Dr. James White, The Doctrines of Grace

it is good to be with you here this evening we only have a limited amount of time and obviously that means that our discussion will have to be on the general themes of our topic but i uh i said a long time ago that it would have been much easier for my ministry if there were certain topics that i never touched there would be far more doors open to me uh far more places to to go uh and um some of those topics would be for example dealing with subject of roman catholicism because everybody has an aunt sally who's a roman catholic who's just the sweetest lady on on the earth so you don't want to say anything about the current pope uh who is a hippie from south america um who actually doesn't really believe a lot of roman catholicism but that's a whole other topic uh and islam we've we've tried to actually do presentations on islam in a lot of places and they wouldn't allow us in if we didn't have special insurance because if you could talk about islam we want bomb insurance you know and stuff like that it's like okay and that doesn't make i've really found amongst a lot of christians it's sort of like yeah you go ahead and do that we're not really all that interested in learning how to love our muslim neighbors um though you have muslim neighbors here you may not see a whole lot of them but as i mentioned last time as i was driving in there's a islamic center uh in your town here so that means you do have you do have muslim neighbors but undoubtedly to address what we're calling the doctrines of grace how many of you would feel confident that you know what the first written debate of the reformation was remembering that we remember four years ago when we were all wearing luther 500 t-shirts and all the rest that stuff and yeah it was it was four years ago that we were celebrating or getting ready to celebrate uh october uh the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the reformation now of course that date was arbitrary anyways but as it may we're all excited i was in germany right now um i had the incredible opportunity of preaching from luther's pulpit in the castle church in wittenberg a little over four years ago right now and uh so 1517 is when we date it that's really an arbitrary number but the first written debate between a well-known non-now outside of the catholic fold person and someone within roman catholicism was between martin luther and a man named by the name of desidarius erasmus now erasmus you may have heard of before because erasmus was a a great scholar in languages uh textual history uh he was the one to first produce and publish the greek new testament in a written form luther used his greek new testament in his studies that led him to an understanding of justification by faith but erasmus was a good dutch humanist scholar humanist didn't mean back then the same thing it means today but they debated what subject well luther's book was called on the bondage of the will and so luther debated erasmus on whether man's will is autonomous autonomous means what well altos he she or it but when it's used in a certain way self and namos is law self law so an autonomous person is a person who is a law unto themselves an autonomous will is a free will that is not under for example the decree of god fate anything else it is an absolute free will autonomy and so luther plainly taught that man's will was in bondage to sin that man did not have a free will in the sense of an autonomous will there's a difference between an autonomous will and a free will now philosophers have used terms in a lot of ambiguous ways and so sometimes free will is simply defined as man acting on the desires presented to his will by his nature and so if you have a fall in nature your nature presents fallen desires but it might there might be multiple fallen desires i mean you can think of a fallen person who uh has conflicting desires on a real basic level um i happen to think that dark chocolate covered almonds are wonderful i think they are they are clear stop that they're a clear demonstration that god loves us that we have dark chocolate covered almonds and so when i'm if i if i'm looking at that those dark chocolate covered almonds in my camper over there um i can have two conflicting desires presented by the same nature as an and if i wasn't a christian the same fallen unredeemed nature and that is why they taste really good and i want to have about 20 more of them and then the other desire is yeah but you're eventually going to weigh 487 pounds and so both of those desires could come from the fallen nature and they could be in competition with one another the issue in the reformation and ever since then and before then all the way back into the days of augustine the issue was not can man have multiple desires and can man's fallen nature present multiple kinds of desires but can man's fallen nature present the desire to do what is right in god's sight for the right reasons the the nature may say to us you better do what god says or he's gonna zap you but that's not the right reason can those who are according to the flesh do what is pleasing to god now it's not fair for me to put that way because you know the answer to that if you've ever read the eighth chapter of romans but that's the issue and erasmus being the good roman catholic roman catholicism while admitting to original sin and the fallenness of man insists and has to insist that man's will has a measure of autonomy because the sacramental system is the means by which you receive grace and so you have to have that freedom of the will to work the sacramental system so as to receive forgiveness of sins and grace to overcome sin and things like that and so luther in writing and if you read the bondage of the will well if you read anything by luther just just be aware of the fact that he wrote in a different day than today it has been said and this is true in the exchanges between one particular one of his enemies um in england a roman catholic uh archbishop in england between he and luther who they they wrote a number of works against each other um that it's very plain that both of them made an effort to use every latin term that could possibly describe excrement of each other including some that no one had ever really thought of before but they decided that luther and this other guy decided to do it anyways so there's some rough language and most of you know that that luther talked about the utilization of flatulence as a means of getting rid of the devil and attacking the pope and a few things like that so if you're going to go out tonight and start reading some luther just be prepared that he grew up as a german peasant and it was not an overly you know cultured upbringing in that particular context but in luther's response to erasmus he said this he said i appreciate you erasmus of all of my opponents you alone have put your finger on the heart of the issue the hinge upon which this all turns and he was talking about the reformation he was talking about preaching of justification by faith he was talking about the gospel and luther said you recognize the key issue here is whether man is a slave to sin or whether he's not today the vast majority of those who call themselves quote unquote protestants if they even use the term would stand with erasmus against luther they would stand there on they're on rome's side you're in an area where there's a tremendous number of folks from the church of christ and the church of christ loves to go after roman catholicism and and and the papacy and all the rest of that stuff but when it comes to the nature of man and his abilities in the issues the reformation they stand firmly with rome they don't know that but they do now this therefore creates quite a division when we start talking about how we present the gospel the means you present the gospel what you believe about the nature of the sinner and how you can communicate to the sinner and what is necessary for the sinner to hear the gospel and to embrace the gospel that's extremely important but what is missing in so much of the discussion today about how we define the gospel the great danger that we face today is that we live in a deeply secular society the next generation it stuns me at just how much farther they've gone into a fully secular understanding of the world and of themselves and because of that there is a focus upon the self self fulfillment self autonomy it doesn't really make any sense because in secularism there is no future for you once you die all that is is chemicals stop fizzing chemicals stop doing what chemicals do and you return back to the dust there is no judgment there is no transcendent meaning there is no value to what you did true secularists if they will be honest with their worldview will admit that this is the case and so you've heard all the terminology that's been used stardust you're nothing but stardust you are fizzing chemicals i like the star trek one that i i prefer ugly bags of mostly water that was an alien description of us but it's an apt one when you think about it uh moist robots that one's just creepy that's just little um moist robots um but that's all we are so there can be no transcendent meaning the discussion of the will is actually irrelevant and yet combined with that once you once you reject the western consensus that that was built upon a judeo-christian worldview once you reject all that you have this nihilism this emptiness but then on the other hand now you have this well then we need to be autonomous at least while we live and so i get to determine my own reality and if i want to be one of 147 genders today i can be one of 147 genders today and because it's all me and and all that matters is what i do right now because i might die tomorrow and then i won't matter at all to anyone ever so i need to get my get the gusto now see and of course that leads to utter chaos you can't you can't build a society that's going to communicate beauty and value and worth to the next generation because all you care about yourself we live in a day where literally and i'm going to step on some toes here but literally there have been a lot of people in the younger generation today who've been convinced there's just as much value in raising a puppy as a child because they don't think of the continuation of the culture or of a nation or of anything like that it's just whatever's convenient for me and it's a whole lot more convenient to have a puppy than a kid or two kids or i go to apologia church so on average eight kids or something like that so this is the situation we face today it's very focused upon us as individuals and here's the great danger any discussion of what god has done in christ what the gospel is what god's purpose is in preaching the gospel and having us preach the gospel today a discussion that starts with man will never ever be able to arrive at the heights of christian truth about what god is doing you start at the wrong place if we start with the creature and try to reason up from the creature we'll never come to true knowledge of god and we will certainly never come to a true knowledge of the gospel and yet that's what most people do most people set up a standard based upon what i observe what standards i think god needs to be this kind of god and i remember so clearly meeting with a a lady came over to my office years and years and years ago i was very young and she was doing a master's degree at the kino institute it's roman catholic institute and she had to introduce she had to interview a fundamentalist and so she decided to interview me and i was talking to her about the gospel of grace and i i talked to her about god's sovereign election and things like that and she said well wait a minute you are you saying that that that god chooses to whom he gives his grace and i said yes ma'am says i could never worship a god like that and i said to her i know that's my point until god works within your heart by his sovereign grace you never will and she had just never even heard of anything like that if she if she knew her own history if she had read augustine she would have known that this has been a topic of conversation for a long time but but she hadn't but that rejection on the part of man of the idea of a sovereign god we really have to start where scripture starts and that is we have to start with god's ultimate purposes and then move from there to the application in time if we start with man we'll never be able to build up to the truth and so when we talk about the doctrines of grace you've probably probably heard them broken down into various categories before and i have always insisted that what you must start with is the truth about god that crushes our creaturely autonomy the fact is there are passages of scripture that if we will just set aside our traditions and if we will just listen remind us that god is god and we are not god when we read of god's utter freedom when we read when even a pagan like nebuchadnezzar after his reason returns to him after his pride has been crushed read daniel chapter 4 the pagan king comes to recognize there is only one true god and he does whatever he pleases in heaven and earth and no one can ward off his hand or say to him why have you done what you've done and yet isn't that what mankind does every single day why have you done what you've done why are you doing this we are so arrogant because what does the bible say about us how do we describe in scripture we are a vapor that just disappears a flower that blooms in the morning is dead by night in comparison to god's eternal existence our entire lifetime is a blink of the eye and so how can we even even if we are the most intelligent people in the world how could we take in sufficient information to even begin to understand what god is doing let alone to judge him and yet how many are willing to judge him immediately based upon a single event in their life we know from scripture you think of someone like joseph man if anybody had the reason to question god's goodness joseph did think of all the things that happened to him that he could just go this is not fair god is not being loving my brothers have gotten away from this potiphar's wife got away with this i'm rotten here in this jail god obviously is not good joseph didn't do that i'm sure he was tempted to do that but he recognized by the grace of god he recognized by the grace of god that in that final analysis when he he finally faced his brothers and they were afraid now dad's gone we're toast we're going to be killed joseph's finally going to take his revenge on us and joseph weeps and he says to them am i god the answer obviously is no and he showed such wisdom when he said he didn't excuse their sin they had sold him into slavery and deceived their brother their father that he was dead they were hard-hearted men he didn't he didn't excuse any of that but he said you intended this for evil but god intended this for good and to save many people alive to this day the evil that they committed god intended to take place now their intentions were bad god's intentions were good their intentions to bring about death his intentions to bring about life which is what he did but in the moment simply looking at the act it would be easy to judge god but none of us live long enough and none of us have access to sufficient information to ever stand in judgment of god and that's why god can say i do whatever i please in heaven and the earth i accomplish all my holy will and yet there are many who will say no no he does not i've debated many a person who has just directly stated no god does not accomplish all his will there's much he wants to do that he cannot do because he has limited himself and yet we then have to ask the question how can there be prophecy of future events how is it that when the lord jesus rose from the dead he could walk with his disciples and he could open their minds understand the scriptures and show them that from moses onward they all prophesied of him if there is no divine decree of god if man is autonomous and can do this thing or that thing and either god doesn't know open theism or god learned when he created how could there be prophecy cyrus is prophesied by name in the prophet isaiah right long before he ever comes along which is why a lot of naturalistic scholars say that couldn't have been written by isaiah because you can't know the future which is the whole idea of what prophecy is but what if what osiris had this autonomous will and the morning when he was supposed to release the jews to go back to israel he gets out of the royal bed and he steps on a toy and it cuts his foot and he's angry and he picks up the toy and realizes the toy was made by one of those jewish toy makers and so now he's angry and instead of freeing the jews he has all the jews killed well all those prophecies isaiah now becomes a false prophet right so could that have happened that's the problem no it could not have happened god has a sovereign decree that he is accomplishing it does not make us or cyrus puppets as people like to say if there's a sovereign decree then nothing matters i say if there isn't a sovereign decree nothing matters because you see if god is not accomplishing if he is not the god of ephesians one working all things after the council of his will then there is a tremendous amount of meaningless evil that takes place in this world and god either knew when he created that it was going to happen but had no reason for it or didn't know when he created it was going to happen and therefore is liable for it for simply being ignorant and creating such a mess and for some reason people think that's better than the fact that god decreed all this and has a purpose in all this and we have to trust him that someday that purpose will be demonstrated to his honor and his glory those are the issues those those are the options now i love to allow the scriptures to present these things and so i'd like you to turn the scriptures to the text that i opened up i think about 18 years ago down in florida uh at uh at a certain church i don't know whether you would have been there probably uh do you remember that sermon no you remember me you do remember me preaching there okay all right well that's that's actually better than most people would do uh to be honest with you i happen to remember that sermon because i remember that i had a limited amount of time and so i had to be very focused and very disciplined to get everything in in the amount of time that that i had but i just want to run through with you one of my favorite texts on this subject and tie a bunch of these things together so that we can sort of come to a conclusion and say this is what sets the doctrines of grace apart from everything that isn't the doctrines of grace and this is why you shouldn't be afraid of these things and this is why you shouldn't straw man these things and just accept what traditions say or people who try to fear monger things john chapter john chapter 6 gospel of john at least it's in the red letters there are some people i've met that said hey if it's not in red letters don't show it to me they are hyper red letterists there were of course no red letters in the original manuscripts so and it is a very deficient view of scripture to think that red letters are more inspired than black ones because the lord inspired all of them they are all theonus but what i love about john chapter six is the story as it develops it's the feeding of the five thousand and there's all these excited men and women and children and and they've been fed miraculously and and then jesus sends them away jesus sends them away and i'm sure the disciples who were probably feeling pretty good about themselves as they're distributing the miraculous bread and things like that you know yes i'm one of jesus disciples thank you very much yes just remember my name you know and they're they're probably people are looking up at them and this is they're they're enjoying themselves and then jesus goes and ruins all of it and sends everybody home and then he goes up in the mountain to pray and they get in a boat and they go off to capernaum now i've gotten to go to israel once i'm so glad i got to go that one time and the thing that i took away i took a lot of things away but the thing that just struck me about galilee was that if you stand anywhere on the shore of the lake of genezeret the sea of galilee you can see the other shore anywhere i always thought well it's a sea so it's huge you know you can't you know it goes over the horizon no i've stood at capernaum where where the disciples would have landed in john chapter six and you can see the far shore and that's that's lengthwise that's the longest part of the lake you can see the far shore it's long ways off but you can still see it i was just stunned at how small israel is you can drive the vast majority of it in just a very short period of time certainly in less than a day you can drive from top to bottom quite easily so jesus sends the disciples off and you have the walking on the water incident and all the rest of that stuff takes place and they get to capernaum and then you have the disciples who are still left on the other side of the lake which is over that direction if you're standing there in capernaum and when they realize jesus is gone they get in boats and they come over to capernaum and they're the ones that come up to jesus seeking jesus now when you find folks that are willing to roll across the lake seeking jesus we pretty much think these folks are ready for an office in the church you know we'll make them sunday school teachers or something almost immediately but jesus doesn't jesus begins to speak to them notice in verse 26 that they they are seeking a sign they saw what happened with the feeding of the five thousand now they're seeking a sign and jesus begins to focus them in upon who he is and so he talks about the manna in the wilderness and he starts introducing himself as the bread of god which came down out of heaven to give life to the world and they say to him lord always give this give to us this bread verse 34 and jesus said to them i am the bread of life the one coming to me will never hunger and the one believing in me will never thirst now just in passing especially if you're dealing with roman catholics please realize the first time that anything related to hungering thirsting eating drinking is all in regards to believing to faith not to arist healing categories of transubstantiation but then notice what jesus says in verse 36 but i said to you that you have seen me and you are not believing you don't believe you see me but you don't believe because you don't know who i am you don't believe believe me for who i am he identifies even the men who rode across a lake to find him as unbelievers and to them in explaining their unbelief he says all that the father gives me will come to me and the one coming to me i will never cast out now think about those words all that the father gives me will come to me who is bringing about the actions in this sentence well people are coming so people are doing something but their coming is the result of what having been given by the father to the son so what must be true about god in a situation like this god the father must have sovereignty that results in real actions amongst men all that the father gives me will come to me not come to someone else come to me jesus is exclusively the center of these things so you have the father and the son and you have a certain people who are given to the son by the father and as a result of being given they come to christ is that not the issue is that not the issue the issue when you when you start putting all the other stuff aside the issue is this if you've come to christ why did you come and someone else does not if you and your neighbor went to the same school you have similar jobs you have similar iqs you've grown up in the same place you both hear the gospel you come to christ and the other person does not is it because you are better than the other person are you more spiritually sensitive more spiritually intelligent did you have a better preacher why is it that you came and they did not and if you keep it on a human plane and you only look for the answers within the human categories you're going to have to say there is something about you that gave you a benefit the other person didn't have but that's not how jesus answers these questions in talking about these men's unbelief he says all that the father gives me will come to me they're not coming to him they're going to walk away by the end of the chapter they're going to turn and walk away by the end of this chapter jesus starts with 5 000 excited people and by the end of the chapter he has 12 confused disciples and one of them is a devil from a human perspective you might go i'm not sure that jesus was overly successful here he wouldn't pass most of our church growth classes today that's for sure all that the father gives me will come to me and the one coming to me i will never cast out now we like the last part of that verse we like the idea that if i come to jesus i will never be cast out that's most of us go i like that theology even though there's some theologies that even say then well christ never cast you out but you can jump out of his hand and lose your salvation or something like that but we like that that one but that's the second half of the sentence why is it the one coming to me will never be cast out because the father has given them to the son this is a divine transaction this is between two divine individuals the father is giving a particular people to the son and as a result of being given they come and when they come they will never be cast out they will never be cast out well why would that be because jesus says i have come down out of heaven not in order to do my will but the will of the one who sent me so i will never cast him out which means he has the authority to do so if he chose to do so but i will never do it because i came down of heaven to do his will well what's his will that's what verse 39 says and this is the will of the one who sent me and are that of all which he has given to me i lose none of it singular it's looking at the whole group i lose none of it but i will raise it up in the last day now follow the use of raise up in the last day that is one of the ways jesus refers to giving eternal life to bringing someone into the presence of god to bring them into heaven to completing the work of salvation etc etc but here we are told that the will of the father the will of the one who sent him here's another indication of the distinction between father and son obviously is that jesus be a perfect savior isn't that what he says this is the father's will that of all that he's given me i lose none of it if you lose none of it then what are you claiming to have the ability to be perfect savior you don't your your salvation rate is 100 that means you're a perfect savior you lose nobody not a one how many christians i wonder really believe that jesus is able to save a specific people given to him by the father 100 because you see if salvation is this synergistic cooperation between the autonomous will of man and god trying to save does god get 100 there is god trying to say now here's the question is god trying to save every piece of every person equally we want to say well yes of course but just look at the bible was god trying to save pharaoh's army the same way he was trying to save israel did god send prophets to the amorite high priests before sending israel in to wipe them out man woman and child no well but that's not fair and as soon as you say that you demonstrate that you don't understand not only the wages of sin for all people but you also don't understand the categories of justice mercy and grace fair is a category of justice you don't want justice you don't want justice you want mercy that's a different category grace if it is to be grace must be free if it can be demanded if it has to be given equally to every single person it's no longer grace and so what man really chafes at is the universal righteousness of god in judging sin that's what we don't like and if you give somebody a chance if you save that guy if you take out his heart of stone and give him a heart of flesh then you've got to do that to everybody that's the only way to be fair you see but jesus says that the will of the father for him is that he he save a specific people and lose none of them but raise them up on the last day and some will say well yes but you need to understand the people that the father gives to the son are the people that the father foresaw would believe in him see that's that's how it works that's that's how we get rid of all this troubling stuff but remember what we saw in verse 37 all that the father gives me will come to me not the father will give to me all that he sees coming to me it's a vast difference between those two it's a vast effort our coming is the result of the father's giving that's grammatically necessary in the language by the way it's not just my interpretation that's what the language says synergism this idea that we have to cooperate together and make this work synergism reverses that it's not the only place where this happened just keep your i'm gonna go come back to john chapter six but if you if you go over to john eight it's really interesting how people read this in 8 43 why is it you don't understand what i'm saying to you because you are not able to hear my word you are not able to hear my word and then down verse 47 the one who is of god hears the words of god because of this you are not able to hear because you are not of god how would most people actually rephrase those when people hear those words from jesus how do they retranslate them within their own traditions well why don't you understand the things i'm saying to you because you don't choose to do so your your will is not involved it says because you're not able to hear my word who's able to hear his word well those who are those who are of god those who belong to god that is that god has chosen they hear the words of god for this reason you're not hearing because you're not of god why don't you hear the words of god because you don't choose to that's not what jesus said you hear the words of god because you are of god and that's something that god did and so jesus in verse 39 of chapter 6 perfect savior for this is the will of my father in order that everyone looking upon the sun and believing in him might have eternal life and i will raise him up in the last day now what has happened i know norman geisler did this and people do this all the time instead of following the flow through people will jump down to verse 40 and try to read it backwards into the preceding verses that doesn't work the will of the father for the son is that he saved all those that he's given to him that will is then also played out in the fact that in for everyone looking upon the sun and believing in him well who has the ability to do that well jesus is about to explain everyone looking to the sun and believing in him will have eternal life and i will raise him up in the last day where did he also talk about raising him up on the last day back in verse 30 seven the one counting the male never cast out and then doing the will the one who sent me raising him up in the last day verse 39 and so here's a description those that are given by the father to the son what do they do they are looking upon the son and believing in him those are most present tense participles have you ever wondered because sadly the longer you are in the church the longer the list of people whose faces and names you can remember who are no longer amongst us not because they've passed on the glory but because they've gone out into the world i can i'm thinking of one man the church i was in for decades had a leadership position and then just one day traded all in just stop believing you're still believing are you better than him are you better than him why does anyone persevere in the faith why is it that i keep looking to the son and believing in him because the father in his mercy and grace gave me to the son and the son will raise me to eternal life and so by the spirit my faith is maintained is sustained it's not because i'm better than anyone else it's not because i'm better than he was i persevere in the faith as a result of the work of the grace of god alone alone well the jews don't like this message verse 40. and so jesus says in verse 43 jesus answers that do not grumble amongst yourselves no one is able to come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and i will raise him up on the last day do we believe it no one has the ability to come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and i i'll raise him up on the last day now of course what's the immediate jump out mechanism here well you leave john 6 you jump over to john chapter 12 which is a completely different context john 6 is jesus talking to people explaining unbelief and what salvation is john 12 is the end of jesus ministry and there john is talking about what's going to happen when jesus is crucified they're not even close to the same context but people will jump over to john 12 32 if i lift it up i'll draw a man unto myself and see there you go all men are drawn so that's how you explain john 6 44. there's a real problem there in john chapter 12 jesus is been approached by greeks gentiles and jesus does not meet with them he doesn't meet with him he doesn't answer their questions doesn't have a confab with them the time is not yet for that gentile ministry to take place and so when it says if i lift it up i'll draw all men he's talking about jews and gentiles all kinds of men to myself and the lifting up is lifting up on the cross and if you actually think that that the cross is attractive to men you haven't read what the new testament says it's repulsive to the natural man so jesus says no one is able to come to me unless one thing happens the father who sent me draws him and i will raise him up in the last day what you need to understand is that man's systems of religion have to break that sentence up into this form unless the father who sent me draws him and i will raise up anyone who freely believes in me at the last day you have to break up the hymns the hymn that's drawn by the father to him that's raised up by jesus you have to make those two two different groups because if you don't then you have god's electing grace determining who's drawn and who's raised up on the last day that's election that's divine election unto salvation not just simply election of nations and all the things that people try to get around this he wasn't talking to nations in john 6 he was talking to jewish men who had rode across a lake to hear what he had to say and when they walk away he does not stop them everyone who is drawn by the father is raised up by the son unto eternal life it has been written the prophets and they shall all be taught of god everyone hearing from the father and learning is coming to me there is a description of what it means to be drawn you're hearing from the father and you're learning that's description why is it that you hear the message why is it the message of the empty tomb in your life results in a change in your understanding because you're better because you're smarter no because the spirit of god has made these things to come alive in your heart jesus goes on from here and you know that he he focused upon himself he is the bread of life you have to eat his flesh and drink his bloods had nothing to do with eucharistic sacrifices or anything else it has to do with the centrality of jesus an intimate relationship with him and what's interesting is at the end of the chapter when he says the spirit gives life the flesh prophets nothing the words that have spoken to you they are spirit and they are life but he says there are certain of you that do not believe and he knew who that was and he was referring especially to judas at that point and so verse 65 and he was saying this is a form of the verb where it's repetitive action he said that he kept saying over and over again for this reason i said to you that no one is able to come to me unless it has been granted to him by the father jesus repeated to them the necessity of the sovereign work of god in being able to come to him who is the bread of life and notice because of this verse 66 so his repeating the sovereignty of god in his message because of this many of his disciples went back from following him and were no longer walking with him do you think jesus just didn't you know he he didn't go to seminary and so he didn't get the classes where you you know you find out what you're supposed to say what you're not supposed to say and who you're not supposed to say it to and all right i think that's really what's going on here no greatest preacher in the world knew that these excited followers were not believers they were following for the wrong reason and so he gets real with them and preaches the truth to them and they walk away they walk away in fact jesus even has to say the twelve do you also wish to to go away the time peter answered lord to whom shall we go you have the words of eternal life you have the words of eternal life one of jesus's apostles gave us an overarching explanation why it is any of us are in the faith i'm going to have to be very brief but i want to just quickly walk through this with you ephesians chapter 1 verse 3 blessed be the god and father of our lord jesus christ the one who blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in christ so who is who is being praised god the father of our lord jesus christ it's god the father who blessed us now some people want to try to create all sorts of distinctions somebody came up to me just yesterday and said that uh have you ever heard somebody say that the us here is the jews and then down verse 14 becomes the gentiles that's all this is talking about except he's writing to the church at ephesus the church at ephesus was not a jewish church wouldn't make any sense and he's actually going to bring them all together by by the by verse 14. so the us is a plural it's not individualistic it's us those who are in christ are all included in this but the blessing is upon us and it's always in christ in fact it'd be interesting if you want to mark the number of places in ephesians 1 where it's in christ in him or in the beloved it's 10 times in 13 verses what god has done in the expression of his eternal grace is in christ it is an exclusive message that's what's offensive to many many people the one who blessed us with every spiritual blessing and heavenly places in christ just as he did what chose christ there's a lot of people would like you to think that that's what this is saying they promote the idea of class election that the chosen one is christ and that when you believe you get joined to christ and therefore that's how you have salvation but the election is not of a specific people but only of christ himself here's the problem with that the direct object of the choosing is us the range and realm of the choosing is in christ because that saving grace is only in him because who are we joined to we are in christ we are joined to him so that his death becomes our death his resurrection becomes our resurrection it is intimate and personal in fact i would point out to you if you have the idea that the elect is just some open group and it's all up to us that impersonalizes the entirety of what god did in christ jesus we all know the hymn where it talks about when christ is dying my my name was on his mind my my my my my name was engraven upon his hands that's a view of salvation that's extremely personal we love that it is biblical but that would require that the elect be a specific people and that christ dies specifically in their place which is what the bible actually teaches but not what a lot of people actually believe so he chose us in him before the foundation of the world and some people say ah but don't forget the last part of the verse in order we might be holy and blameless before him yes election is not unto some nebulous thing it is under the specific reality that god is going to conform us to the image of christ that we are going to be made a holy people no question about it there is absolute purpose in god's intention because that's how the triune god will be glorified you bet but that does not change the fact that the direct object of the verb choose is us not christ and the timing of this election is before the foundation of the world when you and i did not exist but if we were chosen then our existence was known to god but you do realize i hope that you are the result of hundreds of millions of free choices by all of your ancestors your great great great grandfather might not have married your great great great grandmother and if he hadn't you wouldn't be you and if that's all just a jumble of random events and god just does the best he can trying to sort of run around put stuff together that's that's not the presentation of scripture it's what a lot of people believe but it's not the presentation of scripture now we don't know where to put the phrase in love because you could put it at the end of verse 4. we might be holy and blameless before him love or you could have in love he predestined us unto adoption through jesus christ unto himself according the kind intention of his will i like that better but what is the verb predestined what's the direct object us he predestined us unto adoption through jesus christ unto himself that is a specific people who will be joined to christ and therefore be adopted as sons and daughters of god in and through the work of jesus christ and this predestination is according to the kind intention of his will not our will his will and it's a kind intention not an evil intention if you want to know why one is chosen and one is not according to the apostle it is because of the kind intention of his will to the praise of his glorious grace which he has graced us granted to us gifted to us with his term grace graced us in the beloved one that is in jesus this is as close as you're going to get anywhere in scripture to the ultimate answer to the ultimate questions of why why and the why is to be answered to the satisfaction of the redeemed heart anyways in the phrase the kind intention of his will and so many it's it's shocking to me how many christians are willing to trust the fallen perverted will of man more than the kind intention of god's will it's amazing yeah but i can see what man's gonna do i can't see what god's gonna do but you're called to trust that his will is good how many really do and all of it to the praise of his glorious grace and there's the problem because it's not the praise of anything having to do with us we don't get any credit we don't get any role we are redeemed we are blessed it's wonderful but we do not get any of the glory it is all to the praise of his glorious grace which he graced upon us but only in one way in the beloved one in the son of his love because it's in him that is in christ verse 7 that we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace which he caused to abound unto us in all wisdom and understanding having made known to us the mystery of his will again according to his kind intention which he determined he before determined to accomplish in him and then he then he gets then he gives us the big picture this whole creation all of this creation is meant to be summed up all of it in christ the things in the heavens and things upon the earth they're all to be summed up in him this is god's decree this is not a god who got things going and then went oh man that that didn't go the way i wanted and well let's try this plan well that didn't go real well let's try this there are theologies like that out there and paul would have gone why what what are you talking about this has been god's intention from the beginning he's he's wrapping all things up in christ the things in heaven the things in the earth they're all gonna be in him and he's gonna he's gonna bring them all to fulfillment in him and it's in him that that we have been called having been predestined according to his purpose of the one who works all things according to the council the decision of his will so that we who are the first to believe in christ might be to his praise and to his honor and then finally after all of this you get now let's bring it down to the ephesians and their experience in whom also when you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation so now we're leaving the eternal realms and so how do those decisions that were made in eternity come to fruition in time and in their experience they heard the the word of truth the gospel of their salvation and they believed and they were sealed with the spirit of promise the holy spirit of promise who is the arab owned the down payment of our inheritance and so these individuals had received the holy spirit of god the holy spirit of god had made these things to come alive and their understanding in their hearts they've been sealed for their redemption all the praise of his glorious grace so now these believers in ephesus have heard about the grand sweep of what god is doing and now paul has brought it down to and now here is how eternity has resulted in your salvation the founding of your church there in ephesus and your participation in christ and that's going to allow the letter to get down to being so practical as to saying children obey your parents in the lord for this is good husbands love your wives all of that eternal stuff results in what we're to be doing here in time we don't get to determine any of that stuff we had nothing to do with any of that stuff we can't change any of that stuff but that's the foundation upon which the apostle then says to us and here's what god is doing in our lives and it's all to his honor and glory and praise so the point is it's all about god it's all about god it's about all about his glory and until someone has a sufficiently high understanding of the fact that god really is god and he is not just a big man he's not just a really powerful man he is completely other when the angels surrounding the throne say holy holy holy we always think about pure clean those are part of the meaning but part of holiness is other other unlike anything else separate i really think there's a there comes a time in every believer's life where through the study of the word through prayer and contemplation you come to that point where that rebellious sinful heart it's got to be crushed it's got to be crushed you've you've got to bow in wordless adoration of this god and not have any substitutes and not want any substitutes or anything that's lesser than the one true god and to adore him for all he has done not because you can understand all of it because you can't but because you see that he has made you and he sustains you and as your creator he is worthy of your worship and your trust and your trust when we talk about the doctrines of grace we're not talking about something where we we get to sit around on facebook and have arguments with the church of christ guys because look if you're going to argue the church of christ guys you end up in acts 2 38 for the rest of your life aren't you have you ever seen church christ guys can have debates on acts 2 38 for three nights in a row how do you do that if you can't explain what the context of acts 238 is in 20 minutes get out of the ministry what are you doing i've just never done one of those there's been people that want to do that kind of thing i'm like no no no i've only got maybe 30 years of life left i'm i'm not wasting it that way but these are i know we have the debates and we have the discussions and we have the going i get it there's there's a place for it but like i said at the beginning there are certain things that would have made my ministry a whole lot bigger and not believing this would have been one of those things so why do i believe it because when i use the exact same form of hermeneutics and interpretation that i use to defend the deity of christ the trinity the resurrection historicity of the scriptures when i use that same form of hermeneutics on these texts they teach that god is the one who draws a particular people unto christ he joins those people to christ in his death burial and resurrection he provides perfect salvation for them to his honor and his glory and those who receive his wrath do so in perfect justice there has never ever and this is a common straw man but needs to be refuted he has never ever turned away a person who has turned in repentance and faith unto jesus christ every single person who has ever done so has found christ to be a perfect savior but what you must understand is that every person who has ever turned in repentance and faith to jesus christ seeking salvation from him did so because the father gave him to the son and the spirit brought that person alive otherwise you're in spiritual death you're not able to do what is pleasing to god and you'll never turn in repentance and faith to christ but i can't see who that is i can't look out you know you might have some some primitive baptists running around who will say that well what you're supposed to do is if i'm if i'm witnessing to brother green shirt here that is green there's any of these lights i can't tell what color is what uh is that supposed to be green i think that says greenish okay if i'm witnessing the brother greenish here we'll call you brother greenish how's that so i'm witnessing to brother greenish here i'm supposed to get to know him and i'm supposed to ask him questions and i'm supposed to be a fruit inspector and i'm supposed to be looking for evidences of regeneration in him and if i find i guess i get to choose and get determined if i find enough evidences of regeneration in him then i can present the gospel to him you never find the apostles doing that they presented the gospel to everyone they left it to the holy spirit of god to make application they called all men everywhere to repent and so we get to do the exact same thing and i'm going to tell you over the years when i've we all know historically that the early missionary movements those early missionaries were reformed those who went to india and labored literally for years sometimes decades before having their first convert what gave them the ability to go on a trust in the sovereignty of god that they were doing what god had called them to do and when i go up to salt lake city and we would pass out tracts for 18 years we went to every general conference that's 36 some odd times every general conference the mormon church of salt lake city and i've seen tracks ripped up i remember this one guy my first time my son went up there with me to pass out tracks and he had his little white shirt on his little rush limbaugh tie a little 14-inch clip-on rush limbaugh tie and i had the same version but the full-size adult one obviously and this guy walked up to him and i turned around just in time to see it because i would have been right on the guy if i hadn't but and he took that track and he reaches down he pulls my son's front pocket open like this and he stuffs that track down into his pocket and walks off and i remember my son just look at me going what am i supposed to do and i'm like well son you got your first rejection taken care of now you don't have to worry about any more just enjoy the rest of the day it's going to happen why do we keep going up there are we gluttons for punishment no i don't i i cannot tell you what the result of all that work will be but i already know in this life of not only people saved i know of at least one church was founded because of what we did up there could i have known that at the time nope nope you faithfully do what god commands you to do you recognize the difference between his decree which you cannot know and his prescriptive will which you can know and god calls me to live according to what he's revealed not to what he has not but he's also determined that it's important enough for me to know that he is accomplishing his decree and that calls me to trust the judge of all the earth to do right to do right so for me the the primary reason to unashamedly confess reformed theology is because it is the inevitable result of applying the very same methods of interpretation to scripture that you use for any other of the central core doctrines of the christian faith and the reason it is so controversial is because the fundamental thing it does is it destroys the arrogant presumption of man's ego it says you don't get to share the glory with god you don't get to control god's grace the question is not what will you do with christ the question is what will christ do with you and we don't like that but the heart that is the recipient of the work of the spirit of god embraces that because that heart recognizes the truth of what's found in the prophets what's that stunning description of man and his sin a heart of stone can you imagine a heart of stone going you know what i don't want to be out of stone anymore i want to be replaced the heart of flesh hearts of stone do that of course not heart of stone wants to continue on its rebellion can continue on its way but what a picture of what regeneration is god takes out that heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh i am so thankful lazarus was thankful god has the ability to do that by the way just in passing and i am so thankful that god continues to do that today it's amazing he's doing it all across the world he's been doing it for 2000 years he's going to do it for as long as he chooses to do so and no matter how often that truth is attacked it will stand firm and we can be thankful to god for those truths let's pray together our gracious heavenly father indeed we do recognize your great sovereignty and power you are god and we are not we are your creatures oh lord help us to recognize that you have made us to glorify you not ourselves that you have the right to call us and to use us as our maker as our creator we live in a world lord that by its very words and actions is constantly encouraging us to an attitude of rebellion and ungratefulness and distrust toward you lord by your spirit melt our hearts remove that corruption that comes from our constant exposure to the world to the world expose us to your word instead that we might truly have that peace that passes all understanding knowing that we can trust you to glorify yourself we thank you for this time i thank you for these precious people who have come out this evening i pray that you will bless them encourage them to build this church up build up all faithful churches for lord we know that this land lies under your judgment and it's a just judgment so we need the gospel call all across this land we need you to heal our land and we know the only healing will come in repentance bring that about father that is our desire use us we pray

Channel: TWELVE 5 CHURCH

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Length: 76min 30sec (4590 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 29 2021