Deciphering Divine Will: Election, Predestination, and Salvation in Christian Thought

Have you ever considered the mysteries of divine choice and human destiny? Join us on a profound spiritual journey as we untangle the complex doctrines of election and predestination, delving into God's pre-creation plans and the debate over whether our salvation hinges on divine grace or human will. This episode promises to enlighten you on these deeply rooted Christian beliefs, exploring the scriptural evidence that challenges and reframes common misconceptions surrounding these topics.

Venture into the historical battlegrounds of theological thought, where Augustine's rebuttals to Pelagianism and the formation of Calvinist doctrine shape our understanding of God's sovereignty. We examine how these ancient discussions continue to influence evangelicalism in America today, contrasting the global impact of Reformed theology with the resistance found within our own borders. The episode doesn't shy away from the hard questions, addressing the paradox of God's universal love and His selective election, and what this means for our personal faith journeys.

Wrapping up, we contemplate the reassurance and responsibility that come with accepting the sovereignty of God in matters of salvation. As we reflect on the transformative nature of grace and the call to evangelize, we're reminded of the central tenet of Christianity—justification by faith in Christ alone. Whether you're wrestling with doubts or seeking deeper theological insight, this exploration offers a fresh perspective that will both challenge and comfort believers.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 2:10

Welcome to the Daryl McClain Show. I'm your host, daryl McClain. You are listening to Episode 397. Today is 314 of 2024. And let's get into this special edition of the episode. Today it is going to be a one-topic show, a spiritual episode about election and predestination, on the sovereignty of God in salvation. So I want to thank everybody for listening today. This is again a special edition.

Speaker 1: 2:46

In fact, this past night I began to study Ephesians and that's what I was going to be looking at and in the very first chapter, verse 4, it introduces a wonderful, important doctrine of Scripture known as the doctrine of election, some people call it the doctrine of grace, etc. The following verse then gives us the concept of what is known as predestination. It's a wonderful I could speak from personal experience in doing the study it's wonderful to begin delving into the great truths, but some people see the doctrines as confusing. Today I hope to bring a blit of clarity to the truth and I'm going to attempt to do this by way of a bit of a discussion with me and some of the questions that I normally hear. So I think I speak this discussion off with a bit of a summary of the definition of what the doctrine of election actually is, and what does it mean? So the doctrine of election simply means that God, uninfluenced and before election, before creation, predetermined certain people to be saved. Now the normal question that you get is does that then imply that there was a larger group of people out which God made that choice? And if so, what group is that? The answer to that would be humanity, and so the normal response would be is there a relationship between the doctrine of election and the doctrine of predestination? Are they the same doctrine? Are they different? Is it the same concept? And I would say I think it's essentially the same.

Speaker 1: 4:45

Predestination simply identifies the point prior to time when God determined that he would elect. In other words, the election is the actual choice. Predestination simply identifies this as something that happened pre-limitarily in time. So that would be the meaning, then, that the phrase before the foundation of the world, before time ever began. There's also more in that, though. The second half of the word, the first, is pre, the second half is the word destined, and that sort of takes you to the end, and the end of it is, I think, best summed up in Romans 8, that where we are predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, so that God's elective purpose was the glorification that is to in the full and the final salvation of those whom he chose. So normally, if I say something like that, they're going to respond with it sounds like that it's clearly taught in Scripture.

Speaker 1: 5:48

But even though it is true or may seem like it says in Scripture, people do attempt to explain it away. What are some of the things that you have heard? People attempt to explain these doctors away, and then so I would say probably the most common evasion or tip is from those who would see the word for knowledge as something that figures into God's elective choice. And by that I mean that he foreknew, by looking ahead into the future, to discover what was going to happen and when he knew, when he learned through his foresight, who was going to respond positive to the gospel. He then chose the people who he foreknew who would respond positively and in so, in effect, the choice is still theirs. But God saw it ahead of time and therefore he elected them because of the choice he knew that they would make. Now, I think that really evades the whole point, because it makes the choice the choice of the center rather than the choice of God.

Speaker 1: 6:58

And if you're saying that that is not true, or if you're saying that that is your perspective, I would say that is not the biblical definition of foreknowledge. And so then you get into, is it a related issue, but it's not a biblical definition. What is foreknowledge, then? And so I would get into when you have to get into the translations now. So the word translated for knowledge is the Greek verb proxnosco, which literally means to know before and when he's talking about relationships, he's talking about something that occurred before something, and that case it goes back to the word predestination, and that is that God had predetermined relationship before time, that he had determined to be unconditional election and those upon whom he would shower his grace from a pool of those whom he would have, who he knew would have fallen and all were undeserving of anything that he might offer. And that also would go to the talk which I had the other day about the classic Armenian view of election. So, the classic Armenian view of election they wouldn't deny God's foreknowledge of something, they would just redefine God's foreknowledge of something.

Speaker 1: 8:22

Basically, I think, to get around to the two stumbling blocks that I think people trip over all the time in route to try to understand what the Bible says, which is frequent, I think we all agree, not only in its frequent, but it's really clear. And if you just come to the Bible and ask what does it mean by what it says? And a number one where I think a large majority of people stumble is over the total depravity of mankind. And I say that is where people stumble, and a lot of people will say they agree with that. And I don't think they really do, because I think if you don't start with total depravity of mankind and understand that men were dead in our sins and trespasses, you will never get to the unconditional election as the Bible teaches it.

Speaker 1: 9:06

And it's one of the reasons, just as I was thinking through it today, some imaginary that's used, salvation, some of it, and the, and that we are born again. So when you get to that imagery that's used is the born again thing and to that we've been resurrected. And then I think I said that in the, in the response to Josh's audio, which is how many dead people cause their own resurrection, how many babies, before they were conceived, did something to lead to their birth? And you know the answer is absolutely nothing. And then that's why these analogies are pictures of life, are being used, because it points to the humanity, the of it all, dead in their sins and trespasses, personally culpable before God for their sins, deserving of nothing. And if God had only exercised his justice and righteousness, only God, the Father, god the Son and God, the Holy Spirit and the angels that didn't fall would be in heaven. But God could have done that if he wanted to. So did the great job with the passages in John and also Titus one, and pointing to out God's desire to redeem a portion of mankind for himself. So people fall over the total depravity of man and there are all kinds of varieties whose best and I think at this point is best to go to some historic points, and I'm going to think about what the term would be called palagianism and semi palagianism and all that could start to get involved into this.

Speaker 1: 10:56

Now the second one and it's really fresh in my mind because I've been working on the openness of God issue and working on some of the articles are reading it for in different journals and I have a very hard time is because human beings believe that we can think on the same level of God and it's deafening and defying the human mind and humanizing the divine mind. And if we think we can understand everything that's in the mind of God, which we can't, we will still then come to the conclusion that it is unfair, not right, for God to do what he does, because that makes him a somewhat cosmic puppeteer and all we are is people who go through life and everything we do and everything we say we have nothing to be involved in. And so the argument of free will issues. And I could only find one passage and I was looking at the new American Standard Bible when I was looking and so when I came to the word that would have been translated free and our will, and in that context it would have been Philemon 14, and all it meant was Paul said I like you to do this, not of compulsion, not that I have sort of jammed this down your throat, but rather to do this out of the kindness of your heart.

Speaker 1: 12:22

And I would suggest maybe for that type of discussion I don't, I don't, I, there was nowhere in the Bible Can I find that it suggested that man has free will when it comes to the acts, independent outside of sources, conditions, people, etc. Etc. Man has a will, but the Protestant reformer, martin Luther, said that it's will is a bondage and the Bible says that our wills is also that of a slave. So it's either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness, but but never free, like I hear when people talk about free and free will and and free this and stuff like that. I can't find that concept.

Speaker 1: 13:10

So I do need to Get people to what I would say park our pride On our humanity and the ability to think and see ourselves as sinners, lost forever, apart from God's unmerited favor and his grace Unconditionally bestowed by election, to see ourselves, as Isaiah saw, the mind of God, and Isaiah 55, 8, 9, 10, 11. That just clearly says you don't need to know Hebrew to get the point. The gods thoughts are so far above our thoughts that it's differences between the distance between the heaven which can't measure on earth. So those and just the kind of kick it back to you know what I was saying earlier, are some of the things that people stumble over, much less Some of the, I would say, doctrinal fights between Calvinists, armenians and even some unsaved people. Now the interesting point then the people are going to start struggling with the doctrine May very well be in reality struggling with a different doctrine, the doctrine of the depravity of man and also the character of God and who he is. And I said this earlier and I'll just kind of say it in a longer form here, and when I say earlier I mean the episode that I did when I was responding to Josh's audio and so and I said something like this that I also think that Americans have Special difficulty With this because we don't know what a monarchy feels like.

Speaker 1: 14:50

We've never lived under a sovereign ruler. We don't have any concept like that. You would find people historically in a culture where they are ruled by a king and they have a very clear understanding and will leave Willfully been the knee and they will be in their minds to the fact that somebody can actually be in charge. Not everybody in those countries are elected officials, so the people have no problem thinking that they are out of control. Some people have a divine right to sovereignty. This is a bigger problem in America. I think then it would be in some place like Europe.

Speaker 1: 15:28

As you travel around the world in Europe you have found this to be true to Reform theology has. Whenever you find an evangelicalism, you almost always find reform theology, don't you? But when you come to America, whenever you find evangelicalism, you find our Armenianism in one form or another, with a few exceptions, and it has a lot to do with, I think, as much as a Culturally as we just have heard a very hard time Understanding that somebody is the king and the king does whatever the king wants to do, and the king of the universe Does exactly what he wants to do whenever he wants to do it. And to show you how far and wide this goes, I Um looked at an email from a pastor out of Saddleback community church trying to respond to a disaster once, and one of the things he said was that you know that this wasn't God's will. He went on, in fact, to say God's will is rarely ever done.

Speaker 1: 16:33

Now that is a really bizarre statement, because what that does is turn God into a bit of a victim. You really only have two possibilities Either God determines who is redeemed or man does. That's it. I mean, it's not a real complex problem, not a lot of factors, there's just those two options. Now, if you believe that man does, then you have to answer what I brought up earlier. How does a person who doesn't exist birth himself. By analogy how does a person who is dead raise himself from the dead? Every imagery of scripture that defines total depravity and the total depravity of a total deliever to pray person puts them in a what is called an impossible state. On the other hand, nothing in the Bible indicates that a man determines his own salvation. Everything indicates that God does so.

Speaker 1: 17:27

I think we have a bigger problem with it here and we don't like the idea of not being free. We want to have the freedom to choose whatever we want to choose, and that may be the American way, but that is not a biblical. Just to add a bit more to it. I want to add another answer to the original Postulation that I said people would posture. Which was one of the ways I've seen people, particularly in America, avoid the doctrine of election is to turn it into some kind of Democratic election.

Speaker 1: 18:02

You've seen the tract, sometimes online, that says here's election God voted for you, satan voted against you, you cast a society vote and so you Determine your destiny and all of these evasions of you know, etc. Now that's actually frightening thing to think that Satan, man and God all have a equal vote, you know, and I find it even frightening that I would have a vote. The problem is, knowing my own heart is that if it depended on my vote, I would cast the vote against myself over and over again. I would have been doomed long ago. But in all these types of explanations and invasions, we have this in common that they end up making man the captain of his soul, you know, the master in the fate of his fate, the decider of his own destiny.

Speaker 1: 18:56

If God looks into the future and sees who's going to believe, you have two problems. Number one that means the believer himself is the one who made the decisive choice, not God. And that goes against dozens of scriptures to say God is the one who chooses. Jesus walked right up to his disciples and said you haven't chosen me, I chose you. And at Thessalonians, paul writes To the Thessalonians and emphasizes that they are saved by God's choice God's choice. And then the other problem is with the, the ultimate. See. If it's the choice, if I'm going to make the wrong choice, it's going to go back to the whole thing about bondage and total depravity and the bondage of the will. If I had the ability to choose, I Would more than likely choose what is wrongs. And so, since the terms have been used so often and it perhaps there's a little bit of history lesson in order.

Speaker 1: 19:56

The term Arminianism I've used, the term palagianism I've used, so I'm going to somewhat explain briefly what is Arminianism, what is palagianism? And I was as it relate to this. I do study a lot of history. I'm not a church historian, but I'm going to try to explain it. It's fairly as much as I can. So when it gets to what is palagianism?

Speaker 1: 20:19

Palagianism, to simply put it as I know how, it starts with the denial of the doctrine of the original sin. It's actually the denial that Adam's sin in any way affects his Prodigy, so that all of us are born essentially blank slates and that we have a choice. And again, this all hinges on human choice. We have the choice to do good, we have the choice to be good. We have the choice to be good or to be evil, and we're evil by our own choice, not because of any sinful tendencies or guilt that were inherited from the seed of Adam. That's where palagianism starts and out of that you get a totally Graceless theology because ultimately, if it's a choice, whether it be good or evil, then I can save myself, I can redeem myself simply by choosing to do good works and to be a good person and a hard corp of legion. That's exactly what they teach.

Speaker 1: 21:16

Charles Finney Was a classic example who fell into this basically said look, you want to be saved, just choose not to sin. Stop sinning and you can be saved. He even preached a sermon called make yourself a new heart, where he taught that, as a unredeemed person, you can buy sheer force of will. Change your own heart. Now that is contrary to what scripture teaches and you could therefore redeem yourself. The problem with all of this that it gives the sinner credit that he doesn't deserve and it also lays a burden on his back that he can't possibly bear, because it also Diminishes the glory of God and it diminishes it and it escalates the grace of God. I are. It eliminates the grace of God from the gospel.

Speaker 1: 22:07

Pallagians, who would have been the Contemporary of Augustine, and Augustine was the chief one who wrote against him. Augustine said a Pallagius. He seems to mention grace in his writings only to avoid the embarrassment of having not to have mentioned it. It doesn't really have any role in his teaching and I think that that's the best Refutation of Pallagianism that I've ever heard that it was graceless and that didn't come from me. That came from St Augustine and it would be. If you're going to study the debate between Calvinism and Arminians, I would challenge you to do your studying on the debate between Augustians and Pallagians, because that's where this debate actually started Augustine versus Pallagian, so Arminianism. I would classify Most Arminians as a kind of semi Pallagians.

Speaker 1: 23:01

After Pallagius passed from the scene and his teaching was officially declared a heresy, there were those arose in a new sort of modifications of Pallagius teachings called semi Pallagianism that's the technical name for it. That taught okay, where we were damned by Adam's sin. It did affect us, we did inherit simple tendencies, but we, but a different semi Pallagius treat it is different ways, but by most common view, guys gives grace to all Humanity and it restores us to a place where we can make free choices. So go again like a Pallagian. And semi Pallagianist puts all the emphasis on Man's free will. So it just denies a doctor to total depravity. In effect it does they. They'll say well, you were born depraved, but common grace Erases that depravity and gives us the ability to make a free choice. So his thinking is about free to make that choice.

Speaker 1: 24:46

Now what I always think when I talk about this is that the fact that the what's what's called the five points of Calvinism didn't actually come from John Calvin's mind. It actually came from the five points of Jacob Arminius and that was a Reverse image of them. And the first of the point is total depravity and the other side is semi Pallagianism. Calvin never sympathized his own Five doctrine into five points that actually all came from followers after he died, and then these Arminian Restraints put together a document where they said we disagree on these five points. And so these five points really stem from the teaching the Arminians and if you want to summarize, armenian teaching is the opposite of the five points of Calvinism. So they got it all wrong. In my opinion, all of the five the points.

Speaker 1: 25:49

But even if you were to go back and to Jacob and Calvin and Then back in the fourth century with Pelagian and Augustine, you have to go back to to Further, which I would say would be the gospels and as clear as the bell in John 6 that Jesus was saying. For this reason I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted to him from the father. Now just talking about election and predestination Verse 66 and as the result and of his teaching, many of the disciples withdrew and we're not walking with him anymore. It is confronts the human being that thinks that there's something good about him or that he may Are in in a way. He can think that he has at a level of God, and I think at that point you realize that you're bankrupt spiritually and then you can't even be within the galaxy of God Mentally and, like a child, come to scriptures John's message from Matthew 10 unless you be like a child.

Speaker 1: 27:09

I think the fallout of all this too is Standard, typically American evangelism, with his tips to Manipulate men and women, soft sell the gospel, take their offense out, entertain them, do whatever they need to do, because this is all about getting this person to make a decision, and the whole concept of the decision and its inventions and the up-teen verses of just as I am and all these things that go with it is an effort to manipulate, because it is based upon essentially a semi-palagian or Armenian view that a man is the ultimate Decider. And if I mean Finney launched the entire thing. He said the whole idea of evangelism was to manipulate people's minds to get them to point to, to where they make this decision. And you know it's essentially how American in the evangelism is been done, for why, in fact there's a statement in the book the purpose of the church that says something like in a worship service their goal is to get people's muscles to relax the unbelievers relax so they can somehow be in a better Frame of mind to accept the gospel. You know, and you think about this in a funny silly way. It's like, yeah, you know, more people get saved when their muscles relaxed and they don't. And it doesn't make any sense. But in fact the author of that book says that if that I am, if I don't remember the exact words with something like this is pretty close, if I can find a person's sort of felt needs, hot bushing issues, I can leave anyone to Christ. And this is essentially the view. And when the same pastor says to you I don't know that God's will in fact is Is ever really done, you have a huge geological context in which he operates.

Speaker 1: 29:07

I guess it feels like that the whole issue of salvation somehow is an engagement with a person and that is a very heavy responsibility. I mean, if you really really believe that salvation of people dependent on your cleverness. It will be very hard to sleep at night, especially if you are a pastor. It is a tremendous burden to carry as a pastor. To think that hell is being populated because of your inability to deliver the gospel correctly Would make almost no one want to be a pastor. So I'll come back to the stumbling blocks just a little bit.

Speaker 1: 29:47

One thing that people really want to stumble over, and all of this, is trying to understand what Calvinism is and what Calvinism isn't. But Calvinism becomes a kind of target for everybody's objections and there's a brand of Calvinism that's called double predestination. That means that God in his dis this in his will, did the elected some to go to heaven and some to hell before the values of the world, and everything just takes its toll. As far as I know Um, nobody that I follow listen to that exegete the Bible has been able to point to where there is double predestination, and I would like to define it more carefully than that. Before you know, you could say yes or no, to dissociate yourself from it, but to but to the mind, to say that somebody has been Predestined to hell prior to the time that they ever lived their life, rather than what the Bible says and what John preached on those numerous times.

Speaker 1: 30:57

Man is held responsible for his sins, not because he's not a leg, but because he's responsible for his sins. And it is on the basis of his sin, which he has been, which that it hasn't been cared for by Christ, that he co-signed to hell the great right throne judgment of Revelation 20. But that's very annoying to lots of, lots of people, but to character, it is not true of a picture of what Calvin taught or what the Bible taught, and so just to clarify that, the air there I will call equal Ultimacy. That God, the idea that some people have is that God appoints some people to heaven, some people to hell, and then he is active in making those people on their way to hell evil, and he is active in making those people on their way to heaven good, and obviously the scripture doesn't teach that or wouldn't affirm it. That's a doctrine I will call equal ultimate scene.

Speaker 1: 32:00

There's a, there's a Sense in which if God shows whom he would say before the foundation of world, and let everyone else pass over them and Left them in their sins, then their destiny is determined as well is determined, but it isn't by an active effort on guards part that they are made evil. It is actually their own fault, and I think that's what it is, and so I would think that's the best way to explain it. But we're coming at it from different angles. And the other thing is that if people, that people stumble over, if God is sovereign and he is, if he predestined and he did, if he elected and he did, and man is Responsible and they are, then how do you reconcile that? And there's a lot of bobbing heads who will say you have, you haven't got any more clue than anyone else, and that is actually true. So it how that's reconciled, I don't know, because the Bible doesn't tell us it. It tells Thus that God is sovereign. It says that man is responsible. When we get to heaven he'll tell us something else that makes more clear sense. But in the meantime I've seen Clark vane, rick Boyd and others trying to out thank God. In the meantime, they're light years beyond the Arminians and have ended up in what I think is just pure heresy. Now the problem is is the reply from that is going to be get the Bible does Like things, like God in some sense loves the whole world and you, you.

Speaker 1: 33:55

The natural question is how do you reconcile that type of teaching in the scripture with what I've said about election? So the question would some would be answered by how much longer Do you want us, you know, to go with John who wrote the whole book? Well, you know the subject, so we'll answer that here, and this is gonna be brief, but I'll Basically be like this you first I'm the backup little because you have to start debating on the fallout. You need to affirm that the Bible teaches both, all, both election and predestination. You are turning the corner here fast on this, because before we start Well, what about what about this and what about this and what about this? I think people are too what about this before they've ever established the actual doctrine that the Bible is teaching. And it has to start with the understanding that the Bible is clearly teaching that you have To start with Abraham, for example.

Speaker 1: 35:16

God chose Abraham for no particular reason out of other people than that he Might have to be chosen. That is it. God chose Abraham for nothing more than that. He chose him. He just picked him, he plucked him up, he took him To the land of Canaan and he came out of a people came out of him more, the people of Israel. He even calls Israel Israel, mind-eleg, chosen, israel. Why now?

Speaker 1: 35:48

Richard Wolf, years ago, said how odd of God to choose the Jews. And why did he do that? Well, why didn't he, why didn't you choose somebody else, like the Morbites, the Malachites, the Midianites? And there's no answer to that. He didn't choose them because they were better than other people, because they weren't. He didn't choose them he saw, he, he says in Deuteronomy, because they were more than other people, because they weren't. He just determined To set his love upon them.

Speaker 1: 36:19

You even have Christ mind-eleg. And then the church has continually called the elect and you have, as we commented About it earlier, on John 6, where the Jesus says no one comes unto me Except the Father draws him unto me, and all the Father gives to me shall come to me, and all those. So you have to in your mind establish that is the doctrine unequivocally. In another side, you also have to establish, if the scripture holds the center Completely accountable and culpable for his sins. That is clear too. So I think, before you start messing around in the middle, you need to establish that those two things are very clearly Seen in the text the soul, that sin shall die. The wages of sin is death. But that does not. But it also says that God does not participate in evil of the sinner. He doesn't generate it, he doesn't escalate it. He does, he, he, and he doesn't like it. So the sinner operates out of the fallen this and it's culpable and responsible for the sin.

Speaker 1: 37:27

There's another thing you have to understand, and that is now we're. Well, you brought the question to Does God say he loves humanity? And there is a universal love that God manifests himself in common grace and Manifests himself in temporal, physical deliverance from death. The sinners lives and enjoy it. It manifests itself in the universal call of the gospel and manifests itself in the tears of Jesus. It manifests itself in the compassion of God leaping through the eyes of Jeremiah. That is real love. So God elects those that are saved. Those that perish do so without any help from God. And as I'm, phil Johnson says, sometimes the that part is God is passive. And when you see that in Romans 9, where God is fitting vessels into Salvation but vessels are being fitted into damnation and God is passive in that verse, it is also true that God does love humanity and manifests that in common grace, as I just said.

Speaker 1: 38:30

But now, having said that, you believe all of that, you now have a problem, and that is that you, your brain, cannot handle and rationalize all that information and bring all of that into complete resolution. But that's okay, because if you could, you would not be human. There are things that only God can understand, and I really do believe that. I am very confident with that, and that's one reason and why I know the Bible was written and inspired by God, because men would fix that If anybody wrote a book that had those contradictions, editors would edit them all out.

Speaker 1: 39:10

One of the benchmarks of divine inspiration is that the fact that you're dealing with the Transcendence, and that is going to offer you the Paraparadoxes and any elements of transcendence is the ability to grasp fully everything. So you have to be content to believe what you can read in the scriptures and what it clearly reveals. And yet we're told to go into all the world and preach to gospel every creature. And so there is a universal offer that, from that standpoint of God, it is a legitimate offer and, and which is sad to say, even heightens the culpability of the center, because if he trends under his feet. The covenant accounts to Christ as a unholy thing. His punishment is even greater. So God doesn't have a problem harmonizing all that. Man. Playing God, coming up with his you know conclusions in his concoctions in the middle, tends to Reason and end up tampering with and even sometimes destroying all of that.

Speaker 1: 40:14

And so, just to further deal with this question about the love of God, I think it's important to make a distinction that the love of God for his elect, his people, is a different nature than love for Humanity. His love for humanity is real love, it is a genuine compassion. And just to illustrate it, you are my neighbor, you're my pastor, you're my wife. I love you. But also the love that I have for my wife, and I love her with a totally different quality and intensity of love than which I love you. It's two completely different kinds of love all together. And yet that's not to minimize the type of love in which I love my neighbor. It's a real love, it's genuine love, it's heartfelt compassion, but it is not the same kind of love as I love my wife.

Speaker 1: 41:09

That's why I would say that is the way in which God loves. He loves the whole world. Yes, he's a God of compassion and his mercies are all over his works. But scripture says over and over again if you want to be like God, matthew five, love your enemies, because God is good to everyone, he loves everyone, but his love for his elect is a whole different level of love. It's a superior kind of love, and that was makes salvation special. So that's what makes our relationship with him so unique.

Speaker 1: 41:44

So the next question that people would wrestle with is if all that is true is what I just said, then the question is in what sense is he, as scripture says, the savior of all men, but yet especially to the elect? And I would just say that means that he is the savior of all men in a physical and temporal sense. But all you have to do is look at the fact that the world is full of unbelievers who live to know that God, by nature, is a savior. I mean so. It's his nature not to destroy the sinner when the sinner deserve destruction. Example Adam sinned. Should Adam should have died on the spot when he sinned, and that would have been if it happened. That way, it just act. But Adam didn't die on the spot. He lived, according to the text, about 960 years. That is what you would call grace, and that tells us that God, even on a temporal, physical level, is a savior.

Speaker 1: 42:50

The world is full of unconverted people and there's every reason to think, and to be right in thinking, that the justice of God demands death, that the death could come the first time. Anybody sins immediately, but that's what Romans two calls the patience and the forbearance of God. He is so patient and forbearing that he lets the sinner live and live and live. And yet the psalmist even gets to the point where he says not only do they live, but they prosper. And the question is why do the wicked prosper and why are the righteous oppressed? So the fact is that God, by his very nature, is a savior and he shows that by giving people life. He tried to point that out when we're doing these messages. And so the real question of you know why certain people die, but what you do most, but why do most people live, is the actual question, because that's an evidence that God is just. His nature is to save and forgive. And we regard to believers the little adverb, a malistia, something on the same order, but especially believers, he's our savior, not physically and temporarily, but spiritually and internally, but then, where he manifests the ultimate nature, is a savior.

Speaker 1: 44:30

So the other question is how does the doctrine fit with the verses that also teaches its man's responsibility to believe and repent? It's a command from God to do that. Man is expected to obey that command. How does that doctrine fit with that? And the answer would be that you have to somewhat understand that our responsibility is not limited by our ability.

Speaker 1: 44:55

So scripture commands us to do a lot of things that we are morally incapable of doing. One that come to mind premonitly is the verse in the Bible that says be perfect the way God is perfect. Now I can't obey that command, and yet it is my duty to do that. Yes, absolutely so. The fact that our ability is limited in no way makes it not our responsibility, and so that's the error that both our mini-ems and hyper-Calvinists make. They both assume that our ability is limited. Then so must our responsibility be limited.

Speaker 1: 45:38

But the problem is, scripture doesn't teach that. Scripture calls us to many duties that we cannot possibly fulfill. And if it is the duty of all to believe, to trust, to repent, and yet they don't have the moral ability unless God gives it to them, which is the very thing that ought to drive us constantly to be the dependence on the grace of God. There's so many things God commands us that we simply cannot do that our entire lives ought to be lived just simply depending on God's grace, because that's the only power that supplies the ability to do things that we cannot do. So, with that being said, if I bring you back to the question that the thing that theologians would call it autonomy to seemingly irreconcilable ideas, god's sovereignty may as responsibility, but irreconcilable only if we don't have an additional data, and the point that is being made is that if you can read anywhere in the old and in the New Testament about the individuals and about nations so I once saw a study of all the verbs in the New Testament that are used outside of God elected, in God's predestined and just so here's just a little bit of them God wills, god draws, he grants, he calls, he appoints, he prepares, he causes, he chose, he purposes, he delivers, he transfers, saves, makes alive, brings us forth, justifies, and it just kind of goes on like that.

Speaker 1: 47:38

And if you Just read right through the New Testament looking for verbs, the only thing you could conclude is ever, god fits into salvation, he is the initiator and he is the determinant. Regardless of what humanity does or does not do, god ends up being the author and the finisher. And in my opinion, it would be that all we can do is to go to the Bible and say that God is sovereign. And it says the man is responsible. And maybe I could just Go to one passage and set a light of the word it from the teaching of the Lord, you go back to the gospel of Jesus in Matthew 11, 28 come to me all who are weary and are heavy Layton, and I will give you rest, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, and you know so on. And that's a great Armenian verse because it talks about Responsibility.

Speaker 1: 48:40

But just immediately prior to that, verse 27, which is a part of the same speech, he says all things that have been handed over to me by the father. And no one knows the son except the father. Nor does anyone know the father except the son and Anyone to whom the son wheels to reveal him. And it wasn't for God's will to reveal the son as a savior and the father's provider for the deliverer. Then no one could come. And then the most significant thing is, jesus didn't footnote his message by explaining how to reconcile those two, apparently in recital of ideas, paul and Philippians 2, it would be the same exact idea.

Speaker 1: 49:21

And when I talk to people about this you know it's about a. In verse 13 it says for it is God who is at work in you, both the will and to work for his good pleasure. And we and when we say we could just sit back and do nothing and our Christian life, and we haven't read verse 12 that says you are to work out your salvation with fear and tripling. So no matter where you go, god is sovereign, god is determinative, but man is too responsible and man participates with his will, but he doesn't have free will to determine and he doesn't have free will to override. So that's even a Believer is responsible for his own fallacies and his own failures and sins, but he gets no credit when he does anything.

Speaker 1: 50:15

Right now, even if I look at my own life and that's the most my most intimate view of the Christianity and the walk that I have I Don't understand it in my own life. I think I understand the Bible pretty well and the theology of it, but as it operates in my own life it is absolutely beyond of my competition. I just know that if anything right happens it is because the Lord has strengthened me to the end and if anything wrong happens, it's my fault and I cannot blame God, jesus, the Holy Spirit, on my failure. I think a verse that comes to mind you know I threw a lot of things in this verse but Romans 11, 33 oh, the depths and the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. In other words, you start talking about the wisdom and the knowledge of God. You start getting too deep to into deep to swim.

Speaker 1: 51:16

How Unsurgable are his judgments and his ways. Past finding out. At some point you just have to say look, I Can't find out, sorry, I'd like to get a people come to and and ask in me could you answer this? And sometimes I'll say I'm not sure what the answer is, but I'll find out. But when? But when you know? Someone asked you how do you resolve predestination in human volition? I say that's past finding that. Even that is not even in my MacArthur study Bible.

Speaker 1: 51:54

I don't know the answer to that, but I do know this verse 36, for of him and through him and to him are all things, to whom be the glory forever, amen, I mean. So you end up worshiping his transcendence, you end up worshiping his unsurachable nature. And that would be why John in In Ephesians, in chapter 1, verse 3 to 14, which might be the greatest single compact, talking about the father, the son, the Holy Spirit and what they did with MacArthur salvation, every one of them ends with a little phrase in his various forms. In Verse 6, what the father did was to the praise of the glory of his grace. What he did through the son verse 12 was to the praise of his glory. In verse 14, the 14 what he did was through the spirit, was to the praise of his glory, and if man had anything to do with it, then we would rob God of his glory. With whom he said in Isaiah there, to no one will I give my glory. So, no matter where you look, what verbs, what words, what past is all our new testament?

Speaker 1: 53:06

It comes back to there's truth that God's sovereign and there's a truth that man's responsible. And in the scripture, god has not given us the Revelation to make the bridge between the two, so that we could cognitively and philosophically, logically rectify it all and to reconcile it all and and the answer every human question that would ever come, and I, my own of that think, think that he's done it because it forces us to be people of faith and they recognize that God's mind is Galaxies, galaxies past our own thinking. So, when it comes to the Calvin Armenian thing, in a nutshell I would say we have to embrace the truth that both sides offer you. Find it right to scripture. Paul says work out your salvation with fear and tripling you are. You hear our minion who loves to quote that verse.

Speaker 1: 54:09

But what's the what? The next verse? Remember, for it is God who works in you, both to the will and to work for his good pleasure. So, yeah, work out your salvation, but just remember it is God in you who is doing that work. But all the commands in the New Testament are to me. So Not to God, but to me. So the responsibility is on me and I'm told to keep my body in Subjection. The responsibility is mine and the only source of the ability that I have to keep my body in subjection is the spirit in the passage.

Speaker 1: 54:53

In the passage is like a Matthew 11. Paul Didn't take the next verse, 14, and try to explain what. It seems to be a contradiction, because in his mind there is no contradiction. They are both true and we just have to accept those things to both be true by faith. And I think a verse that comes back to my mind it just adds another dimension to this is in Matthew, I think, 22, where Jesus weeps over Jerusalem and it actually says how oft I would have gathered you, as a hen has gathered her Brood, but you would not. That's really amazing how many times I wanted to embrace you but you never allowed me to do that.

Speaker 1: 55:37

I mean, that's talking about a sinner's unwillingness to the end and the raw resistance to the love of God that is Characteristic of a sinner and that makes Jesus weep and he's God. So you know, when the scripture says in the Old Testament that I find no pleasure in the death of the wicked, that's the same kind of attitude. So I think you have to add the fact there you can't turn God into some cold, unfilling entity is just. You have to know like deterministic without any compete, that he's not Deterministic without any compassion. That's not how you you read until this, because that's not the case. So when you put all this together, remember Jesus said I wanted to draw you, but you wouldn't let me, which is an amazing statement, and again it points up to the fact that the sinner has to be willing to respond, and when they're not, it's the grief to the heart of God himself.

Speaker 1: 56:38

So the broader subject that I'm really discussing is the sovereignty of God and salvation, god's role in salvation, every aspect of it, and the question is it's not just election and predestination. God did that, but he did more and with that in mind, how would you answer the objection that there will be people who desperately want to be saved but, since they're not elected, can't be saved, and there will be people who don't want to be saved, who will be drug screaming and kicking into heaven. What is it for the explanation of God's total role in salvation? And my question would be my answer. That question be like what versus that? You know, where can you find that what on the outset is exactly right, it all hinges in at all, stems From the doctrine of total depravity, and I personally understand human depravity.

Speaker 1: 57:38

Wouldn't raise that type of objection, because that person would understand that there are Now depraved people who really want to know God. The thing is depraved people hate God. Romans 8, verse 7 and 8, says that they can't. They are not capable of loving God or pleasing him or even obeying him. They cannot do it. It's impossible for them because their hearts are so fixed against him. So there's no possibility that anyone would ever say, well, I really, really wish I could know God, but I guess he didn't choose me. And on the other hand, it's also true that no one Would resist salvation, or who would resist salvation would be dragged, kicking and screaming against his will and to it.

Speaker 1: 58:26

Because what God does in his regenerative work is he gives the Christian, the elect, a new heart of love for him, and so his cheat changes that. And you know the and that we were born to, towards God, into love and to him. So that's what we mean when we use the term Irresistible grace. That's the, the, the, the another thing, that's the in the tulip, that's the. You know, I wish it. That's I in the tulip. And it's not irresistible in the sense that God forces his grace upon us. I've heard this illustration and I think it's good. It's illiterate, it's irresistible in the same sense that your wife is irresistible to you, and Her charms, her beauty, her, her love, her compassion or laughter, her, everything is irresistible to you. And that's what God does when he draws Someone to Christ he makes Christ Irresistible to you, so that it's not by force but it in, and is not by compulsion.

Speaker 1: 59:38

And yet there are people and this has happened to me several times who will say I guess I'm not chosen. And that comes from people who, for the most part, make some kind of commitment to Christ but just can't live A life that they believe is perfect and it serves the Lord. So they just can't get over the besetting sin. They just, you know, they get some bad relationship I don't some bad relationship or they look at pornography or you know what. It is Any varying things and their sins that are beleaguered, certain people, and so that makes this confusion. And then they'll make this confession I want to be saved. And so they finally get to the point where they Absolutely are just exalted with the exhausted, with the battle that they have been fighting, you know, with their sins, and they'll say you know, maybe I'm just not chosen, maybe I'm just not saved, maybe I'm just not elect, maybe I just was a pre-destined.

Speaker 1: 1:00:40

And in fact I knew a guy in church who probably said to me at least 50 times over a period of all the years you're in church, you know I must not be chosen, I must not be chosen. And the truth of the matter is, you know, the only thing you could do is drive him back to Romans 7 and have him read what Paul said, which was very profound the things I want to do, I do not do. The things I want to do, I do. The things I don't want to do, I do do. All Poor me, I'm not chosen. Now, of course, you know that's not what Paul said. He said old, wretched man that I am. So I mean, it's only a question of degree. We're all in the same battle. We could all come to the conclusion oh, I, I've sinned, I've struggled. I must not be chosen. I must not be chosen.

Speaker 1: 1:01:37

I can't get over this proverbial hump here. When do I, when do I hit the slide and when do I stop climbing? This thing I started to. You know, I started sliding. Well, it isn't going to happen. You don't want to second guess your salvation and manifest itself in the love of Christ for a Longing to be what you can't be to some degree, you see, you need to see some fruit.

Speaker 1: 1:02:08

But all as this tells the kids. You know that people say, well, I'm never going to get over sin, I'm ever going to. Is there going to be a decreasing Frequency of sin? And the answer is yes, and of course I say sure. As you mature in Christ, as you mature in your spiritual walk, there will be a decrease in Frequency of sin. You'll sin less, but because you are more spiritual mature, you'll be more hot in yourself because you will hate sin with more of a vicious degree. So you'll sin less, but you'll actually feel worse. That's just how it is. I mean, only a very mature believer can make the statements that Paul made in Romans, chapter 7. An immature believer wouldn't even understand that statement.

Speaker 1: 1:03:02

The next question that would, would be typically said, is a you know what? If somebody said based upon my understanding of election, it seems like you are encouraging Sin. If I'm elect and my eternal destination is secure, why does holiness or sanctification, why does it matter? If I am elect, why can't I do whatever I want? I'm secure. And the thing is, this was what some hyper Calvinist said you know, in in older times, I'm gonna sin so much that so God's grace and it'd be a bound or whatever.

Speaker 1: 1:03:39

And I think that fails to understand the new creation. If there's anything that defines a regenerated believer is that they don't think like that. So that's would be what first John is all about. If you are, if any man continues to sin, you know he doesn't know grace, he doesn't know Lord. That's the whole. First John. The whole thing is, if you still think of Salvation is some kind of license for you to do whatever you want to do without impunity or judgment, you are more than likely not saved, because the person who has converted, who has a new heart, like Ezekiel 36, a new heart and a new spirit, new longings to ask races do desires and that's not the perfection of their life, but it's not. It is the direction of it.

Speaker 1: 1:04:32

So if somebody asks a Question, that type of question, I would hand them a copy of this really Nice book that I got from Dr Steve Herford, the pastor of change by grace In Jacksonville, florida, when I first met him, and that would be. The book was called the Gospel according to Jesus and it was a very good book and and I think that kind of deals with that. So either way, I can't help but think about Paul's words to in Romans as he talks about grace and then he says well, if that be true, can we all sin so the grace can abound? And he says a very strong language in a negative way In no way may it never be that a Christian would actually not do that. They would not behave in that manner. So let me go ahead and just say this, and this is just as nice as it can be put, and I'll just say it this way somebody who Doesn't believe in the doctrine of election, somebody who doesn't understand Sovereign grace, somebody who comes through the Hard-core meaning approach and gets manipulated into salvation, is the exact kind of person.

Speaker 1: 1:06:01

Whether they were saved or not, it's manipulated to a decision. It's precisely the kind of person that would think like that previous question. So that's why, when you preach the sovereignty of God, people say you don't want to tell non-believers, that you don't want to preach the heavy stuff to people and and the the simple reply would be you actually do, because then they can know when they genuinely have been Converted, because they have had to grasp the deep truths, they have counted the cost of Everything, they understand what's at stake. But that is the typical kind of response. Where there is no particular love For what would be called sanctification or holiness. There's no particular concern for obedience, it's just a continued worldly Fleshly. Give me this stuff. I've raised my hand, I said this prayer type of life and that's because people were manipulated into the decision that they think they made and once they made the decision, to that, that's to an end, and everything you sell, they can live Any way and say anything and believe anything they want, and God isn't really it isn't really involved to start with. So what do you actually owe that person? And if you carry that too far, you're right back to the point where you're putting the entire burden of that regeneration, of that salvation, etc. Right back on the shoulder of the Centers of the unbelievers. It's his job to perform well to the state, faithful, and it's a hard core.

Speaker 1: 1:07:53

Armenians, some of them, really do believe that and every time that you send some of them believe that you lose yourself. Atons, which is a practice, is in no different than Pelagian theology ultimately. But the new deal is also is you're entirely secure. You can just do whatever you want. Once saved, always save, as is called, or once saved, always save that theology. Once saved, always save, and never Seek to fight. And you can't get yourself, you can't just get saved, but In it, have a long life and never be Seek to fight, and so you can get yourself into the Armenian view. But you can't do anything to get yourself out. Once you're saved, you're in, so you have credit for having got there and you can't do anything to lose it. So I would just say this country is literally filling up with those kind of converts under this.

Speaker 1: 1:08:58

The seeker friendly approach that went into a lot of churches especially Exploded in the 90s because the whole idea of the seeker friendly ministry is basically the appeal to people's fleshly plus bottom line of the. The conversation is what do you want and what makes them feel good? What felt needs? Well, that's kind of fleshly. It has nothing to do with the spirit, it has nothing to do with the soul, has nothing to do with sanctification, has nothing to do with God. So as soon as you gear you're preaching your ministry, your evangelism, to fleshly lush, you're on the road on your to just following the wrong wavelength to start with. And then if you give them a Hyper Arminian kind of gospel where they save themselves by making a decision, then there's really now what you've got them basic events of. Is that the church is all about Whatever feels good to me and that's all that matters, and so that's the way that they live their lives.

Speaker 1: 1:10:06

And the church fills up with a lot of people. You know the unconverted living in deception, and I think that's where we get to the many will say to me Lord, lord, that's where you know, a lot of people grew up in the different movements and so on, and when they hear about things like Sovereignty and predestination and sanctification, they, they have no idea what to do with it. And then you just kind of wonder you know, what have you been doing in these, in these structures, you know, and so? So I do think as difficult as these topics are and as difficult as they can be, they, they, they would Still be very, very important, and it is important for us to have these conversations about and around them. And I think there's a lot of good resources and a good people who teach the, teach the doctrines, and I would just say we have to humble ourselves and, and Russell, with them. You just have to Bow the knee to these doctrines. You just have to bow the knee and humble yourself before these things and Don't demand that God explain every iota of every issue to you so that you can understand it. You are not that important in the big scheme of things, neither am I and neither or any of us, so I don't think.

Speaker 1: 1:11:48

Um, yeah, somebody asked me a long time ago Doesn't this doctrine eliminate the place of motivation for evangelism and prayer? And I would say, you know, it's a quite opposite. I actually remember in the first few years when I had gone to changed by grace and and it was a training seminar we were gonna go out and talk to somebody and we had taken a trip over to first Baptist and you know, they were typical Armenians church, mega church, and they come out of a southern Baptist kind of tradition. And we were all sitting around discussing evangelism and the sovereignty of God and one of the girls said well, you know, and the teacher was, by the way, saying that God is not sovereign and it's totally up to human free will and his individual's choice. So the young lady said if that's the case, why do we pray for people to be saved If God's already done everything? Can he? Uh, you know, if he's already done, everything we can do, he can do to save them is actually now up to them. What's the point in talking to God about it? Shouldn't we be pleading with the person instead? And this trainer, union leader, actually said yeah, I never thought about that, but you're right, he. He went on to say that there was no point in praying for the loss, he said, because God's already done everything he can do to save them. So that's just what.

Speaker 1: 1:13:26

I started to see how far this, this, had gone. That that up appalled me. That type of thinking and that was the first thing that started got me starting to thinking about the sovereignty of God. That scripture teaches us to pray for the loss. Paul prays for the loss, and that is Itself is proof that God is sovereign over who is saved, and that is also an encouragement To evangelism, because we know that God has his elect out there. You know how many people he has, many people in the cities and all we have to do is throw the seed and the fruit is going to come on its own.

Speaker 1: 1:14:08

And when they criticize Charles Spurgeon, who is known as the Prince of Preachers, who is also a Calvinist, for believing in election and somebody actually said that, charles Spurgeon, if you believe in election, I want you just preach to all those people, and Spurgeon said well, have them turn around and lift up their shirts so I can see an E stamped on their back, so I'll know exactly who to preach to and you know. And that's the whole thing. You won't know. You don't know who the elect are. So the command is to is not to determine who's elected. Command to is to Go out to all the world and preach the gospel every creature. That's just a thing about obedience.

Speaker 1: 1:14:53

And the thing that's wonderful about believing in the sovereignty of God and in and and Saying so we're not trying to preach and manipulate people about anything is To just care about being faithful to the truth so that God, through his truth, can save whom he will. If you actually believe that people are saved by their own sovereign will, that totally creates a different paradigm for everything, including ministry. So the great joy of all joys is that God will use anybody to call out the bride for a son, and that will be a good privilege of that truth. So the next question would be that is God's job to save? It is my job to be faithful, and if I'm faithful to spread the seed in God's appointed times, he will actually use that along the way to call the elect to salvation? The answer is Just imagine that you really were a Arminian and you believe that, a preacher, you're responsible for the eternal souls of people. You would probably and get out of ministry and I've heard this said this way before, which was if you would actually think that hell was being populated because of your inability to reach somebody. It would cause you the amount of the most amount of distress. To think that hell was being filled because you didn't get the message right, because you didn't find the right verse, because you didn't say the right thing, would be depressing. It is much better to believe. That is all up to God, it's all up to the spirit and it's your job to just Plant the seeds and let the seeds grow where they will.

Speaker 1: 1:16:56

Question that will be asked is can people who hold another view of election Go back to one of those errant views or some sorts of definition of foreknowledge? The guy looks ahead, he chose a sum, etc, etc, run the tapes back and then makes his choice. Can a person who hold that view of election actually be safe? And I would just say I think that there are many people who Full blown, who's praying full blown into understanding these doctrines the moment they're saved. I don't think there are many people like that. I Think a lot of people entertain wrong ideas For a lot of biblical things for some time.

Speaker 1: 1:17:46

I think it's a mistake to think that these particular doctrines, these difficult doctrines about divine sovereignty, are so much the essence of the gospel that if someone rejects them that they wouldn't be considered saved. So the heart of the gospel is justification by faith, and what I want to know is what a person believe is. The grounds of justification is in Christ's righteousness, are in his own. And if you think, if you say it's Christ's righteousness and not mine, and that you just work out the ramifications of that theology, you're going to understand the sovereignty of God and all these other doctors as well. But the starting point of the gospel and the starting point, I think, for the understanding of the sovereignty of God is a solid understanding of Justification by faith. That's the heart of the gospel. That's what I want to know to really, and that's what I Want to really understand, whether I think this Person I'm talking to as a believer or not.

Speaker 1: 1:18:52

I know people who would just flatly say no, if a person is an Armenian, he can't be a true Christian. They regard all me, all our minions, as hellbound heretics, and I think that that's wrong and I think that's a type of hyper Calvinist tendencies that some people fall into, the hyperjudgmentalism. On the other hand, I do think that there is some Varieties of Armenianism that do corrupt the heart of the gospel, because they put the burden of Salvation completely on the back of the center and therefore teach people that it's not Christ who saves you, it's your own choice, it's your own work. And I don't really what. When I hear that view, don't see how it's any different From modern Roman Catholicism. In fact, some kinds of Armenians are very similar to Roman Catholics.

Speaker 1: 1:19:44

If you read the life of Wesley, he was a classic Armenian. I deplore the theology, and yet when you read about his conversion, it was the doctrine of justification. When he came to understand that somebody was reading Through the introduction of Luther's commentary on Romans, which is a great treatise on Justification by faith, it opened his eyes to those truths and he saw it. And for the rest of his life, when he preached the gospel, he preached justification by faith as well as a soundly as any Calvinist that I have ever heard. And if I were to die and go to heaven. I respect to see him there, yeah, with all his theology straightened out.

Speaker 1: 1:20:33

You know, there the truth of the matter is preaching the sovereignty of God won't save anybody. Preaching the doctrine of election won't save anybody. Preaching sin and justification by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ, won't save anybody. So, hinting at some practical implications on affirming the doctrine but at the same time, for view we hold on it To determine our salvation, we have to press a little more about if the doctrine actually matters. And if the answer is yes, then what are the implications in daily life? And so I would just answer that like Look at the way you look at all of your duties. At the heart of the doctrine of the sovereignty of God is A constant reminder to us that we have to depend on Divine grace for every duty that scripture sets before us. And if you take your eyes off of that fact, if you lose sight in the sovereignty of God, you would take your eyes off the fact that you will forget to depend on grace and you will begin to try to live in the flesh and you will go straight. It is, I believe it is a detrimental to sanctification, detrimental to the entire walk, and the proof of that is seen in the fruits of Armenian theology.

Speaker 1: 1:22:06

Wesley again, I would say he went in, went often to this kind of Perfectionism. They so corrupted his view of sanctification that if you read some of his discourses he wrote he was angry and very angry and came off as very arrogant man. He wasn't the model of what we would call Christian grace. And yet I believe, pat, the part of his attitude probably stemmed from his theology and he seemed like he was a very easily irritated person and and Seems like he had a lot of problems when you read the writing with his wife and everything else. And so Some would raise that if the whole concept of trust, that affirming the doctrine and growing and understanding of it and actually builds and increasing your trust of God Instead of trusting.

Speaker 1: 1:23:04

And I think there's something even greater, the greater thing and the greatest thing I was into the believer can do above Everything is worship and that's the highest responsibility. The sovereignty of God is the single most Glorious reality about it. Even his grace would lose its luster if he weren't really in control of it. His mercy would be diminished. It is his sovereignty that over arches everything. And when you worship just as a way of life. It doesn't matter what happens, it doesn't matter if I'm well or sick, it doesn't matter if I live or if I'm dying, it doesn't matter if things go well or they don't go well, it just never interrupts my confidence in the sovereignty of God. So you think that that's the key to my living to just live life on the same high level of joy, come whatever comes, because that is all fitting into the perfect, sovereign plan. The good illustration is a few years ago.

Speaker 1: 1:24:23

People come in to different churches and that's not uncommon. But when they came to churches where families were in a leadership in the church, in like pastoral world of worlds and Going to different places, and they came to Non-denominational church with a been for Sovereign, sovereign teaching, reform, theology. And they came there and the story they came one time and the preaching was on the sovereignty of God and they never went back and what they said was we lived our whole life under the sovereignty of Satan. This is absolutely transforming Because Satan makes you sick, satan messes with your, your babies, check the kids at night, three o'clock in the morning, saying might kill your baby with SIDS. So if a death syndrome, pray Satan out of your bedroom, bathroom, dining room, satan is liable to do. I mean saying, mate, planes crash to the tower. Satan does this, satan does that. Poor God, you know, pastor indicates by ringing his hands. This causes, you know this, constant fear and heart palpitations, panic attacks, really unbelievable kind of things. And who could possibly worship God in that kind of environment? Then you get the people together and you whip them in some kind of emotional frenzy and call it worship.

Speaker 1: 1:26:17

But out underneath all that theology is literally that they make it impossible to worship God and his sovereignty because God's not in charge there. So the opposite of that type of thinking, of course, is to understand that everything works within the framework of God's purpose and God's will and no matter what happens, even the worst of things, are intended for your good and God's ultimate glory. And I think that that's why this doctrine is so shaped. My thinking, in a world where I see calamity everywhere and division and strife and hunger and poverty and death and destruction and war and rumors of war, to for me to know that God is sovereign and in control of everything Keeps me assured and secure, so that I don't walk around in some type of frenzy all the time. And I don't want this show to run two hours long like the other one did. Obviously, I was doing a response. I think this will just be where I end on this topic, and and that'll be this. Thank you for tuning in and I'll see you on the next episode. You.