Episode 86: Salvation is of the Lord!

To the Ruled Church podcast.

This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas? You see that one in Pechote, Mexico?

Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

The church is not a democracy, it's a monarchy. Christ is king.

You can't be Christian without a local church. You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible-believing church, and spend your life serving Jesus in a local, visible congregation.

The great Scottish reformer, Eddie McRaggedale.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Is Mick, is that Scottish, or is that?

I think it is.

I don't know, dude.

Why am I so dumb? Hey, man, how you doing?

You're the one with the red beard.

That is true. Where's your beard?

Well, I've got it, but it's mostly white.

Donde esta tu barba?

I don't speak it.

I only know barba because they talk about my beard when I go to Mexico. Okay, so I'm going next month, so.

Yeah, man, you were just there last month, was it?

Or was it June?

June, so June and September. The last two years, it's been June and September. So in the year before, it was just once in July, so we'll see. And then I really would love for you to come meet Pastor Christian if there's any chance we could figure something out.

Is he going to be here in October?

In October, yeah.

That's what I thought.

The last Saturday of October, which might be kind of early for you, but in Plummerville at Wes' church, we're having a breakfast, 8 .30, and he's going to talk about why Christ is worthy of a healthy church.

Salvation Belongs to the Lord

Hey, but we've got an episode to do. Welcome to the Rural Church Podcast. My name is Allen Nelson. I'm a co-host and one of the pastors here at Providence Baptist Church in Perryville, Arkansas. With me is my cohort, Eddie McGragsdale.

Hello, everybody.

I thought your accent would be different.

I can't do an accent. We were in Utah and I told somebody, I said, you know, we don't have an accent. They about fell over laughing.

Yeah, right, that's right. Hey, I want to say something. I thought about this, we're going to do the episode today and next week, salvation is of the Lord. And I just want to put this out there. I think, and Eddie, you can speak to this, but I think I've written a couple of books that are somewhat relevant to this.

And I would just put out there that I'm willing to send that to you free. If you can help with shipping, that's really a blessing. I can't guarantee I could send to everybody, but if you could help with shipping, that would be great.

But you could just contact me at QuatroNelson at gmail .com. So that's C-U-A-T-R-O-N-E-L-S-O-N at gmail .com. And it's not a giveaway or anything. You can just contact me and let me know and I can try to get you one of those books.

I'll put link in the show notes, From Death to Life, How Salvation Works, and also A Change of Heart, Understanding Regeneration and Why It Matters. So I think those are relevant to our subject.

They're very relevant, very relevant.

So Jonah 2 .9, you want to read that for us? You want me to, I've got it up.

I don't have it up, but it says salvation of the Lord.

That's right. But I, voice of Thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed I will repay. Salvation belongs to the Lord. Baptist theologian, John Gill, says that this denotes all kind of salvation is of the Lord, temporal, spiritual, and eternal.

Not only this salvation from the devouring waves of the sea and from the grave of the fish's belly was of the Lord, but his deliverance from the terrors of the Lord and the sense he had of his wrath and the peace and pardon he now partook of were from the Lord, as well as eternal salvation in the world to come and the hope of it.

I agree with our brother, John Gill. And if you want to know my soteriology, I'll lay it out for you. Jonah 2 .9, salvation is of the Lord. What does that mean to you? Ah, that's a terrible question in any book.

That is a terrible question.

What does that text mean? How about that? What does that mean, salvation is of the Lord?

That means that salvation begins and ends with the sovereign working of God. Now, oftentimes when people hear that, they think that there is no action of the will, but we don't mean that. We simply mean that the action or, I've heard this phrase used and I find this helpful.

We have creaturely freedom, but our creaturely freedom is subject to our deadness and sin. It's subject to our fallen. And so apart from a sovereign act of grace from God that not only extends the offer of salvation, but actually changes our hearts to cause us to turn to the Lord so that we actually choose him.

That choosing comes out of his sovereign act and it comes out of having that change of heart. God first has to act and we are the responder. And so often I think people think that salvation is we act and God is the responder.

Or that God makes a, offers everyone salvation and then all that's left is our choice or whatever. Now I will say this, I'm gonna read to you a quote. The Lord defers his coming that he might invite all mankind to repentance.

Who said it?

I believe that would be John Calvin.

That would be John Calvin. Here's another one. So wonderful is God's love towards mankind that he would have them all to be saved and is of his own self prepared to bestow salvation on the lost. God is ready to receive all to repentance so that none may perish.

Who said it?

I actually don't know, but I'm gonna say it's Spurgeon.

No, John Calvin. So here's the thing. I think Calvin and Calvinism and if properly defined, I have no problem. Yes, what is my soteriology? I am a Calvinist. Yes, okay. I think that that can be twisted and that that can be made to mean things that I don't mean by it.

But if I'm getting to define it, I don't think Calvin would like that. But I mean, understand it's just the historical term. But I read those quotes from Calvin so that people can understand some things.

There is an absolute, there is a real offer of salvation, a well-meant offer. I'll throw out another book. I can't send you this one, but you can look at freegracepress .com. Sam Waldron has done a great job with I think it's called the free offer of the gospel or maybe the well-meant offer of the gospel, Sam Waldron.

Great treatment of the subject. So go look at that more. There's a genuine offer of salvation to the world. So when we talk about salvation is of the Lord, it's not God with one hand keeping people back and with the other hand bringing people in.

Rather it's both hands are open. All mankind may come. Any may come to Christ for salvation. What's the problem, Eddie?

The problem is men are dead in sin. And God, the thing that people have to understand, I think so many people, I think when they hear the doctrine of sovereign grace, when they hear, whether we wanna talk about election or predestination, what they hear is exactly what you just said.

They hear, oh, God won't let. There's a group of people God won't let them be. But no, what we need to see is if God did not act sovereignly upon the hearts of sinners, zero people would be saved.

That's right.

So what God is doing is seeking and saving the lost. That's what Jesus seek and save the lost.

Yeah, very good. So there's this idea, and I think the root here is too low view of God to high view of man.

Right.

So we see man as basically neutral. We see man as if he's given a choice of salvation that some of those people, that some people will actually choose salvation. That's what we think.

Yeah, but there are none of those people.

Those people don't exist. Okay. So Romans two, four and five, or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.

So let's stop there and now read verse five. God's kindness is meant to lead you to repent. So God has been so patient with this world. So kind, the sun rises on the just and the unjust. The rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Every day, all creation is preaching the glory of God. Psalm 19, one, God is glorious.

He's good.

He's wonderful. The gospel goes forward. Okay, but what's the response? This is Romans two, five. But because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.

In other words, God has been kind. God has been good. God has been patient. And what is the response of mankind? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. So, MacGragsdale, how does anyone then get saved?

Right, the way that people get saved is that the Holy Spirit, upon the proclamation of the gospel, actually regenerates the heart. He takes out the heart of stone and he puts in the heart of flesh. And that regenerate heart then responds with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, justifying and saving faith.

You know, I'm so glad you brought up this passage in Romans two, because, you know, I'm preaching through judges right now. And this last Sunday, we were in the first five verses of Judges 10. I know that everyone's an expert on Judges 10, so you know what that's about.

But it's about the two of the minor judges, Tola and Ja 'ar. And there's almost nothing about them. I mean, there's only a couple of verses about each. But basically, the approach that I took to that text, and I think it's the right one, is that for 45 years, so one of them judged for 23 years, one for 22 years, for 45 years, God extended kindness, patient kindness to Israel.

And they just continued to reject it. This time in Judges, God didn't send an oppressor. He actually gave them two judges that they didn't ask for, and he extended his kindness to them. So after we talked about those two judges, we came to this very spot, Romans chapter two, and we looked at this same passage.

And we note that you read verses four and five. Well, the next two verses, verses six and seven, say this. He will render to each one according to his works, to those who by patience and well-doing seek for glory, honor, and immortality.

He will give eternal life. How is it that people are saved? Well, it's God's kindness that is meant to lead you to repentance. But it only happens when by God's sovereign grace, he brings about that change of heart.

And the promise is that for those people, he will give you eternal life. And so we see God bringing it from beginning to end, this work of salvation, because of his kindness, because of his undeserved gentleness with people.

Amen.

Yeah, that's right. That's good. So that's the reality. When we say salvation is of the Lord, we mean 100%. We mean that God does not try his part, then you do your part, then God. But again, just to think through it for a second.

Let's use us. I think I've used this illustration even on this show before. Let's use us. Let's use, and you get to be the saved person. So let's use Eddie and Quatro. So Eddie and Quatro sit together under the preaching of the word of God, same amount of sermons.

And one day Eddie gets saved and Quatro does not. All right. In this system, which I'm saying is the biblical system, salvation is of the Lord. I'm saying the reason Quatro doesn't get saved is because the Lord left him to his own desires, his own rejection, his own impenitent heart.

The Lord left him to that. And for Eddie, the Lord, in his sheer pleasure of his mercy and sovereign grace, drew Eddie to himself, whereby Eddie came to Christ not so much with a free will, but a freed will.

It was, he chose Christ. He, you don't get saved unless you choose Jesus. The problem is you ain't going to choose Jesus unless God first opened your eyes.

That's right.

So, but in the other system, so this is important. In the other system, it's this. Quatro got drawn, Eddie got drawn, and then the final decision maker of the salvation was not the Lord. It was Eddie.

So I was, you can't say woke anymore, right? I was made alive, if you will. I was shown, and then I was brought to this neutral place, this place of neutrality, which is really weird. I don't even understand it.

I mean, you can't really make it make sense with scripture. I mean, I used to kind of try to postulate such a position, but when you examine the scriptures, there's just not a position. Okay, I'm brought to some sort of place of neutrality, and then I got to choose left or right.

I got to, yes or no. And so I say no, Eddie says yes. What is the deciding factor in the salvation? Well, it's Eddie. And we can stand before the Lord one day at judgment. Eddie can look at me and be like, I'm here because I made the right decision.

I'm here, yes, yes, God's grace, yes.

But God's grace was equally in your life. So the final deciding factor was me. So I am the reason I'm here. The reason you're not here is because you aren't as smart as me or whatever. Am I being fair with that?

I mean, you Yeah, yeah, you're being fair. And I'll tell you, it even goes a step beyond that, because if you postulate that argument that God's grace is coming equally to everybody, then you've got to say, you know, whether or not we, through the expansion of the church and through the proclamation of the gospel, get the gospel to everybody, God's going to make sure everybody gets it.

And I've heard that taught. I've heard that preached. I've heard that proclaimed, that, well, God's going to make sure everybody gets the grace and I was talking to a Methodist pastor a few years ago here in our area.

And he even, he tried to take Titus chapter two and say, the grace of God is superior to all men. And he took that to mean that everybody in the world gets an opportunity to receive God's grace. But the reality is that that's not true.

If we don't get the gospel to people, they won't be saved. And it's amazing. I've always heard my whole life as a Christian, people say, you know, that believing in sovereign grace, that kills evangelism, it kills mission.

But the actual historical record and my own personal experience has been exactly the opposite because I believe God's going to save people. I'm more evangelistic than I was when I did not believe the way that I do now in God's sovereign grace.

And when you look back historically, we see that God has over and over used people who believed in sovereign grace. We think of William Carey and people like that to take the gospel all around the world, because we realize that the gospel does have to come to people and that God will use that to bring people to faith.

Why is it that the vast majority of evangelists I know, I'm talking about, I'm not talking about revival speakers.

No, no, no. You're talking about people who actually go out and preach the gospel.

But I have to clarify that because some people say evangelists and that's what comes to mind. Just tradition, I understand. But I'm saying, when I say evangelists, I'm talking about someone who does evangelism.

And this is a whole different subject, but evangelism, hey, listen, evangelism is not you having events at your church. Now, I don't have a problem and we've done it before. And we do things like vacation Bible school and such.

Like, that's great, okay? You do something at your church, people come, you share the gospel. Eddie, let me get on this kick for a second too. If you have something at your church, you better share the gospel.

Sure.

Like, I don't care what it is, share the gospel. Like, well, I don't want, like, no, no. Don't have an event at your church and not share the gospel. But evangelism is not people come to my church. Evangelism, remember, or I mean, you know, it's quoted, Nahum 115, behold, how beautiful are the feet of him.

Who what?

Brings.

Brings, brings good news. So the feet of the church are beautiful, not because they're under a table waiting on you to show up. They're out bringing good news.

I told some people just yesterday, it's the New Testament just has no examples of a come and see approach to evangelism. It's always going, always going.

So why is this?

So back to the conversation with me and Jacob, why is it that most evangelists I know, people who are passing out tracts and we've got a brother coming up from Belize here in a few weeks and he kind of sent a message ahead and said, hey, could you have like six to 800 tracts ready?

600, 800, not, you know, either six tracts or 800 tracts. No, 600, 800 tracts ready for when I come. And of course he's a Calvinist because he wants to evangelize. Why are the people preaching on the street?

I don't know, and you can point me and people can message us in the episode if you know. I don't hardly know of any non-Calvinist street preacher. I'm sure they're out there somewhere, right?

Oh, you know what, I should take it back.

I do have, there is a brother in our community. He goes to another church. And when we do evangelism, he does come out there and stuff with us sometimes, and I'm grateful for that. I haven't heard him street preach or whatever, but all I'm trying to say is some of the greatest evangelists in the history of the world and some of the greatest missionaries in the history of the world have held to this soteriology, salvation is of the Lord.

Why, okay, so what's the connection here between believing salvation is of the Lord and a high evangelistic fervor?

You know, I think for myself, I remember when I believed that it was all up to the person, I was so afraid I was gonna mess it up. Like, I really believed I could say the wrong thing, I could do the wrong thing, and I could mess it up.

And it made evangelism really a fearful thing. Whereas coming to trust in God's sovereign grace, it's not that I don't care how I present the gospel. I still wanna present it clearly. I still wanna present it, you know, exactly as it is from the scripture.

But I know that the outcome is with, and I can trust that even if I fail, even if I say something wrong, I quote the Bible verse wrong, whatever, the Lord can still use it. And we're guaranteed that God is gonna save people.

There are people that are gonna hear the gospel. Now, I can't say that if you go out sharing the gospel today that somebody is gonna believe today, but somebody is gonna believe. If you keep sharing the gospel, it's guaranteed that God has people in the city.

So the relationship then between the sovereignty of God and evangelism is not nearly as complex as what some people say. So let me back up, let's work through this for a second. So let me back up and let's say that you hold a position that, you know, God just knows.

God didn't choose people to be saved. He just knows that they're gonna be saved, okay? So you go back to before the foundation of the world and you say, okay, God just knows how they're gonna get saved, okay?

And he also knows the means by which they're gonna get saved and God just knows this. Now, that has so many logical problems, biblical problems. It's just, it's actually a convoluted mess. But what I'm saying is, I'm taking you back to your position, thinking before the foundation of the world, I'm saying God doesn't just know, he determines.

And I'm saying that when you say he knows who's gonna be saved and how they're gonna be saved, I'm saying he determines who's gonna be saved and how they're gonna be saved. In other words, the point that I'm trying to make is God does not just ordain the salvation of people.

He ordains the ways that they are going to be saved. And therefore, it is the church's privilege and obligation to take the gospel to the nations. So answer number one, why do you take the gospel? If you believe God saves who he's gonna save, it's already determined.

Why do you take the gospel to the streets? Why do you street preach? Why do you knock on doors? Why do you pass out tracks? Why do you even care? Okay, number one, because God told us to.

Right.

If God tells you to do something, who are you, old man, to answer back to God? If God commands the church to evangelize, you're not allowed to say to God,.

Yeah, but you've already got it figured out.

No, we go because God has told us to go. We also go, and this really should probably be number one, but I'm just making it a clear thing. We also go because Christ is glorified when he's preached. When the gospel is preached, we go to bring glory and honor to Christ.

We also go, as you said just a minute ago, Eddie, because people are actually gonna be saved. It's the means by which God saves. He doesn't just say this, well, I think these people are gonna get saved, and no matter what happens, this is how it's gonna go.

That's just not how the scriptures read.

Right, and that's an important thing for us to point out, because we've kind of, this whole conversation so far, we've kind of been dealing with how we would talk about sovereign grace with someone who held to not a predestinarian position.

But listen, there is a ditch on the other side. There is the primitive Baptist, the hyper-Calvinist position just says, well, there are people in the world who've never heard of Jesus, but they're elect.

No, no, there aren't. No, there aren't. They need to hear the gospel. The only people that are gonna be with the Lord are those who hear the gospel. They've gotta respond to the gospel because of God's sovereign grace, but we've gotta go and preach it.

These aren't gonna be saved that don't hear the gospel. And so we wanna be careful that we do give God all the glory and all the credit for his saving of savage souls, but we also

You can't say savages. We're gonna have to edit that out.

You have to edit that out. But we've also got to remember that we're not saying that this salvation happens automatic.

That's right.

So we're saying, okay, but it's hard for me to wrap my mind around. Good, that's right. It ought to be, because we're talking about a weighty, it's hard for me to wrap my mind around. You have on one hand, the sovereignty of God.

On the other hand, the responsibility of man. Wasn't it Spurgeon that was asked, how do you reconcile the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man? He said, I never reconcile friends.

That's right.

So these are two parallel truths. All men are responsible. God is absolutely sovereign. And so, and they never overlap. And neither is the responsibility of man ever flip over and rule over God, right?

It was John Bunyan who said something along the lines of, to be saved by grace, supposes that salvation is entirely in God's hands and it's better in his hands than anywhere else or something like that.

Yeah, and I've thought about that before. There really is a sense in which, if we say, I don't want to believe that God is choosing. Well, there really is a sense in which you're saying that you trust yourself more than you trust God to make the right decision.

Who do you trust? And this is going to be next week's episode, but this is a good preview for that. Who do you trust? Who do you want the salvation of your children's hands in?

You want them in yours? You want them in theirs? You want them in, who do you want?

I want them in God's hands.

That's right.

And I know, as Abraham said, the judge of all the earth shall do right. The sovereignty of God, I was reading yesterday from Spurgeon, but the sovereignty of God is a solace to us. And we don't separate it from his goodness.

So God is sovereign and God is good and he is wise and he is going to get this right. I mean, that's one question when we come to like, is salvation of the Lord. Can you really trust God with this? Who do you want salvation to be up?

Can we trust his sovereign hand in getting this right, in saving whom he will for his glory? And truly a well-meant, again, Ezekiel 33, 11, as I live, declares the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.

Turn back, turn back from your evil ways, or why will you die? Oh, house of Israel. God is not sadistic, zapping people with lightning bolts and gleeful tyranny or whatever the case may be. There's a genuine well-meant offer.

Come to Christ, come to Christ, come to Christ. The reason, here's a deep theological truth. The reason no one comes to Christ apart from grace, they don't want to.

That's right.

As Jeremiah says, each of you follows your evil, stubborn, unbelieving heart. That's the state of mankind. So God offers a well-meant offer of the gospel, but what he does is he actually reaches out and saves those.

Let's say the burning building illustration, you may say. Hopefully it's not too irreverent. I'm just thinking it off the top of my head, so feel free to poke holes in this. It's got the burning building illustration, and you've got God that comes in to the burning building and says, follow me out, follow me out, and I'll rescue you, you'll be saved.

All you gotta do is follow me out. He walks into a room, everybody scatters. They run the opposite way. I'm not following him. I hate you. I don't want you. Get out of my life. God says to the whole building, if you'll just come follow me, I will lead you out.

Problem, no one follows him. They all run the other way, but God, in his mercy, he could, by the way, he could rescue everyone out of there. He could rescue everyone in the building. He could, he has the power.

He could also walk out of the building and let the whole building burn down. He's got the power and the right to do either one of those, but in his sovereign grace, he goes into the building and he says, follow me.

No one follows him, but he goes and he grabs people, some people out and brings them out. I mean, I don't know. I just thought of that as off top of head. So it's probably, there's probably some holes there, but there's

One thing I think that you're highlighting, and I think this is important in this conversation as well, and people really don't like this, but it's a reality. From the perspective of scripture, we must realize that the death of a lost person, the judgment of God upon their sin has a purpose.

It's not without meaning. And I think oftentimes the way that people view is there's purpose in someone being saved, but there's only tragedy in a person being lost. Well, it's certainly tragic, but there's also a purpose in demonstrating God as just in God judging.

So it tells us in Romans chapter three that God made Christ to be a propitiation, and it says there, so that he may be just and the justifier of the one who has failed. So God is both a just judge, and if God, like you said, could God save everybody?

Well, he could, but how would we know that he's a just judge? Could God condemn everybody? Yes, but how would we know that he's a gracious? But he is God, merciful and gracious, abounding in steadfast love, but he will by no means, and that is the God that we serve, a God who is both just and justifier of his faith.

God has free will.

God has free will, that's right.

But I'll say this, we have free will too, certainly, in the sense that

But it's creaturely will, it's not sovereign will.

Our creaturely will has the ability to do what it wants. Maybe I put that in asterisk, like I can't, boy, I'd love to evaporate right here and reappear in Colorado and enjoy some cooler weather.

That'd be nice.

Right, but obviously I can't do that, but anything that I want to do morally, I can do. I'm not constrained. For example, let's even use this. If I want to choose, like if I want to be righteous or whatever, if I want to do righteous things, I can.

The problem is, I'm saying this a little bit to an extent, I mean, a little bit tongue in cheek, a little bit hyperbolic, I understand, but the point is I don't want to, right? You put the Caesar salad in front of the buzzard or a rancid three-day-old possum, he has the freedom to choose the Caesar salad.

He's not going to.

Why?

He doesn't want to. That's not his nature. So our nature is bound in sin and death and slavery and darkness. We don't choose good because we don't want to. Now, we're kind of wrapping this up. So the very objections from Romans 9 are the objections some people have.

I mean, it's the very things that Paul, so if you say, no, this isn't right, that would make God unjust. Paul says, what shall we say then? Is there an injustice on God's part? By no means. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.

But then the man argues, the person argues,.

Well, no, that's not fair.

Because no one can resist God's will. How could he even find fault? Okay, verse 19, exactly what Paul addresses. You will say to me then, why does he still find fault for who can resist his will? What's Paul's answer?

I love Paul's answer because it's not so much a logical, let's make this make sense, so much as it is, no, we need to start with this premise. But who are you, old man, to answer back to God? Like who are, like we have no fear of God, right?

So are you saying then, are you trying to say here that God arbitrarily chooses who will be saved and who will not? No, I'm not saying that. I'm not saying arbitrarily. I'm saying sovereignly. He sovereignly chooses whom he will save and whom I not, this is my position.

I think it's the position of the Bible and historically reformed Baptist position. He chooses whom he will save and he chooses whom he will pass over. That there's not equal ultimacy in predestination.

He doesn't predestine people to hell in the sense of you can't come to Christ. It's I'm passing over you. You should repent and the offer of salvation is there, but the reason you won't repent is not because God won't let you come.

The reason you won't repent lies in your own heart and your own unrepentant desires.

Well, and even thinking about our creaturely freedom, and I'm just thinking about this off the top of my head, but I'm trying to think through the scriptures. I can't think of a place where God kept, like restricted a person from doing a righteous, but there are several places where God kept a wicked person doing more wicked.

That's right, yeah.

There are many places where God actually graciously kept a sinner from doing worse sins. He didn't let them do what they intended to do.

And I would even argue that that's happening today all the time and we don't see it. This is God's restraining grace. And of course, we see him showing forth maybe less and less of that in our nation as people are Romans 1 being turned over more and more.

Anyway, we're gonna wrap this one up. If you got questions, feel free to email us or you had my email at the beginning, C-U-A-T-R-O-N-E-L-S-O-N, quattronelson at gmail .com. You wanna share yours?