It is good to be with you here this evening. We only have a limited amount of time and obviously that means that our discussion will have to be on the general themes of our topic but I I said a long time ago that it would have been much easier for my ministry if There were certain topics that I never touched There would be far more doors open to me far more places to go and Some of those topics would be, for example, dealing with the subject of Roman Catholicism, because everybody has an Aunt Sally who's a Roman Catholic, who's just the sweetest lady on the Earth, so you don't want to say anything about the current Pope, who is a hippie from South America, who actually doesn't really believe a lot of Roman Catholicism. But that's a whole other topic. And Islam. We've tried to actually do presentations on Islam in a lot of places, and they wouldn't allow us in if we didn't have special insurance. Because if we could talk about Islam, we want bomb insurance and stuff like that. And that doesn't make... I really found amongst a lot of Christians, it's sort of like, yeah, you go ahead and do that. We're not really all that interested in learning how to love our Muslim neighbors. Though you have Muslim neighbors here. You may not see a whole lot of them, but as I mentioned last time as I was driving in, Islamic Center in your town here, so that means you do have Muslim neighbors. But undoubtedly, to address what we're calling the doctrines of grace, how many of you would feel confident that you know what the first written debate of the Reformation was? Remembering that we remember four years ago when we were all wearing Luther 500 t-shirts and all the rest that stuff and yeah It was it was four years ago that we were celebrating or getting ready to celebrate October The 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation now, of course that date was arbitrary anyways but As it may we're all excited. I was in Germany right now and I had the incredible opportunity of preaching from Luther's pulpit in the Castle Church in Wittenberg a little over four years ago right now. And so 1517 is when we date it. That's really an arbitrary number. But the first written debate between a well-known, now outside of the Catholic fold person and someone within Roman Catholicism, was between Martin Luther and a man by the name of Desiderius Erasmus. Now Erasmus you may have heard of before because Erasmus was a great scholar in languages, textual history. He was the one to first produce and publish the Greek New Testament in a written form. Luther used his Greek New Testament in his studies that led him to an understanding of justification by faith. But Erasmus was a good Dutch humanist scholar. Humanist didn't mean back then the same thing it means today. But they debated what subject? Well, Luther's book was called On the Bondage of the Will. And so Luther debated Erasmus on whether man's will is autonomous. Autonomous means what? Well, altos, He, she, or it, but when it's used in a certain way, self. And namas is law, self-law. So, an autonomous person is a person who has a law unto themselves. An autonomous will is a free will that is not under, for example, the decree of God, fate, anything else. It is an absolute free will, autonomy. And so, Luther, plainly taught that man's will was in bondage to sin. That man did not have a free will in the sense of an autonomous will. There's a difference between an autonomous will and a free will. Now, philosophers have used terms in a lot of ambiguous ways. And so, sometimes free will is simply defined as man acting on the desires presented to his will by his nature. And so, if you have a fallen nature, your nature presents fallen desires, but there might be multiple fallen desires. I mean, you can think of a fallen person who has conflicting desires. On a real basic level, I happen to think that dark chocolate-covered almonds are wonderful. I think they are a clear demonstration that God loves us, that we have dark chocolate-covered almonds. And so, if I'm looking at those dark chocolate-covered almonds in my camper over there, I can have two conflicting desires presented by the same nature. And if I wasn't a Christian, the same fallen, unredeemed nature And that is, boy, they taste really good, and I want to have about 20 more of them. And then the other desire is, yeah, but you're eventually going to weigh 487 pounds. And so, both of those desires could come from the fallen nature, and they could be in competition with one another. The issue in the Reformation, and ever since then, and before then, all the way back into the days of Augustine, The issue was not, can man have multiple desires? Can man's fallen nature present multiple kinds of desires? But can man's fallen nature present the desire to do what is right in God's sight for the right reasons? The nature may say to us, you better do what God says or he's going to zap you, but that's not the right reason. Can Those who are according to the flesh do what is pleasing to God. Now it's not fair for me to put it that way because you know the answer to that if you've ever read the eighth chapter of Romans. But that's the issue. And Erasmus, being the good Roman Catholic, Roman Catholicism, while admitting to original sin and the fallenness of man, insists, and has to insist, that man's will has a measure of autonomy because the sacramental system is the means by which you receive grace and so you have to have that freedom of the will to work the sacramental system so as to receive forgiveness of sins and grace to overcome sin and things like that and so Luther in writing and if you read the bondage of the will well if you read anything by Luther just just be aware of the fact that he wrote in a different day than today. It has been said, and this is true, in the exchanges between one particular one of his enemies in England, a Roman Catholic archbishop in England, between he and Luther, who they wrote a number of works against each other, that it's very plain that both of them made an effort to use every Latin term that could possibly describe excrement of each other, including some that no one had ever really thought of before, but Luther and this other guy decided to do it anyways. So there's some rough language. And most of you know that Luther talked about the utilization of flatulence as a means of getting rid of the devil and attacking the Pope. and a few things like that. So if you're gonna go out tonight and start reading some Luther, just be prepared that he grew up as a German peasant, and it was not an overly, you know, cultured upbringing in that particular context. But in Luther's response to Erasmus, he said this. He said, I appreciate you, Erasmus, of all of my opponents, you alone have put your finger on the heart of the issue, the hinge upon which this all turns. And he was talking about the Reformation. He was talking about preaching of justification by faith. He was talking about the Gospel. And Luther said, you recognize the key issue here is whether man is a slave to sin or whether he's not. Today, the vast majority of those who call themselves, quote unquote, Protestants, if they even use the term, would stand with Erasmus against Luther. They would stand, they're on Rome's side. You're in an area where there's a tremendous number of folks from the Church of Christ. And the Church of Christ loves to go after Roman Catholicism and the papacy and all the rest of that stuff, but when it comes to the nature of man and his abilities, in the issues of the Reformation, they stand firmly with Rome. They don't know that, but they do. Now, this therefore creates quite a division when we start talking about how we present the Gospel, the means you present the Gospel, what you believe about the nature of the sinner, and how you can communicate to the sinner, and what is necessary for the sinner to hear the Gospel and to embrace the Gospel. That's extremely important. But what is missing in so much of the discussion today about how we define the gospel, the great danger that we face today is that we live in a deeply secular society. The next generation, it stuns me at just how much farther they've gone into a fully secular understanding of the world and of themselves. And because of that, there is a focus upon the self, self-fulfillment, self-autonomy. It doesn't really make any sense, because in secularism, there is no future for you. Once you die, all that is, is chemicals stop fizzing. Chemicals stop doing what chemicals do, and you return back to the dust. There is no judgment. There is no transcendent meaning. There is no value to what you did. True secularists, if they will be honest with their worldview, will admit that this is the case. And so, you've heard all the terminology that's been used. Stardust. You're nothing but stardust. You are fizzing chemicals. I like the Star Trek one that I prefer. Ugly bags of mostly water. That was an alien description of us, but it's an apt one when you think about it. Moist robots. That one's just creepy. That's just little moist robots. But that's all we are. So there can be no transcendent meaning. The discussion of the will is actually irrelevant. And yet, combined with that, once you reject the Western consensus that was built upon a Judeo-Christian worldview, once you reject all that, you have this nihilism, this emptiness, but then on the other hand, now you have this, well, then we need to be autonomous at least while we live, and so I get to determine my own reality, and if I want to be one of 147 genders today, I can be one of 147 genders today, and because it's all me, and all that matters is what I do right now, because I might die tomorrow, and then I won't matter at all to anyone ever. So I need to get the gusto now, see? And of course, that leads to utter chaos. You can't build a society that's gonna communicate beauty and value and worth to the next generation because all you care about is yourself. We live in a day where literally, and I'm gonna step on some toes here, but literally, there have been a lot of people in the younger generation today who've been convinced there's just as much value in raising a puppy as a child because they don't think of the continuation, of the culture, or of a nation, or of anything like that. It's just whatever is convenient for me, and it's a whole lot more convenient to have a puppy than a kid. Or two kids. Or, I go to Apologia Church, so on average, eight kids. Or something like that. So, this is the situation we face today. It's very focused upon us as individuals. And here's the great danger. Any discussion of what God has done in Christ, what the gospel is, what God's purpose is in preaching the gospel and having us preach the gospel, any discussion that starts with man will never ever be able to arrive at the heights of Christian truth about what God is doing. You start at the wrong place. If we start with the creature, and try to reason up from the creature will never come to true knowledge of God and will certainly never come to a true knowledge of the gospel. And yet that's what most people do. Most people set up a standard based upon what I observe, what standards I think God needs to be this kind of God and I remember so clearly meeting with a lady who came over to my office years and years and years ago. I was very young. And she was doing a master's degree at the Keno Institute. It's a Roman Catholic Institute. And she had to interview a fundamentalist. And so she decided to interview me. And I was talking to her about the gospel of grace. And I talked to her about God's sovereign election and things like that. And she said, well, wait a minute. Are you saying that God chooses to whom He gives His grace?" And I said, yes ma'am. I could never worship a God like that. And I said to her, I know, that's my point. Until God works within your heart by His sovereign grace, you never will. And she just never even heard of anything like that. If she knew her own history, if she had read Augustine, she would have known that this has been a topic of conversation for a long time. but she hadn't. But that rejection on the part of man of the idea of a sovereign God, we really have to start where scripture starts, and that is, we have to start with God's ultimate purposes, and then move from there to the application in time. If we start with man, we'll never be able to build up to the truth. And so when we talk about the doctrines of grace, you've probably heard them broken down into various categories before. And I have always insisted that what you must start with is the truth about God that crushes our creaturely autonomy. The fact is there are passages of scripture that if we will just set aside our traditions and if we will just listen, remind us that God is God and we are not God. When we read of God's utter freedom, When we read, when even a pagan like Nebuchadnezzar, after his reason returns to him, after his pride has been crushed, read Daniel chapter 4. The pagan king comes to recognize there is only one true God and he does whatever he pleases in heaven and earth and no one can ward off his hand or say to him, why have you done what you've done? And yet, isn't that what mankind does every single day? Why have you done what you've done? Why are you doing this? We are so arrogant. Because what does the Bible say about us? How do we describe in Scripture? We are a vapor that just disappears. A flower that blooms in the morning is dead by night. In comparison to God's eternal existence, our entire lifetime is a blink of the eye. And so, how can we, even if we are the most intelligent people in the world, how could we take in sufficient information to even begin to understand what God is doing, let alone to judge Him? And yet, how many are willing to judge Him immediately, based upon a single event in their life? We know from Scripture, you think of someone like Joseph. Man, if anybody had the reason to question God's goodness, Joseph did. Think of all the things that happened to him that he could just go, this is not fair. God is not being loving. My brothers have gotten away from this. Potiphar's wife got away with this. I'm rotten here in this jail. God obviously is not good. Joseph didn't do that. I'm sure he was tempted to do that. But he recognized, by the grace of God, he recognized by the grace of God, that in that final analysis, when he finally faced his brothers, and they were afraid now. Dad's gone. We're toast. We're going to be killed. Joseph's finally going to take his revenge on us. and Joseph weeps and he says to them, am I God? The answer obviously is no. And he showed such wisdom when he said, he didn't excuse their sin. They had sold him into slavery and deceived their father that he was dead. They were hard-hearted men. He didn't excuse any of that. but he said you intended this for evil but God intended this for good and to save many people alive to this day the evil that they committed God intended to take place now their intentions were bad God's intentions were good their intentions to bring about death his intentions to bring about life which is what he did but in the moment Simply looking at the act, it would be easy to judge God. But none of us live long enough, and none of us have access to sufficient information to ever stand in judgment of God. And that's why God can say, I do whatever I please in heaven and the earth. I accomplish all my holy will. And yet there are many who will say, no. No, he does not. I have debated many a person who has just directly stated, No, God does not accomplish all His will. There's much He wants to do that He cannot do because He has limited Himself. And yet, we then have to ask the question, how can there be prophecy of future events? How is it that when the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, He could walk with His disciples and He could open their minds to understand the Scriptures and show them that from Moses onward, they all prophesied of Him If there is no divine decree of God, if man is autonomous and can do this thing or that thing and either God doesn't know, open theism, or God learned when He created, how could there be prophecy? Cyrus is prophesied by name in the prophet Isaiah, right? Long before he ever comes along, which is why a lot of naturalistic scholars say that couldn't have been written by Isaiah because you can't know the future. which is the whole idea of what prophecy is. But what if Cyrus had this autonomous will, and the morning when he was supposed to release the Jews to go back to Israel, he gets out of the royal bed, and he steps on a toy, and it cuts his foot, and he's angry, and he picks up the toy and realizes the toy was made by one of those Jewish toy makers. And so now he's angry, and instead of freeing the Jews, he has all the Jews killed. Well, all those prophecies, Isaiah now becomes a false prophet, right? So could that have happened? That's the problem. No, it could not have happened. God has a sovereign decree that He is accomplishing. It does not make us, or Cyrus, puppets, as people like to say. If there's a sovereign decree, then nothing matters! I say if there isn't a sovereign decree, nothing matters. Because you see, if God is not accomplishing, if He is not the God of Ephesians 1, working all things after the counsel of His will, then there is a tremendous amount of meaningless evil that takes place in this world. And God either knew when He created that it was going to happen, but had no reason for it, or didn't know when He created that it was going to happen, and therefore is liable for it, for simply being ignorant and creating such a mess. And for some reason, people think that's better than the fact that God decreed all this and has a purpose in all this, and we have to trust Him that someday that purpose will be demonstrated to His honor and His glory. Those are the issues. Those are the options. Now, I love to allow the Scriptures to present these things. And so I'd like you to turn the Scriptures to the text that I opened up I think about 18 years ago, down in Florida, at a certain church. I don't know whether you would have been there. Probably. Do you remember that sermon? No. You remember me? You do remember me preaching there. Okay. All right. Well, that's actually better than most people would do, to be honest with you. I happen to remember that sermon because I remember that I had a limited amount of time And so I had to be very focused and very disciplined to get everything in in the amount of time that I had. But I just want to run through with you one of my favorite texts on this subject and tie a bunch of these things together so that we can sort of come to a conclusion and say, this is what sets the doctrines of grace apart from everything that isn't the doctrines of grace. And this is why you shouldn't be afraid of these things. And this is why you shouldn't strawman these things and just except what traditions say, or people who try to fear-monger things. John Chapter 6. John Chapter 6. Gospel of John, at least it's in the red letters. There are some people I've met that said, hey, if it's not in red letters, don't show it to me. They are hyper-red letterists. There were, of course, no red letters in the original manuscripts, and it is a very deficient view of Scripture to think that red letters are more inspired than black ones. because the Lord inspired all of them. They are all Theanoustas. But what I love about John chapter 6 is the story as it develops. It's the feeding of the 5,000. And there's all these excited men and women and children, and they've been fed miraculously. And then Jesus sends them away. Jesus sends them away. And I'm sure the disciples who were probably feeling pretty good about themselves. They're distributing the miraculous bread and things like that, you know. Yes, I'm one of Jesus' disciples. Thank you very much. Just remember my name, you know. And they're probably, people are looking up at them and they're enjoying themselves. And then Jesus goes and ruins all of it and sends everybody home. And then he goes up in the mountain to pray. And they get in a boat and they go off to Capernaum. Now, I've gotten to go to Israel once. I'm so glad I got to go that one time. And the thing that I took away, I took a lot of things away, but the thing that just struck me about Galilee was that if you stand anywhere on the shore of the Lake of Gennesaret, the Sea of Galilee, you can see the other shore anywhere. I always thought, well, it's a sea, so it's huge. It goes over the horizon. No. I've stood at Capernaum, where the disciples would have landed in John chapter 6. And you can see the far shore. And that's lengthwise. That's the longest part of the lake. You can see the far shore. It's a long ways off, but you can still see it. I was just stunned at how small Israel is. You can drive the vast majority of it in just a very short period of time. certainly in less than a day. You can drive from top to bottom quite easily. So, Jesus sends the disciples off, and you have the walking on the water incident, and all the rest of that stuff takes place, and they get to Capernaum. And then you have the disciples who are still left on the other side of the lake, which is over that direction, if you're standing there in Capernaum. And when they realize Jesus is gone, they get in boats and they come over to Capernaum. And they're the ones that come up to Jesus, seeking Jesus. Now, when you find folks that are willing to row across the lake seeking Jesus, we pretty much think these folks are ready for an office in the church. You know, we'll make them Sunday school teachers or something almost immediately. But Jesus doesn't. Jesus begins to speak to them. Notice in verse 26 that they're seeking a sign. They saw what happened with the feeding of the 5,000, now they're seeking a sign. And Jesus begins to focus them in upon who He is. And so, He talks about the manna in the wilderness and He starts introducing Himself as the bread of God which came down out of heaven to give life to the world. And they say to him, Lord, always give to us this bread, verse 34. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. The one coming to me will never hunger, and the one believing in me will never thirst. Now just in passing, especially if you're dealing with Roman Catholics, please realize the first time that anything related to hungering, thirsting, eating, drinking, is all in regards to believing. to faith, not to aristotelian categories of transubstantiation. But then notice what Jesus says in verse 36. But I said to you that you have seen me and you are not believing. You don't believe. You've seen me but you don't believe because you don't know who I am. You don't believe me for who I am. He identifies even the men who rode across a lake to find Him as unbelievers. And to them, in explaining their unbelief, He says, All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one coming to Me I will never cast out. Now think about those words. All that the Father gives me will come to me." Who is bringing about the actions in this sentence? Well, people are coming, so people are doing something. But their coming is the result of what? Having been given by the Father to the Son. So what must be true about God in a situation like this? God the Father must have sovereignty that results in real actions amongst men. All that the Father gives me will come to me. Not come to someone else, come to me. Jesus is exclusively the center of these things. So you have the Father and the Son, and you have a certain people who are given to the Son by the Father, and as a result of being given, they come to Christ. Is that not the issue? Is that not the issue? The issue, when you start putting all the other stuff aside, the issue is this. If you've come to Christ, Why did you come and someone else does not? If you and your neighbor went to the same school, you have similar jobs, you have similar IQs, you've grown up in the same place, you both hear the gospel, you come to Christ and the other person does not, is it because you are better than the other person? Are you more spiritually sensitive? spiritually intelligent? Did you have a better preacher? Why is it that you came and they did not? And if you keep it on a human plane and you only look for the answers within the human categories, you're gonna have to say there was something about you that gave you a benefit the other person didn't have. But that's not how Jesus answers these questions. In talking about these men's unbelief, he says, all that the Father gives me will come to me. They're not coming to him. They're going to walk away by the end of the chapter. They're going to turn and walk away. By the end of this chapter, Jesus starts with 5,000 excited people, and by the end of the chapter, he has 12 confused disciples, and one of them is a devil. From a human perspective, you might go, I'm not sure that Jesus was overly successful here. He wouldn't pass most of our church growth classes today, that's for sure. All that the Father gives me will come to me. And the one coming to me, I will never cast out. Now we like the last part of that verse. We like the idea that If I come to Jesus, I will never be cast out. Most of us go, I like that theology. Even though there's some theologies that even say then, well, Christ never cast you out, but you can jump out of his hand and lose your salvation or something like that. But we like that one, but that's the second half of the sentence. Why is it the one coming to me will never be cast out? Because the Father has given them to the Son. This is a divine transaction. This is between two divine individuals. The Father is giving a particular people to the Son, and as a result of being given, they come. And when they come, they will never be cast out. They will never be cast out. Well, why would that be? Because, Jesus says, I have come down out of heaven, not in order to do My will, but the will of the One who sent Me. So I will never cast it out, which means He has the authority to do so, if He chose to do so. But I will never do it, because I came down from heaven to do His will. Well, what's His will? That's what verse 39 says. And this is the will of the One who sent me, in order that of all which He has given to me, I lose none of it, singular, it's looking at the whole group, I lose none of it, But I will raise it up in the last day." Now follow the use of raise up in the last day. That is one of the ways Jesus refers to giving eternal life, to bringing someone into the presence of God, to bring them into heaven, to completing the work of salvation, etc. etc. But here we are told that the will of the Father, the will of the One who sent Him, here's another indication of the distinction between father and son obviously is that Jesus be a perfect Savior. Isn't that what he says? This is the Father's will. That of all that He's given me, I lose none of it. If you lose none of it, then what are you claiming to have the ability to be? Perfect Savior. You don't. Your salvation rate is 100%. That means you're a perfect Savior. You lose nobody. Not a one. How many Christians, I wonder, really believe that Jesus is able to save a specific people given to Him by the Father 100%? Because you see, if salvation is this synergistic cooperation between the autonomous will of man and God trying to save Does God get 100% there? Is God trying to save... Now, here's the question. Is God trying to save every person equally? We want to say, well, yes, of course! But just look at the Bible. Was God trying to save Pharaoh's army the same way He was trying to save Israel? Did God send prophets to the Amorite high priests before sending Israel in to wipe them out, man, woman, and child? No. Well, but that's not fair. And as soon as you say that, you demonstrate that you don't understand not only the wages of sin for all people, but you also don't understand the categories of justice, mercy, and grace. Fair is a category of justice. You don't want justice. You don't want justice. You want mercy. That's a different category. Grace, if it is to be grace, must be free. If it can be demanded, if it has to be given equally to every single person, it's no longer grace. And so what man really chases at is the universal righteousness of God in judging sin. That's what we don't like. And if you give somebody a chance, if you save that guy, if you take out his heart of stone and give him a heart of flesh, then you've got to do that to everybody. That's the only way to be fair, you see. But Jesus says that the will of the Father for Him is that He save a specific people and lose none of them, but raise them up on the last day. And some will say, well, yes, but you need to understand, the people that the Father gives to the Son are the people that the Father foresaw would believe in Him. See, that's how it works. That's how we get rid of all this troubling stuff. But remember what we saw in verse 37? All that the Father gives me will come to me. Not, the Father will give to me all that He sees coming to me. There's a vast difference between those two. There's a vast difference. Our coming is the result of the Father's giving. That's grammatically necessary in the language, by the way. It's not just my interpretation, that's what the language says. Synergism, this idea that we have to cooperate together and make this work, Synergism reverses that. It's not the only place where this happened. I'm going to come back to John chapter 6, but if you go over to John 8, it's really interesting how people read this. In 8.43, why is it you don't understand what I'm saying to you? Because you are not able to hear my word. you are not able to hear my word. And then down verse 47, the one who is of God hears the words of God. Because of this you are not able to hear because you are not of God. How would most people actually rephrase those? When people hear those words from Jesus, how do they re-translate them within their own traditions? Well, why don't you understand the things I'm saying to you? Because you don't choose to do so. Your will is not involved. It says, because you're not able to hear My Word. Who's able to hear His Word? Well, those who are of God, those who belong to God. That is, that God has chosen. They hear the words of God. For this reason, you're not hearing because you're not of God. Why don't you hear the words of God? Because you don't choose to. That's not what Jesus said. You hear the words of God because you are of God, and that's something that God did. And so, Jesus in verse 39 of chapter 6, perfect Savior, for this is the will of my Father, in order that everyone looking upon the Son and believing in Him might have eternal life, and I will raise Him up in the last day. Now what has happened I know Norman Geisler did this, and people do this all the time. Instead of following the flow through, people jump down to verse 40 and try to read it backwards into the preceding verses. That doesn't work. The will of the Father for the Son is that He saves all those that He's given to Him. That will is then also played out in the fact that for everyone looking upon the Son and believing in Him. Well, who has the ability to do that? Well, Jesus is about to explain. Everyone looking to the son and believing in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day Where did he also talk about raising him up on the last day? back in verse 37 the one coming mail never cast out and Then doing the will the one who sent me raising him up in the last day verse 39 And so here's a description those that are given by the father to the son. What do they do? They are looking upon the son and believing him those are both present tense participles and Have you ever wondered, because sadly, the longer you are in the church, the longer the list of people whose faces and names you can remember who are no longer amongst us. Not because they've passed on the glory, but because they've gone out into the world. I'm thinking of one man, the church I was in for decades, had a leadership position, and then just one day, trade it all in? Just stop believing. You're still believing. Are you better than Him? Are you better than Him? Why does anyone persevere in the faith? Why is it that I keep looking to the Son and believing in Him Because the Father, in his mercy and grace, gave me to the Son, and the Son will raise me to eternal life. And so by the Spirit, my faith is maintained, is sustained. It's not because I'm better than anyone else. It's not because I'm better than anyone else. I persevere in the faith as a result of the work of the grace of God alone. Alone. Well, the Jews don't like this message, verse 40. So Jesus says in verse 43, Jesus answers, that do not grumble amongst yourselves. No one is able to come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. Do we believe it? No one has the ability to come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day." Now of course, what's the immediate jump out mechanism here? Well, you leave John 6, you jump over to John chapter 12, which is a completely different context. John 6 is Jesus talking to people, explaining unbelief and what salvation is. John 12 is the end of Jesus' ministry, and there John is talking about what's going to happen when Jesus is crucified. They're not even close to the same context. But people will jump over to John 12, 32. If I lifted up, I'll draw all men unto myself. And see, there you go. All men are drawn. So, that's how you explain John 6, 44. There's a real problem there. In John chapter 12, Jesus is been approached by Greeks, Gentiles. And Jesus does not meet with them. He doesn't meet with them. He doesn't answer their questions. He doesn't have a confab with them. The time is not yet for that Gentile ministry to take place. And so when it says, if I've lifted up, I'll draw all men, he's talking about Jews and Gentiles. All kinds of men to myself. And the lifting up is lifting up on the cross. And if you actually think that the cross is attractive to men, you haven't read what the New Testament says. It's repulsive to the natural man. So Jesus says, No one is able to come to me unless one thing happens. The Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. What you need to understand is that man's systems of religion have to break that sentence up into this form. Unless the Father who sent me draws him, And I will raise up anyone who freely believes in me at the last day." You have to break up the hymns. The hymn that's drawn by the Father, the hymn that's raised up by Jesus, you have to make those two different groups. Because if you don't, then you have God's electing grace determining who's drawn and who's raised up on the last day. That's election. That's divine election unto salvation, not just simply election of nations and all the things that people try to get around this. He wasn't talking to nations in John six. He was talking to Jewish men who had rode across a lake to hear what he had to say. And when they walk away, he does not stop them. Everyone who is drawn by the Father is raised up by the Son unto eternal life. It has been written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught of God. Everyone hearing from the Father and learning is coming to me." There's the description of what it means to be drawn. You're hearing from the Father and you're learning. That's the description. Why is it that you hear the message? Why is it the message of the empty tomb? In your life, results in a change in your understanding. Because you're better? Because you're smarter? No. Because the Spirit of God has made these things to come alive in your heart. Jesus goes on from here, and you know that he focuses upon himself. He is the bread of life. You have to eat his flesh and drink his blood. It has nothing to do with Eucharistic sacrifices or anything else that has to do with the centrality of Jesus and intimate relationship with him and what's interesting is at The end of the chapter when he says the spirit gives life the flesh profits nothing the words I have spoken to you They are spirit and they are life But he says there are certain of you that do not believe and He knew who that was and he was referring especially to Judas at that point And so, verse 65, and he was saying, this is a form of the verb where it's repetitive action. He kept saying over and over again, for this reason I said to you that no one is able to come to me unless it has been granted to him by the Father. Jesus repeated to them. the necessity of the sovereign work of God in being able to come to Him who is the bread of life. And notice, because of this, verse 66, so His repeating the sovereignty of God in His message, because of this, many of His disciples went back from following Him and were no longer walking with Him. Do you think Jesus just didn't go to seminary, and so he didn't get the classes where you find out what you're supposed to say, what you're not supposed to say, and who you're not supposed to say it to, and all the rest? You think that's really what's going on here? No. The greatest preacher in the world knew that these excited followers were not believers. They were following for the wrong reasons. And so he gets real with them, and preaches the truth to them, and they walk away. They walk away. In fact, Jesus even has to say to the twelve, do you also wish to go away? And Simon Peter answered, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. You have the words of eternal life. One of Jesus' apostles gave us overarching explanation why it is any of us are in the faith. I'm going to have to be very brief, but I want to just quickly walk through this with you. Ephesians chapter 1, verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. So who is Who is being praised? God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's God the Father who blessed us. Now some people want to try to create all sorts of distinctions. Somebody came up to me just yesterday and said that, have you ever heard somebody say that us here is the Jews and then down verse 14 becomes the Gentiles? That's all this is talking about. Except he's writing to the church at Ephesus. The church at Ephesus was not a Jewish church. wouldn't make any sense. And he's actually going to bring them all together by verse 14. So the us is a plural. It's not individualistic. It's us, those who are in Christ are all included in this. But the blessing is upon us, and it's always in Christ. In fact, it'd be interesting if you wanted to mark the number of places in Ephesians 1 where it's in Christ, in him, or in the beloved. It's 10 times in 13 verses. What God has done in the expression of His eternal grace is in Christ. It is an exclusive message. That's what's offensive to many, many people. The one who blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heaven and places in Christ, just as He did what? Chose Christ? There's a lot of people who would like you to think that that's what this is saying. They promote the idea of class election. That the chosen one is Christ, and that when you believe, you get joined to Christ, and therefore that's how you have salvation, but the election is not of a specific people, but only of Christ Himself. Here's the problem with that. The direct object of the choosing is us. The range and realm of the choosing is in Christ, because that saving grace is only in Him, because who are we joined to? We are in Christ. We are joined to Him, so that His death becomes our death, His resurrection becomes our resurrection. It is intimate and personal. In fact, I would point out to you, if you have the idea that the elect is just some open group and it's all up to us, that impersonalizes the entirety of what God did in Christ Jesus. We all know the hymn where it talks about when Christ is dying, my name was on his mind, my name was engraven upon his hands. That's a view of salvation that's extremely personal. We love that. It is biblical. But that would require that the elect be a specific people And that Christ dies specifically in their place. Which is what the Bible actually teaches. But not what a lot of people actually believe. So He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. And some people say, ah, but don't forget the last part of the verse. In order that we might be holy and blameless before Him. Yes. Election is not unto some nebulous thing. It is unto the specific reality that God is going to conform us to the image of Christ. That we are going to be made a holy people. No question about it. There is absolute purpose in God's intention because that's how the triune God will be glorified. You bet. But, that does not change the fact that the direct object of the verb choose is us, not Christ. And the timing of this election is before the foundation of the world when you and I did not exist. But if we were chosen, then our existence was known to God. But you do realize, I hope, that you are the result of hundreds of millions of free choices by all of your ancestors. Your great-great-great-grandfather might not have married your great-great-great-grandmother, and if he hadn't, you wouldn't be you. And if that's all just a jumble of random events, and God just does the best He can trying to sort of run around and put stuff together, that's not the presentation of Scripture. It's what a lot of people believe, but it's not the presentation of Scripture. Now, we don't know where to put the phrase, in love. because you could put it at the end of verse four. We might be holy and blameless before Him in love, or you could have, in love He predestined us unto adoption through Jesus Christ unto Himself, according to the kind intention of His will. I like that better. But what is the verb, predestined? What's the direct object? Us. He predestined us Unto adoption through Jesus Christ unto himself That is a specific people who will be joined to Christ and therefore be adopted as sons and daughters of God in and through the work of Jesus Christ and This predestination is according to the kind intention of his will not our will his will and It's a kind intention not an evil intention If you want to know why one is chosen and one is not, according to the Apostle, it is because of the kind intention of His will to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has graced us, granted to us, gifted to us with His term grace, graced us in the Beloved One, that is in Jesus. This is as close as you're going to get anywhere in scripture to the ultimate answer to the ultimate questions of why? Why? And the why is to be answered to the satisfaction of the redeemed heart anyways. In the phrase, the kind intention of His will, and so many... it's shocking to me how many Christians are willing to trust the fallen perverted will of man more than the kind intention of God's will. It's amazing. Yeah, but I can see what man's gonna do. I can't see what God's gonna do. But you're called to trust that His will is good. How many really do? And all of it to the praise of His glorious grace. And there's the problem, because it's not to the praise of anything having to do with us. We don't get any credit. We don't get any role. We are redeemed. We are blessed. It's wonderful, but we do not get any of the glory. It is all to the praise of His glorious grace, which He graced upon us, but only in one way. In the Beloved One. In the Son of His love. because it's in Him, that is in Christ, verse 7, that we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He caused to abound unto us in all wisdom and understanding. having made known to us the mystery of His will, again according to His kind intention, which He determined, He before determined to accomplish in Him." And then He gives us the big picture. This whole creation, all of this creation, is meant to be summed up All of it in Christ. The things in the heavens, the things upon the earth. They're all to be summed up in Him. This is God's decree. This is not a God who got things going and then went, oh man, that didn't go the way I wanted. Let's try this plan. Well, that didn't go real well. Let's try this one. There are theologies like that out there. And Paul would have gone, why? What are you talking about? This has been God's intention from the beginning. He's wrapping all things up in Christ, the things in heaven, the things in the earth. They're all going to be in Him, and He's going to bring them all to fulfillment in Him. And it's in Him that we have been called, having been predestined according to His purpose of the One who works all things according to the counsel, the decision of His will. so that we, who are the first to believe in Christ, might be to His praise and to His honor. And then, finally, after all of this, you get... Now let's bring it down to the Ephesians and their experience, in whom also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation... So now we're leaving the eternal realms And so, how do those decisions that were made in eternity come to fruition in time? And in their experience, they heard the Word of Truth, the Gospel of their salvation, and they believed, and they were sealed with the Spirit of Promise, the Holy Spirit of Promise, who is the Arabon, the down payment of our inheritance. And so these individuals had received the Holy Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit of God had made these things to come alive in their understanding, in their hearts. They've been sealed for their redemption. All of the praise of His glorious grace. So now these believers in Ephesus have heard about the grand sweep of what God is doing And now Paul has brought it down to, and now here is how eternity has resulted in your salvation, the founding of your church there in Ephesus, and your participation in Christ. And that's going to allow the letter to get down to being so practical as to saying, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is good. Husbands, love your wives. All of that eternal stuff results in what we're to be doing here in time. We don't get to determine any of that stuff. We had nothing to do with any of that stuff. We can't change any of that stuff. But that's the foundation upon which the Apostle then says to us, and here's what God is doing in our lives, and it's all to His honor and glory and praise. So the point is, it's all about God. It's all about God. It's all about His glory. And until someone has a sufficiently high understanding of the fact that God really is God, and He is not just a big man, He's not just a really powerful man. He is completely other. When the angels surrounding the throne say, Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, Holy, Holy, Holy, we always think about pure, clean, Those are part of the meaning. But part of holiness is other. Unlike anything else. Separate. And I really think there comes a time in every believer's life where through the study of the Word, prayer, contemplation, you come to that point where that rebellious, sinful heart has got to be crushed. It's got to be crushed. You've got to bow in wordless adoration of this God, and not have any substitutes, and not want any substitutes, or anything that's lesser than the one true God, and to adore Him for all He has done. not because you can understand all because you can't but because you see that he has made you and he sustains you and as your creator he is worthy of your worship and your trust and your trust when we talk about the doctrines of grace we're talking about something where we we get to sit around on facebook and have arguments with the church of christ guys could look if you can argue the church of christ guys you end up in acts two thirty eight for the rest of life i guess it at the church christ guys can have debates on act two thirty for three nights in a row how do you do that if you can explain what the context back to thirty eight is in twenty minutes get out of the ministry what do you do it i've just never done a lot of those of the people that want to have a unlike dot dot dot I've only got maybe 30 years of life left. I'm not wasting it that way. But I know we have the debates and we have the discussions and we have the going back. I get it. There's a place for it. But like I said at the beginning, there are certain things that would have made my ministry a whole lot bigger. and not believing this would have been one of those things. So why do I believe it? Because when I use the exact same form of hermeneutics and interpretation that I use to defend the deity of Christ, the Trinity, the resurrection, historicity of the scriptures, when I use that same form of hermeneutics On these texts, they teach that God is the one who draws a particular people unto Christ. He joins those people to Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. He provides perfect salvation for them to His honor and His glory. And those who receive His wrath do so in perfect justice. There has never, ever, and this is a common straw, man, but needs to be refuted, He has never ever turned away a person who has turned in repentance and faith unto Jesus Christ. Every single person who has ever done so has found Christ to be a perfect Savior. But what you must understand is that every person who has ever turned in repentance and faith to Jesus Christ, seeking salvation from Him, did so because the Father gave Him to the Son and the spirit brought that personal otherwise you're in spiritual death you're not able to do what is pleasing to god you'll never turn repentance and faith to christ but i can't see who that is i can't look out you know you you might have some some primitive baptist running around who will say that Well, what you're supposed to do is, if I'm witnessing to Brother Greenshirt here... That is green, isn't it? These lights, I can't tell what color is what. Is that supposed to be green? I think... That says greenish. Okay. If I'm witnessing to Brother Greenish here... We'll call you Brother Greenish. How's that? So, I'm witnessing to Brother Greenish here. I'm supposed to get to know him, and I'm supposed to ask him questions, and I'm supposed to be a fruit inspector, and I'm supposed to be looking for evidences of regeneration in him. And if I find, I guess I get to choose, I get to determine if I find enough evidences of regeneration in Him, then I can present the Gospel to Him. You never find the Apostles doing that. They presented the Gospel to everyone. They left it to the Holy Spirit of God to make application. They called all men everywhere to repent. And so we get to do the exact same thing. And I'm going to tell you, over the years when I've yet we all know historically the early missionary movements those early missionaries were reformed went to India and labored literally for years sometimes decades before having their first convert what gave them the ability to go on a trust in the sovereignty of God that they were doing what God called them and when I got the Salt Lake City And we would pass out tracks. For 18 years, we went to every general conference. That's 36 some odd times. Every general conference, the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City. And I've seen tracks ripped up. I remember this one guy. It was the first time my son went up there with me to pass out tracks. And he had his little white shirt on, his little Rush Limbaugh tie, little 14-inch clip-on Rush Limbaugh tie. I had the same version, but the full-size adult one, obviously. And this guy walked up to him, and I turned around just in time to see it, because I would have been right on the guy if I hadn't. And he took that track, and he reaches down, and he pulls my son's front pocket open like this, and he stuffs that track down into his pocket and goes, and walks off. And I remember my son just looking at me going, what am I supposed to do? And I'm like, well, son, you got your first rejection taken care of. Now you don't have to worry about it anymore. Just enjoy the rest of the day. It's going to happen. Why do we keep going up there? Are we gluttons for punishment? No. I cannot tell you what the result of all that work will be, but I already know in this life of not only people saved, I know of at least one church that was founded because of what we did up there. Could I have known that at the time? Nope. Nope. You faithfully do what God commands you to do. You recognize the difference between His decree, which you cannot know, and His prescriptive will, which you can know. And God calls me to live according to what He's revealed, not to what He has not. But He's also determined that it's important enough for me to know that He is accomplishing His decree. And that calls me to trust the judge of all the earth to do right. to do right. So, for me, the primary reason to unashamedly confess Reformed theology is because it is the inevitable result of applying the very same methods of interpretation to scripture that you use for any other of the central core doctrines of the Christian faith. And the reason it is so controversial is because the fundamental thing it does is it destroys the arrogant presumption of man's ego. It says you don't get to share the glory with God. You don't get to control God's grace. The question is not what will you do with Christ, the question is what will Christ do with you. And we don't like that. But the heart that is the recipient of the work of the Spirit of God embraces that because that heart recognizes the truth of what's found in the prophets. What's that stunning description of man in his sin? A heart of stone. Can you imagine a heart of stone going, you know what? I don't want to be a heart of stone anymore. I want to be replaced with a heart of flesh. Hearts of stone do that? Of course not. Heart of stone wants to continue on its rebellion, continue on its way. But what a picture of what regeneration is. God takes out that heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh. I am so thankful. Lazarus was thankful God has the ability to do that, by the way, just in passing. And I am so thankful that God continues to do that today. It's amazing. He's doing it all across the world. He's been doing it for 2,000 years. He's going to do it for as long as he chooses to do so. And no matter how often that truth is attacked, it will stand firm. And we can be thankful to God for those truths. Let's pray together. Our gracious Heavenly Father, indeed, we do recognize your great sovereignty and power You are God and we are not. We are Your creatures. Oh Lord, help us to recognize that You have made us to glorify You, not ourselves. That You have the right to call us and to use us as our Maker, as our Creator. We live in a world, Lord, by its very words and actions is constantly encouraging us to an attitude of rebellion and ungratefulness and distrust toward you. Lord, by your Spirit, melt our hearts, remove that corruption that comes from our constant exposure to the world, Expose us to your word instead so that we might truly have that peace that passes all understanding, knowing that we can trust you to glorify yourself. We thank you for this time. I thank you for these precious people who have come out this evening. I pray that you will bless them and encourage them to build this church up, build up all faithful churches. For Lord, we know that this land lies under your judgment, and it's a just judgment. So we need the gospel call all across this land. We need you to heal our land, and we know the only healing will come in repentance. Bring that about, Father. That is our desire. Use us, we pray.