London Baptist Confession Ch 9,10

Well, I normally would tell you turn in your Bibles, but we are going through a series in our evening afternoon service in the London Baptist Confession of faith of 1689. I want to, especially because we have some newer folks, I want to do just this much review just so you know where we're at. We hold to this confession, but way I wouldn't say loosely that's not correct because we hold dearly to the doctrines in it. They're very precious to us. But we are not the people, the kind of people that are using the confession a lot.

You might remember, remember that I have said before that in times past the afternoon or evening service at churches were used for various different reasons over church history and in various places in the world and in our country. And it used to be, for example, the Baptist churches would do evangelistic services in the evening. That's what they would do. They would have a normal preaching service in the morning and then in the evening they would do like revival type things and evangelistic type things with music and sharing the gospel and invitations and things like that. And then another ways of thinking and other denominations or things like that.

If you want to use denominations, they would do things like in a big part of the reformed circles, they would do catechism. They would use the evenings services for going through their various catechisms and things like that. We've done lots of things here. We've done regular expository preaching in the evening. We've done topical series in the evening, we've done question and answers.

We've done all kinds of things in the evening services. But it's been a long time, like more than 10 years if my math is right. Since we've went through the London Baptist Confession and it being our 25th year. That's why I chose to do this and the timing of the Sunday school class on Baptist ecclesiology, the doctrine of the church according to what Baptists think. So I don't usually do this much sort of topical type stuff, Baptist related things.

It just so happens we're 25 years old. I'm reminding us what Baptists have historically believed and that we fit in the family tree of Baptists. People ask often what kind of Baptist we are. And if you want to look at it, you would. You would look at the early English particular Baptists.

That would be the way to think of how to find out where we came from or not necessarily our church. But the two pastors of the history of this church both kind of have that sort of. We would trace Our thinking to those people, the particular Baptists of. Of England. And then of course, we have our association.

And there were a lot of particular Baptists in our association in the beginning. It was way more Calvinistic early in history, as far as I could tell, in the writings of people. But I'm saying all that to tell you that the Confessions are important, but we don't preach the Confessions as equal with Scripture. We don't think that you are required personally to believe everything a confession says, except insofar as that it's handling the truth accurately. Right.

So at our church, we also have a constitution. When people become members, they have to agree with our Constitution. But even that is something that we don't pull out that often, very rarely do we need the Constitution to settle something. We really do believe that most things can be easily settled by the simple handling of Scripture. If we do things biblically, then there's not really a whole lot of need to get out of constitution or a confession.

But it is important to know what the church you believe holds to and its leadership. It is important and it's also important and can be helpful for you to build your own convictions. We do a discipleship thing here where I go through 16 lessons with people or someone else goes through that 16 lessons. I've been reviewing this. I'm thinking about maybe making the material based on our confession because I like it so much.

But we go through that time individually with people to teach the foundational doctrines of the Christian faith, to make disciples. That's why we do that. And so these are things that we count very important. Typically, we're preaching verse by verse through Scripture. That's normal, like what we're doing in the mornings.

But I just. I sort of want to explain that because it can be that if you walk into this service like this tonight, you might think, well, man, they really. That's what they care most about. Well, we care about it. And it's an important doctrine.

This doctrine tonight. You might be shocked to hear what you're going to hear tonight, and that goes for people at our church, that I'm going to say some things about free will that might shock you because of not only what our confession believes, but what we believe Scripture teaches. So there's. I have a ton of notes. I'm going to fly low and fast.

That's the way pastor used to say it in a Sunday school class I gave you. Copies of the Confessions are yours to keep. You don't have to hold to them or even read them. They're just handy. I had a couple extra and I knew that I was holding onto them and not everybody had one.

So we're going to be looking at chapters nine and ten in the confession this evening. And I'm going to. I'm going to read more from the confession tonight than I have in most of the sermons up to this point. So we're going to read more from it because I want you to hear it, as it were, from the horse's mouth that we hold to things that have been established in many Baptist churches since 1689. I remind you that's older than our country.

Right? Everybody's celebrating 250 years. But this confession that we hold to and. And give much credence to is older than that. And if you didn't know, if you don't know the history of the London Baptist confession, there are two.

This one's called the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689. The first one was from 1644. They're not related, but there are passages from the 44 confession in this one. The 1689 confession is almost a direct copy of the Westminster Confession of Faith of the Presbyterians. It's a direct copy.

Some chapters are untouched. They're literally a direct copy over into. And so what was happening at that time were the, the Protestant and the. The more Calvinistic leaning Baptists joined with the Reformed people and they had those things in common with them and then they just essentially Baptistized their confession and stole it. Copied.

They copied it and made it our own. So that is somewhat of the history. And there's whole chapters that are different, there's big portions that are different. This one won't be a lot different. So let's pray and we'll dig in.

We have so much to cover and I'm going to go really fast and I will introduce the subject after I pray. Father, please be with us. Now these things are in a confession. Many of them are very clear and should be our confession. We should be agreeing with these things.

Some of them are black and white. They're not gray at all. But in the areas, Father, where there might be difference of opinion or things like that. Would you just help us be gracious? I have convictions on them and I want to make sure not and push bias.

But we want to be biblical above everything. So would you help us as we go through the confession, all the things in it that are accurate and rightly handling the word, we would adhere to those things. And anything that is questionable, we would lean on your word first instead of our opinion. So please help us with that. In Jesus name, amen.

Well, here's the tough question of the night. Have you stopped beating your wife? Now you can all hear, I hope. Well, especially, or maybe can I say beating your husband or your children or neighbors. You can all.

You all know, don't you, what a bad question is, right? Like if I say sugar, right? Sugar, question mark. You might say, yeah, I like sugar. But what if I was saying I'm looking for an additive for my fuel tank in my car?

Sugar, right? That would be bad for my car. Questions can be good questions and bad questions. People say there are no dumb questions. I disagree with that.

There are dumb questions and there are a lot of inquisitive idiots as well. But when you ask the next question I'm going to ask you, I'm telling you, this is something. If you come to our church or you come to our classes, I'm going to give it to you. You get one of the bonus material tonight where I say out loud to you, it is a trick question. So I'm about to ask a trick question.

Okay, I'm asking you a trick question. So if you fall to it, it's your fault, not mine. You're free not to answer it. Don't answer if you don't want to be tricked, because it is a trick question. So I warned you.

Here's the trick question. Can man freely choose to be saved? I love the silence. Thank you for being silent. Silence is the right response because that answer is a bad.

That question is a bad question because it's not a complete question. And that's what we're going to be dealing with this evening. How do you get to the right question so that you can get the right answer? From scripture, the answer to that question is, can man freely choose to be saved? Is a either or question.

What do you mean by free? What do you mean by free? If you mean what most people mean by the word free, where you have what is called the power of contrary choice whether to choose A or B, I'm going to ask you, are you an atom or not? Because if you're an Adam, you cannot freely choose to be saved unless God does something first. And I'll prove that, not only from the confession, but from the text, the first kind of freedom to know.

In fact, you know what? I have this at two different places in my notes, some version of it. So instead of me just dangling a carrot and trying to keep you in, how about I'll just give it to you in advance so that. So you can take what I'm going to tell you now and take it with you, put it in your pocket and let it help along the way. Can you freely choose to be saved?

What kind of freedom do you mean? Well, I'm going to tell you. There are two kinds of freedom. There is freedom of compulsion. There is freedom of necessity.

Freedom of compulsion has to do with force. So can anyone force you to believe? The answer to that is no, right? So in that sense, you are free to choose whether or not you're going to be saved. Nobody can force you to choose to be saved.

On the other side is the freedom of necessity. And another word for that is nature. I always ask the same question when I do discipleship, and you're probably sick of hearing me say it. Is a dog free? Free to be a cat?

Is a dog free to be a cat? Both of those apply to that dog just like they apply to us and our choice to be saved or not. Nothing is keeping a dog from being a cat. Nobody's holding a gun to a dog's head saying, you must not turn into a cat. Don't you dare become a cat.

So there's nothing from outside of the dog making the dog unable to be a cat. The dog is free to want to be a cat. And I could use genders in our modern culture and you could probably see how that unfolds, right? The problem with that of what people choose and what they're born by nature with. On the other hand, that dog is bound by its nature to be a dog.

It can't not be a dog because it was made a dog. Got it? Now I'm going to ask you, what are we humans by nature? It depends. Do you mean before the fall or after the fall?

Look at the confession in Chapter 9. The first paragraph says, God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty and power of acting upon choice. Hey, is our confession saying we have a power of choice? Yes. But hang in there that it neither forced nor by any necessity of nature determined to.

To do good or evil. Do you know what the confession is saying? It's saying we were created with liberty. We were created without sin. So our natures, before we fell, our natures could choose one or the other.

So the best question to ask as to whether we are able to choose God or not is whether you mean before the fall or after the fall. And a lot of what I'm going to say now is to make the argument that after the fall, we are enslaved and not able to choose God anymore. God has to do something. And when we argue for that, I hope you understand that what we're arguing is to make sure that God gets all the credit for what he does, because he does 100%. And we want to make sure he gets all the glory.

We're not arguing for just how bad people are. They're bad. They're totally depraved. But that's not the argument. The argument is what has to happen for us to be saved.

God has to do something. And if God does something, what should we do? We should say hallelujah and give him all the glory and honor. And that's why we argue. So this has to do with the nature of choice.

Is it compulsion? Is it necessity? And it also has to do with the person making the choice. Are they pre fall Adam and Eve, or are they post fall after this? The fall into sin and the defiance of God in the garden.

Do men have choice? Yes. So what this text is telling us, the confession is telling us what Jesus talks about in Matthew. But he says, but I say to you, Elijah has come already talking about John the Baptist, and they did not know him, but did to him whatever they wished. Likewise, the Son of Man is about to suffer at their hands.

So Jesus is using the language of the people who put John the Baptist to death. They did what they wanted to. They had a choice and they chose to do evil. Right? So this whole first point is that we are volitional.

Human beings are choosers. They have the ability to choose things. We haven't yet talked about the enslavement of our choice or the effect of sin on us yet. I'm just trying to set the table for you so that, you know, whenever you're asking the free will question, you're asking, what do you mean by free? And then now you're asking, is it pre fall or post fall?

And what is the effect of either of those states on mankind? So man is both free from compulsion and of necessity. Before the fall, everybody got that by nature. Before man falls into sin, he truly does have what we call the power of contrary choice. Before the fall, Adam and Adam and Eve were the only ones that had this ability.

They had the ability to choose good or to choose evil. They were by nature completely free. So if you want to talk about free will, the last persons that had free will in the way we typically mean it, were Adam and Eve. And they really had it. And it's important to note it was a created thing.

This was something that God gave them. It's a communicable attribute that we can choose because God is a chooser. Now, the second paragraph says man. And I'm not going to read the whole thing. I might.

Maybe I'm reading the whole thing. I don't think I am. But if I do, it's. It's only because I don't remember if there were other sections I left out or not. Man in his state of innocency.

Now we're still talking before the fall. Innocency, right? This is created, not after the fallen. Salvation and what comes next had freedom and power to will and to do that which was good and well pleasing to God, but yet was unstable so that he might fall from it. People have asked.

In fact, I got this question from one of your family members a few weeks ago. Valentino asked me this question, why didn't God make it so that we couldn't sin? Have you ever asked that question? That's why I like the kids of our church, because they ask questions like that, why didn't God make us so that we couldn't sin? Do you know the answer to that?

I mean, you might be prone to say, because he didn't want to. And that would be a sufficient answer to say God did what he wanted to do. So if he didn't want to do something, he doesn't do what he doesn't want to do. That's a fair answer. But there's a theological answer, and that is there is only one being who can't fall.

God is unique in his inability to sin. God is unique in that anything else that isn't God can fall. He's the only infallible. So that when God creates humans, they have no choice except to be able to fall. They are by nature not God, therefore fallible.

So put that in your pocket. Take that with you. That God cannot duplicate God. He can't make a second God. He can't make another completely holy and utterly infallible, perfect, eternal being.

So God is preserving God. He can't do it, by the way. He is limited in that he can't duplicate himself. But that's really important to take with you, that in the innocent what you hear from this is that man is fallible. That man has.

And by the way, the word fallible, it has a right in it. Fallible. That's what the word means. Man is fallible. He has the ability to fall.

He's failable, right? And that's what the idea is. So that's what the confession says paragraph three says man by his fall into a state of sin hath wholly lost all ability. That becomes important. Now this is our confession saying this.

The pastor agrees with it. But I am telling you this is what Baptists historically believed since 1689. This is not some fringe doctrine from some weird church in the corner of the world. This is something that many, most in fact Baptists early in our nation's history. Hey, I was just bragging about you, Valentino, right before you came in that you asked me that question of why didn't God make us so that we couldn't sin?

That's good timing because it's a good question. Listen carefully to this language. He wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation. So as a natural man being altogether averse from that good and dead in sin is not able. That's an important word.

Able is a very important word. He is not able by his own strength to convert himself or to prepare himself. There unto the confession is saying what I'm saying, which is when we fell. Now we're talking about after the fall. We were talking about pre fall innocence, that we were created with the power of contrary choice.

And now I'm asking you, and well telling you, but asking you, does the fall affect all of us or only some of us? Is a human being wholly affected by the fall or only partially? In other words, when we fall do we become sick or do we become dead? What is the language of the Bible? Very important.

So we lost all ability to any spiritual good. And if you think I'm just making this up, I have a lot of scripture here and I'm going to read them all. Not. I'm not cutting corners tonight. I want you to hear it from the word of God.

Romans 5 says, for when we were without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly. How much strength did we have when Christ died for us? Zero. And wouldn't the ability to choose need strength? Yeah, you didn't have the ability to choose.

We were without strength. We had no ability. One of the most compelling verses in all of scripture on this subject because it literally contains the word Abel or can. Dunamis is the Greek word, is in Romans chapter 8, verse 7. This is so clear from Paul, he makes it so clear.

If you're ever struggling with these doctrines, please take it up with Romans 8, 7, not Pastor Johnny. Here's what Paul says. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God. And here Comes the important words, nor indeed can be. Can be, not chooses to be, doesn't have the ability to be.

Then it goes on to say so then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Did Paul say, those who are in the flesh do not please God, don't want to please God. It says they cannot please God. If somebody is in the flesh, according to Paul, they do not have the ability. That word dunamis is where you get the English word dynamite.

Because I don't know if, you know, dynamite has potential to change things. It has power, okay? And that's why the word dynamite. Because it has potential energy in it. And it does what it does.

This word dunamis is where we get the word can. Do you ever have the teacher? If you ask your teacher, teacher, can I go to the bathroom? And the teacher says, what? I don't know.

Can you? Because that word is the word of ability. What are you supposed to ask in that case? May I? I want you to notice the language here is cannot.

Paul will say in Titus, chapter three. For we ourselves were once. Listen to his description of the people. Of the. Of the people.

Titus is talking. He's talking to Titus about we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lesson pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful hating one another. But when the kindness of God, the kindness and the love of God, our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but with. But according to his mercy, he saved us. Listen.

Through the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit. If you go read that passage, I dare you to try to find man's choice in it. I dare you. Because Paul is literally telling Titus we had nothing. In fact, you know what we had?

Hey. Disobedience. We were awful and we were doing nothing. And what changed that? Was it our choice?

Or was it God's kindness and love? That's not all. I got a lot more. We know this verse really well. In John, chapter six, no one can come to me.

Jesus says that, says can. It doesn't say no one does come to me. No one wants to come to me. No one chooses to come for me. It doesn't say that.

It says, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and. And I will raise him up at the last day. God does that. God draws people. I'm not done.

I got more. And I'm going to ask you later to turn to John 3. Everybody knows John 3, except they only know one verse. In John 3, it's the one in n out. Burger knows now what I am.

I want to make sure and be clear here. I'm not saying that man does not choose to get to be saved. There is a choice to be made. The Bible talks about choosing life or choosing death. There is a choice.

It's just whether or not man in his fallen state has the ability to choose. Does he have? Is he by nature necessity capable of choosing? Or is he all the way dead in trespasses and sin? And in order to be made alive, he has to be made alive from the outside of himself.

Something has to happen to him, not from him. Okay, so put that in your pocket. This is something again. Historical Baptists have held this paragraph 4. When God converts a sinner and translates him into the state of grace, he freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, and by his grace alone enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good.

Yet so as that by reason of his remaining corruptions, he doth not perfectly, nor only will that which is good, but doth also that which is evil. And I think that even though it's Old English, it describes us, doesn't it? That even though we're saved now we have an ability. After being saved by the grace of God and indwelled by the Holy Spirit, we now have the ability to obey God. Where before we didn't.

We didn't have the ability, now we have the ability to obey God. But we still have those tendencies to sin. The old nature is what most people call it, or indwelling sin is what my Southern Baptist brothers call it. That idea that they're still. We're still in this world for now.

And while we're in this world where we can do both, we can do good and evil. But the important part of this is that after God saves a sinner, he can do good. Before he saves a sinner, that sinner can't do any good toward his spiritual. Towards spiritual good. The language listen to Paul uses in Colossians 1.

He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. That doesn't say we chose the Son of His love and conveyed ourselves in. No, no, no. He took us. We were over there.

He grabbed us and moved us over here into the kingdom of the Son of His love. If you. I mean, Paul goes on and on. Romans 9 is just that. I usually.

If people want to argue about this subject, I just tell them Romans 9 and tell me what you think about it? I've said that dozens of times over the years. We don't need to fight. Read Romans 9. Tell me what you think of it.

I believe what Paul says there, right? I believe what Paul says. I told the story when Mike was here, Gendron of the testimonial. The person was asking me that in a critical way. At a Starbucks, remember?

In my tablet, the magnet in my tablet. I always tell the story because I opened Romans 9 and I always remembered Mike sliding his Bible in front of Sergio like that. And so I was going to do the same thing to that guy at Starbucks, but. But the table was metal and my tablet just went gunk and stuck to it. So I didn't have the drama of sliding my tablet over it.

So I had to pick it up off the table and hand it to them. But I just said, read Romans 9. And to their credit, to that person's credit, they read Romans 9. And their next words to me were, well, it just says it. And I said, yeah, I'm just saying what it says.

I believe Romans 9 neither having done good or evil. Right. That the purpose of election might stand. It seems pretty clear to me. Well, I'm going to read some more verses.

And just to make these points, Romans 9 says, so then it is not of him who wills. How much clearer does it need to be? It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. God has to make us able. You know this.

If the Son makes you free, how do you finish that? You'll be free. What did you. Now you might say, wait, no, no, I think it sets the old. King James says, if the.

If the Son sets you free, it doesn't matter. In either case, it's not you setting yourself free. You have to be set free or made free by Jesus. Ephesians 2:8. This one is really well known for by grace you have been saved through faith that not of yourselves.

It is a gift of God. There is discussion about the. That in Ephesians 2. 8 there is discussion about that. The word that T H A T. What is it referring to?

Because there's three things that come before it. The word saved, the word faith, the word grace. Those all come before that word. So which is it referring to? And the best argument grammatically is that it is faith.

That that's what it refers to. That when Paul says that, he says you're saved by grace through faith. It is that faith that's a gift of God. So that no one boasts that's the argument. So the faith that you have, the ability for you to choose God is a gift of God.

It is not something inherent in humanity. It is not something we just have. We lost that in the fall. I'll make that case a little bit more in a second. For Paul says in the to the Philippians, which I always found this interesting because I don't think many of us do any of you.

Think of it as a gift to suffer. A gift from the Lord, present from the Lord, wrapped with a bow on it. I get to suffer. I get to open my gift of suffering. What's it today?

Disease. What's it today? Loss. What's it today? Trouble.

We don't think of gifts of suffering, but that's exactly what Paul says. Suffering is gifts. For to you it has been granted. That word. Granted is the word.

Get grace. Charis the word for gift. For to you it has been gifted. Philippians 1:29 says on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake. It's a gift to suffer.

First of all, that's hard news. But what happens right before it, it is a gift to believe. It is a grace to believe. You don't believe to get grace. You get grace, then you can believe.

Very important to get that order right. This is what separates somebody who holds to the doctrines of grace and somebody who doesn't. What comes first? Does my faith come first or does my new birth come first? We hold at this church, and the historic Baptists have held, is that the regeneration and the Holy Spirit does the work first.

He makes someone alive who was dead. Then they believe in the gospel. That comes second. And the reason we argue for it, the reason it becomes important, is because then we can say without any question, I don't get any of God's glory. I don't even get the little tiny sliver of amount.

Somebody asked me one time, johnny, do you believe that if there is 1/10 of 1% of my ability in choosing God, that that robs God of his glory? And I said, not only do I believe that it robs him of his glory, I believe it robs him of 100% of his glory. Do you want to know why I believe that? Because he says, I will not share my glory with another. So any sharing is loss.

So this is why we fight for it. I don't want you to think that we're trying to put men in the ground and say that there's no call of repentance, there's no Missions. We believe in missions and calling people to believe. We just want to make sure we're clear that in sin we don't have that ability. And John makes it so clear in the opening verse, I almost said stanza.

I say that every once in a while, John, when he says as many as received him, to him he gave the right to become children of God. It does say they received in there. So there's no doubt we have to receive the Lord, right? I'm not saying we don't have to receive the Lord, just saying we have to be given the ability to do that to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. It's so clear.

Says not nor of the will of the flesh or of God. Then we learn later that is God who works in you to do his will and to do his good pleasure. Oh boy, I got to go faster. Now paragraph five says this will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone in the state of glory alone. Now that almost sounds good until right at the end.

The idea is, it says, eventually in God's economy, once we are saved and in glory, then and only then will we only be able to do good. But until then we can do both. Before we're saved, we can't do any good. Right? So I'm going to give you.

I have. I added the Latin to my notes yesterday and I debated, do I share the Latin? Because it's not really a show off kind of thing, but I went through all that work to do all that work. Is it okay if I share it with you? Because I had to do all the work before.

It's not in the Latin is not in the confession, but the confession essentially is saying what I'm going to tell you. So there are four states of the will. And if you can get these right, then the questions now can be more manageable. Okay, because now you can ask, wait, which of these are we in? Before I answer the question, are we free to choose God?

Wait, which of those am I in? The first state is pre fall. And the Latin for that is passe peccare et passe non peccare. Are you impressed yet that I don't have. I don't have a good accent for Latin.

All that literally means is it's possible to sin and possible not to sin. That is the state of man before the fall. It is possible to sin because he's fallible, but it's Also possible if he had obeyed the Lord and not eaten the fruit, to not sin. Everybody got that. So before the fall, it's possible not to.

And possible too. And then after the fall, that is non posse non peccari. That is not possible not to sin. That once Adam fell, the only choice we had was sin because we were dead. We are now sinful from the womb.

The Bible says it, doesn't it? We're born, the heart of man is desperately wicked. We are now depraved and we can't do good anymore because of the fall. So that's the second state. So pre fall, post fall, then there's post conversion.

Now you become a completely different thing after you get saved, because that one is posse non peccare. It's possible not to sin. You still do. Because we're in this life and Jesus hasn't come and got us yet until we're in glory. It's still possible to sin.

But it is also possible not to sin. That's. That becomes exciting because you can live for the Lord and be sanctified and not sin and not be enslaved to old habits and grow and be mature and move closer and closer to being like your Lord. And then the last one is post glorification, and that is non posse picare. And that's the one we look forward to when it's not possible to sin.

Can you imagine that day we stand before the Lord and you couldn't sin. You have no ability to sin anymore. The power of the gospel, once we're glorified, to not, not be able to sin anymore. So now you can ask that question anytime the subject of will comes up. Free will or not free will.

The idea, as we are saying at our church in this confession in the historical Baptist theology, is that once man falls into sin, the entirety of man was corrupted by sin. The totality 100% of a man is touched by sin, and that includes his will. His will is dead like the rest of them is dead. And his will does not any longer have the ability to choose God. So something has to happen to a dead person for them to be able to be saved.

And what is that thing? Chapter 10. That's what comes next. Isn't it nice that the Baptist didn't leave us hanging? They gave us the answer.

Well, right out of man's inability comes God's ultimate ability. God's power to pierce a heart of darkness and change a heart. That's a heart of stone. Can a heart of stone. Can you.

Can you say, oh, I Have a stone heart. If I just mold it and beat up on it a little bit, maybe I can soften it and make it a heart of flesh. Or does the Bible say, you have a heart of stone? I'm going to take that heart out and I'm going to put in a heart of flesh. That's what the Bible says.

And you don't do that on your own. That's not your choice to do that. You don't give yourself a heart transplant because you're dead in trespasses and sin. The Lord has to do that. Now look at chapter 10, first paragraph.

Those whom God have predestinated unto life, he is pleased and is appointed and accepted. Time. Here comes a big word for us effectually to call by his word and spirit out of the state of sin and death in which they are by nature. Now they have children of wrath, right? According to Ephesians, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ, enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God.

Taking away their heart of stone. Their. It is. I didn't. I forgot that was in there.

And giving unto them a heart of flesh, renewing their wills. There it is. Renewing their wills. Their wills were broken before and would never choose God because they hated God. They were enmity.

They were opposed to Him. But then when he changed them, he gave them a new heart, renewing their wills and by. By his almighty power determining them to that which is good and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ. Yet so as they come most freely. Now this is important.

Listen to this language. The, the confession nails it. It gets it just right. It says, yet so as they come most freely. That means we come because we want to, right?

But then it says being made willing by his grace. Isn't that beautiful? Like if somebody was like, my daughter's playing piano. And I love when my daughter plays piano. I'm so grateful for it.

And she puts together song services and does all that, right? If I were to tell my daughter, I really appreciate your hard work on piano, and my daughter were to say something falsely humble like, oh, it's not me playing the piano, it's the Lord playing the piano. Now, first of all, that would. I would be upset if she did that. But that is not actually true.

What's true is that God gave her the ability to do the thing that she worked hard and practiced to do. But it's her doing it, and she's doing it for his glory. Belief is the same as that. Faith is the same as that. That we do not have the ability.

We do not have strength. We have no ability to do anything toward God. But then he opens our mind, our eyes. He quickens us to use the King James English we were dead. And he makes us alive.

And once we're made alive, then we want to do God's things. Then we see. I'll get to that in a second with John 3. I'm going to have you turn to two passages. Oh, boy, I gotta hurry.

Two passages, please. Romans 8. And then we'll look at John 3 together once we get there. Yeah, that's coming right. Somewhere.

Yeah. John 3 is around the corner. I gotta. I'm gonna hurry. So, Romans 8.

In the chain of grace, I want you to notice something very carefully. We're talking about something called the effectual call. There is a general call. That's the call of the gospel. When you preach the gospel, the word of God goes out and you share the gospel with everybody.

That's mission work, right? That's evangelism. That's what we normally think of when you call. The general call is the normal broadcast of the seed, the casting of the seed out there to everybody who will listen, right? God commands all men everywhere to repent.

So the general call is to everyone. But the effectual call, the one we're talking about, where somebody's dead and God makes them alive, is not optional. This is not a call that is optional. To refuse every time the effectual call is given, it's answered. Romans 8 says in verse 28, I want you to look carefully at the word called, okay?

And I also want you to know that it says the called. Your translation should say the word the called or those called plural. Okay? So I'll read it to you. And we know that all things work together for good to those.

Okay, who does? Who do Things work together good for everybody. No, to those who love God. To those who are the called according to his purpose. Everybody Got it?

So is this call. Can this call be refused? Be careful, because if you say, well, yes, anybody can reject God. No, no, this says that everything works out to get for good for these people. These people in this list.

These people right Here in Romans 8, everything works together for good to them. So you can't say the call here is for everybody because it's only for those people that everything works out good for, right? So this is a narrow call, a specific call. And if you Keep reading verse 29, for whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of Son, His Son, that he might be the firstborn of many brethren. Moreover, whom he predestined, these he also called.

Do you see it? The called again. There it is again. Whom he called, he also justified. And whom he justified, these he will also glorify.

This is so important in this discussion. People, I think, sometimes dismiss Scripture when they shouldn't. I always use the same example. And you argue it if you want. When Jesus walks up to the tomb where Lazarus is, and he says, lazarus, come forth.

Did Lazarus have an option? So Lazarus was dead. You mean the dead person didn't have the option to stay dead if he wanted? Please think about what you say. When you say things.

Please think about them. Don't move quickly. When God says, wake up, everybody he says that to wakes up. When God says, you who are dead, I'm making alive, you are made alive. So hang in there, because we'll get to John 3 in a moment.

The effectual call is of God's free and special grace alone. Not from anything at all foreseen in man, nor from any power or agency in the creature being wholly passive. Passive means it happens to us, not happens from us. In other words, God doesn't look down the corridor of time and see that we would choose him, and then, based on our choice, choose us. No, no, we're passive.

That's what the confession says, and so does the Scripture therein. Being dead in sins and trespasses until being quickened, there's our word, and renewed by the Holy Spirit, he is thereby enabled to answer this call and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it. And that by no less power than that which raised up Christ from the dead. The power that raised Christ from the dead raises us from the dead as well. So again, could Jesus have decided to stay dead?

You can answer that for yourself. If the Father says, I'm making you alive, can the recipient of that say, nope, no. God is sovereign and powerful. You can't tell God no. When God says, yes, and you say, what about the people that reject him?

That happened in the fall. We all rejected him. Since then. Everybody is in a state of rejection since Adam fell. Everybody is.

We have so much more. And I'm going to. I'm going to get to this part. I wish I had more time to give. But the subject of infants and people who are incapacitated, incapable, maybe disabled, not mentally aware.

Those are very good questions. But I'll just tell you what the confession says, and I will tell you. I think there's Nuance to the discussion. But. But nothing in what I would say would contradict the confession.

So because of that, I'll just tell you. If you'd like to talk to me about those things, talk to me in private. I'm happy to talk about it in private, but I want to say what the confession says tonight and I definitely want to get to John 3 tonight. So I'm going to. I'm going to just say what the confession says and then explain what it means.

But look at paragraph 3 in chapter 10. Elect infants dying in infancy are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit. The reason that comes into play is you notice it doesn't say they're innocent. You notice that doesn't say that the infants are innocent. It says they're elect.

Right? That's not the same thing. We don't believe in an age of accountability. You've heard that before where people say you get to a certain age. Some churches full on give an age like 12.

Like until you're 12 years old, you're not accountable to the Lord for your sin. So we don't believe in that. We believe we sin from the womb, but we also believe, or the confession says, that the infants who are elect are saved by Christ. They're saved. They're not innocent, they're saved.

Got that? Because all sinners need to be saved. And it's important to take that with you. Who worketh when and where and how he pleases. So also are all elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.

You think of people who are mentally incapacitated, maybe who are brain dead, but their bodies are still going, those kind of things, right? Where people don't have the ability, literally the ability to reason the Scriptures and to answer the Scriptures. What our confession is saying is that God has chosen graciously to elect those people and save them. But the important part of the confession is that they're saved by grace through Christ, not by virtue of their innocence or ignorance. And quick logic.

If you think, if you want to argue for innocence or ignorance, then you need to argue never to share the gospel again. You can never ever share the gospel again because it's very rude of you to share the gospel with someone and now make them guilty. Whereas if they're ignorant, they're just innocent for the rest of their lives. So we should be just shipping people to places where the gospel is not preached and then they'll stay ignorant the whole time and then they'll be innocent. What does the Bible say about people who don't even know the law of God?

Where's the law written in their heart, their conscience, condemning them? So no, people are not innocent. No, people are not ignorant. And okay, if they're ignorant, God does hold us accountable for what we know. But I want to make sure we're clear.

When somebody doesn't know, God chooses to work with them in special ways. I would say this because there are people who go to the extremes on these who say babies are innocent and therefore they're safe. There are other people who go so far as to say there might be unelect babies who go to hell. The Bible doesn't say either of those. And there's a valuable lesson here is to never go farther than the Bible goes.

I say that all the time. You might be sick of hearing me say that. Never go farther than the Bible goes. And what it looks like in the Bible is that God loves babies. That's what it looks like.

What did David say about his baby when his baby passed away? I'll see him again in glory, right? What did John the Baptist do when he first met Jesus? I know what you're thinking is the baptism, but that's not when he first met Jesus. He did a flip in his mother's womb when he first met Jesus.

Right? So that's a baby. And I believe babies can believe. I think we don't give them enough credit. I believe babies can't believe and do understand the things of God maybe better than us adults sometimes.

So that's for another time. I can talk about those things. But I do think it does pertain. It is important to have a good answer for that. And you want to be careful to have an answer that isn't only based on emotions or sentiment, that it's based on Scripture.

And those scriptures I gave you are good examples of where God loves children. We see it over and over again. He uses them as the example of what heaven's going to be like, right? Of the right kind of attitudes. He uses babies themselves in the Bible to teach these lessons.

So take that with you. A simple question is instead of asking what happens when babies die or what happens when a mentally incapacitated person dies, or what happens when somebody, I don't know or that poor so called innocent native in Africa that's not innocent, what happens when they die? Instead of asking what happens when they die, ask this question. Does God always do what's right? Nobody will be in hell that didn't want to go to hell.

That Is a hard thing to say, but it's a comforting thing if you take it with you. Everybody ends up where they want to end up. Everybody in glory or in hell. Everybody goes where they want to go. They might regret their choice, but they go there willingly.

Now here we go. What about the non elect? And this is the part I want you to turn to. John 3 and get ready. Others non elected, although they may be called.

Called by the ministry of the word. That's the general call, right? Generally called by evangelism and may have a common. Sorry. And may have some common operations of the Spirit, yet not being effectually called that special one that draws them by the Father.

Right, Drawn by the Father. They neither will nor can truly come to Christ and therefore cannot be saved. Much less can men that receive not the Christian religion be saved. Be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature and the law that religion they do profess. So in other words, he's saying you can be a fake Christian.

That's what the confession is saying. It is possible to pretend to be a Christian, to act like a Christian on the outside. I always say Judas thought he was a Christian, right? Was he? Nope.

Right. So this idea that it's possible on the outside to look like you're the real thing, but the real thing there has to be that regeneration, that call of God, that change of heart. Now if you're looking at John 3, I want you to think of the language here of ability, okay? I already talked about Dunamis. That is our word here in John 3.

That is our word. So put that in your pocket. Are we able to choose God? That was the first question I asked. Are we able to freely choose to be saved?

Let's see what John 3 says. Because Jesus is talking about this when he talks about being born again. John, chapter three, verse three. Jesus answered Nicodemus and said to him, most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he what's the next word in your Bible? It doesn't say.

Does not, wills not, chooses not. So unless someone is born again. That's the word Onigan, that regenerated from above, right? Born from above. Unless someone is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Which one comes first? Being born from above or able to see the kingdom? Do you see it? I'm not making it up. So how can somebody believe in something they can't see if somebody does not have the ability to see a thing?

Don't you think like some of you know, I can't taste food. I lost my sense of taste a long time ago, way before COVID decades before COVID So I can't taste food. There are things that I have something like taste so that I still like food. I always use this example that years ago, somebody at church, at a potluck, saw me eating a cookie, and they said, why are you eating a cookie? You can't even taste it.

I thought that was one of the meanest things anybody's ever said to me. It hurt my feelings. Like, why would you say that? Maybe because I wish I could taste a cookie. I don't know.

Because I want to eat right. But the reason I'm bringing it up is that person's question is like this. Like, if somebody's blind, if somebody does not have the ability to see, and you say, how come you're not seeing the kingdom? You should be seeing the kingdom. What are you, stupid?

No, they don't have the ability. It isn't that they're not choosing to. That's also true. But it's that they don't have the ability. If we keep reading, Nicodemus said to him, here's a dumb question.

I told you there are dumb questions. How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? See, I told you that's a dumb question right there. Then listen to Jesus answer in verse 5.

Jesus answered most assuredly. I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit of spirit. Sure sounds like you need to be born of the spirit both to see, see, and then enter the kingdom. This is something that has to happen to you.

And I want you to see that neither of them are choice except the Holy Spirit's choice. In fact, that's the next part. If you keep reading, do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. Verse 8 says everything you need to know about this. Verse 8 says everything you know.

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. It could not be clear from Scripture that for somebody to be born again, the Holy Spirit, the wind has to blow on them. They are dead. They cannot see.

They don't have eyes, they don't have ears. They have. They cannot enter because they're dead. They have a Heart of stone. In order for someone to be saved, God has to do this miraculous work of opening the eyes, unplugging the ears, regenerating them by the spirit, softening their heart, making it capable of receiving the word of God.

God has to do all of that. And for that, this preacher says, glory to God in the highest. That he does that. And I don't want any of it for me. I don't.

I don't want any of that to depend on Johnny. I don't want one millionth of a percent of my salvation depending on me. You might fight for that. For you. I don't want it.

I'm very happy that God does everything. I'm very happy because I know I'm safe because of it. If it depends on me at all. I remember somebody telling me that one time after they went through a real tragedy. Don't you just think that God always wanted to be with you and loved you?

And he may have wanted it, but I didn't. I didn't want anything to do with them. So there are errors associated with this, and then I'm going to have to just cut it short. The errors are what we call decisional regeneration. The idea.

And you've heard this, and it's okay to hear this because I think typically when people say it, they say it innocently. I don't think they mean to be against the Bible or anything. That when somebody says, make a decision for the Lord or you'll hear language, accept the Lord. Accept is questionable because accept and receive can be translated the same in the New Testament, like as many as received him. That language could almost be translated except him.

So I'm a little. I'm way more giving on that idea to someone. For someone to say to accept Jesus or something like that. Receive is for sure, okay, but accept is. But on the other side of saying that if you make a decision for the Lord, that your decision is the foundation of your confidence.

That's where I worry. That's where I worry. So decisional regeneration. So I'm saying it doctrinally. First decisions don't save.

Jesus saves. Got it. So it's not the decision. The other one is ecclesiastical regeneration. In other words, where people say, I was born a Baptist, I was born a Catholic, I was born in church, I was born.

So I was raised in the church. I've been in church my whole life. So therefore I'm saved. I use Judas as an example again. In fact, I might even use Esau as an example.

Most of those guys were Raised around the faith, right? They might have even had grandpas and stuff that were saved. So you're not saved by your church membership or the association or affiliation. And then the classic one is works regeneration, good old fashioned works. That you think you can do something to be saved.

And I'm going to just say it. So there's no question. I believe faith is a work in the sense that if you think you did it, it's a work. Doctrinally, faith is a gift, it's a verb. Doctrinally, it's something that God gives you to exercise, like your ability to play music.

But if you think that you having faith in the ability of yourself and you have it intrinsically after the fall, not before the fall, but after the fall, then I'm suggesting to you that you believe in works salvation. That you believe your faith saved you, your faith that you had internally intrinsically born with it, not something God had to give you in regeneration. Then I believe that's works salvation. You don't have to hold to that. It's okay as long as you're giving God all the credit.

There's some, maybe some leeway in there.

I don't think man is free to choose to be saved. I don't think we have free will in the absolute sense. I think Adam had that and then once he fell, all of us were enslaved to sin, that we became slaves. Slave. Can a slave decide to be free?

And you all say, well yes, of course, that because we believe that about the modern gospel, of course you can decide not to be a slave anymore. Then are you a slave? Because I thought that by definition a slave meant you didn't have freedom. I always use the same example. I'll use it with you tonight and we'll close of the prison door.

I'm going to use the same example until somebody gives me a better one. You're visiting a prison. You walk up to a cell and the door to that cell is open. It's swinging open. You could close it if you want.

It's open for now. There's no keys. You can walk in that cell room and you can walk out of that cell room. Got it? The door is open.

You can walk in because the door is not locked and you can walk out because the door is not locked. But if you walk in and pull the door closed behind you and that cage door shuts, I'm asking you, are you now free to leave? You have given up your freedom. You have forfeited your freedom. You have lost your freedom.

That is what happened when Adam fell into sin? We are now enslaved to sin. The Bible doesn't say we're sick. It says we're dead. The Bible doesn't say God helps us.

It says God does it. The Bible doesn't say God builds half a bridge and then we build the other half. The Bible doesn't say God gives you a present, but you have to open it. No, the gift is His Son, and he gives His Son unwrapped and says, believe in him. So.

So these are things that Baptists have held. These are things obviously I hold. In fact, I would even hold some of these things, maybe even a little stronger than the confession says. Maybe if the confession bugs you, I'm going to bug you more. But I only want to go as far as scripture.

Adam had free will. The rest of us have freedom of compulsion. Nobody can make us choose or not choose God. But we do not have freedom of necessity or nature. We are now by nature children of wrath.

Paul uses that language by nature. And a child of wrath does not have the ability in himself or herself to choose God. God has to do something. God opens that eyes, those eyes that. Those ears, that heart, and makes us able.

And then he says, now that you can see and enter the kingdom, now that the wind has blown, the Holy Spirit has blown, and he's touched you, and now you see the kingdom and you say, oh, no, I'm a sinner. I can't go into that kingdom. It's too holy. And then he's. He shows you the Savior.

Oh, I see. There's the Savior on the cross, dying for me. And he says, put your faith in him. All of that comes from the quickening of the Lord. And then we say hallelujah to that.

Or should. That's what we should be saying to that. Not always taking away my choice. You hear people say all the time, do you believe that we're just robots? Man, I wish I was a robot.

Because robots do what their master wants them to do. And I don't always do what my master wants me to do. It'd be nice if we were robots, but no, we're not robots. God changes our heart and we exercise it toward him, and then we serve him for the rest of our lives. Let's pray.

Thank you, Father, for the thoughts of the afternoon. Thank you for the Scripture. Even though these things are defined in these ways by the Baptists, historically, they're actually almost all directly from Scripture. We just ask Father that wherever we might wrestle, that we would wrestle with Scripture first. And when we need to be convinced.

You would be merciful and gracious to us as we try to adhere to scripture. And we'll thank you for that. In Jesus name, amen.