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We are going to begin, as Nathan
mentioned, a new five-part series concerning the Reformed doctrines
of grace. And these doctrines, as you may
know, have often been called the five points of Calvinism
under the acronym TULIP. And I want to start by saying
there is a tremendous schism in the church in America today,
especially here in the Bible Belt, concerning these doctrines. And it's for that very reason
that these doctrines are very personal to me. I grew up on
the other side of these doctrines in what is known as Arminian
theology, and it is only when I came to see the sovereignty
of God, especially in salvation, in and over all things, it was
only then that my eyes were opened to see the true gospel in a depth
I hadn't before perceived. It was only when I came to understand
these truths that we're going to talk about over the next five
weeks that I began to see the depth of the love of God for
sinners that Nathan started to go into more and more. It was
only then that I began to see a holy God's love for me in that
fullness it truly holds, that God, out of His own free will
and sovereign love, would choose some, and that included me. That He would choose some who
would never on their own choose Him. It was only when I saw that
the cross of Christ actually did something, that it assuredly,
effectually did something, that it accomplished salvation, that
it succinctly precisely, decisively paid for sins of actual people
in actual time who would actually place their faith in Jesus Christ. It was only then that the cross
became even more glorious because not one sinner paid for would
slip through the cracks. It was only when I came to see
that I was drawn by the grace of God through the Spirit of
God that the Savior's love became all the more apparent. And it
was only when I came to see that the God and the grace which had
saved me would be that very power which sustains me and preserves
me also until the day of Christ. And for those of you who have
seen these wonderful truths out of Scripture, these five points,
I would say if you agree with them wholeheartedly, you have
seen what I've seen. They've had that impact on you.
And all of that, friends, can be summed up by the phrase I
used earlier, we are dealing with the sovereignty of God,
especially in salvation. These doctrines and the controversies
surrounding them boil down to this question. Is God sovereign
or is man? And I'll tell you from Scripture,
there is one clear answer. And praise be to God that it
is not man. God is sovereign over all things. And if God is not sovereign in
salvation, there is no salvation. Before I move too far forward,
understand as you hear me this morning, I am passionate about
this. You can probably already tell.
These truths I believe 100% without equivocation. But these truths,
more importantly, are not necessary for you to be saved. You do not
have to be a Calvinist. You do not have to believe in
the five points. You do not have to believe in the reformed doctrines
of grace in order to be saved. And that's very important. And
so it's for that reason that we would do well to watch our
pride lest we become boastful and prideful over brothers and
sisters in Christ who don't believe them or maybe outright reject
them. I have very dear friends and I have family members that
wholeheartedly disagree with me. But they are believers. Sometimes I could see that they
are much stronger believers than I am. And just because they don't
believe these things doesn't mean I get to beat them over
the head with it, and neither do you. But all in all, I've
used the word quite a bit. These are controversial doctrines,
and they began that way. These doctrines were articulated
in response to the teachings of a man by the name of Jacob,
or James, or Jacobus, we have a Latin translation of his name,
Jacobus Arminius, as he and his followers ultimately rejected
the sovereignty of God in salvation. a council was convened called
the Senate of Dort and they began to work through five particular
points articulated by Arminius and his followers that were now
prevalent in the church of Holland. And after their meetings, The
Arminian truths were ultimately deemed heretical. They were deemed
incorrect. This synod, the Synod of Dort,
then releases their response in what we know as the Canons
of Dort, surrounding those same five doctrinal pillars articulated
by the Arminians. And this is what we now know
as these five points of Calvinism, these five doctrines of grace,
neatly and nicely switched around in the acronym of the flower.
Now, one point there, how do we reconcile that I said people
don't have to believe in the five points of Calvinism to be
saved, but these articulations against Calvinism were deemed
heretical? How do we reconcile that? How
can we call them brothers and sisters in Christ if brothers
in the past who work through these issues very rigorously
more than we'll certainly be able to? How can we reconcile
that if they've said this is clear, it's heresy? We can affirm
that they are brothers in Christ and sisters in Christ, though
Arminian, and I would say though incorrect, because they get the
essentials right. And I don't think I'm telling
you anything you don't already know. They believe everything
they need in order to be saved. And I won't go over those again
because Nathan has worked through that recently in biblical doctrine
as we've looked at the spheres of truth and we've done theological
triage. We've looked at first level issues
and then second and third and of course it goes on. We've looked
at the doctrines you have to have right. The deity of Christ,
you have to get that right. These gospel issues. But you
should know, before the last 200 years or so, the Armenian
theology was widely deemed incorrect. And it's only in the recent years
that this has become more and more prevalent. All in all, its
lifespan reaching around 500 years. but the roots of Arminianism. They do go all the way back to
the 4th and 5th centuries because of a man named Pelagius. Mark Taylor, who's not in here
for a second hour, actually taught about Pelagius in our Forerunners
of the Faith series. And we need to talk about him
for a moment because Pelagius was deemed an absolute heretic. There's no equivocation about
Pelagian. If you are Pelagian in your understanding
of humanity and sin, you are outside the kingdom. You do not
understand what is necessary to be saved, namely, that you
deny the doctrine of original sin. And original sin is actually
going to be much more talked about today than I had planned
on, because the first point articulated in TULIP, typically called total
depravity, or as I would prefer, total inability, is built off
of a correct understanding of original sin. Back to Pelagius. Pelagius taught that man from
birth is inherently good, meaning he doesn't have a moral bent
one way or the other. Pelagius denied that we inherited
both the sin nature from Adam and that we also inherited the
guilt of Adam. Steve said it this way, Pelagius
taught that the only thing we inherited from Adam and Eve was
a bad example. And you'll notice there, that
is what most people generally think. We are born Pelagians. This is how the world, this is
how unbelievers operate. Nathan said, they don't know
they're lost. They think they're good. They
don't understand that there is a bent toward sin. a sin nature. But that's not
what Scripture teaches. Now, why am I talking about Pelagianism
and Pelagius? Because we would refer to Arminianism
as semi-Pelagian. Semi-Pelagian. It is very closely
tied, though not heretical in the sense of Pelagianism, meaning
you're outside the kingdom. You get it wrong from the get-go.
Armenians or semi-Pelagians say there is original sin, but they
disagree with the extent of original sin. In other words, they believe
in the essentials of original sin, if I could put it that way,
but they do not go as far as the Augustinian view. of original
sin, and I'm throwing all kinds of terms at you. Augustinian
would be the view that we here at Grace hold, and I'll define
that in a moment. A lot of terms, and you're thinking,
when are we going to get to the doctrines of Grace? We'll be
there. very soon. But simply, what is
original sin? This is the view of original
sin that we would adhere to at grace, which has been widely
accepted, you should know, since about 350 to 450 AD, being articulated
by Augustine of Hippo and the Council of Orange. And this,
that I'm going to read, is right off of our church website. So
if you want to read more about it, go straight there, it's all
on it. We teach that in Adam's sin of disobedience to the revealed
will and word of God, man lost his innocence. It's right there. See ya, Pelagius. Man has lost
his innocence. Incurred the penalty of spiritual
and physical death, became subject to the wrath of God, and became
inherently corrupt. Again, see ya, Pelagius. I'm gonna cut that quote off
because it says more than I want us to see yet. We teach that
because all men were in Adam, a nature corrupted by Adam's
sin has been transmitted to all men of all ages, Jesus Christ
being the only exception. All men are thus sinners by nature,
by choice, and by divine declaration. That is original sin. That Adam's sin in the garden
had effects, and those effects did not simply affect just him. As Adam sinned in the garden,
man and all from him were cut off from the life of God. Man is condemned spiritually,
dead spiritually, without a pulse to the things of God. Physically,
still alive. We know that. We can read the
Genesis account. But cut off from God spiritually. And now we are guilty in Adam
as we are of the seed of Adam. It's all one pyramid going back
to Him. We are given and born with the
sin nature as it's passed down generation to generation. And
within that nature, we now choose to sin freely within that nature. That is original sin. But now here, I want to read
what Arminian theology teaches, and it's a little bit different.
I want to see if you can catch those differences. And this is
a quote right from, it's also on the website, the theology
program we use here at Grace. It says, man is inherently corrupt. However, the fall did not bring
condemnation upon any but Adam. Adam's sin is only imputed or
given to us or counted to us. Nathan just spoke of that. It
is only imputed to us when we commit a personal sin, thereby
showing our agreement with Adam. The disposition of the will is
corrupted so that man has an inclination to sin. But God gives
man provenient grace to correct the sinful disposition. Now man
is like Adam in the garden, able to choose good and evil. So I
hope you caught all that. Ultimately, they're saying man
is corrupted. We affirm that. We affirm original
sin. There is corruption in man. But it is not fair, they would
say, to count me bad just because Adam was bad. It's not fair to
impute that guilt to me when I wasn't even born yet. It's
only fair for me to be classified with Adam's guilt after I choose
to sin. They say, yes, we affirm that
we have the inclination to sin, a proclivity to sin, and we understand
that man is spiritually separated from God after the garden. But
men and women have to have a fair shot. And if we are corrupted,
then how is it fair for God to judge us in that corrupted state? That's the idea. And we hear
that this morning, and I remember the first time hearing that,
and my inclination was to say, amen. It's like the kid in your class
that keeps getting out of his chair and makes the whole class
have to stay after for five minutes and you miss out on part of recess.
Everybody's punished because of the one. How's that fair?
That's not right, we would say. That one person affects everyone
else. And maybe in that moment, like I saw, I was a lot more
Arminian in my understanding than I realized. Because Arminius
said the same thing. That's not fair. It has to be
a level playing field. So, he invents, and I use that
word on purpose, invents the doctrine of prevenient grace.
And it's this grace that God grants to balance the scales,
so to speak, so that we, in that corrupted state, now have that
level playing field. And here is where we get to the
doctrines of grace, and specifically the T in TULIP, total depravity
or total inability. And I pivot here for this reason,
because the doctrines of grace, as I mentioned, are specifically
concerning salvation. So before I step into total inability
completely, let's finish out that Arminian thought concerning
salvation. Man is corrupted. It's not fair
for man to be held accountable in that corruption on his own.
So God must grant a prevenient grace. And now, it's this prevenient
grace, this grace before, that makes you savable. Now that the
scales are balanced, now you can make the choice from a totally
neutral standpoint. You can choose God. But you can
also, from this neutral standpoint, reject God. So you've been given
this grace, but this grace isn't saving grace. And it isn't, as
Steve says, it isn't even effectual grace. It didn't actually accomplish
anything for salvation. It simply affects the possibility
of salvation. This is grace that you must now
cooperate with. You have been made able to cooperate,
and now it's your job to do the work. In other words, it comes
back to the question I asked you earlier, as it regards salvation,
is man sovereign or is God? Because if man, if the Armenian
is consistent, they would teach that man is sovereign in salvation. Because if man is not entirely
free to choose God on a level playing field, again, then how
is that fair for God to judge that man in that unbelief? These
are not easy things that we're talking about. And what Arminius
is trying to do is what Pelagius was trying to do, and that's
get God off the hook. How can God be just in doing
this? Now, total inability. Total inability
is the right conclusion and the only conclusion if you properly
understand the biblical doctrine of original sin in its fullness. In preparation this week, thinking
of how to best explain this, I came up with this picture.
Original sin is like a shoe. You have to have your shoes on.
But not everybody ties their laces. Some people leave them
with that little lace design you get right out of the box.
Most people tighten them. Some people don't do anything
to them. And total inability is the doctrine that tightens
the laces up on that foot so it is secure. Original sin is
the shoe you're walking in, while the doctrine of total inability
clears up the gap so your stinky foot doesn't come through. Arminian
theology, in contrast, allows the shoelaces to be open. Maybe
I could say the tongue is messed up on the shoe. They have the
essentials of original sin, right? They've got the shoe. but they've
pulled their laces out. So just a quirky analogy, but
you get the picture. Total inability is what makes
everything else fit, and it's built on a right understanding
of original sin. So what is it? What is total
inability? Total inability is the doctrine
that says, since Adam sinned in the garden, man is now corrupt. But, man is corrupt completely,
totally, all the way to his core. There is not one part of him
unaffected by the fall. And thus, as it relates to salvation,
man in that corruption is totally unable to affect salvation for
himself. He is without ability. And not
only that, but he is unwilling to come to Christ apart from
the sovereign, effectual work of God. Apart from the sovereign
work of God in the man's heart, man cannot and will not repent
of his sins and place his faith in Jesus Christ. And this is
why total depravity tightens the laces on original sin. Because
man is dead. Dead. He is cut off from the
life of God. Nathan said, we are lost. We
are useless. We have no hope. We do not want
to come to Him. Romans 8, you can turn there
if you'd like. Paul says in Romans 8 verse 6, For the mind set on
the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and
peace. Because, verse 7, the mind set
on the flesh is hostile toward God. The fallen mind hates God. It is hostile to God. It is an
enemy of God. For it does not subject itself
to the law of God." The fallen mind now hates God, but also
hates His Word. It hates what comes forth from
God. It doesn't subject itself to
the law of God. Here it is. For it is not even
able to do so. Not only is it a fallen mind
that hates God, not only is it a fallen mind that hates God's
Word, It is not able to subject itself. Totally unable. It can do nothing to satisfy
God. It can do nothing to affect salvation
positively. And verse 8 says, those who are
in the flesh cannot please God. They are unable to do so. It's
not in their capacity. They are without capacity. Perhaps
the greatest text on it, Ephesians 2, Paul says, verse 1, and you
were dead, dead, no life in your trespasses and sins in which
you formerly walked. to the course of this world,
according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit
that is now working in the sons of disobedience." In other words,
you were evil and dead spiritually, committed to a life of evil and
death. Among them, verse 3, we too all
formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of
wrath, even as the rest. Who is Paul talking to? He's
talking to believers, and he says, we believers are children
of wrath by nature. We are corrupt. We sin, not simply
because we choose to, but because that's who we are naturally.
Sin is now the natural outflow of who man is. And then, praise
the Lord, he added verses 4 through 8. But God, being rich in mercy
because of His great love with which He loved us, even when
we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved,
raised us up with Him, seated us in the heavenly places in
Christ Jesus." That's only through verse 6. Paul is saying, God,
of His own free will, knowing that we are dead sinners, without
any life in us, without any good in us, inherently, to choose
Him, God made us alive. God takes a dead man and grants
life. I listened to MacArthur this
week on this doctrine, and he goes straight for the story of
Jesus and Lazarus. Our Lord's friend had been sick,
he's died, he's been dead for a few days, and now he's in the
tomb. And he comes up to the tomb,
he has the stone rolled away, and Christ proclaims, Lazarus,
come forth. And the dead man walks. No longer
dead, but given life. And this is the reality of every
man and woman born in the seed of Adam. We are guilty in Adam. We are given the sin nature in
Adam. We choose to sin freely within that nature of Adam. And
God then takes the dead sinner and says, Lazarus, come forth. The Arminian stands up and says,
no, no, no, no, no. That is not fair. You, the dead
sinner, you, Lazarus, have to be able to stand up and choose
God on your own. You have to do it on your own,
without any influence. You have to be neutral. And we
look at Scripture and say, it tells you simply, you can't choose
God. You are dead, and it is not our
job to deal with fairness, because if you want fairness, as R.C.
Sproul has said, nobody gets saved. If you want justice, you
want fairness, you won't see heaven. This is a reality that
is beyond man's responsibility to understand, or our capacity
to understand. Why does God command sinners
to repent and believe in Him, knowing they can't do it? The
simple answer is, that we don't know, but that is what scripture
tells us. To build off of that, I could
give you this answer. God commands sinners to repent
and believe in Him, knowing they can't do it, so then when by
His grace they do repent and believe, they may be and come
to Him wholly dependent on the grace of God and the sovereignty
of God to save them from before time, save them in time, and
save them beyond time to eternity, all in His own volition. He says,
come to me all ye. Nathan said he has never turned
someone away. He hasn't. He says he will not
cast anyone out that comes to him. He says whoever comes to
him will not be turned away. Whoever calls upon the name of
the Lord will be saved. But how is that fair? That's
not the right question. The right question should be
this, why is God so gracious and so loving that he would allow
one sinful man to be saved and in his presence? that He would,
from before time began, choose His own. And not only that, but
He would not leave them up to themselves. He would go down
into time, coming in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin.
He would regenerate men and women through the power of the Holy
Spirit, saving them in the rock of the cross of Christ, paying
for all their sins actually, saving them and securing them
to the end. We must, as man, be wholly dependent
on God to do it. To do it all. Because there is
no other way that man is saved. Yes, you must repent and believe,
but you, friend, cannot do that out of anything in you. It doesn't
matter if the scale gets balanced. You can't numb the reality of
the sin nature, and you certainly can't make up a doctrine called
prevenient grace to do that either. Scripture does not allow for
it. And it's in that sense that we would say with Spurgeon, it's
all of grace. From before time to the end of
time, it is all grace. And to me, that's what makes
these truths so wonderful. I want to share with you the
beauty that I see in a God who looks at a sinner, and despite
all their ugliness, despite as sheep like have gone astray that
Nathan mentioned, as dumb as we are, as helpless as we are,
in our deadness of heart, He says, I choose that one. He takes
us all the way home. He says, Lazarus, come forth. You can go to Romans 3 if you'd
like with me. Paul is quoting the Old Testament. It's probably
the most referred to chapter on total depravity. Romans 3,
verse 10. This is the condition of sinful
man. As it is written, there is none
righteous, not even one. There is none who understands.
There is none who seeks for God. Nathan just told us. that you
are not seeking God. You're seeking all kinds of different
things if you're an unbeliever. You're going to drugs, you're
going to alcohol, you're going to sex, you're going to whatever
it is, your work, it doesn't matter. You are seeking after
so many things. You are not seeking for God.
There is none who naturally, of their own will and volition,
does that. In other words, nobody is knocking
on Christ's door saying, is anybody home? Verse 12, all have turned
aside, together they have become useless. There is not one who
does good, not even one. Let me ask you this, is choosing
to believe in Jesus Christ for salvation a good thing? Simple
answer is yes. There is none who does good.
And in that sense, none who can do so on their own. But I see
people do good things all the time. They feed the poor, they
support a non-profit, they help somebody when their tire blows
out on the side of the road. We were there just last week
in the story of Cain and Abel. It's Hebrews 11, but verse 6,
without faith it is impossible to please God, for he who comes
to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of
those who seek Him. How can you believe if you're
not good? How can you believe if you're
dead? How can you please God if you don't have faith? You
can't. How do you exercise faith if
you're dead? You can't. The Bible doesn't teach a prevenient
grace. You can't make it up. It numbs
the sin nature, allows you to make a choice off of something
in you. The Bible teaches that dead men and women must repent
and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that the same way that
a dead man like Lazarus must come forth, God must give that
person life. I believe this is closely tied
to what Jesus told Nicodemus in John chapter 3. Nicodemus,
you must be born again. How are you the teacher of Israel
and you don't get this? You have to be born again. Your
biggest need isn't so that the scales are balanced, so that
you can then choose God. No, you need to be regenerated,
a new heart. This next text, it gets a bit
ahead of where we are, but John 6, 44. Again, it has to do with
ability. Jesus affirms that man is totally
unable apart from the sovereign work of God to come to him. Verse
44, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws
him. We're working with Wilson on
this very thing. He'll come up and he'll say,
Daddy, Mommy, can I do this? Can I watch my iPad? Can I do
whatever? And the reality is, of course
he can. Wilson has the ability. That's why he's asking in the
first place, because he knows he could. He knows he has the
capability. What Wilson means is, may I do
it. May I go upstairs and play, please?
May I use the iPad?" And Jesus says, not may, he says, no one
can come to me. They do not have the ability.
And not only that, it says, the Father is drawing him. Nathan,
again, so providential, takes us right to the shepherd who
goes out. The shepherd is the one who brings
in the sheep. The Father is the one that draws. The Father is the one doing the
work, not man. And He's not merely drawing man
either. That's what the English translation
says, but literally it's to drag. It's like a fish in a net. It's
like a fish is stuck on a hook and He is fighting. He does not
want to get reeled in. He doesn't want to be dragged
in. I have never met a fish that
wants to be caught. And just like that fish, the
Lord dragged you to Himself, pulling you through the waters
of death and unbelief. And He regenerated you by the
power of the Spirit of God, in the Word of God, and granted
life where there was none. The Arminian again says, but
that's not fair. Now you're believing against
your will. You just said, Noah, you would
never have wanted to where You were a fish. You would have never
wanted to get caught. And you're right. You are right.
I never wanted to get caught. And I would probably tell you,
most of you guys probably didn't want to get saved. I certainly
didn't. I thought I was self-righteous. Well, I was self-righteous. I
didn't think I was self-righteous. I thought I was good. I wasn't the sick. unless in that effectual regenerating
grace God gives the sinner a new heart and changes the will and
gives a new disposition that awakens you to spiritual life
and effectually shows you the deadness of your own soul. To
see the lowest state in which you rest and in that sense the
grace of God becomes irresistible. Now, I want to go back to Romans
5. I've mentioned it just in passing, teaching what it says.
This is the go-to text, not on total depravity, but on original
sin. And if you understand original
sin, going back to the beginning, the right way, you can understand
total depravity. It's a natural conclusion. Romans
5, 12. Therefore, Paul says, just as
through one man sin entered into the world, and death through
sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. What's
he saying? The same thing we've said. Adam
sinned, sin therefore enters into humanity, death follows
sin. We know the wages of sin is death,
see 623. Death therefore spreads to all
men, and Paul adds, because all sinned. How did all sin? You weren't born yet. How did
all sin? There is no way to reconcile that without the doctrine of
imputation. Adam's sin and guilt, therefore,
is imputed to me. We've said it a hundred times.
I am count to guilty in Adam. I inherit the sin nature from
Adam. That's why I'm subject to death from the moment I'm
conceived. David says, in sin my mother conceived me. That's
not talking about something his mom was doing. It's talking about
that he was born in sin. He was conceived in sin. And then I, or you, in your own
free and corrupt will, choose to sin within that nature. And
in that sense, all sin. Because it's imputed to you.
It's counted to you. But again, the question will
always come back up. Because it's the only question
you can ask on the other side if you fight this. How is that
fair? Let's see how Paul answers it. Verses 18 and 19 of chapter
5. So then, as through one transgression
there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one
act of righteousness, namely the cross, there resulted justification
of life to all men. For as through the one man's
disobedience, the many were made sinners, even so through the
obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous." In other
words, Paul says, you keep asking, how is it fair? Only when it
applies to Adam and his guilt coming to you. But you do not
have a problem when it applies to Jesus and his righteousness.
It's hypocritical. I don't mean that hatefully.
It's hypocritical. You want Jesus and what He did
on the cross to apply to you, but you're not willing to accept
the guilt in Adam that was first applied to you. You want the
doctrine, but you don't want it all the time. It's interesting,
the semi-Pelagian argument picks and chooses what doctrine they
want to apply and when. The Augustinian understanding
of original sin And building off of that, the Calvinistic
understanding of total inability says, I am corrupt and I am so
corrupt that there is nothing in me that could ever have anything
to do with my salvation positively, even if the Lord made some grace
that balanced my scales, I still can't get rid of that sin nature.
Yes, I believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and I was saved, but there
was a lot more before that. I was chosen before time. I was
called in time. I was regenerated in time. I
was granted the faith to believe in time. And now I walk in the
power of the Spirit, being sanctified, and one day, by God's grace,
persevering and being preserved to the end, I will be glorified."
We're almost done. Just two more things. Number
one, this is not the same as utter depravity. That is to say
that man is as bad as he could be. We've only seen that once
in history. We'll see it once again in the
Great Tribulation. The first time we saw it was in Genesis
back when the thoughts of man were only evil continually and
the Lord sends the flood and he kills everybody but Noah and
his family. And then afterwards he establishes
government. He institutes government to restrain
the evil in the world so that man would never return to utter
depravity. This is not that. That's utter depravity. That's
partly why the word depravity is a little misleading. I prefer
total inability. Because man is totally unable
to come to God on his own. He is totally unwilling. Romans
3 again, no one seeks after God. There's so much more I could
say. The last thing. Ezekiel 36. And I would ask you to turn
here if you haven't turned anywhere. Ezekiel 36. This text is wonderful. Nathan took us here two or three
summers ago. Ezekiel 36. I want you to listen
to who the initiator is in all of this. Listen to what God says
as he speaks to Israel about this text. Ezekiel 36, verse
24. God's word says, for I will take
you from the nations, gather you from all the lands, and bring
you into your own land. What was the second word in that
sentence? For I, verse 25, then I will sprinkle clean water on
you. The new covenant, you will be
clean. I will cleanse you from all your
filthiness and all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new
heart and put a new spirit within you. And I will remove the heart
of stone in your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Verse 27,
I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes,
and you will be careful to observe my ordinances." Verse 28, you
will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers, so you will
be my people, and I will be your God. He goes on to say more and
more, you can read the rest of the chapter, I, I, I, I, I. It is God who does it. The question
is, who is sovereign in salvation? Is it God? or is it man? This is the doctrine of total
inability. And next week, Lord willing,
we'll look at unconditional election. Thanks for your attention.
Total Depravity
Series TULIP
| Sermon ID | 86251649254654 |
| Duration | 38:10 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday School |
| Language | English |
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