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Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. We're just blabbering on about things and not knowing what we're doing.

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So welcome to the show. Welcome to the YouTube stream. Steve Cooley, welcome. Hey, thanks for having me.

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It seemed like just like a week ago, we were sitting in the same chairs. Maybe it was close to, it seems less than a week.

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Maybe there was a time warp or something. What were we talking about? It was KROQ 106 .7

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FM, Richard Blade. It might be him. Did he just die? I don't know, I'd have to look.

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Okay, it just popped in my mind. I knew it would. And since I'm blocked from using the internet here, I'm not really sure. We were talking about the doctrine of election.

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Unconditional election. Instead of God choosing based on conditions in him, in the world, in others, it is unconditional, no conditions.

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God's free choice, God's own free will and choosing. And we were going to look at about seven truths about election from Ephesians chapter one.

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We got through, I think, four, Steve. Did we? No, not too bad. There's the timer right over there, tick -tock.

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The first one was the doctrine of election is for everyone, not just the super mature, behind the scenes, elder trainee.

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Or in front of the scenes, the big shots. That's right. Number two, that it should cause you to praise

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God, not be mad. So many people get mad when they think of election and God's choosing, but what they like in themselves, they don't like in God.

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But for Paul, it was blessed be the God and father. He praises God for election. I mean, it should be a matter of joy.

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Absolutely. Jesus others you. Okay. Joy, J -O -Y. Joy. Oh, here's a wonderful story.

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We have some dear ladies at our church and they have had a mother for many years,

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Marilyn Nash. And she just went to glory. And Bill, her husband just told me the story at the funeral last week, that in the last days of Marilyn's lives, she really wanted to emphasize her middle name to everyone because she still had joy.

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It was Marilyn Joy Nash because of the joy she had in Christ. That's good. Yeah. Number three, every

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Christian must believe in election. And what we talked about there was it's in the Bible. And so whether it's in Romans nine or Exodus 33 and 34 or Ephesians chapter one, or even in John six, elections in the

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Bible, you have to do something with it. And then lastly, we looked at, election took place not in time, but before time.

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And by the way, even when I say that before time and we say eternity past, eternity future, but there's no past or future in eternity.

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It's just eternity. It's mind boggling. And it's one of the reasons why it's so difficult to really wrap our arms around God, because when we just say

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God is timeless, we have no way of categorizing that or relating to that because everything we experience is in time and through time and by time.

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And what time are you gonna be there in the morning, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So something outside of time,

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God being outside of time is just not something we can relate to. Steve, along the same lines, people will say, you know what?

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The doctrine of the Trinity is too hard to understand. I just need to learn how to communicate better with my wife.

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Now, you probably could learn to communicate better with your wife. That would be true. So could I. But why is it that we seem to not wanna learn about some of the deep things of God that put us over the abyss of infinity?

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Well, I don't know, but I say the Trinity is a perfect example of communication because they have no arguments.

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Well, what I would say is we never use the Trinity and bring it down, him down, them down, to say, well, here's how we do things in marriages and community stuff.

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Oh, I just got an email. I think I forwarded to the other day, I'm gonna officiate a wedding at a church that is maybe not where we are theologically.

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And so I'm gonna be on my best behavior. That's a nice way of framing it. Maybe not where we are theologically.

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I'm gonna be on my best behavior before and after, but I will speak the truth during.

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Okay, so in time, but not before the foundation of the world. That's right. I went to the

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Unitarian Universalist Church at Lancaster and officiated a wedding there. And I know some of the people at that church, they're friends of ours.

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And of course, Unitarians not believing in the Trinity. And so I started off the service by, I welcome you all in the name of the triune

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God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That's how I started it. But they don't know, right?

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They don't know what they don't know. Well, because they're all on their separate faith journeys and they don't, you know, it's not too, they're not too picky.

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I know. Well, we don't even have to talk about the Bible. We just sit here. And chuckle.

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It's like those reviews of No Compromise Radio. We're gonna give it two stars. One star, because that's the lowest rating.

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And the other star is for Jesus. So we'll give it two stars. Oh, that's pretty generous. Thank you.

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Thank you for your two -star ratings. Number five, election is not based on anything foreseen in those chosen.

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And we touched on it a little bit, but now let's expand it. God is not going to look down the corridors of time and say, you did good things because the text says in Ephesians 1 .4

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that we would be holy and blameless before him. What does that mean,

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Steve? Well, let me explain it this way by looking at Ephesians 2. I think Paul writes

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Ephesians 1 and it's almost as if when he gets to the end of Ephesians 1, he thinks to himself, well, maybe

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I better explain a little bit why this is so spectacular, why this is almost unexpected and why it's such a blessing to me personally.

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And then he goes on to say that we were all dead in our sins and trespasses. In other words, there was nothing good that God could foresee in us because if he had looked down the corridors of time, or if he just looked to see what we would do, he'd go, that guy's a wreck.

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Everything he does is sinful. His motives are bad. It's as if he belongs to Satan because in a very real sense, those who are not saved, what do they do?

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They follow the course of the world. They listen to the Prince of the Power of the Air. Father Satan. Yes, I mean, in Colossians, he talks about, we're children of darkness, children of Satan.

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Romans 6 talks about how we're slaves of sin and these are just the kind of expressions we see over and over and over again.

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I mean, Jesus says to the Pharisees that they're of their father, the devil.

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How dare Jesus say that? Because he knew that they actually were of their father, the devil.

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So there's nothing good in us that God could foresee until he decides to start a good work in us.

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Would Paul know how to use Koine Greek to say that he chose us because we are holy and blameless?

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Or did he just not know how to say that and then he had to say that we would be holy and blameless? He was very smart, very well -educated.

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He would know exactly how to say, look, God chose the best. He looked around and he said, boy,

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I'm gonna pick the wealthy. I'm gonna pick the, as John Calvin said,

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God doesn't look down the corridor of time and pick us because we're handsome. Yeah, no, he did not. Theologically handsome.

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What's this whole corridor of time thing? It's a wormhole effect. He's looking down the corridor of time.

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But if he did do that, and of course God knows everything, so he can see the end, he's not going to see anything admirable, worthy, meritorious in us.

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That's really what we're after. Is there anything in us worthy of merit in time that God would know ahead of time and say,

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I choose based on your own merit? Well, and I think the whole corridor of time thing, a construct, by the way, not found in the

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Bible, but the whole idea is to somehow excuse God for the whole fairness issue again.

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If God just looks down the corridors of time and sees who's going to believe or sees who's going to do good things and he picks those people, well, then we could say, oh, well, at least he didn't just choose because he wanted to choose.

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He chose for good reasons. And so I think there's this real sense in which people who want to deny election aren't doing it always out of bad motives.

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A lot of times their motives are good. They're trying to protect God. And again,

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I go back to Romans nine. That's one of the issues that Paul's addressing there. And he's like, God doesn't need your protection.

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In fact, it was God who said, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, right? God isn't so much interested in having his reputation protected because he knows who he is.

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He knows that he's perfect without blame, holy, all these things. So that is never the issue for him.

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It's only a fallible man who wants to protect God. Steve, I like what you're saying.

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What is in us? Because I'll edit it out if I don't. What is in us that,

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I mean, like you said, we want to protect God and whether it's God commanding

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Joshua to slay people and eradicate people from the land or the doctrine of eternal hell or the doctrine of who knows what, they want to protect

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God. I mean, when we're evangelizing, should that really be a goal of ours at all? We need to protect

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God's reputation or just speak truth about who God is. Well, we tell the truth because again, if God's not interested in shielding himself from these kinds of accusations, in other words, if he thinks, no, these things actually glorify me, right?

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That's what his word does. It glorifies him. Then we need to declare what the scripture says because that's

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God's revelation to us. And God utilizes his own word to convict sinners and to bring them to himself.

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Yeah, but how could God harden Pharaoh's heart? Instead, we should be saying, huh,

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God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Okay, God can do whatever he wants. That's right. I mean, read

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Romans one, read Romans nine. I mean, this is what God does is oftentimes he sees the wickedness of people and he says, you know what, they wanna be wicked.

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I'm gonna let them go to the next level of wickedness and I'm going to cause them to go to the next level of wickedness and on and on and on they go and God is not the author of evil.

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And sometimes he says, Jacob I loved and Esau I hated before they're even born.

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Yes, again, Romans nine. I cannot commend Romans nine enough to you, so. I think

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I had heard a church here locally, the pastor wouldn't preach Romans nine and so our church services on Sunday morning, we start off with the

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New Testament reading. I think that week I just started off with the Romans nine reading for the

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New Testament. Just a little thumb in the eye, right? Now, these things are difficult.

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What did Paul say? Peter say about some of Paul writing, we're difficult to understand. We're not trying to make light of it.

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If you are watching or listening and you're saying, I'm having a hard time with this doctrine, we've been there, we understand.

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But submission to the doctrines of scripture and not trying to put yourself over scripture, but under is a wonderful thing.

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Well, because what else did Peter say? He said, some of those things are hard to understand and then he goes on to say that some men distort them and to their destruction, right?

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This is not, messing around with the word of God is not a habit that anyone should be in.

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And I think people, Steve, who are Christians that struggle with election, I don't think they like it when they're meeting an unbeliever and then that unbeliever is putting science over the

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Bible or some type of evolutionary theory or philosophy.

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They don't like when that happens. So then you who have a hard time with election, you wanna put your own rational thinking and your own knowledge above the scripture, right?

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We are faith -seeking, understanding people. We are not understanding so that we could have faith, right?

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We are faith, we believe the text, we believe who God is. And then we wanna develop our thinking in light of that.

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Well, it's the old bumper sticker, God said it. That settles it.

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Yeah. The middle one doesn't need to be. Well, let me just give you this example.

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When I first came to Christ, I did not, and I use that a little loosely because I did not know if I really believed in the

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Trinity because I'd spent my whole life disbelieving the Trinity. But I knew that if the

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Bible taught the Trinity, that I needed to believe it. So my mission wasn't how do I disprove the

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Trinity because I'd spent my whole life doing that. It was like, how do I embrace the Trinity? How do

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I come to understand it so that I can at least say I believe in the Trinity? That reminds me of Joe Stancliff, a member of Bethlehem Bible Church that went to glory a year or two ago.

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And he first became, he first started listening to No Compromise Radio locally here in Worcester, became a five -point

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Calvinist, but denied the Trinity. So he said, could I attend the church? I said, as long as you don't try to proselytize people.

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And he was like you, Steve. I know it's in the text and I know

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I'm supposed to believe it, but I still can't fully embrace it honestly, intellectually.

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And so I'll, Lord help me. Yeah, I'd put it this way. I believe, Lord help my unbelief. Yeah, same thing with election, right?

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I believe this is what you should do if you're struggling with election. I believe it's in the scripture. I believe I can't run from it.

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Would you help me get my mind wrapped around it? All right, number six. God, the

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King's election is very loving. And here's what I mean by that. It says in the text, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him, in love he predestined us for adoption,

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Ephesians 1. So people are like, that's so unloving. And we're trying to say, wait, Paul says in love he predestined us.

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And we could argue about does in love go with the previous section or the one after, but the text does say in love he predestined us.

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I mean, I was just saying, I think this last Saturday morning in Machen Man, a little shameless plug.

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They're like, what's Machen Man? Yeah, it doesn't matter. 1689 confession class that we're going through.

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And shouldn't it be called 1689 confession class? It would be, except for we started studying a couple of books by Machen, so yeah.

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I had the Merrow Man going for a while, but I need to resurrect that. So here was, this was

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Renahan's point. He said, our big, and this is what the authors of the 1689 believed, that the biggest blessing to us is not only is

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God loving, but he's good. And those two things go together, right?

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So when it says in love, our problem is that we think of love as an emotion.

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And that's not how God does things. For God, love is action.

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It issues forth in action by him. And so when he chooses us before the foundation of the world, it's in love.

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And that love means that forever, from that moment forward, even before we're born,

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God has everything designed for our good. Even if we can't see that, even if we can't feel it, even if we think that's really actually bad, what's happening to me.

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And the truth is, it's good because it's love, because God says that he will work out everything for our good and for his glory in Romans 8.

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And Romans 8 goes on to say that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ, nothing in all creation, not even the things that we do, nothing can separate us.

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Whatever happens to us, nothing separates us from the love of God. Why? Because again, before the foundation of the world, before anything existed,

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God set his love upon us. Nothing moves that, zero. And it's so important for us to understand that.

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Steve, I was thinking about God as king and this idea of love and how would a king back in the

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Bible days or 2000 years ago, someplace else pick someone and maybe they would pick a bride out of the harem because of lust.

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Maybe they would pick a bride from another country because it was a rival country and this would bring peace.

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There'd be all kinds of reasons why one of those kings would pick a bride and the king had the ability to pick whatever, whomever he wanted.

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But for the text here, for the Lord, for God, he picks in love.

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And like you said, it's action, right? Theologians talk about God as being pure act and here's this act of love.

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Why did God choose us? It was pure love. When I first got saved, I didn't like all this love talk because it seemed like everybody was talking about a

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God of love. And they never talked about God's holiness manifest in wrath and justice and righteousness.

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He's a God of love. So I think I was kind of - Recoiled. Yeah, recoiled against this

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God of love. And I've come back to think, especially in light of my own sin and own trials in life and other things,

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I'm sure glad God is a God of love. Amazing love. Not just that, but he is. How can it be?

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I know, I know. All right, Mike Abendroth with Steve Cooley, No Compromise Radio. Number seven, trying to talk about election, some truths about election.

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Before I read number seven, any books besides Romans, books in the Bible, Steve, that have helped you understand this doctrine of election?

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Well, a lot. I mean, I think the most simple one, the most plain is

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Chosen by God by R .C. But I mean, if I were to go to my library and look,

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I happen to really enjoy books about election. So, I mean, Lorraine Bettner, but that's, again, that's a more technical book.

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I mean, and it's written in a more archaic style. So Lorraine Bettner, he was a man who

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I think wrote that book in the 1920s or 30s, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination. And sitting right here in this room,

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Steve, I taught a class with men and Luke was there. He was probably 12 or 13, just tag along for dad's discipleship class.

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And we went through the Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, which covers all kinds of other things too, God's sovereignty and reprobation, all these.

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So years fast forwarded, Luke said, dad, I think

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I'm gonna, he was probably 18 or 19. Dad, I think I'm gonna read The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination again, because I wanna read it this time as a

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Christian. So anyway. It's more helpful. But at least we're putting the data in.

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And by the way, that's why you teach your children the Bible. So when God saves them, as he often saves believers' children, then they already have the data that's already there and you don't have to start over.

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I mean, kind of like one of our old friends would say, I never let my children pray because they're apostate children.

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Not apostate, but they're blasphemers, they're unbelievers. I'm thinking, no, we're gonna pray. It's actually a good thing to pray.

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Well, I mean, it shapes and molds their thinking, right? I mean, there are a lot of things that shape and mold their thinking.

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I mean, I think that, back to your point about teaching your children,

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I know that they're, I mean, I have a son who's not saved and I know that if he were here right now, he could give the gospel.

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If I said, give me the gospel. And I'm thankful for that.

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Why? Because my hope is that one day he'll go, he'll be convicted by the

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Holy Spirit and he'll, all the things that he learned will be at his fingertips, so to speak, so.

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Amen. Number seven, seventh truth, election is very personal.

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Instead of abstract, cold, staid, sterile, how many words can

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I think of to start with S? Super silly. It says he predestined us to adoption as sons.

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So I don't think you can get any more personal than the language of God has adopted us as sons.

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And by the way, before you say, dear viewer or listener, what about sons and daughters? Shouldn't the new translation say sons and daughters?

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Obviously, ladies can be adopted by God and in Christ, there's no male or female. But remember back in the

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Bible days, sons, they got the double portion if they were the firstborn son, you wanted to be the firstborn son and be adopted as a son because you got more rights and privileges.

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So even you ladies, you're adopted in one sense as sons. Yeah, and women, by the way, in those days would get nothing, you know?

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So it's very much, he's writing and this is what, you know, any new kind of translation that wants to put children or sons and daughters, what they're missing is

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Paul's point ultimately, which is all the benefits that would go with being the son, you know?

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And what Paul wants us to understand is that in a very real sense, everything that Jesus Christ is entitled to by being placed in Christ, we receive.

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So when he says that we are heirs with Christ, I mean, we've just, in spiritual terms,

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I mean, we can say something stupid like we've won the lottery, but it's way better because there are no taxes, but I digress.

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We get all the riches of Christ, everything that he earned, we get not because we've earned it, but because we've been adopted, we've been made his sons, so.

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I studied a little bit of the adoptive process of the

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Roman Empire. Quote, with this adoption, all claims of the former family were released and the child had full rights as a family member complete with an inheritance.

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Old debts were no longer binding because the adopted child had a different name than the one that was on the collector's list.

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So you didn't have any old debts and you had all the new inheritance, but that's so sterile.

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That's so, this whole Calvinism thing, it just makes people mean and bitter and old.

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Yeah, you just think you're better than everybody else. Actually, Calvinists, people that believe in this should be the most humble.

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Let's talk about that as a kind of a PS to this, a postscript. Shouldn't this all make us most humble?

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Yeah, I mean, I think we almost started out at this point too, but if we understand who we are, what we've done, what we deserve, and there's the point, right?

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Paul ultimately says in Romans nine, you want fairness, you want what you deserve? No, you don't.

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And I used to tell my kids the same thing. You want fair? Go to Pomona.

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That's an inside joke for Los Angeles people. That's where the LA County Fair was, right? But nobody wants fair.

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What they want is grace. What they want is God's affection set on them from the foundation of the world. What they want is to be one of God's elect because then you get what you don't deserve, which is everything that Christ did deserve, which is everything.

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Amen. Now, the personal side for us is we're children of God. We can cry

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Abba Father. That means we have a father. And to think of God as a father,

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I would imagine that if you're watching today or listening, you'd say to yourself, either my father was a bad father,

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I never knew my father, I had no father in my life, or my father was a pretty good person, but far from perfect.

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And now with election, you get the perfect father. And it's just stuck in my brain.

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I was taught that good fathers provide for their family and think about all the provision you have because God has chosen you and adopted you as a son or as our daughter.

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Everything you need physically, spiritually, eternally, all provided for you, free for you, cost

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Christ Jesus, of course. And then he also protects and we are sealed to the day of redemption by the spirit.

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We are protected. If we're his child, don't you think he'd protect us? Yes. Excuse me. And then lastly, he pities and shows mercy.

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And I think that's something that's really needed today, Steve, especially in light of some preachers out there that wanna hammer

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Christians all the time and try to show them that they're not Christians. Is that what a father does?

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No. And the compassion of God, seeing us in our pitiful state, helpless, all these words that the scriptures use to talk about us, helpless, chained by sin, all these other things.

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And what does God do ultimately through Jesus Christ? He sets us free, right?

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He takes the captive, as it were, and sets us free, liberates us from sin, liberates us to righteousness so that we can then act out of gratitude.

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And isn't that, if we understand what God has done for us, don't we then respond in gratitude like Paul does in Ephesians 1 and in joy and in praise and say, as much as I possibly can,

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I wanna honour my father with my life. Amen. Ephesians 1, 11, in him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will so that we who are the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.

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I'm glad you watched today and tuned in. What are we supposed to say, Steve? Things like send it to a friend, hit like, put the subscribe button.

27:21

Aren't we supposed to say all that stuff? Yeah, make sure you subscribe so that you get the latest notifications. Where's the donate button?

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You know, there's a lot of people that are nationalists, Christian nationalists, nation building.

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Some people have donate buttons wherever the cursor goes. Their favourite nation is donation.

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I thought we were about to start a new show about Christian nationalism. No, I doubt that.