John, chapter six, verse forty four, John, chapter six, verse forty four, that's the first one. No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. And if you look at verse sixty five. And he was saying, for this reason, I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted him from the father and chose these verses because These verses indicate that Lord Jesus Christ is saying that no one comes to him except by the grace of God. And this raises questions for us as to, well, do we believe in free will? And so what I want to do tonight is talk about that from our confession and also from the scripture. And we are taping this right now, aren't we, Eric? I want to make sure that we're on because I'm borrowing heavily from Lincoln Duncan. I want to make sure that gets recorded. Sometimes I go home and it's funny, I'm a worrier by nature sometimes. And I think, oh, I hope Eric recorded that I was giving credit, you know, at the start of the sermon so that somebody out there is listening and saying, hey, wait a minute, I heard this before. But This is a this is not it. I told the elders this this chapter is not in my natural wheelhouse. Pastors have certain areas of expertise that are just more naturally bent towards. And this is not one of them. And so I think it's safer if I rely heavily on others to help us understand tonight's chapter. Let's look at section one here. God hath endued the will of man with natural liberty. That is It is neither forced nor by absolute necessity of nature determined to good or evil. And we're going to start right there and talk about this subject of free will. Many Calvinists. Well, let me say this. Many people think Calvinists do not believe in free will of any sort. And that is actually not true. It's often a misrepresentation. of us, and I want to try to explain what do we believe by free will and what do we not believe. So let's take here this first section here. We believe that human freedom is real. Human freedom is a real thing. That does not mean, however, that we have Liberty does not mean we always have ability. And this is where it gets complicated for us. And what I want to do is we're going to go through this. What this chapter does is in the first section states the case of free will for man in general. And then these next four sections really follow Augustine's fourfold state of human free will. And by that fourfold state, state number one, which would be section two here, would be the state of innocency prior to the fall. Man had complete free will there. The next paragraph deals with the human condition after the fall. But before regeneration and then the next paragraph deals with man's free will after the fall, but regenerated And then the final state is man in glory, man's free will in glory. So that's why I said when people say, well, do you believe in free will? Well, it depends what you're talking about and it depends who we're talking about and in what condition. So that is how. This chapter is arranged, it's following really Augustine. Some of you may be familiar also with the Puritan writer Thomas Boston. He wrote a book called The Fourfold State, which follows Augustine as well. Now, we do have power to choose what we want. But as Lincoln Duncan notes, we do not have the power as fallen sinners unredeemed fallen sinners to equally choose good or evil. And that is because we are fallen by nature. We are evil and we do not have the power to choose good. That is, we have a desire. Our ability to choose is based on our desires. The problem with man is that because of the fall, our desires have been corrupted. We no longer desire what's good. Our hearts are always desiring evil, even if we happen to do good, because we would acknowledge that unredeemed people can do good things, but they never do it for the right reasons. Their desires are always self-centered rather than God centered. So this is why it becomes a complicated thing. Now, in this first paragraph, section one here of this chapter, the confession gives us a basic affirmation of the kind of freedom that we believe was followed by Augustine and his fourfold state of human nature, the freedom of Adam, the freedom that Adam enjoyed. There there was a natural liberty common to all human beings via creation. It was the natural state of being a human being. It was not forced. But human beings do, since the fall and even before the fall, choose on the basis of other factors, they they they choose on the basis of their desires. Now, Adam in the garden before the fall had good desires. But he also here notice here that while he has the ability to choose. That which is good and his desires are good, he does yet, it says here in the second section, yet mutably he might fall from it. Now, you have to understand. You make real decisions, you make real choices and those choices reflect your heart. They reflect your desires. But because we are fallen, there is this almost gravitational pull. On on our decisions because of our desires, and this is why it's so important that in the church, one of the things that we're aiming at is to get our desires right. One of the one of the things we aim to do through the preaching of God's word and through the means of grace and the sacraments, is to get your desires on God, that your chief desire would be the Lord. And that if you will delight yourself in the Lord, then you would make wise choices. This is why, boys and girls, we as your elders in the church and your parents, we seek to surround yourselves with people and places that can help train your desires. That's what we want for our children. We we are aiming at their heart. And that from a heart that is renewed by the spirit and desires the things of Christ that they then, we hope, will make good choices. So Calvinists do believe that we make real choices. There is and I want to emphasize this while we believe in the absolute sovereignty of God. We do not believe that God coerces anybody. Lincoln Duncan gives an illustration of this. He says, imagine you're just watching TV and you have the remote in your hand. Well, you're going to make choices as to what you want to watch. Those choices will be determined by your desires. So if you like sports. well then you're probably not going to choose the food channel. That is not a choice that you likely will make because you are inwardly not inclined to watching food be made. You would rather watch somebody take a big hit on the football field or sink a three-pointer behind the arc. That would be preferable for you. Our choices, therefore, cannot be divorced from our desires. And this is why we pray for the Spirit of God to work in our children's desires. Our choices are not indifferent to what we desire. So we do make real choices, and we do so freely as people. The problem is that the fallen man, if he is unredeemed, He does not have the ability. Now, what kind of freedom did Adam have? Let's talk a little bit. Look at the second paragraph. Man in his state of innocency had freedom and power to will and to do that which was good and pleasing to God, but yet mutably so that he might fall from it. So Adam had this freedom in this state of innocence. He had freedom and power. to will and to do that which is good, but of course, as we know, it could change. He could fall from that. He could choose right and good, but he could do so changeably. Thomas Boston called this state of human nature the primitive integrity, he called it. Primitive integrity. Some have called it a righteousness of innocency. It was a righteousness. Adam was truly righteous. But he was righteous without knowing evil. So that some call it the righteousness of innocency. Adam was whole and complete in his desires to choose that which was good. When he sinned against God, then we get this depravity, what we call total depravity or maybe entire depravity. And that is his whole human nature then was compromised. His thinking, his desiring, his willing was all compromised. No part of Adam was left untarnished by the fall. That doesn't mean that Adam became as evil as possible, nor does it mean that unredeemed fallen men today are as evil as possible. We acknowledge as Calvinists that wicked men are capable of doing good things. Hitler Patted his dog on the head. OK, we acknowledge it's possible for evil men to do good things, but they they never do so with good desires for unto God. But it is possible. But what do we mean by total depravity is that the entirety of the human being is now bent towards sin. All our inclinations by nature, apart from the work of regeneration in our life, are inclined towards sin. So our thinking. We talk about the noetic effect of sin. Our thinking is darkened now. We are now disinclined to think God's thoughts after him. And that's why men will do very creative things and create weird theories so that they don't have to deal with the truth that God exists. Our wills, people's wills are compromised. They no longer will to do that which God desires them to do. Our affections are corrupted. Now we desire evil things. And this is where, you know, you get into Romans chapter seven, where Paul, I believe Romans seven is speaking about a man who has been regenerated and that you have this war going on between the new nature in Christ. I'm getting ahead of myself here a little bit, but you still have these old desires. that are rising up and the flesh, to use the old King James language, the flesh lusteth after the spirit and the spirit after the after the flesh. But all of our humanity is impacted by sin. Everything's been corrupted. And so man is inclined to do the opposite of good. That is our default setting is towards evil and selfishness. Man is not neutral between choosing good and evil in the fallen condition. And this is where I think sometimes others have gone wrong. Pelagians, semi Pelagians have gone wrong. Sometimes they view man is still having this ability from within to choose good versus evil. And I think that is not the biblical teaching, the biblical teaching is man has lost that ability through the fall. And he his default setting is to choose now. He's willingly choosing it, but he's choosing it because that is his tendency. His desire is towards selfishness rather than towards God. Now, in what Thomas Boston calls the begun recovery, that is, when when a sinner comes into union with Jesus Christ by the work of the spirit, he's regenerated, she's regenerated. We then make free choices. In both states, that is, we are we are free in our choices, but now we have a new nature in Christ out of which we may choose. Now, it is this new nature is, as I said, in conflict with the old man that Paul speaks about, because in in regeneration, you have to realize that the old nature is not eradicated. Now, you don't have two natures. You have one new nature. And I think sometimes I've not always done a very good job of explaining that. I think in years past, I've been unclear about that. I think I've left the impression that you have two natures in the regenerated state. You are a new creature in Christ Jesus. You have one new nature, but you do have the remnants of the old man still present. It's not been eradicated. And that is what causes the tension that we all experience on a daily basis. Out of that, out of the work of the Holy Spirit, we are now free, we have the ability now to pursue what is right and what is good and what is what is God honoring. Because we're in the recovery process now, we we have that ability to choose good, but the conflict does exist within the believer. Because we still have inclinations towards the old Adam, even though the new Adam has begun his work within us. We have been freed from the dominion of that old Adam. We are no longer slaves in our desires or in our intellect or in our wills, we are no longer slaves to sin, that dominion has been broken, but it has not been eradicated. We have deeply ingrained sinful habits and patterns in our heart. And that's what the Lord is working on us. Lincoln Duncan notes that in the debate between Augustine and Pelagius, Pelagius said that the church was the home of perfected saints, to which Augustine emphatically said, no, the church is a hospital for six sinners. The old man is destroyed, but the inclinations and the habits of the old man are hard to break. So That's why we experience the conflicts that we do. That's why temptation, we feel the power of that temptation. We're no longer under its dominion. And that's a good thing. I mean, if you feel the power of temptation, that means you're still resisting the sin. You haven't given in to the sin. You haven't given in to the temptation. So if you're discouraged by the temptations that you feel, well, let me put it a positive spin on it. That's in a way good because you're still resisting it. And you haven't given into the temptation, even though you may be discouraged that the fight is so difficult, so hard and you feel defeated by it. But but know that God has provided a way of escape and that should be encouraging. Now. The final state is that where man in glory. where we can only do good and we are unable to fall from that state. Let me give you what Augustine gave as using his language. I'll translate it into English for you. Augustine said that the first state of Adam able to sin, able not to sin, able to sin, able not to sin. That is, he was created good, but he had the ability to sin. The second. Non-posse, non-pocari, not able not to sin, the second state is you are not able not to sin, OK, because we are falling, we are always inclined to sin when we are in Christ, but still in this world. It is able not to sin and able to sin. Able not to sin and able not to sin. And then finally, non passe peccare, not able to sin in the final state of glory. Not able to sin. So those were the fourfold states that Augustine, and I think that's a helpful way to look at it. One question that is raised here that might be raised is that of Adam, if Adam was created good. And righteous and was in the garden and his desires were perfect, that leaves the theological question, how could Adam sin in the garden? I don't know if you've thought about that much, I don't think I had, at least not in many years. And the theological answer that Dr. Duncan gives is we don't know. This is where we run into the wall of mystery here. How is it that and there have been attempts at answering that, but those attempts usually do an injustice to some theological truth. So better be careful. Those of you who think you have the answer, you don't. It is a mystery and you better leave it as a mystery. Nothing, nothing in Adam's nature when he was created made him in any sense vulnerable to sin. But we also have to be careful that God is not the author of sin himself. So here we come to this. And this is where we have to put our hands over our mouths. And this is not unique to the fall. This is in a lot of things that we have to deal with in scripture. But this is one of those fundamental truths that we just have to take it as the Bible gives it to us and not try to go into the secret counsel of the things of God that Adam was had no desire for sin. No willingness to do it, and yet we know that those desires were mutable. Let me say this and then we'll come to the Lord's table here in a minute. The fallen man in his natural fallen condition cannot do any spiritual good man in his fallen state, apart from Christ, is dead in sin and trespasses. That's what Ephesians chapter two teaches here. And that's where we we came to our text here that you remember, we opened this with a couple of verses from John, chapter six. And in verse forty five, he said, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. And then also, verse sixty five, he said, for this reason, I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted him from the father so that we see that what is necessary for us to come to faith in Jesus Christ is a work of grace on our part. And that message wasn't any more popular in Jesus's day than it is today. If you notice in John chapter six, when Jesus taught those things, that's when the crowds left him. And that's when he had to turn to his disciples and said, are you guys going to leave me as well? To which R.C. Sproul likes to joke, oh, no. He puts words in Peter's mouth that Peter didn't really say, boys and girls. But he says, oh, no, Lord, we love the doctrines of grace. But no, Peter said, where else can we go, Lord? You alone have the words of eternal life. And that's oftentimes where we have to be with with these these truths that God gives us here. We come to an end of our finite understanding at times. And sometimes we just have to say, Lord, you have the words of eternal life and this is what you've said. And I just have to believe and trust you for that. We see also in John 3 that Nicodemus didn't understand these things. Jesus had to tell Nicodemus he had to be born again to enter the kingdom of God. He told Nicodemus that which was flesh is of the flesh. And unfortunately, a lot of the church for the past 100, 150 years has been trying to provide fleshly inducements to get people to make public commitments to Jesus Christ. Whether it's to create a certain atmosphere with music and lighting and altar calls and and things like that. There's nothing we can do that will get a sinner closer to God. Often churches do this because they have a deficient understanding of the condition of man and his will. And the work of the spirit of God, only the Holy Spirit can get you closer to God. Sometimes people get frustrated with Presbyterians because they say that we are contradictory. They say, well, you say we can't save ourselves and then you tell us to come to Christ. Again, Ligon Duncan, he cites a story of a mid 19th century Presbyterian minister, Benjamin Morgan Palmer. When Palmer, before he became the famous minister in New Orleans, he was in Columbia, South Carolina, and he was preaching a series of sermons in Savannah. There was a revival going on in Savannah at the time. And one man accused him of just that. He's saying, you guys, you Presbyterians are so contradictory. And well, Palmer said, well, if you have if you are able to have faith and just do it. If you have faith and then just believe on Christ and to which the man said, well, I've been trying for three days and I can't. And Palmer said to him, well, that, sir, is a different question then. And they got on their knees and they prayed and Palmer prayed for the man that he would be given grace by God. And. And he prayed and. And so we do not preach a gospel in such a way that gives people the impression that they can do things on their own. We we we preach the gospel freely. It's a free offer of the gospel. Whosoever will come. But we also remind people, as we teach the whole counsel of God's word, that no man cometh but by the spirit of God. Amen. Amen. Let's pray.