Common Objections to Calvinism Pt3

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.

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This program is dedicated to helping you better understand the Word of God and the doctrines of grace.

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The Bible tells us, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

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Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to study along.

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Here's your host with today's lesson, Pastor Keith Foskey.

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And welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.

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My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist.

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Today is August the 19th, 2020 and we are going to be looking at our next question in Common Objections to Calvinism.

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Today is part three.

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But before we do that, I want to remind you that if you're reading along in our daily Bible reading, today's Bible reading is in Acts chapter 20.

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If you would like to know more about that daily Bible reading, you can go to our website at sgfcjax.org.

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You can download our daily Bible reading for the year 2020.

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It is a daily Bible reading, one chapter a day through the New Testament.

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We give you a daily reading every day except the weekends.

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That's your time to catch up.

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And of course, to spend in service to the Lord on the Lord's Day and worship.

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If you don't have a church to worship in, we would encourage you to come visit us at Sovereign Grace Family Church if you are in the Jacksonville area.

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You can learn more about that on our website.

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So today we're on to objection number three.

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We've looked at the first two objections.

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The objection first of evangelism.

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If God has predestined those who he's going to save, why do we evangelize? We talked about that on Monday.

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And then yesterday we interacted with a lesson from Dr.

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J.

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Vernon McGee on the subject of free will where he was saying that if you don't believe in absolute free will, then that makes God into some kind of a despot.

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We dealt with that yesterday and you can go back and listen to that if you would like if you haven't yet.

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But today we're going to answer a little easier question.

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Not easier in the sense that it's easier to answer, but it's more common maybe.

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And that is the question of, well doesn't God want to save everyone? And that is a very common belief is that it is God's desire to save everyone.

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And first of all, that is based on a couple of scriptural texts that we're going to look at in a moment.

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And if you want to open up your Bible, we're going to be looking at 1st Timothy chapter 2 verse 2, rather verse 4, well verses 1-4.

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And then we're going to look at also 2nd Peter chapter 3 verse 9.

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Those are the two verses that are usually used to say, well God desires to save everyone.

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But before we even get to the text, I want to sort of address the question itself.

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Because the question itself is based on a view of God that sees God in a very, I hate to say modernistic, but maybe I could say more of a enlightened way.

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I don't mean enlightened in a correct way.

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I mean maybe as on this side of the enlightenment.

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And that is to say that the idea of seeing God as having wrath, and seeing God as a judge is very much out of vogue.

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Those who would say God is all love, and that God is not ever going to exercise judgment, they are often seen as the enlightened ones, and those of us who would say God is a God of wrath, and God is a judge, and God is a holy God, and a vengeful God, and he will avenge his righteousness, and he will take justice on his adversaries, those who would say that are often relegated to being sort of ancient and cryptic, and you've probably heard the term hellfire and brimstone preachers of the past, and the more modern view is that God would not do that, that God does not have that ability, because he is all loving.

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And the problem with this is this is how we have presented God to people in evangelism.

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We tell people God loves you, and has a wonderful plan for your life, that's often the first thing people say in evangelism.

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And then the people would say, well I don't want that, blah blah blah, and we say well if you don't believe in him, he's going to punish you, and they say wait a minute, you just said he loved me, if God loves me, then why would he punish me? No matter what I do, what do I deserve to be punished for? Why would God do that? And so it almost presents sort of a two-faced view of God, where God is, he's very loving, but he's also, he's got this streak of wrath, and so it presents God as sort of a two-faced view, or they say, or they don't believe in wrath at all, and they would say God doesn't have wrath, and God loves you regardless, I just listened just a little while ago today to a video by John Shelby Spong, John Shelby Spong is a retired Episcopal priest, and he was very famous for denying the Bible, he was part of the Jesus Seminar group, denied the Bible, denied the infallibility of God's word, and he clearly said, you know, God doesn't have wrath, God loves everyone, the purpose of telling the gospel is not to tell people to flee from the wrath of God, but the purpose of telling the gospel is so that everybody can understand how much God loves them, and we can learn to love one another, we can learn to love ourselves, we can learn to accept ourselves for who we are, and not have to repent, and repentance is, you know, for him, all of that was just ridiculous, and what's interesting and what's sad is that's really becoming more and more of what I'm seeing in modern evangelism, people aren't calling people to repentance anymore, see evangelism should not be, Jesus loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, because that's not the gospel, the gospel is, repent and believe in Jesus, and flee the wrath to come, because the good news is only good news if you understand the bad news, and the bad news is this, you deserve to go to hell, you deserve the wrath of God, but God has given his grace in such a way that if we will receive his son, we will be spared his wrath, and we will have had his son take that wrath for us, and God in his grace has ensured that there will be those who receive his son, and he has done so by giving them the gift of regeneration which causes them to go from death to life, which causes them to go from dead in sin to alive in Christ, and so that is the act of regeneration which brings about faith, and that's what Jesus said, unless a man be born again, he will not see the kingdom of God, he won't see it, and he won't enter it, Jesus says in John chapter 3.

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So, I'm going to let's get back to the question at hand, because again, I think the first part of the question that we have to deal with, that we just looked at, is when somebody says, well God just wants to save everybody, first of all we have to understand that right away, God has not chosen to save everyone, I think we have to, there's no debating that, God has not chosen to save all men, because the Bible says hell exists, and the Bible says that hell exists and that men will go there.

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We read the book of Revelation, it clearly says that men will go to hell, and that is without really dispute, unless you are willing to throw away whole sections of scripture and the words of Jesus, that the Bible says hell exists and that men will go there.

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So, the question is, does God desire that men go to hell? And the answer to that is, and I think again, maybe that's the wrong way to phrase it, let me rephrase the question, does God desire that all men be saved? And someone would say, well if he desires it, then he wouldn't predestine anything else, he wouldn't choose to predestine anything different.

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And this is where we come to an issue on the question of the word desire, because, when we talk about what God desires, I believe God is sovereign, and that God chooses whatsoever he wills, that's his desire, and that's what comes to pass, he decrees whatever will come to pass.

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Now, does that mean that God is actively causing men to sin? No, we know men sin, but that those sins are volitional acts of the will of men, and that's what God desires.

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Men desire to do those sins, but God certainly could stop them at any moment, and because he chooses not to, then we must believe that he has a purpose for whatever he chooses to be, rather than to not be.

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And so God has a purpose in choosing one thing over another, and he's acting on his own will.

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The Bible says he does everything according to the counsel of his will, therefore those are his desires.

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And so when we talk about the desires of God, we're talking about the will of God, and there are two passages which address the desires of God regarding the salvation of men, that are often used to argue that God wants to save all men.

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And I want to look at the first one, let's look first at 2 Timothy 3.9.

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This is often the one that's quoted, and it's almost always quoted wrong.

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People will say, God doesn't want anybody to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

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That's the way they quote it.

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You'll hear people say, God doesn't want anybody to perish, but everybody to come to repentance.

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That's not what the verse says, but that's often how it's quoted.

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In fact, I've seen it quoted that way in books.

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God doesn't will any to perish, but all to come to repentance.

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Now, having said that, I want to actually read to you what the verse says.

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This is what it says.

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The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

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Now, this is the ESV version.

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But listen to it again.

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The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but he is patient toward you, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

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Now, it's important that that word, you, is actually in the plural.

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So, you know, in English, if I say you, I can be speaking about one person, or if I say you, I could be speaking about you people, you all.

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In the South, we have the plural of you, and we call y'all, and then when it's a large group, it's all y'all.

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You know that.

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So, when it's saying this, and I think the King James actually says it's patient towards us.

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I think in that, and this is in the second, this is the pronoun, second plural.

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So, it's a plural pronoun, and it's speaking of the, this is speaking of a group, and it says the Lord is not slow to count to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, is patient toward, if you will, us.

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God is patient.

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Who? Toward who? Well, the people that are in view in 2 Peter 3, 8 are believers.

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They are Christians.

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They are, in fact, the elect of God.

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Peter uses the phrase elect of God in this book, and so it's important that we understand that when we talk about who this is to, this is to believers, and so when we read it that way, the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, because he was just talking in verse 8 about a day being a thousand years.

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A thousand years is a day.

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God, it sometimes seems like God is taking a long time.

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It sometimes seems like God is working out his plan in a way that is taking longer than we think it should take, and yet we need to understand God's not slow to fulfill his promise, but he's patient because he's not willing that any of you perish, but that all of you should reach repentance.

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You see, the any and the all are modified by the you, or as the King James, the us, not willing that any of us should perish, but that all of us should reach repentance.

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I use this illustration sometimes like if I get in my car, and I say, okay, I don't want to have anyone injured in an accident, so I want all to put on their safety belts, because I want us all to reach our destination safely.

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Now if I say that, the any and the all, I don't want anyone to be hurt, I want us all to reach our destination safely.

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If I say that, the any and the all are modified by the fact that I'm talking to a group, and therefore this is not universal language as it is often applied, but this is the language within the group, God's universal language.

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God is not willing that any believer will perish, he is not willing that any believer will see his wrath, and he desires that all of us who are of the elect will come to repentance.

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And so, somebody might say, well you're reading that into the text.

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No, I don't believe I am.

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I believe the other way reads into the text.

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Because if you say, God's not willing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance, and you're not willing to read the whole verse, and you're not willing to look at the verse within its context, if you're not willing to look at this as part of Peter's overall argument about the security of the elect of God, and how God is working these things out in time, then I think you're being dishonest with what Peter is saying here, and I think it's often the case of misusing this particular passage, and using this passage as a blunt instrument to beat people over the head.

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No, God wants everybody to repent.

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God wants nobody to perish, everybody to repent.

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But that's not the context of this verse.

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Now, jumping over to 1 Timothy, we see a very similar argument made, and it says, I want to start in verse 1, it says in 1 Timothy 2, 1 Then I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way that is good and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

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So, we look at that.

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God desires all people to be saved.

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Now, the phrase all people here, people jump on it, see right there, God desires everyone to be saved, all people.

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But the word all always has a context, and the word all in this is given the context by verse 2, because verse 2 talks about different types of people.

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In fact, it says that in verse 2, God desires all people, but the all there is all kinds of people.

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Remember this, all either means all without exception, or it means all without distinction.

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And when it means all without distinction, for instance, in Mark it says all Judea went out and was baptized by John, that's not all without exception, because many people didn't go out and get baptized by John, but all types of people, all kinds of people went out and were baptized by John.

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And this is what it says, it says that we are to make prayers and intercessions and thanksgivings for all types of people, for kings, all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life.

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And that is good and pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all kinds of people to be saved.

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God doesn't just desire to save the poor, God doesn't just desire to save the rich, God doesn't just desire to save white or black people, He doesn't just desire to save men or women, but He desires to save all kinds of people.

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The Bible, and we see this in Revelation 5, where it says that He looked and there were people from every tribe, tongue, and nation, made up the elect.

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And so therefore the all in 1st Timothy 2 is modified by verse, in 2nd Timothy 2, and chapter 2 verse 4 is modified by what came before it.

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He's not talking about all people indiscriminately, He's talking about all kinds of people.

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And it is God's desire to save all kinds of people.

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And so that would be the way that I would understand those two verses in light of what I believe regarding the issue of God having made a choice to predestine some to eternal life and pass over others.

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And so that is my explanation for the 2nd Peter passage and the passage here in, and I would say these are two of the most commonly cited passages, 2nd Peter and 1st Timothy are two of the most commonly cited passages when people say, well God wants to save everyone.

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But let me end with this, and this is an important thought.

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R.C.

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Sproul said something one time I thought was very insightful, he said we have to also consider the fact that God does have a good disposition and He is a saving and loving God.

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And therefore He is good to all men.

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And we see this in, such as what we call common grace, God allows the sun to rise on the just and the unjust, the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

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God is good to all men.

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And His goodness, the Bible says should lead men to repentance.

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But the problem is it doesn't because men love the darkness rather than light.

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And so it takes an act of God's grace for a man to be saved.

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But that doesn't mean that God delights in the death of the wicked.

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The Bible says God does not delight in the death of the wicked.

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And therefore we can say that God does have a good disposition and a loving disposition.

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He is a benevolent God.

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But at the same time He has not chosen to save all men because He demonstrates His righteousness and His benevolence and both of them are going to be on display at judgment.

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His righteous justice will be displayed in those who go to eternal punishment and His benevolence will be displayed towards those who enter into eternal life.

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And in both cases and in both situations He will be perfectly and rightfully just and holy and good.

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So again this has been my explanation for the third argument against Calvinism, the third most common that I hear and that is that God's desire is to save everyone.

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I hope that this has been helpful for you especially if you maybe have had these questions and I hope that this will continue to keep you wanting to study the Word of God.

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Again thank you for listening to Coffee with a Calvinist.

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My name is Keith Foskey and I've been your Calvinist.

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May God bless you.

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Thank you for joining in for today's episode of Coffee with a Calvinist.

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Keep in mind we have a new lesson available every weekday morning at 6.30 a.m.

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On behalf of Pastor Foskey thank you for listening.

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May God bless you.