Defending Calvinism: Irresistible Grace

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Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men. The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.

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I know that reference. I would have known that a couple of years ago. That's right. That's Luke DeBear. I'm Jeff, the

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And so great things are happening. Please be in prayer for that. That's all there is to it. Wanted to do another episode today on our series we've been doing at Apology Air Radio, Defending Calvinism.

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So if you are just getting into this conversation with us, we want you to know that we want to talk about these things, to unpack the

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Scriptures, and defend these things, because in the end, it makes much of God—of course, it's, we believe, thoroughly biblical and robust.

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But this issue of the doctrines of grace is really about explaining how gracious is grace.

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That's the issue. Because if you're Arminian, and we would say slightly inconsistent in some areas, you believe in the grace of God.

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But we're actually saying in this series that the grace of God is actually bigger, more powerful than oftentimes we talk about it.

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In terms of our real condition, and God's power to save, His love for the elect, all of those things.

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Why are we talking about this? Is it about division? Is it about winning arguments and getting it over on somebody who also loves

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Jesus along with us? No. We're saying the Scriptures are really clear on this, and it's tradition that's gotten in the way of making

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Jesus look as glorious as He truly is, and His atonement as powerful and effective as it truly is and was.

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And so for us, we're not doing this to just win debates or say, you should join our team. We're saying this is what the

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Bible says about God's grace and the atonement, and we think that that's very important to preserve the grace of God and the atonement itself.

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What does it actually accomplish? And so you've been listening, if you have been listening, you've heard us talk about the sovereignty of God over all this.

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You've heard us talking about man's condition, total inability or total depravity. You've heard us talking about unconditional election.

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You've heard us talking about definite redemption or limited atonement. And now we're in the eye of the tulip acrostic, and that is irresistible grace.

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We prefer what they meant was effectual grace, that this is a grace that is effective, and it's powerful to do what

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God intends for it to do. And so that's what we're talking about today. Before we get into the actual subject matter today,

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All right, on to the conversation today, Irresistible Grace. So when you think about Irresistible Grace, guys, and why this is important, what are some of the first things that come to your mind?

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Because for me, I've already explained, it's about demonstrating the power of God and the grace of God in the gospel, the way the

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Bible puts it. But when you think about Irresistible Grace and why this one in particular is so important, what are you thinking about?

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First, I was just going to say that we have some anti -monergists in the chat here, and our boy

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Pastor Fishbone is in there taking care of them for us, Fastest Hands in the West. Let's go,

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Trey. I'm sorry, I'm laughing because I'm watching this interaction here.

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Go ahead, answer that question. Well, since they brought it up, monergism contrasted with synergism.

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So mono, one, synergism, the view of salvation that says that there are two principles working together to accomplish this act.

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There's that of gods and that of the creatures. We who prescribe to the Reformed faith and a

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Reformed understanding of soteriology, how people are saved, would say that salvation is one power working upon the creature.

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And as soon as you start talking that way, though, you start to run into objections like, well, does that mean that God saves people against their will?

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Does that mean that because of his power, he drags them kicking and screaming into the kingdom of God?

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Is that what you're saying? I think to define exactly what we're talking about here, you said effectual, which is the word that gets at the heart of the meaning behind this, and that is that the

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Holy Spirit draws and raises from spiritual death to spiritual life all of God's elect.

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This is the work of God, the Holy Spirit, to affect the inward transformation of the person by the inward renewal of the heart.

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So this is the work of God that we're talking about in which

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God promised would take place under the new covenant in Ezekiel 36, in which he would sprinkle all of his people clean from their idols and their uncleannesses.

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He would remove the heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh, and he would cause his spirit to take up residence within his people, to cause them to be desirous of his law and the obedience to his commandments.

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So when we say that God's grace is irresistible, we mean that the Holy Spirit never fails to call, regenerate, and save those whom the

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Father has elected, and that Christ is redeemed. So we talked about unconditional election, being that this is an act of God on eternity past to choose a people for himself in Christ, and then

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Christ secures the redemption of those people. He dies on their behalf, in their place, as their substitute, and then at a particular moment in time, the

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Holy Spirit applies that work of redemption to the hearts of God's people. So it's the application of the redemption of Christ to the life of God's elect, right, his people.

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So when we talk about irresistible grace, we're really talking about the new birth. We're talking about John 3 stuff here, being born from above.

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You have to be born again, and that's not a work that you can accomplish in and of yourself. It's a work that God's Spirit does within us.

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And so I know jumping off into Scripture there is what we want to do, but maybe pause right there for a minute.

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Yeah, that's the explanation that everyone, I think, needs to hear, and we talk about monergism versus synergism.

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This is a discussion that's happened throughout the history of the Church, and it's interesting that we actually have

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Augustine on our side in this discussion, and I think it's a powerful testimony to just how interconnected this subject is to so many others, and people have seen it throughout

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Church history, and that's, you know, you've heard mentioned probably recently as we've been doing the Roman Catholic controversy at Church that you've got fallible and uninspired men after the time of the

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Apostles that said some amazing things and also did some tremendous faceplants. And so it's interesting in a moment like this, we're talking about effectual grace, we're talking about the grace of God, monergism.

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At the beginning, you know, we have even giants like Augustine behind us on this point, on the side of the angels, in many ways.

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You're talking about opposing Pelagianism and semi -Pelagianism, systems like that.

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This has been something that the Church has had to go through throughout our history, and especially during the time of the

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Reformation, this was a premier issue because it cuts to the heart of the grace of God in the

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Gospel, and what is our true condition, and what abilities do we have if we're not in Christ?

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How do we get into Christ? And that's why I read John 6 at the beginning here, because Jesus is very, very clear.

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In John 6 .37, Jesus says, All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me

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I will never cast out. I think in many ways, there's a summary of the five points, in many ways, in a single sentence.

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Obviously, you'd have to get into atonement discussion, but John 6 .37 is like, that's what we're aiming at with the doctrines of grace.

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God chooses the people in Christ. God is the one who brings them to Jesus.

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They come to Jesus. He draws them, and then Jesus never loses them. He never casts them out. Well, okay, there you go.

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You've got most of the five points represented there in thought, but then it goes on in the same passage.

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No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. So they've got no ability,

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John 6 .44. No one can. They have no ability to come to God unless the Father draws them. So they're there with no abilities.

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They're there, right? Dead, nothing, rebels, slaves to sin, John 8. Slaves to sin.

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The Son must set you free. Here they are dead, not able to come to the Father, and the Father must draw.

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Well, that's what we're getting at when we talk about effectual grace and irresistible grace. We're talking about a work of God in the gospel to save His elect, and it's something that He himself accomplishes because there is no spiritual ability in us.

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Getting the T right is really important. Exactly, and Jesus teaches it all throughout the gospel of John, our abilities and our deadness, and it's all there.

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Loving darkness rather than light, and we can go for days on that point. But there's another one,

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John 6 .65. It says no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by the

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Father. All right? And then here's the thing. Look, all synergistic systems that want to try to stay in a lane of grace that is biblical in Scripture will always give the nod to, yes,

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God must be the one who does the initiating because, yeah, we're rebels, and yeah, we're sinners, and God's got to be the one that saves.

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But the problem is for that kind of view where you want to have the synergistic perspective as some of God, some of me, but we can.

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We have the abilities in ourselves. You can't get away from what Jesus says there. No one can come to me.

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And no finagling by men like Leighton Flowers and no Pelagianist system that you put underneath that is going to get away from what

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Jesus says there. No one can come to me unless. No one can come to me.

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So you can sit and say all day long, like, but we still have those abilities. Jesus says no one can.

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No one can. That's what the text says. Try and get around it as you might.

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You're not going to change the text. So it's like the word free. Yeah. There's no one free. Yeah. It's pretty basic, pretty simple.

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Yeah, exactly. Really important. Exactly. But Jesus makes a point here when he says that the

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Father has this will for him that he lose none of all that has been given to him, and he raises it up on the last day.

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He raises them up on the last day. So no one can. The Father has to draw. The Father has to grant it. There's effectual grace.

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And if you say, oh, sure, God's got to do his part. Like, it can't be all us. Like, he's got to do the initiating.

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The problem is the text says that everyone the Father draws, Jesus raises up. So unless you want to be a universalist, right?

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You want to be consistent with Jesus here. If you want to be a universalist, you know, the text says that he raises up everyone the

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Father draws. Yeah. If Jesus calls someone, they're coming. Yes.

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Right? And that's really, I think, where the rubber meets the road in this. If we're talking about a person exercising their will to have saving faith in Christ, they cannot do that before something takes place.

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Right. And that something that has to take place is they have to be made alive. Yeah. So, go ahead.

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I was just going to say, well, one, it looks like Walter Martin's back from the dead in our chat thread, which is kind of cool. But for me, like, just going back to the original question you asked, because I wanted to really think through that.

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It's really simple. Like, obviously, when we're talking about the doctrine of grace, we always start with the sovereignty of God. And so, really, each point should point back to God's sovereignty some way or another.

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And for me, irresistible grace is just like God's not totally sovereign if you can resist him.

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That would make you have the ability to one -up a sovereign God. And so, it's really that simple for me.

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It's like either God's totally sovereign or he's kind of sovereign. Right. And in this discussion about irresistible grace, effectual grace, and regeneration, and monergism versus synergism, you brought up a point,

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Zach, about John 3. Now, John 3 is a passage of Scripture that all of us should know well.

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I mean, everybody's familiar with the passage about you must be born again. We all know the famous passage from John 3 .16.

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It's what is the most famous passage in the world, for God so loved the world that he gave. So, we know this chapter very easily.

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And if you just did a Bible reading plan and just started with maybe John, it's only three chapters in.

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So, hopefully, you've touched this before. But in John 3, there's an important discussion. And I think oftentimes we've gotten this wrong as evangelicals.

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Christians have gotten this wrong and not paid close attention to what Jesus is saying here.

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And so, I'm going to read it because I think it has everything to do with what the expectation was of the Spirit of God in the New Covenant and what was going to take place.

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Totally consistent with what Jesus says in John 6 and John 10 and all the rest. But it says this in John 3 .1,

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Now, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him,

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Rabbi, we know that you're a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.

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Jesus answered him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

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Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?

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Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

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That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you,

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You must be born again. Now, listen closely here. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

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So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. Now, I'm going to just pause there for a moment.

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I confess readily that as a young believer loving the Gospel of John and reading that section,

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I didn't have a clue what in the world he was talking about. I just couldn't embrace, like, what exactly? He's talking about wind. How are you talking about born again, water,

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Spirit, mother's womb? And then we're talking about wind blowing wherever it wishes. Like, I just never made the connection point until you really understand the point.

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Right. And you think about what Jesus is quoting from. Now, here's where I think we've gone wrong. And by I say we,

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I used to hold an erroneous perspective on this, and it wasn't until I really let the text be the text and say, well, yeah,

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Jesus is confronting him. So what was he referring to? This isn't like a conversation that has some, it's disconnected from everything.

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And you can sort of figure it out from the point Jesus makes the conversation. Like, what exactly is he talking about? No, Jesus makes the point here that you're supposed to know what

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I'm talking about, Nicodemus. This conversation about water and Spirit, this new birth thing, this is something you're supposed to know because you're a teacher of Israel.

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So here's where it says it. It says in verse 9, Nicodemus said to him, how can these things be? Jesus answered him, are you the teacher of Israel?

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And yet you do not understand these things. Okay, so wait, that indictment doesn't make any sense if this conversation about being born again and being born of the water and the

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Spirit has not occurred before, right? So in other words,

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Jesus is indicting him like he does the disciples on the road to Emmaus, you're supposed to know that this is gonna happen, guys.

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Foolish and slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken. Like, why are you guys on this road weeping? Wasn't it necessary for the

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Messiah to die and rise again? Like, you're supposed to know this? And that's another moment here in John where Jesus goes,

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Nicodemus, are you the teacher of Israel? You don't know what I'm talking about? Water and Spirit. And so that should cause us as Christians to go, he's being indicted for not knowing his

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Bible. He's the teacher, he's supposed to know this. Okay, so where in the previous revelation of God did this conversation actually happen?

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And so all you have to do is just do a word study. Go, whoa, is there any passage of Scripture that talks about water, Spirit, and like talks about new birth and new life?

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Ah, lo and behold, there is. Ezekiel 36. It's Ezekiel's whole theme at many points.

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Ezekiel 37, the Valley of the Dry Bones. It's the coming new covenant age, the coming

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Spirit of God in the new covenant, the new covenant temple, like all that stuff is right there in Ezekiel.

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But Ezekiel 36, just go read it later. Go read it later. But some points of contact in Ezekiel 36.

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God says that he's going to act, and he's not doing it for Israel's sake.

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He's doing it for his name's sake. You've profaned my name among all the nations.

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And so God basically is saying, and I'm going to act for my name's sake. And here's what he's going to do.

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He says he's going to sprinkle clean water on you and cleanse you of all your idols.

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It says that he's going to put his Spirit within you. And he says, cause you to observe my statutes.

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And so you've got water, you've got Spirit. There's more you can read there in Ezekiel 36.

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Just go read it. You'll see the whole context. But God makes a promise to Israel that's related to this new covenant temple, that's related to the new covenant age, that's related to regeneration.

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It's a promise of the new covenant Spirit, the cleansing, all the idols, sprinkling water, and being filled with the

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Spirit of God. Oh, there you go. Okay, that all relates.

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And it all relates to something that God acts in and power from God coming from God.

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I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it for my name's sake. Here's what I'm gonna do. I will sprinkle clean water on you and cleanse you from all your idols.

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I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to observe my statutes. And so you see that that conversation is there.

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Now you have a conversation with Nicodemus. Jesus says, you must be born again. You must be born of the water and the Spirit. And Nicodemus is like, how do

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I do this? And Jesus is like, wind blows where it wishes. Yeah, and I think that one of the most powerful things about that statement is it's obvious, isn't it?

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You can't command the wind. You can't control it. What do I do? Well, the wind blows where it wishes.

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Right. Nicodemus. Right, this is, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. That's really what we're talking about here is the power to bring about that which is new.

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2 Corinthians 4, God who said, let light shine out of darkness. Well, when did he do that? That creation.

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God who said, let light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus.

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So, God who spoke, let there be, and there was, light in darkness, order from chaos, meaning, purpose, beauty, new life.

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That same God that spoke in creation and brought everything into being. James picks up on this in James chapter 1, right?

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What does he say? Of his own will, he brought you forth. Of his own will.

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Of his own will, he brought you forth that you would be a kind of firstfruits, the firstfruits of the new creation, your new creature in Christ.

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And that word, the phrase right there, of his own will, he brought us forth. It's referring to birth. He created you in Christ Jesus to be made new.

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And the way that he did that was what he did in creation. He said, let there be light into your heart.

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And there was light in the midst of that darkness to give you the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus.

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What does that mean? It means that God shone his light in your heart so that you could see Jesus for the glory that he is, be captured by his beauty, his majesty, and have your will renewed so that you could actually come to him to enable you to come to him, to see him as glorious, as the greatest treasure.

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You're making an important point. Are we already going on an hour? Half. I've been doing it half so we can do it.

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Okay, okay. Well, on the point that you're making there, this is important.

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We could do all the texts, and I think we've gone through quite a bit of them about everyone who was predestined, believed, and all those things.

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And you've got these people that the Father's given to Jesus, and they will come. The Father grants it. The Father draws. You could do all that, but we're talking about specifics here in terms of operation.

29:53

Yeah. Order of salvation, even, too. Yeah, exactly. So we're talking about the

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Father chooses the people in Jesus Christ. Jesus comes, and he pays the price, lives the perfect life, represents them.

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The Holy Spirit of God is the one who applies that salvation and redemption to the elect.

30:12

And so we have this, the doctrines of grace demonstrates the unity and love within the members of the

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Trinity. The triune God, the Father's involved, the Son's involved, the Holy Spirit's involved. Each one has a role to play in the salvation of the elect, right?

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But when you think about this operation of, okay, how does that get applied? The Father chose me.

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The Father draws. Jesus dies, represents me. He pays that price. He receives in himself what's due to me.

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The Father laid on him the iniquity of us all. But then, okay, how's that work out in my own life?

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Because, yeah, granted, we don't know who the elect are. No one knows who the elect are, right?

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I mean, in terms of, you're not going out doing evangelism going, you get these special spiritual eyes where all the elect are like, they come up to you and they're fluorescent or something.

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And you're like, I know who you are. Yeah, don't have it. All we know is what Scripture says about the people in front of us is that they're dead in the sins and trespasses by nature children of wrath.

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And if not for the but God part, we're all toast, we're all lost.

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But God made us alive together with him by grace you've been saved. And so we're waiting for that.

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You're dead by nature a child of wrath, but God made us alive together with him by grace you've been saved.

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There's effectual grace. There's irresistible grace. It's you're dead, God made you alive. Well, that's regeneration.

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That's all we're saying. What can a dead man do? How could you say that, no, I'm the one that sort of like,

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I reached my hand out and because I clasped it and we worked together, well, that's how this all worked out. No, that's not what

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Paul says. You're dead. You weren't just drowning by nature of children were drowned. Yeah, you weren't sort of like neutral for it towards God.

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Like, you know, kind of like God kind of don't not really sure. That's not really true about any of us. Could that be said of Lazarus in the grave?

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Right. Could he have offered a word of protest? No, I will not be brought forth from the grave. And sinner just hate it when you point out those signs and symbols which are meaningful.

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God is big on signs. God is big on symbolism. And sinner just hate it when you point that out. But look, it's not just the sign itself.

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As we're saying, Scripture says you're dead. Scripture says you're enslaved. And unless a son sets you free, you know, that it's all, it's so clear.

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It's abundantly clear. But we get so lost in our traditions that we don't let the text just say what it says. Oh, you're dead. So when we're out doing evangelism, why this is important is because in terms of how

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Scripture says the operation takes place, you're dead. God must make you alive. And so what's my role?

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I preach the gospel. I don't have to manipulate people. I don't have to placate to people. I don't have to be anything but just faithful and tell the truth and just be loving, gracious, bold.

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And I just say, this is the gospel. This is what God did. And so the call of the gospel, God commands men everywhere to repent.

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The call of the gospel is repent and believe the good news. Turn to Christ and live. And trust in Jesus for the gift of eternal life.

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I just give that message. And I know that the Spirit of God is going to bring that message into the hearts and minds of the elect.

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He will use it to condemn and confront the unbelievers, the people who hate

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God, and the people that God has chosen to leave in their sin. And it's just going to be a further indictment upon them.

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Even when God's love and grace is proclaimed in the public square, they hate God. And so it's just going to be an indictment upon them that they don't want

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God. They never did want God. But when it comes to the elect, when God gives grace to the elect, He raises the dead to life so they can see

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Jesus and believe. And in terms of, again, operation, how does God do this? Well, Scripture is abundantly clear on this as well.

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And again, this is like a cursory study we're doing right now, guys. It's not comprehensive. But I'll give you an example.

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It's an important distinction you make, too, between the outward call, right? The message of salvation being freely offered, right?

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Whosoever will may come, right? The gospel call, that needs to be distinguished from the inward call, which is the effectual call of Christ's voice to His sheep that they will respond to.

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They will come to. They cannot resist that, if you want to use that word. The outward call, people resist all the time.

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They're out proclaiming the gospel. Ah, I hate God. No, Jesus, you know, all the resistance, right? But when

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Jesus calls His sheep, when they hear His voice, they come. Spiritually alive people do spiritually alive things.

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Spiritually dead people do spiritually dead things. And so if God has made us alive together with Him, by grace you've been saved.

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By the way, it's important for us to keep noting on that point. When Paul is giving a definition of by grace you've been saved, he doesn't just say

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God's gracious and He saved you. God provided a way, and now it's up to you to cooperate, and there's some grace there.

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He actually defines that by grace you've been saved in terms of you were dead by nature or child of wrath.

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God made you alive. By grace you've been saved. And that's why we're doing this series because that's the grace of God I want to defend.

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It is a grace that is a God's grace that is a powerful grace. But in terms of operation, how does this work?

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In 2 Timothy 2, verse 23, it says,

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Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies. You know that they breed quarrels, and the

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Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil.

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Here it is. Correcting his opponents with gentleness, if God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth.

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And they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.

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So there's the snare of the devil. There are people who are in sin and opposition to God.

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And what's being said here is that God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth.

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Right? Repentance. And now I understand the truth. Right? And God grants the repentance.

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So we can't do repenting on our own. Dead people don't. People who are spiritually alienated from God, who are hostile to God, they don't do repenting on their own.

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What can a dead man do? Nothing. You've got to plant that desire in your heart. Those who are in the flesh cannot please

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God. They cannot do what's pleasing to God. So if you're in the flesh, and there's a flesh and there's a spirit, if you're in the flesh, if you are an unbeliever, if you're still in hostility towards God, you're not in Christ.

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You're in the flesh. You're not in the spirit. It says that you cannot do what is pleasing to God, like repent, like believe, like submit to God.

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Right? And so God raises people. God grants repentance. And then we know, of course, Philippians 129, famous passage, one of my favorites.

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And I think Pastor James makes a good point when he says like, we've read this verse so many times, but we miss the glory of what

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God is doing in this, because we see the word suffer and we're like, I don't want that. I don't like that verse because it mentioned suffering.

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But Philippians 129 very clearly says, for it has been given to you, that's granted to you, gifted to you on Christ's behalf, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him.

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So we get two things there, according to the Apostle Paul, under inspiration. We get two things in this verse.

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One, as a gift, we get faith, believing in Christ.

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Two, as a gift, we get suffering for him. And so the text is clear.

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It's a gift of God to believe in Jesus. It's a gift of God to suffer for Jesus. So gift of faith there, believing in Jesus is something that God gives as a gift.

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It's not something we conjured up in ourselves. It's not even a part of Paul's theology. It's not part of Paul's anthropology that the dead man has the ability to believe.

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It's not his anthropology. And so you might have a tradition that says, no, no, he really can. And what I'm saying to you is, you need to do a study on Paul's anthropology.

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What does he believe about man and his abilities? Because if you take everything he says about man and his abilities, and of course,

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Jesus, and the rest of scripture, you'll see... He's not optimistic. Yeah, it's not good for him.

38:34

And I'll give you one more, and this is, again, this is not comprehensive, but just in terms of maybe even some of the ones you're already familiar with.

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In Ephesians chapter two, every Christian knows this. I mean, I hope you do.

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If I were to say to you, by grace, you have been saved, everybody would finish it, right? After all you can do.

38:52

Yeah, yeah. That's not the Mormon version. The revisionist version. Ephesians two, by the way, this is the same section we've already just talked about.

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This is the section where he says in verse one of chapter two, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins, which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

39:25

Oh, so that does include everybody. You see, that's really important too when it comes to these provisionists today and trying to find ways to work around this because the text is clear.

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You were by nature a child of wrath like the rest of mankind. Nobody's out of that.

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Nobody's out of that. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, like the rest of mankind, he made us alive together with Christ.

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By grace you have been saved. So, and he goes on. Here's the verse eight. For by grace you have been saved through faith.

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And this, what did he just talk about? Grace and faith. And this is not your own doing.

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It is the gift of God. So, what's the gift of God? The grace of salvation, raising us to life, faith that we believe in Christ and we are saved and we're given the gift of eternal life.

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This is a gift of God, the grace and the faith. Not a result of work so that no one may boast.

40:27

So, why does God want to preserve this? This view of grace? So that he gets the glory.

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So he gets the glory and no one can boast. So, I don't like Christian traditions and systems that allow for man to boast.

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And that's why I want to preserve this because that's the grace of God described to us in Holy Scripture.

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It's that gracious so that no one brags in any way on anything that they have done in this whole thing.

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It's all God's glory. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which

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God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Sounds like God is sovereign over the whole situation.

41:07

That's the deal. Yeah, and so like, it's just funny like reading some of the comments here and like people are literally just not even listening to what we're saying.

41:15

Right, tradition will do that. Yeah, it's like we've spent 40 minutes now literally exegeting the text, excuse me, going through the verses and then people are like,

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Oh, you're just proof texting. It's like, are you even listening and where's your text? Just a good point here.

41:35

This man here, Jeff Engstrom, makes a comment that just shows, and I'm sorry I'll say this as graciously as I can to you and I hope that it challenges you, abject ignorance of what we believe and what we're saying.

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He says, the fact that Jeff is trying to convince us of something tells me he does not believe in the sovereignty of God. No, tell me that you don't understand reform theology or any of what we believe without telling me that you do.

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There's your comment right there. You don't understand the system you're arguing with. We believe that God is sovereign and that God not only has a decree that's clear in scripture that he does, he declares the end from the beginning, does according to his will and the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.

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He does all that he pleases. We can go for days on that as well. But God demonstrates very clearly in his word that God doesn't simply have a decree, but he works through means.

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Creation and providence in particular. He works through means. He uses his people. The message comes from his bride.

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He uses the means of his people and the proclamation of his word and the role of the Holy Spirit to change our minds, to change our hearts, to bring new life.

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So when someone says, well, if you believe God's sovereign, why are you doing anything? Because that's not how the Bible describes God's sovereignty.

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And so I would highly encourage you, and I mean this as a loving nudge, to actually study the system that you're arguing with.

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Otherwise, you leave records of public ignorance as you just did. So I would encourage

43:02

Reform, Doctrine, and Predestination by Lorraine Bettner. That's a fantastic book, chock full of lots of scripture for you to digest.

43:10

But I'd encourage you to actually, again, study the system before you try to argue against it.

43:15

Yeah. And so I was just going to say, we all know that people that want to argue against this position really have to get very creative and dance a jig.

43:27

Like Leighton Flowers, you mentioned he was the king of literally just making things up in order to get out of what the clear teaching of scripture is.

43:33

But going back to the passage of Nicodemus, I want to do a little answer the fool according to his folly.

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Unless you're born again, you cannot even see. And so the opposite of that, what these people would be arguing for is the ability to see before being born again, right?

43:55

So being able to choose and not resist God's grace, being able to choose his grace, being able to choose salvation, faith, whatever word you want to throw in there without actually being born again.

44:08

And that's literally, it's the exact opposite of what Jesus was saying. And so it's just mind -boggling to me that people can't see that.

44:19

And again, it's tradition. Like you said, it's just pure tradition that gets you away from the plain teaching of scripture.

44:25

Yeah, and just one thing to point out, this is more of a historical note. This is not making the argument from the

44:30

Bible specifically as we've been doing here this whole episode. But it would be good to note the great missionary efforts that have taken place over the last couple of hundred years.

44:42

Some of the greatest missionary efforts of the last couple hundred years, the Great Awakening stuff, these were things that were led by, supported by, driven by Reformed folks and Calvinists.

44:55

And so clearly the system itself that we're drawing from scripture doesn't lead to a view of sovereignty and evangelism that you think that it does in terms of, well, why do anything at all?

45:08

And why are you even trying to convince anybody? And why preach the gospel? Well, if you know what the scriptures teach here, that Jesus says he's not going to lose any that the

45:17

Father has given to him, I'll tell you what, that's a driving force behind me going to preach the gospel. Have you ever stood out in a street with Satanists yelling at you and throwing things at you?

45:26

People cursing at you where your life is in danger at times? Have you ever gone and preached in difficult situations in back alleys?

45:33

Have you ever stood in front of an abortion mill with hostile people and witches and Satanists and transgenders and people who want to hurt you?

45:41

Have you ever had people try to hit you with their car or pull a gun on you? We do all those things not because we're really special, but because we want to make much of Jesus' preaches, gospel as commanded.

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And guess what? We know that our God is powerful enough to take that dead person and raise him to life.

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And so I know it's not going to be anything to do with me. I'm going to be there and be present and be the means by which God uses to bring that person to life.

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And I don't have to do anything in my own flesh and power and everything else to make it happen. He will save because he's mighty to save.

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And he has the ability to save. And so we go to the hard places, we do the hard missions and all the rest because God is sovereign over it all.

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Even if you look at like, there's tough moments in history. This is close to our hearts.

46:27

And so I'll bring this one up. The mission to the Hawaiian Islands. I sometimes think about what those people did and how they did that.

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And I think that we are absolute wusses. We are wusses.

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We are still in the process of really trying to win the island of Kauai to Christ. We have a passion for it.

46:47

We know that there's a need there. We're all committed to it and just trusting the

46:53

Lord to finally make it happen. But you know what? Let's be honest. We got to fly airplanes. It's a six hour flight from Phoenix to Lihue.

47:02

And yeah, there was tough ministry there and people hated us there. And there's locals that resisted the exclusive nature and claims of Christ for salvation.

47:11

And it's a hard place to live and all that stuff. But let's be honest. We flew an airplane. We didn't have to get on a boat or even go across country from the

47:20

East Coast to get our way to the West Coast and then get our way to Hawaiian Islands. We didn't have to spend weeks or months or whatever on a ship or a stagecoach or a horseback.

47:30

We didn't have to do any of that stuff. We're wusses. We just got on an airplane and flew for six hours and complained about how our back hurt from the seats being too close together or something.

47:39

We're just wusses. Or we stayed there and the air conditioning didn't work really great in my room.

47:47

It's just like these people, they left their entire world behind. They couldn't even communicate with family.

47:53

And they just gave everything up to go just, let's go preach the gospel to these people that need Jesus. And they win the entire island, the

48:02

Hawaiian Islands essentially to Christ in a period of like 20 years. Right.

48:08

Oh, by the way, they were Reformed missionaries. So there's that. So there's that.

48:13

You see my point? It's like what drives people to do from a human perspective absolutely stupid things.

48:21

It's stupid. It's humanly speaking in terms of like if this isn't true, what you did was stupid.

48:26

Left all your safety, all your financial strength behind you, your ability to care for your children and you go to risk your life, travel like that at that time period to go and preach the gospel.

48:37

Well, what drives people to do such a thing? Oh, maybe it's an understanding that God is sovereign. He has elect and he's going to bring them.

48:43

And so I just need to kind of show up and present the gospel so God does his work. Because we're the means that God does it.

48:49

We're the means of grace. So it's a great, great illustration. Yeah. You want to throw some stuff out there about rapier?

48:56

Yeah. So speaking of Reformed believers, a couple I want to mention to you. One is Amtech Blades.

49:02

We got a little display of blades and battle axes and all kinds of goodies.

49:08

Bill's amazing. He's a good, he's a Reformed elder at his church and I just want you guys, if you're a fan of the show, go to, he's got two different Insta channels,

49:23

Amtech Blades and Amtech Shooting. He's been putting up a lot of videos. Really great, helpful stuff if you're into self -defense and shooting.

49:32

He also just started a YouTube channel against Amtech Blades, Bill Rapier.

49:38

Go sign up for his channels and subscribe. He's amazing. And you can get yourself a blade if you go to AmtechBlades .com,

49:46

put an apology in the coupon code and you get 5 % off your order. And he also gives 5 % to an abortion now, which is pretty sweet.

49:56

And then also HeritageDefense .org. I keep mentioning it and I mean it, especially the way things are going.

50:02

If you're a homeschool family, you got to go sign up with HeritageDefense, HeritageDefense .org, apology in the coupon code and you get your first month free.

50:10

Make sure your family is protected. Yeah. Obviously everyone knows the times we're in right now.

50:15

It'd be good to have that for your family where if somebody shows up at your door, you get questioned on social media posts, you're opposing the current cultural zeitgeist in whatever form it's coming in.

50:28

And if people show up at your door, they accuse you of hate speech or whatever the case may be because you're proclaiming Christ or calling people to repentance or you're naming particular sins, it'd be good for you to have a lawyer on the phone immediately.

50:39

You can hand the phone to them at your door and say, talk to my lawyer. And it's at such a ridiculously, ridiculously low cost to have an attorney on standby.

50:48

It's really affordable. Let's be honest, it's stupid cheap to have an attorney on standby like HeritageDefense.

50:55

So get on it, guys. Just real quick, somebody had asked the question. I don't know if this is in jest and I'm pretty sure it was, but it's a good point to make.

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Why evangelize if God is sovereign? Let's end with this. Was that Tee Fish? Yeah. Oh, I didn't even see who the name was by it.

51:12

Okay. It's important. Let's end the discussion today with this because it's really important.

51:18

It's going to come up a lot. Why evangelize if God is sovereign? Well, first of all, God commands us to evangelize.

51:24

So first of all, God commands you to evangelize. But I would actually first start answering the question by saying it this way.

51:31

Why are you evangelizing if God is not sovereign? Because if God has tried to save,

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God has provided everything possible and the Holy Spirit's call, inward call can be thwarted.

51:45

People can resist God's desire to save them. The creator of all things, the all powerful God can want to save, try to save and fail to save.

51:54

If you know that God has already done everything he possibly can and that it's up to the creature himself, then my question to you is why are you evangelizing?

52:03

God's already done his part. He's done everything he can. You already know that the creature can be stronger than the creator. And so my question to you is why are you evangelizing?

52:10

When I go to evangelism, when we go to evangelism, we go to evangelism with the scriptures underneath us knowing that God is fully sovereign.

52:18

He will save. He's mighty to save. He can save anybody, anywhere, anytime. It's all according to him.

52:23

He can raise the dead. It doesn't matter how hostile they are towards God. If God by his spirit wants to move in somebody's life to have them see the truth, believe the truth, repent and believe,

52:34

God will accomplish it. Nothing is going to thwart that process. And so what I do is

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I lean on that promise that the gospel is the power of God for salvation. So I go out and I give it. I throw those seeds out.

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I give that gospel. I give that gospel because God's the one who saves. And I know that even though no one can come to Jesus, the

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Father is the one who draws. And when he draws, Jesus raises them up. And so I go with 100 % confidence that I have a 100 % success rate when

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I evangelize. I have a 100 % success rate. God had the plan. I go.

53:08

I preach the gospel. Some come to Christ and some don't. It's 100 % success rate.

53:15

How'd you like that for a course? We guarantee 100 % success rate results of evangelism.

53:20

Here's my course. And that doesn't mean that you're always going to see everyone come to Jesus. It means the ones that God intended to save, he will save and no one's going to stop him.

53:29

And so that's why we evangelize because God is sovereign. I've talked about this before, but I was doing evangelism before I was reformed.

53:38

And it was just like when predestination clicked for me, it was like this giant weight was lifted off my back because before that, it was like, man,

53:48

I got to get everything exactly right. I can't mess this up. It would depend on me for some reason.

53:55

And then when I realized, oh, no, this is just God and his work, it was just so freeing.

54:00

I was like, I'm just going to go be myself, be genuine, be truthful, and yeah, just like this giant monkey off my back.

54:07

You don't walk away beating yourself up over I should have said this or if I just would have included this, then that would have made the difference.

54:14

It's like, no, man, you can leave it to God. Can we end on a Bettner quote here? Yeah. So from the

54:20

Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, this is what Lorraine Bettner says. As the physical eye, once blinded, cannot be restored to sight by any amount or intensity of light falling upon it.

54:32

So the soul dead in sin cannot acquire spiritual vision by any amount of gospel truth presented to it unless the surgeon's knife or a miracle restore the eye to its normal condition.

54:46

Sight is impossible, and unless the soul be set right through regeneration, it will never comprehend and accept the gospel truth.

54:55

In regeneration, God bids the sinner live, and immediately, he is alive, filled with a new spiritual life.

55:03

That's right. Amen. You can always end with Bettner. Always. Never a bad decision. It's never bad.

55:09

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