Arminianism (Part 3)

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Arminianism (Part 4)

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So, let's go to the Lord in prayer.
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Our Father and our God, we thank you again for the opportunity to be in the Fellowship of the Saints and to be in the Word of God this morning.
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We thank you for the truth that while we do certainly make decisions, that we do not have sovereign authority in and of ourselves.
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Lord, for any man to think that he is sovereign over himself, or sovereign over his situations, or sovereign over his plot of land here on the earth, his body, anything, is foolishness.
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For Lord, we know that you are the only sovereign in all the universe, and we are simply stewards of what you allow us to hold.
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And so, Father, we pray today that we would grow in our understanding of human will, that we would understand that you are more free than we are, and ultimately when we talk about freedom, we should always begin with the freedom of God, and not the freedom of man, if we are to arrive at a biblical understanding of freedom.
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Father, we thank you again for this class, and for everyone, every family present, Lord.
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We ask your blessing on our study, and ultimately, Lord, as always, I pray that you would keep me from error, and that you would fill me with your spirit as I seek to give instruction from your Word.
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In Jesus' name we pray, and for his sake, amen.
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Well, last week, we had a very lengthy introduction to the subject of human will, and the idea of the freedom of the will.
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We are in the midst of our Arminian study in our book on Reformed Theology, and it says on the second line under Arminian Theology, God is sovereign, but has chosen to grant free will to human beings, and so what I began with last week was addressing the issue of what is free will, and there are different ways in which the freedom of the will is expressed and is defined.
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I've heard that there are up to nine different definitions for the concept of free will, but typically, when you hear someone exalting free will, they're exalting the idea of a libertarian free will, a will that is not inclined to one thing over another, it's not necessarily dispositioned to one thing over another, and so a person is completely autonomous or self-governing, and there is no external or even necessarily internal factors that drive them to conclusions, that everything comes from self-motivation or self-realization or self-governance, and that's what autonomous means, to be self-governing.
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The Bible, as we said last week, does not teach libertarian freedom.
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It does not teach that we are absolutely self-governing.
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It does say that we make choices and that they are real choices.
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We are not robots, we are not puppets on the ends of a string like a marionette in the hands of God, but at the same time, our choices are limited to our nature, and we do have an inclination.
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When someone says we're not inclined to the left or to the right, we do have an inclination.
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We have an inclination downward.
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We have an inclination toward sin.
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We have an inclination toward the darkness and not toward the light, and so when someone says I'm absolutely free, well, we're not free from our inclinations.
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We're not free from our desires.
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We're not free from our nature.
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I can't stand up upon a roof and say I can fly and jump off the roof and begin to flap my arms and fly.
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I don't have that freedom either because there are limitations set on me by nature.
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Well, there are also limitations set on me by my own natural inclinations and dispositions.
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My flesh sets limitations upon me, so when someone touts their freedom, one of the first things to just address possibly, if you ever had this conversation with somebody, is just to say, are you free not to sin? Remember I said that was where we ended last week.
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If somebody wants to argue their absolute freedom, say, okay, can you choose to not be a sinner? I don't know many people that would make that claim because the next thing they would say, well, nobody's perfect.
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Why not? Why can't someone just choose to be perfect? If you believe in the absolute freedom, the absolute sovereignty of the human will, that he can choose anything that he wants, why can't anyone choose to be perfect? And so, well, they're not perfect, I know, but why can't they choose to be? And I'll push the issue.
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But last week we began, we said the first, I make this argument when I'm dealing with the subject, I make it based on certain premises, and then I argue those premises from scripture.
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The first premise is this, though able to make choices, we are not completely autonomous, self-governing, and the first argument I make for that statement is that mankind is sinful by nature.
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Now, that's where we ended last week.
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We didn't really look at the scripture.
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So I want you to open your Bibles with me.
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We're gonna go first to Psalm 51.
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Most of you are probably familiar with Psalm 51.
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This is David's prayer of repentance.
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And he says in verse five, if you have, I wanna make sure everybody has that, I don't wanna rush too quickly.
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Psalm 51 and verse five, David's speaking of himself.
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Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
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Now, let's just break down the two statements that are being made here.
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Number one, he says he was brought forth in iniquity.
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What does it mean to bring forth? It means the fact that when he was born.
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It's referencing very specifically his birth.
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I was born in iniquity.
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And that does not sit well with a lot of people today, especially those who would espouse what we would call an age of accountability.
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Those of you who are familiar with that, what is the age of accountability? There isn't one.
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There isn't one, but okay, let's say, what is it normally in a lot of, 12, 13 years old, right? Somewhere around in there.
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I remember, and I tell this story often, I remember when I was 12 years old, my mother was in a very strong, holiness church.
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When I say strong, I mean strong, like very committed holiness church.
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And they believed very much that the 12-year-old Mark was the mark of the age of accountability.
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And once a person hit 12 years old, that at that point on, they were liable to hell, where up until that point, they were not liable to hell for their sin.
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And hell from Judaism, and the idea that Jesus was 12 when he was in the temple.
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There's a lot of, there's a lot that sort of surrounds the 12-year-old age of a young man.
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It's right before he becomes a teenager, you know? And so there's a lot that sort of surrounds that age.
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Well, I became 12 years old.
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My mother begged me to be baptized in her church.
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I'd already been baptized as a child.
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I wasn't yet saved.
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I didn't get saved until I was 19.
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But my mother begged me because she believed that my soul had become in peril as a result of my turning from one age to the next.
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Going from 11 years old to 12 years old, that changed me.
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And essentially made me liable for my sin.
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There is nothing in the Bible that says a person becomes a sinner at a certain age.
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Now, whether or not we want to argue that a child is not held liable, that's another subject.
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My contention for today is to simply say that what David is teaching here is that from the moment we're brought forth, we are sinners by nature.
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I was brought forth in iniquity.
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And I don't think that what he's saying here, and I think that the linguistics bears this out, he's not saying that my mother was sinning and she sinfully brought me forth.
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Because someone might say that about the second statement where it says, in sin did my mother conceive me.
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Well, maybe what they're arguing is that David's mother was an adulteress or David's mother was a fornicator or something.
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David's mother had brought him forth in that.
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That's not the argument that he's making.
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The subject here is not the mother, it's himself.
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The subject is not what brought him forth, but the condition in which he was brought forth.
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I was brought forth in sin.
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And in sin was I conceived.
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So he takes a step back nine months before he was brought forth, he was conceived.
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And even at that moment, there was iniquity.
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Yes, sir.
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Okay, what MacArthur's study Bible says is David also acknowledged that his sin was not God's fault in any way, nor was it some aberration.
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Rather, the source of David's sin was a fallen sinful disposition since his conception.
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Exactly, exactly.
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The fallenness was there at conception.
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The fallenness was there at birth.
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It did not come about at some point.
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It was with him from that moment.
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If a child dies in infancy and goes to heaven, it is not because they are innocent of sin because they are sinners from birth.
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It is because God is gracious to take them to heaven, okay? I do believe that if it would go to heaven, but to say that the person goes to heaven because he deserves it is, I think, wrong.
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Now, if you want to argue that another time, that's fine, but my point is this.
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We are sinners by nature.
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Yes.
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It is not just that we become sinners at a certain point.
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We are sinners by nature, from birth, from conception even, yes.
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What's more selfish than a baby? Well, we joke, my wife and I have that little, so we have the little baby, and we say, look at the expression of sin that when hope doesn't get what she wants and she tantrums, we have to discipline her.
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Why do you have to discipline a three-year-old if they're not a sinner, you know? Try to have this conversation with somebody that's not saved.
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Oh my gosh, they get so mad about, how can you say that about my baby? Your baby just smacked me in the face and I'm smiling at it.
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How can you not tell me that it's not sin that caused that? It's, you know, what is it? You know, MacArthur made the point in a message.
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He said, you know, that if a baby was 200 pounds and six foot tall, they would be a sociopath.
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With the mental capacity, they would do nothing but evil and hurt people and injure people because they lack the capacity to think rationally, and so they work only on impulse.
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And the impulse tends to the evil.
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Now, you know, I look at my little baby, he also laughs, he also smiles, he coos.
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You know, I have the little one now, and he's so precious.
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But he get, boy, when he didn't get what he wants, he's a viper in a diaper, you know? He don't let it go.
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So, yes, sin is a natural part of humanity, and it's a result of the fall.
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And another text that I like to point people to since we've looked at Psalm 51, Code of Ephesians 2, I remember very distinctly having used to in our fellowship hall, it's not there anymore, but we used to have a chancel in the fellowship hall.
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We had a place where we could preach from in there.
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It was elevated about a foot and a half high, and it was right in the corner.
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And then we used it for night services, or special events, or anything where we wanted people to be able to have food and stuff while we were teaching, because we don't like to bring food into the sanctuary.
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So we had this, it was a corner made into a chancel.
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We ended up taking it out because we rarely used it, and we needed the space.
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But I used to preach on Sunday night from that room.
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And I remember on a Sunday night, a lady was arguing from, because it was sort of like a lesson like this where you could interact, and she was arguing about not being a sinner naturally.
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And I said, go with me to Ephesians 2.
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Look with me at verse one.
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Paul says this, he says, and you were dead, he's speaking to believers, you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that does not 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 of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath.
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Like who? Like everyone else, like the rest of mankind.
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And so Paul, in this first part of Ephesians 2, tells us something about the nature of man.
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He says, by nature, they're children of wrath, and everyone is, from birth, David says in Psalm 51, and naturally, Paul says in Ephesians 2, we are sinful.
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We did not begin as neutral, and we've never been neutral.
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That is the great fallacy of free will teachers, is they believe in the neutrality of the human condition.
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There is no neutrality.
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Blank slate sometimes.
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Exactly, you've heard the term tabula rasa.
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Tabula rasa, that you're brought into this world as a blank slate, that's what tabula rasa means.
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You're brought in as a blank slate.
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No, we're not.
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We are rebels against God.
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Most of you are familiar with Romans 5, where Paul tells us, just as sin came into the world through one man and death spread to all men, because all men sinned.
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Death comes from the sin of Adam, and it spreads to everyone else, and as a result, everyone else sins.
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I like Romans 5, 18 and 19.
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If you're taking notes, you might want to put that in there too, because it says, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men.
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For as by one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous.
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So he's making a juxtaposition between Adam and Christ, and he says, Adam brought us down into sin.
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Christ brings us up into righteousness, and both of them did one act.
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Adam did the one act of sin.
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Christ did the one act of propitiation for that sin.
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Both of those men did one thing.
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One brought us down.
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One brought us up.
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Well, the other thing is to remember that all of this was ordained by the Lord before creation was made.
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Sure.
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And that's where they get lost in it.
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They just think, okay, he's reacting.
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Yes, if we see God as reactionary, and only reacting to what is happening, then God seems to always be one step behind.
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But if we can see the plan of God in this, then we can see that God is orchestrating and ordaining what will come to pass.
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That's the Westminster Confession in 1689, London Confession says, God has ordained whatsoever will come to pass.
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We are sinners by nature, but we are also sinners by choice.
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I want to bring that up because I have said a few times, we are choice makers.
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We do make choices.
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We make choice according to our nature.
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So we do choose to sin because that's what we want to do.
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We choose to sin because that's what our inclination is.
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We are, as John 8, 34 says, slaves to sin.
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We love it.
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We want it.
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And even as believers, we battle with it.
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Do you agree? Is anybody here not battling with sin? Anybody here doesn't have a sin battle anymore? Yeah, I'm going to come check your pulse if you don't battle with sin.
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If you don't have something that you deal with.
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I would wonder what it is that where you have arrived in your sanctification that you no longer battle with sin.
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You know, the Westleys talk about that, about coming to a place where they no longer sin willfully.
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And I don't believe that's possible for a believer, but the Westleys did, or at least John Wesley believed that there was a place.
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And we talked about this in Dad's individuals.
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I know you weren't able to come, Rob, but we talked about the fact that there are different, there's different views of sinless perfectionism.
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But from what I understand with the Westleys, the idea was that it wasn't that a person couldn't sin anymore, but that they wouldn't choose to sin anymore.
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That they would reach a place where they wouldn't choose to sin.
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It's not that I can't fall into sin, but I won't step in it.
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I think Paul would disagree with that.
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Which I want to do, I don't do, etc, etc.
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Sure.
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In our flesh, we're always a slave to sin, regardless of your savior, right? Because that's what it says, we all sin.
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So we have to be a slave to sin according to that.
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I would disagree only with this.
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Jesus said we're a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness.
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And in Romans 8, it talks about the fact that we've been set free from the law of sin and death.
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So there is a freedom that's been given to us as believers, the freedom to battle sin, but it's not a freedom.
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So to say a believer is still a slave to sin, I wouldn't necessarily agree with that.
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I would say that a sinner still has the flesh.
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I'm sorry, a believer still has the flesh.
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So as a result, the believer still has that inclination within him to do that, but he's not a slave to it.
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He now has the Holy Spirit to battle it.
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He can battle sin, but to be absolutely perfect, to not have an inclination or desire for sin, I don't think that we're supposed to be that because in doing so, where is our reliance on the Spirit then? Where's our temptation if there's no desire to sin? And where's the need for God to help us through temptation if we no longer have temptation? We call Adam's sin the fall of man as if he was on a cliff and he accidentally fell off.
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It's better to call it the leap, the leap of Adam.
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Yeah, for sure, yeah.
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Yeah, he didn't fall down.
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He reached up and got the fruit.
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Yeah, yeah.
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It wasn't an accident.
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Yeah, absolutely, it was a choice.
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Wait, that was Eve that grabbed the fruit.
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She just handed it to him.
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Well, he didn't.
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It's a joke, it's a joke.
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Oh, I know, I know, I know, I know, that's it.
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So all this being said, our sinful nature is one of the proofs that I would lay upon the table.
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Someone said, prove to me that mankind is not absolutely free in his will.
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I would say, well, mankind is sinful by nature.
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That proves at least that he is not absolutely free because he has an inclination towards sin.
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Most people I talk to, at least the guys I work with, when you tell them that they're sinful, they don't believe that.
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And even when you take most of them to the law, they don't believe, I mean, maybe they believe it, but they won't admit it.
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Sure.
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I mean, it's amazing.
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Well, and I guess what I'm trying to do in this is more so having this conversation with a believer who's arguing for free will.
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If I were talking to an unbeliever, I probably wouldn't even be addressing the subject of freedom of the will.
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But like you, I would deal with the issue of the law and the need for a savior.
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And if a person looks at the law and says, you know what, I don't need Christ, if they look at their sinful condition and say, I don't need Christ, you know, that's a point at which that's as far as I can take them.
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I can't go any, you know, I can maybe- Yeah, I might can take them to some apologetic sources and say, look, this is why I believe the Bible.
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This is why I believe that God exists.
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And, you know, use some presuppositional saying, what is, you know, why do you believe in morality? Do you believe things are evil? You know, kind of address some things with their heart and their conscience.
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But as far as the free will issue and things like that, I don't even think that that would be on the radar dealing with an unbeliever.
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I think that's more so dealing with with sort of intramural debate among believers.
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Because I have had so many believers who tell me I can't believe in reformed theology because I believe in the freedom of man.
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And reformed theology denies the freedom of man.
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And I would say, no, reformed theology doesn't deny the freedom of man.
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Reformed theology looks at the freedom of man biblically.
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But he is not absolutely autonomous.
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And there is a difference.
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You believe that man is not inclined to the left or to the right.
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You believe that man is ultimately self-governing and is not disposed to one thing or the other, and thus is free and absolutely free in his choices.
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And they'll say, well, no, I don't really believe that.
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Well, yeah, that's what you're arguing for.
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It might not be what you believe.
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But you see, I believe that man is sinful by nature and thus will only choose that which is in accord with his nature.
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Christ, the choosing of Christ is outside of the natural inclination and desire of man.
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So for him to choose Christ, God must intervene in his heart.
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That's the whole argument of the will.
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That's the whole argument of the will is whether or not a man will, by nature, choose to follow Christ.
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And the Bible says, no, not by nature.
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Yeah, to accept Jesus.
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And that's, yeah, that's holy.
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I don't really, I don't like the term accept Jesus.
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And I'm not condemning guys who use, I know great theologians and stuff sometimes they use the term accept Jesus as your savior.
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I tend to use the word receive.
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The biblical language, John three, or John one rather, says as many as received him, to them he gave the power to become children of God.
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Rather than the word accept, I think of accepting, you know, this week I got an earache.
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I got my first ear infection ever.
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And I didn't know what to do.
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It hurt from here all the way down to here.
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And I hurt for three days and I couldn't even touch my ear.
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It felt like it was on fire.
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And, you know, there was a point I had to accept that I had to go to the doctor.
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I didn't want to go to the doctor.
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I don't like going to the doctor.
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But I had to accept the fact that I had to go to the doctor.
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Because if I didn't, I'd probably, my ear would have fell off.
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It was really bad.
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That's what I think of when I think of accepting, you know, well, I've got to accept this thing.
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I don't really want it.
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I just accept that it is.
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And I know that's not the way people often intend it, but that's the way, it just doesn't ring proper to me.
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We receive Christ as a gift.
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Will we be accepted? Yeah, we're the ones that need to be accepted.
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It needs a willingness.
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Yeah.
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Because God chooses you.
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You get to be willing to open your ears in the heart and hear him and not shut him out.
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Yeah, but it's God who opens our ears and our heart as well, yeah.
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The next thing, since we've looked at letter A, I'm going to write letter B on the board.
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God, by his grace, restrains the sinful nature of all men.
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This is long, but I'll write it down.
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And yes, I said all men, and I mean all men.
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So that wasn't a misspeaking.
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God restrains the sinful nature of all men.
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Sin is rampant in the world, but were God not actively restraining all men by his grace, the world would be much, much, much, much, much more worse.
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So that before the flood, he destroyed it.
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Was that bad? Yeah, yeah.
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I want to take you to a couple of verses of scripture.
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This is probably as far as we're going to get today.
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I want to take you to Genesis, Exodus, and show you just two sections of scripture on the restraint of God.
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Genesis 20 and verse one, this is the story of Abimelech.
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And you remember Abimelech wanted Sarah, who was the wife of Abram.
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And he, Abraham, what was his concern? My wife is so beautiful, they'll kill me to get to her.
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So we're going to tell everyone she's my sister.
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All right, she must've been something.
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She must've been something else for him to be so concerned that men would be so overwhelmed by her beauty that they would want to rob him of her by force and kill him.
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Either she was something else or he saw her as something else.
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Either way, there was a real impressed feeling he had for his wife.
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And it says in verse one, it says, now there, Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur.
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And he sojourned in Gerar.
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And Abraham said to his wife, she is my sister.
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And Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah.
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See, here's the thing I always get to me, the ploy didn't work.
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Because he said, I'll tell people she's my sister, then no one will kill me to get her.
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But that doesn't keep people from wanting her nor coming to get her.
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And now it sort of opens the door for them to come and get her because she's no longer a wife, but a sister.
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And that's the Abraham not trusting God.
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That's true, it's a lack of faith.
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Abraham sins in this.
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And this is one of those times where people, I've heard people argue that Abraham didn't sin.
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I was like, well, I think we see sinful behavior in scripture, deception, lack of faith.
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All these things are sins.
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But to argue that Abraham wasn't a sinner, why would we even try to do that? Because she really is my sister.
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Well, yeah, exactly.
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It's kind of foolish.
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I think your marital relationship precedes your familial relationship.
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Sure, sure, yeah, absolutely.
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And there's an attempt, he knows what he's doing is deceptive.
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He's doing it deceptively on purpose.
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But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken for she is a man's wife.
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Now Abimelech had not approached her.
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So he said, Lord, will you kill an innocent people? Did he not himself say to me, she is my sister? And she herself said, he is my brother and the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands, I have done this.
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Then God said to him in his dream, yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart.
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And it was I who kept you from sinning against me.
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Therefore, I did not let you touch her.
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Exactly.
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This passage is one that I point people to to ask the question, was Abimelech taking Sarah for a reason? Yes.
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What was the reason? She was hot.
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Intimacy, yeah.
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Thank you, Rob.
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He took Sarah because he had a physical attraction to her.
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He wanted to have an intimate relationship with her even if it was only that of a concubine, it would have been some physical relationship.
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And he took her with that express purpose and yet he didn't act on it.
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Do you want to act on it? Well, there was a reason for taking her.
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He wanted to do it, but he was restrained in acting on it.
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Now he equates his restraint with his own integrity.
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I didn't do it.
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He says, I had the integrity of my heart.
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But what does God say? Yes, it was the integrity of your heart, but it was I who kept you from sinning.
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So who then is the author of the integrity? God.
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God was the one actively working in the heart of Abimelech to keep him from sinning against God by entering into that illicit relationship with Sarah.
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Yes.
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You said you take them there.
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You said, was Abimelech, what were you? I take them there to say this.
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Does God restrain evil men from doing evil things? Now everybody, you might say, well, why would you even want to argue that? Everybody agrees with you.
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Doesn't the very fact that God does restraining prove that men are not absolutely free? Yes.
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If you're arguing that man can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, however he wants, and God yet restrained Abimelech from doing what he wanted, when he wanted, how he wanted, doesn't that prove my point that Abimelech at this moment was not exercising absolute human freedom? That's my point.
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That's the argument I'm making.
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Again, I'm building a case.
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When I'm making an argument in a theological sense, I want to build a case.
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And here's the next place I'm going to go.
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This next place I think is the humdinger of all this.
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Turn to Exodus, just one book over, 34, 21.
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Exodus 34, God is giving the commands to Israel about how they are to worship.
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By the way, what's my time? Okay, this will be the last thing we look at today.
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Exodus 34, 21.
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It says, six days shall you work, but on the seventh day you shall rest.
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We all know that, that's the law of the Sabbath.
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In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest.
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You shall observe the feast of weeks, the first fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of the end gathering at the year's end.
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Three times in the year shall all the males appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel.
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Now, stop right there.
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Three times a year, the men are going to leave the camp.
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Three times a year, they're going to go away.
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What happens when the men leave the camp? Now, well.
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I don't know.
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Sorry.
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I'm going to have to edit that one.
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What happens when the men leave the camp? The women are vulnerable.
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Women are vulnerable.
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They have nothing but their children and each other.
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They don't have the men for the protection.
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They don't have the warring men, the fighting men, the army.
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There's nothing to protect them.
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So what does verse 24 say? For I will cast out nations before you and enlarge your borders.
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No one shall covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year.
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What is God saying? During the time that the men are away, I will restrain those who covet your land so that your women and your children will be protected from evil.
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That's huge.
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In my mind, that's very huge.
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Because what that says is God can even, and does even, restrain the wants of people so that at the time where the women and the children are most vulnerable, he will restrain the wants of those who all the rest of the year want to take over the land, all the rest of the year want to come in and pillage and plunder.
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During those three times, I will restrain their heart and they won't covet.
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They won't even covet your land during that time.
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That's amazing.
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It's just to me, I remember when I first read that, I almost fell out of my chair.
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Because that's proof God restrains men's hearts without their approval.
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I heard a guy one time say that God does not interact in your life unless you invite him.
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Pish, posh.
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The Greek word for that is baloney.
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That's right.
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Barrowed it and invited him.
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That's right.
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God actively restrains the sinful hearts of men and as such, they're not absolutely free.
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Sure.
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And that includes heaven.
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I mean, Revelation 23, you know? Restrained, it says descriptively in figurative speech of the thousand years bounded, not restrained him.
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That's the word.
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Oh, the restrain is the devil.
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Yeah, mm-hmm.
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So, you know.
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Yeah.
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Everybody worries about the devil more than they do about God, but he controls the devil too.
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Yeah, yeah, Satan is restrained by God.
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Now next week, we're gonna move to the next point and this is that God hardens the hearts of some men and we're gonna talk about what that means because we know God restrains all men, but he hardens some men.
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Yeah.
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What does it mean when it says God hardens the heart? So, that'll be our subject for next time.
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Father, thank you for our time of study.
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I pray that this has been fruitful for your people and encouraging to help them understand better how it is that you govern the world.
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In Christ's name, amen.
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Amen.