Aug. 6, 2015 ISI Radio Show with John Samson on “Answering Common Objections Concerning God’s Sovereignty in Election (continued)”

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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 that 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, as many of our listeners would understand most, if not all, of the doctrines in the

Bible are controversial. The Trinity, not everybody believes that.

The Bible being the Word of God, not everybody believes that. And so it is with this idea, concept of divine election, and the only reason we would believe it is because God's Word teaches it.

I didn't in former days believe it even as a pastor, and it was really subjecting myself almost against my will to look at this subject because I was impacted by the teaching of Dr.

R .C. Sproul, and he came to a place nearby and I went and attended a meeting and had an impact on me, but caused me to go into a study cocoon for quite some time before I came out to understand what

I now understand. But the basic concept is that God from all eternity has chosen a people for himself who in time will come to him, as Jesus made clear.

And the reason I believe it is not because some of the big guns, the greats in church history have endorsed this.

When we think of the big guns in church history, we think of Martin Luther and John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards and preachers like George Whitefield, C .H.

Spurgeon. Though they would have disagreements on some other points, they would all be agreed on this issue, and that at least should cause us to ask, why?

Why would they believe this? I certainly have the idea that this was a concept past its sell -by date, so to speak.

People believed it in former centuries, but we've moved on, haven't we? And yet we believe it because Jesus certainly taught it clearly, and certainly the

Bible clearly teaches it. And I wrote the book seeking to deal with the common objections that people have that are either concepts or misunderstandings of certain scriptures.

So that's what I went about the task of doing, 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 it really could help people. And so that's what

I did with his encouragement. In fact, he wrote the foreword 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 the 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 Pastor Sampson 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, Sampson, 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 Sampson.

Well, I'm going to first go to a question within your whatabouts, 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 loves everybody in the exact same way, and 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 through the

Bible itself and try in the most passionate way possible to allow the

Bible 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 or the otherites that were around at the time.

He set His love on Israel, and Deuteronomy brings that out in chapter 6, that God chose

Israel for His own pleasure. He set His love on them, and nowhere in the

Bible does it explain why. All it 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 were cuter or they were wiser or they were more spiritually inclined.

These were, in fact, the stiff -necked Israelites, and yet He set His love on them in a way

He did not for others. The book of Amos brings that out.

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 upon Israel.

When we come then to the New Testament, it's Jesus who talks of His sheep, and He speaks of them in glowing terms, those that the

Father has given Him from all eternity. His prayer in John chapter 17.

We were actually in a Bible study last night, and we were walking through that passage, and His love for the people that the

Father had given Him made Him pray for them and not for the world. And again, that's a concept most people shun away from, because they have this idea that God loves everyone in the exact same way.

And then when we come to passages such as Romans 9, which is all about God's election, we have this statement there that God 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 individuals, 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, there's a difference between the word love and hate.

It's not the word love in both places. Two different words are 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 older for the cause of His electing grace.

That's what He states as the reason that God's word or message about election might stand.

And so those are the scriptures that deflate the idea and actually negate the idea of God loving 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 wife. We're able as creatures made in the image of God to say,

I love children, but I love my children more than others. And it's not 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 to rebel angels.

Fallen angels remain fallen and are never redeemed. So for God to save anyone, that should be the shock.

The shock should not be, Esau, have I hated, because he was a rebel sinner like his brother.

The shock should be, Jacob, I have love, because there's no reason for it 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 the sum and 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 people, absolutely, far from it. But it was a quite earth -shattering shock to my thinking to realize the

Apostles were not emphasizing the love of God the way most evangelical preachers are 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 a lot about the love of God, but the majority of it is written in 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 out to the world and say,

God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, that the Apostles didn't preach the Gospel that way.

And we're so in that environment, hearing that message over and over and over and over and over and over and over, that we think that's what the

Bible is teaching. Whereas 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 visible 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 seen by the giving of His Son, 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 effectively, and the Holy Spirit draws them.

And there's this Trinitarian mission that is absolute unity.

There's a unity of the Godhead, even in the mission of the

Godhead, that they all are about the same task. The Father electing, the Son dying, and the

Holy Spirit drawing each of those to the Son, bringing glory to God Himself.

So there's a pendulum swing, whereby in olden days, people used to speak of hellfire and damnation preachers.

Don't see much of that today. It's all the other way on the love of God, yet biblically, there is both in view.

God is holy and just and righteous, and in His love has sent

His Son, not for everybody, but for everyone who believes, and only then will be saved.

So, election is not the Gospel, but it explains why some reject the

Gospel and why others embrace it. 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 you cannot, 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 given a new heart to see

Christ as He really is. And it all flows, I agree with everything you said, and it all flows out of that misunderstanding of the love of God, a non -biblical starting point.

It's like us men, when we're buttoning our shirt, if we get it wrong on the top button, if we put the wrong button in the wrong hole, we'll be wrong all the way down the line.

And if we get it wrong on the love of God, we'll come up with some false concepts that really hinder our understanding of what the

Bible teaches. You see, as human beings, we're capable of both having and displaying different kinds of love.

Let's think of some examples. We love our favorite chair, we love our family, but hopefully not in the same way.

If there's a fire in the house, the first thought would be to make sure all the family members were out rather than the chair, even though we love the chair.

The chair would be an afterthought, because we love, hopefully, people more than chairs, more than objects.

We love our pets, you know, but hopefully we love our spouse more.

We'd hopefully get the spouse out of the house before the cat, even though we love the cat.

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 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 means 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. That's a good illustration of it.

You see, God has more than one degree or measure of love. It's very multifaceted and multidimensional.

And God the Father, if you think, if people will stop and think of it, he loves his eternal son more than he loves the pigeon on my roof.

And taking that 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 at all biblical.

But taking them to the text is very difficult because many are not even willing to go there if 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 only begotten son that whosoever.

And off they go with that. And yet, if you take time to actually look at that verse, it's teaching the fact that God's love 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 A, believe, will not receive B, which is judgment and everlasting punishment, but will receive

C, everlasting life. It does not tell us who will believe, who can believe.

It just says simply the ones who believe will 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 will inherit eternal life.

They will have joy with God forever. And so 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, do 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

Bible actually speaks of the love of God as a 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, are 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 who will definitely, without question, go to hell.

And yet they're made and created anyway. 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.

We have to use logic. In fact, the Scripture also talks of it, that some will not inherit eternal life, and God knows exactly who they are.

He's always known that. He's always known the identity of those 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 dot com.

chrisarnson at gmail dot com. Don't go away. We'll be right back with John Sampson and answering objections concerning God's sovereignty in election.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnson and 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 for arizona .com.

We are discussing John's book 12 Whatabouts? Answering Objections to God's Sovereignty in Election.

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

And 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 reform 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 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 the reason, but there are reasons, and the reason that we are seeing in Scripture is not found in us, but Ephesians 1 makes clear for the praise of his glory, and that phrase is repeated a number of times in that chapter to show for his good pleasure a people redeemed for the praise of his glory.

I'm thinking back to something I said just a few minutes ago about Israel. I'd like to read

Deuteronomy 7, 6 through 8, which seems to address this exact issue. God has this mysterious love for Israel, never explains why.

It's clear it was nothing in them that determined his choice. His love for them was greater than and far greater than for the other nations around them.

God wanted a people for himself and sovereignly and unconditionally chose

Israel to be his, and when he did so, he was not choosing the Hittites, the Amorites, the

Philistines, these other people groups around them. Here's what God says, Deuteronomy 7, 6 through 8.

For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the

Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the house of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

So again, there in the Old Testament, we have this same God choosing Israel and making it clear it was not because of anything in them, not because they were mighty, they were actually the fewest around, but that they might be his is something that is clear.

He made, with his intention, a covenant in eternity for their redemption, and it is worked out in time.

And when people begin to see that, they begin to see that God has the exact same program in mind in the

New Testament, and it's very, very clear that God is perfectly just to dispense his mercy as he sees fit.

Mercy, by its very definition, can never be demanded. We can't demand mercy.

The fact that no fallen angel will ever be redeemed causes no intellectual problem for the angels in heaven.

God's holiness, his justice, his character, his integrity remains intact, and all the angels continually sing, holy, holy, holy is the

Lord of hosts. So it's a rebellious man who has more in common with the

Adolf Hitlers and the Stalins of this world than we do with the holiness of God. We feel a grief that God would say, you know what,

I'm going to pass over some rebels, some who are hostile in heart, and allow them the freedom that they crave to hate me.

But for some, I will intervene, take out the heart of stone, remove the blindness so they can see me as I really am, and I will do that as an act of mercy.

It's a lot like Lazarus who was in the tomb once Jesus raised him from the dead.

In John chapter 11, he didn't immediately go hire a lawyer to say,

I'm going to sue this guy who just raised me from the dead because he violated my right to stay dead.

It was an act of mercy. Yeah, let me read, because of the fact that we are constantly slandered, and not intentionally necessarily, which

I don't know if it 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.

That is not at all what we believe. 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. 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, that is more of a clear explanation of what we believe in than the 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 affirm what you just said, but would point people to the exact same documents.

We do this out of kindness to those involved in the cults. We try to find out what it is they actually believe, rather than say, you believe this and then present a straw man and then knock it down.

But it helps no one to do that. And the false view that you've just articulated and made clear is not what we believe.

It's known as equal ultimacy, and that's the view that it says

God does as much in and to the wicked to cause their damnation as he does in his elect to cause their salvation.

We reject that. That's not what we believe at all. When we look at Romans 9,

I believe it's verse 18, it says he has mercy on whomever he wills and he hardens whomever he wills.

We need to understand that there's two possible ways God could harden the heart. In one scenario, he could actually inject fresh evil into the soul of a man, and that's an abhorrent thought, isn't it?

One that I'd seen nowhere in Scripture, and I don't know personally anyone who

I know who believes that. In the other scenario, God could simply leave man, and that's the kind of language you used, simply leave man in a state of rebellion by withholding the special measure of grace that he gives to his elect.

Because the unregenerate, the non -believer, his natural disposition is one of hostility and opposition to God, so all

God needs to do to harden the heart is withhold that special grace he gives to his elect and actually just simply leaves them in their evil, prideful, hateful defiance of him.

And that's what reprobation is all about, correct? Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And in that, there's not even a hint of injustice, a trace of injustice taking place.

God either dispenses the justice that is deserved or the unspeakable mercy that is undeserved, but absolutely no one is receiving injustice from the hand of God.

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, the Twelve 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, yeah, that's right.

And by the way, your phone sound quality is 100 % better.

It is? Oh, okay, okay, yeah, good to know. There's a verse I'm thinking of in 1

Peter 2 that says, they stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

So again, there's this concept that if we're going to be biblical, we've got to embrace all that scripture says.

And there's a verse that, in context, is speaking of those who are arrogant, arrogantly defying

God, that disobeying the word of God, the proclamation that they've heard. And then there's this tag -on line, as they were destined to do.

So again, that's the flip side of divine election, and that is reprobation.

And a lot of people don't like that, because it speaks of God being on the throne. But the alternative is, man is on the throne, and God simply has to go along with what people desire.

The problem with that, as you've just rightly said, is people have no desire for the true

God until God removes the heart of stone. And it's a failure to understand man's radical corruption, his inability to come to God, because he does not want to come to God.

It's not a physical limitation, but 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 decision they will choose, and he chooses on the basis of their decision.

The problem with that is, it fails to take into account what the Bible says about the heart of man, that it is hostile.

It beats with every beat to defy God. And 1

Peter 2 .8 says, those that disobey the Word were actually destined to do so.

So as Bible -believing Christians, we need to embrace all that God says, including verses that speak of God's judgment from eternity on the wicked.

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 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.

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 we would then ask the question, is it good to believe the gospel rather than not believe the gospel?

And they don't really want to go there with that question, but if you tie them down and say, please answer the question, is it a good thing to believe the gospel?

They would say yes. Then by necessary consequence, if you're affirming that it is your faith that is the trigger for what happens in eternity, what

God sees you doing in time, you do the good thing, and your neighbor who hears the same exact gospel doesn't respond in the same way, you are in heaven because of a good thing you did.

And they don't want to go there because they know that salvation is not by works, but we would say, look, pressing the point, you are saying that you're in heaven because of one good work you did, the one good work of having faith.

Now, on the other side where we're coming from, we do affirm that we are justified by faith alone, but where we would differ would be to say we understand that even our faith is

God's gift given to the elect, and there are scriptures that speak of that,

Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, Philippians 1, 29, it's been given you to believe.

And so the reason why we're in the kingdom is not because of our faith, but our faith that we exercise was a desire and a trusting in the

Son of God that is itself a gift. So we can't even boast about our way into the kingdom because we were 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 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 God gives us the idea of a faith and we say, you know what,

I think I'll like that. Again, because that would actually involve faith, that would involve faith itself to accept the gift of faith.

Yeah, again, what interest does someone with the heart of stone have in having a heart transplant?

If God said, look, you've got a heart of stone, but I'm offering you a heart of flesh, sign up here and we'll do the job for you.

Again, what decisions will a heart of stone come up with? It will always reject anything because it is a heart of stone!

It does not want God or the things of God, and Romans 8, 7 and 8 makes that clear.

It cannot subject itself to the law of God. It has no interest. The natural man, the soulish man, the man without the spirit has no interest in obeying

God and certainly not in obeying the call of the gospel. 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 phone. I speak to people in England, they think it sounds very

American. I speak over here, they think I've just walked off the plane from England and I tell them it's a mid -Atlantic accent.

Everybody hates it! You know

I'm just kidding. I think it lends an air of sophistication to Iron Sharpens Iron that is totally absent with just me on the mic.

May I just say this? Like John the Baptist was sent for his special commission,

I've been sent to help Americans because it's going to be very troubling when they reach heaven and they hear the immortal words, well done, good and faithful.

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 dot com. That's chrisarnson at gmail dot 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 Chris Arnz in the gym. 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 answer 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 answer 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 chrisarnsen 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, completely 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 chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Don't go away, we'll be right back. contemporary topics relevant to today's issues.

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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, yes. 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 of 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 sympathize. It's something that is heartbreaking to even consider, that there's a number of ways to go about trying to answer that.

And the first is really to weep with those who weep, rather than run to the study.

We should run with our arms to embrace this precious one and say, shall not the judge of all the earth do right?

We don't know all that God knows about this, and we simply have to trust him in what we don't know.

I would also point to the fact that, do you remember the thief who was on the cross next to Jesus, who 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 us in terms of Jesus appearing to us and telling us we've got eternal life.

That was what happened 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, his own cross, that 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 rhetoric at God, 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 that, in fact, two points.

In heaven, we will be free from our body of sin, as Paul calls it.

We will have sanctified minds, and it's hard for us to even contemplate that, but we will be so free from the pollution of sin that, although it sounds almost laughable and it's something we cannot even comprehend at this point, with the knowledge of God we'll know then, we'll be delighting in the attributes of God, and we will be delighting in them in ways we are not able to hear, because we see through a glass darkly, as Scripture says.

And so there, someone made the comment, I think it was Jonathan Edwards made the comment, that with sanctified minds, although it seems crazy for us to even think this way, but just let's go there again in our imagination into heaven, we'll actually be praising

God for the demonstration of his justice. And again, because we're so inclined to our human emotions here, which are polluted by sin, in seeing the glory of God in his justice, even though we shudder at the very thought of it, we'll be able,

I believe, to have happiness in heaven, even if a loved one is in hell, for the very reason that we'll have sanctified minds that are not polluted by sin.

That's hard for us to even conceive of right now, but I believe that heaven will not be a miserable place where we're just lurking around, just bemoaning the fact that certain people are not with us.

Yeah, 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, even though we can't really relate to it now,

I think we can conceive of it at least. And the second thought was the fact that someone, as a loved one, is so on the heart of this precious one you've talked about.

There's the example in church history, in fact, if you'll allow me just to quote a little from the book that I wrote, there's a chapter called,

What About Lost Loved Ones? What About Lost Loved Ones? And I write this, let me address this question by telling you a story from history.

In the fourth century, there was a very devout Christian lady named Monica. She was married to a prominent man who did not share a

Christian faith. He was often very cruel to her, causing her physical abuse. Every day she'd go to the church and pray for his conversion.

Later on in his life, he did in fact become a Christian. Yet the pain and anguish her husband caused her seemingly paled into insignificance compared to that which she suffered because of her oldest son.

Her mother's heart was broken time after time seeing the reckless life her son was leading.

He not only did not share his mother's faith, but would join himself to anti -Christian groups, using a sharp mind to seek to convince others to follow him.

He lived a very immoral life. He had a mistress, but left her for another, and had a son born out of wedlock named

Adioditus. Monica was not personally able to convince her son of the truths of Christianity, but she determined never to stop praying that he would turn to the

Lord. For two decades this went on, two decades, with Monica persisting in prayer for her son, seemingly seeing no results.

Her son was later to write about all of this and tells us that she wept more for his spiritual death than most mothers weep for the bodily death of their children.

Distraught, she went to see the well -known bishop Ambrose of Milan to speak about her plight.

At knowing her anguish of soul, he said, Go your way and God 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, her prayers were answered very suddenly.

One day, her son was in the garden experiencing much agony of soul because of his sin.

God, the Holy Spirit, was certainly working on him. In his own writings, he recalled what happened next.

Suddenly, he heard the voice of a boy or a girl, he was not even sure which, coming from the neighboring house, chanting over and over, tolelege, tolelege, a

Latin phrase that meant, pick up, read it, pick up, read it.

Later, in his own writings, he recounted, either here are his words, immediately

I ceased weeping 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 like.

So damning the torrent of my tears, I got to my feet, for I could not but think that this was a divine command to open the

Bible and to read the first passage I should light upon. So I quickly returned to the bench where Alipius, his friend, was sitting, for there

I put down the Apostle's book when I had left it there. He's talking of the New Testament. I snatched it up, opened it, and in silence

I read the paragraph on which my eyes first fell, Romans 13, 13, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the

Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the less thereof.

I wanted to read no further, nor did I need to, for instantly as the sentence ended there was infused in my heart something like the light of full certainty, and all the gloom of doubt vanished away.

And perhaps 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 her prayers were answered in a single moment when her son experienced that life -changing conversion to Christ.

And Augustine would become the most prominent theologian of the Church for the first thousand years of Church history, and yet it looked incredibly bleak for many, many years, decades even.

And so I would say to the one who's asked this question, the fact that this one is on your heart even now, although it's not at a hundred percent certainty, it's a good indication that God is behind even that, that your prayers have availed, and that God was behind even the desire to pray as you have.

And that's something of a comfort, even though we cannot, without a full declaration of this individual, to know that they definitely came to repentance and faith.

The fact that it is so upon our hearts, even as we pray for others, is a good indication that God is behind that desire to pray as we do.

So for all those reasons I've mentioned, the thief on the cross, the fact that we don't understand, unless we were actually present when they died, and they were still defiant of God, God could well have saved that individual, converted them without our knowledge.

That's certainly within his ability to do that. And the fact that it's on our hearts the way it is, is a good indication that God is at work behind the scenes.

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 ask 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 and my ability or lack of it as to whether someone goes to heaven or hell, if I quote this scripture but I get a word wrong, if I tell a story but my timing is off on articulating it and that it's boring to people or whatever, if it's in any way due to me, then

I would never sleep a night ever to think that I'm going to stand before any individual, let alone tens or twenties or hundreds or thousands, and say what

I'm doing will, the ability of it or the lack of it, will cause someone to have an eternity in heaven or hell, and it's down to me,

I would never sleep. But the fact is, my comfort even in preaching is that Christ, sheep, will hear his voice.

And that is my hope, and that's my hope as I go to the pulpit every time, is

God accomplish all that you desire to do. And there is where I leave it, and that's where I have to be with my own children and with the children of others, is leaving it in the hands of God, rather than in our hands or in that person's hands, which is the better, safer place, the place of rest.

It's exactly as you've described it there, Chris. 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?

No, that's often an accusation, and I would then say, well, come around us for a couple of weeks and see what we do.

Do we sit in an ivory tower, or do we seek to reach the lost? And I was just,

July 4th was not that long ago, just over a month ago, and we were in the very cruel heat of Phoenix, Arizona, handing,

I think it was over 5 ,000 tracts out at an event. Why would we do that?

It's because we believe that God works through means. God reaches

His elect. There's, I think of the Scripture in Romans 9 of God's election.

It's followed by Romans 10, obviously, which says, how will they hear without a preacher? And God uses means, and here's what we believe as Reformed people.

God has decreed to use the means to achieve His ends. Let's take it in the realm of physicality.

Say someone is, under God's decree, going to live to be 95 years of age before they die.

Does that mean that they don't have to eat between the time of 17 and 95? Does that mean they don't have to do some fitness and walk and breathe in and out and take some water?

No, these are means to achieve the ends, and so it is with the

Kingdom of God. The people of God are known to God from all eternity, but the way they come in is through hearing

Christ's voice in the Gospel. I think of that Scripture in Acts 13, verse 48.

It says, as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. How did they believe?

They believed because they heard the preaching of the Apostles, and God used the means to achieve

His appointed ends. Jesus said in John 10, and I have other sheep that are not of this fold, talking about the

Jewish fold, I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice, so there'll be one flock, one shepherd.

So He's saying, I'm not going to speak exclusively to Jews, because I've got other sheep out there, and they will hear my voice.

When will they hear it? When I go speak to them. God uses means.

He already had Jewish sheep, yet He knows He has other sheep not of that fold, and they will listen to His voice.

The end then is elect Gentiles coming into the Kingdom, and the means is

Jesus preaching and teaching. And that concept, you see it in Jesus' life and ministry in Matthew 11.

You remember that Scripture, verse 25? Let me read it. At that time Jesus declared, I thank you,

Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you've hidden these things. That's activity on God's part.

You've hidden these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.

All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father.

No one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. And you think that's speaking of election, that's speaking of the

Father choosing to reveal the Son to some, but not everybody. But the next verse is

Jesus saying this, come to me all who labor and are heavy laden.

I remember reading that for years and didn't realize that that, come to me all who are laboring and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest, take my yoke upon you, learn of me.

That is said in the context of election. Jesus saw no contradiction between divine election and the call to come to Him, which is the call of the gospel.

And so that passage in Matthew 11 teaches us that God hides some things, some others, reveals them to others, and yet Jesus says, come to me all.

And that's what we do as Reformed people. We know ahead of time that not everybody is going to respond, but those who do will be doing so because God has worked in the hearts of people, and our job is not to go and try and find the elect, but preach the gospel to everybody, because God has ordained that as the means.

That was true for Jesus, and it's true for us. Now isn't there, to borrow a phrase from John Piper, isn't there a bit even 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, 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 16. The Lord opened her heart, talking of Lydia, to pay attention to what was said by Paul.

There was the speaking part of Paul, but it still needed the Lord to do his work, but not without Paul.

God has ordained that it's through the preaching of the gospel by men and women, through writings, through testimony, the tracts that go out, and continually handing out tracts, because I know that that is a means that God uses to achieve his end.

If I can just share a quick story just on tracts. 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.

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 chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Lynnbrookbaptist .org. That's Lynnbrookbaptist .org. Welcome back and I'd like to add another church to the list of sponsors of Iron Sharpens Iron, a brand new church that has joined the family of supporters who financially enable us to exist as a program, and that is

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And I can never thank you enough, Pastor Mark Lukens and the brothers and sisters at Providence Baptist Church in Norfolk, Massachusetts.

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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 written a couple of tracts and I've got a heart for India having been there quite a number of times on ministry trips and they've been translated into a dialect over there called

Malayalam. Looks like someone is crocheting, it looks nothing like anything

I can recognize as a language, but I'm told it's an accurate translation of what

I wrote. You're putting a lot of trust in these people who are telling you.

Absolutely, absolutely, but the story is of a testimony I heard. It was actually a military man who was just describing how he'd received a tract from an individual, just a gospel tract, nothing special about it, and he put it in his wallet and he thought to himself,

I'll read it at some point, but never did. And every four or six months he would empty his wallet of all of the superfluous material and he'd be getting rid of receipts and throwing them in the garbage bin and he'd look at this tract and he thinks,

I'll read it at some point, but I'm not interested right now. This went on for three years,

Chris, three years. He had this tract in his wallet and he kept emptying his wallet and then thought, you know,

I'll keep this, I'll read it sometime. Well, three years on from after receiving the tract, he was in a hotel room in Saudi Arabia and was feeling particularly bored.

I guess there was nothing much on the television that he could recognize as all in a strange language.

So he read the tract. He was instantly converted and gave his life to Christ and here he was perhaps two years later saying, these little tracts you give out are like foot soldiers and they're just waiting to pounce on people even three years after the event of you giving it to them and you might never know.

In fact, probably don't ever know all that happens as a result. But he says, I'm one who's in the kingdom of God because of a tract that was given to me three years before.

And so I'm always encouraged by that because it's like, as he said, a foot soldier who's ready to pounce and attack the soul with the scripture and God can use that even years after you've actually given the tract to the person.

Amen. In fact, 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. 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 not that there is 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 ironically an easier way for them to just not communicate or develop relationships with people.

They just want to hand them a tract. Yeah. That's very true.

That's a very good point. 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 a 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?

Right. 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.

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 brother George's life?

He would reply, 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. There's the famous prayer of Spurgeon, where he's making a theological point by speaking and praying as an

Arminian would if he was in tune with his own thinking. And as you rightly say, we might have a lot of theological ideas on paper, but in prayer, we pray as if we are

Calvinists. Let me see if I can quote Spurgeon. He says, anyone who believes that man's will is entirely free, and he can be saved by it, does not believe the fall.

But I tell you that it will be the best proof of that is the fact that the great fact that you never did meet a

Christian in your life who ever said he came to Christ without Christ coming to him. You've heard a great many

Arminian sermons, I dare say, but you never heard an Arminian prayer. For the saints in prayer appear as one in word and deed and mind.

An Arminian on his knees would pray desperately like a Calvinist. He cannot pray about free will.

There is no room for it. Fancy him praying. Now, here's his almost mockery.

I don't even know if I should use the word almost, but here we go. Lord, I thank Thee that I am not like those poor presumptuous

Calvinists, Lord. I was born with a glorious free will. I was born with power by which

I can turn to Thee of myself. I have improved my grace. If everyone had done the same with their grace that I have, they might all have been saved.

Lord, I know Thou does not make us willing if we are not willing ourselves. Thou give us grace to everybody.

Some do not improve it, but I do. There are many that will go to hell as much bought with the blood of Christ as I was.

They had as much of the Holy Ghost given to them. They had as good a chance and were as much blessed as I am.

It was not Thy grace that made us to differ. I know it did a great deal.

Still, I turned the point. I made use of what was given me, and others did not.

That is the difference between me and them. And then the comment is made, that is a prayer for the devil, for no one else would offer such a prayer as that.

When they're praying and talking very slowly, they may be wronging doctrine. But when they come to pray, the true thing 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 of his country where he was born slips out.

I ask you again, did you ever meet a Christian man who said, I came to Christ without the power of the

Spirit? If you did ever meet such a man, you need have no hesitation in saying, my dear sir,

I quite believe it. And I believe you went again without the power of the Holy Spirit, and that you know nothing about the matter, and are in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity.

Do I hear one Christian man saying, I sought Jesus before he sought me. I went to the

Spirit, and the Spirit did not come to me. No, beloved, we are obliged, each one of us, to put our hands to our hearts and say, grace taught my soul to pray, and made my eyes to overflow.

It was grace that kept me to this day, and will not let me go. That's, again,

C. H. Spurgeon from a sermon, Free Will of Slaves. Again, we don't pray like that because we know that's not the

God of the Bible. The God of the Bible opens hearts that man forever would want shut, except at the mercy of God.

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 warps reality, and it can be quite catastrophic at times.

It's something that causes great hardship. People with normal or even above normal intelligence suffer from dyslexia.

The brain reverses numbers, letters, words. Whereas someone might see the word

God, someone with dyslexia might see the word dog, the first and last letters being transposed, and I'm sure you know there's a big difference between God and dog, and so it is, if we consider the spiritual realm,

I think many, many Christians suffer from what I would call a spiritual type of dyslexia, in that we look at the same scripture, but we see the exact opposite of what is actually said.

We've all got our blind spots, we've all got our traditions, but again, when we look at key scriptures in the

Bible, I'm thinking of some in the Gospel of John, Jesus made it clear that unless someone is born again, he cannot see or enter the kingdom of God.

One thing has to happen before the other thing, Jesus made clear, and that is the fact that we must be born again, have regenerated hearts, before we can enter the kingdom.

And many Christians in our day do the exact opposite in their thinking. They read those same words, but see it with some kind of dyslexia.

They say, if we choose to enter the kingdom, we'll be born again. And that is the exact opposite of what

Jesus said. John 6 .37 is another one. Jesus makes a statement, all that the

Father gives me will come to me. Well, the Arminian view is that God sees those who come to Christ, and then gives those people to Christ.

That's the exact opposite of what Jesus said in John 6 .37. Jesus is addressing a crowd of people who don't believe in him, and then explains their own beliefs by saying, all the

Father gives me will come to me, and makes it clear that one thing has to happen before the other thing.

Then in John 10, probably the final one I'll bring out, he says this,

Jesus again, you do not believe, John 10 .26, you do not believe because...

Now, what would you think would be the rest of the sentence? In our day, we would say, many would say, you do not believe because you choose not to.

You do not believe because you do not humble yourself and admit to the truth.

But Jesus said this, you do not believe because you are not part of my flock.

And I have to admit, Chris, I think I had this kind of dyslexia for many a year in my own

Christian walk. I didn't grasp what Jesus said. I interpreted through the lens of my tradition, which told me that people could choose to be part of Christ's flock.

In other words, if someone's not part of the flock, they can choose to be part of the flock, and their believing will make them one of Christ's sheep.

But that is dyslexia. That is the exact opposite of what Jesus said. Jesus looks people right in the face, telling them that the reason they don't believe is because they're not part of his flock.

And again, my tradition reversed Jesus' words completely.

He said, you do not believe because you are not part of my flock.

And as Christians, we've got no right to change those words or flip words around. We need to submit to the words of the

Master. We've got no right to reverse Jesus' words. We need to allow him to speak to us and tell us what is true 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 correct them. But when

I see it, when the Lord allows me to see it, I then have no right to continue to defy the

Lord in what he has said and hold on to my traditions. 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 that verse as I deal with it in the book, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believe.

And I ask three questions. Which comes first, believing or being appointed to eternal life?

And there's no getting around it. There's first the appointment, then there's the belief. And then we ask the second question, do any more believe?

And the text says as many as were appointed to eternal life believe. So the answer has to be no.

The number of people who believe are no more than the many who were appointed to do so.

Third question, do any less believe? And again, the answer is no, because all who have the appointment made the appointment.

And that's our hope in evangelism, that God will achieve everything he's intended as we go out with the gospel.

As many as are appointed to eternal life will believe. 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 assume. It's a 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 it's saying, put the fork here, just so. Put the knife here, just so.

Put the other uh, 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 so loved. That's, it'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.

All who do one thing, believe, 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 on that, just go earlier to the verses before it in John 3, where he said,

No one can even enter the kingdom unless they're first born again. And then the wind blows where it wishes.

That is the work of the Holy Spirit in drawing the people of God to the sun.

And in John 3 says the wind blows where it wishes. You hear the sound of it. Don't know where it comes from or where it is going.

So it is all who are born of the Spirit. It's the work of the Holy Spirit entirely.

God works as he wills. And when someone is converted, the Holy Spirit, like a divine surgeon, has worked in the heart of that person to take out a heart of stone, brought them to a place where they now 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.

Everyone who believes is never going to perish, and that's how God loved the world.

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, A -Z for Arizona, dot com.