TPW #9 | Sola Fide Taught By God

Paul warns that evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving one another and being deceived.

The reason Paul told Timothy that was because he needed to be ready to spend the balance of his life in uninterrupted warfare for the truth.

The most dangerous people alive today are always, always, always ordained ministers.

They're the most dangerous people in the world, especially the ones that people think are Christians, who will sell you theological poison to the damnation of your soul.

Folks, I just want to warn you about something. Every heretic in the entire history of the church, without exception, has taught their heresy in the name of being faithful to Scripture.

That was the day of wrath. That was the day of judgment. That is the day of final salvation, brought back in time and applied to us once for all at the moment of our effectual calling when we repent and believe in our unity to Christ.

Welcome to the Protestant Witness Outdoor Backyard Edition. I'm just sitting here in my backyard, and it is just a gloriously beautiful Friday evening.

My little kids, my younger ones, are inside. I just started one of those Shrek movies for them.

Those are weird, with a little ogre, the ogre dude thing. They're, you know, mildly entertaining, but I just looked outside, and it's so lovely and gorgeous out here.

I just decided to come outside, and I've got a little fire going in my fire pit. And I just wanted to share some thoughts about the gospel.

You know, my life's been somewhat interesting since I've gone on record saying what

I think of John Piper's formulations of how we get into heaven, and the issues that I have with that, and the problems

I think that there are very serious issues with the way he's saying that. And I've just been reflecting more lately on how precious the gospel is, and I've been thinking about how precious that message is to all

Christian people everywhere, and that all Christians everywhere know how to put their hope and their faith in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation, for getting into heaven at the last judgment, because they are taught by God how to do so.

There's a great text in the Gospel of John, chapter 6, 44 and 45. Jesus said to that crowd that followed him over the

Sea of Galilee, the 5 ,000, the people that he had fed there in the first part of John, chapter 6.

This huge crowd follows him over the Sea of Galilee, basically because they want another meal.

And Jesus rebukes them for that, because they weren't following him for the right reason. He says in verse 26, Most assuredly

I say to you, you seek me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. And then

Jesus does something in John 6 that he does in other places in John. John 10, he does the same thing.

He explains the unbelief of his opponents to them.

He actually tells them why they do not believe in him. And he does the same thing here in John 6.

He turns around to the crowd and rebukes them and says, you guys are not following me. You're not following me because you saw the sign or because you believe

I am who I say I am. You're following me because you ate of the loaves and had your fill and you just want more free food.

And then he says to them in John 6 44, no one can come to me. That's the phrase in Greek, Udais Dunatai, none are able to come to me unless the

Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets and they shall all be taught by God.

Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. I just think that's an amazing statement.

I think so often we reformed folks as Calvinists, we key in on John 6 44 and rightly so because it's one of those real clear statements of the inability of man to come to Jesus.

No one is able to come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

And then he says as it is written in the prophets and they shall all be taught by God. Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the

Father comes to me. Now think about what that is saying. Here's how this relates to the gospel issue and to the whole the whole controversy over John Piper and all the yammering and really some of the really just chest thumping and bravado that's been going on with with some individuals who have you know tried to get you know,

I don't know some kind of a debate or something going and then their their champ stood down.

So what whatever the point here is the point is God teaches his people how to come to Christ and they will always and only trust in him because they are taught by God to do so.

One of the best books I ever read on the issue of justification and I could see immediately right when

I became reformed and I was in my early 20s when I was thinking about the ministry I could see this whole issue of justification by faith alone.

I had spent so much time arguing with Roman Catholics about it. I could see this is this is the centerpiece of everything else that we believe teach and preach this has got to be the thing that I understand and know how to defend and preach and teach and how what what are the key passages that people will misuse to try to not to deny it on scriptural pretenses and everything else and I did a lot of reading about it.

One of the first books I ever read on justification. It was a bit of a beast It was John Owens massive work justification by faith alone and that book is outstanding if you can if you can persevere through Owen there's a

I can't remember if it's his book on communion with God or if it's if there's a different one, but in the forward of one of Owen's books

He actually says something along the lines of for those who want flowery rhetoric and fine speech

I bid you farewell Because Owen Owen is a little bit rough to read but the thing is though if you take the time to push through him

He does have a really really clear way of explaining things and he was an outstanding gifted scholar and teacher in the church

But in that book in the early section of the book of justification by faith alone by John Owen He points out that No matter how much false doctrine there has been on the landscape at any point in church history

No matter how much Distortion there has been of the basic gospel message and that sinners are justified before God by faith alone in Christ alone on the legal grounds of the cross work of Christ and the the

Righteousness of Jesus Christ his preceptive obedience to the law of God, which is imputed to our account

No matter how much distortion there has been on that the elect of God I remember

I can't recall if this is a direct quotation or not, but I underlined it Something along the lines of this the elect of God have always known how to put their faith in Christ alone for salvation

Because it is God who teaches them to do so John 6 45 and they shall all be taught by God he said no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up in the last day as It is written in the prophets and they shall all be taught by God Therefore everyone who has learned and heard heard and learned from the father comes to me

Jesus says that that is talking about conversion that is talking about when sinners recognize the depth of their own sin and They recognize the inability in themselves to to remedy the situation and they put their faith in Jesus Christ Jesus taught us in that great passage in John 6 44 and 45 that it is

God who teaches us to do that they shall all be taught by God and John Owen explained that so well, and it was such an encouraging thing to me because Along with studying systematic theology, especially even before I went to seminary.

I read a lot about church history I could see immediately church history and historical theology a really really really important thing

So I started working through Kenneth Scott LaTourette and Philip Schaaf, and I read up Bruce Shelley's church history in plain language

Several times I thought it was just so excellent And there's there's Chadwick and there's a lot a lot of other

William Cunningham's historical theology, etc, etc and what you see and it can be a little daunting at first is to notice that there is a lot of distortion, especially in the post apostolic church fathers you see a

Trajectory in their theology and in their thinking of that is not good and and they're they're moving in a direction of almost being superstitious about sacraments they're moving in the direction of the whole idea of the rise of the of the

Christian quote -unquote priesthood and sacerdotalism and all this other stuff but the simple fact is in the heart of a true believer, there is always going to be a

Rock solid confidence that is unshakable fixed on Jesus Christ alone for their justification

Which is what gets them into heaven and Owen is so good on that particular point that that book is outstanding justification by faith alone by John Owen And he goes into you know

What one thing Owen does is he he tries to deal with pretty much I mean every conceivable Permutation of argument that someone might ever try to bring up against what he's saying

And for that reason the book is extremely valuable But I think the thing I was just meditating on today is you know with the whole

Piper thing I just thought to myself after haranguing with some people on Facebook today

Which is why I ended up staying late to get my second sermon done Which is why I try not to do that much on Facebook because it always takes longer than you think it's going to I was just thinking you know a true

Christian is not going to buy this stuff God's people are not going to buy Justification by faith alone as if it's entirely distinct from how we get into heaven

Christians aren't gonna buy that They're not gonna buy that because they're taught by God how to put their hope in Jesus Christ alone

It's one of the most precious things in my own life. Is that no matter how much I've ever gotten involved in Controversy and I I have spent an incredible amount of my time debating the issue of justification with Roman Catholics witnessing to Catholics When I was in seminary that was at the height of the

Federal Vision controversy in fact Guy Watters was one of my professors and There were guys there that were fan fans of the

Federal Vision guys They had blogs and of course it was always all the same guys off under the right on their blog roll

You know John Barris Jeff Myers Peter Lightheart Doug Wilson James Jordan blah blah blah all the same guys

And so we had some of those discussions in class But even then I'd already read Owen and just was thinking about that a lot and thinking as sad as it is to hear distortions of the simple biblical gospel of the simple biblical gospel

The the people of God are not gonna be taken in by any of it They may be they may be misled a little bit

But they're not going to go off and start believing or trusting in their works Because they are taught by God how to put their faith in Jesus Christ That's what

Jesus said Those who come to him do not come of themselves. It is a supernatural

Effectual drawing of the father. That's what John 644 is saying And people try to say well, he draws everybody.

Well, that's impossible. That's impossible John 644 says all that the father gives me will come to our excuse me

No one is able to come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last

Day every individual grammatically that is drawn is raised up by the Son So every single person that's drawn in the way that it's spoken of in John 644 is raised up meaning that They are all go to heaven when they die because to be given eternal life to be raised up in Johannine vocabulary like that is how a person gets into heaven

Is referring to that? and so it's just a an encouraging thing to me that no matter how many false teachers and their and their coterie of followers are

Squawking false doctrine the elect of God the people of God are never gonna buy it It's so encouraging to me to know that also in my own heart

I am so thankful to Christ That even though I fought the battle of the federal vision when

I was in seminary I got books by Doug Wilson reformed is not enough, you know recovering the objectivity of the

Covenant and Peter Lightheart against Christianity and Steve Schlissel and and all the rest of them and read read a whole bunch of that stuff listen to them listen to the other

Side and I knew immediately the federal vision was heresy Not that well, you know These guys are our brothers and we need to their theology needs to be tweaked to make it more biblical

No was a false gospel plain and simple plain and simple Did you hear the cow?

There's cows here in my backyard. It's a yeah, my neighbors are cows So they move with me once in a while I like to think of it as like amens from the cows when

I'm when I'm out here preaching But anyway fought the battle of the federal vision went through all that read all that stuff and I immediately knew that that it was wrong

As soon as anything other than faith is the instrumental cause of our justification Which is our legal acquittal and the grounds upon which alone we enter heaven when we die

If you add anything to that if you smudge that together with works in any kind of nuanced way

You don't have the gospel anymore You don't have the gospel anymore Paul is so very clear about that in Galatians I have no doubt that Paul was well aware that people were gonna come up with a thousand different ways of Restating the

Galatian heresy. There's a million different ways to do it Just like there's a million different ways to deny the deity of Christ I mean the heretics in the early church figured out every conceivable way to do it every conceivable way to do it

And so now we have a guy John Piper who's teaching hey I believe in justification my faith alone and I believe in justification my faith alone and it's on the grounds of the cross of Christ Alone and no charge can be brought against you.

God's a hundred percent for you. Christ's righteousness is imputed to you and In final salvation faith is confirmed by the sanctifying fruit.

It has born and we are saved through that fruit and that's where you say No, the fruits of our faith are exactly that they're the fruits of our faith and we are justified by faith alone apart from works

I Always think you know Ephesians chapter 2 As a text

I've been reciting it with my children my five youngest. I try to teach them The catechism short at Westminster shorter catechism and some passages.

We've been reciting every single night for the past several months I recite with them Psalm 23 Psalm 1 and then we recite

Ephesians 2 8 through 10 together And I've told them kids if you understand Ephesians 2 8 through 10 clearly and you understand what it's saying

It gives us the perfect teaching on how we are to understand Works with regard to our salvation and faith with regard to our salvation from God's wrath

So let's say it together kids for by grace. You have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves

It is the gift of God not of works must anyone should boast. How are we saved? We are not saved through the fruits of our faith.

We are not saved through works Our salvation is not in accordance with our sanctification Our salvation is not on the basis of the progress we have made

It is not on the basis of putting sin to death. It is not on the basis of pursuing holiness

It is by grace through faith not by works lest anyone should boast

For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them

So do works figure into our salvation no How can I say that because Paul excludes them we are saved by grace through faith not by works

Not by works lest anyone should boast. Well, isn't he just talking about like Initial salvation.

No, those are not categories in his thinking. There is no initial justification or final justification or anything of the kind The Bible speaks of justification and Paul when he brings it up when he explicates it in its fullness in Romans three four five six and seven and in all the

Objections that people bring against it the antinomian objection actually preached on that this past Sunday and then the struggle with sin in Romans 7 when he rhapsodizes about the glorious nature of this entirely gracious salvation that we have

He says in Romans 8 33 who will bring a charge against God's elect it is God who justifies who is he that condemns and That is not talking about the initial justification that is talking about who will bring a charge on the day of judgment against us

And folks, I want you to think about how serious it is if you don't understand that Think about who

Jesus is and what he did when he died What was that that was happening on the cross when you remember and think of Jesus?

Carrying the cross of Mount Calvary when he willingly laid his life down when he was nailed to the cross and lifted up in the air and dropped down in the

Hole and bled and died on that cross. What was happening there? He was not achieving our initial justification

He was achieving our entrance into heavenly glory He was taking the fullness of divine wrath upon himself in our place vicariously and he drank every last drop of that to the full

That's why no charge can ever be brought against us. That's why our works cannot save us

That's why Paul says it is not by works We are not saved in any degree through the fruits of our faith or by our works or by anything we do

Our works are the fruit that grows on the tree and the fruit does not make the tree what it is It only shows you what kind of tree it is

It's like the apple trees over by the the parsonage there was a man's my family and I lived in that man's For a little while as a small house and we had seven kids and we lived in there was a little tight

But we used to go out there There were four apple trees very nice apple trees on the side of that house And I used to use that as a teaching illustration to the kids.

I said kids do these trees become apple trees? Are they made in some way even partially made apple trees by bearing apples?

Well, no, I said why do they bear apples and they said because they're apple trees. So kids listen You don't say bye -bye to become a sheep you say bye -bye because you are a sheep

Okay, it's not hard to understand The the the gift of salvation the gift of entering into heaven is not hard to understand

For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves It is the gift of God not of works lest anyone should boast and then immediately

Paul knows what people are gonna say You're saying we can live like the devil and still go to heaven and that's why he says for we are his workmanship

Created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them the gospel is so simple the righteousness by which we enter heaven at the last judgment is

The righteousness of God that has been revealed to us apart from the law apart from the law

Paul says in Romans 3 21 Being witnessed by the law and the prophets even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ To all and on all who believe for there is no difference for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are

Justified freely by his grace through the redemption. That is in Christ Jesus whom God set forth as a propitiation as a

Sacrifice which turns away both the the cause of wrath and the wrath itself

God set forth as a propitiation through faith in his blood to demonstrate at the present time his righteousness

That he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus Our justification is our final verdict at the last day

That is so simple. It's so fundamental because what Jesus is bearing on the cross is

Indeed the fullness of divine wrath That's why Paul says in Romans 5 9 how much more than having now been justified by his blood

We shall be saved from wrath through him You hear that we've been justified by the blood of Christ and Because of that we shall be saved at the last day from his wrath

Through him not through the fruits of our faith not through the fruits of our faith, but through him and faith is the sole instrument by which we are united to Christ and His righteousness is imputed to our account

Romans 4 6 just as David speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works

Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven whose transgressions are covered Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin

My sins will not be imputed to me because they were laid upon Christ my Savior my curse bearer

Christ has redeemed us from the curse. You know what that curse is. That's eternal damnation. That's the curse of the law of God Christ has redeemed us from the curse having become a curse who pair hamon in behalf of us

God made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that in him we would become the righteousness of God I love

NT writes explanation of that. That's just about apostleship Talk about a man who's

Whose penchant for missing the obvious is legendary. It's legendary

God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself not imputing their trespasses. That's just about apostleship.

He says Folks just remember something the elect of God are taught by God how to put their faith in Christ and They will never trust in anything other than him to get them into heaven

That's an encouraging thing to me. I used to get a lot more discouraged by this kind of stuff when I was younger But now that I've seen the faithfulness of God much more in my life, and he's carried me through some pretty hard trials and He's seen me through a lot of things and I see his faithfulness and I see his supernatural hand on on all his works and on his church and It's such an encouraging thing to me to know the elect of God are taught by God how to come to Christ in the right way and they won't come to him for initial justification and then

Hopefully through the fruits of their faith and you know, God is God is faithful He'll produce those fruits and enough fruit to confirm our faith and nothing like that No Christians are going to believe that the last day they're going to be saved by their works that they've done as a

Christian Because they're taught by God to put their faith in Christ alone God makes sure that that's what we do and I bless his holy name

It's one of the it's one of the most comforting things in my life as a as a Christian man But in my heart from the moment

I was converted from the moment I first came to Christ when I was 18 at no point has my hope ever ever been divided between Jesus and something else

No, my hope of getting into heaven at the final judgment has never been divided between Jesus and anything else

Not the fruits of my faith not my sanctification and boy I'll tell you I am so very thankful to Christ For the incredible work that he's done in my life and all the sin that he's freed me from and all the work that he's done

You know, I'm not where I should be but thank God. I'm not where I used to be But I would never trust in that I would never trust that.

I'm gonna be saved through those fruits never never Because God taught me how to put my faith in Christ alone

So I want to encourage Encourage the troops out there those that love the true gospel and are willing

Often at great personal cost to fight for it often at great cost to fight for it. I want to encourage you guys

To know that God will reward you richly for choosing a

Lonely path at times to glorify the name of his son But on the other hand to remember that all who truly know

Christ are taught by God how to put their faith in him God will use us. He'll use our clear proclamation of the truth to draw his people to himself

But it is God who does that God teaches his people how to put their faith in Christ alone

To get them into heaven because only Christ's righteousness can get us there Thanks for listening to the

Protestant witness. This has been pastor Patrick Hines in my backyard by my fire and with the cows