's pray. Lord God.
01:04:07: Lord you are glorious. And Lord we stand in awe of what you have done for us in the active and passive obedience of Jesus Christ.
01:04:21: Lord even as Christians we are not actively obedient. We have our ups and our downs.
01:04:29: Lord we know through the sanctifying power through what you have done for us and are doing for us, we will one day be glorified.
01:04:39: Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of the
01:04:44: Son. And that image is speaking about glorification Lord. For those whom
01:04:49: He called, He also justified. And those whom He justified, He also glorified.
01:04:57: That day at the resurrection when we are raised from the ground Lord, the sheep separated from the goats.
01:05:03: There's going to be some clothed in the man of heaven. Those whom you foreknown before the foundation of the world and those whom you did not will be clothed in the man of dust.
01:05:15: Still carrying the curse of Adam. Lord we thank you for what you are doing in Tallahoma.
01:05:25: And Lord we pray that you will use every one of us to preach your gospel in such a way that you will apply the purpose.