The NXR Podcast - SUNDAY SERMON - Calvinism, Arminianism, & “Prevenient Grace”

00:00:00.000 Again, our text for today is the Gospel of John chapter 3, starting in verses 16 and finishing in

00:00:06.880 verses 21. The Bible says this, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever

00:00:13.600 believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world

00:00:19.220 to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in

00:00:25.080 him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed

00:00:32.500 in the name of the only son of God. And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world

00:00:38.960 and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. Everyone who does

00:00:45.440 wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his work should be exposed. But

00:00:51.400 whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have

00:00:56.620 been carried out in God. This is the word of the Lord. All right, please be seated. Let's go ahead

00:01:03.180 and dive right in. I'm going to do my best to be a briefer today because we started late and then

00:01:08.360 we had a special prayer. And yeah, so I'm going to try to be considerate. Here we go. Verses 16

00:01:14.280 and 18 are mirror images of one another. That's the first thing that I want us to notice in the

00:01:19.540 text today, verse 16 and 18, actually are mirroring one another. You could almost say that it seems

00:01:24.760 as though verse 18 is entirely redundant and that there's no purpose for it being there at all. That

00:01:30.060 would be a bad position to hold because you don't want to say that something in the Bible shouldn't

00:01:34.260 be there. It's the Word of God. But there is a purpose because the same principle is being stated

00:01:39.680 but with different language. The difference is that the language of life and death from verse 16

00:01:45.420 is now transitioned to the legal language

00:01:48.460 of judgment and condemnation in verse 18.

00:01:52.660 Now, the significant question arises in verse 17 in between.

00:01:56.800 I'll go back to verse 16 and 18 here in just a moment.

00:01:59.500 But the significant question from the text today

00:02:02.140 is verse 17.

00:02:04.320 The question that arises from verse 17 is this.

00:02:07.260 If Jesus did not come to condemn the world,

00:02:10.020 then why are so many still condemned?

00:02:12.540 And the answer to this question

00:02:13.880 is clearly laid out in verse 18. Even though some are condemned, it is because they were already

00:02:20.680 in that condition when Jesus arrived. So now let's look at verse 16 and 18 comparing. Verse 16,

00:02:27.840 I trust that many of you are probably familiar with, for God so loved the world that he gave

00:02:32.360 his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish. That is the eternal death should not

00:02:38.460 be destroyed, should not perish, but have life, eternal life. Now, verse 18 is the same principle,

00:02:45.420 but again, different language, going from life and death to judgment language, legal language.

00:02:51.660 Whoever believes in him, that is Christ, is not condemned. So instead of he shall not perish,

00:02:57.920 now we're seeing that perishing is likened to condemnation, being condemned. To be condemned

00:03:04.120 in a legal sense is the same as to perish. The condemnation is what leads towards the perishing

00:03:11.840 of life. So whoever believes in Jesus will not perish. Also, he will not be condemned, verse 18.

00:03:18.160 But whoever does not believe, now this is where we get some insight, whoever does not believe

00:03:24.480 is not just condemned, but it is proof, a revelation that he was already condemned. He is

00:03:31.680 condemned already. Why? Because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. Now look at

00:03:38.700 John chapter 3. We're skipping forward now, but it's the same chapter, the same thought. John

00:03:44.540 chapter 3, moving forward to verse 36. It says this, same principle of what we just saw in verse

00:03:50.320 18. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life.

00:03:58.560 So now we're going from that legal language of condemnation back to the life and death

00:04:03.420 language of John 3, verse 16.

00:04:06.580 So whoever believes in him, this is verse 36, in the Son has eternal life.

00:04:11.580 Whoever does not obey the Son, that's interesting.

00:04:14.760 I'll comment on that here in a moment, does not obey the Son, shall not see life, but

00:04:19.500 the wrath of God, and here's the key word, remains on him.

00:04:24.120 It is not as though the wrath of God comes to him for the first time initially,

00:04:28.580 but rather what the text says is that for the one who does not obey the Son,

00:04:33.960 the wrath of God was already there, and it simply remains.

00:04:38.540 It stays there.

00:04:39.840 This is an individual, the person who does not kiss the Son, lest he be angry, Psalm 2,

00:04:45.160 the person who does not pay homage to Jesus, and not just in word, but in deed, in action,

00:04:51.600 the one who does not obey Jesus, is the one who doesn't all of a sudden garnish initially for the

00:04:59.700 first time condemnation, but the one who simply proves, he simply exposes the reality that he was

00:05:06.960 already under condemnation. That is to say, in other language, that the wrath of God remains on

00:05:13.880 him. It was already there, and it's staying there. Now, one more point on this, a simple point that

00:05:20.600 you hear in our church every Lord's Day as Connor faithfully leads us in the liturgy. But it's

00:05:26.060 important for us to recognize the relationship between both gospel and law, grace and obedience.

00:05:34.920 So again, this is John 3, 36. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Here we're speaking

00:05:41.240 of faith, saving faith, belief. That we're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ

00:05:47.860 alone, but then it continues in verse 36. Whoever does not believe is what you think would be said,

00:05:55.360 right? Whoever believes, if you do believe in the Son, you have eternal life. If you don't believe

00:06:00.480 in the Son, then you will not see life. You will perish, and that's not an initial perishing or

00:06:07.240 condemnation that's coming for the first time, but rather it simply reveals that you've been

00:06:11.880 under the wrath of God already, and that the wrath of God and his condemnation remains. But that's

00:06:16.580 not exactly what's said. In the middle of verse 36, instead of saying whoever does not believe,

00:06:23.200 if you believe, you'll have eternal life. If you don't believe, you'll perish. No, it says if you

00:06:28.240 don't obey, whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

00:06:36.860 So what is it? Which one is it? Is it believing in the Son that guarantees salvation, eternal life,

00:06:44.320 the life to come, or is it obedience? And the answer is, well, it's both. It's both. Now,

00:06:52.800 it's not both. Here we have to be precise in our language, lest we deny the doctrine of

00:06:58.360 justification by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone. It is not both in the initial

00:07:03.480 sense that it is both faith and works meriting salvation. It is not faith plus works equals

00:07:11.960 salvation, but it is, the correct formula is salvation equals faith plus works.

00:07:22.180 Or we could say faith equals salvation plus works. So it's not faith plus works. It's not

00:07:30.500 faith in Jesus plus obedience to Jesus' commands is what gains for us salvation. But instead,

00:07:37.940 faith that is true faith, saving faith, garnishes for us salvation and will also always produce

00:07:48.060 good works. So it's not faith plus works gets us heaven, gets us Christ, but it is true faith and

00:07:57.100 faith alone, which receives Christ and the gift of grace. But that faith that is alone, if it's

00:08:05.300 True faith, it will always be accompanied by obedience.

00:08:10.600 So we're justified by grace alone through faith alone, apart from any works of man.

00:08:15.540 But if you're truly justified, the fruit of justification will always be sanctification.

00:08:22.400 The person who says, I've been justified, but has no signs of being sanctified,

00:08:28.880 is a liar, according to 1 John.

00:08:31.320 that if a person does not obey

00:08:34.820 the clearest commands of Scripture,

00:08:37.740 obeying Jesus and his commands,

00:08:40.080 also seeking one of his commands,

00:08:41.760 to love his brother.

00:08:43.760 If a man hates his own brother,

00:08:46.180 then the Bible says he is a liar

00:08:47.880 and the truth of God is not in him. 1.00

00:08:49.680 He is a liar. 0.99

00:08:51.660 And in a sense, he's made God out to be a liar. 0.99

00:08:57.280 And again, it's not our love for the brethren

00:09:00.180 that saves us. But loving brothers in Christ and sisters, obedience to Christ's commands in

00:09:07.620 practical, tangible actions and deeds, all of this is not what gains salvation, but it is

00:09:15.160 an undeniable proof or evidence of salvation. You can claim that the seed of faith, in this case,

00:09:24.460 using an illustration, an apple seed was planted. And therefore, because an apple seed and apple

00:09:30.180 seeds in this illustration represent true saving faith, because an apple seed was planted, then you

00:09:35.620 are without any doubt, without question, an apple tree. But if year after year goes by and you

00:09:44.640 produce pears, right, and you produce peaches and you produce all sorts of different fruit, but never

00:09:53.260 a single apple, then at the end of the day, we're not saying that apple seeds, I guess, well, I guess

00:10:00.360 the conclusion is that sometimes apple seeds produce pears. No, what we would do is we would

00:10:07.740 go back to the original premise and say, your premise is faulty. We wouldn't say, well, you know,

00:10:15.560 doggone it. I guess, you know, it turns out that apple seeds sometimes make a tree that produces

00:10:20.420 pears and cherries and peaches. No, we would say, friend, I think you're mistaken.

00:10:28.700 You are insisting that an apple seed was in fact planted, but I think you might have got that wrong.

00:10:36.360 If it was an apple seed, this would be an apple tree. And if this was an apple tree,

00:10:41.940 it would produce apples. So that's what we're seeing in John chapter three, verse 36. Whoever

00:10:48.840 believes in the Son has eternal life. Faith alone. Faith alone is the empty hand. Faith is the empty

00:10:55.820 hand or the instrument that receives the grace of God that lends to eternal life. However, whoever

00:11:02.760 does not obey the Son won't have that eternal life. Well, I guess it's obedience then. No,

00:11:08.900 obedience is the fruit of faith. Not faith plus obedience equals salvation, but faith alone

00:11:15.440 equals salvation plus obedience. True faith gets you salvation, but it also gets you a heart

00:11:24.780 that's willing to obey. Christians love God's law. And if you don't love God's law and you're

00:11:32.900 constantly kicking against the goads, you're constantly saying, well, that's legalism. That's

00:11:38.240 legalism. That's legalism. You might not be a Christian. I'm not speaking definitively. God

00:11:44.400 alone sees the heart. But if your biggest objection, your biggest concern in the body of

00:11:50.040 Christ, especially given what time it is today in the West, in 2023, if your biggest concern

00:11:57.940 is that you think evangelicals and Christian churches might just be too legalistic,

00:12:04.340 then at best, you're clueless. At worst, you're an unbeliever. 0.85

00:12:08.320 you're just not saved you hate obedience you hate the law of god you hate righteousness 1.00

00:12:17.460 you hate the scripture you're an antinomian

00:12:20.880 and again it's not that you would not be a christian in this scenario because you're not

00:12:27.700 obedient you would not be a christian because you don't have faith and how do we know you don't

00:12:34.000 have faith because Jesus said you will know them by their fruit. That you can look to the life of

00:12:40.640 a person and be able to say, hey, there's fruit. There's obedience. That's the sign of faith. And

00:12:47.240 if there is no fruit, then there is a certain point. We don't do this presumptuously, prematurely,

00:12:54.200 arrogantly, but there is indeed a point where the people of God, the church, can say and look at

00:12:59.840 someone's life and say, brother, sister, there's nothing but bad fruit. There is no fruit of

00:13:05.820 genuine obedience to the true law of God. And therefore we cannot continue to affirm a salvation

00:13:13.080 which you claim to have, but there's no evidence that you in fact actually possess.

00:13:19.840 At this point, we would be merely offering to you a false assurance. And a false assurance is one of

00:13:27.960 the most hateful things that the people of God could ever offer to anyone. To assure someone

00:13:34.460 who very likely is on their way to hell that they don't need to make any changes whatsoever

00:13:41.020 because they're doing just fine. The devil loves two ministries. One is a ministry of false

00:13:50.000 accusations. He is the great accuser of the brethren. He is a liar. When he lies, he speaks

00:13:56.920 his native language for he is the father of lies. He is an accuser. And when he accuses, sometimes 0.89

00:14:04.160 he says what is true, but those accusations for brothers in Christ, for the people of God, fall

00:14:10.360 flat because Christ has already paid the penalty. But there are other times where he falsely accuses

00:14:17.900 that he is in fact a slanderer. But this is not his only weapon in his arsenal. Satan is a great

00:14:25.120 accuser, but he is also a great assurer. He does not only accuse the righteous, he assures the

00:14:35.780 wicked. Let me say that again. Satan does not only accuse the brethren, the righteous, those who are

00:14:43.480 righteous for Christ's sake, because of Christ's work, by grace to faith in him alone, but Satan

00:14:48.760 does not only merely accuse the righteous,

00:14:52.060 he assures the wicked.

00:14:55.180 So the righteous who is on the path to life,

00:14:57.880 he constantly accuses him and says,

00:15:00.680 you don't belong here.

00:15:02.640 You shouldn't be going this direction.

00:15:05.580 Do you think that they'll let you in?

00:15:07.760 You?

00:15:09.300 Do you think that you have a chance

00:15:11.960 before the throne of God?

00:15:14.060 Do you think that heaven is your inheritance? 1.00

00:15:16.920 Oh, you fool. 1.00

00:15:18.760 Turn back. Quit while you're ahead. There are easier paths. Take one of them. He accuses the 1.00

00:15:27.160 righteous, but he also assures the wicked, the one who is on the path to destruction.

00:15:33.960 Although God's word comes to him and says, turn back, repent. This is the path that leads to death.

00:15:41.440 This is the path that leads to perishing. Satan comes and says, oh, this is the right path.

00:15:46.560 you're doing good you're doing well stay the course continue ahead

00:15:53.880 satan is an accuser of the brethren he is an assurer of those who are lying

00:16:03.220 comfortably in the arms of satan who is if you're not a christian for the record your father

00:16:11.300 John chapter 8, Jesus says of the Pharisees,

00:16:14.320 you're not children of Abraham,

00:16:16.620 and you're certainly not children of God. 1.00

00:16:19.640 You're children of your daddy, the devil. 0.94

00:16:22.760 And one of the ways that I know that you're his children, 1.00

00:16:25.160 sons of Satan, children of the devil, 0.93

00:16:27.380 is because children always bear a striking resemblance

00:16:30.900 to that of their fathers.

00:16:32.440 And you look just like your daddy. 1.00

00:16:35.040 You look just like the devil. 1.00

00:16:37.360 He was a liar and a murderer from the very beginning 1.00

00:16:39.980 and so too are you. 1.00

00:16:41.520 You're lying and producing false accusations,

00:16:44.420 bearing false witness, slandering me. 0.99

00:16:48.240 And here you are also seeking to murder me. 0.97

00:16:51.840 Your fathers murdered all the prophets 0.99

00:16:53.740 and here you are, their true sons 0.99

00:16:55.920 and their true likeness, 0.98

00:16:57.420 seeking to murder the prophet of all prophets,

00:17:00.020 the one who has prophesied about

00:17:01.940 the son of God himself. 1.00

00:17:06.080 For those who are children of the devil,

00:17:08.660 the devil as their father in this life

00:17:10.960 seeks to assure and quietly console his children

00:17:15.660 as he rocks them in his arms,

00:17:18.420 hoping that they fall back asleep.

00:17:22.640 But for those who are going against the grain,

00:17:25.300 going upstream,

00:17:26.660 who have been awakened by the grace of God

00:17:29.000 and regeneration, the ministry of the Holy Spirit,

00:17:31.260 who now have spiritual eyes to see

00:17:33.500 and spiritual ears to hear,

00:17:35.020 the devil becomes an adversary, waging war against us at every turn.

00:17:43.440 Whoever believes in the Son, belief alone, saving faith alone, has eternal life.

00:17:50.040 But whoever does not obey the Son, obedience is the fruit of faith,

00:17:55.280 that would be proof if you don't obey the Son,

00:17:58.000 it is likely because you do not trust and believe in the Son.

00:18:02.380 And on that basis, in that basis alone, you are not justified.

00:18:07.280 If there is no sanctification, there can be no justification.

00:18:11.300 And if there is no justification, which does in fact come by faith alone,

00:18:15.540 then you do not gain the wrath of God,

00:18:19.160 but the wrath of God that was always on you remains on you.

00:18:24.420 That's verse 36, illuminating and giving insight to verse 16 and 18 of our text today.

00:18:31.640 Both are true.

00:18:32.540 Life and death language.

00:18:34.260 In the very next breath, the language, legal language of justification, condemnation, and wrath.

00:18:43.020 Now, verse 17, again, is where we're going to focus our attention.

00:18:48.100 Verse 17, the question is now begged.

00:18:52.240 If Jesus didn't come to condemn the world, then why are so many condemned?

00:18:56.760 To read verse 17 once more so that it's fresh in our minds.

00:18:59.780 The Bible says this.

00:19:00.960 For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world.

00:19:04.740 Why?

00:19:05.600 Because the world was perfectly capable of doing that for itself.

00:19:11.660 We don't need Jesus to come to the world in order to produce condemnation.

00:19:18.800 Humanity was perfectly capable of condemning ourselves all on our own.

00:19:25.500 I believe it was Edwards, Jonathan Edwards, who once said

00:19:28.660 that man contributes nothing to his salvation

00:19:31.780 but the sin that made it necessary.

00:19:36.080 If there's anything that people can do

00:19:38.760 and do all by themselves

00:19:40.820 without any of God's help,

00:19:44.180 it's gain for themselves a just condemnation.

00:19:48.900 It is to ensure for themselves

00:19:51.440 that they will indeed perish.

00:19:55.480 For God did not send his son into the world

00:19:58.120 to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. If Jesus didn't come

00:20:04.420 to condemn the world, then why does the world stand condemned? Because the world has condemned

00:20:11.780 itself through its own unbelief. And why is it that people choose unbelief? Why is it that people

00:20:21.120 again and again, left to themselves, apart from saving grace, choose to harden their hearts,

00:20:26.980 to have stiffened necks and to rebel against God,

00:20:32.440 the God who made them,

00:20:33.960 and his son, Jesus Christ, who is the only savior?

00:20:38.460 And the answer to that question

00:20:40.000 is because the world, humanity,

00:20:43.540 apart from God's saving grace,

00:20:45.660 we choose to hate God precisely because we love our sin.

00:20:51.420 We love our sin.

00:20:53.700 see verse 17 what we're gaining from this what we're learning from this is that christ doesn't

00:21:00.720 come to a neutral world and condemn some and awaken others causing some to oppose him and

00:21:10.080 others to join him not one person was neutral during jesus earthly ministry 2 000 years ago

00:21:16.480 and not one person is neutral today.

00:21:20.600 We have all sinned.

00:21:22.240 Therefore, we all begin our lives

00:21:24.680 under the just wrath of God.

00:21:26.460 That's the starting place.

00:21:28.680 We begin our lives under the just wrath of God,

00:21:31.440 the condemnation of God.

00:21:33.040 We all begin our lives as criminals

00:21:35.300 who stand condemned

00:21:36.860 in need of merciful, gracious justification.

00:21:41.860 Whether or not we stay that way

00:21:44.100 depends on how we respond to Jesus.

00:21:48.080 David says in his prayer of confession

00:21:50.080 in Psalm chapter 51, verse five,

00:21:52.480 behold, I was brought forth in iniquity

00:21:55.200 and in sin did my mother conceive me.

00:21:57.700 Children are not born into the world physically

00:22:01.700 as a blank slate.

00:22:05.540 That's not the case.

00:22:08.220 Children are born into the world with original sin.

00:22:12.040 the doctrine of original sin

00:22:15.040 which regardless of what side of the aisle you fall on

00:22:19.300 if you're underneath the ultimate banner of orthodoxy

00:22:22.400 one of the most riveting

00:22:26.100 and descriptive definitions

00:22:29.580 of total depravity

00:22:32.540 comes to us not by John Calvin

00:22:35.200 but Jacobus Arminius

00:22:37.620 he would never have dreamed

00:22:41.020 of denying the doctrine of total depravity 0.89

00:22:44.440 because it's basic Christian orthodox, orthodoxy. 0.68

00:22:50.100 He knew people were totally depraved. 0.99

00:22:51.660 The only difference with Jacobus Arminius, 1.00

00:22:53.420 that's where we get Arminians,

00:22:54.500 is not that he denied total depravity,

00:22:56.560 that he thought that people were somehow born

00:22:58.740 in a moral neutral state.

00:23:01.920 He knows that that's completely antithetical

00:23:03.720 to everything the Bible teaches.

00:23:05.720 Jacobus Arminius, all he thought

00:23:07.560 was that people are born totally depraved,

00:23:10.560 but that there's such a thing as prevenient grace, and that prevenient grace was something

00:23:17.340 that would come to a person before saving faith actually occurred, and it would be kind of a

00:23:23.780 window of opportunity unto salvation, a window of grace, and that under prevenient grace, which

00:23:29.600 often would come through the preaching of the gospel, perhaps in an old-timey, you know, revival

00:23:34.580 meeting, that the Holy Spirit would work sovereignly this prevenient grace, and that it would bring the

00:23:40.520 individual person to a temporary state of neutrality. Not that they were born with moral

00:23:46.360 neutrality. They were born, even according to the father of Arminianism, totally depraved.

00:23:52.760 But in some kind of moment, a window of grace with a prevenient grace, it would bring someone

00:23:58.700 who's totally depraved to all the way up. It would temporarily suspend their spiritual blindness.

00:24:05.260 So like the man who Jesus prays for, and he says, can you see now? He says, well, I see people

00:24:09.740 walking around, but they look like trees. That would be kind of a good illustration for the

00:24:14.740 doctrine of prevenient grace, that the person is not a Christian yet. They have not placed saving

00:24:19.260 faith in Jesus yet, but faith is actually a work of man in this scheme, not a work of God,

00:24:25.100 which for the record, that's wrong. And the person is able to place faith in Jesus because a totally

00:24:30.340 depraved person never would, but somebody who's neutral would and prevenient grace brings them

00:24:35.140 from total depravity and hostility against God

00:24:37.560 to this temporary place of neutrality.

00:24:40.880 It brings them not to perfect spiritual sight,

00:24:43.660 but the momentary, temporary suspending

00:24:47.000 of spiritual blindness where they all of a sudden

00:24:49.520 can see for a little while and they can see a little bit.

00:24:53.940 And with this spiritual sight,

00:24:55.680 seeing men walking around like trees in that moment,

00:24:58.660 in this gracious window, momentary window,

00:25:02.340 provenient grace, they then, in hearing the gospel,

00:25:05.140 must choose, as a work of man, conjuring it up on their own, choose to make the right choice,

00:25:11.740 choose to make the decision, right? This is where you get guys like Charles Finney.

00:25:16.720 He's the father of the modern altar call, right? Because the idea was, in a decisionism,

00:25:24.640 revivalism, Arminianism kind of church history, somewhat recent church history in our nation,

00:25:31.460 think second not first but second great awakening the idea was right now under the preaching of the

00:25:37.100 gospel come down to the anxious bench right that was your original altar call come down to the

00:25:43.460 anxious bench and i'm going to preach just to you for the next 45 minutes and people would come

00:25:49.120 trembling the whole idea was decide decide decide make a decision now's the moment now's your

00:25:57.400 opportunity. The window of grace is opened, and it could close in the next 30 seconds. Who knows?

00:26:04.660 You've been brought to this place of a temporary suspended hostility against God, and all of a

00:26:11.300 sudden you have a moment of neutrality where you can choose to fall back into your depravity,

00:26:16.400 harden your heart against God, or believe. And if you believe, then you'll be regenerated.

00:26:21.860 this is the arminian scheme i'm saying scheme just means theological framework not necessarily

00:26:29.460 a malicious scheme although i think it is here's the point faith does not gain regeneration

00:26:37.060 but rather regeneration precedes faith a person is born again as an act of god's sovereign grace

00:26:44.540 alone and then responds with this new heart being born again being made alive spiritually alive

00:26:51.680 a new creature in Christ Jesus, that person then places faith in Jesus.

00:26:59.020 That's when they place faith in Jesus. But again, this whole idea of prevenient grace,

00:27:04.060 these kinds of things that you're brought to, this temporary suspension, partial suspension

00:27:08.960 of spiritual blindness, that's not the picture of a human child when they're physically born

00:27:14.900 into the world. And there are many people who teach this still to this day. There are many

00:27:19.700 parenting books that ultimately affirm this. They believe that children are blank slates,

00:27:25.940 that they could go either way. They teach moral neutrality when it comes to a child.

00:27:32.460 And that's why it would be taught that you could train a child in the same way you train an animal.

00:27:36.200 have hostility towards Jesus in their hearts.

00:27:47.600 No, it's that man has hostility towards Jesus in their heart.

00:27:51.840 In iniquity, I was brought forth.

00:27:54.720 And in sin did my mother conceive me.

00:27:57.460 From the beginning of my life, that is a human being made in the image of God,

00:28:01.500 Their life, from the beginning of life, I'm starting off with a hostility towards God. 0.90

00:28:07.080 Romans chapter 8 says that the mind of the sinful man, the unregenerate man, the non-Christian, 0.93

00:28:12.460 is neutral, indifferent, uninterested. No. Hostile towards God's law, he does not submit to it, nor

00:28:19.900 can he. He is unable and unwilling. Why? Because his nature will not allow for that choice.

00:28:28.360 in the same way that the nature of a herbivore doesn't allow for them to eat meat.

00:28:38.020 They won't do it. They won't do it. Why? Because it's not the way they're made. It's not their

00:28:45.140 design. It's not who they are. The whole idea of the gospel is that we become new creatures.

00:28:54.300 The whole idea of Christian faith, of salvation,

00:28:57.920 is that we gain, by God's grace alone, a new nature.

00:29:03.660 The reason why the Christian can say, as the Apostle Paul does in Romans chapter 7,

00:29:07.880 in my inward being, I delight in the law of God.

00:29:11.040 I love it.

00:29:12.660 The reason he can say that, in my inner being, I delight in the law of God.

00:29:15.960 In Ezekiel chapter 36,

00:29:22.600 that the heart of stone is removed

00:29:24.120 and replaced with the heart of flesh.

00:29:26.620 Faith follows the new nature.

00:29:29.820 Faith follows regeneration.

00:29:32.760 And all this is the sovereign work of God

00:29:35.360 and the sovereign work of God alone.

00:29:38.980 God does this.

00:29:40.260 And He must do it for all of us.

00:29:42.520 He must do it for each of our children.

00:29:44.480 And I believe, for the record, in covenant succession, even as a Baptist, and so I believe,

00:29:50.200 not as a 100% guarantee, but as an ordinary principle that we should eagerly expect,

00:29:55.320 that God will do it for our children. That he will. That he will save each one of our children.

00:30:01.700 But listen, your children do need saving. That's the point. I believe he will save them.

00:30:08.460 But they do need saving. You cannot train up a child from the womb in the way that you were 0.99

00:30:14.200 train up an animal. Because the animal doesn't have a hostile nature against the law of God,

00:30:20.480 but your child does. And to deny that is to deny Christian orthodoxy. It's not up for debate. 0.82

00:30:28.720 Jacobus Arminian is. The father of Arminianism would agree with me and not you. The idea that

00:30:37.120 total depravity is not a thing. The only question is, is prevenient grace a thing?

00:30:43.120 and would it overcome total depravity

00:30:45.680 so that faith could precede regeneration?

00:30:48.580 Or is there no prevenient grace,

00:30:50.560 only sovereign grace, salvific grace,

00:30:52.540 where regeneration precedes faith?

00:30:54.120 That's the debate that's an in-house debate,

00:30:57.160 a debate among Christians. 0.95

00:30:58.640 Now, somebody's right, somebody's wrong,

00:31:00.220 but you can have either side

00:31:01.980 and still be within the bounds of orthodoxy.

00:31:04.420 To debate total depravity at all,

00:31:07.360 that your child isn't totally depraved,

00:31:09.060 that people are not born,

00:31:10.180 that's not a debate that's in-house.

00:31:11.840 That's a debate with Christians and heretics. 0.92

00:31:16.260 Period. 0.98

00:31:20.420 There's no question about that.

00:31:22.180 It's not up for debate.

00:31:27.040 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity.

00:31:30.220 David doesn't say, I was brought forth in neutrality.

00:31:32.920 But then at around six, seven years old, I decided to make some bad choices and became a sinner.

00:31:39.900 No, not how it works.

00:31:44.700 So Jesus did not come to condemn the world

00:31:47.220 because the world could do that for itself

00:31:49.920 and had done it and continues to do it to this very day

00:31:53.540 because the world is under the curse of sin.

00:31:57.300 And I'm using world in this context to speak of mankind.

00:32:02.140 Image bearers of the living God, humanity, male and female.

00:32:06.860 Because of Adam's sin, all his posterity have been born with a sin nature.

00:32:13.420 Not only born, but according to Psalm 51 verse 5, conceived.

00:32:17.680 From the moment of conception, we believe Christian orthodoxy has held that life begins at the moment of conception.

00:32:26.960 And that conception is not, for the record, implantation, but rather fertilization.

00:32:32.600 that's the moment that life begins consequently according to scripture that's also the moment

00:32:40.100 that the sin nature begins both the moment you have a human life you have a human center

00:32:48.060 this is what christian orthodoxy teaches so jesus doesn't come into the world to condemn the world

00:32:55.660 because the world has already done that.

00:32:58.080 Adam condemned the world.

00:33:01.160 The second Adam, the last Adam, the final Adam,

00:33:04.080 the better Adam, Jesus Christ,

00:33:05.880 he comes to undo what our first father did.

00:33:09.640 He doesn't come to condemn the world.

00:33:11.780 Adam already did that.

00:33:13.340 Jesus comes so that his blessings might flow

00:33:16.880 as far as the curse is found,

00:33:19.600 that he would undo by his grace and power,

00:33:22.940 by his death, his resurrection,

00:33:25.660 and glorious ascension in power and authority to the right hand of God,

00:33:30.200 he might undo all the works of condemnation.

00:33:34.140 As far as the curse has flowed because of Adam's sin,

00:33:38.900 that by Christ's obedience, his blessings would flow.

00:33:43.300 And that little by little, throughout this gospel age,

00:33:46.760 as the Great Commission goes forth and brings forth fruit,

00:33:51.160 that the curse would be undone.

00:33:52.960 starting with individual hearts, but working out into every element of society. And the last

00:34:00.620 element of the curse to be undone is physical death itself, which will be undone when Christ

00:34:06.340 himself returns. The last, not first, but last of his enemies to be defeated. Going on in your notes

00:34:13.940 in verses 19 through 21, Jesus clearly explains why some people choose to believe while others

00:34:19.860 do not. Here we find a description of the type of judgment that actually does occur when light

00:34:26.420 comes into the world. So Jesus comes, verse 17, into the world not to condemn it, but to save it.

00:34:32.980 It condemned itself. Humanity can do that on its own. But if humanity is to be saved,

00:34:39.100 that's where Jesus comes in. That's where we need Jesus' help. Not for condemnation,

00:34:44.380 but for salvation. So he comes into the world not to condemn the world. It's already condemned.

00:34:49.220 but rather to save it but now what we do see in the remainder of our text and this is where we'll

00:34:55.200 go ahead and finish for this morning verses 19 20 and 21 is that we see that there is a sort of

00:35:02.420 judgment there is a sort of judgment that does come in the coming of christ here we find a

00:35:10.780 description of the type of judgment that actually does occur when light comes into the world what

00:35:15.840 we see is that those who are condemned by this judgment are condemned already by what they love

00:35:22.360 and what they hate. It is their loves and their hatred, their affections and aversions that

00:35:31.320 ultimately betray them, that condemn them. Not Jesus, but their own hearts. Their affections

00:35:36.760 and aversions is what condemns them. But Jesus coming into the world reveals their hearts. It

00:35:43.260 reveals their affections and their aversions. Jesus is revealing that he knows exactly why

00:35:49.400 some people choose not to come to him. The reason why people choose not to believe in Jesus is

00:35:57.000 because they are still in love with the world. Now using the world in this context to mean

00:36:03.180 the demonic system underneath Satan's domain. I'm not saying that the one who is condemned

00:36:10.920 loves the world insofar as the world represents humanity. I'm not saying that the one who is

00:36:15.960 condemned loves the world insofar as the world represents the created cosmos. I'm saying the one

00:36:20.860 who is condemned loves the world insofar as the world represents all that which is antagonistic

00:36:28.020 to the character of God. I'm speaking of the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful

00:36:35.520 pride of life. I'm speaking of worldliness in the terms that 1 John speaks of worldliness.

00:36:42.580 Or what we see in the very beginning in the garden in Genesis chapter 3.

00:36:47.880 Eve, who is deceived by the serpent, she saw these three aspects of worldliness.

00:36:55.320 She saw that the fruit, that it was good for making one wise. That is the boastful pride of

00:37:01.720 life. She also saw that it is good for nourishment. That's the lust of the flesh. She also saw that it

00:37:08.240 was beautiful, appealing, attractive to the eyes. That's the lust of the eyes. That's worldliness.

00:37:15.560 To be in love with the world and the sinful sense is to love that which stands in direct

00:37:22.240 opposition to the things of God. It is the love of money, for instance. It's just one illustration

00:37:28.820 and example, the love of money that is the root of all kinds of evil, not money itself. Job was

00:37:36.240 rich. Abraham was rich. You can be rich and love God and not love money, but rather use money

00:37:44.840 wisely to expand the kingdom. So love of the world is not the love of stuff. See, that's where

00:37:52.920 Christians have messed up. Let me just make this point. It's important. We have conflated love of 1.00

00:37:58.280 the world in the sinful sense that the Bible actually speaks of with the love of the world

00:38:02.740 in the physical sense, insofar as the world represents the created cosmos and stuff. So we

00:38:08.440 say, if you love stuff, you're worldly. And there's a sense in which if you love, truly,

00:38:16.160 affections flowing from the heart, love stuff more than Christ, more than God in an idolatrous

00:38:22.100 fashion, then yes, you are worldly in the sinful sense of the term.

00:38:28.280 But what we've done is we've conflated these terms.

00:38:31.940 That word world is used at least four different ways just in 1 John alone.

00:38:37.780 But we've conflated worldliness to the point where we've said, well, worldliness is the lust of the eyes.

00:38:43.460 It's the lust of the flesh.

00:38:44.280 It's the boastful pride of life.

00:38:45.320 It's also just loving stuff.

00:38:47.000 It's also, you know, if you like to hike, you know, you're probably worldly.

00:38:50.280 And then what we've done is we've said, well, righteousness, we're going to define righteousness in the exact opposite way.

00:38:55.980 And what does righteousness become conflated with, synonymous with?

00:39:00.000 Pietism.

00:39:01.960 So what does it mean now to be righteous?

00:39:04.220 To be righteous is to care nothing for this world at all.

00:39:08.420 Right?

00:39:08.920 To not care about your country, to not care about your family,

00:39:11.660 to not care about your posterity,

00:39:13.660 to not care about your own descendants, your own grandchildren.

00:39:18.900 Right?

00:39:19.360 Because all that's worldly.

00:39:21.720 To not care about creation.

00:39:25.180 Right?

00:39:25.620 So worldly means to care about temporal things,

00:39:30.080 which means to be not worldly, to be righteous,

00:39:33.800 is to not care, to only think of heaven.

00:39:37.820 That the only righteous thing that anyone could ever do

00:39:40.340 is sit in a chair by themselves

00:39:42.260 as the world is going up in flames

00:39:43.980 and think delicious, romantic, erotic thoughts about God.

00:39:50.940 That's your modern evangelical.

00:39:52.400 and that that would be called righteous

00:39:57.040 whereas what that should be called

00:39:59.700 is effeminate. 0.77

00:40:05.300 It's effeminate. 1.00

00:40:06.860 It's gnostic. 0.60

00:40:08.180 It's pietistic. 0.88

00:40:12.000 And it's...

00:40:14.300 I'll be careful.

00:40:19.380 It's not manly.

00:40:21.440 I'll say that.

00:40:22.400 And I don't mean manly as defined by Joe Rogan.

00:40:28.480 I mean, it's not manly in the sense that it's not manly defined by Christ himself,

00:40:33.580 who is the perfect example of biblical manhood.

00:40:39.520 That is not the way that Christ lived in his earthly ministry.

00:40:46.600 So, all that being said,

00:40:48.900 verse 19 through 21 it tells us now the sense in which judgment did come when jesus came into the

00:40:57.700 world in his incarnation in his earthly ministry 2 000 years ago he didn't bring condemnation that

00:41:02.740 was already there the wrath of god remains on the one who rejects christ because the wrath of god

00:41:07.160 was already there condemnation remains because it was already there the world is perfectly capable

00:41:11.980 of condemning itself so jesus therefore came into the world not to condemn but to save but in his

00:41:18.040 coming. What he does is not bring condemnation, but he does expose and reveal condemnation. And

00:41:25.340 he does so by laying bare the affections and aversions of the hearts of men. Because Jesus

00:41:33.540 comes to the world as light. But mankind, apart from saving grace alone, is like a bunch of

00:41:41.280 cockroaches. And when the light comes and exposes the darkness, the cockroaches scurry away under 0.98

00:41:47.540 the bed. And that's what happened when Jesus came. He didn't cause people to hate God. But what he

00:41:55.600 did was he came as God, God incarnate. He came as light. He came as the Christ, the anointed one of

00:42:02.440 God, the son of God himself. And all those who were averse to the things of God and in love with

00:42:10.800 things of the world, they scurried away from Christ. They sought to condemn Christ. They

00:42:19.400 falsely accused Christ. They opposed Christ. They hated Christ. And eventually, all this is proved

00:42:26.920 by the fact that mankind killed Christ. That the one time that Jesus, God himself, becomes vulnerable,

00:42:35.580 people seize the opportunity to kill the son of god

00:42:41.300 rather than the light why because their works are evil the light exposes the evil in our hearts

00:42:55.700 see in the darkness what you can do is you can love evil and hate good but put a spin on it

00:43:03.400 do a little bit of PR.

00:43:07.760 That you can love evil and hate good

00:43:10.040 and call yourself ethical

00:43:12.100 all while doing this.

00:43:15.920 But what happens when Jesus comes is like light,

00:43:20.140 he is the light of the world,

00:43:21.720 he turns on the light and exposes the hypocrisy.

00:43:28.600 That those who are loving evil and hating good,

00:43:30.980 but Jesus exposes that and he shows that these aren't good men. They're not actually righteous.

00:43:37.220 They don't actually, actually love that which God loves as they claim and hate that which God hates.

00:43:42.680 No, they, they hate the very thing that God loves and they love the very thing that God hates

00:43:48.480 and he exposes it. Remember, I've said it before. I'll say it again. The number one accusation that

00:43:54.940 Jesus levies against the religious rulers of his day is not that they are legalist. 0.98

00:43:59.360 it is that they are hypocrites. He does not say, woe to the Pharisees because they care about my 0.94

00:44:06.300 law. Woe to the Pharisees because they're meticulous about obedience to Moses. And that's

00:44:13.100 really bad. No. He said, woe to the Pharisees because they don't do as they preach.

00:44:22.840 Because they lay heavy burdens on you, but they will not lift it with one little finger.

00:44:29.360 because they boast of obedience to the law of God. They're like white sepulchers bleached and 0.99

00:44:35.620 pretty on the outside, but inside it smells like death. It's a rotting corpse. They clean the

00:44:41.540 outside of the cup, but they leave a Petri dish of a virus in the inside and drink the whole thing. 1.00

00:44:49.920 They're hypocrites. They're a brood of vipers. Legalism is not the chief problem that Jesus 1.00

00:44:57.400 cites among the Pharisees, hypocrisy is. They claim to care about obedience to the law,

00:45:04.620 but what they've done is they've twisted the law of Moses to suit their own desires,

00:45:10.900 and they expect others to obey, but they themselves are disobedient.

00:45:17.900 They themselves are disobedient. Jesus comes into the world as light and exposes that,

00:45:23.760 that all those who claim to be righteous are revealed as wicked. And Jesus continues to do

00:45:31.440 that for the record to this day. Jesus does that through his body, the church. Jesus is still in

00:45:38.800 the world in a sense. He is in his glorified state seated at the right hand of the Father

00:45:44.900 in heaven. But in a spiritual sense, Jesus through his church, his body on earth, and by the ministry

00:45:52.940 of the Holy Spirit, which exudes the spirit of the risen Christ. In that sense, Jesus is still

00:45:58.020 on earth to this day. And wherever Jesus is preached, wherever Jesus is seen, all of a sudden

00:46:05.000 the lights are turned on and the cockroaches scatter. All of a sudden the lights are turned on

00:46:10.860 and those who claim to be so ethical, they claim to be good, are exposed as wicked.

00:46:17.720 right i think of elon musk about a year ago where he said i think i'm going to vote republican for

00:46:24.140 the first time in my life and people are like why and he said well i used to think the democrats

00:46:28.580 were the party of kindness and compassion right it's like okay dude like you're you're you know

00:46:33.520 like i don't know about like 90 years too late you know but but good for elon you know like

00:46:40.900 better late than never you thought the democrat but but that's what people think people actually

00:46:45.780 think that. But that's what the truth does. It exposes hypocrisy. It exposes reality. It shows

00:46:53.840 that what is called compassion and empathy and care, all of a sudden it's like, oh no, that's

00:47:01.300 actually not compassion, empathy, and care. That's evil. And for the record, just to be fair, it

00:47:07.060 exposes at the same time on the Republican side, oh, there's plenty of hypocrisy there.

00:47:11.820 now for the record not equal right that's a whole third way ism that's destroyed 0.90

00:47:20.360 so much that i can't even begin to express but it's the idea well democrats are bad republicans

00:47:25.860 are bad and what's implicitly said in that is they're equally bad so you could go either way 0.89

00:47:29.760 no they're not they're not equally bad both bad sure but you have one party of wicked men 0.80

00:47:37.900 And then you also have, on the other hand, the spawn of Satan.

00:47:42.680 So they are different.

00:47:45.440 We're talking about bad men versus demons.

00:47:49.660 They're not the same.

00:47:52.220 So I have to have that caveat because I don't want to bust a Tim Keller third way.

00:47:58.200 Jesus is right here in between. Conveniently, right?

00:48:00.580 Isn't it convenient? Jesus is never on this side or that side.

00:48:02.820 So you get to avoid all controversies for your entire life.

00:48:05.380 So that's, no.

00:48:08.200 But the point is, Jesus exposes sin.

00:48:10.960 He exposes sin.

00:48:12.440 Why do people run from Jesus?

00:48:14.700 Because he introduces condemnation.

00:48:16.620 Nope, they're condemned already.

00:48:17.920 The condemnation is now just simply being revealed

00:48:20.220 and it's being revealed by their heart's affections

00:48:23.160 and aversions.

00:48:24.240 They love evil, hate good.

00:48:26.740 When Jesus, the embodiment of good,

00:48:28.980 the son of God himself comes into the world,

00:48:31.360 those who hate good run.

00:48:34.000 They run.

00:48:35.380 but the righteous. And this is the final point, verse 21. But whoever does what is true comes to

00:48:41.560 the light so that it may be clearly seen that he's better than everyone else. No. So that it may be

00:48:47.200 clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. That's the final point of the text.

00:48:53.520 When Jesus comes and not just speaking, remember, I've already kind of drawn this out with a bigger

00:48:58.640 picture, not just Jesus coming in the flesh and the incarnation 2000 years ago in his earthly

00:49:04.000 ministry, but Jesus continuing to come through the church, through the preaching, through the

00:49:09.100 expansion of the great commission, through his body here on earth, by the power of the Holy

00:49:13.860 Spirit, which exudes the ministry of the resurrected Christ, the spirit of the resurrected 0.91

00:49:18.500 Christ as Jesus, the parousia, as he continually comes, as he continually comes, the wicked hate

00:49:25.380 him and they draw back into the darkness so they can keep loving evil while calling it good and

00:49:31.240 keep hating good while calling it evil. But the righteous, on the other hand, the righteous are

00:49:37.540 drawn to Christ. Wherever Christ comes, the righteous are attracted. Wherever Christ is

00:49:44.340 magnified, lifted up, he draws all the righteous to himself. Why? So that they who are doing what

00:49:52.500 is righteous, doing the fruits of righteousness, can expose how good they are, how many good things

00:49:58.120 there? No. No, the righteous heart is the humble heart. The righteous heart is the heart fashioned

00:50:03.980 by grace. And it knows that everything it's ever done is by grace. And the righteous heart that

00:50:10.920 truly loves Christ comes to Christ, who is the light, who exposes all things. And the reason why

00:50:16.880 the righteous one comes to Christ is because he knows everything he's done that's good is actually

00:50:22.360 Christ doing. That it was Christ who produced any ounce of goodness in his life, and that Christ

00:50:27.420 produced it by his grace, and he comes to Christ so that Christ might gain glory. The Christian

00:50:34.980 wants to live in the light, not so that he might boast in his own right doing. The Christian longs

00:50:41.540 to live in the light because all of his right doing is the product of God's grace, and he wants

00:50:46.600 to be in the light so that God's grace is put on display so God gets glory. The wicked run so they

00:50:54.540 can continue to lie in hypocrisy and say they're good when they're evil. The righteous run to

00:51:00.700 Christ, not from, but to Christ, not to gain glory for themselves, but to be able to lay all their

00:51:07.000 treasures bare, anything they've done good at all, and say, look at what Christ has done through me.

00:51:13.300 To him be glory forever and ever. Amen. Or as Ephesians 1 would say, to the praise of his

00:51:20.180 glorious grace. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Bless it to your people

00:51:25.140 and may it bring you glory. We pray this for Christ's sake. Amen.

The NXR Podcast - October 08, 2023

SUNDAY SERMON - Calvinism, Arminianism, & “Prevenient Grace”

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