45 - Calvinism vs. Arminianism, Part 7 - Christ Died for All People

Well, we are back with the

Striving for Eternity Academy's School of Systematic Theology. We're glad that you're glad that we're here.

Now, I know that some actually were under the impression that we wouldn't have class. They thought they'd get out of class because I have an interview immediately following the live class.

And they said, oh, but that show that you're being interviewed on is at 830. That's right.

It is at 830, but they're not going to have me on until after class because they know we have class.

You guys think you're going to get out of class? I don't think so. We even had class. Well, okay, we didn't technically have class, but we had a hangout during a hurricane.

As long as we had cell service, we sat in a restaurant and still did a class. You guys aren't getting out that easy.

Some of you people, some people emailing me wanting to know if there's class tonight. I don't think so.

I'm not letting you off that easy. So some of you students were probably those people that in college like sat there with the watch going, oh, 10 minutes late.

We can leave. Yeah, I know your type. I was like that. Anyway, so we're welcome to the

Striving for Eternity Academy's School of Systematic Theology. We are really hoping and praying that class goes well tonight.

Cannot account for anything that may happen technically. We are doing the shows live on Ustream, as many of you know, and Ustream upgraded their software and we, well, just before class we went to turn the computers on, get everything up and running and ready to go, and Ustream is telling us it doesn't like our license keys and we're scrambling and it tells us it's only going to do demo mode.

So now we have these little red triangles or rectangles that are over the buttons and that's something new and they don't know if that's supposed to be new or is that just something that's saying, warning, it isn't working right.

So we'll see. Anyway, enough of that. If you'd go and grab your syllabus, that is for the paid students, by the way, if you are a paid student, in other words, you've enrolled, you've gone to the website down there and enrolled in the academy, you get a syllabus, which gives you all of my notes.

The other thing you will get, if you haven't already, if you have paid, you'll get a Growing in Grace book, which is what we're going to pick up going through in just a few, for a few weeks after we finish the lessons on salvation.

We're going to kind of do that in the middle. What that's going to be is actually we're going to teach you how to train someone through that book.

It's a discipleship book for new believers, something you can use in your church or with new people that you have the opportunity to lead to Christ and you'll be able to see how to use that.

So that, I hope, will be fun for someone, maybe you. Anyway, but we're finishing up,

I hope, today on dealing with, we're actually, we'll go through, we're in book number two of our study and we've been going through section three, which is the doctrine of salvation.

We spent several weeks now, actually this is the seventh lesson on this, or second, seventh week in lesson number eight, which is

God's sovereignty and human responsibility. It's an issue that many people struggle over. We are looking at God's sovereignty side and we're looking really with this at looking at what

Calvinism teaches. Now Calvinism is not purely God's sovereignty, it's more that side of the argument and we're talking about, as we went through this, what the acronym

TULIP was. So we looked at that as first being total depravity, which does not mean that we are as bad as we possibly could be, but that we are, our entire being is influenced, controlled, enslaved to sin at birth and therefore we are totally, in our complete being, enslaved to sin, even our will.

So we can't, in and of ourselves, can't choose to put faith in God apart from God doing the work.

That's really what that ends up meaning. In other words, God takes 100 % of the credit when it comes to our salvation.

We take zero. We can't take any credit. And that's really what follows in with unconditional election, the

U in TULIP. And this is, unconditional election does not mean something that comes around every four years when you vote for president, but it is the idea that God selected,

God chose us, but not based on anything that we did. The idea being that God knew what we would choose and therefore

He chose us, that would be conditional election. So what you have with unconditional election is one of two things.

Either you are believing that God saves us unconditionally, meaning that there's no condition from us that is the reason

He chose to save us. It's purely His choice. That's your first option. That's the unconditional part.

So it's either unconditional or conditional. Or you have an issue with the election part. In other words, did God choose you or did you choose

God? That's really what it's saying is God chose you apart from yourself, apart from anything that you did.

The L, which is the one that most people seem to have problems with, is limited atonement. Now with this one, we gave you two different definitions here that you could use for limited atonement so that you might be able to get a better handle on it.

There's basically two different ways that you could see this. One is going to be when you look at, as many historically would argue, this is the definition, is that God on the cross,

Jesus Christ, when He died, He died only for the sins of the elect.

And what they mean in that is that the limited atonement was at the cross.

Now that is a way that many of the early Reformers would argue.

But another definition that many hold to with limited atonement is that it is limited in its application, not its offer.

In other words, Christ died for all, but that doesn't mean that all have it applied to them.

That is a different definition. Depending how you define that will define maybe whether you believe in limited atonement or not.

But historically, it's really been the first, but many people have come to accept that more in a latter sense of that definition.

And so this is the reason why I really try to stay away from the labels. We're taking the time to go through them in these weeks because we want you to understand what the labels mean and do not mean.

Because what we often find is that people attack and argue against straw men. And what you see is two different people on either side of these arguments will argue and they're arguing really not understanding the issue.

And what happens is, I'm sure you've experienced when someone tells you that they know what you believe and then they misquote what you believe and you're going, that's not it.

And you know, you get into this whole debate and you end up arguing against what you think they're saying and not, you know, it becomes just a muddy, a bloody mess or a muddy mess.

I said bloody mess. Well, we're not going to get into fistfights here. Save that for the gym.

No. So irresistible grace is the fourth. That's the

I. Really? This is the idea that when God does the work in us, it is irresistible.

So we receive this grace irresistibly. This doesn't mean as, this is how many people try to argue this, that it means that, oh,

God is forcing us to believe God. And so people that don't believe in these doctrines will say, God doesn't force anybody to believe on him.

That's true. God doesn't force people to believe on him. I agree. That's not the issue.

The issue isn't whether God agrees with you or not. It's whether or not the, you know, whether you're fairly interpreting what someone's meaning by what they say.

All right. So the grace, the irresistible grace means that God does the work.

And we're going to spend a little time talking about that. The way that I understand this point is really what we're going to talk about a little bit today as we try to reconcile these two views together.

But so we're going to move on to the one that most people seem to accept, and that is the perseverance of the saints.

And what basically this means is, as some understand it, it's the perseverance of the saints. Once saved, always saved is how a lot of people define or try to argue it.

The idea that once a person is saved, they can't lose their salvation is the doctrine of eternal security, which we're going to get into in the next lesson.

So we're going to look at that probably next week, we hope. I hope that there won't be any more that we're going to talk about this lesson today.

That we're going to finish it up. So let us take a look then at the human responsibility side.

Now this is where the Arminians typically end up going, and the

Arminians side of it would be where there's focus more on the human side of the argument.

We looked last week at all the commands to repent and believe. And if you remember, and if you're a good student, you've taken notes and you have all your blanks filled in, and we said scripture was filled with commands for all people to repent and believe, not just the elect.

Now one argument that some would say is, yes well, and you know I'll say this also, if you happen to catch this week's podcast of the

Bible Thumping Wingnut, or actually it was last week's, it was episode number 12, in case you want to go look that up.

But on episode 12, I think Colin Pearson did a good job of trying to answer an honest question, if I remember correctly it was from a professing atheist, a non -believer, but answering an honest question about trying to reconcile these things.

And I think he did a pretty good job of trying to explain that God does the work 100%.

We can't take credit, but we have a responsibility. We are commanded to repent. And he recognized that, and it is a tough balance for many to understand.

And so, this is why we're taking the time, because many, many people have really done some damage to the body of Christ by arguing over these issues where there really shouldn't be an argument.

And if you want to see that, I mean just go on Facebook and declare that you are a Calvinist, or you declare that you think

Calvinism is wrong, and you'll see the knives come out with people. Say you're an

Arminian or a Calvinist on Facebook and someone's going to like blast you, you know, unless of course all your friends agree with you and you don't have a wide diversity of friends on Facebook.

But the reality is, people get really, really bent out of shape over this. And I think it's a little bit unfair, because most often people are not addressing the real issues, they're addressing strongman arguments, how they define the terms that other people are using.

So, that's actually why I use the term God's sovereignty and human responsibility, because those terms everyone kind of agrees.

God is completely sovereign. We have no right to claim credit for salvation, and yet we have a responsibility.

We're commanded to repent. So let's pick this up now with the offer of salvation for all people.

So what I was saying, I mentioned Colin Pearson on Bible Thumping Wingnut. What I was saying there with him is that, you know, it's a tough challenge where God commands all people to repent.

And, you know, the issue, and he brought this out, was the issue of salvation, the offer goes to all people.

We don't know who is and is not saved. Right? I mean, there's not some big, you know, letter

E stamped on their head and we can go, oh, hey, you're elect or you're going to be elect, so let me just share the gospel with you.

No. You and I, when we go out on the streets, we don't know who God is going to save. God does, though, because He already did it, because He's outside of time.

Remember, this is why I say these lessons are all rooted back in those first lessons of this school, where we talked about God's attributes, because that's what all these are tied to.

God is outside of time, and He's omniscient. He didn't learn anything. All right?

So, what we end up having is the fact that we have to remember who

God is when we talk about these things, and not put Him inside of time, or put Him as if He had to learn something.

All right? So, if you look in your syllabus, some people argue that the word, world, does not mean all people.

That's your first blank, all people. So, some people argue that the word, world, does not mean all people, but a subset.

That's your next blank, a subset. So, the idea here is that the word, world, means all people groups, or all tribes and languages.

So, all means some Americans, and some Canadians, and some

Mexicans, and some Chileans, and some French, and everywhere.

In other words, the all just means everywhere in the world, there's some. So, it's a subset of all those people.

Now, I think that the clearest passage on this, and this is one that I think

I find many people have struggled with if they really hold to a view of that first definition of limited atonement that Christ died only for the elect on the cross.

Now, you're going to come, when you come to Texts of Scripture, you're going to do one of two things, and this is why we started our schools with the school of Biblical Harmoneutics, learning how to properly interpret.

If we follow those principles, and not all of us are going to follow them all the time perfectly, we should try to, but if we do, we're going to let the text define our theology.

Now, there is not a person that I know that would argue that they come to the

Bible and that their systematic theology is going to define the

Bible. They're going to say that the Bible defines their systematic theology.

That's not true for any of us. We all come to the Bible with presuppositions, every single one of us.

We're going to come to the Bible with our presuppositions from our theology, from our systematic theology.

Now, if you haven't studied that theology, now you're kind of an open book. If you're someone like me who became a

Christian and didn't know any other Christians, it was just me and a Bible for two years before I met another

Christian. What I learned, I learned just from reading, which is why when the Jehovah Witnesses tell me that someone had to teach me that Jesus was

God, no, I read it for myself, thank you very much. But what you end up seeing is this.

We come to the Bible and we have to try to mentally shut off our theological system and address the text as it says.

And if the text says something different than our theology, then we need to adjust our man -made system for what

God has said, okay? So with that said, let us take a look at 1

John 2 .2 and see what this says because this is really,

I think, the clearest text for this. And it says, speaking of Jesus, He is the propitiation, try saying that one ten times fast, that basically means

He is the substitute of wrath. He is the payment of God's wrath.

He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

Now, let us take a little time to look at this and we're going to go through this actually in the syllabus, so I'll hold off and let's break this down.

First off, Jesus is the propitiation, that's your blank there, propitiation for our sins.

That clearly means that Jesus Christ is the propitiation of the sins of all

Christians, but the verse doesn't stop there. So the propitiation, remember, it means that He was the substitute of wrath for us.

He paid the punishment of wrath. Who did He pay it for?

Well, it says the world. How do we define world in this case? Well, it says here that this verse, it doesn't stop with us as Christians.

It continues to state that Jesus was the propitiation not, let's put it back up so we can see, not for ours only, but also for the whole world.

Now, let's break this down for a moment and look at this. There are three ways that reveal clearly that this means every person, and that's your blank there, every person.

The word world is used. Now, let us stop and look at this. The word world can mean all people, all the tribes like some are arguing.

It can mean that. It doesn't always mean that. And it doesn't always mean all people.

Well, the word world is qualified by whole world.

Now, that can mean everywhere on the globe or every person. Still haven't qualified it, have we?

Even though world can mean all people, it doesn't always. Even though whole world is kind of emphasizing all over the place, so it's not a subset of people in a specific area, but it's either all people or all over the world.

But then there's this one catch, the comparison between the

Christians and the world. We'll put it back up there for a second.

And you see it says, not for ours only. Well, who's the ours?

The ours are us as believers. This is John writing about believers.

It's not just us as believers only, but also for the world.

So it's a contrast. The believers and the unbelievers.

Now, that's going to cause some people to freak out. I understand. And some people I've actually heard argue that what this is really talking about is the

Jewish Gentile mindset. The our is Jewish people. The others, the non -us, are the

Gentiles. That would be very, very strange. I'll tell you three reasons why.

One, it would be strange because nowhere in John's writings do we see him bringing up the

Jew -Gentile issue. Two, it would be strange because what he's addressing is the

Gnostic issue, which is a Greek philosophy, not a Jewish philosophy. And the third reason is because by the time

John was writing this, it is far along in the start of the church, and the

Jew -Gentile argument isn't really used anymore. At this point, it was one church.

So for those three reasons, I find it hard to believe that he's arguing for Jew -Gentile distinction.

He's making a distinction here, I think very clearly, between the believers and the unbelievers.

And so this one verse, 1 John 2 .2, says that Jesus Christ is the payment of wrath for us as believers and also, not just us, but also the whole world.

In other words, all people. The believing community and the unbelieving community. Now, I understand that for some people, they are spinning and going, wait a minute.

How could that be? That can't be. Because if Jesus died for all, then all would go to heaven.

If he made that payment. Hold on. I'm going to answer that.

I'm not just teasing you. It'll get you to pay attention all the way through class. Well, maybe I am.

But I'm going to try to answer that. Let's take a look at a couple more verses. 1 John 1 .29.

The next day, he saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of some people.

No, takes away the sin of the world. John 3 .16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten

Son that whosoever should believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 6 .51. I am the bread of life that came down from heaven.

If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever.

And the bread that I give for the life of the world is my flesh.

Okay. So here you're seeing a distinction that he's talking about the world. And again, you see a subtle distinction here.

Not as clear as in 1 John 2 .2. But you see a subtle distinction between those that believe in him and those that don't.

Okay. Let's go on. 2 Corinthians 5 .19. That is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself.

So this is the world. Reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us a message of reconciliation.

1 Timothy 2 .3 and 4 mentions the word world. This is good and it is pleasing in the sight of God our

Savior who desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

This is saying all people. This isn't necessarily saying world. And we are trying to, in this point, show that the offer of salvation is for all people.

And here you see it. God is willing that all would come to truth. But just because God is desiring this, let's keep this in mind, that just because he's desiring it, there is a difference in his willingness.

He might will for us to be saved in one sense. He has this desire, but he doesn't force it.

He doesn't enact it. It's not his sovereign will. Alright. One last one that we'll look at for this is all we like sheep have gone astray.

We have all turned every one to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Now let's take a look at this. Because here you see all we like sheep have gone astray. So we are saying that all there is all human beings, every one of us.

Now if we are, if all people, if this verse is all people, then the

Lord laid him, on him the iniquity of us all, then the Lord laid the iniquity of all people.

The all has to stay in its context. So we have to make sure that in this case we let the context define it.

And this is what you do with the word all and world. When it says of John the

Baptist that all of, you know, Judea was coming to him, well not every single human being was.

Man, a lot of people. Man, like large numbers of people. But it doesn't mean every single one.

But in the context of Isaiah 53 we accept that all means all. I mean all means every single human being is born into sin, that all have fallen short of the mark of God.

And therefore the all in that context also means that he died for all, that the iniquity of sin was laid upon Christ for all.

And you go, but doesn't that mean the payment is made? Hold on, just wait, we're going to try to reconcile it.

We're going to try to answer 2 ,000 years of debate. If there's anyone still in class because you all think

I'm a heretic by now, one way or the other, I understand. Let's look at one more point before we try to reconcile.

And that is that salvation, the salvation of the whosoever believes.

Now, this is where we get into some of the issue that many argue.

The Scriptures are clear that everyone who believes will be saved.

That's your blank there. Will be saved. So every single person that believes will be saved.

This doesn't mean some believe they're just not saved. I think actually on the

Bible Thumping Wingnut, they dealt with it either in episode 12 or 13, this idea that God doesn't save people against their will.

It's not like if someone really, really, really sincerely believes in Jesus, but he didn't save them.

If someone believes in Jesus, a saving belief, it's because God did the work and they're going to believe and they're going to be saved.

But there's many people that believe for selfish reasons because they want to avoid hell. They want to see family.

This is why don't tell your children, don't you want to believe in Jesus because you want to see grandma or grandpa?

Don't. Don't guilt your kids into believing in Christ and making a false profession of faith.

Don't guilt your kids into believing. You know, don't you want to avoid hell? That's not the message of the gospel.

All right? And that's the reason so many people say they believe, but they didn't believe.

They wanted fire insurance. Whosoever means, and so get ready to write this in your blank there, whosoever means who, so, ever.

That was pretty hard, huh? Whosoever means who, so, ever. Therefore it is anyone.

That's your next blank there. Anyone. The gospel can be offered to all people because anyone that believes will be saved.

For Christ is Romans 10 verse 4. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

You see this? Everyone who believes. Romans 10 going a little further.

For everyone who calls, and this is the whosoever in the King James. For everyone who calls on the name of the

Lord will be saved. Those are emphatic statements.

1 Timothy 4 .10 For to this end we toil and strive because we have our hopes set on the living

God who is the Savior of all people. For who is the

Savior of all people, especially those who believe? Now notice how it is. He's the

Savior of all people, especially those who believe. What does that mean? That He's the

Savior of some who don't believe. That's what that's saying there. In other words,

He's the Savior especially to those who believe. It means that He's also a

Savior to some who don't believe. But there are those who still, they're not the whosoever.

They're not those that believe. But those that believe, they will be saved. 1

John 5 .1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the

Christ has been born of God. And everyone who loves the

Father loves whomever has been born of Him. He's making it really clear that everyone who believes on Jesus, they've already been born of God.

But everyone of them that believes is saved. One last one. John 6 .40

For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the

Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise

Him up on the last day. So He's saying here that everyone, that means everyone.

Okay? Whosoever means whosoever. It means everyone. So there are plenty of verses that talk about all people, everywhere, every person, that Christ died for them.

I know there's probably some of you shaking your head going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And if you're being fair with the text and with me listening, before you're attacking, you're at least saying, alright, let us at least say that this is what the text is saying.

Let's try to reconcile it. And try to hear me out before you start attacking and tune me out. Because you're not going to understand how we're trying to reconcile this if you're tuned me out because you think you're right.

Alright? Now, the Scriptures teach, and this is in your book there, in your syllabus, under Reconciling Both Positions.

The Scriptures teach that God is sovereign over our salvation, and that men have a responsibility.

Okay? Humans have a responsibility. Many think these two positions are mutually exclusive. However, that I do not believe to be true.

So, how can both be true? However, we know that the

Doctrine of Inspiration, which we're going to look at in a future lesson, the

Doctrine of Inspiration is the idea that both God wrote the Bible and Paul wrote Romans, right? So, we look at Romans, God wrote it, and Paul wrote it.

Who's the authoritative author? God is. Who would we say is the author of the

Scripture? It's God's Word. So, God gets 100 % of the credit. Yet, Paul wrote how he wanted to write, with his own words.

So did John, and Peter, and Luke, and everyone else. So, they had their own personalities.

You see it in the text. You see their own way of writing. It's very different in style. Even though they used their own words, they had their own choice of words, it was exactly as God intended it to be.

And there we have the issue. So, what we have is that the

Scripture is saying that God works through men in the writing of Scripture, so that every word that they wrote was exactly as God intended it to be.

So, God worked through them. Alright. So, let me re -read that quote now from the syllabus.

However, we know that from the Doctrine of Inspiration, discussed in another lesson, that God can work through a person so that the choices that the individual makes are exactly as God intends.

It's what the theological terms superintend. God is the being superintending through us.

Okay. The same is true for salvation. We see this actually in sanctification as well. Sanctification is a process after we're regenerate, until we're glorified.

That's when we die. So, when we're born again, until death, God is working through us so that we do good works to become more spiritual, to become more holy, to become more like Christ.

But it is God who's doing that work. Well, am I doing it or is God doing it? Yes. God works through us so that even those works that we do,

God takes 100 % of the credit. We don't take credit for good works. God takes the credit, and yet we chose to do them.

And you go, well, how could that be? That's the way God does it. Now, God doesn't take the credit for the sin we do.

We get that on ourselves. All right. God chose us outside of time, and we choose

God inside of time. And this is how

I try to figure this out. So, we know from the doctrine of superintended that God can work through people to work them in such a way that the choices they make are as exactly as He intends them to be.

We also know that from the doctrine of the attributes of God that God is outside of time, and we are not.

God being outside of time is going to, when He deals with things,

He's dealt with them in a timeless way. Now, He can work inside of time, but He is a timeless being.

He's an omniscient being. I've been saying these two throughout these seven parts of this lesson because this is really the heart of the matter.

This is where we really need to address these issues because this is where I think so many people struggle.

When you hear people talking over the Calvinism -Arminianism debate, that's usually how it's framed, you'll often hear them talk in language that puts

God either inside of time or learning something. Inside of time, meaning that He somehow waited for us to decide to choose

Him and then He chose us. No. Or they'll say, well, God's outside of time, but He looked down the tunnels of time and saw who would be saved and then

He chose them. Then He had to learn something and He's not omniscient. You end up falling into traps on either side of the issue.

And I know that some people will try to say, look, you're either going to be monogistic or synergistic.

What does that mean? Either the genesis, the creation of being, the regeneration is either from a mono, a one source, or it's a synergistic source.

It's two, it's more things coming together. I'm monotheistic. Very much so.

God does 100 % of the work of salvation. He gets all the credit and He does all the work.

And yet we chose Him. And if you can't reconcile that, that's perfectly okay.

I think one of the ways we get ourselves into trouble, often, is that we try to reconcile what we can't reconcile.

And we want to have everything nice and neat and put into little boxes so that we have it all figured out and there's no questions to be asked and we got it all.

And the reality is, there's some things we just don't understand. And we don't understand them because we don't have the mind of God.

That which He's revealed to us, got it, we should teach, we should follow, we should obey.

That which we can't comprehend, let's not act unchristian toward our brothers and sisters.

Okay? So I'm going to wrap these lessons up, this one lesson actually, in seven parts.

Lesson eight in seven parts. Gee, good thing I didn't go to lesson eight, part eight, right? I want to finish it up with just a, and maybe

I should have started with this, I kind of did a little bit in part one, but I want to just end with a little encouragement to you.

I understand there's many people who feel very strongly on their positions and some in this area cut off relations with other people.

Some people go from one side of a camp to another. Typically you have people that, because we experienced us choosing

God, we usually start off kind of with more of a human responsibility or a Minyan mindset, okay?

Because that's what we experienced. And we study the scriptures and we start to learn about God's glory and we see what

God did. It's like, ah, the revelation. And we want everybody to think like us now, okay?

And we make it sometimes if this is the one issue, we've got to nail everyone on this. They must believe this.

We must pound it into people. We've got to get people to believe that God's sovereignty and salvation, they must be

Calvinistic. And then some people go as far as they see everything through what

I call five point grid. I mean, everything, every scripture comes back to the five points of Calvinism in one way or another.

Maybe you've seen those types. I mean, everything is, you know, I've seen some pastors and every week is a Calvinistic message.

Every text somehow points to God's sovereignty and salvation. I mean, every single week.

And God is sovereign. We should praise that. We should highlight that. But it doesn't mean that we have no responsibility either.

And we need to be fair when we dialogue with one another. We have a video on our YouTube channel called

Fighting Right, kind of talking about an incident and how to get into discussions, debates in a winsome way.

Remember, you and I are wrong. We don't know where. Otherwise, we'd probably change what we believe.

I mean, some people are willingly wrong. But most of us, I think, just we don't know where we're wrong.

I have strong views on different things that my Presbyterian brothers and sisters would disagree with.

That's okay. I can still be friends with them. I can still enjoy fellowship with them.

I can even discuss the differences in our theology. But if we're starting to do name -calling and ridiculing and belittling and telling people they're stupid or tuning people out, if we're going to turn to people and say, you're just wrong because you disagree with me and I'm not going to hear you and listen to you, let's remember we need to hear one another.

We need to understand what the other person is saying when they say words.

When they use these terms, limited atonement, irresistible words, what do you mean by that?

Great thing to ask. Don't assume you know what they believe unless they've told you this is what they believe.

Let's try to be fair with one another. I know this is going to be radical, but let's try to show the love for one another as brothers in Christ that Christ showed for us.

Yeah. Remember that verse? I think that was 1 John 5, was it? Was that one?

So whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God and everyone who loves the

Father loves whomever has been born of Him. Let's live that out.

Do you love the Father? Then love those that the Father died for even if they disagree with you.

Maybe you can learn something from them. That's a crazy idea! Just maybe. We can learn things from other people.

Let's be teachable. Let's be humble. Let's learn from one another. And we can do it in a way with respect and honor.

The way Christ would have us to be. Because we see way too many arguments and debates that end friendships, relationships, and even split churches in these areas where they really don't need to be.

Now I realize that by now everybody probably hates me and thinks I'm a heretic. Either you're a

Calvinist and you think I'm Arminian or you're an Arminian and you think I'm a Calvinist. I'm sorry but I don't go by either label.

Typically. Unless I know what you mean by the label and I agree with what you mean by that label. But I don't use those labels.

Why? Because I think the labels cause problems. Because many don't have the same definition.

They don't have the same meaning. So let's try to maybe stay away from the labels and get clear definitions.

Alright? So next week we're going to have class. We're going to deal with the doctrine of eternal security.

So we're going to talk about the fact that you can't lose your salvation again. And I'll be called all kinds of names online again.

But that's okay. I can delete you. I mean I can take it. Alright, if you have any questions, comments, snarks, anything at all, you can email us at academy, thank you,

I forgot. At academy at strivingforeternity .org academy at strivingforeternity .org

If you'd like to get one of the syllabuses and not enroll in the class, just get the syllabus. You can go to the store at store at strivingforeternity .org

You can get all the other cool stuff that we shell. Do we have the t -shirt? Okay, it's here. You can pick up your own

Striving for Eternity t -shirt. Here it is. And you can pick one of those up.

Oh, they're not on the store yet. Okay. Silly me. They will be on the store, but you can always email the store at shop at strivingforeternity .org

and say, hey, I want one of those. Here's my size. But if you want to pick one up really soon, like in just a few weeks, you can come to the

Jersey Fire. Jersey Fire, July 11th and 12th of 2014. Phil Johnson will be talking on two messages on the life of Lot and his wife.

Then we will see two messages from Emile Zwang. Emile will be coming out and talking on how to make your family last for eternity and then how to pass on to the next generation of faith.

Brother Phil Sessa is new. He's going to be joining us. It's someone new that we've announced to come to Jersey Fire.

He is going to be talking about how to do discipleship within your family. That's, I think, going to be an important lesson for fathers.

I will deal with some touchy issues, same -sex marriage, and what is destroying the

Christian home. I'm going to deal with something that is going to make a lot of people cringe,

I'm just saying. You don't want to miss it. I will say this, we are not addressing the same -sex marriage issue, many of us, biblically.

We're using the world's terminology to define an issue that the church should be handling correctly.

We're going to say why it is so important. I encourage you to come out. I did say earlier when we were trying to get everything all working and all,

I don't have a slide for the Brother of Encouragement. Basically, we were trying to get the show ready.

That's what happens when you leave the slide to the last minute. When we had the technical problems,

I didn't get that done. I'm going to ask this. I'm going to do something totally off the wall and different this week.

I'm going to ask you all to go into our Striving for Eternity Facebook group.

I want you to name your own brother or sister of encouragement and say why.

I want all of you right now to go into the Striving for Eternity group.

I want you guys to name a whole bunch of different people. I think so -and -so should be encouraged this week.

Here's why. Then we can all work off of that and try to encourage all the people.

Maybe we'll get a whole lot of people encouraged this week. We do this because basically we say the most encouraging things when people die.

I've just been working on a video for a friend of mine who died this summer. The video of his funeral.

Hearing the things people say when someone's dead and they never heard you say these things. Let's say these things while people are alive.

Just a thought. Let's not say the best things for when someone's dead. Until next week when we talk about eternal security, we are glad to have you with us.

Remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God. See you next week.