June 10, 2015 ISI Radio Show with Pastor Josh Fryman on Rectifying Non-Calvinist’ Misconceptions of Sovereign Grace – Part 2

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host Chris Arnton. Good afternoon

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity on the planet earth listening via live streaming on the internet.

This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 10th day of June 2015.

Before I even introduce my guest today I just want to extend my condolences and sympathies to a dear friend

Jeff Rose of Jeremiah Cry Ministries and also of the

Herald Society. Brother Jeff Rose who actually will be my guest, God willing, on Friday June 26th to discuss open air preaching and its importance in this day and age.

Well our brother just let me know yesterday that his brother

Todd Rose passed away at the age of 46. We thank

God that he did profess to be a believer and I'm sure that our brother

Jeff Rose does take comfort in that. Please pray for Jeff Rose and his family as they grieve this tragic loss of their brother

Todd Rose who passed at 46 years of age. It is my honor and privilege to have back on the program once again a man that almost became my pastor,

Pastor Josh Fryman of Community Baptist Church of Riverhead, Long Island, New York, which is in eastern

Suffolk County, and we're going to be discussing rectifying misconceptions about Calvinists, about Calvinism and Calvinists for that matter, and it's great to have you back once again for part two of this discussion,

Pastor Josh Fryman. It's good to be here, thank you for having me back on. And just to regroup from last time where we left off, to let our listeners know who may not have heard the part one of this discussion that we began with you last week, you come from a

Christian background that would be ranging between apathetic towards Calvinism all the way over to hostile toward it.

Would that be correct? Yeah, that'd be a fair statement. Independent Baptist is my background, and not everyone is like that, but for the most part definitely the people that I was in around in Bible college around would fall in those two categories, yeah.

They would be predominantly King James -only independent fundamentalist Baptists who were very opposed to Calvinism or at least disagreed with it to be on the more mild end of that spectrum that you surrounded yourself with or that providentially surrounded you,

I should say. I appreciate the caveat. And actually that kind of is the burden on the topic that I have because what

I would find out, and this is mostly from younger guys, younger pastors, young guys in college who were like myself, it wasn't uneducated hostility.

It was just a, oh we heard that Calvinists mean that you don't witness, you don't evangelize, and you know

God doesn't love everybody, and you know, how could we believe in that? I would never believe in a

God like that, that kind of thing. And I, you know, when you'd asked me last week on a sidetrack,

I was, I just want to say this real quick, and hopefully this will be my last sidetrack, well the reason that your listeners may not have gathered the theme or what

I was trying to say last week is because, I don't know if it was nerves or what, but I rambled a bit, understatedly so,

I rambled a bit last week. So I'm going to try to be a little more concise this week. But what

I was finding, and that even some of my own prejudices against Calvinists were, they were unfounded, and it kept me from really exposing myself to some tremendous authors, some tremendous resources.

My pastor was also my father -in -law, which I'm thankful for. He is not a

Calvinist at all, but he, probably the large majority of books that he had gotten me were from Calvinist authors.

I have several families in our church that have, were kind enough to give me some gifts when we began, and a lot of them were

Calvinist authors. And as I'm going through these books, I'm starting to realize that a lot of the things that I had, a lot of misconceptions that I had, were because I just didn't know.

I just assumed. And my desire is for, if there's any listeners out there that have this sort of prejudice, or this fear of Calvinism, to say you don't have to.

Now, again, we're not talking about the hyper -Calvinists, just like there's pendulum swings on both sides, but that's for another discussion.

But you're going to miss out on some tremendous authors, some great resources.

If you view anything Calvinism as bad, wrong, or heretical, and really that's a dangerous point right there.

There's some that actually believe it's heretical. But anyway, that's it.

Forgive me, by the way, one more caveat, one more thing, and then I'll let you, since it is your show, I'll let you go. I'm in my office right now, but my office is in my house.

So if you hear a little background noise, I have two lovely daughters. We're getting ready for church here in a couple hours.

So if you hear some background noise, that's what that is. And I want to apologize to our listeners. I don't know if it's coming out over the air, but for some reason

I hear popcorn popping in my ears. That could be a serious mental problem on my part, but I just apologize for the technical issues, if it's disturbing you at all.

Let me just write that down. That's another added symptom to the list of medical mental problems.

Anyway. And the other interesting thing to note about your father -in -law is, although he is not a

Calvinist, because of his firm belief in the necessity to repent in order to receive eternal life, the vast majority of Christian authors who have written extensively on that for the past several hundred years he knows have been thoroughgoing, five -point

Calvinists. So his bookstore, as you said, is filled, I would say, 99 % of the authors in there are

Calvinists. Yeah. And if there is anyone on Long Island that was looking for good books, they have a good bookstore.

But I will say this. That's actually part of the confusion and problem that I faced.

You start talking about the Lordship of Christ, repentance, that it belongs in the gospel message that a sinner must repent, and you go, oh, you're a

Calvinist? Say, well, what do you mean? That's what Calvinism teaches.

And there's almost this fear of some of these guys, these pastors, using repentance and using lordship because, oh, that's what

Calvinism teaches. And you think, my soul, this is extremely dangerous because this has nothing to do with a man's teachings from the 1500s.

This has to do with what Jesus taught. As a matter of fact, John MacArthur wrote, I think, one of the best books on the gospel.

It's called The Gospel According to Jesus. It has nothing to do with Calvinism. It has to do with the gospel

Jesus preached, and you will find repentance in there and why it matters with Lordship of Christ that straight is the gate and narrow is the way.

And also another thing, and again, I'm getting ahead of myself here, so forgive me, but that's just another example.

There are so many things that take away the label Calvinist, non -Calvinist, and just say, what do you believe about the

Bible? And there are so many things that people already believe about the Bible that if they thought about it, they would say, wait a minute, why am

I accusing Calvinists of being wrong for believing this when I believe it?

And one of those examples of this is that Jesus himself said that brought is the way that leads to destruction, right, and many there be that go, and then he said that few there be that find it.

Now, there's no other way for us to interpret that than saying that the majority are tragically lost and unbelievers and are going to go to hell and that there's a minority, there's few there be that find it.

Now, that in and of itself tells us, and I'm not trying to be funny here, but Jesus never said anything for a fact and he never said, he never exaggerated something to prove a point.

Everything Jesus said was true. You know, Jesus never said to his disciples afterwards, you know, and I don't mean to be irreverent,

I'm saying this to get a point across, Jesus never said to his disciples, you know, I think I went too far on that one, perhaps

I shouldn't have said that. Everything Jesus said was true.

And so when Jesus makes a statement like that, and Jesus is saying that this is the reality, that not everyone is going to be saved, then it would be the height of heresy to say that, well, if someone believes that not everyone is going to be saved or can be saved, then they're wrong.

Jesus preached it and taught it. Now, obviously that's not our message when we preach the gospel, but that's just the reality of the world that we're in, and our

Lord and Savior is the one who made that declaration. You know, free will being another one,

I don't know of anyone that believes that man has a choice to be a sinner.

Every Christian I talk to knows that man is born into sin, and we know that theologically because in Adam we fell, you know, that we're just as guilty.

If it was us, we'd have done the very same thing, and in Adam, you know, we made those same choices, and it was that, it was

Adam made a choice, there's no question about it. But, you know, I talked to a man a few weeks ago, actually probably more now, a few more than that, a few months ago, and he said that, you know, he could not believe in a

God that did not give man a choice. I said, well, first of all, you know, I'm not saying that, you know,

God makes it very clear that man is responsible for his sin, but to go with your line of thinking, this gentleman was speaking to, is that what are you saying about God and that he made it, you know, he allowed it, he designed it, that every single person born on earth is born a sinner, and, you know, he said, well, that's different, and, you know, that's the problem of this, is that, you know, the discussions aren't allowed, like,

I love your show because it does allow different opinions to come on, iron sharpening iron, and when you get to a point where, or a discussion where, you know, you realize, hold on a second, you know,

I guess that's right, you don't get to say, oh, that's different, you know, it's like this universal brush that's painted over something that somebody can't answer, well, that's different, it's not different, it's not different, you're, by us believing that all men are born into sin, what we're saying is

God had the absolute right to design us that way, and that every single person born would be born under sin, and that the only way that person would be saved would be through Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and so anyway.

So, in other words, we sin because we were already from birth sinners.

Of course. It's not that we are sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners.

Sure, if I could, if I could, if I could stop being a sinner just by stopping sinning, well, that would be wonderful, well,

I can't, it's in me, the only thing that a sinner can do by its nature is sin, by our nature is sin, and, you know, the illustration you've heard before,

I'm sure, is the apple tree, you know, a guy buys a house and he looks out in the back, there's an apple tree, he doesn't like the apple tree, so he picks all the apples off of it and goes, there, that's better, well, for a little bit, but guess what's going to come back?

Apples, because it's an apple tree, you know, you can't, you can't pick off the surface things and expect there to be a change, you have to chop the tree down and dig up the roots, that's why

I like what James White said a couple years ago, you know, this idea that Jesus wants to come into your heart and just invite

Jesus into your heart, he said, no, Jesus doesn't want to live in your dirty, wicked heart, you know, what he wants to do is give you a brand new one, and that is conversion, but there lies the main rub, forgive me,

Shakespeare, for botching that, but there lies the real issue, is what does

God demand of his children, and that's the real thing, it has less to do, really, with who receives the gospel, if you get into this, it's what is required of a that's why there's this epidemic in Christianity today of backsliding, you know, oh,

I ran from God for 20 years, and all these things, when in reality there was probably never any true conversion to begin with, but if all you believe is that salvation is saying a prayer, then you have to defend your converts, you have to justify why your converts don't live for the

Lord and don't live like Christ, and so you take one verse out of the Old Testament which had

Israel backsliding, and you just broad brush paint every person now, and say, well, see, this is what happens, and it's not true, so what

I believe is important here, and I find myself rambling again, so forgive me for that, but what

I believe is important is that the clarity that needs to come on the gospel is not just God's part, you know, the confusion is, brother, that most

Christians, and many churches, I shouldn't say most because I don't know, but many churches today, they think that we are here for the world, they think that that is our focus, we're to market to the world, we're to, you know, to try to reach the world, we're trying to get the world, now that's part of why we're here, but it's not why we're here, we're here for God, we're here to bring glory to God, we're here to live our lives in a way that's pleasing to God, now part of that is to preach the gospel to every creature, there's no question, to every tribe, tongue, kindred, and nation, that's absolutely part of it, but it is done for God's glory and for God's sake, because He's told us to do it, not because, well, you know, we have to have so many converted, otherwise we're not going to hit our quota for the quarter, and so, you know, our focus needs to be on who we're reaching, not on who's sending us out, and I think that's a real danger, and I think that there is a lot to be learned from Calvinism, from Calvinist authors, from Calvinist resources, that would help immensely these guys who have this very superficial, shallow view of salvation, of evangelism, and it sounds super spiritual to say, well,

I would never read that book, or I'd never listen to that guy, or I'd never go to that conference, or I'd never buy from that bookstore, because they're

Calvinist, it may sound spiritual, but it's actually the opposite, they're not allowing, you know, some tremendous opportunities and resources into their lives, and I think it's a detriment to the study of pastors if they refuse to do that, it's a detriment to churches that don't have things like that afforded to them, and I think it's dangerous.

And again, not because of their Calvinism, because of the truth that they talk about in Scripture, if that makes any sense.

Yes, well, there is a heresy known as Pelagianism, which actually teaches that men are not born in sin, that they are born either morally good or morally neutral, and their wills are molded by their experience and surroundings and nurturing and upbringing, and one of the heroes of many fundamentalists who despise

Calvinism is Charles Finney, and they don't even realize that he rejected that men are born in sin.

Well, Finney, I don't think

Finney, and I'm trying to weigh my words here, Finney was a salesman, he made very clear that true revivals, or we're not going to see revival, and I'm paraphrasing this, so forgive me,

I could try to find it here in a you know, we, basically, when we can convince them, and that's where we have to get to the convincing part, but he was talking about their speech, their, you know, their salesmanship, there's a famous,

I don't think you're going to know who this guy is, and you're going to think I'm exaggerating, and I'm not, but his name is

Carl Hatch, and he was famous in the Jack Kyle's crowd, nowadays it'd be like a

John Hamblin type, you know, soul winning salesman type preaching, and there's actually something that they coined as the

Carl Hatch squeeze, and you laugh, you laugh, it's true, it's tragic, this is what they would say, and I heard it with my own ears, he would brag about, you know, witnessing, and he'd say,

I get to the point, and the guy'd say, now are you ready to pray, and the guy'd say, no, I'm not, he'd say, well, would you mind if I prayed with you before I leave, and as he'd pray, he goes,

I would just ask, and I'm using God's name here only because he did, I'm not trying to, you know, talk lightly of it, but, you know, he would say,

I would ask God to remind him of the great husband he could be if he was a

Christian, and a great father, and he wants to be a better dad, he wants to be a better father, and all that, and he goes, and at the end of that, then

I would say, and he goes, and I just give him a little squeeze on the shoulder and say, now will you pray, and here's what he said, he said,

I forget the percentage of the time, it was over half, and he said it like an excited thing, he'd say, would you know that such and such percentage of time, they say yes, like, yes,

I want to pray, and I'm thinking, and I just, I couldn't believe it, and I thought this is, this is horrible, you know, this is horrible, and these are the same guys who would say, oh, you know, oh, they're

Calvinists, you know, we would never read them or listen to them, and here's the tragedy, brother, here's the tragedy, there was more condemnation from the

Lord for men like that, because you find Jesus saying things like, you compass land and sea to make one proselyte, right, and that's what these guys do, they'll do anything just to get a guy to say a prayer, and he said, in reality, you've made them two -fold more than children of hell.

Now, what we would preach, repentance, you know, if there's not a life that shows the

Lordship of Christ, yes, we're not saying that you have to be perfect, by the way, we know that, but if a person is saved and they get into sin, there's going to be chastisement, there's going to be correction, there's going to be a desire to be right, there's going to be restitution and all these things, and if you don't see that, and you know, they just accuse us of adding work to salvation or being legalists, and in reality, the

Holy Ghost moved two different men to write, Paul being one, examine yourselves, whether you be in the faith,

Peter being the other, make your calling and election, sure, and so it's just sad, you know, but anyway,

I, you know, last week I had three things that I thought were some pretty predominant myths about Calvinism, and I just wanted to bring them to light to try to encourage anybody out there that kind of thinks of Calvinism as this, you know, heretical belief system, and look, just like Jack Hiles, he claimed to be an independent

Baptist, and that guy was so far out there, and he was a heretic, so I would not want anyone to brand me as being an independent

Baptist as being a Hilesite, all right, so, and I understand that there are extreme cases on both sides, and I understand there are extreme cases of Calvinism as well, but I also know enough

Calvinists, and I've read enough Calvinists to know that I'm not going to judge them by the guys that go to an extreme, you know, guys that don't even want to witness, because, well, you know,

God said, you know, whoever's going to get saved is going to get saved, you know, if you got a guy who only thinks

God is powerful enough to bring about the end and not powerful enough to give us the means, then, you know, that guy, you know, this question whether that man knows the

God he thinks that, you know, he's talking about. Well, speaking of that kind of easy -believism,

Roman's road salvation, one -two -three -repeat -after -me salvation,

I find it amusing to recall a story involving

D .L. Moody, who, interestingly enough, D .L. Moody was not a Calvinist, but he seemed to have an understanding of who was the author of salvation, and the story goes that D .L.

Moody is strolling along a street in Chicago, and a drunkard calls out to him, who's lying in the gutter, and he says,

Pastor Moody, don't you recall who I am? And Pastor Moody looks down and says, no,

I'm sorry, I don't, and the man says, I'm one of your converts, and D .L. Moody is reported to have said to him, you must be one of my converts, you're certainly not one of God's.

Amen, yeah, it's true that there's a, you know, I'm gonna, I say names, you know,

I'm not doing it to be like, you know, I'm some, you know, bravo guy, I'm a pastor of a good, of a great church on the east end of Long Island, and that's as far as it goes for me, you know,

I'm never going to be like a famous person or anything like that, I'm not trying to make a name for myself, but, so this isn't false bravado, but I do name names because I think it's important that we do, and we show where there's error, and there's a guy named

Phil Kidd, who is popular amongst the Easy Believism crowd, and he has up on his website, and the only reason

I know this is because someone that I follow on Twitter happened to put it up, and I don't follow the man myself, but anyway, and here's what he said, he said, here are the people who were saved after hearing a message

I preached, and this is very reminiscent of the Jack Scott, who had given soul winning awards to two of his top college students, one girl, one guy, and no mention of the

Lord, no mention of the Holy Ghost, no mention of conviction, no mention of Jesus Christ, no mention of God, no mention of sin, no mention of sorrow, and what he did mention was that they used the technique that he had designed while he was in Bible college, and I just think it's very sad that that's out there, and the bottom line is this, is that I find that the authors, and you know,

Ichabod Spencer, he's a guy that you might not, maybe not everyone's heard of, but a family in my church gave me a book called

Pastor Sketches. Yes, Solid Ground Christian Books, republished that. Yeah, matter of fact,

I was going to recommend Solid Ground Christian Books as a resource, because just phenomenal, phenomenal material, but you read

J .I. Packer, Stephen Charnock, you read Robert Mermick Shane, who is, again, I guess

I'd say one of my favorites, of course, Boyce Pinkman, my all -time favorite being Spurgeon, which by the way,

I still have the book you bought me about Spurgeon, so thank you, but what is it about them?

You don't find them writing books on the five points. What you do find them is writing books about God, our vision of God, our view of God, our perspective of God, and that's what we need.

We need that, and you know, that's why I find it so heartbreaking that there's this whole group of guys out there that will basically shun an entire body of work just because they're

Calvinist, and they don't even understand what Calvinism is, and they're using that to make their decision, and they don't even understand it properly, and that's really what's heartbreaking to me, and so that's why when

I told you, I said, I really want to talk about this, and maybe someone out there who is, you know, you know, hesitant about that will kind of, you know, maybe embrace some of these authors, and books, and truths that they teach, and well, that the

Bible teaches, but that they bring out, and that they point out, and so anyway.

I'm going to repeat our email address for any of you who have a question for Pastor Josh Freiman on our topic,

Rectifying the Misconceptions about Calvinism, and my email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, and that's c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com.

We're going to be taking a brief station break. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Josh Freiman, Pastor of Community Baptist Church in Riverhead, and our topic,

Rectifying Misconceptions about Calvinism. Linbrook Baptist Church on 225

Earl Avenue in Linbrook, Long Island, is teaching God's timeless truths in the 21st century. Our church is far more than a

Sunday worship service. It's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied, and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant.

It's like a gym where one can exercise their faith through community involvement. It's like a hospital for wounded souls where one can find compassionate people and healing.

We're a diverse family of all ages. Enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ. In fellowship, play, and together.

Hi, I'm Pastor Bob Walderman, and I invite you to come and join us here at Linbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can be.

Call Linbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402. That's 516 -599 -9402, or visit linbrookbaptist .org.

That's linbrookbaptist .org. Welcome back. This is Chris Arns, and if you just tuned us in, we're listening.

You are listening to Iron Sharpens Iron. Our guest today is Pastor Josh Fryman of Community Baptist Church in Riverhead, Long Island, New York.

Pastor Josh comes from an independent fundamentalist Baptist background, which was typically either not

Calvinist or vehemently opposed to it. King James Only -ism was a part of that background, and Josh has emerged from that and has come to see the beauty and biblical truth of the doctrines known as the doctrines of sovereign grace, which have been nicknamed

Calvinism, Reform, etc. Pastor Josh is one of those that does not really care for labels like that.

I know of other great men that would be in the same camp, men like Alistair Begg and Jim Eliff of Christian Communicators Worldwide and others that don't particularly care for wearing badges like that, but nonetheless share those truths with us.

Before we go back to the interview, I just have to thank our friends at His Hands Auto Repair Ministry in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

That may sound like an odd name, Auto Repair Ministry. Well, just yesterday

I was helping the daughter of a friend get necessary work on her car done, and one of the major chains of auto repair shops was going to charge $250 for this repair job.

The Christian owner of His Hands Auto Repair knew how much that cost was going to be when

I called him, and he gave the price of $58.

He could have easily said, I can charge you half of that or a quarter of that, but he charged approximately one -fifth of that cost, which was amazing, and that's why

I had to give them a shout out. His Hands Auto Repair Ministry and their website is

HisHandsAuto .org, HisHandsAuto .org, and they are also a tax -exempt 501c3 nonprofit charity, so you may contribute to them as well because they are actually helping people in financial crisis, so they're a good charity to keep in mind and consider contributing to,

HisHandsAuto .org. If you live in the area, obviously, seek them out for your own auto needs.

I also want to thank, I should say, our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, that's

CVBBS .com, CV for Cumberland Valley, BB for Bible Book, S for Service .com,

and they are located here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and they are helping us out greatly by giving us a portion of the money from every purchase made when anyone mentions

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And last but not least, our newest paying sponsor is Solid Ground Christian Books, Solid -Ground -Books .com,

that you just heard Pastor Josh mention as well, Solid -Ground -Books .com.

In fact, we are going to be having the founder and director of Solid Ground Christian Books as a guest on this program

Wednesday the 17th, one week from today, and he's going to be talking about the providence of God, and he also happens to be my very first pastor who immersed me in the waters of baptism nearly 30 years ago, so I'm looking forward to that.

And then once again, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. If you have a question for our guest, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

We do have a couple of questions already from our listeners. From Nathan Lane in Elizabethtown, or Elizabethton, Tennessee, Nathan Lane wants to know what performance of his did you prefer, the one where he was on Broadway with Guys and Dolls, or when he was on Broadway with the

Producers? No, I'm actually kidding with that. He just happens to share the same name. I think

I'm reading a prank here. Yeah, no relation to that,

Nathan Lane. I'm sure he didn't mind me reading his last name since it's in the question here. I've been asked when trying to explain

Calvinism, so you don't believe in free will, generally I fumble around with Christian liberty and how we were slaves to sin prior to regeneration.

How can I answer this question accurately and concisely? That's a very good question, because obviously we are not robots, as the caricature that people constantly spew out about Calvinism would lead people to believe.

Calvinists believe that people do make choices, and that they voluntarily make those choices.

They're not forced to make those choices against their will, but they choose according to their nature.

And if they are still enslaved to their sin before regeneration, they're going to make choices that please themselves and please

Satan. But if you could pick up on that, Josh. Yeah. First of all, he doesn't know me, because concisely is not something

I do well. No, I appreciate the question. It's something

I didn't understand myself and struggled with, but the reality of this is that it's not talking about the free will every day in general.

There's no way we could say that, because 1 John 1 -9 would not be in the Bible. If we confess our sin,

He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin. There's two things there. Number one, we're going to sin. That's what it says. Number two,

God is faithful. That means He will always be just to forgive us and cleanse us when we go to Him in repentance.

Don't forget what Paul said, as you receive Christ, He is the Lord. So walk ye in Him. He said that's the church of Colossae.

All right. So if we receive Christ, receive salvation through repentance and faith, you better believe we're going to need repentance and faith as we go through our

Christian life. So if we believe that we're robots and that we do everything that God says that we're supposed to do, there would be no need for a verse that would tell us to confess our sin because God's never going to lead us to sin.

See James 1 for that. What it is referring to is salvation and that no man will ever be saved on his own apart from God.

There's no way that a man on his own will go towards God.

And there are three quick illustrations that I would give this person to help out.

Number one is Adam. When Adam realized who he was, he didn't run to God to get help.

He hid from God. It was God who went looking for Adam. All right. Second would be

Noah and his family. What this does is it's the second time that the entire population on earth had the truth.

Adam and his family, Noah and his family, and both times man ended up doing what he wanted to do and going against what

God's commands were. All right. And I think that's important because those are biblical practical examples that man left to his own is not going to choose to run to God.

Okay. And thirdly is just in a theological principle. Okay. And that is that God says in Romans 1, okay, that he's even given creation.

Why? To show that there is a creator. God has done all that he not can do, but all that he will do to show man who he is and that man is not alone, that man was created.

But without that, without the creation, without the word of God, which is why it's so important for us to preach the gospel to every creature, no one would know that.

And so as far as the free will goes, it means that apart from the

Holy Spirit's conviction, no one's going to get saved. Nathan Lane seems like a nice guy.

No matter how much he talks to people and tries to convince them, if all he does is convince someone to say a prayer, okay, that's not salvation.

That is an example of someone making a decision mentally on, okay, yeah, you know, sounds good.

I could do that. But if there's no Holy Ghost conviction, regeneration, then there's no new life.

And so don't get caught up. Here's my concise part, Nathan. Here's my concise part.

Ignore the last part. Here's the concise part.

Say it's not about life. It's not saying that we don't have a choice in the decisions we make through life.

It's dealing with salvation. All right, nobody will choose God unless God first chose to convict him.

And John says it this way, we love him, yes, but because he first loved us.

God's always the initiator, if we could say it that way. And we have in Romans 8, a powerful verse about this subject.

Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. And the question would be to somebody who is attacking us because we believe we are meddling with or attacking their idol of free will, is believing in Jesus something that pleases

God? Is repenting, believing in God? Well, Paul says that those who are in the flesh cannot please

God. So therefore, a rebirth must occur beforehand. Yeah, this is where semantics gets involved where it shouldn't, all right?

If the plain sense makes common sense, seek no other sense, else it becomes nonsense, right?

All right, I want you to think with me about the things that a sinner is commanded to do.

It's what the Bible says. This goes back to lordship of Christ. Does the sinner do the inviting to Jesus or does

Jesus do the commanding or do the inviting? Of course, we know it's Jesus, right? Jesus is not waiting for a sinner to invite him into their heart.

Jesus has commanded all men everywhere to repent. Jesus is the one that does the inviting, come unto me, all you that are heavy laden,

I will give you rest. All right, so, but what does he say? I want you to think about what they are. Repent, believe, come, taste, see, look.

Every one of them are action verbs, okay? No one is teaching that, like, for instance, the

Philippian jailer, when he went to the apostle Paul, what must I do to be saved? Paul didn't say, oh, you can't do anything to be saved.

What, what do you believe that works after? Of course, he didn't say. He said, I'll tell you what you have to do. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.

Every, every single thing a sinner must do is an action verb. Repent, believe, look, come, all the, all the examples of it.

The question is how? God answers it. He says that God sent an, this is in the book of Acts, forgive me if I don't know the reference, that God sent his son to bless you in turning every one of you from your iniquities.

Um, Paul wrote to the Church of Thessalonica, um, how that you turn to God from idols to serve the living and true

God. There were, they knew what it meant to be saved. They knew what it meant, um, to, to, to turn to God.

It wasn't turning from sin. It wasn't turning over a new leaf. It wasn't turning from, you know, their, their life.

It was turning to God, okay? How is that, how is that possible? It's a gift of God. It's a gift of God.

And, and this is what I, this is why I have, I, I, I really, um, scratch my head. And I, look,

I know I just, because I didn't understand it all. I mean, the more I do, the more thankful I am for it. It's just like the

Christian life. Okay? You, you speak to a Christian and you say, boy, I've got to forgive that person.

And I don't know how to, or I've got to, I've got to be gracious to that person. I don't know how to, well, how can you do that?

I mean, let's think realistically here. Let's think, according to the scriptures, how does a Christian live the

Christian life? They need God. Jesus had abided me and I, and you, then we're able to do that, which we could not do in the flesh, right?

I can now speak with grace. I can, I can forgive those that, that, uh, that ask forgiveness and come to me and say, sorry,

I can forgive completely. I can love in a way that I've never loved before. So here, here, here's the question.

If it's so evident that in the Christian life, we need God for everything. You hear it preached all the time.

You can't do it without God. You need God. You have to depend upon God. You know, you know, rely upon God.

You know, God can help you. You know, if we accept it so willingly in the Christian life, why is it so hard to understand that in salvation, it's the same thing?

I'm to forgive and I'm to speak kindly. I'm to live wholly in my Christian life, but I need God to do that.

A sinner is to repent and a sinner is to believe, but they need God so that they can do that. This is why it matters that God is involved in the gospel and our message of, uh, to sinners.

If it is nothing more than an academic approach to, um, you're a sinner, you're going to go to hell.

Do you want to go to hell? I didn't think so. Pray this prayer. That's not salvation. There's no

Holy Ghost conviction there. The Holy Ghost convicts the heart. And so all these actions that a sinner must do, if a person has never repented, they're not saved.

If a person has never believed, they're not saved because you've heard me say this, Chris, at our church,

God is not in the business of idle chit chat. God moves someone to do something. It's on purpose.

And God's not going to, uh, move on someone and not have them repent, not have them believe.

It's not why he sent his son to die. It's not why he sent his, his, uh, his spirit to convict the world of their sin.

Yeah. It seems that those who reject the doctrines we call the doctrines of grace, they really give man too high and powerful a place in the role he plays in regard to his salvation.

They really, even if they believe Jesus paid it all and that salvation could never occur with what, without what

Christ had accomplished, they still seemingly, even though they may never say this in words, but in fact, some do say this, that man is actually the final arbiter on his eternal destiny on where he will spend eternity.

And that's a, that's a terrifying thought that I would be, or anybody would be the final arbiter of where eternity is spent.

Or, or how it's kept. Yes. Because, you know, it sounds, it sounds great on the back of a, of a tract or on the back of a, of a bulletin, you know,

God has a vote, Satan has a vote, and you make the deciding vote. Um, that now makes me, you know, right, right, equal with God as far as the power

I have over, you know, my vote. But see, that's what, that, that's what, that's what it's become.

It's become so trite. It's become so, so common when in reality, salvation and conversion and new life is such a wonderful, miraculous thing that, you know, for any other, any other thing, you know, we're, we're so quick to point out that we need

God for, and we need, we need a revival among pastors and preachers to understand that, no, we need

God for salvation. And there's nothing wrong with saying that. There's nothing, it doesn't take anything away from the sinner's responsibility to repent and believe and to look and to come and to taste and see.

It doesn't take anything away from that. What we're doing is we're explaining how they get to repent and how they get to come and how they get to taste, how they get to believe.

And, um, it has to do with, like I said, about how we keep it too. You know, a salvation that I can,

I can handle. Um, I wouldn't want, because I'd lose it quickly. Um, but if God does it, you know,

I love, I love in the Old Testament, our church went to the book of Exodus recently. And, and, uh, I tell you what, it's, it's,

I've, I've go over my notes, uh, regularly on this message. Uh, just love how the

Lord used it in my life. Um, it's the Exodus chapter 33, where Moses, uh, asked

God to show him his glory. Well, God said he would, I don't remember the passage or not.

Um, God said, I will, I'll, I'll, I'll allow my goodness to pass before you. Okay.

And let's remember that that is the gospels, the goodness of God. I mean, if we really want people to be led to repentance, which is, which is necessary for salvation,

Romans two says it's the goodness of God that leads to repentance. It's not the wickedness of the sinner.

And so browbeating our, you know, our people in our church, that's not going to lead to, that might lead to some people, you know, getting in line better, but it's not going to lead to conversion.

It's the goodness of God that leads to repentance. And, um, you know, you're not going to understand the goodness of God unless you understand sin and all that stuff.

But anyway, God says, I'm going to allow my goodness to pass before you. But then he said this, you remember what he said, where Moses had to go in order to see his glory?

He said, he said, I have to put you somewhere. I have to put you into the cleft of the rock. Okay. But here's the beauty.

He didn't make Moses climb to get there. He said, I'll put you there. I'll put you there.

I will place you in the cleft of the rock. So everything Moses got to experience,

God did, you know, Moses, Moses asked for it and God loved him and gave it to him and then made, made the way for him to be able to do it.

And then did the, literally, I don't, I don't mean this to sound derogatory or sound low of the

Lord, but God did the, literally the heavy lifting. He put Moses where he needed to be. This is exactly what happens in our salvation.

You know, we come under conviction of God's Holy Spirit and, um, you know, Paul kicked against the pricks,

Saul kicked against the pricks. Um, you know, the Holy Spirit convicts and, uh, we respond to that and we understand our sin condition and we turn to God from, from idols.

No, we know that there's a new life that's going to follow to serve the living and true God. This is what happened at the church of Thessalonica.

None of that could happen without God, none of it. And, um, instead of, uh, arguing over how much power we have, we ought to just bow our, bow our knee and lower our heads and worship the

God that made it all possible and then do everything we can to serve him. And that includes evangelizing and witnessing and, um, and how, you know, how important that is and it's, it's, it's needed today.

So we got to go to a break. This is our final break and we will get to, uh,

Penelope in Somerville, New Jersey has a question. We'll get to that question when we return.

If anybody else has a question now, you, you have to send it in now, uh, as we wrap up to Chris Arnzen at gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. We'll be right back. Don't go away.

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That's wrbc .us. Welcome back. This is Chris Arns.

And if you've just tuned us in, we have had on our show today Pastor Josh Fryman of Community Baptist Church in Riverhead, Long Island in eastern

Suffolk County. We've been discussing rectifying misconceptions about Calvinism. And our listener in Somerville, New Jersey, Penelope, or Penny, she says this is a great way to conclude our program for the last eight minutes or seven minutes or so.

What are some good approaches to put pebbles in the shoes of Christians we know who are ignorant of but adverse to Calvinism?

Well, that's a good question. Penny is my mom's name, so that's a great name. Oh, wow.

Yeah. But I would say that we have to be careful on doing things like that because we're not out to spread election.

We're not out to spread any ism. We're out just to preach the gospel and promote truth according to how

God leads us. And I know this is going to sound an overly simplistic answer, but it has to be under the leadership of the

Spirit. If we do it in our flesh, if we want people to see our point of view because that somehow, and I'm not suggesting this is

Penny's motive, I'm just saying in general, if we need people to see our point of view because then somehow it vindicates our position, then we're not in the conversation with the right

Spirit. You know, food for thought, things like that.

Those are all good. But if it comes up and you want to discuss it, then that's fine. That's great.

But I don't know that I would go out of my way to make someone say,

I know you don't believe like me, but I really wish you would. But if the question is,

I just want to give my friends just something to chew on a little bit. I think that's what she was saying.

I would say, you know, just like to me, the three that I talked about last week a little bit, you know,

God's love and evangelism, things like that. I think election is probably the best place to start because it's seen all throughout the scriptures.

Just ask them, say, you know, what do you think about Israel as far as, you know,

Abraham getting called? Why did God call Abraham in Deuteronomy chapter 7? I'd have them read that chapter and then say, you know, what did you think about that as far as God setting his love and explaining why he did it?

You know, looking to future events, prophecy, how do we know these things are going to happen?

And then back to, you know, I really don't know. I guess

I just should have said that. I don't know Penelope, but I would start with there.

To me, you know, as you said already, I don't like terms.

I don't say I'm a Calvinist just because I know there's such a misunderstanding of what it means, and it's so easy to label somebody and assume they believe something that they don't.

And more often than not, people that get labeled Calvinist, it's the hyper extreme that people think about.

And it's interesting that people who are against the doctrines of grace even use the term hyper

Calvinist at all, because if they already hate Calvinism, why do they even bring up the term hyper

Calvinism, which they really equate, they make them one and the same. Actually, I found the opposite.

I found that most Calvinists use hyper Calvinism. Most non -Calvinists just say Calvinism.

Calvinists have to say that. That would be a hyper view. And my question is why they even include

Calvinism in that. It's not a hyper version. You know, I just call it false doctrine. You know, it's not right.

Just like I would Heil's type on the other side of it. You know, it's false doctrine. Easy Believerism is a bunch of nicknames, but it's false.

It's a false gospel. It's not good doctrine. I don't know how much time we have. I do want to make one clarification, though, if that's okay.

Two things, because I know you didn't mean this at all, and I know what you meant, but for our listeners' sake,

I was very fortunate to have the training I did and come from where I came from.

My father -in -law's church, Long Island Baptist Church, is where I served as assistant pastor, and I just want them to be clear.

When you mentioned that I came out of a background where they were anti -Calvinist, I would not label that church that way at all.

As a matter of fact, as you mentioned, the bookstore has a lot of good books in it, and I joked my former pastor, my father -in -law, he said, most people have a blue Christmas, and I had a pink

Christmas, because he gave me just a ton of books by Arthur Pink. I don't want them thinking that that was the church

I had just come out of. It was a general statement about Independent Baptist and my background in Bible College and things like that.

And the people that had, for the most part of your pastoral life and even just Christian life, the people that surrounded you providentially ranged from being non -Calvinist to vehemently anti -Calvinist in general.

Yes, correct. And I'm thankful for all those, because they helped me define what

I believe. I don't believe what I believe to please a certain sect or a certain group. I'm thankful for what the

Lord showed me. And there's one other clarification that I have to make from last week, if we have time.

Yes, if you could quickly do that. Okay. So I was referring to Romans chapter 9, and there's a verse that says, and not only this, but when

Rebekah also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac, it was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger.

Now, reading grammatically, that's what it says, but in between even by our father

Isaac, and it was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger, there's a parenthetical verse, okay? Now in that verse,

I think God, you know, knows man. He put in there so that we know that, you know, it was said unto her this, for the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose according to election might stand not of works, but of him that calleth.

And one of the listeners last week thought that I was saying that because that Jacob and Esau were not born, and because they had not done anything good or bad, that that meant that election couldn't be real.

And I was actually saying the exact opposite. What I was saying was that if you find someone who says that God's election was based upon, well,

Jacob is going to do good and Esau's going to do bad, God put in there on purpose, like almost like just so everyone knows, that it was said unto her the older is going to serve the younger, and this was done before any of them did any good or evil.

All right, so before any of them, so their actions basically had nothing to do with the decision

God made. God did it that the purpose of election might stand, and what is that purpose?

Not of works, but of him that calleth. Amen. And we're out of time, Pastor Josh. Quickly give your website for our listeners.

Our website is www .communitybaptistchurch .net. And we definitely need to have you back on the program again to continue this same theme, and I want

Penelope to know another thing that you could leave, a question you could leave with your friends is, does

God alone save sinners, or do sinners in any way help to save themselves?

I think that's a good thing to leave them thinking about, Penelope. And I want to thank everybody who listened, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater

Savior than you are a sinner. God bless, and join us tomorrow, and I look forward to hearing from you with your questions via email.