I believe man is totally depraved, but not to the point where he loses his ability to choose. as nothing in the Bible that I know of that says man cannot choose. Jesus said, I am the vine, you are the branches, he who abides in me, and I in him bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. In Titus 2:11, For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston.
Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through a topical series. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically, how you can get a free copy of this teaching.
Now, here's Pastor Rick with his continuing study called Calvinism versus Arminianism. The Calvinists are notorious for telling you that the Bible. What the Bible plainly says is not what it plainly means. You need them. You need this theology to underst put the pieces together.
It's like an instruction manual with a Box or the puzzle? I can get you. Yeah. You buy a puzzle and you get an instruction manual. Put the pieces that fit together together.
Well, that's what we do. The Nicolatians were doing this. In the early church, and irritating everybody. They had the knowledge, no one else had it. In their case, it was Gnosticism.
Calvinism is Doing the same thing.
So, the Calvin's response to universal atonement is limited atonement. Christ's death on the cross was intended. to atone for the sins of the elect Only Not for all humanity. His sacrifice is sufficient for all, but effective only for those chosen by God. This is why they write these thick books insisting on you believing this.
It's like this never-ender, okay, try this way.
Okay, now try this one. Don't run. It's not there. They're looking for something they lost in the house, outside the house. Limited.
To the elect. And not the unelect. That's Reformed theology and And again, you say, who believes this stuff?
Well, you can look all of this up. Fact check me all you want, you're going to come right there to this place where I'm. What I'm telling you. The elected become the selected. In contradiction to reason.
And love and scripture. The elected are the selected. And nobody else.
Well, the third point is total depravity, which is the first T the tulip. Total depravity. The Arminian says that there's a such thing Prevenient grace. Like who uses that word? It's anticipatory.
It's God. Making It possible For grace to work. And people who would choose him. That's what they mean by that.
So we read. Total depravity, according to Arminian theology, due to the fall, humans are totally depraved and unable to save themselves without divine grace. I believe that. Jesus said, Without me, you can do nothing. That goes all the way back to Adam and Eve.
So God, they continue, provides Grace in advance. A universal grace that enables all people to respond to God's call to salvation, restoring their free will to accept or reject.
Now, some Armenians believe in a partial depravity. I ain't gonna get into that. I believe man is totally depraved, but not to the point where he loses his ability to choose. as nothing in the Bible that I know of that says man cannot choose. Jesus said, I am the vine, you are the branches, he who abides in me, and I in him bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing.
In Titus 2:11, For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. I would believe, I would see why they said these things that they say if that word all didn't keep popping up. Every time we talk about Christ dying for all, wishing that all get saved. Again, it reduces God to a form of schizophrenia. Total depravity counters.
This is what they say it is. Humans are born in sin. and are spiritually dead. Incapable of choosing God or doing good apart from divine grace. Pause there.
Okay, if they're dead, then they're also incapable of sinning, are they not? No, that one they can do. Every part of a person's nature, they say, is corrupted by sin. Though they can still perform outwardly good acts, which Doctrine theologically is common grace. I agree with that.
However, You talk about man being so depraved when Cain killed his brother.
Well, before, but right before he kills his brother, when God rejected his offering, because Cain chose. to bring fruit baskets and not a blood sacrifice. And God said, I'm not having it. And Cain is pouting now. and murder is going to soon, you know, flow out of him.
So God says to him in Genesis 4:7, if you do well, Will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it. He doesn't say, oh, you're so depraved, Cain, you're going to be a murderer. You don't have a choice.
So early in the scripture, we see God saying, appealing to Cain. Choose. You should rule over this. You make the right choices. Cain went out and made wrong choices again on top of the other ones.
That's who he was. It would be a mean thing to say to someone. too depraved To choose to do go choose to do well. But I can't because you've made me You know, you've taken that ability away.
Well, God has not taken that ability away.
So the double standard again of Reformed theology. Is that They can't choose God, but they can choose sin. And that's the whole story for those who are lost.
Now, God knows who's going to be saved and who's not. He knows who's going to receive it and who's not, but that does not mean he caused it. And we covered this in predestination. He knew Judas Iscariot was going to betray him, but he did not say, here's $5, go betray me. He did not cause Judas to do that.
Jesus said, I chose you all. I gave you all a shot.
Well, one of you is a devil. Not because of God.
So By their logic, by their ill logic, I should say. If Pharaoh was totally depraved, then why would God have to harden his heart? Man is so depraved.
Well, then, God wouldn't have to harden his heart. He'd be so depraved, he'd do it on his own. The hardening of the heart of Pharaoh is actually God allowing the man to bristle up against God as much as he wanted to. And that's precisely what happened. because God appealed each time to him, and Pharaoh kept resisting and lying about, Okay, I give in.
And then he changes his mind. And God says, fine, you're going to go the course you want to go, and I'm going to let you do that. It is not uncommon for God. to turn the wicked over to their own delusions. And that's what we read about in Thessalonians at the end of Isaiah.
If God says, okay, if you want to reject me, you can, but that does not allow you to decide how that rejection plays out. on everybody else. The fourth one is resistible grace. What if you don't want to be saved?
Well Too bad. I know, it's just so crazy, right? What's the logic in this? Who would even want to ask such a question?
Well, resistible grace, God's grace. Which calls me pause there. Jacob Arminius was A Calvinist was And first, he had a problem with it, then he seems to have come over to it. And then he's teaching on Romans 9. He says, Wait a minute, the Bible is not teaching what they're telling me.
And that's when he comes out with this. points of Rejection against Calvinism. And it seems like they then counter with their points.
Well, resistible grace, God's grace, which calls people to salvation, can be resisted or rejected through human free will. But the Calvinist says, no, he doesn't have free will. Hmm. Uh do they Do they willfully say that?
So, Stephen in Acts chapter 7, Stephen, the Bible says, a man filled with the Spirit and all wisdom. What did he say to the Jews? Before they stoned him to death, You always resist the Holy Spirit. According to Calvinism, you now have God resisting God. Because they can't do it.
Unless God pushes the magic button in them. In Matthew 23, 27, Jesus lamented over Jerusalem. How I wanted to gather you together, but you were not willing. The language is critical because when, again, when it comes to the Trinity, they have zoomed in on the language. But when it comes to this pet doctrine, and these are.
Again, people like Alistair Begg. John MacAUTHER They swim in these waters. And you just scratch your head. You say, God, come on, you're playing with me, right? You're fooling around with me.
How can these admirable men in other areas Be so blind.
Well, it goes back to you can be very intelligent in some areas and stone cold wrong in other areas. Irresistible grace is their response to resistible grace.
Now, don't take that word lightly. Irresistible. You cannot Resist the salvation. just like the other one, can't get it. Because God is sovereign, According to Calvinism, and Reformed theology, and that's the end of the story.
So here comes the irresistible grace. When God extends His grace to the elect. 'Cause the others don't get it. They fail to see that God elects those who believe. They've turned election and to selection.
with just some mysterious reasoning behind it. When God extends his grace to the elect, they cannot resist it. The Holy Spirit effectually. calls them Regenerating their hearts so they freely and willingly come to faith in Christ.
So, everybody who's in heaven is there because God demanded they be there. See, this is why the title of the book is What Love is This? You cannot. force somebody to love you. You cannot have irresistible love.
based on just A command. It's not love. God wants us to love him back. not forcing us. And they call this sovereign grace.
Again, everything is sovereign with God. His love is sovereign. His mercy, his kindness, everything is sovereign with Him. It is almost redundant to have to say it. It's more like sovereign abduction.
if this were the case. Faith is not needed. God just has to select. Again, you stop and say, No, they can't believe this. They can't believe this.
I've heard them on the radio. I have their books. Yeah, books really aren't that good. I mean, they just lack passion. They have maybe a lot of cold facts, but they lack passion.
And that's one of the problems with Lloyd-Jones. book on King David. There's no passion for David. When he stumbles and he recovers, the passion's not there, it's just condemnation. And there's worse ones than Roy Jones.
And yet you read Lloyd Jones and other things and you say, boy, I'm glad he's on our side. He's pretty fierce.
So The fifth point Which is the last one is conditional salvation. This is what the Armenians believe. It's the simple word is perseverance. You get saved and you abide with Christ until you die. You stay with Him.
You sin, you forgive, you struggle against sin. Paul said, with my flesh, I obey the law of sin. With my mind I obey the law of God. And he's talking about the struggles of the flesh and the spirit, but it is a struggle. Whereas the unbeliever is not having that struggle because they don't believe in Christ.
Christ is not their motivation, they're not trying to please God. They may try to break free from an addiction for their own sake, but not because of love for Christ, whereas the Christian has remorse. That's why Peter went out and wept bitterly. And in the Greek, there's a picturesque word. where he's crying so hard, his chest is heaving.
Is uncontrollable as a grown man because he sinned by denying the Lord. Jesus said, If you deny me before men, I deny you for my Father. Yes, that's true.
However, there is a space there, evidently. To repair. the broken hearted, Because Christ went out of his way after his resurrection to find Peter and to restore him. in front of everybody.
So, conditional salvation is perseverance. Salvation is Secure as long as a believer continues in faith, but it can be lost if one rejects Christ or falls away from faith. That's what the Arminians believe.
Some Arminians, like John Wesley, Wesley was a dynamo. I mean, he saved, probably single-handedly, saved England from a civil war. Another one. He held to eternal security, believing true believers will persevere. But most affirm the possibility A falling from grace.
And so Wesley was saying. I believe that you can fall away. But I believe God knows the true believers that will not fall away. And I agree with that. But the reason why the Calvinists do not believe in that is because they say, well, God selected who gets saved, and He's not gonna make a mistake when He does that.
So if he's chosen you to be saved, you can't lose that salvation. But well, what does the Bible say though? That's your opinion. Calvinists? What does the Bible say?
Well, I read you. Hebrews 6, 4 through 6. You're free to come to Christ. You're free to leave Him. You don't lose your free will when you come to Christ in His lifetime.
So let's take a few verses. Hebrews 3, 12 this time. Beware, brethren, lest there be In any of you, an evil heart of unbelief departing from the living God.
Well, to depart means you were there. You can't depart from where you haven't been. Galatians 5. This is to the Christians that were the Jewish Christians that were going back into Judaism after they accepted Christ. as their sacrifice.
Paul writes to them and he says he's chastising them. You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law. You've fallen from grace. That means you've lost. If you don't fix this So persevere and we'll come back to this continuing.
What the Bible says about continuing with Christ. No Christian should be. Living in fear of this. Like Joshua said, as for me and my house, we're serving the Lord. Punk?
He'll say that, but it's a little attitude to that, right? You're going to do what you're going to do, I'm serving the Lord. And every Christian should have that assurance. 1 John 5:13, I've written to you so that you could know that you have eternal life and stop guessing about it. Perseverance of the saints.
Here's the Calvinistic. This is the P of the tulip. Those whom God has selected and regenerated will persevere in faith and cannot lose their salvation. God preserves them through trials, ensuring their eternal security.
Okay, question, how do we know?
Well, you gotta wait for them to die.
So you can't tell why they're living?
Well, you can tell they're on the right track. But you really can't be sure till they're dead. Because if they fall away before they die, then they weren't saved.
So, how do I know you're saved?
Well, you don't because you have to wait for me to persevere. You see the mess this makes? And if you try to hold them to these things, you know what they do? They throw big words at you, like mono something, and you know, I don't know, T-Rex. They throw things at you.
It's like, what is that? And if you say to them, No, I believe in free will, you're a minion. No, I'm right. I'm right. I don't need Jacob or Minneas, though I agree with him.
to tell me that the Bible means what it says. Again, you have people that you love. You may have loved ones in your family, and they may be very loving to you. But again, on this point, It's not like, well, they're half right. No, they're not.
They're not right on any of their points. All five points are wrong. Saved or not, you cannot. have free will with these folks. Calvinism says if you don't persevere, then you were never saved because God cannot elect.
Apostates.
So then, why would Jesus say, Abide with me, if it were impossible to not abide with him? There's Jesus and the apostles just go around making, creating questions for everybody to try to settle. This doesn't make sense. Why would you say these things? There's other things you could say to me that would be better if Calvinism were right.
So they bake into their theology the idea that you cannot choose to continue with Christ even though Jesus warned about not abiding with him. John 15, verse 6, if anyone does not abide with me, Now, if I were a Calvinist and I was in the group, I would say, wait a minute. You picked me to be saved. I'm going to abide, but you have nothing to do about it. Too late.
He continues, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. I get a little irritated by them, yeah, because they get away with this.
So many good people fall for this. And I I have not been able to figure out What is the attraction? Is it arrogance? Is it ha ha I'm one of the chosen ones? and everybody else is not.
I don't have to evangelize really. I just do it because I'm commanded to do it, but I really don't mean it. The hyper-Calvinists write, but I'll never tell 'em. I don't know. Romans 11, 22, Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God.
on those who fell severity, but toward you goodness here comes, if you continue in his goodness, otherwise you will be cut off. But I thought you couldn't lose it.
Well, that's not saying that.
Well, you say, well, no, no, no, that's it. If you don't persevere. He's talking about if you don't pray, well, we know that already, we don't need you to tell us that. Colossians 1, verses 21 and 23. And you who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet?
Now he has reconciled. Verse 23, if indeed you continue in the faith. grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel. Clearly there can be apostates, or else there would be no word apostate. I haven't Brought any of those up.
Paul talks about apostates. You cannot fall away. An apostate in the Greek. is falling away. You can't fall away from what you didn't From where you were not.
So finally, In Matthew 18, 14, Jesus says, So So it is Uh let me Back up, even so. It is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. Do you think God loves babies more than older people? The joke would be, oh, of course he does. The truth is not at all.
God's love is not fickle. It doesn't have ups and downs to it. It's not whimsical. It's steady. He doesn't love the little child and say, Boy, I sure hope you don't get old because if you do, I'm not going to love you like I love you now.
He does see the children as defenseless and more vulnerable. But also the elderly, after a while, many of them become just like children again. The cycle has come back. And they're vulnerable now.
So when Christ says Even so, It is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. He doesn't say up to the age of five. They can live to 95. It's still the same thing. He doesn't want them to perish, they're still little ones to him.
Many good Christians have embraced this. deformed doctrine. Defending it as biblical. But it's not, and I'll close with this verse from 1. From John's Gospel, chapter 1.
I had cut out probably more than half. of my personal feelings. about this I was trying to just be objective and give you the verses. And cut out all of my insults. And I don't think I've I've not launched any insults.
If the truth is insulting, then line up with the truth and get away from Being wrong.
So John, this is John the Apostle. talking about John the Baptist who is going to preach about Jesus Christ. That's what this verse is going to be.
So John the Apostle writes, This man, John the Baptist, came for a witness. to bear witness to the light, Jesus Christ. That all through him, all through the preaching of John. might believe. Who John preached?
that we might believe. What part of belief? lacks reason, lacks choice.
So that's it. I don't plan to cover this well.
So, when you hear me hit Calvinism when we're going verse by verse, Stand up and give me an ovation.
Now we know why you feel that way. No, I mean, again, they're still our brothers and sisters. They're just the ones that we don't want to visit. And it ain't going anywhere. You're not going to change them.
If you have a Calvinist friend, This set. You're not going to ever, I've never met one. That says, you know what, you're right. There's no such love as this. There's no such love that says you are unconditionally elected, shut up and get in heaven.
That's just not love. It would be very simple, though, would it not, if God just said, I've already picked who's coming in and let's just end this madness. But to say I've already picked who's going to heaven and we're going to keep earth with all of those horrors and sufferings going on. That goes against the Character of Christ. and Yahweh that we're exposed to in Old and New Testament.
Uh Thanks for tuning in today to Cross Reference Radio, where Pastor Rick has some answers for various questions that have been asked. We can't fully express how grateful we are that you've been with us today. But if you're ever looking for more teaching and content from us, you're welcome to subscribe to our podcast. Just go to your favorite podcast app and look for Cross Reference Radio. For any other information about this ministry, go to crossreference radio.com.
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