Yes. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we just come to you and we just want to acknowledge that you are the creator of the universe and that you are the reason we exist, Lord. And we just pray that you would help us to glorify you in everything that we do, Lord, in our thoughts and our actions. And we just thank you for who you are. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. If you don't have one of these little handouts, you can get one over there on the table or up here. Hand some of those out. I have a little story to tell you today for some of you that might not know this. In 269 A.D., what kind of Christians were there? They were all Baptist. They weren't anything else. The only other thing besides Baptists were Gnostics and things like that. These were not Christians. But all Christians at that time were Baptists by practice and culture. If you go back and study church history, you'll find out any further back between 350 AD backward, they were all, in practice and doctrine, Baptists. at that time. There weren't anything else at that time. Now, 1736 years ago yesterday, something happened that was affected history. So to speak, there was a Baptist pastor in in the city of Rome. His name was, uh, uh, Valentino or Valentine. Valerius, all of these names are all about the same. Anyway, there was a Roman emperor by the name of Claudius II. He was fighting a lot of wars, I mean one right after the other, and it wasn't very popular. And when a person got married, They usually didn't have to go to service, even under the law of Moses, as you know. They did not go for the first year. They could not be drafted into the army or anything. So Claudius II, he was also called Claudius the Cruel. Have you ever heard of this, Brother Randall? No. I mean, there was so many information. All right, anyway, Claudius II, Claudius the Cruel, he forbade anybody from being married. All right? Now you have to remember at this period of time there were no marriage licenses. or anything at all. So a person didn't get married legally at all. There wasn't any such things as legal marriages. You were married, and basically they stayed together, too, back at that period of time. Anyway, he forbid anyone from getting married. Valentino, or Valentine, he continued that people would come to church, and the church was basically not a big building. The church was wherever they met, and they would go before the congregation, and a man and woman would get up there, and the pastor would say, well, we have Adriana and George here today, and Adriana and George are going to begin a life of marriage today. And they would get up there, and they would make their vows to each other. Usually they had little vows that they would make, I'll be faithful to you, and all this kind of stuff, and back and forth. And then the pastor would say a prayer and blessing over their marriage. That was it. Well, that was forbidden. They couldn't do this anymore. And not in pagan temples, nor in Christian churches, period. You couldn't do this anymore. Well, Valentino, or Valentine, just kept on doing it. And finally, he was arrested. And he was arrested and brought before the court. And they asked him if he was doing this, and he said yes. And they asked him if he was gonna stop it, and he said no, because marriage was a biblical thing that people did. And the emperor got so mad that he tripled, he gave him a three-fold sentence of death. A three-fold sentence of death. They're gonna kill him three times. Okay? They beat him, first of all. They beat him with a club and whips. Then they stoned him, and then they cut his head off. Well, in the meanwhile, he went to court, or not to court, but to the jail, and he was going to be executed February the 14th, 269 A.D., all right, which was 1736 years ago yesterday. Well, he was in the jail for quite a while. There was a jailer there by the name of Osterius. This is real. I mean, this is really a historical event. This is not fantasy. There are a lot of fantasy things. Catholicism, of course, made him a saint. And of course, he was a Baptist. He wasn't a Catholic, OK? But he was another saint that they made that wasn't a Catholic at all. What was his name? Patrick. Patrick was not a Catholic at all. He was a Baptist. He went into Ireland, he established 365 churches, baptized over 100,000 people by immersion, by his own hands, ordained by a church that sent him out in Puteins and Claudia, came from Paul the Apostle. They went into England, into the Britain area. They had a son named Lioness, which was a ruler at that time, the first Christian ruler. He was captured by these Irish outlaws. He escaped after a few years, went back home, and told his father, which was a deacon, that he had a strong urging to go back to Ireland. And so he went back to Ireland and did all these things, the 365 churches, and ordained deacons and pastors in each one. And all the time, the Catholic church, which was just forming and trying to grab power, kept forbidding him from doing anything, and he'd just tell them, He kept telling them, jump in the creek. He didn't need their authority to do anything. Anyway, Valentino, or Valentine, was in jail. And this man by the name of Osterius had adopted a young blind girl years before that. And he would listen to Valentin, or Valentino really, is the way you would say his name. And he would listen to him, and he would quote the Bible to them. He would tell them about Jesus and everything. And the jailer was converted. So he asked him if he could bring his daughter there. Now this daughter, this adopted daughter, she was blind. And so they visited him, and he was going to make him torture. You know, they'd have to starve him to death before they executed him. You know that when they put you in jail back then, you didn't get any food to eat. They didn't support—you had no clothes, you had no food. So they'd starve you nearly to death before they executed you. Except that Valentino was getting food. Now his name means what? What English word do we have from Valentino today? Valor. Valor. Of course, we still have Valentin, Valentino, and we also have Valerie. Valerie, the girl's name, Valerie, from this same thing, okay? So it went on and on and on, so the jailer asked, because the jailer asked Valentino, he said, my daughter is blind. Do you think that you could pray to see if God would give her sight back, you know, to see if she could see again? He said, because you told us that Jesus healed the blind and the lepers and everything else. He said, well, I'll pray and see if God will heal her. And he did. And they fell in love, Valentino and this girl, and we don't know what the girl's name was. history, but we just know that she was. They fell in love. They would have been married. Now you have to remember that all pastors got married back then. When did the Catholic Church forbid their pastors and priests from getting married? Remember what year that was? Sister Andino, you remember what year that was? Anybody know what the year that was? Brother Mike. David. 1,123 A.D. It was much later, you know. 1,123 A.D. and they had trouble ever since. Anyway, Valentino fell in love with this girl and the girl fell in love with Valentino, but they could never be married because he was going to be killed. Well, February the 14th, 269 A.D. came and Valentino wrote a letter to his darling. To my darling, from your Valentine, love always. And that was the first Valentine's card. Love from your Valentine always. And that was the last thing. And he left that note for her in the cell. Was that a pretty story? Now, you have to realize also that there were pagan feasts of Juno. Juno was a goddess of love, and basically the Cupid person and all of this, this was Greek mythology and Roman mythology. Now, February the 15th began a feast of Lupercalia during this period of time, and in the Roman government, The men, or the boys and the girls, were very separated. They didn't let them get together at all. They kept them separate. But during this feast of Lupercino, they would take and put names of all of the Roman girls in a jar. And then the boys, the young boys would come and pick the jar, a name out of the jar. And then he would take and put it on the sleeve of his coat, this girl. So that's what they said, wearing your heart on your sleeve. OK, so that's where that came from. And they would do that. And sometimes these people would, they could visit this girl. And they could, they also had a seat. The seat looked like something like this. And it's called a love seat. And the girl would sit here, and the boy would sit here. They wouldn't get too close, but they would get acquainted. All right? And this was the Feast of Lupercalia, or Lupercino. During this period of time, sometimes they would get married later, sometimes they wouldn't. But this is how that they would get acquainted and everything. All right, let's go on now. We're going to go into the Bible. We're gonna leave old Valentino right where he is. And I want you to get your little lessons out here. This is a deep lesson, we're not gonna go into it deeply, but I want you to have this, okay? This is deeper than the bottomless pit, almost. The doctrine of election. Now let's go to the Book of John, the Gospel according to John. Get you one or two of those if you want, brother. Gospel according to John. We're going to see this come out, jump out at us in two different places in the Gospel of John here. So we're going to look at this. Last week we finished at John 6 and verse 40, didn't we? John 6 and 40. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in him may have eternal life. and I myself will raise him up the last day." We know who is going to raise the dead. Who is it? Jesus. Jesus is going to raise the dead. At his voice, the dead in Christ shall rise. Okay? At his voice, the dead in Christ shall rise. This is the will of my father, that everyone who beholds the sun, that word beholds there, it means to seize the sun and literally is attracted by the sun. May, look at that word, may have eternal life. May have eternal life. May have. What does that eternal life depend upon? May have. Volition. Freedom of choice, okay? Freedom of choice. We know that in eternity past, God wrote everybody's name in the Lamb's book of life that would ever be saved. Did you not? The Bible says that. In eternity past, before he ever created anything, before he created anything, before he laid the foundations of anything, God decided how he was going to procure salvation for beings that he hadn't even created yet. Now, on Sunday night at 4.30 in this classroom, I'm teaching the most fantastic class, and they're hitting it more on that website than any other classes that I'm doing. Brother Mike, you're here on that. We're talking about the creation or evolution of the heavens and the earth. And we're going from the book of Genesis, but we're going into a lot of stuff, into it deeply. And this is part of it also, right here. They may have eternal life and I myself will raise him up in the last days. So now we have eternal life. How long is eternal life? How many of you are saved? You don't have to put your hands up. How many are saved? Now are you partially saved or are you saved? Do you have eternal life or do you have temporary eternal life? Is there any such thing as temporary eternal life? All right, it isn't. It's either eternal life or it isn't. Right over here on the left-hand side, I'm going to write tulip. Because this is the measuring stick of Calvinism and what you believe, okay? Tulip. And in your little chart, you'll see that over there. Tulip on the left-hand side. It wasn't mine, it's in yellow. And yours, it's in gray or something, or a light color there, We couldn't get it done in color. Verse number 41, and the Jews therefore were grumbling, and literally they kept on grumbling about him because he said, I am the bread that came down out of heaven. Now what Jesus is doing here is he's proving to them, to these Jews and all the people that lived to him, that he was Jehovah God of the Old Testament that fed Israel in the wilderness. And he is the one that gave them a drink of water in the wilderness. The Jews in the rabbinical writings of the Mishnah and the Talmud absolutely believed that the rock that Moses struck, remember that, the rock that Moses struck, followed Israel for 40 years. That rock followed them, scooted around and followed them. Okay? Now, Jesus in Matthew 16, 18, he said, Peter, you are Peter, a little stone, but upon this great foundational rock, I will be building my church on the rock. Jesus and Jehovah, Jehovah of the Old Testament was always known as the rock of Israel. I mean, you could cite 20, 30, 40, 50 sightings in the Old Testament scriptures that called him the rock of Israel, the foundation of Israel. And Jesus is proving to them that he is the God of Israel, that followed Israel and fed Israel and watered Israel all during that 40 years. And he's also the God that took them out of Egypt. And he's also the God that took them into the land of Canaan. What does Canaan mean? Canaan. Possession. All right, God gave them that possession. It was somebody else's that were unworthy of it, so he gave it to them. And they were saying, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, I have come down out of heaven? All right. Now, John, the first chapter. John just keeps on repeating himself. He's just like a phonograph needle. Of course, you guys don't know what that means, but a phonograph needle used to jump, jump, jump, and say the same thing over and over and over again. You don't do that today, but that's what it did, okay? Let's go back to John, the first chapter, and look and see what John is repeating again. He said it here, so we need to go back and see what he said again. John, the first chapter. In verse number six, there came a man sent from God whose name was John. This is John the Apostle. He came, or John the Baptist that is, not the apostle, who came for a witness that he might bear witness of the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came that he might bear witness of the light. And there was the true light which coming into the world enlightens every man. In Genesis, the first chapter, what was the original light of the universe? What was the original light of the universe? What? No. Hallel, Lucifer, Lucifer was the original light. And then he became darkness, and it all was the light, the sun and the moon, the stars were clouded. And God separated the darkness from the light, and that's where it is, and the light became again, all right? In the millennial reign, God will be the light here. That sun represents the power of God. That's what the sun does. All the stars represents his power, his creative power. And he was in the world, and the world was created, made by the agency of him. But the world did not know him. The world would not know him. That's the thing, the world would not know him. He came to his own. Who's that? The Jews. And those who were his own did not receive him. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name." Do you see what he just keeps on saying here? Over and over again. Now, man is infected with the infection of the blood of Adam, isn't he? How does he get there? How does he get that blood? Every human. Jason did it. Five of them. You got five of those little kids. Five of them. Five of them. Okay. That's where the infection comes from. We have children that have the infection of sin in them. They are liars from their mother's womb. They are deceitful. They do all kinds of bad things. That's because Adam gave them that infection. Now let's go and see what it says right here about that. It has a little something to say about that. Who were born not of blood, not of the blood of the world, not of the blood of your father, Nor the will of the flesh. The flesh is going to go the opposite way of what God wants it to do, won't it? Nor the will of man, but of God. All right? And then we have this story about the Word becoming flesh. Jehovah became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and full of truth. And John bore witness of him and cried out, This is he whom I said, he who comes after me is higher rank than I am, for he kept on existing before me. For of his fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace, for the law was given through Moses, and grace and truth was realized through Jesus Christ. No man has seen God at any time. You're going to see this over again here in the sixth chapter. John repeats himself again. As we come to it, you see what he's saying. He's emphasizing what he said here, and he wants them to get the note. I want you to understand this. I want you to understand and believe that he is Jehovah of the Old Testament. The only begotten God, no one has seen God at any time. The only begotten God who is in, keeps on being in the bosom, an inseparable part of the Godhead, John 1 and 1, in beginning was, kept on being the Word, the Jehovah, and the Word, or Jehovah Kept on being an inseparable part of the Godhead because he kept on being God. Jesus was always God when he was on the earth. He was man, but he was always God. But he became the relative of his creation when he became man. He became related so he could redeem it. He could become, it's Goel, his kinsman redeemer. The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, he has led himself out. Now I'll go back to John, the sixth chapter. And let's just watch John repeat himself again. And they were saying, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say that I've come down out of heaven? And Jesus answered and said to them, do not grumble among yourselves. Don't keep on grumbling among yourselves. No one can come Unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day Now, how do you get saved? How do you get saved? Huh, how does that happen? The Holy Spirit of God convicts your soul of sin righteousness and judgment to come Now I want to tell you the title of this message, A Marriage of Divine Sovereignty and Human Choice. It's a marriage of divine sovereignty and human choice. God picked us out and chose us in eternity past, didn't he not? But in space and time, God became flesh to redeem us, and in space and time we believe, don't we? We believe in space and time. draws him. Let's look at some things. I want some of you look up some scriptures. Okay. John 12 32. I want somebody to look that up. Uh, john 21 6 and verse 11 acts 16 and nine and 21 30 James two and six and john 18 in verse 10. I want you to look these up. Who has any of those right now? Do you have one of those young lady? All right. Which one do you have? John 12, 32. 12, 32. OK. Can you just run up here real quick and read that for me? And the rest of you, somebody, I need John 21, 6, and 11. Go ahead. Go ahead. But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself. All right. When I'm lifted up, I will draw all men to myself. When I am lifted up, I will draw all men to myself. Now, this is a worn out book, about like me. I had to put a cover on it to keep it together, out of elk skin, okay? Now, young lady. Yes, Sharon, do you want to come up here real quick? You've got a scripture to read also? OK, bring that up here. I want you to read that. Then I want you to read what it says in this lexicon right here. OK, so you want me to read this one first? Yes, read that one first. OK, it was 21 what was? 21. What was the, oh six, okay. And he said, throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some. And when they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. They were unable to drag the net in, okay, because a large number of fish. Now right here, there's a little Greek word that comes from elko, helko, helko. Helko. Helko right there. And what does it say there? to draw, to drag, to draw a sword and sheath, a net to draw mentally and morally. To draw mentally and morally. To draw mentally and morally. It means all of those things. Alright. It means all of those things. To draw a sword, to drag, to drag sometimes, and it means also to draw mentally and morally. To draw mentally and morally. Now let's go on a little bit further. Now who has another one of those verses? Somebody have someone? Anyone? Brother Mike, what you got? Act 16.9. Well, that's good. 16.9. Okay. 16, 19. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night, a certain man of Macedonia. 16 and 19? 19. Yeah, 19. But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. All right. 21 and 30. 21 and verse 30. And all the city was aroused and the people rushed together and taking hold of Paul. They dragged him out of the temple and immediately the doors were shut. All right. Let's talk about this salvation business just a little bit. How many you remember when you were saved? All right. I remember when I was saved. My grandmother had got killed, which had raised me. And I felt all alone in this world. I had been going to church. I had trained the horse for this preacher's son. And I would go and stay all night with him a lot of times. I spent a lot of time with him. And I would go to church there. But it was a very charismatic church. There was not much Bible preached or anything. It just was kind of all emotional. Emotional was all in service, and emotional, emotional, emotional. And just very little preaching. But I sat there that day, and at the end of the message, they were doing their emotional things. And I just got up out of the seat and walked down the aisle and knelt in front of the church because it felt like I just was drugged down there. I just had to do it. I had to. Ex-step grandmother came down there with me. She was a beautiful, wonderful Christian woman. And nobody else came down there. Nobody, no church, no deacons, no preacher, nobody else went and met me down there. They were too busy doing their own thing. She went down there and she said, Jimmy, what's wrong? And I said, I need to be saved, I think. And she said, well, do you know what that means? I said, no. But I think I need to be saved. And she said, well, Jimmy, she said, what you do? Do you believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins? And I said, I think so. Yeah, I think that. Do you believe in God? Yes. Do you believe that you're a sinner? And I said, yeah, I'm a sinner. I'm not right. I feel like I'm going to hell, and I really believe that. And she said, well, you ask the Lord to save your soul and forgive your sins, and everything's going to be all right. So she prayed with me and I did that. Now, I went the wrong way in my life after that because I had no spiritual upbringing or guidance at all. I even, my stepfather that I stayed with a lot, even after my mother and him broke up, was the outlaw, was Dale Otto Remling. He was an atheist and an agnostic. He wrote books about atheism. And he kept punching me with this stuff. You know, what are you going to believe? What are you doing this for? Well, I had, I know that God was in my life right after I was saved. I know that. And I never was free the rest of my life from God. Did you hear that? I never was free from him. I could not go out and do what the rest of the world did. I felt bad about it. Before that, I had no conscience of it. But then I did. And I was still pretty young. Later on, I started going to church after a lot of years later. And I went forward. And I got saved again, I thought, at that time. I wasn't saved again. I just rededicated my life. And the Lord called me to preach. The Lord called me to preach when I was in that little church. He was calling me. I kept looking at that guy up there preaching. How in the world am I going to ever do that? I just felt like God wanted me to do that. That's what I was supposed to be doing. Providence nothing ever happened in my life that God didn't have his hand on because I wouldn't be here Had he not had his hand and protection and a million angels Protected me because I put myself through some crazy stuff in my life. I've been through the storm I've had hits put out on me. I've done all kinds of stuff I've been poisoned everything you can think of run over stomp bit chewed up spit out and Knocked out of derricks and oil fields, everything you can think of. And I'm still here because of the providence of God. But there was a time that I surrendered to him. I surrendered my will to him. This word helico, you'd say it in English, it's like this in Greek, but it's like this in English. That means to drag, to compel, to morally convince. What happens when you get under conviction? Have you ever been under conviction? All right. You can get under conviction when you've been saved, you know, that you're doing the wrong thing. The Lord just spanks you up straight all the time, just here and there. You go this way, he just whips you around like that and goes just like that all the time. Conviction. Convince. To convince. Now let's go back a little bit further. Draws him and I will raise him up in the last day. For it is written in the prophets that they shall all be taught of God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Do you see how everyone? Jesus said, if I be lifted up, I will draw what? Some men, all men to me. All men. All men to me. Let's go a little bit further. By the way, John is preaching the same message that he preached in the first chapter. All over again from a different angle. He makes a statement, makes a statistical fact, theological statistical fact, and then goes back and repeats it in every different angle that he can think of. All right? Now let's look at this word tulip for a minute. This is how you gauge things, all right? Theologically, in the world. Even your Arminian, your Arminian is the opposite. They don't believe in security of the believer at all. Their way over here, maybe you can put them in left field, I guess, maybe, or whatever field. Outside, outer space, whatever. T stands for what? You theologians? Total hereditary depravity. Do you believe that every man is born depraved? Absolutely. I believe that. Total hereditary depravity. Now look on your little chart over here. See this little chart? I don't want to get into too deep in this, but I just want to acquaint you with it. All right? Sister Andino, this ought to be real good for you. Yes. All right? Now, we have superlapsarians. We have antilapsarians. We have amperlapsarians. We have sublapsarian and postlapsarianism. That's a lot of big words, OK? So I don't want you to be super concerned with those words, but they do exist. That's all I'm going to tell you. All right? Now, how many of you ever heard of a five-point Calvinist? Five-point Calvinist, some of you have, some of you haven't. A five-point Calvinist believes all of these things to the extreme, and that's what you call a superlapsarian, and there really aren't... 50 years ago, there were only less than 1% of the people in the world that were superlapsarian. It's become more and more popular in this time, okay? Total hereditary of gravity. Now, if you look over there, Now it's in blue in mine, but we have T, total hereditary depravity, and the first thing says, in the supralapsarian field, now, the supralapsarian field, to save some and condemn others. All men are spiritually dead, but only the elect have the ability to respond. Only the elect have the ability to respond. All others are spiritually dead with no receptors, no antennas. How many of you know that there's radio stations on the air? Do you know some of them? You know what they are. You can go tune them in. If you had a radio, could you get them? If you don't have a radio, can you get them? No. Some theologians believe that you don't have a radio if you're not of the elect. You can't tune it in. You can't be touched. You have no receptor. You have no antenna. Okay? And that's what you call reprobated or damped. Some are created reprobate or damped. Now, the people that believe that are the infralapsarians, the superlapsarians, are over on this cell little realm right here. Do you see that? See that, Sister Andino? Right there. That's the people that believe this. Now, the unconditional election, the you, Unconditional election. What does that mean? Brother Mike, you remember what that means? Unconditional election. Karen, Sharon. We did nothing. We did nothing of our own to merit salvation. How many of you would God save you because you were good? Brother Mike, God saved you because you were just a wonderful character for 30, 40 years in your life. You just lived like a saint. Huh? No? Is that why God said, Connie, what about you? Huh? That's it. Because you were such a good guy, God finally decided to elect you, huh? Rex? Sister Andino, I've known you for a long time and you've been an angel all your life. But there was nothing in you, really, that God wanted to see. There was nothing that merited salvation. even though some people are very good people all their lives. But there's nothing that merits salvation. The only reason why we're good is because Christ's working in us and through us. All right. Unconditional election. Now look at this L term. What does this L term mean? L term. What? Limited atonement. Limited atonement. All right. Authorized. Now look down here. Well, first of all, we didn't read that second one. Create the elect and reprobate the rest, not on matorious quality of the elect, but on grace only. I believe that, but I don't believe about the other ones being damned. They were not created damned, okay? There's a difference between created damned and damning yourself. All right? Angels weren't created damned, were they? Some of them are damned now. They're condemned. Angels, spirits, weren't created damned. They were created with a volition, a will. They could either follow God or not. Now, they're already grown and everything. Now, Adam in the garden was born grown, wasn't he? And he made a decision that cost him his life and cost all of you your physical lives. Number three, L, authorize the fall but redeem only the elect. All reprobate are not called and do not have the ability to respond to God's grace. The atonement is limited only to the elect. Jesus Christ did not die for the sins of all mankind. 1 John 2 and 2 says, for He died not – the propitiation was for not only us, but for the whole of mankind. Jesus said, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men. Now, the super-lapsarians will say the all there is only the elect. But it doesn't say all of the elect only. It said all men, okay? Now, let's look over here to the sub-lapsarian, pope-lapsarian side. All men are betrayed, but all men are given the ability to respond. Number two, create human beings and call the elect and those who are reprobate on equal callings. Do you believe that? That's more rational, isn't it? Now, we don't really, we're talking about the sovereignty of God. God could do anything he wanted to. But does that sound conform more to the character of God? Number three, the limited atonement. Create human beings and give the ability to respond to God's call to all men. The atonement is sufficient to save all mankind, but efficacious only to the elect. God's not gonna... Now, we have also what we call... Unitarians, universalists. Unitarian, ever heard of that term, Unitarian Universalist? Unitarian Universalists believe that God is gonna save all men in the end and that there is a good in all men. And that God won't send anybody to hell. Now that's, boy, way over yonder. I mean, out in the twilight zone. And I've had people in my class, I had to really, Marilyn, you remember, I had those people in my classes before. I mean, it was really difficult to teach people like that. I mean, they got it in their head. I've had them write letters to the pastors, and the pastors, can't you do something with that person? Can't you teach him anything? Do something with him. All right, now let's look at the word I. I. I is what? Irresistible grace. You got that? Say that together. Irresistible grace. Now, we talked about the word helico, didn't we? It means to draw, to drag, to coerce, to confine, to arrest. But it also means what? To morally call. We're convicted by God, the Holy Spirit of God, by what? conviction of sin, righteousness and judgment to come. We're convicted. Now, irresistible grace, irresistible grace, now look at that. Call only the elect by irresistible force of grace going beyond any personal ability to respond to the grace of God. Now, we go over here to the sub-Laxarians, is save some and condemn others. This view holds to unlimited atonement, but it believes in irresistible grace. Now, down at the bottom of it, it says the author is a modified sub-Laxarian. I don't believe in that. I don't believe in irresistible grace at all, even though when God calls you, some people say it was an irresistible force pulling me there. Now your Hyper-Calvinists or your Super-Lapsarians said, nobody of the elect ever, ever resisted the grace of God successfully. Make home. Now your Primitive Baptists. Your Primitive Baptists are what we call hard-shelled Baptists. How many of you ever heard of hard-shelled Baptists? All right. Hard-shelled, that's an old term, isn't it? All right, they don't send out missionaries. Did you know that? They don't send out missionaries. They don't believe that they need to send out a missionary. You will never see one cent given to mission work. Because they say, and this is rational if you believe that, that why send out missionaries? People of the elect are going to come. They will irresistibly be called to God. They will not be able to resist the call and God will call his elect and there's no way they can keep from coming. So why do you need to send a missionary? We have very many hyper-Calvinist groups today. They send missionaries out because they believe that they got to hear. But if you get down to the nitty-gritty, if you really believe in irresistible grace, why send a missionary? They're going to get the call. God will drag them from one continent to the other if they has to to hear the gospel. All right. Let's go on over now to number P. P. Right down here. What does P stand for, young lady? Preservation of the Saints. What does that mean? Brother Mikey, what does Preservation of the Saints mean? You have to read it here. What does it mean? The old term, what is it called? Dr. John? Brother David? Eternal Salvation. Eternal Salvation, or what? Once saved, always saved. The old Baptist adage, once saved, always saved. Now that is true. Once saved, always saved. If you're really saved, you're always saved. You couldn't get loose from God. If you got saved, you may go the wrong way. God may kill you. There was a couple of people there in the book of Acts. Remember the people that God killed? What was their name? Ananias and Sapphira. Do you people believe those people were saved? I do. What did God do to them in the end? Killed them. He put them in the ground. They were going the wrong way, but they were his. Now, he wouldn't have killed them if they weren't his. He had no right to kill them if they weren't. They can just go on the rest of humanity. There was an old boy in the Old Testament that was one of the most ungodly buzzards in the Old Testament, and we wouldn't know that he was a slave man at all, except that the New Testament says he was. And who was that? Lout. His name was Lout. Lot. Just think about that dude. And he was a saved man. He had a, if you read the book of Jasher, Ha Sefer Yashur, the book of Jasher, you'll read a lot more about it. That guy was living in a pig pen, in a moral pig pen, and it said he vexed his righteous soul. That's what the New Testament said, he vexed his righteous soul, because he lived in that mess. So God drug him out of it. Now he went down there and Sodom was a horrible place. Sodom was notorious. Notoriety of evil. You didn't want to go into Sodom. The only people who went into Sodom were people that didn't know about the place. Because you ever went to Sodom, if you were a wayfarer, if you were a pilgrim, and you went into Sodom? Now, in the Arabian culture, and in the Middle East culture, if a man was out there wandering in the desert and come up with a caravan, or he had two or three donkeys, or a camel, or whatever, you were supposed to let him come into your home, or your tent. And you took care of him for a week. And they fed him and everything else, and you had no right to ask anything of him at all. That's what you call oriental hospitality. That's what you're supposed to do. When you went into Sodom, they would go out there in the streets, and they'd go down the streets of Sodom, and they'd see this stranger. Hey, do you know him? Do you know him? Do you know him? The first thing they'd do, they'd have him come into somebody's house, and they'd start feeding him and everything else. And then they would drag him before the court and demand money of him. And they would confiscate everything he had. And then they would put him out in a bed in the street. And they would strip him off naked and sexually torture him until he was died. And then usually take him out and burn him. One of Lot's daughters, they threw a man in prison. This is not in the Bible. But one of Lott's daughters, when they throw this man in prison, one of these wayfarers, one of these strangers, pilgrims through the land, they put him in a cell. Of course, nobody fed him. Well, he just kept on staying alive. They kept watching him real close. What happened, one of Lott's daughters took food to him and was feeding him until his jail sentence was over and they were going to turn him loose, but he wouldn't be alive normally that this guy was. So they caught Lott's daughter. And they took and beat her. They covered her with honey and put her out there in the square and took this nest of bees and hornets and turned them on and they bit her and then they burned her after that, after she was bit all over. They burned her. This is what Lott had subjected himself to this time. This is a historical account of what happened. Look at that word P there, preservation of the saints. Provide salvation only for the elect with the guarantee of eternal salvation not based upon works but upon grace. We're not, our salvation is never based upon works anyway. It's only grace. Number one over there in the right side for the post-lapsarian or sub-lapsarian people, provide eternal salvation for all but the atonement is only efficacious for the elect. I have no problem with that at all. Do you? All right, let's go back now. Let's go back. Back to this. Now, we've seen these little elements there that we might understand a little better now. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. How does God draw you? How does God draw you with the Spirit of God? Now, some people literally damn themselves in false religion. And they can get beyond the point of the calling. And we have some examples of that with John the Baptist. John the Baptist, the Pharisees came to him. When somebody comes out of a false religious system and is saved, it is a miracle of God. It's a miracle. You ought to say out hallelujah a hundred times when that happens, when they come out of this false religious system into the Lord. When those Pharisees and Sadducees and some of the scribes came to John down there to be baptized, they said, they wanted to line up with him because the people were following him. And what did he say to them? What was the word? Ye son of Satan, ye children of serpents, or a den of snakes, who has caused you to flee from the wrath of God? You're beyond conviction. Now, some of the hyper-Calvinists will say, let's see there, they can't be convicted. I think they were beyond conviction. They had sealed themselves with the doom of hell because of what they had done. These are the ones that were condemning Jesus, and they should have known who he was. He was proving that he was Jehovah God of the Old Testament. Verse number 45, for it is written in the prophets, and they shall be taught of God, everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Everyone that's convicted, the Father and the Son both send the Holy Spirit in your life. Verse number 46. Not that any man has seen the Father. Now look at this. Goes right back to John the first chapter. No man has seen God at any time but the only begotten God. He is God. He is Jehovah. Jesus is Ha-Thavar of the Old Testament, the Word, the name of God. His personal name is Jehovah. Except the one who is from God, he has seen the Father. Verse number 47, truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. How long? Do you possess it or don't you? Yeah, you got it. You got eternal life. You have it, period. Preservation of the saints. We're totally depraved. We're unconditionally elected. We are. All men have an atonement waiting for them, but that atonement is not applied, like the universalists say, except if you believe. It's what we call an unlimited atonement, but it is limited only to the saved. The universalists, Unitarians, that's not going to work. The atonement does not cover people that don't believe. I am the bread of life. I am the true manna that came down out of heaven. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. Every one of them died, didn't they? Some of them lived longer than others, but all of them died in the end. How long did Methuselah live? Huh? 969 years. But his deus is dead. Today, all the rest of them didn't live 969 years. That's the oldest man recorded in the Bible. Who was his father? Enoch. And what was his name? Methuselah means what? When he is dead, it shall come to pass, the son of the dark. When he dies, the flood would come. Enoch preached for 300 years that the flood was coming. Noah preached for 120 years the flood was coming. It happened. The judgment day does come. Verse number 50. This is the bread which comes down out of heaven so that one may eat of it and not die. One may eat of it and not die. Look at the word may. What does that depend upon? Volition. I am the living bread. This is a fact now. I am the living bread. This is in what we call the indicative mode. This is a statement of fact. I am the living bread that came down out of heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he shall live forever. That's a fact. And the bread also which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh. This is really confusing a lot of people right now. The Jews, therefore, kept on arguing with one another, saying, how can this man give his flesh to eat? And Jesus was hearing them. And Jesus, therefore, said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourself. Now, what would he do? What was Jesus going to do with this church that he had called out? He left this world before he ever went to the cross, before he was ever arrested. What did he do? He took the Passover, the Hassadur, and turned it into the Lord's Supper. And he said, now he said, you're no longer going to take the Passover. I won't meet you again in Jerusalem next year. None of this, it's all done away with. It's over with now. The Hassadur, the Passover will never be celebrated again because I am the true Paschal Lamb. He said, now take. They had already eaten the Passover. Now they took Elijah's bread and Elijah's cup after the dinner was over. This is the last dinner now. You're never going to have a Passover again. And he had it early with them, didn't he, before the Passover. It was early. He had eaten the lamb, and then he took the bread, Elijah's bread. He broke it. He said, this is my body. It's broken for you. Take and eat. and do this and remember to me." And they ate it. And then he took the cup. And he took the cup. He said, take and drink this. And they shared the cup. There was one loaf of bread, typifying the one body of believers, and one cup, typifying the one body of believers, and the Lord, one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. Remember that? It said he took the cup and he said drink this do this and remember to me This is the blood of the New Covenant. And of course, when was that blood shed? The next day the next day For he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day You got to be saved For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, I live because of the Father. So he who eats me, he shall also live because of me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven, not as the fathers ate and died. He who eats this bread shall live forever. And you know what, he said this thing in a synagogue. There were Pharisees in every synagogue. There were scribes in every synagogue. The scribes are what? Like the county clerks. Official document. They heard this word and they recorded what went on in that synagogue that day. Against themselves. Against themselves. These things he said in the synagogue, and as he taught in Capernaum, Capernaum, oh, Capernaum, oh, Chorazin, cursed you are, woe, woe, woe. If the things were done in you in Sodom and Gomorrah, they would have repented with sathcloth and ashes. All the miracles. Many, therefore, had disciples when they heard this said. This is a difficult statement. Who can listen to it in Jesus? But Jesus, conscious that his disciples grumbled at this, said unto them, Does this cause you to stumble? Does it offend you? What then, if you should behold the Son of Man ascending where he was before, is the Spirit who gives life, and the flesh profits nothing? The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. But there are some of you who do not believe. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray him. And he was saying this for this reason, I have said to you that no one can come to me except it has been granted to him from the Father. Look at that. Down here in verse 66, we'll go really quickly. And as a result of this, many disciples withdrew and were not walking with him anymore. And Jesus said, therefore, there's a 12. You do not want to go away also, do you? And Simon Peter said to him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God. And Jesus said to them, did I myself not choose you, the 12, yet one of you is a devil. Now, he met Judas, the son of Simon Issachariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray him." Now, if you go back in Psalm 41, verse 9, and Psalm 55, 12-14, and 20-21, Jeremiah 32, 6-11, you'll find that Judas Issachariot was the only disciple of Jesus in his ministry that was prophesied in the New Testament. Now, what about that poor man? He was a willing tool in the hands of the devil. He was a willing tool in the hands of the devil. His heart was an open door to Satan. He went along for the ride. He was one of those people to go to church for the entertainment. He went along so he could steal. He became treasure. He was an apostle. He became a treasure of the church. And yet he didn't know the Lord. That just shows you. That just shows you sometimes. Some can follow and follow and follow, but they don't know because they really never ask the Lord. Do you think, could Judas have been saved? Yeah, it will. By sovereign choice, the Lord chose him because he knew that he was going to go the wrong way. He knew he was going to go the wrong way. The Lord, if he's convicted you in your life of sin, righteousness, and judgment, if you would ever ask him to save your soul, I know you saved. But Judas Issachariah was a tool in the hands of the devil. Went along for the whole show, but had nothing to do with it at all. Thank you for your attention today. I appreciate it. I hope you learned something from God's work. Brother David, you can sit right there and do everything. Or are you going to stand up? All right.