January 2, 2018 Show with Mike Abendroth on “The Sovereignty & Supremacy of King Jesus”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century Gospel Minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, We are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with, and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now, here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this second day of January and this second day of 2018 to have a very important discussion on the sovereignty and supremacy of King Jesus.

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But before I introduce my guest, I just have a prayer request I learned today from my dear friend

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Dr. Conrad Mbewe, who's been a friend of mine since 1995. He is a pastor in Zambia, Africa, pastoring the

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Kabwata Baptist Church there. He is a Reformed Baptist pastor and seminary professor and seminary president over there in Zambia, and a very popular conference speaker globally.

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When I first met Dr. Mbewe, before he was Dr. Mbewe, he was not nearly as globally known as he is now.

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In fact, I believe I heard him preach on his very first trip to the United States. I'm absolutely certain of it now that I think about it.

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But he let me know and let many of us know today that unfortunately,

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New Year's Day brought bad tidings for Kabwata Baptist Church. Armed robbers murdered

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Andrew Mulandema, and I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing his last name, it might be

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Mulandema, but he was one of their 2017 pastoral interns.

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He was murdered over the weekend. He was out of town on personal business when this happened.

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And if you could pray for the family of Andrew Mulandema, and also obviously the congregation of Kabwata Baptist Church in Zambia, Africa, I would greatly appreciate it.

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And I know Dr. Conrad Mbewe would greatly appreciate it even more. But today we have on the program someone who's going to discuss a theological truth, or theological truths, plural, that very often will come up during discussions on the very thing

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I mentioned. When we hear about the worst kinds of tragedies that have ever become something that we are aware of, people wonder how on earth could

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God be in control of the world, and the universe, and all things in heaven and on earth?

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And how could that be? And Him simultaneously being a loving, and gracious, and kind, and merciful

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God, how could those two things simultaneously be true when we witness horrific things every day and many of us have experienced so many horrific things in our lives, some more than others?

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But it is my honor and privilege to welcome back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Mike Abendroth, who is pastor of Bethlehem Bible Church of West Boylston, Massachusetts, adjunct professor of the

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Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. And he's the author of a number of books, including Jesus Christ, the

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Prince of Preachers, Things That Go Bump in the Church, and he's the co -host of No Compromise Radio.

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We are discussing the book that he wrote, which is also the theme of our discussion today,

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The Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus, and it's great to have you back on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

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Chris, thanks for having me on today. I really appreciate it. I'm sad to hear about Andrew. I think it was 2007,

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I was in Zambia, and I had the privilege of preaching there for Conrad and appreciated the love of the people and how kind they were.

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And when I first heard about it, I was extra surprised because at least the church area in Zambia itself,

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Lusaka, seemed to me very safe, a safe place to be. I certainly felt safe, but I looked on the

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Facebook of Conrad's, it sounds like Andrew was out of town when that happened, and I don't know if that's another country or something else, but either way,

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I'm very sad to hear the news. Yet, if we didn't know God was sovereign over all things, that would be worse.

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You know, what's worse than bad news is to think that God is only sovereign over good and not over evil.

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That would even make it worse. Yes, and of course, we know that horrific murders and even multiple murders and things like that even happen in the safest of places on this planet.

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When they occur, they are much to the shock and horror of those living in that area.

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But before we get into this theme, tell our listeners who may be unfamiliar with you, we seem to have new listeners joining the

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Iron Sherpins Iron audience every day, so there may be some listeners who have not heard you on No Compromise Radio and have not heard you on Iron Sherpins Iron Radio, who will be being introduced to Bethlehem Bible Church of West Boylston, Massachusetts for the first time.

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So why don't you tell us something about that? Sure. Well, before I tell you about the church, Chris, I just want you to know that for your listeners that don't know me, when

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Phil Johnson is busy, then I get the call. That's exactly what happened today.

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Well, Phil and I are friends, and many times I've had opportunities to speak, because Phil's been out of town or busy or booked or something, and he regularly says, we'll call

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Mike, he'll probably go. So I think as happy days as to Laverne and Shirley, Phil Johnson is to Mike.

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But just keep something in mind. It's not that you're like, less important or lower on the rung of great guests.

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It's because of the fact that Phil Johnson is famous for taking my call sometimes five minutes before my show starts, and he'll say, yeah, okay,

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I'll be on. So that's one of the reasons he is one of my first phone calls, typically, when

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I have a guest that cancels or postpones. That's right. Well, you called me 40 minutes advance, and I took it, so see?

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I've been in New England, central Massachusetts, about 50 miles outside of Boston for almost 21 years now,

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Bethlehem Bible Church, and we hopefully are known by the community as a church that will teach verse by verse through the

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Bible. I'm preaching the book of Hebrews now, so that makes it very easy to talk about the supremacy and excellency and superiority of Jesus being better than prophets, being better than Aaron, better than Moses, better than angels.

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He's just worthy to be worshipped, and it reminds me of these people who are thinking about going back to Judaism, and everything was fine when they worshipped at the temple, but now they're getting persecuted, losing their family possessions and homes, and they're tempted to go back.

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And basically, the writer of Hebrews says, don't go back because you have everything in Christ. You can have the temple and everything, but if you don't have

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Christ, you have nothing. Just a good reminder that no matter what the difficulties are, what are our options, and they're not to go back to our old life of works righteousness.

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So I've just been preaching through the Bible and preached through Mark and Esther and Genesis and Exodus, Jonah, a variety of books over the last 21 years, and I'm very thankful that I don't need to have a program or pragmatic approach to things or be cognizant of the latest business principles.

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It's very simple. I think God parachutes men behind the lines with the

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Bible and the Holy Spirit, and of course, I'm standing on the men of the past and church history and confessions, and we just preach away, and the

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Word does its work. It's powerful. It changes lives, and Chris, a neat thing that's happening to me now,

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I'm old enough to see people's children grow up and then embrace Christ and believe in Him and see them learn and grow and old enough to see young men get saved and then get called into ministry and now are pastors, and so it's a really neat time here in New England.

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I know God has unregenerate elect people here, and so we just preach away, and God is pleased to save.

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It might not be like Texas or California with the amount of people, but that's never the issue. The issue is just proclaiming the truth verse by verse.

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So we're just here outside of Boston, about 50 miles, Bethlehem Bible Church, bbchurch .org if anybody's interested.

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Great, and I have to ask you again, why do you have that extra C in there? Well, it's very fascinating because my email is bbcpastor at bbcchurch .org,

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and so I know eventually when I'm talking to someone, customer service, I'm protected because I know

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I can't get mad at them or yell or say anything untoward, because eventually they will ask me, what's your email address?

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bbcpastor at bbchurch .org, and then they'll know exactly what I do. So I don't know how that C got in there.

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Maybe it was already taken. Okay, and well, let us know also something about No Compromise Radio.

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Sure. I started the radio show about eight years ago, and I thought, you know, you can, with accessing internet now, you can get the best preachers anytime you want, and so I don't need to have a radio show that has my sermons every day.

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I mean, they're biblical, and I hope faithful to the text, but if you want to listen to Sinclair Ferguson or S.

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Lewis Johnson or the greatest preachers in the world, you can easily. So I thought I'd just make it a different format. So Monday is a rerun of the sermon that I preached on Sunday, but Tuesdays I talk about pastoral issues with my associate pastor,

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Steve Cooley. Wednesdays I usually interview guests, authors, kind of like you do. Thursdays I just talk about a doctrine, you know, what is confession, what is eternal sonship, and then

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Fridays I usually go after, you know, the people that are teaching something erroneous. And so that's Monday through Friday.

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It's about a half -hour show, so people can listen at 1 .5 speed. You know, you can get done with it in 16 minutes, so you're fine.

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Great. Well, if anybody wants to check out No Compromise Radio, of course, wait until this show is over.

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Go to NoCompromiseRadio .com. NoCompromiseRadio .com.

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And this topic we are discussing today, the sovereignty and supremacy of King Jesus.

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Although on its surface, you would have a lot of agreement with evangelical

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Christians, or even those outside of evangelicalism, who would say, I totally believe in that.

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But then when we start to dig deeper as to what that really means, and we start to exegete scripture, then all of a sudden the sweat starts to bead on the foreheads of some, and the tensions rise, and debates, disputes, and arguments rise up.

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And it's interesting that I know of, in fact,

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I am friends with some non -Calvinist, fundamentalist, King James -only pastors and Christians, who will say, it's pretty surprising to me, actually, that they will say, the sovereignty of God, or the sovereign

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Lord, is nowhere mentioned in the King James Bible. And I'm kind of taken aback why they would even want to argue against that, because they believe, apparently, or allegedly, or supposedly, or they should believe, that God is sovereign, that He is the

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Lord of lords, that there is no one who is His equal or superior to Him.

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So I'm not sure why they would fight against that. But if you could tell us, what exactly does that mean, the sovereignty of Jesus?

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Sure. Well, before I answer that question, Chris, and I won't, you know, since I am a radio host, too,

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I won't hijack your show, turn it into my show, but I will make this precursor to that question.

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I began to think about sovereigns, not just the sovereignty of God, but could

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I understand the sovereignty of God in light of a human sovereign? And so in America, we have,

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I guess we have a mini -sovereign, we can either vote in or out every four to eight years. And even in England, just a monarch, but not really a real monarch, a constitutional monarch, a paper monarch, if you will.

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But there were people back in the days of the Bible that understood what it was like to live under a very powerful king, a very, a ruler, a monarch who had lots of power and armies.

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And I'm not talking about the Lord, although that's true. But just if we could figure out from the Near Eastern perspective, what's it like to have a king lead us, then that would help us understand the

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Bible when God is described as of all the kings kinging, he's the king. Out of all the lords lording, he's the

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Lord, 1 Timothy chapter 6. And so I began to study Near Eastern kings and what their thrones were like, what their, by the way, we don't have throne rooms in America.

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I think the only one we have in all of America, outside of a museum is in Hawaii, because there was a king there, of course, many years ago.

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So what's it like to live under a king? It's easy to say Jesus is savior, friend, prophet, priest, but he's talked of as a king in the

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Bible. So what does it mean that he's a king? And since it was written in the Bible, both the Old Testament and New Testament in an

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Eastern culture, I began to dabble with and study the doctrine of God as king in light of Near Eastern Oriental monarchs.

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And so the word to answer your question, sovereign, I just would tell my kids, look at the root word, and you see that word to reign in there,

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R -E -I -G -N, to reign and to rule. And so rulers can reign to the extent that they have enough power and enough knowledge.

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I mean, there are other attributes that come into play with the Lord, of course, but he's got all the power and all the wisdom and all the knowledge.

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And so he can perfectly reign. And of course, as we know, R .C. Sproul went to glory a couple of weeks ago.

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It was R .C. who said, God's favorite doctrine is the sovereignty of God. And if you are

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God, that'd be your favorite doctrine too. And I don't know if that's true or not, but it certainly makes the point that God is sovereign over everything.

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And how do we then look at the world? It's easy to think like with your King James only friend,

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God's sovereign over the weather. It's supposed to snow here in Massachusetts one foot this Thursday, sovereign over my skin color, sovereign over where I was born.

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But we really can figure out if people embrace the sovereignty of God or not when we ask them the question, is

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God sovereign over who goes to heaven and who doesn't? And if you wanted to push it even further, you could say, is

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God sovereign over who goes to hell and who doesn't? And so the overarching theme of the book is

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Jesus is a sovereign. And how does that affect the way we live? So truth determines living.

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Theology determines methodology. So the first part of the book is the theology of Jesus as the

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King. And then how does that play into our prayer life, our evangelism, and other things?

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Well, I am going to now rattle the cage of some of our listeners by reading the subtitle of your book, which is

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Bowing to the Gracious Despot. And I know that's going to really upset those who like to think of Jesus only in the way that Hallmark cards refer to him.

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But one of the reasons I bring that up is that I think one of the most difficult texts in all of scripture that non -Calvinists bring up when they are having discussions or debates with Calvinists is 2

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Peter 2 verses 1. And in the King James Bible, which very often they will be reading from, we read,

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But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you who privily shall bring indamnable heresies, even denying the

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Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

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And I have heard that the Greek term there for the Lord is despot.

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And I have heard Calvinists say that there is no indication that this despot being referred to is actually

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Jesus. And I'm almost certain R .C. Sproul did not use that argument from my memory, and forgive me those who love

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Dr. Sproul if I'm mistaken, but I'm almost certain he said that Peter was referring to people according to their own profession.

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You know, they are claiming that the Lord died for their sins, but they're denying him afterward.

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But anyway, if you could give me an exegesis of what you think that means because of the word despot being there, and then you could also obviously explain what you mean by it in your subtitle.

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Yeah, sure. That's a great question. And when you think about the word despot, I wanted to entitle the book just King and just talk about Jesus as the

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King, but this was with day one, and they wanted a little bit longer title. And so we went with the subtitle,

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Bowing to the Gracious Despot. And there too, like these root words, you think, okay, what is a despot?

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The first part is from damas, which we would get a house or, you know, domicile.

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And then you've got the P -O -T there at the end. And so you can think of potentate, you know,

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Lord or ruler. He's sovereign over everything. And over time, that word has taken on a very negative connotation.

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It, by its own meaning, it doesn't mean negative, and it certainly could mean something like tyrannical, but in and of itself, it doesn't have to mean something that's negative.

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And so when you go to the New Testament and look at Jude chapter one, verses three and four, and second

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Peter, as you noticed, and some other places, that Greek word is used.

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And so then what do we mean by the word despot? And masters found in this parallel passage, second

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Peter, chapter two, one to three, that word that's used in Jude for despoton is used.

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And so here's what happens. There's really two arguments here. Is it okay to use despot of Jesus, or if in fact, it's not

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Jesus of God the Father, but then what does the verse mean? So let me first tell you what

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I think the verse means, and then I'll get back to the despot, because it says there false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false prophets among you who secretly introduced destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them.

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And so the big argument swirls around the implications of the atonement, and is the atonement limited to the elect, or is it indefinite?

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Is it a particular redemption, or is it everybody that Jesus dies for? And this is a very difficult verse, maybe the hardest verse.

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So you either have to look at the word, the master who bought them. The word bought there is a little bit different than our typical redeemed word, so some people use that.

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Some people play around with the word master, as you were talking about, but I basically think he's dealing with these false teachers that were

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Jewish. And if you think about getting bought by something, what do you think of?

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My mind immediately goes back to Exodus, and he has brought these people out of the land of Egypt, and he bought them out of slavery.

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So he's talking to Jewish people. It's not a matter of the atonement being limited or unlimited. I mean, everywhere the

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Bible teaches limited atonement, why wouldn't it here? He's not talking about that. He says he's denying the master.

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These people deny the master who brought these Israelites out of slavery.

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So it's just an economy of terms when it comes to the word bought. So all that to say, the word despot is used there, and I think he's using it of the

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Lord. Unlike Jude 4, R .C. is right in the sense that he's not specifically saying

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Jesus, but this parallel passage in Luke 4 makes me think, you know what? This is the

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Lord Jesus, and describing Jesus as a despot, then you have to ask yourself the question, how is he a despot?

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And is he a tyrannical despot? Is he a beneficial despot? Or as I try to say in the book, is he a gracious despot?

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So I know we've got about five different arguments going there, so in summary, I would say Jude 4 makes it clear it is of Jesus, and I think

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I tend to think it's Jesus in 2 Peter 2, because this is such a parallel passage about this great

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God who saved Israel out of Egypt. Oh, so he's not referring to Jesus' redemption on Golgotha or Calvary, he's referring to the

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Egyptian deliverance. Well, if Jesus, in fact, bought people and paid the ransom from them, this is where it becomes such a difficult problem.

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Then, of course, I think they're going to be going to heaven, but these false teachers aren't going to be going, so what kind of redemption really was it?

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Yeah, well that's where we, who are Reformed, look at the redemption that is claimed by non -Calvinists as being impotent.

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It's really a hypothetical redemption, not an actual one. In fact, there have been a few

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Arminians who have been bold enough and consistent enough to say that no one was actually redeemed on Calvary's cross.

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The only time that completes that act that Jesus performed on Calvary is when someone accepts it.

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Most Arminians are not that consistent logically, but there are some who are theologians especially who recognize that there is an inconsistency.

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In fact, there are some that are logically consistent enough that they reject, and I think that they rightfully reject,

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I'm not saying that they rightfully reject it as a good thing, but it's a rightful rejection of the term substitutionary atonement because it does not really fit into the theological scheme of those who are not

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Reformed, who deny particular redemption and definite atonement. Yeah, that's right, and so here's what I would say.

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There are verses that would seem to teach, oh, I don't know, the deity of Christ and the

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Jehovah's Witness comes to the door and gives us a verse, and so what do we do with biblical hermeneutics? We always look at the one particular exception verse or a troubling verse.

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We look at that in light of the obvious and many verses. The few are the one in light of the many.

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That is biblical interpretation done rightly, but I've got friends who are unlimited atonement people, and they'll say, you know what, here, at least they say it functionally, here

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I'll look at the one or two verses not in light of the many. I have to look at the many that Jesus died for the church and for his sheep and for his people.

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I look at the many in light of this one, and second Peter chapter 2 verse 1 is the hard verse, and so that is the king's ex for everything, and I just think it's very simple when

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I see what's going on in second Peter with all these false teachers. God has redeemed the

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Israelites and bought them out of Egypt, and he saved them from the clutches of Pharaoh, and now you've got this bevy of false teachers looking to attract people and get them to follow themselves, and Peter says, listen, this is trouble looming.

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Be careful. Warning, these destructive heresies escort people straight to hell, and the master, the

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Lord, knows about these people, and of course second Peter goes on to say, and he's going to come back and make everything right.

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So I think we've got to look at this verse in light of the many, but I just take the bought as something that did happen, but it's not spiritual buying, it's the temporal buying out of the land of Egypt.

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And by the way, I think perhaps you misunderstood me a little bit in reference to Dr. Sproul.

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From my memory, and I'll have to follow up with some further investigation, I did not intend to say that Dr.

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Sproul was in disagreement with you over this being Jesus. I said that he believed, as far as I can remember, that he is referring to people according to their profession, that Peter is referring to people according to their profession that Jesus bought them.

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So where he would be in disagreement with you is that he was saying that it is referring to the cross, but it's referring to people according to the profession of what the cross meant to them.

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Right, yeah, I understand that view, and I would take it because it's not, you know, an unorthodox view or anything like that, it's just that the language seems pretty, to no pun intended, it seems pretty definite there that he actually bought, because the writer could say it was a potential buying, but he didn't say anything like that.

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But just generally speaking, Chris, when I think about the word despot that's used in 2

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Peter and in Jude, this is fascinating to me, because Jesus is called explicitly in Jude, and by inference in 2

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Peter, a despot. And can you imagine, here Jesus is this great ruler, and both in Jude and 2

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Peter, can you imagine the depths, the devilish depths of which the false teachers will go to try to usurp this great king?

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Jesus is the Lord, the Sovereign, and he's being renounced by these ungodly false teachers, and they're twisting grace into licentiousness.

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And so that just shows you how bad sin is, when these people try to say, we will not have this king, this man rule over us.

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And that's exactly what these false teachers are trying to do. They're trying to talk about, I think, polite ways, suitable, popular ways to talk about Jesus.

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And they might say that he's kind and he's nice, half -truths, of course he's a very kind man, he's the most kind ever,

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I know that. But they're trying to say everything about Jesus, except that he's sovereign and he's a despot.

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Because if he is sovereign and he's a despot in a wonderful way, they would have to repent, they would have to bow the knee.

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But they're going against Jesus's lordship and turning God's grace into shenanigans is what they're doing, and so that's why it's such a capital crime.

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I am going to forward you, before we go to the break, our first break, I'm going to forward you a question from our listener in Slovenia, Joe.

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This way you'll have it in front of you so that during the station break you can read it, and then

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I'll have you answer it when we return from the break. If anybody else would like to join us on the air with a question for Mike Ebendroff, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

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chrisarnson at gmail dot com. Please give us your first name, at least your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

30:14

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. And don't go away,

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God willing, we are going to be right back after these messages with more of Pastor Mike Ebendroff and our topic for today,

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The Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus. Don't go away. I am

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Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune into A Visit to the Pastor's Study every

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you're going to get an excellent gift. It is a book retailing for $15 by Dr.

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Eastern time and 4 .30 p .m. Eastern time, because that is when they are typically manning that phone line.

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If you are ordering online, you have to click on the instructions option when you place the order.

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So please do that for me, because it makes the world of difference when our advertisers know that you are responding to our ads here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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We are back now with our guest, Mike Abendroth, pastor of Bethlehem Bible Church of West Boylston, Massachusetts.

38:45

He's also an adjunct professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and an author of a number of books.

38:51

He is also a co -host of No Compromise Radio with Steve Cooley, who has been a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio several times.

39:02

Steve is a Mormon who became a Bible -believing Christian by his grace and mercy.

39:09

And we always love to have Steve on the program as well. We hope he's listening today. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

39:18

chrisarnsen at gmail .com. And before the break, I forwarded you an email from Slovenia from our friend

39:26

Joe in Slovenia. And he says, Dear brothers Chris and Mike, thanks for another significantly timely topic.

39:33

Please touch on the topic of Jesus as king in relation to baptism. I've noticed often that individuals claiming to be followers of Christ refuse to baptize because of some difficulty this will cause between them and family members.

39:48

Oh, I'm sorry, refuse to be baptized because of some difficulty this will cause between them and members of other religions who would not approve.

39:57

They state that they are waiting until family objections are removed.

40:03

Does scripture teach that new born -again believers are to be baptized as soon as is reasonably possible as a public proclamation of the disciples testimony of saving faith?

40:14

Or is it scripturally acceptable to postpone baptism until societal pressures against it have passed?

40:21

What, if anything, does refusing or delaying baptism say about one's relationship to King Jesus?

40:27

That's an excellent question because I sometimes feel like a very lonely voice amongst even

40:35

Reformed Baptists because I think that Baptists in general and perhaps even Reformed Baptists in particular are overly cautious in delaying baptisms because they want to make sure that every

40:48

I is dotted and every T is crossed before they dunk someone in the water and sometimes they will delay that for quite a long time and then you have your typical evangelical church that may have baptisms every

41:04

Easter once a year so somebody's got to wait a year before they go to the beach or something to be baptized.

41:12

Yeah, some people you know will wait until it's warm so that they can be baptized at the beach or some people want to wait till they fly to Israel and they could be baptized in the

41:20

Jordan. I mean is there any biblical warrant for that kind of thing? Well Joe has a great question like you said

41:27

Chris and before I answer that the last book that I read and just put in my briefcase to take back to the church is

41:34

Joel Beeky's book on assurance and I can assure your listeners that that would be an excellent book and I think it did stem from his doctoral studies but he's written it in a layperson's level so people can deal with it.

41:47

What's the difference between objective assurance and subjective assurance and do we only examine ourselves or do we look to the cross etc so just to put a plug in for that excellent book by Joel Beeky.

42:00

That was providential that you just put that in your briefcase. Yeah see how that is? So fortuitous, so lucky, so I mean the chances are that fate would have us so meet.

42:14

Anyway when it comes to, by the way I think in Ephesians tikkitus means chance or lucky and I don't think

42:23

Paul ever changed his name because I think tikkitus, every time Paul looked over at tikkitus and he just thought you know what we used to think it was just you know pure luck and chance and serendipity and we know it's all the sovereignty of God, God near tikkitus before he was ever born.

42:38

It's pretty amazing. Yeah so to the question of baptism, the second part of the book

42:44

I thought you know what I want to relate areas of our response to God to God's kingship.

42:52

In other words since Jesus is a king how should we preach? How should we pray? What about worship?

42:59

I did not put a section in there on baptism but that I easily could have so the question specifically from Joe is let's say somebody from another religion doesn't like it that their child who now professes faith is going to get baptized.

43:14

Do we delay it? What do we do? You know if the matter is of Presbyterian Baptist you know arguments that's a completely different argument but here we have even in the 1689

43:27

I'm looking at it says those who do actually profess repentance towards God, faith in and obedience to our

43:33

Lord Jesus Christ are the only proper subjects of this ordinance. Baptism is an ordinance of the

43:40

New Testament ordained by Jesus Christ to be unto the party baptized a sign of his fellowship with him in his death and resurrection of being engrafted into him of remission of sins and of giving up into God through Jesus Christ to live and walk in newness of life and it is pretty clear that when you look in the

44:01

New Testament immediately clear is probably with the better word that after you profess faith and faith in Christ you should be baptized.

44:09

Now there are some practical things that you can work through maybe there's no water around you know you're in Antarctic or something maybe there's no water in the church although I've been in the

44:21

Czech Republic before and they said we'll see this lake behind us is where we baptize people and I said so you wait until spring if it's a winter profession of faith and said oh no we have a team of guys who hack through the ice to baptize people because we know we shouldn't wait very long and I thought how about that some people set up chairs some people set up communion some people preach and I'm on the team that chops the ice for baptism.

44:49

By the way I don't know if you've ever read an excellent biography by John Thornberry called

44:56

A Pastor in New York the Life and Times of Spencer Cohn but he speaks of his own baptism which was on my birthday

45:05

February 14th but this was in the 19th century and he sawed through three feet of ice in a lake so that the pastor the local baptist pastor could baptize him because he did not want to wait a day longer after he came to a genuine repentance and faith and in Jesus Christ.

45:28

Absolutely well I've heard many stories about people they're in the hospital close to their deathbed or they're on their deathbed and they make a profession and they'd like to be baptized and so the pastor would go into the hospital room and do that and the real issue is since Jesus is the king we want to respond to him and the first command in light of our salvation is not give it's not even evangelize it's you know you can't find it's not to pray

45:57

I mean a lot of those things would probably just happen normally and naturally but it's to be baptized and it's almost like when you see

46:07

Peter in Acts chapter 2 his last line of the sermon was let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both

46:17

Lord and Christ this Jesus whom you crucified now it's fine to tell people to repent while you're preaching it's fine to tell them to believe in Jesus obviously but Peter didn't do either of those and the next line in Acts 2 37 is now when they heard this they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles brothers what shall we do this is fascinating they were not even told to repent and believe but they wanted to respond they knew that this declaration the gospel the good news proclamation demanded a response it wasn't neutrality that wasn't an option it wasn't denial it had to be something else and so Peter then said repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the

47:06

Holy Spirit so what happens is we have now in some reformed baptist circles and other churches as well a very scrutinizing examination and how much do you need to know about Jesus and how much change in your life needs to take place before you get baptized

47:23

I think you know for us as Baptists if somebody is a brand new

47:28

Christian and they want to get baptized how deep or the will their theology be if they think they're going to get saved by the baptism that we don't want to do that we want to explain it but we want them to be able to articulate the gospel and beyond that I think our responsibility is to simply baptize them if the person says

47:47

I don't want to get baptized because I'm going to get kicked out my family then they need to get kicked out of their family there is a cost to follow the

47:55

Lord Jesus Christ and so there needs to be as soon as your church is able to baptize you and that means maybe an interview with an elder or two maybe they've got to fill up the tank maybe they've got to you know rent the jacuzzi maybe they chop the ice but as soon as it is you're able to do it

48:13

I think you should get baptized because Jesus is Lord and he does command baptism baptism is not a negotiable option it's a command and so it is in response to the salvation that God has given us and we are to respond with faith and repentance we also to be baptized there was a lady at our church 20 years ago and her parents were

48:36

Roman Catholic and they said if you continue to go to Bethlehem Bible Church we will not pay for your college education because she was here for college and she said what do

48:46

I do and you say to her you say to the family I love you and everything else but I'm going to keep attending if you don't want to pay my college then don't pay my college but she backed off and she said okay

48:57

I'll go back to the Catholic Church because I want college paid for and so if you're going to do that kind of thing

49:02

I just think you don't recognize Jesus as sovereign as king as despot as Lord yeah in fact the reasons that Joe brought up not that he has these excuses but that some others have those excuses those are the worst excuses to wait for societal arguments against you to subside is like the worst reason to wait to do something in obedience to Christ I mean people are risking their lives not only today in other parts of the world to be baptized but especially in the in the first century people were risking their lives being baptized yeah so basically what happens is it's 63

49:42

AD you know what I make a professional faith in Christ Jesus and believe if I wait a little bit longer maybe

49:48

Herod won't maybe Nero won't be so angry and then in you know a couple years later he torches

49:55

Rome and then it was even worse it's not going to get any better society is not going to applaud the real

50:01

Jesus or baptism and the folks in the New Testament the Jewish ones when they were baptized in the name of Jesus or in the triune

50:08

God they were out of the synagogue out of economic society out of religious society we've seen it today with Muslims and when

50:15

Muslims believe in Christ Jesus and want to get baptized they might get tracked down to be killed but still we say to them in honor of the

50:25

Lord because he is now your sovereign king and you recognize that you've bowed to him

50:30

God commands you to be baptized and you need to be obedient to the ordinance of baptism well thank you

50:37

Joe in Slovenia thank you for the United States mailing address where your daughter lives in Georgia because you have won a free copy of the

50:48

Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus and that will be shipped to her by Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service cvbbs .com

50:57

keep spreading the word about Iron Trip and Zion Radio in Slovenia and beyond and I'm going to go to our midway break right now it's it's quite a long break it's 12 minutes because Grace Life Radio in Lake City Florida 90 .1

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FM there in Lake City they require a 12 -minute break between our two hours so we're going to go to that break now and while we are on that break to make use of the time to write questions to our guest

51:24

Mike Ebendroff at chrisarnsen at gmail .com c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com

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and as always please give us your first name your city and state and country of residence if you live outside the

51:37

USA only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter you may wonder why I repeat that over and over and over again but still to this day almost every week people will send in a question and they will not give me their city state and country so that's why

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I repeat it over and over and over again so uh please do that unless you're writing anonymously and don't go away

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God willing we are going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors with more of Mike Ebendroff and the sovereignty and supremacy of King Jesus.

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And I am honored that Solid Ground Christian Books chooses to use a considerably large portion of their budget to advertise with us and keep

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. I thank all of you listening so much who have been ordering many books from Solid Ground Christian Books and have been telling them that you heard about Solid Ground Christian Books from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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That means the world to me. I keep hearing wonderful reports back from Mike Gaydosh, the founder of Solid Ground Christian Books.

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He reads me names very long that I have to, the list of names very long, so long that I have to say, okay, that's enough.

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You don't have to keep reading. Otherwise, we would be on the phone with each other all night.

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But I am so delighted that so many of you are responding to these ads. And keep in mind that if you want to make the $50 mark or exceed the $50 mark with Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, another advertiser of mine, you can go to solid -ground -books .com,

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make a list of as many books that they publish that you want to purchase, and then go to cvbbs .com

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and buy them from cvbbs .com. Because cvbbs .com is not a publisher.

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They are a book distributor. And Solid Ground Christian Books is a publisher. So therefore, you can order

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Solid Ground Christian Books titles from cvbbs .com, and you can kill two birds with one stone and make both of my advertisers who are involved in Christian books very happy.

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So in this way, you can also make or exceed that $50 mark to get the free copy of Joel Beeky's book, which is a $15 value, as I said earlier, the book on assurance that Dr.

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Beeky wrote. But before I return to my guest, Mike Ebendroth, on our theme,

01:03:11

The Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus, just have a couple of announcements. First of all, the

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G3 Conference is going to be here before you know it, January 17th through the 20th.

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It begins on the 17th with a Spanish speaking edition of the conference in the daytime.

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And then the English portion is launched on the evening of January 17th with a debate between my friend

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Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and a Muslim apologist. Then the actual

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English speaking edition of the conference starts on Thursday, January 18th and continues through the 20th.

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It's on the theme, Knowing God, a Biblical Understanding of Discipleship. And the speakers include

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Stephen Lawson, Votie Baucom, Phil Johnson, Keith Getty, H .B. Charles Jr., Tim Challies, Josh Bice, James White, Tom Askell, Anthony Mathenia, Michael Kruger, David Miller, Paul Tripp, Todd Friel, Derek Thomas, Martha Peace, Justin Peters, and Stephen Nichols.

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If you're wondering what the G's stand for, it's Grace, Gospel, and Glory. And if you want to register, go to g3conference .com,

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g3conference .com. Please make sure you tell them that you heard about the

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G3 Conference from Chris Arnzen and I, Intrepid Design Radio. And by the way, you could go to that website not only to register as an audience member, but you can register to have your own exhibitors booth there as well.

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I will be manning an exhibitors booth there, God willing, for I, Intrepid Design Radio. And if you have a business, or a ministry, or a church, or a parachurch organization that you want to have present there or representation there at the

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G3 Conference, there will be thousands of people there. This would be an ideal place for you to have an exhibitors booth.

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So go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com, and just click around until you find where you can register for an exhibitors booth.

01:05:14

And now is the least favorite, most uncomfortable portion of the program that I am conducting because of the pressure that I've received from my advertisers for quite a long time, who have been rightfully pressuring me to make public appeals for donations and for more advertisers.

01:05:36

My advertisers want me to remain on the air. They don't want me to disappear. So they have been pressuring me for a long time to make public appeals.

01:05:43

I finally broke down a number of months ago after years of never making a single public appeal for donations.

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And so I am urging you, if you really love this program, if you don't want it to go away, please go to ironsharpensirenradio .com,

01:05:59

click on support, and you will see a mailing address where you can mail a check for any amount that you can afford made payable to Ironsharpensirenradio.

01:06:09

And as I try to remember to remind you, there is a caveat. I do not want anybody to ever siphon money out of their regular giving to their local church.

01:06:20

And if you're not a member of a Bible -believing church near you, then you are living in disobedience to God, unless you are prayerfully seeking one out, of course.

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And you must rectify that situation as soon as possible. But please never siphon money out of your regular giving that you're accustomed to to your local church.

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Never take food off of your family's dinner table or put your family in some kind of financial jeopardy by providing for Ironsharpensirenradio .com,

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because those two things are commands of God, providing for your family and providing for your church.

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Providing for Chris Arnzen and Ironsharpensirenradio .com is not a command of God. But if you are blessed above and beyond your financial ability to obey those two commands, then please consider helping

01:07:06

Ironsharpensiren remain on the air, if indeed you do love the program and don't want it to go away.

01:07:12

I thank all of you who have been sending in checks. Some of you have been mailing me checks every week, which is totally amazing to me.

01:07:21

And I thank God for all of you who send in checks, no matter how big or small. And I can never explain to you in the

01:07:28

English language how grateful I am to God for you. So thank you so much for that.

01:07:33

If you want to advertise with us, whether it is your church, your parachurch organization, your business, your professional practice, whether you're a doctor, a lawyer, a dentist, a chiropractor, whether it's just a special event you're having, as long as whatever it is you're advertising does not militate against the theology of Ironsharpensirenradio .com,

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I would love to help you launch an ad campaign so that we could obviously take advantage of those advertising dollars, which we urgently need.

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Just send me an email to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, and put advertising in the subject line, and we would love to work with you to launch that campaign as soon as possible.

01:08:11

But now we are back to our discussion on the sovereignty and supremacy of King Jesus with our guest,

01:08:18

Mike Abendroth, who is the author of a book by the same name. If you'd like to join us on the air, the question of your own for Pastor Mike, our email address is

01:08:28

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. So, Pastor Mike, what would be some of the things that motivated you to write this book?

01:08:38

You know as a Calvinist yourself that there are a host of books written on the sovereignty of God.

01:08:46

There are a host of books that are championing the cause of the sovereignty of God, that very doctrine.

01:08:56

You could go to every reformed publisher, and they will certainly have many books on that issue.

01:09:03

Why did you think that there was a need for another one to be added to the libraries of studious

01:09:09

Christians? Great question. I was in the car with Sinclair Ferguson. How do you like that for a name drop right there?

01:09:17

Oh, and by the way, if Phil Johnson gets sick and can't make it to G3, I'll fill in for him.

01:09:28

And so Sinclair asked me what I was doing, and I said, well, I'm writing a book. And he said, oh, great.

01:09:33

You know, what's your book on? I said, it's my second book, and it's about Jesus and how he's sovereign over everything and how that may have implications on our lives.

01:09:42

And he looked at me, and he said, I wish I could give you the Scottish accent. He said, it'll never sell. That's funny, because he said the same thing to Derek Thomas, because they collaborated on the book

01:09:54

Icthys, God, the Son, or the Son of God, our

01:09:59

Messiah or Savior. And he said the very same thing and still went through with writing the book with Derek Thomas on that subject.

01:10:09

Yeah, well, it's interesting if you say to yourself, what kind of books sell? And most of the books are practical or how -to or on marriage or sex or who knows what.

01:10:18

But books about Jesus, why don't they sell? And why would that not have a bigger attendance at a conference if Jesus was the main theme versus a pragmatic how -to approach?

01:10:29

And so those questions are probably for another show. I try to write every book for the congregation that I pastor, and if they can benefit, great.

01:10:36

And then if it goes beyond the walls of the church building, then that's wonderful as well. It started off,

01:10:42

I was in Santa Cruz, California in the mid -90s, and Robert Godfrey, who was at the time the president,

01:10:49

I believe, maybe just a professor at Westminster Seminary Escondido, and he was preaching from Hebrews chapter 4.

01:10:57

And he was creating a scenario about Near Eastern throne rooms and how it's important to see

01:11:04

God as a king and how that would help us worship him better and respond to him rightly.

01:11:12

And then he showed a variety of different examples about kings on earth, and he was talking about throne rooms that are small and throne rooms that were always and only, and even in the

01:11:23

Old Testament, thrones of judgment. And so if you would go into a throne room of a king, you would certainly be judged, and sometimes they might tie a knife under your chin so you'd have to look at the king in his face.

01:11:38

Sometimes you weren't allowed to look at the king, but it was this idea of a very lofty throne, maybe surrounded by carved lions, maybe real lions were there, even

01:11:53

Solomon's hall of judgment. It was called in 1 Kings chapter 7, and Godfrey was painting this picture.

01:12:01

And I thought, that's exactly right. And you're thinking in the Old Testament and in the Near Eastern culture, every time you'd think of throne, you would just respond with fill in the blank throne of judgment.

01:12:13

You were going to get judged. And then to think in amazing fashion, because God is not just just and holy, he has a throne, but what does

01:12:24

Hebrews chapter 4 say when it comes to the throne room? Now remember, the book of Hebrews is written to people who would know the

01:12:31

Old Testament and know about thrones of judgment and halls of judgment and what it was like to go before a king's throne.

01:12:41

You wouldn't just saunter on in, it was going to be judgment for you. And he writes in Hebrews 4 .16,

01:12:48

which was Godfrey's text, let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

01:12:59

And I was just blown away by that, thinking that because of the Lord Jesus Christ and his work for us, both his perfect life and then his substitutionary death confirmed by the resurrection, we don't go to God now for judgment, even though we deserve it for certain.

01:13:16

Jesus has taken that. So now when we come to the throne room of God, it's no longer a hall of judgment.

01:13:22

It's not a throne of judgment, it's a throne of grace. And I thought, I've got to dive into this more because it's changing the way

01:13:28

I think about God when I'm understanding what it's like to live in his kingdom and even to herald his word as a preacher, and I need to study this more.

01:13:39

So that was the cauldron of ideas that were kind of bubbling over that made me think,

01:13:45

I not only need to study this, but study to the point where I can write a book about it. Amen. How do you respond to those outside of the doctrines of sovereign grace, outside of Reformed theology?

01:13:58

And this phrase comes up a lot. I'm sure it has come up a lot with you. You probably speak with a lot more people than I do.

01:14:08

And the phrase is, when they hear or when they just react to a presupposition they have about what we believe, even if it is filled with inaccuracies, they will say,

01:14:25

I would never worship a god that you Calvinists believe exists.

01:14:32

In fact, someone on a guest of mine on my program recently said that very phrase.

01:14:39

A brother in Christ who denies the doctrines of sovereign grace, we were not discussing that as our main theme, obviously, but that just came up.

01:14:49

And how do you respond to something like that? And first of all, why don't you give us some reasons why you think people say that?

01:14:58

Yeah, well, Chris, I think, while I'm not a mind reader or anything like that, I know a lot of people, and now that I'm getting older,

01:15:04

I've seen a lot of people and dealt with them, whether they're charismatic, seeker -sensitive, Calvinist, Hindu, I mean, whatever you are.

01:15:10

I've now had almost six decades of living to experience some of it. We, as Christians, have had our eyes, you know, if since God, I mean, third -class conditional if, but since God is sovereign, the only reason we recognize him as so sovereign is because it's a gracious act of God.

01:15:31

I'm not better than any Arminian or, you know, an unbeliever or anything like that. And I'm not saying unbelievers are

01:15:37

Arminian, but they're both rejecting the ultimate sovereignty of God. So, I say to myself, why do

01:15:43

I know it and other people don't? I mean, what's the root cause? And lots of those questions come up.

01:15:49

I think, at the end of the day, sometimes it's biblical ignorance that people just don't know.

01:15:55

They're so influenced by free will thinking and, you know, I need to love, like, something that's not a robot and everything else.

01:16:01

You just don't know what the Bible teaches. Maybe it's pride. I do know this, that when

01:16:07

I was a kid and played in the sandbox, I don't think our, you know, any kids now play in sandboxes unless there's a sandbox app on their phone.

01:16:19

I had little Civil War stick, you know, little army soldiers, and some of them were in blue outfits and some were in gray, and it was the

01:16:29

Yankees and the Americans, and they were against each other. Sorry, I was a

01:16:34

Yankee. I had green and gray. I had American GIs and Nazis, as far as I know.

01:16:40

I would be the final Yankee guy who killed all the Confederates and everybody else died, but I rescued everybody, and I was basically sovereign over those others, and we're sovereign because we act like we're sovereign because we're made in God's likeness and image, and I pick my wife,

01:16:58

I pick my kids' names, I pick the teams that I like to root for, etc.,

01:17:03

and so we like to choose things, but we don't like God to choose things when he's the ultimate sovereign.

01:17:09

It is a pride crusher to think he is sovereign over everything, including heaven, but friends who are listening who are struggling with this,

01:17:19

I understand that you struggle, but what you have to do is you have to submit yourself to the

01:17:24

Bible. It's not what I think or feel or group consensus or what my dad taught me. What does the scripture say?

01:17:32

Because, friend, if you're listening, don't you have to do this very same thing with the doctrine of hell? I don't want to believe it's true.

01:17:39

My feelings go against it. I know a lot of people who are decent citizens and they die and I know they're there and then they're going to be in the lake of fire.

01:17:49

Everything in me is repulsed against such a horrible, awful place where the unaffirled wrath of God is poured out, but what do

01:18:00

I have to do? I have to submit to scripture. I have to say, do you know what? What is truth and how does

01:18:05

God reveal truth and who was, as Donnelly called him, the theologian of hell, Jesus himself?

01:18:11

And so while I might not like doctrines, I have to submit to them and that's part of recognizing Jesus as the king and certainly

01:18:20

Jesus could have come along and said, you know, there's a lot of these doctrines about the sovereignty of God and Ecclesiastes and the sovereignty of God in Esther and the sovereignty of God in Genesis 37 to 50 with Joseph and these people meant it for evil and God meant it for good.

01:18:35

Those are all, you know, they're not the best manuscripts. They're kind of made up to kind of ease some of the tension, but Jesus didn't do that at all.

01:18:42

He affirmed the Old Testament and I need to have the same view of God that Jesus did and Jesus acknowledged

01:18:48

God as sovereign over everything. This is God's heaven and God makes things and we just need to submit to that and that's the most worshipful.

01:18:57

I would say to people who are listening, what's the most worshipful response to the sovereignty of God and that is praise and we don't have to know everything about it to praise him.

01:19:08

We just have to submit and to say, you know what, we will trust God and God put it in the scripture for a reason and the

01:19:14

Holy Spirit did not make a mistake when he had the Ephesians here from Paul and those who got that circular letter, the book of Ephesians, God is praised by Paul.

01:19:26

25 years after Damascus, he still had not gotten over it and he exalts God, the triune

01:19:31

God with praise and before he praises God for redemption found in Christ Jesus, he praises

01:19:37

God for unconditional election. The sovereign God didn't have to choose anyone.

01:19:43

He could have chosen everyone, but for his own purposes, he chose some and for those reasons, we ought to praise

01:19:50

God and I think I don't want to fall into the category of anti -semitism and why do people hate the

01:19:56

Jews? I think my personal response is because God chose the Jews and therefore everybody's against the sovereign hand of God and God chose the apostles, the 12 apostles.

01:20:08

He could have chose the others. God chose one -third of the angels. He could have chose none, but then he chose any.

01:20:13

That's the most amazing thing. And so when I think about God, the sovereign one who's on a throne of judgment and he puts his scepter out to me and says, because of the

01:20:25

Lord Jesus Christ, I'm not going to judge you. I'm going to redeem you and then

01:20:30

I'm going to adopt you and I'm going to punish my son instead of you and I've loved you in eternity past and I love you as much as I love my son because I'm going to place you in my son, in Christ.

01:20:42

Those things are amazing. I think sovereignty of God should, if sovereignty of God drives you to gnash your teeth, you need to humble yourself.

01:20:49

If sovereignty of God drives you to there's a transcendent God who loves me, that is amazing.

01:20:55

That is what it's designed to do. It is designed to tell us no matter what happens, we can be comforted.

01:21:02

It would behoove our listeners today to sit down in the next two days and read the book of Esther and read it in one sitting and you will say to yourself, even though I don't see the word

01:21:11

God anywhere, he's everywhere. And then when you read the Drudge Report or CNN or Fox News and things go bad, nuclear bombs, you'll say, you know,

01:21:21

God's not here. I can't see him visibly, but I see him everywhere in terms of scripture and I'm walking by faith.

01:21:28

God's sovereign over everything and I think you'll be comforted. Yes, obviously the thing that will come up is that people find it abhorrent that there are hosts of humanity who will go to hell.

01:21:52

Even somebody who's an annihilationist believes that there is damnation that most of humanity will receive, unless you are a universalist, a full -blown universalist, which has its own very dangerous problems because they're giving multitudes of people false hope and no reason to repent and believe.

01:22:17

But the fact that people find it abhorrent that God has chosen some people to rescue those people out from the same lump of clay that all of humanity comes from and that he chose to not only adopt those people out of that lump, but to give them new hearts and breathe new life into them and preserve them until they one day enter into heaven with Christ and others are being left to be condemned in their own sin, that is something abhorrent to people.

01:23:01

But they are really typically operating under some kind of delusion that every human has some kind of equal opportunity to hear the gospel and embrace it and they discount the fact that there have been millions of people who have lived and died who had never truly never had the opportunity to hear the gospel.

01:23:23

What happens to those people? And then you have even today, you have people being raised in the safety of a

01:23:29

Christian home in the Bible belt as opposed to somebody being born in the Middle East to very strict fundamentalist

01:23:37

Muslim parents where if they were to come to faith in Christ they could be executed.

01:23:42

This whole concept of this safe or this equal playing field as it were where it doesn't exist in an

01:23:50

Arminian construct. So they really have no footing or no place to stand in opposition against Calvinism with some kind of a logical reason that that their concept of God is fairer than ours.

01:24:08

I mean it doesn't really make any sense if you really examine it thoroughly. Yes, well what happens is people basically cut and paste what they like and what they don't like and it's sad but you know they they will reject

01:24:22

Romans 9 because these days sadly you can just go to the internet and find some kook and he says something about Romans 9 and now

01:24:29

I can just discount it. But we're talking about the we're talking about the nature of God and God being a holy judge.

01:24:38

I mean he could be the holy sovereign and the despot who judges but this is

01:24:43

God's right. He's the creator and we're creatures and we're finite and he's infinite and Paul's language and of course remember in Romans 9 he you can see how emotionally upset he is that there are

01:24:59

Israelites that aren't going to go to heaven and he is moved by that. But when it comes to then somehow finding fault with God as a pastor of course

01:25:09

I want to be kind with people and nice but at the end of the day Paul the kind and nice one too says

01:25:16

God can do whatever he wants and when you start finding fault with God and you're saying that's not fair and why are you doing this and God nobody can resist your will you need to be told friend to just be quiet you're getting yourself into trouble by talking more.

01:25:33

There's plenty of proverbs about keeping your mouth shut and not running your mouth especially before God because you have been made and you better not say why have you made me like this.

01:25:44

God does what he wants as often as he wants and that he would save anyone. Can you imagine we all deserve that final judgment that everlasting judgment yet God adopts us and gives us access to him and conforms us to Christ and I mean the list goes on Jesus interceding for us as mediator.

01:26:07

I think a lot of it just has to do with pride they want to create a God who isn't as sovereign and he's not really

01:26:15

God but I understand why they do it that is to say judgment is so awful at least they got that they've got that part right but God does things and even when you ask yourself the question listener why does

01:26:29

God damn anyone if he could save everyone. Romans does give us the answer what if God wanting to show his wrath and to make his power known endured with much long -suffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he prepared beforehand for glory.

01:26:52

That's not all the answer and there are things about God that only he knows but that is revealed to us so that's one of the answers.

01:26:58

Our response has to be belief and submission. And how on earth is a

01:27:06

God more merciful and gracious and loving if he says to wicked lost humanity well this is really in the long run going to be up to you

01:27:21

I've already provided the way of salvation but it's going to be up to you to conquer the world the flesh and the devil and on your own ultimately even though I'll be giving you ways of help here and there but ultimately it's going to be you on your own deciding where you are going to be spending eternity and that is supposed to be more gracious and loving and merciful of God and even they know those who object to Calvinism who are not universalists they know that most of humanity is not going to be able to do that and that's why you have all kinds of bizarre theories like the roman catholic church's invincible ignorance teaching that which they have really broadened to a great much greater number of people than even the catholic church originally intended that to mean and you have people who

01:28:23

I don't know if you've ever heard of the term transdispensationalism where some folks believe that there may be a second chance after death to receive or reject

01:28:35

Christ you know things like that that are totally foreign to the scriptures because people even know instinctively at least many of them that even the arminian concept does not really give a full picture of some kind of a merciful and loving

01:28:51

God in the way that they want to describe fairness on human terms well that's right and you think about just how visceral the reaction is to this sovereignty of God and election and predestination

01:29:07

I mean people just freak out Herman Melville I say in the book wrote Moby Dick because he disliked

01:29:13

Calvinism and God's sovereignty Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher was basically a metaphor for the fall of Calvinism I mean you did have some literature like Robinson Crusoe with Daniel Defoe which talked about you know the doctrine of election but people just don't like this

01:29:32

I mean to pick out and to select and to gather God choosing but when

01:29:37

God wanted to show himself to Moses Moses said show me your glory and when

01:29:42

God passed by Moses what was his essence I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I'll have compassion on whom

01:29:49

I have compassion and that is exactly who God is and it's not going to help you listener if you don't like some of this stuff when you start reading the rest of the

01:29:59

Old Testament because when people are calf worshippers God kills them and he should have killed the entire nation but he only slew 3 ,000 insurgents why he sovereignly chose not to slay all the guilty because he's sovereignly merciful and compassionate they all deserve to be killed but he didn't kill them all because his sovereignty isn't only in judgment his sovereignty is also in grace it was

01:30:27

John Gershner R .C. Sproul's mentor that would say grace is a sovereign grace it's a redundancy but it's a blessed redundancy and so I would tell my friends who are

01:30:37

Arminian who would see and hate Calvinism forget

01:30:42

Calvinism for a second what about the text why did he only kill 3 ,000 and are not the whole nation because it's sovereign grace it's a wonderful thing the sovereign grace of God and of course there are many examples you could go on and on the ark that you know rescued

01:31:02

Noah and his family and so on why did the angels who came to Sodom and Gomorrah have no word of hope to the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah other than Lot's family and so on I mean you could go on and on and on the angels weren't walking around the streets of Sodom and Gomorrah preaching the gospel or any kind of giving them any kind of message of hope and deliverance there are too many instances in the scripture to even count as to God's having a certain elect people that he is going to rescue leaving others to be condemned for their own wickedness and in fact when we come back from the break

01:31:51

I hear over and over and over again people confusing equal ultimacy with double predestination and they think that we are saying that God has to supernaturally intervene in even the lives of the lost to make them unworthy of heaven as if they were somehow morally neutral and spiritually neutral before that intervention they think that God is doing is equally doing a supernatural work in the lives of the reprobate as he is with the lives of the elect and what

01:32:36

I mean by that is they think that that's what we are saying but perhaps you could respond to that when we come back from our final break it's going to be a shorter one so don't go away we'll be right back unwilling with Mike Ebenroth Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said give yourself unto reading the man who never reads will never be read he who never quotes will never be quoted he will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves he has no brains of his own you need to read solid ground

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we are back now with our guest mike abendroff and he is pastor of bethlehem bible church in west boylston massachusetts he's also an author he's the co -host of no compromise radio and today we have been discussing the sovereignty and supremacy of king jesus was all which is also a title of one of his books and our email address is chrisarnson and we do have a couple of listeners who are waiting to have their questions asked and answered by you but if you could before we go to any of them uh pastor mike if you could explain the difference between equal ultimacy and double predestination there seems to be a confusion by a lot of people who are the opponents of reform theology and there are also some naively uh within the calvinistic camp that actually feed into this misconception because they themselves wrongly understand election and reprobation in that manner but if you could uh explain to our listeners the difference between the two sure well what we're trying to do is figure out essentially how god works and how he operates and is he equally active in causing uh election and then causing damnation is it i think in rc sproles book uh chosen by god he's got a good appendix there about asymmetrical predestination and showing some differences in how they don't have the same stresses in scripture if you want to think logically and systematically and god's sovereign over everything then then you're going to run more into the equal uh view that he elects and he damns with the same kind of uh sovereign control yet scripture it's fascinating you see the predestination unto life as the typical refrain and then the typical refrain in scripture would be he passes over or he or he leaves them to be judged by their own work that's the way our confession describes it in the 1689 london that that's exactly right and so what happens is there are verses like romans 9 and first peter 2 8 and exodus 33 and other verses that would show more god's active um um role in that but the reformers are trying especially the in 1689 they're trying to make it so uh they reflect the tenor of scripture but what i would say to those friends who are struggling with that there are actually bigger struggles because if you go to romans 5 um we are we are sinners antecedent to and independent of any personal transgression as one of the authors have written adam was a public person and adam was on trial and probation in the garden and what he did affected all of us it's called federal headship and so i'm a sinner because of a adam's first sin credited to my account and then consequently i'm sinful and i have a sinful nature uh but that whole chapter romans 5 is about verses 12 and following about god's representative action the first adam and the last adam and so if people want to say well how can this be fair we've got predestination and damnation and are they equal i i would say you just need to keep backing up even farther into time because what adam did has affected us and actually we like don't we that we have a federal head because we now know that jesus is the federal head for all those who would believe as one man used to say when your dad strikes oil everybody gets rich we have a representative the lord jesus christ our older brother and so should we not like it god just does things differently and god works federally and covenantally and so he has adam put on probation he's sinned but she wasn't the federal head it wasn't her sin counted to our account accredited to our county was adam's sin and so when we struggle with things like double predestination and uh passing over keep studying the bible keep reading the confessions keep reading books that would talk about it and i think eventually as you the listener study this you'll say you know what yes this is difficult it's hard but when i think of predestination i have to remember i don't deserve it and ephesians 1 says in love he predestined us and this is this is unto life and what are my options post -destination god looks down the time and determines destiny based on me the only reason anyone is ever saved is not found in that person it's found in the sovereign grace of god because sin is so enslaving and satan is so blinding and so we need a savior and that savior is a sovereign savior and it's developed in scripture in such a way that you will say hallelujah and you'll have to just bow and say i just have to be quiet and submit to this and so we don't believe especially reformed baptists and the london baptist confession in the equal emphasis on predestination and damnation although i see how you can work through that logically uh the 1689 i know is trying to say there are many verses where god will judge based on the person's works and so it'll put a focus on a heavy focus on the responsibility of man which of course we would believe okay we have uh let's see we have susan margaret in dalphin county pennsylvania who says i have heard of a certain group of calvinists who seem to be denying that man has any kind of a free will which i do not believe is historically accurate due to what i have learned from reformed giants of the faith who have written over centuries it would also seem to deny that men are sinning willfully if they do not have any kind of a free will could you explain this according to historic biblical accuracy okay good question susan i'm uh one of the reasons why we tend and many reformers tend to not use the word free will or the term free will is because uh it's it's there's so much misunderstanding about it it's a very fluid term and so when people say free will what do we mean by the words free will what happens to a person's will at the fall when adam sinned what happened to his will his mind emotions his body was he affected by the fall and so uh people i believe have a will now and they freely exercise that will but they freely exercise that will only for evil and for sin and they just choose um based on their nature and i think when i try to first explain it and just even with a show a radio show we don't have tons of time your will is always connected to your nature and so if your nature's fallen i don't mean you susan but a person's nature's fallen they will exercise that will freely based on the constraints of the nature and so if now someone's born again they can also freely choose things based on their nature uh we have a problem with free will because we somehow think that that limits people and i would say move forward in time to heaven and glory uh is there really a free will in heaven well you'll be tied to a nature that will not allow you to sin and you won't even want to sin or think about sin and so when it comes to reformers some would talk about free will but most would be very clear to say how sin has affected the will and we need free grace when you do some studying back to piggies for instance i mean that's an interesting way to name a man but uh um you know you've got the power of good or evil in yourself you know the power of contrary choice as an unbeliever but calvin and the other reformers rejected him and they would say man has no longer a free choice within themselves because adam sinned yes unregenerate men always choose to do what's according to their fallen heart but that is not what free will is a hodge said the real question is not as to the liberty of the will but as to the liberty of the man in willing that's an interesting quote so in summary man's will is fallen and you can look at second timothy chapter two for that satan is controlling the will of man that's certainly not free free from external influences like satan like the world i can't even watch a commercial for a for an rb sandwich without wanting some horsey sauce on it uh uh uh uh uh uh uh free from internal sin no no there's not freedom there but here's where free will ultimately has its little sticky wicket is is the will free from the external influence of god himself and that's where people don't like it that's where it ties into our show today god can go to the enslaved will of an unbeliever and and make him alive regenerate him monergistically any time he pleases he's not forced to do it but he based on his own nature and his own decisions in eternity past or his own agreement with the other members of the trinity would do that and so when people talk about free will it's an empty term today it's a vacuous term it doesn't really mean anything because unbelievers are not free to choose god they need a savior and so i don't use the word free will and that's why the reformers tried to stay away from it yes and if anybody wants some helpful uh uh resource for this whole idea of how calvinists historically have viewed the human will go to the 1689 london baptist confession of faith and in chapter 9 uh they the writers of the 1689 uh have a a section here on the will of man and in fact it is titled of free will and the first article in this chapter says god hath endued the will of man with that natural ability and power of acting upon choice that is neither forced nor by any necessity of nature determined to do good or evil and then if you skip down to the how the will is transformed the fourth uh part of that chapter uh says when god converts a sinner and translates him into the state of grace he freeth him from his natural bondage under sin and by grace alone enables him freely to will and do that which is spiritually good yet so as that by reason of his remaining corruptions he doth not perfectly nor let's see he doth not perfectly nor only will that which is good but doth also will that which is evil and then the last part says this will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone in the state of glory only so in other words we're going to be choosing good alone when we're in heaven but uh people do on this earth what they want to do and we what we want is determined by our nature correct that's exactly right and so you could ask yourself the question if uh people are listening uh did anybody ever come to jesus without the power of the holy spirit changing their will uh no wonder romans 9 says so it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs but on god who has mercy john chapter 1 we're not born of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of god in in the real sense god is the only one who has a free will he sits in the heavens he does whatever he pleases and uh i think once we we say to ourselves the will of an unbeliever is not the holy of holies where somehow god cannot enter god can do whatever he wants and he has to do it to save that person because we're so corrupt god can intervene in the human will and he must because uh satan is held holding this people these people captive to do his will and so uh i think even our our friends who are listening today they realize this is true when they pray for their unbelieving friends and family members because they pray god would you save them god would you open their eyes god would you give them a new heart god would you redeem them all things that god has to do to the nature and person and will of the other that he's acting upon amen well thank you susan margaret you have also won a free copy of the book we have been discussing the sovereignty and supremacy of king jesus uh so please make sure we have your full mailing address so that cumberland valley bible book service can ship that out to you we have harrison in mechanicsburg pennsylvania who says i have been hearing a lot of debating and arguing going on on the internet between calvinists some of whom believe that if you do not believe in the doctrines of sovereign grace or the five points of calvinism you are damned and therefore not a brother do you believe this no i don't believe this i think we're all born into this world pelagians thinking we're going to work our way to heaven and many people are not uh growing up in a reformed calvinistic church and so they get saved in an armenian church and they learn and grow and then they become more reformed and so i just think it would be unwise for me to say if you're an armenian uh you are not saved people believe in what's of in first importance and what's the first importance that christ the messiah died for our sins not his sins 1 corinthians 15 but for our sins and he is a sin bearer that's substitutionary language vicarious language he dined for us as a substitute and what did he do he was buried and he was uh he died he was buried he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures and so you can have this this immature view of the sovereignty of god and still trust in jesus i mean how much knowledge do you have to know about all the ins and outs of predestination to be saved i think you need to know you're a sinner and you need to know that jesus is a substitutionary savior of sinners who has been raised from the dead and he calls you to believe on his work and um i wouldn't go so far to say if you're if you're not a calvinist you're not saved i think as uh people say some of those things uh i i just it hurts the cause of christianity it hurts us as we work through these issues it's an us versus them i know they despise man -centered theology that's fine but pastorally this isn't the theological classroom this isn't the classroom where we're talking about do infants go to heaven or not when they die um that's fine in the classroom to talk about it but when you go bury babies and i buried them and uh held babies when you take them off of life support this is not the time when we talk about are all infants elect are not this is a pastoral time and so i just think some people on the internet confuse being a pastor and being in ministry and helping people with the argument black and white armenian calvinist if you're not a calvinist you're not going to heaven and those people uh probably it's good that they're not pastors because they need to just uh just soften their approach yes and they have to be humbled um in fact something that you just said is is connected to arnie and perry county pennsylvania's question he says isn't there a difference between actually denying the gospel and not understanding the invisible and the invisible things that are in the background of how god is orchestrating what takes place in the gospel i i think he's basically saying you can't you believe in the true gospel like someone who is a non -reformed person may uh do what the the simplicity of the gospel without having this understanding of the the sovereign god working behind the scenes and how all comes together well that's right and you think about jesus using the children as a backdrop against the rich young ruler in matthew chapter 19 what are children typified by they're typified by trusting and uh this is what the rich young ruler wouldn't do i'm not talking about ages of trying to get into heaven but children trust and jesus talks about like children these trusting children and so let's tie it back to our first hour when it comes to baptism and what do you need to know to get baptized i think you need to trust god and take him at his word that he's provided a substitute for you you deserve to be sacrificed he sacrifices his son in your place because he's going to hold up his justice at calvary but also show his love for sinners and here's this god man who who is your judge he created you he created the world you know by your own conscience and against him yet he he's kind and he forgives sinners and so what do we require at baptism do i ask them do they believe in symmetrical double predestination do i ask them about eternal sonship do i ask them about um good works and sanctification is it monergistic or synergistic i don't ask them any of those questions i talk about their sin and the savior of sinners and then i say based on your profession of faith it's my privilege to baptize you in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit do i ask them are they calvinistic are they five point do they know who the almaraltians are uh and you know i mean come on who are these people they need to be out there ministering to people and evangelizing versus spending their time doing these inane things that aren't helpful yes like wait a minute are you supra or infralapsarian well most people that talk about armenians not being christians i already think i know the answer to their question well uh we were run out of time and i want to make sure that our listeners have all of your contact information bbcchurch .org

01:58:57

is the website for bethlehem bible church in west boylston massachusetts that's bbcchurch .org

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and also no compromise radio can be found at no compromise radio .com any other contact information sure if want the book uh you can go to amazon to get a variety of books but there are a couple books that you can only get at no compromise radio .com