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ANSWERING COMMON OBJECTIONS Concerning GOD’s SOVEREIGNTY in ELECTION (continued)
with our guest:
JOHN SAMSON of King’s Church, Peoria, AZ
Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors, Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, 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.
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. Now here's our host, Chris Arnton.
Good afternoon Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth, listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this sixth day of August 2015 and I am really becoming very attached to our guest today, Pastor John Sampson, who has been returning fairly often to our program.
He's becoming quickly one of my very favorite guests and we are addressing a topic that seems to be inexhaustible. It is the question of how we are to respond to those who oppose the doctrine of unconditional election and in fact the theme of or the title of John's book is 12 Whatabouts? Answering Common Objections Concerning God's Sovereignty and Election and Pastor John Sampson is the pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona, which is a Reformed Baptist fellowship and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back once again to continue our discussions on God's Sovereignty and Election,.
Pastor John Sampson. Thank you so much, it's a delight to be back with you again Chris.
Well it's great to be back and I'm just trying to adjust your volumes here because as I said there's a little static for some reason on your voice but I'm sure our listeners can hear you because you seem to be rather loud and clear, it's just an occasional over-modulation.
But let's first of all just give our listeners a summary of why you wrote this book in the first place, 12 Whatabouts? Answering Common Objections Concerning God's Sovereignty and Election and what the basic premise of the book is.
Yeah, it's obviously discussing a doctrine.
That is controversial but as you would know and understand most in the Bible is the Trinity, the Bible being the Word of God. Not everybody, former days, believe quite sometime in time, by date, so to speak.
People believed it in former centuries but we've moved on, haven't we? And yet with the common objections that people have that are all misunderstandings of certain scriptures. So that's what I went about the task of thinking of the most common objections I heard back in 2005.
I was part of a writing blog called reformationtheology .com and with some of the objections that came out of that I put some articles together and with the encouragement of John Hendricks who runs that site and then a larger theological site called monogism .com.
He said, John, you really need to put this together in a book and he wrote the forward for the book.
Very kindly. And as we have said before, I think that this issue of the doctrines of sovereign grace, unconditional election, even though most Christians or at least most evangelicals or fundamentalists who are not Calvinist complain more about limited atonement, which is really only referring to a limited number of people, not a limitation in the power of the atonement.
And as Spurgeon said, Arminians or those who are non-Calvinists are really the ones that limit atonement by limiting its power. But I think that really the objection has always centrally been that how could God dare only select a few people out of the entire human race or not a few people, but a portion out of the entire human race to be his elect or chosen and to eventually be born again and saved, how could he only choose them, especially when he chose them for absolutely no reason that was worthy of loving in them or nothing lovely in them or desirable or nothing good, and they have to force something in there.
Well, God has to have chosen his elect because he saw that they would believe. It always comes down to something that a man will do, whether it's believing or something else that the Arminians and those who are non-Calvinists have to force into that scenario to make themselves feel more comfortable.
But if you want to hear, those of you listening, if you want to hear the previous interviews that we've already done with Samson on this same subject, answering objections concerning the sovereignty of God and election, you could go to ironsharpensironradio .com, ironsharpensironradio .com, and you can even type in the search bar, Samson, S-A-M-S-O-N.
There's no P in there. S-A-M-S-O-N, and you will get all of the posts that were related to Pastor John Samson. Well, I'm going to first go to a question within your whatabouts, is what about the love of God?
Doesn't what we know of God and his love negate the idea of sovereign election? That's kind of what I was just touching at, that people vociferously will object to what we believe because they are saying that this somehow violates a loving character of God.
Yeah, that's exactly the case, and people dismiss the doctrine out of hand because they have this concept that God is the exact same, yet the Bible doesn't actually teach that. And that might be a shock to some, and they might just say, I'm not interested, he's wrong, don't need to study this.
And I found that's the case with many, but if you actually walk the most passionate way possible to speak for itself, God certainly seemed to have a different measure of love for some people than others.
That's the case with the nation of Israel, and it's actually here that most Christians in our day would actually agree. God set his love on Israel in a way he did not for the Canaanites or the Jebusites, and Deuteronomy brings love on them, and nowhere in the Bible tells us are the reasons why not, in the sense of the reasons he did not choose them.
And they were not because they were more numerous or they disconnect Israelites, and yet, you only have I known amongst the nations. And again, it's not speaking there of knowledge in the sense of, I don't know what the others are doing, or I don't know who they are.
It's knowledge in a redemptive sense. I've only set my love redemptively. We come then to the New Testament, for them and for the people that God had, the Father had given him, made him pray for them and not for the world.
And again, that's a concept. They have this idea the exact same way. And then we come to passages such as Romans 9, which is all about, we have this statement there that God's speaking says, Jacob, have I loved Esau?
Have I hated? And many people run from there to other passages to say that's talking about nations rather than individuals. But again, the context of those words are in the context of, and that is the case, that God set his love on Jacob in a way he did not for Esau.
Whichever way we look at it between the word love and hate, it's not the word love in both places. Two different words they used. And I've seen the most rigorous attempts to avoid the unavoidable, which is to try and get around what is actually stated to say that he actually did love them in the exact same way, and yet if words mean anything, there was a different measure of love for one of the twins rather than the other.
And if anyone is going to have the same amount of love, it would be two twins. They have the same upbringing. They were, as one theologian said, they were roommates. They had absolutely the same start in life, and yet God said he chose the younger rather than the oldest for the cause of his electing grace.
That's what he states as the reason might stand. And so those are the scriptures that deflate the idea and actually negate the idea of everyone in the exact same way. We have the concept God is love, and that is true, but we take from that an idea that is foreign to the scriptures, and that is that God loves everyone in the exact same way.
Psalm 5 says he hates the wicked all day. And so rather than saying I'm going to pick and choose which verses of the Bible I like on this subject, the job of the Christian is to take everything that God has said and make sense of it.
And to do that, just as mankind made in the image of God is able to differentiate between the love of a husband to his wife rather than the love of the husband to everyone else's wife, and hopefully that husband will love his wife more and deeper and more for eternity in that sense in terms of the relationship, he'll have a greater measure of love for his wife than everyone else's life.
We're able as creatures made in the image of God to say I love children, but I love my children more than others. I'm wrong to do that, nor is it wrong in any way morally or any other way for God to say I've set my love on a people in eternity, and I'm free to show mercy to whom I will show mercy because in the realm of the angelic, no mercy was ever shown.
Fallen angels remain fallen and are never redeemed. If anyone, that I hate it because he was a rebel sinner like his Lord other than God's.
Decision to set his love on someone undeserving. And although there is no condition of man that makes him worthy of election or salvation or the love of God, the condition on God's part for his election is that he loved certain people, but it was not for anything lovely in the people that he chose to demonstrate that love, right?
Exactly. Just on that point, I remember.
Reading through the book of Acts and specifically wanting to notice the preaching of the apostles. What was it they preached? What was it they emphasized? What was a substance of the apostles preaching?
I was absolutely stunned through that process to realize that, wait for it, the apostles never mentioned the love of God, not even once. And that was a shock. That is not to say that God doesn't love, but it was a quite earth-shattering shock to my thinking to realize the apostles were not emphasizing the love of God today.
And in many cases, it's the only thing that's in view in much of the church world today. And the New Testament does teach the epistles and is addressed to the church. And so with a concept in place that God loves everyone in the exact same way, we go didn't preach the gospel and hearing that message over and over and over.
The Bible speaks of the goodness and the severity of God. And if we only emphasize one to the exclusion of the other, we've actually distorted the physical picture of God. And God is free in his love.
God is free by his sovereignty to set his love on whom he chooses. And the scripture reveals he has done that. His love for the world is not that everybody would be saved, but those who believe. There's a limitation even there.
And so as we look through the scripture, we see a God who gets done what he wants to get done, and that is to redeem a certain people for himself. The father elects them, the son dies for them, effective trinitarian mission, unity of the Godhead even.
And of course, when you say that the church today.
Is overly focused on love, it's really most often a love of their own definition. It's not a biblical definition of love. It is not love the way that God himself demonstrates love. And one way that that is manifest is that you will very often hear that the Calvinist concept of election itself is a violation of love because they will say you cannot love someone if it involves a denial of their free will.
And it is not truly love if somebody doesn't willingly accept that love. And you could go on and on with all the scenarios that they come up with, and none of these sentences or definitions that they're regurgitating are anywhere in the Bible.
The Bible doesn't define love that way. And as we've said perhaps even in one of our other broadcasts, they will say that election is far from bringing love, it's divine rape, and all kinds of bizarre and even blasphemous things that are said about the Calvinistic understanding of unconditional election.
And God is too much of a gentleman to force himself on anyone as if we believe that people are kicking and screaming all the way to heaven, that they are being forced against their will. There's a difference between being forced against your will.
And being given a new will, isn't there? Yeah, and they're given a new heart to see. It all flows, I agree with everything you said, and it all flows out of that misunderstanding of love. It's like us men, when we've got a shirt, if we get it wrong on the top, and displaying different kinds of love.
Some examples, we're hopefully not in the same way. If there's a fire in the house, we didn't make sure or there would be an aftershock. We love, hopefully, people more than chairs, more than objects.
We love our pets, you know, but hopefully we love our spouse more. We hopefully get the spouse out of the house before the cat, even though we love the cat.
I have to, I just have to interrupt you for a second because it just reminded me of a hilarious scene on a television program years ago where a young man was faking having a brain injury so that he would gain the love and sympathy of his family.
It was an accident that occurred after he fell out of a tree while getting, retrieving a frisbee, and he was faking a brain injury. And so he would be weighted on hand and foot, and so that he wouldn't have to get a job, all these scenarios.
And there was a scene where he's eating fried chicken or something that his mother made, and he said, I love you, mom. And the mother said, when he says that, that makes everything worth it. And then he gets down on his knees and hugs the coffee table and says, I love you,.
Coffee table. Well, I'm sorry, I just had to interrupt you. Thank you, father. If you think concept, we can understand he's loving to all his creatures, yet he has a special love for his son and a special love for his own people.
And he's decided to set his love on them in a way he has not for everybody else on planet Earth. And yet, for some people, that sounds like heresy, because they have this traditional concept of the love of God, which is not.
Taking them to the text is very difficult, because many are not even willing to go there. They are so sure of what they believe, you know, in terms of quoting John 3, 16, God so loved the world that he gave his son.
And yet, if you take time to actually look at that verse, it's teaching the fact that God for the world is seen by the giving of his son for those who believe. There's a limitation even there. And the phrase, whosoever, I'm sure you've heard, Chris, is not really the best way of translating the original words.
It would be better to translate it as all the believing ones, everyone who does not have this, but they will have that. And God's love is seen in the giving of his son for that exact proposition, that those who believe in eternal life, they will have joy with taking people to very familiar passages and asking them to actually look at the text and say, does it affirm your tradition?
Or after studying, you have to kind of say, you know, I'm kind of reading into that a little bit here, because maybe a lot here, because the God-limited thing in the sense of not everybody will be saved.
And from the two wings of the Church, the kind of Orthodox wings of the Church, views that would say that God looks down the corridor of time and sees those who will believe and chooses them for salvation.
But even in that scenario, you have people who will be created go to hell, and yet they're made and created anyway. On the other side, on the other side is the Reformed view, which says that that is the case, and God has planned it for his own pleasure to show his attributes off, and those attributes being both justice and mercy, both holiness and his redemptive power, all of those things.
You're talking right now about double predestination, correct?
Say that again?
You're speaking now of double predestination?
Yeah, in the sense that God has selected some and not all, but he's got people.
Yeah, well, that's one of the most vital things I think we can bring up today, and if you could hold off on it, because we're going to go to a station break right now. I'm going to ask you a favor. I don't know if you have another phone line, because I'm still getting the static, and I don't even know why.
I've tried to adjust knobs and all that. But anyway, if you could try calling from another phone line during the station break, and hopefully we'll have less problem with the audio, that'd be great. And if not, we'll just have to choke it up to the sovereignty of God.
Okay, we'll do that.
All right, and we are going to a break right now. If you'd like to join us with a question for John Sampson, our number is, or I keep saying number, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com.
Don't go away, we'll be right back with John Sampson and answering objections concerning God's sovereignty in election.
Hi, I'm Mike Gallagher. Support for Iron Sharpens. Iron Radio comes from Thriven Financial, where faith and finances connect for good. Thriven helps its members be wise with money and live generously.
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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnson. If you've just joined us, we have as our guest today, Pastor John Sampson of the King's Church, or I should say King's Church in Peoria, Arizona. The website for that church is kingschurchaz .com.
Kingschurchaz .com. There's no apostrophe in the website address. Kingschurchaz .com. We are discussing John's book, 12 Whatabouts, Answering Objections to God's Sovereignty Concerning God's Sovereignty in Election.
If you'd like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Right before the break, we began to enter into the realm of one of the most controversial areas of the whole controversy, of the whole divide, of the whole debate between those who believe in what is known as the doctrines of sovereign grace or what have been nicknamed Calvinism or reformed theology.
That is the area of double predestination, and there are differences of definitions that some apply to that title. Some wrongly define it, and some historic Calvinists who would not be hyper-Calvinists also sometimes feel uncomfortable using it just because it has a negative connotation to it.
But others, many others who are still in the realm of historic orthodox Calvinism, still very clearly and openly proclaim a belief in that doctrine of double predestination because they define it differently than its enemies.
So we're going to touch on that in a second, but Pastor John, going back before we even get into this main issue, isn't one of the main reasons why the non-Calvinists or those who oppose unconditional election, they wrongly think that we believe God just through a matter of happenstance, willy-nilly as the slang term goes, chose people as if somebody, you know, put a blindfold on God and spun him around and he just happened to point his finger in any direction or he just played the eeny, meeny, miny, moe child's game and just picked people for no reason or purpose whatsoever just because of the fact that we believe there was no condition within those whom he chose that met any kind of criteria of being lovable or savable.
So they think it's just happenstance, and that's not true, is it?
No, it isn't, and yet we're not told it's not found in us, but Ephesians 1 makes clear. I'm thinking back to the other nations around them, God, and when he did so for you, it was not because of anything in them, in mind in the New in John chapter 11.
Yeah, let me read, because of the.
Fact that we are constantly slandered, and not intentionally necessarily, which I don't know if qualifies for slander, if it's unintentional, but we are misinterpreted and caricatured by those who object to our doctrinal statements.
They insinuate that we believe that God is actively making neutral men evil on one side and on the other side making morally neutral men good and worthy of heaven on the other side, and that is not at all what we believe, and if you want to get a definition of what most Reformed Baptists or what most Calvinists believe, you go to the 1689 London Baptist Confession or the Westminster Confession, and of course the Dutch Reformed have the three forms of unity, but as far as our confession, the Reformed Baptists, which is almost identical to the Westminster that the Presbyterians and others hold to, paragraph three in the London Baptist Confession of Faith, this says, by the decree of God for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestined or ordained to eternal life through Jesus Christ to the praise of his glorious grace, others being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation to the praise of his glorious justice, and the confession cites 1 Timothy 5 .21, Matthew 25 .34, Ephesians 1 .5 and 6, Romans 9 .22 and 23, and Jude 4, and just to remind you that the confession of faith is not something that we as Reformed Baptists hold to as on par with the Bible or superior to the Bible, it is not inerrant, it is not God-breathed, but it is a summary of what we believe, and therefore, if you want to know what we really believe, you should be looking at the documents that we view as our creedal statement or confessional statement or our summary of biblical belief, and if you notice, it says that others are being left, the non-elect are being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation, they were already deserving of hell as were the elect, we were all made out of the same lump of clay, we all deserve hell, but he chose to rescue some of us, isn't that more of a clear explanation of what we believe in than the slanderous or caricatured view that God is somehow actively making some people worthy of hell and others worthy of heaven.
That were otherwise morally neutral, correct? Yeah, I would not only have kindness to those not what we, in one scenario, and that's an appalling thought, isn't it, one that I've seen nowhere in scripture, in there, and that's what reprobation is all about, correct?
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly, and in that, there's not even a hint. Now, you were saying,.
And you were rightly saying, that you reject equal ultimacy, which is constantly being blurred with the Calvinist doctrine of election and reprobation, but it is true that God, in the scriptures, clearly, although he does not make morally neutral people evil, because there is, there are no morally neutral people, as the Bible clearly says, that there is no one that does good, no, not even one.
Yes. But, and it's interesting how Paul repeated that line over and over again, no, not one. Yeah. And you could hear the person saying, yeah, but what about no, not one? Yeah, what about no, not one?
Just like the title of your book, but the 12 whatabouts, but having said that, he does turn people over to their own lusts. Yeah. And he does harden hearts, just like Pharaoh's heart. Yeah, yeah. And by the way,.
By the way, your phone quality, sound quality, is 100 better. Okay. The context is disobeying the one line, as they were destined to divine election, and that is representative, it's manifestly said is, have no desire for the true God, and turn to God.
Physical limitation, a more of a moral one, because people don't understand that biblically, they end up with this concept that God loves everyone the same, and then it's just waiting for them to make the right decision, and because he knows the end from the beginning, he knows which, and the problem with that is, it fails to take into account what the best every beat to defy God.
It says those that disobey the word were actually believing Christians, embrace all that God says,.
Including... And you know, it's ironic, isn't it, that some who oppose unconditional election will wrongly say, even though we have the actual word unconditional in the title of the doctrine, they will wrongly say, well you think God chose you because you were better than other people.
Well the irony is, is that's what those who reject this doctrine are unconsciously teaching, or perhaps some of them are very consciously teaching that, because even if you are saying that God chose certain people because he looked down the corridors of time into the future, and knew who would choose him through their own free will, and accept him, and accept his son, and his death and resurrection, and his word, and so on, and that he chose them on that basis, he is choosing those people because of something good within them.
They were somehow, they must have been somehow better than their neighbors who reject the gospel and reject Christ. They must have either been somehow more religious, or more self-aware of their sin, or more humble, or there had to be something that was superior in that person who is chosen by God.
If the reason he is being chosen is a foreseen faith, he is being chosen because something either good within him, or something good that he did, or believes, or what have you.
Yeah, they don't want to go there, but that's the logical outworking of their belief system, because necessarily, you do the good, so they don't want to go there, because they know that salvation is not by word.
You are saying that you are in heaven, on the other side, given you. Blind, not short-sighted. We were blinded. We were deaf to the things of God. We had no.
Ability to hear his voice until he opened our ears. Yeah, the common objection to that, that I hear a lot when you're citing Ephesians about the faith, even the faith, not being of ourselves, it is the gift of God, lest anyone should boast.
Even our faith is in that category. People will say, yeah, but a gift isn't a gift unless you freely accept it. There goes another definition that's nowhere in the scriptures, and what I have said to people is, oh really, to quote Jim Carrey, if you are unconscious in a coma on an operating table, and somebody donates to you a vital organ or blood without your free acceptance of this, when you get restored to consciousness after the surgery and are back in health, did you not receive a gift even though you didn't freely accept it, even though you were totally unconscious when you had this blood transplant or this organ transplant?
Well, that totally blows that ridiculous definition that's not even in the Bible out of the water. But the other thing is that nobody, since when has anybody ever freely accepted in their consciousness the gift of faith?
When does that scenario ever come where someone, does an angel present to them an option, would you like faith or do you not want this faith that we would like to give to you? People are presented the option of following Christ or rejecting him, but nobody's given the presentation of accepting or rejecting faith.
Am I making sense? Yeah, I'm listening to.
Everything you're saying, and I'm tracking with you. Yeah, we don't ever come to a place where,.
Again... Because that would actually involve faith, that would involve faith itself,.
To accept the gift of faith. Yeah, again, Walt said, look, you've got a heart of stone to do the job for you, reject, and Romans 8, it has no interest in me not obeying. And by the way,.
I spoke too soon, the problem with your phone audio is starting to emerge again, but I will just have to cope with it. It's not as bad as it was before, but I can say that the most annoying thing is this incredibly horrible accent I keep hearing over the...
I'm very American. You know, I'm just kidding, and I think it lends an air of sophistication to Iron Sharpens Iron that is totally absent with just me on the mic. Jolly good, jolly good. We're going to be going to a break right now.
If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for John Sampson on unconditional election, because we have a full hour left, we will allow your questions on anything regarding the doctrines of grace, but are most interested in hearing your questions specifically about the doctrine of unconditional election.
Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, and the main reason I'm taking a break right now is I need to run and get another cup of coffee, not empty a cup of coffee, I need to get a refill of a cup of coffee, and that's chrisarnson at gmail...
I'm going to get a cup of tea. I got to tell you that yesterday when I was interviewing my dear friend William Webster, who has been a precious friend and brother for about 20, 28, 29 years, something like that, there was a listener who may be even listening today, I told Bill before the show, please speak freely and don't think that you have to cut your answers short.
We have two hours, and I want you to fully complete every thought that you intend to make when you answer a question. Don't have to worry about keeping your answers short. So Bill did take heed to my request, and he spoke freely and at length at times, and I have a listener who is certain that that was purposely done so I could take a bathroom break.
And I had to assure him that that was not the case, although that is not beyond the realm of possibility at times, being encased in the flesh of fallen man. If you would like to join us on the air, it's chrisarnson at gmail .com.
Please include your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the United States, and we look forward to getting your questions, and it can be on anything regarding the doctrines of sovereign grace or reform theology or calvinism, but especially we would like to get questions on unconditional election, and we would love to even get questions from those who are vehemently opposed to these things, or you're just neutral, because I don't mean morally neutral.
We already proved that that doesn't exist, but that you're neutral on this issue because you just don't know. You've never even perhaps even heard about it before. Shoot us an email at chrisarnson at gmail .com.
Chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll.
Be right back. I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries. The New American Standard Bible is perfect for daily reading or in-depth study used by pastors, scholars, and everyday readers. The NASB is widely embraced and trusted as a literal and readable Bible translation.
The NASB offers clarity and readability while maintaining high accuracy to the original languages, which the NASB is known for. The NASB is available in many editions like a topical reference Bible. Researched and prepared by biblical scholars devoted to accuracy, the new topical reference Bible includes contemporary topics relevant to today's issues.
From compact to giant print Bibles, find an NASB that fits your needs very affordably at nasbible .com. Trust, discover, and enjoy the NASB for yourself today. Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com.
Tired of box store Christianity? Of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert? Do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship? And how about the preaching?
Perhaps you've begun to think that in-depth biblical exposition has vanished from Long Island. Well, there's good news. Wedding River Baptist Church exists to provide believers with a meaningful and reverent worship experience featuring the systematic exposition of God's Word.
And this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you. Call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times. 631 -929 -3512. Or check out their website at wrbc .us. That's wrbc .us.
I'm Mike Gallagher. Support for Iron Sharpens. Iron Radio comes from Thriven Financial, where faith and finances connect for good. Thriven helps its members be wise with money and live generously. Nearly two and a half million Christians count on Thriven to help them protect their families and strengthen the communities where they live, work, and worship.
To learn more about what makes Thriven unique, contact me at 717 -254 -6433.
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Welcome back. This is Chris Orns. And if you just tuned us in, our guest today is Pastor John Sampson of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona. Their website is kingschurchaz .com. That's kingschurchaz .com.
And that A-Z is for Arizona. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question about Reformed theology in general, or specifically about unconditional election, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.
Chrisarnson at gmail .com. I have a listener who wishes to remain anonymous in the Carlisle, Pennsylvania area. And if you'd like to finish any thought that you had before I ask the question to you, John, that's up to you.
Did you finish your thought before the break?
Yeah, I once had a thought and it was so painful to actually think through a thought that I thought I'd never do that again. Well, I think I was finished with the thought, yeah.
Okay. Well, we do have a listener that has, just to change the mood for a bit, because we don't mean to make light of this individual circumstance, we have a listener who says, I have many sleepless nights and nightmares over a precious loved one who has passed away.
I do not have any certainty that this person ever really came to a saving faith in Christ, although there was some minimal evidence that might have been a possibility. But I am plagued with the fears and the doubts that this person may be in hell.
How can I possibly find comfort in unconditional election when it comes to the position that I am in? This was a dear and very precious loved one of mine, and I cannot imagine being happy in heaven without her.
Yeah, I totally run to the stud, God knows about this, point to the fact, do you remember the in the last moments of his life, turned to Christ and said, remember me when you come into your kingdom and heard amazing words from the master, today you'll be with me in paradise.
And was given absolute assurance that he had eternal life at that moment, something that is not the case with appearing to us and to happen to this thief on the cross. And yet, I imagine with my little imagination that this thief on the cross had a mother.
Let's suppose, and we're just making a trek through with our imagination at this point, but let's suppose that the mother was a Christian and was praying for that thief on the cross to come to the Lord.
There was no signs whatsoever before that intervention on the cross. This man was elect, nothing at all would give any indication of that. And yet, from all eternity, as we understand the scriptures, it was not a surprise then that this man came, but was simply kind of carrying out that which was effected in eternity and was received by Christ on the cross who was dying for him within yards of his own crucifixion.
And so, those things are encouragement to us in that unless we were there present at the last moment of someone's life and they are continually and continuing to hurl out abuse and hostile, God may well have turned their hearts in the final moment.
That's always something we need to bear in mind. That is an excellent point because I have had a couple of confrontations, well perhaps that's too harsh of a term, exchanges of opinion with even pastors that I know that are not Reformed who have even spoken of their own parents or somebody that they love dearly.
I know one pastor in particular, I'm not going to say his name, and he said that he knows for certain that his father is in hell. I said, how do you know that? He said, well, he wasn't a Christian. I said, yeah, but do you know for certain that he never repented and that his heart was never changed and that he eventually may have turned toward God?
And he says, well, no, I don't have any evidence of that. I said, were you with your father when he died? He said, no. I said, how on earth can you be certain that your father's in hell? Your father could have even cried out to the Lord while he was dying, especially if he was alone.
How would anyone know for certain? And of course, we are not to presume on that type of opportunity for ourselves if we are in rebellion. We're not supposed to say, well, I'm going to wait until I'm gasping my last breath to cry out to God or that kind of nonsense.
But at the same time, people should be comforted with the comfort that you just offered, because if we did not have the record in Scripture, in the God-breathed, inerrant word of what the thief on the cross said, we would not know, and neither would his family or anyone else.
Yes, exactly, exactly. The other point I'd make is two points. In heaven, minds contemplate that, even comprehend at this point, gliding in them in ways we are not able to hear. Someone made the comment, it was Jonathan Edwards, made the comment that with sanctified minds, although it seems in our imagination into heaven, we'll actually be praising God for the demonstration, and again, declining to happiness in heaven, even if a loved one is in heaven, that we'll have sanctified minds that are not polluted by sin.
That's hard for us to conceive of right now, but I believe that heaven will not be a miserable place.
Yes, if Christ is drawing every tear from our eyes, if there's nothing but joy, indescribable joy in glory, then we know for certain, even though we don't know details about exactly what we'll be thinking and so on in heaven, we do know that we're not going to be filled with sorrow,.
We're not going to have any sorrow. Yeah, exactly. So I think that can be a comfort, it's just one you've, if you'll allow me just to quote a little from the chapter, quote about lost love like this, let me address a lady named Monica, she was married to a prominent man who did not share a Christian faith, pain and anguish, her husband did not share his mother's faith, sharp mind to seek her for another, and had a son born out of wedlock named Adioditus.
Monica was not personally able to convince her son of the truth of Christianity, but she determined never to stop decades in prayer for her son, seemingly seeing no result out of all of this, and tells us the spiritual death of their children.
Distraught, she went to see the well-known bishop, her anguish of sorrow will bless you, for it is not possible that the son of these tears should perish. She accepted the answer as though it were a word from God, and Monica's prayer for her son, the son was in the garden, certainly working on him, in his own writings he recalled what happened next.
Suddenly, he saw a witch coming from the neighboring house, chanting over and over, tolalege, tolalege, a Latin phrase that meant be recounted, and began most earnestly to think whether it was usual for children in some kind of game to sing such a song, but I could not remember ever having heard the light of the torrent of my tears, I got to my face, got to my feet, for I could not but think that this was a divine command to open the bible, to return to the bench, and was sitting, but there I put down the apostles book, I snatched it up, opened it, and in silence I read the paragraph on which my 1313, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and may read no further, you already know who I'm writing about here, it's the one we now refer to as Saint Augustine, Monica was the mother of Augustine, and many years of a single moment, experienced that life-changing conversion to Christ, and Augustine would become the most prominent theologian of the church for the first incredibly bleak for many many years, is on your heart even now, although it's not a hundred percent prayers that God was behind, even the desire to pray as you, something of a comfort, even though we cannot, declaration of this individual to know that they definitely can, the fact that it is so upon our hearts, even as we pray for others, it's a good indication that God is behind that desire to pray as we do, reasons I've mentioned, the thief on the cross, the fact that we don't understand unless we're actually present, and they were still defiant of God, could well have saved that individual, converted them without our knowledge, that's on our hearts, the way.
Yes, and I've also, in my own prayer life, coping with grief and mourning over loved ones and relatives and friends that have passed away, whose salvation was questionable, I asked the Lord, Lord please, if it be within your will, send me some evidences or some reasons for hope, even if they are comparatively small little jewels of reasons for hope, and I have had things that have come across my path, things that have been written by individuals who had passed away years prior to their death, that would indicate a lot stronger faith in Christ than I ever would have imagined, and things like that, and the thing that we have to remember, and I know I've said this before on my program, but all of us, whether we are Arminian or Calvinist, we all have fear over the eternal state of those who we know and love who are alive and yet do not know Christ, and we also at times go through periods of depression for those who have departed this earth where we don't know if they are saved or lost, but the thing is, what would you rather have to hold on to?
The fact that God is the judge of all the earth who will do what is right, or your own responsibility in whether or not that person ever received eternal life? Would you rather hold on to the fact that you did not effectively evangelize that person often enough or even at all?
Would you rather hold on to the fact that you weren't loving enough to that person, that you didn't call them on the phone enough or write to them enough, that you didn't visit them enough, that you didn't demonstrate acts of charity and benevolence and kindness to them enough, that you weren't clear enough or articulate enough with the gospel, that you weren't learned enough, that you weren't confident enough about your faith to publicly proclaim it as often as you should?
You could go on and on and on and rack your brain and just rip your heart to shreds with self-hatred and guilt over that weight of responsibility. So the doctrine of election is especially a precious gift of comfort in that time, more than any other time, I believe, because that is really when you have to say, will not the judge of all the earth do what is right?
And you have to just leave it in the hands of God. Yeah, exactly. That's the only.
Place where we can be sane in the middle of all that. I think about every time I preach, if it was down to me, to heaven or hell, timing is off on, I would never sleep a night ever to think that I'm going to stand before any individual, let alone the ability of it, someone to have an eternity in heaven or hell, and it's down to me, I would never sleep.
My comfort even in preaching is hope, and that's there is where my own children in our hands.
We have a listener, Arnie, in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who says, how would you react to those who, because of the very things you are saying now, would say that you are absolving yourself of the responsibility to evangelize and that you are taking a lackadaisical attitude towards the urgency and necessity of bringing the gospel to the lost?
Now, that's a very good question, but just because we don't believe that we are the ones who give the increase and that we must be the ones who plant and water, but we are not the ones who actually bring dead hearts to life, that doesn't mean we have a lackadaisical attitude towards evangelism,.
Does it? Now, isn't there, to borrow a phrase from John Piper, isn't there a bit even of.
Of Christian hedonism within us where we enjoy seeing the lost come to faith and to experiencing the gift of eternal life? I mean, obviously evangelism isn't always fun, especially in countries where people are risking their lives and even losing their physical lives because of their evangelism, but we do enjoy seeing the lost embrace Christ and come to faith.
And also, in retrospect, when we were speaking about the sadness of uncertainty about those who have passed on before us who we love, where we don't know if they were lost or saved, if we are involved in the evangelism of loved ones who come to faith, we will be spared of that depression.
Because we know that the elect will hear the gospel whether we do it or not, but would you rather have someone else do it and you never know whether you see or hear that person make those precious utterances, I love Jesus and wish to follow him for the remainder of my life?
I mean, not evangelizing those you love, even if they come to faith through the evangelism of someone else and you don't know about it before they pass away, you are going to be robbed of that precious knowledge and certainty that they will be waiting for you in heaven, just as Paul tells the church in Thessalonica.
That is one of the.
Things that we are to find comfort in. Exactly. And that's our hope, I think, of that scripture in Acts 6, not with men and women, through continually handing out tracts, because I know that that is on tracts.
I remember hearing... In fact, John, could you pick up on the.
Story on tracts because we're going to take our last break. Okay. And just don't forget where you left off, and I'll remind you that it was about tracts, but sorry to break in you on mid-sentence. That's good.
But this is our last break and this is your last opportunity to send a question, at least to be answered on air, and today the email address is chrisorensen at gmail .com, chrisorensen at gmail .com, and please include your city, state, and country if you're outside of the USA, and we look forward to hearing from you after this word from those who make Iron Sharpens Iron.
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Their website is providencebaptistchurchma .org, providencebaptistchurchma .org, and we thank from the bottom of our hearts Pastor Mark Lukens and the saints at Providence Baptist Church of Norfolk, Massachusetts for the kindness and graciousness and generosity to agree to support Iron Sharpens Iron for an entire year of monthly giving, and we can never thank you enough, and I can never thank you enough, Pastor Mark Lukens and the brothers and sisters at Providence Baptist Church in Norfolk, Massachusetts, providencebaptistchurchma .org.
It's a Reformed Baptist Church in Massachusetts. If you have friends or family and loved ones in Massachusetts or perhaps you yourself live near the Norfolk area, please refer them to Providence Baptist Church in Norfolk, providencebaptistchurchma .org, and one more time, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, and please give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if outside of the United States, and I also want to make sure that before I forget the book that we have been discussing for over an hour and a half now and for many other days in the past as we have continued on this theme of answering objections to God's sovereignty in election.
The book Twelve Whatabouts, written by our guest John Sampson, is available by the publishers Solid Ground Christian Books and Solid Ground Christian Books, their website is solid-ground-books .com, solid-ground-books .com.
You can order Twelve Whatabouts, Answering Objections Concerning God's Sovereignty in Election by John Sampson from Solid Ground Christian Books, and Mike Gaydosh, the founder and director of Solid Ground Christian Books, is returning once again as a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron tomorrow on two different undetermined topics.
Maybe he's determined what they are, I just don't know what they are. One hour for each topic tomorrow, so we hope that you join us tomorrow. You can also order most of the books, and actually pretty much all of the books that we ever promote on Iron Sharpens Iron, you can get those through Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, and their website is cvbbs .com, that's cv for Cumberland Valley, bb for Bible Book, s for service .com, cvbbs .com.
You were saying before the break, Pastor John, that you had a story about tracts,.
And if you could continue. Yeah, I've actually re-translated into it. You're putting a lot of trust in these people who are telling you. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. It was actually a military man who was from an individual who never did.
Superfluous. He'd look at this tract, and he thinks, uh, I'll read it at some point, but King as well, and then thought, you know, three years on from after receiving on the television that he could recognize it all, and gave it years later, saying, give out, are like foot soldiers, and they're just even three years after they ever know.
In fact, probably don't ever know all that happened, so I'm always encouraged, always encouraged by that, because it's like a, as he said, a foot soldier who's ready to pounce and attack the soul with the scripture, and God can, after you've actually.
Given the tract to the person. Amen, and in fact, uh, I don't know if you know who Jeff Pollard is of Mount Zion Bible Church in Pensacola, Florida, who also operates Chapel Library, that wonderful literature ministry, and in fact, I highly recommend anybody listening to go to Chapel Library's website.
I don't have it off the top of my head in front of me, perhaps before the end of the show I'll have it, but Chapel Library has an enormous... I've got it in front of me, I've got it in front of me, chapellibrary .org.
Oh great, that's easy enough. They have an enormous inventory of tracts and books by different authors, predominantly from the past, but even from the present as well, and they are all men who firmly believe in the doctrines of sovereign grace, and the... not that there's a hobby horsing going on of the tracts, there's a wide variety of subjects being dealt with, but anyway, Jeff Pollard, in a recent conference that I was at in Pensacola, called tracts paper missionaries.
I don't know if that was his phrase that he coined, or if he heard it, but I love that phrase, paper missionaries, or paper preachers, or paper evangelists. And it reminded me also of, in fact, our listeners can pray for a world-renowned actor and comedian, Ray Romano, from Everybody Loves Raymond.
His brother, Richard, is a Christian, and I remember watching the Oprah Winfrey show, and I hate to admit that, but I was actually watching that years ago, and the entire staff of Everybody Loves Raymond was on that program, and the entire crew, or acting crew, was on there, and one of the characters on that show, Robert, who was Raymond's brother in the program, the actor, Brad, and I can't think of his last name, but he urged Ray on the Oprah Winfrey show to read everybody the letter that his brother Richard had given him in Queens, New York, before he left New York for Hollywood, after he got the big break to star in Everybody Loves Raymond, and he took out of his wallet a little note that said, what profiteth a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his own soul, and I find it very ironic that he would find that as a precious gift from his brother, since he's not yet a Christian, but you never know.
One day he may be really rejoicing for having that little slip of paper. I mean, that was really a long way of telling a very short story, but God has sovereignty over all of these things, and obviously, we should not exclusively use the handing out of tracts as our only means of communicating the gospel to people.
Absolutely. Some people do that because they are being passionate about spreading the gospel and being obedient, and because they desperately want to see the lost read the good news, and other people perhaps are just doing it because it's an ironically an easier way for them to just not communicate or develop relationships with people.
They just want to hand them a tract. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. I'm sorry. No, go ahead. Going back to something you already started talking about, it's interesting that both the reformed and the non-reformed throw this question back and forth at each other.
The non-reformed say to the reformed, like us, well, if God has already chosen before the foundation of the world those who will believe, why do you pray for them if nothing can alter the number of the elect?
And then, of course, we, I think, have a better retort or more meaningful use of that same question to them. If God has done everything that he could do in your system of theology, why are you praying for him to have his mind changed or something?
What is God going to do in your system of theology, if you're not a believer in the doctrines of grace, to bring that person to salvation? And it's interesting how, I believe J .I. Packer said that all Christians are Calvinists on their knees, and even Charles Spurgeon said something similar years earlier because of the fact that an Arminian, even if he disagrees with us on paper, on matters of theology, you will never hear an Arminian thanking God for the free will of men.
You will hear them saying, Lord, please save my lost parents or children or family members or neighbors. Please turn their hearts around. Please, Lord, please remove their hearts of stone. Give them hearts of flesh.
Please, Lord. You know, they're begging the Lord to do something that the person will not do on their own. Yeah. If you could continue on that thread there, as long as you'd like to.
Yeah, it's absolutely the case. Again, if God was of the Arminian persuasion and you'd said, God, would you intervene in my... Don't you realize I'm doing everything I can? I've given him the same measure of grace I gave you, and I'm just hoping that he makes the right decision.
Why are you asking me to do more? I can't. I'm an Arminian God.
And of course, we pray because God commands us to, and because it also comforts us, and it's how we worship him, and it's also the means by which he does, just like the preaching.
Of the gospel. It's the means he uses, correct? Yeah, exactly. That's the theological point. As an Arminian would receive, as you rightly say, any Arminian serve an Arminian on his knees. If everyone had done this, thou, given some, do not improve it, but I, much of the Holy Ghost, much blessed as I am, given me, and when it's made, that is a prayer for the devil, for no one else, to be wrong in doctrine, but true things slips out, they cannot help it.
If a man talks very slowly, he may speak in a fine manner, but when he comes to talk fast, the old brogue, such a man, you've never, you need have no, I believe he went again without the power, you know nothing about the matter, the bond of iniquity.
Christian man saying, I sought Jesus, not come to me, no, the lens to a heart, my soul to pray, and made my eyes to overflow, it was grace that kept me to this day, and free will. We don't pray like that, because we know that's not the God of the Bible.
The God of the Bible opens hearts,.
Forever would one shut. Well, I could now publicly go on a campaign to denounce you as a heretic, because I could edit that false prayer that you read out of context, and use it as evidence against you, but I'm just kidding, of course.
I know that you use a term called spiritual dyslexia, if you could explain what you mean by.
That. Yeah, I think it's a phrase I once heard in a sermon by someone else a long, long time ago, and in the physical realm, as we know, dyslexia, at times it's normal, or even above normal intelligence.
One thing has to happen, born again, many Christians, and that is, the Arminian view is, you do not believe my flock, you're my own Christian, and they believe you according to him, and I've still got my blind spots, the problem is I don't know where they are, or else I'll...
Yeah, and let's not forget one of the classic texts that so clearly points at what you said, Acts 13, 48, and those who were appointed unto eternal life believed. It's not those who believed were appointed unto eternal life, those who were appointed or ordained unto eternal life believed, and I have a friend who is a non-Calvinist, who even wrote a book called Troubling Questions for Calvinists and the Rest of Us, Dr. F. LaGarde Smith, he even admitted in that book that he had no real meaningful response to that text.
I actually admired him for his honesty, that he did not try to twist or conduct eisegesis in that text to try to make it sound like the opposite. I have seen other people, well just actually a couple of other people, open up Arminian commentaries that will try to explain that away, and the commentaries that I've seen are from full-blown Arminians who even believe you could lose your salvation.
So, I've never really heard any kind of meaningful or adequate response to that text at all.
Yeah, it's very clear. I'm looking at them as the number of people who believe are no more than the many. I think we should close with the most common objection in regard.
To Scripture that is thrust in our faces by those who reject unconditional election. John 3 .16, the most beloved passage of Scripture, even by those who aren't Christians or know little about the Bible, that seems to be a text that most people are somewhat familiar with.
And if you could explain that text in light of being someone who believes in unconditional election.
I've never heard of John 3 .16.
So, you've never been to any athletic event in public at all, I'm assuming.
No. Common, common, common objection, and the thought that goes into it is that God loves everyone the exact same way. But if you actually look at the text, it's saying, God's love for the world. The phrase, so loved, is an English phrase, but really, it's a bit like a very high-class mother laying a table and is teaching her children to do that, and is saying, put the fork here, just so.
Put the knife here, just so. Put the other condiments, put them here, just so. Or just in this way. And that's really what's happening in the original text. God loves the world in this way. It's not like He's so loved.
That's, it's, no, it's God loved in this way. God's love for the world is seen in this way, by the giving of His Son. For what purpose? So that all those who believe, that's literally what the text is saying, all the believing ones, will in no way perish, but will have everlasting life.
The verse does not teach about divine election at all. It simply is making a statement, will not suffer a perishment, or they will not perish, but they will have this instead. They will have eternal life.
It speaks nothing about the doctrine of election. John 3, 16, speaks nothing about it. If you want to know John's view, no one can even enter the kingdom unless they're first born again. And then the wind blows, that is the work of the Holy Spirit, in drawing the people of God to the Son.
And in John 3, 16, I don't know where it comes from, or where it is going, so it worked in the heart of that person to have a new heart, and they now want what they didn't want before. And that is all the work of God.
John 3, 16 is a wonderful verse, if you understand it correctly.
Amen. I think it was John Gerstner who said John 3, 16 actually screams of limited atonement, because it's those who believe who benefit by the giving of Christ on the cross. Well, we're out of time, brother, and I look forward to having you back very soon.
Pastor John's website is kingschurchaz .com, kingschurchaz .com, with no apostrophe after the G, kingschurchaz, az for Arizona, dot com, and we look forward to having you back very soon.