Hello, this is Brother Grant, and it's good to be back with you with Grace Community Baptist Fellowship. We are answering questions regarding the doctrines of grace. There's a song that I've loved for many years now, and you probably know it. It's a hymn. It says, I know whom I have believed. The first line goes, I know not why God's wondrous grace to me he hath made known. nor why unworthy Christ in love redeem me for his own. The third line is just as powerful. I know not how the spirit moves, convincing men of sin, revealing Jesus through the word, creating faith in him. Now, we sing this song and I've heard many people who hold to an Arminian view Soteriology, the doctrine of salvation, they will sing this song and sing it heartedly. They will pray for loved ones that God would give them faith and eyes to see. But it's almost as if they don't really understand what they're praying. And when they sing this song, they certainly don't understand what they're singing because the song talks about, he doesn't understand how the spirit moves, convincing men of sin and revealing Jesus in the word within. But beyond that, notice this, creating faith in him. Many people have the idea that God's in all he can do and we must use our faith. And you see, there's idea here that if you're not careful, you're saying it's 99.9% God and the 0.01% of your faith is gonna push it over the top. Salvation is not synergistic. It's not a cooperation with God. Salvation is monergistic. It is God's work. And the Bible tells us no man will come. I mean, in the Psalms, it repeats this. In Psalm 53, Psalm 13, 14, Romans 3, we see No man will come outside of work of the Spirit of God. Now, I agree when God works on a heart and the Spirit of God comes, he creates faith within, but it must be something that comes from God. And a faith is created within that man. It is his faith, but it's been gifted to him by God. John 6, 44 tells us that no man can come except the Father which has sent me, draw him. Now two interesting words are can, speaks of ability. No man has the ability to come. Why? Because of their sinful nature. They're sinful in the fact that their nature, they're constrained to their nature. Now, people say, don't we have will? We certainly have will, but unrestricted freedom of the will? No, we do not. It is influenced By sin, it is influenced by the things of this world, the things that's in the world. And the Bible tells us the fact we're slaves. We're slaves. You're not free. And that's, a slave has many freedoms and he can do certain things and we can make many choices, but still yet we're constrained. And the idea that we're unconstrained and we can just choose God, that's one thing we do not have the ability to do. We do not. Now, it doesn't say no man may. If a man could and he would, God's not holding anyone back from believing in him. God's not restraining anyone saying you can't. It's their own sinful nature that restrains them. Understand, that constraint is not from God. It is from within. It didn't say no man may because certainly all that come he will receive. But it says no man can come. It takes something supernatural. That's why it says draw. And that word is not just to entice, show something beautiful out there, show something better that someone may come this way. It's not like going turkey hunting and you put out a call and a turkey decoy and you try to get that old Tom to leave a bunch of hens that he's, you know, he's hen to up with, as we call it in the hunting vernacular, and think that your hen's prettier than the hens that he's with. And that's a difficult thing to do. It ain't about trying to entice. That word has the idea of dragging, of him drugged. No man can, so God drags us to himself. Uh, now let me say this. We speak of a factual call. Uh, we find the Lord Jesus lovely. Why? Because he gives us faith within. Now, now the question often comes, do we have, do we have, uh, do we believe because of our faith or because he gives us faith we believe? And I believe it's, he gives us faith to believe just as a song, it creates faith within. It's not manipulation. It's not making a better decision. It's not saying some little prayer. And I personally declared war on the sinner's prayer. We need, we need men once again, to believe that the spirit of God must do a work in a person's heart before they will believe. Now, let me just give you a few verses in regards to this today and and it will try to be fairly quick, but we want to be thorough as well. And so we want to look today at Ephesians chapter two, verse eight and nine. I think most people are familiar with Ephesians chapter two. And when they quote this verse, many good hearted men, I don't think they really consider what's all being said here. They'll say salvation is of grace. Not of works, lest any man should boast." Well, certainly that is true. Salvation is of grace. Now, let's remember in the first few verses, he described how terrible the condition was of sinners. They were dead. Spiritually, they were dead. And they were dead how? In sins. And they were unable to save themselves. And time passed, walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the children of disobedience. He said that their conversation was the lust of the flesh, desiring the things of the flesh. They were by nature the children of wrath, but it was God who was rich in mercy. It was God with his great love, wherewith he loved us. And we were dead, were made alive by Christ. And he says, by grace are you saved, raised us up together. He's made us part of his kingdom, part of his family, united us with him, reconciled us to him and reconciled us to man. There's no distinction that we're going to see going down through the verses between Jew and Gentile, they're one people of God. Now I want you to see that in verse 8 and 9, here's how he says it happened. For by grace are you saved. That's the unmerited, undeserved favor of God. By grace are you saved, how? Through faith. And he says, in that now to yourselves, this is a gift of God. Now what people often jump on and say, well, See preacher out there, the gift of God is grace. God gave us grace and we got to believe through faith. Wait a minute, that, that, that verse, one thing is definitely saying I want to say for sure is when he says that, uh, for by grace, are you saved through faith? And that nodding yourselves is it is the gift of God. He's making sure we understand that faith is a gift from God. Now, I'm gonna argue that grace is the unmerited favor of God that is gifted to us. But also, you can't deny that faith is a gift from God. To me, it's so, we read those verses with absolute blinders on. It amazes me. And you say, well, Brother Grant, I don't know about all that. I disbelieve and you know, you you got to use your faith and I think he's talking about right there grace. Okay. Oh you you do well Well, let's look at some more scriptures. I like 2nd Timothy chapter 2 verse 25. It tells the pastors You an instruction Paul is and meekness instructing those that oppose themselves if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth Let me just tell you something. God not only gives faith, and I'm going to come back to more of this, but he also gives repentance. Repentance and faith are, uh, two sides of one coin. Okay. Uh, so I don't know about that. Well, Acts 11, 18 says when they heard these things, they held their peace and glorified God saying, then hath God also to the Gentiles done what he's regretted repentance unto life. In Acts 5.31, it says, him hath God exalted with his right hand to give repentance to Israel. God's the one that gives repentance. He's the one that gives faith. But you say, well, I'm still not settled on that whole faith thing. Yeah, I'm just not settled on it. And what you're saying about Ephesians 2 and 8 and 9, I believe it's grace that's gifted. Well, I believe it would do us well to look at just a few more verses and look at a few more. Look at Philippians chapter number one. And verse 29, Philippians chapter one, verse number, well, see I jumped ahead, sorry there, let me turn back. But Philippians 1.29, for unto you, it is given in behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake. And often the emphasis upon this, that since we believe, we've also are going to have to endure suffering. What many people say, but notice this, the Bible says here, for unto you, speaking of those who are saved, it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him. You see, it tells us that it has been given to us to believe on him. has also been given us to do what? Suffer for his sake. But notice, it comes from God. It was given to us. Another verse that often people read and I've been in churches and I've done it in years past, seen what it said and I thought it can't mean that. I remember I went to talk to a preacher I thought that would give me some great wisdom on it. I'll tell you what it said here just in a second, but Acts 13 and 48, many of you know this verse, but, and when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad. What did they hear? Well, Paul had told them that since they rejected and he said, you judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life. See, it was them that rejected. It was them that put themselves unworthy of everlasting life. Why? Because they didn't have faith within. They just rejected the message and he says, so the Lord commanded us, take the message to the Gentiles. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorify the word of the Lord. And as many as were ordained to eternal life, guess what they did? They believed. There's a direct correlation there. Those that were ordained, they believed, they had faith. Let me tell you, they were granted faith within. Now there's another important Bible verse I think that there's often. that it's just looked over, but, uh, and sometimes maybe it'd be because the depends on which version you're reading modern vernacular. I think maybe get a little bit, it gets a little bit clear, especially in, in the SV, but I'm going to explain it, uh, for all my King James friends. And, and, um, you know, it's not wrong. It's just, just maybe a little bit older and we don't use some of these terms as well, but, but first John five one. It says, whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, is born of God. Now, here's how that's normally taken. Whoever believes will be born of God. That's how most people take that verse that are Armenians, right there. All right, whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. So whoever believes, born of God, no, that's not what it's actually saying. The words, if you look, whosoever believeth that Jesus is a Christ, when it says is born of, is a word called genel in Greek, genel. And it's a verb that means to be fathered. And it's actually genel theos. It means fathered of God. If you look in Matthew chapter one, look at all those begats at the beginning of this, starting with Abraham, through Christ. It talks about this one, we got this one, this one, we got that one, this one, we got this one, and this one we got, and we got, we gotten, what's it mean? They were born of that particular father. And the very word here that says that whosoever believes, the ones that believe, everyone that believes in Jesus has been begotten or born of God. That's what this verse is saying. So this verse is making it very clear. Everyone that believes has been, is because the verb is past tense because they had been born God that's what it's saying. In fact, let me just read it to you in the ESV. I think it's a little bit clearer Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God Now you say no, no, that's because you believed and then you were born of God Listen, you believed because you were born of God There was a spiritual what you you believe because you were born again the Holy Spirit creates faith within Regeneration causes you to come alive. I mean, we see it clear in scripture, passage after passage, and yet we think that somehow man can pull himself up by his own bootstrap. Well, I like the Westminster Shorter Catechism in the 31st question. We often talk about a sexual call. What is effectual calling? Effectual calling is a work of God's spirit whereby convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ and renewing our wheels, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ freely offered to us in the gospel. That's what effectual calling is. That is where that we are convinced of our own sin, Our minds are enlightened about the knowledge of Christ, who he is, what he's done, renewing our wills, right? And creates and persuades us to believe, to trust, embrace Christ. And that's what 2 Timothy 1-9, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling. and uh Acts 2 37 now when they heard this they were pricked in their heart said Peter to the rest of the apostles me and brother what should we do and what they said no they were pricked in the heart and Acts 26 18 What's it say, to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God. I mean, we go on Ezekiel 36, 26, a new heart will I give you and a new spirit I will put within you who gives a new heart, who puts his new spirit within us. And I will take away the stony heart of flesh and I'll give you a heart or stony heart and out of your flesh. And I will give you a heart of flesh. And so no man can come. No man can come unless to be drawn of the Father and you'll raise him up the last day. And so we see that this is a work that's done by the Holy Spirit of God. So today I want to say to you that yes, it is your faith, but as the song sings, so do I agree. He said, I know not how the Spirit moves. And that's why he said the wind bloweth where it listeth. Convincing men of sin. Convinces us how terrible sinners we are. There's nothing we can do. Revealing Jesus through his word. We see Jesus in all his glory. But notice this, creating faith in him. But I know who I believe and I'm persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. I am thankful for the work of the Holy Spirit. that creates faith within. God bless you. And again, our desire is not to be controversial, but it always may we be biblical. Thank you.