TULIP-I-Irresistible Grace (Part 2)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'".

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Experience, Tongues, and the Authority of Scripture

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name's Mike Abendroth, and it's Tuesday, and today, as usual, as normal, regularly we have Pastor Steve Cooley in the studio.

There's nothing normal about it, pal.

Let me tell you, Abbey normal. There we go, back to pop culture again. Let's not go to that movie. Before we get into Irresistible Grace part two, Steve, I was talking to someone the other day, and they said, Pastor, I have an experience, and I'd like you to tell me if it was true or not.

One day, I began to speak in tongues, and was that really true? And I said, well, here's what we have to do. You can't say, I had an experience, therefore it validates truth, because we know from 2 Peter 1 that there's something that's more sure than experience, and that is the word of God.

Second question, was it a language that you never learned? No. Third question, was there someone there to interpret it? No. Fourth question, do you keep doing it? No, and I said, then it wasn't the biblical gift of speaking in tongues, because if it was for, if it was a biblical gift, it'd be for other people, 1 Corinthians 12, and since you're not doing it in front of other people anymore, you'd have an interpreter.

It'd be a real language you never learned, and you can spurt something out when you're working and never do it again, but that's not the biblical definition of tongues, and for sure, it doesn't say, it doesn't mean now tongues are for real.

And you know what I think this just kind of goes to highlight is, I think it is amazing, and it's certainly amazing to me, how people are never satisfied with the Bible. They're never satisfied with the truth that has sustained the church for 2 ,000 years.

They always want something additional. This is like, well, you know, and I know what the Bible says, but can I have my own personal firework show? You know, can I have a Holy Spirit-induced coma? Can I have, you know, I mean, it just has to be something special, spectacular.

The Bible just, you know, it's kind of tough work sorting everything out there.

Worship, the Holy Spirit, and Bad Theology

It is, and if you ever come and visit us at Bethlehem Bible Church, and by the way, you're welcome to come if you don't have a good Bible-teaching church. If you'd like to come, we have some people who have come to the church and they said, we love Bible teaching, thank you so much.

Jesus Christ and Him crucified, the resurrected King and His word is expounded. And then you have other people who walk out when they don't hear rock and roll music because they can't feel the bass guitar reverb in their hearts, which they mistake as the holy spirit.

And they've left and they've said, the Holy Spirit isn't active at that church. And Steve, part of it is, I want to make sure I'm not prideful and, you know, high and holy, but I'm basically heartbroken because that person has wrong doctrine of the Holy Spirit, wrong doctrine of any kind of music, wrong doctrine of what worship is, and then they're gonna go find some watered-down, sappy place and wonder why their life is upside down and they can't deal with temptations in their life because that's bad theology.

That is correct, High Holy Father. Well, since I am the High Holy, I prefer to be called Papa by you.

And so Papa Fritas. Okay, Papas Fritas, that's French fries.

Calvinism, TULIP, and the Sovereignty of God in Salvation

We're in a series on the doctrines of grace, some people call them, others call them Calvinism. I've heard people say, well, we don't believe in John Calvin, we don't worship him, we are Christians, we worship Jesus.

Well, then I guess I could push your buttons through James Boyce's title of his sermon series called Jesus Was a Calvinist, but I wouldn't say that. I actually would never say that at church. We just are saying Calvinism is shorthand for God is sovereign on who goes to heaven and who doesn't.

And it was really a lot of Calvin's followers who pushed the buttons more than maybe we'd like to push them, but today we're talking about TULIP, T, total depravity, U, unconditional election, L, limited atonement, limiting the people that he died for, not limiting how great his death was, and number four is I, irresistible grace, efficacious grace, or effectual call.

Name your choice, or D, all of the above. I like effectual call.

If we could just figure out what the O is in roses, that'd be awesome. But you say you don't want to push the button or push the envelope and say Jesus was a Calvinist. I think it would be fair to say, though, that Jesus Christ believed in the sovereignty of God and salvation.

He taught it. We talked last week about John 3. You know, he talked about the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit in terms of salvation, that he goes as he wills when he's talking to Nicodemus and he does what he wills.

We talked about the sovereignty of the Father in John 6. There's just no doubt about it. Jesus Christ was a believer in the sovereignty of God and salvation.

Well, he was that incarnate, because he was the one who has taught us through his apostolic messengers and his own word in the Gospels what to do, how to believe, and how to think theologically. So you're exactly right.

Listen to Thomas Watson. You'll like this. In all our fears, let us comfort ourselves with the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ's blood. Christ died both as a purchaser and as a conqueror. As a purchaser in regard of God, having by his blood obtained our salvation, and as a conqueror in regard of Satan, the cross being his triumphant chariot, wherein he has led hell and death captive.

And that's the end of the quote. But he can't really overpower a sinner's heart.

It's just so, we talked about Revelation 3 .20. You know, the picture in evangelicalism today is this kind of, I don't want to get too bad, but just kind of weak Jesus who really wants us to do the right thing, but doesn't want to force us.

And so he's just standing outside the door of our heart, knocking, just kind of, you know, almost pleading, like some kind of poor door-to-door salesman, you know, pitching his wares. And what a horrific picture.

This is the sovereign God of the universe, the one who came with a specific purpose, and he accomplished. He said he came to do the will of the Father. What was the will of the Father? To seek and save that which was lost.

He came to do exactly what the Father gave him to do. The Father gave him some, he died for some, and he's going to, he tells us, raise them up on the last day. He says that in John 6, verses 37 to 44 a couple times.

He talks about how on the last day he will raise that specific group that the Father gave him up.

Effectual Calling, Human Inability, and the New Birth

The effectual call does not mean people can't resist the preached word. Certainly when Jesus says in Matthew 11, "'Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, "'and I will give you rest,' not everyone said, okay.".

When Paul was preaching in Acts 17, and he said God is declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, some people didn't believe. When you look at creation and you say to yourself, "'There must be a God,' not everyone believes when they look at creation.

When people say, I've done something wrong and I feel sin, I feel conscience, my conscience is guilty,' they don't all repent. But when God effectually calls through the ministry of the Spirit of God and makes you new and makes you alive and makes you born again, you will come.

Because God is omnipotent. God is the King. God is the Sovereign, and he does whatever he pleases, as easy as he pleases, as always as he pleases.

When you were talking about, come unto me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I just thought, you know what? It's just as when he says he didn't come for those who are healthy, but those who are sick and all these other metaphors, and what is he saying?

What he's really saying is there is a point in your life, if you're a Christian, where you realize that you are burdened by your sin, that you are sick and tired of being a sinner, that you realize there's no release for your guilt, and finally, the weight of it all, the realization of it all hits you, and then your eyes are open to see Jesus Christ.

Your ears are unstopped to hear the gospel, and you flee to the cross joyfully because all of the burdens have been left behind. His yoke is light, and that is the irresistible grace that we're talking about.

It all boils down to who is sovereign. Is it man sovereign, or is it God who is sovereign? Lorraine Bettner, who happened to be a man, how do you do? My name is Sue. I'd like to be a boy named Sue. Or a boy named Lorraine.

But he was a tough guy, he was a Was he from Spain? Lorraine from Spain? Why is one saved and another lost? So before I finish the quote, why does one person go to heaven and another person not go to heaven?

Who is the ultimate mover, the primary cause? Bettner said, what causes some men to repent and believe while others with the same external privileges reject the gospel and continue in impenitence and unbelief?

The Calvinist says that it is God who makes the difference, that he, God, effectually persuades some to come to him, but the Arminian ascribes it to the men themselves.

Which, you know, if we're left to our own devices, what hope is there? I just, again and again and again, we come back to this idea of the sovereignty of God in salvation. If he is not sovereign, then how is anyone ever saved?

Because if you understand the fall, if you understand total depravity, if you understand human inability, spiritual deadness, then you'll come to the conclusion that God and God alone saves.

I didn't see the show, but since we like to inject pop culture for Christian Harris' sake, if you had to save yourself, you'd kind of be put in a hurt locker, wouldn't you?

I haven't seen it either, but I mean, that would be a hurting situation. I mean, you know, what could you do? You know, and the answer is you could do nothing. Warfield said,.

Sinful man stands in need, not of inducements or assistance to save himself, but precisely of saving. And Jesus Christ has not come to advise, or urge, or woo, or help him to save himself, but to save him.

For that, I'm gonna give Dr. Warfield a round of applause.

I mean, you know, we treat salvation somehow, we, the evangelical church, as if, you know, Jesus is some kind of Boy Scout trying to start a fire in the forest. And, you know, if we'll just give him enough kindling, he can get it going.

And it's just If Jesus rubs the sticks in, you have to blow.

You give the oxygen on there. It's just, it's, I just cannot, I'm just so thankful. Just so thankful. I was talking to my wife the other day, and just recounting how, you know, when we got saved. I mean, I'm just thankful that when I got saved, I was at John MacArthur's church, and learned correct doctrine.

Well, she wasn't, she didn't start out there. And she used to ask me questions. She goes, I was looking through my old notebook, and the other day, before I threw it away in the notes, I was taking the questions I was asking you in the initial services that we went to.

She goes, I just can't believe how little I knew. And I'm like, I think this is the church in general. We become so biblically illiterate that we take one or two passages in our own ideas, and we create an entire view of salvation that is not in the Bible.

Robert Buehler, Sheila-ism. A lady named Sheila, she just cuts and pastes whatever she wants in the Bible. I don't really like his holiness. I don't like his omnipotence. I don't really like all those personal pronouns that are masculine.

Cut and paste, and it's a religion called Sheila-ism. That's exactly what people do today.

Yeah, it's the smorgasbord of theology. A little of this, a little of that. I like that, I don't like this so much. You know, I'm not so big on the vegetables. And that's, you know, the sovereignty of God is a big steaming scoop of vegetables, because it does not appeal to the pride of man.

We may be called prideful, but if we boast in Christ, is that prideful? We boast in him and his work, not in anything good in us.

Well, this series is supposed to slice through the pride of man, the sinful pride of man that says, I am something, I contribute something, I do something, I have value, I contribute. And these doctrines, including effectual call, cut down to size, proper size, man and his ability.

Men and women who can't do anything of themselves because they have fallen spiritually in Adam, yet God comes to the rescue, and he gets all the credit for salvation. When a fireman saves a little girl out of the third story, two seconds before the house caves in, I don't think we say, we're sure glad that little girl grabbed on tight to the fireman's belt as he pulled her out.

No, no, you know, as you were talking, I was just thinking about another analogy from John 17. You know, basically, we do have value. You know, we do have value because we are a love gift from the Father to the Son, and then back to the Father.

But think about it. We were actually the refuse, you know, the things in the dumpster that Jesus basically redeemed out of that dumpster, polished to a bright shine, returned to the Father. Why? Not because we're great, but because God's great, and because God gets the glory for what he has done.

Human Sinfulness, the Gospel Call, and God’s Discriminating Grace

Well, thank you for sharing that, Steve and Mary. Well, I like to share. I was going to say preach it, but people can't preach anymore because that's somehow offensive. Steve, you'll like this because of your law enforcement background.

Law. Law and order, order salutas. You'll like this. If a serial killer kills nine people and has a $5 million, is captured,.

Has a $5 million bond. Is this a complex mathematics equation? No, no, no.

One serial killer killed nine people because it's serial killing. I've got a scratch. That's the S-E-R-I-A-L, it's not C-E-R. Right, I gotcha. And it's killed nine people. He gets caught by faithful detectives, L .A. Sheriff.

I love those guys. $5 million bond is posted. Does that serial killer say, society, I'm such a value to society because I have a $5 million bond. I'm that valuable to society. I'm worth $5 million. I do like that, yeah.

Or does that person need to say, my crimes were so heinous that they deserve such a bond like this. And so the analogy is that we're so sinful that Christ's death is magnified. Christ's grace is magnified.

The love of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit is magnified because he loves sinners that are so bad, have committed heinous sins, worthy of much more than a $5 million bond.

The Golden Chain, John 10, and the Internal Call of the Sheep

Well, and I have to agree. I just, you know, in thinking about the irresistible grace, I guess we should probably get back to that eventually here. But just thinking about it, there are so many It's our show, what do we care?

Yeah, we could do whatever we want. Back to the pride of man. Back to the pride of man. So many passages come to mind when I think about this. I mean, not just some of the ones we've talked about, but even, you know, the golden chain of salvation in Romans 8, 29 and 30.

We just see the work of God. And again, you can read through that. You can read through Ephesians 1. You will nowhere see this kind of idea, not only of free will, we haven't mentioned free will in at least 30 seconds here, but you don't see this idea of free will.

But what you do see is the sovereign, superintending hand of God who never fails in what he sets out to do. He sets his affections on a certain group of people. He redeems that certain group of people.

He brings them to life. He died for them. He does all these things for them and he irresistibly draws them. He doesn't somehow do all these things for them, die for their sins, and then give them the option of whether they want to choose to accept or reject that as if it's an equal opportunity decision.

Because that is not biblical.

You'll like this, Pastor Steve. And I think if you're listening on No Compromise Radio on WVNE, you're going to like this too. John 10, the Jews then gathered around him and were saying to him, how long will you keep us in suspense?

If you're the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you and you do not believe. The works that I do in my father's name, these testify of me. But you do not believe because you are not of my sheep.

My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. Now, my question is, listening audience, did all those men hear the external words of Christ?

Did they hear audibly? Was there a decibel level? Can I be the audience? Yes, please. No, they didn't. They heard, they were listening to Jesus. But the wolves wouldn't follow Jesus. The goats wouldn't follow Jesus.

How do the sheep follow Jesus? Because God has made them the sheep and they have received an internal call. So my question here is, Pastor Steve, how does a wolf or a goat make himself a sheep?

He can't. I mean, he said, yeah, he puts on a really clever disguise. He said, my sheep hear my voice. Those are the ones who hear. And it's interesting because he says, I give them eternal life. And who are the sheep?

Are they ones who chose, you know, as you were saying, are they ones who chose to be sheep? Are they ones who, you know, pretend to be sheep? No, they are sheep by nature. They are sheep by, oh, I guess we could say, sovereign election, by the Father's choosing.

God chose whom would, is it whom or who? Who would be He chose them, so who? Yeah, yeah, whom. He chose whom would be the sheep and they are the sheep. They hear Christ's voice at the appointed time.

They are quickened by the Spirit and they follow. They listen to their shepherd. And it's just not such, if you know about sheep, they listen specifically to that one shepherd's voice and they follow him and him alone.

That's what Christ's sheep do.

Well, as one commentator said, these people, the sheep of God, heard audibly, but also there was an invisible, secret, special, effectual call inside of their hearts, worked by the Spirit of God. So when they heard Jesus, they followed him.

This is all about God calling people and people responding through, yes, the human proclamation of the gospel, but an internal summons, an invisible call that makes people have a new nature who then freely follow.

And, you know, another passage, I think you just, did you just preach through this, you know, in the Matthew 22? I did. Parable, yeah. You know, talking about the wedding feast and it's interesting because the king is basically thwarted by these people who really want nothing to do with him.

But eventually he finds the people to sit at his table and he compels his servants to go out and get them. But the fascinating part of it is right there at the end, verse 14, where it says, "'For many are called, but few are chosen.'".

Now this is a very difficult verse if you're an Arminian because you really wanted to say, as I heard one Arminian say one time, "'For many are called, but few will accept.'".

That's so much more convenient. Is that the NWT translation?

I think it's the NOT translation, not. I asked with Brackel,.

"'Does man have some internal disposition, propensity, ability or power to believe in Christ and truly repent upon the external presentation of the gospel, however powerfully this may be declared?'. No.

That's exactly right. No, he has no inclination, he has no desire. A person who is dead in his trespasses and sins has no desire whatsoever. He is a child of Satan. He, you know, is a son of Satan. He belongs to him.

He does things according to the course of this world. This is what he delights in. He loves the world, not God. And he cannot and will never choose God of his own free will. But again, "'For many are called, but few are chosen.'".

The idea is the general call goes out far and wide. The gospel is preached. As you were even saying earlier, you know, we have the general call in the sense of general truths that we see in creation that tell us that there's a God.

But not all are chosen. Not all are elect. Not all are going to receive the truth. It says, "'But few are chosen.'". This is consistent throughout the gospels. Broad is the road that leads to destruction, narrow is the way that leads to salvation.

Over and over again, we see this kind of language.

Steve, some people in the world, God has not even chosen to give them the external general call. There are some people in this world, generations of people, thousands, in fact, millions of people who have never received even the external call.

This is who Jesus is. He is a sin bearer. Think about even back in Israel's day. How many people knew about Yahweh? Well, word spread pretty quickly after the Red Sea incident. But there were many generations of grandpas, grandmas, grandkids, babies, who lived as Moabites, as Jebusites, as all kinds of other people.

Parasites. Yeah, parasites, cellulites, electrolytes. It always elicits a laugh. And so all kinds of people, they never heard the gospel. And so God discriminately even gives the general call. It's the church's mandate to give the general call to every creature.

That's true. But not every creature has even been able to hear that. And so what we're trying to say here at No Compromise Radio is that God must work. If you are saved, God alone has saved you. And of course, you respond with faith and belief.

But we think that Acts chapter 14 is right, that you have believed through grace. And if the carnal mind is in enmity against God and cannot be subject to the law of God, something has to happen. The impotence of man must be overcome by the omnipotence of God.

And that's what we're all about here, right, Steve?

Absolutely. And if you don't have a sovereign God, ultimately you have no hope. I mean, what hope is there without that? Even in, I'm looking here, but even in the gospel or in the book of Acts where it says that as many were appointed to

Acts 13 .48. Thank you. As many as were appointed to eternal life believed. I mean, this is what happens. You hear the gospel, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. That is the key. Were they appointed?

Were they chosen? Were they elected? But we just go out and preach the gospel, and we trust God, the sovereign God of the universe, to save.

If you are listening and you're not a Christian, you must repent and be born again. You must flee from the wrath which is to come, consider your latter end, and believe in the substitute straight atonement that God has provided for sinners like you.

God has been raised from the dead, and that proves judgment for you.

God bless you. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.