Arminianism (Part 4)

Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, as we gather around today to discuss your word and to continue our discussion on the subject of the freedom of man's will, I pray, O God, that you would enlighten our hearts to what your Bible tells us and to be able to submit to the truth therein.

And I pray that we would not try to superimpose upon the scripture our own meaningless opinions, but that we would be willing to have our opinions and thoughts and doctrines shaped by what your scripture says.

We do pray, O Lord, as we look at today the subject of the hardening of the heart, that we would understand that you are a gracious and loving God, and you do not cause a person to sin, and yet, O Lord, your word tells us that you do harden the hearts of some men, and so we have to rectify what it means to harden the heart without introducing sinfulness into the heart.

Help us to make clear biblical distinctions in what we're learning, and always seek for the truth. We thank you, we praise you, we give you all glory and honor in Jesus' name and for his sake.

Amen.

The Freedom of the Human Will and the Meaning of Free Moral Agency

Well, this morning we're continuing on what is becoming a multi-part series on the subject of the freedom of the human will, and it's all in the book. If you look at the Arminian theology portion, the book says God is sovereign, but has chosen to grant free will to human beings, and that was sort of the launchpad that launched this section on free will, because when the Arminian says, yes, I believe God is sovereign, but I believe man has a free will, then we have to understand that they are defining terms differently than we are, because the Calvinist or the Reformed person would say that God is sovereign, and they would say man has a free will in a sense.

We would say we usually don't use the term free will, and we don't because it has been so maligned, it's been so misused and mischaracterized. We usually use the term free moral agent, meaning that a person, the individual, the agent, is free in the sense that he is free to do according to his nature, he's free to make choices according to his moral sensibilities, his moral nature.

The problem is we are born, and we learned this last week, the focus of last week's lesson is that we are sinful by nature, and thus, even though we are free to do what we want to do, we're not free from our nature, and our nature dictates what we want to do.

So we're free, but we're not autonomous, and meaning, what does autonomous mean? It means self-governing. It means that we have the ability to simply be neutral. We are not neutral.

We don't come into the world neutral. We don't leave the world neutral.

We're never neutral. The Bible says, Jesus said, you are either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness. He never says that we're free, and this is what gets me about this whole idea. Free will has become an idol, and so many people, and in fact, if you ask people the ultimate doctrine, what's the ultimate theology of salvation?

Free will, that we have the choice to go in or come out, and this past week was Winter Jam, and I went downtown with a few of our guys, Brother Mike preached, and I was outside handing out tracts, and we did interviews, and I went around, and I asked people, what is the gospel?

We videotaped them.

We're going to eventually use it to create an instructional series using some of those videos, and really, a lot of what the people kept saying were, we have to choose, it's all about the choice, it was choose, choose, choose, or the word accept, and when we talked about that I think last week or the week before, how it's all about accepting Jesus, almost like accepting that somebody tells you you have cancer, well, I got to accept that, rather than a receiving of a gift, it's just, well, accepting that he is who he said he was, and it was an interesting interaction that we got to have.

So like I said, let me just very quickly just remind us where we are in this lesson on free.

Will.

The first major point of the thesis is that though able to make choices, we are not completely autonomous, meaning we are not neutral, self-governing creatures. Mankind is sinful by nature. God, by his grace, restrains the sinful nature of all men.

Remember what that was focused on last week. All men have been restrained from the full-orbed expression of their depravity. Praise the Lord that that happens. There are men who are more expressive in their depravity.

We give an example of Nero or Hitler or these guys who are just tyrannical in their expression of their hatred and their expression of their depravity, but what do we say about them? Even those men were not completely free of the restraint of God.

Even those men were restrained in a sense. Even those men loved their mama. Even those men had a dog. These men still have some vestige of restraint. So God restrains all men, but there is a sense, and this is today's focus, God hardens the hearts of some men.

So let her see. I'm using the men in general there. You understand it's not just men or women. It's mankind in general. God hardens the hearts of some men. Let's look at the Bible. Shall we? Open up the Bible.

Open up your Bible to Joshua chapter 11 verse 20. This is speaking of Israel's enemies and it says, for it was the Lord's doing to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle in order that they should be devoted to destruction and should receive no mercy but be destroyed just as the Lord commanded Moses.

So in the context here you have a country, a people, who are going to be destroyed by Israel and God has hardened their hearts so that they would come against Israel. That is clearly what the text says.

It's not something that really is up for debate. And what I often hear, if we talk about God's, what we talk about judicial hardening, that's a phrase that's often bantered about, talk about judicial hardening of the heart.

People will say, well God doesn't harden anyone. They harden themselves. How many of you have ever heard that?

Okay.

You hear people say, because man is free. And remember, if that's the starting point, if that's your theological paradigm against which everything must be measured and judged, man is absolutely free, God doesn't intervene in his will.

And I've heard people say that. I've heard people say God will not intervene in your life unless you invite him. I got that on audio recording, a guy saying that, that fell out of my chair. He said God will not intervene unless you invite him.

I don't think, and I can't say this for certain, but I don't think the enemies of Israel invited God to do anything. Do you? I mean, do you think the text would bear out that these people said, okay, God, please harden us that we might go against your people and be destroyed.

That's yeah, that's foolish talk, right? That's just silly. So did God need their permission to act? Now, we just very quickly ask the question, does the text say that they harden their own.

Hearts?

No, it says that God hardened their hearts. The active agent in this is God. And so I remember very clearly in church years and years ago, here, this is before we were really reformed. I was making the reformed mountain climb, but there were many people who weren't yet even on the mountain.

It was not even a conversation. And I remember passing a man in the Narthex area and him pulling me to the side and say, listen, here, you don't believe God hardens people, do you? I said, yes. No, people harden themselves.

I don't believe that. I mean, that was, I just, I will never forget. That man is no longer with us. He didn't die. He just left. But he really didn't want to accept the fact. What it was was his Sunday school class, which was the one opposite ours, had been addressing that question, the issue of the hardening, which is referenced, and we're going to look at some other passages referenced all through scripture.

I just pulled this one out because it's one most people have never seen. This one is so clear. These people are not God's people. They're not calling on God to do anything. God is using Israel to judge them for their sins, and God hardens their hearts so that they will come against Israel so that Israel can be that instrument of judgment.

God is sovereign in this. He's absolutely the active player here.

It's no doubt.

So anyhow, I just remember him saying, no, God doesn't do that. Man does it himself. Man is the hardener of the heart. God doesn't do it. So I just remember, you know, thinking, wow, that's a straightaway saying, I just don't believe what the Bible says.

It's just a straightaway saying, I don't believe what the Bible says. Now we are going to talk about what it means when we say God hardens the heart. We're going to address that in a moment. But the question that we must first get over the hill is, does God do this?

Yes.

It shouldn't even be a question, but for some it is. So we're going to first address, does he do it? Let's look at another place.

Like you say, it's just because the Bible says he does, so we know that. Exactly, yeah. It shouldn't be a... You can take the Bible at his word or don't, and that's it.

Yeah. Isaiah asks God why you do this. Turn with me to Isaiah 63, 17. Notice I haven't even talked about Pharaoh or anything yet. Most people go straightaway to Pharaoh. Then in Isaiah 63, let's go to verse 17, Isaiah is praying for mercy here.

He's asking God to be merciful to him and to the nation of Israel. And he says, verse 17, Oh Lord, why do you make us wander from your ways and harden our so that we fear you not? Now, you might say, well, that's an indictment against the character of God.

Is Isaiah indicting God's character by saying, God, why are you doing this? You might say, well, maybe Isaiah's wrong. Maybe God's not doing that. That's just the way it looks, but the reality is there's no rebuffment here.

There's no rejection of what Isaiah has said. Isaiah is not indicting God, but he is asking the question, why? What purpose does this serve? Oh God, that we are wandering from your ways and you are the one who has made this happen.

You have hardened.

When I hear that, it's kind of like God bothering people is hardening people's hearts so they think. You know, it's like, to me, it's just kind of like, oh, would God do something like that when he wants people to worship him, but it hardens the hearts.

It's like, why would you do that? Yeah, and that's what Isaiah is asking. Isaiah is asking the question. It's the same, it's the same vein, not the same question, but it's the same vein of the questions that Job asked of God, you know, in the sense that, you know, why is this happening?

You know, what's going on? And what was God's answer to Job? It's because I'm God. I don't have to answer you. Were you there when I laid the foundation of the world? Were you there when I put the sun in the sky?

Who are you to ask? That was, I mean, we don't like it, but that's the response often given by God is, who are you, old man, to answer back to God? Will the thing say to him who formed it, why have you made me this way?

That's the response we don't like, but that is the response God often gives. We don't understand him in that sense. But I understand, though, what you just said is exactly what Isaiah is saying. Why is it this way?

It's a legitimate question, but it's not one that we often receive the answer to. Now that we've kind of seen that it is, and of course we go to several other places, but we've seen it in places we haven't seen.

I want to go to a place we're more comfortable, I don't want to say more comfortable with, we're not really comfortable with the subject at all. One that we're more commonly associated with, a hardening with, and that's Romans 9.

Can we go to Romans 9? I just quoted it, but just turn with me over to Romans 9, 14. Up until this part in Romans 9, Paul has been expressing God's sovereignty in making choices. First he said he chose Abraham, then out of Abraham's children he chose Isaac, even though Abraham had several children.

And then out of that he chose Jacob and not Esau. In fact, he said Esau the hated. At the end of the day, that makes us all ask one question, right? Well does that mean God's not fair? That's the legitimate, or I say legitimate, it's the natural question.

Not necessarily a legitimate question, but it's the natural question. Well does that mean God's unfair? Why did he choose Esau? Esau, Isaac was, or Jacob was the jerk. He's the one who stole his brother's property by going into his father's, dressed like him, had some hair on his arms, and bringing in the animal and all.

Remember the story? He's the, I say, call him the jerk. But in the story, he's not made out to be a good guy. He's a conniving guy. And yet, God chooses him, doesn't choose Esau, for the blessing. Verse 14, what shall we say then?

Is there injustice on God's part? Was it wrong of God to do this? That's the vernacular.

By no means.

For he says to Moses, I have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion, so that it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth, so that he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

Not a popular subject. Not popular at all, and hard to really wrap your mind around. Because, it is so clear in this text, above all the other ones, I would say it's so clear in this text, that this is something that God decides to do, based upon his choosing, and it's his will,.

Let me just kind of mention something here, in verse 18, and this might mean something to some of you, some of you might say, well this isn't really important, but to me, it is important. We think about having mercy on someone, as mercy there is something, something we have on someone, but hardening is something we do, you harden it, like the sun hardens clay.

Well the word mercy here in the Greek, is the verb, instead of having mercy, there is only the word, so it literally says in the Greek, he mercies whom he wills, he hardens whom he wills, there's a direct parallel there.

For whom he wills he mercies, whom he wills he hardens. And so there's a direct verbal parallel, between the hardening and the mercying. God's doing one, and he's doing the other. So, you might say, well I don't know why that matters.

To me it matters because it shows there's a parallel happening here. God is choosing to express mercy, or to express a hardening, on whom he wills.

Now,.

I want to address something, because I said this in my prayer earlier, and I've been sort of hinting around it. When we say that God hardens someone, what we must understand, and this is clear from scripture, it's clear, all of the major, theological teachings, of the last 2 ,000 years, have all expressed one simple,.

Very,.

Unifying thing.

God,.

Does not cause, our sin. In the sense that, God is not the active agent in me sinning. My sin is mine, and it comes as a result of being a fallen, son or daughter of Adam. So when you say, God hardens someone, it's very easy, and I think this is what the guy who caught me in the narthex, was trying to say.

You're telling me God causes me to sin.

No.

Let's back up. When we say God hardens,.

What do we mean?

Well, let's go to our lessons here. Again, this is why I teach it this way.

Mankind is sinful, by nature.

Does God need to cause you to sin, for you to be a sinner?

No.

You're a sinner by nature. First of all, from the get-go, God didn't have to cause you to sin anyway, for you to be a sinner.

That almost could be A, B, and C.

Because God restrains the nature. Does God restrain your sin?

I hope so.

God restrains my sin every day. I'm going to sit. My knee is hurting. Jennifer and I were talking about this the other day.

We look at our life,.

And we say, aren't you glad God closed.

That door?

Aren't you glad God took that person out of your life? Or didn't allow you to be able to have the money.

To do what you would have done.

Had you had the money.

To do it.

We joke about what do you do with a billion dollars?

Well, the church gets a new building.

I'll tell you that.

You think about that.

What sin is introduced? Potentials for sin is introduced when you have unlimited resources. You're financially unlimited. Most of us do extra things, kind of make ends meet, but when you've got a billion dollars, the ends have met.

You don't have to do.

Anything.

You can be free to express yourself.

In any way that you want.

Who's going to stop you if you've got all the money in the world?

God, by his nature,.

Restrains the sinful nature of all men. How does God restrain your sin? Be practical. Think in your mind. You don't have to answer. God restrains my sin. The Spirit. One of the ways God restrains the sinful nature of a man is through marriage.

The Bible says that. We have a desire for intimacy and fulfillment in that regard, and yet.

If we weren't married,.

We would lust for that, and we might want that, and we might exchange that relationship with people that we shouldn't, and so God gives us marriage. To what? To restrain that. So that we would invest that.

One thing that we have.

You don't know what I'm talking about.

I don't know what you're talking about.

So that we have that relationship, and it's restrained.

In a good way.

When I say restraining, I don't mean bad. God restrains us.

With the government.

I know how much we say the government bothers us, and we talk about how frustrated we are with our leaders, and we are. But guys like Brian, who's a police officer, his job serves as a restraint on human sin.

And I know this because every time a cop gets behind me when I'm driving, I drive so much better. The law reminds you of your sin.

And I know you probably hate driving behind people because everybody drives five miles an hour less.

Then I hate driving behind people in my own vehicle.

My personal vehicle. Because they're crazy.

Yeah, yeah. You wouldn't act like that.

Have you seen the video.

Of the guy.

Who pulls up to the other guy and he's in the car revving his engine and the girl's laughing, and the guy just lifts up.

His badge and he goes.

And he pulls away real slow.

Well that's it.

God restrains us with so many different ways.

Right?

God hardens the hearts of so many. What is the hardening? What is God's judicial hardening? This is what I believe that it is, and I believe that from scripture I can prove this in the sense that from the proof in James, the Bible says God doesn't tempt us to sin.

God isn't the cause of our sin, but he hardens us. So what is hardening? Hardening, from the perspective of scripture, is God's removal of active restraint. So it doesn't introduce sin, but it allows the sin that is there to be expressed without restraint.

God didn't make Pharaoh hate God. He hated God from birth. But his ability to express that hatred.

Was restrained by God.

Until such time as he removed that restraint.

And when it did,.

That's what judicial hardening is. God choosing, making a judgment to remove any restraint. It's like sucking moisture out of bread.

What does it do.

When you suck all the moisture out of bread? It hardens and stales. That's what hardening the heart is. God's active choice to remove is gracious. Does that make sense?

I hope.

That you see where I'm getting this from scripture because I do believe that you could indict God inappropriately if you say that God goes around making you an adulterer or making you a thief.

Or making you a murderer.

I think that that is a wrong view of God's work in our life. God is restraining you from being a thief. He's restraining you from being a murderer. He's restraining those things because there have been times where I wanted to kill somebody.

I shouldn't say that. You know, there have been times where your anger has flared up, right? There have been times where your lust has flared up. There have been times where your covetousness.

Has wanted to eat you alive.

Right?

And yet, God caused you to repent. Chastised your heart and you fell on your knees and you said, God, you know I really wanted that thing but I know it's not what you wanted for me and I'm sorry that my will was not your will in that.

Don't you think some of that restraint is built into people going all the way back to Genesis 3?

Yeah, absolutely.

I think...

Enmity between the woman and Satan and between her seed and Satan's seed where there's a natural if that was grace, if that hadn't been put in our hearts.

To.

Have enmity against things of Satan.

Yeah, we are still image bearers of God.

That's part of the restraint.

I think having the image of God.

Causes people.

To be naturally more restrained and that is why we have natural laws that sort of cross culturally. It's murder is wrong in all cultures except for those that have seemingly been hardened. Think of what Islam...Islam glorifies murder.

Why? Because that restraint has been removed. God has given a judicial hardening to any person that would sit on the back of a child and take their head simply because they are a Christian child or even a Muslim child of a different sect.

You know, Muslims kill more Muslims than they do Christians. They sit on their back with their knee in between their shoulder blades and they pull their hair up and they take their head off. That's hard.

Hard. That's a hard all the restraint. So yes. We don't see that in all cultures because the image of God still exists. Even though we are sinful by nature that doesn't destroy it. I've heard people say that.

There is a doctrine and be careful remember the internet is the cesspool of ideas. It has so many good things that it provides for us. I have all knowledge in my pocket now because I used to wonder who played in that movie.

Not anymore. I just pull it out and I know exactly who played. All knowledge is in that little box right there. I record my sermons on it. I have a GPS. I have everything I need right in that little box.

But there's a cesspool of information also. A lot of bad stuff. Bad theology just.

Pours out.

Of the internet. One of the bad theologies that's going around right now.

Is the.

I don't know what to call it. I know that I've heard it taught but I don't know what it's called so I'm going to make up a name. The Anti-Immago Dei.

The Anti-Immago Dei.

What is the Immago Dei? That's the Latin for the image of God. Right? We all bear the image of God. In the image of God he made them. Male and female did he make them. Right? Genesis chapter 1, 26 and 27.

The.

Anti-Immago Dei group says that.

Only Adam.

And Eve.

Were created in the image of God.

When they sinned.

That image was tarnished beyond repair and now their resultant children are no longer in the image of God but are in the image of Adam. That's the argument. I don't agree with it. I'm telling you what the theology says.

So ultimately you no longer bear the Immago Dei. I disagree with that. Maybe you might want to argue for it but I would argue against it. I would say that the natural inclination of society, this desire you know there is a desire for righteousness and let me say this.

I'm going to be careful because when you talk about total depravity I don't want to seem like I'm giving double speak. When you hear about somebody being raped what do even unbelievers say? He needs to be brought to justice.

You hear somebody being murdered you hear a child. They found that child's body this week. What is the even unbelievers that person should be punished right? That is unjust and they need to be brought to justice.

You know one of the things that people they don't like children to play war.

Right?

Anymore because it's so bad for the psyche. Little boys play swords or play guns. I made rubber band guns for Christmas for some people. Have them pretend give them this thing. It's red.

So it doesn't look like a real gun.

The point is what do we always see with the boys that are doing this? I'm the good guy. Rarely do you see a child come up and say I want to be Black Bart the bad guy. No! Remember the movie Christmas Story?

What was his fantasy? Black Bart the bad guy is going to come to our home and I'm going to be the hero. I'm going to be the victor of righteousness. I'm going to be the one who holds back the enemy.

Right? That's why.

Little boys tend to glorify.

Soldiers.

And policemen and firemen because those men stand in society as pictures of warriors. But they're righteous, right? So there is that. That is part of the Imago Dei. The desire for justice. Now we also battle that sinful inclination because even though all of us want justice we don't want it for ourselves.

When we do wrong, what do we do? We justify ourselves in our.

Unrighteousness. That's how it becomes.

A conflicted issue. I noticed that with lost people. When they start screaming.

Somebody on TV was captured and I'm like oh my gosh let's go ahead and fry them right now.

We don't need an electric chair. We need electric bleachers.

They're standing in front of their closet like this. Don't go in there, okay? Because I got stuff in there I don't want you to see.

How many times do we hear these guys. And this might be a little bit off subject but still the same thing. These guys who battle against something so hard and they're out there they're the soldier, warrior against and they come to find out that's what they've been doing all along.

Such hypocrisy. The man who fights against homosexuality turns out he was gay all along. You remember that? That happened a few years ago.

He was a pastor.

They're having their own internal battle inside.

My doctor he says.

He grew up Catholic and thus he does not now believe in God.

He believes in karma. I'm working on him. He asked me.

We've seen him 7 months. He asked me about a month ago. Are you mad at the guy that pulled out in front of you.

In the bathroom?

He was like.

I don't know, aren't you angry that.

It happened? It happened. He was hurt. I was actually praying.

I had the opportunity to say that I was praying for him.

As well as myself while I was sitting there waiting for the ambulance. Because he's a human it could have been me.

It could have been a reverse situation.

It just kind of caught me off guard all this time he had been thinking or wondering if I was angry at the driver of the other car and I was like no, I was worried about the people in the other car so in that sense was I after him?

Was I wanting to know? He said are you going to sue? I was like I just need my bills paid. I'm not looking to retire I'm not looking to become rich. I just need the bills paid and then to heal.

That's it.

I think our society has gotten.

So sue happy that everybody looks for something.

To...

There's people that get offended.

And they'll just flop out on the ground and start.

Flailing around.

Litigation has made.

Legitimate issues harder to see through because so many people who have oh my back my neck have accosted the system. And you have the guys on TV. There's a great picture on the internet. It was a lawyer sign.

Just because you did it don't mean you're guilty. That was the sign call us just because you did it.

Don't mean you're guilty and so yes.

I know that's a little off but we misused.

The legal system.

We misused the need for righteousness by making unrighteousness part of that expression of depravity.

As well.

Karma is just a worldly it's a worldly.

You'll reap.

A worldly version of you reap what you sow. You get what you deserve. You're going to reap what you sow. It's biblical in the biblical sense. But if you're lost and you're just thinking.

Well.

I was going to say let me just say this real quick where I would take the issue because I understand what you're saying. Because I've said something similar in that the Bible teaches that if you sow evil you reap evil.