So we're going to be looking at Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 9, paragraphs 2 through 5 tonight. It's on page 1314 if you're using the Bible from over there, or elsewise it's the hymnal. Yeah, page 925 if you're in the hymnal. 13, 14, if you're using the Bible from over there. So before we get into it, though, so this is finishing up our discussion of free will. And we started this a couple of weeks ago. And Lord willing, next week, we'll begin chapter 10 on effectual calling. And actually, next week will be the last week that we meet in here for the year, because after that, it's the Christmas party. And then there's no Wednesday night activities for the last two weeks of the year. Of course, we'll have our Christmas party the week after that, but there will not be any normal Wednesday night stuff after next week. Which is weird to say out loud. The 2023 calendar will be the last one next week. Anyway, so we started last time with this section on free will, and that may have been challenging for some of you guys. It may have been, Totally old hat, very familiar for some of you guys, but nonetheless, it's important to make sure we understand what we're talking about when we speak about this subject. The point in the nutshell that I was trying to make last week is that on the one hand, God is absolutely sovereign over all things and he is unchangeably foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. It's not just that he knew in advance what would happen, but he decreed it. He said it would happen, and so it has, and so it will continue to do. But at the same time, and this is difficult for us to hold together, we are completely responsible for and accountable for the choices and decisions that we make in this life. R.C. Sproul put it this way, although the will has been tragically marred by the fall, that's the will has been affected, it's been scarred by our fallen nature, which we'll talk about in a little bit. We have not lost our ability to make moral choices. We still have wills which are able to make choices without being coerced by God. G.I. Williamson defined it this way, by free will, we mean that a man's will is not coerced. We mean that a man is not forced by some external force greater than himself to do something he does not want to do. We mean that man is free to do what he wants, and this is the key, within the limits of his ability. His ability is, of course, dictated by his nature. We'll talk about that again more as we flesh this out. Confusion of these distinctions accounts for much false thinking on the subject of free will. Many people really mean ability when they say liberty. They speak of man being free to do good or evil when what they really mean to say is that men are able to do good or evil. In this they seriously err, for the Bible clearly and consistently teaches that man is free to do good or evil, that he has the liberty to do either, but that he is only able to do evil because of his fallen condition. And they've got proof texts here. Deuteronomy 30, 19, the Lord says, I lay before you good and evil, choose good. I lay before you life and death, choose life. And yet it also says, that apart from God's saving grace, no one is able to come to Him. And so the Bible teaches both of those, and so we want to keep both of them together. And this is, of course, keeping perfectly consistent with what we looked at earlier in the Confession. I know you all have memorized every paragraph that we've covered up to this point, but just for the sake of review and humoring me, would somebody flip over to chapter 3, paragraph 1, page 1310, And somebody please read that. Chapter three, paragraph one of the confession. Mr. Johnson? God, from all eternity, dated by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordained whatsoever comes to pass. Pause. So, very clear. Everything that comes to pass is perfectly according to God's plan. Everything that comes to pass is definitely, perfectly according to His will, His word. Then it gives a qualification, go on. Yet so, as thereby, neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. All right, so that's a very antiquated way of saying it, but essentially what the Confession is saying is on the one hand, as I just said, God has ordained everything that's going to happen. He doesn't just foreknow it, He has ordained it. Yet, God is not the author of sin. He did not take anyone and make them sin that did not want to. They wanted to and so they did it. And in ways that are hard for us to reconcile, we want to say that God ordains things in such a way that our choices are compatible with what he has ordained. And there's a couple of passages that we could look at here. One is Psalm 139, 16, and this passage says, it's very famous, you all will know it as soon as I start to quote it, every one of them has been written for me. The days of my life in your book have been recorded. That's true. The Bible also says in Romans 2, 6 through 8, that he will judge them according to their deeds. You're also completely accountable for what you choose to do. How do those things hold together? The best illustration that I've heard is from Charles Spurgeon, who's the famous Baptist preacher of the late 1800s England. And he said, there's no need to reconcile free will or human responsibility, is probably the better way to say it, and God's sovereignty, because they're friends. They go together in the Bible. The Bible holds both of them together. He says, It's helpful to think of them as two rails on the train track. You've got man's responsibility on one, and responsible. Spelling was not my best subject at school, so I'm always second guessing everything. And then God's sovereignty. Fortunately my handwriting is so bad, y'all won't know. And so you've got the two rails of the track. And you need both of them to make the train run. But if you're on the train, somewhere off in the distance, those two rails merge into one. In your perception, in your way of seeing it. And what he's saying is, both of these are held together in Scripture. And in heaven, in glory, when we have a higher perspective, we will see how they fit together in ways that our mind can't quite comprehend now. I think that really is the best way to think of it. And we talked last week about there are several Bible passages that hold these two concepts together. Does anybody remember one of the ones that we looked at? I guess it was two weeks ago, but does anybody remember one of the ones that we looked at that holds these two ideas together? Or does anyone just know one off the top of your head? How about Genesis 50 in verse 20? In this passage, this is Joseph dealing with his brothers after the death of their father. And why are Joseph's brothers concerned that their father has died? They treat Joseph good or bad, And they think that he's only been kind to them for the sake of their father. Now that Jacob, that Israel, has died, they say, he's gonna exact revenge on us. And Joseph says to his brothers, Genesis 50, 20, this is one for memorization, you, my brothers, meant evil against me. They had intentions in their heart, they had desires, they had things that they wanted to happen. You meant evil against me. But God meant it, that very same thing, for good, to bring about as it is that many people should be kept alive as it is today. Man is completely responsible. Joseph's brothers are completely responsible for beating him, selling him into slavery, all the things that they did. And yet God also was sovereign over it. The other one is Acts 2.23. Would somebody read that for us? Acts 2.23. Verse 23. Yes, Stephen. Yeah. This man was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge, and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him on a cross. Right. So this man, this Jesus, is who Peter's talking about there, was delivered over to you according to what? The definite plan and foreknowledge of God. And then you put him to death by the hands of who? Lawless men. Did God take men that did not want to put Jesus to death and say, you're going to do this because I said you're going to... No, they freely chose. They wanted to do it. And it was also compatible with God's definite plan and foreknowledge. And one last one that we'll look at, just so you guys can see these are together, Romans 9. There's not a more favorite predestination passage that Calvinists have, of whom I am, than Romans 9. In Romans 9, Paul is dealing with the question, why aren't the Jews believing in Jesus? Why aren't the Jews believing in their Messiah? And he gives two answers. Romans 9, 16, he says, it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. And he goes on and says, so then he has mercy on whom he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. Why aren't the Jews believing on Jesus? Because God chose not to show them mercy. That's the reason. To use the language of 3-1, that is the first cause, the primary cause, the big thing. And yet also, later in the same chapter, Romans 9-32, oh, well, back up to 31, I'll back up to 30 rather. What then shall we say that the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness, that's me and you, have attained it, that is a righteousness that is by faith, but that Israel, the Jews, who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law? Why? Why didn't they succeed? Why didn't they find righteousness in God's sight? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. Why didn't they believe in Jesus? Because they didn't have faith. They didn't want to. They wanted to do it their way. Paul's saying those are both the reasons. One's primary, and one's secondary, but they're both real. Now, why am I spending so much time to labor this point? Because it's what the Bible teaches, and so it's implicitly like we know it's important to know, but it's because this is so important for your day-to-day life. Having these two doctrines together gives you two things, significance and security. And you need both of those for your life. If we deny man's responsibility, we lose significance. Nothing matters. Everything's gonna be what it's gonna be. It doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter how hard you try. It doesn't matter anything. That's no way to live. And that's no way the Bible would have you to live. The Bible wants you to be faithful in your efforts, wants you to be faithful with your gifts and your calling and your vocation, all these things. If you lose that, you lose significance to your day-to-day life. Somebody set off the alarm? Is that a siren? Yeah. Anyway, I got us off track there, sorry. If we deny God's sovereignty, then we lose security. If we deny God's sovereignty, then we lose security, because then we'll be so consumed with thinking the result, the attainment of what it is that we're working for, is on us. If I believed that my kid's salvation, the state of their eternal soul, was in my hands and not the Lord's hands, that would be crippling, anxiety-inducing stress to make it happen. No. Salvation is of the Lord. And so I faithfully minister the word to them, I faithfully teach it to them, I pray with them, for them, I bring them to church, I do all the things, and then I trust God with the results. Because I remember that He is sovereign over all things, and I am responsible for what I do. Does that make sense? We need to keep both of these in our mind to have both significance and security in our own lives. We need a healthy, balanced view of both. That's all kind of high-level review of what we did a couple weeks ago. Questions, comments, concerns, before we move into the new material. All right. So all of that said, God does not force you to act against your nature and choose things against your will. That is so distracting. But we don't want to say that there are no controlling factors in the choices that you make. This is where our Arminian friends and others go off the rails and thinking that there's no predisposition, there's no controlling governing principles. There are. And it's according to what we're gonna look at tonight and the rest of chapter nine of the confession, what's been summarized by others as the fourfold state of man. And we walked through this last week, or two weeks ago again, sorry. There are four different states across human existence. There is pre-fall. Who wants to guess what comes next? Post-fall. Then there is redemption. And then there is glory. One, two, three, four, and if you want the fancy, well, what are these? Pre-fall, man is able to sin and able not to sin. Post-fall, man is not able not to sin, or stated positively, is only able to sin. That is the only option on the table, and we'll look at that. This is where everybody is. Only some people reach the next two. Redeemed man is able not to sin. You have a new nature, and you're now able not to sin. And then finally, in the state of glory only, Man is not able to sin. So able to sin or able not to sin, not able not to sin, able to sin, and not able to sin. And if you want to sound really smart and possibly pretentious, I'll give you the fancy Latin terms later, just ask me. So let's look at these. Man in the state of pre-fall, or what the Confession calls the state of innocence. So flip back to your confession, back on, what is it, 13, 14? Think. Yeah, all right. Man in his state of innocency had freedom and power to will and to do that which was good and well-pleasing to God, but yet mutably so that he might fall from it. This state only applies to Adam and Eve in the garden. No one was born innocent before them or after them. This only applies to them. This is saying that God gave Adam and Eve everything that they needed to live a life of faith and godliness. There was nothing in them, there was no sin inclination in them. He created man goods, Ecclesiastes 7.29, Genesis 1.26, on and on and on. God made man good. Ecclesiastes 7 to 29, God made man upright, but they sought out many schemes. Man went astray from the goodness with which God made them. That's what the confession means when it speaks of mutably so. Mutably doesn't mean like I'm able to mute the television or I'm able to silence somebody. It's the opposite of an attribute of God, which is immutability. God's inability to change. So when it says that He created them mutably, that means able to change, able to fall away. And now, post-fall, we read that they did fall away. I'll just read the confession. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation. So as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good and dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself or to prepare himself thereunto. This is the reformed doctrine of total depravity. Could somebody give me a definition of total depravity? What does that mean? Yes. Okay, that's a good start. Spiritually dead. Yeah. We want to be careful how we define this. Fallen man, unregenerate man are able to do good things in a sense, right? They're able to do nice things, kind things, but from a spiritual perspective, they are unable to choose the good. They will not come to God. Total depravity is often misunderstood as what we would call radical depravity. That's meaning that everyone is as bad as they could possibly be. We believe, and the Bible teaches, that man is totally depraved, meaning there is no part of him, as Stephen said, is completely broken. There's no part of him that isn't affected or tainted by sin. Thought, word, and deed, all of these things are tainted by sin. And what's the real limiting factor is the ability to choose that which is spiritually good, because his nature is fundamentally in rebellion against God. And that's a really balanced and important approach to remember, is we're not saying that non-Christians are unable to do anything good at all. We're saying they're unable to do anything to redeem themselves. They're unable to come to God because their new fallen nature is that rebellion is at enmity with Him. And again, that should be familiar to most of you all. Questions on that before we move on to the last two states? This is the million dollar question about free will that we get into debates with our Arminian friends about all the time. Is man able, apart from the regenerating work of God, to choose God? The answer is no. It starts with the regenerating work of God, and then they respond in faith. That's the very, I mean, it could not be more clearly laid out in scripture. You know, it's kind of like, another illustration that I saw of this that I thought was helpful, is the light switch has to be flipped before the light comes on. Right? The idea of faith preceding regeneration is the light comes on and then you flip the switch. No. Regeneration precedes faith. The light gets turned on and then the bulb responds as it were. So now we'll move on to the state of redemption. We'll spend a little bit more time here because this is the state that Hopefully I'm looking for a room full of people that's in this, and it's the hardest one. When God converts a sinner, they're already guarding against Arminianism and man-based theology right there. God converts a sinner. When God converts a sinner and translates him into the state of grace, he freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, and by his grace alone enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good. That's the good part. Yet so, as that by reason of his remaining corruption, he doth not perfectly nor only will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil. Able not to sin, but also able to sin. And we know that's true. The reason that this is the hardest state to be in is because it's the only one where there's conflict. Up here, man had one nature, and it was predominantly good, and then he fell. And then he was born with another nature that was fallen, but there was no goodness, so there's no conflict in these two. In this state of redemption, we have both. And then in the state of glory, which we'll get to in a moment, you're only able to do good. So this is where the tension lies. This is where the stress is. This is where the hardness of being a Christian is. This is where you are right now, and Lord willing, where you'll be for many, many years. And the whole goal of this segment of your life, apart from, of course, glorifying God and enjoying Him forever, is to starve the old sin nature that we all have. Don't feed it. Don't play into it. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh, Paul writes in Romans. aggressively feed, grow, develop the new nature. The born-again nature. And that's a lot easier said than done. So many Christians will get the idea that, well, I said the prayer, I believe the thing, and good. There are kids that have grown up in our church, they're not that much older than y'all. Were here before I was here, but again, they're between me and you guys in age. that have said, well, I was raised in the church, and I believe Jesus is God, and I believe that I'm a sinner, and I believe, but I don't need to worry about that, because I believed it, and so I'm good. No. You need to then faithfully mortify the flesh, and grow in righteousness, and grow in holiness. That's a scary state to be in, to be able to say something like that. And so I want to give you guys this encouragement. How do you do that? What's the most effective way to do that? Being in church regularly. Being in morning and evening worship service on the Lord's Day. Because God uses those means of grace, the reading and the preaching of his word, the administration of the sacraments and the prayers of his saints, that's where you get your strength from. And don't feed the old nature Monday through Friday, or Monday through Saturday. Again, it's that simple, but it's also very hard to do. I'll just give this kind of analogy, illustration, because what's gonna happen is this. Is some of you will grow up, and you'll move away, and you'll go to college, or you'll go wherever, and you won't find a church for a while, and you'll maybe miss a couple of weeks, and you'll be like, I'm doing fine. I'm not noticing any big drift. And you'll probably be technically correct at that point too, okay? But it's a lot like, it's a lot like training for a sport or some kind of athletic event that I used to know a lot more firsthand than I know now. If you miss a practice or two, you're not gonna notice a significant slip in your game. Because it's just a practice or two. It's just a week or two. But over time, it will be obvious. And at the same time, you can't just train well and then And you guys will learn this as you get older and your metabolism gets worse. You can't just train well and then eat whatever you want. You can't just go to good practice or good training and then put in bad stuff. You can't just go to church and be faithful on Sunday and then do whatever else you want throughout the rest of the week. And again, you'll be in the situation where you say, oh, well, you know, I engaged in all these kind of unwise things for a couple of days and I don't notice a big dip. And again, it's like, having a couple of extra cheat meals through your week or whatever. I don't notice a significant difference, but long-term, over time, it will be obvious. And so the goal that you have in this phase of life, again, starving the old nature, feeding the new, refraining from unwise worldly activities, and being faithful to church, Bible reading, and praying, it's that simple. But over a long time, it yields big results. And then the last state that we have here is the state of glory. Praise the Lord that we weren't just redeemed to stay here and stay in the struggle forever. Life of a man is 70, 80, maybe 90 years. What you're saved unto is an eternal state of glory. where you will no longer even be able to desire sin. And that is a day that I look forward to more and more each day. And I hope that you do too, because as you struggle with sin, you'll find yourself in that place that Paul is in Romans 7. Oh, wretched man that I am, who can deliver me from this body of sin and death? Lord Jesus Christ, and that's who we go to be with in glory. I'll just read the confession, and then I'll close in prayer. The will of man is made perfectly and immutably, that's unchangeably, free to good alone, in the state of glory alone. And that's a great thing to look forward to. God in heaven, I give thanks to you for my young friends. I thank you for this confession of faith that so succinctly and helpfully summarizes and outlines the truths that your word teaches. And I pray, Lord, that you would grow and strengthen and develop these young people through your means of grace. I pray that they would give themselves to the reading and preaching of your word, that they would give themselves to the sacraments rightly administered and to the prayers of your saints. I pray that they would be praying people. In Jesus' name, amen.