June 25, 2020 Show with Angus Stewart on “Regeneration: God’s Gift of a New Heart”

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 25th day of June 2020, and I'm always so thrilled to have back as a returning guest

Angus Stewart, who is pastor of the Covenant Protestant Reformed Church of Ballymena, Northern Ireland.

And today we are going to be continuing our discussion that we began not long ago on regeneration, and today the specific theme is regeneration,

God's gift of a new heart, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Angus Stewart.

It's great to be back with you, Chris, and to have such a lovely subject to discuss together. Amen. And if you hear either

Angus or I not respond to a question, or we stop in mid -sentence and aren't saying anything, it isn't likely because we have a loss for words.

The likelihood is that our power was knocked out due to a severe thunderstorm that is raging outside my window right now, although it has calmed down a bit since a few minutes ago.

But as we always do, for the sake especially of our listeners who have not yet heard you on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, or they just forgot the details, tell us about Covenant Protestant Reformed Church of Ballymena, Northern Ireland.

The Covenant Protestant Reformed Church, or the CPRC, meets in the middle of County Antrim.

It's about a 20 -25 minute drive from Belfast.

It's a congregation of about 18 families. We have a couple of elders, a couple of deacons, good men, and a good congregation, and we're looking forward to getting back to public worship again on Sunday week.

That'll be an exciting time to see everyone again, to praise the Lord together in the one place, physically.

So on Monday, we'll have our first catechism class back in our church building, and we'll be starting our

Bible study again on Tuesday, and our council meeting with the other office speakers will be back in our church building.

It makes things a lot handier, other than going online, and then we can start into family visitation.

Those are some things that are happening in our congregation. For your listeners, too, we have a special regeneration resource page.

It's linked from the home page of our church website. The website is www .cprc

.co .uk, and near the top right of the home page, there's a regeneration resource page with the previous interview, with articles, sermons, some good quotes on this subject.

Chris, can I add a little bit for our Spanish listeners? Sure. We had a

Spanish friend, Jorge, he may be listening right now from Peru, in the capital city of Lima, and he's been translating some lengthy articles on the

Covenant. Earlier today, he sent in his Spanish translation, the ninth of the nine articles on the history of the development of the

Covenant, and it was entitled, Calvin's Doctrine Concerning the Blessings of the Covenant.

It was interesting to me that that article deals with Calvin's view of the blessings of the

Covenant, based on Jeremiah 31, quoted in Hebrews, that the Covenant especially embraces two chief blessings, the forgiveness of sins and imputed righteousness, the legal blessings,

God will make a new covenant, he'll forgive sins, and regeneration, the new birth,

God will write the law in the heart. He also points out a sort of a third blessing,

Calvin refers to it as commentaries and writings, a third blessing of illumination, but we've got a nice Spanish translation there, and that brings us up to nearly 3 ,000 translations online, so we've about 552 in Italian, approaching 500 in Portuguese, over 300 in Hungarian, and 200 -odd in Spanish.

And, Chris, here's one, my wife, who's sitting next to me to give me some encouragement and keep my morale up, who works tirelessly on the church website, she now has

PayPal so that people can, well, they can donate to the church, but they can get box sets and books, we have a good number of things there.

The only difficulty, Chris, is we had to exclude, for international customers, we had to exclude the

US and Canada, which probably rules out about 90 % of your people, unfortunately, because many of the books we sell are from the

Reformed Free Publishing Association, and in America, we don't want people buying their books, which we have to get shipped across to Northern Ireland, and then only for us to ship them back to America, then we end up being hit for postage twice, so that's a nice one, a lot of work there.

A better way to phrase it was, you don't want people buying their books from you. Yes. Thanks, Chris, I'm glad you helped me out there,

I couldn't have done it without you. The Publishing Association. And what makes your website very unique, also, is the number of translations you have for the three forms of unity, the

Belgic Confession, the Canons of Dort, and the Heidelberg Catechism. Yes, that's right, and it's an interesting thing, too, this ties in to our present subject, because the

Canons of Dort, the original five points of Calvinism, when the Canons of Dort speak about irresistible grace, the fourth head of doctrine, they mean by irresistible grace, especially irresistible regeneration, because regeneration is the first stage in the application of the salvation which

God decreed for us, and which Christ earned for us, and if regeneration, the very first beginning of God's salvation in and upon us, if that's irresistible, irresistible grace, then everything else is, and so yeah, people can read

Heads 4 and 5, which deal with irresistible grace, especially in regeneration, and I think we have the

Canons maybe in about 25, 30 different languages online, so that'll help our foreign guests, too.

Great, well, since our topic today involves the heart,

I am going to say something that probably most

Christians today, outside of the circles that you and I live and worship in, which would be the majority of Christendom in the 21st century, a very common thing for them to say, either about themselves or about somebody they are evangelizing, if they were speaking about themselves, and somebody were to ask them, how long have you been a

Christian, the common response might be, I invited the

Lord into my heart when I was 15 years old, or something like that.

And if they're evangelizing somebody, they would say to that person, in order for you to receive eternal life, you must recognize you're a sinner, you must recognize

Jesus as the only way for salvation, and you must invite

Jesus into your heart. Now, that statement did contain a couple of truths, a couple of true things in there, but as far as inviting

Jesus into our hearts, something that has become a very prominent part of the vernacular of Christianity, this is really a foreign concept to the

Bible, isn't it? It is. It is. It's important to maintain

Biblical words, and to understand them correctly. Paul speaks to Timothy in 2

Timothy 1 about the form of sound words, he uses similar language in Romans 6.

The Bible talks about repenting of our sins with grief and abhorrence, turning from them, hating them, abhorring them, that's the sort of negative, and then it speaks of believing in Jesus Christ, trusting in the crucified one, the incarnate

Son of God, in his work, not our own, and receiving what he has done.

Inviting Jesus into our heart, like you Chris, I've heard the language a lot, and I've heard people talk about,

I'm not even 100 % sure what they mean by inviting Jesus into their heart,

I'm not even sure they know what they're talking about, when people talk about, I invited Jesus into their heart,

I mean, maybe they are converted, maybe they really have believed, but we're bringing in this foreign element, and really

I think the idea of inviting Jesus into our heart is to use soft, therapeutic, unbiblical language that puts man on the throne, so that the offense of the cross is reduced, and instead the

Christian church needs to go back to repent, believe, be converted, and this whole language of inviting

Jesus into your heart, you know, the heart's a good idea, we're to believe with the heart,

Romans 8 says, and when you say heart, one possible way to talk to them, such people who are involved in this way of thinking is, heart, that's good, that's biblical, the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it,

Jeremiah 17, the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they believe, while they live,

Ecclesiastes 9, and the imagination of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually,

Genesis 6, let's bring up this, man's total depravity, and then we can get into some good biblical discussion to find out where we are,

I mean, maybe even the person is a true believer and has been confused by bad teaching, but if we stick with scripture, we stick with scriptural words, scripturally explained, then we have meaning, we see eye to eye, and then we can get into the great issues of the gospel.

Yes, I can clearly fondly remember a sermon preached years ago in the 1990s by a very good friend of mine,

Ed Moore, who pastors North Shore Baptist Church in Bayside, Queens, and the name of his sermon, taken from the

Garden of Eden when God is calling out for Adam to show himself, he was in hiding after his fall, and basically he goes on to a part in the sermon where he directs, he shifts the call from Adam, where are you, to sinner, where are you, to everybody listening, and he says,

I heard you want to invite me into your heart, I don't want to be invited into your filthy, evil, wicked, vile heart,

I've got to remove that heart from you, and I've got to replace it with a heart of flesh.

So this is a part of the problem, is that people are acting as if their heart is a wonderful dwelling place for our

Lord, or at the very least, not such a bad place for him to enter and perhaps do a little housecleaning, this is entirely false, we need an actual heart transplant, according to the words of Ezekiel and Jeremiah, and even the letter to the

Hebrews. Yes, you're dead right, and it is a striking thing, and that's why we chose the title for our discussion,

Regeneration, God's Gift of a New Heart, that so many places, you cited some, and so many of the biblical ways of speaking of regeneration, involve the heart.

There's the new heart, Ezekiel 36, the law is written in the heart, in the new covenant,

Jeremiah 31, God gives us a heart of flesh,

Ezekiel 11 and 36, God opens the heart in regeneration, and as opposed to man's naturally uncircumcised heart,

God circumcises the heart. The Lord will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the

Lord thy God with all the heart, soul, strength, and mind, to paraphrase Deuteronomy 30 verse 6, so you're dead right, that inviting

Jesus into the heart is a misunderstanding, what God does is, he gives a new heart, and then of course, once you talk about give, which is

Ezekiel 36 again, we've moved the ball, we've moved the goalposts, as it were, that's soccer goalposts there

Chris, not American football since we're... We've moved the goalposts, and we're into regeneration as pure gift, not what man can do.

I've invited Jesus into my heart, I mean, if I invite, we'll say, some poor person into my heart, people say, oh good for you, you invited him into your house, and you're going to give him a meal, good for you, but God gives us a new heart, it's all about his grace, and so that misrepresentation of the gospel gets it wrong from that point of perspective as well, and then of course, this being the language introduced by the so -called church or power church, this being the language introduced in terms of evangelism, that's just totally reprehensible, use biblical language, biblical way, for the biblical meaning, to achieve biblical results, and God willing, the regeneration and salvation of his people.

Amen, well this theme is a very central theme that affects so many other truths and teachings and doctrines, and Chris and so many other categories of the

Bible have their root in the fact that humans have been conceived in such great wickedness that we refer to as total depravity, that a heart transplant is absolutely essential for us to even, as Jesus said to Nicodemus, unless he would be born again, he cannot even see the kingdom of God.

Now this word regeneration that we're using, this is basically a synonym for born again, is it not?

It sure is. We have the language of birth, to be born again, to be born from above, then we have regeneration, and generate the generation of children in birthing, and then we have the writing of God's law on the heart, we have the reference to the new creation, if any man's in Christ, he is a new creature, regeneration is being spoken of also as the implanting of a seed in us, 1

Peter 1 and 1 John 3, it's a spiritual resurrection, it's

Christ living in me, it's the Holy Spirit indwelling us, and it's interesting, so when you look at regeneration and the synonyms and then widen out the language just a little, you don't only get the idea of heart which

I emphasised earlier, but the other images fill out the picture as getting at the idea of life, life, the wind, the sovereign wind blows and gives us new life, like the valley of dry bones, can these bones live?

Ezekiel 16, there was the child cast out in her blood, the little girl, and God passed by in a time of love, says to the church and each individual elect, live, there's life in the new creation, there's life in being born, the seed of life being raised from the dead,

God quickening us and giving life to us, Christ living in us, the Spirit living in us, regeneration is the beginning of the new spiritual life and all the life of the

Christian from that moment all through his whole Christian life, and even into the new heavens and the new earth, it all begins with that one seed in regeneration, granting us life as a pure sovereign gift in which man is completely passive.

And a key word in the phrase that you have chosen for the title of our discussion is that regeneration is

God's gift of a new heart, and there is a really sad and inadequate and really, when it boils down to it, a silly response to we who are theologically reformed, who believe that only

God's elect receive this gift of a new heart, and those that protest, whether they call themselves

Arminians or something else, those from outside of Reformed Christianity, it might even include

Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox who are outside the realm of Biblical Christianity altogether, but they would say a gift is only a true gift unless you freely accept it.

That is their answer to us saying that only the elect are given this gift.

They say, no, no, no, no, Jesus offers the gift to everyone, and they need to accept it for it to actually create salvation or give birth to salvation, however you want to phrase it.

But one of the reasons this is a sad excuse for a defense of their beliefs is that they've invented something they believe to be true, that a gift is only a gift unless you freely accept it.

Who made that up? You could be unconscious on a hospital operating table, and you could be receiving a transplant of a vital organ.

You could have blood being pumped into your veins from a blood donor.

All kinds of things could be going on that are gifts to you that you had no say in the matter.

Chris, I agree fully. Here's the Canons of Dort, which is the best creedal expression,

I believe, of what's meant by a gift. This is Canons Head 3 -4,

Article 14. Faith is therefore to be considered as the gift of God, not on account of its being offered by God to man, to be accepted or rejected at his pleasure, but because it is in reality conferred, breathed, and infused into him.

Then it goes on to add that faith is not the gift of God, even because God bestows the power or ability to believe, and then expects that man should, by the exercise of his own free will, consent to the terms of salvation and actually believe in Christ.

But rather, faith is the gift of God in this sense. He who works in man, both to will and to do, and indeed all things in all, produces both the will to believe and the act of believing also.

The Bible speaks about God giving the new heart, and I mentioned some of the biblical images for regeneration, and I want to go through some of them now and emphasize how they explain the nature of the gift.

Jesus said that the regenerating spirit, the one who gives us the new birth, is like the wind, who blows sovereignly, and you don't know where it came from or where it's going.

That's what's meant by the gift of regeneration. Ezekiel 37, the dry bones, those bones didn't do a single thing.

The wind blew, and they lived. When God writes the law on the heart, Jeremiah 31,

I can't write on my heart. God writes on my heart. Regeneration is God's making us a new creation.

I can no more make myself a new creation, that is, be born again, than I could call myself or the universe into existence.

Nor did I cause myself to be conceived or born. It happened to me.

God implants the seed of life into my heart from outside. Jesus Christ life, I couldn't do that.

And a man can no more give himself the new birth than he can raise himself from the dead or quicken himself.

And the problem with all forms of Arminianism and Roman Catholicism here is, it's a dead man bringing himself back to life.

And this is just pure theological insanity. And what it wants to do is it wants to put man firmly on the throne and dethrone

God. And the reason for this in the unbelieving and false churches, the reason for this is that the carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

They can't receive scripture the way it's written. They have to twist it. And sadly they twist it to their own destruction.

Man has a heart problem, the heart problem of total depravity. He needs a new heart which

God puts in him, holy of grace. That's the gospel promise.

By the way Chris, here's another good text on regeneration or the new birth as a gift.

This is powerful from James 1. First of all it's general, verse 17.

So every good gift comes from God with his unchangeable will. No variableness, no shadow of turning.

Then the next verse brings in regeneration. Out of all the good gifts from God, the first gift is the gift of life.

And because of this gift in the believer's life, everything comes to him as a gift of grace and as a receipt of it. There's all these good gifts but the first and key one is regeneration.

And it's of his own will. Not our will, not his will and our will, not our accepting his will.

Just of his will, his own will. A will without any variableness or shadow of turning.

Of his own will he gave birth to us. The Father begat us with the word of truth.

And that's the wonder. Salvation is all of the Lord. Even the 100th Psalm says this.

And actually the making there isn't of us as created human beings. It's us as God's people.

And John 1 says that we were born, the new birth, regeneration, not of the will of man nor of the will of the flesh.

But we're born of God. Holy of God. Scripture cannot make it any clearer for him who has eyes to see.

The difficulty is unless you have regeneration, sadly you can't see. Because except a man is born again, he can't see the kingdom of God.

And the seeing there is the seeing of faith. He can't believe the kingdom of God. And 1 Corinthians 2 says that the natural man doesn't receive the things of the spirit.

And regeneration is a very, very spiritual thing. And only he who has been born again.

And again we come back to John 3. Nicodemus, a master in Israel, a Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin.

Jesus told him about regeneration and he hadn't got a clue. And Jesus said you're a teacher in Israel, you don't know these things.

Have you not read the Old Testament? And the man hadn't.

That's why Jesus said you need to be born again. But what you're pointing up really is what's called decisional regeneration.

Man causes himself to be born again by decision, an act of his own supposedly free will. Decisional regeneration, that's much of Arminian evangelicalism.

Or from Roman Eastern Orthodoxy, baptismal regeneration. The water of baptism regenerates everybody.

And interestingly both Arminian decisional regeneration and Rome's baptismal regeneration, interestingly they both have a regeneration that you can then lose.

You can have a new birth from God and be unborn again. God can give you life and raise you from the dead and then you die again spiritually.

And here's the Counts of Dort. The Counts of Dort reject the errors of those who teach that it is not absurd that one having lost his first regeneration is again and often born anew.

These deny by this doctrine the incorruptible -ness of the seed of God whereby we are born again.

Contrary to the testimony of the Apostle Peter, having been begotten or born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible first.

Peter 1 verse 23. So they say you can be born again then lose it. Then there's more decision about being born again, again, again, again, again.

And you can only be born again once. And then the Bible says there's an incorruptible seed.

And then they come around and say no, no, no, the seed's actually corruptible. The seed of regeneration you got by your own free will.

The seed of regeneration which you got at the baptismal font. The Bible says you're born again once, just as you were only born once.

And this second birth is an incorruptible birth.

Chris, I wanted to underscore another key point about regeneration. Yes, if you could do that after our first break because we have to get up to the first break right now.

Thanks, Chris. And if anybody would like to join us with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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USA. Don't go away. We're going to be right back with Angus Stewart right after these messages. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

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Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the entire program is

Angus Stewart, one of my very favorite guests to interview on this program.

I always have a blessed time, an exciting time, a time of edification, and just an all -around wonderful time of interviewing this brother from Covenant Protestant Reformed Church of Ballymena, Northern Ireland, and we are discussing a follow -up topic to one that we previously conducted not long ago on regeneration.

This one, this topic more specifically is titled Regeneration, God's Gift of a

New Heart. If you have questions for Angus, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com

chrisarnzen at gmail .com and please give us at least your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. And I cut you off mid -sentence because we had to go to our break before, but if you could please pick up where you left off,

Angus. Thanks, Chris. Chris, I'd like to add before I come to that, during the break

I got a very nice email from a brother in Hungary. He sent us two translations in Hungarian, articles from our

Covenant Reformed News, so we'll put those online, the Hungarian translations, and this

Covenant Reformed News would be sending out now for, oh boy, I've been doing it for about 20 years, and the previous pastor in the church,

Robin Ronhenko, did before me. This Covenant Reformed News is free by email, so if anyone wants to get it by email, they can email me at pastor at cprc .co

.uk or they could go to the Covenant Protestant Reformed Church Facebook page or Angus Stewart Facebook page.

A bit of free advertising there, Chris, but it did come in during the break.

You can advertise anything you want, and it's all for the glory of God. Thanks, Chris. We were talking about the new birth, and we were saying that it was a gift, that it's a gift of life, that all life begins there, that it's about the heart, because out of the heart are the issues of life, and if we have a new heart, the life changes.

The word new is very important. It's a gift of a new heart, and the

Bible says that God gives in regeneration to his elect redeemed people a new heart or a new spirit, so that he makes us, he creates in us the new man, and we are a new creation, and your listeners will all know these are biblical terms, and therefore we have a new life with a new understanding, new desires, new affections, new delights and joys, and all this is the blessing of the new covenant in the blood of Jesus Christ.

I have a really nice quote here from J .C. Ryle, which I'd like to share with your listeners. To be born again is, as it were, to enter upon a new existence, to have a new mind, a new heart, new views, new principles, new tastes, new affections, new likings, new dislikings, new fears, new joys, new sorrows, new love to things once hated, new hatred to things once loved, new thoughts of God and ourselves and the world, and the life to come and salvation, and the newness of the believer, we're a sort of a kind of first fruits of all the creation, we're the first fruits, the rest of the creation is going to come to, and the

Bible in Matthew 19, verse 28,

Jesus speaking, it says, Ye which have followed me in the regeneration, when the

Son of Man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, etc. So there's a regeneration of the individual believer, a new birth, and that individual birth of the individual believer will be followed one day at the return of Jesus Christ with the new birth and the regeneration of the entire creation, and only those who have been regenerated or born again of the

Holy Spirit will be part of the regeneration of the new birth of the creation.

And it's interesting, the believer is a new creature, new creation, 2 Corinthians 5.

And then there's the new creation of the new heavens and the new earth. There's the already, the regeneration of each child of God in this world, and in the not yet, of the new birth and regeneration of the whole creation.

This individual application of salvation to us leads us to eschatology, and Chris, I have a whole host of things.

Regeneration is connected with the church, with preaching, with our calling as Christians, with assurance, with the image of God.

I thought you'd like that one, Chris. And all of those things could be developed, the

Christian virtues. Are there any of those things, Chris, you'd like to hear more about, or perhaps you have another question you'd like to ask?

Well, why don't we, you could continue on that thread and go into any particular side road, if you will, that you care to, with any of those topics you mentioned.

But I do want to read a question for you. It's actually from somebody who's a member of the

Covenant Protestant Reformed Church of Thalamina. Dr. Julian Kennedy.

He says, just reviewing the canons and have a question. It is clear that they are speaking about regeneration in the adult and say nothing about infant regeneration, which of necessity is immediate without means, the word of the gospel, which is also true for adults.

Yet in Head, in 3 .5,

it calls the gospel the seed of regeneration rather than the sovereign immediate work of God.

Could the relationship between immediate regeneration and immediate conversion be clarified for infants and adults respectively?

I think he wants us to have three programs on this one issue. A lot could be picked up on there.

There are two stages, aspects, elements of regeneration. The first of which is that God plants an incorruptible seed in the heart of his elect.

This incorruptible seed is placed in there. And then by the means of the preaching, the second stage that we're, especially now for adults, by the means of the preaching, the new life which was implanted in that seed comes to manifestation.

And the classic proof text for that is 1 Peter 1 verse 23.

It says that we are born again not of incorruptible seed but of incorruptible.

And the of is ek. We're born again not out of a corruptible seed, but we're born out of an incorruptible seed.

God places that life in us with that seed. And the birth comes out of that. And then it uses a different preposition, by dia, by the word of God.

So we're born out of a corruptible seed, an incorruptible seed rather, that's planted in us, and we're born by the word of life.

So the word of life in the preaching calls forth faith out of the regenerate heart.

And the believer then manifests his life by believing, and indeed the life of good works.

So those are the two stages. As for the rest of the question, it was a bit lengthy.

I've forgotten it. And I'll talk with Julian about that one later and off air.

On Tuesday, we have a Bible study on Tuesday. By the way,

I misspoke. My eyesight was tricking me again. The heading in the canons of Dort was 3 -4, not 3 -5.

So I apologize to Dr. Julian. Now, just very briefly, there is a lot of mystery involved in infant regeneration.

Can we be absolutely sure, certain, that God doesn't use memes in these cases?

Like we have the case in the Bible of John the Baptist, who leapt for joy in his mother's womb merely being in the presence of Christ.

We assume he must have been regenerate for him to miraculously have joy.

Do we know that there was no means in bringing John the

Baptist to the point of regeneration? I mean, could there not have been the gospel preached in his presence or the prophecy of the coming

Messiah better said at that point of time? Yes, John certainly was regenerated in his mother's womb because he leapt for joy, as you pointed out.

And joy is a fruit of the Spirit. Luke 1 verse 15 says that John shall be filled with the

Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb. Then there's the issue about the presence of Christ in the womb of Mary.

And what was John able to hear? I mean, he's in the womb, I don't think he was able to hear.

But some deeply mysterious regenerating work of talents speak a lot about that.

And then the presence of Christ mediated to that child. And he leapt for joy as sort of a physical quickening because of a spiritual quickening.

Another example of regeneration in the mother's womb is Jacob. Because Jacob wrestled with Esau for the blessing.

In his mother's womb, there was that spiritual wrestling. And that spiritual wrestling with the reprobate and for the blessing can only come by work of the

Holy Ghost. And the wrestling of Jacob in his mother's womb and the wrestling of Jacob with Christ at Peniel in Genesis.

Those two events are linked together in Hosea 12. Here's Jacob, he's the father of Israel, the people of God.

And he's wrestling in his mother's womb and he's wrestling with Christ. And both of those wrestlings, one against reprobate

Esau and one with Christ, both those blessings are spiritual blessings. And they're both driven by the

Holy Ghost and they're both seeking as a regenerate person more and more of the blessing of God.

So if someone wants to bring up the issue about the word for John the Baptist as having a role in the manifestation of life, with regard to Jacob, we don't have a physical presence of Christ being bodily there.

But we know that he was born again because of that life that he manifested.

And then from Jacob slash Israel, the people of God in the Old Testament have their name and indeed in the

New Testament. Because we are the Israel of God. All those who seek their justification and peace in Christ and put no confidence in the flesh,

Philippians 3, Galatians 6. We are the Israel of God. In fact, we have to go now to our midway break and please be patient with us.

It's the longer break because Christ Life Radio needs to have this long break to air their own public service announcements and other things that localize

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from Solid -Ground -Books .com and always remember to mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And before we return to Angus Stewart, we just have a couple of announcements to make.

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And Angus, did you, I know that I had to once again interrupt you to go to a commercial break, so did you have a train of thought you were following there?

Yes, I wanted to take our listeners to Psalm 87. Psalm 87 out of the 150

Psalms is what you may call the Psalm of Regeneration or the

New Birth. I want to get this in because this may be a fresh point for many people.

Psalm 87 verse 2 says, The Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.

The Institute Church, the place of God's public worship, God loves that even more than our own homes.

Even though our walls are before him and he has our names graven in his hand. Then it adds verse 3,

Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God. Key verse in Augustine's great

City of God near the star. Glorious things are spoken of the city of God. And one wonders what the

Psalmist is going to say next about these what are these glorious things spoken about the city of God? And then he brings up the

New Birth. Three times he talks about people being born again in Zion.

Verse 4, I will make mention of Rahab, a word for Egypt, and Babylon to them that know me.

Behold Philistia to the southwest and Tyre to the north, with Ethiopia way to the south.

This man was born there in Zion in the church. And of Zion verse 5 it shall be said this and that man this guy here, that man there was born in her.

Verse 6, the Lord shall count when he writes up the people registers the true people of God that this man was born there.

And ordinarily that is where God regenerates his people in church. Many people have been born again and brought to faith in the church.

And those who have been born again in other places, I mean physically it's in connection with the church.

The word brought by a friend or reading the scriptures people have spoken about that because the church is the pillar and ground of the truth.

That's where the gospel is preached. Believers are members of the church.

And then verse 7 goes on to say that the singers and players and instruments those who sing and those who play the musical instruments in connection with the temple in Jerusalem shall be there right in Zion.

And then this confession, this is what they sing. All my springs, springs of water are in thee.

That's what the people of God say. I was born there. I was born in the church. And certainly born from the

Jerusalem which is above. And therefore all my springs are in the church. That's where the word and sacrament is.

That's where the people of God come. That's where God's especially present. That's where the spirit is working and God is being glorified.

So the believer, he's born again in connection with the church. And then his well springs, the spring up of new life are out of the church.

That's a key passage on the new birth often overlooked that link regeneration to the church of our

Lord Jesus Christ. And there's another couple of passages that link especially the word of God to the preaching.

Chris, would we like to hear about those? Amen. Well, I'm turning now to James chapter 1.

Because James 1, we quote in verse 17, every good gift comes down from heaven and the first good gift and the one which begins the new life is regeneration.

The next verse, that's James 1 19 says, wherefore my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.

And that's a great verse about people bumping in or talking too much.

I've quoted it to my catechumens sometimes when they interrupt me and written it on the whiteboard and they've almost memorized it.

Especially the boys, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak. I was almost tempted to change the scripture, let every young boy.

But anyway, the passage has a good application to that. But when it talks about let every man be swift to hear, the previous verse and the subsequent verses make it clear that it's every man be swift to hear, especially the preaching.

Verse 19, wherefore, that is in the light of the truth of regeneration, that God who plants the seed and brings this seed to life by the word of truth.

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, this stays with us in the pew on the Lord's day, let every man be swift to hear the preaching, slow to speak against the preaching, assuming, of course, the preaching is a faithful exposition and application of the word, slow to speak against it, and slow to wrath.

Don't get angry when the word tells you truths you don't like, or exposes sin. And then it goes on to say, for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

When someone gets angry at the preaching of the glory of God, that's not going to work the righteousness of God, it's going to work unrighteousness.

Whereas, contrary -wise, if someone is swift to hear the proclamation of the truth, he's believing, well then he's going to receive the righteousness of God by believing the gospel.

Then the passage goes on to say, wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness or wickedness, set aside all your sins by God's grace, and receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls.

That is, God used the preaching of the word at the very start to bring to manifestation the seed of regeneration by quickening faith, bringing forth repentance and good works.

Now, keep responding to the word that way. That's the word that saves your souls.

Then verse 22 says, famous verse, be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only.

In other words, you've got to hear the word, hear it rightly, receive it. And then, step two as it were, be doers of the word.

The word regenerated you, listen to it properly, and then obey it as a doer of the word.

Because if you're only a hearer, you deceive yourself, which is the worst form of deception, not even telling lies to deceive other people, but deceiving yourself.

And the next few verses talk about the good works of the person who's regenerated, and who lives out of the word.

And there's a parallel passage, a really powerful parallel passage in 1 Peter 2.

Chris, can we go to that one as well? Yes, indeed. Okay. 1

Peter 1, we quoted verse 23 earlier, that we're born again, this is at the end of 1

Peter 1, we're born again out of this corruptible seed God plants it in, and then by the word of God, which lives and abides forever, this is the word of the

Lord, this is the word of the gospel, which is preached unto you. That ends chapter 1.

And then, very similar to James, 1 Peter 2 says, wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, because you've been born again, newborn babes, set aside your sins, like James 1 says, by God's grace, repent and forsake them, and desire the sincere milk of the word, that you may grow thereby.

So the words, that means that God used in the preaching to bring the manifestation, regeneration, and then the believer, he's like a newborn babe, you can't, as my mother said of it, one of my brothers especially, you could never feed him quick enough, he was always one bottle after another.

Newborn babes desire that pure milk of the word, because that's the way of growth.

You see, the regeneration is new life, and there's new growth. You're born again, therefore you become a newborn babe, and just like that newborn babe, pure milk of the word, that's the requisite, food and drink, that's the way of growth.

If so be you've tasted the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ is gracious. And we have sermons on James 1, and indeed 1

Peter 1 and 2, and Psalm 87, those three passages, I've been preaching those about some while back, it really, to me, were a great blessing, very helpful, and they're on our resources page on www .cprc

.co .uk. Great, and let me, before you go any further, take a listener question.

Susan Margaret, in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, says the last time that you two were together on the program,

Chris promised that he would at least briefly revisit something he was telling you, Angus, about a disagreement he had with R .C.

Sproul, could you please at least briefly revisit that discussion again? Oh yes, that was the time that I said, last time we were together, that the only time

I can remember disagreeing with R .C. Sproul was one of my heroes, other than his beliefs on infant baptism and some church polity issues,

I can't recall hearing him say anything that I disagreed with other than this time of discussion during a

Q &A session at one of his conferences where he said that no one can seek after God without being born again first, and my reaction to that was, where I believe that a totally depraved man cannot and will not seek after God, as the

Scriptures clearly teach us. I mean, what he was saying was straight out of the Bible. It's in both

Old and New Testament. But, I was wondering, and I was posing the question to you, what do you have happening in the life of someone like Nicodemus, who even risked his life sneaking in the night time to visit

Jesus, to learn from Him. There doesn't seem to be any ulterior motive or selfish motive or anything that we find going on there.

And, is there some kind of a drawing going on, or some kind of a softening, and if you don't like the word softening, what is going on in the life of the lost

Nicodemus and other people, perhaps thousands of listeners.

And, even when I reflect on my own life, I didn't go from a point of stark, cold, militant paganism to Christianity.

And, I'm not saying I was saved gradually or regenerated gradually, but there was changes going on in my interests, in my hunger for truth, and so on.

So, can you explain what you, in your own mind, and according to your understanding of Biblical theology, what is going on in the mind of somebody like a

Nicodemus, especially since, according to what

R .C. Sproul said, if we can't even seek after God without having a full -blown rebirth prior to seeking, then you have people seeking after God who are lost.

I'm sorry, let me rephrase that. You have Christians who are born again who are without faith in Christ.

That's what I meant to say. That was a mishap there. So, you have people who still have not found the answer to eternal life seeking who are regenerate, and that doesn't seem to make sense.

Chris, there's a lot there. I'll answer some of the things, and then the things that I don't answer, you can follow up again.

In terms of your summary of R .C. Sproul and your own position,

I'm afraid, and I hope you don't cut me off here, I'm afraid I'm with R .C. Sproul. Well, that is usually a safer bet for anybody.

R .C.'s a member of the Church of Triumphant. Yes. But he may agree with me now.

I'm only a member of the Church Militant, too. This subject goes on to the issue of preparationism.

Preparationism. And there are different forms of preparationism.

There's a Pelagian preparationism, which you're obviously not holding at all. And there's a

Roman Catholic sort of preparationism, which you're not holding, of course, at all. Then there is, historically, the preparationist movement among the

Reformed was actually chiefly, or especially, British.

Or maybe even English, so I'm afraid I have to criticize my own background there,

Chris, and that's painful for me. That's painful. Um... Many of the

English Puritans did this, and then it got into the Dutch line, too. But here's a good quote from Herman Witsius.

Herman Witsius was a Dutch theologian who dedicated his famous work on the Covenant to William of Orange, who won the

Battle of the Boyne on the island of Ireland in 1690, which was celebrated, actually, on the 12th of July.

Here's Herman Witsius, who disagrees with preparationism, and Witsius says, we think those more accurate who lay it down that these things, he's talking about the breaking of a natural consummacy and flexibility of the will, or a serious consideration of the law, or consideration of their own sins and offense against God, or lawful fear of punishment, terror of hell, etc.

We think those more accurate who lay it down that these things, and such as these in elect persons, are not preparations for regeneration, but the fruits and effects of initial regeneration, and preparations for subsequent and more perfect operations of a more generous spirit, being the

Holy Spirit. Then, I have another nice quote here from Archimedes, but I don't want to say the same thing.

I don't believe that there's any preparationism in that sense, and whatever a person, let's say, goes to church, or starts reading the

Bible, before they're regenerated, and a person can do those things before they're regenerated, they're still totally depraved, and it's only after they're regenerated is there a true seeking of God for God's sake, and a true movement, because all of newness and all of life begin with regeneration.

Yes, and I wanted to just reiterate, just in case somebody misunderstood me, I don't believe anybody left to their own totally depraved heart and mind would do anything that pleases

God, because the Bible teaches that, and they would only seek to give themselves pleasure through sin, and that's why

I'm just wondering what could be going on, like with Nicodemus, or like the multitudes of listeners who may have begun searching and they don't know of any ulterior motives they had that were wicked, just to gain the benefits of religion, or anything like that.

And I also wanted to make clear that I do not believe in provenient grace, which is a heresy and a non -biblical teaching of both

Roman Catholics and Wesleyans. I appreciate that, Chris.

John 3, Nicodemus, I take when Jesus said to him, you must be born again, that Nicodemus wasn't born again at that point.

Right, that's exactly my point. To your point, and he may have been regenerated when he does what's attributed to him in John 7, and I really do think he was regenerated certainly by the time when he goes with Joseph of Arimathea to take body of our

Lord down from the cross. So John 3, he's not regenerated, that's the way

I interpret what Jesus says. Now why did he come to Jesus? He came to Jesus because he was amazed at his teaching.

We know that thou art a teacher, come from God. He was amazed at his teaching, and he did great miracles.

So here was a man who came to Jesus to ask him questions because of his amazing teaching, and he was drawing a crowd.

You might add that as a third issue, and then he's doing miracles. And there are people today, unbelievers, including myself before I was regenerated, who go to church or who ask a minister questions, and the natural man can and does actually do these things.

You know, if you were sitting with a guy in a public space, say on a train or something out there, and the guy says, you know, my job,

I'm into computer design, computer software, you'd ask him questions about that, and then maybe he would come back and ask you, and you'd say, what do you do?

And he'd say, well, I, Chris, I'm a radio talk host and all the things that you do, and then, oh, so what are you discussing?

You talk about the gospel. I made a program on last night, and the person would have some sort of interest. He may follow up some questions, and he may be intrigued, but all those things can be done without regeneration.

What you're dealing with is a man with a certain natural curiosity, and he's seeking a natural knowledge of spiritual things.

And whenever the person really seeks God, believes, does good works, then you're dealing with somebody who is regenerated.

The Canons of Dort, Head 3 -4, Rejection of Errors 4, says that to hunger and thirst after deliverance from misery and afterlife, and to offer unto

God the sacrifice of a broken spirit that's peculiar to the regenerate and to those who are called blessed.

And there it's picking up on the Lord's teaching at the very start of the Sermon on the

Mount. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. But Jesus said in John 3, you know, except a man's born again, he can't see the kingdom of heaven.

So the poor in spirit, those who realize their spiritual poverty, are regenerate. They're in the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, who mourn over their sin, for they should be comforted, every last one of them, because they're mourning over their sin, because they're regenerate.

Blessed are the meek, the humble, the teachable, they'll inherit the earth, they're regenerate. Blessed are those which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled, every last one of them, because they have been born again, and God has given them new life and he's going to fill them with more righteousness as they follow him out of faith.

Well, I appreciate you putting up with me and re -addressing that. Thank you, Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, for bringing that up again and for reminding me about it.

We are going to our final break right now. It's a shorter break than the last two. Please, if you have any questions, send them in immediately, because we're rapidly running out of time.

Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. We'll be back with Angus Stewart, God willing, after these messages, so don't go away.

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Angus Stewart, send it in now or forever hold your peace because we're rapidly running out of time. ChrisArnson at gmail .com.

ChrisArnson at gmail .com. We have an anonymous listener who says,

I frequently hear from my closest Christian friends that, as you were saying earlier, there is a false belief that a gift cannot be genuinely a gift unless it is freely accepted.

My problem with this is that when in anyone's life have they ever been presented with the option to accept or to reject the gift of faith?

I don't think anybody ever has been given this option. The issue is that they are given the option to either follow

Christ or reject Him, which, as we all believe in the

Reformed faith, is a belief that we can only have because it is a divine gift to choose rightly and only a regenerate heart could make such a decision.

So isn't this true that really nobody can say that they freely accepted to accept the gift of faith because they were never presented with that option to begin with?

I think that makes a lot of sense. I've said similar things in similar wording before on the show.

And it's as if people are being presented with some kind of supernatural offer from heaven.

Will you accept this gift of faith? And then after they receive the gift of faith, they're accepting

Christ. This presentation of accepting the gift of faith doesn't even exist anywhere.

No, it doesn't. The gospel holds forth Jesus Christ, the all -sufficient Savior, Son of God, and look at Him on the cross dying for sins.

Believe in Him. Trust in Him. And the content of the gospel isn't faith as such or even asking somebody to accept faith.

It's fully preached, Christ crucified. And to some it's foolishness. And to those who are regenerated, it's both the power and wisdom of God.

So I, too, agree wholly with your listener. And if you could now, Angus, continue on with some main points that you want to certainly be a part of this program before we go off the air.

Thank you, Chris. I wanted to tie in regeneration with the image of God.

The image of God is classically defined from Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3 as consisting chiefly of three things, which embrace other things, of course, too.

One, the knowledge of God. Two, righteousness. Here it's conformity to the law, not imputed righteousness.

And three, holiness, devotion to God. And regeneration produces these same things, too.

Regeneration gives us knowledge, the knowledge of faith, because we know. We know

God. We know spiritual truths through faith. And righteousness. Ezekiel 36,

God gives a new heart. Verses 26 and 27 says God gives a new heart, a new spirit.

And he puts the law within us so that we will walk in his paths. And in holiness, 1

John says that those who are regenerated love God, love their neighbor, obey the law. So regeneration is, in essence, the same truth as the image of God.

Here's a great quote from John Gill in his Doctrinal and Practical Divinity. He says,

The first birth is of sinful parents and in their image.

Isn't that the truth? We have physical characteristics and even some moral characteristics and habits from our parents.

The first birth is of sinful parents and in their image. The second birth is of God and in his image.

And here's a further continuation of that quote. Christ's image is stamped upon us in regeneration.

Christ's image is stamped upon us in regeneration. Not the image of the first Adam, in Genesis 2, but of the second

Adam. For the new man is after the image of him who has a new creator, which is the image of Christ.

To be conformed to which God's elect are predestinated, Romans 8, 29, and which takes place in regeneration.

And Colossians 3, verse 10 states that we have put on the new man, the new man because the new birth, the new heart, the new man.

We've put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.

This is the new creation, the new creation, the image of God, the image of Christ. And the new man is renewed in knowledge, the knowledge of God after the image of him that created him.

So I want to tie in the current subject, Chris, to another one that you and I discussed earlier.

I thought that might be helpful. Great. And let's see, we have

Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania. And Arnie says, when we say that men are totally depraved and therefore requiring a new heart because the heart that they have doesn't need just a little repair, it needs to be completely replaced, we often give

Arminians and others who reject Reformed theology the false understanding that we are saying that men behave as evilly as their heart has the capacity to demonstrate.

But this is not true. Is it not more accurately said that the unelected are being restrained in their evil and therefore, although their hearts are totally depraved, they are simply not acting out as wickedly as they are very capable of doing apart from that restraint?

One helpful way to look at this is to consider what a good work is. And a good work, as explained, especially in the

Reformation over against Rome's ungodly view of good works, a good work is something done out of faith.

There's its origin. Its standard is according to the law of God and its goal is

God's glory. So the unbeliever, by definition, doesn't have faith. And the law of God is not written in his heart, and as for God's glory, the fear of God and the glory of God are not in his eyes.

Now, the Bible says, all we like sheep have gone astray, we've turned everyone to his own way.

The Bible talks about a broad way which leads to destruction. And unbelievers sin, and we can all think of this before we were converted too, we all sin in different ways.

We sin according to our own place in history, according to our own predilections.

You take, say, some sexual sins. There's some people that are brought up in a certain circumstance, and there are certain sexual sins which they go in for.

Other people, money's the great thing. But for the unbeliever, it's always one sin or another sin.

He can't do anything good, never out of faith, never according to the law of God, never to God's glory. And the sinner, if I may so put it, sins selfishly.

He sins according to the sins that appeal to him, with his proclivities and his place and time.

And with regard to a restraint of sin, there certainly is a restraint of sin in various ways.

Not through making the person less than totally depraved, though your irony didn't suggest that at all.

But the sinner's sins are restrained by the good offices of the police.

The fear of being caught, the fear of being arrested, that restrains things.

People, in their selfishness, don't do certain sins because they know it'll make other people think less of them.

So everything that a man does is sinful, 100 % sinful. Heart, soul, strength, might, all pressed into the service of sin.

But people are different. They sin differently. One old lady, she likes to work in her garden.

She's not out harming people as such. She's not storming the streets and smashing people in the face, as I saw a picture of a delinquent youth do to a 92 -year -old woman on television the other day.

But that doesn't mean they're not totally depraved, just a different way of showing their sins. Yes, so going back to specifically the wording he had, and even your inclusion of an old lady who is just a sweet, kind neighbor, she may be agnostic, or a member of a false religion, and she may even put to shame people in your own congregation through some acts of charity and kindness and compassion that she demonstrates.

And if she were to die, you were to be asked, where is that woman? Well, if she never repented and believed upon the name of Christ, she sadly is damned.

And the person would likely be horrified by hearing that. But isn't it true that what they see is not really an accurate picture of that person's depraved heart?

Exactly. And you see, the heart, this goes back to what we were saying earlier, the heart is inward, invisible, it's the source of one's life.

The issue about whether something comes out of faith or unbelief or according to the law or not, or to God's glory or not, the motive is the key thing.

And God judges the heart. He sees the heart, and that is the key thing. The actions are not actually in Christian ethics and in the word of God.

The actions aren't actually the key thing. And people weigh sins very differently from the way

God weighs sins. His ways are not our ways, and they're far higher than ours. If someone, for instance, helps a neighbor and gives a cookie to a needy person out of self -righteousness, that could well be a whole lot worse than a whole lot of other things, because when someone does something out of self -righteousness to make themselves look good and to try and earn before God, that spits especially in the eyes of God and dishonors the work of Christ, because if righteousness comes by the law, the

Son of God died on the cross in vain. And all mankind are filthy and polluted.

There's none that doeth righteousness. No, not one. None understands. None seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way.

They're together become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good. Not one. And even the dear old lady we're speaking about, who wrote an open sepulcher with her tongue as it used to speak, the poison of asses onto her lips, mouth full of bitterness and cursing, because they're not blessing

God. Destruction and misery in all their ways. Clean the broad way and the dirty sight, but all kindness wicked.

God looks down from heaven, none does good. Let's see if we could squeeze in a quick answer to a question from Mark in Mission Viejo, California.

I know this is a little off topic, but I know that regeneration is monergistic.

However, according to the Reformed view, is sanctification also monergistic by the work of the

Holy Spirit? I've been listening to Angus Stewart for a while, way out here in Southern California, and I'm greatly encouraged by his truth of the word.

Perhaps if you could very briefly answer that question. One word, yes.

Sanctification is monergistic because sanctification is a work of God through Jesus Christ and by the

Holy Spirit. Sanctification is God's work in us, transforming us, recreating us.

God alone can do that. The bit that needs clarification is, without taking back anything

I just said, is that man becomes active in sanctification as opposed to regeneration.

God works in us so that we both will and do of his good pleasure.

So in regeneration, God gives us new life. We weren't praying for that, we weren't asking for that because we weren't regenerative.

Then when the person is regenerative, then he prays, he asks God for the gift of the

Spirit, he asks God to enable him to do good works, to confess his sins. So man has become active. But whenever we are active and doing good works, it is only because we are performing these things by the grace of God.

God, by the Holy Spirit, in union with Jesus Christ, is making us active.

And we're out of time, and Mark, please make sure that you give me your full mailing address in Southern California, because since you are a first -time questioner, you're going to win, or you have won, a free

New American Standard Bible. Thank you so much, Angus, for always doing a tremendous job on this show. Angus Stewart's website for Covenant Protestant Reformed Church in Bellarmina, Northern Ireland is cprc .co

.uk cprc .co .uk I want to thank everybody listening, for listening, and I want to remind you to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater