Now, this afternoon we want to look at this subject, what is a reformed church? And I'm having to... draw a picture with broad brush strokes here because I don't have time to go through a whole historical understanding of the Reformed faith. And I don't have time to go through all of the alternative variations of those who are non-Reformed, like what is a Baptist church, what is a Congregational church. So I'm only focusing on what is the type of church that we are. We are a Presbyterian church, and we are a Reformed Church. Now, Reformed Churches comes from the Reformation, that's where the name comes, Reformed, Reformation. And the Reformation was a movement to reform the true Church from the errors and the false teachings of the Church of Rome. That's why it's called the Reformation, Reformed. reforming the Church to what it should be in the New Testament pattern. Now, Reformed Churches are a group within that Protestant Reformation group that came out from the Church of Rome. They are Lutheran Churches, you'll see them in Germany today, Norway, Sweden, countries like that have Lutheran Churches. They are not Reformed Churches. Now, they are Protestant Churches, They have an awful lot in common with us. They share all of the common critical doctrines that you need to be a true church, you have to be a true Christian. They believe in the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, the infallibility of the Bible, all of those things that we believe. But a reform, when you use this word reform, it refers to a section of Protestantism that emerged from the Reformation. And it emerged from the teachings of John Calvin. Now John Calvin didn't invent Reformed churches. Don't ever get that idea. He didn't come up with the notion of Reformed churches. All John Calvin did was, after the Protestant Reformation began, after he was converted, he began to study the Bible. And he began to compare the Bible with the Church of Rome. And as he studied the Bible, he could see no grounds for a Pope, no grounds for bishops controlling large swathes of churches under their absolute power. He could see no grounds for the Mass. He could see no grounds for these great cathedrals with the statues of Mary that they worship in Roman Catholic Church. And he decided to basically go back to the New Testament. formulate churches with creeds and confessions based around the teachings of the New Testament. Now, that's not very easy to do, by the way. You might think it is. You say, oh, well, come up with a church creed and a confession. That's quite straightforward. I could do that in about five minutes. No, the reason you could do it in five minutes is because you have all the information. But remember, John Calvin started with just a Bible. And he has to take time. and study carefully and as he studies he compares with what he learned growing up in the Roman Catholic Church and carefully weigh up all the various balance within scripture and the various teachings within scripture and then systematize all of that into a systematic theological treatise or text which he calls his Institutes of Christian Religion and from that great work which he spent all of his life writing, by the way. He published the first edition as a young pastor, theologian, and then every year or every two years he kept issuing another edition as he learned more, as he improved in his understanding of God's work. From that text called the Institutes of Christian Religion, The bulk of Protestant Europe, apart from those under the direct sway of Martin Luther, the bulk of Protestant Europe began to organise their churches, their church of government, their church of doctrines, around the teachings of this man John Calvin. Now John Calvin didn't set himself up to be this person, by the way. God just set him up, God used him to be this instrument. And all the churches, to paint with a broad brush, all the churches that historically follow the teachings of John Calvin call themselves reformed churches. Now, John Calvin wasn't the only one to write on this subject. He wrote the Institutes, but he was really the first one. From him, there emerged all of these denominations and churches in Holland, in France, in Switzerland, and then later in Scotland through John Knox, who was taught by John Calvin. Some of us went to the UK just last year and we saw the statue of Knox at St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh. John Knox went to study under John Calvin in Geneva. He was older than John Calvin, but he was his student. and then he went back to Scotland and he implemented all the teachings of church government and church organisation that John Calvin taught him and that became known as the Church of Scotland, the Reformed Church of Scotland. It's there today. It's not very Reformed today, but it's technically, historically, it's a Reformed church. Now, Reformed churches not only follow Calvin, But over time they formed themselves into synods or councils. So they gathered all the pastors and all the theologians in certain places. And three in particular, three outstanding contributions were made by three groups of people. Number one, well four actually I should say, the Scots Confession. John Knox and his pastors produced the Scots Confession, which was based on Calvin's teachings. Then there was the Heidelberg Catechism, you see it mentioned in the notes. It was composed by those in mainland Europe. The Synod of Dort was another group of reformed theologians. They produced the Five Points of Calvinism. And finally, the Westminster Confession of Fear. Now, the Synod of Zort, Scott's Confession, the Heidenberg Catechism, and the Westminster Confession, they're all almost very, very similar in the emphasis. There are minor differences between them. I won't go into that today because it's not worth it. I'm not allowed. But all of that body of creed or confessions Those were formulated by the greatest minds in the Reformed Churches. They took time. It took many years. They debated very carefully over the doctrines that they formulated. Now, in our church, we have the Westminster Confession of Faith in our Constitution, as part of our Constitution. That doesn't mean that we say that the Westminster Confession is equal to the Bible. We never get that impression. We call it the subordinate standard. Our Constitution is not equal to the Bible. Again, it is subordinate standard. The Bible is the ultimate authority in our Church. The Confession was written by men, drafted by men, based on what they understood of the Bible. We believe they are correct in their understanding. That's why we sign up for the Confession. But it is not the Bible. It's still a Confession. OK? It's still a Confession. We don't worship the Confession, we worship the God of the Bible. Now, what made up the Reform faith? What was the essential part of the Reform faith? The Synod of Dort came about because there was a dispute within Protestantism. There was a group of people led by a man called Jacob Arminius. who today call themselves Arminians. Jacob, or Jacob Arminius, was a Dutch writer, Dutch theologian, who didn't like the teachings of John Calvin. Now, he was a Protestant, he was a Christian, he was a good man, but he had an immature understanding of God's Word, in the nicest way I can put it. And he would take certain passages of God's Word and look at them in isolation and not look at the whole balance of scripture, and he would come to different conclusions from John Calvin. And his followers wrote five points of difference between Calvinism and what they believed. The Synod of Dort was set up to reply to those five points. And after debating, they formulated five points, called the five points of Calvinism, or the five doctrines of grace, that make up the Reformed faith. Now, there is more to the Reformed faith than these five points. I believe there's other things you could talk about, like Covenant theology, you could talk about how the form of worship that we have in Reformed churches, which is different. You could talk also about our adherence to the Reformation text and the King James Version. All of those are tied up in the Reformed faith. But, for simplicity, let's just stay with the five points of Calvinism, just for simplicity. The Synod of Dort Give us these five points. And it's commonly explained in the TULIP acronym. T-U-L-I-P. Now, if you don't remember anything from today, you can remember that. TULIP. T-U-L-I-P. T standing for Total Department. You standing for unconditional election. The idea that God chooses a person unconditionally. He doesn't look at you and say well this person is quite nice looking or this person they're quite academic or this person they come to church every week therefore I will choose them to be my child. Unconditional election by God. The third one, limited atonement. The fourth one, irresistible grace. And the fifth one, the perseverance and preservation of God's true elect or God's true saints. All of those make up the bulk of what's called the reformed faith, in a very simple way. Now why do we follow that system of belief? Well, number one, because we believe. That's what the Bible teaches. That's what the Bible teaches. Now, where does the Bible teach it? Well, let's look at the first one. Total depravity. If you go to page 2 of your notes, I wouldn't have time to go through all the references, so you can look them up in your own time. Total depravity, in fact, all the reformed field, the emphasis is on God's sovereignty. The emphasis is on diminishing man. The emphasis is on giving God the greatest glory. The emphasis is on giving man the least glory in salvation. The emphasis is on lifting Christ up, and His work, and His person, and lifting man down, and leaving man insignificant, leaving man as a sinner, as a deprived, as a lost, needing God's help. That's the whole purpose. It's not about an argument on philosophy. Please don't misunderstand it. This is not some theologians getting together and saying to themselves, well I'd like to speculate about free will and how that works with how man, God is sovereign and how man interacts with God's sovereignty. It's not about speculation, it's not about winning an argument, all of this. The theology that came out of John Calvin was about lifting God high, magnifying God, giving God the greatest glory. That's why we also believe in the Reformed faith. That's why we practice and preach and teach the Reformed faith. Now, if you go to Genesis chapter 1, you don't have to go to it now, I suggest to you that the Bible always emphasises God's sovereignty, God's power and God's glory. From day one, from the first second in this world. Because in Genesis chapter 1 we read, in the beginning, God. Starts with God. The Bible starts with God. And when you go through the book of Genesis, you'll discover in that first chapter especially, that everything that's achieved in Genesis chapter 1, everything that's created is all from God. All about God, God's thoughts, God's plans, God's power, God's interacting in the affairs of this world. And if you read Genesis chapter 1, you only come across man as a very insignificant reference in that chapter. Man is not planning, man is not acting, man is the passive recipient of God's glory, God's grace, God's creation. Man is a creature, not the creator. And this is why many people have opposed reformed theology, because they don't like the idea of putting man down. We as human beings like to be lifted up, don't we? Let's be honest, we do. We like to be important, we like to view ourselves as significant. But the Bible doesn't view man that way. The Bible always views God as significant. And you and I are only significant in this one instance. We're only significant because God makes us significant. That's the point. We're only important because we're being in God's image. That's the point. Not because of us, or what we achieve, or what we think we can achieve. And people don't like that. People resist that. And all the other religions of the world, I've said this before, they are doing religions. Man doing something to earn favour with God. Man going to church, man going to the mosque, man going to the temple, man doing his prayers, man doing his good works. All of them are trying to do something. To do what? To make themselves look good before God, before us. But Christianity is a religion based on done, E-O-N-E, God has done something. God achieves creation alone, sovereignly. God saves us sovereignly without our help. God provides salvation. God then draws us to himself and saves us. God will one day keep, God keeps us all the way to heaven and then when we get to the end of life, God brings us through the valley of the shadow of death and God brings us all the way to heaven. It's all about Him, His work, His keeping, His intervening, His power. Now, if you want to sum up Reformed theology, you can sum it up this way. It's all about God. All about God. Now, the first point People argue about the title of it. Many theologians don't like using the title Total Depravity. Now, the reason they don't like using the title Total Depravity is because the common person, when they hear that expression, they misunderstand it. They think it's saying that an individual person is as wicked as it's possible to be. Well, we know that's not true, don't we? We know that there are people who do very, very, very wicked things, like an adult Hitler. But not everybody is an adult Hitler. So there are degrees of sin that people commit in this world. So to use this expression, total depravity, most people misunderstand it. They think it's saying everybody is as wicked as they possibly could be. Well, that's not true. We're not all as wicked as we possibly could be. So what does it mean? Talking to parity means that every part of who we are, mind, body, soul, is corrupted by sin. Let me give you a little analogy. It's like a glass of water, and you take a little drop of poison in a syringe, just a little drop, and you drop the syringe into that glass of water. All that glass of water, all the water in that glass is corrupted by that one little drop of poison. Now the glass of water is not, you could put more poison in it and it would be more poisonous, wouldn't it? But every drop of it is corrupted to the degree of dilution by the one drop of poison. And really that's what the Book of Revelation says. It says that every part of us, because we inherit our sinful nature from Adam, every part of us, mind, body, soul, is corrupted by sin. Sin taints it. Sin influences it. Sin is like a cancer that spreads into every part of the human, who the human is. That's why we find in the kindergarten children know how to sin. They don't need to be instructed. It's part of their nature. It's corrupted on every part of their nature. From very young you start to see this manifesting. Now where does the Bible teach us? Romans 3 says there are none righteous, no, not one. Now you don't need a PhD to understand that freedom. Non-righteous, no, not one. There is none that understands it. That doesn't mean that there's nobody that doesn't understand physics. Nobody that doesn't understand math is talking about spiritual truth. Knowing who you really are before God, knowing that you're a sinner before God. Romans 3 says, there's no one in this world born a sinner who really understands how bad they really are. He understands their wickedness. He understands how holy God is. None that truly understands that. And he says this, there's none that seeketh after God. In other words, if God doesn't intervene in your life, or my life, or the life of someone else, we will all go to hell. Because we don't even know we are corrupted. We're like people who have been infected by a disease, and we don't even know it. We're running around oblivious. And then one day we just dropped dead from the disease. People said, did he not know? Did she not know that she had this disease? And I said, no, no, they didn't know. They thought they were working to try and help it. Maybe a little blemish, a little bit, a few symptoms here and there that they thought that they just needed to polish up, take a few aspirins. They didn't realise. And that's what a sinner is, is a person For he is the person who is infected by this cancer, this poison, that has corrupted every part of who they are. And the sad thing is, they don't even know. They don't even know. They're unable, can't even see, how sinful they really are. Every apple in the barrel is corrupted. Corrupted. And not only are we corrupted, we are un-evil, in-evil or un-evil to even work out how bad we really are. We can't even see ourselves the way God sees us. We have no desire to seek after spiritual things. You bring your unsaved friend to church, to a prayer meeting, give them a Bible, ask them to read. They may come for a Sunday or two Sundays, generally. But very quickly they say, I don't want to come anymore. I've stopped reading now by the law, it doesn't make any sense to me. Why? Because they're totally nephrean. They don't have the ability to understand spiritual things. They don't have the Spirit of God in them, teaching them. Echoing with the Word of God that they read, that this is God's Word. They don't have the Holy Spirit abiding in them. They're totally unable to see the truth of God's Word. Now, the second point of Calvinism, or the Reformed faith, logically follows the first point. Let me explain. If you and I, born into this world, are born blinded by sin, not righteous, don't even understand how wicked we are, have no interest in spiritual things, Now we may have an interest in religious things, that's different, but no interest in spiritual things, i.e. holy things of the Bible. If you and I are born that way, dead in our trespasses and sins, then it logically follows that God has to choose us because we will never choose him. Because left to our own devices, As the Bible teaches, there's none that seeketh after God. No one's interested in becoming a Christian. If God just said, OK, I'll lead you to your own devices, go and live your life any way you want, none of us would ever choose to go and follow after God, God's Word. So because of that, the only way you and I can ever become a Christian is if God chooses us first. Now that's very humbling. Because in the vocabulary that you and I have, and the vocabulary we use in our conversation, we put a lot of emphasis on us choosing God, don't we? We like to talk about the day I made my decision for Christ. We're even quite proud about it, aren't we? We talk to our CFP when they go out. I made my choice to follow Jesus. I did it by my wisdom, by my cleverness, by my spiritual hunger for God. No, you didn't. You didn't. Why people don't like reformed doctrine, even some professing Christians, is because it really humbles you. It really humbles you. Because you realize it's not about you. You'd be in hell right now, or on your way to hell right now, if God never chose you. That's humbling. That's humbling. And because we learn all of this, it makes us, there's only one conclusion with our lives. If God did all this for us, we must give our lives to Him. We owe Him big time. Very humbling. The Bible teaches this truth in many, many different places. That God solemnly chose us. Sometimes the Bible talks about predestinated us. That means the same thing. Chosen out before. Predetermined before. God predetermined that you and I were Christians. Before this world was ever created. Before Adam ever walked in the Garden of Eden. Before your parents ever walked in Singapore. God chose you. God chose you. It's amazing, isn't it? Now that's hard for us to grasp, because we live in time. We are constrained by time, but God is not constrained by time like us, because He made time. God's the God of eternity. God's seen everything right now, from the end, from the beginning. He knows, He understands, He controls everything. You say, my head gets painful when I think about that. Well, I understand that. You're not called to work it all out, because we can't work it all out. Because we are creatures who are finite creatures with finite ways of thinking. We can't think in those dimensions of a God who inhabits eternity. Let me give you a simple illustration of this, maybe it will help you. The physicists tell us that space, this space in this universe is expanding. That's what they see. from their experiments and from their telescopes that Spiess is expanding. The mathematical formulas describe that. So here's the question. If Spiess is expanding, theoretically, theoretically, could we come to the edge of Spiess? Yeah? Could we come? Theoretically, yes, we could. So what would be behind Spiess if we got there? Say we are, right now, at the border of China, it's that border. What's behind that? Well, we start to get a headache just thinking about that, don't we? Children, when they study at school, they come across the little formula, 22 over 7, pi. If I'm right, 22 over 7. All these Singaporean mathematicians have to help me. And it's 3.14 blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And you can buy a very, very expensive calculator and it maybe will take that formula pi to so many decimal points. And if you ask your teacher, when does it end? Your teacher will say, no, no, it just goes out to you. Nobody knows. Keeps on going. Again, we can't think like that because our heads start to get painful thinking like that. We are not made to think in those dimensions. God didn't make us that way. God doesn't ask that we understand what eternity is. He just expects us to accept it. Believe it and accept it for what it is. So when God says, I choose you to be my child, before the foundation of the world, we have to just accept it. Because God said, we don't have the mind to process how that's possible. Okay? We don't have that mind. Now what does the Bible say? Ephesians 1, verse 4-5 statements made there. You'll see it in 1 Peter 1 verse 2. You'll see it in Romans 8 verse 30 that we read earlier. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, then he also called. And whom he called, then he also justified. And whom he justified, then he also glorified. Who's the pronoun doing the justification? God. But go back a couple of steps in the chain, the golden chain of redemption here. Who is the person, who is the He that predestinates us? God, not us. Who is the One who calls us to salvation? God, not us. Whom He, Whom He, Whom He. It doesn't say we did something. It's all about He, He, He, He. He's the One doing the calling. He's the One predestinating us. He's the One choosing us. He's the One moving in time, justifying us, converting us. He's the One sanctifying us right now. And He is the One who will glorify us, bring us to heaven. at the end of life. All about God. He is the chief pronoun. In fact, He is the only pronoun in that verse. And Reformed theology teaches that God has to unconditionally elect us because we would never choose Him. And that lines up with what the Bible says all over the Scripture. Let me make this very simple for you. Why did you become a Christian? Ask yourself that. Many of you in this room have siblings who are not Christian. They grew up with you. They went to the same school as you. Or if not siblings, you have school friends. They were educated to the same degree as you were educated. They probably heard the same exposure to religion, the Christian religion, as many of you. But why did you become a Christian and they didn't? Why? Was it because you were more intelligent? Was it because you were a person who was more religious, more devout, more holy than they were? No. No. The only explanation that the Bible gives us is because God chose us. God chose us. Again, as I keep repeating, that's very humbling. Very humbling. That totally removes any glory for us in salvation. And man doesn't like that. Even the converted Christian doesn't like that. We like to think that we contribute a little bit. Maybe 1%, maybe 2%. Just give us some credit for salvation. God says no. Salvation is of that Lord from beginning to end. Now the third point, I don't have time to go through the second point in detail, please read the notes. The third point is maybe some would say the most contentious point. Limited atonement. Again, the expression limited atonement is not a very good expression. Most Reformed theologians prefer the term particular redemption because the common person, when they read this word or this expression, limited atonement, they think, ah, there's something limited in God's atonement. There's something weak about it. There's some failure in God's atonement. The word atonement means to cover. It's where the blood of Christ covers our sin. died to cover the sins of his people. Now we prefer the term particular redemption because in particular redemption that expression doesn't give rise to the misconception that there is something limited in the power of Christ's atonement. Whereas particular redemption emphasizes this thought that Jesus Christ came to die for a particular group of people. He didn't just die to make salvation possible. He didn't just die for nobody. He came to die for a particular group of people. Now again, this all logically follows from the first and second points, because if God solemnly chose his people before the foundation of the world, i.e. God placed them out in his mind, this group of people I'm going to see, they're going to call, they're going to be my people, then when Jesus Christ came to earth to die, he came to die for what? That group of people. That particular predestinated group of people. That's why we call it particular redemption. In Matthew chapter 1 verse 21 we come across the first great reference to it in the New Testament where Joseph was called told his name will be called Jesus which means Jehovah's Seals in the Hebrew. The name of Jesus means Jehovah's Seals. Thou shalt call his name Jesus. Why? For he shall save nobody He shall come to make salvation possible? No. He shall save His people from their sins. That particular group of people Christ came to redeem, to save. The predestinated group, the chosen out group, that you and I don't know, apart from that we're in it, we don't know who else is in it really. Christ came to die on the cross for those people. Now, there's nothing lacking in His atonement. His atonement could have saved every person in the world. There's enough power in the atoning death of Christ to cover the sins of the whole world. Nothing lacking in His power. It's sufficient for all. But it's only designed, Christ came only to die for a particular group of people. His last, his sheep. So Augustine coined the middle phrase to explain this. Christ's death, Christ's atonement, is sufficient for all. No limitation in power. But it is efficient In other words, its design and purpose is only for the particular group of people called the elect, the Christians, the true Christians. That's limited atonement, the third point of Calvinism, espoused by the Synod of Dortmund. The fourth point – again, these are all tied together, you can't take one and then Try to just sit and discuss it and think about it. You have to understand the whole system together. The fourth point is irresistible grace. God not only chooses us, Christ not only dies for us, God then has to call us to salvation. Now why does he have to call you and I for salvation? Let's go back to Romans 3. Romans 3. After Paul says there is none righteous, no not one. Verse 10 and verse 11 of Romans 3. He says there is none righteous. Verse 11 he says there is none that understands. There is none that, and notice the next verse. Seeketh after God. Underline that expression in your Bible. There's none that seeketh after God. Does it say some that seeketh? A little that seeketh? None that seeketh after God. Now, if there's no one seeking God, how can anyone ever be saved unless God seeks them first? True? True or not true? Has to be true. No one's seeking after God, then God must call us. God must go out like the good shepherd looking for the lost sheep from the ninety and nine. He must take the first step. He must initiate salvation because we don't do it naturally to ourselves. Now I know there will be people who come up to me afterwards and they'll say, but I have a friend, she's not a Christian, he's not a Christian. But they are seekers, they're seeking God. I know they're seeking God because they've been asking me many, many questions about Christianity. Now the answer to this is one of twofold. Number one, God may actually be calling them right now if they resist Christ. They may be on the verge of becoming Christians. That may be true. It's not that they're seeking God, but God is seeking them, calling them, drawing them to himself. That may be happening in that situation. Or, more likely, in this situation, the person is seeking after the by-products of salvation. What's the by-products of salvation? Peace. Joy. contentment, heaven, forgiveness of sins. They look at your life, they look at my life, or they look at other Christians' lives, and they see all these things that are present, and they say, I would like that. I'd like to have this assurance that I'm going to a place called heaven. I'd like to have certainty in my life. I'd like to have a religion to follow. I'd like to be able to go to church and sing those nice songs and be part of a family, a church family. They could be seeking that. But what they're definitely not seeking, they're definitely not seeking God without God first seeking them. Never misunderstand that. Never misunderstand that. And because no one is seeking God, God has to call each person individually to Himself. Now there are two calls in the Bible. There is what's called the general call of the Gospel. Whosoever believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. That message is sounded out as a general call. We preach it from this pulpit because it's in the Bible. But we can preach it a million times, we can get these megaphones up, we can blast it all around Singapore, we can write it and track every house in Singapore. That's just a general call, it won't save a single person. We can hire the best PR team in Singapore and get them to help us publicize this message, but it won't save a single person. Why? Because there is a general call, By nature, nobody is seeking after. No one must seek of God. Romans chapter 3 verse 11. So there has to be another call. God has to issue a specific effectual call. to the heart of the unsafe person. God has to open their heart, God has to change their heart, God has to draw that person to himself for that person to become a Christian. So there are two calls, the general call, but there has to be the effectual call And this call is termed irresistible grace. It means the call of God, the grace of God through this individual call to the heart of a man or a woman or a boy or a girl that overcomes their natural resistance. That's why it's called irresistible grace. Their flesh resists it. Their unseen nature resists it, hates it. But God's grace overcomes it. And that's how they become a Christian. That's why you read in the New Testament in the Book of Acts, there's a woman called Lydia, and you're told, whose heart will the Lord open? God had to open her heart, because she would never open it herself. And the only reason you and I are Christians here today, I hope you all are Christians, the only reason you and I are Christians today is because God called us individuals. God opened our hearts as individuals. It wasn't because we were clever and we heard a nice message and we were attracted by the nice message and we reasoned it through very logically and we said, you know, that might work for me, like buying insurance or buying a house. No, no, no, it's not like that. Christianity is not like that. God has to open the heart. Christ makes it clear. He says, listen to the words of Jesus Christ. He says, no man can come to me except my Father which has sent me to draw him. John's Gospel, chapter 6, verse 44. Now I don't need to go through the rest of the Bible, giving you verse after verse to prove this, but you'll find this repeated all over the Bible. Nobody can become a Christian unless God opens their hearts first and draws them to God. Now what's the fifth point of the doctrines of grace or commonly referred to as Calvinism? And it's tied into all the other four points. It logically follows from the other four points. If God is the one calling us, if God is the one choosing us, if God is the one irresistibly overcoming our hatred of the Gospel, then God must logically finish the work that he began. It's all of him. It's not of us. It's a moment from the beginning to the end. And this final point of Calvinism teaches very simply this. That if you are a true child of God, true child of God, notice the language I used, you will endure to the end, you will continue consistently walking with God. And one day, you'll walk out of this world, walk into heaven. That's the true perseverance of the Siamese. Now there are people who use a little catchphrase, which I don't like, the reformers never liked, John Calvin never used it. They use this little catchphrase, once Siam, always Siam. You heard people say that? Don't use that, because it can be very easily misunderstood. It's used normally by people who want to emphasise that they just feel they can do whatever they like as Christians. Once Siam, always Siam. Doesn't matter what I do. God owes me. No. The reformers formulated this way, much better language, the perseverance and preservation of the true elect. In other words, the only way you can know you're a true elect ultimately is if you persevere. So any person that comes along and makes some empty perfection and life is all over the place, they can have no assurance that they really are a child of God ultimately. The only true child of God that can be sure as a child of God is someone who is persevering in the faith. My life is evidencing that I'm a true child of God. That's the test. It's not about did I find it, give them, do I say I'm a Christian, did I write on my IC, I'm a Christian. That doesn't make me a Christian. That doesn't give me any great assurance that I'm a Christian. The only great assurance that you and I have is that we are persevering on. That we are a true child of God. The Bible tells us that you and I can know that we are Christians. That's why Job said, I know that my Redeemer lives. I know He's alive. And one day he said, I know I'll be with Him. That's why David says about his son who had died at seven days old or six days old or so, David says, I will go to him and he shall not return. I'll go to heaven to be with him. I'm sure it is. I know it. That's why the apostle Paul said that for me to live is Christ and to die is him. Because Paul knew from his life that there were fruits, evidence that followed his conversion that showed that he was persevering, that he was going on with God, that he was walking the walk, which proved that he was really a child of God. Now notice, it doesn't say perfection of material life. It's in perfection. Never, always be very careful with the language you use when you're talking about the doctrines of God's Word. There are some people who talk about Christian perfectionism. They're just talking nonsense. It doesn't exist on earth. It doesn't exist on earth. The only perfect man who ever was on this earth was Jesus Christ. One day we will be perfect. We want to be perfect. That's one of the tests that I am a child of God, that I want to be perfect, I want to be better than what I am. But preservation and perseverance of the true elect, the true sin, is not the same as saying perfection of the sin. So what is it saying? It's saying that our general habitual attitude walk of life is a life that demonstrates that we are Christians. The fact that we persevere, seek to walk better, seek to do things we should be doing, seek to live in a righteous way, those are all evidences that we are the true elect. That's all. That's all. And anyone who's truly saved will always truly persevere. And the fact that a person doesn't persevere is evidence that they were not the true elect. That's all. John puts it in his little epistle, they went out from us because they were not of us. They never were truly saved. Christ said in Matthew chapter 7, depart from me, I never knew you. Speaking to professing Christians here. Turned up on the Day of Judgment and they realized they were never in the true elect. Never true Christians. Apart from me, I never did. So don't ever take this fifth point of the doctrines of grace, of the reformed faith, and say, that just means I can live any old way I want. That means that I've got my fire insurance certificate to get me out of hell, I put that in my back pocket, and now I can just live any old way that I want. Any person that has that attitude, any person that would voice that statement, only reveals that they were never part of the true event. Because no Christian ever would talk like that. No Christian would ever have that desire. Because remember, when you become a Christian, the old nature passes away and all things become you. We think differently. We have different attitudes to sin now. We have different attitudes to God's house. We have a desire to worship God now. We didn't have it before. We have a desire to read God's word. We didn't have that before. Mark Luther, I put the quotation in the notes, was asked by a man on this point, he said, if it's true that a person is sealed, will always be sealed. If they're truly converted, they'll always be truly converted and always go to heaven. He said, then people will just live any way they want to. That's the Endures Martin. Now this man was a Roman Catholic. This is how the Roman Catholic Church teaches. If we were to guarantee you heaven, you would just live in sin. And Luther wisely said to him, indeed, what pleases you? In other words, what's your heart seeking after? Because that one will reveal if you're really a true Christian or not. Listen to the words of John's Gospel. I think this is one of the texts that people very rarely quote in Christianity. 1 John chapter 3 verse 3. It says, Every man that hath this hope in him. In other words, every man that has the hope, has the knowledge. The word hope there by the way means a confirmed knowledge. It doesn't mean like, oh well, I just hope I may make it to heaven. Don't misunderstand that word. Every man who has the assurance in him that he's a Christian, John tells us, purifies himself even as he is pure. Notice how John puts it. He says the man is pure because he's a Christian. If he's a true Christian, every man who has this true assurance of salvation, he has a pure nature. And because he has a pure nature, he naturally will purify himself. In other words, he naturally will live a holy life because he has a holy nature. He doesn't need to be taught really, it will be instinctive to him. In the same way, before he was a Christian, he instinctively ran to sin. Now, because he becomes a true Christian, has his nature changed, his nature runs away from sin, runs to God. Now, that doesn't mean he won't fall into the ability of sin, but that will not be the habitual desire of his life. Let me give you one simple thought on this and then I'll stop. The Puritans explained it this way. This is how they explained it. They said, a pig will fall into the muck and wallow in the muck. Have you ever seen a pig? Maybe you haven't. You don't see too many of them in Singapore. But when a pig gets into the mud, he wallows in it. He doesn't say, well, I'm stuck here, let me get out as fast as I can. No, a pig loves to be in the mud. That's his environment. He thrives in it. He revels in it. But a sheep may fall in the ditch into the mud, but he doesn't want to stay there. He wants to get out. And he said that's the difference between a true child of God and a false Christian, a fake Christian. A fake Christian is like a pig, an unclean animal. They love sin. They wallow in it. And when they fall into it, they find themselves in the opportunity to indulge in sin. They get involved with all of their might. But a sheep may occasionally, through sheep, fall into that same muddy ditch that the pig falls into. But you'll never find the backslider content in the muck. You'll not find the true child of God enjoying finding out satisfaction. They may find a little bit of temporal, fleshly satisfaction, but it won't last. They'll always hear the call of the master and they'll always want to try and get out. They'll always have regrets. They'll always have the conscience gnawing away at them. You've got to get out. There's a better way to live. There's a higher way to live. See the difference? They may fall into the same sin even, the same mud, but one will wallow in it and the other will have to get out at some point. I think the classic illustration of this is King David. David fell into the real mud with Bathsheba, didn't he? He committed adultery, he committed murder, he lied about it, he deceived and for nine months he lay in that ditch, that filthy ditch. But as soon as the voice of the shepherd came to him that day, through the prophet Nathan in 2 Samuel 12, David said this, I have sinned. I've sinned. And you know what? David never committed adultery again. Never went back to that mud pot and that mud pool that he fell in. He repented and he truly repented. That's the person of the ears of the true intellect of God. And all of those five points make up the reformed faith in its essence. You know the reformers had a little Latin expression that sums all of this up. J.S. Bach used to write it on all of his musical compositions. Sole Deo Gloria, to the glory of God alone. They were right. Salvation, Christianity, from beginning to end is God's work. And because it's all of God's work, God alone gets the glory in the church, in the home, and in our lives. Solo Deo Gloria. To God alone be the glory. That is the reformed faith that we believe and practice in this church and teach in this church. Let us pray. Our Father, would you thank Thee But thy word is a very humbling word for proud sinners. Our flesh even reacts against the thought that we have nothing to contribute in our salvation. Nothing to earn any merit with God. And even the old nature rises within all of us at times when we come to statements like that. Help us to continually be guided by thy word, that we were dead trespassers in sin. We have been found by God. We were lost because of our own sinful behavior. God has chosen us out, called us unto himself, saved us by grace through faith, that not of ourselves, it is a gift of God. And the same God who saved us has promised to keep us all the way to heaven. Lord, we believe in the perseverance of the true elect because we know that whoever God calls, God brings all the way home to heaven. We can't keep our own salvation. We would lose it in 24 hours if it was down to us. But we thank thee that salvation is God's work from beginning to end. Because we have that great assurance that it's His work, we can leave the whole end to Him to take care of. Thank Thee for the Reformed faith. Thank Thee that it is just a restatement of the truths of Thy Word. We believe it. We teach it. We stand upon it. And we give Thee all the praise and all the honor and all the glory. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.