Answering Objections to Calvinism

John 6 and the Doctrines of Grace

Open your Bible to John chapter 6. You know, we've been here so many times before, and at this point, you've probably memorized most of this, and that was part of what I wanted to do. John chapter 6 is a good place that expresses all that we've been talking about down to a single point.

John chapter 6, if you start in verse 35, you'll see what we often call the doctrines of grace, the five points of Calvinism. You'll see them really expressed here in the teaching of Jesus, the words of God.

Today is a little different, since this is the last of our series, I wanted to address not all, but a few of the major challenges to the freedom of God in salvation, the grace of God, the unmerited grace of God in salvation to unworthy people.

And so, today is really just working through some of those major challenges. But the core here, what matters most, is not the philosophy, it's not the confessions, it's not a clique that you're a part of.

What matters the most is what does the Word of God say? As a matter of fact, when the Apostle Paul, as he explains the gospel, when he wants to deliver the death blow, when he wants to give you the maneuver that actually takes out the jugular, he doesn't do it based upon tradition and philosophy, although he can go there, and he does many times go there.

He does it by saying this, what does the Scripture say? And he goes back to the Word of God. And as Christians, we know that confessions can be good and healthy and helpful. They can act as guardrails to the Bible and to the truth.

We recognize that the ultimate standard, the ultimate authority that we appeal to for whatever we believe, whatever we preach and teach, the ultimate authority is the Word of God. The Bible says that all Scripture is theionoustos, it is breathed out by God, is God-breathed.

Revelation.

God has disclosed Himself to people, He's let us know about Himself, and we can have certainty about what is true because God's told us. And so, if you want to go to the source, the principium, you go to the Word of God, you go to what is God said, and that's where this is summarized.

In John chapter 6, starting in verse 35, hear now the words of the living and true God. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst.

But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never cast down. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent.

Me.

And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given to Me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise Him up on the last day.

So the Jews grumbled about Him because He said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. They said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, I have come down from heaven?

Here it is. Jesus answered them, do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who has sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. Thus far is the reading of God's Word.

Let's pray. God, please bless this last message in this series. It's coming, God, from an unworthy servant, of course, in ourselves, to an unworthy people, and we need, God, Your grace. We need You to teach.

We need You to, God, illuminate, open up our eyes. Give us understanding, God. I pray that You would allow us, God, to have the humility to lay aside traditions and philosophies and presuppositions that are not in accordance with Your Word.

Help us, God, to embrace what You say. Give us the ability, God, to do so. Give us the ability, God, to put down haughtiness. Help us to see Your Word for what it is and to listen to what You say. And I pray, God, that as a result of this series, God, You would use it to shape our minds and hearts, not just in this room, but believers around the world.

You'd use it, God, to raise people up, to love You, to worship You, to be in awe of You, and to serve You. God, use this for Your glory and not ours. In Jesus' name, amen. Hey, Summer. Hey, what did your dad used to say to you?

It comes from this text.

It's a word.

It's a G word. He'd tell you to stop, what? Gungus? Gungus mooing. Dr. White talks about how he would say to his kids when they were, you know, being little.

Pests.

You can't imagine Summer ever being a pest, right? But, you know, being the kind, you know, grumbling, moaning, complaining. Of course, only Dr. White would actually use this with his own kids, right?

Like, stop gungus mooing. What are you talking about, right? Stop gungus mooing. And he gets that from this text here where it says that the Jews were grumbling, and Jesus answered them, do not grumble among yourselves.

Don't, and that's where, stop gungus mooing, right? Don't do that. What's interesting here in the text as we work through the doctrines of grace and we think about what really matters in the foundations, did you notice what happened there?

Did you notice it? Jesus is talking to a crowd of people, and this crowd of people, they're there hanging out with Jesus, following the Messiah. They look like they're followers of Jesus. I'd be willing to bet if you had asked any of them, or the majority of them, who's the Messiah, I think they probably would have pointed to Jesus, and they would have said, well, I think he is, right?

Isn't that what we're doing here? Like that's the Messiah? I think that they would have said, well, that's the Messiah, and maybe I'm identifying with.

Him.

The Unbelief of the Crowd and the Father's Gift

And Jesus says that to them. He says, you've seen me, and yet you don't believe. He knows the condition of their hearts. He knows whether their faith is real, and watch. He didn't say, you're not doing enough, you're not accomplishing enough, you're not in yourselves righteous enough.

He says, you've seen me, and you don't believe. So he knows the conditions of their hearts, and what's interesting is these large crowds follow Jesus, and he says, you've seen me, you don't believe, but he says in response to their unbelief, they're not believing.

These aren't people who are believers and fall away. He says, you don't believe, you've seen, you don't believe, but he says this, all that the Father gives to me will come to me. So you have a people that have been given to Jesus Christ.

That much is clear from the text, that the Father has given a people to Jesus Christ, and what Jesus says about those people is that, watch, you've seen, you don't believe, all of this lot of people that the Father has given to me, they will come to me.

No question. It's gonna happen, it's guaranteed. It's not a maybe, it's not wishful thinking, Jesus hopes so, Jesus says, all the ones the Father has given to me, they will come to me, and he says, I will never cast them out.

That's a teaching of Jesus. And he says that he'll raise them up on the last day, and what's interesting here about Jesus in this text, and there's so many we can go to to talk about the freedom of God, and the grace of God and salvation, and his sovereignty, there's so many.

But in this text here, Jesus says something about the will of God that you can't miss. Because when we lose the biblical view of grace and the sovereignty of God, you lose any meaning in these promises.

Does it matter? Is the study of the sovereignty of God and the grace of God and Calvinism, this conflict, does it matter? Is it something we should actually lay aside? I would say, yes, it matters, because if you distort grace, if you distort the sovereignty of God, if you distort texts like this, then you distort the narrative of the Scriptures, you distort the message of the Scriptures, you distort redemption.

You lose these promises. When you say it's possible for Jesus to have purchased somebody, and for him to have brought someone to himself, and then he loses them, his atonement was for not, for nothing.

If you say that, then you lose any hope in these passages. Jesus says, watch, I've come down from heaven not to do my own will. He submits himself to the Father. He says, but to do the will of him who has sent me.

And he says, this is it, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given to me. And you have to ask yourself this question. Do we believe that it's possible for Jesus to fail in his mission to do the will of God?

Is it possible for Jesus, the Lord of glory, the Messiah, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the divine Son of God, God, the Son, the second person of the Trinity, is it possible for him to actually fail in his mission in the world?

I say no. It's utterly impossible for the all-powerful God to fail in something. And Jesus says, this is what I'm here to do, that I lose none of all that he has given to me, but raise it up at the last day.

And they're grumbling about it, because he says, you don't really believe. And so they're grumbling about it. And he says this, no man can come to me. They're grumbling about what he said, about what he just laid before them.

You've seen and you don't believe. All that the Father gives will come, and I'll never lose them. I'll raise them up. And now they're grumbling about that. He just nailed them. You're not really believing.

And what he says to them is this, more sovereignty, more Calvinism laying on thick. He says what? John 6, 44, no man can come to me. No man is able to come to me. But Jesus, that's offensive. He just took away the idea of free will.

But my free will, bro, right? No man can come to me. No man is able to come to me. What do you mean, Jesus? And Jesus says, no man is able to come to me unless something happens, unless the Father who has sent me draws him.

Who's the him?

The one who had no ability to come. Unless the Father who has sent me draws him. And Jesus says this, and I will raise him up. I will raise up the one the Father draws. What matters here is the grace of God.

Watch.

Watch.

Name the religion, name the God, name the religious text. What do they always distort? Of course, they distort who Jesus is. That always takes place. And counterfeit Christian cults, religions that ape Christianity, they distort the person of Jesus Christ.

But what does every religion distort? The grace of God and sin. They all do it. They always say sin is not so sinful. We're not so really bad off. But what they usually say about the grace of God is that it's not enough.

Now it's rare to find any religion that will say grace isn't necessary. Almost every religion says grace is necessary. Mormonism says grace is necessary. Roman Catholicism says grace is necessary. Jehovah's Witnesses say grace is necessary.

It's actually rare to find people who are truly Pelagian in their view, believing that you don't really need the grace of God, that you've got the power in yourself to do it. But it's rare to find that.

Islam says grace is necessary. Allah must give you grace. You can't do it apart from Him. So again, religions will generally say grace is necessary. However, it is only biblical Christianity, it is only the Reformed faith that says that grace is not only necessary, but God's grace is sufficient.

It's actually sufficient to accomplish what God commands of it. God's grace is sufficient and means that God is able in His power and with His love and mercy and grace to raise people from the dead to life.

Nobody can thwart His purposes. Nobody can stop God when He determines to save a rebel sinner. Nothing in the universe can stop Him. No circumstances, no people, no devices and schemes, nothing can stop the God of the universe when He determines to set His love upon a dead rebel sinner and to raise them to life.

He will accomplish all of His purposes. That's why I put in the text today for our Bible verse for today, Psalm 135. You can read it also in Psalm 115. You can read it also in Isaiah chapters 40 through 46, what?

That He is God alone in the heavens above and on the earth below. He does what He pleases.

Where?

In heaven, on earth, in the deep. There isn't a place in this universe where God doesn't sovereignly wield His authority. He's completely sovereign, not kind of sovereign. What we're saying as Christians, as Reformed folks, is that we don't merely tip the hat at God's sovereignty.

We say when we say God is sovereign, we mean sovereign, sovereign, completely sovereign, not halfway sovereign, partly sovereign.

He's sovereign.

He's in control of everything, which means that you can say as a Christian with hope, with courage and boldness, that if something happens in this world, it is according to God's own purpose and that nothing ever comes into my life that wasn't first strained through the sovereign hands of God.

That He determines, He decreed what would and wouldn't happen in His world. That it's His Word that gives history its shape. That's the God that we're talking about. So that as Christians, you can say in the blessing, in the garden, or in the trial and curse in the desert, God is sovereign and God is enough.

He's enough. He does according to His will. That's why Christians have been able to go to the stake and be burned at the stake. Why Christians have let goods and kindred go and their mortal lives also.

Why Christians have laid everything down to bring the gospel to foreign lands, to hostile people. Why would a believer bring the gospel to a tribe of cannibals? Why? Because believers have that hope that God is sovereign and not them, that God has His purposes, that He brings salvation, that Jesus is the Messiah, the King of the world, putting His enemies under His feet.

That I know as a Christian, if God's called us to some faraway land to bring the gospel, or He's given us some task to accomplish, some mission to accomplish, I know that God has His people. He has His sheep.

And what does Jesus say to people who hear His voice that can't understand, that can't perceive it? In John chapter 10, what does He say to them? He says, I'm the good shepherd who lays His life down for the what?

The sheep.

And He says this, I have other sheep which are not of this fold, them I must also bring, and they will become one flock with one shepherd. And what does He say to the people who can't hear Him? They say to Jesus in John 10, look, tell us plainly, if you're the Messiah, tell us.

And Jesus says what?

I told you, I told you.

He didn't neglect it, He didn't forget, they didn't miss the memo. He actually did tell them He was the Messiah. They heard it from Him over and over and over again. He says, I told you, and the reason you can't hear Me is because you are not of My sheep.

My sheep, the ones I lay My life down for, the ones I must also bring that will become one flock with one shepherd, My sheep hear My voice and they come. And Jesus says, I give them eternal life. And what's He say about them?

He says this, they're in My hands and nothing can snatch them from My hand. They're in My Father's hand and nothing can snatch them from My Father's hand. That's the message. And you know, here's the thing, watch, when you hear that, I recognize if your view of salvation is centered upon man, if it's a view that is centered upon what you do or don't do, then what you just heard from Jesus is offensive.

Because what does it say about you? You're helpless, you're a sinner, you're broken. You have no ability. What does it do? When you hear this message of the sovereignty of God and the grace of God, what's it do?

It reveals something about you that you are trying to ignore, that we try to ignore all the time, is that you are much worse than you think you are. And in a culture that doesn't like to talk about our own failings and our own brokenness, in a culture that idolizes self-esteem, this message is offensive.

You are not able. You are wicked. You are a sinner. You are ungodly. You are helpless. You are a hater of God. You are an enemy of God. You are dead in your sins and trespasses. You are by nature a child of wrath.

Don't get mad at me. I am just quoting it. So what does it tell you and I? It tells you that you need Him, that you don't have the abilities that you thought you have. And guess what? You are not actually the sovereign like you thought you were.

You are not the authority like you thought you were. He actually is all those things. And what does it do? It forces a person who is in rebellion against God to completely submit to God's will and sovereignty.

And you know what we don't like as human beings fallen in God's world? We know we don't like that, that He's the boss, that He's in charge, that He rules over.

All.

We don't want a God like that. We like a God that actually bends to our will. We like a God that we can thwart. We like a God that we can manipulate. We like a God that we can buy off. And God doesn't fit into that scheme.

This is why most religions are very, very hostile to Reformed faith. Why are so many people so hostile to Reformed theology? Because Reformed theology has as a fundamental banner over everything that we say, God is sovereign.

I am not. God is the sovereign. You know, watch. This is powerful. How many of you guys saw the Satanist attack us this week? How many of you guys saw that video? Interesting, right? So pray for that woman, by the way.

Pray for her. But do you notice something? In the clips that we pulled together of some of her teachings and talk, do you notice what.

She said?

She said something that identifies all of us before Christ. She says exactly. She quotes before the...she was actually on the news. She was one of the people that was trying to actually pray a prayer to Satan during the town council meeting a while back.

And what does she say in her prayer? Let us eat from the tree of knowledge, right? What's that go back to? It goes back to the very beginning when the deceiver comes in and he says, hath God said? Did God really say that?

No, no, no. You won't die. You'll be like God, knowing good and evil, right? And what's that mean? Not experiencing, but it means fundamentally you will be the determiner. You'll be the sovereign. You see, God doesn't want you to take that because He knows that if you do, you'll be the sovereign.

You'll be the one that determines what is right and what is wrong. What has plagued humanity since the very beginning is this. We think we're the sovereign. It was the lie that got Satan cast out of God's presence.

It's the lie that got humanity cast out of the garden. It is a lie that we embrace all the time, that we're the sovereign. We will determine. And you see it's even in the Satanic temple in Arizona where they're saying, let us eat from the tree of knowledge.

We will be the ones that determine. We'll be the sovereigns. And here's the truth. You'll never be the sovereign in God's universe.

He is.

And nothing will ever change that. And I believe with all my heart that one of the main reasons people resist the Reformed theology and the doctrines of grace is because fundamentally we don't like the idea of God being sovereign over me.

So let's do a couple things and talk about some important things just to move through these questions.

Let's do it quickly.

You guys ready? Yes?

Okay.

So a couple things. We're talking about the doctrines of grace. If you don't know what we're talking about, go back and listen to the series. It's on YouTube now. Tulip, T-U-L-I-P, is an acrostic that essentially breaks apart some fundamental teachings in Scripture so that we can understand the nature of the fall, God's sovereign grace and salvation, what was accomplished with the atonement, when Jesus died, what happened, if anything at all, and when God wants to save somebody, irresistible grace, can He save them?

Can He raise a dead person to life? And then perseverance of the saints is what Jesus said there in John 6. I will raise them up. I'll never cast them out. I'll never lose them, John 10. It's that. When God saves somebody, raises them to newness of life, when He dies for their sins, when He brings them to Christ and unites them to Jesus, can they ever be lost?

Can you be born again and unborn again, regenerate and unregenerate, loved by God, hated by God? Is that possible? We would say, of course, that's impossible. No, because the Scriptures. Now, a couple of things in terms of answering these questions.

First thing is that Christians would do well to learn something called hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the art and science of biblical interpretation. It's very, very important. I'll give you a good example.

You want a good example? The book of Revelation, not Revelations, the book of Revelation, one of the most abused books of the Bible throughout history, but in particular in the last 200 years just in our nation, many of the cults that have sprung up on American soil have actually been apocalyptic cults based upon the book of Revelation and misinterpretations in the book of Revelation.

You guys remember, of course, David Koresh from Waco, Texas years ago, that awful cult leader there who essentially said that he was Jesus Christ. Some of his teachings are actually available online. You can see them.

And he based a lot of his teachings upon the book of Revelation.

Why?

Because it mystifies people. They don't understand it. And so when someone says, this is what this means, well, if you don't know your Bible, sky's the limit, right? It's infinitely malleable. You can do whatever you want with it.

Good example is this. If we don't understand proper biblical interpretation and how to interpret the Bible properly, you're going to read the book of Revelation and what are you going to see? If you decide to read it literally, you'll get to that text and you'll see a whore drinking blood riding a seven-headed ten-horned beast wearing purple and scarlet.

You'll see the beast turning on the whore, devouring her and burning with fire. Now question, where do I find a seven-headed ten-horned beast and where is there a whore riding this beast drinking blood?

Somewhere in Van Buren? It's possible, okay? But no, actually no. If you understand the book of Revelation and recognize that this text written by John, over half of the book is direct quotations and allusions to the Old Testament.

If, watch, by today's standards, the apostle John could rightly be accused of plagiarism because he is copy and pasting much of what he says in the book of Revelation from the Old Testament. So what does that tell you?

If you don't understand the Old Testament text from which he's drawing, you could never possibly understand his message. And this is why it's dangerous for someone simply to crack the Bible open and let it be their playground.

You have to handle the word of God with respect and you have to understand what author, who.

Wrote this?

Audience.

Who did he write it to?

Content.

What does it say in its context? What is the wording? What is the etymology of this word? What's the word actually mean? What did it mean to Paul when he wrote it? What did it mean to John when he wrote it?

What's the context of the passage itself? Context. In that passage and in the book itself, as you're reading something, ask the question, what's the context? Who's the audience in question there? And what's he referring to?

Does he quote a Bible verse? What did that Bible verse mean in that book when it was used before? Who was the audience there? What was the context there? It's vitally important to understand. We have to go to our Bibles with respect and awe and we have to understand when we read the text of Scripture, we have to understand author, audience, content, context, and comparison.

How does this text work with tota Scriptura, all of Scripture? How does it fit into the entire narrative of redemption? Also, we have to recognize when we ask questions about the grace of God and the sovereignty of God, we have to recognize the power of tradition.

The power of tradition. Now, Reformed folks love to say, it's sola Scriptura. What's that mean? Scripture alone, it's the final authority, right? We always like to say, it's not a pope, it's not a council, it's not a confession, it's not a creed, that's not the final standard.

It's the Scripture.

So we like to say, you got to fight against your traditions. We think about Rome and all the things that came into the Roman Catholic communion that distorted the gospel of grace, distorted praxis. How do we live as Christians?

And watch, we say, beware of your traditions. I don't have any traditions. That's what people like to say. It's a really interesting moment. I believe it was when Dr. White was talking to, oh, what was his name?

Who's the old guy years ago? From the Berean Call. What was his name? What's that? He didn't want to debate your dad. He wrote a book about Calvinism, The Dark Side of Calvinism, right? It was from Washington, I think.

Old guy. Older than dirt. Anyway, he was on the radio with your dad, and when Dr. White challenged him on traditions, like testing your traditions, Dave Hunt, yes, Dave Hunt, I think it was in that radio interview he said, I don't have any traditions.

And something that stuck with me is how Dr. White has responded to that. The person who says they have no traditions is the person who has plagued with the most of them. Because watch, if you say you don't have any traditions, it means you don't recognize how you have been impacted by teachers and people that you love and respect.

We all have traditions. It's impossible not to. The question is, are your traditions consistent with the scriptures or not? You have to be willing to test your traditions. Is what you believe actually from the word of God?

Is it consistent with it? You have to be willing to order your presuppositions, your pre-beliefs, order those according to.

The scriptures.

Everybody has presuppositions. To deny so is to live a fiction. We all have presuppositions, watch. Here's what we should be in a lifelong pursuit of. Taking our presuppositions, our fundamental commitments, and making sure that those presuppositions are consistent with the Bible.

There is where you're safe. So we have to be willing to test our philosophy, our tradition. Okay, here's some challenges.

Ready?

I told you I'd keep my sermons shorter and I'm going to do my best. First challenge, ready? Jeff, if God is sovereign in the way that you say He is, if God is the one who controls salvation, if He's the one that determines who He's going to save, if He's given a decree of salvation, if Jesus died for people's sins and only a particular people, if God can raise the dead and never lose somebody, ready?

If He has an elect people and He's predestined, then what's the point of evangelism? Probably the most common objection, that's why I put it first. What's the point of evangelism if God is predestined and He has an elect people?

First thing I'll say is this, ready? You can't get away from the word predestination because it's in your Bible. You can't get away from the concept of election because it's in your Bible. You can't get away from the word elect of God because it's in your Bible.

So this is not really a question of whether or not we want to believe in predestination and election. It's impossible to be faithful with God's word and not have a view of predestination and election.

The question is, what do we believe about it? When someone says, what's the point of evangelism? What I like to say is this, well, if God is not sovereign over salvation, then what's the point of evangelism?

You see, I think that that is a better challenge to the Arminian or to the person that has an anthropocentric view of salvation, that it's based upon us and what we do. When someone says, if God is sovereign, then what's the point of evangelism?

I like to say, take a breath and try that again, because actually that's a challenge.

Toward you.

If God is not completely sovereign, if he can be thwarted by man, if God can determine to save and fail to save in your system, then my question is, what's the point of evangelism? Think about it for a moment now.

If I go out to go preach the gospel downtown, I bring the gospel. In the Arminian view, they believe that God wants to save every single person who's ever.

Lived.

He's actually willing and trying to do it, that Jesus died for their sins and paid them in full, and that the Holy Spirit of God can try and fail to save. The person who believes all those things, when they go out to preach the gospel, the truth is, watch, God's already done everything that he can.

He's tried. Jesus purchased their salvation, and the Holy Spirit of God can try to apply it, and they can resist God, and they can thwart him. The question is, if it's centered upon us, then what's the point of evangelism?

What's the point? God can be thwarted in your system. Watch what I say. I say, Jesus said, all that the Father has given to me will come to me. When someone says, what's the point of evangelism? I say, because John 6, because they're coming, baby.

And you know what God does? He uses people as the means of his grace to bring the message of salvation. What does Romans 1 say, 116? The gospel is the power of God for what? He uses his message. It's proclaimed.

It's distributed.

Watch. And God, by his spirit, empowers that message, and he uses it to ignite life into dead people. Why preach the gospel if God is sovereign? Why preach it if he's not? You see, because I believe God is totally sovereign, I go out, watch.

And I have, it's a beautiful track record, I have 100 success in evangelism. How do you like them apples? 100 success rate in evangelism. That's what I got. Because when I preach the gospel, God commands you to repent and believe.

Sometimes God allows people to live in their sin and to have their way. And sometimes God, in his love and mercy and grace, raises a dead person to life. Each way, God is glorified. One in his justice, one in his grace.

100 guaranteed success. When I preach the gospel, I do it because of what God says in Romans 10. Think for a moment now about this. Romans 8, it says what? Golden chain of redemption. God foreknows us, he predestines us, he calls us, he justifies us, he glorifies us.

There's that chain. Foreknow, predestined, called, justified, glorified. You can't break it. And then it goes into Romans 9, and it says God does what? He has mercy on whom he wills, and he hardens whom he wills.

And the person says, well then why does he still find fault? For who resists his will? And then the divine answer to that challenge is what? Who are you? Oh man, who answers back to God? So you have this view of God's sovereignty.

Esau, he says what?

Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated. God's choosing to give love to one and not to the other. And in the text itself, right after this big discussion on the sovereignty of God, Romans 10, why evangelize?