10-18-2020

Park Meadows Church

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All right. So, you know, you bring this up and talk about this in a little bit, but it says, known from eternity into time, and then out the other side of time into eternity.

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And that's kind of what's interesting that you find a lot in Romans chapter eight, verses 28 through 30.

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It spans all of known time, even before time began into time and out the other end when you're into eternity, what we call eternity future, which is kind of funny how we have to phrase it, but all of that's in those few verses.

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And we've been talking especially about verse 30, but verse 29 in Romans chapter eight says, for whom he did foreknow, then he also did predestinate.

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Now those two events took place before time began. So they're not in sequence.

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They are just now. God is now, right? I am. So they just both happened.

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One didn't cause the other. One didn't come before the other. They're just both a fact of before time started.

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God knew us with affection and love and individually knew us as his children. If you study everything the

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Bible teaches about foreknowledge, it's always about him seeing his people. It's not about seeing the acts of anything going on in the world.

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That would be omniscience that he knows everything that's going to happen. That's omniscience, but foreknowledge is about people.

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Very interesting. So he, for, you could say, if you wanted a great English translation, you'd say he for loved us because it's an affectionate term.

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And so he loved us and knew us before time began. And he predestinated us to be adopted into his family before time began.

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So that was long before you were here and I was here. And so we played no role in that.

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And that's where the Armenians get it so wrong. They think you've got to have some little human bit to help

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God with salvation. And it is so, so unnecessary and wrong.

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It brings glory to man, not where it should be with God. Jesus said, it's impossible for men to be saved.

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Check it out in the Bible. Jesus said it's impossible for men to be saved. He said, but nevertheless, all things are possible with God.

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So God has made a way for his own children to be brought to him.

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And that's what this is talking about. So obviously, and a lot of people don't like this passage. So they try to remove it.

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The great Charles Spurgeon said you'd have to take a pen knife and cut pages and pages out of the

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Bible to remove predestination from the Bible, to remove election from the Bible. He said, if you believe in your

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Bible, you can't remove it. You have to deal with it. And people don't like to, but why don't they like to?

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I have a feeling that born again people do like to look at this and think about it.

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Now there are born again people who don't know this yet. That's fine. But people who resist it, Charles Spurgeon had a problem believing they were really saved.

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Now I won't say I have a problem with that. I just won't say what I think about that, but I'll say what

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Charles Spurgeon thought about it. He didn't think a believer who's introduced to this and they push against it, he couldn't understand that from a spiritual viewpoint.

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Because once you understand it, you understand how special you are to God.

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You're his child and have been since before he made anything. And so who would push against that?

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Maybe only those who are not his children. I don't know. What do you think? I'll throw that out for you to think about it.

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But the same people, the same group of people that he foreknew and predestinated, now we come into time in verse 30.

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He called them and he justified them. Two things. He called them and then he justified them.

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And now we are in time, so we have a bit of a sequence. At least we can study this in sequence. But the truth is, when the

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Holy Spirit calls you, this is the effectual calling we're talking about. When he opens your eyes and ears and gives you life.

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While we were yet in our sins, hath he quickened us? You see, that's not me. It doesn't say, while we were yet in our sins, hath me quickened me.

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It doesn't have any me in it at all. It's he, it's God, the Father, the Son, and the

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Holy Spirit did all the work to save us, including changing our want to, to make us want to be saved.

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And you know, Arminians love to say, well, you try to make us like puppets and we're on a string and God just makes us do stuff.

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He makes us love him. Well, you know what? Humans, I've experienced this my whole life, and I'm sure you'd agree.

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Humans do what they want to do. That's why Adam and Eve got in trouble. They ate fruit because they wanted to, and God held them responsible for it.

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But at the same time, God knew they would eat the fruit. God had predestined that they would eat the fruit because without the fruit, you have no cross.

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And without the cross, you have no way of God to display the infinite love that he has for us to give his only son for us.

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So both are working together. The sovereignty of God and the will of man works together throughout

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Scripture. But to try to eliminate either one of those, you become a false teacher and you're believing in a false gospel.

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If you eliminate either one of those, the responsibility of man on one hand, sovereignty of God on the other, they both coexist all the time in God's mind, certainly in God's viewpoint.

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It's more difficult from man's viewpoint, but it's still just as real. So what did the

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Holy Spirit do? Listen, you'll never understand salvation and you will have it where man plays a role in his own salvation.

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But think about it. Every religion of the world, other than biblical Christianity, believes that man does save himself.

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The Buddhist believe that. Islam believes that. Hinduism believes that.

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Judaism bordered on that. So yeah, the religions of the world, they do believe man saves himself.

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But the Bible says man cannot save himself. And it starts not in John 3, 16, but it starts in Genesis 1, 2, and 3, where man fell in the

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Garden of Eden. They fell away from God. And then before that was over, they were hiding from God.

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And that is the teaching of the depravity of man. And it's all throughout Scripture from beginning to end.

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And unless you understand that, you'll never understand why a man cannot play a role in his own salvation. He doesn't want to.

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That's why he can't. You won't do anything you don't want to do. And the Bible says there is none that seeketh after God, not one.

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None. Not one seeks after God. So how can you have an Arminian gospel that says you have to decide to come to God and then he sees you do that so he elects you?

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That's nonsense because you won't decide to because you don't want to do it. You never will want to do it unless the

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Holy Spirit calls you. And when he calls you, and that's what it's talking about here in verse 30, those who he predestinated.

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You see, it doesn't say everyone. Now there is a sense in which the Holy Spirit calls everyone. That's called the universal call.

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And that means he sends the gospel out to everyone. There is a calling to every human.

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The elect will be saved by it and the non -elect will be judged by it because their conscience heard the calling too.

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Their conscience heard it, but their mind couldn't grasp it and wouldn't grasp it and didn't want it.

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So they will be judged by the same gospel that saves the elect. Right?

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That's the only sense in which Christ died for everyone. You can say he died for everyone if you want to, but it doesn't mean that he ransomed everyone.

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Study that. If you don't believe me, just check it out. Does not mean he ransomed everyone, but he died for everyone in the sense that he died for the non -elect so that they would be judged because God the

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Father is just going to ask, what did you do with my son? They're going to say, well, nothing. He's going to say, depart from me. I never knew you. But the reason that they had to depart from him was not because so much that they were evil and wicked, which they were, it's because God never knew them.

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You see, whom he foreknew, that's who he called. You see, it all fits together if you'll just study.

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You know what you have to do? You got to get to a point, not even talking to my congregation right here. You guys know this stuff, but to the world out there listening to us, some of you guys don't know this stuff yet.

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So all you got to do is just right here, just decide you're more interested in truth than you are in winning an argument.

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And when you make that decision and just start asking the Bible what it says and stop trying to tell it what it's supposed to say because of your theological background, this would be great for seminarians and pastors to hear me today.

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I know because I've been through all that as a young man and now I arrive here as an old man and all

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I care about is the truth at this point. When you get there, you grow up as a Christian and that Bible will begin to speak to you.

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It all fits when you understand these things right here. Listen, if the Holy Spirit had not come to you individually and opened your eyes and your ears where you could hear

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God and see God and your heart where it was cold, stony heart and turned it into a warm, loving heart that wanted

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God, you would have never received Jesus as your Lord and Savior. And you think that's what caused you to be saved? It was merely an effect of your salvation.

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Now I shouldn't say merely, it's wonderful, it's hugely important. There won't be anyone this side of the cross that goes to heaven that didn't receive

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Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior. They had to make a choice, a choice of their will. But that was an effect, ladies and gentlemen.

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I know you don't want to hear that if you've never heard this before because you want to think you saved yourself by believing, but you didn't because that would be a work.

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You didn't get saved by works. You got saved by grace through faith and it's not your faith, it's

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Jesus's faith that saved you. Check it out all through the book of Galatians, different places. You're saved by the faith of Jesus, not faith in Jesus.

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And then you can have faith in Jesus once you have the faith of Jesus. Once it's a gift, Ephesians 2 .8

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.9. Very simple, Ephesians 2 .8 .9. It is a gift from God. What is the faith?

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So that's different than your believing because your belief turns on and off depending on whether God does what you want him to do.

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Everybody understands that. If he doesn't answer your prayer right now, yes, you go, well, I wonder if he's really there, right?

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You can't be saved with that kind of wishy -washy stuff. That's humanism. The entire

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Arminian world from the Methodists to the Pentecostals to the Church of Christ to the Roman Catholics, they're all based on that wishy -washy kind of faith.

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And they just hope that you happen to die on the good side of it and you're believing at the minute you die because if you don't, you've lost your salvation.

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You know, that wouldn't be the gospel because gospel means good news. That would be bad news if my salvation was dependent upon anything

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I had to do. But it's not. And that's why it's called good news because God the

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Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit have done all the work to save the ones that he foreknew and predestinated, his own children.

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It's all done. And when the Holy Spirit comes, he just informs you of it and you wake up.

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And guess what? The moment you wake up, or you call that a nanosecond or what, I don't know. It all happens in the blink of an eye.

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Over 33 things the Holy Spirit does for you, one of which he gives you the faith of Christ. He gives you a change of mind.

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He changes your want to, and all of a sudden you just want Jesus. Really, all he has to do is let you see him.

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He just opens your eyes and says, there's your shepherd, your sheep, you're hungry, you've got the food, what will you do? And you make the choice.

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He doesn't make you do anything you don't want to do. Two seconds before that, you didn't want to do it.

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But when the Holy Spirit touches you on the shoulder, since you belong to God anyway and always have, you just didn't know it.

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You ran with the goats, but you were a sheep your whole life. You just had to be a lost sheep. And guess what? The shepherd just found you.

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He knew where you were the whole time. And he sent his Holy Spirit who obeys he and the

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Father. And he said, now, now is their birthday. Now they really are born.

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They were born physically, now they're going to be born spiritually. Now, wake them up now. And he does it obediently.

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And he wakes you up and you make the decision. But guess what? By the time you make that decision, you've already been regenerated.

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You now have God's genes. You have the ability to desire things like that, that you never had the ability to desire.

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And therefore, you do it because you want to. That's the only way you make the whole Bible fit together. You think this is tough.

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You just wait till we get to Roman chapter nine. If you don't understand these things, you might as well skip Roman chapter nine, which comes right after this.

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You just skip it because it won't work for you. You'll have to totally change it to make it fit Arminianism.

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You have to totally change it to say it doesn't mean what it says. So every time you do that, your conscience will bother you though.

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If you're a Christian, your conscience will bother you if you start trying to change the Bible. And that's a good sign if it bothers you.

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If it doesn't bother you at all, then you're a goat who happens to be a theologian. And the seminaries are full of them.

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Churches are full of them. Pulpits are full of them. Jesus said, when I come, there'll be many false prophets.

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And the are sent by Satan foreordained by God to the blackness of darkness forever, which means they were predetermined to be satanic teachers of doctrines of demons and so forth.

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They were foreordained to that. That's their job. And they do it. And then they end up going to hell. You don't believe it.

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Just read the book of Jude. And there's other places where it talks about that as well. First and second

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Peter have some interesting things to say about it too. So there's a lot of stuff in there that we don't like to study and read, talk about much.

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But you know what I really think it is? I just think Americans really don't like the true God very much. They don't like how he is.

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They've invented a God that loves everybody and is okay with everything. I had a gentleman,

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I saw a gentleman who literally said this, God has elected all men to be saved. Right now, where does he get that?

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It's not in the Bible. He invented a God like that. That's how he wanted God to be. He just saves everybody.

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So you know what? If it comes true for you, sir, I hope God puts you right next to Hitler in heaven.

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Okay? Because that's your theology. God's going to put the rapist right next to your daughter in heaven.

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Because you think God will put them all there, right? Listen, it's nonsense. And it's not biblical.

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So it's a God of the it's a non biblical God who doesn't exist. It's an idol that people are worshiping in this country.

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And the biggest own destiny by what you do with your will.

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That's nonsense. If that were true, no one would be saved. In fact, Jesus said no man can be saved.

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That's why he said it because he knew man. Read that passage, the rich young ruler, the story, the rich young you read it and ask yourself, why did the

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Jews come back to him, his own apostles say, well, Lord, if that's true, how can any man be saved? Jesus said, he can't.

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No man can be saved. But with God, all things are possible. Because God created a way

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God looked down at a completely annihilated fallen race.

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And he looked at his son, who the Bible says in the book of Proverbs had loved the earth of all the planets and love humans more than anything else.

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And the father gave his son a gift. He said, Look, I know you're there annihilated. They deserve hell.

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And I know you're disappointed. But I'm going to give you a gift. I'm going to show you a way to say but you're gonna have to die on the cross to do it.

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Are you willing? Jesus puts his hand up before time began, Bible says, the book of Revelation, he was crucified before the foundation of the world, he raised and said,

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Yes, I will do that. If you will give me some of them, save some of them. It does never say they will save themselves.

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The whole you get a burning building and timbers fall on you. Don't you need a fireman? You don't save yourself.

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So you think you're going to save yourself from the annihilation of an entire race that deserves hell? That's the

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Armenian view, you just decide, you just wake up one day, I think I've decided to save myself. But the

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Bible says there's none that seeketh God, none that want that. So how are you going to do that? You better get called.

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All right. So listen, listen for the calling. You know how you'll know what happened to you because for the first moment in your life, you will truly desire

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Jesus Christ to be your personal Lord and Savior. The first moment you won't even know why you thought that thought.

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And that's the little, the subtle, quiet voice of the Holy Spirit just woke you up. And you might as well fall on your knees right there and praise

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God. Because you just avoided hell and you didn't even do it, you received it as a gift.

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That's true salvation, ladies and gentlemen, it's not preached much anymore. There have been people that have hated it through all of the last 2000 years and even before that.

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And there still are. And people still hate this truth because they want a way to save themselves because they think that makes them better.

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But their righteousnesses are as filthy rags, the Word of God says, you'll never make yourself better.

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So you have to be called. In the same group that he foreknew and predestinated, he comes into time and he calls them on their spiritual birthday and then he justifies them.

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We've been talking about what that means, but in the Greek it's passive, which means you can't do it to yourself. Someone bigger than you does it to you and he renders you righteous, which means you're not really righteous, you're righteous in the

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Father's eyes. He sees you as righteous, he actually does make you righteous by giving you

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Jesus's righteousness, not because you're living a good life. Because we still mess up, don't we?

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We're not saved based on our righteousnesses, we're saved based on the righteousness of Jesus that is given to us as one of the 33 gifts the

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Holy Spirit gives us at the moment of our spiritual salvation. He puts on the robes of righteousness, we're all dressed up in Jesus and the

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Father sees us as Christ and therefore we're justified, which means it's just as if we never sin in God's eyes.

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That's awesome, isn't it? Think about that. Well, we figured out that there's about seven things you've got to understand if you're going to understand being saved by grace.

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Grace means undeserved favor. How can an Arminian put that together? Well, the very word means undeserved favor, but I have to play a part in it and deserve it a little bit.

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That's their theology. There's no logic in their theology. It's all because it's how they want it to be, so they read that into the

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Bible. And their seminaries help them a lot. PhDs all over the world say, yeah, that's right, that's how it is, you help

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God a little bit. And they'll show a million ways where you help God and even use scripture to do it, which will defy and totally disagree with hundreds of other clear scriptures, but they just don't show you those.

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I can't tell you how many hundreds and hundreds of students I've had around the country at tradeway meetings where I just put scripture up on the wall and they said, well,

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I've never seen that before. And I said, well, it's just, it's in your Bible. I just pulled that out of the Bible. Well, I've never seen it. Well, so, but if it is there, will you believe it?

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Well, I'll think about it. But they go home and they do think about it.

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I've had many people tell me they got saved in those meetings and revival because they started studying the Bible because I challenged him, showed him something their pastor had never shown him because he didn't want to, because he didn't fit his little bitty theological box from his seminary.

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It's evil and wicked. It's no different than the Pharisees. And they're the ones that killed

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Jesus, by the way. So we started looking at point number one. The first thing you got to understand is the depravity of man.

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We covered that. The second thing is you got to understand the meaning of grace. If you're ever going to know what it means to be justified, because you're justified by grace and grace means it's free, which means you can't pay for it or do anything to get it.

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Totally knocks out Armenian theology, if you just understand it. And there's seven things, but we're on point number two.

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Here's the things we've already covered. Number one, how should we deal with false teachers that teach it the wrong way?

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You find the answer in Galatians 2, 4 through 5 and 16 through 21. Number two, what causes people to believe false doctrine?

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Well, I gave you one when we were studying that, it says they're bewitched. That's like witchcraft.

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Their brain, their mind is bent by false teachers and doctrines of demons, demons teaching them false stuff.

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But here's another one I didn't give you. I'll give you this one this morning, 1 Timothy 4, 1. Now the Spirit, that's the

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Holy Spirit, speaks expressly that in the latter times. So this really applies to us, doesn't it?

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How many of you believe we're in the end times? Everybody. In the latter times, some shall depart from the faith.

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That means the true Christian faith. Really? You mean they will believe that God didn't save them, they saved themselves.

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They'll believe that there's a way to build a stairway to heaven on your own. That's what they'll believe. They'll depart from the true Christian faith, which is by grace.

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Some will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and the doctrines of demons.

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That's how people believe it the wrong way. You see, on the way the Bible is, you got to be bewitched, mesmerized, and believing doctrines of demons, and be seduced by other spirits other than the

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Holy Spirit. And you think it's God teaching you that, so you go teach seminary. And you teach it wrong in seminary because the demons have convinced you

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God said, no, it's this way. Even though there's 15 ,000 verses, it violates.

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I'll change those verses a little or dress them up a little to fit with my false way.

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And I think God's doing it the whole time. And most likely I'm a goat, not a sheep anyway, and I'll never be saved, most likely.

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Some are lost sheep who eventually will get saved though, praise the Lord, right? And then we talked about the total illogic of salvation by works.

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And you find that in Galatians 3, 13 through 14. This little part of the study all came out of the book of Galatians.

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It's impossible for the natural man to be saved by doing good works. Number two, it's contrary to the unconditional

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Abrahamic covenant, which is found in Galatians 3, 14. If it's unconditional, it means you can't do anything to help it.

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It's a covenant only God played the role in. He gave his son to die and ransom you from hell.

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He did all that. And you receive that as a gift. There's no condition for you to do anything. Number three, salvation by works again is a contradiction of terms.

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You have to defy the very definition of grace to say that you played a role in your salvation or your justification,

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Galatians 3, 17 through 18. And then we talked about what's the correct purpose of the law is to lead us to Christ and show us a need for grace,

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Galatians 3, 22 through 28. And then lastly, we talked about the law is weak and beggarly compared to grace.

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People who think they got to keep a bunch of rules to get to heaven. That's a beggarly method of salvation compared to Jesus saving us as a free gift.

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And then the last thing was some will never receive the truth, Galatians 4, 9 through 13.

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The great apostle Paul said, will you count? He's talking to a church group. Will you count me as your enemy? Because I told you that your plan of salvation is not true.

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It's false because you think you help God either save you or keep you safe.

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Will you count me an enemy? Because I'm telling you that's a lie from hell and it's doctrines of demons. Will you count me an enemy? Because I tell you the truth.

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That's what he said. That implies there's some in the room that would. Right? All right.

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So here's where we are today. Cast out the bond woman. See, here's another problem with believing in works salvation.

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Because the Bible teaches we're supposed to cast out the bond woman. Now, it's an allegory, obviously. What does it mean?

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And then next, it says the persuasion that you can help yourself get saved or stay saved does not come from above.

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So where does it come from then? Below. Doctrines of demons.

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I know you have friends that believe that way, you know, but you know what? If you really love them, tell them the truth.

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And then you may be asking the question, will you count me as an enemy? Because I tell you the truth. Do you have the guts to do that with your friends?

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You'll answer to Jesus someday for it, whether you did or not. He's going to ask you, well, what about these, you know, six or seven or eight friends here that never saw the light and you were with them every day?

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You know, were you afraid of me? Were you embarrassed about me? I mean, why didn't you show them that I saved them? Why didn't you show my blood?

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One drop of it is what saves them. It's not their preacher and their priest and all that garbage. Why didn't you share that with them?

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Well, he was an austere man and I was afraid of him. Well, that's what Sunday school was about. So, so you buried, you buried the gifts and the knowledge that God gave you in a hole in the ground.

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Now you're going to give it back to God at the judgment seat of Christ. That's not going to go real well. Good preaching,

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Brother David. Galatians 4 .30. Nevertheless, what sayeth the scripture?

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Now this is how you should deal with these people. They're very difficult to argue with.

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We just had a case of it this week where we're a seminarian from the

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Methodist church who just, I just went out of my mind the name of their biggest seminary.

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I know it, but I just forgot it, but he's from their seminary and he wanted to debate this issue.

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And he threw out about 10 things in one little paragraph that literally, if you went to the scripture, what sayeth the scripture would take 80 pages to answer because I've done it before with less questions than his.

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80 pages of scripture you could give them to answer it, but do they really want that or are they just trying to win an argument?

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See, so I won't even do it unless I know that answer. You see what I'm saying? I'm not going to waste my time on someone that's just throwing something out there to make me eat up my valuable time.

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All right. So, but I've done it before. So I know it's like 50, 60, 70, 80 pages to answer it.

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And isn't that what Paul says, nevertheless, what does the scripture say about these things? That's you always take them to scripture.

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It doesn't say you argue with them. It says you instruct them. Now that may seem haughty, but it's not.

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It's just the fact that you do know the answer. Don't you? You know the answer. They don't know the answer.

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You instruct them. Hopefully with meekness, that's not the easy part. That's harder when they start jabbing you.

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How many of you watched the debate and not the debate, but the town meeting with president Trump? See, he did pretty well to stay meek and that's not easy for him.

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Is it? He did pretty well with the young lady that was jabbing him for a whole hour and a half or however long.

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And he just, he handled her really with meekness and instructed her with facts about economics and everything in the world.

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But we're supposed to do it with scripture, cast out the bond woman. So here's what the scripture says.

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Now, Paul is going to tell us, and he's talking to some, got some Judaizers, sorry, in the crowd.

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He has some Jewish people that want to bring them back to the law, especially in the Galatian church. The false teachers were probably

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Jews in that case. And he says, well, let's go look at the scripture of the Jews then. So he's going to take them to the old

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Testament. And he says, what does it teach in the old Testament about whether you're saved by faith or whether you're saved by works?

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Well, it says cast out the bond woman. That picture is what? Works, works, salvation and cast her son out too, which to us, when we read that old story in the

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Bible, it seems cruel almost that Sarah told Abraham, you need to get rid of her.

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And she's the one that told him to be with her. She realized that's not such a great idea, didn't she?

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Didn't take her long to realize that either, did it? Send her out in the desert with the child.

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I don't care what happens to her. That's what Sarah said. What did Abraham do? He obeyed her.

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He sent her out there. All right. But what did God do? God took care of her. And great nations came from that son, but they're nations which picture paganism even to this day and create all kinds of problems for Jews and Christians, even to this day.

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But that gave us a story that God uses now allegorically to teach us the difference between salvation by grace, unmerited favor.

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You can't do anything to get it or help it. And where you add some works to it, that would be pictured by the bond woman.

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And he said, cast her and the son out of the desert and let them die because it's false.

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It's false. It will hurt people. Now it seemed cruel in the story, but it's a picture. Even when it was happening,

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God intended it as a picture. They just didn't see it yet, but we see it. For the son of the bond woman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman.

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What does that mean? Non -elect, not elected, not part of God's children.

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And you say, well, that's not fair to sweet little baby and a sweet young woman that just did what the master said to do.

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And the master's wife said, do this. And she did everything obediently and was a sweet person and all. That's just not fair, is it?

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That's why God don't, I'm sorry. That's why people don't like the sovereignty of God.

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They think God's mean. God, listen, God just doesn't do it like I would do it.

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And I've said this so many times, there's at least two groups of people in every crowd I go to. There's the one group that said, well, if I were

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God, I would just save everybody. That was our Methodist friend. He said, God elected all men. No, he didn't, but he wants it that way.

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So he just says that God did that. So he lies about it and makes him feel better. So there are people that would just, if you were

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God, you would just save everybody. But there's another group of people in every audience that I go to. And what they say they would do is

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I'd kill them all and start over. So which are you?

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Well, it doesn't matter because God didn't do it either way. He did it his way and he will always do it his way.

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He doesn't care what you think about salvation. What he did was he had a race entirely deserving of destruction and he elected some or chose from out of that race to be saved so that humanity could go forward into the thousand -year millennial kingdom and still exist.

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Otherwise, they would have all been annihilated. God chose that they not be. That's grace. That's mercy.

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That's love. And people think God's mean because that also means some people don't get chosen.

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They get what they deserve. But see, they don't look at it that way because they don't think any man deserves to go to hell because all men are good.

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Armenians think that all men are good and that God is mean. They switch it.

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They get it backwards. God is the mean one. So I won't believe that God of the Bible. I've got to reinvent one that fits the fact that everything is good.

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I don't know what they do with Satan. They probably think he gets saved too. I've never studied about what they think about Satan.

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That's interesting. I don't think they believe in him. That's probably easy. Just he's not there. He doesn't exist.

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So it's not a biblical view. Nevertheless, what does the scripture say? That's we always have to go back to because that's the only authority we have.

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The God -breathed scripture. So throw out the bondwoman and the son. Why? It represents false doctrine and a way of salvation that doesn't exist that will mislead people if they're introduced to it.

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Doctrines of demons. Wow. Look at that. So they're not going to be an heir. So some people are non -elect, which means they are elected for hell.

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Logically, anyway. You say, well, but the Bible doesn't say it. Well, truth is logically it says that, but it even literally says it in the book of Jude and in first and second

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Peter. It literally says there are people ordained to go to hell. And I've heard so many people say, well,

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Bible didn't teach that. Yeah, it just does. You just haven't read it. Are you ready? Then you changed it.

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You messed with it because you don't care about truth. You care about winning an argument. I don't care about that.

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So pleasant discussion. I'm done, right? I mean, it was nice.

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I enjoyed your viewpoint. A lot of it's wrong, but we can agree to disagree. Have a great day.

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Now I'll tell you this though. If there's people standing around when that person talks to me for their benefit,

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I'll argue with him. You see my point? That happened to you guys one time.

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So sometimes you have to get in a sword fight and your sword's the

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Bible and you'll win if you just keep using it long enough and you get them talking enough. Ask them questions, get them talking because they will always contradict themselves.

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And you use that and the people standing around will see it. You won't convince that person though.

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Doesn't matter. It's for the benefit of those listening. So keep that in mind too. All right.

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So there we go. That's what the Bible teaches. What does it mean to cast out the bond woman? It means get rid of that doctrine.

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Don't let it come into your church. Would you agree with that? That's what it pictures. Number two, what does it mean that two sons cannot both be heirs together?

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You tell me what it means. What does it mean? It means they're unequally yoked.

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One is a sheep and one is a what? Goat. One is a wheat. One is a what? A tare. God knows it and he's not going to save the goat and he's not going to save the tare ever.

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Well, why do we give him the gospel? Because God tells us to. And I just hate the lie that Armenians tell that, well, if you believe that stuff, you wouldn't ever witness to anybody.

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Just God saves who he wants to. Hey, listen, God does say who he wants to, but he saves them in the way that he wants to.

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And that's by them hearing the gospel. And since we don't know the difference, we have to tell everybody the gospel that the Holy Spirit leads us to tell.

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Not every human, but the ones he leads us to talk to, we have to do it. And some of them won't be saved because they'll never receive

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Jesus. And God will ask him someday, what'd you do with my son? And they'll say, I did nothing with him.

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And he'll say, depart from me. I never knew you, but you know what? He'll say, but didn't I tell you how to be saved? And I say, yeah,

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I remember that person came to me and told me about Jesus. And I just didn't want them. So they'll be judged by the gospel.

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So yes, we have to witness. And the truth is, if you look at church history,

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Calvinistic people have set up the largest mission works in the world, in India, in China, all over the world where Calvinistic people, not

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Armenians, which is funny because if they believe you can lose your salvation and all this stuff that you got to, like the way they get saved is because you tell them the gospel correctly, then why wouldn't they be witnessing every minute of their life?

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But they don't because they're hypocrites. Number two, what does it mean? The two sons can't be heirs. It means one of them is elect and one is not elect.

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Galatians 5, 7 says, you did run well. Who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth?

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He's speaking to the church that allowed this false teacher to come in and change their mind about their salvation. It's not grace anymore.

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It's grace plus works. And he says, no, it's not. There is no gospel that teaches that that's true gospel.

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So what is it that hindered you that kept you from obeying the truth?

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You ran well when I left you, now you change your mind. What happened? He asks them. And then he says, this persuasion cometh not from him that called you.

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Who's that? What part of the Godhead called him?

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The Holy Spirit. This works salvation did not come from that spirit.

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What spirit did it come from then? Demons. Very clear.

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Number three, if salvation by faith is mixed with works, it is not from him that calls us.

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Who is teaching it then? Satan and his demons and his humans that he controls at his will.

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The Bible says, if we want to talk about free will, no one has free will. The Bible teaches very, very clearly that the lost are controlled by Satan at his will.

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So they don't have a free will because they haven't influenced will because Satan is influencing them at his will all the time.

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And the saved, who are they influenced by? The Holy Spirit. So humans don't have free will. They have a will and their decisions are important and they're judged by their decisions, but it's not sovereign.

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It's not free. It's influenced and praise God if yours is influenced by the Holy Spirit. And it will be if you're saved.

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Now we're still even saved people are influenced by other things though, aren't we? And there's a whole group of saved people that got influenced by a false teacher who was persuaded by a demon to teach it.

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And Paul says, you're fools. Oh, foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?

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He said, now Paul's working to bring them back. And he's telling them, he says, what about the bond woman?

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Remember that story? Because you're getting legalistic here. You want to go back to the law, but what does the law, what does the

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Old Testament teach? Throw out the bond woman. Is Paul good at instructing? He is, isn't he?

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He uses their weapons against them. Throw out the bond woman. A little leaven, leaveneth the whole lot.

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What does that teach us? Don't even allow a little bit of false teaching in your local church.

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Not even a little, even if it's a sweet person, they're just a little off, let them do a home Bible study with some of your folks.

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Don't let them do it. Not even for an hour, Paul said. What is the result of allowing a little of this in your church?

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It's like leaven, it permeates the whole loaf of bread and it rises and it's full of false doctrine before you know it.

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You got to take a strong position on truth. Romans 1 17, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall walk by faith.

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You need to realize historically the power of that one verse because that verse is what influenced and changed

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Martin Luther's entire life. And he was a Roman Catholic. He was a monk and he believed in whipping himself when he did wrong, just like you see on movies.

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He did all that stuff. And the Holy Spirit used that verse in his life.

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It kept ringing a bell in his mind and kept thinking about it and kept thinking about it. And the Holy Spirit enlightened this man.

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And when he saw it, he changed the whole world. We would all be under the wrong side of Roman Catholicism, if not for Martin Luther, but he didn't invent this.

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Augustine tried to steer the Catholic church the right direction 1400 years or more before this happened and they wouldn't listen to Augustine either because their great

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Catholic father, Augustine, taught eternal security. You can't lose your salvation.

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He taught salvation by grace alone without works. He taught all that, but they went away. They went a different direction, the

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Catholic church, and that's why they are what they are today. They're Arminians. It's the biggest problem, not that they're Catholic, they're

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Arminians. All right, so you got a lot of little tiny Catholics like the Babto Catholics and the

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Pinto Catholics and the Church of Christo Catholics and the Methodo Catholics. They're just, it's all the same.

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It's the same. It's just a false doctrine that they let a little bit in, a little at a time here and there, and then over the time of ages, they became totally corrupt.

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And Jesus said, I removed my candlestick from those churches, which means his presence isn't there. It's just an institution with a bunch of people in it and a false teacher preaching.

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That's all it is. This changed the whole world because it changed

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Martin Luther's heart just at the right time in God's timetable to bring us out of the dark ages.

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You do realize before Luther going back for hundreds of years was called the dark ages.

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Do you know why? Because the Roman Catholics would not allow the common man to see the Bible. In fact, they burned people who they'd catch reading

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Bibles. I have historical examples of that in my study. They burned people for just walking in and reading scripture who were not priests.

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They didn't want the common man to know the scripture, and it created the dark ages economically from point of view of art, from the point of view of architecture, from the point of view of science.

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It destroyed everything. And then when Martin Luther brought the light of the word of God, and they began to print it later on, and they burned the first man who printed the

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Bible in English, they burned him. But once, it makes you want to cry, doesn't it? But once the world, the common man was enlightened by the word of God because of Martin Luther and men, and John Calvin and men like that, it changed the whole world.

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Now you have the economies of the West all built on Protestantism. And you have the second world nations like Italy and Spain built on Catholicism.

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At least they have a Bible, so it's better. And then you got the third world built on Hinduism and Islam. And that's, it seems clear to me, it's based on who believes scripture or not as to how well things go for you.

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But here it is. Now I want to show you this, about out of time, but I'm going to give you a couple of amazing insights into how

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God used this one verse in this man's life. This is about Martin Luther.

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He said, for almost 20 years, I still feel the old clinging dirt of wanting to deal with God that I may contribute something.

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Now let's stop a minute. This is a long quote. It's not easy to read older writings like this.

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20 years after Martin Luther nailed the truth to the wall and told the

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Roman Catholics they were off base because they didn't understand grace, 20 years after that, he still had a tinge in his mind because his brain had already been programmed just like ours were.

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And your brain will always come into this world programmed with works of salvation, just like Cain.

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Cain and Abel, like Cain. Cain was programmed that way. So was Abel, but God changed

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Abel's heart and taught him the truth. And he's done that with you. But even after we know the truth, the old programming is still in there and Satan can use it and bring it out sometimes or our mind will just bring it to the forefront sometimes and it bothers us.

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So 20 years after he understood the truth of Romans 117, he would still have days when he felt the old clinging dirt wanting to deal with God that I may contribute something to my salvation by being a good person.

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That's what he's saying. Think about that. Still bothering him in his mind sometimes. And he had to think it through again.

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And he would go back to this scripture so that he will have to give me his grace in exchange for my holiness.

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You see, that's Arminianism. God will give you grace because God saw you being a good person.

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And that is the philosophy of Satan and the world system. And Luther knew it.

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The Holy Spirit taught it to him, used that verse, Romans 117, to teach it to him. But his brain still had the old garbage in there and would go back to it.

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That's what happened to the Galatian church, by the way. All it took is one little false teacher said, listen, that old stuff used to believe is true also.

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Just add it with the truth and it's better. Just bring that in and add it with it works better.

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Then you'll feel really good about God. He won't seem so mean anymore. Won't seem so selective.

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Like you won't have to go around believing that Jesus had the right to choose his own bride or that God could choose his own children.

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That seems mean, doesn't it? But we all do that. But it's mean if God does that, right? So anyway, so Martin Luther had this problem with this nagging thing coming back to try to say that God still wants to see me be holy.

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And in exchange for that, he saves me. It kept bothering for a while.

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And still I cannot get into my head that I should surrender myself completely to sheer grace.

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Wow. What does that say? That means grace plus nothing. Not grace plus this other stuff that I grew up believing.

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Grace only. It's free. Salvation is a gift. It's free. It didn't come to me because I did anything good.

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And so when I do bad, it doesn't take it away. That's what he had to struggle with because he'd been taught the wrong way his whole life.

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Isn't that amazing? One of the greatest men of Christian history had this problem because of the false teaching he knew before he was saved.

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I had already for years read and taught the holy scriptures both privately and publicly.

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I knew most of the scriptures by heart and furthermore had eaten the first fruits of the knowledge of faith in Christ.

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Namely, that we are justified not by works but by faith in Christ. And as a monk,

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I led an irreproachable life. In other words, he tried to live right. Nevertheless, I felt that I was a sinner before God.

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My conscience was restless the whole time I lived that way because I knew I couldn't be perfect.

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Wow. What a testimony. Day and night I tried to meditate upon the significance of Romans 1 17.

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Think about that. He's living in the dark ages. Day and night

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I read this as it is written, the just shall live by faith. What does that mean?

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Because I have this nagging belief that I got to do works for God to love me. What does that mean?

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It doesn't say that. Herein is the righteousness of God revealed, not the righteousness of man.

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The righteousness of God is what saves us. He puts that on us like robes. Jesus is righteousness.

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And he was, the Holy Spirit was teaching him all these wonderful doctrines that we now know because we live in such a better time because we have a

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Bible. We have seven or eight of them in our homes. We have it on our phone. We got it everywhere. He didn't.

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So he kept reading that and reading with it and reading and meditating on it.

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And the Holy Spirit finally used it to bring a light that shined through this man that lit the whole world.

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And it's still lighting it today and will until Jesus comes back. Then finally, after meditating on that verse, finally

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God had mercy on me. See, he gives God the glory for the fact that he understood it. Not his intellect, not his seminary.

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He was the Martin Luther one. Then finally, God had mercy on me.

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And I began to understand that the righteousness of God is a gift of God by which a righteous man lives, namely faith.

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And that sentence, the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel is passive. Now he used the

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Greek too, like we do. He went to the Greek and he said, it's passive, indicating that the merciful

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God justifies us by faith as it is written. The righteous shall live by faith.

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It's a faith that God gives you. It's passive. It's not active. Doesn't mean you do it.

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It means God did it to you in the light turned on in his head and it changed the world. Now, what did he have to do to see it?

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The Holy Spirit had to open his eyes, but all he had to do is look at the Greek because it's like math. And when it's passive, it means you didn't do it.

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It means God did it to you. Therefore, it's not by works that you have done, but it's according to his mercy that he saved us.

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That's in the book of Titus. But I mean, he saw this from that one verse. Isn't that amazing? Now I felt as though I had been reborn altogether and had entered paradise, but he was still in the dark ages on the earth where they still burn people for believing this stuff, but he felt like he was in paradise.

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That is the Christian life. When the world tries to burn you or kill you for believing the truth, you just raise your head up and look around because you're seated in the heavenlies with Christ and you just smell that heavenly air and you just go right through it because soon you'll be with him.

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Children, you might want to remember that. Soon you'll be with him. Don't worry what the world's doing. Don't worry about the person who can threaten your physical life, but who cannot kill your soul because only

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God could do that and God won't do it because he's chosen you and he loves you. So don't worry about men who can kill your body because you have

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God and he'll keep you alive forever. Whosoever liveth, that means if you've been born, ask the question, have

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I been born into this world? What's the answer, Abby? Have you been born? Yeah.

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So whoever lives and believes in Jesus, do you believe in Jesus? All right.

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So Jesus said, whosoever is born into this world and believes in Jesus shall never die.

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That's good news, isn't it? Dad will get some questions about that. I saw it on her face.

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So be ready, Dave. Mom's not even home to help you right now. So the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel.

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It's passive, indicating that the merciful God justifies us. We don't justify ourselves.

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And he does it by faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. Now I felt as though I had been reborn altogether and had entered paradise in the same moment the face of the whole of scripture became apparent to me.

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I'm telling you, ladies and gentlemen, once you see that God is sovereign and you understand the depravity of man and election and salvation by grace, all the scripture will fit together.

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Is that not what this man just said? The whole scripture became apparent to me in a moment of time.

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Isn't that what Ron said and Pam? It all just fell in place that night.

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The night you saw this, that in the first thing you did was you went and read Roman chapter nine, which we will eventually get to,

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Dave, believe it or not. I mean, was it Maddie? Maddie said, how long has grandpa been teaching the

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Romans eight? Dave said, about as long as you've been alive. So we'll get to nine, but nine won't make any sense if you don't understand eight, will it?

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That's why he put it after eight, right? My mind, after this happened, he says, my mind ran through the scriptures as far as I was able to recollect them.

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He didn't have a phone where you can just go search it, Dave, like me and you do on the back pew while Bill's teaching.

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He just had a memory. He had an amazing memory though. This man was a

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Renaissance man and my mind ran through the scriptures as far as I was able to recollect them, seeking analogies in other phrases, such as the work of God, by which he makes us strong.

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Phrases like the wisdom of God, by which he makes us wise. Phrases like the strength of God, whereby

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God makes us strong. The salvation of God, the glory of God. He does all of that for us.

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It's not us doing it for him. Just as intensely as I had now hated the expression,

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I used to hate the expression, the righteousness of God, because he thought it meant he had to be righteous, right? He hated it because he knew he couldn't.

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Just as I had now hated the expression, the righteousness of God, I now lovingly praise the most pleasant word.

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I praise the word that I'm righteous because I know it's God's righteousness that he put on me and so now

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I can praise what it is because I understand it for the first time. This passage from Paul became to me the very gate of paradise.

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Men shall walk by faith. Isn't that beautiful? And much of what we understand, the only reason we, from a human viewpoint, had access to it, because it would have been stripped away from the world if we hadn't had the

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Protestant Reformation. Do I agree with everything Luther did and said? No, I don't. But I don't agree with everything you say and do and you don't agree with everything

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I say and do, but I do agree with the Holy Bible and that's what Luther lifted up, the scripture.

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And so did John Calvin and all of them and we have the benefit of all that.

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We live in the best of days and the worst of days, don't we? Because we are the best because of all the tools we have to study the grammar, to study the text, everything.

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We have each other. We live in a free country till today anyway, right?

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And we know what the Bible says is coming though. So in that sense, we live in the worst days because we're going to go through the tribulation probably in our lifetime, but we're going to go through it with the word of God.

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We're going to go through it understanding that no man can kill us. No man can kill us because Jesus has us in his hand and the

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Father has his hand on top. And there we have it. So let's stand and have prayer together.

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Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you so much for shining a bright light on Martin Luther as he agonized and studied these philosophies and thoughts and scriptures.

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And Lord, that you brought him out of darkness into your marvelous light. You've done the same with us.

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And we pray that you'll use us in this world to give the gospel to other people who might also be brought into your marvelous light.

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Thank you that the authority is your God -breathed word, which you promised you would preserve to the last generation.

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So we have it. Thank you for it. Lord, watch over our children, give them wisdom every day as they study the word of God and they learn about how the world works around them at school, in their

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Christian school. They learn about physics, they learn about chemistry, they learn about biology, and they learn about the creator of all of that, the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And so be with them. Lord, go with us into our time of fellowship now and we ask you to bless the meal we're about to have in Jesus' name.