What was the intention of the Triune God in the Incarnation of God the Son and the Person and the Work of Jesus Christ? This is a question many today spend little time considering, but it is of monumental importance. What was the purpose of the Incarnation? What was the outcome of Jesus's crosswork, his burial, resurrection, and ascension? What was accomplished by God in Jesus Christ? For whom did Christ die? The great Charles Spurgeon preached long ago, quote, I've heard it said by some that Christ died for all men alike and that his redemption is universal. But I can only understand a universal redemption in one way, and that it is that Christ has died so as to secure the salvation of all men. If this were so, then seeing that all men are not saved, we should be obliged to conclude that Christ's death was ineffectual. But we cannot so think. We hold to this that Christ laid down His life for His sheep, and that the design of His death certainly will be carried out. He so died for men that ultimately all for whom He shed His blood as a substitute will be pardoned, justified, and glorified. We are often told that we limit the atonement of Christ because we say that Christ has not made a satisfaction for all men, or all men will be saved. Now, our reply to this is that, on the other hand, our opponents limit the atonement. We do not. The Arminians say Christ died for all men. Ask them what they mean by it. Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of all men? They say, no, certainly not. We ask them the next question. Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of any man in particular? They answer, no. They are obliged to admit this if they are consistent. They say, no, Christ has died that any man may be saved, if, and then follow certain conditions of salvation. We say that Christ so died that He infallibly secured the salvation of a multitude that no man can number, who through Christ's death not only may be saved, but are saved, must be saved, and cannot by any possibility run the hazard of being anything but saved. You say, Christ died for all men. Ask them what they mean by it. Dear sir, I must say, as far as you are concerned, he died in vain. For you say that many are lost after Christ died for them. If you say that he died to make the salvation of all men possible, I tell you that the atonement you describe is a cloudy, nebulous atonement, which at last means nothing. You say that no one in particular is secured by it. You believe that some may be saved or may not be saved just as chance decides. You believe that it is left to the free will of man so that they may take advantage of it or may not. You are putting an arrow in the hands of a man who has no eyes to see the target. You are hanging a bridge over a gulf, but you are not certain that it reaches to the other side. You are offering a medicine as a cure, but you do not know whether it will heal. You are calling out whosoever will, but you do not know whether anybody will. Oh, my dear sir, be not deceived by such delusion. You may keep your universal redemption. We will never renounce our belief in the absolute certainty of salvation for every soul that Christ redeemed." Welcome to today's program with my two brothers, the usual guys, Brother Henry Johnson from Trinity Presbyterian Church in Tazewell, Virginia, and Brother Jim Thornton who is the pastor of Reformed Faith Presbyterian Church in Clarksville, Tennessee, and I am Patrick Hines. I'm the pastor of Bridwell Heights Presbyterian Church in Kingsport, Tennessee. So we move into points five, hopefully to the end of chapter eight of the Westminster Confession of Faith. And I'm going to read point number five here, and then pitch the first question to Brother Jim. Point five of chapter eight of the Westminster Confession of Christ the Mediator says, The Lord Jesus, by His perfect obedience and sacrifice of Himself, which He through the Eternal Spirit once offered up unto God, hath fully satisfied the justice of His Father, and purchased not only reconciliation, but an everlasting inheritance in the Kingdom of Heaven for all those whom the Father hath given unto Him. So, Brother Jim, you can comment on what is said there, but I have some questions here. What is the penal substitutionary atonement? The Confession speaks of His obedience and sacrifice and satisfying the justice. What is penal substitutionary atonement, and why is that so much under attack? Well, the penal substitutionary atonement is Christ taking the place of the sinner on the cross, paying the penalty. That's why we call it penal. God's justice had to be satisfied. You know, a lot of people think that's harsh, but sin is called spiritual adultery. And if we look in the hearts of people today, there's nothing harder to cope with than a spouse committing adultery. And so I explained to students, this is how serious God takes sin. It's like adultery to you all. And it's just so offensive and so painful to God that we sin and have sinned. And it's amazing that Christ would take on a body of a man or men, people who have sinned against him. Yeah, and I think of the line from the great hymn in Christ Alone, it was my sin that held him there. You know, it was my sin that held him there. So yeah, God is a holy God. I mean, people seem to only want to think of him as love, but justice and retributive justice. The fact that sin must be punished because it is an offense against the holiness of God. People don't like that idea, but isn't that the idea that we are so thankful for? That Jesus actually satisfies that justice. Henry, do you want to comment on that at all? Absolutely. The two passages of Scripture that I think really First Peter chapter 2 verse 24, talking about Jesus, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. Here we see this substitutionary work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And 2 Corinthians chapter 5 amplifies that even a little more and talks about how the atonement, the work of God bringing these two parties that are estranged together. God is the holy, holy, holy God who is offended by man, his creatures' sin. And what does sin deserve? Well, the book of Romans, chapter 6, verse 23, the wages of sin is death. And so that's why Jesus died. He is our glorious good example. But he is much, much more than a good example. And the liberals want to just focus solely on Jesus being the example. And we don't want to minimize that. He is the perfect man that we ought to emulate, and we want to be like Jesus. Yes, we pray. And that's what sanctification is. But justification comes in the first place. Before we can be sanctified, God justifies us. And that work is God, the judge, declaring us righteous because of what Jesus has done. He has lived a perfect life, and as that spotless Lamb of God, he died taking the guilt, the sin, of his people upon himself, and he satisfies divine justice. And so, 2 Corinthians chapter 5 talks about how the ministry of the gospel is a ministry of reconciliation, and we see That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, but entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God, and now the heart of this work of reconciliation is this penal substitutionary atonement. Listen to verse 21, for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. And so this glorious exchange that takes place, there's a substitute who takes our place and his sacrifice on the cross. He's taking the punishment we deserve upon himself and his sacrifice is then given to us, imputed to us, and his perfect life of obedience is imputed to us the second we believe in Jesus. So this idea of the substitutionary penal work of Christ, it's at the very heart of the gospel. Yeah, yeah, amen, amen. And God, as holy, gives man his law, and breaking the law incurs its penalty. That's one of the strangest—it's such an odd thing to hear people objecting to the substitutionary atonement. From the front to the back of the Bible, it's really the clearest teaching there is. God is holy and God gives law. He threatens death upon the preach of it. So what did Jesus have to come do to satisfy that penalty? He had to die. He had to be righteous. That's what this point, point number five here is really emphasizing. And as you both have pointed out, this satisfaction of God's justice, every individual for whom that was done is going to heaven. Because if the penalty is paid, then there exists no judicial legal grounds for condemnation any longer for those people. So, all right, let's see. Brother Jim, how does knowing this, that Jesus comes into the world with this mission to save people, not to make salvation possible, but to save them, how does that affect the way we do evangelism? How does that affect the way you preach in Israel and Scotland and on the campuses that you go to? Well, the scripture says that our labor is not in vain, and we don't know who the elect are. They are not identified with a badge or a stripe. And so we've been told to go into all the world and preach the gospel. So we go and we preach to whoever's there, trusting God that he is bringing those that he wants to hear to us. are possibly some who are there to be condemned. And of course, you know, people think they're good. And so we preach the law first. to open their eyes with the tutor. The law is a tutor to lead people to Christ. And then we preach the good news, the Lord Jesus Christ, the savior, the substitute. And we preach, also it says here in the confession, you know, he purchased not only our reconciliation, but everlasting inheritance. in the kingdom of heaven. So we preach this inheritance too. We preach heaven and hell, that there is a future. It's going to be one or the other for everybody. Yeah, that's right. And think of another passage that comes to mind in looking at point five here, When Paul shifts gears in the book of Romans, in Romans 3, after verse 20, where he says, Therefore, in light of the fact that Jews and Gentiles all are under sin, they're guilty before God, no one's going to be justified. In other words, no one's going to meet the requirement of God's law by trying to obey it, because we can't. We've fallen into sin, he says in verse 21 of Romans 3. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, of course that's Jesus' righteousness, through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. And that term propitiation, that Greek term there, refers to a sacrifice that turns away that divine justice, that divine wrath, that righteous punishment that we deserve at the hands of the Holy God, who is angered and offended by our sin. So, very good. All right, let's look at point number six. Although the work of redemption was not actually wrought by Christ till after His Incarnation, yet the virtue, efficacy, and benefits thereof were communicated unto the elect in all ages successively from the beginning of the world, in and by those promises, types, and sacrifices wherein He was revealed and signified to be the seed of the woman which should bruise the serpent's head, and the lamb slain from the beginning of the world being yesterday and today the same and forever." Don't you love how succinct the Puritans' sentences are? It's like that's one big sentence with a bunch of semicolons in it, but a lot in there. Henry, you want to unpack that a little bit here for us? Well, what this paragraph is getting at is that through the entire history of mankind, There is only one Savior, and it is the Lord Jesus Christ. And in the Old Testament time, he was revealed by these shadows and types and prophecies. And when the people heard the message being proclaimed when they would go to the temple, it all pointed to the Lamb of God who would come and die in the fullness of time. And they were saved by faith in this Christ. just like we're saved by faith in this Christ. They were looking forward to his coming to purchase redemption. We look back on his finished work that he accomplished when he died on the cross and has been raised from the dead on the third day. The two things that they mentioned here is signified to be the seed of the woman which should bruise the serpent's head. That's what we see in Genesis 3.15. The Lord is cursing the serpent, and he preaches the gospel. He's the first preacher of the gospel. And the gospel is God's good news. It is God's message. And this message is not that God is making salvation possible, but that God has secured eternal redemption for his people. Believe in Jesus. Believe in this Savior. That's the message. And we see, you made reference to Spurgeon talking about the bridge, and the Arminian has a bridge that goes partway across the chasm of the divide between the holy God and sinful man. And they say that Jesus makes it possible, but the efficacy of the atonement, the power of the atonement. And the Bible teaches that the bridge goes all the way across, that God has intended to save a particular people that he gave by name, and those who God has given to his Son, he purchased redemption for, and this gospel is shadowed in the Old Testament, in the fullness of time, Jesus comes as the Lamb. And you see that being referenced there at the end of paragraph six, the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world. And here's this picture that even though it was in 33 A.D. that Jesus died, the Bible talks about him being slain from the foundation of the world in the sense that it was the plan of God. and that God shadowed the gospel all through the Old Testament. And all of those sacrifices point to Jesus. And that's why John the Baptist, when he, as the herald, saw Jesus coming, he said, behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. And the good news is, Jesus is the Savior. Believe in him. Yes, indeed. And I've said before in messages that have gotten into the hands of a local minister who is a hardcore Arminian, I've said that the Arminian system has the lowest view of the love of God that I've ever studied in any system of theology. And people get upset at that. And what was it? He loves everybody. I said, no, he doesn't love anyone enough to save him. He doesn't. He loves people enough to make it possible to give it a shot, but he doesn't actually save anyone. He doesn't love anyone enough to save them. And they'll say, well, but he sovereignly gives us free will. So he's sovereignly not sovereign then? It doesn't make any sense to say that. He's omnipotently not omnipotent. It doesn't make any sense. So I wanted to ask Jim, I know all three of us probably have had to address the influence of dispensationalism when it comes to the unity of the Gospel and how people have always been saved. Jim, could you comment on what is dispensationalism, and what's wrong with its view that people were saved in different ways at different epochs of world history? Well, dispensationalism sees God as working in different ways and failing. For instance, the Schofield Bible said that there was another way of salvation in the Old Testament, which ignores justification by faith in the Old Testament. Abraham believed God and it was reckoned unto him as righteousness. And they chop up the Bible so badly that it leads to confusion. And they'll say things like large parts of the New Testament don't apply to us. And it's just utter confusion. We're not under law. We're under grace. Oh. No. Hyper-grace. Yeah. You can be the worst so-called Christian, nominal Christian, not a real Christian. As a matter of fact, to them, you can be a real Christian and live absolutely like the devil. Practice sin, and there's a direct connection between the practice of sin and the eternal damnation in the Bible that you cannot escape. Yeah, absolutely, indeed. All right, so, Henry, did you want to comment further on that? When I first became a Christian, the people who believed the Bible to be God's via word were the dispensationalists. And so, at first, that's what I thought Scripture taught. But I came to see that the problem with dispensationalism is that's not what the Bible says. And if I had to go with what Jesus and the apostles said the Old Testament meant, or what C.I. Scofield said the Old Testament meant, I was going, huh, I wonder who I ought to go with. And it wasn't a hard contest. I decided, you know, I'm gonna go with Jesus and the apostles. And so the Lord Jesus is the one who tells us that in John chapter eight, Abraham saw Jesus from afar and rejoiced. It's Jesus who said in John chapter five that Moses wrote about Jesus. The apostles, they tell us in the book of Jude, Enoch knew the glory of Jesus and knew that he would come as the judge to end history with the flaming angels. It's the apostle Peter in 2 Peter chapter 2 that tells us Noah was a preacher of righteousness, Jesus Christ. It is the preacher in the book of Hebrews, chapter 11, that tells us that the thing that motivated Moses was, he turned his back on all of the treasures of Egypt, considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. It is the apostle Peter in Acts chapter 2 that tells us David, because he was a prophet, when he wrote Psalm 16, and when he wrote Psalm 2, and when he wrote Psalm 110, knew that his descendant, Messiah, would not only die on the cross, but be raised from the dead, and that's what his heart leap for joy to know and believe and live for. So the problem with dispensationalism is, it's not what the Bible teaches. And like you said, my own experience is similar. Hearing from good theologians and good authors, look at the way the New Testament writers cite and interpret the Old Testament when they go there, which the New Testament is filled with citations from the Old Testament. And I remember going through Romans 3 and Romans 4 and looking at Paul's description of Abraham, who's before the Sinaitic covenant, before the giving of the law. He was justified by faith alone. He believed and it was accounted to him as righteous. David, after the giving of the law, believes and is justified before God. God imputes righteousness to him and does not impute sin. And it's not just for their sake, but for ours. And just thinking, man, Paul sure does not think like a dispensationalist. Paul is a covenant theologian. He sees the gospel right there in the Old Testament. over and over again. And as we see in our confession, so did the Westminster divines. These guys were very careful biblical scholars. And so, the elect of God throughout all of history have had the same faith, the same hope, the same gospel message. It was communicated to them in promises-type sacrifices wherein Christ was revealed. And us, of course, we We have the Fuller revelation. We know his name. We know exactly how it all happened. We have these wonderful books of Scripture that God gave to His church. And so we are—remember, in the Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin says that God has favored us over the patriarchs, that we have in our hands in the New Testament what they wished they could have had. Abraham, David, Daniel, all of them, oh, they would have loved to have been able to sit down with the New Testament and read all the details. Because like Henry said, they saw it from afar. They saw it a long way off. They knew it was coming. They knew that this Redeemer was coming, but they didn't know nearly as much about Him as we do. All right, so, Brother Jim, let's go to point 7 here. This one's a little bit more technical theologically, but it's an important passage. We'll look at Acts 20, verse 28, which I think is the best illustration of what's being said here. Point 7 says, Christ, in the work of mediation, acts according to both natures. by each nature, the divinity and the humanity, doing that which is proper to itself. Yet, by reason of the unity of the person, that which is proper to one nature is sometimes in Scripture attributed to the person denominated by the other nature. Now, every time I've ever taught the Confession, I always ask people, do y'all get it? And everyone goes, They're like, what is that about? But if you look at Acts 20, 28, this is a really good illustration of what's being said here, where Paul, exhorting the Ephesian elders, tells them, be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. So you see the way that the attributes of one nature, the humanity, are attributed to the other. Jim, you want to comment on that at all? I do, and I want to share a quote here by Turretin. He said this, the mediator had to be the God-man. Man to suffer, God to overcome. Man to receive the punishment we deserve, God to endure and drink it to the dregs. Man to acquire salvation for us by dying, God to apply it to us by overcoming. man to become ours by the assumption of flesh, God to make us like himself by the bestowal of the spirit. Wow, that's a great, great Toretan. Is that another quotation from Hodge, quoting Toretan? No, this one, let me see where this is coming from here. Well, it may be, let me check here. No, it's actually coming from Joel Beakey, Man and Christ, Reformed Systematic Theology, Volume Two. Wonderful, wonderful. Yeah, we love Turretin. Turretin is one of those wonderful theologians. That three-volume Institutes of Elentic Theology is really good stuff. And he's very readable. He's not hard to read. He's not like reading a Dutch theologian like Vos or Ritterbos. And he's very organized. I like how he breaks things down into parts. Yeah, for sure. Okay, Henry, do you want to add anything to point seven there? It's a bit of a technical point, but it's very important that we realize that, yes, because of the unity of the person, the two natures which are distinct, sometimes in Scripture the properties of one are attributed to the other. Do you want to comment on that any further? I think that example that you pointed to in Acts 20 is excellent. God shed His blood. There it is. Yeah. Does God have blood? Well, no, but the person who is God and man did have blood. His humanity did have blood. And so, yeah. And the thing is, there's an analog to that with the way God speaks of sacraments, too. And we'll get to that when we get to the chapter on sacraments, that God will sometimes call the sacrament what it's a sign of. And unfortunately, people have made the mistake of confusing the sign with what it signifies, because God establishes that pattern. I mean, way back in Genesis 17, He actually calls circumcision, �My covenant.� He says, �This is My covenant,� just like He calls the bread and the wine. �This is My body. This is My blood.� Now, circumcision is not a covenant. It's a sign of a covenant, but God likes to do that. He'll call the signs what they signify. There's an analog to that, I think, with the natures of Christ here in Acts 20-28. But it's important that we remember that it's not our license to mingle the natures. The natures are very much distinct, even in that passage. God purchased the church with His own blood. Well, that's because Jesus is God and man, so. Okay, point number eight. This is a really, really, really great point. I've got a Robert Raymond quote I want to eventually read here with regard to this one. To all those for whom Christ hath purchased redemption, and we've made it clear, and the Scriptures make it clear, He only does that for those given Him by the Father. He doth certainly and effectually apply and communicate the same, making intercession for them and revealing unto them in and by the word the mysteries of salvation, effectually persuading them by his spirit to believe and obey, and governing their hearts by his word and spirit, overcoming all their enemies by his almighty power and wisdom in such manner and ways as are most consonant to his wonderful and unsearchable dispensation." Let me pitch this one to brother Jim. At the end of the day, when it's all said and done, who will benefit from the grace of Christ's work? The elect are those that are going to benefit and only the elect. Now, right now, you know, I think what the Abrahamic covenant says is that the whole world is blessed. When you read about the history of the world, you know, hospitals, schools. So much from Christianity and Judaism has blessed the world. But when it comes to salvation, it's just going to be the elect. Yeah, that's right. So, Brother Henry, people object. They objected to Paul. They object to us. That's not fair. Would you comment on that? Well, if God was fair, meaning just, and would give everybody what we deserve, everybody would be sent to hell, because that's what sin deserves. But the wonder of the gospel and the wonder of the God who came up with the gospel is that God has chosen to save his people. And we see that in Matthew chapter 1, the angel is talking to Joseph, call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sin. We see that over in the Gospel of John, chapter 6, chapter 10, chapter 17. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will in no wise cast out. This is the will of the Father, that of all that he has given me, I lose nothing. And over in the Old Testament in Isaiah 53, it says about the risen Christ that he looks at the travail of his soul and is satisfied. And so every single person that Jesus died for, he will in history, Send his spirit and apply that redemption he purchased for them by name and secure that person. He loses none that he died for. And that is why we have such comfort and hope and joy and confidence for ourselves and offer the gospel because we know God is going to save His sheep. So we make a sincere and true offer to everyone. without distinction, right? So Jim, when you do that, when you're out there preaching, how do you exhort people to come to Jesus? What are the words that you use to do that? How do you try to be biblical in your approach to this? Well, I often quote Jesus, come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden, all of you. I tell them about Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. I tell them about Paul saying, God has commanded all men everywhere to repent, Acts 17. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's really all we can do is do that and exhort people, come to Jesus, repent and come to him. And if you're willing, if you're willing to come to him, he never was. Otherwise, he will receive you. And so people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I say, you know, the one that comes to me, I will certainly not cast out. That's right. And the way we come to Jesus, we repent and believe. Yeah. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. That's what Peter declared in Acts chapter 2, quoting from Joel 2. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. And I'm careful to tell them who Jesus is these days, because there's many Jesuses out there. Many. And that's what we see in Romans chapter 10, in verses 9 and 10, that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Yeah. And Jim, would you elaborate on that a little bit more? You make sure you tell them which Jesus you're talking about. Why is that so important? I mean, that does come up in Scripture. Paul says that in 2 Corinthians 11, that someone comes with another Jesus, another gospel, another spirit. Well, what do you mean by that? How do you flesh out which Jesus you're talking about? That's a great point. Well, with the Muslims that I preach to, I tell them that the Jesus of the Quran is not the Jesus of the Bible, the Jesus that can save you. The Jesus of the Quran did not die on the cross for sins, did not rise again from the dead, is not the son of God. And the college students, it's much more subtle. They believe in a Jesus that died for everybody's sins, who doesn't care if you sin or not now. It's just all love and everybody's going to heaven. And I think some brother has said it's justification by death. Now, all you got to do is die to go to heaven. Well, that's not what Jesus taught. He taught repentance. And he taught in Matthew seven, you know, and other passages, not everyone who, or he says, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say. And then there's in Matthew seven, who are going to say, Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name and cast out demons and do this and do that. And he's going to say, depart from me. I never knew you, you who practice iniquity. And I tell him, you know, this Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. First John. And he does that. He breaks the dominion of sin and changes your heart to where you love what you used to hate and you hate what you used to love. You used to love sin, you hate it now. You used to hate God, you love him now. And you grow in that more and more. Well said, well said. So important. It reminds me of a tape series my dad gave me a long ago by the late Walter Martin. Because my actual neighbors growing up were Mormons, so my dad would give me stuff to read and listen to, and Walter Martin would do talks, and there'd be hordes of Mormon missionaries there listening. And he gave a talk on the different Jesuses, like Jim was just talking about. And he said at the end of one of these lectures, this Mormon woman was just furious, and she bounced up out of her chair and said, I want you to know I believe in Jesus Christ as my Savior. And Martin says to her, Ma'am, which Jesus? And she said, what do you mean, which Jesus? And he said, oh, there's lots of Jesuses running around the landscape. There's the Jesus of the Jehovah's Witnesses, who's the Archangel Michael. There's the Jesus of the Theosophists, who's an advanced medium. There's the Jesus of the Unitarians, who's just a really, really, really nice guy. And then there's the Jesus of the Mormons, one God among many gods, the offspring of Adam God and the Virgin Mary, the spirit brother of Lucifer, who became the devil. So, Brother Jim, you are doing people a real service when you make sure you tell them, this is the Jesus I'm preaching to you. It's not a fake or phony Jesus, because the Apostle Paul himself had to address fake Jesus's all the time. We can't remake the Savior in our own image. I wanted to read a quotation and get you guys' reaction to this. One of the books that was very instrumental in my becoming Reformed from long ago, Dr. Norman Geisler, who was just a vociferous opponent of Reformed theology, wrote a book, I think it was in 1998 or 1999, called Chosen but Free. And James White wrote a rather devastating response to it, and his response is called The Potter's Freedom, and it's a great book. But Geisler uses this illustration. I wanted to read the illustration and get you guys' response. Here's Geisler. Here's how Geisler portrays Reformed theology, really everything we just read in the Westminster Confession about Jesus and his work. Says Geisler, quote, suppose a farmer discovers three boys drowning in his pond where he had placed signs clearly forbidding swimming. Further noting their blatant disobedience, he says to himself, They have violated the warning and have broken the law, and they have brought these deserved consequences on themselves. Thus far he is manifesting his sense of justice. But if the farmer proceeds to say, I will make no attempt to rescue them, we would immediately perceive that something is lacking in his love. And suppose by some inexplicable whim, he should declare, even though the boys are drowning as a consequence of their disobedience, nonetheless, out of the goodness of my heart, I will save one of them and let the other two drown. In such a case, we would surely consider his love to be partial and imperfect." End quote. Now, there's a lot that could be said in response to that illustration, but I wanted to read you a quote that White gives here. Listen to this. Divine biblical love, on the other hand, entails that the farmer cast his own son into the pond, knowing full well that if his son makes an effort to save the boys, he will die. The son swims to the three boys, notwithstanding their vehement and hostile cries that he get out of the water and leave him alone. As he reaches the three, he extends his arms in love to but one of them. Though that one boy is vile and reprehensible in every respect, the son of the farmer brings him safely back to shore, but in doing so, he himself drowns. The two remaining boys laugh and mock that the farmer's son has drowned. Their glee is beyond control. The one boy for whom the son gave his life to save is suddenly brought to tears as he senses the magnitude of the love that has been shown him while he was yet hateful and full of blasphemy. The farmer lifts the boy up, dries him off, cleans the mud and filth from his body, and clothes him in the garments of his own dear son who just drowned. They embrace an everlasting love. The young boy falls to his knees in gratitude, tears flowing. The two boys who remain in the water continue hurling their taunts at the farmer, declaring that even if they could start anew, they would dive defiantly into the middle of the pond without a moment's hesitation." What do you guys think of that? Excellent. What do you think of Geisler's illustration? I mean, likening God to a farmer? who's probably been shown mercy himself at different points in his lives, and likening sin to three good old boys disobeying a no-swimming sign? You think that biases the illustration a little there? What might be a better illustration to capture the heinousness of sin? Maybe that they burned the king's house down, killed his whole family, and are constantly running around the land spreading fires and raping, pillaging, and, you know, that illustration is so bad. It just trivializes sin. But I thought that the response was pretty good. That is good. I think it's important to note that everyone is invited. There is a bona fide offer of the gospel that goes out to everyone. It's not God who's keeping them out. They are keeping themselves out. They reject him. They reject his invitation. They do mock. They hate God. And Jesus said, how many times I would have gathered you together, but you were not willing. You know, they don't want God. They don't want heaven. Go ahead, Henry. Well, Matthew 23, 27. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who were sent to it. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings? Yet you were not willing. Amen. Go ahead, brother. Well, you know, election's not keeping anybody out. They're keeping themselves out. And that's very important, I think, for everyone to see because it takes some of the hostility out of newborn Christians that are thinking, well, God must lack compassion or something. No, he's perfect compassion. That's right. Yeah, and we just want to close by making sure people recognize it is a true and bona fide offer to the whole world. Come to Jesus and His promises of you. He who believes in me has everlasting life. And a passage in Acts 13, when the apostles went out and preached, it simply says in Acts 13, 48, when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorified the Word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. And there you have an illustration of what Jesus says in that great passage in John 6, 37. All that the Father gives me will come to me. It's very important that people realize that faith in Jesus and repentance unto life also are blood-purchased gifts for the elect. Your faith does not originate in your heart, neither does repentance. God grants both. Saving faith and repentance are blood-purchased gifts of Christ for his elect people. And so He doesn't just merely purchase an opportunity and then leave it in the hands of men. God decrees the ends and the means to that end, which is our preaching, our prayers, our evangelistic efforts. God uses those to bring all those who are ordained to eternal life to saving faith. All that the Father gives me will believe in me. They will come to me, He says. Okay, well, I think that's probably a good place to stop, my dear brothers. Why don't I close us in prayer, and then we'll hit stop. Father, thank you so much for Jim and Henry, and thank you so much for revealing to us the Savior. Thank you for His effectual work, that He came into the world to accomplish a work, to accomplish a mission. And that is to save His people from their sins and help us recognize and see how that works together with the Great Commission and with our obligation to evangelize and to call men and women to repentance and faith, knowing that You will save those ordained to eternal life. May that empower our zeal and empower our confidence to evangelize without fear. Knowing that You're sovereign over all, that You bring these burdens to our hearts, and we pray, Lord, that You bring revival to the world and to our land, and that You would bring revival to Your church and create a new and fresh love of biblical grace, that it is unconditional election. That's the only way grace can be grace. Help us to see that and to see Jesus's mission as definite and particular to save His people from their sins and to give them grace, not fairness. We ask these things in Jesus's name. Amen.