Let's open our Bibles to Ephesians chapter 2. We're coming to the wonderful doctrine of grace alone. Grace alone. And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived. and the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace, in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that we would walk in them. Marvelous words are these starting in the depths of our depravity, our sinfulness in verses one and two and three. Paul, the one who sought to establish his own righteousness, includes himself in verse three. And then those all important words, but God entering into this picture, showing his great love. And I love verse five says when we were dead in our transgressions, he made us alive together with Christ. There was no in between. section going right from being dead to being quickened to be made alive and it is by grace that this has taken place. And this grace is so large as verse 7 brings out. It lifts us up to heaven and it awaits the ages to come for its full blessing to be unfolded. John Flavel said of verse 7 that eternity alone is fit um, canvas upon which all of the grace of God might be manifested. Beautiful statement. And then of course, our familiar passages, eight, nine and 10, how beautifully we are saved by grace apart from our works. through Jesus, through faith, it's a gift of God, and yet we are not antinomian. We are called to good works that we should be walking in them, and we can only do so by the grace of God. Let's pray as we get into our study today. Father, we thank you for the grace that you have bestowed upon us and your son, the one who has given grace upon grace to your people. We thank you, Lord, for this wonderful theme that's before us in our Sunday school. Help us, Lord, to open our hearts to the riches that are ours in Christ Jesus. We pray that you would help us to see what is the debate that goes on not only with the Roman Catholic Church, but also, Lord, among evangelicals when we talk about Sovereign grace, absolute grace, full grace, instead of mixing grace with anything else. We pray, Lord, that we be careful to follow your word and to be those who walk in the grace of God all the days of our life. It is truly amazing grace that we celebrate each and every day, and especially on your day. Bless the other Sunday schools, we pray. Watch over and keep The other students and teachers, we pray, Father, for those who are on their way for worship. We pray for our brothers and sisters in resurrection, that you'd help them as they complete their worship this day. Bless your whole church, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Okay, we have looked at Sola Christos and Sola Fide and come to Sola Gradia. Those were my favorite quotes at the top there. Who knows who Moses Hogue is? Founder of Hogue Hospital, obviously. Founder of Hogue Hospital, yeah, yeah, yeah. Moses Hogue was a Southern Presbyterian way back. This is way back before the Civil War. I want to say he served in Virginia. But he is one of the early church fathers of Southern Presbyterianism, I guess. And this is a great statement. He says, we believe that it was grace that provided a savior. that it was grace that paid the price of our redemption, that it is grace that begins, carries on, and finishes the sinner's salvation, so that salvation from its original and from its first ray of heavenly light, which dawns upon the sinner on earth until a crown of glory is put upon his head in heaven, is all grace, pure, unmixed grace. It's that doctrine, sola gratia, grace alone, unmixed grace, that is the subject of our study today. It has been the subject of debate in church history, continues to be a subject of debate in our in our world to this very hour. What a message we have in God's holy word that of grace, salvation by grace alone. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. God's salvation is given freely That is a synonym of it being given graciously. It is not and cannot in any sense be understood to be earned or deserved or merited by the saved sinner. But the unwillingness of men to believe that message The freeness of salvation dates from the earliest period of time, even going back to Cain, who said, you know, I'm going to come in my own way instead of the gracious way, the way of salvation that God had presented. And it's addressed in the New Testament in the full publication of grace being revealed as in John 1, 16 and 17. We have received grace upon grace for the law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through the Lord Jesus Christ. This undoing of grace can be seen in several passages. Let's look in our Bibles beyond what we saw already in Ephesians. Go back to Romans 4 and verse 4. Paul is defending biblically his teaching that there is a righteousness apart from works, a righteousness that is faith by faith, a righteousness that is according to grace as a gift. Verse 24 of chapter 3, being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. He is going to outline in chapter 4 how both Abraham and David are examples of those who trusted in free grace being saved by grace when he says of Abraham's faith in verse 3 quoting Genesis chapter 15 I think it's verse 6 and now verse 4 now to the one who works his wage is not credited as a favor but as what is due There's the inherent difference between works entering in and grace. If it is according to a gift, then it's apart from our earning or deserving these things. But if works enter in, then God owes, supposedly. And it enters into the whole question of can God owe anybody? That's a real sticky question. Then he goes on and says, but to the one who does not work, but opposed here is faith, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness. We looked at that, sola fide, last week. Again, look over at Romans 11. So here's a contradiction between grace and some other way, a way of works. Romans 11.6 is very striking in its phraseology. He is talking about a remnant according to God's choice by grace, who have not bowed their knee, who have come, God's foreknown people among the Jews, of course, are not rejected. And he says in verse six, but if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise, grace is no longer grace. So it's absolute antimony opposites. Antithesis. It's an antithesis, OK. And what's antimony? Antimony. Antimony. Sounds chemical. What's that? Sounds chemical. Antimony. Antimony. Chemical elements. Chemical element, that's right. I'm off in chemical land. Antinomy, it's not antinomy, is it? I'll stick with antithesis, that's a good one. Antinomy. No, I think that's... It's a contradiction between two beliefs or conclusions that are in themselves reasonable, a paradox. Well, that's not the right word. It's an antithesis. So if it's grace that it cannot be works, if it's works, it cannot be grace. Grace is no longer grace. Galatians 2, 21, after that famous line in Galatians 2, 20, I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. The life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me, gave himself for me. And then it doesn't end there. closes with these words, I do not nullify the grace of God. It's possible to nullify the grace of God. How? Introduce works. Introduce merit. Introduce our doings. That's how you nullify it. If righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died needlessly. everything about the Christian religion, the giving of the Son, matter of grace, His standing in our stead, matter of grace, what He purchases for us, a matter of grace to us, how it's received, matter of grace, how it's kept, matter of grace, how it is crowned, matter of grace. Same thing in Galatians 5 and verse 4. I mean, the whole book of Galatians is addressing a defection from the gospel, and it says that you have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law, you have fallen from grace. Now, that obviously is not meaning that they were really believing and had grace, and now they're falling away from their salvation, but they're falling away from the profession of grace. You're falling away from holding to that grace as the gospel. You're holding to another gospel, which is not another gospel, is not really good news, but rather is anathema. So, grace is something that is a very rich concept as we get into our first heading there. Grace, a very full concept. Boyce brings out the observation in his book on the five solas of our hymnody. I think he refers to the back of your Trinity hymnal and notes how the authors of the Trinity have put under these various headings and uses all of these as ways to kind of organize our hymns. There's converting grace. There's the covenant of grace. There's efficacious grace. There's fullness of grace. There's magnified grace. Praising God for his grace. There's refreshing grace. There's grace upon grace. We are saved by grace and we continue to be kept by grace and we need grace to be refreshed and to walk in the sweetness and comfort of the scripture and of the Holy Spirit. There's regenerating grace, grace that changes us on the inside. There's sanctifying grace, a grace that purifies and stretches us. There's the whole topic of saving grace and sovereign grace. Grace is coupled within each of the three persons of the Trinity, and then awakening grace as expressed in Francis Scott Keyes' hymn. Praise the grace whose threats alarmed thee, roused thee from thy fatal ease. Praise the grace which promised, warmed thee. Praise the grace that whispered peace. Um, same thing as an amazing grace, right? Twas grace that caused my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved. Many evangelicals today get the idea of, it's grace that caused my, that relieved my heart. It's grace that saved me. It's grace that brought me, that gives me Jesus. But they don't see how grace breaks the heart. Grace changes their view of their sin and so forth. Something we'll talk about in a moment. This full concept then, sola gradia, is used in several applications in Reformation theology. This seems to indicate that if anything about God's salvation is not according to grace alone, then the gospel message has been compromised. And if you hold that, then you're basically saying the Bible is in error. and men are partially saved by themselves. You know, we went through this series in a briefer fashion during a Wednesday night Bible study. And this particular topic was taught by Matt Prather. And at the time, I was thinking that sola gradia applied only to the application of salvation to the sinner. that when a person comes to Jesus, that's a matter of grace, just dealing with basically conversion. But as you look at the various treatments of this particular Sola, as you look at the Reformation's position on these matters, it cannot be narrowed just to that. I thought it was narrowed just to that, and I was wrong. It really does stand on the front and says, look, here's the gospel, and there are a lot of different ways in which the devil is going to come in and say we are saved in some other way than grace. That something about us is introduced into the equation. And so these are three areas in particular where grace historically has needed defending, including and especially at the time of the Reformation, where fleshly doctrine, fleshly beliefs were entering in. And I have some blanks for you to fill in, don't I? A is the gracious nature of election. gracious nature of election or salvation from all eternity. It was a gracious, free, unmerited authoring and choosing before the world began." We read Ephesians chapter 2. Again, Boist who takes I think it's Boyce in dealing with this Sola. He goes, well, when people talk about this Sola, they want to go to Ephesians 2 a lot. I want to go back to Ephesians 1. So he emphasizes especially predestination. And then others, Sinclair Ferguson in his treatment of Sola Scriptura, he goes after Sola Gratia, sorry, his treatment of Sola Gratia. He deals especially with the Christian life. of continuing in the walk with the Lord. Although even when he's talking about that, you have to recognize the Roman Catholics fold together justification and sanctification, don't they? You're being justified as a matter of your continuing to walk with God. Whereas we believe from the scripture that being justified is a once for all act of God based upon what Christ has done for us. And then sanctification follows in that wake. But he does emphasize very much this whole idea of the Christian life. And then others like Terry Johnson focused upon the issue of free will and the change that takes place in the Christian becoming a Christian and his coming to the Lord. So here are these three areas. I've just combined them all. I haven't done anything really snazzy here, but Ephesians 1, 5, and 6 speak about this gracious election. He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the kind intention of his will to the praise of the glory of His grace. So here predestination is all focused upon bringing praise to the grace of God. This, you know, God's riches at Christ's expense is something that was planned before the foundation of the world. Since in verse four, he chose us in him before the world began, that we would ultimately be holy and harmless before him. Then secondly, the gracious nature of the change. that takes place is the next blank, which rescues the blind, reclaims the rebellious, and raises the spiritually dead, providing all in Christ for a new heart, a new record, and a new life. A new heart is a picture of regeneration. The new record is justification. And new life is sanctification. Romans 9.16 speaks about this change. by grace, it's an outflow of predestination, and in verse 16, chapter 9, so that it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. Why does somebody come to Christ? Not ultimately because they willed it. not ultimately because they exerted themselves. It's rather God who shows pity, gracious, unmerited mercy or love to His own. And then thirdly, the gracious nature of the perseverance of the saints. Again, if you're in Romans, look back at Romans 5 in verse 2. After speaking, summarizing his teaching up to that point in verse 1 of being justified by faith, we have peace with God. And he adds here in verse 2, through whom, Jesus, we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we exalt in hope of the glory of God. So here's the justification. We're introduced into this life of grace, and we are going to find the fulfillment of that hope. And the rest of this section here talks about this growth and testing of this hope and so forth in this life. But it is God who has poured out His love into our hearts. It is God who has demonstrated His great grace and love to us while we were helpless. And if He did that while we were helpless, how much more now that we are redeemed is the picture here. In other words, it was a harder feat for God's grace to provide for you your justification and your new standing in Jesus. than to keep you, to bring you to heaven. It seems to be pointing there. How much more now that we are his friends, he is going to complete that which he has begun. So I think that it's best to see this particular sola to be across a whole waterfront, because let's face it, if we poke a hole in any one of these fronts, the whole balloon pops. The whole matter of being saved by grace is washed away. Ready with me so far. All right. The Reformation is parting with the medieval views on grace. Here's the backdrop to the 1500s and Luther's insistence. The Roman Catholic Church had come to view grace as a substance in the soul that needed to be nurtured by good deeds, piety, and penance, rather than an attribute and disposition in God toward unworthy sinners. There's the watershed right there. There's the different viewpoints. The early church started it. The medieval church developed it and built it into a system. And the reformers stood up and said, absolutely not to this. There was a huge change, a huge difference of understanding now. It wasn't that there were people all along who didn't see what the reformers saw, but this was brought to light. We saw last time that Luther discovered that when Paul in Romans was talking about the righteousness of God, he was not talking about the attribute or the attitude of God's righteousness, but the gift of righteousness. Now watch this. He says, when it comes to the grace of God, he saw that it's not the gift that's in a person that he has to develop and unpack, but rather the attitude of God, the attribute of God towards a sinner now comes out. So it's almost like these things flipped. The Roman Catholic Church was teaching that we have to, in some way, conform to the law of God to be justified, His attribute. And Luther said, no, it is a gift of God. It's what Christ has wrought for us upon the cross and in His life as well. And likewise, the Church was saying that grace is something that is infused in you. It is given to you as a perishable gift in your baptism. You receive this little seed, and you are the one that has to nurture it. And with the help of the church and so forth, it blooms and blossoms and bears fruit and so forth. And man, they have a whole bag of tricks by which you are to nurture that along. And see, in that system, you're never justified. You never get to the point of assurance. How much is enough? So they place grace within us to be unpacked, where again, the reformer said, no, God is gracious. Grace is an attitude, an attribute of God. And he shows his favor from his heart and his attitude towards those who are unworthy. that begins to get into the meat and potatoes of our full sinfulness, which always has to go by the wayside, if in some way, shape, or form, you and I are saved by our works. We got to have some goodness. The law says you don't have any goodness. Well, we kind of have to do something there, don't we? We got to have some expert or specialist come in and go, well, this is why this law doesn't really apply. or this is why we can count your good works here, even though they're not perfect and acceptable before God, that will count in your side. Do you think during that time period, they wanted to control people? They wanted to make them dependent upon that church, and it became more of a political thing? Yes, very much so. And that's why they said, how can we do this? Yes, very much so. This is the way we need to do it, is to have them You definitely had, and not everybody was that way, but certainly there were individuals who saw the money factor of this. Their motivation was keep the people under because that makes them dependent. Again, their view of grace was it's in the individual and it's not Jesus. It is rather the church then that dispenses the answers, the grace that people need. So, to give a little bit of background number two, this grew out of a long history where moralism crept into the church in the form of Pelagianism, which taught that grace was a power given to man to do good and to abstain from sin. That God basically helps those who help themselves. Augustine withstood this very strongly and biblically, especially in referring all back to the predestination by grace. But the church, while condemning Pelagianism itself, fell into a sacramental system of grace that begins at baptism. So man's cooperating with the grace of God that's in him and with the church and God's grace were resistible. They began to believe that. And that really is a problem. You're seeing here how the flip side comes out then in various forms of Arminianism, don't you? If grace is resistible, it's really up to us. There's really not a lot of difference. There's just different answers given to how man works his way into God's quote unquote good graces. But at the end, it's still got works at the center. How many of you have Louis Burkhoff's book, Systematic Theology? How many of you don't? You can't get into heaven. Here I am preaching works, right? This is a great systematic theology. I love Burkoff. He is still the top shelf in my estimation when it comes to theology. Although I will differ with his eschatology, I have to say that. He is very hard on premills. Oh my goodness, he is acerbic. Whoa, that's why I like him. You're a funny guy. All right, on page 429, this is what he writes. During the Middle Ages, the scholastics, who are the scholastics? This is Lombard, Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, mostly out of University of Paris. These ones who were systematizing the Christian message. The scholastics paid considerable attention to the subject of grace. It wasn't that they didn't talk about grace. Grace was a hot topic. but did not always agree as to the details of the doctrine. Some approach the Augustinian, others the semi-Pelagian conception of grace. In general, it may be said that they conceived of grace as mediated through the sacraments, and that they sought to combine with the doctrine of grace a doctrine of merit, which seriously compromised grace. The emphasis was not on grace as the favor of God shown to sinners, but on grace as a quality of the soul. which might be regarded as both uncreated, as it comes from the Holy Spirit, or as in-created or wrought in the hearts of men by the Spirit. This infused grace is basic to the development of the Christian virtues and enables man to acquire merit with God, to merit further grace, though he cannot merit the grace of perseverance. God must cause them to persevere. This can only be obtained as a free gift of God. The scholastics did not, like Augustine, maintain the logical connection between the doctrine of grace and the doctrine of predestination. So even though, we've got to be careful, let's say, Roman Catholics were not Pelagian. They were semi-Pelagian. They would not hold that man is totally untouched by sin. And yet their doctrine of original righteousness was very, very weak. Almost this idea that our original righteousness was not a big deal for our human nature. Whereas the Bible seems to talk about the fact that our original righteousness was quite important, and that that original righteousness has been just erased. We are still image bearers, but that image is more of a sad reminder of what we once were, like the ruins of Greece or something, more than any kind of a foundation on which to build. So Luther's rediscovery of the righteousness of God in the gospel, being a gift and not an attribute of God, undermined this sacramental system. But it was his breach with the humanist Erasmus that brought out and cut the central nerve of merit-based salvation in his bondage of the will. Again, some guys I think they really tee off on this and they follow Luther. Luther comes out and says to Erasmus, I thank you that you have brought this issue out. Because I think that this is at the very center of the whole problem over the debates about grace. And yet I'm not entirely sold that he's correct in that. I don't think it's just the free will issue. I think it's also the predestination issue, and I do think it's a matter of the perseverance issue. You can have these works-based views creeping in on these other areas, but perhaps the free will issue is the central one, and maybe head and shoulders above the other two. I've given you a handout, haven't I? Let's look at that, pages 12. On to the next page. This is from TJ, Terry Johnson. TJ. At the height of the Reformation, lower left hand corner, page 12, the great humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus published his Discussion Concerning Free Will, attacking Luther and casting his lot with the papacy. Erasmus had been sympathetic to the Reformation. He published the first printed text of the New Testament in Greek in 1516, that's 500 years ago, with accompanying notes that were highly critical of Rome. It has often been said that Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched. Erasmus had waited long, too long, according to Henry VIII and the Pope himself, to choose sides. It had been seven years since the publishing of the Ninety-Five Theses. When he finally did declare himself, it was surprising that the issue was that of free will, rather than one of the more burning issues, the sacraments, justification, church authority. Instead, he attacked Luther's understanding of sin's impact upon the human will. Yet what may be surprising to us was not to Luther. You alone have attacked the real thing. That is the essential issue, he told Erasmus. You have not worried me with those extraneous issues about the papacy, purgatory, indulgences, and such like trifles, rather than issues in respect of which almost all to date have sought my blood. You and you alone have seen the hinge on which all turns and aim for the vital spot. For that, I heartily thank you, for it is more gratifying to me to deal with this issue. Does the human will have the capacity to believe and obey the gospel? Does a positive response to Christ require God's gracious enabling, or do sinners have this ability on their own without help? This question is the hinge on which all turns, as Luther puts it, because it determines whether Christianity shall be a religion of grace or of merit. For Luther, it touches the very heart of the gospel, says J.I. Packer. Indeed, the whole gospel of the grace of God was bound up with it. For Luther, Packer adds, it was the cornerstone of the gospel, the very foundation of faith. Packer summarized the debate on the next page. Here was the crucial issue. Whether God is the author, not merely of justification, but also of faith, whether in the last analysis Christianity is a religion of utter reliance on God for salvation and all things necessary to it, or of self-reliance and self-effort, Justification by faith only is a truth that needs interpretation. The principle of sola fide is not rightly understood until it is seen as anchored in the broader principle of sola gradia. What is the source and status of faith? Is it the God-given means whereby the God-given justification is received? Or is it a condition of justification which is left to man to fulfill? Is it a part of God's gift of salvation, or is it man's own contribution to salvation? Is our salvation holy of God, or does it ultimately depend on something that we do for ourselves? Erasmus' perspective was quite modern. He exalted human freedom. Belief that salvation depends upon the human will was consistent with his humanistic philosophy. Even so, he saw the issue as tiresome and divisive. Better to get on with the practical issues of life than to weary oneself in theological nitpicking, he thought. Luther correctly perceived that the issue was far more than theological nitpicking. The gospel, no less, was at stake. I remember reading about Erasmus being quite troubled about the whole persecution bugaboo. He was really troubled because they were using all of the wood for burning martyrs, and the cost of wood went up. That's how calloused Erasmus was. Not a good man. Luther and the Reformer were careful to remove from salvation the last possible support of human merit. They affirmed that while Christ is the ground or basis of our salvation, and faith is the instrumental means by which we receive salvation, the ultimate cause of our salvation is God's grace alone. Faith does not save us, Christ does, on the basis of the unmerited mercy of God, which he has shown toward us the undeserving. Our response to faith is itself a part of God's gift of salvation that is so important. It's not some piece that we're contributing to finish God's work. It is an outflow of the covenant of grace that provides for us Christ and his justification and the spirit who is going to show us our sin, change our hearts, give us faith and turn us to the Lord. So where did I leave off? Our response to faith is itself a part of God's gift of salvation. Far from being meritorious, faith is a gift. It is not our own. The fall of man has left us in bondage to sin with no capacity for faith. If we believe, it is because God has given us the ability to do so. As the apostle says in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. You are saved by grace through faith. What is faith at the top of page 15? The faith that is not of yourselves, God gave it to us. Evangelicals affirm, in addition to faith alone, God's unmerited mercy and grace alone. Let's go ahead and read the rest of it. Grace alone reminds us that it is by His doing that we are in Christ Jesus. If I believe, it's because God gives me that ability to believe. If I've chosen Christ, it's because He first chose me. If I love Christ, it's because He first loved me. It was while I was dead and blind and ignorant and helpless that Christ died for me and then began to work decisively in my life. The Reformers did not, and we must not, lose sight of the fact that it is by the sovereign, initiating, electing love of God and Christ that we are saved. Calvin, in his only statement regarding his conversion, which is found in the preface to his commentary on the Psalms, shows the biblical perspective on our salvation, in saying, God, by the secret guidance of his providence, at length gave a different direction to my course. God, by a sudden conversion, subdued and brought my mind to a teachable frame, which was more hardened in such matters than might have been expected from one at my early period of life." So he saw his hardness. He saw God changing him. Why am I saved? Because God so loved me. And why did God so love? One can plunge no deeper than Deuteronomy 7, 7. He loves us because he loves us. Nothing we have done, nothing he might have seen or foreseen has attracted, earned, or merited his favor. Our salvation is of God's sheer mercy and grace alone. I imagine as you're reading that, you're going, okay, the Roman Catholic is indicted by this, but so is the Arminian Evangelical, isn't he? Now, to be fair, there's no evangelical that's ever going to say that my faith is a contribution, is a work. I don't know how to put it other than to say that they're terribly inconsistent. But thank God for their terrible inconsistencies. They will never say that there was something different about me. I was better, or I was more moral, or more spiritual. There was something unique in me whereby I was led to believe where another person was not. They will not say that. But what they do say is they say, God looked forward and saw something in my heart that would respond to him. I know that. So in essence, they are saying that there is something Right. But what they are seeing, they will still fall back on. Right. And they themselves won't say that that's better than someone else. Yeah. I asked, I told you the story about this guy in college. His name was Lucky. Was it Lucky? Tiny. Tiny. It was Tiny. You're right. Lucky Tiny. It was Tiny. Good guy. Lovable guy. Got me a job and stuff. He was super, super nice guy. And we got going about, I think he had a twin brother, a brother who was very, very close to him, same upbringing. And so I started using the arguments from Romans 9, Esau and Jacob, and why does one believe and why does the other not believe? And I drove him, I said, is it because there's something different in you? And he would just, he would say, no, no, no, no. I was as bad as anybody else. And here's where Lucky comes in. I go, then why did you choose and the other one didn't? Your brother didn't. He goes, Lucky, I guess. That's why I thought his name was Lucky. And not Tiny. And he wasn't tiny either. He was a tough little guy. And the other thing that you'll hear is the only sin that sends people to hell is rejecting Christ. Unbelief. Yeah, unbelief is the only sin that will send you to hell. That your sins are forgiven. But if you reject Christ, you go to hell. So it still really hinges on a human act there. But that's problematic because unbelief is a sin. And if Christ died for all sin, then I can't be condemned for that sin. And I don't need you into universalism if nobody's condemned. Right. But they just say, well, everybody, if you believe everything, you wouldn't have faith if you didn't get on the freeway. And so it's just, it's a vehicle for receiving this grace of God. And it's just, it's, it's, it's common thing. And that's, that's one of the arguments. They have a lot of different arguments that they, that they try to grab out, but it's all rational arguments. Yeah. Something for scripture, really. Okay, so this leads us to, is grace really amazing? Or isn't it? As J.I. Packer asks, is grace amazing or is it boring grace? Is salvation just a mere mechanical matter that's all up to the individual to come and, like those old cigarette machines, you just put your money in, you pull the little lever out, and out drops your nice shrink-wrapped purchase at the bottom. Or is it not clearly the personal Triune God of the Bible who actively seeks and saves and secures a Great Host which He has called His own from eternity past? The Roman Catholics have not been the only ones who have watered down the horrific picture of man's lost estate then. One of my professors, actually it was Nancy's professor in college, he was doing a chapel one time, and he said that if modern evangelicals were to write Newton's classic work, it would probably read something like this. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a soul like me. I once was misguided, but now I'm found. Now I have a roadmap. I was nearsighted, but now I have glasses. So in other words, it's all oriented towards me. I've discovered, I've been adjusted. And there you're getting away from the absoluteness of a hardened, dead, rebellious sinner that waters that down. Why else is there such an openness today in modern evangelicalism to just about any other remedy for man's soul? I mean, we have this explosion of therapeutic approaches and psychological approaches and educational approaches and mystical approaches that are being welcomed into the church instead of the true medicine of the great physician Jesus. Last Wednesday, we remarked, we quoted D.A. Carson on the topic of Sola Dea Gloria, and he talked about how these remedies that people are looking to are not just harmful, they are loathsome. To look to those things as part of your salvation is something quite twisted and perverse indeed. We are not looking to the Lord. But people will say, well, we're not really that twisted around this anyway. It's no big deal, because we really don't need Him in this full way, like you're saying. I mean, if you're really consistent with your presuppositions, that we're not entirely lost this way, but we can adjust things, then the need of Jesus shrinks. It's like that bumper sticker you see. The bigger the government, the less? The smaller the people. Well, this works also in theology here. Christ is presented as a full Savior. The Bible presents us as being fully sinners and not at all worthy of salvation whatsoever. Helpless, as well as antagonistic. God must change us, but we have shrunk all that down. We've minimized them on our screens. Johnson points out the character of fallen man under three D's. He's dead in trespasses and sins, defiant to God, and doomed for his sin. This goes back to the issue that was raised earlier, that some people believe we are only doomed because we do not believe. That is just patently false, and I hope that there's not a lot of evangelicals that hold that. I hear this cropping up, and I... I'd love to take a poll on that one, find out how many Armenians or non-reformed evangelicals hold to that view. Really? You've seen a poll? I wouldn't poll, but I mean, in my opinion. Well, I think only a poll is going to be able to reveal that. Yeah. It'd be a good thing for Barnett to do a study on me. I can't imagine people would actually believe such nonsense, but hey. But they do. Here, I'm acting like an Arminian here, I guess. So, the question arises with this biblical picture, does God owe this man salvation? See, it gets, now it does tie into, God owes this opportunity to believe. Must he be given a chance to be saved? Once, but when you're taught, when you're going down that road, God owes? What are we doing? We're getting away from grace. Once something is owed, I think this is a great argument against those who do this. You're not talking grace language anymore. Now you're talking God owes us something. And that's hugely problematic for G-R-A-C-E. Once God must give grace, it is no longer grace. And do I have a blank there? Unfair. I didn't put a blank there for you? Yes. I wanted to do that. Unfair is a word which should never be permitted in these questions. But instead, it serves as the very bedrock of many man-centered views. In the background, they're always saying, that's unfair. That's unfair. And at the center of that is you do not have a proper view of man's sinfulness. and you do not have a proper view of God's sovereignty. He has the freedom to do with His clay as He wants to do. And people are like, I don't like that. Well, I got talking to a student when I was in college, and we laid these things out for him, and he just looked me right in the eye and said, if that's the God of the Bible, I don't want to have anything to do with Him. And he was a professed believer. If that's the God of the Bible, I don't want to have anything to do with Him. I said, well, you know, that's really a bad thing to say. You need to be careful. But God's kind of saying that to all mankind. I don't want to have anything to do with you. And yet He has overcome that righteous indignation, His full, holy, righteous wrath against man and has provided a way for His people. And the only way they're going to come is by His graciously changing them. So our understanding of grace and sin are tied together in an entirely different way than an Arminian one. We see how grace must bring conviction of sin as sin, arousing the fear of the judgment and curse and wrath of God, and especially revealing our helplessness before the Lord. Even then, one will not cry out to the Lord unless the Father draws that person, causing him to approach Christ freely offered as Savior and sanctifier. So how fully the father's love that saved his very enemies, how fully the son's love is our full savior, our king of grace, having all things in him and how fully the spirit of grace refuses ever to leave or forsake the saved soul, no matter how much they deserve. Otherwise, seeing salvation from we're trying to Maybe this is a way to get through to our Arminian friends and Roman Catholic friends. Look at it from God's side. Because that's often what we're finding, especially in the New Testament, as the taking off of the externals to focus more upon the spiritual nature of our salvation has given us these insights. By looking from God's side, we avoid the simple traps of turning conversion into a work for which we are mechanistically rewarded You know, there's a little truism, isn't there, in every heresy. If you come to Christ, He will no wise cast you out. Right? That's true. Maybe that's all somebody has to hear. But your coming to Christ is not a matter of your adding to or earning or somehow completing God's salvation in you. Even your coming to Him is part of His saving you. the gift of faith, the gift of repentance, the recognition of your lost estate. Now, do you have to bring all of that out when you're evangelizing? Not necessarily. But if somebody starts going down the road to looking at this as a mechanistic thing, you need to jump in there and say, it's God personally saving you, not you saving yourself. I know I've said this before, but that's the problem is that to find your coming to Christ is saying the sinner's prayer, or raising your hand, or walking the aisle, Yeah, well, again, those are, I don't, most of those things are just teaching tools. They're not, you know, again, you can run into great problems with them, I see that. I remember we were warned in Evangelism Explosion about just teaching a prayer to a Roman Catholic, because a Roman Catholic, they said, would pray any prayer to get them into heaven. So that's very mechanistic. Um, at the same time, you, you, yeah, you, you lead them. You're still leading them when it comes to that. You just don't go, we're just going to leave this all up to you. You lead them. I'm not saying that it's wrong, but I'm just saying that trusting in that, trusting in, well, I know I accepted Christ because I said this. Well, yeah, that's, that's not really, yeah, you got to watch out for that. I agree. Um, I mean, when I was converted, I had, two real recently converted dummies telling me how to be saved. And they use the language, you need to trust Christ. You need to come to Jesus. He is the one who gives eternal life. You need to turn from your sins and turn to Him. Ask Him to come into your heart and be your Redeemer. They were throwing every little cliché out to me that they could. And I'm glad they did. I had some words then to use when I asked Jesus, Jesus save me. But really, it can just boil down to that, Jesus saved me. Because then it's Jesus, and it's His saving me, not my saving myself. Regeneration, repentance, faith, conversion, are not preparations for the covenantal bond with God through Christ. These are rather the benefits of the covenantal bond through Christ, applied graciously, freely, sovereignly by the Holy Spirit. Guys, this is a really important point. You need to chew on this. We kind of look at it. Even Reformed people will look at this. Because we talk about God's covenant with the church, the visible covenant. And does that visible covenant made with the church mean that everybody in the church is saved? No. But when we're talking about God's everlasting covenant, the covenant between the Father and the Son, and the Father giving his elect to the Son, and Jesus dying for those people only, that everlasting covenant, everybody in that covenant is saved. And in that covenant, what's included is not just the gift of justification and Jesus as our Savior, but all of the gift of the Holy Spirit to draw us in due time to that Savior. So faith and repentance and conversion, all of that is a gift from the covenant, and not something outside of the covenant to bring us into it, you see. Both of them are from the arms of God. But looking at it from the visible perspective of the church, knowing that not everybody who is baptized is saved, as our larger catechism teaches, it kind of looks like, well, you've got to do something here. And we've got to be careful with that language. I'm not going to bring you through all this, but just conclude on this if there's any question. Regeneration is a gift of grace, isn't it? Even though the Bible commands us to circumcise our own hearts, who can do that? We are obligated to have a different heart, but we don't. And we're incapable of doing so. Wesley's idea that God never commands something that we cannot do, or, no, Finney's not, that's Finney, not Wesley. That whenever God commands us to do something, means that we have the ability to do it, is just crazy. Ezekiel 36, 26, I will give them a new spirit. I will give them a new heart." So there's the gift of God, there's the gracious nature of it. Right, right. And that was exactly, by the way, what Pelagius hated. When he read Augustine's remark about that, you know, give what you command, command whatever you will, he said, this is too reliant on grace. So repentance is a gift of God. Acts 15, 11 and Acts 11, 18, God has given to the Gentiles repentance. Conversion is a gift of God. Psalm 19, 7 says that the word of God converts the soul or renews the soul. And John 12 in verse 40, I don't remember what that verse is. or as God who takes the blind and the deaf and the hard-hearted. 1240, He has blinded their eyes, He hardened their heart so that they would not see with their eyes and perceive with their heart and be converted, cannot convert themselves, and I heal them. And then faith, of course, is definitely a gift from above and not a work from below. It has been given to you not only to believe upon the Lord, but also to suffer. Philippians 1.29. As many as were ordained to eternal life believed. And Ephesians 2.8. By grace, we have been saved through faith. And that refers back to all three. None of that, the grace or the saving or the faith, are from ourselves. And then number six, perseverance. It is God who begins the work. It's God who continues the work until the day of Christ. It's God who completes the work. What wonderful message this is. to sinners who feel like there is no hope. That's a very good sign in somebody when they say, I can't change. When they really sing along with Lynyrd Skynyrd, Lord help me, I can't change. While at the same time saying, I'm a free bird. Free birds are not free. They are in bondage. The one who sins is not free. They are enslaved, but God has presented a Savior. Christ is offered with all of His benefits, including He will help you believe, He will help you repent, He will soften your heart, He will change you. He's able to do that. He doesn't say, I save you 50% and you have to do the other 50, or I save you 90%, or 99 and 44 one-hundredths, and you've got to do that little bit. No, there's nothing that we bring to our salvation except for our sin. and God saves us freely by grace alone. All right, next time we'll go to another sola. I'm not sure we're gonna do sola dea, I think sola dea gloria maybe next time, or maybe sola scriptura. Thinking that one through. I'm not taking a vote. Let's close in prayer. Lord, we do thank you for your word. Thank you for the great grace of God that's been shown to us in Christ. Riches beyond compare. Lord, thank you for this solid, sovereign attitude that you have to your people. That you are the one who has said, I will never leave them nor forsake them. No man shall snatch them out of my hand. You have, even before sin entered the world, even before the fall, even before we ourselves were conceived in sin and committed our first actual sin, Lord, we had a Redeemer who you gave us to him from eternity. And so we are surely safe in and through Him. Thank you for the assurance of these good things from the Word of God. Help us to walk in the riches of these things day by day. May they indeed warm us and enlighten our path. We pray, Father, for many who don't see these things and yet are still trusting in Christ. And we pray, Father, for them, that they would come to grasp the greater riches of these things and enjoy them. Help us, Lord, not to act in a haughty fashion against them, as though we are so much greater than they. Lord, we are all beggars outside of the city wall. And Lord, you have shown us these good things. These are all of grace. Help us, Lord, to turn to our fellow beggars and offer these riches, we ask. Bless us now as we rise to worship you and to bless your holy name. We thank you for Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen.