THE DOCTRINES OF GRACE: (6 of 12) IRRESISTIBLE GRACE

Irresistible Grace Does Not Mean Grace Cannot Be Resisted

Is anyone in here missing their book? You don't have your book? Because just seeing the screen in front of you is not going to be enough. You forgot your book, babe?

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Well, there's books in the back there if you want one. Okay, a little garden with Blake.

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All right.

So, A, there on page 51, clarification and definition. This is important. We've been doing definitions throughout the whole process. We got to make sure to clarify here. Number one, irresistible grace does not mean that God's grace cannot be resisted.

It does not mean that God's grace cannot be resisted. You have a quote there from R .C. He says, the history of man is a history of resistance to God's grace. God's good grace is seen throughout all of creation, right?

But that is not the specific grace that we're talking about here. Matter of fact, there's a quote in your homework for this week from my father that says, irresistible grace simply means that when God determines to save, he breaks through all barriers, including man's resistance and saves.

Not potential save, to save, right? Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. It was not an offer that Jesus was referring to in Luke 19 .10. That's the son of man came to seek and to save the lost.

It is a promise. That passage is a promise that he came to seek and save the lost. He will seek them. He will find them. And he will save them, period. And stop, right? And this idea that irresistible grace means that God's grace cannot be resisted in a general sense of God's grace.

God shows his grace to everyone, right? This helps us better understand. Look at number two. A better term. You remember, actually, all three weeks, we've pointed to the fact that there's actually better terminology.

But we have an acrostic. We have this tulip, right? It kind of has to stick with this acrostic that we have. But there's always a better term for these doctrines that's more precise. A better term for this one is effectual grace, effectual grace.

This will help us better understand here. Number three. The idea of effectual grace is that the grace of God is so powerful, okay? The grace of God is so powerful, it can overcome our natural resistance to it.

It can overcome our natural resistance to it. Now, you say, well, wait a second. I thought we just said irresistible grace doesn't mean that God's grace can't be resisted. And now you're saying that, yeah, it can't be resisted.

Well, we need to keep going here. Number four. Effectual grace means that saving grace affects what God intends to affect by it. God shows grace to all of creation at some level, does he not? The simple fact that a heathen, a pagan gets to wake up and breathe, and the rain falls on the just and the unjust, and the crops grow, and they get to have children, and they get to celebrate, and they get to have life.

The fact that they have anything at all is grace. But when we speak of irresistible grace, or in our case, effectual grace, we're speaking of saving grace. We're speaking of a salvific grace, a specific grace for a specific people.

Number five. Effectual grace is supremely exercised in God's call to his elect. Supremely exercised. What that means is that this effectual, this irresistible grace is seen in it in greatest light in God's call to his elect.

So we see God's grace everywhere. We see his good grace to all of mankind, but we see a special, beautiful, wonderful, exaggerated grace upon those that he calls, those that are his elect, right? Those that Christ died for in that limited atonement, that particular atonement, right?

Can the Holy Spirit convict lost people in a way that doesn't lead to salvation? It's a good question. Can the Holy Spirit convict a lost person in a way that does not lead to salvation? Where would you get that?

I see you, Dalton, you're shaking your head. Where would you come up with that? Which part? I'll have to pull it up. I can't remember off the top of my head now. That's okay. That's okay. Let's pull it up here.

Hebrews 6 .4. If I can see it on my phone. For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God, and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away.

Ah, there you go. Yep. You're right. Because that's obviously not speaking of those who have had an awakening, right? That are truly regenerated, that have truly come to Christ. These are people that have come.

They're the seed that landed on rocky soil, sprouted up, but never produced fruit, and then withered away, because it never had root. In Jesus' parable, the sower, right? But I would say one of the passages is John 16 .8.

You can jot that down in your notes. John 16 .8. We actually have here what's called the threefold ministry of the Holy Spirit. It says, and when he comes, this is Jesus talking about the Holy Spirit's work.

He will convict the world concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment. Most theologians believe, like I said, that's part of the threefold work of the Holy Spirit is he's convicting the world of sin.

Some of us see our sin, and we repent of our sin, but that's not a saving act in that moment for some people. Some people know they're sinning. The law of God is written on our hearts. Every man's heart, the unbeliever too, the person that Christ didn't die for, the law of God is still written on their hearts.

They still get conviction at times. Some of them don't. Some of them do. The Holy Spirit is working in the midst of people in a way that is keeping sin at bay. Remember, we talked about total depravity and the consequences of original sin.

It doesn't mean just total debauchery at all times. It doesn't mean that every person is living out in the greatest sin they could possibly live at all times. Otherwise, we would have all killed ourselves by the time Cain and Abel came along.

They would have killed each other, and then Adam and Eve would have killed each other, and then everybody would be dead, and nobody would exist if total depravity meant that we were as bad as we possibly could be in our hearts.

But the fact that God's good grace restrains through the power of the Holy Spirit that is convicting at times, but that doesn't always mean new birth. So, yes, the Holy Spirit can convict unbelievers in a way that does not lead to salvation.

So we have to be very specific in what we mean about the Holy Spirit's regenerating work. There in a box, you have a portion from the 1689. It says, those whom God hath predestined unto life, he is pleased in his appointed and accepted time, it's his appointed and accepted time, by the way, effectually to call, there's that word, by his word and spirit, right?

By his word and spirit, that's how he calls out of the state of sin. Down at the bottom, it says, his almighty power determining them to that which is good and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ, yet so as they come, most freely being made willing by his grace.

So when we say that there are those who have some level of conviction that even maybe from the Holy Spirit, it doesn't always lead to repentance, there is a grace, there is a work of the Holy Spirit that does always lead to repentance.

It always does because what it does is it makes man willing to look to Christ and that's that regeneration. We'll talk more about that here in a moment. But number five, we already did that one, right?

Effectual grace is supremely exercised in God's call to his elect. Turn to the next page, we actually have some passages here I want y 'all to look through. If you have your Bible with you, you can look at them or you can see them right there in your book if you've got that.

Maybe highlight, underline some portions. We have Romans 8 .29 here. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

What's this passage called? The golden chain of redemption, that's what we talked about, yeah, last week. And those whom he predestined, what did he do? He called, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified.

And those whom he justified, he also glorified. This is all, as I said last week in the past tense. He's called, he has given grace, an effectual grace, an irresistible grace. 1 Corinthians 1, 26 and 27, Paul says, for consider your calling, brothers.

There's a calling, there's something specific going on. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. There's a choosing involved, right? We've talked about that over the past few weeks. The next verse is actually deceiving because you see 1 Thessalonians 2, 13, mark that out.

It's a misprint. I put the wrong passage in there. It's actually 2 Thessalonians 2, 13 and 14. You can write that in your notes there on the side, but I want to read that text to you. But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits to be saved through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.

To this, he called you through our gospel so that you may obtain the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a unique calling. There is a effectual grace. There is an irresistible grace. 2 Timothy 1, 9, he saved us and called us.

Called us to what? A holy calling. Not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace. It's his grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began. What is this grace that we're speaking of?

If he shows grace to all these people, his grace is allowing them to breathe and continue on in life. And the rain comes on the just and unjust. That's grace, right? That's wonderful. But what kind of grace are we talking about here?

Salvific grace. And how does that salvific grace come about? How is it accomplished, right? Which he gave us. Look at that passage there in 2 Timothy 1, 9. It's his purpose and grace, which he gave us in, come on guys, in what?

Christ Jesus. And he did so before the ages began. He had already given us this grace. And this irresistible grace is what is calling us and drawing us to him. Acts 2, 39. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.

Everyone that he calls to himself. You can actually have some scripture references down at the bottom. I didn't even want to put those in. I just put them down there for you to look up. But I want you to fixate on John 5, 21.

Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the son of God. And those who hear will live. Who lives?

Who?

The hearers. The hearers hear. They live. Who doesn't hear? Those who don't live. What did they not hear? The effectual calling. They didn't hear it because they weren't given the effectual calling. There was a general calling.

The gospel was proclaimed to many who reject it and die in their sins. But Jesus says, no, those that hear, he can't be speaking a physical hearing, otherwise all we do is run around and share the gospel and go, okay, all these people in this room are good.

Let's go to the next. He's not speaking of that. He's speaking of those that have the spiritual ears to hear. And who has the spiritual ears to hear? Those he calls. An effectual calling, an irresistible calling.

We'll talk about that here because we're going to the next section, section B on the next page there, page 53. Faith and regeneration. We've talked extensively about regeneration. We've even talked about regeneration quite a bit in this study, but I really want us to get kind of a rehash of that.

We really got to dive in because regeneration is the key to understanding irresistible grace,.

Okay?

Faith and Regeneration

So faith and regeneration, number one. The issue in this concept is the relationship between faith and regeneration, right? The issue in this concept is the relationship between faith and regeneration.

Now regeneration, another way of putting it, as a matter of fact, the scriptures speak of it in two ways. There's regeneration that's spoken of, but there's a synonymous way that scripture speaks of regeneration.

It's another term that's used. Can anybody tell me what that term is? Born again, the new birth. That's right. It's the new birth. When you see new birth, born again, that is always speaking of regeneration.

It's a portion of the work of salvation. Like when Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, what's he telling him? He must be born again, and then he says what? He says, the Spirit, the Spirit's like the wind. We don't know where it's coming from.

We don't know where it's going. We just see the effects. That's the Holy Spirit bringing about that irresistible grace, that effectual call that awakens you to it, okay? Number two, if there is one point that divides Reformed theology, which that's what we hold to here, Reformed theology, from all other traditions, it is the question of the relationship between faith and regeneration.

What do we mean by that? Well, don't all Christians just believe all the same thing? No, there's some distinctions. There's a lot of churches in this town that we pray for, that we love. We go to gospel churches.

They're gospel. They don't believe the same way about regeneration that we do. They have total other categories for it, but for us this is a major distinction, which you can see in number three. In Reformed theology, which is what we hold, regeneration precedes faith.

We believe that regeneration precedes, means comes before, leads before faith. That new birth must take place, regeneration, right? Number four, the most common view today is that faith causes regeneration.

That faith causes regeneration. This is a common view. In other words, if you believe, you will be born again. That doesn't seem to be how scripture defines it. So remember, again, I've always told you, if you hold to any one of the points of all this doctrines of grace, you must hold to all of them, okay?

So, if faith causes regeneration, if regeneration isn't necessary to bring about new life, to lead to faith, then total depravity can't be real. It can't be biblically true. Neither can unconditional election, and neither can limited atonement, but if any one of those are true, then irresistible grace, effectual grace, calling, has to be true.

You get what I'm saying? Regeneration must precede faith. It must come first. But today, we have a theology out there that says, well, faith causes regeneration. You come to Jesus, you accept Jesus for who he is, and then you're born again.

But that's not how scripture shows it. That's right. Well, you don't have the spiritual eyes to see it. You're totally depraved, right? Faith is a gift of God. That's right. That's right. Yep. Demons believe.

Yeah. And they fear him. That's true. Well, this, remember the definitions that we used, number five there, you remember the definitions in, I think it was week two? We talked about things like Pelagianism.

You may tell me, what is Pelagianism? Anybody remember? Man is basically good. Man is, there's no such thing as original sin. So like, for example, some of our neighbors and friends, they're in groups that deny original.

Sin.

They are Pelagian. They don't believe that man is sinful in any way. They do sinful things, but they're not innately sinful. That's Pelagian. A semi-Pelagian view is really kind of a hybrid that doesn't go to full heresy, but it kind of toys with heresy.

That's the Catholic view. A lot of our SBC brothers and sisters would hold to more of a semi-Pelagian view. They would think, oh, well, they really don't have a definition of original sin or total depravity or the state of the human heart.

And so what you get is this semi-Pelagian, or sometimes we would call it an Arminian view, assumes that man still has the moral ability to believe if God draws him. So you have this idea that God comes and his word goes forth and the gospel is presented and a person in his current state has the moral capacity, the moral ability to accept it, to repent of his sins and look to Jesus.

That's the prominent view today, is it not? Yet scripture doesn't seem to define it that way. Yes.

Yes.

Prevenient grace, like a latent flowers kind of position.

Yes.

And it gets very convoluted when you start, like, the atonement is in a bank and you've got to go deposit it out. It's very confusing. Yes, Tari? This is why they say faith comes before regeneration, because of this.

And then you've got the provisionist view that's going to try and make sense of it because they go to passages that seem to show that regeneration must precede faith. And so then they're trying to come up with this idea of how regeneration gets worked out.

Some of our, like, our Lutheran brothers and sisters, they would say, well, regeneration happens at baptism. So we must baptize our babies so they're regenerated. So now they have the power to accept.

Yes.

Oh, yes.

Absolutely.

Right.

Absolutely. So the SBC most certainly affirms original sin. What I'm trying to point to is the inconsistency of holding to original sin and not holding to total depravity and or holding to total depravity without having to hold to the rest.

Thank you for that, though. That's good.

All right.

So number six, it is evident at this point that the resolution of the problem will depend on how total depravity is understood, right? That's what we've been saying this whole time. When the mind is changed, the will follows.

Remember, that's total depravity, right? When the mind is changed, the will follows. All the will is is the mind choosing, okay? The will is free to do as the mind chooses, okay? Total depravity still affirms, remember, the moral responsibility, right?

We are free moral agents, as we pointed out, but we choose based off of what our mind desires, what our will desires. That's the whole point of total depravity. If God changes one's mind, our will is freed.

That's why irresistible grace is absolutely essential. Number seven, Jesus tells us that no man can come to him unless it is given to him by the Father, okay? That's John 6 .44. No man can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

See, what's affected our theology today, much of it is a man by the name of Charles Finney, revivalism. Anybody ever read the book, Revival and Revivalism? It's good, isn't it? Oh, man, if you read that book, it's a historical context of how the evangelical world, kind of from the mid -1700s on up to the 1900s, how church functions nowadays.

The altar calls, the emotionalism, all the way church is structured in the past 200 years looks nothing like the church throughout history, nothing like it. And it's all because of Charles Finney. Charles Finney, his whole statement was, salvation is a psychological act.

Salvation is a psychological act. He said, if you confess with your mouth, and he liked to ignore and believe in your heart. He just said, if you confess with your mouth. So he held to a position that if you could get emotionally riled up enough and get down that aisle, that's where the altar call started.

Altar calls had never existed in all of history until Charles Finney. He created them because he'd get the music, he'd get the emotion, he'd get them all stirred.

Up.

And they had these dirt aisles, I forget what they call them, but it was like the clay aisles or whatnot. And people would come down and people would get emotionally riled up and he would get them to say a sinner's prayer that had never existed before.

He created the sinner's prayer, it's nowhere in the Bible. And they would say the sinner's prayer, and then he would say, boom, got them. So no matter if they felt it in their heart or not, the fact that it came off their lips meant you're eternally secure, you're eternally secure, you're eternally secure.

It's a psychological act, period. And that is where it has influenced our theology today. It's influenced much of Christian evangelicalism in today. And so that is where we veer from things like effectual grace, effectual calling.

Number eight, in Ephesians 2, this one's fresh to us, we've just been going through that. Paul tells us that we were, what, in our trespasses, dead, and in our sins, that God made us alive and that faith is a gift of God.

He made us alive. How did he make us alive? There you go. Regeneration, page 54. Let's look at this. Number one, regeneration is, can anybody guess what this is gonna be, spiritual, what is.

It?

Rebirth, that's a good one, I should have put that one in there. I used a word specifically because I really wanted this to resonate with you. Regeneration is spiritual resurrection. He was made alive, he died, was made alive, and now he makes us alive.

He brings us from death to life. Regeneration is spiritual resurrection, and it's accomplished by my decision making. You ever gone out into a graveyard and really gave them a good speech, I mean, really tugged at their heart strings?

All you gotta do, claw that hand out of the ground, let me know you wanna be saved, and you take the first step and I'll take the rest. You ever heard that? You take the first step and God will take the rest.

It's revivalism. Go out to a graveyard and try that. How many of those graves are gonna come popping up out of the ground? Oh, because you're dead in your sins, right? You're dead in your trespasses and sins, unable to look to God, unable to come to God, unable to do holiness, unable to do anything righteous.

No one does good, no not one, all has turned aside. All has gone his own way, right? There must be a spiritual resurrection that takes place. There's a major misconception, you see there in that block.

The Holy Spirit, and this is where I talked about the beginning, we have to define our terms because this is what they'll accuse us of. This is what the doctrines of grace are accused of. Oh, the Holy Spirit drags a person kicking and screaming against their will into the kingdom.

They literally think that we are saying that some person that's never heard the gospel on some island is chosen and elected by God, dies without ever hearing the name Christ, and they're elected so they're going to heaven anyways.

And on the other side, they think that there are some in heaven who are like, I didn't want to be here. Why did you make me do this? I didn't want to. And they think, well see, irresistible grace, you're dragging and kicking and screaming.

They don't want to be there. They wanted to go to hell. It's absurd, right? But that's a common, am I wrong, Matt? That's what they accuse it of, is it not? You were reading. I got to read. That's how they perceive it.

But no, that's not the case. The Holy Spirit changes the inclination disposition of the heart so that the person is willing.

To embrace the violent taken by force.

That's true. That's right. They want it. They long for it. Which, number two, a man comes to Christ because he wants to come to Christ, period. He wants to come to Christ, but he only wants to come to Christ because God has accomplished a work of grace in his soul that was absolutely essential because he was a dead man, unable to look to the Lord, unable to accept the things of the Lord, unable to do righteousness, unable to accept that free gift of grace because he would only choose what he desired, and he never desired God.

That's what Paul said, isn't it? No one seeks after God, no, not one. Look at 2 Thessalonians 2 there again. We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved.

He chose you to be saved through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. Titus 3, 4, and 5, but when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, his love and his kindness, it leads us to repentance only because we've been awakened to his love and his grace.

Otherwise, we don't see his love and his grace. Not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by his counsel, by his will, by what he desires, by what he set out to do, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, washing, renewal, new desires.

There's that passage in Ezekiel 11, and I will give them one heart and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them, and they shall be my people and I will be their God.

He's the one that must give them that desire, and when he gives them that desire, guess what they have? That desire. They long for it. They want it. Here on the next page, you see another portion of the 1689.

This is the London Baptist Confession. We've been looking through this as we've gone through this process. We are Reformed Baptists. This is the confession that we as elders here hold to. On this portion, it says, the effectual call is of God's free and special grace alone.

Not from anything at all foreseen in man, nor from any power or agency in the creature. Being wholly passive therein. That's a key. I underline that. Being wholly passive therein. What does that mean?

New birth.

Right?

You needed a new birth, right? You were passive in it. You were not pursuing him. Being dead in sins and trespasses until being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit. He is thereby enabled to answer this call and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed.

In it.

In this call, that's why we call it an irresistible grace, an effectual grace, an effectual calling. He calls us. We see the beauty of it. When we're awakened to the truth, what do we do? We see the beauty of Christ.

We long for it. We've been given a new heart. We've been given new desires. We love him at that point. And that by no less power than that which raised up Christ from the dead. That's the power of the Holy Spirit, right?

Power of God. Number three. Without the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul, the person will never want to come to.

Christ.

You may say, well, Pastor, I don't know that that's true. I've seen many people want to come to Christ. I wanted to come to Christ. Okay, why? What took place in you that made you want to come to Christ?

And why did what took place in you make you want to come to Christ? Why did it not happen to the other person maybe that was at the same event as you or in the same setting as you or the same truth as you?

Why did they not want to choose? You're smarter, aren't you? Maybe you're a little wiser. They weren't effectually called.

Yeah.

And that's true. Some would be saved later, yes. I love that because we have been saved. We are being saved. We will be saved. It's an ongoing work, right? That's why we're going to get next week to the perseverance of the saints.

Like if all of this has actually taken place, we're going to see next week that it's because you will see it through because you have truly been the recipient of this grace. And so we have to be careful when we think of our experience.

You ever notice a lot of theology gets actually formulated in people's minds based off of their experience?

It does.

A lot of theology gets distorted because our experience is one thing. I've said it before. There's not a soul. Well, I'm not going to say that. Most of us did not come to Christ, see the glory of Christ as a Calvinist.

We did not in that moment go, the Holy Spirit just gave me new birth.

I just got born again.

He just gave me a new heart. And like now I have the ability to run to Jesus. We didn't think like that. All we knew is I'm a sinner.

He's good.

His graciousness is good. That free gift, I want it and I want to be with him. And I chose him in my experience. And that's true from your experience. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about what actually caused that experience.

What actually took place to lead you to choose the gospel. Because you only accepted the gospel because of his choosing of you. We love him because he first loved us. Our awareness of regeneration. I don't know that we would be...

A lot of us don't have enough of a theological understanding to acknowledge that it's regeneration. I think what we know is we now see spiritual realities about ourself that we before did not know. Yes, that would be the new...

When you see your sin and you see the glory of Christ, you only see those things in a way that leads to repentance, true repentance from regeneration.

Yes.

That is the position that I hold. I do not think there's a scenario where I get regenerated and a week later, I come to faith.

Right?

I think that they are, from our perspective, they are synonymous. They are simultaneous. But we have to see how Scripture defines them in a definite order, which is called and then justified. Yeah, it's a good question.

Yeah.

Okay, you want to read it out loud? It's so blatantly there, isn't it? Once you start to see it, you start going, what in the world?

Yes.

All right, here, let me pull it up so I can read it with a microphone. Here we go. That is okay. He's had a long day of meeting with people at the hospital. I'm sorry, what was the reference? On 112, 13.

All right.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. That's Acts 13, 48.

I love that you guys are remembering all of these. And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. Appointed.

1 Corinthians 2, 14. The natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The natural man cannot come to Christ.

He can't accept the things of the Lord. He rejects them. Well, fourth and lastly here in our curriculum, regeneration is modern gistic. Y 'all have heard me say this many times. What does this mean? It is the work of God alone.

He alone has the power to change the disposition of the heart. That's the whole point of irresistible grace. Effectual calling is that it's God and God alone doing the work. When we believe that you take the first step and God will take the rest, when we believe that it's some kind of psychological act or it's just words that we say and some magical prayer that we pray, then what you're doing is you're making salvation a synergistic act.