Election & Predestination

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. Michael E. Ebendroth here with Stephen Blair Cooley.

Is that right? Yes, but I don't use my middle name in public. You know, it's funny, it's funny,

I just had a conversation with my...it's just, I had a conversation with my uncle, my uncle

Mike. Now I'm gonna forget his middle name, but we were talking about middle names and he hates his middle name so much.

I joked about, when I was, because I was doing one of my other uncle's funerals, I joked that I would just call him

M and then whatever his middle name was, Cooley, you know, and he was like, you wouldn't, and I said, don't test me pal.

You know, so. I actually think Blair's manly. Yeah, that's what he tried to tell me too.

The, you know, what I did like about it though is it turns out that it was a deputy's name who did my my dad a huge favor early on in his life, so yeah.

When I heard that, I go, okay. Oh, so that's how you got the middle name? There was another LA Sheriff deputy?

Yeah, before my dad was a deputy. Okay. When my dad was a hooligan. Are you able to tell our listeners what this particular

Sergeant Blair did? He intervened, well, my dad stole a motorcycle, and this deputy

Is this when he was an officer? Or before he was an officer? No, when he was a kid. And this deputy intervened, talked to the judge, and got it so my dad could go in the

Navy, so. Very nice. Instead of going to jail. Yeah. See, that's a better story than my middle name is

Lee, L -E -E, and just in our family, my dad's name was Lee Henry, because Henry was his dad's name.

So you can imagine what my son's, my son Luke, you can pretty much guess his middle name.

Henry? Yeah, that's right. Well, they just, you know, they didn't really want two syllables, so we just used

Hank. Hank. Luke Hank. Hammerin' Hank. Uh -huh, Hank. Everybody called my grandpa

Hank, and I thought that was a pretty good name, too. Hank. Not too many people are called

Hank anymore. There's no Hankron for it. Thank you. Steve, in front of me

I have Robert Raymond's New Systematic Theology of Christian Faith, in one volume, and do you love the

CBD price tag from ten years ago? That is sweet, man, back in the day, huh? 14 .95.

If I ever loan a book, then they usually scratch off that little price tag, and I don't like that. I want the price tag on there to remember.

I got it for 15 bucks. Remember the good old days. The glory days of CBD. Why don't we go to CBD PBD anymore?

Because they don't give us any deals anymore, so there ain't no point. Well, Robert Raymond was here at Bethlehem Bible Church, and if you go to our website, bbcchurch .org,

you can probably pull up those messages on the Attributes of God. My family and I took

Robert Raymond out to lunch because I wanted them, my family, to get to know him a little bit. He was very grandfatherly and kind and gentle and warm, and I remember telling my son,

Luke Hank Avendrop. He's gonna be so disturbed. And I remember telling him how much we love

Dr. Raymond, you know, I want all you children to ask questions to our guest speaker, and you don't just sit around and have lunch.

You know, I always say, if we're going to take a missionary out for lunch or dinner, every kid, you need to ask one question.

You know, what's the food like in the Czech Republic? I don't care, but one question. Might want to come up with a couple, because if your brother or sister steals your question or uses it first, too bad.

Would you pass the salt, please? Yeah, I know. Has to be about the person's family, life, ministry, something like that, yeah.

And I remember what Luke said. Luke looked at Robert Raymond, Presbyterian, and he said,

Mr. Raymond, are there any verses in the New Testament where babies are baptized?

I did not put him up to it. Subtle. Very subtle, yeah. And you know, I give high marks to Robert Raymond, even though he's in heaven now, he doesn't need high marks from me.

He said, no, son, and then just, like, took a bite of his fish at O 'Connor's. That was it.

And flung it at Luke. He'd be a little kid.

Anyway, we love systematic theologies. I think people should supplement those with biblical theologies, but this day, the day we live in,

Steve, it seems like most of the young restless and Reformed types are into biblical theology more than systematic theology.

So it's good to push systematic theology, too. It's very good. Maybe they like the sweeping meta story drama more than compartmentalized, this is what the

Bible says about sin. You think that could be? I think it is. Here is page 463, and Raymond is talking about God's eternal purpose, our plan, our resolve, decree, and then he quotes

Calvin. Now, Steve, you don't really know where I'm going, but I know you know how to wax eloquently about this.

What would you say to people who would suppress the doctrine of election, predestination,

God's decree? They don't want to talk about it, especially to new Christians, because it might flip them out.

It might wig them out. It might, who knows what it might do. So let's talk about that later, and maybe even on a

Wednesday night, because we'd hate to talk about that on a Sunday morning. Well, what I'd say about it,

I'd say you're going to have to tell them, here's what I would say. If that's the way you're going to handle it, then tell them not to read

Romans 8, Romans 9, Ephesians 1, Ephesians 2, 1 Peter chapter 1, and probably several other places too, because they're not really going to make heads or tails out of it because they can't, unless they understand election.

Okay, excellent. See, I knew you could just whack that thing out of Fenway. Well, I don't know if I did that or not, but I think that would be a pretty silly thing to, don't worry your pretty little head over that stuff.

You're too young. You can't handle that. But I do travel in circles, Steve. I guess they're small circles.

Maybe they're prayer circles. Maybe they're drawing and coloring books with circles.

And they do talk this way. They have to acknowledge election and predestination. It's in the

Bible, but there are certain settings. We can't talk about it. Don't preach Song of Solomon in the morning on Sunday morning.

Inappropriate. Don't talk about election in Sunday school. Somebody might get mad, and the list goes on.

There are a lot of things that might make people angry, right? Totally. So Calvin said this, and it was so good.

Whenever I open up to Systemic Theology, I always think of this Calvin quote. Maybe I should be opening up Calvin's Institutes instead, but this is just the way it goes.

But this is what you grabbed, so. Scripture is the school of the Holy Spirit. Even that. Scripture is the school of the

Holy Spirit. In which, as nothing is omitted that is both necessary and useful to know, so nothing is taught but what is expedient to know.

Well, I mean, what can you add to that? I just like the fact that Scripture is the school of the Holy Spirit. I mean, you know, who's in charge?

Who writes the curriculum? As soon as you open that book, you know, whose school are you in? The Holy Spirit's.

Okay. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about, especially in Massachusetts, how liberal school boards are, how they try to, even in English classes, literature classes, just use the worst literature because it's,

I mean, one of the books the kids had to read about rape, suicide, all this kind of stuff, and messed up people, and it wasn't even written well.

They just wanted to pick the darkest stuff. These people, the school board directors, choose the curriculum for the school students.

They drive it. They have an agenda. And on a positive side, God's agenda, the school of the

Holy Spirit, is to teach us about Him primarily, and then we'll learn a lot about ourselves as we go to.

Amen. Calvin goes on. Therefore, we must guard against depriving believers of anything disclosed about predestination in Scripture, lest we seem either wickedly to defraud them of the blessing of their

God, or to accuse and scoff at the Holy Spirit for having published what is in any way profitable to suppress.

How about that? Make some comments, if you would, Pastor Steve, about depriving believers of anything beneficial, like predestination.

Who are we to say? Well, and who are we to substitute our judgment for God's?

You know, I mean, that's, well, that's, I don't know about that one. Well, apparently the Holy Spirit wasn't really too concerned about our feelings, you know, regarding that.

And honestly, I'm perfectly fine with it, because I know, and here's the truth, just between us...

Us girls. Yeah, and us no -co listeners here in our community... Blair, Hank, and Lee. Yeah.

Would you have chosen God apart from Him choosing you? And the answer is no.

You know, Jesus, what did Jesus say? You know, you did not choose me, I chose you, etc., etc. Would we, apart from the work of God, ever choose

Him? And the answer is no. And so that's, you know, that's regeneration or whatever. But I was, oh...

Steve, I use my own provenient grace to allow God to choose me. Yeah. I was talking to a friend of mine about this the other day.

He said, he messaged me, and he said, you know, I think I'm probably about a three -point Calvinist.

And I said, well, yeah, probably you probably have an issue with total depravity. He goes, no. And I said, well, yes, you do.

But I said, let's go on, and we'll talk about what you think you have a problem with. And he says, unconditional election.

And I said, okay. I said, do me a favor, turn to Ephesians 1 and read it. And so he does, and he writes back, and he goes,

I think I'm gonna have to study some more. And I'm like, it's true, because, you know, you're like, oh no, unconditional election, you know, and then you start reading for His glory, and you know,

His glorious grace, and you just read all the words there, and you just realize, okay, hmm, yeah, yeah,

I think I have to study some more. Because it's Him. It's God. Steve, last week we did a show about the

Pope not being ignorant, in our opinion, of Scripture, but unwilling to do what it says regarding the death penalty.

And here, it's almost the same thing, where we have to say to ourselves, listen, the Bible is so clear about predestination, about God's sovereignty, about His decree, about His wise ordained foreordination.

I mean, everywhere you look, whatever word you want, appointment, king, decree, I mean, the list goes on and on and on.

Isn't our response just submission along with belief versus a prideful rejection?

To me, those are the two ways to go. I'm either prideful, because I am the king, or I submit and go,

I take God at His word. Well, I think there's another approach that people try, anyway, which is basically to protect what

I call protecting God. You know, because, well, wait a second. If this is true, then

God violates our free will, and God is too much of a gentleman to violate our free will.

You know, and why would He choose us on the basis of nothing that He's seen? It's probably more likely that He would choose us on the basis of foreseen faith.

He knows that we're going to believe, and so He chooses on that. Now, I don't think, obviously, that's not what the

Bible teaches, but I don't think they have bad motives. I think they're trying to protect

God, make sure that He's nice, that, you know, that He's not just kind of ruling and reigning and having

His own way. I mean, so much power. Who wants that? Put a tweet out, at NoCoRadio Twitter account.

Free will, this is John Owen now speaking, quote, or is quote, corrupted nature's deformed darling, the palace, our beloved self -conception of darkened minds.

Well, I mean, free will, talk about a myth. If you believe in original sin, how can you possibly believe in free will?

And if you don't believe in original sin, it's because you've not studied the Bible. Steve, when

I look at Ephesians chapter 1 that you brought up earlier, isn't it amazing where Paul, he doesn't say, praise

God like this, but that's essentially what he's doing. He introduces himself as Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, he talks about to the saints at Ephesus, grace to you and peace from the

Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, and then he begins to praise God. One sentence, verses 3 to verse 14, and before he even says

God is great because the Holy Spirit seals us, God is great because Jesus redeemed us by forgiving us of all our sins based on his crosswork, the first thing he does to praise

God, with all the spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, is he praises God for election.

Yeah, even in verse 4, even as he chose us in him, that is to say in Christ, before the foundation of the world.

I mean, that's his praise, in verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, then verse 4, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.

That's the first place he goes to praise God for, is for his choice of us. What does it tell us,

Steve, if Paul the apostle, right in underneath the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, praises

God for unconditional election, yet we, some of us, maybe some listeners, would gnash their teeth at such a concept?

Well, it could tell us, it could tell, certainly I doubt, I don't even want to say this, that we might have unbelieving listeners, but...

Just on Tuesdays. Only on Tuesdays. It's possible. The other thing is, it's really a doctrine that it goes against,

I mean, it smashes pride. It just, flat as a pancake. You know, you want to think you're something, and then the

Bible says, no, actually you're not. But you know what? Paul lays it out very nicely.

And the reason I like people to read Ephesians 1 and then Ephesians 2 is because Paul's, as you said, bursting in praise throughout

Ephesians 1. And he's describing all that God has done. But then in chapter 2, I really what he does is he explains why

God had to do that. Why was it that God had to do that? Well, it's because it starts out in chapter 2, verse 1, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.

In other words, you didn't have free will. You know what he talks about? He talks... Bound will, because you were dead.

Yes. You know, I mean, do we talk, if we think about, because there are so many zombie shows, do we think about the zombies as having free will?

No, they're mindlessly roaming around. And in a very real sense, in a spiritual sense, before salvation, you were mindlessly wandering around the world.

It says in verse 3 that you lived in the passions of your flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

This is what everybody was doing before the grace of God affected them. Steve makes a great point for our listeners, especially if they're helping people understand the doctrine of predestination.

And of course, when you live as an unbeliever, you live in a me -centered world and a self -consumed world.

God opens your eyes, quickens you, and now it sometimes takes a little bit for us to snap out of that haze of self, self, self, right?

You're a brand -new Christian, you don't have everything figured out. So if you're helping one of those kind of brand -new

Christians leave the fog of provenient grace and conditional election, do exactly what

Pastor Steve did, and that is look at mankind and what did the fall actually do.

Look at how unable, spiritual inability is what we would call it, total depravity.

People cannot respond, that's why God has to respond. Don't you think, Steve? I know you just said it,

I'm just using different words, that if you've got a problem with unconditional election, you've got a problem probably with pride, but you've got a problem with the fall of mankind.

Yeah, you've got a problem with total depravity, you don't really understand it. You think that there's some ability for mankind to respond to God, and the truth is, you have none.

In fact, going on in Ephesians chapter two, it tells us that. By nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind, the wrath of God, you deserved the wrath of God, you were falling after Satan, and that's in verse two, following the prince of the power of the air.

But verse four says it all. It says, but God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which

He loved us, and by the way, when did He love us with that? Even when we were dead in trespasses and sins.

And we could even go further back. When He chose us, He didn't just, He chose us in love, right?

So, before the foundations of the world, before we were born, before we were even imagined by our parents, before our ancestors were even created,

God had set His affections upon us, and now He acts upon it. It says, but God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which

He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

I think that right there, Steve, tells us what is the motivation and the cause of our salvation, and the cause of our salvation is not faith, it's not works, it's not baptism, it's not we're good, the cause is

He loved us. That's the cause. Because, right? Because of the great love with which

He loved us, yes. Steve, one of the fun things about No Compromise Radio is you are very quick on your feet, and I just pick a topic you don't really know.

In the old days, we'd rehearse all this stuff, practically, and we'd talk about this, that, and the other. But we at least had a list.

Here's a copy, take a look at it, we'll talk about it. And now, I just walk over, I looked at a book, open it up, and said, let's go.

And you just... And I just try to go with the flow. So you know what I'm going to do,

Steve? On my desk, as you know, I have the ceramic skull. That skull makes me think of two things.

I'm going to die one day, so preach the word. Secondly, the people I preach to are going to die one day, so preach the word.

That's kind of the Puritanical thing, the Puritan thing. I'm going to add a third one. Remember when you said, people are dead,

I'm going to use that as people are depraved, and if I don't preach the word, and God doesn't superintend that word, people are not going to respond.

Little Asher Smith, he walked in one day when he was really little, must've been a year and a half ago or so, and he kind of waddled in, you know how little kids do, little three, four -year -old kids.

I think he's actually kindergarten now, right? Is he? Is he five? I don't know. I don't know if he's that...

Maybe just four. I think he's four, yeah. Okay, so he was two and a half, three and a half, something like that. And he came in my office study studio.

You know, it's all three of those, actually. On Tuesdays when the ladies meet, I just leave my door open so ladies can come by and say hello or ask me a question about Sunday sermon, or the little kids can run in, try to be accessible.

The rest of the time, I lock it up. It's Fort Knox. But you know, on Tuesdays, there's a little break. And so Asher comes over, and he usually goes over to where I have the sword or, you know, do you have any candy or whatever?

And he goes, he saw the skull. And he goes, Pastor Mike, that's a zombie.

That's a zombie. And it was the best. Man, that was a zombie.

And so we had a great time. And then I would say things like, hey, Asher, when you're at home, like what kind of music does your dad play?

You know, what does your dad do really bad behind the scenes that you can tattle on and tell Pastor Mike? Yes, we have informants everywhere.

I think some people back at BBC's 1997 years, they'd take the kids, my kids, you know, for a ride or something, then they're like, you know, what's

Kim and Mike like really behind the scenes? One time, Haley, I think it was her first week here, their prayer request, a lady named

Nancy was the Sunday school teacher, and she said to the group, do you have any prayer requests this week?

And Haley raised her hand. She's in kindergarten, five years old. We just moved out here. Yes, please pray for my dad, who is pastor now of the church,

Bethlehem Baptist Church. And she said, he's on drugs. He's on antibiotics for a cold, some fever or something.

So afterwards, Nancy came up to me and she said, I just was informed that you were on drugs. So John Calvin, and again, this is coming from the

Institutes of Christian Religion, volume three, page 11, section 11, pages three and four.

But for those who are so cautious or fearful that they desire to bury predestination in order not to disturb weak souls, with what color will they cloak their arrogance when they accuse

God indirectly of stupid thoughtlessness, as if he had not foreseen the peril that they would have wisely met?

Whoever then heaps odium upon the doctrine of predestination openly reproaches

God as if he had unadvisedly let slip something hurtful to the church, end quote.

And it's really the best thing, when you know, when you understand the sovereignty of God, it really is a pillow to rest on.

It is not something to be afraid of, and it's not something to rebel against, it's something to rest in.

And just knowing the grace of God. He was under no obligation to save me. He's under no obligation to save anyone.

He does it for his own glory, for his own purposes, because he wants to. But once you're saved, the good news is you can't be unsaved, because it was

God's sovereign work and he doesn't start a good work and then not finish it.

I know the analogy breaks down, Steve, but if a man were to say to a woman, the minute

I laid eyes on you, I knew you. And you know, they've been married now five years, or they're courting or dating or something.

The second I saw you, I knew you were the one. I mean, there was just something about that. I don't think the woman would find those words untoward.

I don't think she'd say, no, that's awful. And to think, this is not finding something attractive in us.

God doesn't find us handsome, to use Calvin's other words. He finds us as enemies and slaves to sin, and as Pastor Steve said, dead in trespasses and sins.

Yet he loves us anyway, so that just magnifies the love. He doesn't love the lovely, he justifies the ungodly.

He loves the unlovable. And he brings to life that which is dead.

And that's a great thing. You go from spiritual death to spiritual life, and you can only do that by the power of God.

You must be born again, Jesus said. And you know, you have to ask yourself, well, what do you mean by that? And it's very clear what he meant by that.

You must be brought to spiritual life from spiritual death. New Systematic Theology of Christian Faith by Robert Raymond.

We'd suggest you get a copy of that and read it, along with—we'd probably recommend this first—Calvin's

Institute's Rich, Warm, Devotional, Far From, Clerical, Dry, Stale.