Sov Of God And Man's Duty

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome back to No Compromise Radio ministry.

When I think about it, Pastor Steve, I think R .C. Sproul follows us and then

John MacArthur follows us. Wow. We have a big following. I wonder if they've put us as friends on their

Facebook. John MacArthur and Facebook, it just doesn't seem right. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's not right.

Maybe we should do a whole show and then just send it to John to see what he thinks. Considering he handwrites out his sermons,

I don't really think he's a Facebook kind of guy. I do think R .C. Sproul has a Facebook though. Yeah, well, he might have a

Facebook. I don't know if he actually - Put together by Ligonier Ministry. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. By the way, if you go to their Twitter, I think they have tweeted our interview with Steve Lawson.

Really? I was glad for that. That's very nice. So what we're going to do today is we are going to play a game and here's the game.

I'm going to ask Steve true or false questions and then he can tell me if it's true or false and why. Now, I gave him some notes ahead of time, but you can't see those notes on the radio.

So you can just assume that he just has memorized all this material. Well, he didn't actually let me look at the notes.

Well, that's true. We just sat down and said, let her rip. Steve is going to be filling in for me this summer for quite a few shows and so it will be interesting to hear

Pastor Steve when there's no foil. Millions of shows. Well, I'll have to be my own foil. In fact, my wife and I were talking about that.

Maybe I'll just interview myself. Foiled again. Yeah. Today, we're going to have a quiz, a test.

So you're going to take this test at home. When I was younger and listened to the Bible Answer Man, he would ask, somebody would call and ask a question and then

I would try to answer it. I'd quick turn down my radio and I would try to answer it and see if I could get some of the answers.

And now I don't do that because the Bible Answer Man tends to be Arminian, begs for money and is charismatic and doesn't have the right view of the end times.

But besides that, It's a good show. God bless him. But now we're going to do that here in our studio today, live in beautiful downtown

Burbank. And you are going to hear Steve discuss these issues and I'll give him the large topic.

Here's the large topic, the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. God is sovereign.

That's it. You've won the prize. A way down book with Gwen Chamblin. You know, there's an

In -N -Out bumper sticker right here. See that Steve? Oh, that's very nice. I'm going to put that right there. Makes me feel like we are in Burbank.

Put it right next to the holy water, holy soil and olive oil. If your shows start to bomb next week, just take a little dab of that olive oil and rub it on your forehead and do the top to the bottom, to the left, to the right.

Then the show will be anointed. A couple of Ave Maria's and you'll be all right. Very nice. Yes. Okay. Let me ask you some questions.

Okay. True or false. And you feel free to then ad lib after that. Okay. What is ad lib short for?

Ad liberation. Ad infinitum liberal person.

Before I ask you the first question, this is an important topic. Why would you think it's an important topic? Because it's in the

Bible and automatically makes it an important topic. Well, plus, you know, it's something I think people struggle with.

Because if you ask most Christians, they will say that they believe that God is sovereign.

It's when you get down to the details, you find out that their God isn't really so sovereign. Most of the people that say

God's sovereign, and they really mean it, and they really believe it, also think that man has free will. Yeah. And ultimately they would say free will trumps

God's sovereignty. Now you're listening and you're going, oh, I don't believe that. But I think if we push far enough, you might.

We like it when you listen and you don't agree with us. We like that. And we have many illustrations of people who have repented after the illustration.

Listen to what Calvin said, ignorance of providence, our sovereignty, is the ultimate of all miseries.

The highest blessedness lies in the knowledge of it. The highest blessedness, yes.

We want to bless you. We want you to wrap your mind around, as you are able to, sovereignty of man, the sovereignty of God, and the responsibility of man, man's duty.

And I've even picked that for a reason. It's not sovereignty of God and free will of man. It's the sovereignty of God and man's duty and responsibility.

Is it true, Steve, that God hates sin?

That's my first true or false question. Absolutely true that he hates sin. His eyes are too pure to even abide evil.

Okay, good. And so we want to establish that non -negotiable first, that God is holy and that he hates sin.

Why would we want to establish that fact first? Well, I mean, it's the basis for everything that he does.

Apart from his holiness, this world, the gospel, the Bible, everything would be differently, would be different.

Thank you. Yeah. I mean, his holiness is, I think, arguably his central attribute.

Good. And, and how does it relate to the eventuality when it comes to theology,

Steve, let me rephrase that. Why is it going to be important to remember God is holy when we begin to discuss who's sovereign over sin?

Because I think we have to, once we understand how much God hates it, how much he's separated from it, then eventually we'll see that the need,

A, for the gospel, B, our sinfulness prohibits us. It stops us from really choosing

God of our own free will. It has to be God's free will. He's the only one with a free, unfettered will.

Good. When it comes to the Bible, we are quickly going to have to say to ourselves, you know,

God is so sovereign. He's even sovereign over the death of Jesus, the worst sin that's ever been committed.

God has caused that. God has allowed that. God has ordained that. God has decreed that. We must remember, if you have an issue with sovereignty of God and the will of man and the duty of man or responsibility of man, you cannot let go of the mooring that says

God is holy. See, and you even said something that I just really don't like, sorry. But you said

God allowed that. People go into that language, you know, why did 9 -11 happen? Well, God allowed it.

You know, why did somebody die? Well, God allowed it. Why did somebody get sick? God allowed it. God allowed it as if he was some kind of passive bystander.

And we just don't, we don't see that language anywhere in the Bible, nowhere. Yeah. Well, you know,

I, I, it's my show and, and that's okay. God allowed you to say that. Yeah. God allowed me to say that.

I don't know. I think some of the, some of the nuances, Steve, it might not always be decreed, but certainly in Acts chapter two and four, it's a more direct language.

And I, I agree with you for the most part, let's get rid of the allowed language. I think a long time ago,

I said that God never says allowed. And then I think Phil Johnson wrote me and said, he did say allowed, but, but, but you are right in this for sure that that kind of language somehow is used to get

God off the hook. So he's not responsible. Exactly. Exactly. We don't, we don't mean that if that's what people mean by allowed, we don't.

And that's why I put the long train of decreed and determined and decided after that, God, God allowed this disaster, that calamity.

Well, the Bible says that he brings calamity. Let's talk about man's responsibility.

We know God is sovereign, his sovereignty rules over all Psalm 103. We know God's holy, but is man in fact really responsible?

How would you prove that from the Bible? Well, I would just go to the passages that say, for example, where God has, or God, where man has to repent, um, it, it implies it does not apply ability, but it does imply responsibility actually states it.

I mean, if you have to do something, then you are responsible to do it. I mean, that's just the reality of it.

Uh, God is going to judge everyone and he's going to judge them not based on their ability, but on their responsibility.

Good. And will, uh, the people be in hell, uh, eventually the lake of fire, are they in hell now or will they be in hell later based on God's sovereign decree are based on their own deeds?

Yes. There you go. Let's see. We're getting ahead of ourselves. All right. Let's say it this way. How about this? Here's true and false.

I said it was going to be true and false. Now let's get back to it. Okay. Sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man are never reconciled in the

Bible, but just assumed, I think that's right. I mean, there, you know, the one place they are reconciled, in other words, the one place where these two things do come together, that is

God's, God's sovereignty and man's responsibility is in the mind, the infinite mind of God.

He understands how these two things work together for us. It's just stated in the

Bible that both are true and we have to grapple with it. I love that answer.

We have a difficult time with this concept because we are finite creatures. Our minds are fallen to been affected by the fall.

God is infinite and perfect and holy, and we just can't wrap our minds around some of the mysteries of the universe who wrote the

Bible, God through men, the deity of Christ, the humanity of Christ.

So it's the same thing here. They are reconciled in the mind of God, but in our minds they can never be reconciled.

And so you have to be mature enough to just let both of them lie. Don't you think it's caused a lot of problems when people try to tie those two doctrines together when they're not able to be tied?

Absolutely. I mean, when you do things like you say, well, you know, God is too much of a gentleman to force himself.

In other words, he's not really sovereign, too much of a gentleman to force himself upon someone. So he leaves it up to your free will.

Well, then what you've done is you've rationalized something that the Bible never says. The Bible never says that man has a free will to choose

God. It never says that. And never says that God's too much of a gentleman to force himself upon you.

It's true. Listen to Acts chapter two, men of Israel, listen to these words, Jesus, the

Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs, which

God performed through him in your midst. Just as you yourselves know, this man delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, there is divine sovereignty.

Here comes human responsibility. You nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death.

No explanation, both side by side in the same verse, even. Yep. It was God's plan, but men carried it out.

They are responsible, but it was no, it didn't come out as a surprise to God.

It was always part of his decree. And you know, when we talk about, uh, this is the kind of language that we see when we talk about, um, does man have a free will?

You know, and I would just ask people, uh, a, I always ask for a verse that teaches that, but B, I mean, when we look at the examples, uh, even in the book of Acts, uh, talking about Lydia, what does this say?

One who heard us was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods who was a worshiper of God.

Listen, the Lord appealed to her and she responded. No, it doesn't say that it says the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.

We see this kind of language over and over again, the sovereignty of God, and then the responsibility of man in responding to the sovereign call as it were.

Good. How about this first, when Abraham was going to try to pawn Sarah, his wife off on the

King. So Sarah would, uh, uh, be the buffer for Abraham's safety,

Abraham's safety. Then God said to him in the dream, Genesis 20, yes, I know it didn't say to Abraham, but Abimelech the

King. I know that in the integrity of your heart, you have done this. He didn't sleep with her. And I also kept you from sinning against me.

Therefore, I did not let you touch her. So it was his responsibility. He didn't do it.

Uh, and God said, no, I was the one doing that. So they're just taught side by side and, and why try to, uh, put these two truths together in a way that seems to somehow make sense.

I think people go crazy when they do that. Yeah, well, and it's also the source of many, you know, bad doctrines, even as I was saying earlier, if we go through church history, what happens when people try to really step outside the black and white of scripture and sort of apply their own wisdom to it, their own brain power, then that's where we run into theological trouble.

Spurgeon said of this, Steve, it's not in the notes, but he said, uh, I never try to reconcile friends.

These two doctrines do not need to be reconciled. Man is responsible. God is sovereign. If I had to pick one,

I, who, which one would you pick? Well, I like the divine sovereignty, of course. I mean, isn't it good to know that God's in charge?

I've said this on many occasions. You don't pray to God because you think he's unable to help you, that he's some kind of a gentleman who is too nice to really involve himself in your affairs.

We don't have a cosmic watchmaker for a God who is completely indifferent. We have a

God who cares and is able and is willing to intervene in the affairs of man.

Brilliant. Mike Abendroth and Steve Cooley here, No Compromise Radio. I'm going to finally get really to the quiz now.

It's been 13 minutes and 44 seconds. True. This is, uh, these six questions, so these six statements come from John Reisinger, R -E -I -S -I -N -G -E -R, and it's under the title of God's Part and Man's Part in Salvation.

And I'm going to give you these, true or false, and then you can make comments. God's part and man's part in salvation.

True or false number one. This is all underneath the desire to discover what the

Bible teaches about the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. One, man must repent and believe in order to be saved.

True. Uh, the Bible says it and no one's going to do it for you. When you are commanded to repent and believe, uh,

God just says, he doesn't kind of assume that he can't do it for you or he doesn't do it for you.

There's no indication that he ever repents and believes for you. And what we see is people responding, uh, with repentance and faith to the gospel message and that that's

God's method. Seems to me that pretty much teaches that God holds man responsible for his sin and for repenting and for believing on the

Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. Exactly. Why do people go to hell? Because they didn't repent and believe, you know, and because ultimately

God didn't enable them to repent and believe. That's right. Well, exegetically, uh, according to scriptures, the focus is on, they went to hell because they didn't believe theologically.

We know that they were reprobate and that they weren't chosen. And if they weren't actively chosen salvation, they were actively chosen for perdition.

First Peter two, eight and Romans nine, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. So, so far, so good,

Steve, true or false. Number two, everyone who repents and believes,

I can't even read everyone who repents and believes in order to be saved, in order to be saved, in order to be saved is saved without exception.

True. If you repent and believe, you go to heaven. Yeah. Yeah, that's absolutely true. I mean, there's no, you know, the question is, well, then people say, well, then that's why

I lead people in the sinner's prayer, for example, because I want them to repent and believe. So I tell them what to say so that they repent and believe.

Well, it's never a matter of simply what comes out of your mouth. What does it say?

Even in, uh, uh, Romans 10, Romans 10. Yes. Uh, you know, it says, uh, if you believe with all your heart that God raised him from the dead, you know, you have, you do have to confess with your mouth, but you have to believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.

You shall be saved. So it's not just a matter of what we say. It's a matter of our conviction of what we truly believe.

Okay, great. So, so far, man is responsible. They must repent and believe. Second of all, if they do repent and believe they will be saved.

Number three, true and false, by the way, listening audience, how are you doing? I'm doing very well. Thank you.

Good. Repentance and faith are not vicarious, but are the free acts of men.

That is to say, Steve, in case you can't quite figure out what vicarious means, uh, but you call me vicar in the morning,

I almost already answered this question because I said, God does not believe for you and that would be vicarious.

That would be a substitutionary belief. You know, God says, well, I know you don't believe, so I'll believe on your behalf.

He doesn't, he doesn't do that. Christ took our sins, uh, on, on the cross.

That is vicarious. That's a vicarious substitution. But nowhere in scripture does it ever say that God or, you know,

God in the person of Jesus will vicariously believe and repent for us. Good.

So we are not hyper Calvinist. We believe that man is responsible, that if man responds to the gospel, he will be saved.

We believe that God doesn't repent for you, believe for you somehow, uh, you know, renounce sin in your place.

And we're leading up to the big one. Now we've got three left and we've laid the groundwork and now comes the scissor pinch right here.

Ow. Pince, pincer movements. Ow. How do they say pincer movements in England again? Pincer.

I don't know. I don't know. I think they say football. I don't, I don't know what they're saying. Number four, true or false?

No compromise fans, man, because of his sinful nature is totally unable to repent and believe true or false.

That is true. Man's responsible, man must do it.

If man does it, he's saved, but he can't do it. So are we starting to lean towards, we're going to need a sovereign

God if anybody's going to get saved? Well, I mean, you know, just to biblically kind of back that up a little bit, we've got Ephesians two that says, you know, before salvation, what were we were dead in our sins and trespasses.

Second Timothy two talks about being trapped and snared, you know, in sin, uh, and, and really dependent upon God to set us free.

Well, you know, Steve, it's like the man who's sick and you just go deliver him the antidote and he's got to reach over there and pick up that antidote and go up and down and he'll be saved.

Right. And he would, if he could just move, he's dead, you know, and I'll take it even a step further.

If you could take the antidote and pour it in his gullet, as you like to say, if you could put it in his mouth and force it down his throat, it would still not matter because a dead person cannot respond, cannot, absolutely incapable.

This whole idea that God has done his part and you know, Jesus has got his arms open this big, you know, and the sign of the cross and he wants you to now take the next step and somehow implying that you can take the next step on your own without the spirit of God's help because you're less than spiritually dead.

We believe that is totally false and an inadequate view of the fall and sin man because of a sinful nature can't repent and believe you don't need a, you don't need a spiritual wheelchair as it were.

You don't need spiritual crutches. You need to be born again. You need to be brought to spiritual life.

Okay, good. Number five, number five, the new birth or regeneration is

God giving us the spiritual life that enables us to do what we must do, but cannot do because of our bondage.

In other words, regeneration is when God makes you born again and then with that new nature, you can repent and believe because now you have the nature of a person who would repent and believe.

True. True. I mean, it's again, we're back to Ephesians two where we were dead in our sins, trespasses, but God made us alive together with Christ and you know, it's by grace we have been saved.

And ultimately what are we going to say then that grace is somehow the first step that we took, you know, the reaching out to take the antidote.

No, grace is the work of God entirely. Which comes first regeneration or faith?

Well, you can't, you can't have faith without being regenerated. I, I, and you know, it's pretty hard to be regenerated and not have faith.

So I'd say they're pretty much, he had to pick one though. If I had to pick one that logically started, if I had to pick one,

I'd say regeneration. All right, good. How about this? This is not on the test, but on my notes I have this.

So I asked the crowd instead of asking Steve, the throngs of the people out there listening.

Have you ever met a Christian who said, I have come to Jesus without the power of the Holy Spirit? I've met people who thought they were

Christians who said that. I've met people who thought they were the Holy Spirit. All right. And then now finally, number six, we have lots to say about all this, but I want to get everything together on one show.

We've got a couple of minutes left. Final true and false question. Number six, faith and repentance are the evidences of, and not the cause of regeneration.

Absolutely true. Because what, what happens, you know, regeneration, think about a person who's spiritually dead, cannot respond to the things of God.

And they receive spiritual life and all the things that before were absolutely meaningless to them now take on a deeper meaning.

So they have faith. They have a desire to repent. They have a transformation.

They are no longer that rotting corpse that they were. They're alive and they act like they're alive.

There's a, when God changes people, he really changes them. Good. And so we would say,

Steve, wouldn't we, that faith and repentance are fruits of salvation and not the cause of salvation.

That's right. Most evangelicalism, because you tell people to repent and believe, they think, well, that's the causal force is my repentance and my belief.

That's the foundational reason why I'm saved. And you're not saved even technically by faith alone.

You are technically saved by Christ's perfect work as the God man at Calvary, his whole life, his death, his resurrection.

And then through believing in what he has done. I mean, some of the language we use, you know, frequently, like, you know,

I came to faith. Oh, did you really now, you know, how did that work? You know, exactly.

You know, how did you come to faith? Well, I was a rotting corpse and God brought me to life. And then I came to faith. Well, I'd go for that.

You know, Steve, we help people when they do their baptismal testimonies to try to talk about God as the active one in salvation, since he is and talk about yourself passively.

Here's how God saved me. This is what God did versus, you know, I did this and I did that. Steve, how about this regarding faith and repentance as an evidence and not a cause of regeneration?

John 10, 26 is absolutely wild. But you do not believe because you are not of my sheep.

Yeah. I mean, Jesus talking to this group of Jews and he says, listen, here, here's why you don't believe in me.

It's because you're not part of my flock. You weren't part of the chosen ones. You aren't part of those who will be redeemed.

So these things just bounce off you because he doesn't say it. But another way of saying it, you're spiritually dead.

That is an amazing truth. Well, if you're a Christian today, you're a Christian because of God's sovereignty and you're a

Christian because God even granted you the faith and repentance. And we are thankful today that you're listening,

Steve, anything in the last 10. Yeah. Jesus also said, you know, my sheep hear my voice. So it is a result of regeneration that we are enabled to hear the words of Christ and respond to them.

As Steve Schooley says, preach it. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.