Refuting Hyper-Calvinism

1st Samuel 23 and verse number 1 may be a story that you're not too familiar with. I'm always amazed at the things that the Spirit of God records for us because you never know when you'll need them, and I believe this is one of these stories. 1st Samuel 23 verse 1, David is on the run from Saul.

Then they told David, saying, Behold, the Philistines fight against Keilah, and they rob the threshing floors. Therefore David inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I go and smite these Philistines? And the Lord said unto David, Go and smite the Philistines and save Keilah. And David's men said unto him, Behold, we be afraid here in Judah, how much more than if we come to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines.

Then David inquired of the Lord yet again, and the Lord answered him and said, Arise, go down to Keilah, for I will deliver the Philistines into thy hand. So David and his men went to Keilah and fought with the Philistines and brought away their cattle and smote them with a great slaughter. So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah.

And it came to pass when Abiathar, the son of Abimelech, fled to David to Keilah, that he came down with an ephod in his hand. Now that's the ephod that we've been hearing about that was over the high priest, his other garments, and of course our brother mentioned the breastplate, which was a folded piece of material, and inside there was the Urim and the Thummim, the stones that the high priest would have used for divining when someone was looking for an answer to something. So that's what all that means.

Verse 7, And it was told Saul that David was come to Keilah, and Saul said, God hath delivered him into my hand, for he is shut in by entering into a town that hath gates and bars. And Saul called all the people together to war, to go down to Keilah, to besiege David and his men. And David knew that Saul secretly practiced mischief against him, and he said to Abiathar, the priest, bring hither the ephod.

Then said David, O Lord God of Israel, thy servant hath certainly heard that Saul seeketh to come to Keilah to destroy the city for my sake. Now pay close attention. Will the men of Keilah deliver me up into his hand? Will Saul come down as thy servant hath heard? O Lord God of Israel, I beseech thee, tell thy servant.

And the Lord said, He will come down. Then said David, Will the men of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul? And the Lord said, They will deliver thee up. Now if you were there, what would you do? Well, let's keep reading.

Then David and his men, which were about 600, arose and departed out of Keilah and went whithersoever they could go. And it was told Saul that David was escaped from Keilah, and he forbear to go, to go forth. And David abode in the wilderness in strongholds.

And then Saul sought him every day, and so on. Now you might wonder, well, now what is he gonna take out of that? Well, back home I got into a discussion with a man that believed in hyper-Calvinism. So I'm just going to give you a few points that might help you as they have helped me.

Those that are not familiar with hyper-Calvinism, really, I want to pick up a little bit on what our brother William said about the gospel. It's so important to have a biblical understanding of the gospel. An older gentleman used to tell us that if you want to understand the gospel better and preach the gospel better, you take up a good study of the Book of Romans, because that is the doctrinal foundation upon which the gospel rests.

But another thing I want to pick up on is something that Brody touched on, or John touched on, is the holiness of God. I believe that people that believe in Calvinism, they are doing terrible damage to the character of God. You have to think through some of your statements and find out the box that you're putting God into.

Now, why did I start here? We're going to look at a few passages. We're going to try to just let the Bible shape what we know about God. I'm glad that David wasn't a hyper-Calvinist.

Lord, is Saul going to come down? Yes. Are the men of Caelar going to deliver us up? Yes. Well, David should have sat on the ground and went, oh well, nothing I can do.

God said it. That's what's going to happen. The very next verse, he departed.

He left. And then we read, Saul didn't come down. Did God mislead David? No, no.

This story exists to show us God that knows everything. Everything. He's omnipotent.

He's all-knowing. I should say omniscience. He's all-knowing.

God knows every possible situation, road, avenue, heat, all of it. But God's knowledge didn't make David do what he did. Do you see that very simple point? When you talk to hyper-Calvinists, some of them will hesitate, but they're locked into this corner.

You end up making God the author of sin. God knew I was going to sin. Therefore, God is sovereign.

Well, it was God's fault. No, it wasn't. See, that's why I think this story is so precious.

Here is a man. It's a story that allows us to see God's all-knowing, intermingling with the affairs of men and women and the different possibilities. I think David simply understood after speaking to God and getting the answer, he understood that if I stay, he's going to come down.

And if I stay, these men that we just rescued, they're going to betray us and they're going to deliver us up. So my only reason for starting here is just to try to give some light on this. God knows everything, but that knowledge doesn't make me do what I do.

God knew the day I was going to get saved. I didn't. But God's knowledge didn't make me become a Christian.

Now, I hope everyone is tracking with me. It's okay to nod your head and sort of go, okay, we're in somewhat agreement with you, but where are you going with this? Well, what I'm going to do might be a little different than what I'm normally used to, but I'm going to take you through what's called the Tulip Doctrine. That's what Hyper-Calvinists, in order to keep their so-called ideas in a row, they line them up under T-U-L-I-P.

And when you hear some of these terms, you might sit there and think, well, I certainly agree with that, but then we're going to find out what they mean by it. And I trust that you will see just the harm that it does to God's character. So with that being said, I want you to go to Genesis, please.

Genesis, the very first book of the Bible. I find this interesting that it's in Genesis, right at the very beginning. And I'm going to...chapter 3, we're going to go to.

And what I'm addressing here is the very first term, T for Tulip. When I say the word, you're probably going to go, wow, I've heard that before and I agree with it. The very first term is this, in their mind, total depravity of man.

That's what they call it. Now, they call them doctrines of grace. I think they're anything but the doctrines of grace.

Total depravity of man, in their mind, means this. Man is so depraved that when good is placed in front of him, he can't respond to it. Therefore, God has to do a pre-conversion work to bring the sinner up to a state of almost born again.

I still can't get quite out of them what they mean by this. And I can't get them to show me a passage. But God has to do some sort of a work to sort of get rid of the deadness.

Then God can present them with the offer of salvation. And now that they have pre-life, they can respond to it. Okay.

Let's see what the Bible teaches about the fallen state of humanity. I want you to, before we start the story, Adam and Eve, I want you to notice the key verse, verse 21. This is where Adam and Eve got saved.

It's so important to notice the chronology of this chapter. Genesis 3, verse 21. And unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothe them.

Now, in the Hebrew, skins is singular, which is a lovely picture of the Lord Jesus. But you have to understand what's happening at this point. They're still standing in front of God in the aprons that they made, which just pictures human effort.

But when they took off those fig leaf aprons that they made and when they readily took the garment that God made, something lost its life. That's the idea. Lovely picture of the gospel.

And when they put that on, that's when they became, in our terminology, born again. Now, let's look back at verse number nine. Verse number eight.

And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. Now, Adam and Eve at this point are sinners. Okay.

The minute they partook of that forbidden fruit, they fell into sin. They were cut off from God. Adam and Eve's state at this point was no different than our state at birth.

They were cut off from God out of fellowship with God. They became sinners. Prior to disobeying God, they were only created innocent.

They had the potential to sin, but up until this point, they did not. That is wonderful to go through the word of God as our brother has been telling us about the Lord Jesus. It's such an insult to God to say he could have sinned, but he chose not to sin.

People don't understand. That is so diabolical. In the word of God, always remember, you have sinners.

That's you and I. You have innocent humanity. That's Adam and Eve. But then you have sinless humanity.

That is the Lord Jesus. And here at this state, they have fallen into sin. The darkness that comes with sin, everything.

But what do I find out? They can still hear the voice of God. Someone who is dead in their sins can still hear the voice of God. This didn't happen after verse 21.

This is happening before verse 21. Just keep that in mind. Look at verse number nine.

And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself and so on. Come down to verse number 12. And the man, of course, the Lord is asking who, you know, did you eat of the tree? Verse 12.

And the man said, the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat. There's repentance. Someone who is dead in their sins.

They're not only able to hear the voice of God, they're able to respond to the voice of God. This is what God was looking for. This is something that I've been, I mentioned last couple of Sunday nights in Ontario in the gospel.

I have been recently enjoying the simplicity of the gospel and the fact that God is only asking the sinner to do what they can. Repent and believe. God is not asking the sinner to do something they can't.

God is asking the sinner. But what happens to the sinner is he tries to figure it out. God never asked us to figure out salvation.

No, just admit you're wrong. It's possible, brother and sister, a dead sinner can do this. God doesn't have to do a pre conversion work to bring them to a state of almost life.

I love how this is in the first book of the Bible. Come down a little further. Look at now.

And then he deals with the woman. She does the same thing. She admits at the end of verse 13 and I did eat.

Look at verse number 15. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head and thou shall bruise his heel.

So this is the great prophecy, the great promise of a deliverer that is coming. Just keep that in mind. What did Adam and Eve know? What could they expect from God? The day that you eat, you will die.

Now, they didn't know what death was. They didn't have to. But in their minds, they were expecting death.

Whatever this means, this is what we're going to get. All of a sudden, Adam, as a dead sinner. Here's a promise of a deliverer.

Someone is going to come and he's going to crush the head of the serpent. The serpent is the one that God is into this difficulty. Look what happens next.

Verse number 17 and add and on to add. OK, go down a little further. Verse number 20.

And Adam called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. He's not saved yet, Adam. That's going to happen in verse 21.

But due to this promise that the God of heaven made a coming deliverer, Adam exercised faith in it. He believed it. And he looked at a woman.

Now there's no longer death. She's the mother of all living. Now, I don't know whether this excites you, dear child of God, but this excites me.

God is only asking the sinner to do what they can. It's not in our craftiness that brings salvation. It's light from the God of heaven upon a sinner responding to the word of God.

It's so important to see that. So coming back to our friends, our dear friends. A sinner can't respond to God until God does a pre-conversion work in his soul.

Where do you see that in chapter three? I just see statements that are coming from God. I see a man that is admitting I did eat. He's admitting is wrong and he's not saved yet.

So if there are sinners here today, repentance is within your grasp. It's within your ability. And what else is within your ability is the ability to believe the word of God about what Jesus Christ has done.

So let's just keep those very simple things in mind. Let's go to John chapter five. Now I have one from the Old Testament, one from the New Testament.

I'll just go back and forth, try to go as quick as I can. Some of the points I'm just going to make a quick little comment about. I do not believe this is by accident, this expression in John chapter five, spoken by the Lord Jesus, because the very first book of the Bible, they heard the voice, the voice of God.

Notice what we have here. John five and verse 25. The Lord Jesus says, verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the son of God and they that hear shall live.

Dear child of God, you can't get that any simpler than that. Dead sinners can hear the voice of the son of God. Is that too simple? Too elementary? Once again, I'm coming back to I don't believe we can center our comments enough on the word of God, the living word of God.

In this age of intelligence and the digital age and everything else, I still believe the verse in first Corinthians, it pleases God through the foolishness of preaching to say what the world deems as a very weak venue. One man standing before people, old-fashioned authoritative preaching. That's how sinners hear the voice of the son of God.

Then the preacher's not even conscious of it. That's something I love even better. I'm so thankful when someone comes to the door and they say, God spoke to me tonight.

I don't go, it must've been me. It must've been during my little time. No, we serve a God that wants to speak to every sinner.

Do we all believe that? Do we believe? I'm going to show you in a minute that when the Lord Jesus died on the cross of Calvary, he didn't die for so many sins of so many people. If I tie together what my brother taught me from Romans chapter six, where I discovered there, he died for the sin, the very nature, the very root of sin. And then I go into other parts of the new Testament and I find he died for sins, the fruit.

When our savior died, he gave an infinite payment to the God of heaven. It wouldn't matter to God how many billions upon trillions upon gazillions of sinners dipped into that forgiveness. Never going to deplete the bank of heaven.

Doesn't even drop it by a half a hair. Such is the value of an infinite sacrifice. And when I start to limit that, for God so loved the world of the elect.

You ever heard them quote that one? When I start to limit that, I'm marring the character of God. That's how serious it is. We need to stop and we need to think through some of these things.

So I hope no one here will go away saying, well I believe in the total depravity of man. He is so depraved he can't do anything that is good or right. It's not what the Bible would teach.

Man is a sinner. Man is dead in his sins. Man is in darkness.

Man is in the grip of the devil. But he can still hear the voice of God. And he still has the ability to respond to it.

And when he does respond to it, that brings him into the truth of salvation. A marvelous thing. Go to Ephesians chapter 2, since we're so close.

Book of Ephesians chapter 2. There's a famous verse. So T, total depravity. The next one is going to be unconditional election.

That's the U. Unconditional election. Which in their mind simply means if you're one of the elect, because you're totally depraved, God will therefore give you the faith so that when he takes up a dealing with you, you'll be able to respond to him. So the question then is asked in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, what is the gift? Is it salvation? Or is it faith? Well, the grammar proves that the gift is salvation, not faith.

And I'll just show you that very quickly. Ephesians 2, verse 8 and 9. Very, very familiar words. For by grace are ye saved through faith.

And that, what's the that referring to? And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works us any man should boast. Always nice when you're taking apart a sentence in Greek or Hebrew or whatever, always nice to find out the parts of the sentence. What's the subject? What's the verb? You know, direct object, indirect object, all those different things.

If you want to know what the subject of these two verses is, is our, I'll give it to you. Here's the words saved. It's in the nominative case that denominative case, the gift nominative case.

The grammar proves conclusively that the gift is salvation and not faith. I hope that puts that finally to rest. God does not give me faith.

I hear this all the time. I hear people, it's very common in amongst Calvinism. They call it saving faith.

Well, I don't get that term in my Bible. Faith is faith. Faith is what comes with free will.

That's what God built into every human being right from the moment of creation, the ability to express free will. We're not robots. We all understand that.

And I think it's very, very simple why God has done that. You exercise your will when you commit sin, God is now going to watch you exercise your will to be saved. The very thing that you use to commit sin is the very thing that comes native to the human, the ability to trust.

So dear child of God, don't use the expression saving faith. It's not in the Bible. And it seems to give the indication that there's another type of faith than everyday common living faith.

We all exercise faith when you sat in that chair. You got so used to it, you don't even think about these things. I think a lot of sinners, and the reason I say this is because my wife was brought up in this environment, and you know how she was taught to pray? She would pray every night at her bed.

Lord, I really want to be saved. I just hope I'm one of the elect. That's how she went to bed.

Not trying to find out if she was a sinner. Oh no. Try to find out if you're one of the elect.

Talk about confusion. Like I said, it just does, it does so much damage to the clear, simple gospel preaching. I will stand upon this platform till there's breath left in my body, and I will tell every single audience I stand before that when Jesus Christ died, he died for your sins.

Full stop. That doesn't become true when you believe it. That's still true if you die in your sins and go to hell.

Christ died for sin. The whole thing, lock, stock, and barrel. We need to get back to a heart that is filled with the thoughts of God.

He looks upon every sinner, and he's given every sinner the ability to believe him, and we just have to present this beautiful message. Go to Hebrews chapter four for a minute. Hebrews chapter four is another, I'm just, I'm heaping these one upon another, and then you can take them home, and you can think upon them.

Hebrews chapter four, you have possibly three different companies, and I don't want to get into that, but I want to look at two companies that are identified here in chapter four, and the writer is going to exclude himself from one and include himself in another, and just notice the difference. Hebrews four, verse one, let us therefore fear less a promise being left us of entering into his rest. Any of you should seem to come short of it.

Notice, for unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them. See the two groups? But the word preached did not profit them not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. What is the Bible doing, dear child of God? The Spirit of God is telling us that faith is in them, same as the us and the them, and they both heard the same message.

The gospel preached, it was preached unto us, we believed it, but it didn't profit them not being mixed with faith, which is in them. See how clear the Bible is? Once again, backing up Ephesians two, eight and nine, the gift is salvation, not faith. So when you start to think through this then, when the Lord Jesus looked at the Pharisees and he said, you will not come to me that you might have life.

What was that an empty charge? Could they have stood up and said, well, we can't come to you because you didn't give us the faith. No, never. Listen, if they were right, the Calvinist, the way they think about it, that means that every sinner in hell right now could look up to heaven and say, I'm here because there was no pre-conversion work done in me, so that when I heard the gospel, you didn't give me any faith.

Listen, your faith is as much a part of your salvation as anything else will be. Now, when we start to get into this level, we want to start to define things right down to a fine tooth comb and say, okay, well, what really happened? Listen, it's a miracle when the God of heaven starts to take up a dealing with a sinner, absolute miracle. And we marvel at the constant, many of us brought up in Christian homes, the constant talking and talking and God trying to get our ear and us saying, no, why the spirit of God continued speaking to me is I can't I cannot explain it.

And that marvelous process of a sinner starting to get light and they respond to it more light. They respond to it more light. They respond to it.

That's the that's the repenting process as the spirit of God. That's Hebrews, chapter six. They became partakers of the spirit of God.

They weren't into the spirit of God, but they were they were tasting of heavenly things. It was right there. And the spirit was encouraging, trying to move them.

God will never save you against your will. We hear that said all the time, don't we? God is not going to take someone to heaven, kicking and screaming. I don't want to go.

No, I love my sin. I want to stay here. There's a miracle.

I love the Hebrews, chapter 10, verse 32. After that, you were illuminated light. I'm going to back up here for just a second.

This process of agreeing with God. I want to take you to the the moment before I got saved. There was light that was given to this boy here.

Scott, you're a sinner. Yes, I am. And then God gave me light.

Christ died for your sins. Yes. Now, how that works.

It's a miracle, an absolute miracle. The more I read of this Bible, we were just talking at dinner time there based on what brother Brody said there this morning about sin. And I understand today, after being saved for 32 years, an awful lot more about my sinfulness than the day I got saved.

I understand more now the pride, the arrogance, that wicked. I understand far more now. I'm glad that salvation is not based on comprehension.

No, just as we were, as we were with Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve only had to believe God. They had no idea, never saw anything die in their life, never seen, never seen death, period. Believing God is not based upon an intellectual understanding of the whole thing.

It's just taking God at his word. That's all it is. I just simply trust him.

Now, let's go to Isaiah 53 for a minute. Isaiah 53, I love. Actually, I took my friend here and he didn't have no answer.

And that's really dear child of God. It's this is where we want to take people is to the Bible. OK, it's not it's not our wonderful way of arguing and oh, I'm going to put my mind against your mind.

No, no, no. We are coming to the Bible and it's not in the Bible. Well, we shouldn't be believing it.

Now, I took him here to Isaiah 53, this young man, and I'm just going to read. Maybe you got saved through this verse. Verse number six.

Wonderful verse. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Who's that verse talking about? Well, he said. I don't really know. That's a great way to start off.

Well, I said, do you think it's just talking about Jewish people because we didn't have a New Testament yet? Well, I mean, I mean, everybody's a sinner, aren't they? Well, that's what the Bible would teach. You see what was happening in his mind. I'm afraid to take that at face value.

Because it's going to make me change the way I've been thinking. I've heard so many preachers say this, enter in at the first stall, exit at the last stall. You're on your road to heaven.

All we like sheep have gone astray. Of course, that encompasses the entire world. There is not a group that are called sinners and another group that's not called sinners.

We know that Romans for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Could you get any simpler? I believe good old Isaiah by the spirit of God.

He was a he wasn't a Calvinist. Praise the Lord. Wonderful.

Let's go into the New Testament. First Timothy chapter two. I love this one.

This one here has got so much grammar packed into it. I'm just going to unpack a little tiny, tiny bit of it for you. Check my time.

Now, when you're in the when you're in the New Testament, for those that would like to do a little bigger study of this thing, the English word for, for, well, you got a number of words. OK. Our brother Brody mentioned one in propitiation for the sins of the world.

And it's I love Mr. Newberry's prepositional chart in between the Old and New Testament. Fantastic. That particular verse that our brother Brody read in First John chapter two, it's just the idea of being completely encompassed by just like a circle right around the center covers everything.

What a what a lovely descriptive term of the propitiation for the sins of a whole world, as if you needed another verse to prove the all inclusive nature of the death of Christ. But now there's two other words that were more than common with, you know, Hooper and and and anti for for instead of on the behalf of people get into like one means substitution. One means a little bit different.

There's obviously a shade of difference between them. OK, but what I love about First Timothy chapter two is the spirit of God takes both of them together and links them with the ransom. OK, so if you didn't have First Timothy chapter two, you could probably make a pretty good case for, well, this only means for those that are going to be saved and this means a general thing.

But here everything's pulled together. Let's read it. First Timothy two and verse number five, for there is one God and one mediator between God and men the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified to time.

Now, in your Greek language, normally you'll get the word ransom by itself. Lutron. There it is.

That's the Greek word. And we're all familiar with that. Somebody's been taken hostage as a ransom note.

The price is paid and the hostage is released. That's the general idea between it's a price that's paid. All right.

You know what the spirit of God does here? He makes a compound word out of it. Anti-Lutron. One word.

And then for Hooper. Something that's not done anywhere else. So when we're in the section dealing with one God, one mediator, I just love how the grammar, it just, listen, if you had any thought that it wasn't this way.

Now, when you come here, he's using both words to encompass everything. That's the price that was paid. I challenge someone to try to put a price on an infinite work coming from an infinite person.

How can you limit that? How can you say it's only for this group and it's not for this group? See, your understanding of the Bible has to be consistent. I will say this as well, because this is going to get into the next point. I do not believe that there are elect sinners walking the face of this earth.

Should we just sort of let that sink for a minute? At least I got Brody nodding over there. Good boy. Good.

Thank you, brother. Everybody's sort of wondering like, do we agree with this guy or not? We're just going to the Bible now. Listen, T, total depravity.

It's not, the Bible has a different understanding of total depravity than what they have an understanding. Unconditional election. Well, the Bible has a very different view of that as well compared to what they have.

L, limited atonement. Doesn't even sound good, does it? Limited atonement. Yeah.

Here's the next one. I, irresistible grace. Now, these are all hinging together.

Why would they talk about irresistible grace? You'll hear them talk about the effectual call and the fervent call. So I've argued with them. What do you mean by that? Well, everybody in the world gets the general call, but only those that are elect get the effectual call, a special call.

Oh, so now you're trying to tell me that God is a respecter of persons. I've got two verses in the old Testament and I got two verses in the new Testament that clearly tell me God is no respecter of persons. When God looks at humanity, he sees sinners.

You're either in the family of Adam or you're saved in the family of Christ. God doesn't make no distinction over here. I hope we believe that because what they end up saying is, since you're going to be one of the elect, since you are one of the elect, therefore God has to give you the faith so that when he deals with you, you end up responding.

And once that gracious call comes, it's irresistible. Coming back to the conversation I had with this young friend of mine. So I said, are you familiar with apostates in the Bible? Yeah.

I said, how do you get apostates then? An apostate is someone who was brought right up to the door of heaven, right? You couldn't get any closer, man. And they willfully turned away. According to you, irresistible grace, once it draws you to the door, you just keep on going right into the door.

He couldn't explain that to me. That's why we're going over these verses so that you can go home and think upon these things. There is an aspect in salvation.

I agree 100% with my Calvinistic friend says, God always has to make the first move. I fully agree with that. If I was left alone in my sin, I wouldn't even know I was a sinner.

I wouldn't even know that I was going to hell. I wouldn't care. That's that frightening parable that the Lord Jesus told, when a strong man's arm keepeth his goods, his palace, his goods are in peace.

Thank God for the day the spirit of God started to disturb my peace. And light, light. And God was watching me.

Is he going to respond to the light? I'll give him more light. He responds, more light. That is the cooperation between the spirit of God and my spirit.

I cannot explain it. It's a miracle. Let's come near the end here.

Irresistible grace. I'll give you the references. Deuteronomy 10 and 17.

Second Chronicles 19 and 7. There's your two in the Old Testament. Acts 10, 34, Romans 2 and 11. You know, the amazing thing is, what have we gone through? T-U-L-I-P, total depravity, unconditional election, T-U-L, limited atonement, irresistible grace.

Guess what the last one is? Perseverance of the saints. All of a sudden, the human will comes in out of nowhere. So I'm speaking to my dear friend.

He was a very kind, very nice man. He was actually just friendly with a sister in the meeting. She wanted me to talk to him.

So we're discussing this and I said to him, I says, okay, so I want you to bring everything to a stop in your mind right now. If you were to die right now, based on what Christ has done, would you be in heaven? That's what I heard. This deafening silence.

And then he said, well, I have to persevere to the end. Well, wait, wait, you're going to die. This is the end, man.

Have you not persevered right till now? Well, I'm not too sure. See what it does. It puts one eye on Christ and one eye on me.

That is an awful insult to the God of heaven. When Jesus Christ said it is finished, it's done. Nothing has to be added to it.

I can't add anything to a finished work. Number one, he's infinite. I'm not.

He is perfectly without sin. I'm not. How could I add something? How could God be looking at my perseverance? So, dear child of God, think through your theology, okay? Challenge it with the word of God.

I don't have time. I wrote down a whole bunch of verses that we could go through. Oh, that proves election.

Listen, I simply understand election this way. Since I'm in this deep, I may as well just make one final comment and then sit down. Election is linked with our relationship with Christ.

And once you're in Christ, now you're predestined for glory. Now you're elected for a purpose. You always got to read the verses in the context in which you find them.

Instead of just reading halfway through, oh, there, no. You let the word of God show you what these things mean. And I trust that that will be to your help.

Thank you for listening.