What Love Is This? - Part 6 — Dave Hunt

God's Universal Goodness and Particular Saving Love

In some ways, everyone whom he creates receives many undeserved good gifts. He loves some in all ways, that is, he brings them to faith, to new life, and to glory according to his predestinating purpose.

God's Will and Human Resistance

The Calvinist tries to say, well, let me quote a British editor, you would know him, I'm not gonna give his name. He wrote to me, a bit angrily, he said, quote, the plain truth is that God does not wish to save all men.

If he did, then he would save them. Now, the Calvinist would say, now wait a minute. You mean to say that someone can, you mean to say that it is God's will, he wants all to be saved? That's what the Bible says.

And you mean to say that man can frustrate God's will? Well, they do it all the time. Jesus said that the Pharisees had rebelled against God. Who keeps the 10 Commandments? They weren't 10 suggestions.

Didn't God intend that man should keep these? Wouldn't you say that that would be God's will? Well, but people go against God's will continually. Why would Jesus say to pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, if God's will is already being done here?

What would be the point? And Paul, well, you know what he said in Romans 9. Chapter nine, he said, I could wish myself accursed of God for my brethren, the Jews. Isn't that what Paul said? Didn't Paul say, I would go to hell for them.

If that would save the Jews, I would be willing to go to hell myself. I don't know that any of us could say that, but that's what Paul said. Where did he get this love? Where did he get this compassion for mankind?

Paul's Compassion and Calvinist Predestination

Now understand, wouldn't it be blasphemy for Paul to be concerned about the salvation of people that God had already predestined to eternal damnation? Paul, how can you do this in the face of God who says it is for his good pleasure that he has damned most of these people?

And you say you would be willing to die? You would be willing to suffer eternally for them? Paul, how could you do this? You're going against God. You see, you can't really show concern and compassion for anyone who's not one of the elect because God has no concern or compassion for any of them.

In the book, we quote J. Adams, for example, in his book, Competent to Counsel. I mean, J. Adams is a friend, and we offer that book. But in that book, he says the counselor cannot say to the counselee, Christ died for you because you don't know whether he's one of the elect.

The Universal Gospel Invitation and Withheld Grace

Well, I think Christ said, preach the gospel to every creature, didn't he? But wait a minute, isn't it mockery to preach the gospel and seemingly offer salvation to people who are blinded and to whom God refuses to give the grace to believe?

You know, I use the example in the Berean Call. You got a man in the bottom of a well, and you're standing up above, and you're holding a rope 30 feet above his head and saying, grab a hold of it. Come on, I wanna pull you out of there.

I mean, he'd think you were mad. I mean, he'd like to grab your throat, maybe. If you want me to come out, why don't you lower it down to where I can get it? And the Calvinist says, oh, what an illustration.

I mean, it's not, we don't hold on. Well, that wasn't the point. The point was, the man on top is obviously not sincere, is he? And for God to plead with people to repent, from whom he withholds the very grace that they need, and without it, they can't repent, and yet he pleads with them to repent.

But at the same time, he withholds what they need. What do they need to repent? I don't think that's sincere. And I don't believe that's what the Bible teaches, but that's what Calvinism has done. I think it's a misrepresentation of God.

Election, Hell, and the Problem of Suffering

R .C. Sproul, it says, quote, if some people are not elected to salvation, and obviously multitudes are not, apparently the majority are not, if broad is the road that leads to destruction, narrows the gate that leads to life, and few there be, it doesn't say few there be that God has predestined, few there be that find it.

Oh yeah, but that's a mockery, because you can't find it unless he gives you the grace, special grace, irresistible grace. He says, if some people are not elected to salvation, then it would seem that God is not at all that loving toward them, and it would have been more loving of God not to have allowed them to be born.

You see, now we got a problem, a very serious problem, and the atheist will throw it in your face. Why all of this suffering in the world? You believe in eternal hell? Why? I mean, if your God is too weak to stop suffering and evil, then he couldn't be God, and if he could, but he doesn't, he's a monster.

That's what the atheist will throw at you. Wait a minute, it's not a question of power, irresistible grace. The Calvinist says, are you saying that the sovereign, all-powerful God can't cause everyone he wants to believe to believe?

Most of you, I don't know how long you've been getting the brain call, but maybe it was a year or so ago, I wrote an article titled, What a Sovereign God Cannot Do. Does anybody remember that article?

Well, a few people, okay. Wow, did I get letters. You're saying that a sovereign God can't do anything he wants to do? Well, he can't be wrong, can he? He can't fail. He can't deny himself. He can't sin.

He can't lie. A lot of things a sovereign God can't do because of who he is. And love is not a matter of power. You don't point a gun at a young lady, you bachelors, and say, you will love me. Okay, okay.

Love is not a matter of power. It comes from the heart. God has given us the power of choice so we can love him. He wants to win our hearts. He says, come now, let us reason together. What's the point of God reasoning with anyone?

We can't understand his reasoning until he has regenerated us, till he gives us the grace. And when he does that, I mean, that's it. Why is he reasoning with people that he's already predestined to hell for eternity?

Faith Before or After Regeneration?

It turns the Bible into a charade. It's misrepresentation, in my opinion, of God's character. Now that brings us then to one of the strangest, I think strangest doctrines of Calvinism. I didn't, I was not aware of it.

All the discussions that I've had with Calvinist friends through the years, I was not aware of this. And it rather shocked me. And that is, well, let me read it to you. Only when the Holy Spirit regenerates man and makes him alive spiritually can man have faith in Christ and be saved.

I quote you some others. A man is not saved because he believes in Christ. He believes in Christ because he's saved. A man is not regenerated because he has first believed in Christ, but he believes in Christ because he's been regenerated.

We do not believe in order to be born again. We are born again in order that we may believe. Does that seem a little bit topsy-turvy to anybody? I was shocked. Well, here's how they will indoctrinate you in a good Calvinist college.

You're my, I'm the professor. You're my introductory religion class. And I say, class, how many, what do you think? What comes first? Faith or regeneration? Oh, you say, faith, of course. Ah, wait a minute, class.

Don't you understand? The natural man is dead in sin. Now, how is a dead person gonna believe?