July 7, 2015 ISI Radio Show with Pastor John Samson on “God’s Sovereignty in Election” Part 2

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Now here's our host, Chris Arns. Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth, listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arns and your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this seventh day of July, 2015, and I'm delighted that we are going to be entering into part two of a discussion we began not long ago on Iron Sharpens Iron with our guest, Pastor John Sampson of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona.

We are going to be continuing the discussion of his book, Twelve Whatabouts, Answering Common Objections Concerning God's Sovereignty in Election. Very important subject, especially since I happen to be a believer in the doctrine of grace, the doctrines of grace, the doctrines of God's sovereign grace, Reform Theology, Calvinism, however you want to nickname it.

And of course, if I think it's important, that must mean it is important, since I am the host of this program especially, and it's my great honor and privilege to welcome you back for the second time on Iron Sharpens Iron, Pastor John Sampson.

Great to be with you, the honor and the privileges.

And you know something, John? I couldn't even enjoy the weekend celebrating the humiliating defeat of the British over 200 years ago. I couldn't even blow stuff up and celebrate because of the sad news, the tragic news of the Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage.

But I don't know about you, but do you even celebrate that day over here now that you're a pastor here in.

The United States? I do what I can. I'm certainly an American citizen now, and my children are American in quite a dramatic way from wanting to be God outside Buckingham Palace. That's G-U-A-R-D, I have come a long way now.

Well, and I apologize if anybody's offended by the laughter in the light of the announcement I just made, but hey, you know, we still have to live and survive and move on in our lives, and then laughter, I believe, is a gift of God.

And not making light of the seriousness of what just developed, but I can't crawl up in a fetal position and lock myself in the attic, which I actually do more often than I should, but I can't do that all the time.

Before we go on with a continuation of our discussion, which we barely scratched the surface of the last time because I, being a blabbermouth or whatever you want to call it, a bloviator, I went on and on and on and only touched one of your 20 chapters in your book.

We addressed John 3 .16 and how that is probably the most frequently brought up objection to God's sovereignty in election. But before we even go into the other or begin to explore the other 19 chapters, tell us, our listeners, for those who missed the last show, tell our listeners about King's Church in Peoria, Arizona.

Yeah, we're a fairly new church. We're just starting out in many ways and just ordained our second elder. What we're doing, pretty much central at the time of the Reformation, I think it's central. And you are a Reformed Baptist church,.

That's how you describe yourself? Yes. And for those of our listeners who missed another one of... Actually, I said this is the second time you were on the program. This is actually the third time because prior to that, you addressed the Word of Faith movement, which you were once an adherent of, and God delivered you from that.

And I do want to direct our listeners to hear that fascinating testimony of John's deliverance out of the Word of Faith movement, which he embraced not only as an ordinary Christian, but as a pastor. And he was at one time even a host of the local TBN television network, which is run by Word of Faith heretical individuals.

And we thank the Lord that John's on our side now, especially since he... It's unthinkable mercy. It's really that.

Many I've talked to are not even interested, co-pastors, so again, neglecting, but...

Unconditional Election and Romans 9

Well, why don't we address the other most frequently brought up objection to God's sovereignty in election, which is in fact chapter 6 in your book. What about free will? That seems to be next to the reality of the existence of Jesus Christ, the God-man, and his sacrifice on Calvary's cross and resurrection.

That seems to be the most important issue with those who do not believe in the doctrines of grace or God's sovereignty in election, which we call, as Calvinists, we call unconditional election. In fact, why don't you give another very brief definition of what that is, and then we'll move on to free will, which, unless you disagree, I think that that is a highly cherished belief right next to those pillar cardinal issues, doctrines of the Christian faith that I just mentioned.

Absolutely. You talked about unconditional election, and a key passage would be Romans 9, which in one of the... it was not because of works, not because eternal punishment, but in sheer mercy. Some souls, not all, and that's the controversy.

Democratic world, where we think everyone has a right to freedom, a right to salvation in the ultimate sense, and God, holy God, who says, I will have mercy, that does not strike the right chord in us, to mercy.

Mercy, we've misunderstood mercy. If a governor of a state has mercy on some criminal who's about to give them that punishment, there's no biblical or historical or... he must do the same for me. No. He can have mercy on whom he can have mercy, and God is that way, and his answer, who are you, oh man?

The controversy is in common with... we do the holiness of God for eternity under the... after 10 ,000 years of that combination of... again, God will punish sin and will be punished forever, and there was never any attempt by God to redeem a single one of them, but mercy upon mercy in Adam, fallen as sinners who will...

Well, you know, you actually just proved that English is not a common language amongst Americans and British individuals, because I asked for a brief definition. But... According to what? Well, well...

Have mercy on you. Well, do you agree with my assessment earlier, before you gave the definition that free will appears to be one of the cardinal beliefs of those who reject the doctrines of sovereign grace that would seem to line up right next to the deity of Christ, his sacrifice on Calvary, and his resurrection, and his virgin birth, and all those things?

It seems to be something that is irremovable from their gospel proclamation, from their whole sense of what is right and wrong. It's... They think that without this belief, God's true character has been assaulted, that his love has been tarnished.

It just seems to be something that has become an idol with many professing Christians, and if you could comment, maybe you think I'm wrong on that, but what do you think?

I'd agree absolutely, and in fact, I'd like for us to just camp out on that for a little while, because I think it is just so as you've spoken it. Martin Luther, who was obviously the prominent man in the Reformation, when he looked back on his ministry, he had done all that he had written, the most important thing he had done, the most important, because he actually made this state salvation to the will, even in the least.

He knows nothing of grace, and has not understood... Someone might not agree with him. We get into... We've not understood... Getting an answer, but I won't have to ponder that question in a class. What does a fish know about water?

Does it know that it's surrounded by water? Once it's out of the water, it realizes its great need of water. It can't survive without it. It actually goes through a fish's mind about what water is. Does it know it's in water?

And in the same way, do we know the environment we've grown up in? The pagan way of looking... Neutral moment... Inclinations... No one does good, not even one. There's nothing... Say, no, that can't be true, because I know someone who's really...

Mormonism, he's really seeking, and from God's perspective, no, he isn't. The moment we start seeking God is the moment we found him, because every attempt that religions know that people don't remove, but they're not looking to Christ, they're not actually seeking God, they're trying to find remedies, God, in our hearts, and taking out what the Bible describes, nothing there.

There's having worshiped... Reformation itself was understanding... Called salvation, and then it's... And it's... Salvation...

It is ironic that today some of the most vociferous anti-Calvinists, or those who are opposed to the doctrines of God's sovereignty, are also very frequently, very vehemently, anti-Roman Catholic, and sometimes to the point of nastiness and cruelty and hate, and the irony is that they are really siding with the Roman Catholic Erasmus in the great debate of the Reformation on the bondage of the will between Erasmus and Martin Luther, aren't they?

Absolutely. Denied by them, but historically, that's certainly the case, and they are much nearer to Rome. In fact, they're identical on the issue of grace, as to how grace functions. The technical word would be semi-Pelagian.

It comes along to us, and man is the disformer. We're very much opposed to that semi-Pelagian view, as they're on many steps on a road back off.

And of course, the evangelicals or fundamentalists who would be in disagreement with us on this, are not in harmony with Rome as far as sacerdotalism or salvation through ritual or obedience or anything of that nature.

We're talking about the will itself. Right, right, right. And the thing that you will common here, in fact, a very well-known anti-Calvinist or non-Calvinist writer and speaker coined the phrase cosmic rape in regard to what we believe about election, because they so hold free will as a precious and glorious gift that they believe that we are saying that God is forcing people against their will to follow Him and believe in Him and love Him.

And is that what we are saying, that God is forcing people against their will?

Not at all. In fact, there's a lot of assumptions in what they are saying, which we need to correct biblically. I remember in the book, I'm kind of looking for the paragraph where I start off on free will.

I say this, why are you reading this? And I would say to the listener, why are you listening to this when there are billions to be read or heard in many languages, but right now you're listening to this one that some reformed and craved individuals put a gun to your head and told you that if you don't hear this, he'd actually shoot you.

And that would be what some refer to as a cage stage reformer after coming to understand these doctrines of grace. His zeal for reformation truth needs to be augmented with sanity and human relationships, because this man, he'd send books, tapes, CDs, MP3s, DVDs, emails, never shown any interest.

Christmas is his favorite time of the year, because he's going to be sending R .C. Sproul's book, Chosen by God, to everybody he knows. He's on a mission, but he needs to cool down. But gun at your head, choice to continue on to read the contents of the gun.

The impact of the bullet, and even now, how you do anyway, inclination. And if he's reading anything else, you'd be reading something else. Just saying that, I think, helps people because we make our choice in the moment of the choice.

So we have a free will in the sense that we choose things freely according to our.

Nature and desires, correct? Exactly, exactly. And what we say then after saying that, and that is to affirm the nature of the will, is our wills are in bondage to and until God works in the heart, then come to Christ, to nature.

It's not in us. Hearts of stone do not choose to become hearts of flesh. We don't want God. Romans 8, carnal will against God is one of hostility towards Christ. Again, he's hostile, he makes his emotional language.

Well yeah, and Romans 8 says that those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Those who are in flesh are obviously lost people, and if believing in God pleases him, how on earth could we do that in a saving way, other than in an intellectual way, of course?

But in a saving way, how could we do such a thing if we are in the flesh? Obviously, this is a rescue mission that God always successfully completes when he is on a mission with his own people, correct?

Look at those two verses, verse 7 and verse 8, again in this context where very quickly, if you are not in the flesh, unregenerate people, and they cannot please God. And it is in perfect accord with Jesus, who in John 3 says, unless a man is first born again, unless he's born again, he's in the kingdom of God.

He can't even see it.

Right. And so therefore, Jesus removing our heart of stone and replacing it with a heart of flesh, and having the Holy Spirit bring us to new life, that is not rape or being forced against our will, that is being given a new will, and what on earth could be wrong with that if you are being rescued.

From damnation? Exactly. No one comes kicking and screaming to Christ. No one. No one ever has. And the heart, until God works in that, will make choices of coming to Christ, because there's no.

Desire in that heart to do so. In fact, I hope I don't offend any of my Pato Baptist friends and brethren. I'm sure I probably will offend some of them. But I think Reform Baptists really live out this truth more fully and completely, because throughout history, Reform Baptists have never believed in using the sword against heretics.

We do not believe that men like Rome did, and those who are involved in other forms of sacerdotalism and magisterial Reformers who would use the sword, that was the attempt to coerce someone and truly force them to believe something, but we know that you cannot be forced to savingly believe in the gospel of Christ.

Am I right? I'd agree with that. I can see why.

And especially with Rome, even our Pato Baptist brethren who are Reformed, they would wholeheartedly agree that Rome was specifically demanding people to recant their heresies by threat of torture and death.

And we're going to be going to a break right now. If you have a question for John Sampson on unconditional election or on anything involving free will or Calvinism, the doctrines of grace, give us an email at chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c-h-r-i-s-a-r-n-z-e-n at gmail .com, and please give us your first name at least, the city and state where you live, and the country where you live if it's outside of the United States.

We look forward to hearing from you and your questions for John Sampson right after these messages, so don't go away.

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Call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times. 631 -929 -3512. Or check out their website at wrbc .us. That's wrbc .us. Welcome back. This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in, we are having an interview with John Sampson, who is the pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona.

The website of the church is kingschurchaz .com. That's kingschurchaz .com. We're discussing Twelve Whatabouts, which is his books, where we are addressing common objections to God's sovereignty in election.

And let me repeat the email address if you have any questions. It's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com. And this is a live interview, so send those emails as soon as you can. The other thing that comes to mind in regard to this, by the way, John, I hope you don't mind if we just keep having you back to address the different subjects, because each subject is so rich with content that obviously it'd be difficult to jam a lot of these adequately and adequately cover them in one broadcast, if you follow what I'm saying.

So I'd like to have you keep coming back to address the different aspects of the, or the different whatabouts, if you will. Yeah. But one thing that has occurred to me often is that to be consistent, if you're really going to hold to a understanding of free will, you really have no basis in believing in what has been called eternal security.

Because why on earth, if you have the freedom of will to choose Christ as Savior while you're still in a dead, a spiritually dead condition and lost in the flesh, if you have the ability to do that, to summon that up within your soul, within your wretched dark soul, why is it that you can't freely choose to abandon Christ?

And in fact, people who believe in eternal security are divided sharply into obviously more than two camps, but there are those who believe in what we would call easy-believism, who believe that a genuine born-again believer can live an unrepentant, licentious life, their entire life until they die after having a quote-unquote saving experience or born-again experience.

And there are those, on the other hand of the spectrum, who would agree with us, as Reformed Christians, that repentance is necessary, as is bowing to the Lordship of Christ, although never in a perfect fashion on this earth.

But the latter would have less of an argument to believe that if they believe in free will. Why can't you abandon Christ, if you could comment on that?

I think I absolutely agree. If your will got you in, the message of Penida began, the good work is good work. Salvation is all of good. And that's why Jesus made it very clear, no man can come to me, he said, unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I'll raise him up on the last day, John 6, 44, which again, in one verse, it slightly denies the free will that many just assume.

And that's the problem, we assume it. I've often, people have asked me the question about free will, and they kind of look at me like I'm nuts or something. You know, what on earth, why would you even question that?

It's so assumed that man has free will. And I said, look, the Bible says we've got a will. But where in the Bible does it say it's free? Jesus made it clear, he who sins is actually the slave of sin. We're enslaved to our desires.

The worst thing imaginable for us is that God leaves us to our desires, because they are not in any way conducive to coming to Christ, or to dwelling on the beauty of the gospel. It's not there, it's not part of us, there is no God-seeker, Romans 3, 11.

And so, Jesus makes it clear, no one can, no one, and an enablement, no man has to get to Christ to come to him, unless God does something, and he does it so, and again, no one is able, as much as we, Edwards and Spurgeon, every Christian loves Jesus, and I, I'm a, because of Jesus, no one can come to Christ, which is the issue of free will, isn't it?

No one can do it, unless God does it, and when he does it, look, and the one who has come to Christ is someone who has a new nature, and if there is no evidence, regenerated heart, so we're not the judges, born again experience, born again heart, has new desires, and they will, of repentance.

If there's been a real repentance, which is necessary, repent, unless there's evidence of repentance, there has been no change of heart.

And we do have a listener in Fort Myers, Florida, Mike. He says, Greetings, John, thank you for your thoughtful commentary and analysis in both shows, which address the topic at hand. Would you kindly provide an overview of the topic of Provenient Grace from the standpoint of Arminian and Reformed theologies?

Thank you, Mike. Are you familiar with the Provenient Grace.

Issue? Yeah, it's a big framework that people bring to the Bible, trying to have an intermediate position between someone who would just be what we would call a man who can do whatever he wants to do at any moment, he can come to God, he can save himself, basically, and the Augustinian view, which is in the middle there, is an idea, a concept, a philosophical concept called Provenient Grace, which says that God offers to each and every man and woman, boy and girl, and then leaves it to them to decide whether they'll take advantage of it, I think in a nutshell.

Provenient means something that comes before the enactment of regeneration, and regeneration, the determination.

Of the will of man. So in other words, it's basically like the Holy Spirit doing what the Spirit can to prepare your heart to make a decision, and ultimately that decision is still within the will and power of man to make, but it's the preparation that the Holy Spirit does in.

This flawed theology, correct? Absolutely, and if you think about it, if people think that through, if that is true, then there is actually no point in praying for God to do anything, and have all of these in their minds, but in the prayer meeting, when they're praying for their brother or their sister or their mother, they ask God, Lord, open up her heart to see the truth, and if, don't you know I'm doing all I can?

I've done everything I can, now it's up to this guy, this lady, to do what? She's asking me to do something. Don't you know I can be same exact, and again, when they speak from their hearts, they know in their hearts what is true, they're asking God to do something.

Open up their heart, and when it talks about the opening of the heart, oftentimes the preacher will say, open your heart to Christ, the only one in 16 verse 14. Again, it's God's work to open up the heart, so same thing for every person, there would be no point in praying because he's already doing all he can.

Yeah, and this is a way around people being accused of being raw Pelagians, that they reject the notion that men are born perfect and sinless, but they don't want to accept unconditional election either, so they come up with this explanation of how God is involved in preparing the sinner heart to freely choose him, but without actually removing that heart.

And replacing it. Yeah, and again, we need to go back to Jesus who said, unless a man is first born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Jesus was very clear, and the problem with prevenient grace is there's no biblical basis for it, there isn't.

And we're going to be going to.

Our final break right now, if you have any questions, this will be your last opportunity, at least during this live program, and the email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, don't go away, we'll be right back after these messages.

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It's about God and His glory, and the gospel is about man and his sin.

Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. We have been discussing God's sovereignty in election and addressing arguments against it on our program with John Sampson, who is the pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona.

Their website is kingschurchaz .com, kingschurchaz .com. If you have a question, we only have about 12 minutes left, and our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com, chrisarnzen at gmail .com. And of course, we will be returning for future broadcasts to continue this very deep discussion.

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The Iron Sharpens Iron website is ironsharpensironradio .com, ironsharpensironradio .com. The other explanation that those who reject what we embrace, John, the doctrines of grace, the doctrine of unconditional election, is God's foreknowledge.

The opponents of Reformed theology will use God's foreknowledge as their explanation on why he has elected anyone that he knows who will choose him. So what about foreknowledge?

The concept that I had in place, that wonderful golden chain of redemption as it's described in Romans 8, foreknowledge, if your destination, work together for good, foreknew, that because foreknowledge comes before predestination, God must simply predestinate.

That's not what foreknowledge means. In fact, if you look at man, there are different things, foreknowing, justifying, and glorifying, rather than actions. And on both sides of the aisle in this debate, we would want foreknowledge to come before predestination because God does not predestinate people that are not known to him.

God knows what does foreknowledge mean, and what does that mean? The gardeners would make right decisions. No, it's speaking of a love relationship. It's speaking of the love of the father for the son in all eternity past.

Just like when Adam knew Eve in the garden.

You say that again? I'm sorry I missed that.

Just as when Adam knew Eve in the garden of Eden.

Absolutely. That's the Hebrew word used there. It means intimate knowledge and life. And that Jeremiah was born, I knew you, not I knew you'd make certain choices. He had an established, or he chose to have an established relationship with Jeremiah long before he was born.

You can say he foreknew. Again, it's not speaking. And right through that golden chain, if you work through verses 29 and 30, again, it would make no sense if it meant only some of those he foreknew he predestined, or some he predestined he foreknew.

The very thing, taking the Hannah headline in verse 1, Lincoln's separator, would make no sense if only some of those he foreknew he predestined. And again, the things that, and again, theologians have known this for centuries, but we're going to stand on their shoulders, and we work.

None of them are justified. So it brings forth the justified, and we justify the word, and it's magnificent. He has a work in progress. It starts in a true eternity future.

And this is not, as the opponents of Reformed theology would define it, it is not just a prediction of God. It is not just a prophecy of God. God is not the supreme psychic who just knows the future intellectually or in his mind.

He actually has ordained the future and intimately knows those who will come to him, because he is the one that draws them to himself. They are his children that he adopts, and he knows them in a very intimate and familial way, not just in a predictive sense or a prophecy sense, correct?

Absolutely. And again, just to reaffirm that, you mentioned the word, I was thinking the verse in Amos. I believe he spoke of Israel. You only have I known of all the families of the earth. Did he not know about the Moabites, the Amorites?

Of course he did, but he'd only known Israel in a redemptive sense, and that's the way the word know means.

And of course, those who would oppose the doctrine of unconditional election or sovereign grace, again, they're patting themselves on the back because they are saying, even if unconsciously or undeliberately, that God is choosing them because he saw something good in them, i .e. their choice.

That's why people are elected and saved is because God, through the corridors of time, saw who would be a good little boy and a bad little boy, and he chose the good little boys who chose him through their free will.

That's really what they're saying. Even if they wouldn't term it in such a comical way, that's really what they're saying, isn't it?

It is, and they would seem to deny that, but that is the logical essence of it. Even if we just tie it down to a choice made, God sees a head that would make the right choice. Why is it we'd make the right choice?

Same exact gospel, got the same measure of grace. So, we have an election that got us into heaven, and again, to a minimum, it's actually excluded when we understand grace. There is no room for boasting because there was nothing in me that wanted Christ, and that is exactly why Martin Luther, as we began our discussion today, talked about the fact that if you think your will got you into heaven, I believe it's a biblical one.

And it's a shame that many, many, many Lutherans have abandoned the teachings of Martin Luther or never knew it because they're really following Melanchthon, I believe, in regard to the human will. But anyway, we do have another listener, this one in your neck of the woods,.

I'm not sure how close Mesa, Arizona is to Peoria, but we have David in Mesa, Arizona, asks, Pastor Sampson, what one piece of advice would you give to someone who has recently come to understand the doctrines of grace and is hungry to learn more and tell others about this newfound theology?

Excellent question with which we should close the program and pick up next time on a different one of your points.

Yeah, I admit it.

What advice would you give someone who has recently come to the understanding of the doctrines of grace and is hungry to learn more and tell others about their newfound theology? Like before, you were talking about how very often new converts to Calvinism, if you will, are like wild, unchained dogs who have a little bit of wisdom and a lot of zeal, and they wind up doing more harm for the reputation of Calvinism than could.

But he's basically asking, how would you treat a new believer in the doctrines of grace on how to learn more and share with others these things?

I think it's a very good question. I think what I would advise is not do what I did, which was be like that great individual. I remember getting up preaching a message that was so strong that there were people that left the service halfway through shouting John 3 16 at me.

I didn't understand this or come to this by one sermon. In fact, it was six or eight or nine months of just deep study. And we need to allow people the room to look at the words of Jesus, find it in the words of Jesus, rather than in the great theologians.

Let them see Jesus saying it, Peter saying it, James saying it. Let them see scripture from Genesis directed by the message and share what you can. See if there's an interest. But at the same time, don't ram it down people's throats.

And I've been guilty in the past of doing that. Wisdom to them. And if there's an interest, then your sole purpose of helping people who are struggling. If they're not struggling, sending the book doesn't help.

But if they're struggling with these things, allow them time to say, hey, there's some information. Would you look well?

And if anything should destroy and burn the pride of man to a crisp, it's the doctrines of sovereign grace. And unfortunately, and ironically, many who believe in these teachings we cherish have turned it into a reason to be proud and arrogant, which is absolutely nonsensical and ridiculous.

In fact, the preacher once told me that if you're going to be proud over believing anything, you're going to have to be proud to be a fool because the scriptures teach that God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.

Very well said.

And we have to recognize that even in our salvation, we owe all to God, even in our understanding of his word.

That's right.