Understanding God's Sovereignty in Election (Part 6)

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Understanding God's Sovereignty in Election (Part 7)

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All right, well, tonight we are in our, I think, sixth week on the subject of the the golden chain of redemption.
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The golden chain of redemption deals with the subject of predestination and election.
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And we have gone the last two weeks looking at the most common questions associated with the doctrine of predestination and election.
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The first week we said the most common question that is asked in regard to the doctrine of predestination is the question of evangelism.
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People say, if God has predestined, then why do we evangelize? And we said the easy answer to that is, first, because Jesus commanded us to.
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So we do everything as part of a divine command.
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Everything that we do is in regard to Christ's command.
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But secondly, also that we are a means to an end, that God not only ordains the end, but he also ordains the means to the end.
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And by evangelizing, we are part of God's process of bringing the elect into the kingdom.
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So that's the answer to evangelism.
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Now, last week we got on to the subject of human will and particularly the question of free will.
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And I addressed the subject of free will.
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We talked a lot about it and afterwards had a very good question.
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And I said, well, this week I'm going to start by addressing a kind of following up on what we did last week and start by addressing somewhat of the question that was asked last week.
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I went home and made a chart.
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And whoever's listening to this online, oh, by the way, you'll notice the camera is not recording live stream tonight.
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The reason for that is we've had so many technical difficulties with live stream.
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I'm going to have to just just stop doing it until we can get it back up.
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So, Miss Ray, if you're listening to this later on, you'll know why it wasn't there.
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Here they come.
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Here's one of them.
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Just one.
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OK, OK.
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Here you go.
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If you want to pass the chart.
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I spent time making this chart last week.
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Here you go, Miss Amy.
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And I want to mention, too, that this chart is it's not something I necessarily came up with on my own.
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I did make the chart on my own.
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But the teaching is based on something that was pointed out to me years ago by a man by the name of Tom Askell.
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He is the head of the Founders Ministry movement.
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And he made this point.
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He said the problem is that Arminianism and hyper Calvinism both are trying to come to a logical conclusion and their logic is the problem.
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And he said, here's the problem with Arminian logic.
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Arminian logic says this man is responsible to seek and obey God, so he must be able to seek and obey God.
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Now, before we move on, just jump right over to the hyper Calvinist logic.
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Hyper Calvinist logic is that man is not able to seek and obey God, so he must not be responsible to seek and obey God.
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So there are the two far points.
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They're polar opposites of one another.
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The Arminian says that because man is responsible to seek and obey God, which is clearly scriptural.
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The Bible gives the command to seek God, to obey God.
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And the commands are there in scripture.
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Choose this day whom you will obey.
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That's for me in my house.
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We will serve the Lord.
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You know, Joshua says that in the early part of his book.
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So we see the command to seek and obey God, the responsibility to seek and obey God.
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However, this teaching, I just want to read you what I have here, that this teaching makes the work of salvation mostly dependent upon man's will to choose his own destiny and ultimately denies God's sovereign work in election and predestination.
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Proponents cite the many verses which speak of man's responsibility to repent of sin and to seek and obey God.
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The end is an unbalanced view of man's ability.
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What I mean by unbalanced view is this.
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They say because man is responsible, he's able.
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He has to be able.
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There's nothing that can hold him back if he's responsible to do it.
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He must have the ability to do it.
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Now we go over to the hyper Calvinist side.
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The hyper Calvinist says man is not able to seek or obey God.
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That's something that we stress forever.
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Total depravity.
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We believe that.
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But they say because he's not able morally to do so, he must not be responsible for doing so.
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This teaching denies man's responsibility and in doing so paints a fatalistic picture of the world wherein the actions of individuals do not matter because the end is already determined.
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How many people say that that's the problem with reformed theology? They say the problem with reformed theology is it's all determined anyway.
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So because it's all determined, we don't have any responsibility whatsoever.
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How many of you heard that? That is not a proper criticism of reformed theology.
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However, it is a proper criticism of what is called hyper Calvinism, because hyper Calvinism does take it to its extreme and saying that because man's not able, he's not responsible.
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Proponents cite the many verses which speaks of man, which speak of man's fallen nature, which results in his moral inability to seek God or obey his laws.
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The end is an unbalanced view of man's responsibility.
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So you've got two unbalanced views.
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Arminianism is unbalanced in its view of man's ability.
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Hyper Calvinism is unbalanced in its view of man's responsibility.
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What is the biblical truth? The biblical truth strikes the balance by saying man is responsible to seek and obey God.
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But at the same time, man is not able to seek and obey God apart from the active giving of grace.
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Grace is necessary for us to seek and obey God.
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We not only will not seek and obey God without grace, we cannot seek and obey God without his grace.
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And John 6, 65 is clear.
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This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my father.
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The word unless there provides for us the absolute truth that no one can unless God does the preceding action.
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Only reformed theology seeks to strike the proper balance between man's responsibility and his natural inability due to his fallen nature.
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The truth is that God has given all people the responsibility to repent.
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But apart from his grace, they will not do so because they are under the bondage of sin.
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Only this view is able to make sense of both the passages which speak of man's responsibility to seek and obey God, as well as the passages that teach his moral inability to do just that.
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Again, reformed theology is the only one of the three that seeks to find the biblical balance.
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And the biblical balance is in the grace of God.
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See, the Armenians believe that because he's able, he can.
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The Calvin hypercalculus is because he's not able, he can't.
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We say he's not able unless God gives him the grace and then he's made able.
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Yes.
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No, I didn't intentionally leave out regeneration.
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I just.
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Oh, sure, sure.
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And I use the word regeneration all the time.
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Just in my my putting together of this, I could have I could have easily said man is not able to seek and obey God apart from his active regeneration.
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I just put active giving of grace.
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Yes, I see what you're saying there.
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I didn't I didn't intentionally leave it out.
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It just was a different use of terms.
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That's all.
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Does anybody have any questions on this? I just made this for y'all.
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I was just this was just something to finish up what we did last week to kind of help out what we did last week.
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Now we're going to move on to a new question tonight.
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OK, move it.
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You have a question.
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Yes.
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Yeah, that's it.
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Well, the Armenians, the Armenians have what is called a doctrine of prevenient grace.
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And what prevenient grace is, is that, yes, all people are unable to seek and obey God, but God puts out a I call it peanut butter grace.
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God just smears it out to everybody, enough grace, just enough to make you able and the rest is up to you.
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OK, but at that point, then we have to deny Jesus's teaching that man is not able, because if God has preveniently given enough grace to make you able, then what Jesus said about us not being able to come unless the father draws, unless the father grants it to us, that language makes no sense.
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If prevenient grace is true.
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But yeah, that's the doctrine in Armenian logic is that is the reason they don't deny that there's an inability in man.
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They just deny that that inability affects us at this point because they believe God's prevenient grace has done away with all of our inabilities.
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Which, again, I would deny that because I would ask, you know, if well, as I said, I said, why then would Jesus even make the point? If prevenient grace is true, why would you just make the point of our inabilities in John six? Why would he stress the point of our inabilities in John six and in fact, repeat himself? You know, John six, sixty five is simply a repetition of John six, forty four and John six, forty four is simply a restatement of John six, thirty seven.
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If he has to repeat himself three times about the doctrine of our inability and God's doing the work before we do the work, I think it's important, number one, that Jesus had to go through all that trouble to say that.
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And if prevenient grace is true, then he didn't really need to say that to begin with.
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It doesn't make sense.
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So, again, the Methodists, Wesleyan, Pentecostal view of prevenient grace, which I would call Pentecostal view because Pentecostal is really, well, they're they're they birthed out of the Methodist movement.
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All of their that the view of prevenient grace, most of most of them don't even understand it anymore because they don't think there's really anything intrinsically wrong with man.
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You know, the only reason that the only reason why the Armenians originally came up with prevenient grace to begin with is because they had to deal with the truth of total depravity.
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They had to deal with the fact that man was unable.
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So they came up with a doctrine.
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Well, God gives everybody ability.
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That was their doctrine.
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You know, God fixes the the broken problem.
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But now man's not broken anymore.
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You go to any Methodist church and everybody's groovy and everybody's good.
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Methodism particularly teaches that a very liberal view of man's nature.
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So the fact that he's without ability is not even taught anymore.
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So prevenient grace is not necessary.
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You know, it's not necessary.
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If you're not in a bad situation, you don't need grace anyway.
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Go ahead.
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Yeah.
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Not dead.
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Not dead.
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He's just sick.
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He got to open his mouth, take the medicine.
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I've heard that man isn't.
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You know, I used to it was always the old drowning scenario.
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You got guys drowning in the sea.
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And I always said that's not a good scenario because it was the drowning scenario.
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Well, you're drowning and God throws you a life preserver.
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You got to reach out and grab the life preserver.
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Right.
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So you get to play a part in it.
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The truth of the matter is you're dead.
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Your bones have already been torn apart by the carnivorous fish in the sea.
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And God is giving you new life, bringing you back to life.
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That's the real picture that Jesus paints.
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Now, God takes you up and saves you.
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That's right.
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OK, classic Armenians like Wesley would have believed that they would be believed were born in sin.
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Again, Wesley would believe in prevenient grace that doctor I was just talking about.
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But he wouldn't deny that we're born in sin.
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Modern versions of Methodism, Pentecostalism and other forms of Arminianism would would probably not go there.
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I sat in the office in there and had a person who was a minister tell me from the restoration movement that he could not believe that I believe in original sin, that it was such a horrid thing.
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So, so, yeah, I mean, yeah, restorationists deny original sin.
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Pentecostals Methodist today, but not you go back to the time of Wesley, you're looking at a different Methodist church.
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You know, all that we can say that about Wesley, Wesley has some good things.
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You know, Wesley had some good writings on certain things and there were certain things he understood.
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And one of the things about Wesley that I always hold in high regard is that George Whitfield held Wesley in high regard.
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And to me, if Whitfield holds you in high regard, then I'm going to hold you in high regard, even though I would disagree with him on the doctrine of prevenient grace.
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And that's where him and Whitfield separated.
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There's a funny story about them.
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I'm sorry.
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OK, just one second.
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There's a funny story about their prayers.
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They lived together.
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Whitfield and Wesley lived together and Whitfield and Wesley would go out and evangelize and they'd come home and Whitfield would simply say, Lord, I thank you that you had your way today, that your will was done.
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And, you know, and he'd pray a very short prayer in Jesus name.
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Amen.
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And he would lay down and Wesley's there by his bedside, you know, you know, praying and he looks over at Whitfield and he says, he says, is this where your Calvinism has brought you? It's brought you to such a short prayer.
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And he'd go back to his praying.
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Well, later in the night, Whitfield wakes up and he sees Wesley still over there and he walks around the bed, he looks down, he's asleep and he says, is this where your Arminianism has brought you? OK, good.
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I once heard a very prominent Baptist pastor preaching against reformed theology, preaching against Calvinism.
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And he was saying, Arminian, Arminian this and Arminian that, and I just want to reach through the MP3 player and just say, it's an I, it's not an he.
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Yes, I feel where you're coming from on that.
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But it's so little, but it is true.
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One's a nationality, one is a type of believer.
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So when you see that, yeah, that's important.
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Don't think that's Arminian, it's Arminian, the followers of Arminius.
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All right, so tonight we're going to move on in our questions and I'm going to try to finish it because we have one more lesson that I want to do before getting to Romans nine, and that is a word study of the word all.
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We are going to do a word study of the word all.
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And if we get done tonight, then we'll start the word study next week.
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I hope we can do it in one night, but I ain't going to promise because this was supposed to get done in one night and we're on week three.
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So but anyway, tonight we're going to we've already looked at the question of evangelism.
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We've looked at the question of free will.
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Have we have we have we dug as far as we could in either one? Absolutely not.
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But we have spent one whole night on each.
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So rather than belaboring them, we'll move on.
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OK, tonight we're going to talk about the question of arbitrary choice, arbitrary choice.
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What does that mean? Some people will say, oh, the other thing we dealt with last week was fairness.
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And I did bring some extra stuff to talk about fairness, but I got to avoid it.
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We'll go over there and spend it.
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The big thing about fairness, though, one thing, one of the one of the greatest parables Jesus ever taught was the parable of the of the workers.
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The owner of the vineyard went out in the morning and he brought back the workers and he says, I'll give you one denarii to work for the day, a day's wage for a day's work.
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Then he goes out later in the morning.
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Then he goes out midday and he goes out later.
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And there's some people that only work for one hour and they got a day's wage.
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And the people who have been there all morning come to Jesus in there or they come to the to the to the person in there upset.
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And they say we should either get more or they should get less.
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But we shouldn't get the same.
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And what did the person say? What did the the the the the the keeper of the vineyard said? He said, it's my money.
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I can do what I want with it.
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And if we get nothing else from that parable, what you have to understand is Jesus's point is that God is sovereign over his grace.
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You see, he's specifically speaking to the Jews who are looking to the Gentiles and saying they're not worth God's grace.
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And he's saying, who are you to look at these people whose God has brought in later than you and think that they're worth less grace than you are? That's the specific reference to that parable.
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However, as with any passage, though, that's the interpretation.
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You can make applications from it.
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And the other application is that God is sovereign over his grace.
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That's the truth.
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And when we talk about fairness and we talk about equity versus equality, I thought, you know, Val made a good point last week about the difference between equity and equality.
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God is always equitable, but equitable doesn't mean equal.
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Yeah, it doesn't seem to make sense with our logic, but it's logical in God's case because God is the one who makes that determination.
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There's another thing when I was talking about fairness that I forgot to mention last week, but it's funny.
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How many of you ever been to the reading of a will? I never have.
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I've seen it in movies, but I've never been to the reading of a will where they actually come in.
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I've never known anybody who had anything, but I'm going to go into the reading of a will and they sit there and I think I'm going to get struck dumb.
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And they sit there and the will is read.
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Now, a father has children, you know, a father has has has family members there and he has passed away if he chooses to give to one something that he doesn't choose to give to all.
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We could say that we don't think that's fair, but we can't say it's unjust because it's his to give.
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Because it belongs to him, and that's the key is the issue of fairness, we must never equate fairness with justice because fairness for us has an emotional aspect.
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Well, it's not fair.
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He got more than I did.
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That's the same thing those people whine to Jesus about when or to the to divine gesture about Jesus' parable.
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What's the deal? Isn't it just that I give to whom of mine what I will? The answer is absolutely.
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So no one can ever claim that God is unjust ever.
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All right.
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That being said, let's move on to the next one down.
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Oh, we already got it written up here.
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Arbitrary choice.
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This is the it's always on the heels of the question, at least the ones I've had to deal with.
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People ask about evangelism.
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People ask about free will on that.
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People will say, well, doesn't that make God unfair? And then I'll say, no, it doesn't make God unfair.
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And I'll say God makes a choice according to his will.
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And they'll say, what does that mean? God's choice is just arbitrary.
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That he just kind of picks you and doesn't pick you, he kind of does a blind, kind of like a kid playing pin the tail on the donkey, just kind of covers his eyes and sticks and whoever he sticks is elect and whoever he fails to stick is not elect.
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And honestly, the people who deny divine election, that's often how they in their minds consider God's choice.
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They consider it to be somewhat arbitrary.
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Somewhat capricious, that's another word, capricious, it's just kind of, well, I'll go you and not you.
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Beloved, that is an important question.
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Because if there's anything that the Bible does teach.
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It's that God's choice is not based on anything that is within us, it's not if Romans nine teaches anything, it's that God's choice is not based on goodness over badness, that God didn't choose me because I was better than someone else.
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If he did, then he's wrong because I'm really no better than someone else.
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And honestly, the best example of this is Jacob and Esau.
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He says, Jacob, I've loved and Esau, I've hated.
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It's been that way since before they were born so that the choice could be shown to be according to election and not according to what they did.
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People have a hard time with that in Romans nine, but it's clearly what it teaches.
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Here's the key, though.
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Does that mean, though, that because the reason is not in me, that God had no reason? See, that's where that's where we have to that's where we have to start talking about this question.
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Because the reason is not in need, does that mean God didn't have a reason? And I want to show you this.
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I want you to go to Ephesians chapter one.
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Now, all the talk about predestination and election that we've done, I haven't talked about Ephesians one at all yet.
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And Ephesians one is probably the passage that is most outside of Romans eight and Romans nine is the most cited.
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But honestly, I always use Ephesians one as my wrap up.
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I never start there.
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I always start generally, if I'm having a reformed discussion about somebody who's not reformed, I usually start in John six because it's Jesus's words and I deny them the little out that some people say, well, I don't remember Jesus ever teaching that.
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Kachow.
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He taught it right there.
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And I start there and it removes all any of their ability to say, well, you're just misunderstanding, Paul, because even Peter says Paul's difficult to understand.
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Jesus is right here.
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Then Paul agrees with Jesus.
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That's that's real.
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That's the way I like to do it.
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If I'm if I'm going from an apologetic point of view, if I'm making a point, start with Jesus's words, show how Paul's words agree with Jesus's words.
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Then I go to the final sort of the pièce de résistance, go to Ephesians one and say, bam, because Ephesians one is awesome.
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All right.
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I'm like, my wife got me a real sweet tea.
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I can't even find my book.
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Ephesians is in the New Testament.
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My hands are shaking, OK.
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All right.
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OK, Ephesians chapter one tells us how God chooses.
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Look at verse three and we'll start reading.
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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, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
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So right there, he uses the word chose.
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He chose us.
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We're the object of that.
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In love, he predestined us right there is people miss this all the time because they say predestination is such an ugly doctrine.
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And I say, but I hear it says in love, he predestined us.
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The very fact that agape can be used right next to Prohorizo, love and predestination used in the same sentence demonstrates that this is a loving act of God.
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In love, he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved.
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Right there, it uses the word purpose according to the purpose.
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God has a purpose for his choice.
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People who make capricious and arbitrary decisions don't do it with purpose.
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Verse seven in him that is in Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
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I don't have time to break it all down, but let me just bring it right here.
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What he's saying is that the purpose in all this was to bring all things together in Christ.
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The purpose in all of this was that Christ and the father and the spirit had covenanted before the world began to bring about redemption and that this was to display the work of the son and the salvation of the elect to glorify the father through the work of the son by the power of the Holy Spirit.
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And he said in him again in Christ, we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things.
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Here's the key verse who works all things, what things, all things.
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We're going to talk about the word all next week, but the word all there means all things, all things, according to the COU in the council of his what will.
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OK, here is my argument opposing those who would say God's choice is arbitrary or capricious, capricious and arbitrary arguments are never made according to counsel.
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They are always made according to whims.
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The very fact that the sentence tells us that the choice God made was according to the counsel of his will indicates that there was actual choice and thinking and deliberation in the choice that there was counsel there.
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The problem that we have is God didn't counsel with us.
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The problem is God didn't bring us into the counseling room and let us vote off the island who we would.
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God was the only one that got the vote.
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Satan didn't vote against us.
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We voted for us and God broke the tie or whatever the people say is the other way.
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God votes for you.
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Devil votes against you.
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You break the tie.
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That's ridiculous.
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There was a choice made, but it was God's choice.
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He made it not according to a capricious nature, not according to a whimsical nature, not according to an arbitrary nature, but according to a counsel, the counsel of his own will.
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So for someone to say that it is an arbitrary choice, they must deny flatly what this passage is teaching.
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Does that mean we get in on the council? No.
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Does that mean we get to have discussion with God about why he made that choice? No, he doesn't need our input.
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Neither does he seek it, but it's very important because this is the opposite of this.
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People who make arbitrary decisions, capricious decisions, whimsical decisions do so devoid of counsel, not with it.
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However, this proves God's decision was made among in the counsel of his will.
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And then it goes on to say so that we were the first to hope in Christ, who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory in him.
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You also when you heard the word of truth, the gospel, your salvation believed in him were sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.
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Ephesians 1 3 through 14 is really a massive tomb of information.
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It really is.
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It's a powerful set of verses.
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Because it really expresses the work of the Trinity.
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And our salvation, the father has predestined that the work of the son will be applied to the elect and the spirit feels that work once it's done, the spirit comes along as and I used to use the old mason jar thing, you know, when you heard that after you open a mason jar, what do you hear the pop, the popping sound indicates that what was inside of it was we call them preserves.
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Why we call them preserves because they were in that jar and they were preserved.
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Well, the spirit is our preservation.
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He is our seal when he comes and he abides with us and he is in our heart.
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He provides the seal for us unto the day of redemption.
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He goes on to say that later in the same book.
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That being said, it's not a capricious action.
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It is not an arbitrary action.
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And to say that it is to deny the very clear teaching of this passage, God's will is the greatest counsel in the universe, and it is upon that will that he chose us just because his reason for choosing us is not found within us does not mean it does not have purpose.
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All right.
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I was able to get through that one and we got time to move on unless somebody has a question.
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Groovy, OK.
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But I saw a little hand back there.
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I was like, wow, OK.
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Well, you know, last week I probably would've taken the whole time, but I'm hopped up on sweet tea.
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So we're you know, I'm going now.
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I'm excited.
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I told her she came in and handed it to me and I have really been trying to get off sweet.
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I haven't had sweet tea in a couple of months.
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I've been trying to drink diet sodas.
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And she handed it to me, apparently.
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OK, we're going to go to one that's real emotional now.
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We're going to go to one that's real emotional.
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And I would encourage you to save your emotions, to to to be.
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Be very sober minded about this one because it's difficult.
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The question.
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Huh, OK, I guess the question of infants, honestly, honestly, there is no more emotional thing that I've ever seen happen.
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Then when a local pastor who I know who every once in a while I'm sitting in a restaurant very close to my head, who talks about who called me a Calvinist when I walked in the room and now that I'm hyper.
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So OK, I'm somebody who's going to take that and run with it.
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I'll see you in the hypercalvinist.
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We've been invited out by the boats.
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All of us have.
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OK, OK, OK, on the subject of infants, there was a pastor.
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He was preaching against that dirty, rotten Calvinism.
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That was the that was his sermon.
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It was an opposition to Calvinism about a third of the way through his message to around a halfway through his message.
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I think that he was I think he was aching for response.
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And I don't know.
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I've seen pastors do this before.
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They'll be they're not getting the you know, because I'm not used to crowds responding to me.
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You guys are real cool on Sunday morning.
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And if I do get an amen, that's great.
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But normally it's pretty much, you know, I got some amen to camp and I kind of know what to do.
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You know, we're kind of collected.
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We're kind of cool.
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You know, I like to get amens, but some people really live for the amen.
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We're very studious, but there are some folks that live for the amens and you can always tell the pastors that live for the amens because they finish everything that they say with.
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Uh huh.
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They'll say Jesus and they'll go back and forth.
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They have a pause in every word because they're initiating the response.
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Well, this pastor, in my estimation, was not receiving the response that he felt was necessary for his anti-Calvinism diatribe and in such decided to say in no uncertain terms.
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He looked right at him and he says, and Calvinists believe babies are going to hell.
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I don't know who she was, but she was somebody up front just, oh, that was more than she could take.
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OK, so be that that situation has come up in a, you know, in a church setting where a pastor made such claims.
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Uh, that has to be responded to.
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The first thing that I will say is this.
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One of the books that I have on my shelf is written by a man by the name of John MacArthur.
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John MacArthur is a unabashed, unashamed, reformed theology teacher.
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He believes all five points of what we call the doctrines of grace.
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The TULIP, total privacy, unjudicial action, limited tolerance, irresistible grace, persecution of the saints.
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In fact, he wrote the foreword for one of the books that I have entitled The Five Points of Calvinism.
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So John MacArthur is not on the fence on the issue of reformed theology and would probably accept the term Calvinism without much problem.
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But John MacArthur also wrote a book which is entitled Safe in the Arms of Jesus.
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He believes in the book Safe in the Arms of Jesus from a reformed perspective.
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John MacArthur gives a very clear reasoning for why he believes that infants do not necessarily die and go to hell or those who do die necessarily go to hell.
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Now, that being said, I want to add a caveat.
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And I'm going to say this with as much as much love as I possibly can.
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The Bible never says anything on this issue explicitly.
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If there was a passage that says all babies go to hell or all babies go to heaven, no matter which it said, we would have to believe it, even if it was the one nobody wants, which is that all babies go to hell.
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If that were it, we would have to accept it or we'd just have to throw the Bible away.
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It'd be one or the other.
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Right.
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I mean, we wouldn't be able to just say, well, I don't believe that verse, because when you start doing that, you become sort of a kind of like a Marconian who takes out, you know, Marcion took out the passages he didn't like and he was left with a Bible that was, you know, much edited and he just cut out the whole Old Testament and most of the New Testament, because a lot of the New Testament simply read quotations of the Old Testament.
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Yeah.
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Cafeteria style Christianity.
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I'll take this and leave that.
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Yeah.
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Now, if the Bible is not does not say for sure what happens to infants who die explicitly.
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Then we have to look to the implicit teachings of Scripture.
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But we have to know this any time you're basing something on implicit teaching.
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You have to be careful.
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Because a lot of things could be implied from Scripture that are not true.
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Right.
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I mean, a lot of things people could people could imply, God has feathers, it says he girdles under his wings.
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I mean, they're going to be dumb, but that's but some people could imply that you have to be careful with implicit teaching.
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One of the verses that is so often quoted on the subject of infant mortality is David's son who passed away at childbirth.
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David had cheated or he had he had he had taken the wife of Uriah, Uriah.
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Then he sent into battle and had the troops withdraw so that Uriah would be left out on the battlefield to die.
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He then took his wife as his own and the child that they bore together died.
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Now, the whole time leading up to the child's death, he prayed, he laid prostrate and he prayed to God that God would not take the life of the child.
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However, the child did die when the child died.
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David stood up and he put his robe on and he went to eat and they said, wait a minute, how can you eat and go back to living your life? He said, nothing I can do now.
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He said, I was praises at this point.
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He says, I can go to him, but he can't come back to me.
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Now, that little passage, I can go to him, but he can't come back to me, has been understood by some to be teaching that because David went to heaven, that the baby had to have gone to heaven because David is going to heaven and he's saying he can't come back to me, but I can go to him.
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And that's how some people imply from that text the truth of what happens to infants.
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I don't want to debate it, honestly, because here's my big problem with the whole thing.
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That verse is used a lot in preaching infant funerals.
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I've done it myself years and years ago.
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But the concern that I have now.
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Is the other issue, so many people whose infants die, believe that it was their fault somehow, they believe that somehow they didn't handle the situation right.
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Maybe it was somehow their fault.
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And in that verse, it was David's fault.
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So I'm very careful to use that passage to bring comfort to someone whose child just died because of that very reason I make you almost have to leave that out to make that application.
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So I'm very careful.
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Remember, my job extends far beyond the pulpit ministry.
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I have counseling ministry and things that I do in those things.
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These things come up.
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These are serious questions.
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People have.
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And that's an issue that I've run into.
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I'm going to read this verse to somebody.
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And I realize because the question they say, well, what happened to his baby? Well, he said that the baby died.
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Does that mean that I stand in my baby? And now you've got an entire can of worms that you've just opened up.
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So that's a serious, serious consideration when you're thinking of the implication of that verse.
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All right.
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The other one that is often quoted and often considered is Jesus's words concerning the little children.
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Let the little children come unto me and forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of God.
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And Jesus also said, unless someone has faith, Cody, pay attention.
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Thank you.
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Unless someone has faith like a little child, he will in no way enter the kingdom of heaven.
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That's Jesus's teaching.
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So right there, there are two implicit teachings of Jesus about children.
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Neither one of them explicitly says anything about infants and neither one of them explicitly says anything about heaven for the children.
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All it says of such meaning of this kind.
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OK, I'm not trying to deny it.
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I'm not saying that I don't believe it.
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I'm giving you the facts.
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There is very little biblical evidence for us to draw from here.
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And don't leave this place tonight.
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Please don't leave this place.
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And I think you have to believe the baby to go to hell because you because you're at that point.
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What you're doing is you're putting words in my mouth.
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I have not said that.
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What I have said was I've never found a person yet who would say all babies are going to hell.
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But I have no, not at all.
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Let me I'm getting there.
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I promise.
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I don't mean to put you off.
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Here's here's the point.
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I've never met anybody who taught all.
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I'm sure they're out there, but I've never met a person who says all infants are going to hell.
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But I've met a lot of people who say all babies are going to heaven.
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I met a lot of people who believe that.
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And what do they base that on? They base that on something they call the age of finish it accountability.
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Right.
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They base it on the age of accountability.
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Guess what is nowhere found in the Bible that we can talk about the implicit, explicit nature of what happens to babies.
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But what we cannot find is that at 12 years old, somehow you magically become.
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And that's the that's the age that most people think is 12 years old, that somehow at 12 years old, you magically become worthy of hell, where at 11 years and 364 days, you weren't worthy of hell.
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To me, that is repugnant to think that there is a time because literally I was in my mama's womb nine months before.
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So does that mean nine months before my 12th birthday? I was actually then worthy of hell.
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It's a silly thought.
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Most of them have abandoned the 12 year old age theory.
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Most of them have moved on to the theory that says when they realize that they're sinners, when they come to the realization of their sin at that point, they are accountable.
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But then that one got abandoned.
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You know why that one got abandoned? Because some people get to their ripe old age of whatever and they're psychotic and they don't realize what sin is.
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What are these people in prison say? I don't know right from wrong.
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Does that mean he gets automatic pass to heaven? That's a problem.
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That's an issue.
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If he's not, if he's only accountable when he realizes he's accountable, if he doesn't ever realize he's accountable, he's never accountable.
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It's a vicious cycle.
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Now, I may be leaving you with more questions tonight than I'm leaving you with answers, but I'll tell you this.
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It's something that you want.
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Here's the thing.
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The people who say all babies go to heaven have to make the stopping point somewhere.
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They have to make the stopping point somewhere.
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They have to say, well, it's up till 12.
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And then you'll say, well, maybe it's not up to 12.
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Maybe it's maybe it's 11.
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Well, maybe it's when they come to the knowledge.
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Well, what if that person, what if they realize they're a sinner at three years old? I know three years old who know right from wrong.
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I'm three years old knows when he lies and he knows when to lie.
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Bill Cosby taught us that.
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Remember Bill Cosby said he'll go and he'll go and he'll go get a cookie and he'll say, I told you I was getting a cookie and he'll say, I was getting it for you.
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I was getting a cookie for you.
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No, you weren't.
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You're lying.
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Even a three year old knows when to lie.
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So there's only moral culpability, equal moral understanding.
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That that's the only way to be culpable is to understand.
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And it's a difficult question.
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And there are Bible verses that people use on either side to make the case.
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One of the things that Dr.
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James White says, he's very unpopular for saying this, but I'll repeat it if you promise not to say you've got it for me.
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Now, Dr.
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James White said this and you might not like what he said, but it's true.
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He said one of the problems with those who say all babies go to heaven indiscriminate, God has to take them.
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That's the view is that God has to take.
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He said, what you just did is you made abortion the greatest heaven filling device that there's ever been produced.
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Yes, he has.
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And he has to honestly.
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I've dealt with this issue for years.
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And I will say this, if God is good enough.
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And just enough and righteous enough.
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To decide for a 90 year old person.
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Whether or not he's elect and God is good or righteous and just enough to decide for a nine day old and even go further back, another another thing.
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I, I, I'm I'm very careful to say this because somebody is going to ask me, would you believe that babies can go to hell? I'm not going to answer that question because because here's my my conundrum.
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I don't know God's will on the issue because he has not been explicit to me.
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And it may be God's will to save every infant and take them to heaven.
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Based on the sovereign will and choice that anybody who dies as an infant goes to heaven.
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And I am I am willing to say God is fully just in doing that because it's his choice to do that.
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But I'm also willing to say whatever he does is right.
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Yes.
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So it.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So it becomes an issue at that point of accepting that truth, like what she said about Jacob and Esau.
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It's a tough decision.
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It's a tough thing to hear, though, because what people want to hear is that all people up to a certain age automatically go to heaven.
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That's what they want to hear.
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And.
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Yeah, I was going to say, the problem is that age never stops, goes up to 20, 25, 30, 35.
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Yes.
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Oh, John Piper.
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That being said, guys, give me another couple of minutes.
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I promise this is worth listening to.
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You just made an excellent point.
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Those people who say because you believe in reformed theology, you have to believe infants are going to hell, they are they're ridiculous, number one.
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And number two, it shows they haven't done their homework because, number one, there are reformed guys who believe all babies go to hell, but they believe it's God's choice and his divine election to do so.
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And those I could clearly tell you two right away is Dr.
55:02
R.C.
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Sproul and Dr.
55:02
John MacArthur.
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Both of them I've heard teach on this subject.
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Both of them believe in infant.
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God elects infants.
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OK, that's their teaching that MacArthur and Sproul.
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They would be on the on the on the I don't know if universalism for babies, but that's basically that's what I've never met anybody, as I said, who said no baby was going to heaven.
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However, there are people who teach that God is free in his choosing of infants as much as he is free in his choosing of anyone else and that we cannot say for certain.
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And John Piper is one of those.
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And John Piper makes a compelling case.
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My point is this, John Piper, as you said, his books have been removed from bookstores because he was willing to say that the Bible doesn't say anything on it, that the that the most we get is implicit teaching.
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Another one that is very near to my heart because he's a dear friend is Dr.
56:12
James White.
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Dr.
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I said about the abortion being the greatest heaven filling device ever.
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He also made another point.
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There was a guy he said, I don't know if I should go here, this is not going to sound good.
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He was in a debate with an atheist.
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And the atheist said.
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God is not good because God lets babies die, he said, if you were walking by a house and you saw that the house was on fire and there was a baby inside crying, you would break the window or bust the door in and you go in and get that baby and take him out.
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But God every day watches babies die.
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And as such, he could stop it.
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But he chooses not to.
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And in choosing not to, that proves you are better natured than God.
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That's the atheists argue.
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Dr.
57:17
White responded masterfully.
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He said, number one.
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He said, God is sovereign and our days are numbered before we're ever born.
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He said, if you walk by a house and you saw baby Hitler and you knew not only what it was capable of, but what it was going to do.
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Everybody was as quiet as you all are, because nobody thinks about it from God's perspective.
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Anytime you deal with the issue of infant mortality, it becomes an emotional issue that is impossible to look at through rational eyes because it's an irrational thing.
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A baby is not supposed to die.
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We're supposed to live our lives until old age and die.
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As elderly people, we're not supposed to die as infants, and when that happens, it cuts us to the quick of our very soul because we know it's not what it's supposed to happen.
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That being said, though.
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It does.
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We have to face it, we have to deal with it, and as I said, I have preached from the implicit verses in the past.
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But I know in my heart the Bible is not explicit, I have to trust the goodness of God.
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I have to trust the righteousness of God.
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It's all I can do.
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And you know what? That's enough.
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And he does and he does such a topic like this is appropriate for a small group.
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I am so glad that not that the ones who would have come would have been unappreciative, but I'm really glad we had a small group tonight because such a topic as this deserves it.
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And I appreciate all of your attention.
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Let's.
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Father, thank you for this time.
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Thank you for just being able to deal with the subject of infant mortality and Lord, such a subject in our own churches has has has been one that has touched families even recently.
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And it's so hard to even talk about without seeing the faces of people who hurt.
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And Lord God, I just pray.
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That we not have a an attitude towards it as if it's a small or simple thing, because it is not.
01:00:06
We pray, oh, God, though, that at the same time that we would look at all things biblically and all things rationally and Lord God, we can't devoid ourselves of our emotions, but we can keep every thought captive, as Paul tells us to do, to take every thought captive and to be reminded that you are God and there is no other.
01:00:27
You are God and there is none like you.
01:00:30
In Jesus name.