Doesn't This Make Man a Puppet?; HyperCalvinism

Introduction: The Bible's Problems and Previous Objections

0:00 And so we're seeking to consider some of the Bible's answers to the problems that the Bible itself creates. Now, in no way are we doing this in an attempt to appease those who would make their minds the judge of divine truth. When I meet anyone who comes with the attitude that, well, whatever the Bible says, it can't say that God's chosen some and not others, so don't talk to me. Or if you're going to talk to me, don't ever try to convince me of that.

0:28 Well, all you can do with such a one as that is pray that God will subdue his heart and bring him to the place where he's willing to be a student of the Scriptures and not a judge of the Scriptures. But for those whose minds are basically subject to the Word of God, there are problems. And when one is enabled by God's grace to lay hold of the truth that God is sovereign in his world, both in nature, in providence, and in grace, then there are these perplexing questions that come. And in order to clear away...

0:58 Some of those questions for the mind that is basically submissive to the Word of God, we're considering some of these problems. We've looked at three of them thus far. The common objection of God is sovereign in grace and will save those whom he's purposed to save. Why preach the gospel?

1:16 And the basic answer is, election is not salvation, but is unto salvation. And if you understand the teaching of 2 Thessalonians 2.13, you have an adequate answer for this. Objection, where the Apostle Paul declares, God be thanked that he hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, so that the God who ordains the end, the salvation of his people, has ordained the means thereto, namely the preaching of the gospel.

1:51 And then another common objection, why preach? If all that is fixed in the counsels of God's eternal presence, purpose must come to pass, why should I preach? How can the whimperings, the plaintive cries of a little creature of dust, affect the mighty counsels of the eternal God? Well, the answer to this is that God has woven the prayers of his people into the fabric of his purposes, so that God works, not because his people pray, but as they pray.

2:24 And their prayers are a part of the outworking of his purpose. Then lastly...

2:29 Last week, we considered a very common objection that I have brought to me. When people are confronted with this biblical truth, they say, yes, it seems that the scripture teaches that the Lord Jesus came to save his people. That when he prayed in John 17, he was praying a very particularized prayer. He said, I thank thee, Father, thou hast given me authority over all flesh, that I should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given me.

2:57 I pray. Not for the world, but for those whom thou hast given me. And they see an apparent contradiction between that particularized prayer of Christ and the whosoever passages of the Bible. Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.

3:16 Whosoever believeth on the Son. And so we sought to clear away this objection last week by showing that the whosoever passages are always attached to God's invitation to mercy. And the invitation of mercy comes to all men. Christ is to be freely preached to all men.

3:37 Forgiveness is freely offered to all men. All who repent and believe are freely saved. But now the scripture teaches that the only thing that secures that any will repent and believe, any of the whosoever to whom the word of God comes, is that God is purposed to bring men to faith. And repentance.

The Fourth Objection: Does God's Sovereignty Make Man a Puppet?

3:59 And so Acts 13.48 stands as the unanswerable argument for the truth that we're dealing with, where it says, As the gospel was preached at Antioch, as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. Now we come tonight to consider a fourth and a very common objection and problem to this matter of God's sovereignty. It goes something like this.

4:24 Well, if God is sovereign in the sense, if there's nothing outside of his control, and the scripture seems to teach that, says he has his way in the whirlwind and the storm and the clouds and the dust at his feet. Daniel says he does according to his will in the armies of heaven and earth, and none can say his hand and say unto him, What doest thou? Psalm 115 in verse 3 declares, Our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he pleased.

4:54 Ephesians 1.11 declares, He works all things. And after the counsel of his own will, then people are perplexed and say, Well, if that's true, then doesn't this make man sort of a little robot or just a little puppet, sort of moved at the end of the strings of divine sovereignty? You ever watch a puppet show?

5:14 Well, all you see is these little creatures going through their motions, but you know, up out of sight, there's the man or the woman who stands there like this, you see, manipulating. And so every movement of a little puppet, whether it's a razor, a squeezing of the hand or a lowering of the hand, whether it's a nod of the head this way or that way, you know that it's not a free movement. It's not an uncontrolled, spontaneous movement. It's a movement brought about by the manipulator up here.

5:43 And this is the problem that comes to the minds of people when they see the scriptural teaching that God is sovereign or when they're first confronted with it. They cry out, But doesn't this make man a puppet? Doesn't it simply make him a creature who's held at the end, at the end of the strings of divine sovereignty? Where is man's responsibility?

The Disturbing Frequency of the Objection and God's Right to Intervene

6:01 Where is man's freedom? Now, I want to speak to that objection tonight from the scriptures, and I want to, first of all, in seeking to answer it and handle this objection, say that, frankly, I am disturbed by the frequency with which this objection is raised.

6:21 God can be robbed of his godhood year in and year out, even in professing Christian churches, the preaching can be such as to give the impression that God sent his son to die on the cross, and now he stands back like a helpless spectator, his arms bound behind him, wishfully hoping that somebody amongst the sons of men will please accept the mercy that he offers in his son. But God dare not ever bring his hand from behind his back and stretch forth that hand in power and lay hold of a sinner and say, I'll make him mine, because I want to make him mine. We dare not have a God who ever acts anyway but with his arms behind his back.

7:07 And no one raises up an outcry of the picture of a pathetic, helpless God hoping and wishing to save the whole entire world and doing a miserable job of it at best.

7:21 The impression can be given that communism and atheism and materialism and relativism and every other kind of ism that you can concoct, is somehow caught God unawares, and I say it, I trust not blasphemously, poor God. He looks down in his world in such an awful mess and he sort of wrings his hands and says, but I dare not intervene for man is free, you know. This is the impression of much of the preaching and teaching of our day. And no one raises an outcry.

7:51 Just so long as almighty man is left to have the field. But the moment you begin to preach and infer that maybe God has the right, and actually exercises that right, of making his creatures do certain things that he desires and immediately, whoo, the hands go up and the objections are raised. Why? Because we don't want almighty man to be told what to do, to be frustrated.

8:21 And some people, when the very thought is suggested that God has a right and actually controls the actions of men, this is very repulsive to them. But this is taught to them. This is taught throughout the length and breadth of the Bible. You remember that instance where Abraham lied and said that Sarah was his sister and not his wife, told a half-truth that in that situation was a lie, and that heathen king took Sarah to himself and was going to make her his wife, and he didn't?

8:48 You know what God said to him? Listen to what God said concerning a heathen king who was captured by the, captivated, I'm sorry, not captured, but captivated by the beauty of Sarah. This is what God said to him. Genesis 20 and verse 6, And God said to him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart, for I also withheld thee from sinning against me.

9:16 Therefore suffered I thee not to touch her. He says, you know why you didn't take Sarah? Because I wouldn't let you. Oh, you mean God has a right to keep a heathen king from taking a certain woman to be his wife?

9:29 Yes, he has that right and he exercises it. He exercised. He was a man who wasn't even a saved man. He didn't operate internally by the, we call the more natural operations of the Holy Spirit.

9:40 He operated in a way, the manner in which I don't know, but all I know is what he says here, that I kept thee from taking her. And that was his right to do so. And he exercised that right. And you find that throughout the Old and the New Testament.

9:53 You remember God had told a certain king that he was going to die. And he was going to die in a certain way. The dogs would lick his blood. And so what does God do?

10:05 He just guides the arrow of a certain archer and makes it find its mark right in the one weak spot in his armor. And down he goes and dies in the pool of his own blood. And the dogs lick his blood. God had a right to guide that arrow.

10:18 His arrow made from a tree that he himself grew. And he had a right to direct the bowman who drew it, for that was his creature and he made him. And he had a right to guide it to the heart of a wicked king, for he was the judge of that king and had a right to dispose of him according to his good pleasure. You find throughout the Scripture instances like this.

10:41 And yet where it's even inferred that this is the God of the Bible, you find a great outcry. And so at the outset I want to declare that this outcry is an indication that we have lived in a generation where man's importance and man's so-called rights and freedoms have been far too much exalted above the perspective of the Word of God. All right, then, seeking to answer the objection, what can we say that we ought to do? What can we say that will help us as we seek to thread our way through this common objection?

Embracing the Antinomy: God's Sovereignty and Man's Responsibility

11:10 First of all, let me state that we must always remember as we think of this, God is sovereign and yet man is responsible. He's not a robot. How can he be less than that? We must remember that we're dealing in the realm of mystery.

11:26 And at the outset, settle it down as a cardinal rule that we shall never be able, this side of eternity, to fully comprehend how God can be absolute sovereign in his world and how man can be a wholly responsible creature in that same realm. Mr. Packer, as many of you know, in his excellent little book, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, has an introduction that is very helpful in dealing with this problem, and he uses the word antinomy. He says this doctrine of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility is an antinomy.

12:03 Now, an antinomy is an apparent, irreconcilable set of facts. Taking all the evidence, you come up with this conclusion in this area. Taking equally valid evidence, you come up with another conclusion in this area, and the two don't seem to fit, and yet both of them stand or fall on their own evidence. And then he gives an illustration from the realm of physics.

12:29 Physicists seem to be able to demonstrate that light is wave. They seem to be able to demonstrate, with equally valid testing and equally valid processes of finding these things out, that light is particle. Now, the greatest minds don't know how light can be both wave and particle. They don't know how this can be.

12:53 But a well-instructed physicist simply acts on the basis that both are true. He can't understand how both are. But in his experimentation, and in his working with light, he must assume that both things are true, because on equally valid bases of testing, this is his result. And so when we come to the Scriptures, the Scriptures teach very clearly and emphatically that Almighty God is an absolute sovereign within his world.

13:25 We've looked at passage after passage in the Old and the New Testaments. As one of the ladies said in the home the other night when we were talking about this, she said, Pastor, how could I have read my Bible for so many years and not seen it? It's not some little obtuse thing tucked away under a stone in the River Jordan. I mean, if it were one of those truths that you had to dig down into Jordan and turn up the stone and pull it out like a drug somewhere, why, then we might overlook it for years.

13:50 But this is a truth that lies on the face of the Scripture no matter where you turn. The very first page, in the beginning, God. And the rest of the Bible is simply an expanding of that truth. The Bible is a declaration of the activities and the actions of God.

14:09 And all the way through, that's the perspective. In the beginning, God. So that when Paul contemplates these things, he ends up as he does in Romans 11, 36, of him, through him, unto him, are all things to whom be glory forever and forever. So, taking the stuff of divine power, of divine truth, taking the raw material of Bible facts, we come to this conclusion.

14:39 God is sovereign in creation, in providence, in grace. Taking the same vines, taking equally valid portions, we come to this conclusion. Man is responsible. God gives him commands.

14:53 God warns him. God threatens him. God says, one day I'll judge you for your actions. God sends the Gospel to him.

15:00 God says, repent. God says, believe. God says, if you don't, you'll be judged. It's obvious God is treating man as a responsible creature.

15:08 A creature who is wholly responsible for his actions. Now, just forgetting that the Bible said anything about his sovereignty, anyone reading the Bible would come to the conclusion that God deals with man as a responsible creature. You can't deny that. All the facts point up to that.

15:27 Forgetting this set of truths and simply going through the Bible to see, well, does God rule in the world that he made? Any person who wasn't filled with prejudice would come up to the conclusion God is sovereign. So what do we have? We have an antinomy.

15:40 We have two equally valid facts which we in this present state cannot fit together and see how can it be so. But I remind you of something that I stated at the outset of this study some months ago. We do not come to the words and make the ability of our mind to squeeze things together the measure of our faith or of our belief. Wherever the word leads us, there we go.

16:09 Does the word lead us to see that God is sovereign? There we go. Does the word lead us to see that man is responsible? There we go.

16:18 So we have this antinomy. We're in the realm of that which to us is mystery. And the illustration is often used, like the railroad tracks that we know are parallel and as we stand within those four foot, what, four foot ten, whatever they are, tracks, we see that they're parallel and yet looking down some hundreds of yards we see that the two parallel lines meet and so these truths of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility to us seem to be parallel lines that do not meet but there in his mind, in his heart, in his infinite wisdom, they meet and perhaps one day God will let us know how they do. All right then, what are we going to do when we meet an antinomy?

The Dangers of Rejecting One Side of the Antinomy: Hyper-Calvinism and Arminianism

17:00 What are we going to do when we meet this problem of things that we cannot seem to fit together? Well, we can do one of three things. And the first one is what some people have done. We can say, all right, the Bible teaches God is sovereign and I'm going to take that truth with two hands and I'm going to hug it to my breast and love it and confess it to all men.

17:22 Well, you see, when you're holding something with two hands, you don't have another hand left unless you're a three-handed freak to hold anything else. And so there have been some people and they came to the Bible and they discovered that the Scripture teaches God is sovereign even in the realm of grace. That he has chosen the people out of the mass of humanity whom he's going to save. And they shall be saved for our Lord said, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me.

17:48 And they hold that truth. Ah, but you know what they do? They say, since God is sovereign, then man really can't be responsible. He must be something like a little puppet.

17:57 And so they have thrown out the truth that man is responsible. And clinging only to the truth that God is sovereign, you know what's happened? They have become what we would commonly call hyper-Calvinists. You know what a hyper-Calvinist is?

18:13 He's a person who's holding the truth of sovereignty with two hands and he doesn't have a hand left to hold to the truth of responsibility. That's what he is. He's a man who's holding something with one hand too many. Now what he's holding to with one of those hands, he ought to hold to.

18:31 But when he holds it with two hands, he doesn't have anything left to hold the other aspect of divine truth. So what happens? Well, he says, if God is going to save his elect, he'll save them. Whether I pray for them or not, whether I preach, whether I witness, whether I'm concerned.

18:45 So they lose all evangelistic passion. It was a hyper-Calvinist who said to William Carey when he got concerned about reaching those heathen across the sea, got concerned about reaching people in other lands, he said, son, when God's ready to convert us, when God's ready to convert the heathen, he'll do it without your help or mine. Now what was wrong with that man? He was a hyper-Calvin.

19:09 He believed God's sovereignty, but he was holding it to hands. And so he lost his realization that he was a responsible preacher to whom God had said, take the gospel to every creature. Hyper-Calvinism will lead to a lack of evangelistic passion. It will lead to a fatalistic attitude.

19:29 Perhaps some of you have heard the common, what is it, parody, really, abuse of this truth. A man fell down the stairs, and when he got to the bottom, he said, well, thank the Lord, that's over with. You see, this was something he felt, well, this was decreed, my fall was decreed, so I'm glad it's over with, you see. It had to be.

19:50 And there was a fatalistic acceptance of his fall down the stairs, rather than saying, well, maybe the reason I fell is I was thinking about my supper when I ought to have been thinking about where I'm putting my feet, you see. So that it leads to an unrealistic view of life and its responsibilities and our reaction to life and its responsibilities. As far as I know, we don't have anyone in that position in our assembly, and I trust that God will keep us from such terrible, terrible positions. Now, there's the other position, which is this.

20:25 You say, well, the Bible teaches man's responsible, and if man's responsible, then man's responsible, and I don't care what the Bible says, those words, elect, chosen, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated, choosing one, making it a vessel of mercy, I don't care what it says, but I know one thing, it can't say anything that contradicts man is responsible. So what do they do? Take that truth with two hands. They don't have a hand left to hold to the truth of God's sovereignty.

20:55 And so they accept the fact of man's responsibility, but rejecting in practice, if not in theory as well, the doctrine of divine sovereignty, what happens? You listen to them preach, and teach, and pray, and you realize that poor God, he can't do anything until man pushes the button and sets him free to do it. You have a concept of salvation which is entirely foreign to the concept of the Bible. The concept of the Bible is this, Ephesians 2.10,

21:27 we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. A saved sinner is a man who's been the object of a created work of God. But in this concept, the big word is decision. And we're cursed with it in our day.

21:46 Have you decided for Christ? Have you made your decision for Christ? Beloved, I'm not concerned about that. My concern is, has Almighty God broken into your life and performed a miracle of grace?

21:59 That's the answer. That's the issue. But the whole focus in our day is decision, decision, decision. Why?

22:06 Because we've got people who've been sold a bill of goods for two generations that has as its beginning, middle and end, the responsibility of man and the sovereignty of God has been well nigh lost in the rubble of our religious mess. And so you have the curse of decisionism. It's expressed rather crudely in songs like this one. I have a wonderful friend at my house who makes my home a heaven every day.

22:34 And if someday you should decide, just let him in and he'll abide, this wonderful friend at my house. It makes man his own savior with God's help, you see. When you decide, then God will come along and finish up the work. This is the result of holding to the truth taught with clarity in the Scripture that man is the responsible creature.

23:02 And when the gospel comes to him, it comes with an either or, and there must be the call to repent and to believe. But where that truth of man's responsibility is held with two hands and the truth of God's sovereignty and grace is rejected or denied in openness or in practice, though perhaps not openly, you have man saving himself with God's help. You have a philosophy in which all is dependent upon man in which everything's held in suspension until almighty man decides. That basically is what we mean by the term Arminianism.

23:40 That's what Arminianism is. It's not a bad word. That has to be your nationality. That's just the name of a certain Dutch theologian who said, I can't understand how God can be sovereign and man responsible and I'm going to make my choice.

23:56 I'm going to throw out this and I'm going to hold this and I'm going to structure my whole theology around this. And so that's what he did. Now there's a third thing you can do. When you face this antinomy, here's two sets of truths, divine sovereignty, human responsibility.

Living with the Antinomy: Christ and the Apostles as Examples

24:12 You can cling to these with both hands, this with both hands, become a hypercalvus. Cling to this with both hands and become an Arminian and a God dishonoring person in both your actions and in your concepts. Or you can do what I believe with all my heart the scripture bids us do. You can reach out at this precious truth of the divine sovereignty and clasp it in the hand of faith and hold it fast.

24:37 Reach out with this hand to the truth of man's responsibility and clasp it and hold it fast and just live with the antinomy and wait till we get to glory to see how the parallel lines meet. We must learn to live with this antinomy. And I find in our Lord Jesus this attitude. I find in the apostles this attitude and so I'm convinced deeply in my own heart that a biblical Christian, a Bible Christian, is one who's learned to live with the antinomy and to rejoice in it.

25:12 See, whenever I have an unbeliever or a skeptic tell me, ah, what you believe is something I can't understand it. I rejoice. I'm never embarrassed when he says that. It gives me a wonderful opening to say, ah, thank you for seeing that the God whom I worship is bigger than the four by six inches with which you're trying to contain him.

25:35 I rejoice in the God who's bigger than that. Now let's notice just briefly how our Lord lived with the antinomy, how the apostles lived with it. Turn to Matthew 11 for a moment. Matthew chapter 11.

25:49 Our Lord has just spoken some of the most sobering words which he uttered in the days of his flesh, pronouncing these woes upon the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida. He finishes in verse 24 of Matthew 11 with these words, but I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee. He lays the responsibility of impenitence squarely at the feet of these people in Capernaum, in Chorazin, Bethsaida. He says you're responsible for your impenitence.

26:32 It'll be more tolerable in the day of judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah than for you. Now verse 25. At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou art because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight, all things are delivered unto me of my Father, and no man knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son,

27:16 and he to whomsoever the Son willeth, the way it should be translated, it's a will in the present tense, he to whomsoever the Son is willing to reveal him. What a statement of divine sovereignty. Having just concluded this pronouncement of judgment and laying the responsibility for impenitence squarely on the shoulders of these people, he turns to his Father and he prays and says, Father, I thank thee. Thou hast hid, thou hast revealed, and this revealing is done according to sovereignty.

27:53 He to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him. Now what's the next word? Come unto me, all ye that labor in a heavy way. There it is.

28:08 Now do you feel more at home with 28, come unto me, than you do with the last part of verse 27? He to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. Do you feel more at ease with verse 28? Than verse 27?

28:25 If so, that may be a picture that you've got one hand here and about four fingers here and you've just got one finger loose, you see, for this over here. Now if you feel more at ease and can rejoice more in verse 27 than in verse 28, then that's a bad sign that maybe you've got one hand and two or three fingers here and only a finger or two left. See our Lord put them together. Come unto thee.

28:52 Thank thee, Father, according to thy will. Divine truth has been revealed. Come. Come unto me, all ye.

29:00 What did our Lord do with this antinomy? He lived with it. He lived. And I say it reverently.

29:08 If the Son of God in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid could live with an antinomy, who are you? Who am I? You say, oh, I can't understand it. I think it should be better this way.

29:23 Beloved, that borders to me on blasphemy. The Son of God could live with the antinomy. You and I should. Now notice how the apostles lived with it.

29:36 Just two passages briefly. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. These are passages that we looked at in another connection and I'm going back to them purposely because I would far rather you have a working knowledge of say a good dozen or a dozen and a half passages on this subject and be able to know how to give a reason of the hope that is in you than simply have a smattering of the knowledge of perhaps two or three times as many passages.

30:03 Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2.

30:07 Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2.

30:11 Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2.

30:16 Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2.

30:21 Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2.

30:26 Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2.

30:30 Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2.

30:34 Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2.

30:38 Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2.

30:42 Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. the truth of divine sovereignty. And as he thinks back, and remember, here's an eyewitness.

30:51 Here's a man who saw them taken by illegal means. Buffeted him, bruised him, beat him, crucified him. He saw the whole thing. Now he says, all that happened in the delivering up of the Son of God happened not by accident, not by some chance arrangement of circumstances.

31:13 This, Peter says, he was delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God who takes hold of the truth of divine sovereignty even in the glory, bloody situation and circumstance of the illegal crucifixion of Christ. And he says, all of it came to pass by divine sovereignty. So he takes hold of the truth. Now notice the latter part of the verse.

31:37 Ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain. The responsibility for the whole thing lies right at your feet. And he takes the truth of human responsibility with the same equal tenacity. There it is.

31:54 Delivered up by the counsel of God, you took him and crucified him.

32:01 You say, I don't understand that. God didn't ask you.

32:05 But he demands that you embrace in faith and submission his word. Notice in Acts chapter 4 a similar statement. When the apostles are praying,

32:17 having experienced the first open opposition to the gospel, having even received some physical abuse for their testimony to the Son of God, and now released, they come back to their assembly to pray.

32:35 As they pray, this is what they say. Acts chapter 4 and verse, perhaps we can start with verse 24. And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said, Lord, thou art God, which did make heaven and earth and the sea and all that in them is, who by the mouth of thy servant David has said, why did the heathen rage and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ for of a truth.

33:10 Against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together for the Lord, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. Now, there can't be any stronger language if words mean anything. That is, these people addressed God in prayer. They said, God, everything that came to pass came to pass according to the determination of your own hand and your own counsel.

33:49 And yet, what do they do? Sit back and say, since all is ordered by your counsel and the people have opposed us, let's just sit down and wait and see what will happen. No, they say, now, Lord, give us boldness to go out and preach. Why?

34:02 Because you commanded us to preach.

34:06 And so they grasped the truth of their responsibility and the truth of God's divine sovereignty and they held them with equal tenacity.

34:17 That's what you've got to do with an antinomy when you're in the realm of mystery. Now, I hope that none of you will do the first thing and become hyper-carnivores. Calvinists, if I ever see any of you fellows who've begun to rejoice in the doctrines of grace, beginning to grow cold in your evangelism, I want to get after you as you're losing a few fingers over here. You've got some over here that ought to be here.

34:39 But if I ever hear of any of you adopting any of the cheap, tawdry methods, psychological gimmicks to try to wheedle decisions out of people, I think I'll pray God will make your tongue as thick as wood and won't let you dishonor him. Until you come back to a biblical method. Oh, dear ones, can we expect in a day like ours and with the history of the church behind us where so many men and movements have been dashed upon the rocks either here or there that God will give us grace to embrace both aspects of his truth? Not something middle-of-the-road.

35:17 This middle-of-the-road business is disgusting. Well, we just won't hold either. No, God says hold both.

35:25 The Bible doesn't teach something midway between divine and divine. The divine sovereignty and human responsibility, it teaches both. And God demands that we embrace both. Now, what do you do when you're tempted to wonder?

Responding to Wonder and Complaint

35:38 Well, when you're tempted to wonder, then you ought to wonder in the right way. That's what Paul said. You see, when he finished wondering about the mystery of sovereignty, he began to wonder with a holy wonder. And so he ends up Romans 11, Romans 11 with these words.

35:57 For of him, for through him, unto him are all things who hath known the mind of the Lord or being his counselor hath taught him. When you begin to wonder, just wonder.

36:08 Not this kind of wonder, but this kind.

36:13 Let mystery be the trigger to worship. Let mystery be the trigger to worship. When you begin to complain, then you need to turn to Romans 9 and read those verses. But nay, O man, who art thou?

36:27 Shall the thing formed say to the thing that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? When you're ever tempted, when you're ever tempted to complain, then just put your hand on your mouth and remember who you are and remember who God is and rejoice that he exercises his right. Well, I think that will give us at least some basic bearing as we try to think our way through the problem that God is sovereign. Does this make man a puppet?

Understanding Biblical Freedom: Absence of External Coercion

36:52 Remember, you're in the realm of mystery. You're in the context of an antinomy and learn to live with it. And now may I give briefly a second suggestion. I had three, but I know I won't have time to get to the third.

37:03 But, perhaps we can clear through the second. Remember not only that you're in the realm of mystery, but also remember the biblical definition of freedom. The reason some people have this problem, well, if God is sovereign, then man is not free. They do not have a biblical definition of freedom.

37:23 Now, what is freedom in a biblical sense? Freedom is the absence of external coercion. We talk about the difference. Some of you fellows perhaps have flown some models.

37:34 You have the difference. I remember as a kid, there were free flight models. They were the kind where the fellows set the rudders and ailerons on the planes and after they got the little motors started, it would seem like an age before they could and they let it go. It was a huge park.

37:51 It went out over Long Island Sound and those things would spiral up and up and up. Free flight. They were not controlled by anything other than the set of their own controls, their own rules, rudder and ailerons and the rest. Now, there were controlled flight planes.

38:09 That's where the fellow and I marvel at how dexterous they could be with that, where you have that little gimmick that they hold in the hand and the lines go out and that operates the controls and then they buzz around and do loop-de-loops and all the rest. Well, you see, that plane is controlled in its action by an outside force other than that which is in the plane itself. Now, freedom is the absence of external coercion. And the...

38:34 The scripture teaches that man is a free creature. He is free to act consistent with himself, but he's not free to act contrary to his nature. Let me illustrate again, lest we get into philosophical distinctions.

38:51 Picture little Johnny Sparrow that lives about eight feet outside of our kitchen. And we have a bird feeder there that they decided to turn into a bird apartment. They ate all the seed out and then began to bring...

39:05 bring straw and the rest. And so it's been a...

39:07 not a bird feeder for the past year, but it's been a bird house. Now, that little sparrow is perfectly free. Perfectly free. Perfect liberty to go on down to the pond where we have ice skating there in North Caldwell and build a nest right down two feet beneath the water in the middle of that pond.

39:28 There's nobody telling him he can't. There's no city ordinance that I know of. There's nobody that stands guard around his little bird nest and saying, now, if you do anything, don't you dare go there. If you do, I'll apprehend you.

39:38 That bird is free to build a nest right there in the middle of the pond. But will he do it? No, we can say the bird won't. We can even say the bird can't.

39:50 Why can't he? Because his little bird nature won't let him. You see, his little bird nature keeps him from doing something that he's free to do. But he's not at liberty to do so because of his what?

40:03 Because of his bird nature. His bird nature would not ever...

Man's Fallen Nature and Inability to Come to Christ

40:07 would never allow him to build a nest two feet under the water in the middle of the pond. Now, the scripture teaches that fallen man is free to come to Christ. Nothing stands between him and Christ. Christ freely invites him.

40:25 Christ urges him. Christ appeals in the gospel.

40:30 But man will not come. Why? Because his nature is such. He won't come.

40:36 Chapter and verse. All right. Matthew chapter.

40:41 Matthew chapter 7. Notice verses 18 and 19.

40:49 Or we could back up to verse 17. Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit. Now, notice the next phrase.

41:07 Neither can a corrupt tree bring forth... good fruit.

41:15 A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit. It's contrary to its nature. Now, what is man? When we begin to understand what the scripture says about man, that his mind is darkened, Ephesians 4.18,

41:31 Romans 3, there's none that understand it. His affections are perverted. There is none that seeketh after God. His will is enslaved to sin.

41:41 Romans 8.7, the carnal mind is...

41:43 It is not subject to the law of God. Neither indeed can it be when you've got a creature whose mind is darkened to the glory of Christ, whose affections are turned away from desire for Christ, and whose will is adamant in its refusal to bow to Christ.

42:05 Is that man going to come to a Christ who demands absolute submission? Who demands that he turn from the love of sin to the love of righteousness? Who demands that he give him a place of affection above father, mother, brother, sister, more than his own life also? Is a creature whose mind is darkened to the glory of Christ going to choose Christ as his all in all?

42:27 Whose heart and whose affections are turned away from Christ? Is he going to set those affections on Christ as the supreme and cheap joy? Whose will is opposed to the reign of Christ? Is he going to embrace that reign?

42:42 A corrupt tree cannot bring forth that good fruit. To faith and repentance and submission? Oh sure, man is free to come. Nothing stands between him and Christ and his coming.

42:55 There is no physical power that stands between once the gospel has been proclaimed. But man will not come. And so the only hope is that God will do something to that sinner by way of opening his mind, by way of turning his affections and subduing his will. And that's precisely what he does.

43:16 When he regenerates a sinner by his sovereign grace and mercy and works in the hidden springs of the heart of that sinner so that the Christ in whom he saw no glory he now sees a glory in Christ. The Christ for whom he had no desire he now longs. The Christ whose rule was a terrible thought to him he now embraces and says, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? So you see, dear ones, this whole idea that man stands between the devil and Christ and is perfectly free to choose is not founded in the Bible.

43:54 Adam stood on a neutral plane and before him was the path of good, the path of evil. He had no evil nature. He had no darkened mind. He had no perverted affections.

44:06 Adam was perfectly neutral. Adam's the only one about whom we could say, as we've heard it said, God cast a vote for Adam to move in a direction of righteousness. And the devil cast a vote this way and Adam made the choice. But don't you say that's true now.

44:22 That's an absolute denial of the biblical teaching that since the fall of man, man is not on a neutral plane standing between good and evil, sin and righteousness so that when they're presented he's free at liberty in the sense that he can act without any involvement with his nature. That's not a biblical concept. The Bible teaches that the imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.

44:49 The carnal mind is enmity against God. This is why Jesus said, no man can come to me except the Father draw him. Not that there's any physical hindrance but man being what he is will not come. He cannot because he will not and he will not because his mind and affections are perverted and the will is the servant to the mind and the affections.

45:13 So I'm glad I've got a God who interferes with men or I wouldn't stand here tonight preaching. I'm glad I've got a God who doesn't have this false respect for man's freedom that he stands back and says, oh well, I'll just let Al Martin go and let his free will lead him in the direction it will. Beloved, free will leads to hell.

45:36 Free grace leads to heaven. Hallelujah. Grace that takes the rebel will and turns to Christ. Grace that opens blinded eyes and shows the glory.

45:50 Grace that takes perverted affections and moves them to Christ. And I long that this assembly be a monument and a witness not to free will but to free grace. Is that your desire? If you've ever begun to see what your heart is you won't want to build any monuments to free will.

The Necessity of God's 'Interference' and Free Grace

46:10 You'll want to build monuments to free grace. I had someone tell me in counseling a few weeks ago this very thing and I'll close with this anecdote.

46:22 He said, you know, up until a few months ago I always had the idea sinners were out there and if they heard the gospel they'd just turn to Christ by the dozen.

46:32 He said, you know, in the past few months God's begun to show me what my heart is and he said, I see that even as a Christian if God doesn't work in my heart even as a Christian I won't choose the thing that's right. He said, now I know that's true of me as a Christian. What about the man who's not? And you know, I think that's Bible.

46:51 Isn't this what Philippians 2.13 says? It's God who worketh in you both to what? To will.

46:59 Oh, you mean God interferes with my will? Uh-huh. And if he didn't you'd be in miserable shape? That's in us both to will.

47:08 Isn't that the Bible? And to do. Of what? Of his good pleasure.

47:15 Oh, dear ones, let's not be scared away by the boogeyman of a God who makes his creatures robots and people would seek to shy us away from this glorious truth of the word. No. We hold the truth of Scripture that our sin has brought us into such a state that if God did not move in with an arm of sovereign power, if he were to leave us at the mercy of what we are by nature, we would forever seal ourselves in nature's night and end up in the pit of eternal burdens. But God in his grace and mercy even has said our Lord Jesus, all that the Father giveth me shall come and him that comes I will in no wise cast out.

Conclusion and Call to Mercy

47:57 So I trust these two areas of thought will be helpful to you, instructive, help you to wind your way through the labyrinth of these matters. As we think of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, remember those two principles. You're in the realm of mystery. You're in the context of an antinomy.

48:17 Learn to live with it. Embrace both facets of divine truth and then remember the biblical concept of freedom. It's not the freedom that is talked about. In our day, as though man were suspended in a neutral state, man is free in the sense that he's uncoerced to act consistent with his nature, but his nature's depraved and can a clean thing come out of the unclean, God asks.

48:43 And the answer's obvious. So what does God say he'll do? He says, I'll take out the heart of stone and I'll give you a heart of flesh and I'll put my spirit within you and I'll cause you to walk in my statutes. That's blessed interference.

48:58 Have you experienced that? The holy interference of God's grace that's taken out your heart of stone, written the law in your heart so that you desire to do his will? Oh, beloved, you don't need a decision for Jesus. You need an interference from Jesus.

49:18 Are you a stranger to that?

49:22 If so, I trust that you'll fall down before him this night and cry for mercy, recognizing that the key to that work that must be done in your heart is in his hand. Fall before him and plead for mercy for the scripture's promise that all that seek him shall find him. Those that call upon him will find him a merciful savior. And your responsibility this night is to seek the face of a sovereign God who alone can subdue and change your heart.

49:55 Let us pray.

50:03 Oh, Lord, we rejoice tonight with joy unspeakable and full of glory for this great, salvation that comes to the hell-bound sons of men and arrests them in their course, turns them heavenward and Christward. Oh, Lord, help us to rejoice in this so great salvation. We pray for your people who perhaps have been perplexed and in trouble that your words may be the means of bringing what answers you have given to us to their hearts. For those, our Father, whose rebel wills stand up in defiance of you, a sovereign God, oh, Lord,

50:47 bring them to bow ere they must bow in that awesome day. We pray for this assembly and its ministry. God, keep us from the curse of that terrible blight that will come were we to merely hold to the glorious truth of divine sovereignty and relax our grasp upon the truth of our responsibility. Deliver us from the double curse on the other extreme.

51:16 Make us a people who cling with equal tenacity to each facet of your truth in order that we might love you and serve you aright and proclaim you as you will deserve to be proclaimed to this generation even through this assembly and its witness. Hear us, oh God, and be pleased to dismiss us from this place with the blessing of your presence and the benediction of your spirit upon each of our hearts and lives. Hear us, we pray. Accept our thanks for your presence with us through Jesus Christ our Lord.