True encounters with Christ are never casual. They're not casual. It is incredible to me to think that a person could have an encounter with God and be unchanged by the experience. That does not make sense to me. More importantly, I don't think it makes sense in the light of Scripture. But I don't think it makes sense in the light of human reasoning either. Telling me you have an encounter with the one who said light be and there was light, the one who set the sun on nothing and the earth on nothing and holds it all in the palm of his hand somehow. We think we can have an encounter with this being and be unchanged? You know, listen, hang with me for a little while. I think this is important to cover. A tragic shift in American Christianity in the early 1900s. Seeds were planted before then, but it began to grow, and the fruit of that poisonous seed began to blossom in the early 1900s. This idea, this rise of what has been called liberal theology and modernism, where many began teaching that salvation was merely a matter of moral reform or intellectual agreement with Scripture. The idea, though directly contradicted by what the Bible teaches, this idea that someone could have a genuine encounter with God and yet remain unchanged inwardly, to have no evidence, no mark, no testimony. 2 Corinthians 5.17 kind of sets this in the light that we ought to look at this idea. If anyone is in Christ, If anyone is in Christ, Paul says, he's a new creation. Did you hear that? Well, who is the only creator? God. I can't create life in myself. I can't create in the sense of bringing something out of nothing. I can't do it, and no one else can either. Only God can do that. But in those early 1900s, men began to believe that Salvation was merely a matter of intellectual agreement, of repeating a verse, repeating a prayer, being baptized, whatever that it might be. And it began to be believed more and more that salvation was not something that changed the heart. Because when you don't require change, what else do you remove as necessity? Power. Isn't power defined as the ability to change, to work? to do to change something from one condition to another? Well, if all there is is repeating a scripture, I don't need any power to do that. Look, if your salvation lies on something that you alone could do, I'm concerned for you. In the early 2000s, many were rejecting that extreme Arminian view of man's ability to simply choose salvation, and they no longer needed the power and authority of Christ because they just had a recipe. The emptiness of salvation being nothing more than a prayer or scripture repeated after some preacher had been going on for so long by the 2000s that the cracks were becoming easily seen. The cracks in Christianity were identifiable. Of the many who professed a new life in Christ, few seemed to actually possess a new life in Christ. Perhaps they added some Christian cliches to their vocabulary. Maybe they made church attendance a habit in their lives and in their communities. They professed Christ, but inwardly they did not know him at all. We know these kinds of people exist, not because I have an opinion about it, but because Matthew chapter seven tells us and declares without any equivocation that there are people like this who are going to stand before Jesus and say, didn't we do all these wonderful things in your name? And he's going to say, I never knew you. And if I don't know you, you can't know my power and authority. So we have that rejection. that I believe. This is all, by the way, you can take or leave this, but I felt it was important to share those. Much of the 1900s just Much of Christianity in America is just overwhelmed by this concept that you simply check the box. I think it was 1923 that the first Sunday school literature came out. I think that was the year that was the first time they put a checkbox on the Sunday school literature and said, I accept Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. Check the box. You're saved. Well, how about that? Who needs the power of God anymore? Well, this began to be rejected for obvious reasons and for good reason. And that rejection of the Arminian view that ruled so much of the 1900s has been a benefit to those who hold Calvinism. The Calvinist rightly points out the emptiness of a, quote, decision for Christ that does not lead to a changed heart, that does not require the power of God, that does not look anything like what Jesus proves and shows here in Luke. It doesn't require any of that. But we must be careful what many among the Calvinists refuse to acknowledge, or fail to at least, is what we mentioned earlier. Jesus never forced anyone to follow him. He just left Nazareth, didn't he? Everywhere in scripture, There is the tension between God's sovereignty and our free will and moral responsibility before Him. And there's good reason for that tension. Both exist. But what happened in the 1900s is men began to rebel against, to be honest with you, if you go back in history in the 17 and 1800s, you realize that the vast majority of Baptists in the United States were Calvinists in those days. And then, so what do we have? We have this constant swinging back and forth and back and forth. But listen, the destroyer of our souls doesn't care which side of the argument you land on. He doesn't care which scribe you happen to follow on Sunday. He just doesn't want you to know Jesus. The people of Nazareth rejected Christ, so he left them. They chose, and so did he.