Answering Objections To Calvinism

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Over the past number of months we have been looking at what is called the Doctrines of Grace.

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A lot of people do not like that terminology, by the way. Obviously there are many people who disagree with this understanding that would say they believe in God's grace as well, but that is terminology that I think is fitting because we seek to exalt

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God's grace and we seek to present the belief that God's grace is powerful.

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It's not merely something that helps us to do something. God's grace actually accomplishes what he intends that grace to accomplish when it comes to the salvation of his people.

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Grace is powerful, not failure -filled, and unfortunately a lot of people do present the idea that God is trying, trying, trying, trying, but as gracious as he is, he is failing over and over and over again.

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We do not believe that that is how God's grace functions when he is seeking to glorify himself and the salvation of his people.

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Now, I believe that the great power of Reformed theology is found in the fact, and certainly this was my personal experience,

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I think many of you can echo this, is found in the fact that it is derived from the consistent interpretation of the text of Scripture.

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There's something called hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the mechanism of interpretation.

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It is how you handle the Scriptures consistently from beginning to end.

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This involves, we could spend the whole day and in fact many weeks discussing the issue of hermeneutics.

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It is a proper field of study. It is something that I can assure you all the elders seek to model for you as we preach and teach a proper understanding of hermeneutics.

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We want to be consistent in our presentation, in our handling of the word of God. If you do not have a consistent system of hermeneutics, you cannot say, thus saith the

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Lord. Instead, what you're doing is you're taking your thinking and your ideas and inserting them into Scripture and then saying, thus saith the

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Lord, and that's not an appropriate way of approaching things. And so, when we defend the fact there's only one true

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God, the deity of Christ, the resurrection, whatever central Christian doctrine it might be, we utilize a particular kind of interpretation.

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And when you use that same kind of interpretation and apply it to the issue of the gospel and how people are saved, you come to conclusions of the doctrines of grace.

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About five years ago, I was doing a debate with a Southern Baptist minister and professor in Dallas, and one of the things

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I asked him—we were supposed to be debating Romans 9, it ended up going everywhere but Romans 9—but one of the things that I asked him during the debate was, do you believe you're using the same methodology of interpretation to come to conclusions you come to on this subject that you would utilize in looking at the deity of Christ or the

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Trinity or other issues like that? And he was honest enough to go, no. And for me, that was the debate.

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That was it right there. If you have to use a different method of interpretation to come up with your conclusions, then you're not honestly dealing with the text.

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And so we've presented, between Jeff and I, literally hundreds of Bible verses, but lots of people can present hundreds of Bible verses.

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The issue is, are you being consistent in your handling of the text?

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Now, we want to illustrate that. I want to illustrate that today by looking at four texts that I have found are the most common texts that are thrown back at us when we make any kind of statement about the sovereignty of God and salvation, the power of his grace, however else we might express things.

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What are the four verses that people say, well, that can't be true because the Bible says this.

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Some of you have seen a book that I wrote almost two decades ago now called

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The Potter's Freedom. The Potter's Freedom was a response to the now late Norman Geisler.

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He wasn't the late Norman Geisler then, I can assure you, but Dr. Geisler passed away fairly recently.

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But he had written a book called Chosen but Free, which was his response to R .C.

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Sproul's book Chosen by God. And in the process of reading that book numerous times, very closely and very carefully,

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Dr. Geisler's book, in preparation for my own, I found a pattern, a regular pattern in Dr.

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Geisler's book. Whenever he would be looking at a verse that Reformed people refer to and exegete to present the sovereignty of God, he would say, well, it can't mean that because we already know that, and then there were three verses.

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I called them the big three. There's an entire chapter in The Potter's Freedom called the big three verses of Chosen but Free.

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Three verses, sometimes he'd quote all of them, sometimes just one, sometimes two. In a different set, but he kept going back to these three verses that he felt made it absolutely impossible that Reformed theology would be true.

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We're going to look at all three today. But right around the same time, I had an encounter with also, this is interesting,

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I hadn't thought about this, the now late Dave Hunt. Maybe debating me is not a good idea, now that I'm thinking about it.

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Not out of malice or anything, but both Dave and Norm have gone on to find out whether their exegesis was consistent or not.

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And so Dave Hunt and I did a radio program. How many of you are old enough to have heard the radio program that Dave Hunt and I did on KPXQ in Phoenix when

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I filled in for Marty Minto? Is there anyone in here who heard that? No one?

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I feel like Moses. Wow. Okay.

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Well, it's still out there. It's online. I think we have it on Sermon Audio someplace. It was in 2000, if I recall correctly, 2000, 2001, something like that.

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And there's one verse that Dave Hunt, now Dave Hunt used the big three as well, but there's one verse that Dave Hunt feels is absolutely central to this issue as well.

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And so I took the big three from Norman Geisler and the one from Dave Hunt. In my experience, these are the ones, certainly there are others we could go to, but these are the most common verses that are going to be thrown back at you.

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We need to understand what these verses are saying. The first one, most of you don't even need to look up in your

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Bible because it is probably the first verse, if you were raised in a

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Christian family as I was, that you ever memorized. Unless you're in the

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Durbin household, that's James 2 .20. You don't want to go there because there I was dealing with the Mormons.

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But John 3 .16, yes, John 3 .16.

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Who could ever argue with John 3 .16? I mean, isn't it clear?

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And here's something to remember, my friends. Some of the worst interpretation you will find, you will find on the basis of verses that everybody thinks they already know what it means.

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So in other words, the more popular the verse, and you've heard it preached on over and over and over again, you'll find some of the worst theology.

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Because people are afraid to even think about, well, could my old pastor be wrong about that?

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Traditions die hard. So most of us have John 3 .16 memorized, right? Do we know what the context is?

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Yeah, that Nicodemus guy, that's right. He was the short guy in the tree. No, that's Ikea, it's a different guy.

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Different guy. Nicodemus, Jesus, conversation, leader of the

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Jewish people. What does it mean to be born again? What does that mean?

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Now, if you have a printed edition, well, it's the same thing on your phone too.

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We're not sure exactly where the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus ends and John's commentary or explanation begins.

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And hopefully you realize that whether you've got black letters or red letters is an editorial decision.

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The original manuscripts did not have black and red letters. In fact, those were introduced sometime about ancient times, like about the 1800s, somewhere around in there.

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So not that long ago. We're not sure exactly where that breaks off and John's commentary begins, but you remember that Jesus did raise up the issue of Moses raising the serpent in the wilderness, remember?

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Anyone who looked at that serpent would be saved. And so we go just a few verses back to verse 14, and just as Moses raised up the serpent in the wilderness in the same way, it is necessary for the son of man to be lifted up.

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And we think of lifting up as in, well, in worship, we lift up Jesus. No, that's not what it's about. Lifted up as on the cross, lifted up in sacrifice.

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It is necessary for the son of man to be lifted up in order that everyone believing in him might have eternal life.

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Now, immediately we need to do a little original language here.

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Don't tune out. It's important. Hear me. There are different ways of translating the

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Greek language into the English language. The Greek language in many ways is more expressive or specific than the

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English language, but we have more words in the English language because we've stolen them from everybody else, basically.

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And so some translations will say in order that whoever believes in him or whosoever believes in him might have eternal life.

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And then verse 16 has the same phraseology for in this way,

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God loved the world in that he gave his unique son in order that, and here's the exact same phrase, everyone believing in him might not perish, but have eternal life.

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Now, key issue is you've all heard the sermons. I've heard them too.

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Oh, some of the big Southern Baptist preachers have focused on the translation so that whosoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.

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I remember one of the big names in the Southern Baptist convention. His big anti -Calvinism sermon was whosoever, and man, could he belt that out and just impress upon you whosoever.

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And the idea that is communicated is no election, no choice on God's part.

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Everybody can do this without any type of supernatural intervention or action on God's part.

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Now, we've spent weeks going through Ephesians 1 and Romans 9 and John 6, and we've gone through all this, and you can go to John 6 and John 8 and John 10 and John 17, and there's all this stuff about election and choice and all the rest of these things.

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So is the Bible contradicting itself? No, but it is contradicting the tradition being read into the

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English word whosoever, and there's the issue. Because the literal rendering of the

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Greek, pas ha pisteun, everyone believing.

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So the point is, the reason it's translated whosoever is that whoever believes.

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There's no word here that is talking about everybody whosoever has a certain capacity.

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That's not there. The literal rendering is every believing one. But the point is, there is no such thing as a true believer who will not find

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Jesus to be a perfect Savior. It's not addressing who can believe. It's not addressing who has true faith.

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John does address that, Jesus does, in the things he's teaching, things he'll get into in John chapter 6, but here, the simple point in verse 15 is, why will the

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Son of Man be lifted up? In order that everyone believing in him, remember the one believing the serpent being raised up was healed.

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So the Son of Man must be lifted up in order that everyone believing in him would have eternal life.

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Now if your translation says might, sometimes people go, well see, that's a doubtful thing.

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It might, it might not. No. In the Greek language you have something called the indicative, and then you have the subjunctive.

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This is a subjunctive. But that's how the Greek expresses purpose or result. The reason that God has set it up this way is so that the person who believes in the

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Son will have eternal life. And then 16 is really just an expansion of verse 15.

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For this is how God loved, ah, but here's the question, the world. The world, the world has to be every single individual, right?

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That's what world means. And you Calvinists, you keep changing the Bible, you just don't like what it says.

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World always means every human being. Which is why this same writer in 1

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John chapter 2 says, love not the world, right? Nor the things in the world.

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World's passing away. If you love the things of the world, the love of the Father is not in you.

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Oh, well, no, that's a different verse. Right, it is a different verse.

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But the same author uses this word cosmos. You've heard of cosmos, but in Greek cosmos,

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John minimally uses it in 10 different ways, maybe as many as 14 different ways in his gospel.

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And you have to look at each one to understand where in that range of meaning the author intends us to settle.

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For now, God demonstrates his love for the world in that he sent his unique son in order that everyone believing in him might not perish but have eternal life.

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Now folks, there is specificity in the text. Who receives eternal life?

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Every single person in the world? No. Thank you. I think someone said, probably saying no to mommy who was taking something away, but I appreciate the joining in there.

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No, there is specificity. The one who receives eternal life is the one who believes in the son.

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That's the one who does not perish. So how can you interpret the first part of the verse?

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God shows his love for every single human being in the world by saving a particular group of them.

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It's not talking about every single person in the world. It is talking about all the world of Jews and Gentiles because anyone who believes in him will have eternal life, not just a

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Jewish Messiah, not just a Gentile Messiah, anyone who believes has eternal life for verse 17,

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God did not send the son into the world to judge the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

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So is everyone going to be saved? If not, then this world is talking about kinds of people, not every single individual.

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The one believing in him will not be judged. The one not believing in him has been judged already because he is not believed in the name of the only begotten or the unique son of God.

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So here's the point. World in this context is not to be taken as individuals and whosoever is an

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English translation of the phrase everyone believing, and we believe that everyone believing will find

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Jesus to be a powerful savior. The question is who's going to believe? The question is who can believe?

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Who can believe in the son, the one drawn by the father, who will hear the words of the son, the one who belongs to God?

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For whom does Jesus intercede in John chapter 17? The ones that God has given him what?

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Out of the world. Consistency in interpretation, absolutely vitally important.

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Here's the problem. Your friend who throws John 3 .16 back at you is probably not going to listen past about the first three sentences of what you just said.

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Unless you challenge them to think it through, if someone's belief in John 3 .16

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is primarily based upon tradition, they don't want to be challenged as to the consistency of their interpretation of their tradition.

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They can become very emotional. And so very often you need to find a way of dialing that down before you can get anywhere in being able to explain to someone what's actually going on in this particular text.

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Okay? John chapter 3. I've got four of them I've got to get to. I'd love to spend more time in each one, but turn with me back to the

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Gospel of Matthew. Yes, we have seen the Gospel of Matthew before here at Apologia, and I'm wondering personally, since we're done with Philippians, now we're done with the doctrines of grace.

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I'm not sure where Jeff is, but we're not done with Matthew 24 yet.

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There are still some verses left, so I'm sort of wondering, you know, will Jeff's Bible just automatically open to Matthew chapter 24 is really what

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I'm sort of wondering. We're not going to Matthew chapter 24. We're going to Matthew chapter 23. Yeah, we spent a lot of time there, didn't we?

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We did. Matthew chapter 23 verse 37. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one killing the prophets and stoning those sent to her.

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How often I desired to gather together your children as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.

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You see, God wanted to, but it's up to man's will.

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God wants to, but man's will is in final control. There it is.

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You have to believe it. Matthew 23, 37. Now when we hear this, now it's fascinating to me.

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I can't tell you how many times I have heard people misquote this verse, and it wasn't just Arminians.

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God bless him. We love him. But I even heard R .C. once misquote this verse.

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It's because he was always debating them Arminians, I guess. But even he did. You know what they miss out?

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Here's how it'll get quoted. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who killed the prophets and stoned those were sent to you.

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How often I would have gathered you under my wings, but you were not willing.

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It's not what it says, is it? It's not what it says. Here's the key. What is

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Matthew chapter 23? Matthew chapter 23 is one of the most scathing judgment texts in all of the

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New Testament. Read it. The meek and mild Jesus, the sort of 1960s hippie version carrying the lamb guy, you can't recognize him in Matthew chapter 23.

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Scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, whitewashed tombs. And then right after 2337, behold, your house is left to you desolate.

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Judgment is coming. Judgment is coming. That's what

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Matthew chapter 23 is about. And Matthew 2337 is part of the judgment message that Jesus gives to the

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Jewish people. He says, Jerusalem. What is Jerusalem? Jerusalem is the capital.

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Jerusalem is the seat of the leaders of the Jewish people.

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And so here you have a representation of the leadership of the

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Jewish people, the ones who killed the prophets just before this. Notice something up in verse 35.

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In verse 35, you have this weird discussion, this weird mention. Jesus says, you need to realize the blood of righteous

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Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, who was slain between the altar and the place of incense, literally, will be held against this people.

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Now, we know about Abel. We're not so familiar with Zechariah, son of Berechiah.

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That story is actually found in 2 Chronicles, which is why we're not quite as familiar with it as we are

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Genesis, because when we do our yearly reading program, we make it through Genesis repeatedly.

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2 Chronicles, not so much. Normally Leviticus wipes us out long before we get to 2

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Chronicles. But here's the point. Here's something you need to remember. The Jewish canon was not in the same order as we have in our

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English Bibles. It wasn't in the same order. For example, the 12 minor prophets are all one book for them.

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The last book of the Jewish canon is 2 Chronicles. That's the last book.

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So what was Jesus saying? All the blood of the prophets, the way we would say it would be from Genesis to Revelation, will be held against you.

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And every Jewish person hearing that knew exactly what he was saying. Knew exactly what he was saying.

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All of Scripture. Now, we know that for the Jews, that means they're not holding what we call the deuterocanonical or apocryphal books, because they came after 2

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Chronicles. They were never a part of the Jewish canon. Just something to keep in mind, something that is important to remember.

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So, the Jewish leaders are being addressed here.

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And Jesus says, they're the ones who killed the prophets, stoned those that were sent to her, that is to Jerusalem.

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How often would I have gathered tatechnosu, your children, together?

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Who's that? Well, what he's talking about here is, you're the Jewish leaders.

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You're the ones that they're looking to. You're the priests and the high priests and the scribes and the people that are opening the law in the synagogue.

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How often would I have gathered your children, those who follow you, together? But you would not.

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Not they would not. And see, the whole use of Matthew 23, 37, by Norman Geisler and by everyone else who cites it, is that the people that God wanted to gather were the people who said, no, they would not.

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The word fellow is used at the end of the verse. And you would not, you will not.

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So see, there's man's free will right there. But if you look carefully, you would not as the

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Jewish leaders, not the ones Jesus was trying to gather. The point here is, this is a sentence of judgment upon the

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Jewish leaders who literally stood in the way of the ministry of the word of God to the

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Jewish people themselves. By the way that they interpreted it, by the way that they hid it, by the way that they lived in such a way as to empty it of its power, they stood in the way of the very ministry of God.

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And that leads to, behold, your house, you leaders, you think you're over the household?

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Your house is left to you desolate. Judgment will come upon you.

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That's what Matthew 23, 37 is about. It's not talking about man's free will and God trying to do something and man's able to, this is a judgment passage.

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And these Jewish leaders will be held accountable for the fact that they stood in the way of that accomplishment.

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Okay? John 3, 16, Matthew 23, 37, we're doing good.

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We're doing good. Turn with me to 2 Peter, 2

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Peter. Now, as you know, there have been some, shall we say, controversies down through the history of the church concerning certain issues regarding canonization.

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And just so you're aware of the fact, if you go to a

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Christian bookstore and buy a commentary, it is very, very common for people to say that it is impossible that Peter wrote both first and second

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Peter. And they will say, the reason for this is anyone who can read the

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Greek language, the two are written in completely different styles. And on that point, they are exactly right.

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They are. There is no one who would confuse first and second Peter as being written by the same person if, if it was

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Peter who sat down and wrote in Koine Greek. But he did. He dictated these letters, probably dictated them in Aramaic.

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And the Greek speaking scribes that he used had different styles in how they then rendered that into Greek.

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Now, do what you wish with what that means. Remember, when scripture says it is inspired, it is the scripture that is theanoustos, not the writer who is theanoustos.

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And so you can have differing styles and still have exactly what God wants you to have.

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But the point is, you'll hear it very often. Well, you know, second Peter couldn't have been written by Peter and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

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There are also a lot of parallels between second Peter and Jude that are very, very interesting to look into.

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We don't have time for that. What we do have to look at is the fact that this is the section not about salvation.

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Have you noticed that, you know, John 3 is about salvation. Matthew 23 is about judgment.

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This is about the second coming of Christ. This is a section about the promise of his coming and the fact there will be mockers who are going to come.

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Where is the promise of his coming? Why has it taken so long? And of course, this is where you have the second

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Peter 3 .8, which has provided every person who has ever tried to come up with a date for the second coming of Christ with exactly what they needed.

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A day isn't a thousand years, a thousand years is a day, and therefore I can make the word day and year in Old Testament prophecy and New Testament prophecy mean whatever

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I want it to mean and make lots of money in the process. And people have done that down through the years.

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Believe me, church history is filled with failed prophecies of people who simply refuse to hear

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Jesus when he said, of that day and the hour, no one knows. For some reason, that's their most unpopular verse.

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They just skip that one. They probably wish that it was a textual variant, but it's not. So it is in that context then that we have

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Peter saying, the Lord is not slow concerning the promise, as some people count slowness, but is patient, long suffering toward you.

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Toward you, not wishing that any perish, but all come to repentance.

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And so obviously the idea is, we'll see right there, God doesn't want anyone to perish.

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He wants everybody to come to repentance. And so all this election stuff is false and there's no concept to it.

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Now, of course, that raises all sorts of issues in regards to the nature of the love of God and the intentionality of God and all these things.

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But my question is, what does 2 Peter 3, 9 actually state?

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What is the argument that is being made here? Because he's not talking about salvation.

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This is all about the promise of the coming, people mocking it.

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But instead, the very next words is that the day the

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Lord comes as a thief in the night, which then obviously, well, it's literally as a thief.

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I think some manuscripts go with the night. Which then causes those of you as old as me to immediately shift into, oh no, not that movie again.

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And only five of you laughed, because the rest of you have never been forced to watch a thief in the night.

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I saw one person, was that voluntary, the arm going up there, or was that a twitch? Probably a twitch, yeah.

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Because if you were forced to watch, did you know? How many of you have never heard of a thief in the night?

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Oh, my goodness. Okay, Luke, dude, we need to have a thief in the night lock -in.

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You all know what a lock -in is, right? Where you stay overnight and crazy zany things happen and things like that.

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But we need to have a thief in the night marathon lock -in. I'm thinking that would be really cool. What do you think,

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Luke? You're good on that? Okay, the bearer says good, so we're on. The single most rented

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Christian videotape in history, in history, called

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A Thief in the Night. You eventually watched it, didn't you, Summer? No. No, Eric, you've seen it.

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No, VHS. Wow, amazing.

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You've got to go watch it because the thing that gets everybody was this guy's mowing his lawn.

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And then the rapture happens and the camera pans back to the lawnmower just sitting there.

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And, man, people freak out. And teenagers, man, they're repenting right and left because they just figured that,

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I don't want to be the guy behind, you know, that's left behind. You've heard the Left Behind series, right?

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Oh, now, yeah, okay, all right, all right. So this is where it came from.

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I mean, this is the terminology right here. So that's what the topic is. It's not talking about free will or anything like that at all.

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That's not what it's talking about. But what does it mean that God is patient toward you, not wishing or willing that any should perish but all come to repentance?

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Well, we need a context. Who is being addressed? Well, what's the first verse of chapter 3?

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It's addressed to the beloved. He's addressing the beloved.

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And if you follow it all the way back to the beginning of the epistle, who is it written to?

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Those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours.

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This is being written to Christians. That's the audience.

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Because, you see, what happens is when people just simply quote 2 Peter 3 .9 without a context, here's what happens.

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You read an external idea into it that then determines its meaning.

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So when it says, he is patient toward you, nobody stops to go, who's the you?

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The assumption is it's anybody reading this text. It's for everybody, even though 2

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Peter is written to believers. And there's nothing in chapter 3 that changes this.

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You follow the pronouns from the beginning of the chapter to the end. It's consistent. It's consistent.

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So when it says patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all, all is a part of whom?

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The you. What's the assumption whenever 2 Peter 3 .9 is quoted by people?

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That the all, everybody, all humanity.

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That's not what the context is. So what's he saying? Well, think about it, folks.

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This was written over 1900 years ago. And here we sit, speaking a different language on a different continent, gathered together in the name of Christ, worshiping his name.

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We're going to have the Lord's Supper here in a while. The church continues on. Christ is building his people.

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What if God had determined to end it all 1900 years ago?

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What about you? What about me? He didn't because, what's the promise?

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Abraham, you're going to bless the nations and your inheritance will be like what?

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The sand of the sea. Think of how many of the elect have been drawn into relationship with Jesus Christ over the past 1900 years.

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There's the patience. He's patient toward you, not willing that any should perish.

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That's the same word Jesus used in John chapter 10 when he said, none of my sheep that are in my hand will ever, what, perish, will ever perish.

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Why are you in Christ today? Because God has patiently been working his plan for all this time and he continues to draw his elect people unto himself.

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He is not willing that any of them perish, but they all come to repentance.

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Repentance is a gift of God. Repentance involves the work of the spirit of God changing the heart of man.

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The text is perfectly consistent. As long as you don't read into it the presuppositions that come with how it is normally quoted outside of its context.

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Let it say what it says. Let it say what it says.

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Okay, so we've done John 3, 16 and we've done two of the big three.

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Great. So what is the last of the big three is what you're all wondering and it is found in first Timothy chapter two.

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First Timothy chapter two. First Timothy chapter two, verse four, well, we can go ahead and verse three.

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Let's say this is good and acceptable in the sight or before God, our savior, who wishes all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

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Well there it is. God wishes for all men to be saved to come to a knowledge of the truth.

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There's no election. There's no choice. He's trying to save everyone equally.

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If you don't believe that, then you don't believe what the Bible is saying, right? Well once again, the question is, what would

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Timothy have understood these words to mean? He was the one that Paul wrote to, right?

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So what would Timothy have understood these words to mean? Now, again, this could be done over the course of an entire sermon, but I will be brief and if you want more in -depth discussion, as I said, there's an entire chapter in Potter's Freedom that goes into a number of other texts from Paul that address the same issue, but I want to do this in such a way that you're sitting in a plane and you're talking to somebody, which you can't do right now because everyone's got a mask on and no one can understand what anybody's saying through a mask anyways, but back in the olden days when you could actually see people, talk to people, communicate, that kind of neat, fun stuff, which we can hope and pray will someday happen again in the future.

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But you're in a conversation and you want to be able to open the

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Bible with them and show them so they can take something with them and see this in another point.

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Go back to the beginning of the chapter. Therefore, first of all,

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I exhort that prayers, prayers and intercessions or entreaties be made with thanksgiving who pair pantone anthropone in behalf of all men.

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Now we are Western thinkers. We think in concrete little packets.

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The New Testament was not written by Western thinkers and you'll notice that when the apostle says in behalf of all men, our temptation is to go, that means, and this used to be a good illustration, it's not anymore because none of us have these anymore.

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You know you're getting old when your illustrations were based upon physical items that no longer exist in the universe.

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But the illustration I used to use is something called a phone book, phone book.

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Now phone books were things that the power team used to rip in half to show how strong they were.

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Anyone remember the power team? Okay I got a few 30, 40 year olds in there, hey power team, yeah.

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I knew one of the guys on the power team, great guy, Eddie Dalkord, good guy. He was called the gripper but I won't go into any of that right now.

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Anyway, a phone book obviously you had the white pages and yellow pages. Remember the white pages and yellow pages?

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I remember them very, very well. This was Google before there was a computer, all right?

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This was how you found people and things and services and everything else is you looked it up in the yellow pages for businesses and in the white pages that's where everybody's phone number was.

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Yes, you once actually wanted everyone to have your phone number. It's a frightening thing to realize how very, very trusting we were in those days.

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But the cool thing was your phone couldn't go more than 12 feet away from the wall anyways.

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So you could like leave and it would be okay and if you had to make a phone call you found something called a phone booth.

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You young people are going how did you people survive back then? Well, we did and we flourished, we really did.

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Anyway, so the illustration I would use is, is Paul really saying to Timothy, Timothy you need to take the phone book for Ephesus.

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Now by the way, I do happen to know that they would not have had a phone book in Ephesus in the first century.

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I do get that. It's just an illustration, all right? But was he saying

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Timothy take the phone book for Ephesus and start with the alphas and start praying all the way through the omegas?

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Is that what he was saying? No, because the very next phrase defines for us what he means by in behalf of all men.

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In behalf of kings and all those having authority.

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Now he uses the exact same Greek forms here. So he's telling us

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I'm defining these things for you. What is in behalf of kings and all of those, those are kinds of men, those are kinds of people.

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And when he says pray for all men, what he's saying is there's a temptation on the part of Christians to not pray for the people that are picking on us, that are persecuting us.

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And the church was already receiving persecution then by people with power, people in the government.

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And it was going to get a whole lot worse as time went on under the Romans. And so this is a generic use.

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Timothy, pray for all men, including kings and those having authority.

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Why? So that we can live a life of godliness and peace. So pray for the leaders.

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You're not necessarily praying that they'll get more power and more money. You may well be praying, protect us from them.

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But don't forget about them. Pray that they'll be converted. Pray they will submit and bow the knee to Jesus.

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That's the greatest thing that can happen, right? But pray for all kinds of men, kings and those having authority.

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We want to live godly lives. That's what we need to do. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our

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Savior, who, now let's be consistent, desires to save all kinds of men.

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And that all kinds of men come to knowledge of the truth. He wants to save kings.

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Really? He wants to save democratic senators?

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Really? Can he do that? Is he that powerful? I know he created the universe, but saving

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Chuck Schumer? Yes, he can. And the very fact that we laugh about it shows we need this exhortation, doesn't it?

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Oh yeah, very much so. But some of them might say, oh,

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I think you're stretching it. Let's continue on. Verses five and six, you may notice in your

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Bible, depending on your translation, is, might be set apart as poetry.

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Some Bibles will, some Bibles won't. Anybody have it set apart as poetry in your translation? Okay, all right, there's at least one couple.

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All right. It is in the Greek text. This is probably either an early creedal statement or a fragment from an early hymn of the church.

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I love when we run across that. Stuff like this, I really do. For there is one

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God and one mediator between God and men, same word that's used up above about men, between God and men, the man

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Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom, an antelutron, a ransom, who per ponton, in behalf of all, a testimony literally in its own time or at the proper time.

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And then Paul says he has been made an apostle and a preacher of this gospel.

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He speaks the truth. He does not lie. A teacher of the ethnon, the Gentiles in faith and truth.

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Now, here is the question that I always ask my friends who are using this text as a means of trying to overthrow the biblical testimony to election and predestination in Scripture.

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All right, you want to ignore the generic use of kinds of men that the text itself contains.

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And you want to say that verse four is actually saying who desires to save every single individual human being and for every single individual human being to come to a knowledge of the truth.

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All right, then you need to be consistent. For there is one God and one mediator between the one

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God and what? Every single human individual, the man

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Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom in behalf of every single human being, the testimony given at the proper time.

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That's how you have to be consistent. You have to be consistent. And here's the problem that raises.

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And this is a problem that I'm just going to be honest with you folks. Ninety -nine percent of evangelicals in the

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United States have never been challenged to think about this. Because the vast majority of evangelicals in the

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United States are canonically challenged. Canonically challenged. You've heard me say it before.

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Most of our fellow believers have never read Leviticus 16. Or if they did, they've already forgotten it.

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They don't do that Old Testament stuff real well. And so when they read something about a mediator, they're really not thinking about high priests and offerings and all the rest of that stuff, which is what

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Paul has in mind. Paul understands intercession,

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Romans chapter 8, Hebrews. And so they've never been challenged to think through the question, for whom does

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Christ intercede? For whom is he interceded? The mediator. But think about that for a second.

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For whom is Christ interceding? Well, you and I already know. If he's following that pattern of the great high priest, then the offering, the sacrifice, the blood is taken into the holy place and sprinkled on the altar.

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So the intercession, the mediation is for the same people for whom the sacrifice was made.

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So you're stuck with one of two possibilities. The way they want to go is

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Jesus dies for every single individual, and Jesus intercedes for every single individual.

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And what then would be the logical outcome of that? Every single individual will be saved.

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But to avoid that, because they know the Bible doesn't teach that. This same apostle talks about the destruction of the godless, and it doesn't teach universalism.

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So they've got to break the chain someplace. So what you do is you break the chain by saying that Jesus can die in behalf of someone, and then he can intercede in behalf of someone, and the father can try to save, and the son can try to save, and the spirit can try to save, but it's all up to man.

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And so all these passages about willing, desiring, yeah, God really wants to do it, but man, he's bummed all the time.

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He's bummed all the time. I mean, think about it.

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Just think about after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. How many people died in far -flung lands before any missionary ever got there?

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And God wanted to save them, right? And I guess

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God wanted to save the Canaanite high priests that he never sent a prophet to, right?

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And I guess he's just going to be eternally bummed by how he said all of this.

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So, really? That's how you read the New Testament? No. No, this same apostle is the one who just in passing said he endures all things for what?

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For the sake of God's elect. That's what kept him going. He knew there was an elect people.

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He didn't know who they were, but he put up with the beatings and the imprisonments, the rejections.

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I endure all things the sake of God's elect. Because he has his elect, the

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Father has ordained their salvation, the Son has died to perfect their salvation, the

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Spirit applies at the time God ordains that work of Christ, and Christ will never lose one of those sheep.

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So here's the question. One God, one mediator between God and man, the man

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Christ Jesus. For whom is Christ interceding? He is interceding for the elect of God.

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We saw it in Romans 8 just a few weeks ago. We walked through the text. Same author. You think he hadn't communicated that truth to Timothy?

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Of course he had. Same author. So for whom does Christ intercede?

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Who is he mediating for? And to say he's mediating for all those who are already experiencing the wrath of God is to introduce fundamental disconnections and disharmony in the

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Godhead itself. Now, have most of our friends ever thought that through?

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No, of course not. When you present it, might they become somewhat emotionally challenged by your presenting it to them?

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Yes. And therefore, our attitude is everything. Our attitude is everything.

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What do I mean? Well, you can be the type of Calvinist who gets out your 1st

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Timothy chapter 2 sword, and you have been honing it all week.

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You've got it sharp and ready to go, just like Pastor Jeff has all those swords hanging in every single room in his home.

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Just ready to ninja you. He really got upset with me when

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I brought a ninja sword. Remember when he and I did that little video thing? And I was like, be careful with that,

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Jeff. It's sharp. And he's like, please, I'm a ninja. Come on. I can swing this.

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I can shave with this, with my eyes closed. That's what you were saying yourself, wasn't it? Yeah, he's sitting there going, yep,

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I can. I can. That's how you do your beard. It's done.

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It's perfect. Yeah. So you can be the kind of Calvinist who brings out your 1st

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Timothy 2 sword, and you find yourself an unsuspecting Arminian. And they go ahead, and as soon as they quote 1st

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Timothy 2, 4, you're like, oh, really? And you lead him through there, and with the final thrust, right through the heart.

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And then you leave it there, sort of like Maximus, you know? And go, so, how about that,

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Mr. Arminian? Right? No one of you has ever done that, have you?

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Never done that on Facebook, anything like that? No. You see, if you present it in that way, and you say, so, tell me, is

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Jesus interceding for them? Huh? Tell me. Come on. They'll come up with an answer, and they'll probably go to their death defending it, no matter how stupid it is.

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You've done them no favors. In fact, you've probably hardened them to your position. Obviously, what you need to do is to say, now, if you've never thought about this before, just think with me for a moment.

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Think about Jesus interceding for us. In Romans 8, it says, because he intercedes, in Hebrews 7,

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Romans 8, Jesus' intercession means he can save perfectly the father and the son.

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Can you imagine the father and the son agreed on accomplishing this, and anything in the universe stopping that from happening?

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I mean, isn't this glorious? This is the whole foundation of our peace with God. So, think about it for a second.

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Is this really? What is really being said in 1 Timothy 2? And leave it as something that they can think about, that they can consider, the

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Spirit of God can use. They can read through John 6 and go, wow, it sounds like the same thing.

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And then they read through John 8, and there it is again. And then they read through John 10, and, oh, goodness, this is happening everywhere. And everywhere they turn, it's everywhere.

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Let the Spirit of God do it. Don't get in the way. Don't get in the way. Leave that sword where it needs to be.

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And it's not buried in the Armenian's chest either. Leave that sword where it needs to be. These are all beautiful texts.

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We're not trying to get around them. Never let yourself adopt the idea that because you keep running into a text that's used as a, well, as Jeff put it, a chestnut, as an objection, that you stop loving that text.

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That's really easy to do. James 2 .14 through 20. Anybody who goes out and witnesses to the

01:00:01

Mormons, oh, goodness, here comes James again. I don't want to have to... Oh, this is the third time tonight

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I've had to explain this. And you can get tired of it. No, James 2 is still the very

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Word of God. Don't let these verses become enemies. They're actually friends, especially if we handle them aright and can use them to then redirect them to entire sections of Scripture that are specifically talking about the subject at hand.

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Have you noticed it's always, almost always, some passing phrase that is being interpreted?

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Well, it must mean this. If God wants everyone to be saved, it must mean this. Instead of going to the texts that have entire chapters on the subject, you go to a passing phrase.

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That's one of the clear indications of tradition and traditionalism. And that's what we're dealing with when we deal with man's absolute desire to make sure that we control salvation, not

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God. We control it. That's the very essence of human religion. And so hopefully that's been helpful to you in dealing with these particular texts.

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Next week, then, Pastor Jeff will be talking about more of the philosophical, especially the emotional ones.

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I mean, if any of you have ever seen the debate that I did with George Bryson at a very large vineyard church over in Los Angeles years ago,

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I think it was 01 or something like that. Oh, the emotional ones.

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This man over here is telling you that your loved ones may not be able to be saved because they've been chosen for damnation by God.

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That's the kind of thing that Jeff will easily answer next week for you.

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No pressure. We want you to have good responses because we get the objections.

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We understand. We want to answer them accurately in light of the

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Word of God. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we do thank you for this time to look into your

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Word. And even though it has been brief, we ask that you would make us to be good students of your

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Word, to handle your Word aright in context so that we can share that with others.

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And by your Spirit, you can edify the saints, challenge the saints, glorify yourself in the consistency and beauty of the

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Gospel. We thank you for this time. Be with us now, especially as we go to the table, that we may remember the beauty of what you have done for us in Christ Jesus.