The NXR Podcast - October 22, 2023


SUNDAY SERMON - Christ Did NOT Die For Every Person


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1 hour

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9,365

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586

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Transcript

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00:00:00.000 One final time, our text is 1 John chapter 2, verses 1 through 2. The Bible says this,
00:00:06.820 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.
00:00:11.800 But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.
00:00:19.140 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
00:00:26.840 This is the word of the Lord. All right, please be seated.
00:00:33.280 If I was to title this sermon, which I kind of did, I called it limited or that is particular
00:00:40.100 or definite atonement. If I was titling it the way that A.D. Robles or Andrew Isker would have
00:00:46.040 titled it, I would have called it Jesus Did Not Die for Everyone. That would be the title of the
00:00:51.200 sermon. And that would be perfectly biblically true and Christ-honoring, and it's a fine title.
00:00:57.760 Jesus did not die for everyone. And the reason Jesus didn't die for everyone is because God is
00:01:04.060 just. And it's not to say that some people are not worth dying for, because the true and biblical
00:01:11.300 thing to say is that all people are not worth dying for. No one is worth the blood of Jesus.
00:01:19.380 No one is worth his death.
00:01:22.160 God is gracious.
00:01:24.260 God is merciful.
00:01:26.120 And so when I speak to the fact that God is just
00:01:28.780 and how that plays into the doctrine of limited
00:01:31.420 or particular atonement, particular redemption,
00:01:35.780 I'm not saying that some people were worth dying for
00:01:39.260 and others were not.
00:01:40.740 And so it would not be just of God
00:01:42.720 to send his son to die for all,
00:01:45.040 but rather he sent him to die for a subset of humanity some of humanity the good part of
00:01:51.200 humanity that's not it's not what i'm espousing that's not what the bible teaches that would fly
00:01:57.360 in the face of scripture and logic to say that jesus came to die for the good people well the
00:02:02.540 good people wouldn't need him to die there are no good people jesus came to die for sinners
00:02:08.560 but not all sinners because God is just so what do I mean by invoking the justice of God what I
00:02:16.640 mean is this it is unjust of God who is thrice holy to exact double penalties for the same
00:02:24.720 infraction it is unjust say it again it is unjust unrighteous unfair for God is the judge
00:02:34.140 of the living and the dead the righteous judge the judge who shows no partiality the judge
00:02:40.440 who is fair always fair never lenient but also never harsh it is unjust for that perfect judge
00:02:49.000 to punish the same crime twice hell is the wage for sin
00:02:56.160 the bible is clear in the book of romans that the wages of sin is death that is the
00:03:03.840 eternal death. All will die once. Hebrew says it is appointed to man that he should die once, and then
00:03:10.900 comes the judgment. All will die physically at the end of this life. All will die once, but some will
00:03:18.960 die forever. That they will go to the second death. That they will go to hell. And what makes hell so
00:03:26.760 terrible? What makes it an eternal, never-ending death? Where the worm does not die, and the flame
00:03:33.500 is not quenched. What makes hell an eternal death, a terrible, miserable, eternal death, is not that
00:03:41.340 God is absent. It is not as though hell is so terrible because God is not there. Hell is so
00:03:48.320 terrible because God is there. God is present. King David, underneath the inspiration of the
00:03:55.700 Holy Spirit in writing the Psalms, he says this, where can I go from your presence? That if I was
00:04:01.580 thrown into the depths of the sea, you would be there. And we saw that with Jonah, that God is
00:04:08.120 with him, even in the belly of the fish. And David goes further and says that if I was even not just
00:04:14.140 in the depths of the sea, but thrown into the belly of Sheol, that is death, the grave, you would be
00:04:20.700 there. God is omnipresent. Now we know this from scripture, but this is also simply logic. God is
00:04:28.920 infinite. His infinite nature is expressed in multiple different facets. He is omnipotent.
00:04:36.360 That means he has infinite knowledge. There is nothing that God does not know. He is omnipotent.
00:04:42.220 That means he is all-powerful, infinite power. There is nothing that God cannot do.
00:04:48.800 He is omnibenevolent. That is infinite love, all-loving. There is no lack of love in God's
00:04:57.100 part. But he is also omnipresent. There is no place where God is not present, including the depths of
00:05:08.040 hell. What makes hell so terrible is not that God is good, and yet God is not there. What makes hell
00:05:14.900 so terrible is that God is just, and he is there. God is present in hell, in his justice, his
00:05:24.580 righteous, white-hot wrath, pouring out his just vengeance on his enemies forever and ever. Amen.
00:05:37.080 Ephesians chapter 1 says that God does all with the elect, with those that he has chosen according
00:05:44.400 to his foreknowledge, before the foundations of the world were even laid. Those that he chose by
00:05:50.660 grace to save that God does all things for those who are called according to his purposes those
00:05:57.880 who love him those who he has saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone he is doing
00:06:03.600 all things for them to the praise of his glorious grace so as it pertains to the elect those who
00:06:12.420 are to inherit salvation those who will spend eternity in heaven with Christ for those God is
00:06:19.960 doing all things for their good, but also for his glory, more particularly to the praise of his
00:06:28.380 glorious grace. Likewise, by necessary inference, certainly by way of implication. The other side
00:06:37.360 of the coin, we could say this, that God does all things, namely pouring out his just judgment
00:06:43.400 as it pertains to the non-elect, his enemies, to the praise of his glorious justice.
00:06:51.800 God does all things for his elect to the praise of his glorious grace, and he does all things,
00:06:57.540 including just judgment for the non-elect, to the praise of his glorious justice.
00:07:04.080 So that no one can indict God. No one can fault him. No one can say to the Almighty that he was
00:07:11.480 unfair or that he was unjust or that he was fickle or that he was harsh or that he was mean
00:07:18.480 that he does all things well that he disperses his grace well and he pours out his justice
00:07:28.420 well it would be just of God to punish all the fact that God saves anyone is not a matter of
00:07:38.060 justice, but rather mercy. And because God is just and because the wages of sin is death, the eternal
00:07:47.520 death, hell, God will not and did not subject his son to pay for sins that would already be paid for
00:08:01.000 by those individuals in hell themselves.
00:08:04.780 The wages of sin is death.
00:08:06.720 That is the eternal death, which is hell.
00:08:09.460 Some people will pay for their sins themselves
00:08:12.340 by spending eternity in hell under God's just judgment.
00:08:18.060 Others have had their sins paid for by Christ at Calvary.
00:08:24.460 But to think even for a moment that Jesus died for the world
00:08:29.640 and to interpret he did but to interpret that word world to mean each and every individual person who
00:08:38.220 has ever and will ever live to interpret the word world in a universal fashion is to say that Jesus
00:08:46.280 paid for everyone's sin but for some his payment was insufficient for some even though the son of
00:08:55.120 God, God incarnate, bled out and died to satisfy the wrath of God. God the Father looked down on
00:09:03.140 the Son's work on the cross and said, Son, it is not finished. Son, it wasn't good enough. Son,
00:09:10.920 this payment comes up too short. But that is not what occurred. And that is not the voice of the
00:09:20.580 father. The son says it is finished in his death on the cross and by virtue of his resurrection
00:09:29.680 three days later the father in essence by raising his son from the dead says it is finished son
00:09:36.900 indeed. That is to say that every ounce of our debt against God by our rebellion and sin has
00:09:46.580 been atoned for paid for covered in full in full now if jesus died this is very simple but work
00:09:56.900 with me for a moment because it it's simple but it's hard like chopping wood chopping wood isn't
00:10:04.040 rocket surgery right rocket science brain surgery rocket surgery like chopping wood it's not rocket
00:10:12.040 surgery. But that doesn't mean it's easy. Right? It's simple, but it's still hard. You're going to
00:10:20.340 sweat. You're going to probably get a couple blisters. If you've been on a strict soy diet,
00:10:27.780 you might even cry. So chopping wood, you know, it's simple. It's not complicated, but it is hard,
00:10:36.240 not easy. Okay, so what I'm about to express is simple, but it's not easy. And the reason why
00:10:44.040 it's not easy, it's simple logic, but it's not easy because people aren't logical.
00:10:52.900 We were. We used to be. God has created people, both male and female, in his image.
00:10:59.780 We have a moral conscience. We instinctively know that certain things like theft and murder
00:11:05.160 are wrong. And we have an ability to reason. We have rationale, not just a conscience, not just
00:11:13.980 a moral center, but also a rational center. But because of the fall, Genesis chapter 3,
00:11:21.780 human nature has been subjected to the curse of sin. Now the image of God has not been utterly
00:11:28.880 lost, but a vestige of the image of God still remains, but it has been tarnished. It has been
00:11:35.500 damaged. Our moral center has been damaged. Our consciences have been dulled, and our ability to
00:11:42.660 reason has been flawed. And this has happened in a general sense because of the curse of sin,
00:11:50.300 because of the fall, because of Adam and Eve, Genesis 3. But I believe that people, as a populace,
00:11:56.880 in various places and various times may have their consciences and also their rationale
00:12:04.860 extra dulled, even more flawed, because of that culture as a whole, their further rebellion against
00:12:15.520 God. For us as Westerners, particularly as citizens of the United States of America,
00:12:21.980 In this particular time, the year of our Lord, 2023, logic is something that comes very, very
00:12:31.860 difficultly. Very, very difficult. Logic is always a little bit more challenging since the fall of
00:12:40.460 man, but it is especially challenging today. We don't even understand the logic of gender.
00:12:48.760 We don't even understand the logic of a baby in the womb.
00:12:53.500 Some in our culture don't even understand the logic of two plus two equaling four.
00:13:01.160 And likewise, even evangelical Christians,
00:13:05.180 who actually may be regenerate and born again,
00:13:08.060 struggle with the logic of God's justice as it pertains to particular redemption.
00:13:14.980 So, here we go.
00:13:16.520 if Jesus died for everyone, each and every individual, world meaning universal, and he died
00:13:25.040 for everyone and everyone's sin, each person and every sin of each person, then why do people go
00:13:34.800 to hell? The immediate counter, of course, is, well, Jesus may have died for each person and for
00:13:42.580 each of their sins providing payment for their sin but that's a gift the gift of Christ's blood
00:13:51.000 the gift of his atonement the gift of his forgiveness and his payment it's a gift that's
00:13:55.700 given and people still have to choose to receive that gift and if people choose not to receive
00:14:03.240 that gift but rather to scorn it and to toss it aside well then even though Jesus paid for all
00:14:11.420 their sins, all of their sins, they didn't receive that payment, and therefore they go to hell.
00:14:17.560 That's the common counter. Here's my counter to the counter. You're saying that Jesus paid for
00:14:24.000 each person's sin, all the sins of all people, but they have to receive that payment, and some people
00:14:33.500 reject his payment. Is that a sin? Is a person's rejection of Christ's sacrifice and atonement
00:14:41.660 a sin? Because you just admitted that Jesus paid for everyone's sin, and not just some,
00:14:48.880 but all the sins of each person. Is rejection of Jesus a sin? If so, and it is, did he pay for that
00:14:57.500 one? And if not, this is what you have to do logically to reject limited atonement as a
00:15:06.560 biblical doctrine, and it is. What you have to do logically is this. You have to say, okay, well then
00:15:11.440 I see where you're going. Jesus paid for everyone's sin and every sin of every individual person
00:15:20.540 except the sin of rejecting him.
00:15:24.720 So then, logically, you would have to say
00:15:27.340 that those people who go to hell,
00:15:29.700 because we're not universalists,
00:15:31.220 we don't believe everyone goes to heaven,
00:15:32.700 the Bible clearly teaches against that.
00:15:34.760 So you have to say that those who are in hell,
00:15:36.780 Jesus paid for all their sin.
00:15:38.040 They're not in hell for adultery.
00:15:39.900 They're not in hell for murder.
00:15:41.520 They're not in hell for blasphemy.
00:15:43.300 They're not in hell for lying and bearing false witness.
00:15:45.720 They're not in hell for coveting.
00:15:46.940 They're not in hell for idolatry.
00:15:48.320 No, Jesus paid for all their sin. That's your argument. So you have to say the only sin that
00:15:53.980 Jesus didn't pay for is a rejection of Jesus' payment. So then you would have to say that
00:15:59.100 anyone who goes to hell is only in hell being punished for that one sin, the rejection of
00:16:05.380 Christ's payment. And once you've arrived at this step of the argument, then it's easy to dispel
00:16:11.500 because the Bible clearly teaches that people will be eternally punished in hell for a variety
00:16:18.260 of sins, not only the sin of rejecting Christ's sacrificial work. People will be punished in hell
00:16:25.960 for murder. People will be punished in hell for sexual immorality. People will be punished in hell 1.00
00:16:33.040 for lying and for theft. This is expressed in the book of Romans. This is expressed in the book of
00:16:38.860 revelation. And people ultimately will be the object of God's judgment. It is not the ethereal
00:16:49.780 spirit of murder that will be punished for eternity in hell. It is murderers.
00:16:56.380 Murder won't be punished in hell forever. Murderers will. Adultery will not be punished forever in
00:17:04.280 hell. Adulterers will. Lies will not be punished forever in hell. Liars will.
00:17:13.520 This is what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that some will go to hell, that they will not be 0.95
00:17:22.000 recipients of God's saving grace through faith in Jesus Christ, that they will suffer under the just,
00:17:29.180 righteous wrath of God for eternity, and his wrath will be poured out not merely for the singular sin
00:17:36.340 of choosing to reject Christ and his sacrifice, but a variety of sins, rejecting Christ at the
00:17:43.120 foremost, but also adultery and lying and murder and blasphemy and breaking the Sabbath and coveting
00:17:49.780 and the whole nine yards, or in this case, 10 yards.
00:17:52.780 so people will go to hell and they will be punished for their sin
00:18:00.200 and god is just he does not exact double payment for a singular crime if some people go to hell
00:18:11.960 and are punished for some sins it is precisely because those sins were not paid for by jesus on
00:18:19.380 the cross. If we think about it any other way, then we have to ultimately conclude that God punished
00:18:26.040 Jesus fully, the sufficiency of his sacrifice. He punished Jesus for one group of people that
00:18:35.060 are going to go to hell, and he punished him fully. And then he said, you know what? Even
00:18:39.980 though I've exacted the fair payment for these sins, I'm going to go ahead and penalize these
00:18:46.180 sins a second time. Punish Jesus once, and then punish those individuals in hell a second time.
00:18:53.280 Jesus on the cross, one punishment. These people in hell, the second punishment. Two punishments,
00:19:00.100 one infraction. That's the simplest way to break it down. That is injustice. God is just. Now to
00:19:09.240 get some Bible in here, there's the logical arguments, biblical arguments. John chapter 10.
00:19:14.060 that Jesus is the good shepherd. And we see that the scripture Jesus talks about, he uses this
00:19:21.600 analogy of shepherd and sheep. And he also throws another character into the equation, the hired
00:19:27.720 hand. He says the hired hand cares nothing for the sheep. When a wolf or a lion comes into the
00:19:34.720 pasture, the hired hand he runs. They're not his sheep. That's why he runs. It's just a job.
00:19:42.840 It's just a check.
00:19:44.600 He doesn't care about the sheep.
00:19:45.940 He cares about what the sheep can produce for him.
00:19:49.140 And so when there's a threat, when there's a danger,
00:19:51.400 he cares more for his own well-being,
00:19:53.560 his own self-preservation,
00:19:55.400 than he cares for the protection and defense of the sheep.
00:19:59.620 So he runs, he flees, he withdraws,
00:20:02.420 and the sheep are ravaged and scattered.
00:20:05.100 But not so with the good shepherd.
00:20:08.100 Jesus says, I am the good shepherd.
00:20:10.320 And then he goes further and says,
00:20:11.700 the good shepherd lays his life down for the sheep. Now Jesus teaches elsewhere, and the
00:20:20.320 apostles pick up on this teaching without, within the letters of the New Testament, that sheep make
00:20:26.520 up one portion of human beings. But not everyone is a sheep. There are people who are sheep, but as
00:20:35.020 Jesus himself teaches, and the apostles, under the Holy Spirit's inspiration, there are some people
00:20:41.360 who are sheep, and there are some people who are goats. We could say really there are four different
00:20:48.460 characters when it comes to the makeup of humanity. There are sheep, there are goats, there are shepherds,
00:20:54.840 and there are wolves. Now a shepherd, if we're speaking about a person, not Christ who is
00:21:02.720 the chief shepherd, that's 1 Peter 5, or the good shepherd, that's John chapter 10, but under
00:21:08.960 shepherds, that is human beings, not Christ himself, but someone like me, someone like Connor.
00:21:14.520 These would be under shepherds, what we call pastors. Shepherds nonetheless, but a shepherd
00:21:21.120 does hold a dual type office. A shepherd is an under shepherd shepherding the flock under the
00:21:27.780 chief shepherd Christ, but he is also himself a sheep. In a similar fashion, you could say the
00:21:34.160 same thing about the wolves. In a sense, there's a dual office. He is a wolf who preys on the sheep,
00:21:40.600 who devours the sheep, but also is, in a sense, himself a goat. So there are goats, and some of
00:21:48.260 them are wolves. And there are sheep, and some of them are shepherds. Not the chief shepherd, Christ
00:21:54.400 alone. Not the good shepherd, Christ alone. But under shepherds, pastors in local churches. So
00:22:00.700 there are goats, some are wolves, and there are sheep, some are shepherds. Jesus says he gives his
00:22:11.720 life for the sheep. Ephesians chapter 5, even as, as the apostle Paul writes to husbands and wives,
00:22:21.400 he says that husbands should emulate Christ's example. That we should look to the eternal
00:22:27.440 marriage between Christ and his bride, the church, and take our cues. And that a husband should love
00:22:33.760 his wife as Christ loved the church. And how did Christ love the church? Ephesians 5 goes on to say
00:22:39.160 that he loved the church and gave himself up for her. Jesus died for his bride.
00:22:49.560 Jesus did not give himself up unto death for the mass of humanity, but for the church,
00:22:55.120 which is a subset of humanity.
00:22:59.100 Jesus did not, as a good shepherd,
00:23:00.900 lay his life down for the goats or for the wolves,
00:23:04.040 but for the sheep, a subset of humanity.
00:23:10.000 So both in Scripture, and I could go on,
00:23:12.840 but for the sake of time, it'd be nice
00:23:14.240 if I looked down at my notes at least once.
00:23:17.820 Both in Scripture and in logic,
00:23:21.920 we must, not just we may,
00:23:24.040 not just that we can make this, we must logically and biblically make the argument
00:23:28.640 of limited atonement. The last thing that I'll say here is just this. Everyone limits the atonement.
00:23:37.320 The Arminian limits the atonement. The provisionists, which isn't really a thing, but they
00:23:42.720 limit the atonement. Every, what I'm saying is every soteriological framework limits the atonement.
00:23:54.040 the question is simply how. It's not whether, but in which way does your soteriology, that word
00:24:03.740 simply means a study of salvation, doctrine of salvation. So your view of salvation, your theology
00:24:09.840 about salvation, who God saves, how God saves, what you believe the Bible's teaching espouses
00:24:16.720 on the subject of salvation. No matter what view you hold, you believe that in some form or fashion,
00:24:24.880 in some way, the atonement of Jesus Christ, that is his payment on the cross for sin, it is limited.
00:24:32.620 The only person who does not limit the atonement at all is the universalist, who believes that
00:24:39.120 Christ paid for every person's sin and every single sin of every person. And there's a word
00:24:46.500 for universalism. It's called heresy. And the irony is that the person who doesn't limit the
00:24:52.400 atonement is a person who won't have any atonement and will go to hell for being the heretic that
00:24:57.780 they are. So if we want to be orthodox and hold a view within the Bible and not blatant heresy,
00:25:06.620 then you must hold a soteriological view, a view of salvation that limits the atonement.
00:25:14.960 So at this point, you're not saying, hey, what I believe the Bible teaches about how God saves,
00:25:19.600 who God saves. I have a choice between if I want to view God's salvation as being limited or
00:25:24.640 unlimited. No, you don't have that choice. The unlimited, that just makes you a heretic.
00:25:29.240 So your choice is not, do I want to think that God's salvation is limited or not limited? No,
00:25:33.280 your choice is between do I want to think that God limits his salvation in this way or that God
00:25:38.800 limits his salvation in another way? Because either way, if it's true, if it's biblical,
00:25:44.420 if it's orthodox, it's going to be limited in some form or fashion. And the simplest way that I can
00:25:51.180 explain it is like this. The reformed view of soteriology that holds to particular redemption
00:25:58.920 or limited atonement. We believe that Christ's atonement is limited in terms of its scope,
00:26:09.800 how many people are covered by his blood. The who. The who is the limiting factor.
00:26:20.840 The Arminian, and in a different way, but pretty much the same thing, the provisionist,
00:26:26.080 believes that Christ's atonement is limited
00:26:30.520 not in its width or its breadth, its scope,
00:26:33.780 how many people it covers.
00:26:35.400 It covers everyone.
00:26:37.700 But they believe that it's limited not in its scope,
00:26:41.380 but in its depth.
00:26:43.660 How much sin is covered.
00:26:48.400 See, we believe in particular redemption,
00:26:50.640 limited atonement, that Christ died for some.
00:26:53.780 and I think that we can say as the scripture does in fact explicitly say Christ died for many more
00:27:00.620 than just some many but not all insofar as all would represent universally each and every
00:27:09.580 individual who's ever lived and ever will Christ did not die for all in a universal sense but he
00:27:15.180 did die for many but for those that Christ died for the many he covered in his death
00:27:23.620 every single thing that they would ever need
00:27:27.340 to have eternal reconciliation with God.
00:27:31.120 Meaning that Christ's atonement covered all their sins,
00:27:35.220 past, present, and future,
00:27:37.140 including the sin of unbelief,
00:27:39.080 including the sin of rejecting Christ,
00:27:41.160 and not only that, not only atonement for sin,
00:27:44.400 but in Christ's atonement,
00:27:46.340 he also paid for their justification,
00:27:49.360 that is being declared by God as righteous,
00:27:51.360 for their sanctification that they would grow in the fruit of the Spirit, and for their glorification
00:27:56.520 that one day this body would come up out of the ground and be new and resurrected with Christ
00:28:03.480 forever. What Christ paid for within the reformed soteriological view, what Christ paid for is
00:28:11.020 every single thing that he paid in such a way that every single thing necessary for eternal
00:28:18.720 reconciliation with God would be not just possible, not just available, but guaranteed.
00:28:27.200 See, the Arminian believes that Christ paid. This is the easiest way I can say it. Everyone's
00:28:32.380 limiting the atonement. The Arminian, we'll just call him the non-Calvinist, everybody else.
00:28:37.740 The non-Calvinist believes that Jesus paid for every single person's sin
00:28:42.460 in the sense that he made salvation possible. The non-Calvinist believes that Jesus,
00:28:52.800 through his work at Calvary, that Jesus paid to make salvation possible for all.
00:28:59.700 The Calvinist believes that Jesus paid for actual salvation for many. I'll say that again.
00:29:05.680 The Calvinist believes Jesus paid for full salvation, real salvation, actual salvation for
00:29:12.120 many. The non-Calvinist believes Jesus paid for the possibility of salvation for all. See, both
00:29:20.040 are limiting the atonement. The Calvinist limited it in its breadth, its scope. For many, not all.
00:29:25.180 But full salvation in terms of depth, degree. So the Calvinist believes full salvation for many
00:29:31.900 people. This tall, this wide. The non-Calvinist, potential salvation for all people. This wide,
00:29:39.880 but only this tall. The non-Calvinist view of salvation is a mile wide and an inch deep.
00:29:48.600 The Reformed view of salvation is more than an inch wide. Let's say it's about half a mile wide,
00:29:57.640 and I'd like to see a little, I think it's a little bit more. I'm post-millennial, and I do
00:30:01.300 believe that the majority of humanity in real terms and numbers will be saved by the end.
00:30:05.620 here's the caveat if you're like what what in the world are you talking about how many people
00:30:09.940 believe in you know that most people are not safe that's right but we're not done yet right now i
00:30:14.900 think that hell is far more populated than heaven but i also think that we got a long way to go i
00:30:19.380 think we got multiple revivals in between now and then and i do believe that with the population
00:30:24.800 continuing exponentially to increase which is not a bad thing don't listen to bug man right it's a
00:30:30.880 good thing, and with the population numerically increasing exponentially, and with thousands
00:30:35.820 potentially of years left to go, and with great revivals and moves of the Spirit of God, that by
00:30:41.080 the time it's all said and done, that heaven will be such a vast number of people that no man can
00:30:46.420 count them, like the stars in the sky, like the grains of sand on the seashore, and that heaven,
00:30:51.920 in terms of population, will swallow up the population of hell, so that Christ will be able
00:30:56.740 to look to the Father and say, I actually saved the world. And we would be able to echo the Son's
00:31:03.200 claim and say, He saved the whole world indeed. So I'm not saying, see, you need this combo.
00:31:10.940 You need to be Calvinist slash post-mill maxing. Because if you're just a Calvinist,
00:31:18.400 right, you got this red pill going. You understand that the world is trash world. You understand how 0.99
00:31:24.300 bad things are, but then you're going to be following up that red pill with a black pill.
00:31:30.000 If you're just a Calvinist, total depravity. Everyone's really bad. It's like, I'm not going
00:31:35.880 to argue with you. All that's true. But if you're just a Calvinist, you got the red pill followed
00:31:41.640 with a black pill. But if you're a Calvinist and post-millennial, that's the red pill, white pill
00:31:46.760 combo. That's glorious. That's like Theoden. He's like, it's all lost. But then boom, Aragorn shows
00:31:53.720 up, and he's like, one more time. In the great deep, the horns, right? The horns of Rodan.
00:32:01.420 They're going to sound. We're going to ride out into battle. We're going to fight.
00:32:05.940 That's what we need. So all that being said, here's the point. Everyone's limiting the atonement.
00:32:11.540 Don't let people make that argument. Calvinists are mean. I can't believe you believe that Jesus
00:32:16.180 only died for many people, but not all people. Well, think of it like the last kind of, maybe
00:32:23.180 this will help, not just an argument, but an illustration. Imagine salvation being like a
00:32:27.900 bridge. You've probably seen, you know, the little gospel tracts, and I think they're helpful, right?
00:32:32.640 You've got a thrice holy God on one side, and then you've got totally depraved sinful man on the other
00:32:37.280 side, and there's this great chasm in between. And then you see the cross, you know, the cross,
00:32:42.520 it falls over and it becomes a bridge to bridge the gap between fallen man and a holy God.
00:32:47.780 the non-Calvinist believes that that cross that it's there it's it's so wide if it was like a
00:32:55.440 bridge it would be a bridge that that is so wide that every single person in the world linking
00:33:01.620 arms walking side by side not single file line but but the opposite way that we're all walking
00:33:07.900 together we could all fit on that bridge it's that wide the problem is here's the problem
00:33:13.540 The non-Calvinist believes the bridge is wide enough
00:33:16.100 to where every single person simultaneously, side by side,
00:33:19.660 can be walking on this bridge, but it only stretches about a foot.
00:33:25.880 And the thrice holy God, the place where we actually need to get to,
00:33:30.700 is still a mile away.
00:33:33.500 Whereas the Calvinist says, now that bridge is a little narrower.
00:33:37.920 It's a little narrower, but it's a lot longer.
00:33:41.320 it makes it all the way it doesn't make it part of the way it doesn't start the way it doesn't
00:33:47.940 even make it most of the way it's not even a bridge god's salvation christ's atonement him
00:33:53.780 as propitiation for our sins and not ours only but for the sins of the whole world christ payment
00:33:59.660 at calvary is not even a bridge that that bridges the gap fills in the gap of this mild chasm between
00:34:06.560 fallen man and a holy God all the way, but then leaves the last three feet where you and I have
00:34:12.040 to get a running start and jump. No, there's no jump. There's no gap. There's not a foot. There's
00:34:17.080 not an inch. There's not a centimeter. The bridge goes all the way, all the way. Everything you and
00:34:25.120 I need to be eternally reconciled to God was purchased by Christ at Calvary. That is the
00:34:32.240 forgiveness of all your sin, that is the guarantee of your justification, that is the guarantee of
00:34:38.460 your sanctification, and the future promise of your glorification. It is finished. When Christ
00:34:44.920 speaks, he does not speak as evangelicals speak in limp platitudes. When he says it's finished,
00:34:52.620 he actually means it. It's all done. It's all paid for. It's in the bank. You got it. You're there.
00:35:00.460 you are reconciled with God and all we're doing at this point is simply living out of that
00:35:07.860 forgiveness fueled by grace seeking to be obedient to Christ's law for the good of God's glory and
00:35:14.680 our neighbor to bring him great glory in all the earth as we bide our time waiting for the
00:35:20.660 foregone conclusion that is already written and will come to pass it's done but the non-calvinist
00:35:29.700 who does limit the atonement, not in its scope, how many people, the who, but in its depth,
00:35:37.060 its degree, its potency, that Christ purchased only, not salvation for many, but only the
00:35:44.680 potential, the possibility of salvation for all. Here's the problem. That bridge doesn't go all the
00:35:50.260 way to God. So what it requires is for people to jump. You ever heard the expression, white man
00:35:56.220 can't jump. Sinful man can't jump at all. Not a mile, not a foot, not an inch. If that bridge 0.99
00:36:07.120 doesn't make it all the way, it might sound nice in your little theological platitudes
00:36:13.060 in big evil land. It might sound nice coming from the female Sunday school teacher.
00:36:21.320 But the reality is this. You say, well, no, no, no. God's got such a big heart. He's a universal God.
00:36:25.680 he loves everybody he'll never leave anyone out Jesus died for every single person okay but
00:36:30.860 remember you got two options the moment you do that the moment you make the atonement universal
00:36:35.420 you're saying that Jesus died for every single person and all of their sins including the sin
00:36:40.100 of rejecting him which means boom option one you're a heretic and you're going to hell option
00:36:46.000 two he died for each and every single person universal in that sense but he didn't cover
00:36:51.120 everything that we need. You've got to make a choice. You've got to do some stuff. You've got
00:36:56.700 to go the right way. Not just today, but you've got to wake up tomorrow. You've got to do it again
00:37:00.860 and again and again and again. Christ satisfied some of the wrath of God. He paid for some of
00:37:06.420 your sin, but you've got to finish the job. And you can make it sound nice by saying it's universal
00:37:13.140 in its scope, in the who. It's for everyone. But here's the reality. Your bridge is wide enough
00:37:19.000 for everyone, but it's only a foot long. So in your empathy, in your kindness, what you've actually
00:37:26.440 done is you've actually subscribed universally every person on earth to hell. That's how kind
00:37:34.400 you've been. You've said, hey, this bridge is for everyone. Yeah, but dude, the bridge doesn't
00:37:40.540 connect. Everyone will get one foot closer to heaven. Yeah, but I need to go a mile. One foot
00:37:46.360 doesn't, that doesn't cut it. Yeah, but, but look how kind it is. Look how empathetic I'm being.
00:37:51.180 Everyone will get one foot closer, but, but that doesn't do. What are you talking? How's that kind?
00:37:56.040 How's that good? That doesn't solve anything. I've still got over 5,000 feet to go. Nobody can make
00:38:01.360 that jump. Yeah, but isn't this nice? Nice isn't what we need. Nice is never what we needed. It's
00:38:09.360 certainly not what the church needs in 2023. We don't need nice. A nice has sent many a soul to
00:38:18.320 hell, but never a soul to heaven. Niceness is not a fruit of the spirit. Kindness is. And whenever
00:38:25.960 your kindness supersedes the kindness of God, you can be sure you have left the realm of kindness
00:38:32.620 and entered into some other kind of realm. You could call it niceness, but it's not kindness.
00:38:37.180 and you should admit that niceness in this context simply serves as a euphemism for cruelty.
00:38:44.840 The kindness of man, where it detours from the kindness of God, is not real kindness, but rather
00:38:51.020 cruelty. Let God be true, and every man a liar. God's plan is best. God's mercy is deepest.
00:39:01.340 God's kindness is greatest. There is more kindness in God than the whole kindnesses of all humanity
00:39:09.560 combined together. Christ didn't just pay for the possibility for us to be saved. He guaranteed the
00:39:20.280 salvation for all his sheep. Not all people. Some are goats. Some are wolves. But for all his sheep,
00:39:27.780 He didn't pay for the possibility of the salvation of the sheep. He guaranteed the
00:39:32.820 salvation of the sheep. He guaranteed the salvation of the church. He guaranteed the
00:39:38.660 salvation of his bride. Christ guaranteed. He finished the work of salvation and reconciliation
00:39:48.420 with God for his people, for his people. My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that
00:39:57.140 you may not sin, but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father. It's important in
00:40:01.780 Christian doctrine to understand there are two advocates that the Christian has. If you are a
00:40:06.120 child of God, if you've been born again by grace, through grace alone, through faith alone, and
00:40:09.960 Christ alone, you have two advocates. The word is actually used in the New Testament, advocate,
00:40:15.680 in two regards, Christ and the Holy Spirit. So we have, as we see in the first verse,
00:40:21.400 1 John chapter 2 verse 1. We have Christ who is an advocate with the Father. But we also have,
00:40:28.700 as we see elsewhere in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit who is an advocate. Advocate means help
00:40:33.880 with us. So there is one advocate with the Father and one advocate with you. The Holy Spirit is the
00:40:40.880 helper with you. And Christ is also our advocate. So he's our advocate, our helper, but with the
00:40:48.680 Father, because we need both. We need someone on our side. We need a help in every time of need.
00:40:55.080 We need an advocate, a strong defense with the Father in the divine heavenly courtroom to plead
00:41:01.820 our case and not to enter on our behalf a not guilty plea, but rather to enter a guilty plea.
00:41:08.620 Say, yeah, they did it. They're guilty, but I paid for it in full. So Christ is our defense. He's our
00:41:14.980 advocate. He is our help with the Father in a judicial sense, in terms of judicial righteousness,
00:41:22.780 our justification. The Holy Spirit is our advocate in terms of our sanctification. He applies
00:41:29.300 Christ's atonement for sin. He's the one who regenerates our hearts, but then he also dwells
00:41:36.080 with us. The inward dwelling of the Holy Spirit with us. Jesus said when he left his disciples,
00:41:43.300 was he said, right before he left, he said, I will not abandon you as orphans. I will not leave you
00:41:48.260 as orphans, but I will come to you. And he has, in fact, come to us. He came to them. He's still
00:41:53.580 here with us. And he did this at Pentecost. Once he had died, been resurrected, revealed himself
00:42:00.880 to over 500 witnesses, and then gloriously ascended in power and glory to the right hand
00:42:06.640 of God the Father Almighty, He then, the Father and the Son, then sent the Holy Spirit, poured out
00:42:13.700 the Holy Spirit at Pentecost to be with the church. And so the Holy Spirit is now with us, and the
00:42:21.160 Holy Spirit, one of His chief ministries, is to exude within us the ministry and the presence
00:42:29.200 of the resurrected Christ. So Christ is with the Father, our advocate, our defense, our help.
00:42:36.700 But Christ is also with us through the ministry of the indwelling Holy Spirit, because the Spirit
00:42:43.360 exudes and exemplifies and magnifies the Spirit of the risen Christ, and the Holy Spirit is with us.
00:42:49.840 Two advocates, one with the Father and one with the church.
00:42:53.340 another thing worth noting the word propitiation it's a word that in antiquity it has its origins
00:43:02.020 and roots outside of the christian faith with many pagan religions it's the idea of making
00:43:09.840 some kind of immense sacrifice to the gods in this pantheon of a of a polytheist kind of religion
00:43:20.000 where there are many different gods, and most of these gods, think ancient Greece, Rome, or Norse
00:43:25.800 gods. These gods, there are many, and they're fickle. In many cases, they have worse character,
00:43:32.620 worse morals than many people do. They're puny gods, in other words. But the word propitiation 0.92
00:43:40.640 in its pagan origins, that's where the word first appeared, the idea was there are many gods. These
00:43:46.220 are fickle gods. They're easily angered gods. And so all of a sudden there's a drought. And it's
00:43:52.160 because the people must have angered the gods. Or this happens. There's pestilence. There's disease.
00:43:57.580 There's a plague. It's because the people have angered the gods. And they need, the gods are
00:44:01.900 angry. They need that anger to be satiated, to be satisfied. And so in comes a propitiation.
00:44:08.840 So it's some kind of sacrifice. And in many cultures, it was human sacrifice. We're going
00:44:14.240 to kill a person to satisfy the angers of the gods. Now note, on the bright side, and it's hard 0.99
00:44:21.880 to find a bright side with human sacrifice, but I'm going to give it, you know, the old college
00:44:26.060 try. On the bright side, I do think that that is a confirmation of natural law, natural theology,
00:44:34.400 the Imago Dei, that people are made in the image of God, that they instinctively, even fallen man,
00:44:39.620 they realize there is a God and he is angry and that we need some kind of payment and it must be
00:44:46.320 blood. That's just etched into humanity. We know that. But the problem is that the people who are
00:44:53.660 sacrificed, they're sacrificed to the wrong gods, not the true God, but false gods. And the person
00:44:59.840 who's dying, who is the sacrifice, is the wrong sacrifice. Within pagan religion and mythology,
00:45:05.940 you're sacrificing the wrong person to the wrong God. But within the Christian faith,
00:45:13.820 notice here's the difference. Rather than man taking the initiative to say we've angered the
00:45:19.080 gods or we've angered the triune God, the one true God, and we're going to put forward a sacrifice
00:45:24.600 in Christian faith, in the Christian one true religion, it is God himself who takes it upon
00:45:31.560 himself at the cost of his own son. He's the one who takes the initiative. He's the one who says,
00:45:36.900 you've sinned against me, and I'll provide the ram with its horns caught in the thicket. I'll
00:45:42.700 provide the blood. I'll provide the payment. You've sinned against me. You've angered me,
00:45:48.700 and I'm far more holy than four. I'm far more holy than Zeus. What it'll take to satiate my
00:45:57.340 just wrath. I'm not fickle. I'm angry. I'm terribly angry, and it's fair. I am angry. I'm so angry
00:46:05.440 because I'm so holy, and you are so rebellious. But here's the difference. It's not that my anger
00:46:11.500 is less than these false gods. If anything, my anger is infinitely more. But I'm going to take
00:46:17.660 the initiative of satisfying my own anger rather than you having to do it. And I have the only
00:46:24.160 sacrifice that can actually do the trick. The Son of God does eternally and sufficiently satisfy
00:46:31.380 the wrath of God for the people of God. The death of the Son of God sacrifices the wrath of God
00:46:39.520 for all the people of God forever and ever. Amen. That's the idea of a propitiation. Remember,
00:46:46.880 Jesus does not die at Calvary merely as an example of love. Jesus says greater love has no one than
00:46:54.600 this that a man would lay down his own life for his friends. So we can biblically faithfully say
00:46:59.840 that one of the purposes in Christ's death on the cross was to set a moral example for how we should
00:47:06.200 sacrificially love others. That's fine. That's biblical. But if we say that's all the crucifixion
00:47:12.880 was, then it's heretical. It's nothing less than that, but oh how Jesus' death is so much more.
00:47:19.400 An example of sacrificial love for others? Yes, but also payment. Substitutionary atonement. Jesus
00:47:28.120 died as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He pays the penalty for sin,
00:47:34.680 satisfying God's wrath, canceling our debt, propitiation, a pleasing, satiating sacrifice
00:47:43.460 put forward to God to satisfy his wrath towards man. That's the idea of the word propitiation.
00:47:53.160 Last thing that I'll say, verse 2, gets back to the limited atonement or particular
00:47:57.800 the redemption. He, that is Christ, is the propitiation, the full payment. Not part of it,
00:48:05.380 not a down payment, the full payment. He is a propitiation for our sins, and here we go,
00:48:10.680 and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. If you interpret that verse,
00:48:18.100 whole world, to mean in a universal sense, each and every individual person who has ever lived
00:48:25.820 and ever will, then you must be a universalist. You must believe that there is no hell, or if there
00:48:32.620 is, it's only for Satan and fallen angels. That there is not a single human soul in hell, and there
00:48:38.660 never will be. You must hold to a universal view of the atonement, which is a heresy, and has been
00:48:45.260 condemned as a rank heresy for 2,000 years. So you either need to step out of the entire Christian
00:48:52.000 faith, and all of church history, and every single verse in the Bible. You have to abandon the
00:48:58.120 scripture, abandon 2,000 years of church history, and thoroughly and conclusively abandon Christian
00:49:04.120 orthodoxy to say that Jesus dying for not our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world.
00:49:10.540 World means universal. Each and every person. You have to embrace universalism and be a heretic,
00:49:16.800 or, or you can just properly define that phrase whole world in that context. John uses the word
00:49:25.940 world in four different ways. I don't have time to cover it. I've covered this a little bit in the
00:49:30.440 past. Before this morning, landing the plane now, the way in which he's using world in this context
00:49:36.200 is global, not universal. When he says he is a propitiation for our sins, but not our sins only,
00:49:44.300 but the sins of the whole world. He's speaking as a Jew. He's saying to fellow Jews, to Israelites,
00:49:53.060 according to the flesh, that Jesus is not just the payment, the satisfying payment put forward
00:49:58.180 by God himself to satisfy God's holy wrath towards the Jews' sin, towards elect Christians among
00:50:06.340 Israel, according to the flesh, not our sins only, but the sins of the whole world. He's not saying
00:50:13.240 world in a universal sense. He's not saying each and every individual person. He's saying every
00:50:18.400 tribe, tongue, and nation. That's what he's saying. And we see this concept confirmed in verses like
00:50:28.620 Revelation chapter 5 verse 9. They then sang a new song saying, worthy are you to take the scroll
00:50:37.580 and open its seals for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe
00:50:45.440 and language and people and nation. The word there that I want to draw your attention to is
00:50:52.060 from. From every tribe and language and people and nation. Jesus is not saving each and every
00:51:02.980 individual person universal. No, he is saving from every tribe and language and people and nation
00:51:13.360 global. That's the sense of the term. All right. What does this mean for us? I guess the last
00:51:21.020 thing that maybe I could address practically application. None of this, well, I was going to
00:51:27.360 say none of this has any bearing, but that's not true. It has great bearing, but in a positive
00:51:31.260 direction, not a negative one. The final counter that people will make against the doctrines of
00:51:36.880 grace, and there are more, but people say this, well, if God has chosen who he's going to elect,
00:51:42.360 who he's going to save, and limited atonement, Jesus died for some or many, but not all, and this,
00:51:47.160 that, and the other, then, you know, what's the point of evangelism? What's the point of even
00:51:50.940 praying, right? If God's already made up his mind, that he's determined in his sovereign will and the
00:51:56.900 councils of eternity, before the foundations the world were laid, God has determined everything
00:52:01.820 that will take place. He has ordained the end all the way from the beginning. Then why pray?
00:52:09.140 Let me start with prayer, and then I'll land on evangelism. Prayer. Here's the problem.
00:52:15.100 Your thought, your picture of prayer is fundamentally flawed if you think that God
00:52:20.580 ordaining all things would zap all incentive to pray. What you've just confessed in a subtle kind
00:52:29.200 of indirect way, subconsciously, if you think that God being sovereign over all things and
00:52:34.600 determining all that shall come to pass means renders prayer irrelevant to where there's no
00:52:40.820 purpose in prayer now, what you've just admitted is this. You've just admitted that your view of
00:52:45.280 prayer is a think tank session with the God of the universe that you sit him down and instruct
00:52:52.040 him with your great ideas and what he should do. So you need to repent. You're arrogant. That's
00:53:00.120 what I'm saying. You're arrogant. If you think the point of prayer is to either, and it can only 1.00
00:53:07.760 really be one of two things. It's either to inform God because he's lacking in his wisdom.
00:53:12.620 so the reason I'm praying is because I just want to bring some things to God's attention because
00:53:17.420 I mean he's pretty great you know and who can blame him he's got a lot going on you know the
00:53:21.220 universe is a big place there's a lot of people here you know I'm not I'm not giving him a hard
00:53:25.120 time but I'm just you know me and God we both recognize that there's some deficiencies on his
00:53:29.160 part you know I mean he's keeping track of billions of people and there's a few that maybe
00:53:35.240 you know flew under the radar and so I need to sit down with God have a little team meeting you
00:53:40.140 know, once a day or once a week, and bring some things to his attention that he might have passed
00:53:44.480 over. He might have missed. Okay, so obviously I'm being facetious here. I hope you're just
00:53:49.580 hearing, that's bad. That's bad. That's bad. Yes, church, that's bad. Okay, the other option would
00:53:56.360 be, well, no, it's not that he's lacking in wisdom. His omniscience is there. He knows everything.
00:54:01.240 He's lacking in the strength department. It's not what he knows. It's what he can do. It's his
00:54:06.160 ability. So it's not his omniscience that's lacking. It's his omnipotence that's lacking.
00:54:11.440 And so the reason why we all pray is not to bring things, not to inform God. He already knows
00:54:15.740 everything. It's not to bring things to his attention in terms of his knowledge. But the
00:54:20.260 reason why we need to pray is although God already knows all that he's going to do, he can't carry it
00:54:25.340 out. Right? God is like Santa. And we all know that singing Christmas songs loud for all to hear
00:54:34.660 is how we raise Christmas cheer, right?
00:54:38.200 So God knows everything that he's gonna do.
00:54:41.200 He's omniscient.
00:54:42.520 He's just not omnipotent.
00:54:44.440 And so I'm not informing God.
00:54:46.060 That would be super arrogant, Pastor.
00:54:47.580 I know, I'd never have that view of prayer.
00:54:49.240 But what I'm doing is we're all getting together
00:54:51.420 and when we pray, our prayer is like gasoline
00:54:54.640 into God's, his strength ability tank.
00:54:58.060 You know what I mean?
00:54:58.480 And we're just trying to fill up Santa's sleigh a little bit
00:55:01.320 because the reindeer can't do all the work, you know?
00:55:04.400 so we got to get it off the ground by prayer. And if we pray enough, then God, who already knows
00:55:10.160 what he will do, then he'll actually be able to do it. Again, I hope the siren is going off in
00:55:16.340 your mind. Bad, bad, bad. Yes, church, that's bad. I like the way that John Piper said it. Don't read
00:55:24.840 John Piper on COVID or anything political, but on this particular topic, he said some good things.
00:55:30.300 he said that you know the non-calvinists will say if god doesn't change his mind if he's already
00:55:36.440 determined everything he will do and he's not going to change his mind then why pray
00:55:39.720 why pray if god's not going to change his mind why pray and piper responded by saying
00:55:48.300 but if god is such a respecter of human free will to where he won't ever change other people's minds
00:55:56.360 why pray? Why are you praying for your lost neighbor to get saved, to know Christ, to follow
00:56:05.400 him, to submit to God's law, if you believe that that's something that God won't do? That that's
00:56:10.920 a breach of this agreement that God's established with man? Well, you can never have true love if
00:56:16.440 you don't have free will, right? If I had a dollar every time somebody said that platitude.
00:56:19.700 right if that's your view if your view is that god's not going to intervene insofar as it affects
00:56:26.980 human choices he might intervene you know maybe with a storm he might intervene with some inanimate
00:56:33.580 objects he might intervene even with human choices he might intervene you know once every thousand
00:56:37.780 years like maybe uh you know during the time of jesus and his life death and resurrection but
00:56:42.200 other than that god leaves you know the slate is blank he he leaves people free will total free
00:56:49.160 will total autonomous human agency which is a myth so that people can choose freely and he doesn't
00:56:57.340 want to interrupt that well then why are you praying why are you praying for your wife god's
00:57:03.680 not going to interrupt that she's going to do what she's going to do why are you praying for your
00:57:08.660 lost neighbor why are you praying for your kids god doesn't answer those prayers because god cares
00:57:15.340 more about being freely loved, however you've defined that in a postmodern, you know, weird
00:57:20.740 Western way. God cares more about being freely loved than he actually cares about intervening
00:57:25.980 in the people that you love in a positive way. God cares more about being freely loved by people
00:57:32.600 than loving people. I love my children. You know how much I love them? I love them enough to not
00:57:38.980 always give them a choice. And for the record, because the leftists are fine with me, but the
00:57:47.400 Christians are the ones who will lose their minds, you know, on social media. My children are five,
00:57:52.280 four, two, and one years old, okay? So like, last time I brought up my children as an illustration,
00:57:57.500 people were like, oh my God, I bet he's got a 17-year-old child, and he's like, no, they're
00:58:01.220 little, okay? So my children, they're little bitty. And there are certain things that I don't let my
00:58:05.000 children choose. If one of my children, if I said, don't play in the street, and I laid out the
00:58:12.720 command, don't play in the street, and they're playing in the front yard, which they wouldn't
00:58:16.420 do unless we were there, their mother and I, watching. But let's just say they're in the front
00:58:21.180 yard. I'm watching them through the window, and the ball rolls into the street, and there's an
00:58:25.300 18-wheeler coming down, you know, 45 miles per hour. The child is disregarding my command,
00:58:30.240 disregarding the law that I've laid before them and and one of my girls is running full speed
00:58:36.380 into the street and I've got enough time I am physically capable to burst through the front
00:58:42.060 door run and snatch them and grab them before they get hit by that truck in that moment let
00:58:48.000 me tell you what I won't do I'm not going to sit by watch it through the window and say
00:58:52.660 but I just respect their choice.
00:58:56.680 You know?
00:58:59.520 Said no good father ever.
00:59:03.220 You think you're more compassionate than God.
00:59:05.940 You think you're loving.
00:59:07.100 You're not. 0.88
00:59:07.640 You're cruel. 0.99
00:59:09.160 You're cruel. 1.00
00:59:10.220 You're mean spirited. 1.00
00:59:11.860 You're sinister. 0.99
00:59:14.920 You're not nice. 0.99
00:59:16.920 You're not a nice person.
00:59:18.720 You're not kind.
00:59:19.640 You're not loving.
00:59:21.320 You're not gracious.
00:59:22.300 you are not merciful. If you have that view, if you think of father not overriding the choice
00:59:31.160 of his son or daughter to spare their life, I have no words for you. No, good fathers,
00:59:40.760 they intervene even overriding the choice of their children when it comes to saving their life.
00:59:47.360 and that's exactly what God does for all of his children and the reason why some go to hell is
00:59:53.180 because they are not his children and according to John chapter 8 in the words of Christ himself
00:59:58.100 those individuals their father is not God but the devil let's pray Lord thank you for your word
01:00:04.540 bless it to our hearts and minds help us to believe it help us to repent of our arrogance and our
01:00:10.680 pride that we would stop fancying ourselves to be better than you but that we would recognize
01:00:17.320 that true mercy, true grace, true love for you and others comes by humble submission to your word
01:00:23.960 and your word alone. We pray these things for Christ's sake. In his name, amen.