Father, once again, we gather before you today with the truth of your Word before us. A lot of teachings have gone out, a lot of sincere desire to help explain your Word in a simplistic way, and my handout will be one of those today. Handmade or man-made, it could have flaws, it's not perfect, it's not inspired. So may your Word be what we lift up and use tools when they correctly interpret your Word. And so teach us today about Calvinism. Not something that I've been looking forward to, but an area that we need to clarify in our day. And so we thank you for the opportunity to go to your Word to do just that. Guide us and use us, I pray for your glory. In Jesus' name, Amen. When I approached this topic, the first passage that I want to go to was back in the book of Acts. So I'm actually going to jump ahead a little bit into Acts, Paul's second missionary journey, and we'll get back to it. I'm going to do a little more detail when we get to it later. I will put it back in context a little more. So hopefully it won't be too repetitious, but I'll reinforce what I'm going to cover today. So you'll see on your outlines, in your bulletins, I'm going to look at Acts 17, and also touch on 2 Timothy 2, verse 15, which many of you have memorized, and chapter 3, 16 and 17, which also many of you know very well. But I just want to make sure you understand how they fit back into this topic. So a few clarifications up front. Some of you would call yourselves Calvinists. I used to, and so I started studying it. And I realized that what I had been taught in Bible college and seminary, either I didn't hear what they were saying, or it went way beyond what I ever understood it to mean. So in case you think I'm attacking what you believe is from Scripture, we're going to try to clarify some of that. But what I'm understanding with Calvinism today, as far as the topic or the box to put it in, is that it's a man-made system typically built up with five different points. They break them down as the word tulip, T-U-L-I-P. When you study Calvinists, you will never find any that are in full agreement with any of this. When you study any topic, that's how it is. Everybody has a little different twist and changes. Some can be three-point Calvinist, four-point Calvinist, five-point Calvinist. One I read was six, and I've been told another guy's a seven-point Calvinist. So, first off, you realize this is hard to nail, you know, kind of like jello to a tree. It's going to be something a little difficult to pin down. And so I'm doing a general picture. I'm not an authority, although I've tried to work on this very hard in recent months. And I'm going to do three messages regarding Calvinism. Today I'm going to focus on Scripture. Next week, Lord willing, that you all don't leave or I get shot in between. I'm going to focus on the sovereignty of God, and then on the third one, which is in Romans 9, and then the third week, I'm going to deal with salvation, and go to John 3, because it touches on a number of areas. As I study this, these seem to be areas they picked up regularly. What I'm going to cover today, I did not see anyone deal with. And yet I think it was probably the simplest passage I could find to explain to you what's going on. So lest you think I'm anti-Bible, because I'm anti-Calvinist, I thought I was a Calvinist until I started studying, as I said, now I realize that I'm a zero-point Calvinist. And you go, how can that be? Does he believe you can lose your salvation? Nope. But I want to help you understand what Calvinism really teaches compared to what Scripture's trying to say. So I crunched all this into that little piece of paper they handed out to you, and we'll put it on the board in a few minutes. Alright? I tried to summarize a lot of stuff, and for some of you, it may have made it very confusing. But what I want you to know is Calvinism is not a tulip that is growing in God's garden. Can I say it that way? God is not growing tulips in His garden. When I get done today, and hopefully as you read through this sheet, you'll understand why I've taken a position against this in light of scripture. But on the sheet I gave you, and we don't need to show it up, put up yet, I'm just going to read just the beginning. Classical Calvinism. I say classical because there's hyper-Calvinism or ultra-Calvinism, and then there's what's called moderate Calvinism, and these are from their people's own claims. And then there's all blends of all different things, and who knows where people fit in. But the only people that are hyper-Calvinist is anybody that believes stronger than me. All right, and that's what I'm finding out. If you're moderate, everybody else is hyper. If you're classical, the others are hyper. If you're hyper, you don't think you're hyper at all. So it's really hard. So I'm not going to go into all of that except if I try to lay it out. But you see the beginning here of this handout. Classical Calvinism is a system of core beliefs, and here's how I say it, that ignore and distort some key truths of Scripture. Strong on interpretation, that's the idea. What does it mean? You're hermeneutic. Weak on observation. Going back specifically to what does it say they're weak. And I'll explain some of that today. They're wrong on sovereignty. And the reason I say that is because they say with sovereignty, again, generalized, God ordains everything. Some that are hyper would say God ordained sin. God made Satan sin. God made Adam and Eve sin. That's how extreme they'll take sovereignty. Then they find different views along the way, so we want to explain that. But even the classical has taken sovereignty to a level that scripture does not. God does not ordain everything. And the second wrong here is they're wrong on salvation. They claim that God limits redemption in some way. So that's what I'm going to kind of summarize. Go back to your outlines, and we're going to focus in on, and Mark's going to put a map up here to help us do that. To begin with, Acts 17, verses 10 to 12. So you can turn there with me if you would. I want to show you something that's sitting right on the pages of scripture and that makes some things very clear. Acts 17 verse 10 says, And the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. And when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness. examining the scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. Many of them therefore believed, along with a number of prominent Greek women and men." So here's three little verses out of Acts 17, kind of laying out some things for us. The focus here is on who? What people? Okay, it's Bereans in general, and if you look on the map, and I have it here somewhere, Berea is this little spot. Okay, you got it actually marked. Thank you. It's the little town here. Cicero described Berea as an out-of-the-way town. All right? Somebody from that day. So you look at it, it wasn't the simplest place to get to. This is Thessalonica right next door. It was more of a port city here. Berea is kind of an out-of-the-way place. That can be good. How would you describe Lopine? And when people drive through, paradise. All right. When people drive through, they have no idea what Lapine's like. They'll look at a sign that says 1,500 and something people, and they have no idea of the wackos and the miscontents that are living in Lapine, right? At least that's what the world thinks. And the rest of the Lapinians say, man, let them think what they think and stay away. Leave us alone. We came here to hide. So as you're looking through Berea, this little town, it says when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. Now this is really critical to understand here. We had just talked last week about Paul saying he was going to move on to the Gentiles, and yet I told you he never left this point of contact, this opportunity to go to those who knew the Old Testament and reach out to them first. The God-fearing proselytes, the Gentiles who'd come into Judaism, were very responsive. And you'll see it again in this passage. But the Jews had mixed feelings. But the Bereans here, they weren't too bad. And he goes on to talk about them. But initially, what you see in verse 10, Paul escapes from Thessalonica, if you go back and pick up the context. Some Jews and many Gentiles believed in Thessalonica. But again, as we saw earlier in last week's message, and we'll see in the future, the Jews were jealous. They formed a mob. So the brethren send them away here in verse 10, by night to Berea, about 60 miles southwest of Thessalonica. So they got them far enough away, they weren't just going to run them down. And the word, he says, they went into the synagogues is in the imperfect. What is Luke trying to bring up about they went? If it's an imperfect tense, it is continual action in past time. So how often did they go into the synagogue? They had been going into the synagogue and going into the synagogue and going. So how long had they been there already? A period of time for him to use this tense. So he's trying to let you know, they'd established a relationship with them and established the word with them, and in doing so, there was no mob, there was no jealousy initially that's standing out here. In fact, it tells you right there in verse 11, now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica. What's that word trying to bring out? What's your translation say? Another word in there? Okay, noble-minded carries the idea of being Could be humble, but it's the idea of more being high-minded. There's an intelligence that may go along with this, because this is describing people who were honorable, well-born, of high rank, which was typically how the word noble is how you'll find it translated in your Bibles in places. These people were respectable. When somebody comes in, you watch one of these soap operas of the rich and the famous, and somebody comes in and does some really ridiculous things, explaining to me what the faces of the noble-minded look like. when somebody does something foolish among them. Okay, there may be a little shock, but they are controlled. They have a proper, what's the word I'm looking for? Decorum about them. There's a proper way to say, you're crazy, but they don't just kind of blurt it out because it isn't how you do that. And I know you aren't watching those kind of soap operas, so that's why you don't know anything about what I'm asking for. But this is the word here. They're open to the truth. They have a noble attitude. This is how some others describe this word. They're more generous. They're free from prejudice. They're more disposed to inquire candidly. So they start asking questions would be kind of the idea here. I put down, we would kind of call these people more open-minded. So that's what he's saying about them. They have enough intelligence to realize they're not threatened by some new idea, and they're taking it into consideration. But they're much different than the Thessalonians. And so why, I'm not sure. But it tells you, explains to you the response then. He says in verse 11, they received the word with great eagerness. This is the idea of to welcome, to embrace, they granted access to the word within them. They were receptive to the word. What word? Specifically, Paul and Silas's message, usually were logos, generally it'd be from where? Where were they getting their message from? The Old Testament, specifically, that's the scriptures he's referring to. And then some of what Jesus had taught that had not yet been recorded or inspired of God and written down. And so they're receiving this word, this message with great eagerness. They are willing, they are prompt to respond. Their heart is cheerful toward this message. That's not normal. I'm leading up to what's going to fit in with Calvinism. I like the scriptures better. I don't really want to focus on Calvinism, but you'll see how this fits in here. And it says they were, thirdly, examining the scriptures daily. So when were Paul and Silas sharing it with them? Weekly, in the Sabbath, on the Sabbath in the synagogue. That would have been the typical meeting place. These people take that message once a week over a period of weeks, however long it had been, and they are searching the scriptures daily to see whether these things are so. That's an interesting point. When do you search the scriptures? When do you check out my message? You better be checking out my message. If not, you're doing the exact same thing that every other cult and false religion is doing. They get a leader they like, they like the way they say it, they just swallow it hook, line, and sinker, and they go on living it however the person said it. Don't ever do that. This is the Apostle Paul that they're checking out. How do I rank? See, Paul and Jack, right? Way down on the bottom. And yet, search Scriptures Daily, and Luke is praising them for what they have done. It's with this great eagerness that they're doing so, and they're examining, scrutinizing, investigating the scriptures daily to see whether these things were true. They're checking them out. Now, take all of that and fit it into the bigger picture. Okay, question first. Don't know. The scrolls would have been in the synagogue for sure, So they may have been going back to the synagogue. A lot of the Old Testament was written in a way to be memorized. They may have written down their own copies in some way. I don't know. But many of the books of the Old Testament are written in forms that are easily remembered. The alphabet, Psalm 119 is the alphabet. Eight verses from each letter of the alphabet starts at each of the eight verses, then it moves to the next one. Olive, olive, olive, olive, eight times. Bet, bet, bet, bet. And so it's designed so you could memorize it and learn it. Lamentations is set up that way. One of your favorite books, right? So I don't know how they did it, but they're searching it. So if they're going back to the synagogue and getting special permission or using time over time that's not normal to go check this out, it could have very easily been. But as you go through here, you find these individuals, verse 11, are who? I just told you they are... They're describing them, but who are they? They're Jews. And so what kind of Jews are they? Believing or unbelieving? What's verse 12 tell you happened because of this process? Therefore many believed. What does it tell you they are in verse 11? They're unbelievers. Now, let me take this back to Calvinism for you. The T in Calvinism, Mark can switch the map and go ahead and put this chart up. You have this in front of you, you don't have to look up here, but if it helps, I will point to what I'm referring to. This idea here of total depravity in classical Calvinism, and again, I'm doing the best I can to give you a ballpark idea. I expect anybody who's a Calvinist to disagree with all kinds of stuff on here. And yet if I had hours and days and weeks and months to sit down with them, I could pin them down and show them where their writers say these things. This is where I've been getting this stuff and collecting it. So on total depravity, the T of TULIP, all men are spiritually, what? Dead. I said spiritually, they don't. They just said all men are dead, but I was actually nice to throw that in there. All men are spiritually dead, unable to respond in any way to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Some believe that man has a free will, but they believe that that free will is only to choose to reject Christ. That's the extent of the free will of man. They'll tell you, Calvin will tell you, oh, man has a free will. He's free to reject Christ. And we can explain that more. I don't have a lot of time today. I don't want to focus a lot on this. But the fact that they're dead, they go to Ephesians 2, and they're dead in their trespasses and sins. And the first thing I ask people when they go to that passage is, are they dead physically? And their answer would be, No. Were Adam and Eve dead immediately, physically? No. That was going to come. Wages and his death. You will die. Did they die spiritually, Adam and Eve? I shouldn't be bringing up death. That's not a popular subject these days. Adam and Eve died spiritually. They did not die physically right off, and they did not die mentally. Their soul was more than alive. And I can't take as much time. I would love to take hours with each one of these and show you. So when they go to Ephesians 2 and they tell you that man is dead, they want to use it in this regard, that they're totally depraved. Well, I agree with depravity. See, that's why I look at their words and I go, I know men are sinners. I know everybody has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I know all of us deserve hell for eternity. I don't have a problem with depravity being true. But when they put that little word total on there, they want it to be where they are a corpse. And they will give you an illustration using, some of them will use the term or the picture like Lazarus. What was Lazarus able to do for himself? In the grave? Nothing, because he was dead. But this is not what Ephesians 2 is talking about. We're not dead physically. We're not dead mentally. We're only dead spiritually, and that creates a big problem. Don't get me wrong, I'm not minimizing that at all. But total depravity to a typical Calvinist would tell you that they're dead and unable to respond the same way a corpse is dead. How are the Bereans doing it here? How are these dead people? Searching the Scriptures daily, examining, is the idea he's talking about there. They received the message. How do they take it in if they're dead? And then in the first part there, they were noble-minded, more noble-minded. So you have a group of people who all those sin has brought devastation, and it has brought depravity. And you look at our world today, and you can't miss it. And you look at yourself at times, and you see it. rather stark, don't you? Nod your heads up and down, that tells me you're listening to me. We still sit at times. There's no excuse, and I'm not encouraging it, but it's the reality of it. But here they're trying to tell you they're dead. So that's the first problem with this. The Bereans were not dead. They were unbelieving Jews who were totally able to both receive the word, I mean, who were no more minded, thus able to receive the word, examine the scriptures daily, and check things out. Devin? Enable them to Yes, if I took a lot of time to explain Calvinism They will tell you that God that faith is a gift which you cannot find in the Bible Ephesians 2 8 9 does not say that Salvation is a gift But faith is in the feminine. That is a gift of God. That, or the antecedent going back, it's in the neuter. They don't go together. And see, what they'll start doing, and I'll get into the second and third part of this, is that they mishandle the scriptures. They want to read into things, or take away things, or bring in the testimonies of great scholars of the past to try to read into the Bible. Don't let them do that. The whole idea here is that, now I lost your question. One more time. Well, now you've changed your question. Yes, they're unable to understand, and so what a typical Calvinist will tell you is that God first has to regenerate an unbeliever, which is what's supposed to happen in John 3, I'll talk about that in two weeks. They have to be regenerated, they have to be given repentance, and they have to be given faith so that they can believe. Now, if you think about that for a little while and go back to those passages, it doesn't work. That's not what Scripture teaches. But that's where they'll go with that. So then the second thing, you asked me another question about the elect, that God has to... Yes. And again, the problem, and I'm being simplistic this morning, being chosen does not mean being saved. The nation of Israel was chosen. Judas was chosen. Election is not salvation. And so as soon as you understand that, the typical Calvinist wants to come along and bring their own dictionary. And I'm not picking on Calvinists. I have a lot of friends that are Calvinists. So lest I come across the wrong way, I love them, and there's some of them I'm trying to help get back on course. But the idea of elect used in this way is misused scripturally. Election is not salvation. Predestination is not salvation. When you go to scripture, it's only used five times, predestined. It's always used describing what God does to believers, not to save people. And so you need to go check it out. And I don't have time to get into all of this today. But the whole picture here of what's happening is you have unbelievers in verse 11 doing exactly what a typical Calvinist would tell you is impossible for them to do. We've got a problem. Either this verse is wrong, or the tea in Calvinism is wrong. I tried to come up with a new flower. I didn't do very good. So I gave up on that. But I'm working on it. And the other assumption we make today is that you assume you understand Calvinism. I have studied probably a couple hundred hours in the last couple months, pouring over at every chance I got, reading both sides. And I do not understand a lot about Calvinism, just to let you know. And they would tell me I understand nothing about Calvinism, just so you understand where they're coming from. If you reverse it, if you were an Arminian, which I'm not that either, you would look at a Calvinist and tell the Calvinist who tries to explain Arminianism that you don't understand anything about Arminianism. So there's a battle going on. So the issue to me isn't the isms, it's the scriptures. What does the Bible say that you could figure out what kind of flowers you want to plant? All right, so the scripture here, when I came across this, I realized that the passage we typically quote and use a lot about the Bereans who are more noble-minded, we thought they were believers, didn't we? And yet when you look at it, it is very crystal clear in verse 12, many of them therefore believed. When you get to the therefore, it's a particle, this is right out of the lexicon, a particle expressing either simple sequence or consequence. that therefore is there to explain what happened when they received and examined because they were normal-minded, then the consequence or the simple sequence is then they believed. So if you get that straight in your head, you realize this shows up... I tend to exaggerate all the time. Let's just say dozens of times in Scripture that this is very clear. Unbelievers like 1631, the Philippian jailer, an unbeliever, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. He had a decision to make and he could reason with the scriptures to make that decision. We're not dead mentally. And again, I need days and weeks and months. I'm only taking three messages. But as he walks down through here, it says also, the stress on verse 12 is on the Jews. It's many of them, therefore, that believed, along with a number of prominent Greek women and men. You see how he's separating it out? It's the Jews he's trying to let you know how they're responding, because that's what's critical. God placed the Jewish nation there for a reason. It wasn't for them to get rich, or to be high-minded, or to take advantage of all the religious system that's been given to them in Romans 4, the promises, the fathers, the covenants, all the various things. They tended to take those in and use them for their own glory, or neglect them altogether. God had set Israel up to be a light, that all the families of the earth could be blessed. That's what he told Abraham in Genesis 12. It never changed. What did Israel do with all of those special privileges? either abused them, selfishly used them, or neglected them. And so God turns to the Gentiles. He hasn't given up on the Jews. His promises are still true. Romans 11 says that there's a partial hardening that's happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in. God hasn't given up. He doesn't throw his promises out because of man. God is sovereign. See, I've got to be careful how I use that word. If you go look it up in the concordance, you will be hard-pressed to find the word sovereign in the Bible. It's like the word Trinity. Nothing wrong with it, but because it isn't a commonly used word in the Bible, it's very difficult for us to define it. And so the Calvinists have taken the word and overblown what they think it means here. And so the picture comes down at the bottom here that they believe. In Romans 10, just 8 to 17, if you were going to read that on your own, leads up in verse 17 to say, faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of God. That's exactly what's taking place in Act 17, 11 and 12. They heard, they believed. So again, just so you understand, the Calvinist says, with total depravity, they can't hear. So on the bottom here, I give some specific problems. Calvinists believe that all men are unable to mentally repent or believe. That's kind of what I explained to you. Unsaved men are like corpses, completely lacking the ability to receive Jesus Christ. Salvation is incapable by all. God must first provide regeneration and repentance. So some of what I shared with you, I put on the paper for you to remember and check me out. But then I put the contrast here. But this view denies an unbeliever's conviction of sin. Remember what John 16 says? When the Holy Spirit comes, he will convict how many? All men concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment. It's not a few, it's all. All unbelievers are convicted of sin. Secondly, they are personally suppressing the truth in Romans 1.18 if they're not saved. How do they do that if they can't think, if they're dead? How do you suppress the truth? How do you exchange the truth of God for a lie, as it goes on to say there in Romans 1? It's because they're not dead mentally. They're well aware of the situation. And thirdly, the need for Satan to blind their minds. Why does Satan blind the minds of the unbelieving in 2 Corinthians 4? Lest the light of the glory of the gospel of Christ should shine unto them. What's that admitting? If Satan got out of the way, the light of the gospel could enter in. They're not dead, mentally. And I'll keep stressing that. So, I don't know what you know about Calvinism. How many of you think you know quite a bit about Calvinism before today? One and a bunch of haves, okay? So it's not common. The reason I'm dealing with it, and we'll talk about it a little bit less than we have to at our meeting, but we're trying to explain, we're dealing with this amongst some that we are fellowshipping with, okay? And so we're trying to figure out how to deal with that. How do you give them answers from scripture to bring them back? They have a zeal. They're passionate about doing things God's way, but they've been led down a road that at times is a zeal without knowledge. They believe the words of men rather than the word of God. So we're trying to figure out how to bring them back. This message is being recorded. Lord willing, it will be shared with them and they can interact with what I'm saying and understand where we're coming from. We're not trying to be antagonistic. We're not trying to be mean. We're not trying to cause problems or divisions. We're trying to teach the truth, and we're going to hold people to the truth as a church. We're accountable to God. So this aspect here, first off, that he's going through, they struggle with. How about the second one? Unconditional election. All men are strictly divided, being predetermined, unable to alter their eternal course. God elects to save some and thus allows the rest to go to hell. And I stress the word allows. They don't like the idea that God is sending people to hell. That's called double predestination in their words. He predestined the elect to be saved, but there are many of them who say, oh, I don't believe in double predestination. Well, it's kind of like, okay, you take 20% to be saved, what are you doing with the 80? I don't know, but what's going to happen to them? They're gonna go to hell. So the idea here I put down that he has allows the rest to go to hell is I'm trying to be nice and realistic based on what I read there. Down on the bottom, unconditional election. Calvinists believe that God predetermined everyone's destiny. Almighty God is like a dictator. They're not gonna like these things. I'm not making friends, okay? Just so you understand, but I'm not trying to make enemies. There are people that are gonna react to some of what I put down here. But Almighty God is like a dictator, only showing mercy and love to a pre-selected people. Salvation is unchangeable by all. God decrees to save some, thus condemning others. And the last line, and whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. So I threw two things in there. They're saying election is unconditional. God's not electing people because you're rich or you're poor, because you're a Jew or a Gentile. They're saying that election is unconditional, but it's very, very selective. Does that make sense? He's not picking just certain ones and goes, oh, you'll be a great person in my kingdom and you'll be a great... He's not looking at the people and deciding their election based on what they can present or offer to God. It's unconditional in that sense. It's kind of a weird term, really. But in reality, it's very, very selective. So I put on the bottom here that this view denies the elect can be lost. What happened to Judas as one of the elect? What is he called? The son of perdition. You think Judas is in heaven? Satan himself possessed him. There's a number of things written in scripture to realize that Judas is lost, yet he was one of the twelve who were chosen, they were elected. The term elected, you'd be better translated as selected, because that's what the word means. And when the Calvinists struggle with what I believe, I take them back over and over and over again. I've been reading through Isaiah lately, and if you go through just this morning, I read Isaiah 43, 44, 45. You go in there and you'll see God is calling them his chosen people. And the word he puts with it regularly in there, because I marked a whole bunch of them and wrote so I could remember to go back. He chose them for a particular service. My chosen servant. I pulled out a concordance and I looked up Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and I may get mixed up with some of them. David, Joshua, I think was in there. A number of them, he calls them my chosen servant. He selected them for service, not for salvation. God is not forcing salvation on anyone, any more than He's forcing it on these, and you'll see the response. Some of them will believe, some of them do not. The ones who believe are not believing only because God has put this special protection around them and sucked them in. Kimber? There's probably a hundred verses, I'll cover that better in two weeks in John 3, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. You'll find even in some of your study Bibles, they will explain that, whoever of the elect. So they want to insert the words of the elect. in a hundred places, because it's all over your Bible. Look up whoever, every, all, there's a couple others that I'm not thinking of at the moment. Go check them out and see how often God puts that in there. He's not willing that any should perish, any is another word you can look up. And so you start realizing they have to go into every single one of those verses and insert the words of the elect. What is that called? Yeah, you're adding to scripture. And so I wrote down here that, see if I can find where I put it, that the Calvinists use bad math. I put addition, subtraction, multiplication. They are reading into Scripture, adding words, so they're inventing Scripture. They are subtracting, taking away from Scripture, so they are ignoring Scripture. And they are multiplying making words of men equal to God's Word, and so they are involving many outsiders to give credence to what they believe. And I've had a number of them recently say, you mean all of the scholars over the last 1,500 years, all of the great leaders of the Reformation who were Calvinists are wrong? And I said, if they don't agree with Scripture. And then the words come back to me, what do they say about me? Who do you think you are? a fellow believer who has the same Bible you have. It doesn't matter who I am. It doesn't matter who they are. What matters is what does Scripture say? And have you heard me share this with you over the last 25, 26 years? This is what's critical. It doesn't matter what the preacher says from the pulpit. What does God's Word say? You better be Bereans, saved Bereans, and you better be searching the Scriptures daily to see if what I teach you is true. Yes. What's happened and why this has come up. What I was taught at Multnomah and Dallas Seminary was a mild form or a... I had some teachers who were not Calvinists and so they don't want to make a big stink but they just kind of watered it down or left it out. I got a very watered down. Basically if I go through these, total depravity, men are sinners deserving, they need salvation. Unconditional election, I never understood what that was. Limited atonement, I did not agree with. I knew right off that I was no better than a three-point Calvinist. And I haven't explained some of these and I know I'm going to run out of time today. But irresistible grace, God forces salvation on those that are His. I just made a bunch of Calvinist mad, because God doesn't do that according to them. You can't come up with any other conclusion, but I'll explain that in a minute. And the last one, with the idea of perseverance of the saints, I thought I believed that. Surely, you can't lose your salvation, and it's true. But who's holding me? Me or God? Is it my persevering, or is it my position of security in His hands? Is it the promises of God that make it so I can't lose my salvation, or do I have to prove it? Because what I started reading in a bunch of Calvinists was, if you go along as a, and one guy even said it, you go along as the elect, the elect, the elect, and all of a sudden you drop off. You go live in debauchery for some, you know, I don't know how long it would take, and that's the whole thing. It's like, does it take an hour? A day? A week? A month? How long do you have to be? But he said if you start living like that, you were never one of the elect. What does that do for your security? It's not dependent on the promises of God, it's dependent upon my works. This is where you get into big trouble. And all I'm trying to do, and why I'm being so passionate right now, is I care about people who are going off into this. It's dividing churches today, which is another reason why I felt a need to preach on it. It's not coming here as long as I'm alive. The reason I can say that is not because I'm a dictator, because we work unanimously. And just as Devon has shut some things down as an elder, and some of the deacons have shut things down, the congregation has shut things down. We brought up stuff to you and you said, what about this, this, this? And we went back and checked it out and we went, you're right. And we changed. We don't function in that regard. But if one of us says no, as Jim mentioned a little earlier in the announcements, we don't do it. Calvinism has been ingrained and indoctrinated into many of the books and the Bible studies and the study Bibles and the variety of things that you have. And so I come across looking like a heretic to preach against this. What I really want you to know is this is a Trojan horse that has been brought into the church. Initially, it looked good. Because we didn't understand what it meant. As you get into this today, it's revealing more and more. And again, they all vary from the hyper to the classical to the moderate to the whatever. So don't jump on somebody because they claim to be a Calvinist. They may not even know what they're talking about. And even if it was your enemy, what are you supposed to do to them? Love them. So don't make this an issue where you're going to start beating on somebody or using them as gossip. Karen? What I remember sharing is, I looked into some of this last week, and the thing about this is the goal 3, I think that's the one, where there's I don't have a lot of time so Just a, yeah, that's good. It's a big problem. They're not following scripture. That's the bottom line. They will quote to you out of John, verse 44, John 6, verse 44. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. That sounds like it's pretty limited, doesn't it? Well, in the same book, over in John 12, verse 32, Jesus, again speaking, these are both Jesus, he says in John 12, 32, and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself. Was he lifted up? Is he a liar? If he drew all men to himself, then what's the Holy Spirit trying to do? No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. What is the Holy Spirit doing in John 16? Convicting the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. The word for convicting there is a strong term to convince you that it's true. He's drawing everybody. And he's using Christ on the cross in his death, and oftentimes what's left out, and his resurrection. Romans, the end of Romans 5, I think it is, says that the resurrection is what provides for our justification. So don't leave out the resurrection when you speak of his death. Some people want to elevate the death of Christ. Some people want to elevate the resurrection of Christ. It's a package deal. That is the gospel of Jesus Christ. I could go on a thousand ways with this, and you're already getting me off into some things, but when I went into it, I heard the gospel as a dozen different things in people's writings about Calvinism. The gospel is one thing, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Gospel just means good news. But the good news about Jesus Christ in 1 Corinthians 15, 3 and 4 is His death and His resurrection. That's the gospel. That's how simple it is. You don't have to be well-educated and theologically trained in order to share the gospel with someone. Tell them that Christ died on the cross for their sins, but He arose victorious over the grave because He paid our sin debt. It was John 6, 44. It's the one they'll quote. And I just did this recently with someone. And they shared it with me, and I listened. And I said, well, what about John 12, 32? And I turned to it, and they kind of went, See, the problem with Calvinism today, and again, I can only share what I've interacted with, is they're doing just like the cults. They're proof texting to prove a point, or they're changing a verse to get it to mean something. And they're well-meaning. Again, don't get me wrong, I'm not attacking them as these bad, ugly people that are purposely trying to deceive everybody. They're not, most of them. They've been taken down a road, they need to put the brakes on, turn the car around, and get out of there, because that's not where Scripture goes. Okay, I don't know if they could hear that, but your study Bible says that man is, I'll repeat it, totally depraved, but specifically no free will, must have empowerment from God. And obviously I am not denying God saves us. How much does it take for you to put together a gift? Say you made something, it took you a whole year to make it, and it cost you $5,000 to make it, and you bring it up to me after all of that, and you hand it to me, and I take it. Did I just work for that? Did I just earn that somehow by receiving it? The typical Calvinist says that's a work. The fact that you take that free gift is a work. There again is some of the logic they use. Again, I cannot save myself. I am depraved. I deserve to go to hell. I could go on for an hour describing the I's. And if the I's have it, bad. Okay? Christ has done it all. His perfect work is what saves me, not me. And my works will testify to the change that's happened in me, but my works don't keep me. And these are some of the things that I have passionately gotten into. My poor wife has had to listen to this over and over and over. Variety of books, things that I've studied, and I'm not trying to frustrate her. Let's go to a second passage, and these I'm going to cover more quickly, and we'll come back up to this chart. So you can just leave it up there, Mark. 2 Timothy 2.15, well-known verse. He says there, I'm jumping into the context, go check it out. He says, as Paul's writing to young Timothy, a young pastor, be diligent to present yourself approved to God, as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth. The only command here is be diligent. King James translated this study. It meant something a little different 400 years ago. This word carries the idea to work hard, which can be studied, Strive, do your best, take care, exert yourself, endeavor to present yourself approved to God. He's talking to a believer, so even the Calvinists wouldn't have a problem with this. As a workman who does not need to be ashamed, doing what with the Word of Truth? Handling accurately. This is my concern with Calvinism. If they use bad math, addition, subtraction, multiplication, Add to scripture, take away from scripture, allow the words of men to be equal with scripture, multiply their resources, is kind of what I mean by that. If they're using that bad math, they're not following scripture. This verse stresses, to handle accurately, here is the idea, to cut straight. That's literally the two words that are put together. To direct a right, to set forth truthfully, without perversion or distortion. You need to have a proper understanding and teaching. I mean, accurate teaching is what he's after here. So the struggle you go through is when they come up here, they'll go to something. I'll go to the third one. I'm just trying to insert these without overwhelming you. Limited atonement, the L in TULIP, is that Calvinists believe that Christ only died for the elect. And did you guys go way down to the second half? Yes. Okay. I need the limited atonement on the top part of it too, please. Or you can go scoot, yeah, right up there. Thank you. Some men are especially rejected, being passed over, unable to receive payment for sin. Jesus Christ only died for the elect and not for anyone else. You all have verses memorized that disagree with them. Unless you insert words. God is not willing that any should perish. 1 Timothy 2, and again I just have a few of them that have stood out to me, but they're all over the place. 1 Timothy chapter 2, I think it's verse 4? As he's talking about kings and those who are in authority and he's asked you to pray for them, Paul tells Timothy in verse 4 of chapter 2 of 1 Timothy, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. And on and on and on, look at the whosoever's, they're everywhere in Scripture. 1 Timothy 2.4, if I said it backwards after I got there. Yes. Right. But the focus of those teachers is they give you an interpretation. It's the mother bird feeding the baby bird. Is that a bad thing? No. It's a good thing. If the baby bird doesn't get fed, it dies. What do you expect the baby bird to do? grow up and do what? Be able to feed itself and then ultimately raise its own young and be feeding somebody else. So you just see it as a natural process. They want it kept in a way that the mother bird is always feeding the babies. These are scholars. These people know Greek and Hebrew. These people are so intellectually above us that we have to trust them. That is very, very dangerous. I know how impressed you are with me. I'm head and shoulders above everybody, right? I got C's in high school. I've shared a lot with you that I'm just kind of a mediocre person, and I didn't want to be a pastor. I don't want to stand up here and have people take shots at me. That's why we had you check your guns when you came in today. It has nothing to do with intellect. Who are the scriptures written for? The intellectual? What does he say in 1 Corinthians 2? Not many wise, not many noble. There's your word that we use here. What else does it say there? Not many... Baby birds, I've got to get you to feed yourselves. I'm probably even giving you the wrong verse. I always misquote it. Chapter 1, I thought it was chapter 2. 1 Corinthians 1 verse 26. For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong. The base things God has chosen, things that are not even, that He might nullify. When Jesus Christ came to earth, who listened to Him gladly? The intellectual? It was the common people that understood Him and listened to Him. Scripture wasn't written to be above your abilities. Now, I understand Greek and Hebrew take you from black and white TV to color TV. When there's a passage or verse that's debated, you do well to go in and make sure you understand the culture, the context, whether or not it's literal or figurative, what the history is behind it, the grammar would be really helpful. You need to check it out, and there are tools that you can do that with. But how many of us in this room are scholars? I'm not. How many of you have reached perfection and don't need to be taught anything anymore? I learn every week. I am amazed when I get into things of scripture. Shocked at times. You've been a ruler or a teacher of the people for this long and you didn't know that? That's what I feel like almost every week. Constantly learning, and it's the same thing we're doing. It's not to elevate us, it's to elevate Christ. It's to put God back in the right position, not in an over-exalted position of sovereignty. And I wrote down something to try to explain that. I have too many things here. In seeking to exalt God's sovereignty, Calvinists have perverted salvation. They've taken the characteristic they think is an attribute of God. Sovereignty is not an attribute of God. Have I misspoken? Go look for it in the scriptures. God is love, God is holy, God is just. Where does it say God is sovereign? You better go check that out, because you've been told that and you believe that. Sovereignty is the result of who God is. He is in control, but He's not in control where He dominates everybody and makes them into puppets that He just controls, and He picks a few and says, I'll save you, and you can do nothing on your own. I actually regenerate you and bring you to repentance, and I give you faith, and then you can believe. That's not what my Bible teaches. And the rest of them, nah, leaving you in the dark. Oh, you have a free will. Now you have to be careful I don't start mocking. But you can just freely choose to reject me. That's all you can choose. That's not a free will. And that's not what the Bible says. Whosoever will may come. Jesus says in Matthew 11, 28, Come unto me, all you who are elect. weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." In Isaiah 1, he's appealing to the nation of Israel, and he calls to them to come, and he'll make us whiter than snow. Reason with me, he says there. It's all over the Bible. If this is just a disagreement, it wouldn't be that big a deal. I'm finding fellow believers so distracted by what is called classical Calvinism that they're neglecting the scriptures. They're warped. That's not the right word. They're lopsided, is what I'm thinking. They go down the road. They ignore a lot of things. When they read their Bibles, all they're looking for is the sovereignty of God, the sovereignty of God, the sovereignty of God. Is that how we're supposed to read? I'm leaving out the mercy of God. I'm leaving out the love of God. I'm leaving out the truth of God. Because He told me what He's going to do. Is He a liar? He's not willing that any should perish. What's His will? That nobody perish. But it says He limited who He's going to die for here. I didn't finish that one on the bottom. I have a couple minutes. They believe that Christ only died for the elect. Almighty God is like a guard. And I tried to give you an illustration here. Making sure that the non-elect stay under condemnation. They probably won't like that statement. Salvation is unavailable to some. Jesus did not make propitiation for the non-elect. But this view denies propitiation. For sins was made for the whole world. 1 John 2. Christ is the propitiation for who? This open book exam. You definitely want to look up every single verse on this paper and take notes and write them down. The whole world of the elect, right? You see, you can't go around adding phrases to make it say what you think it means, interpretation. You've got to take it in observation for what it says and then change your theology. If your theology does not agree with the Word of God, So they're denying propitiation, which is stated right there in 1 John 2.2, and that the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world in 1 John 1.29. John the Baptist said that. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the elect. That's how they read into every single one of these. 1 Timothy 2.4, I just read for you. I should have remembered that was up on the page. So you have this struggle going on. They're not cutting the Word straight. They're not handling accurately the truth of God. That's a serious problem, unless I don't get to the last one at all. Another well-known passage to you is 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17. You probably have this one memorized, right? All scripture, the word specifically is all graphe, all writings. What writings is Paul referring to? At that point in time, probably just the Old Testament, May have been some others that he was aware of that were inspired. But all scripture is inspired by God. That's one word. God breathed. Superintended by God through men by the Holy Spirit as we see in 2 Peter 1, 20 and 21. But it's God's revelation by means of God's inspiration through men. It's inspired of God and it's profitable. This word carries the idea. It's useful. It's beneficial. It's absolutely sufficient. You don't need to add to it. You better not take away from it. Four things he lists. For teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. As a young believer and for many years, those four things frustrated me. I looked at them and I said, I don't know what the difference is between those. So I made up a handout. You're welcome to get a copy of this if you like. The first one is to teach truth. The second one is to expose errors. The third one is to repair the errors. And the fourth one is to nurture the truth. Does that kind of simplify it for you? When you're teaching, you're teaching the truth. It's a general education, instruction, explaining right beliefs. When you practice reproof here, it's the word I talked about in John 16, verse 8 to 11, the Holy Spirit does, it's the idea of conviction. It's changing wrong beliefs, so thus exposing errors with the idea of making a change. The correction word, the third one, is returning to upright behavior. It's this restoration. You're repairing the errors, which is what I'm trying to do with Calvinism. I'm trying to get them to see that what they've grabbed onto has got them out on a limb that is being sawed off by God. That's not what I said. Don't put words in my mouth. Don't misinterpret. the truth. And so there's this correction, returning people to right behavior, and then the training in righteousness is the idea of nurturing truth. It's an education, admonishing to a mature behavior is what he's after. This term is used with training children. You want them to grow up. And the reason for all of that, they use a little hynna, a hynna clause in the Greek gives the idea, it's a conjunction that gives purpose. You could translate verse 17, in order that, these things are done in verse 16, in order that the man of God, who is that? Believer or unbeliever? Gay believer. You guys answered faster than I thought you would. I thought I was going to get you a little bit scared to stick out, stick your neck out. But the man of God, the genuine believer, may be adequate. That may be, it's a subjunctive. And I understand we get into the Greek parts of this, people go, ow, no. It's giving you an idea. The subjunctive is just an idea of possibility. When you have a would, could, should, might, maybe, possibly, it brings out the subjunctive. Do we have that in English? I know Greek better than I know English now, as far as grammar goes. It's part of English, right? And so here's this subjunctive he's put in here. It's not automatic, but it's expected, because it's possible. This is what God's after, but it's not going to happen if you sit around twiddling your thumbs, or playing video games all day, or many other Hunting fishing whatever the opposite thing is is taking you away from God, so I don't mean to pick just on video But he's telling you it may be adequate that the man of God may be adequate Equipped for every good work and again. He's trying to stress here a couple different things and I laid them on another piece of paper. I Just to help you understand what's going on. I can't find it because I'm sensing the clock running out of time The idea may be adequate is ready or prepared It's the position you're in the idea being equipped is is a perfect tense passive fully furnished so adequate if I gave you an illustration if you like that you may have a boat and That that you may be equipped that that boat may be fully loaded with everything you'll ever need to sail Does that kind of help explain the difference between the two? What good is the supplies for the boat if you don't have a boat? It's not worth anything. What good is the boat if it's not supplied with anything? It's just an empty craft that you're not going to live on for very many days before there's no food, no water. So he's putting the two together here in the sense of the illustration. Adequate and equipped carry the position and then the potential for every good work, beneficial work toward others. There's this service that believers are going to put into practice. So as you go down through here, just to cover the last one, back up to the top a little bit, You have this irresistible grace that is, I put up here, generally, a little further right back, okay. Some men are especially chosen, being made willing to believe. Is that a positive way of putting that? You're made willing to believe? Okay, that kind of helps a little bit. Unable to resist God's call to believe, salvation is not an option. Grace is forced on the elect. My words, I'll have to defend them. But that's basically what this is saying. So when you go down here to this lower section, some of the problems that go along with it, if we could zoom up a little bit, Tim. Calvinists believe that the elect... I lost it there. Oh, the other way. Yeah, there you go. Calvinists believe that the elect are regenerated before salvation. That's the picture of you must be born again in John 3. We'll talk about that in two weeks. The elect are like robots who are predestined and controlled to become children of God. Salvation is unavoidable for some because God simply appoints them to eternal life. But this view denies that salvation is the gift of God, Romans 6.23, not a requirement. It is freely offered to men, Matthew 11.28 I read earlier, coming to me all who are weary and heavy laden. And it's clearly refused by Israel. Remember Jesus in Matthew 23, 37 and 39? He's weeping over Jerusalem and what's he say to them? The sovereign God is speaking to Jerusalem and he says, you can turn to it, Matthew 23, you want to see this with your own little eyeballs. You want to take notes on the page. You want to write it down, like I've done over the years. I make columns in my Bible so I can find these verses again. You need to get into it. Rightly, dividing the Word of Truth. What is Jesus doing? He's sovereign, but look how He talks to Israel, specifically Jerusalem. What's He say there? How often, like a mother hen, I wanted to gather you together But you were not willing? Wait, wait, wait, they're dead. This is irresistible. What do you mean they weren't willing? And again, I'm not trying to mock, I'm just trying to enforce the passion. This is a sovereign God speaking to the nation of Israel, and He basically tells them what's going to happen now, because as a mother hen, I tried to gather you, you wouldn't have me. I'm now turning you over to what? Your house is being left to you desolate. That's quoted from the Old Testament. And I will not return until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. That's not irresistible grace, folks. That's a God weeping. He's still weeping over Israel. The nation of Israel is going to be devastated. They think they've arrived. They think they're in the process of a peace treaty. How long has this been going on? 35 to 40 years. Jimmy Carter was trying to do this in the 70s. They're going to make a deal. And ultimately, they'll make a deal with the Antichrist. And ultimately, beyond that, with the devil. They will sell out. And they will treat the Antichrist potentially as if he was their Messiah. They'll let him set himself up in the temple as God. And only a remnant is going to get saved. So as we wrap this up, We have this last one I want to expose to you. On the top there again, Tim, please, I'm sorry there wasn't enough room to cover them. He says, Perseverance of the Saints, the elect are self-secured, and I stress the word self there, being proven by works, unable to lose their election, and that's the difference I make here. I believe you can't lose your salvation. They believe you can't lose this election. Performance is now expected to prove and keep one's salvation. I'm going to get cards and letters over that. But that's what I'm finding. Then on the very bottom, the problem is perseverance of saints. Calvinists believe that salvation is continued upon obedience. The elect are like machines, responsible to perform and prove that they are predestined. Salvation is achievable by the elect. God assures the elect through their good works. That's not very assuring. But this view denies the promises of God. Security from Christ himself. What does John 5.24 say? You've used this many times in sharing the gospel. What did Jesus say out of his own words? I learn too many different translations and sometimes I say them wrong. John 5, 24. Truly, truly, I say to you, He who is elect, who hears my word, right? He who hears my word and believes in Him who sent me has what? Maybe. As long as you don't mess up down the road, You have eternal life and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. It's a done deal. You cannot go in and out and in and out and in and out of salvation. Remember the Matthew 7, 21 to 23, they said, Lord, Lord, we prophesied in your name, we perform miracles, we cast out demons, and I may have those out of order. In his response to them, here's their works, here's their testimony, here's their religious activities. They're saying, we're good people. He says, depart from me. I never knew you. You weren't in and out, in and out, like many denominations try to teach today. I never knew you. You who, what are their works? Practice lawlessness. Do you realize there's a lot of people who are religious and going to churches all over the world today who think they're saved and they're not? because they think their works are what are doing it for them. I'm in big trouble. I'm not justifying sin or justifying slacking off, and God spanks me hard when I disobey. But that's not what's guaranteeing my salvation. It's John 5, 24. It's the promise of God Himself that secures my salvation. That's why I know I can't lose it, because I did what He told me to do, and I'm in. Because I'm so intellectual and good-looking and rich, right? Don't ask. Look at the last part here. The speech denies the promises of God, security from Christ himself, the Spirit's testimony in Romans 8. What's the Spirit do inside of us? Testifies that we are the children of God. I'm running out of time, so I'm just going to rattle that one off. Check these verses out. And it denies the promises of God from a believer's internal witness. 1 John 5, 10-13. It says, these things are written that you may know, experientially know, that you have eternal life. No doubt in your mind. Are you here today and uncertain? We'll cover this some more. Don't get frustrated with me if I didn't give you enough information. I gave you too much. But if you're here today and you think, yeah, I'm religious. Yeah, I've done the things that I'm supposed to be doing. How do you know you're saved? What are you basing it on? I've got a bunch of other things here. I'll try to bring them up in the weeks to come. We'll go back to this chart. I'll try to reuse it. It's not perfect. You find something wrong with it, I'll fix it. I fixed it this morning before Mark actually stuck it up here. How do you know you're saved? You did what? Okay, you believed, pistou, I believe, is the literal translation of that, which means I trusted, I had faith, that same word comes to faith, I relied upon or believed, I took it for myself, however you want to rephrase it. It's the idea of what you just did to sit in a chair. You had faith in the chair this morning. I can guarantee if you thought you were going to fall down when you sat in that chair, you would not have done it. Why not? First off, pain. Second off, pride. Right? And I can probably give you more reasons. Why would I make a fool out of myself? But you believed it would hold you up, you sat down, you didn't even think about it. You trusted in the chair. What have you done with Jesus Christ in regards to your sin debt? in regards to the clear presentation by the Holy Spirit, by the Word of God, by your conscience, by creation, Romans 1. Many places I could go, the ones that are suppressing the truth is because God has it all around them. What do you think the scientists are doing that don't believe in creation today? They're suppressing the truth. What are they finding with every new discovery? God did this, God did this, God did this. The DNA First it was Mount St. Helens that threw out all of their views about all the destruction that's on the planet. And they realized, man, this all points back to a worldwide flood. As you saw the little flood on Mount St. Helens and Spirit Lake. But the same thing happens when you get into the truth of creation in general. Right? God has revealed it in so many ways to us. And they study DNA specifically. And they go, oh, looks like there was one man and one woman. I've heard that from a number of sources that weren't believers. That agrees with the Bible. We can't have that. They've admitted that there was a flood in Washington, Idaho, and maybe parts of Montana, and even a little bit of Oregon in there. There's a flood that happened in there, but was it a worldwide flood? No, no, no, no. And I could go on and on with examples. The evidence is screaming at them. The Tyrannosaurus rex, where they find soft tissue in this bone that they had to cut because they said they couldn't carry it. I don't know what the truth is on all that. But they open it up and it has soft tissue. Oh, that was bacteria. That was other stuff growing in there. They checked it out. The lady found it, checked it out 17 times. She couldn't believe it. How long ago did the dinosaurs die off? Words of man, 65 million years, common teaching. Word of God? They didn't die off in the flood. Like 97% of all species, they died off for a variety of reasons, just like they are still dying off today. Man is scraping for ideas because they will not receive the obvious truth that God has recorded for us simple folk. So we're in good shape here. I don't believe by just kind of some loose Oh, blind leap in the dark, and I've stressed that to you. I wanted to be a scientist. I wanted to work in forestry. That's where I started, and I'd look and look and look, and I'd scrutinize all the time. That's how I studied the Bible. And it gives me credence to speak. Devin? I think it's worth pointing out that, as in science, we agree with a lot of science. Oh yeah. Most. True science. I believe when you talk to somebody who believes in Calvinism, we will agree with most of what they say, and most of what they say is quite intelligent, and their leaders are very intelligent. It is the verses they're ignoring that we have great trouble with. And what they're doing with people that are not chosen, that is unacceptable. But they're not living a whole lot different because they'll admit to you they don't know who the chosen are. So they share the gospel with everybody. They still practice. Yeah, most of them. There are some exceptions. But anyway, but they cannot, you can ask them, and Calvinists ask them, who are the elect? They can only speak for themselves, and even some of those will have insecurity. Let's pray. Father, I ask you to help us this morning with the truth. You have clearly revealed yourself through creation, and yet many people reject it. You have clearly convicted each and every one of us of our sin, and yet many reject it. You constantly remind us through our conscience of what's right and wrong, even though it's distorted and sometimes misused, and many even harden their conscience and have stiff neck, but we can't deny the reality of it. I pray you'd help each and everyone in this room, that they would not put labels on themselves, whether they're Calvinist or Reformed or whatever they may be, that they would simply be believers that please you and teach your word accurately. Handling accurately the word of truth. Using all scripture for what it's designed for. And that we'd realize that the unbelieving Jews and Gentiles out there can be like Bereans. May we give them your word. May we make it clear that they can process the truth. And if they respond to your Holy Spirit, if they say yes to you, they'll place their faith, their trust in you, and they earn nothing. So if there be someone here today, Father, who's never done that, as religious as they might be, that they realize they don't know you, and you're going to tell them to depart from you. May they receive that free gift, turn with repentance from their sin, follow after your Son. Thank you for your Word. Help me with Romans 9 and John 3 to keep them a little simpler even than today. but for us to see what Your Word says. We thank You in Jesus' name, Amen.