All right, and we're going to turn in our Bibles to 2 Peter chapter 3, as we have for the last few weeks here, talking about right now in this section of our Sunday school messages, basically talking about differences among believers even, and so doctrinal differences we might have with some that might be Christians. They might believe in salvation by grace through faith, but we might differ with them in some secondary doctrine. And some of these doctrines are important enough that we might need to separate over. Other of these doctrines might be of lesser importance, where we certainly could have relatively close fellowship, but disagree on something along these lines. And then, of course, All of these doctrines, though, don't necessarily, none of these doctrines necessarily hinder someone from being a Christian. And so many who hold these positions, we would count as brothers and sisters in Christ, although not everyone. In other words, someone could hold one of these secondary issues, but also be wrong on salvation. And so we're talking right now about Calvinism. 2 Peter chapter 3, And verse number nine, the Bible says, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering to us. We're not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And let's have a word of prayer. We'll get started this morning. Dear Heavenly Father, we do ask for your wisdom and understanding. Father, we pray that you would guide us in all truth this morning as we seek your face in Scripture. May you give us understanding in this important subject, and Father, may we Be better prepared to give an answer to those who might differ with us on this doctrine we ask in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Of course, we've been talking about the idea of Calvinism. And Calvinism is basically the concept or idea that the sovereignty of God, if you will, overwhelms the free will of man to one extent or another. And the concept here is strict Calvinism would believe that man's free will is simply illusory, that it doesn't really exist, that we think we make choices in life, but ultimately God has foreordained every action that we take, every decision that we take, and so forth. And so they would say anywhere in the Bible that talks about the free will of man is just a kind of a way to speak, so to speak. So a way to communicate in a human understanding but not reality. And then of course there's all kinds of varying degrees of Calvinists who might believe a little more in the free will of man or a little less. But ultimately a Calvinist would believe that God created some people to get saved and go to heaven for eternity, and God created other people to not get saved and spend eternity in hell, and ultimately there's nothing we can do about that decision. If we get saved, it's because God created us to, and if we don't get saved, it's because God created us not to, and it's ultimately not our choice, the cause of our salvation, or lack of it, is God. God is the causal power of our decision. Of course, we do not believe in this. We believe that we do have free will, that it's not an illusion, and that man does choose salvation for himself. And that any verses, as we've already talked about, that talk about The idea that God foreordained some or predestinated some is corporate in nature. In other words, before the foundation of the world, God foreordained that all who were in Christ would go to heaven. All who were in Christ would be changed. into the image of Christ one day. And so in order to be part of that predestination, so to speak, I have to be in Christ. And so then the question is, how do I get in Christ? And the answer of that is put my faith and trust in the finished work of Calvary and for salvation of my eternal soul. And so when we've talked about this, we've talked about Calvinism and Arminianism. Now, actually, we are neither Calvinist nor Arminius, strictly speaking, because we differ in some areas from both. And so we've talked about, we would probably be accused of being Arminius, because basically anybody who believes that it is a free choice, salvation is a free choice, would kind of generally speaking be kind of put in the camp of Arminius, but strictly speaking we do not believe what Jacobus Arminius taught or believed in at least two or three key components of salvation. So we've talked about how we differ from both. We've talked about the sovereignty of God. and the depravity of man and how we agree that man is depraved and that only by God giving us faith or giving us the ability to believe in something, that's the only reason we can believe in something. It's no different than an animal that cannot believe in something because God didn't give them that capacity. But we believe that God gives everybody that capacity and therefore we choose what we put our faith in for salvation either in the finished work of Christ or in our own works or something else. And we've talked about these. I'm just kind of refreshing our memory on this. And so Arminius also believed basically in what is often referred to as original sin or the idea that man is born condemned. And we do not believe in original sin. We don't believe that man is condemned from Adam's sin. We believe that man has to sin willfully and knowingly themselves to be condemned, and that's why we don't baptize infants and so forth. We believe, like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, that man is born sinful but innocent because they don't know better until they eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for themselves. I mean, think about on Genesis chapter 3, where the Bible says that man and woman were in the garden and they were naked but unashamed before God. And so public nakedness is wrong in the Bible, but they didn't know any better and so they were innocent in the eyes of God and they were naked and unashamed, alright. That's our place before Christ And let me just say, that's our place before Christ. And as you probably have noticed, if you've had children, children, especially small ones, are pretty unashamed of their nakedness, right? And I remember years ago, we have a little sister, I have a little sister that's quite a bit younger than me and was actually adopted much later. And when she was about three or four years old, we grew up kind of in the country and so, lot of relatives around and so forth. And of course, we grew up without, you know, air conditioning or anything like that. And so, in the summertime, you just leave all the doors and windows open on the whole house and then you would go do what you had to do. Well, my sister was in the bathtub as just a little girl by herself and playing in a little bit of water there. And we were out doing things and my mom left her there for a few moments. And I know you probably shouldn't do that, but she did. And walked out back to hang up some clothes on the clothesline. And we were all outside doing different things and all of a sudden we heard beep, beep, beep, beep, beep out front. And so we ran around to the front of the house and there was my little sister playing in a mud puddle out by the highway completely without any clothes on. She got out of the tub, went out to there and played. My Aunt Barb was out there beeping the horn trying to get her attention to come get her. But that's just the way kids are. They're unashamed of those things, and slowly they begin to recognize. First, on a more fundamental level, I guess you might say, almost like a dog shows shame, you know, when you're correcting them. So they know they're getting scolded by mom and dad, or they know something isn't appropriate like everyone else. But this still is not accountability to God. It is only when I comprehend that I should be ashamed in the presence of God that I am condemned. And so Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And as soon as they did, they recognized that they were naked and they tried to clothe themselves. They put some fig leaves on basically, but they were still not clothed properly. And so when God came to talk to them, they hid themselves. And you'll find that God asked them, why did you hide yourself? And that Adam said, I hid myself because I was naked. All right. And so before eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were naked and unashamed. After eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were ashamed before God and God had to clothe them. They could not clothe themselves and such. is our situation. This is why Paul wrote in Romans, I was alive without the law once. That's as a child. But then the commandment came and it slew me. I understood that I was violating the command of God. And so I became condemned, ashamed in the sight of God. And now I am fallen. And the interesting part about it is now I'm accountable for all of my sins, even the ones I committed in ignorance. Because once it comes to my knowledge, now I'm accountable for it. It's no different than the Old Testament law, where if someone sinned by ignorance, that when they were caught, or when it came to their knowledge, they had to go take an offering to the temple, because now they knew better. And so therefore, I'm condemned before God, guilty of all sin that I have ever committed, and now I need a Savior. And so that's salvation, putting my faith and trust in Christ after I've eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and become dead in my trespasses and sins, all right? And so I don't get a guilt from Adam. I simply get a unfolding knowledge of good and evil. That's what I inherit from Adam. a developing, it's a time capsule inside of me, that if all things develop normally, it will reach fruition, and it will mature inside of me, and I will know right from wrong, and I will do wrong sometimes. The Bible says, a death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. And so that's talking about willfully sinning against God. So, we would disagree with both here. Then we've talked about the election, the idea that before the foundation of the world Calvin believed that God unconditionally chose some to be saved and therefore some to be lost. Arminius on the other hand believed that God did this corporately and that his election was based on whoever would be in Christ and so we would agree with Arminius on this, that God so loved the world and certainly he tasted death for every man, as the Bible says, and that whosoever, meaning anybody, calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Then Christ's atonement, a Calvinist, a strict Calvinist would believe in the limited atonement. In other words, that Jesus didn't die for the sins of the whole world, because in their mind This would cause the sovereignty of God to be defeated. If Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, but everyone wasn't saved, well then it didn't accomplish its intended end and therefore God failed. That's how they would view it. But we believe that this is just the opposite. God's sovereignty is not infringed on by the free will of man, because God has willed the free will of man. And therefore, man has a choice here, and God has potentially died for the sins of all, but whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed, the Bible says, and so it's only those who come to Christ for salvation that are saved, but it is all of those who come to Christ. And so we would again fall in Arminius' camp here. Christ died for everyone. The atonement was not limited. I will say this also, you know, sometimes we will get upset maybe at a Calvinist who believes in the limited atonement, but we might sometimes believe, Independent Baptists sometimes will believe in some unforgivable sin, you know, such as homosexuality or such as suicide or some other thing that someone might believe is an unforgivable sin. But let me just say, if there's such thing as an unforgivable sin, then Christ did not, His atonement was not unlimited. It's just that simple. So technically, if you believe in an unforgivable sin, you believe in a limited atonement, all right? And so this is why we don't believe any sins are unforgivable. And I think the Bible is pretty clear about that. All right. And then the grace of God. And so in Calvinism, God gives grace to all of mankind to a certain extent. You know, he allows us to have blessings on this earth, but his irresistible grace is given only to the elect that he elected. All right? And so His grace is irresistible when it comes to salvation. If you're supposed to get saved, you're going to get saved, no matter what. And if you're not supposed to get saved, you can't get saved, even if you, quote, unquote, wanted to. But to be honest, they believe you couldn't even want to. All right, and so this is the way a strict Calvinist would believe. Arminius believed that man was given the ability to cooperate with God and respond in faith to God's grace offered Christ and so we would agree with Arminius here and we would say that every man has the ability to respond to God's offer of salvation and that drawing of God is simply not irresistible. Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost and and that he seeks everyone and that the only ones that go to hell for all of eternity are those who resist his seeking for a lifetime. And this is, of course, I think what the Bible teaches just as God said, Jesus said to Saul on the road to Damascus, it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. I've been prodding you to salvation and you've been refusing. This is difficult to do. and so I believe it is with everyone. Now, we've talked about all of these in the past. We're gonna talk about the last one, and that is the perseverance of the saints. Let's go to Romans chapter 8, or eternal security, as we often refer to it, or once saved, always saved, as some detractors refer to it, but I don't think that's a bad description either. Romans 8, in verse number 28. And we know that all things work together for good, to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate, to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called, and whom He called them He also justified, and whom He justified, them He also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is He that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine? or nakedness, or peril, or sword. As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. As you can see from this passage, a Calvinist would basically believe that because we were elected by God for ordained to salvation, that of course we couldn't lose our salvation once we came to it, because before the foundation of the world, God chose us and we didn't choose Him. in any way. And so, a Calvinist would believe that believers will persevere in salvation because God will see to it that none will be lost. Believers are secure in the faith because God will finish the work that He began. Arminius, because he believed it was a free choice, and understand that both of these men came out of Catholic type background, Of course, John Calvin was a reformer, and then Jacobus Arminius was basically very close to Calvin's son-in-law, and so just the next generation, basically, of the reformers. And so because they were Protestant reformers, their background of doctrine was Catholicism, okay? And so, they came, began to understand salvation by grace through faith, many of the Reformers did. But a lot of the other doctrines escaped them because of their predisposition and their background information They didn't always come to grips with what we would see as true doctrine today. And so Baptists, of course, we don't count ourselves as Protestant. We were not part of the Reformation in our opinion. Baptists or Baptistic people have been around since the time of Christ, of course, and his apostles. And there have been people of like faith, of course, persecuted throughout history, we believe, and so we don't believe that we came out of the Protestant Reformation. And so, anyway, to explain, Arminius had believed Calvinism, basically, taught by John Calvin, and then reading Romans again and again in the New Testament, He came to understand that it was a free choice. And so, because he came to understand that it was a free choice, well then he said, well if you choose it, you can give it back, basically. And you don't have to keep it. And so, he differed with Calvin. on eternal security. And we would disagree with Arminius here, and we would agree with Calvin, but for different reasons, alright? So we don't believe once saved, always saved, because God chose it before the foundation of the world. We believe once saved, always saved, because the Bible teaches that you've been born again, and of course you can't get unborn, and you cannot die, because you've been born again to eternal life. and so therefore you have eternal security. And so they would say once saved always saved because God created that person to get saved. We would say once saved always saved because you cannot undo the atonement that has already been done. Let's go to John chapter 5. John chapter 5, and this is really taught, you know, throughout scripture, this idea that once the atonement is done, it cannot be undone, that those sins are forgiven. Once you've been saved, you can never be in that exact peril again. And this is just common sense, right? If I get saved from drowning, I could be in peril of drowning again, but not that same drowning. I couldn't be in the same exact circumstances again. It's impossible. Alright? And so, because I've been saved from that, I'm no longer in peril of that. And salvation is saved from eternity in hell because of my sin. And once I've been saved from it, of course, I can't be in that same exact peril again. It wouldn't make any sense. John chapter 5. and verse number 24. The Bible says, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life. Now if you have eternal or everlasting life, you cannot die. Of course, and you cannot be unborn, so you have everlasting life, but God goes further here. And shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. And so the Bible is pretty clear here that if you could lose your salvation, this verse would not be true. shall not come into condemnation? Well, that wouldn't be true if you could lose your salvation. Furthermore, let me say that even verses like 1 John 5, 13, these things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. even that would be impossible. No one could know that they had eternal life if you could lose your salvation because you would always be in danger of losing it somewhere along the line. And let me just say as we've talked about when we talked about eternal security and our doctrinal message in Sunday school. When we talked about eternal security, we talked about how if you could lose it because of sin, you would lose it for any sin and every sin. Because if you keep the whole law and offend in one point, you're guilty of all. And so, therefore, you couldn't lose it because of sin. And then, of course, if you could give it back, then that literally wouldn't make any sense to be born again, to be saved, to be redeemed. any of these things because really I don't save myself. I just present myself for salvation by accepting what God has done on Calvary and through Christ and then He saves me and puts me in Christ. Let's go to John chapter 10. I just stand at the door basically and He's the one that brings me in. John chapter 10. and verse number 27, John chapter 10 verse number 27, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man, that includes themselves, any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father which gave them Me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand. I and My Father are one. And so, once again, the concept here is once we're saved, it is Christ who saved us, it is Christ who keeps us, it is Christ who holds us. If it isn't Christ, if I have to hold on to Him, well I might as well give up now, because it will not happen. It will not happen. There's never anyone that's been good enough for salvation before they got saved or after they got saved. And so, you can't be good enough to prove you're saved. You can't be good enough to hold on to your salvation. You cannot be good enough. Alright? If you don't get that from reading the New Testament, then literally you have ears that cannot hear. Alright? Because God says it over and over and over and over again. for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. If you keep the whole law and offend at one point, you're guilty of all. Read the Sermon on the Mount sometime. Read it sometime and see if there's anybody you ever have known who has lived it. No, it's impossible. That's the point Jesus was making. He was not making the point of you ought to live this way. He was making the point of you ought to strive to live this way, but anything less than this is not good enough to be accepted with God. And because I cannot be that good, I must have a mediator, Hebrews chapter 10. And so we would believe pretty strongly, of course, in eternal security. We do understand that there are some passages that sound like, if read under a certain understanding, that might sound like you could lose your salvation. But those are very cloudy passages that can be explained. from our position and the clear passages are on the side of external security, I think pretty clearly in the Bible. Hebrews 10 and verse number 1 For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never, with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually, make the comers thereunto perfect. Now let me stop there for a second again and deal with kind of a side issue once again. And there's another thought process that sometimes even Baptists have, and even when I was growing up in a Baptist church, I would sometimes hear this taught, and that is that in the Old Testament, people got saved by the law. Not possible. Not possible. All right? Never. Did you see what it just said? For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of those things, can never, with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually, make the comers thereunto perfect. The law saves no one. Alright? It only condemns. Okay? It was literally a placeholder. Every sacrifice pointed to Christ. That's what it pointed to. It was a placeholder. I illustrate this sometimes from a story of when I got my first regular job, you know, when I was a teenage boy and I worked at Ames Department Store in Painted Post, New York. And what would happen is you'd have your own department, or I had a department that I took care of, and they would come out every so often, I don't know, I remember now if it was every quarter or whatever, with what they called a planogram. And that planogram would be your shelves, and it would show how they're supposed to look. And your product would be set to arrive on a certain date, and you were supposed to make those shelves look like the planogram the best that you could. So you'd take the product that was already on the shelf, and you'd put it in the new spots, and then you'd get new product in to fill in other areas that they were changing. And so what they would do sometimes, though, is sometimes the new product would not arrive in time for the set date for the planogram. And so they would literally give you a picture of it. Alright, they'd give you a cardboard picture of the product that was coming in with a little sign on it that said coming soon and you would put that in its place. And that was there, alright? Now let me just say, not one time did anybody ever try to buy that piece of cardboard, alright? Because it was not the product. It was simply a picture of it. This is what the law was with all of its sacrifices. It was a temporary placeholder until Christ. And so it never could save anyone. No one ever kept the law. No one ever could get saved by the law if they were saved by faith and even in Old Testament times, faith in the coming Christ. Now let's read on here. Let's read again verse 1. For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered, because that the worshipers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. And so the Bible is so clear here explaining that if there was, if the sacrifices of the Old Testament, particularly the once of year into the Holy of Holies sacrifice, the sin offering, if that could cleanse you, that it would have only been done one time, and then you would only have to be atoned for one time, and all your sins would be forgiven, past, present, and future, and so it'd never have to happen again. That's salvation. Once the atonement has been made, all my sins have been paid for, once I put my faith in Christ, past, present and future. It's why Romans tells us, blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. So God won't even record it against me. It's already on Christ's account. And so there's nothing that anyone can do about it once I've put my faith and trust in Jesus Christ. Now clearly I can backslide. Clearly I can get far away from the Lord. The Bible even says that it's possible that I could get so far away from the Lord that I have forgotten that I was purged from my old sins. But the truth is that I cannot lose my salvation if I ever truly come to Christ and put my faith and trust in Him. We believe this, but we don't believe it the way a Calvinist would believe it. Matter of fact, just recently I was out visiting and talked to a man on the north side of Fargo, and he had grown up in a Baptist church. And but it was a Baptist church that believed you could lose your salvation. He got saved and then backslid for many years. And he said when he came back to the Lord, he knew he had been saved that whole time because the Lord had been dealing with him and convicting him and really working in his life, and so he knew he had been saved, but he was backslidden, and so he became a Calvinist, so he could believe in eternal security, he said. And I told him, you don't have to settle for that. You can have both. You can have free will of man, and eternal security. It's not an either or. It's a false dilemma. Alright? And so Arminius did not believe in eternal security. We do. So we're clearly not Arminius. We don't believe in original sin. That's why we don't baptize infants. That's why Protestant religions do baptize infants or have in the past if they don't today. Why? Because they all believe in original sin. And then number two, of course, we do believe in eternal security. And even some of the other things are a little nuanced in that area. So that's basic explanation of why we believe what we believe as opposed to Calvinism or strict Arminianism either.