Response to Leighton Flowers (Pt2)

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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Welcome back to coffee with a Calvinist This program is dedicated to helping you better understand the Word of God and the doctrines of grace The Bible tells us do your best to present yourself to God as one approved a worker who is no need to be ashamed rightly handling the word of truth Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to study along Here's your host with today's lesson pastor Keith Foskey and Welcome back to coffee with a Calvinist.

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My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist Today is September 3rd 2020 and if you're following along with our daily Bible reading today's Bible reading is 1st Timothy chapter 3 This is a daily Bible reading which is available at our church website Sgfcjax.org that's sovereign grace family church in Jacksonville, Florida And if you are in Jacksonville, Florida, I would encourage you to visit with us If you do not have a home church, we would love to have you every lord's day morning We have Sunday school at 9 30 and worship at 10 30 and on Wednesday night.

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We have Bible study At 6 30 p.m.

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We would love to have you come and visit with us Well today we are continuing on the program Answering a listener question about Layton Flowers now If you don't know who that is Layton Flowers runs a website soteriology 101 he is a Person who teaches against the Subject of calvinism.

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He is most well known for being opposed to calvinism, particularly in the southern baptist churches and soteriology 101 is his website and if you would like to go there and look at his website, I wouldn't discourage you from doing so He does have a lot of information there But I will tell you this it is going to be opposed to what we teach on this program And that is why I am responding to it.

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Now.

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I said on the last program.

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It has not been my desire to respond to flowers because in my opinion I think dr.

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James white has done a great job.

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He's done so on the dividing line.

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He has debated Brother flowers and they have had this interaction many times and so I don't feel like I need to interject myself, but I am responding because a listener asked me to and I I say this on just about every program if you have a question About the bible or something that you've heard and you'd like for me to address it on the program I'll do so as long as I feel like it's appropriate and since this is a specifically Calvinistic question I will address the question now on yesterday's program.

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We addressed part one.

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There's a two-part Question because there's actually two questions that were asked the first Is isn't the gospel sufficient enough to enable a response if you understand calvinism? you understand that one of the things that we believe in fact the the foundational thing about man is that because of Our sinful nature.

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We do not have a desire for the things of god and therefore god must give us that desire God must enable a response before we can positively respond to the gospel We call that the doctrine of total depravity or total inability And the question from yesterday was well, isn't the gospel sufficient enough to enable a response? And if you want to go back and listen to that Then I would encourage you to listen to yesterday's program if you didn't now The second question is what we're going to deal with today.

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This specifically references a bible passage Um, and i'd like for you to pull up that bible passage now if you have your bibles available We're going to go to john chapter 12 and we're going to read verses 37 to 40 john 12 37 to 40 and this is What it says speaking of jesus said though he had done so many signs before them They still did not believe in him so that the word spoken by the prophet isaiah might be fulfilled lord Who has believed what he heard from us and to whom has the arm of the lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe for isaiah said he has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts lest they see with their eyes And understand with their heart and turn and I would Heal them that is john 12 37 to 40 and the questioner Said this why if total inability is biblical does john 12 37 to 40 imply almost inescapably That they have the ability to believe it is a bit weird for god to blind people for the purpose of preventing belief when they are already unable to believe now That is how the question was worded.

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I'm just reading it directly as the as the listener put it forward now.

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I want to begin by making this point The second question of the two Assumes the denial of total depravity And makes the first question moot Let me explain what I mean.

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The first question is uh that Isn't the gospel sufficient to enable a response, but if the second question is true Then no no enablement is necessary Because if we are already Able to respond then the gospel doesn't have to be powerful enough to enable a response um, and and that's consistent actually with the testimony of flowers and his position because The position that he holds as a traditionalist says that man's freedom has not been lost that man is not lost his libertarian freedom due to the fall and Um he basically says that man's free will is Completely intact.

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There's no incapacitation in that free will and you can see this.

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Uh, in fact, i'll read it This is the traditionalist statement traditionalists Simply do not accept the presumption that the libertarian freedom of man's will has lost was lost due to the fall As article two of the traditional traditional statement says we deny that adam's sin resulted in the incapacitation of any person's free will Or rendered any person guilty before he has personally sinned so right there They they basically said man's free will has not been incapacitated has not been rendered in any way Unable to believe so the idea that the gospel has to be powerful enough to enable a response Is assuming that there needs to be an enablement And since we don't need to be enabled because we're not hindered not incapacitated in any way The first question becomes moot by the second question But that's that's just simply a starting ground to say that if if the second question is valid then the first question is unnecessary But let me make this statement the Issue with the second question is the issue of whether or not Total inability is true or not.

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Um If man is not limited In his ability to believe but has a perfectly intact libertarian freedom and his freedom is not hindered in any way then the gospel doesn't have to be sufficient to enable a response because a person has Does not need to have any preceding enablement This is where the issue lies with flowers.

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He rejects the idea that man must be enabled by grace to believe In this sense he's not an arminian and he's not a calvinist because the arminians as I said yesterday The arminians believe that you have to be enabled to believe they believe in Prevenient grace that that is all men receive the grace that gives them the ability to believe And then it's up to them calvinists believe that Grace, the ability to believe is irresistible grace and it's given only to the elect But both of them believe that man is unable outside of grace to believe And this again, this is the one place that arminians and calvinists at least agree to a point that we both believe that that Apart from grace, whether it be prevenient grace or irresistible grace Effectual calling however, you want to define it That man cannot believe But dr.

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Flowers does not seem to believe in the necessity of any prevenient grace And since he does not Then he would place himself on the side of what we would identify as the pelagian side in affirming a natural ability of man apart from the grace to believe and the He would deny that and and he is on his website.

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He says pelagius is ultimately a calvinistic boogeyman But but really there's we we have to be able to categorize we have to be able to say Okay, where are you coming from? And this is the position that it seems to be coming from The belief in the necessity of grace is is Either there or it isn't and if you believe man is naturally able apart from grace to come Then you you place yourself up up up on Well on the other side of what I would say is is has always been biblical christian testimony and truth But let's go on total depravity says that man must receive grace to enable him to believe calvinists say that grace is Specifically given to the elect and therefore it is effectual arminian say that grace is universally given to all Therefore must be cooperated with by the will but that will would be unable to cooperate apart from the prevenient Enabling grace again.

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This is important.

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He denies both of these Calvinists believe that total depravity total inability is a natural consequence of the fall Man does not desire the things of god naturally, but we do not equate this with the active hardening of the heart That god does and this is where we're going to get to the question for today because the real issue of this second question Is how do we discern? total depravity from judicial hardening We believe that all men are in the state of total depravity, which means unwilling to believe all men are unable to desire to believe because their hearts are Opposed to the things of god.

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They do not naturally want to do the things of god But we would say that's different than judicial hardening And judicial hardening is where we see in the scripture where the bible sometimes says well god hardened pharaoh's heart or god hardened or blinded the eyes or closed the ears like we saw in john 12 that that that there is a a making someone unable to see hear or any of those things and The question and I understand the heart of the question if man is already unable to believe Then what if anything does it mean that god's going to harden them? They're already in a sense hardened.

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They're already opposed Uh, what good is it? What what is happening? Um and and and why is it necessary for god to harden someone if total depravity already means they cannot believe So this is where we need to understand the distinction between total depravity and Judicial hardening the act of god Hardening the heart total depravity Is not something which god is actively doing in the life of the individual But rather it is a natural byproduct of our fallenness and adam We cannot please god Because we cannot want to please god Our nature is corrupted by sin We are slaves to sin There's nothing keeping us from coming Except that it is opposed to our nature We do not want to indeed.

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We cannot even desire to because it's opposed to our nature We are surrendering to our will rather than to god's will this is the natural estate of man This is why Dr.

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R.

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C.

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Sproul one of my favorite theologians when he identifies total depravity he calls it moral inability We cannot because we will not we would Need a fundamental change in our nature If we were to choose to please god Now you say well, how does that differ from judicial hardening judicial hardening is a step beyond that because it cauterizes and intensifies the already bad situation Um, this is where we we have to discuss the difference between um being functionally unable and substantively unable to do something for instance If I and I want to I want to give credit where credit is due on this this um, dr.

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G.

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E.

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Carlin is uh a person who uh As a bible teacher and he he gave a very good job of explaining this and it was I thought it was helpful And i'm going to give a similar explanation to him But i'm give credit to his explanation because I thought this was a good one And I do want to mention that I actually reached out to dr.

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Carlin, uh to see if he wanted to join me for today's program Unfortunately was not able to connect with him But if he ever comes up upon this program and hears it here's his name mentioned I want to say thank you brother and also want to mention that if you ever do want to come on the program and discuss this love to have you on uh in a future program, but Be that as it may I want to just use that i'm going to use an example similar to the one that he used Uh, he said if I cover my eyes i'm functionally blind Because i'm covering my eyes I can't see if I take my hands and I put them over my eyes But if I have my eyes removed I am substantively blind And the difference is a difference of the will in the first instance I don't want to see therefore I cover my eyes and the second I lack the tools to see and Here's the point God has the right to take a man's eyes, especially when he's not using them to begin with If a man is covering his eyes, he doesn't want to see and god says, okay I'm going to take your eyes because you're covering your eyes then that is an act of god's choice And he has the freedom to do that But it is different in the difference of functional blindness versus substantive blindness He's functionally blind because he's covering his eyes.

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He's substantively blind if he loses his eyes in the same way You could say total depravity a man's Unwillingness to come to god because it's opposed to his nature versus A person who is hardened and therefore his heart is completely calloused And in the picture of hardening the heart i've often pictured it like this If you imagine a piece of clay That has moisture in it And is soft and is able to be moved and and turned The the less moisture the harder it gets and I think of that's the way god's hardening The the unbeliever still has a has an aspect of what we would call common grace And the hardening of the heart I believe is a removal Of the grace of god on the heart of an individual Um where he goes from not only not believing the gospel but being opposed To it hating it think about the people.

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Jesus is talking to they not only didn't believe his message But they hated his message.

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They had no desire at all.

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They wanted to see him and they were i'm sure Among those Who would have cried out crucify? him All right, so I want to go back again to dr.

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Carlin's example because I think it's a good one And he because he gave this example and this this sort of was really I thought was really a genius thought He said now let me explain to you again the difference of willing and ability and and so functional versus um substantive or willing, uh inability and the and the functional, uh, Or substantive inability he said imagine A person gave you a knife And they said I want you to take this knife And I want you to stab someone stab that person over there stab them to death And you said I can't do that When you say you can't you're referring to moral inability You can't do it Because it's against your Nature, it's against your desires to kill someone.

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It's not in you.

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It's not it's not who you are You're not a murderer Therefore when you say I can't do that You're saying I can't because I can't want to do that.

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I can't will to do that I can't make myself do that because I don't want to do it.

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That is functional inability now If you had a knife in your hand And I took it away from you That becomes substantive inability now, you can't do the action of stabbing now you can't do it.

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So Before you wouldn't do it.

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Now.

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You can't do it now again The difference is subtle.

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I understand but it is an important distinction The situation is intensified When it goes from moral inability or total depravity to judicial hardening you go from the The I won't I can't because I don't want to To the I won't I can't because I have been the tools have been removed Anytime I've ever taught Uh on this subject taught about the hardening of the heart.

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I have people ask the question Why in the world would god harden a heart? This is an act of god's judicial Justice on an individual And one thing we have to remember is god does not produce fresh evil in anyone's heart all of us Have the seed of adam within us.

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We all have the sinful heart of adam within us and therefore When I see someone do something evil one of the things I have to recognize is the same seed of evil in that person is in me And what keeps me from doing that evil thing is the grace of god.

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There's an old phrase.

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Most of us are very familiar with there But by the grace of god there go I And if not for the grace of god, I would be just as bad as that person and that's what we have to realize And there are people Who are unbelievers But they're nice people.

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They're kind people.

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They're gentle people They're people you want to do business with people you want to have friendships with but they are unbelievers They they they have they still have their hands over their eyes.

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They're plugging their ears They are unwilling to believe and in that regard we would say they are Totally depraved because they are unwilling to hear god's word and believe it But then there are those whom god has hardened like pharaoh whose hearts are hardened and in that We can say there is a distinction between total depravity and Judicial hardening and we see this distinction in scripture because jesus says no one can come to me Unless the father who sent me draws him.

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No one can come unless it be granted to him by the father that Tells us grace Pre a preceding act of grace is necessary Before we will come And so total inability total depravity is true and When someone denies it by saying well look here.

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What about judicial hardening say they're not the same thing They they have a similar effect but one is a We would say is is a step beyond an intensification of the other All people are dead in trespasses and sins Until by grace god makes them alive by grace.

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Are you saved through faith? Thank you for listening to today's program.

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I appreciate you giving me your time and attention And I hope that this has been an encouragement to you Again, thank you for listening to coffee with a calvinist.

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My name is keith foskey and i've been your calvinist Thank you for joining in for today's episode of coffee with a calvinist Keep in mind.